Alvin Buenaventura, who died last month at age 39, was a guy with a great eye for unusual art, and he had a large impact on the comics publishing world. He’s perhaps best known for publishing a $125 comic, the 16” x 21” tome Kramers Ergot 7 (shown)! This week Tom Spurgeon joins Tim to discuss Alvin’s impact.
Also, Tim and Tom discuss the upcoming MoCCA festival in New York!
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Maya Kern‘s “Monster Pop!” features monsters and humans living together at a university. In Kern’s mind, it’s like, and also not like, shojo manga. How so?
This week, Tim talks with Maya about the increased acceptance of gay characters in comics; the problems with blogging from a character’s point of view (and of making your character a musician); why comics conventions are good for connections, but anime conventions are good for making money; repetitive strain injury, online comics promotion (Tapastic, Patreon), and more.
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Helen Maier and Fil Barlow are longtime partners and collaborators who have turned out a number of comics, available mainly in their native Australia, and worked on animation and character design on a number of cartoons that millennials watched as kids, such as Extreme Ghostbusters and Tutenstein.
Since returning to Australia in 2010, they’ve gone all in on comics, and the first two chapters of their story “Yorris” appeared in issues 4 and 5 of Image’s rather mysterious 8House anthology series.
This week, a talk with Helen about Czech comics and the view from the animation trenches becomes a talk with both Helen and Fil about the meaning of (and Easter eggs in) “Yorris”, their attempts to turn some conventions of comics storytelling on their heads, and the pluses and minuses of the crowdfunding model.
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Nick Marino and Arruda Massa are back with Holy F*cked, the follow-up to their highly irreverent comedy Holy F*ck, starring Jesus and Satan in a romantic relationship. Does this book hold a candle to the first? Tim and Mulele discuss.
Also, a progress report on Mulele’s ongoing Kickstarter project!
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Two interviews this week:
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First, Luke Lancaster and Orlando Caicedo on their comic “The Badguys.” How did they got together (without actually getting together) and get their comic into Webtoons? And, are Webtoons actually comics? |
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Then, UK-based artist and writer Sally Jane Thompson, author of the graphic novel “Atomic Sheep”, explains why a creator with South African and Canadian roots sees the UK as a better place to be, how comics can be used in conjunction with an art exhibit, and more. |
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The digital comics universe continues to expand. This week, Tim looks at two different platforms.
If you’re into American comics at all, you no doubt know of Comixology. Since we last talked to company co-founder John Roberts, Comixology has joined the Amazon family, and their integration is starting to become visible on both companies’ sites. John talks about this, the penetration of digital in the market, how to get your comics into Comixology, and more.
South Korean Web giant Naver started Webtoon in that country back in 2004, and since then its reach has grown in Asia and around the world — the English version is called Line Webtoon. We meet Webtoon content manager David Lee and New Mexico-based creator Stephen McCranie (whose Space Boy is available through Webtoon) to discuss the site’s reach and business model, the differences between making a comic for print and making one that the reader scrolls through, and how to get your comics into Webtoon.
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Bayne: Legacy Apocalypse, from Silver Axe Comics, features an axe-wielding Morpheus-from-The-Matrix type in a post-apocalyptic California battling mutants or vampires or what-have-you. Jay Reed’s art is much more than serviceable; it’s quite nice. Chyna McCoy’s script, however… well, listen to find out what Tim and Mulele have to say about it.
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You heard many of the artists who attended Tokyo’s International Comics Festival (Kaigai Manga Festa) back in November. But how are the comics themselves? This week Mulele and Tim read some of the comics they picked up at the festival and discuss some of the best!
Also, a quickie, spoiler-free review of The Force Awakens!
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Inspired by the ’60s and a variety of British TV shows of a geeky variety (including The Prisoner), Japanese artist Question No. 6 is turning heads with her Dr. Who variant covers, and her drawings and articles on UK shows for Japan’s AXN cable network. This week Tim catches up with her to discuss her comic Cupcake and Astronaut, the reasons many Japanese creators use pen names, her plans for exhibiting and drawing in 2016, and more.
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If you read Craig Thompson‘s Blankets and Habibi, you probably weren’t expecting his next book to be an all-ages space comedy with poop jokes — but that’s what Space Dumplins is — along with a message on the environment and class, and a good helping of inside jokes! This week Craig is here to tell us how this work came about, as well as his approach to writing for kids, working with colorist Dave Stewart, what bums him out about the Muppets, and the changing definition of “mainstream comics.”
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