Salgood Sam's Blog, page 11

Escher-like – Revolver One feels like a cohesive whole

Being a simple sole I was pleased to get a thoughtful review from a recent customer who bought the digital Revolver from me.

Rachel Fenton was kind enough to leave a few stars on Good reads as well as posting her thoughts. 

So I’m most faltered and glad to read this paragraph. Making sure the books hold together well as a whole is a priority for me so glad to hear it reads that way.

Though muted and limited in palette, the art demonstrates a level of skill many comic artists can only aspire to. Perspectives are juxtaposed Escher-like adding to the alter-reality quality of each individual story as well as the collection generally. Revolver One feels like a cohesive whole. 

Thank you very kindly. It’s funny also to me to realize that at 42 now, when I drew those I was thinking about men my current age often.

“The fictions unfold surreally. “Each day he awakes to another dream-like day,” reveals the narrator of “Pin City”. But these are not dreams of optimism; there is little joy to be found either in the text or the art work. What these stories do offer, however, is a looking glass to contemporary North American society where predominantly men above a certain age are caught up in a kind of hinterland between what they imagine life should offer and what the reality of their existence is.”

Yep that’s a pretty strong theme in that collection. I’d like to think that it can be read even more broadly. Not just about men. But that’s certainly true about most of them. I always saw Helpless as being more about the narrators life but the elderly man in that story is quite central. Misplaced was also co authored with the same writer and we reveled in making the child gender ambiguous and watching to see how the bias falls out. But regardless of that aspect universally I’d agree expectations and anxieties and displacement are the crux of those stories, one of the things I wanted to try to talk about. Nice to see it coming out on the other end. I’m still surprised as the first time the lack of Joy is such a strong impression. She’s not the first to note that. But then I suppose this might be a question of perspective? Hmm, wonder what that says about mine eh? Well we’ll have to make sure there’s some fun stuff in future issues, just not to be totally depressing! I think Misplaced and Wildthings are pretty upbeat though. But check this bit out…

One feature of the layout that really surprised and delighted me, as a reader and aspiring comic artist, is Douglas’ use of tangents to create intense dialogue between the external landscape of the city and the inner or psychological landscape of the protagonist. 
 
What Revolver One demonstrates is that there’s more than one way of looking at something. We can observe society from a distance, objectively, but unless we put ourselves in the position of the protagonist in any of these fictions, we may end up trapped in not so much a dream world as a reality behind glass, unable to escape.


Nice.

 I have a authors profile on good reads here, if you add me there i’ll send you a discount code for my digital books!

Raising funds for publishing by selling things? ED: And an excellent review of Revolver!

What a novel idea! Yeah I’m close to being done work on Dream Life book one, and have to scare up resources to print books.

I’ll be running a pre-order sale once the last page is inked, in March is the plan. Might try other things too. But don’t want to leave it till then and I am getting kind of broke right now. So lets sell some art and books why don’t we!? Yes lets. Studio is too crowded anyway.

To sweeten the deal, for the next 30 days [ends march 15th] i’m going to offer a free sketch with orders of 40$ or more, something comparable to this one I did at TCAF. Mailed to you either with your art if you buy art, or separately if what you order does not come directly from my home.

Ok, what’s for sale? I’ve added and will continue to add more Art to my store for sale directly from my site, here. 

So far it’s mostly old work for hire stuff, with more to come. Will also be putting up pages from more recent books to. If the sticker price is a bit high for you i’m offering to re-ink some by hand, a smaller 9×12 rendering for a lower price too.

And I’m totally open to doing original commissions, from your basic convention sketch to things more involved. So those of you paying attention, if you commission a 50$ conventions sketch from me? you’ll get two! Deal eh?

I’ve also got an eBay auction going right now, to sell off a 22 page lot of camera ready art from my unpublished ’95 Ghostrider 2099 story with Warren Ellis, “Horrorshow”. This is not the original art I did, but stats of the pages with the lettering pasted on them. The only real physical copy of the full story in existence. Individually not worth much I think but as a set I thought of value to a collector? Hope so anyway. . The cover art from that [seen top left of this post] is on sale in my store here too by the way.

And last for this post, please consider buying my books! I sell high quality digital copies directly from my site here. You can get my critically acclaimed Revolver One for $2.50 as a CBR or PDF, with no DRM.

