Rolling SERIOUS GRAPHIC LITERATURE Thread for Comics in 2016

https://www.gofundme.com/2azb8mk

A “comixcast” is a live feed of political comics and YouTube videos, in this case live from the Republican National Convention here in Cleveland by people who detest everything Donald Trump stands for. Yup, activists with pens and brushes mightier than his decayed sound bites.
I’m Joyce Brabner. I am Harvey Pekar's widow (American Splendor), but also someone who pioneered the whole comics as journalism thing. My first comic book was hauled into Federal Court in Atlanta because the Dept. of Defense thought it was a threat to national security. We won then and we’ll win here.
For this project, I work like Harvey did, and my own illustrator is a Muslim woman living in Albania named Gerta Oparaku, who would like to come live here with her sister, who is a citizen. Confirmed as I post now are Jennifer Camper, Junco Canche, Tim Fielder, Ted Rall, Paul Mavrides, Tony Puryear, Vishavjit Singh, Seth Tobacman and Mark Zingarelli-- with other names to be announced in the next few days.

https://www.comicblitz.com/
^ another all you can eat streaming comics service. $10 a month is reasonable if you got something decent attached but sadly they're limited by the participating publishers. Dynamite and Valiant are about as prominent as it gets.

apart from that being less prominent than Dynamite or Valiant doesn't mean you're unworthy of reading, as those two are turd factories, I'd say Abrams is more prominent

https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155068960767178&set=a.54015427177.78958.539812177&type=3

Al Davison's recent encounter with bigots after the referendum. He did The Spiral Cage but I'm not otherwise familiar.

He has spina bifida. People are horrifying and vile.

I learned about him in Talbot's Naked Comic Book Artist and I read Spiral Cage after that.

xp Abrams is a red herring; their selection is limited to 11 books and only five of those are actually comics!
several of valiant's current relaunch series aren't half bad for capes and tights books and dynamite has a (very) few things to recommend it: the new Ellis Bond book, Bob's Burgers, Kirby Genesis (kinda?)... but yeah, as I was implying, this does not a usable service make

I think I've threatened to make a Valiant thread, but I have no impulse to read the 90s stuff and have fallen behind on the newer ones

Following this 4001AD crossover thing, though

I got my new Saga tpb in the mail the other day. It's as if Brian K. Vaughan heard all my particular concerns and moved the story in that direction! Still loving that little seal dude.

Create a Marc Bell mural in the Macdonell St Parking Lot

I would like a Marc Bell mural in my neighborhood, too, please.

read Bill Griffith's "Invisible Ink" over the weekend, v good and full of stuff I had no idea about, like this Ed Emshwiller painted cover for which lil Bill was the model:
https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zippythepinhead.com%2Fmedia%2Fscificover.jpg&f=1

It really does look like him.

is he supposed to be watching some futuristic version of Sgt. Bilko?

lol

Just read Lucky Penny by Ananth Hirsh and Yuko Ota, makers of autobio webcomic Johnny Wander. Fun and sweet romantic comedy.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/culture/2016-07/08/content_26019430.htm

http://nobrow.net/shop/geis/

i had heard good things. you read it?

it just occurred to me that at some point sergio aragonez and stan sakai are going to stop making comics and i don't know if that's going to be okay

I haven't read the Alexis Deacon book but I've been familiar with his illustrations for a few years.

I didn't even know Sergio Aragones was still doing comics! Isn't he like in 80s now?

He's still doing Groo comics, even!

Coming out this month even! And not appreciably different from any of his work from the 80's...maybe even a little tighter!
http://www.darkhorse.com/Comics/Previews/3000-066?page=1

His 'marginals' are still in every issue of Mad magazine too, afaik

Anyone know why Groo hasn't been properly collected yet? That and Flaming Carrot are the most puzzling omissions from the recent reprint renaissance.

tbh, who could possibly need (or read?) a complete Groo? It's like one story retold hundreds of times.
that said, i do have the complete (cbr) Groo.

Flaming Carrot had much of the classic run collected in the late '90s, and really does not work in compendium form

There've been a few goes at collecting Groo, but they seem to founder on an insistence, whether Evanier's or an absence of negs requiring pre-press expenditure, on collecting a 120+ issue run in four-issue chunks, instead of pounding out 480pp phone books.

Doesn't work in that it's meant to be read sporadically in individual slices?

Yeah. And the weird grubbiness of it falters in a polite spine, too.

sic, we've met and i've still never asked: what do you do that keeps you so plugged into the business side of comix? i seem to remember you did publishing for awhile?

iirc he's a globehopping aficionado who has fancy drinks with people in the know about comics and takes pictures of cats while doing it

see that's what i got from the context clues but i can't help but feel i'm missing something

maybe the street cats have some comics gossip too

iirc he's a globehopping aficionado who has fancy drinks with people in the know about comics and takes pictures of cats while doing it

people who have worked out how to live

He's actually a Watcher.

tbh, who could possibly need (or read?) a complete Groo? It's like one story retold hundreds of times.

Well, I'd buy it! Of course, the perfect version of a Groo collection is twelve random Groo comics bought at a charity shop for two quid.

But something like the Jack Kirby collections - big paperbacks with newsprinty paper - would probably be the best toilet book ever.

Yes, IIRC I remember Evanier saying something to the effect that because Groo has had so many different publishers (including defunct imprints like Pacific, Eclipse, Epic), some of the film negatives have gone missing, and that it would be costly to create new ones.

Also think that Groo's peak period was round about issues 30 to 60 of the Epic comic, so would disagree that every issue is the same.

Would almost rather have a DC archive collection of Plop, complete with the Aragones/Skeates strip that gave the comic its name.

Groo was my favorite thing in the universe when I was in junior high and those PC issues started coming out. Will gladly read any issue from any era. Aragones is a public utility.

Anyone read Nijigahara Holograph? Very intriguing horror.

Carlos Nine died recently. Can't find any proper obituaries for him, which is a shame because he had some of the most incredible drawing ability of artists from recent comics past. Dungeon was possibly the only English translation of his work.

Well here's one from good old Paul Gravett
https://m.facebook.com/paulgravett/posts/10153604904586176

Reading Rosalie Lightning right now, so devastating
Ilxor aero blurb on the cover

It is :(

http://www.tcj.com/comics-criticism-seven-hot-takes-for-summer-2016/
Found some of this funny. I definitely hate relevancy critics.

This man needs an editor

Art Of Ploog book finally became available on amazon. I might regret it because it was £40 and probably too much text (as much as I love them, I don't think most of these type of comic artists are interesting to read about and they rarely open up much in interviews). But I find Ploog's art kind of refreshing and nice.
Also bought Crumb's Art And Beauty box on amazon.

This week at the book shop I got Alexis Deacon's Geis. I didn't realise it's the first in a trilogy.

Ploog sequence from Heavy Metal is pretty much all you need to see from that movie.

Also, Ploog is one of those guys who is waaaay better than he was when he was better known. If only Shrek looked as good as his concept art.