Tag: Three Count

Three Count | Happy Letterer Appreciation Day!

Here are three things to know, follow and watch on the day of the year we celebrate comic book letterers.

Three Count spotlights, as the title suggests, three things from comics today. And today is Letterer Appreciation Day, so make a big sound effect for your favorite letterer.

So what is a “letterer,” exactly? The person who fills the word balloons on a comic page? The designer of those great sound effects you see in an image? The saint making all those foreign language comics available to us in English? “One of the two most unheralded jobs in comics“? “The inkers for the writers“?

Maybe it’s all of the above. I also like this description from a Marvel.com article by Meagan Damore: “…letterers are the graphic artists who take the writer’s words and add them to the artwork, but their job extends beyond the simple transfer from script to the published page. Letterers also control pacing, convey emphasis, create sound effects, distinguish spoken words from thoughts and so much more.” Most modern comics are created collaboratively, and letterers are an important piece of the puzzle, bringing together the words and the art in a way that doesn’t hamper or overpower either. Quite frankly, you couldn’t have comics without them (except G.I. Joe #21, and even then, who added the title and credits to that first page, hmmm?).

So in appreciation of letterers, here are three things to know, follow and watch on Letterer Appreciation Day:

1. To know: Letterer Appreciation Day falls on Gaspar Saladino’s birthday

According to lettering living legend Todd Klein, Gaspar Saladino is “one of the greatest comics letterers of all time.” Saladino worked in the comics industry for about 60 years, lettering comics like Romance Trail, Strange Adventures, Mystery in Space, Justice League of America, The Flash, Showcase, Iron Man, The Avengers, Tales to Astonish, Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man and many more.

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Three Count | Secret Steward, Heart Acres, Who Killed Sarah Shaw?

Here are three comics to experience, to get addicted to and to binge today.

Three Count spotlights, as the title suggests, three things from comics today. It’ll be three things with links, no more, no less. I’ve got more secrets than you’ll ever know.

1. To Experience: Secret Steward by Sanshirō Kasama and Hikaru Uesugi

If you’re planning to hit the Viz Manga app later this week when the global crossover manga Ultraman: Along Came a Spider-Man arrives, let me point you to another digital manga you may want to check out while you are there — Secret Steward by Sanshirō Kasama and Hikaru Uesugi.

Yeah, I know — you’re probably looking at the images I’m sharing here and thinking, “I’m not sure this is really for me.” But trust me — this first chapter is worth a read.

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Three Count | Kamandi, Fungi Feast, Colleen Coover

Here are three things to see, to support and to buy in comics today.

Three Count spotlights, as the title suggests, three things from comics today. It’ll be three things with links, no more, no less. Don’t eat things you find, Scout.

1. To See: Tom Fowler’s Kamandi: Search & Destroy art

If you follow Tom Fowler’s comics work or even just his social media, you know he has a tendency to draw some really wild-looking creatures at times (some of which you can find on T-shirts courtesy of his Threadless store). They are the kind of designs that would be perfect for a world created by Jack Kirby, so it’s no surprise that his concept art for a Kamandi series is simply awesome:

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Three Count | Krakoa in pictures, Jinkies, Mermay

Here are three things to see, to buy and to view in comics this week.

Three Count spotlights, as the title suggests, three things from comics today. It’ll be three things with links, no more, no less. Hope you survive the experience.

  1. To View: Gerry Duggan’s Krakoa-era creator photos

It’s a pretty good time to be an X-Men fan. Not only is there the mega-popular X-Men ’97 animated series on Disney+ and a new Deadpool & Wolverine movie coming this summer, but there’s also a lot going on with Marvel’s merry mutants in the comics. As the Krakoa era ends in spectacular fashion, the From the Ashes era gets set to begin, and I’m not sure you could have the excitement of one without the game-changing nature of the other.

Gerry Duggan has been part of the Krakoa journey since the beginning, writing both Marauders and X-Men, as well as Iron Man, which seemed to find its way into the line at the end. In addition to being a writer, Duggan is also a photographer, and even crowdfunded a book of his photos a couple years back. In his Substack newsletter this week, he shared a collection of photos of his fellow creators he’s taken during the Krakoa journey, at retreats and other meet-ups, spanning several years and a pandemic. Outside of stalking them at bars during conventions, it’s rare that you get to see creators interacting like this … in meeting rooms and, yes, at bars.

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Three Count | Rebel, Modern Carapace, Rob Guillory

Here are three things to download, to buy and to watch this week.

Three Count spotlights, as the title suggests, three things from comics today. It’ll be three things with links, no more, no less. Like a zombie it’ll dig itself back up again.

  1. To Download: Rebel by Ken Lowery and Gavin Guidry

I was today years old when I discovered that Ken Lowery and Gavin Guidry had done a 16-page Star Wars: Rogue One fan comic. It features Jyn Erso doing what Jyn does best — screwing up the plans of the Empire while saving orphans. It’s well done with some really great full page images that showcase Guidry’s ability to draw action shots:

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Three Count | David Petersen, Council of Frogs, Sonic Frontiers

Here are three things to read, to support and to download in comics today.

