comics

Dylan Williams started Sparkplug comics. It’s always been quite indie. He passed away and the company is still going. The three books he was working on when he died are still not complete. The fundraiser will help. I’m not posting each Kickstarter or Indiegogo project that comes my way. I get alerted to 5 a week. Each has their merits, well, almost. Some have very little. I’m only posting the rare ones that I have a personal attachment with. I can’t help everyone, but I can help the ones I most want to help. I’ve written about him in the past here at GR. (Dylan Williams)

All photos by Dean Gojobori.

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Graphic Novels are back! Slowly especially with the adults who want something “mature” and not youthful manga for furries. There’s always space for great graphic novels in everyone life, as there’s space for novels. Yet in this article published in Newsweek Daily Beast section, it’s still mostly about retro comics. In the GR world and among our peers, we know this and it’s not talking about 2012 or even 2011, but more so the past 10 years or even more. Spiegelman’s Maus and Satrapi’s Persepolis inevitably get mentioned. Either way, it’s a great primer for those are aren’t caught up in the genre. (thedailybeast – graphic novels)

5000 years of China via comics in 125 pages?! How? In an interview with the Global Times, The opening line of the book is, “After 17,434 natural disasters, 3,791 massive wars, 663 emperors and 95 dynasties, the 5,000-year civilization lives on.” Comics artist Liu Jing explains his thought process and hopefully it’ll be a book that’ll teach and entertain at the same time. (Global Times – Liu Jing) (danwei.com  - Liu Jing)

Adrian Tomine talks about his comic, Optic Nerve #12. The latest installment. He talks about the changes in his own life and the changes in his new stories. Some thing you can’t run away from even when he tries to make things different. Tomine mentions that his stories might be him spread throughout the characters and not just the one who looks like him. He talks a bit about Shortcomings and also the new characters. (Optic Nerve 12) (scpr – Tomine)

Thanks to Dean Gojobori

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Eleanor Davis is a cartoonist and illustrator who’s work has appeared in Fantagraphics compilations, graphic novels for kids, and at art exhibitions. Her work is the type of work that you can see, be puzzled by, and then come to enjoy. We’ve hosted in her numerous exhibitions, and her pieces in the Robots exhibition are monochromatic portraits of Robot people.

Below is this beautiful print with girls and horses! It’s available here. Davis has two websites where you can see his works. Doing-fine and her blog is here.

Junko Mizuno is a manga artist from Japan now living in San Francisco. We interviewed her for Giant Robot magazine years ago at a time when she hardly spoke English. Now, she speaks English without issues and is busy exploring her comics and artwork. For GR2′s Robots exhibition, we have original pages of a special Japanese edition of Pure Trance. They’re all drawn by hand with some Zipatone added for shading. We have some of these pages available here.

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Photos by Joshin Yamada. Chris Cilla, Reklaw, Dylan Williams, Tim Goodyear, and Andrice Arp at the Stumptown Comics Festival in 2007.

That’s Andrice Arp at bottom right with our friend and late Dylan Williams at her left. Arp is an indie comics publisher and illustrator. She’s quietly appeared in numerous Giant Robot exhibitions and demands little, but always produces something fun and interesting. She paints meticulously and has a character style that’s all her own. Some of you will recognize her work from the bookmooch.com website. That illustration is below. Recognize her work now?

Her piece in GR2′s Robots exhibition, Robot Kitten sold, however we do stock issues of Mome at the low price of $8 where she contributes her comic work. Arp sells a variety of her work both handcrafted, printed, and painted on etsy as well. This is her page.

It was great to see Hellen Jo and Calvin Wong. We talked about the passing of Sparkplug’s Dylan Williams. Evidently, it was his wake in Portland literally at the same time last night. It took place at a comics shop which was fitting for a guy who spent a lot of time in the indie industry. Hellen and Calvin mentioned that they wanted to be there, but couldn’t so it was fitting that we were able to reminisce about the goodness Dylan brought. Dylan published Hellen’s first comic, Jin and Jam and was generous the entire way. While at a convention in Portland, Calvin said he sold a few of his comics throughout the day, but Dylan picked up 30 copies for distro at the end. We talked about Dylan’s generosity, his great eye, some publishing milestones and great attitude. A conversation is just one thing, and really, the least we could do to commemorate the guy. We had our own wake. At the end of the night, Hellen said, “Thanks for talking about Dylan.”

Zak Sally remembers Dylan Williams of Sparkplug. It’s here.

