Nathan Fox has some great new work out and is pumping out some the nastiest goodness that I have seen in a while. Check out his Pigeons From Hell series from Dark Horse or his Fluorescent Black work in Heavy Metal. His work has great visceral quality that most cartoonists can only attempt, while Nathan rocks it.
Check this out too, someone just brought it to my attention – Nathan doing an ending to Terror of Tiny Town from the TCM site.
Hey Canadian Cartoonists, I normally don’t post press releases and stuff but I think this would be great opportunity.
and on a side note, I got a copy of the book of Joe Shuster’s fetish art–its crazy and amazing. I am hoping to be talking about it with Craig Yoe at some point.
PRESS RELEASE
_______________________
The Canadian Comic Book Creator Awards Association was established in 2004 as a non-profit organization. The purpose of the CCBCAA is to hand out the annual JOE SHUSTER AWARDS and give recognition to the efforts made by Canadian comic book creators, retailers and publishers.
The Gene Day Award for Self-Publishing honours Canadian comic book creators who self-published their work during the previous calendar year. The award includes a bursary of $500.
In order to qualify you must be a citizen and current resident of Canada. Anyone who writes and illustrates a comic book of their own creation (includes creative teams) and publishes and sells that comic independently of any other publishing company and does not currently have said works distributed by a third party distributor may submit their publication for review.
Format and content is at the discretion of the creators. Must include new content, not reprinted material from other sources (such as webcomics). There are no language restrictions for this award.
Entries should be sent to:
GENE DAY AWARD SUBMISSIONS
C/O THE JOE SHUSTER AWARDS
PO BOX 67031 – 2300 YONGE STREET
TORONTO, ON M4P 3C8
Note: This award is for comic work produced in 2008. We ask that the creator of the comic write “this work was produced in 2008” and sign the book. Please write your email and phone number on the book.
Closing date for submissions: Monday, May 18th, 2009.
Entries may be submitted in person to the Joe Shuster Awards booth at the following Canadian events:
* Toronto ComiCON Fan Appreciation (April 18-19)
* Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo (April 25-26)
* Toronto Comic Arts Festival (May 9, 10).
All entries will be reviewed by an independent jury consisting of members of the Canadian comics community. Entries will be judged individually based on originality, literary and artistic merit, and overall presentation.
The finalists will be announced on Monday, June 1st , 2009 and the winner will be announced at the Joe Shuster Awards ceremony in Toronto on Saturday, June 27th, 2009 at the Lillian Smith Library Auditorium.
For more information contact info@joeshusterawards.com
About Gene Day
Gene Day (1951-1982) began his career in the Canadian alternative comix scene. In the seventies he began his own publishing imprint, Shadow Press / House of Shadows and put out over twenty issues of Dark Fantasy, a horror/fantasy/sci-fi digest that featured the early writings of Joe Lansdale, Charles De Lint, John Bell and Charles R. Saunders, amongst others; a short-lived comic publication, Out of the Depths and various other one-shots, portfolios, and prints. Day drew for the Skywald magazines Psycho and Nightmare from 1974, as well as the Canadian comic anthology, ORB, and Mike Friedrich’s independent comics company Star Reach, contributing to the Star Reach anthology, Image and Quack. Day did illustrations for fantasy role-playing games and had a collection of his comic stories, ‘Future Day’, published by Flying Buttress Press as a hardcover graphic novel in 1979.
He was a longtime inker on Marvel’s ‘Master of Kung Fu’ title by Mike Zeck, starting in 1976 and later took over as full penciler on the series. He also inked on the licensed ‘Star Wars’ series, pencilled by Carmine Infantino, as well as ‘The Mighty Thor’ and ‘Marvel Two-in-One’ featuring ‘The Thing’. From 1985 to 1986, Renegade Press published four issues of Gene Day’s ‘Black Zeppelin’, an anthology series primarily featuring stories and painted covers Day completed before his death, as well new contributions by Sim, Bruce Conklin, Augustine Funnell, and Charles Vess. More of his work appeared posthumously in Caliber Comics’ anthology series Day Brothers Presents, which also featured the work of Day’s artist brothers, David and Dan Day.
