Avast, a new Kramer’s Ergot is right around the corner! Editor, Sammy Harkham has shown off a peak at the glorious comics interiors of this anthology. It’s going to be bursting at the seams with color, clocking in at 298 pages, 12 spot colors with CMYK. Fantagraphics is doing the heavy financial lifting on this one. They’ll be selling and distributing it a little later in May. More details on that to come.
Have a look for yourself at the preview Sammy has put together. Don’t want to spoil it for you over here. This thing’s going to be a beast.
Laura Knetzger has been making comics every month about games she plays. A week ago ZEAL published her 4th game reflection, Laura K plays 4: Threads of Fate/Anger and today she’s written a little more about Threads of Fate over on her blog. I encourage you to check out the comic and then read more of Laura’s thoughts. Laura reflects on video games in a really satisfying way…
Replaying the story really knocked me on my ass too. I remembered the basics of what happened, but I was really moved by how quietly emotional it is. A lot of characters are living dolls created by sorcerers, and since the sorcerers have long since died, they’re struggling to find meaning in their lives. The emotional aspect of the story comes out when you play as the boy, and the humor comes out when you play as the girl. I guess I like that instead of being a demure healing-magic type of RPG girl, she’s a super snotty spoiled princess who solves a lot of her problems by kicking people in the face.
This past weekend the Society of Illustrators hosted the second of the Stories Matters talks. This time around, Richie Pope hosted a roundtable with illustrators and comics makers Odera Igbokwe, Cathy G Johnson, John Lee, Ronald Wimberly, Shannon Wright, Yao Xiao, Alexandra Zsigmond. They discussed mentoring through interactions, the creation of safe spaces in schools, Angouleme, and the many played out diversity narratives, among other things.
The audio is not online yet, but it will be posted soon. For the moment, you can look at the Mixlr chat history to look at the questions, comments and shout outs that were being sent in live during the panel. If you haven’t yet listened to the panel SoI hosted in the fall on the cultural significance of the popular image, you can do so over at SoI’s soundcloud.
Let Bill Kartolopolous show you around the ground-breaking catalogues of 5 contemporary comics publishers from around the world: nos:books, la Editorial Común, Éditions Matière, kuš! komiksi, Boomkniga Press. If you’re looking to get your nose into some new books with totally new perspectives on the world on the comics form. Look no further. Kartolopolous gives you the perfect jumping off point over on World Literature Today to do further research.
Money, money, money: Everybody needs it!! I want to point you in the way of some fine folks who have work for you, should you choose to be a patron of the arts.
Today is the LAST DAY to get Cathy Johnson‘s February print from her 2016 print subscription. This year Johnson has been pushing her screen printing work by making 12 prints in 12 months.
Patreon subscribers will get a brand new screen print every month in the mail. This subscription is on a rolling basis! Subscribe early to get the complete 2016 collection!! You’ll also get first look at my behind-the-scenes diary while I draw my upcoming graphic novel, No Dogs Allowed.
I’ve cut a monthly deal with the amazing Dirt Palace, a 15+ year old feminist art space here in Providence: http://www.dirtpalace.org. I’ll be screen printing at this amazing place all year! A big goal for this Patreon is to help afford renting print space at the Dirt Palace.
Let’s talk Vanesa Del Rey. She is taking commissions for the days leading up to C2E2 on March 18-20. Del Rey’s got what you need if you’re looking for lush, sensual original art that drips with drama. Don’t sleep on her commissions.
OG Ron Rege Jr. is taking custom commisions and offering you the possibility being a recurring patron through paypal. Should you choose this noble path, you can be on the inside curve of the machinations of this modern master. What else could you want? Check it out.
I’m going to be making a bunch of small minicomics in the coming months. For a $10 monthly donation, I’ll make sure that you get all of them, and some other fan-club style goodies as well. I’ll also make you an original drawing in time for the holidays this year.
My true dream & idea for all of this is to get 100 people to sign up for $10 a month. That way, I could do an unadvertised subscription. Members would get sent secret comics that I never mention online. That would be cool, right? hm….
Help me continue to make as much new work as I can. I’ve been at it for 25 years, and am really starting to feel my stride. The drawings seem to just make themselves. I have endless ideas. That part is all really easy. It feels almost dumb for me to be doing anything else at this point. I try to draw all day every day & not worry about it, but I need to eat like anyone. I quit my day job in ’03. There’s always ups & downs, but I live pretty strictly hand to mouth.
No assets / No savings / No credit.
$$$, spread it if you got it.
’til next time
jf