Also i’m still offer a 30% discount if you order 3 or more copies. Revolver is not yet in a lot of stores, you can get it at a few, and order it from Amazon. But bulk ordering from me is the cheapest way [free shipping] and it’s a very direct way to support and help promote my work. Convince two friends or more to pitch in and order the book! Make it four friends and you’ll spend enough to get a free sketch too!

FYI Revolver Two is running late but soon to be launched.

And last but hardly least, I’ve also just added a new color extended digital edition of my best selling 2007 graphic novel with Jim Munroe, Therefore Repent! Unlike any past digital version we released, this one has the pages tinted in the same kind of dark blue as the printed books. I’ve also added some new back mater consisting of 18 pages of rough layout art, design sketches, notes, and two new sections of script that was cut. You won’t find this extended digital version anywhere else for now. Just here! Price is $3.50, available In CBR or PDF, with no DRM.

Cheers, hope you see something that you like and help me get Dream Life published by buying some of my past art or books.

best – max

 

Raising funds for publishing by selling things?

What a novel idea! Yeah I’m close to being done work on Dream Life book one, and have to scare up resources to print books.

I’ll be running a pre-order sale once the last page is inked, in March is the plan. Might try other things too. But don’t want to leave it till then and I am getting kind of broke right now. So lets sell some art and books why don’t we!? Yes lets. Studio is too crowded anyway.

To sweeten the deal, for the next 30 days [ends march 15th] i’m going to offer a free sketch with orders of 40$ or more, something comparable to this one I did at TCAF. Mailed to you either with your art if you buy art, or separately if what you order does not come directly from my home.

Ok, what’s for sale? I’ve added and will continue to add more Art to my store for sale directly from my site, here. 

So far it’s mostly old work for hire stuff, with more to come. Will also be putting up pages from more recent books to. If the sticker price is a bit high for you i’m offering to re-ink some by hand, a smaller 9×12 rendering for a lower price too.

And I’m totally open to doing original commissions, from your basic convention sketch to things more involved. So those of you paying attention, if you commission a 50$ conventions sketch from me? you’ll get two! Deal eh?

I’ve also got an eBay auction going right now, to sell off a 22 page lot of camera ready art from my unpublished ’95 Ghostrider 2099 story with Warren Ellis, “Horrorshow”. This is not the original art I did, but stats of the pages with the lettering pasted on them. The only real physical copy of the full story in existence. Individually not worth much I think but as a set I thought of value to a collector? Hope so anyway. . The cover art from that [seen top left of this post] is on sale in my store here too by the way.

And last for this post, please consider buying my books! I sell high quality digital copies directly from my site here. You can get my critically acclaimed Revolver One for $2.50 as a CBR or PDF, with no DRM.

Also i’m still offer a 30% discount if you order 3 or more copies. Revolver is not yet in a lot of stores, you can get it at a few, and order it from Amazon. But bulk ordering from me is the cheapest way [free shipping] and it’s a very direct way to support and help promote my work. Convince two friends or more to pitch in and order the book! Make it four friends and you’ll spend enough to get a free sketch too!

FYI Revolver Two is running late but soon to be launched.

And last but hardly least, I’ve also just added a new color extended digital edition of my best selling 2007 graphic novel with Jim Munroe, Therefore Repent! Unlike any past digital version we released, this one has the pages tinted in the same kind of dark blue as the printed books. I’ve also added some new back mater consisting of 18 pages of rough layout art, design sketches, notes, and two new sections of script that was cut. You won’t find this extended digital version anywhere else for now. Just here! Price is $3.50, available In CBR or PDF, with no DRM.

Cheers, hope you see something that you like and help me get Dream Life published by buying some of my past art or books.

best – max

 

Slow web, sick on the CBC, and doing the work.

[PreS: sorry you early birds if you got surprised by the auto-play, fixed now.]

Recently been reading Warren Girard Ellis’ ramblings again, that last post a couple of days ago, making listing to this back logged episode of tmsidk the second or third time mention of the ‘slow web’ or something like it has come up for me in the last week, when Tell Me Something I Don’t Know interviewed Jeffrey Inscho.

Hah, that would be just my luck, as i’m finally getting half a hang of promoting myself publishing ventures at something approaching the pace it seems to take to get anyone to take your seriously online or noticed in the torrents of updates, the game would go and change from under my feet.

