Comics Alliance: An AOL Comic Book Community

How many of you went to the comic book store on Wednesday to buy new comics? Oh!! The humanity! The humiliation! It is an unfortunate situation, but thankfully, it's all over now, because new comics came out yesterday! Behold the power of the aforementioned comics!!

ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY #18
Chris Ware returns with another issue of ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY, this time collecting his previously published (in fancy-pants magazines) "Building Stories". If you ever like your comics without capes, you are probably already going to buy this, but guess what! I'm going to write about it anyway! Umm.....it's good.

PAX ROMANA #1
Did you read NIGHTLY NEWS? If you did, you're pretty excited about PAX ROMANA. It's by that guy Jonathan Hickman who wrote and drew NIGHTLY NEWS, but it's about time traveling modern soldiers in Ancient Rome!
Now for some grammar fun! Should I have capitalized the word "ancient"? Discuss!

HULK VS FIN FANG FOOM
You know how sometimes you get a comic and it's, like, This Guy vs That Guy but it ends up being, like "Oh! This Guy and That Guy thought they wanted to fight, but now they're friends!". This is not that comic. Hulk punches Fin Fang Foom through a roof! I generally like comics where people get punched through roofs and I think you will, too! Plus, the whole issue is drawn kinda like Jack Kirby! (Especially the reprint, which is drawn BY Jack Kirby.)

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #545
So, this guy Nick just asked me if I was writing about AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #545. I told him no, but it was a lie. This last part of the "One More Day" storyline is likely to make you very angry. Like, Norman Osborn makes babies with Gwen Stacy angry. If you don't believe me, just look at the picture of Nick reading it!

If you want to find out what other comics came out this week that will make Nick make dumb faces, click the link below.

One of the things I've always loved about SPX is the Ignatz Outstanding Debut Award. It guarantees that you'll always be able to find something new at the show. This year there were 28 (!) nominees for Outstanding Debut. I wasn't able to read all of them, but here's a look at a few books that piqued my interest.

DAYBREAK VOL 2
I talked with DAYBREAK creator Brian Ralph for a few minutes at SPX this year but foolishly forgot to buy a copy of DAYBREAK VOL 2! Let's just move forward on the assumption that it's as good as the first volume, which I un-foolishly bought and loved. If you've liked any other Ralph stuff or are a fan of skillfully told post-apocalyptic stories, do yourself a favor and pick this series up.




BIG QUESTIONS #10
The story of warring factions of birds in the wreckage of an airplane, BIG QUESTIONS #10 by Anders Nilsen is a beautiful book. Nilsen's always fragile art has never looked better. The story is well paced and the dialog is sparse but effective. BIG QUESTIONS #10 is easily one of the best books I picked up at the show this year. It's too bad Nilsen didn't take home the Debut Ignatz, but he did pick up the Outstanding Graphic Novel Award for the devastating DON'T GO WHERE I CAN'T FOLLOW.

PAPERCUTTER #6
This year's Debut winner, PAPERCUTTER #6, is a great issue of a great anthology series. I say that like I know what I'm talking about, but in all actuality, I just picked up all six issues on Saturday. It's basically a collection of the most talented small press creators around. Aaron Renier, Liz Prince, John Porcellino and Kazimir Strzepek are just a few of the great artists from the first five issues. Issue six keeps up the pace with new material from guest editor and Phase 7 creator Alec Longstreth, a darkly hilarious story about a disenchanted trucker by Ken Dahl and the best story about pubic hair I've ever read.


That's really just the tip of the SPX iceberg. Make sure to check out Comics Alliance-guru John Anderson's look at some of the other fantastic stuff at the show.

I know what you're thinking. Summer is barely over and I'm trying to get you to think about October? Well, my local grocery store is already putting out Halloween candy, and even more terrifyingly the solicitations for the November books are being released even as I type. So here's a dip through ten books that you might otherwise miss, all scheduled for an October release. From rock stars to trolls, it's all good.