Dave Sim credits Gene Day as his earliest and most influential mentor and the inspiration for his own self-publishing efforts. Gene Day was inducted into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame in 2007.
About The Joe Shuster Awards
Established in 2004, The Joe Shuster Awards are Canada’s first national award recognizing outstanding achievement in the creation of comic books and are named after pioneering Toronto-born artist Joe Shuster who, along with writer Jerry Siegel, created the iconic super-powered hero, Superman. The name is used with the approval of the Estate of Joe Shuster – Michael Catron, Estate Agent. Executive Directors: James Waley and Kevin A. Boyd
For more information contact info@joeshusterawards.com
Derf and I sat down for a chat about punk rock, Jeffrey Dahmer and much more. His book Punk Rock and Trailer Parks is a lot of fun and you should check it out. He also does an ongoing strip The City, that is carried in a whole bunch of different alt weeklies.
here come the black magicians by the francies.
Check it out y’all. Al Columbia posted a video for his band, The Francies. Check out his site for musical goodness.
John Kerschbaum is the man behind the hilariously funny book, Petey and Pussy from Fantagraphics. All of his work is great and makes me laugh my ass off.
CF aka Christopher Forgues aka Kites and some other musical projects, sat down with me for a chat about comix. His series from Picture Box, Powr Mastrs has been getting alot of love and I have really enjoyed it so far as well.
No! is the second book in the Four Square series, the I Know Joe Kimpel
(a Center for Cartoon Studies student-related distributor) themed anthologies that raise funds for the artists’ convention costs. The first, Sorry, featured the work of Colleen Frakes, Caitlin Plovnick, Mario van Buren, and Emily Wieja. It was ok.
No!, despite one rather weak entry, is better. The silk-screened covers by Colleen Frakes have a sweet Scrabble theme and so beautifully kinetic drawing. Her story, “No, Man†is a fable about a series of denials that leads to an endless cycle of war. Her bear characters appear here and are as iconic as ever.
Morgan Pielli’s silly take on giving a hearty “No!†to societal and property boundaries is a great exercise in using varied panel structure to add spice to a one-note concept. His gabby line-crosser explores himself right into another story and despite the abrupt punch line I enjoyed it because the art is so easy on the eyes.
“Knee Deep in the Alphabet Soup,†by Jon Chad is a detailed, beautiful gross-out story about too much soup and not enough loving. I am not sure how it explores the theme, unless Chad is suggesting that the main character, the sweaty and perpetually terrified Bobo Backslack, should have said no to advice from that creepy guy in the grocery store.
Lastly, there is Lauren O’Connell’s “Fancyclue.†I am not really sure what to say about this one. It seems to have been conceived and drawn by a child really into Nancy Drew-type mysteries and aware of only the trappings of adult love. The comic ends with the question of does he or doesn’t he like her, vote yes or no, which perhaps is meant to fulfill the theme requirement but just adds to the bizarre childishness of the comic. It simply does not stand up to the other work in No!.
I tend to like themed anthologies and if the proceeds go to a good cause, then all the better. I am looking forward to seeing what the CCSers and former CCSers have to offer in upcoming Four Square books and I wish them fruitful conventioneering.
George Metzger continues chatting with us about his comix and experience in the underground comic scene. Patrick Rosenkranz covers George’s work in some detail in his book Rebel Visions.
George Metzger is one of Vancouver’s best kept secret. He hasn’t been making new comix in a number of years, but his underground comic work is noted for its highly imaginative scifi elements. His series of note include Moondog, Truckin’ and Mu: The Land That Never Was. I would suggest hunting down anything by him if you can.
Jason Lutes joined us for an extended discussion about his Berlin series from D&Q, teaching at the CCS and the power of a twenty sided die. Jason has some really great things to say about comix and strong passion for them.