Being buddhistly inclined I liked a lot of what he had to say about applying mindfulness to your work in the digital sphere. I do try to do just that as much as my mind will allow. Also think I spotted some impracticalities too. Share Jim’s concern about the narrowing of focus and echo chamber effect [something he mentioned in passing in the interview].

We will see. Agree enthusiastically with the sentiment of it, as a card carrying member of the old slow action movement I’d far rather quality of interactions trump update cycles.

Over time I do think they count more. But when you’re still one of many, and growing numbers of creators trying to raise awareness of our work, and have as eclectic a reader base it seems I have, I’m not sure how much liberty I have to choose to overly narrow band broadcast. I feel like on the edges of your media domain you need to have fairly fast moving streams to match the pace of the rest of the web, to draw in readers to your core presentation. I don’t post on the blog here rapidly. No way I could keep up with a even once daily rate that Warren thinks of as a lower gear, while maintaining a good level of quality of content, and keep on top of my artwork. Beyond the usual challenges of content creation being dyslexic makes the process of writing and proofing laborious.

But Facebook, my pages, and twitter, G+ to a degree too, I can post small bits of thought or just promote other people’s stuff – something I agree with Dean Haspiel about being a important and valuable role to play, not just as being a community builder but also being someone anyone cares to pay attention too as well. Rather than someone who only talks about themselves?

I suspect some aspects of the slow web Warren and Jeffrey talk about is in part the privileged cruising gear of those who’ve established themselves. For those that describes It makes a lot of sense to economize your efforts.

At this point I follow the feed-back, post more where I find I get responses and less where I don’t.

Never was all in for twitter, it’s always been a semi-automated branch of my blogs. Don’t have a phone attached to my hip so it was never practical for me and too much of a distraction from the drawing table.

For the moment I get far more attention to my work on Facebook than anywhere else. My computer is seldom far from me so when I brake to pace around, grab a coffee, or set up a show to half watch, I often check in and poke around, like or share something, post a bit of work i’m in the midst of.

I tried promoting a couple of posts on Facebook recently connected with RevolveЯ. They got a lot more views but I remain unconvinced if it helped all that much. I did notice that you have to watch it with that, need to look closely at how the options are laid out for you when you set up a promoted post. Seems like a default was to keep promoting and charging after the budget I had set was spent. Not sure what to make of that but I was not pleased to find I was getting charged again without first being asked. As is too often the case it feels like communicating is not FBs strong suit. Incidentally it’s been amusing to watch as twice as many people who’ve added me as a contact in the past 6 months, did so in the last week on Flickr post instagram TOS fiasco. All good, welcome to all. I was never on instagram so works for me.

Speaking of attention…

Having a hard time getting some key comics news sites to pick up my press for RevolveЯ. Others have, but a few of the key players are being tough nuts to crack. Another round of press needs to be done, hoping I can get more traction in the new year. Wondering if I rubbed some the wrong way along the line or something? For sure not really being part of the convention circuit has not helped. Last show I did was TCAF, and that just as a civilian. Ran into one former editor I once worked with who now blogs, it was kind of awkward, as is to happen at these hectic things, but has not replied to an email since?

Be nice to go to more shows and have more fluid relations with the comics diaspora at large, have a chance to build solid friendships in person. But my lack of funds aside, when am I supposed to make time for that and still draw my books, and do all the other shit we have to do ourselves these days eh? Would love to, but we have to have a successful book first. For that we need the book we have to get coverage so people know it’s there to order or buy. A dog and tail game.

Best is if the word gets out more virally, and becomes something the diaspora can’t ignore. If you’re reading this, do us a favor and check out the book if you have not already, mention it to a few someones, share it blog it and if you’d like to review it contact me about that, be glad to oblige. I have lots of visitors and followers these days but outside a core group not enough sharing what they find to get that fantastic fractal spreading pattern going yet. Needs more cowbell!

On the other hand and not to seem to only gripe, I have had some nice windfalls!

Most recently I managed to get invited onto the CBC show to do some local color run after this great doc, Graphic Chicken Soup for the Graphic Soul, by David Gutnick. Thanks to David and Maria Turner, my boss at carte blache both for putting my name in for that. I’m on with an old acquaintance, Simon Bossé, in a piece called Growing up graphic. Our parents get all the blame.

Making it a more entertaining experience than planned I got nailed by the flu about 6 hours before the interview, vomiting all over the place very suddenly and sending my poor Ange into a cleaning frenzy. Managed to clear out the pipes and get it together to do it all over the phone, thanks to some nice editing, I even sound totally coherent.