DRAWN & QUARTERLY

MOOMIN: THE COMPLETE TOVE JANNSON COMIC STRIP VOLUME 2 HC
by Tove Jansson
Drawn & Quarterly's best-selling collection of the Tove Jansson's Moomin comic strips, original published in the London Evening News in the 1950s, continues in this second volume. The Moomins - a family of Scandinavian trolls that resemble hairless hippos - attempt to hibernate, discover love and jealousy, meet new neighbors, and reinvent themselves in a "return to nature." Discover the comic strip that Neil Gaiman calls a "surrealist masterpiece" and Jeff Bone describes as "gentle, witty, and completely engrossing."
HC, 8x12, 88pgs, B&W, SRP: $19.95

A friend of mine is Moomin-crazy; he's been talking about the original novels by Tove Jansson for years and even has a Moomin tattoo. Needless to say, when someone is that in love with something I become a little skeptical. (It's why when I start waxing nostalgic about Doctor Who I'm not surprised to see friends slowly backing away.) That said, the first volume of the collection of the Moomin comic strip that ran in newspapers back in the 1950s was a real treat. It's very stream of consciousness, one random but funny event following another in rapid-fire succession. It's great because Jansson uses the serial format to her advantage, keeping everything moving at a brisk pace with repeated new cliffhangers. And come on, it stars trolls that look like hippos. Trust me, it's all good.

Press Release

Small Press Expo (SPX), the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comic books, graphic novels and alternative political cartoons, is proud to announce Bill Griffith, Gilbert Hernandez and Rutu Modan as the first slate of guests for SPX 2007. This years SPX will be held October 12 and October 13 at The North Bethesda Marriott Convention Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

Bill Griffith is known world wide for his syndicated strip, Zippy The Pinhead, which runs daily in The Washington Post. He has a new Zippy collection out from Fantagraphics entitled "Zippy: Walk A Mile In MY Muu-Muu". SPX is proud to have him make one of his rare convention appearances at this years show.

Gilbert Hernandez, whose Love and Rockets is considered one of the groundbreaking works in the history of comics, will be at SPX to promote his first graphic novel in four years, "Chance in Hell" from Fantagraphics.

Rutu Modan, one of the founders of the Actus Tragicus comics collective, will be at SPX with her first full length graphic novel, the critically acclaimed "Exit Wounds", from Drawn & Quarterly.

Additional guests will be added over the next few weeks, please stay tuned for those announcements.

SPX, a non-profit organization, brings together more than 300 artists and publishers to meet their readers, booksellers and distributors each year. Graphic novels, political cartoon books and alternative comics will all be on display and for sale by their authors and illustrators. A series of panel discussions will also be held of interest to readers, academicians and creators of graphic novels and political cartoons.

SPX will be open to the public from 2 pm - 8 pm, Friday, October 12 and 10am - 7 pm Saturday, October 13. Admission is $8 for a single day and $15 for both
days.

SPX culminates with the presentation of the 11th Annual Ignatz Awards for outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning. The Ignatz is the first Festival Prize in the US comic book industry, with winners chosen by balloting during the SPX.

If you missed the first 40 minutes today's Comic-Con panel on Reality-Based Graphic Novels, apart from watching comic auteurs the likes of 2007 Eisner Award winner Alison Bechdel, Joe Matt, Rick Geary, Guy Delisle and Miriam Katin speak into a microphone rather robotically... good for you.

The chill began to leave the room, however, first, when Matt took over the mike and melted for good after a perfectly timed first and astute question from the audience (wished I'd asked it myself) about what compelled this talented group of creators to turn the graphic novel instead of prose in the first place. "I feel compelled to represent reality as well as I can to capture this stuff," Bechdel said.

"There isn't a language among the three I already know that I could've used to tell this story," Katin, the cartoonist of the World War II memoir We Are On Our Own says. On the other hand, Delisle, a former animator, had a very unique reason for turning to the graphic novel: "I have a very bad memory."

Much as I enjoyed the MoCCA programming yesterday, I made a conscious decision not to spend as much time in panels today, so as to spend more time walking the floor and picking up cool looking books. I limited myself to just two panels --Shelly Bond's too-early-in-the-morning Minx panel and the Joe Matt spotlight which Clayton blogged earlier-- and spent the rest of the day soaking up (and picking up) the indie comics goodness that was abundant in four rooms of the Puck building. I'm be happily returning home with a sackful of new comics, minis, anthologies, graphic novels and even one comics-related prose novel that looks fantastic.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. As mentioned, my day began with the Minx presentation. For those not yet familiar with this new DC imprint, it was the brainchild of former Vertigo editor, Shelly Bond, who wanted to create an alternative to manga for the teen girl market. Given Bond's Vertigo pedigree, however, her aim with the new imprint was "to create a line that was edgy and evocative and fearless." She provided a brief rundown of the Minx books on the publishing slate into early next year, and there were a couple that even sounded intriguing to me ... and being neither a teenager or a girl, that's a pretty decent ratio.

