Wednesday April 25, 2007 -- 7:55 p.m.

That was fast! I already got 5 inquiries about art, although one was from my wife Rudy. I guess she wasn't aware I was giving so much away until she read my site! I am really just truly truly shocked. I removed the pieces that are no longer available, so the page is fully up to date. Thanks to the people who inquired!

And now, the best news I've gotten all month...the unveiling of the cover for the second volume of Tove Jansson's wonderfully splendid Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip, to be released in September by Drawn & Quarterly! It is such a lovely cover.



What's weird is that just Monday, as Rudy and I were walking in to our apartment from work, I was telling her that I thought that Drawn & Quarterly would probably change the color scheme for each volume, so that instead of having 5 books with red spines all lined up on a shelf, the 5 collections would be a rainbow of bright colors. I even told her I guessed that the second book would be green. I was right! She thinks that the third book, due out in fall of 2008, will be purple but for some reason I am leaning more toward a bright mustard yellow. We shall see in one year!

Next, although I had privately decided to really cut back on featuring other artists on my site in an attempt to focus more on my own art, the second best news I got all month concerns the enigmatic artist C.F. Now C.F., the creator of the upcoming graphic novel Powr Mastrs (which I raved about endlessly in an earlier update), due out from PictureBox Inc. this October, has released a bowel-curdlingly fantastic 6 color screenprint. Check it out...



That just pours gravy all on the brain, don't it? I think there are a handful available from Buenaventura Press and if you are daring you can take your chances with the Giant Robot store in New York. Also, Distributed Art Publishers Inc. who will be jointly distributing Powr Mastrs now have more detailed info on their web site regarding the publication. Dimensions are 5 3/4" by 8 1/4" and the book is to be flexbound (kind of like the two most recent editions of Kramer's Ergot) with 144 pages. I suspect the book will be mostly or completely black & white, with perhaps some spot color. The cover price is $18.00. Best yet, they actually give some indication of the content, so read onward and prepare yourself for an experience with the sublime...

"Powr Mastrs is an intense fantasy story projected to run to 10 volumes. In it, C.F. narrates the story of a tribe of mystical warriors whose power relations are constantly in flux. As power shifts, so do physical and psychological identities. In this first volume, we are introduced to the central characters and the complex geographies in which they wander. Overflowing with graphic ideas, from the intricately designed costumes each character wears to C.F.'s exacting architectural detail, Powr Mastrs is rendered in a distinctive pencil line that has already attracted much attention."

Holy crap! "Projected to run to 10 volumes?" I actually fainted with joy when I read that. Then I re-read it. And fainted again. And re-re-read it to make sure it was right. Maybe that means 10 years of annual Powr Mastrs releases. Damn! Between this and Brian Chippendale's upcoming Maggots, again from PictureBox Inc., it is hopefully only a matter of time before someone finally collects a giant volume of Mat Brinkman's agonizingly intense Multi-Force. Please God, let someone collect Multi-Force before I am old. Or too much older, since I already am old I guess.

Matt K.

Wednesday April 18, 2007 -- 5:46 p.m.

Days ago, a good and trusted friend shared Arve Henriksen's absolutely remarkable CD Strjon. "Strjon" is the medieval name for Henriksen's home village in Norway, which is now called Stryn. In Norwegian, strjon means "streaming river." The music was beautiful and amazing. When she told me what the music made her think of and why she was sharing it with me, I was moved almost to tears.

Last night, I saw MONO perform with openers The Drift and World's End Girlfriend. Words would be useless here. Seeing them changed my life.

Matt K.

Monday April 16, 2007 -- 6:47 p.m.

I got some really bad news last Friday and I am still working my way through it. In a strange way, the news has sort of been the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, and I've been asking myself a lot of questions since then. And that's all I'm going to share about it.

Matt K.

Friday April 13, 2007 -- 5:52 p.m.

I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets!

Remember how I told you I couldn't find the new cover image to this upcoming collection of the "Stardust the Super Wizard" comics of Fletcher Hanks? Well, the finished image has finally been released, and this is a beautiful, and beautifully designed, cover, so check it...



Man, I really love that cover! Again, this collection is edited by Paul Karasik, and is coming out from Fantagraphics this May or June. You should really check it out, I don't think you'll be at all sorry you did.

With great power comes...

...great fame apparently. After years of silently waiting, Rudy has seen the culmination of a dream. Courtesy of Eisner Award winning writer Sean McKeever (sorry dude, I had to be an idiot with that one!) comes this thrilling surprise in Marvel Comics' new "Spider-Man Family" #2! First, the nice looking Kano cover...



Alright, cool. Cool cover. Venom. Peter Parker. Homage to the great John Romita Sr. Let's look inside, shall we? Oh? What's this?



A woman getting into a limo and, wait, what was that name in the third panel? Let's take an even closer look...



Holy crap! That's Rudy! First AND last name! And not only is she in a big-league Marvel comic book, she is in a big-league Spider-Man comic! Sean's been awesome enough to stick a few of his friends into comics over the years. I was in an issue of "G.I. Joe: Frontline," "Vampi: Vicious" and on a screen in "Gravity" but this one takes the cake. Rudy scored biggest of us all, so now perhaps comics fans the world over will be reading this, wondering just who the hell that name is, and scratching their heads. Awesome, Rudy!

Alright, there will be no post tomorrow, I got some biz-ness I need to attend to. I'll be back on Sunday. Or, as some people say it, "Sundy."

Matt K.

Wednesday April 11, 2007 -- 6:10 p.m.