Growing up graphic: CINQ A SIX | Dec 22, 2012 | 10:36 © CBC 2012

—–

So that’s me for the year probably. Couple more retailers on board and some new distribution channels about to come online for RevolveЯ. I’m running behind on RevolveЯ Two right now due to last minute editorial decisions on my part, and the feeling like the slow moving soft launch is progressing well, but has not reached the sweet spot for the next Minimum Effective Dose. The next book dropping and it’s associated press releases, to help crank the series forward. Taking the time to color a story and add another to make it all that much cooler, less ignorable, and put it out in January instead of this month as I had planned originally.

Keep your eyes open for a kickstarter project from me and Mark Sable too in the new year.

As work on Dream Life book one gets done i’ll be jumping directly onto a story we have planned.

Happy Holiday and a grand old new year all!

More stores stocking RevolveЯ!

So as you know if you frequent the site, i’m self publishing RevolveЯ. Including distributing directly to any retailers that will do business with me. Contact me if you own or buy for a comics specialty store, book shop, group, club, or library about getting wholesale discounts ranging from 30% to 50%.

Strange Adventures, three locations.

Dartmouth, Halifax & Fredericton!

Three cities in one go! It was a happy thing

when the first orders for a retailer came in, and it was for three shops at once!

I’m not sure if RevolveЯ will be at all three locations, but you can ask to reserve yours today.

I’ve heard a lot about this small chain of east coast shops. Sometimes hosts of comic jams and 24hr comics events, signings, and often quick to back canuck talents! Full disclosure; Calum is a backer in my successful Indiegogo drive for dream life.

I know for my friends i’n the comics game over the years, they have backed a lot of great Indie books. Run by owner operator Calum Johnston they seem like really lively places. And I love the look of the Sackville shop. Look for the shots from Kate Beaton’s appearance, totally the kind of place i loved to be taken as a kid.

Another part of the world I’ve never been, that now I have a good excuse to try to get to! Their copies are estimated to arrive by Dec 17.

Strange Adventures

5262 Sackville St, Halifax, NS B3J 1K8| (902) 425-2140

68 York St, Fredericton, NB E3B 3N5 | (506) 450-3759

101 Portland St, Dartmouth, NS | (902) 444-2140

E-mail | Call Toll-Free 1-866-6-COMICS

 

The Beguiling

Toronto

 

Of all the shops that will stock RevolveЯ Quarterly #one for the holidays, In Toronto I’m honored to have it on the shelves of The Beguiling first.

There are a few other shops in my old home town i’d like to have it in as well or course. We want it in ALL the stores! But no shop is quite as close to my hart as the The Beguiling is. Forget that RevolveЯ will be there, if you’ve not yet visited the store, you must. Live out of town? Plan a vacation around it, it’s that good. I could say I’ve been a card carrying member of the shop since a year after it was first opened, if I had not lost my card several moves ago and to another city.  :( ~ I still dig around my studio now and then to see if it’s hiding somewhere. Along with the Silver Snail and Dragon Lady [rip], it was of the holly triumvirate of downtown comic shops that helped make Toronto the comics community it is today.

They celebrated their 25th anniversary this year, it’s fantastic that they still seem to be going strong.

Peter just did an interview about his tenure as the long time and current owner that’s worth a read, he’s built a fantastic book shop and cultural center out of the indie comic shop he bought off Steve and Sean. And to top it off the comic festival they host, TCAF, has become a defining event for the burgeoning literary comics industry in the region.Their copies are estimated to arrive by Dec 17, so as if you needed an excuse to hang out there, drop by in the days after that for sure, and ask for RevolveЯ by name.

Say hi to the staff for me too, tell them I sent you!

The Beguiling

601 Markham Street

Toronto, ON M6G 2L7

(416) 533-9168

4 Colour 8 Bit Comics & Games

Kingston

 

Joining the growing list of Canadian Comic shops stocking RevolveЯ Quarterly will be 4-Colour, 8-Bit: Comics & Games!

A 5 year old retro themed lounge and hang out style comic and gaming shop with what looks like from the photos a sizable crowd of regulars! A lot of gaming events and comics gatherings, they host 24hr comics days every year. They filled out a Comic Retailers Store Questionnaire for the The Joe Shuster Awards blog in 2010.Looks like the book will find a tight and large audience there, the shop is dedicated to a strong Indie presence and in walking distance of 2 universities and 4 high schools, kid friendly and & a balanced customer base.