Three Count spotlights, as the title suggests, three things from comics today. It’ll be three things with links, no more, no less. Don’t call it a comeback.

1. To read: David Petersen’s The Amazing Screw-On Head fan comic from 2004

Mouse Guard creator David Petersen posted a blast from his past to his blog this week — a fan comic he made for Mike Mignola’s The Amazing Screw-On Head with Maija Graham.

“Back in 2004 I was an active member of the Hellboy forums on CBR,” he said in his post. “We had a great community who were fans of Mike Mignola’s work, but also a support community for our various hobbies, crafts, and artwork. A group of us decided it would be fun to put together a web-only fan comic, a few pairs each working on a short story of a Mignola creation.”

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Five Count | Ignatz minicomics

Here are five minicomics you can buy, read and vote for in this year’s Ignatz Awards.

Three Count spotlights, as the title suggests, three comic things. Usually it’s three things with links, no more, no less. Today, however, it is more, because it’s Five Things.

(Art up top by Alexander Laird)

To vote for: Your favorite Ignatz-nominated minicomics

On Sunday I ran down the five comics nominated in the “Outstanding Online Comic” category for the 2022 Ignatz Awards. With voting open to anyone on the internet, my assumption is that folks would like to make informed choices on their ballots, and webcomics are the most easily accessible comics out there, right? Just give me a URL and off I go.

But that got me thinking about some of the other categories, and whether it would be easy to read everything nominated. With the graphic novel category, for example, it would be easy enough for the ambitious sort to hunt down all five nominees, whether that’s via a good local book store or comic shop, or, of course, through online ordering. But the minicomics category might be a little more challenging, so here’s a rundown of where you can find all five of the nominees.

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Three Count | Major Sun, SDCC panels, Sequential Scholars

Here are three things to support, to listen to and to follow in comics today.

1. To vote for: Major Sun on Webtoon

Webtoon is currently running a Call to Action contest, where various creators compete for a spot on the site — as well as for cash and other prizes. The submission period will end July 31, and then voting will take place throughout the month of August.

And wow, are there a lot of submissions — more than 100 pages, with 20 submissions per page. I of course would encourage you first to find one you like to support, as these things should be, but I couldn’t help but note that one of my favorite webcomics cartoonists has entered the fray.

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Three Count | Keith Knight, TCAF panels, Joe Latham

Here are three things in comics to to buy, to listen to and to support today.

1. To Buy: Good On Both Sides by Keith Knight

Gentleman Cartoonist Keith Knight, creator of The K Chronicles and the inspiration for the Hulu series Woke, has a new collection of his (th)ink comic strip available through his Big Cartel shop. He’s offering both a standard edition and an artist’s edition (which is signed, numbered and includes a doodle) of Good on Both Sides. Both have fairly limited print runs, so buy early and often.

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Three Count | Faith Erin Hicks, Dark Side of Purity, Erica Henderson

Here are three things to read, to support and to buy today.

1. To Read: Faith Erin Hicks’ comic on, well, everything

Faith Erin Hicks is the creator of the upcoming graphic novel Ride On, as well as One Year at Ellsmere, The Nameless City trilogy, Friends with Boys and many more. In between her graphic novel work she created a short comic to express her frustrations with everything going on in the world right now and the feelings of powerlessness it brings:

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Three Count | Black Phoenix, Backstory, System Error

Check out three crowdfunding campaigns on the newly launched Crowdfundr platform.

To Support: A bunch of stuff on the new crowdfunding site Crowdfundr

Crowdfundr is a brand-new crowdfunding site that just launched recently and is already hosting several comics and comics-related crowdfunding campaigns. It can be used for other things, of course, like music and film, but who cares about that stuff — there’s comics to be had! Comics!

“Our goal is for Crowdfundr to be the most creator-friendly crowdfunding platform,” said ConnectionPoint President David Barach. “That’s why we offer it for free and include other creator friendly features like being able to roll a campaign over into a store and include more reward choices for supporters. We also have special features for indie publishers and studios to collaborate with their creators and run concurrent campaigns. I think creators are going to be pleasantly surprised at the ways we support them, now and with future enhancements, toward sustainable and continuous crowdfunding for their work.”

I thought I’d dedicate this edition of Three Things to highlighting some of the cool stuff that’s up on the new site now:

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Three Count | Jack Teagle, Kaiju Sunset, Omnis Temporalis

Here are three things to buy, to support and to hear in comics today.

1. To Buy: 100% Unofficial Simpsons Comix

“Illustrator and painter Jack Teagle works from an old shipping container he converted into a studio on his parent’s farm in Southwest England.” That’s the opening to a great interview with Teagle that appeared on Threadless.com (yes, the T-shirt website) that I first saw on LinkedIn, of all places, the other day. Threadless and LinkedIn! What is even happening here?

Anyway, in that interview Teagle talks about a fun side project he and several other artist friends had a few years back, the Simpsons Drawing Club, where they would draw zany pictures and comics featuring Simpsons characters. They stopped posting art to their Tumblr in 2020, but Teagle has collected some of his comics from the project into a 52-page collection titled 100% Unofficial Simpsons Comix.

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