Brandon Graham's Blog, page 82

Hey. Just got finished reading the Multiple Warheads one-shot that came out this week. Amazing! Thanks for a great, visually stunning tale.

Thanks so much! 

So, whatever to that comic that you and Marley Zarcone were working on? Will it ever see the light of day?

I doubt it will happen. 

Marley seems to be having a blast on Shade these days and I’m moving away from collaborative comics & more towards drawing my own stuff.

Here’s what we did do tho– Marley drew 10 pages and I layed out the 1st issue. Maybe the story can be cannibalised into something else eventually. We had some fun ideas in there I think– and Marley’s pages were looking amazing. 

You talk mad shit about DC and Marvel (which is fine, whatever), but what do you think about the fact that the Direct Market is built on the backs of the Big Two? If DC and Marvel went out of business tomorrow, the Direct Market and every single comic shop

This is a weird argument.

Which is cool…whatever. 

 You’re saying that I shouldn’t critique companies with awful histories of creator rights because they sell more comics than other publishers? I don’t see a market share somehow would free them from critique. 

Marvel was also instrumental in fucking up the larger diversity of distributors in the direct market during the 90′s 

(which is fine, whatever),

I don’t think I’ve ever called them “

soulless money-grubbers

“ but I do think they are bad places to keep propping up as ideal places for anyone to make self expression with full control of what you do- without having to worry about other people changing your work.

(which is not fine,),

They’re bad places to do your best work, because you won’t be able to control or own what you do. Plus I think the medium of comics is sooo much bigger than the nerd culture that you get from that end of comics.So as someone who wants to make good comics and read good comics corporate comics are not my friend. 

And this is all generalising. There are good people working at those places and great work has also come out of them… sometimes– 

My goal with being critical of those places is to point out that creators don’t have to settle for being mistreated or aim for a corner at the mistreatment inc table.–and that comics is bigger than mutant power fantasy comics. It’s 

fine, whatever that you want to defend these 

soulless money-grubbing (there I said it) companies– but do you really think I have any say on their control of the market? Disney owned Marvel and Time Warner owned DC will be around loooong after I’m dead & I don’t think I’ll hurt their feelings in the meantime.  

Even retailers will tell you that the way that those companies run things is often shitty, predatory and short sighted.– you don’t buy someone’s loyalty because they are tied to your business. 

So to answer your question: No. 

Shout out to one of your mord fans who's on the fast track to JL Spa, going to get the old CHFT treatment if you know what I mean. 8) I know you don't like that duhversity and comics dope, but does it hurt seeing people you know actually vindicate his opi

I don’t understand that first sentence at all 

This is about Michele Perez, who is the writer on The Pervert. That I helped bring into Image comics by running it in the Island anthology magazine that I was co-editing. 

Michele likes to argue with shitty people on the internet– I think she’s got into it with tila tequila (of flat earther fame) Anywayyyy this time she posted. 

It’s not how I would’ve said it but I understand her feelings on dude. I don’t wish him any harm. but I do wish people would stop giving him any credit in having any fucking idea what he’s talking about when it comes to comics.

 I’d have said–  “Unfortunately he didn’t find a better way to talk about his beliefs that didn’t involve promoting harassment of people.”

I read a post on twitter “ So and so, & Brandon Graham all support wishing death on war veterans?”  through my phone while I was watching GI Joe 2 Joetaliation on a couch next to a woman who works in the Air force.– Which is about as pro military as I get.

I shouldn’t have to say that I love and support a lot of people who work in the military, but it’s really about people on twitter just trying to find someone they think is bad so they can complain about them. 

Michele and Remy Boydell’s comic The Pervert is about doing sex work while dealing with transitioning. It’s some heavy stuff told in a new and really interesting way– I thinks. I don’t need to agree with everything it’s creators post in twitter to think that they make good books. I hate how much of comics talk is not about the work. 

just about trying to find someone someone thinks is bad so they can complain about them.

