Spectophilia

Do you find yourself making passes at girls/boys who wear glasses? Browsing for vintage frames on the internet? Weak in the knees for all things glasses related? Well, there’s a zine/comics anthology for you!

Robyn Chapman, probably best known for the True Porn anthology series from Alternative Comics has just released the second issue of her zine Hey, 4-Eyes, a collection of comics, photos, and essays by and for the bespectacled and those who love them. The first issue was excellent, featuring a screenprinted cover (artwork by Derek Kirk Kim) made from a manila folder, comics by Jonathan Bennett, interviwes, and more crammed into 44 pages. The second issue is twice the size for less than twice the price, and features some of my favorite cartoonists, including Aaron Renier, Kaz Strzepek, and Liz Prince, among others. There are previews and more information (including how to purchase!) on the zine’s MySpace page, if you’re so inclined. There’s even going to be a release party at a biker bar here in Seattle on August 9th.

OK, enough from me. Go buy it! Now!

Knee Deep In Comic Goodness

I am sure it is obvious (and fairly annoying) how smitten we are with Seattle a mere six months or so into our hometown conversion. And I swear one day we will stop being so in love and move into that no-shaving, lounging on the couch in sweats, chewing with our mouth open phase. But until then I insist that Seattle is the hottest thing around, as it seems as though each week a new comic event pops up to remind us how nice it is to live here.

This week Seattle brings to our doorstep Alison Bechdel, who will be doing TWO events on her Fun Home tour:
Friday June 16
University Book Store, 7:00PM

Saturday June 17
Third Place Books, drop-by signing, 2:00 PM
Bailey Coy Books, 7:00 PM (This will take place at The Wild Rose Bar, 1021 E. Pike Street, Seattle 206.324.9210 )

Lucky us, right?!? Check out her tour page to see if she will be gracing your city as well.

If you need a refresher on how much I love Alison, check out the previous post I did about a few books in her Dykes to Watch Out For series. She’s an awesome cartoonist and makes me a bit weak in the knees. Just like Seattle.

Marjane Satrapi in Seattle

Of all the amazing work being done in the comics medium today, very few books bubble up from the comics-reading audience into the mainstream of literary recognition. While books like Love & Rockets, or more commonly, Watchmen, might get name-checked in periodic “Blam! Pow! Comics Aren’t for Kids Anymore!” articles, and books like Blankets sometimes show up on adventurous year-end lists, not many comics manage to grab a foothold in that mainstream. Even though we have work like Chester Brown’s Louis Riel, and Joe Sacco’s “comics journalism” in Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde, only Speigelman’s Maus seems to have any enduring presence in the minds of the general populace.

In light of this, it was great to see a packed house at Seattle’s Town Hall (also the site of a recent Harvey Pekar appearance) for Marjane Satrapi’s appearance, the final event in Seattle Public Library’s “Seattle Reads Persepolis” series.

After a brief introduction from one of the event organizers, Marjane took over the stage. She had a lot to say, and said it very quickly, in a seemingly unbroken stream of ideas delivered in a fluent, but heavily accented English, drawing frequent laughter and applause from the crowd. It was a wide ranging talk, beginning with her recently gained French citizenship, and how having a French passport has changed the way she’s treated while traveling. Apparently, an Iranian passport will get you asked what kind of weapons you’re carrying, while a French passport prompts questions about what kind of cheese you have with you.

She spoke a lot about why Persepolis, her memoir of childhood in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, was created as a comic (because the universality of images helped her communicate her story to a wider audience, and because the process of writing seemed linked with the drawing to her), and also about some of her choices in the structure and style of the book. For example, her decision to make the story black and white was partly motivated out of a desire to keep the violent scenes more abstract, feeling that the use of red for blood in theses scenes would rob the victims of some human dignity, turning them into “a piece of meat” on the page.

She also discussed some of the reaction to her choice of medium, including a couple of witty moments, like comparing cartoonists to bisexuals (to paraphrase: “You’re heterosexual? Fine, no one has a problem. Homosexual? OK. But if you can’t choose between sexes, or between words and pictures, then people have a problem!”), and her response to people asking why she didn’t just write a book (again, paraphrasing: “But I did! I just used pictures to write it. Nobody asks the filmmakers ‘Why didn’t you dance instead?’ or asks writers why they didn’t paint a picture”).

