My super-talented pal Rob Harrell’s first graphic novel, Monster on the Hill, is out. And he’ll be at the Top Shelf booth at the San Diego Comic Con next week. If you picked up Top Shelf’s comic on Free Comic Book Day in May you saw a snippet of the story (plus Ron did the cover). Stop by and say hi.
So I saw the movie Kick Ass, then read the book Kick Ass, now have read the book Kick Ass 2 before the movie Kick Ass 2 comes out. So I’m all set, right? You’d think so but when I got to the end of KA2, it stated that it was the end of book 3. Whatinthewhonow? Seems there a prequel book I missed somewhere. Ug.
So it’s been a week since New Year’s Day – I guess we could agree that the holidays are now officially over. (Our Christmas lights still being up is not a reliable indicator because, y’know, it’s not April yet.)
My holidays included the following:
Baklava
Multiple trips to Target
Fever and vomiting
Meatless duck
Pez in stockings
Meeting some in-laws for the first time (after 12 years with my wife)
A facefull of wet sand
Russian tea cakes
And a teleporting dog
Cartoon-wise, my sister-in-law gave me Craig Thompson’s new graphic novel Habibi, my toddler gave me a DVD of Kick-Ass and I gave myself a Captain America lunchbox. (Almost-superhero-but-not-comics gift: the sequel to the pakour action movie District B-13 (also known as “the French jumping movie”) from my father-in-law. Humor-but-not-comics gift: John Hodgman’s new book That Is All from my wife.)
On New Year’s Day I went to my fav comic book store, Comix Connections for their “progressive sale” where every day selected items are discounted more and more. I went there the last day when it was 90% off. I usually don’t wait this long for fear of it being picked over. But I did pretty good.
On my way home that night I stopped at Ollie’s Bargain Outlet and found the above high-end Al Jaffee book for just $2.99. A bargain indeed, so if you’re in the east stop into one of the stores. It’s a new year and you might have some good luck.
Been delving into some autobiographical comics for grad school.
And I didn’t realize till this very moment that both of these books have “…and me” titles.
This is a collection of Adrian Tomine’s Optic Nerve, a mostly self-published mini-comic that he started in high school. This fact was a surprise to his future editor at Drawn & Quarterly, since his work was already mature. (I mean to say, sophisticated, not naughty.)
This is actually a revised collection. Tomine was not thrilled with the slickness of the first collection – it was too unlike the roughness of the original mostly Xeroxed issues. So this is a boxed set of that contains reproductions of the these publications.
This a very interesting French graphic novel that is a noir-ish, innocent-man-in-trouble with an unlikable main character…which calls back to the films of the French New Wave when American genres were being reimagined.
From pal Pat Lewis, a really fun collection of stories of “broads and monsters,” just like it says on the cover. Find it. Buy it. Read it.
Found this in a discount store. Actual quote from the back of the box: “Sometimes winning a board game means killing a lot of people.”
A quite fascinating experiment. Clowes changes styles on each page, as each page moves the narrative along episodically. Pick it up.
(I don’t mean to make this sound as dry as I did. I’m doing a lot of grad school writing at the moment and it’s leaking out into regular life in the oddest ways.)
I was in NYC last week to do a cartoon/straight jacket presentation (not kidding) and, of course, stopped at the fabulous Strand Bookstore, where everything is discounted. They had volumes 2, 3, 5 and 6. I already have 1, so I bought 4 for full-price (shudder) at another comic shop. It was really great. Can’t wait to see the film version once it gets to DVD since it left theaters soooooo fast.
Kovaleski (the blog of a cartoonist named John) 