I hope they dig RevolveЯ One and future issues, Kingston is in the great lakes transit corridor, a place I could affordably do appearances. If it seems workable schedule wise i’m thinking next September would be a good time for the first tour for RevolveЯ & Dream Life.

Estimated Arrival Date is Tue, Dec 18, 2012

4-Colour, 8-Bit: Comics & Games [FB]

346 Princess Street

Kingston, ON K7L 1B6

(613) 542-1200

Mission: Comics and Art

San Francisco

Mission Comics and Art will own the bragging rights to be the first American comic shop to stock RevolveЯ Quarterly!

The place is very cool looking inside, like a TARDIS, a great sprawling gallery and book store off of an unassuming shop front in the hart of SF’s famous Mission district.

For sure if I manage put together a tour in 2013 it’ll be top of my list of places to stop!

There’s a nice write up about them here, and a flickr set showing off events and highlights like their Graphic Novel Rental Library! I’ve poached photos from there for this post.

Their mission statement describes it thus “Combine a comic book shop with an art gallery in a fresh, exciting way drawing on the unique strengths of the Mission District, its diversity, and eclectic and energetic art community.” More here. The owner Leef sounds to have grown up in the same kind of counter culture environment as i did, look forward to meeting him some day.  Their copies are estimated to arrive by Dec 13, though you hardly need the excuse of my book to check this place out I think.

Mission: Comics and Art

3520 20th St. Suite B

San Francisco, CA 94110

Ph. # 415-695-1545

photos sourced from the Internets, if anyone object just let me know and i’ll take your’s down.

RevolveЯ @ Monastiraki & Librairie D&Q, and The Book Depository

Online, as of today the cheapest place to get my book Revolver, is from the The Book Depository

They are a discount re-seller of amazon’s. To be honest i get the least from sales from this site. I make more if you get my book digitally. But at $7.39 CDN I want to get my comics in your hands so hey, this totally will save you some money.

Even with shipping these comics are cheaper than the $15 suggested cover price. Costing it out with standard shipping to Canada I got a price under 14 bucks. For americans it’ll be cheaper still. Go for it with my blessings, go for it hard.

Starting to get

the book

in book stores.

I live in Montreal so lowest hanging fruit:

Took a walk on the first snowy day of the year to visit and stock, two local shops with copies of RevolveЯ One. I’ll visit more in town but these are the first to stock RevolveЯ Quarterly! Because browsing in shops is always more fun than ordering online!

Chris‘ Librairie D&Q, and the family gallery/curiosity shop of my old jam mate Billy, Monastiraki.

Both were busy on the Friday nights I dropped in.

MONASTIRAKI – Le Petit Monastere

5478 St-Laurent

514-278-4879

A curiosity shop and art gallery located in the heart of the Mile End. Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Bookstore

211 Bernard West.

514-274-2224

Montreal’s only curated English language bookstore. Est. 2007

Drawn and Quarterly

Drawn and Quarterly

Galerie Monastiraki

Galerie Monastiraki

discountandshaop1

 

 

Doodle videos, a new service i’m offering…

Full service production and broadcasting of hand drawn videos.

As of a few months ago I’ve started to do some freelance work for a local marketing guy, drawing on camera to provide visuals for “viral videos” for his clients. On the right you can see one of our first.

Most of the work for him is of a more corporate nature, not a bad little side gig to bring in a few bucks.

If you’re a business looking for a full service marketing agent to help bring in more business you can reach him at convernet.com.

He seems good at his job and very dedicated, so i’d recommend him even if I didn’t get work out of it now and then.

In the course of developing the aspect of his services that I contribute to, i’ve had a lot of fun branching out into a kind of low-fi animated presentation. Along with diving back into video editing and other kinds of basic animation I’ve discovered I really like this kind of work and see a lot of interesting potential in it for fun and as a freelancer.

I ended up building my own lighting set up in my studio at home to do the doodle video shoots and will be applying it to promoting my own art in the near future for sure. Beyond the work for convernet, i’m also really interested in taking on freelance clients for doodle clips myself. Collaborating with you on scripts to tell your story via sites like Vimeo and YouTube in broadcast quality HD.