Fabulous furry Finnish free-folk freaks

You all know of my great great love for Tove Jansson's wonderful Finn Family Moomintroll books and comics (volume 2 of Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip is due out this September!) but strangely enough, it seems to be turning out that I like nearly all things Finnish. This was unintentional. While some take their fascination with anime or manga and spin it into an artificial fascination with everything Japanese, this interest of mine has grown organically and genuinely, without prior knowledge that much of what I was interested in actually had its origins in Finland. It began with the band Circle, a group of musicians who I later discovered had branded themselves as "The New Wave of Finnish Heavy Metal," and even later as "The New Wave of the New Wave of Finnish Heavy Metal." which is particularly amusing because while a few of their albums do indeed have a heavy sound, they are a constantly evolving group and have released CDs of everything from almost ambient sounds to post-rock to drone rock to jazz guitar. They are fascinating, and their material is finally getting wider release here in the states. Circle led me to check out a number of other groups that I quite liked, all of whom turned out to be from Finland as well. Casiocore geniuses Aavikko. Folk / krautrock / free jazz noisemakers Avarus. Lush folksters Kemialliset Ystavat. And now, the amazing Tomutonttu. It seems that most of these bands share a few members, so the whole scene is interconnected which might also explain why I find so much of the music intoxicatingly wonderful to listen to. You can check out a whole slew of musical samples at Aquarius Records or the fascinating Beta-Lactam Ring Recordings which also offers some great stuff from Volcano the Bear, Songs of Norway (a VTB side project), the Legendary Pink Dots, and solo material from LPD frontman Edward Ka-Spel. There is some great music on all of those sites, and some great vinyl too. You just can't help but love music that is described variously as "the calls of yet more birds, all whipping wildly above a thrumming drone made up of buzzing kazoo vocals, moaning muted strings, and some mysterious pulsing minimal throb. Sounding almost like a super lo-fi "Symphony Of The Birds" all tangled up with some chunk of freaky forest folk" and "the true underground krautrock heirs, making music so long haired that it's furrier than any Animal Collective. Music from the soundtrack to The Wickermoomin, perhaps?" I really dig that "soundtrack to The Wickermoomin" stuff. Check out Tomutonttu's self-titled gatefold LP cover...



Seriously, check out Aquarius Records and Beta-Lactam Ring Recordings for so much great music you'll have to drop that heroin habit just to make sure you've got enough to buy the CDs.

The only Dungeons & Dragons-themed art show you need to attend this April

Man, Dungeons & Dragons is blowing up the spot lately? Who knew those Fort Thunder artists could take a geeky childhood fascination and turn it into a badge of honor? From April 20th until May 20th, the Co-Prosperity Sphere located at 3219 South Morgan in Chicago will be hosting the "We're Rollin' They're Hatin'" art show, loosely based on Dungeons & Dragons themes. If I had the time or the money I would be all over this show. The line-up of exhibiting artists includes Paper Rad, Maya Hayuk, Andrew Jeffrey Wright, Seripop who are AWESOME, Dan Grzeca, Kevin Hooyman (Stephanie gave me one of his books - he is pretty amazing), and of course, my favorite and yours, Daniel Anthony St. George 2nd who is also known as AZStar78. He emailed me a sneak preview of one of his contributions, but it's now on his LiveJournal so I feel okay posting it. Check out this BIG (22" by 30") painting of the monster known to D & D players as the Beholder...



It is watercolor, ink, tea and graphite on handmade paper. The handwriting (very difficult to see, running up and down on the right site of the piece) reads "blind, lost, gazing off, I can not see all, looking - hunting, i am blind, who are the, heros, with out lust of gold, seared, what if i find it, or have found it, more, and if i thought it was nothing, lost or maybe i must, be my own hero, love, love." I would seriously just about kill for either this piece of art or the ability to draw and paint this well. He makes me simultaneously angry, envious, and awed.

Comics & Books of Note for Wednesday April 11, 2007

There's some good stuff on the shelves of your local comic book shop right now, so why don't you walk over there and pick these up? Again, there are two not-to-be-missed titles. First up (I couldn't find a cover image, sorry), The Complete Universe of Dupuy and Berberian, a collection of art and comics from the team behind the fantastically popular "Mr. Jean" and last year's Drawn & Quarterly hardcovers Get a Life and Maybe Later. Really great French cartooning, highly recommended.

Second is MOME, Volume 7, the spring 2007 issue of Fantagraphics' quarterly comics anthology. Under a nice cover by Lewis Trondheim...



...you'll find the second half of Trondheim's story on aging, a new tale from Eleanor Davis, and most exciting of all, a sketchbook section called "Chopped Up People" from none other than Al Columbia, also known as "Wee Little Al." The hot rumor is that this sequential reprinting of material from Columbia's sketchbooks will eventually culminate in the production of a big, lavish, full color art book from the fine folks at Fantagraphics so let's all hope that's true. Weirdness aside, Al Columbia is an incredibly talented artist, and the world has seen far too little of his work.

More tomorrow.

Matt K.

Tuesday April 10, 2007 -- 6:02 p.m.

S.P.A.C.E. Launch Party

Columbus' own Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo, also known as S.P.A.C.E., is now less than two weeks away. I won't have a table there this year, and I am still not sure if I will even be attending the show, but it is bigger than ever this year and there is a lot going on. Helping to kick off the weekend's festivities, my friends in the PANEL Collective are throwing a S.P.A.C.E. Launch Party on Saturday, April 22 from 8 p.m. until whenever at the lovely MOMO2, located at 2885 Olentangy River Road in Columbus. MOMO2 is a really nice, big, clean joint offering great bubble tea (a favorite of Rudy's), beer, good food, bowling pool, and all sorts of other stuff. I know most if not all of of the PANEListas will be there, and hopefully some of the exhibitors at S.P.A.C.E. will come out and join the fun. After all, when they see this snazzy poster that Dara designed for the event and that will be hanging all over town, how could they not be interested in finding out just what's up?



That art looks familiar.

Matt K.

Monday April 9, 2007 -- 5:44 p.m.

That's...RACIST!!!

But is it really? You decide. Apparently this political cartoon about Attorney General Alberto Gonzales by Tom Toles...



...is being blasted as racist by some, and being defended by others. The angriest detractors seem to be concentrated on this site although since that site is called "Newsbusters: Exposing and Combating Liberal Media Bias" it seems fairly obvious that they have some biases of their own. The opinion piece there is really pretty pedestrian, but the comments are richly amusing. My favorite was the poster who called Toles "a master of perpetuating Leftist lies." Sadly, there are only a few comments, and I really wish there were more. I never get tired of conservative venom.

