A string of beads, a birthmark, and a string of romances through history that end in various types of tragedies. Irene Strychalski‘s silent comic Beads presents this simple yet profound story in her stunning artwork. Tim and Mulele discuss.
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MoCCA Festival, presented by the Society of Illustrators and the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, was held at Metropolitan West in New York City on April 2 and 3. Tim was there, and talked with a lot of folks who were tabling about their work. Follow along with the photos below as you listen, and click the links to check out their work!
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This week Tim, joined by brother Paul, visits the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, VT, to talk with some students and faculty! What’s it like studying comics in a small New England railroad town?
This week we present an hour of discussion on the podcast, and more audio and photos for patrons pledging at least $3.00 a month on Patreon!
Continue reading #490 The Center for Cartoon Studies
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Tapastic is one of the many places online that you could put your comic. Why put it there? This week, Tapastic Editor-in-chief Michael Son joins Tim to explain the advantages of the site, issues they’re working to solve, what kind of audience is reading the site (and how reader demands have changed), and what new features are in the pipeline.
Jason McNamara is back with us after two years, and now his book with Greg Hinkle, The Rattler, has just been published by Image! He joins us to talk about the disturbing inspiration for the book, how the 2014 Kickstarter project for the book helped it get published, and more.
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Michael Bangert, who sent us Viking Sky Kings some time back, has returned with a new comic, Mushroom Madness. He’s taken a comics writing class since his last outing; Tim and Mulele can see ways that it’s helped… and progress yet to be made.
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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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A transgender person (identifying as a woman) attempts suicide in a bathtub. Then an angel appears! The woman’s wrists are healed and the angel shows her how her life could be better. A comic whose heart is in the right place, but could use some adjustment in its delivery. Tim and Mulele discuss Trans-planetarium, but Flip Knox, John Amberia, and Shallamar Muggott; and also look back on Mulele’s just-completed Kickstarter project.
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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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Alex and Ada is Jonathan Luna and Sara Vaughn’s critically acclaimed 15-issue series about human interaction with A.I. It raises some interesting issues, but does it handle them well? Have the same ideas been explored better elsewhere? Tim and Kumar open up the machine and take a look.
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