I’m especially interested in arts and culture oriented work. Theater and Dance. Music Videos would be awesome. Science and Educational videos like the amazing RSA Animate clips. Fundraiser pitch clips, Small Business Promotion & other applications. I can also offer a variety of drawing styles from cartoon to illustrative, live action and audio work as well.

I didn’t do the editing or animation for it, but I would love to develop more shorts like the one I did for the ARC Ensemble that was aired on BRAVO, “Honor Bound”.

I’ll have a reel available soon but for the moment here’s a short clip i generated for local theater to show them what I can do. If you like what you see feel free to contact me for rates and quotes.

Post Expozine, back to work…

Been busy with prepping for Expozine, didn’t get much of any drawing done the last 4 days.

I always find exhibiting a challenge, it’s fun but it’s also disruptive to my work routine so keeping up a proper apperance schedule and also getting the work done tend to compete. At least with Expozine it was right in town.

The great part of going to shows is seeing everyone. The vast majority of my friends are other artists and publishers, but mostly I only see them at events. This year’s Expozine was sluggish for sales, for me but a few others i talked to said it seemed to be to them too. I moved a good number of prints but not that many books.

Here’s a few photos from the event, a pan around the room before the doors opened on day one, and one of me with Michel Rabagliati & Nina Bunjevac, at the Conundrum table where i was slumming day one.

I picked up a few cool things. My Life as a Foot by my neighbour Richard Suicide is something i’ve been wanting for a while and it was on sale at the Conundrum table so i snapped up one myself just before they sold out. The book is a collection of translated short stories that were published in a variety of places in french. As far as i’m aware it’s his only English language book so far.

Kirsten McCrea presented a new little chap book of her work called DAN-D-NOSER published by Paper Pusher. Need to read it cover to cover properly but in the back the about explains that a DAN-D-NOSER is a taxidermy tool, and the book is a playful rift on masculinity exploring the overlap between dandys and taxidermy? Should be interesting. Also always like talking with JP King, the very enthusiastic pusher behind Paper Pusher. Will have to think of a project to propose to him some time.

We’ve talked online a little but finally met in person the man behind Taddle Creek finally as well, Conan Tobias. I just got a proper subscription for the magazine and picked up a couple back issues from him at the show. Would be fun to do something for the magazine one of these days. Also talked with the folks at Matrix a bit, likewise another publication i’d like to participate in at some point. And spotted a new publication i’m going to take a closser look at and submit something probably, Circéa Publishing. They had a very sexy over-sized first issue on display for the show.

And last I got a copy of Little men in little boxes and other comics by Jai Granofsky, a book collecting work from his time at The Center for Cartoon Studies.

Would have liked to pick up a lot more but my own lack of sales pretty much meant I was limited. Probably could have traded for more but didn’t think to do that till late on day two.

OK, so it’s back to work for me. Have some illustration to do for videos, and lots of penciling left of Dream Life. Here’s a few of the last 10 I got done, have 32 more to do in the next week and a bit to meet the schedule goal for this month.

What Are You Reading? with Salgood Sam

Was invited to write up some books for Robot 6′s regular piece, “What Are You Reading?”.

Decided to cover some books by friends that I had just read for awards or had been picking through over the summer. I don’t apologize for being biased.

‘Tale of Sand‘, ‘Suddenly Something Happened‘, & ‘Traumstadtdenken‘.

Jim Henson’s Tale of Sand.

Multi-award winning Art and Adaptation by Royal Academy heavyweight Ramón Pérez.

Award winning packaging by Eric Skillman.

Archaia

Ramón’s a friend, and it’s been inspiring to watch him become deservedly highly sought after. It may be laying it on a little thick calling this book one for the ages, but I just did. I will have no choice but to cop to being bias. But I’m confident you will agree.

A year or so ago it was while loitering around the Toronto studio he shares with the rest of the Academy gang that I first saw pages from this rather brazenly epic realization of a reputedly esoteric rich early script, by one of my all time heroes. The Muppet Man. Mr Fraggle. When he said what the spreads he was inking were for, I think I cursed under my breath for an extended period.

You could already see this was a gorgeous project. Leaning over Ramón’s shoulder when he’s working tends to be routinely rewarding, but all the more so in this case.