Anyway, back to the cartoon. I usually don't like to comment on these things publicly (i.e. the internet) because I just don't think I have the knowledge base and skill set necessary to intelligently and critically address these controversial issues. So here I will pretty much just say that I can see why someone would think it's racist and an attack on a Mexican-American's perceived grasp of the English language. But honestly I also think that if that's what a reader sees then that reader is definitely projecting some of their own mindset on to a policical cartoon. If it's a reader who is sensitive to issues of language and accented speech, having been ridiculed or harassed because of that in his or her past, I feel very sympathetic. However if it's a reader who, like some of the commenters on the "Newsbusters" blog, see everything as a liberal attack on the nobility of conservative values, I feel like telling them they've got a severe persecution complex. The cartoon mostly seems to be an attack on Gonzales' integrity and intelligence, and not a jab at his ethnicity or ancestry, at least to me. Tom Spurgeon makes some much more intelligent points than I do, summing it up nicely by writing "Basically, though, it just seems to me in most cases like this there are usually a dozen or so explanations more likely than the cartoonist flipping his lid and making an unsavory joke. Cartoons take time; it's not a TV appearance where a slip of the tongue is possible."

I...am...TUROK!

Through a really byzantine series of rumors and message board postings, I've heard word that Dark Horse might finally be locking up the rights to begin a comprehensive archival reprint of the old Dell Comics and Gold Key Comics adventures of "Turok, Son of Stone," similar to their archive editions of Joe Kubert's "Tarzan" and Russ Manning's "Magnus, Robot Fighter." If this is true, this is indeed very very exciting news for me. I had a few of these comics laying around when I was a really young boy, and I never got tired of flipping through them. Basically, the comics were all about a Native American named Turok and his friend Andar who somehow got lost and then trapped in an isolated valley full of dinosaurs that, for some reason, they called honkers. Yep, two guys fighting dinosaurs. Pure bliss for the young Matt Kish. I really do hope these great comics see the light of day again, especially in a nice restored archival hardcover, and when you see these covers reproduced below you'll be right with me on this one. Check 'em out...



Man, just LOOK at that phantom honker! Damn, them's some good comics. But there's more...



Dinosaurs AND robots! I think I am going to faint with joy! So, keep your fingers crossed that these get made. I guess there are some really complicated rights issues with these. "Turok" was originally published by Western, then jumped to Dell, then to Gold Key, then lay dormant for a while until being re-launched by Acclaim in conjunction with the Nintendo videogame series. So who knows who owns what?

The only Dungeons & Dragons-themed comic anthology you need to be buy this April

Somehow, Fort Thunder managed to make Dungeons & Dragons cool again. Or something. The rest of the story is that several years ago cartoonist Jeffrey Brown, who is completely unrelated to Fort Thunder, conceived of a fantasy comics anthology that would focus on the work of alternative and indie artists. He labored on the project for a few years until he was too busy to see it through, and then passed it off to Francois Vigneault of Family Style who has finally, after much effort and several heartbreaking delays, been able to complete the anthology. So here it is, what might be the very first alternative comics pure fantasy anthology, Elfworld!!!



I am deeply ashamed to admit that I was able to identify Tiamat, Queen of the Dragons (from The Monster Manual no less!) on the back of that cover.

So why am I so excited about this? Well, groovy cover aside, the anthology really does contain the work of some remarkable cartoonists. High points in the stellar line-up are Jeffrey Brown, pinoy Martin Cendreda, K. Thor Jensen, Ron Rege Jr., Souther Salazar, Kazmir Strzepek and Partyka's own Matt Weigle. This book looks pretty tight. It'll be debuting at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco in just two weeks, but I believe you can get, or at least pre-order, a copy right now from publisher Family Style. The RPG geek in me is really looking forward to this little book even though I only played Dungeons & Dragons once 27 years ago. Ferrous the Mighty (1st level fighter) RULES!

Matt K.

Friday April 6, 2007 -- 6:17 p.m.

The Return of the King

Mark Evanier marinates on Jack "King" Kirby and his thoughts are well worth reading. Of particular note, and actually news to me, was his contention that when Kirby went to DC to launch "The New Gods," "Mister Miracle," "The Forever People," and to take over on "Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen" he had always envisioned his grand Fourth World Saga as something that would one day be collected as a hardcover book. To Kirby, the story was not one of issues and story arcs but one huge sweeping epic. As Evanier states, Kirby would probably be very pleased with DC's upcoming and long-awaited Fourth World Omnibus hardcover collections.

In that same piece, Evanier also shares the news that he has written the forward to Marvel's upcoming hardcover collection of the recent "Eternals" miniseries, written by Neil Gaiman with absolutely stellar Kirby-inspired art by John Romita Jr. That hardcover, and the first Fourth World Omnibus, are both scheduled to arrive in stores sometime in early May.

Finally, ALSO in that same piece, Evanier provides a link to publisher Harry N. Abrams, Inc.'s page for Kirby : King of Comics, the new hardcover art collection focusing on Jack. That page gives some useful information like the ISBN, the final price ($40.00), the page count (224 pages) and the dimensions (nice and big at 9" by 12 1/4"). No cover yet, and no official release date either. The page says May 2007 but I thought it was supposed to be much later in the year, so take that with a grain of salt. Also, that pages mentions that in July the U.S. Postal Service will unveil 20 stamps featuring Marvel Comics characters, 8 of which will feature Kirby art. Now the King can carry your mail too!

And speaking of Jack Kirby...

Johnny Ampersand, who you'd think was co-owner of this web site the way I've been going on and on about him lately, started this thing several years where periodically, for either Christmas or my birthday, he would make me a great big drawing on Bristol board of his interpretation of one of Kirby's classic characters. I can't remember which one came first, his fairly faithful interpretation of MODOK or his stunningly iconic and stripped down version of the Inhumans' King Black Bolt (that's Blackagar Boltagon for you purists). Black Bolt was awesomely rendered in a black Sharpie and purple crayon, which gives you an idea of how cool it looks.

Recently, Johnny presented me with an absolutely amazing vision of Kirby's Machine Man, once known as Mister Machine (in Marvel's "2001: A Space Odyssey" comic, of all things), sometimes known as X-51 or Aaron Stack. First, some reference. Here is a Kirby "Machine Man" cover...



Cool, huh? Now feast your eye's on Johnny's rendition...