There was a lot of talk devoted to Iran, touching briefly on it’s history and it’s impact on Marjane herself. She made it a point to tell us that, even though she had recently become a French citizen, she still considers herself Iranian, or at least considers Iran a part of her (I can’t remember her exact phrasing, and I don’t have a transcript of the event). It’s easy to see why, as the events detailed in Persepolis show a young woman growing up with a political consciousness at an early age, with the realities of revolution and warfare forced on her and her family in unavoidable ways as a matter of daily routine. Another memorable statement: Iranis like her mother, who she didn’t choose, but will always be there. Paris, her new home, is like her wife, who she chose and will probably cheat on.

Next up, after her sprawling, engrossing talk, was a moderated Q&A session. Questions included her artistic influences and favorites (the usual suspects, such as Spiegelman, Ware, Clowes, and Sacco). She was also asked about her feelings on feminism, a label she rejects in favor of humanism. Frankly, my memory is a little hazy on this portion. Maybe if Serene remembers something I don’t', she’ll edit this post to add it (wink wink).

A brief standing ovation and signing session (with a line stretching all the way around the room) concluded the evening. It was great to see a packed house of readers, not just comic readers, for this event, and I’m sure it helps that book is not only incredible, but timely as well. Persepolis and Persepolis 2 are still widely available in bookstores, and come highly recommended from a variety of sources, and the Seattle Public Library will soon have DVD’s of this event available, for locals who missed out.

Fredo Kicks All Your Asses

I had seen this cover before. Many times before, in fact. I’ve picked it up everytime I encountered it, admired the artwork, thought about buying it, and put it down for some completely insane and stupid reason that is escaping me right now. Emo self-deprecation aside, I eventually did buy this issue (Shpilkes #0), along with it’s follow-up Shpilkes #1. And goddamn, I’m glad I did.

Fredo’s art has a weird, spooky, creepy, dreamy element to it, and is backed up with substantial short stories. His Xeric grant in 2000 lead to the publication of Shpilkes #0, and I can see why he caught the eye of the judges. He comes across as a confident artist with a twisted narrative. What’s not to love?

But all this fangirling aside, what made me want to sing his praises publically was his mini that I picked up at the Olympia Comic Festival (see Dylan’s post, if you haven’t read it already).

B’NAU-5000 first caught my eye with it’s cool screenprinted cover, but it kept my attention with a very cool all-ages story about a planet-wide race and clean, crisp art style.

So you lucky bastards going to MoCCA: do yourself a favor and check out this gem.

And for you fellow cool kids in Seattle: go to Marjane Satrapi’s talk at Town Hall tonight, courtesy of the lovely folks at the Seattle Public Library. We’ll be lost in the crowd of comic peeps, literary snobs, bored folks wanting to get out of the nasty rain we are having, and people who just like going to free events.

And for you sad bastards who don’t fall into either of the categories, check out Fredo’s sketch blog. It’ll at least give you a cure-all from a boring and uneventful Friday night.

Seattle Splendor

Town Hall Seattle, First Hill’s cultural arts center, hosted an evening with Harvey Pekar last night, which we were fortunate enough to attend. Co-sponsored by Elliott Bay Books, the event was mainly to promote Pekar’s newest graphic novel, Ego & Hubris, the story of New Yorker Michael Malice.

The building Town Hall resides in was originally a Church of Christ, Scientist, and still retains most of the distinguishing features in it’s interior, including rows of hard-backed and tightly-packed wooden pews and tall stained glass windows. It’s a large, beautiful room and a perfect venue for this sort of event.

The host of tonight’s activities was Paul Constant, the surprisingly youthful book critic for Seattle’s self-proclaimed “only newspaper,” the Stranger. As he began his introduction, most of the (rather sizable) audience was stealing glances over to the backstage door, where Harvey was intermittently peeking out at us.

Despite his reputation as a somewhat gruff, brusque character, Harvey came across as very warm and open, answering questions freely, both from Paul and the audience. They tackled everything from his upcoming projects (including the very intriguing Macedonia project, which should hit shelves later this year, and DC Comic’s revival of his flagship American Splendor title, starting in September), his brief involvement in adapting Linklater’s adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly to comics, his writing process and the business end of working with various artist and publishers (apparently DC’s page rates for artists work out almost three times higher than Random House’s…not exactly what I would have expected!), and of course, the process of writing Ego & Hubris. The new book was put together almost entirely from letters and anecdotes told to Pekar by the book’s subject, Michael Malice, which Harvey essentially edited down to a series of panels for artist Gary Dumm.

