Minx Provides "Do Your Own Mini Comic" On Revamped Site

Just a quick bit --

DC's imprint Minx has revamped their website and now offers a mini-comic layout in PDF form so you can, in their words, "Tell Your Life In Pictures."

This is very exciting for me, as I now have a modest but structured template with which to put my modest but not incredibly awful comic drawing skills to use.

I figure that perhaps I can finish one 4-page mini-comic in time for the MoCCA Art Fest this weekend and either sell it or if that's sort of illegal because it's not my template at least give it away for good will.

Here are the topics I have been kicking around:

1) "My Friggin' Cat" -- about how my cat vomited in not one but both of my new shoes from Aerosoles, and my BF said he didn't mean to do it but he totally did because he was bitter about the salmon cat food.

2) "My Freaky-Ass Psychic Abilities" -- how I used to read tarot in Union Square park and these tourists from Chicago were totally freaked out because I was so accurate and then one of them took a photo of me because if the stuff came true he wanted to remember it but I was totally afraid this was just to get me arrested.

3) "Teenage Angst" -- like about when this friend from high-school explained to me all the basics regarding sex on a 15-minute bus ride and I was so freaked out because I was like "how could I have missed all this shit?" but you know how I could have missed it because I was reading @%##@% New Mutants and Peter Porker Spiderham that's how. And then later we almost got beaten up by this crazy woman.

4) "Oprah -- She's Wonderful" -- she really is wonderful. A biographical comic about real life.

So these are some thoughts. Please let me know if you have a preference.

Indie Spotlight: Recommended

Hi All,

I thought I would clean out my "in box" a bit and recommend a few indie books I've read and enjoyed lately...


The Walking Away World by Kenneth Patchen is in some ways very much a prototype of some of the current crop of independent books -- I find a bit of his work in everything from Kevin Huizenga to Chris Ware. Patchen was a performing artist who in the late 1950s had to cut his work short following spinal surgery; the resulting back pain only allowed him to continue his art in the form of the "picture poems" in this book. Some powerful stuff; as Jim Woodring says in the introduction, his work is "not to be approached lightly."

"The Walking Away World" will be available from New Directions in July 08.



Injury #2 by Ted May, M. Jason Robards, and Jeff Wilson was a great anthology of stories that reminded me of Dan Clowes's work. I especially liked the first story, "Hair of the Dog," a tale about heavy metal gods & love sort of won and sort of lost. Would definitely pick up another issue.

Injury is put out by Buenaventura Press and can be purchased at your finer comic book stores or through here.



Ganges by Kevin Huizenga is always a pleasure to read; this magazine-sized series, part of Fantagraphics Press's Ignatz line, is a must-have. The latest issue focuses on how the employees at Kevin's old job became obsessed with a certain video game -- and how the drama of the game reflected what was going on at the company in real life.

Ganges can be purchased at finer comic book stores or here.



Soap Opera by Emily Blair is a haunting, David Lynch style one-shot rendered in a woodcut style. The plot focuses on the strained friendship of two women, and the soap opera character that mysteriously seems to be the connecting thread between the two of them. Emily Blair's work is quite a revelation.

Soap Opera can be purchased here.

Indie Comics Spotlight: Road Trip!

Summer for many of us involves travel and vacation plans. Marion Vitus's "No In-Between" and Sarah Glidden's "How To Understand Israel In 60 Days Or Less" are two autobiographical mini-comics about protagonists abroad -- and feature an unique perspective on their destinations that only the artists could provide.

Communication gap in Marion Vitus's "No In-Between"

In "No In-Between," the main character ends her relationship and her job in one fell swoop, deciding to take a chance on life by backpacking across Europe. A brief romance in Italy with a native proves both to be exhilarating and disillusioning. But, with every setback she bounces back and develops a self-confidence and zest of life that was lacking in her pre-trip life circa the first issue.

"No In-Between" is also fascinating to look at as a document of how one comic book artist searched for and settled into her own style of illustration, the fun but cartoony art of the first issue evolving into a far more painterly and expressionistic mode by issue 6.