The scanned image, even at 150dpi, just doesn't do justice to the complexity and density of Johnny's drawing. You really need to see all that circuitry and machinery in person to understand what Johnny has created with this piece. And this thing is big too, at 11" by 14." It's next in the queue for framing, soon to gaze out at me daily from my wall.

More Powr Mastrs

Yesterday, since I found out the correct spelling of CF's upcoming graphic novel Powr Mastrs, I Googled it to see if I could learn any more about it. As expected, there was next to nothing. But guess what? I learned that CF himself will have a table at SPX in October and that I might actually be able to buy the graphic novel from him! It is tempting to think about all the things I'd like to say, but I'll probably just hand him the money, smile, say "Thanks, man" and wander back to my own table. It's hard to know what to say to artists you really like.

Matt K.

Thursday April 5, 2007 -- 5:29 p.m.

Update to Comics & Books of Note for 2007

I just found out that Dan Nadel of PictureBox Inc. has a Flickr account and there are some interesting photos there, including a "goofy" pic of him in his Brooklyn office. I had no idea he looked like that.

The best part was seeing some of the finished covers for two upcoming PictureBox Inc. releases I mentioned in the April 3 update down below. First is the finished cover for collage artist Brian Belott's monograph Wipe That Clock Off Your Face...



I guess the image I first posted was just one of the pieces of art from the book. I also discovered that The Comics Journal and I both had the title of the upcoming graphic novel by CF slightly wrong. It's not called Power Masters, it's called Powr Mastrs which, somehow, seems even more awesome to me. The graphic novel is slated for a September release (just in time for me to buy it at SPX) and here is the final cover, which is magnificently obtuse...



For some reason, the cover reminds me of those strange, cheaply published pseudo-mystic new agey paperback books about the mysteries of Atlantis or the healing powers of crystal skulls from the 1970s. Whenever you opened them, your nose always got a blast of incense since those books had spent so much time in a smoky hippie bookstore that the cheap pulp just soaked every bit of nag champa right into the fiber of the paper. I think the garish orange and turquoise color scheme and the cheap looking pseudo-Sanskrit font has a lot to do with it as well, and the whole thing just looks really awesome. If this book doesn't come to me reeking of incense I am going to drench it in aromatic smoke until it does. And if you are curious about my enthusiasm for this book or for CF in general, here are a few images from an earlier comic of his called "Low Tide," issue #8. First, the cover...



And some interior art...



Man, this book and Fletcher Hanks' I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets are already early candidates for "Book of the Year" and I feel fairly positive both will end up on my "Best Books of 2007" list.

The book Beasts! and the terrible power of the "Axis of Beauty"

Speaking of best books lists, Beasts!, an amazing art book from Fantagraphics that I have been going on and on about rather ceaselessly for months now is suddenly all over the news. Apparently, it is now completely sold out of its admittedly very small 3000 copy print run (good thing you snagged your copy when you did Kyle), it made the Must-Have list last month in "Entertainment Weekly," and is now at the center of the hotly debated "Axis of Beauty," a term coined (I think) by Heidi MacDonald.

First, Beasts! gets a nice write-up from Sarah Dahnke in New City Chicago. Her piece gives a brief rundown of the making of the book and some info on the hows and whys of the quick sell-through of the entire run.

Over at The Beat, Heidi MacDonald adds her thoughts, including her feeling that the book is tailor-made for "the alternative retail market emerging at a few trend-setting shops in hipster towns," something she later seems to label as the new Axis of Beauty. I can't decide if her contention that Beasts! has somehow been so successful simply because it taps into an emerging social and commercial movement with a lot of disposable income and a predilection toward vinyl toys, Japanese magazines, and silkscreened concert posters is accurate, disappointing, off the mark, petty, or somehow a combination of them all. She does cite the rising profile of several of the "book as object" publishers like (yeah, you knew this was coming) PictureBox Inc., Drawn & Quarterly and Fantagraphics, but I tend to think she is pointing a lot of not entirely celebratory fingers at something she calls "Nerd Culture," a term I don't think I've ever completely understood.

For his part, Beasts! curator Jacob Covey, the man who initially conceived of the project and saw it through to completion, chimes in with a rather lengthy and surprisingly weighty refutation of some of the less than positive accusations over on the Fantagraphics FLOG Blog. While he makes some excellent points, he also spent an inordinate amount of time busting his ass to put the book together, so his feelings are obviously going to be a bit biased.

I'm personally a bit torn. I do adore Beasts! and I love flipping through it often. The art is wonderful and the book is beautifully designed. But I am also instinctually wary of anything that smacks of "the next big thing." It's funny in a way because this kind of heightened visibility and greater financial reward could be the impetus for greenlighting lots of new books, art and other projects that might never have seen the light of day otherwise. But it could also result in that strange sort of corporate co-opting that so often occurs, and soon instead of just seeing more really great books like Beasts! and Brian Chippendale's Ninja, we end up victimized by Fort Thunder t-shirts sold by Old Navy, $3000 limited edition Adidas sneakers designed by Mat Brinkman, and all sorts of other "cash-ins" (as Jacob Covey refers to the concept) from companies looking to make a quick buck from the hipsters and their bottomless credit lines.

Matt K.

Wednesday April 4, 2007 -- 6:25 p.m.

You can go home again

Listen. Let me tell you a little story. This is a longer one, but read on because there is a big payoff at the end, plus some comics of mine that I can pretty much guarantee you have never ever seen before.

In the mid-1990s after a short stint teaching English in a public high school west of Cleveland, Ohio I drifted south for an even shorter stint as a substitute teacher in Columbus, Ohio. Eventually, I started working part-time for a large national retail bookstore chain. I won't bore you with details but the initials of that bookstore were "B" and "N." The part-time position became a full-time position and soon substitute teaching was nothing but a bitter and unpleasant memory. Through diligence, hard work, and perseverance I was soon promoted to lead bookseller, then department manager, and finally to assistant manager. Actually, I'm lying. The truth is that since I hung around longer than just about anyone else, did my job reasonably well and almost never called in sick, I was soon promoted to lead bookseller, then department manager, and finally to assistant manager.

