Back in April, Tim talked to Brian Mitchell about his matchbook-sized comics. Recently, he sent us some samples, so Tim and Mulele have read through them and are here with their thoughts.
Brian’s site, where you can order his comics
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First up this week, an interview with Brandon Easton, creator of Shadowlaw and also writer of an episode of the new Thundercats series. Shadowlaw took well over a decade to come to fruition due to the nearly endless difficulties Easton had with finding a reliable artist. He shares his advice for finding a collaborator for your own project.
Our own Mulele had some problems as the hired artist for a couple of comics projects when he tried his luck in Los Angeles six years ago. The experience was a harrowing one — more so than we realized at the time. Mulele tells all, and also talks about his next career steps — including a trip to a convention!
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This week, Tim talks to three guys who participated in San Diego Comicon earlier this month, to see what their objectives were for being there, how it went, and their advice to SDCC newbies.
Dale Wilson, who wrote up his experience at BuyIndieComics.com, on why he left “unfulfilled” in some ways, but enjoyed it in other ways;
Justin Hall, who we last talked to in March of last year, on promoting his Fantagraphics book “No Straight Lines” and Prism Comics, as well as the sideline indie comics gathering Trickster; and
Robert Roach, a veteran of San Diego tabling, on his Japanese influences, networking, and more.
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Return of the Dapper Men, by Jim McCann and Janet Lee, is a great-looking book, all cloth binding and gold foil. It has an unusual feel for a comic, being a work of decoupage. And the story… um… iFanboy book of the month, you say? Eisner Award winner, you say? Um… Tim and Brandon just ain’t seeing it. Why is it so lauded?
Also, Tim is joined by Mulele and Paul to critique a small stack of mini-comics, sent in by our friend Dale Wilson:
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While technically a comic, The Legend of Spacelord Mo Fo attempts to be a bit of a comics/animation hybrid — not a “motion comic”, but something like manually flipping through the frames of a movie. Does the technique succeed? Does the writing back it up? Tim and Mulele ponder.
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Critiquing Comics retur
ns! Along with it, the work of Guy LeMay (“Z-Blade XX”) also returns, as he gives us a look at his more recent work. Listen to find out how Tim and Mulele evaluate “War Within” (written by Marcus Jones) and “Zombie Headhunter” (written by Guy and Tamey LeMay), both released under Guy’s Strong Guy Comics imprint!
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Brian John Mitchell talks about his Kickstarter project to fund the making of his matchbook-sized comics. Two of these books involved a collaboration with Dave Sim!
“Rook Bartly” (US Air Force active duty member Jason) tells us about “Okashi na Futari”, the Japanese novel series whose author has hired him to draw a manga version of the story.
Then, Kumar returns to tell us about a couple of his recent manga translation projects, “Stupid Guy Goes to India” (which landed him an interview in the March 25 Mumbai Sunday Mid-Day, pg 38-39) and Osamu Tezuka’s “Adolf”.
All this, plus the announcement of the winning “what do you like about Deconstructing Comics” entry!
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A few weeks back on Critiquing Comics, we discussed the work of science-fiction creator Ryan Cecil Smith; we liked it so much, we decided to have him on the show! Kumar talks with him this week about his influences, producing and promoting his books, and more.
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In the course of doing this podcast, we often find comics that we’d like to read more of, but seldom can because we have to move on to the next podcast topic, and there are only so many hours in a day. This week, Mulele & Tim thought they would revisit some previously reviewed Web comics and see how their creators had progressed. But, wait, hold the phone — what’s going on with Evil Diva? (original 2009 critique was rerun November 5, 2011) The work-for-hire Web comic abruptly changed its business model last summer. Are the site’s handlers killing the comic while trying to save it?
Also, Mulele revisits Dustin Harbin‘s site, with asides about Matthew Forsythe and boycotts of Marvel & DC.
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Comedy and tragedy, the macabre and the mundane, dwell together comfortably in the pages of “SF” #1, from Ryan Cecil Smith! Tim, Mulele, and Kumar try to figure out what makes it tick.
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