Reading the book myself this summer finally was an almost-unadulterated pleasure. I was initially thrown by the strange lettering phenomenon associated with old Melrose Mernly [his friends call him Sven]. But after it reoccurred a couple of times I got it, and recognized it for the bit of fun inventive surrealism it is, an echo of Henson’s own penchant for psychedelic audio phenomenon.

This book is filled with playful formalistic inventions that for me put it on par with Asterios Polyp and the like. I think many are fairly novel, but despite and often because of it, all still a fabulously smoothly reading, rolling, kinetic comic.

A race meant to take 10 minutes to Eagle Mountain takes a wrong turn into a maylay of chaos.

The large wordless sections can be pored over, but I encourage you to read it all at least once, in only the time it takes to get the story point and move on.

The ease at which you can register what has been drawn narrative wise is remarkable. Storytelling as sharp as you will find here, for a story so surreal is an impressive accomplishment. Ramon makes it look easy. I also happen to know it was completed in an impressively short time, too.

This is a jealousy inducing book. His discipline is always impressive, and it’s on full display here. What it brings to a quite recognizably worthy bit of the Henson legacy is worth every cent and minute.

You must read.

Suddenly Something Happened

by Jimmy Beaulieu.

Translated by Kerryann Cochrane

Conundrum Press

Jimmy Beaulieu is the founder of Quebec publishing house Mécanique Générale, and an autobiographical cartoonist with a penchant for romantic angst. This was how I first encountered him.

I think it was at a Comic Jam hosted by Rupert Bottenberg, or a BD festival perhaps. He’s an extremely likable geeky guy who loves pop music, pop art and sexy ladies unabashedly. A fastidious editor and designer and easy maker of many friends.

He and a group of said friends were publishing great inventive self-published B&W comics when I first moved to Montreal. Several were even wordless so I could enjoy them without issue. I really loved checking out their latest stuff, and was always frustrated by my hopelessly poor language skills when it came to reading Jimmy’s auto bio work.

BDANG is a sub imprint of Conundrum Press, a small but prolific Canadian publishing house. Under it publisher and author Andy Brown is translating and publishing several French books

In 2010 one of them was the collection and translation of two of Jimmy’s extended works, Quelques Pelures and Le Moral des Troupes [winner of the 2005 Prix de l'Espoir Québécois], They document his life between the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. Additional pages were added to the collection, and Jimmy played with parts of the text of the second part to try to round out the story and smooth out his sophomore spots.

I’ve read it in fits, it’s got scope! Coming in at an impressive 250 pages of comics. It’s hard to read in a sitting, but perfect I think for browsing through on transit or keeping by the throne.

Jimmy adopted early an easy, fast, light-handed style of art, well-suited to a personal journal comic. It evolves visibly over the body of work, going from pleasantly naive to deceptively skillful. He often apologizes for his drawing, but I find it enjoyably expressive and his girls are adorable! Being so often the subject of his attention, this pays off for an appreciative reader. He captures people’s pantomime well. The tones and textures lend themselves to a gauzy soft focused nostalgic story about the coming of age of a shy cartoonist from Quebec City who slowly falls in love with Montreal, and moons over hot cupid-like young mothers and full-figured redheads.

There are many small gems, like one of the short, newer epilogues to act one. An entry titled ‘rocket man’ where Jim shares an internal monologue about waiting for his employer at a book fair in Autumn of 2000. Withdrawing from caffeine and suffering a night of poor sleep, on a day he marks as his 2977th of celibacy! Oh dear. He talks about the city landscape while imagining Mecha Kaiju destroying a Montreal industrial park, then that the underwear models on the billboards are there to distract him from the urban destruction. It’s subtle in execution and quite poignant.

I think one great target audience for this collection would be young adult and romance readers looking for sprawling, ranting, romantic, sometimes silly stories of transplantation. Finding love in lots of the wrong places, but finally one right. Feeling inadequate. Facing death for the first time. Raging over pop culture and ranting about popular culture. And being in love with the making of comics. I also know for a fact at least one American comics editor has confessed to having used this book to seduce a girlfriend.

Jimmy has matured a lot since this early work. You’ll find a lovely recent example of his work in Carré Rouge, a romantic fictional story set around the recent protests in Montreal, published in multiple languages online.

But this early material is still quite charming.

