Your daily dig into the alt comics firmament.
Maggie Umber has just dropped a new mini-comic.
“Jonesy is a wordless, watercolour mini-comic based on a dream…or as some would say, a nightmare. Maggie and Mom go on a wild ride. A cat, a dancing tube man and a suburban van collide in this night-time misadventure.”
Jonesy by Maggie Umber. 24 pages. 5.5 in x 8.5″. Pamphlet, saddle stitch. Full colour inkjet on matte cardstock.
https://maggieumber.com/pages/books/jonesy.html
Looks gorgeous. I can’t wait to read it.
***
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.
40pgs. Available via Amazon.
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.
https://www.patreon.com/maggieumber
And so we present to you, Bunworld in progress….
Andrew White begins 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.
Check it out. Original Comic Art for sale.
https://www.athenaeumcomicart.com/
Drawn and Quarterly Fall Catalog.
https://drawnandquarterly.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/CAT-FALL-2023.pdf
In case you missed it: Back in November, Bhanu Pratap (the cartoonist behind Dear Mother) began serializing his second comic, Afternoon Pockets, on Instagram and Substack. The Substack version is running uncensored. Part one posted so far.
https://www.instagram.com/hanabhanu/
https://substack.com/profile/962240-bhanu-pratap
Fantagraphics’s NOW #12 anthology due out 24 Feb 2023.
https://www.fantagraphics.com/products/now-12-the-new-comics-anthology
Four new titles from kuš! coming Feb 23rd.
http://www.komikss.lv/
Floyd Tangeman (A.K.A. Deadcrow) deals with criticism. (Sound up.)
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