Ivan Brandon's Blog, page 2
July 14, 2016
2016 SAN DIEGO COMIC CON SCHEDULE
HELLO INTERNET.
I’m doing a VERY LIMITED number of signings (3!) and 1 panel this year for San Diego Comic con.
You can find a new exclusive print ONLY at the Traveling Man booth (2104), and I’ll be signing there on Friday and Saturday next week with the amazing Tula Lotay.
Friday
11am-12:00pm Room 23ABC
Image Comics Panel: Defining New Worlds
1pm-2pm Booth 2104
Traveling Man signing with Tula Lotay
Saturday
1pm-2pm Booth 2104
Traveling Man signing with Tula Lotay
Sunday
2pm-3pm Booth 2729
Image Comics signing
HERE IS THE EXCLUSIVE SDCC 2016 PRINT, art and color by the incomparable Nic Klein
June 3, 2016
SICILIA!I’m in Sicily, just doing 3 signings at Etna Comicon. Info’s pretty simple. Today, Friday...
SICILIA!
I’m in Sicily, just doing 3 signings at Etna Comicon.
Info’s pretty simple. Today, Friday June 3rd at 15:00 for an hour.
Saturday and Sunday at, wait for it… 15:00 for an hour.
I’m signing at the Star Comics booth in the main hall. I have some prints, too (but not a ton)
November 17, 2015
Europe, ending the year
Landed in NY yesterday after 22 days in Europe, through France, Italy and finally England.
It was amazing and exhausting. A torrential storm of friends and food and art and food and language and food and food and food. I took 1085 pictures. I drove 800 miles through the north of Italy, past castles and towers older than my whole culture. I rode on boats and planes and trolleys. I signed countless books and shook what felt like a million hands. I walked 135.4 miles. Somehow in all of that I wrote, too. I even liked some of it.
I remember feeling happy, and sometimes alone, and sometimes scared. A blast of wind that spun the car a bit on the autostrada. Getting nauseous above Turin in a glass paneled elevator.
I met new friends from everywhere, and drank and ate and even danced with friends I’d known the length of a day or 15 years. I was inspired as a writer, inspired as a person. Once or twice I was probably a bad influence. Maybe.
I remember a lot of hugs, a lot of laughing. An unending cloud of smoke 10 feet from all of that. I remember fumbling my english after a week alone in Italy. I remember tearing my jacket in Paris and having it sewn up in a bar in Leeds.
This has been a crazy year. Wheels down in JFK marked the end of my 11th international trip in 2015. 11 countries, 3 continents. Thousands of books signed in a bunch of different languages.
I’m overwhelmed. I’m tired. I’m ready to do it all again.
October 23, 2015
European signing tour next week
INTERNET: for the first time ever, Nic Klein and I will be signing DRIFTER together next week.
Here are the details:
PARIS, FRANCE: Monday October 26th from 5-8PM at Album Comics Paris
LILLE, FRANCE : Tuesday, October 27th from 4-7PM at AstroCity comic shop
LUCCA, ITALY: Signing at the Lucca Comics and Games Festival at the Star Comics booth (Napoleone E189)
Thursday, October 29th at 2PM
Friday, October 30th at 5PM
Saturday, October 31st at 10:45AM
Sunday, November 1st at 10:45AM
October 5, 2015
NYCC 2015
For the first time in 3 years I will be making a couple of (brief) appearances in and around NYCC.
THURSDAY October 8th
2PM signing at the Image Comics booth
4:15 PM panel
Image Comics: Where Creators Own Action
Speakers: Ivan Brandon, Alex de Campi, Nick Dragotta, Matt Hawkins, Steve Orlando, Carla Speed McNeil
Description: There’s nothing like the thrill of a well-executed action scene, and no other medium can do what comics can. Ivan Brandon’s Drifter, Alex de Campi & Carla Speed McNeil’s No Mercy, Nick Dragotta’s East of West, Matt Hawkins’s IXth Generation, and Steve Orlando’s Virgil all feature some impressive action. Where’s the line between perfect and gratuitous? Is there a line? More importantly, how do you make entertaining action? Ask the experts.
FRIDAY October 9th
8PM-2AM
Image Comics NYCC Afterparty
222 West 44th St, New York, New York 10036
Come join your favorite Image creators for drink specials and free bowling all night long at Bowlmor Times Square.
A portion of the proceeds will go to benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
· 12 lanes of free bowling (first come, first serve) in the Art Deco room (4th floor)
· Admission: $10-$15 in advance, $20 at door
· Giveaway swag from CBLDF, Midtown Comics and more!
· Must be 21+
With special guests (subject to change): Adam McGovern, Alex de Campi, Amy Reeder, Antony Johnston, Ben Mackey, Bob Fingerman, Brandon Montclare, Brian Buccellato, Brian Haberlin, Brian Joines, Brian K. Vaughan, Cliff Chiang, Declan Shalvey, Ed Brisson, Edwin Huang, Fabio Moon, Frank Barbiere, Gabriel Ba, Ilias Kyriazis, Ivan Brandon, Jason Shawn Alexander, Jay Faerber, Jim Mahfood, Joe Eisma, Joe Harris, Joseph Keatinge, Justin Jordan, Kieron Gillen, Kyle Higgins, Leila del Duca, Martin Morazzo, Matt Wilson, Michael Moreci, Nick Dragotta, Ryan Browne, Sean Lewis, Steve Orlando, Stuart Moore, Wes Craig, and more!