The job itself was a mixed bag. I liked my co-workers a great deal and made some lasting friendships. I worked under several managers and with the exception of one, I liked them all well enough. Working with books was and has always been a pleasure, and the employee discount was helpful even if it was not overly generous. However, as the weeks turned into months and the months turned into years, a kind of malaise set in. I had a college degree that was gathering dust, and I was spending a decent portion of every weekend and several weeknights working in what amounted to customer service. The salary was not terribly competitive and the company was becoming more and more corporate. Did I really want to spend my life in retail management?

This was probably around 1997 or 1998 and I was rather disenchanted with things. I knew that I was the only one accountable for my situation, and I blamed no one but myself. But what to do? I was reasonably content enough to remain complacent, and although I had more or less given up art and drawing many years prior, I was heavily involved in my own photography. I began to justify my less-than-thrilling "career" and my less-than-stellar salary as things that made ends meet and gave me the freedom to pursue my creative photographic endeavors. And then came Johnny.

After I became an assistant manager, I had a hand in interviewing and hiring new employees, although I believe it was the other assistant manager who actually interviewed and hired this guy Johnny Ampersand. I don't remember him starting but I do remember becoming aware of him pretty quickly though, and let me tell you he was an odd one.

I found out that he was from Kentucky! That's like a punchline or something. He didn't have much of an accent, but every now and then something would slip out in kind of a drawl. And to top this all off, he had a funny haircut, a weird little goatee on the end of his chin, and strange ears. I was all set to be merciless to this guy, so I started ribbing him right away. Only as soon as we started talking, we realized we actually had quite a bit in common. Don't get me wrong, I still ripped on him a lot. Too much, honestly. I look back on those times and I'm ashamed of how insensitive and even cruel I was to him. I accused him of living in a "holler" in Kentucky, long after it was verified by other Kentuckians that his hometown was most definitely not in a "holler." I would tell him I was amazed he wore shoes every day instead of just on Sunday like other Kentuckians. I made sure I very carefully explained to him what electricity was and what a computer was since I knew he didn't have them in Kentucky. I was awful. I was definitely always joking around with him, but in retrospect, the fact that he had just moved to Columbus from out of state, knew next to no one in the area, and was just starting a job at a bookstore with a fairly entrenched culture and a long-serving permanent staff made my joking really insensitive.

The thing is Johnny just sucked it up like a sponge. He never lashed out at me, never really ripped on me, never stopped being nice to me, and never really made a big deal of it all. It was amazing. He was, with a few very minor exceptions, incredibly even-tempered, amiable, and friendly. He became a kind of Buddha figure to me with his ability to let suffering and cruelty pass right through him. It was weird.

But we did actually have a lot in common. I can't remember how it first came up, but I think I mentioned Mike Mignola's comic "Hellboy" and he knew what it was. That led to the inevitable, stunned "You read comics too?" conversation between us, and gradually it slipped out that we were both huge fans of Jack "King" Kirby and the old "Fantastic Four." We warmly agreed that back when Stan and Jack were on the book, it truly was "The World's Greatest Comic" as the cover banner proclaimed.

Over the weeks and months that followed, Johnny gradually shared that he had been drawing comics, both on his own and with his long-time friend Despicable Frankenstein (sometimes known as Doorknob Fondler and others) for most of his life. He showed me some of his pages and his characters, and they were amazing. Chappy Chapstick. Fuzzball & Scuzzball. The BarnBots. The Swimmin' Mole. Rad Dude. And on and on. Johnny had what seemed like hundreds of pages of hilarious and sometimes hilariously awful comics stretching back to his childhood.

Several things happened at about the same time then. First, as assistant manager, I was the one passed out the paychecks every Thursday. At the suggestion of the manager, I started typing up a one-page bulletin of important store news and information and stapled this to every employee's check. We figured that this was the quickest way to keep everyone in the store informed. After a while, I got bored with the rather pedestrian nature of the "bookseller news" as the bulletin came to be called, and I started inserting all sorts of random stuff like jokes, trivia, non-sequiturs and literature excerpts into the text. There was little response from the staff though, other than a few dismissive "What's this crap?" kind of remarks.

Also at this time, my conversations with Johnny about comics had drifted into a "What's wrong with comics today?" direction, and I was the one doing most of the bitching and moaning. Finally, either to silence me or genuinely challenge me, Johnny dared me and said "If you think it's so easy, why don't you make your own comic?" That kind of shut me up, and while that single remark was ultimately the genesis of Spudd 64 and this web site, there was a prologue to the story that until now, very few of you ever knew about.

After thinking about it for a few days, Johnny and I decided to start doing a weekly comic strip and to include it with the "bookseller news" that we stapled to each employee's paycheck every Thursday. After a lot of haggling, we settled on the title "Don't Quit Yer Day Job!" Over time, the strip grew from a crappy little throwaway thing into an ongoing weekly serial with a real plot, a complicated cast of dozens, and loads of big action. We had a blast working on it. We cranked that thing out week after week after week and never missed a deadline. I had the easiest job, since all I did was throw around suggestions and ideas for the story and letter the whole thing. Johnny would take our ideas, rough out the page, actually write the whole thing including the dialogue, and then pass it on to me. I would letter everything, add the logo, and then give it back to him so he could ink it and polish it off. Later on, I ended up doing some of the inking, and I even drew a few weekly strips myself but they were absolutely horrendous. You'll see soon, and you'll have the grisly privilege of viewing the first page of comic book art I ever drew, a little under a decade ago. Trust me, it is totally craptacular. We never really asked for permission to do this from the manager, and given the almost traitorously anti-corporate tone the later strips took, I am now convinced that she was either in deep denial of the existence of the strip or a state of blissful ignorance. Either way, it is absolutely shocking what Johnny and I were able to get away with stapling to every employee's paycheck.

When it became clear that "Don't Quit Yer Day Job!" was becoming an ongoing story, Johnny and I decided to actually collect it into two full length comic books. The first issue had a full-color cover and loads of DVD-style extras like sketches, abandoned strips, and more, clocking in at around 48 pages or so. The second issue had a black and white cover and was only around 24 pages, but it was a lot cheaper too. Plus it wrapped up the first story arc. Seriously. We had a story arc.

