The Comics Super Blog!
Simmons teams with artist Patrick Keck for “Twilight of the Bat.”
A few years back Black River creator Josh Simmons shared with the world a very well–received and unauthorized Batman comic, which you can read right now on the Study Group website.
Now Simmons has returned to “G—– City” with artist Patrick Keck to tell another story about “Bats,” his buddy “Joke Man” and some mysterious cupcakes. “Twilight of the Bat” debuted this past weekend at the Short Run Comix and Arts Festival in Seattle, and is now available on the Cold Cube Press website.
Plus: Kickstarters, Leo Baxendale, and how Chuck Rozanski escaped poverty—with comics!
Indian Cartoonist Free on Bail: A judge in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadhu, India, has granted bail to cartoonist G. Bala, who was arrested on Nov. 5 for creating a “demeaning caricature” of several local officials. The cartoon critiqued the local government, including the collector, after a laborer and his family who were in deep debt to loan sharks set themselves on fire in front of the collector’s office. The entire family, including two children ages two and four, died of their injuries.
“The self-immolation and the burning children disturbed me a lot… I could not sleep for two days as if my children had charred. I had done nothing personal against the Collector, the complainant of the case against me. When he initiated steps for the ‘Wall of Kindness’ to help the poor, I felt so proud about him. When he failed to act on the repeated petitions of a usury victim, it forced a youth to take the extreme step that disturbed me a lot and I just reflected my agony through my caricature,” a visibly moved Mr. Bala told the waiting reporters while emerging from the court after being enlarged on bail.
Continue reading “Comics Lowdown: One cartoonist free on bail; another remains in prison”
Police arrested “anyone with a badge” for corrupting youth, importing foreign influences, and inciting violence.
The Rada Special Deterrence Force (SDF), a religious police force that acts for the UN-backed Libyan government, raided the Libya Comic Con on Friday evening, shutting down the convention and arresting the organizers as well as participants.
“Anyone who was wearing a badge” was arrested, according to an account by one of the organizers, who asked to be anonymous, in the Libya Herald. Apparently the police assumed that anyone wearing a badge was an organizer, so participants and visitors were scooped up in the raid. While some of those arrested were released later that night, six members of the organizing committee remained in custody on Saturday. The organizer said that the police had beaten and shaved the heads of some of the attendees who were released, as well as giving them a religious lecture. “They were told that Libya was a Muslim country, not a free/liberal country,” he said.
Continue reading “Religious police shut down Libya Comic Con”
The publisher, retailer and convention organizer talks about Albuquerque’s upcoming convention, Native Realities Publishing and much more.
Dr. Lee Francis IV is the CEO and publisher of Native Realities Publishing, which has made a mark with comics like Tribal Force, Hero Twins and The Wool of Jonesy, and graphic novels like Tales of the Mighty Code Talkers and the upcoming Deer Woman: An Anthology.
Francis also runs Red Planet, a bookstore in Albuquerque, NM, and The Indigenous Comic-Con. The show takes place next weekend, November 10-12, in Albuquerque with additional events on Nov. 9. We spoke about publishing, the convention, and being an indigenerd.
Continue reading “Smash Pages Q&A: Lee Francis on The Indigenous Comic-Con and more”
Plus: Top graphic novels, comics retail chat and two new manga from Jiro Taniguchi!
The 9th U.S. District Court of Appeals ruled on Monday that a gag order imposed by a judge in the trademark lawsuit between Comic-Con International and Salt Lake Comic Con is unconstitutional. The case stretches back to 2014, when Comic-Con International, which produces the San Diego comic con, sued the organizers of Salt Lake Comic Con over the use of the term “comic con,” which CCI claims it owns. The Salt Lake organization countersued, claiming the term is widely used by other conventions and is a generic term. The trial is scheduled to begin on Nov. 28, and because they were concerned that Salt Lake’s postings about the issue on social media would taint the jury pool, CCI asked that they be restrained from commenting publicly about the case. U.S. District Court Judge Anthony Battaglia placed a strict limit on what Salt Lake could post about the case, and limited that even further after CCI claimed that Salt Lake violated the ban. However, the appeals court overturned that order on Monday, saying,
San Diego Comic-Con has presented no evidence as to how many, if any, of the approximately 35,200 Twitter followers are registered voters in San Diego and Imperial counties and how many, if any, of the 120,000 attendees of the 2014 Salt Lake Comic Con in Utah are even possibly members of the current San Diego-area jury pool.
Continue reading “Comics Lowdown: Court strikes down gag order in ‘comic-con’ lawsuit”
The creator discusses how he’s adapted a number of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories and poems into comics form.
Gareth Hinds has made a career of adapting great works of literature into comics. From The Odyssey to MacBeth, Beowulf to King Lear.
His new book Poe adapts a number of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories and poems into comics form and is out now from Candlewick Press. Adapting the work of Poe has a number of technical challenges and Hinds found some inventive and striking ways to think through them. From the way he adapts the poems into comics to the complicated ways he draws and colors The Pit and the Pendulum, Hinds finds visual inventive ways to make these familiar stories new.