Following the interview was a brief audience Q&A session, and book sales and signing, during which Harvey cheerfully answered questions and signed books for dozens of people, the line stretching around a row of pews. It was a wide range of ages and styles in attendance, which was nice to see.

Town Hall is definitely a Seattle event center to keep an eye on. Marjane Satrapi will be appearing there June 2nd, in conjunction with the Seattle Public Library’s “Seattle Reads Persepolis” series of events. There’s also an “Intelligent Design Vs. Evolution” debate next week, featuring representatives of the local intelligent design “think-tank” the Discovery Institute, a group responsible for, or at least involved in, much of the drive to undermine this country’s science education. That might be worth checking out.

Fun Chickens

As we excitedly approach our indie comic filled weekend at APE, I started to think back to last year’s APE. I won’t take you down some nostalgic path full of embarrassing tidbits and irrelevance.

But one totally awesome thing I picked up and cherish to this very day is a very unique set of books from the lovely Esther Pearl Watson, of Fun Chicken and Bust Magazine fame. I recognized her very distinctive style from the back page of Bust Magazine, so I stopped to check it out.

To my delight there were three dense books based on the found diary of Tammy Pierce. What is so delightful about Tammy Pierce’s candid diary entries are how totally universal it all is, despite the questionable fashion and vocabulary of this young girl in the late Eighties. She deals with the insecurities of being a teen, the intensity of the first crushes you have, the insanity of parents, and the bitchiness of other teen girls.

After purchasing these books, I had a chance to talk to Esther. I was delighted to discover she is as awesome and laid-back as I hoped she would be. And I am not ashamed to say I did a happy dance at work, amid a maze of cubicles, when I saw her listed on the attendees of this year’s APE. So this year I get to venture back to the Fun Chicken booth and check out some of her husband’s work and hopefully grab a copy of their joint venture Whatcha Mean It’s a Zine.

Jessica Abel at the U-Dub Bookstore

On Friday, Seattle’s University Bookstore hosted a meet-the-author event with Jessica Abel, on the occasion of the release of the collected edition of La Perdida, a book about a young woman’s turbulent stay in Mexico. We managed to show up late to the event, but caught the last 15 or 20 minutes of her Q and A session. She went into her writing process, where she starts with a dialogue-only script and then proceeds to break that down into pages and panels before doing any sort of thumbnail process, and her artistic influences for the book most notably Paul Pope, and his loose, brushy style. Like Pope, she work mainly in the inking stage, using pencils to rough in figures and guides before doing the heavy lifting with a brush. She also spoke about her upcoming projects, a textbook on comics co-written with her husband, Matt Madden; and a graphic novel about “vampires in love” titled Life Sucks.

It was a small but appreciative audience (except perhaps for the man up front who kept insisting, without provocation, “no habla espanol”…which was odd, considering the entire presentation was in english). Also in attendance was Seattle local Jason Lutes, of Berlin and Jar of Fools fame. So of course, I had to have a brief fanboy moment with him on the way out…

Picked up a copy of the gorgeous La Perdida hardcover while I was there, which is now signed and skethced in. I haven’t had the chance to read it yet (and probably won’t for a little while, having recently read the individual issues released by Fantagraphics). I do hear that there have been some changes from the original version, so it’ll be interesting to compare against Serene’s copies.

Anyways…looks like it’s worth paying attention to the U. Bookstore’s schedule of apeparances, as we’ve already missed Seth there, a couple of months ago. Seems like they have decent comics related events on a somewhat regular basis.

Smiles all around

Remember where I kept going on and on about Jessica Abel being so awesome? Well apparently there is some cosmic favor being bestowed on me in the highly prized form of a nerdfest.

Olympia. Comics. Festival.

Fuck yeah, I’m so there.

And in other nerdfest news, Dylan and I are flying back to our former stomping grounds to get our APE on. We both had a blast last year and I am more prepared for the total monetary liquidation that will occur. It will be a short, expensive trip but it will kick so much ass it will be so worth it.