Recently, I was talking to Johnny (yes, we have remained great friends for all these years, and he still one of the best friends I've ever had) and I was telling him how I was becoming disenchanted with comics again, especially with small press comics and the whole indie scene. I felt like everyone was either out to make a buck and use the small press as a steppingstone to a career working for Marvel or DC or was just involved in some incestuous art scene full of cliques and hipster mentality. My previous online strip "Spaceman" had just been aborted and I wasn't feeling too inspired to do much of anything. In a way, I was tired of the competition, tired of feeling like everyone had to like my comics or I was failing, and tired of the worry and stress. It sucked.

And like magic, Johnny and I ended up deciding to work together again on a brand new weekly strip, just like the days of "Don't Quit Yer Day Job!" We came up with an idea, a title, and a main character almost right away and he hammered out the first 9 pages of the script like lightning. It's called "Pilgrimage : The Transmigration of Hank Ferguson," and it'll have it's own section on this web site. It's going to be all hand-drawn and handmade, very low tech and DIY with no digital assistance at all, kind of like our old strip "Don't Quit Yer Day Job!" We're keeping it black and white because we've sworn never to put ourselves through the stress and pressure of trying to print this thing and take it to small press shows and cons to sell, but we do want to be able to xerox up a bunch of copies and give them to our friends. Here's the logo...



You'll see the strip soon, and learn more about it.

Matt K.

Wednesday April 4, 2007 -- 6:25 a.m.

Ferret Press / PANEL Blog 4 Year Anniversary Extravaganza!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Columbus, OH - The official group blog of the writers and artists of Ferret Press (a publisher of fine comix) and PANEL (a Columbus, Ohio comic creators collective) is celebrating its 4th anniversary. To commemorate the event, the blog will feature tons of daily content, artwork, pictures, and a few extra surprises during the first week of April.

"We started our blog this week 4 years ago, as a casual, informal forum for creative expression," said Ferret Press publisher and PANEL co-founder Dara Naraghi. The blog features daily musings on comics, art, the creative process, politics, the web, and life in general. To celebrate the milestone, the creators on the blog have planned an explosion of content for the entire week, including:

---Additional episodes of the popular feature "Monday Morning Guess the Artist," wherein a page of comic art from the early career of some of today's big name artists is posted, and readers try to guess the name based on the not-so-easily recognized style.

---More of Craig Bogart's "Way Back Machine", wherein he reviews great Marvel and DC books from decades ago.

---Lots of artwork posted by the various creators in the PANEL collective.

In addition, for the duration of the week of April 3rd, all Ferret Press comix available for purchase via the website will include free shipping! Check out all the happenings at here!

Columbus-based Ferret Press was founded in 2002 and is a publisher of fine small press comic books. It embraces the spirit of independent comics and self-publishing, and enjoys a close relationship with the writers and artists collaborative known as PANEL. More information, as well as previews of various projects, can be found Ferret Press.

Matt K.

Tuesday April 3, 2007 -- 5:52 p.m.

First, and by far most importantly, I want to wish my brother Josh a very happy birthday today. Josh, we don't communicate nearly as often as we should, something that I am largely to blame for, but I think of you more than you might ever guess and have nothing but love and respect for you. Try and have a good time on your birthday, get out of the lab, and don't work so damn hard. I'll light up a birthday blizzy for you and make a retarded noise. Peace, bro.



And now, the rest of the update...

Comics & Books of Note for Wednesday April 4, 2007

I forgot to do this last week. Sorry about that. Two books to mention this week. First is a trade paperback reprinting the Six From Sirius miniseries by writer Doug Moench and artist Paul Gulacy. This was a comic from Marvel's long gone but never forgotten Epic Comics imprint in the 1980s. I don't remember having read much of Six From Sirius but I can definitely remember the art which always looked like a sort of hyper-futuristic 1970's version of a chromed-out space opera complete with stylish Italian designer space-suits and sideburns. I'm curious to take a look at the book again and to actually read through it more thoroughly this time. There's a decent articoe on the collection at Newsarama right here that's well worth checking out for the art previews alone. This cover should also give you a decent feel for what the book is like...



Second is the sixth volume in Vertical Inc.'s reprinting of Osamu Tezuka's eight volume Buddha, entitled "Ananda." They finished the hardcovers last year and have been putting out less expensive but equally beautiful paperback editions. I just can't say enough about how good these books are, and they are well worth repeated reads.



Get 'em while they're hot.

Comics & Books of Note for 2007

In the January 2007 issue of "The Comics Journal" there is a brief rundown of some of the larger publishers' more notable books planned for 2007. There are some very intriguing titles on the horizon, so here are a few of the high notes broken down seasonally and by publisher.

SPRING 2007

Buenaventura Press will release Elvis Road by Xavier Robel and Helge Reumann of Elvis Studio. Elvis Road will measure 12 1/2" by 9" and is an accordion-style book that will expand to over 25 feet of incredibly densely illustrated cartooning. I could only find a tiny image online, but it might give you an idea of what to expect from this monster...



Fantagraphics will publish a wonderful hardcover collection of comics and art from legendary Dutch creator Joost Swarte titled Modern Swarte. Apparently they've been working on this for quite some time and are taking great care in recontructing and reproducing the art and colors. It should be quite beautiful, I think. Again, if you are not familiar with Swarte's work, this cover should give you an idea of his style, which draws from Tintin creator Herge's "clear line" aesthetic...



My favorite and soon to be yours, the mighty PictureBox Inc. gives the world a full color compendium of Brian Belott's art, drawings, collages, assemblages, found photography, and even sound and image mixing (on an accompanying DVD) in a book titled Wipe That Clock Off Your Face. That's an awesome title, and this should be an awesome book. Peep it...




SUMMER 2007

Fantagraphics has got two great ones lined up for the summer. First up is a collection of artist and animator Walt Holcombe's comics called Things Just Get Away From You which will contain some excerpts from his short-lived comic book "Poot" as well as new work. I love that title. Things really do just get away from you, don't they? It also sports an exceptionally striking kelly green cover...



