Dark Horse puts out the call for more Ghostbusters

David Booher, Blue Delliquanti, Mildred Louis and Jimmy Betancourt bring the ghostbustin’ back to NYC next year.

The Ghostbusters team introduced in Ghostbusters: Afterlife will head back to where it all began in Ghostbusters: Back in Town.

Callie, Gary and company head to New York City in the new miniseries from Dark Horse Comics, as told by the stellar team of writer David Booher, artist Blue Delliquanti, colorist Mildred Louis and letterer Jimmy Betancourt of Comicraft. The miniseries also served as a prelude to Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which arrives in theaters next year.

“Our friends at Dark Horse have picked up the Spengler family and hand delivered them to Manhattan where they will begin their journey back into Ghostbusting,” said Jason Reitman, director of Ghostbusters: Afterlife. “It has been a personal thrill to collaborate with this incredible group of artists and storytellers on new chapters in the proton jungle.”

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Sunday Comics | Looking at the Ignatz Awards nominees for ‘Outstanding Online Comics’

Check out webcomics by Jett Allen, Blue Delliquanti, Mara Ramirez, Reimena Yee and Lonnie Mann.

Here’s a round up of some of the best comics we’ve seen online recently. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below.

The nominees for the 2023 Ignatz Awards were announced earlier this month, with five comics being honored in the “Outstanding Online Comics” category. So let’s take a look at them.

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Sunday Comics | A round-up from Hourly Comics Day

Cartoonists dedicated last Monday to making and posting new comics every hour; check out the results of their hard work.

Here’s a round up of some of the best comics we’ve seen online recently. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below.

Every February comics artists wake up and just start drawing for #HourlyComicsDay, where cartoonists commit to making and posting a comic every hour for a day — or whatever frequency they chose. Most hourly comics typically fall into the “autobiography” category, as participants detail their day in comics form, but some will share fictional stories as well.

The official Hourly Comics Day was last Monday, and I thought I’d dedicate this edition of Sunday Comics to spotlighting some of them (with a big thanks to Brigid Alverson for sharing a long list of the ones she found).

So here we go:

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Fund Me Monday | ‘Impeachable Trump,’ ‘Nocternal’ and more

Check out projects by Scott Snyder, Tony S. Daniel, Blue Delliquanti and more.

Crowdfunding continues to serve as a viable method for creators to fund their creative endeavors, as comic-related projects flourish on sites like Kickstarter, Patreon and IndieGoGo. The internet also allows creators to sell their creations direct to fans, through sites like Gumroad, Big Cartel and of course their own websites. If you’re looking to buy something from or support a creator directly, you’ve come to the right place. And that’s a good thing to do, now more than ever.

Send any suggestions of your own to jkparkin@yahoo.com.

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Artists take the #SixFanarts Challenge

Melissa Capriglione kicked off a fun, art-filled meme in March — and the participants grew from there.

Way back in mid-March — which feels like a million years ago at this point, but was really just a few weeks back — Falconhyrste creator Melissa Capriglione kicked off a fun exercise that would turn into a widespread meme for artists across social media: The #SixFanarts Challenge.

What started has a simple tweet has blossomed into a fun and welcome distraction during these difficult times. And it’s pretty easy to participate: artists just ask their social media followers to throw out character names, and the artist draws six of them on a grid that Capriglione has provided.

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Tommi Parrish, Blue Delliquanti + Kazimir Lee win Lambda Literary Awards

‘The Lie and How We Told It,’ ‘Miles & Honesty in SCFSX!’ were both recognized in New York last night.

The 31st annual Lambda Literary Awards, which honor LGBTQ writing across 24 categories, were presented last night in New York City.

The Lie and How We Told It by Tommi Parrish took home the award in the LGBTQ Graphic Novel category. Published by Fantagraphics, the graphic novel is about two formerly close friends trying “to salvage whatever is left of their decaying relationship.”

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Smash Pages Q&A: Blue Delliquanti

The creator of ‘O Human Star’ discusses entomophagy, working with food writer Soleil Ho and much more.

Blue Delliquanti is best known for the webcomic O Human Star, which has been running since 2012. Delliquanti has also made shorter comics which have appeared in The Nib, Mine!, Beyond and the just-released Smut Peddler: Sex Machine, but Delliquanti’s new book is something of a departure. Meal was co-written with food writer and journalist Soleil Ho and centers around Yarrow, who moves to Minneapolis to work at a restaurant that serves insects.

The book is an enthusiastic and thoughtful primer for those who are unaccustomed to entomophagy (that’s eating bugs), but it’s more than that. It’s a story about food and our connections to it. It’s about the communities that have eaten and have a relationship to these foods for generations, and what it means for others to “discover” that. It’s a love story that captures some of that feeling from moving to a new place and working at a job that’s much more than a job. The tagline for the book is “Dreams. Love. Entomophagy.” I recently talked about those things and more with Delliquanti, who will be appearing this coming weekend at the Queers and Comics Conference in New York.

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Smash Pages’ favorite comics of 2018

See what the Smash Pages’ staff enjoyed reading this past year.

With 2018 winding down, Smash Pages’ contributors take a look back at some of their favorite comics of the year, from Hey Kiddo and Spectacular Spider-Man #310 to Wet Moon and The Secret Voice.

Brigid Alverson

Silver Spoon, by Hiromu Arakawa (Yen Press)
Arakawa is best known as the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist, but you couldn’t get any farther from that series than Silver Spoon, a comedy about a city boy who goes to agricultural school in rural Hokkaido. Yuugo Hachiken worked hard and did everything he was told, but he still didn’t get into an elite high school, so he takes what he thinks is the easy way out by going to a school that’s not academically focused—or so he thinks. In fact, the students at Ooezo Agricultural High School are very knowledgeable in their fields, but those fields are things like genetics and animal husbandry. The rubber really hits the road in the practical lessons, though, and Hachiken quickly realizes he is out of his depth when it comes to herding chickens, riding a horse, or fetching a stray calf. There’s a lot of city mouse-country mouse comedy in this series, but it’s also a fascinating look at where our food comes from (at least in Japan), and the different agricultural models espoused by different farmers. In fact, like Hachiken’s classmates, this book is very smart and sophisticated in addition to being endlessly entertaining.

Meal, by Blue Delliquanti and Soleil Ho (Iron Circus)
The idea of eating bugs may elicit an “Eeeww” from most people, but Delliquanti and Ho go beyond the ick factor in this romance about an insect cuisine enthusiast and a chef who wants to start a new restaurant based on the dishes of her youth—dishes that include ants, grasshoppers, and tarantulas. There’s a love story woven in there as well. Yarrow has just moved to a new city in hopes of getting a job in the kitchen of Chandra Flores, insect chef extraordinaire, who is about to launch a new restaurant. Milani, her neighbor, is friendly and helpful but the two have a little trouble making it click. At the same time, Chandra suspects that Yarrow is only into insect cuisine because it’s sensational, while to her, it’s part of her heritage. There’s a lot in this slim volume: Love, food, bugs, and bugs that are food, and the creators even include a couple of recipes at the end of the book.

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