The creator of ‘Strong Female Protagonist’ discusses her new book, which is being published this week by Scholastic’s Graphix imprint.
In a very short time Molly Ostertag has become an incredibly busy artist. She’s one half of the team behind the webcomic Strong Female Protagonist, she works on the TV show Star vs. the Forces of Evil, she illustrated the graphic novel Shattered Warrior which was released earlier this year, and this week Scholastic’s Graphix imprint is releasing The Witch Boy.
Written, illustrated and colored by Ostertag the book is a middle grade fantasy story that’s also a thoughtful, funny, and sometimes creepy tale of magic, gender expectations, friendship and family.
Continue reading “Halloween Q&A: Molly Ostertag on ‘The Witch Boy’”
The creator of ‘I Hate Fairyland’ turns his pen to Carrie, Freddy, Leatherface and more this October.
In addition to being the spookiest month, October is also Inktober, an art challenge where artists from all over the world create a different ink drawing every day of the month. While the official Inktober site provides a list of “prompts” to help inspire artists, many of them choose their own themes.
With many comic artists are participating this year — you can find a lot of them on Twitter or Tumblr using the #inktober hashtag, and we’ve been posting a bunch on our own Tumblr — we thought we’d spotlight a few of the “can’t miss” ones we’ve seen so far.
Skottie Young is an award-winning creator whose work includes I Hate Fairyland, Rocket Raccoon, Marvel’s Oz adaptations and Little Marvels. For Inktober, he’s been drawing horror icons in his unique style, including Freddy Krueger, Leatherface, Carrie and the not-so-scary Casper the Friendly Ghost. You can find some of them below, and see more on his Tumblr.
The co-founder of Seattle’s Short Run Festival discusses this year’s show, her comics and more.
Eroyn Franklin won a Xeric grant in 2008 for her comic Another Glorious Day at the Nothing Factory. Since then she’s gone on to make a number of comics like A New Home and Detained and Just Noise. Her work has appeared on The Nib and her work has made the Notables list in two volumes of Best American Comics. Franklin is interested in playing with style and form, in experimenting with the physicality of the object in really interesting ways and the final product is often defined as much by the shape and design as it is by the subject matter.
Franklin is also one of the co-founders and organizers of the Short Run Festival in Seattle. The seventh annual festival will take place Nov. 4 and this year has teamed up with ICAF, the International Comic Art Forum, to provide programming for the event. We spoke with her over e-mail about her work and the show.
The new graphic novel by the creator of ‘Princess Princess Ever After’ and ‘The Tea Dragon Society’ arrives in October 2018.
Oni Press has announced plans to publish Aquicorn Cove, by Princess Princess Ever After and The Tea Dragon Society creator Katie O’Neill.
“As a kid I was obsessed with books about marine biology and ocean creatures. It felt like such a magical world! In this story I wanted to combine aquatic fantasy elements with the feelings I get from the tiny seaside villages in my home country of New Zealand,” O’Neill said. “Marine conservation has always been extremely important here, and I wanted to explore the point of view of a child living in a world where the actions—or inactions—of her guardians already have had environmental consequences, and she must find her own strength in order to protect what’s important to her.”
Continue reading “Oni announces ‘Aquicorn Cove’ by Katie O’Neill”
‘The Purple Alien’ discusses her work on the popular Line Webtoon comic, which explores what it means to be biracial and bisexual.
Olivia Dinnall aka “The Purple Alien” is a cartoonist and illustrator whose webcomic Bi-Assed runs on Line Webtoon. The comic explores what it means to be biracial and bisexual. As Dinnall describes the book:
“You would think that ones race and sexual orientation wouldn’t have anything in common, and for the most part, that’s true. But when you’re a biracial and bisexual person growing up, you come to realize that the two have more things in common then you would think…..those things being the ridiculous stuff people say to you based on the two.”
The result is a comic that will make you cringe in sympathy – or cringe because you’ve encountered those comments in your own life. It’s a great comic, and following Dinnall on social media one can see that she’s always drawing, often in different styles and approaches. She’s working as hard as ever on the webcomic and planning future projects, but is also collaborating with a friend and making some changes to Bi-Assed, and we talked recently about how she works.
Continue reading “Smash Pages Q&A: Olivia Dinnall on ‘Bi-Assed’”
The artist tackles Beetlejuice, Darkman and more, just in time for Halloween.
October is not only the scariest month, but it’s also Inktober, where artists from all over the world create a different ink drawing every day of the month. While the official Inktober site provides a list of “prompts” to help inspire artists, many of them choose their own themes.
With many comic artists are participating this year — you can find a lot of them on Twitter or Tumblr using the #inktober hashtag, and we’ve been posting a bunch on our own Tumblr — we thought we’d spotlight a few of the “can’t miss” ones we’ve seen so far.
Artist Francesco Francavilla is no stranger to horror, having worked on Archie Comics’ flagship horror title Afterlife with Archie. The artist celebrates both Halloween and Inktober with a series of sketches of movie monsters, from classics like the Bride of Frankenstein to more modern horrors like Beetlejuice. Check out some of them below, and you can see more of them on Twitter.
Continue reading “Inktober spotlight: Francesco Francavilla’s movie monsters”