Sarah Glidden gets questioned by airport security
about her Bat Mitzvah in
"How To Understand Israel In 60 Days Or Less"

"How To Understand Israel In 60 Days Or Less" revolves around Sarah's trip to Israel as part of a "birthright" program that provides young Jews with an all-expenses paid trip to the country. While she is obviously excited to travel to Israel, she is also acutely aware of the spectre of conflict that shadows the region.

The comic provides us with a fascinating insight on the the entire process of traveling to Israel -- from the check-in at the El Al terminal where forgetting your Hebrew name might mean getting flagged for a search, to the "Golan Magic Visitors Center." The simple art style (reminiscent of Kevin Huizenga) and mostly nine-panel grid layout gives artist Glidden a controlled area within which to sort out her conflicting thoughts on the region.

Both Marion Vitus and Sarah Glidden are talented artists and storytellers who make the most out of a DIY comic printing budget -- both women packaging their comics in ingenious and visually-appealing ways.

You can read "No In-Between" online here, and purchase it at the Comics Bakery booth at finer comic book conventions.

You can read previews and purchase copies of "How To Understand Israel In 60 Days Or Less" here.

MoCCA 2007: Thoughts & Reactions

As I settle down to write this I've just received a call from Doug Bratton of the comic strip "Pop Culture Shock Therapy" that I've just won his raffle. This is good. I spent a long time debating whether or not to purchase one of his books at the Con, as $ was a little tight at Casa Del Superheroine this month. But now I've got all 3. I got good swag karma. Swag. I'm up to my ankles here, typing this, swag from MoCCA all over my floor.

The MoCCA Comics Festival (Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art) was a two-day event that featured the best of the independent comic scene. It was held the same weekend as The Big Apple Comic Con. I heard that a bus would shuttle people between both shows. I would think MoCCA would have cut in a bit on Big Apple's business. To be fair, Big Apple has professional wrestlers. But I've never been to MoCCA, so I decided to give it a try.

First thing I noticed, there were no people dressed as Captain America there. It was disorienting.

Then there were all the female comic book creators. I would say that the gender breakdown at the show was 50/50.

I wondered how many of these talented women had any inclination to work for mainstream comics at some point. There isn't that much of a place for them at the moment, outside of Minx/Vertigo & Marvel's assorted indie projects. But it seems that this is where all those female comic creators -- the ones that some blog pundits (me included?) sometimes complain there is not enough of. They do exist. In numbers. They were at this show.

There were two DC tables -- Minx & Vertigo. Chatted with Vertigo editor Bob Schreck. He has new stuff a-brewin' but nothing that can be announced before San Diego. With his experience at Oni, Comico, & Dark Horse, I would expect indie books that fit the general Vertigo framework but with a twist. I've enjoyed various Vertigo titles over the years but I think that twist would really spice up the line.

Next was pumping Vertigo assistant editor Brandon Montclare for news on the Minx line. I asked him about the ratio of female talent as opposed to male talent in the Minx line. He said that actually, women make up roughly half the talent working for the line -- which is apparently going full-speed ahead in terms of pub plans. A "Plain Janes" sequel in the works? Maybe. Some serialized, multi-volume works? A possibility.

This Minx book "Confessions of a Blabbermouth," about a female blogger, sounds interesting.

I chatted with Tim Leong, editor-of-chief of the new magazine Comic Foundry (debuting in September) -- which looks awesome. Gushed to Rick Veitch over his Vertigo book "Can't Get No" -- which I rarely do to any comic creator: "it's literature, man...it's $%*^$# literature. it moved me man..." Thankfully there was no one to witness said geekery. There was also Dean Trippe (who drew that awesome Supergirl piece I've ran in an earlier post), Tim Fish (from the webcomic/anthology "Young Bottoms in Love,"), artist/burlesque dancer Bonnie Voyage, Papercutz editor-in-chief Jim Salicrup, "Fishtown" creator Kevin Colden, Eisner-nominated "Onion Head Monster" Paul Friedrich, Christine Norrie ("Breaking Up"), "Soon I Will Be Invincible" author Austin Grossman, Pop Image co-editor-in-chief Ed Matthews, and Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf's "Essex County" series).

Bumped into The Beat's Heidi MacDonald, who hadn't seen me in at least three years. She looked really awesome, and she said I looked very awesome...I'm thinking that there is some link to blogging/looking awesome.

But the highlight of MoCCA?

Bacon-Man.