Also arriving from Fantagraphics in June is Paul Karasik's long awaited collection of the "Stardust the Super Wizard" comics of Fletcher Hanks, titled I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets. I've seen a new cover design for this, but it was only a tiny little thumbnail in a print copy of their catalog so I couldn't scan it. The cover below is decent, and a good preview of the art of Fletcher Hanks, but the new cover is so strikingly minimal that it approaches the bizarrely abstract. I hope they go with the new one, but here is the old...



Every time I mention the title I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets to Rudy, she just stares at me matter-of-factly and says "That would just be Earth then" and walks away. She'll see. She'll soon have to accept the titanic genius of Fletcher Hanks and his Stardust the Super Wizard before it destroys her.

Aw yeah, here we go. It's PictureBox Inc. again, my friends. This time, a new ongoing comic book called "The Dizzler Comics and Stories" by Amy Lockhart, with a backup feature by one of my all time favorites Marc Bell. One of Amy's paintings was on the cover of the recently released Nog-A-Dod : Prehistoric Canadian Psychedoolia collection of zines and minicomics from the fertile Vancouver scene, so I'm not sure what to expect from her comics work. Anything that includes Marc Bell (Gravy World!) is alright with me though. I was able to unearth a possible cover for the first issue...




FALL 2007

Understandably, information on the titles that follow is still very vague. I couldn't find any cover images or art to go along with them either, but I imagine that will change as we move closer to publication dates.

Drawn & Quarterly will be putting out something called 365 Days : A Diary by Julie Doucet. Given her recent and rather public announcement that she will no longer be making any comics, I would guess that this will be an art collection. Perhaps something like a collection of 365 daily drawings. No date for this one yet.

Also from Drawn & Quarterly, sometime in September or October, the long awaited second collection of Tove Jansson's enchanting "Moomin" comics titled, appropriately enough, Moomin : The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip - Book Two. How many "Best of 2006" lists did the first volume end up on, both within the world of comics journalism and in the greater book publishing world at large? Lots! And how many people, including good friends and coworkers, ripped on me mercilessly and endlessly and ridiculed my taste in comics and art because of how excited I was about this book? Lots! Ready for round two, you punkasses?

Last, two more from the publisher I would marry if it wasn't for the brilliant and wonderful Rudy, PictureBox Inc. The first should definitely interest my good friend and boon companion Aaron because it looks like there will FINALLY be a publication of Brian Chippendale's Maggots collection. Things get a bit confusing though because when Maggots was first announced several years ago by the now-defunct Highwater Books it was supposed to be a 390 page brick of a book. PictureBox lists their version as being 200 pages, but since no book dimensions are given it is difficult to say right now whether they are trimming the content or simply reformatting some of the interior pages to lessen the page count. Time will tell. But Maggots! The moment we've longed for is finally here Aaron!

Maggots will be followed in late autumn by something called Power Masters by the enigmatic artist CF. I don't know much about CF (no one really seems to) and I know even less about Power Masters (beyond the fact that it too has an awesome title) but I've seen some of CF's work online an it is pretty brain-curdling stuff. This one should pour some gravy on your brain, especially if it is a color publication.

That's all for now. Tomorrow evening (I promise) there will be some art FROM ME!!! Additionally, an intriguing announcement and a curious page of comics, also FROM ME!!! Tune in then.

Matt K.

Monday April 2, 2007 -- 5:58 p.m.

Bits and Pieces

---The Ferret Press / PANEL blog celebrates 4 years of posting this week so click on over and check 'em out. Dara tells me they have some special plans for the week, and the blog is always an entertaining read no matter what the occasion. I read it daily.

---Tom Spurgeon's got a great list of his "Top 50 Comics Publications for the Calendar Year 2006" right here. There's so much great stuff on that list, and I would have chosen an awful lot of the same titles. It's nice to see Tezuka's Ode to Kirihito, Strzepek's The Mourning Star and of course my favorite, Tove Jansson's Moomin: The Complete Comic Strip, Book One get some big attention like this. See! I told all you busters that Moomin was great! I know, I know. Just opinions. Very true, very true. Spurgeon and I seem to share pretty similar opinions about what we think are good comics.

---Artist Paul Pope blogs about his new and long-awaited (by me, anyway) art monograph entitled PulpHope, why the book has to be shrinkwrapped, and how he narrowly avoided getting an "adults only" tag slapped on it right here. For some reason, in spite of his rampant objectification of women and obviously lecherous leanings, I really absolutely love Paul Pope's art. He's just got it down, and I can't fade him. Rudy, on the other hand, despises him as well as his art. In her words, "He's just a different kind of pig." I guess I can't argue with that. But I'm still getting the book.

Reviews are a bitch...

Seriously. I've had a love-hate relationship with The Review ever since I started working in a comic store. I know someone that wrote them (and maybe still does, although I don't think he is publishing them any longer) and we used to argue, sometimes ferociously, over what he saw as an important aesthetic endeavor and what I saw as self-involved opinion-vomiting. To be fair, he did help me understand the crucial differences between a review and a critique, but since someone who writes movie reviews is generally called a movie critic, and someone who writes restaurant reviews is generally called a food critic, and so on, that distinction has become increasingly blurred by semantics and mob thinking.

But there is a point to this.

I'm not at all fond of the music of Conor Oberst, who is sometimes better known as Bright Eyes. What I've heard of his music has been, to me, mindlessly self-indulgent, grotesquely egocentric, maudlin, juvenile, common and ploddingly dull. I'm not a reviewer, that's just my personal opinion, and if you like Bright Eyes than that's totally fine. Everyone likes different things, and in the end it's all just music. Bright Eyes has two new releases coming out, an EP titled "Four Winds" and a full length CD titled "Cassadaga." I had to deal with purchasing copies of this for my job, and the decision on how many to buy and where to put them always involves some research and reading of reviews. I generally consult two very credible online sources for music reviews, AllMusic.com and Pitchfork Media with the occasional Amazon user reviews thrown in to get an idea of what consumers think.

AllMusic.com is a very useful and encyclopedic online database with reliable and accurate information on an exhaustive array of artists and albums. The content generally comes from established critics, reviewers, and music journalists and the site has its roots in a print resource called the All Music Guide. Since AllMusic.com is a not-for-profit non-retail web site, the material is for the most part quite reliable and useful, and the site has a history dating back over a decade. Generally, each artist's entry will consist of a short "overview" essay and rated reviews of each of their releases.

