Upcoming events, new books!
Hello friends!
I spent last Saturday in Canberra for the Sticky Beak Comics Magazine launch party and zine fair. The event was run by Ollie and Lee, two zine and comics makers, at Blank Creative. It was such a well run event, and I had a great time! Thank you so much to everyone who came by to say hello!
Here’s the next places I’ll be popping up:
THIS SATURDAY 20 April, Glebe Markets
28 April, Greenhouse Art Market, Charles St Petersham
11 May, Comic Gong, Wollongong Town Hall
28 July, Perth Comics Arts Festival! (SO excited to confirm this! See you soon Perth!)
Onto the books:
This collects the entirety of Jeff Smith’s early college newspaper strips THORN - the strip that would go on to become the eternal classic BONE, winner of 10 Eisner awards and 11 Harvey Awards. It’s incredible to see how sophisticated and self assured his cartooning is so early in his career. A must have for serious cartoon lovers!!
The first 5 orders will come with a Kickstarter exclusive print, and the first 3 will also receive a mini comic.
An absolute classic collecting 8 of the best Greek Myths for kids! Marcia Williams is the greatest at adapting classic stories in comics for children. Her simple designs and bright watercolours are so gorgeous, and kids love the little jokes and clear storytelling. I love the gory bits in Prometheus’ story, the heartbreak of Icarus, the gross washing out the stables bit in Heracles!
“Jonny Quest meets Infinite Jest! This mind-bending book—half graphic novel, half postmodern mystery, and 25% footnotes—is a thrilling tribute to the ways we build meaning out of disposable pop culture.
WHO IS MARY TYLER MOOREHAWK? How did she save the world from a dimension-hopping megalomaniac? Why was her TV show canceled after only nine episodes? These are just a few of the questions that young journalist Dave Baker begins to ask himself as he unravels the many mysteries surrounding the obscure comic book Mary Tyler MooreHawk. However, his curiosity grows into an obsession when he discovers that the reclusive creator of his favorite globe-trotting girl detective…is also named Dave Baker.
WHAT IS MARY TYLER MOOREHAWK? A compilation of long-lost gee-whiz adventure comics in which the world’s strangest family fights to avert Armageddon…and a bundle of magazine articles from a dystopian future where physical property is banned and entertainment is broadcast on dishwashers. It’s a document-based detective story that weaves back and forth between worlds, touching on everything from corporate personhood to mutant shark-men to the meaning of fandom and reality itself. It’s a show you don’t remember…and a book you won’t forget.
WAIT, IS THIS REAL? Good question.”
A perfect toilet book, possibly the highest praise! Genuinely hilarious stuff, really exploring the limits of what you can do with a one-page gag comic.
“For the entire run of National Lampoon, Ed Subitzky bent, broke, and reimagined what a cartoon could do: A cartoon that hypnotizes you. A cartoon that goes to prison. A cartoon that folds up and flies away. Framed by an interview with Mark Newgarden, this first-ever collection of Subitzky’s work is a portrait of one of the funniest, most prolific humorists of the ’70s and ’80s.”
More medium-expanding stuff from the good people at New York Review Comics!
“Pittsburgh is the story of a family, and a city. Frank Santoro faces a straightforward yet heart-rending reality: His parents, once high-school sweethearts, now never speak to each other—despite working in the same building. Stuck in the middle, he tries to understand. The result is this book.
Using markers, pencils, scissors, and tape, with a variety of papers, drawing in vivid colors and exuberant lines, Santoro constructs a multi-generational retelling of their lives. Framed by his parents’ courtship and marriage, and set amid the vital but fading neighborhood streets, the pages of Pittsburgh are filled with details both quotidian and dramatic—from his childhood mishaps to his father’s trauma in Vietnam—interspersed throughout with the mute witness of the family dog, Pretzel.
Santoro, the acclaimed author of Storeyville and Pompeii, has created his masterpiece. Pittsburgh is an extraordinary reimagining of the comics form to depict the processes of memory, and a powerful, searching account of a family taking shape, falling apart, and struggling to reinvent itself, as the city around them does the same.”
That's it from me!
