Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Guitar Solo

I have contributed a painting (not pictured here) to the September show at Pony Club gallery in Portland. The show is curated by Emily Nilsson, and the FaceBook page for the show is at this link. The opening is Thursday Sept.1st, from 6 to 10, please come down and take a look, you won't want to miss Tim Goodyear's Neil Diamond triptych!
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The Heavy Hand was selected as a Midnight Fiction Favorite for 2011! There is also some mention of Tim Root & myself tabling at the Portland Zine Symposium in the regular part of the website. Thanks Richard Krauss for the write up!
Over at the Comics Journal blog, Dan Nadel gives an endorsement to The Heavy Hand in his list of recommended Sparkplug Comic Books to purchase. He calls The Heavy Hand "One of my absolute favorite graphic novels of the last few years. Fucking brilliant and damned brave. Essential to any comics library. Seriously." Thanks, Dan!

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Please Lend a Helping Hand to Dylan Williams

photo of Dylan & myself by David Lasky, taken at the Olympia Comics Festival 2008, maybe?
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My good friend (& publisher of The Heavy Hand) Dylan Williams is currently in the hospital fighting cancer. Please consider making a purchase from his Sparkplug Comic Books store to help him pay his considerable medical bills. He has published an excellent catalog of offbeat art comix, and has a love for the medium that is deep & well informed. He is both an intelligent and idiosyncratic cartoonist and a thoughtful publisher with a commitment to his unique vision of comics and art, in many forms.
A few of my personal favorites in the Sparkplug catalog, if you need some encouragement, are listed below.
The Airy Tales by Olga Volozova
The Hot Breath of War by Trevor Alixopulos
Edison Steelhead's Lost Portfolio by Renee French
Windy Corner edited by Austin English
Asiaddict by Mats!?
I could go on and on, he publishes so much good stuff, you should really go and browse their online catalog, I'm sure you will find something that you will love.
I'd also like to recommend his own comic book series Reporter, one of my favorite issues is Reporter #5, a crisply drawn Korean war ghost story.
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Portland's Floating World Comics is having a benefit sale on Monday & Tuesday, donating 100% of their profits to help pay Dylan's medical expenses. Stop by and get that book you've been eyeing, check out their new space, and help a terrific guy with some ugly hospital bills.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Space Legs Half & Half Junk Odyssey

Long time no blog; I was on vacation & came home to some comics deadlines, but now I'm back, with some good news! My book The Heavy Hand was nominated for the Ignatz Award for Outstanding Graphic Novel! I'm truly excited to be selected from among all the great comics out there these days. Thanks to the nominating committee, and if you attend the Small Press Expo, please vote for The Heavy Hand!
Also, check out a couple of links: Sean T. Collins reviews The Heavy Hand on his website, and Brett Warnock gives his thumbs-up on the Top Shelf blog! Thanks a lot for the good words, guys.

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UPDATE!
My friend Jacob Schraer has posted a notice of my Ignatz nomination, and I gave him a Hot Dog Holiday strip to accompany the promotional linkfest, click & check it out!