Pitchfork Media, an online publication that is updated daily, has an admitted slant toward independent and alternative music, but those categorizations are extremely broad and encompass a great deal of what is sold, played on the radio, and downloaded by American music consumers. While Pitchfork Media has endured its share of criticism for a perceived, and probably accurate, elitist attitude and its power in making or breaking performers based on the reviews the web site assigns to each new release, overall the quality and credibility of the writing and reviews is solid. The content comes predominantly from freelance music journalists and reviewers, but it is generally an accurate reflection of the popularity of an artist although whether this is actually measured by the site or a product of the site's content is up for debate.

In any case, in the world of pop music, both of these sites are among the best online resources for doing the kind of sales and popularity research that I need to do for my job. All of which brings us right back around to Bright Eyes and why reviews are really just a bitch.

First, an excerpt from a review of Bright Eyes' 2005 releases "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" and "Digital Ash in a Digital Urn" from the very respected and credible Pitchfork Media...

The straight-from-the-diary lyrics, the sudden screams and that hiccuping vibrato-- the qualities that make him seem raw and, to some, risible-- are also striking and awesome. Oberst is a strange hybrid: He's undeniably a pop star, and also undeniably an indie rocker. On the pop side, he has what music journalist Simon Reynolds identified as the power to compel your gaze, and when he gets it, those wet, penetrating eyes stare straight back. I know it makes me uncomfortable; why can't he just look at his feet and fumble with his guitar and murmur his songs from a distance?

And continuing from the same review...

...memories of staying in New York City, and the metropolis rarely gets a folk singer to chronicle its streets this lucidly, at least since the hootenanny days; he frequents its parties and stumbles down its streets like a Midwestern transplant instead of a jaded hipster, sings about chemical dependency and the endless pains of love, while capturing as a backdrop the build-up to a foreign war. "I'm Wide Awake" weaves the personal and the political more fluidly than most singers even care to try, and the consummate tunefulness just strengthens those moments where he pinches a nerve-- the songs that still give me chills every time, like "At the Bottom of Everything": "Into the face of every criminal strapped firmly to a chair/ We must stare, we must stare, we must stare."

Next, an excerpt from a review of Bright Eyes' 2005 releases "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" and "Digital Ash in a Digital Urn" from the very respected and credible AllMusic.com...

...he isolates the country-rock confessionals on the former and saves the messy modernistic indie rock for the latter, as if to counter the criticisms that he can't focus. "I'm Wide Awake" is designed as a nakedly honest singer/songwriter album, somewhat inspired by the classics of the genre in the '70s — he even recruits Emmylou Harris for some harmonies, hoping that some of the old Gram Parsons magic will rub off — but its directness reveals that the emperor has no clothes. Stripped of the careening, dramatic, meandering arrangements of "Lifted," Oberst's music seems not simpler, but simplistic, the plodding music acting as a bed for monochromatic melodies that merely serve as a delivery mechanism for all those words he's poured out on the page. Far from being the second coming of Dylan, Oberst is as precious as Paul Simon, but without any sense of rhyme or meter or gift for imagery, puking out lines filled with cheap metaphors and clumsy words that don't scan. Supporters excuse this as soul searching, but the heavy-handed pretension in the words and the affectedness in his delivery — not to mention the quavering bleat that's halfway between Feargal Sharkey and the Dead Milkmen's Rodney Anonymous — give the whole enterprise a sense of phoniness that's only enhanced by its unadorned production. When Oberst was swallowed in the deliberate grandeur of Lifted, his drama-queen theatrics fit the music, but here, they expose him for the shallow poseur he is. As the record winds down, it's clear that Bright Eyes is little more than a pretty boy in a sweater whose idea of being clever is appropriating Beethoven's Ode to Joy for "Road to Joy" — a move that makes you grateful that Billy Joel at least knew enough Beethoven to steal a lesser-known melody for "This Night" (and, being the standup guy that he is, Billy gave him a co-writing credit, something Conor doesn't do here).

And continuing from the same review...

...since Oberst lacks the most basic musical skill, which is to know how to make music sound good on a sheer sonic level, "Digital Ash" collapses in a mess of preening pretension. And don't chalk up its weakness to youth, either, or suggest that he'll get better with age. Paul McCartney was 22 at the height of Beatlemania. At the age of 23, Dylan made "Bringing It All Back Home," Neil Young released "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere," and Jackson Browne cut his debut. Kurt Cobain was 24 when Nirvana recorded "Nevermind," the same age Conor Oberst was when he released the pair of albums that prove without a shadow of a doubt that instead of reaching musical maturity, he's wallowing in a perpetual adolescence.

Spla-DOW!!! I guess the lesson to be learned from this has nothing to do, really, with Conor Oberst or his CDs, and everything to do with reviewers and their reviews. It's embarrassing to confess that I have read the small handful of reviews of my comics, and read them rather eagerly. In the past, the negative reviews hurt, even when they were accurate assessments of the weaknesses and shortcomings of my comics. Conversely, the positive reviews thrilled me, even when they were less than accurate about the strengths of my comics. But in the end, a review is simply an opinion. That's it. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is either confusing a review with a critical assessment, slavishly adhering to whatever the reviewer that they idolize has to say about something, or just a fucking moron. So go ahead and read those movie / CD / DVD / book / comic reviews. Revel in 'em. Make your purchasing and reading and viewing decisions based on them. But always remember, they're really just nothing more than opinions, something you can find in your own head absolutely free and with just a little bit of thinking. You can even get them from your friends, and the benefit there is that your friends probably know you better so will be able to tell you what you might and might not like about something, and you can always ask them more questions. In the end, you really don't have a lot to lose. I've purchased CDs that I thought I would like, that were very favorably reviewed, and been really disappointed. I've gone to see movies that had fairly lousy reviews and seemed only marginally entertaining and been very pleasantly surprised. You know what you like better than anyone else does, so think for yourself.

Jeez, I'm sorry if that turned into some kind of preachy soapbox. I didn't mean it to sound that way. I was just really kind of shocked to see such diametrically opposed reviews from two very credible alternative music reviewers the same incredibly popular performer. It really opened my eyes.

Matt K.