GR friend, Gene Luen Yang, a Bay Area native has been tapped to draw Avatar: The Last Airbender Comic. You might know him for his efforts with Eternal Smile, Level Up, and American Born Chinese. Check out Gene at Humblecomics.com and here’s an Airbender comic he drew in the past that crits it’s use of non-Asians in the film. Not a central point for confrontation or arguments, Gene Luen Yang has been doing comics for over a decade. It’s great to see him being tapped for indie projects and non indie projects alike.

It’s too hot to do anything, right? It’s so hot that the paint is melting off of your canvases and your energy just oozes out of your pores with your sweat. The only thing you want to do is lay down in a cool place …and read. But your eyes want more to look at than endless pages of printed words or endless text on your Kindle, so this post will recommend several art books and comics for the artistically inclined!

Elfworld Volume 1

Compiled by artist Jeffrey Brown and edited by Francois Vigneault, the long-awaited indie-comics fantasy anthology is now available! This first volume compiles individual stories of sword and sorcery with art from artists like Jeffrey Brown, Martin Cendera, Jesse Reklaw, Ron Regè, Jr., Souther Salazar, Matt Wiegle, Sean Collins, Grant Reynolds and many others.

Some stories are comedic while others pull you into an intricate world where sword and sorcery rule. Each story contains its own array of magical creatures and battle-scarred heroes, pulling you into a different realm that existed long ago. These are indie comics with a fantasy twist!

Andy Hartzell – Fox Bunny Funny

The rules are simple: you’re either a fox or a bunny. Foxes oppress and devour, bunnies suffer and die. Everyone knows their place. Everyone’s satisfied. So what happens when a secret desire puts you at odds with your society? Starting from a simple premise — and without using a single word — Fox Bunny Funny leads the reader on a zigzag chase in and out of rabbit holes, and through increasingly strange landscapes where funny animals have serious identity problems. The tale swerves from slapstick to horror and back again before landing at the inevitable climax, in which all the old rules are shattered. When you emerge, you’ll find yourself gazing at our own fragmenting society with new eyes.

High Soft Lisp

Five six. Hundred twenty-eight pounds. Forty-three twenty-two thirty-sex. High soft lisp. Genius level I.Q. Meet the enchanting Rosalba “Fritz” Martinez, half-sister to the legendary Luba, in this latest volume of never-before collected work from Gilbert Hernandez. High Soft Lisp is the chronicle of her lives and loves, from punkette to psychiatrist and all the way to “Z” movie star. Featuring an eclectic cast of Hernandez-created eccentrics including motivational speaker Mark Herrera, slobby rock n’ roller Scott “The Hog,” and high school nerd turned obsessive bodybuilder Enrique Escobar, High Soft Lisp is one of Hernandez’s sexiest, funniest, and most freewheeling story collections.

Check out more new and favorite comics [HERE].

The Japanese American National Museum is hosting an exhibition of the work of Stan Sakai, the creator of Usagi Yojimbo. The rabbit samurai character is an often forgotten about property in the scheme of educational comics. Perhaps it’s because it’s American created versus Japan, but it does use Japanese history. Maybe it’s because of it’s time period and it being overshadowed by Maus, and a slew of comics about WWII Japan. Yet JANM is covering it. It begins July 9th and he’ll be doing a talk at 2pm. Check out more at (JANM – Stan Sakai)

Viewers with a keen eye might have pinpointed something peculiar about the Captain America: The First Avenger trailer broadcasted during Super Bowl XLV. One of the men escorting Captain America was of Asian descent.

The man is a character named Jim Morita of The Howling Commandos, an elite special unit in the Marvel Universe formed during World War II. Morita first appeared in “Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #38” in January, 1967, and led his own separate division called “The Nisei Squadron.” Unlike the Howling Commandos, or even Captain America for that matter, the basis of the squadron isn’t steeped in fiction. It’s likely that the 442^nd Regiment of World War II  served as the inspiration for Morita’s Nisei Squadron during its first inception. The 442^nd Regiment was a segregated unit comprised mostly of Japanese Americans during World War II. They fought against the Axis in Europe while their relatives and families were interned during the relocation.

Kenneth Choi, the actor portraying Jim Morita, even stated himself in an interview that he researched the regiment and drew upon it to form a more factual basis for his character. We’re just glad that unlike a certain director, Marvel decided not to White Wash its own movie continuity.

Captain America: The First Avenger opens in theaters on July 22, 2011.