Ellice Weaver’s forthcoming book, Big Ugly, is a post coming of age comedy drama. Follow Mel as she deals with life, ruts, family expectations, and the complexities of adult sibling relationships.
Weaver comes from an illustration background. I suppose it shows. Mattisse or Gauguin as filtered through Marie Clare? Whatever, totes gorge. She also never falls into the trap, common to some with a history in illustration, of treating comics as a series of static set pieces.
Big Ugly by Ellice Weaver. Hardcover. 128 Pages. Full Colour. Avery Hill Publishing. Ships in May. Available for Pre-order.
Patrick Kyle’s series of self published Baby comics are set to be collected in a single 144 page volume by Breakdown Press. Kyle is so good at dealing with big-strange ideas in the most engagingly absurd way. This time around, he tackles the recurring twists and squeezes of the human(?) life cycle.
Baby by Patrick Kyle. 160 x 200mm. 144 pages. Offset printed. Softcover. Available March 24th. Pre-orders open.
The fourth issue of Austin English and August Lipp’s intermittent magazine of comics culture, But is it…Comic Aht?, is due for dropping sometime in April (or thereabouts).
August Lipp
Unsurprisingly, given the names behind it, But is it…Comic Aht? is a periodical with a purpose and a lot of thought behind it.
In starting a new print magazine about comics, it’s my hope that some ideas and conversations might be preserved with an ounce of the dignity that the mediums art offers. Online criticism and discussion is important, but fades away extremely quickly and seems driven by argument rather than reflection. Early issues of The Comics Journal offered quiet pages for artists to study, piecing together the practices and ideas of favorite artists in lengthy interviews. After a month of thinking about what a cartoonist said in a discussion, some debate of those ideas would appear in the next months letter column. The weight of a cartoonists words could be digested, embraced, rejected and most importantly THOUGHT about, rather then reacted to.
Chaia Startz
Issue #4 is set to feature original comics and art, as well as written pieces, long form interviews, et cetera. Including: covers by August Lipp and Mollie Goldstrom, comics by David King, Victor Cayro, Chaia Stratz, John Mejias, a long interview with Chris Cilla by Tim Goodyear, a feature on David Lasky by Megan Kelso, and lots more besides.
Yes, please.
Victor CayroJohn Mejias
But is it…Comic Aht? #4, edited by Austin English and August Lipp. $8, 72 pages, newsprint, 8.5″ x 11″.
The Machine Detective: A Friendly Wager is a heart-warming comedic tale of murder, mystery and dystopia, the outcome of an art and printmaking collaboration between brothers Dustin and Nick Holland. Writing for TCJ, Ryan Carey called it “…a comic absolutely bristling with creative energy and intent…” And so it is.
The second edition, I’m told, is selling out quickly.
Who says punk’s dead?
The Machine Detective: A Friendly Wager by Dustin and Nick Holland. 60 pages. 8.5″ x 11″. Black and White interiors with color covers. Handmade.
Black Phoenix is, at its core, a contemporary comics magazine featuring original characters and stories of various comics genres—all dreamed up by its sole author, Rich Tommaso. Don’t be fooled by the pseudonyms inside—he changes names as often as drawing styles. But, the magazine is also like a walk through comics history itself. Each volume of these golden age, pulp styled digest anthologies is headed up by a long-form comics adventure which is backed up by a bunch of short-form comics—all in the same genre or flavor.
Black Phoenix Vol. 1 by Rich Tommaso. 136pages. Color. Due 28th Feb 2023. Pre-orders available at various online retailers.
The fifth issue of Cameron Hatheway’s Clusterfux Comix anthology is out now, including a sheet of Flippitoons trading cards designed by James Fletcher.
Contributors: James Fletcher, Alex Daikaiju, Miguel Elias Aguilar, Umberto Tonella, Catalina Rufín, Samuel Cleggett, Tanha Comics, Dylan Henty, Dave Neeson, J. Webster Sharp, Cameron Zavala, Jason Covelli, Ryan King, mattchee, Isaac Roller, Anthony Aiuppy, Jacob Fleming, Charlie Sisemore, Cameron Hatheway.
In a town ravaged by a neurological disease, Fanny Fontanel, an emotionally blunted social worker, begins to experience bizarre physical symptoms that mimic her patients’ feelings. With the help of her sister and a dead woman’s memoirs, she must find the cause of her ailment before the damage to her body becomes irreversible.
Social realism meets off-kilter, ominous horror. Wonderful.
Maggie Umber is currently hard at work using scratchboard to color Bunworld, her new graphic novel. According to Umber, Bunworld is the story of a baker, a pipe smoking snake and a runaway birthday bun named—wait for it—Bun. The baker and the snake decide to bake a cake for Bun, but have no idea what cake tastes like, adventure ensues.
It all sounds dizzyingly existential to me.
Ms. Umber has graciously allowed us to share a few Bunworld process photos from her Patreon. Since the work is still at least a year away from publication, it’s probably a good time to sign up to the Patreon account in question, support a staggeringly talented voice in art comics, and follow Bunworld as it develops. Tiered benefits also include blog posts, pdf downloads and discounts.
Andrew Whitebegins serializing his work-in-progress adaptation of 12 Italo Calvino stories via newsletter.
This is an interesting project for a couple of reasons. 1) Italo Calvino (the late Italian novelist), has cited E.C. Segar’s Popeye cartoons as an influence on his storytelling and narrative style, and 2) In his short story The Origin of the Birds, Calvino explicitly asks the reader to imagine panels and other plays on cartoon formalism as they read.
So, if there ever was an author ripe for reverse engineered admiration from a cartoonist of Andrew White’s calibre, Italo Calvino is it, surely.
Anyway, you can catch up on White’s first instalment here and then join his mailing list here to read the rest as they become available.