A Few Recent Reads

Ah, Seattle. Home to such great comics stores as Zanadu Comics (not Xanadu comics, as I’ve previously spelled it) and Confounded Books (a small-press/indie comics/zine emporium that shares space with Wall of Sound Records, a mere block from my humble apartment), and comics friendly bookstores, like Bailey/Coy Books on Broadway. Here, a man has options when he decides it’s time to pick up the latest in picto-narrative printed matter. And, if he knows where to dig, he can find some cool little gems that he may not have found otherwise.

Take, for example, the work of the Finecomix Collective, whose new anthology Moxie, My Sweet showcases the work of several authors bringing to life the stories of Mark Campos, who in turn delves into the styles of several authors from diverese fields such as science fiction, fantasy, magical realism, and funny animal cartoons. Highlights here include Elijah Brubaker’s handling of the fairy-tale “Colony of Cats,” a story that feels familiar yet fresh with it’s re-working of bedtime story themes; Scott Faulkner’s take on “Can of Beans,” a bittersweet love story (aren’t they all?) set in the music industry; and Dalton Webb’s Pogo-esque jazz funeral in “The Crow Passes.”

But my favorite work from the Fine Comix folks is by one Kaz Strzepek, who is here responsible for the art on a short, wordless piece by Campos, that could be about making the best of a worst situation, or about how the world always gets you down in the end. Or maybe it’s about howwe can try to craft our own destiny, but are ultimately at the mercy of the cosmos? Could be all of the above. But aside from this story, Strzepek is also responsible for a series of minicomics (2 so far that I know of under the title The Mourning Star. 2 beautifully undersized mincomics, quite generous in length, with handscreened covers and matching binding thread, The Mourning Star is sort of a post-apocalyptic sci-fi/fantasy rendered in a cartoonish yet detailed manner. In the space of two issues, Strzepek has crafted a world full of wandering souls troubled by their own pasts, as well as the very real threats of the present (including desert creatures and possibly hostile strangers speaking foreign languages). The art style has an omnipresent whimsy that neverless does not detract from the occasional menace and grotesquerie of the setting.

And with that said, I leave with vague promises of “more later,” but exactly what and exactly when is left unclear.

Pham-fawking-tastic

John Pham totally loves me!

I’m kidding. Don’t worry about me. I am not one of those dilusional fans that insist there is some personal relationship with their favorite artist. But one thing I can proclaim is that after a couple months of impatient waiting, the anticipated package filled with John Pham goods made me giddy like a boy in a porn shop for the first time.

The goods:
Epoxy 1
Sublife
1-Up

The breakdown:
Epoxy 1: To see the struggled beginnings of Pham makes me appreciate how far he has come as both an artist. There is a vauge Marvel-ish feel to his art; it felt like he was really trying to be like fit into a mold he isn’t suited for. Lucky for me, it didn’t seem to gel (apparent by his later work). His writing is, and apparently always has been, solid. Plus to witness the beginnings of my favorite character of his (Olive) was very rewarding. I appreciate the effort he put into the stories as a struggling first time artist and published. Not to be crude, but thank god he had the brass pair he had for self-publishing. It puts an urgency in his work.

Sublife: Sketchbooks typically leave me lukewarm. While it’s endearing to see the artist’s work in it’s rough, unworked state, there usually isn’t a lot to learn from or appreciate. Granted, there were the expected sketches, but he also put strips showing his self-doubt and fears coinciding with self-publishing. Above all there is one reason alone why I love this book. He had a section discussing parallels between John Cassavetes films (in which he directed, not acted) and Chris Ware. Fascinating stuff. The tease of saying this is a small glimpse into notes he has down on the subject made me pine for more.

1-Up: I didn’t even want this. It was thrown in as a consellation prize for being patient while he had some logistical issues with the order getting to me. But I was really surprised by how much I liked it. I am not much of a video game player, but I am currently 5 months into a tedious game of Animal Crossing. This journal published by John Pham and Raina Lee (his girlfriend, I suspect) stands out as a very well put together journal. It oozes girly nerdiness thanks to Raina, which I obviously value, awesome art (especially the Martin Cendreda and kozyndan pieces) and substantial writing.

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