Traumstadtdenken – Comix + Images

By Rupert Bottenberg

Editions Trip

Traumstadtdenken

Rupert and I first met at a comics jam in Montreal in the ‘90s when i worked at Marvel and was chafing at constraints. Another cartoonist friend and I were talking during a NY convention, and he gave me a zine of Rupert’s, saying I should meet him. This is also when I first heard about Comic Jams, spectacular incarnations of which Rupert hosted in a svengali fashion at the time.

You may have noticed a trend in my book selections? Yes, well, it’s what I’ve been reading of late. Catching up on the work of many friends.

The title Traumstadtdenken is a German neologism, meaning “Dream-City-Thinking.” A reference to a painting by Paul Klee, “Traumstadt,” that had a significant impact on Rupert.

The book is a collection of comix, drawings and odds ’n’ ends spanning 10 years stitched together with bits of connective symbolically narrative sequences. My one complaint is that the packaging of the book seems to have been been poorly proofed, with the margin’s feeling too close cropped on some pages for my comfort.

It’s informative to know he also paints highly designed abstract art, collects and fabricates pop art sculptures and toys, and recently has been globe-hopping as a founding member of the breakout art collective EN MASSE which i’ve had the honor of being a guest member of.

Whatever he is drawing on–in a comic, on a wall or canvas–his rendering is always superbly skilled and highly graphically attractive. This book is filled with perfect cartoony chiaroscuro pages that often invite you to project your own meaning or interpretations. Rupert has always been a fan of wordless art that can be read by anyone. Several sequences here are examples of that. He provides rich symbolic visuals that suggest lots of ideas, and are just really fun to look at. There is no attempt to present an over-arching story here, page numbers are consciously dropped. There are times where narrative is very strong, a story can be found with ease. Is even clearly intended. But where words appear, it’s usually to cloud the issue and add new silly twists to things.

When I first saw his work I fell in love with his lines. We’ve shared an appreciation for improvisational doodling and abstraction. I hope more people can discover his work as I have. This collection is an excellent place to start.

You should also check out his webcomic with author Claude Lalumière, Lost Myths.

I publish my own comics Quarterly in Revolver.

$15 for print ~ $2 digital

About Design

I don’t get asked to do it as often as i like,

so i’m going to talk about book design a bit now and then…

Don’t get me wrong,

I like both of these.

But still…

Was going to post about Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis on my personal Facebook profile this morning, a fascinating and scary recently diagnosed illness. But then noticed this looking up details and thought it a good opportunity to mention something i’ve observed before.

This is a great example of a lack of innovation in book design, and as a designer the value adopting habits to help both your work, and the items you are designing stand out.

So you have two titles, of very similar wording, in this case about two very different things.

One was just released November 13, 2012. One published in 2010. It seems to me a basic best practice would be to research the tittle, and see if something like it exists already, and not repeat any design notes if one does, if you can help it. Make sure one book is distinct from the other with a similar tittle? So, no red band with B&W images for Susannah should have been a no brainer…ahem. Sorry.

I suspect that didn’t happen here. Not identical of course, but so close. A bit too close branding wise and so easy to avoid with a simple google search on the part of whomever was putting the packaging together for Susannah Cahalan’s book.

Given the older book also owns the URL one would likely look up for promoting Susannah’s new book, it’s hard to imagine you would not have seen this coming either, as a publisher or author or someone on the decision making chain. So I have to wonder if it was a case of just not caring. Or maybe they did, and decided to try to get a lift from people looking for a popular self help book? I don’t know but it gives me an excuse to mention; you get a commission to do a cover? Search the title and subject and be aware of what has gone before.

Something to think about the next time you’re asked to work on a job.   

Ok, with that, i did just listen to Susannah talk about her ordeal, and it’s fascinating stuff, possibly the origins of many cases believed to have been possession in the past. Listen to her talk about it here and try not to get paranoid the next time your hand feels numb.

Just because a thing has not been explained, does not mean it never will be. As a skeptic that was one of the things I came away thinking about after listening to this. A newly named disease humans have probably suffered from since there were humans, and before most likely. Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. In the past too many were probably diagnosed as mad, or possessed. 80+% of known cases have been women, and before 2002 no one new about it at all.

Links

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness & Brains on Fire: Igniting Powerful, Sustainable, Word of Mouth Movements

http://www.brainsonfirebook.com/ - http://www.susannahcahalan.com/

And last, I like design so much,

I publish my own comic to get an excuse to do it.

Ok, maybe an exaggeration, might be the comics i’m more hyped about.

But it is one of the perks of putting out my own books…