The first of the two books in question was interesting to me given the hook of the authors. Vertigo-regular and Minx-newcomer Mike Carey is collaborating with his 15-year-old daughter Louise to write Confessions of a Blabbermouth. Turns out the younger Carey is an aspiring novelist, and was willing to lend her ol' dad a hand in capturing the voice of a teen girl from a dysfunctional family who wields her blog like a weapon. The book, with artwork by Aaron Alexovich, is due in mid-September.

If I had to sum up my second day at MoCCA in one word, it would be "porn." Not that I saw any actual pornography--I wish--or that much of my time wasn't still spent walking the floor, meeting artists and exhibitors and again spending way beyond my means on new comics. It's just that the majority of my recollections keep returning to the many formal and casual encounters we had with the indie hero Joe Matt, who has made a name for himself being excruciatingly and embarrassingly open about his obsession with pornography. I haven't yet read any of his books, but from all accounts they are singularly focused on the countless hours he's spent watching and re-editing porn footage, much to the detriment of his personal relationships (and his career for that matter, his most recent work Spent having taken him about a decade to complete).

According to Matt, he's never understood how anybody wouldn't want to be watching porn and masturbating ALL the time--his record is somewhere over 20 times in one day--and he's more than happy to share that with anyone who will read it. He is, however, a bit timid about it. When he signed my copy of his first collection, Peepshow, he wrote, "Remember--It's AAAAALL FICTION!" and when we were waiting for him to draw John a sketch of his dog, a terrific story in its own right that I leave for him to tell, we overheard him asking a young woman whose copy of Spent he was signing, "Now, you DO know what this is about, don't you??"

But up until that point, I had no real conception of what exactly Joe was all about. Then we sat in on his panel, where he was given the opportunity to really explain his obsession, and essentially admit that the note he wrote me was about the only piece of fiction in the whole damn book. What was truly shocking to me, however, was how rational his argument about why this subject matter is perfect for the comics genre was.

Day one of the sixth annual Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art festival (MoCCA) in NYC was great fun, with a significantly increased amount of exhibitor space than I recall from past years -- including a swank "skylight" room on the 7th floor of the Puck building. Programming this year took place two blocks from the festival site at the museum itself, which is currently showcasing a Stan Lee retrospective and which is well worth your time.

And what a fine set of programming day one included. My day began with the Drawn & Quarterly Cartoonists' Showcase featuring Gabrielle Bell and Anders Nilsen. Kevin Huizenga was also on the bill but couldn't make it. The three creators had done a west coast author tour together, and this was to be an exclusive east coast performance of their traveling comics roadshow.

I'd heard of the relatively recent trend of comics creators performing public readings from their work, accompanied by a slideshow of the panels/pages projected for the audience to follow along, but this was the first opportunity I'd had to attend such a reading. I really didn't know what to expect, but I was certainly intrigued. By the end of the day's programming, I was to have seen four such readings, and I was very much a believer in the "comics live" experience.

Gabrielle Bell was first up, reading "My Affliction" from her new comic, Lucky, vol. 2, #1. The story, a delightfully whimsical, dreamlike narrative involving but not limited to: "Gabrielle" being kidnapped by a "behemoth," floating in air, psychoanalysis, love and longing, a foulmouthed mynah bird and a great escape. It's an absolute gem of a story, and the "live" performance by Bell (playing "herself"), assisted by a multitalented friend (playing the rest of the cast, and all sound effects – human, animal and otherwise) was a joy to witness. Even if you never get a chance to see the story performed, I heartily encourage you to seek out a copy of the comic and read it yourself. Reading it aloud is optional.

Well, this just made my day. I don't know how I missed it when the story broke last week, but since it's possible that I'm not the only one who was wandering lost in the wilderness and unaware of the existence of a fresh dose of the genius that is Chris Ware (and animated at that!), here's the deal:

Last Thursday, Showtime premiered a weekly TV version of Ira Glass's This American Life radio show. I know, I know, you're probably thinking, "why are you boring me with talk of NPR programming on a comics blog?" Well, check it: One of the early episodes (it's unclear which exactly) will feature an entire segment that's animated by none other than Chris Ware. What this amounts to is four minutes, twelve seconds of animated Chris Ware goodness for your viewing pleasure.

But why listen to me blather on about it when you can watch it yourself?