In this special Monday edition of Critiquing Comics, Tim and Mulele take on a couple of comics by our listeners:
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First, Chris Calderon’s The Adventures of Rage drops us right into the middle of a battle. This is a time-honored approach, but is it being done well here? |
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Then, Andre Mateus and Rahil Mohsin’s The Big Sheep gives us funny animals in a noir setting. How does this compare with Andre’s previous submission to Critiquing Comics? |
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This week, part two of the Kaigai Manga Festa 2017 roundup, recorded in Tokyo on November 23 at Tokyo Big Sight.
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It’s time for another Kaigai Manga Festa roundup! This year’s international comics festival in Tokyo was held on November 23 at Tokyo Big Sight, alongside the Comitia festival as always. Tim caught up with some familiar faces and met some new ones as well!
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Three more talks with the folks at Helioscope Studio in Portland in this episode!
Steve Lieber, an artist in his own right and also manager of the studio, gives us a brief history of the studio (including its self-naming woes) and tips on how to start your own studio.
Intern/mentee Maria Frantz, a university student and web cartoonist who grew up reading Calvin and Hobbes, explains her internship and the aims of her comics work, and how her generation approaches comics.
Finally, Ben Dewey (Autumnlands, Beasts of Burden) talks about his process of doing art (involving digital pencils and analog watercolors), why you shouldn’t get too fussy over your comics, managing your comics creating time, and what was good about Rob Liefeld’s work.
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This week, two more creators from Portland’s Helioscope Studio:
Cat Farris is working on “Emily and the Strangers” for Dark Horse, and her own web comic “The Last Diplomat.” She talks about the learning curve of drawing digitally, pacing the revealing of story information, the down side of telling people what she does for a living, and more.
Terry Blas has done covers for such comics titles as Adventure Time and Rick & Morty, and is the co-writer of a forthcoming graphic novel from Oni Press called Morbid Obesity, a murder mystery set at a fat camp. He talks about how to make stories less formulaic and more emotional, and points out a neglected segment of the American comics market.
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This week we double back to the beginning of Tim’s summer trip around the US, and meet three of the many creators at the World Monster Headquarters studio in Minneapolis. We’ll meet Peter Wartman, creator of the graphic novel Over the Wall and currently working on the sequel, Stonebreaker. He talks about why Over the Wall is still on his web site, even though the book is out.
Then, Sean Lynch, currently working on his graphic novel The Zoo, which asks the question, does “choice” really exist?
Finally, Lupi McGinty, creator of the web comics Lolly Poppet and Bantam Returns. She tells us about the live action Calvin and Hobbes movie she made as a kid!
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More Minneapolis comics creators!
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Christopher Jones has done a variety of work for DC Comics (including The Batman Strikes and one story in Batman ’66) and other animation adaptations), a few things for Marvel, and Dr. Who comics for Titan. How did he break in, and why is so much of his work of a more “cartoony” nature? |
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Lucid is making her living from crowdfunding in support of her webcomic, Avialae, a “boy’s love” story with an emphasis on consensual couplings. She talks about how “living the dream” can sometimes be a double-edged sword. |
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Is it a comedy strip? Is it a soap opera? Tim and Mulele discuss Alana Tran’s Tong Hua/Assimilation.
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Vanessa Davis is an L.A.-based creator of autobio comics Spaniel Rage, Make Me A Woman and Out of Time. Koom has been an admirer of her work, and this week he talks with her in depth about whether she sees herself as part of a “movement”; the pitfalls of reporting in your comics on what your family members do (like that time with her mom in the museum…); how her parents affected the direction of her art; and much more.
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Jake lives near a bog along a lake, and the bog makes him uncomfortable. On Halloween night, he finds a little girl in a witch costume stuck in the bog and he rescues her. Is she really a witch? What’s going on a Jake’s neighbors’ house? Tim and Mulele are reading Evil Witch Allie, by Kristin Tipping, to find out!
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