SO to answer the 2nd part of the “anonymous” question posted by a dude named Thomas. – no Michele saying she wishes harm on a shitty dude doesn't 

vindicate shitty dude. I can support her work and still think he’s a turd pretending to be a man. 

and I could leave all that alone- because the Div in comics guy eats off of stretching the truth to fit his agenda, & bringing up his name is like conjuring the lamest beetlejuice, who then makes unwatchable youtube videos as his revenge. Boogah boogah! the worst boogyman. 

The tweet Thomas posted bragging about sending me a question in hopes of upsetting me is the main issue. I hope dude is a 12 year old who looks back on posting this kind of garbage about real people’s personal lives –and cringes and calls his mom so he can tell her he loves her. 

And I don’t advocate anyone being shitty to Thomas, because the endless circle of garbage anger in comics is exactly why the scene is such a mess right now. 

Here’s my pretty gf Alejandra who is gonna rule comics with an iron fist and not even try to put up with any transphobic bullshit assed bullshit 

Question: Prophet is one of my favorite comics ever. Somehow the take on science fiction is both expansive and personal, hitting me at a level that moves me deeply and excites me in the manner of classic sci-fi stories by people like Clarke and Lafferty. A

Thanks so much. 

& yeah, the thing I’m working on now (i’m just 10 pages in)  is more along the lines of direct sci fi than stuff like Warheads is. 

mendelpalace:A few years back Brandon Graham, aka @royalboiler,...

mendelpalace:

A few years back Brandon Graham, aka @royalboiler, was digging through an old 1986 issue of National Geographic and stumbled onto some photos that Moebius had used as references for a Major Grubert 2-pager (also released in 1986). 

Drawing Alejandra watching Jeopardy

Drawing Alejandra watching Jeopardy 

Hello, I was reading into #Comicsgate business and I was thinking; "what a bunch of nobs." What comics should I support to piss the #Comicsgate crowd off?

That bullshit seems so tied to going after any left leaning twitter conversation and not the work- or when it is about the work it’s them being mad that some character that a corporation took from it’s creators has been changed from the standard power fantasy it was. The whole conversation is so far away from even being about good work or art. 

Some turd in a human suit put out a list of creators to not buy work from, but if I’m being honest it’s about half people whose work I think is worth reading & half who I’m not a fan of– but obviously that is less important than how shitty it is to target someone for harassment because you don’t like their twitter or gay Booster Gold issues they worked on.   

My two cents would be to instead just go looking for work that speaks to you. 

Seth T. Hahne put out a fantastic list of his favourite comics of last year that you can read here. 

One book I really enjoyed last year was Anti-Gone by Connor Willumsen (Published by Koyama press) 

Emily Carroll just put out a new book that I haven’t read yet- but I’ve never not been impressed by her work.

A Land Called Tarot by Gael Bertrand, is pretty great & is available in trade now

. Mirror by Emma Rios and Hwei Lim is fantastic stuff

Hung and O’Malley’s Snotgirl is really fun stuff

Hamletmachine’s Starfighter is really great (NSFW) stuff It’s online here

Munoz and Sampayo’s Sinner just got reprinted too. Great detective comics from Europe via Argentina 

But that’s just what I’ve been enjoying. There’s sooo much work out there that touches on everything from so many perspectives– I’m embarrassed that so much of comics is still man babies complaining about what’s going on with superman’s hat or what the fuck ever. 

Is Marian still working on comics? Where can we follow her art online?

She has an instagram, here 

She’s been posting some really fantastic stuff. (as usual) 

what happened to 8house?

It turned into just being Emma and Hewi’s Mirror.

Past that Xurxo has drawn a ton of KIEM that we’ll be collecting as a trade. (I need to send him some more script soon!) 

Fil is gonna go back to his Yorris after he gets his Zooniverse reworked.

So yeah, sales got real low. I think 8house jumping from storyline to storyline by different people didn’t work out. 

We got the Arclight and Mirror trades out so far, and hopefully 2 more before it’s over.