July 31, 2015
NEXT SHOW: NICE UK
holy crap, y’all. look at this lineup. also i will be there, when you’re done ogling those people.
July 22, 2015
On collaboration and credit
The comics I write rely on collaboration and most especially my collaborators. I write projects specifically for the people that draw them – and oftentimes color and letter them, too.
Without David Aja there would be no HAWKEYE.
Without Annie Wu, Kate would not have gone west. Without Matt Hollingsworth, Lucky would not have solved a crime. Without Chris the Winter Friends wouldn’t exist and nobody would’ve said anything in any of the books anyway. Without Steve Wacker there would be no book at all.
Without Chom Zduggitty there is no SEX CRIMINALS. I literally would not write the book. The only excuse I have for not saying his name on national television when I spoke about the book on national television is that I was *on national television* and was losing my goddamn mind with nerves. For what it’s worth I allowed my hair to be styled so that I looked like the guy from Flock Of Seagulls’ assassination decoy and also forgot to sign the release that allowed them to broadcast the show and had to do it that evening before air well after I’d left the studio. I was nervous and I blew it. That’s on me. It reflects neither the truth of the situation or the reality of debt and joy I feel towards my partner Chim. Cham? Something like that. He’s great.
Without Bá and Moon, there’s no CASANOVA. Without Howard – literally – there’s no SATELLITE SAM. And who other than Christian Ward could possibly create ODY-C with me?
And that doesn’t even mention colorists, letterers, assistants, flatters, editorial or producorial hands on the wheel.
I write for my partners. I write with them and to them. I seek collaborators and co-conspirators rather than employees. I share ownership of the books I do (HAWKEYE obviously an exception) with the artists for whom I write as a rule. They make more than me, too, as a rule, and they earn it. Comics are a visual medium; to quote Mark Twain, “Thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the job.”
It is a high class problem at all that anyone wants to write critically about a book I write and I understand that, but I find it fatuous at best and disingenuous at worst when any book I write gets referred to as “mine.” These comics result from the work of “us.” One may as well write a restaurant review without referring to the actual taste of a meal, or a piece of music solely by its duration.
To not refer to the artists I am lucky enough to write for and co-create these books with reflects a morally (or at least intellectually) criminal neglect and ignorance of the process from which the books get made –thus casting any other commentary suspect while robbing attention and praise from those that deserve it.
Love the books or hate the books there is a group behind their production, sometimes moving heaven and earth in ways you’ll never know, and any commentary should reflect that partnership.
I cannot and do not speak for others but as far as the books I write goes, as far as “my” books go – well, there is no ‘my’ books. They’re all “ours” – legally, financially, morally, ethically, and most of all, creatively.
Chip! Shit, his name is Chip. Now I remember.
(Pls forgive any typos or obvious omissions in the above. I’m typing on my thumbs from a cardiac ICU during a few quiet moments.)
January 3, 2013
THE TOP 10 MOVIES OF 2012 (maybe)
according to me, please play along with your own
BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD
NOT FADE AWAY
THE MASTER
DJANGO UNCHAINED
KILLING THEM SOFTLY
7 PSYCOPATHS
SKYFALL
DREDD
TIM AND ERIC’S BILLION DOLLAR MOVIE
SLEEPWALK WITH ME
there’s stuff i didn’t get to see yet that might’ve made the list, like ZERO DARK THIRTY
December 6, 2012
corporate vs indie take 300,137
When people complain about the sales of indie comics at comic shops it’s like you spent your life at the local McDonalds and then decided you really like their salad and are super frustrated that it doesn’t sell better. These stores, by and large and the majority of people who’ve gone to them for all of my life and probably all of yours, are there for superhero comics (with some exceptions). The content created outside of those parameters doesn’t sell as well to those people because THAT ISN’T WHAT THEY’RE THERE FOR. They went to a burger place. They don’t want your salad.
When I was a teenager, at some point I was less interested in the band that played the local Arena and started paying attention to smaller, local bands. Bands that would surprise me. They didn’t carry those things at the music chain at the mall. Shaking my fist at them again and again over 100 years wasn’t going to change that.
Those bands had to do more work to get onto your radar. They had to tour. They had to do the rounds.
And hey, you know what? So do you.
October 31, 2012
HURRICANE
Gotten a lot of lovely notes from people about the storm that hit the NY area a couple days ago. For anyone who’s curious: we came through ok. Power went out pretty early into the storm and we’re still unfortunately in the dark, but our neighborhood got off really easy relative to all the other areas near the Hudson river which have seen some really shocking damage.
If you’d like to help: Text REDCROSS to 90999 to give $10 to American Red Cross Disaster Relief.
Or if you’re generous enough to make a larger donation, please click HERE to help out.
My best to everyone.
