Adrian joined us in the middle of his tour
to promote Shortcomings, his latest graphic novel pulled from his series Optic Nerve, published by Drawn and Quarterly. If you are in Vancouver, come join me and other locals at Sophia books for Adrian’s book signing on November 13th from 7-10pm.
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Part 3 of our conversation with Bryan Talbot, where jump into his latest work, Alice in Sunderland. By far one of the best books of the year. All of his books are available from darkhorse books.
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Bryan Talbot was nice enough to sit down and have a nice long chat with Colin and myself. Here is part 1, where we discuss his early career.
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Part 2 in our extended conversation with the kind Mr. Talbot. In this part of the conversation, we discuss my favorite book of his, Tale of One Bad Rat, and much more.
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Colin and I were delighted to be joined by Chris Ware and Jeet Heer to discuss the great works of Frank King. King’s work with Gasoline Alley, a strip dating back nearly 90 years is still felt on some of my modern favorite cartoonists. From Shulz to Matt, King masterful craftsmanship and storytelling have influenced many. Not only is Gasoline Alley excellent, it is also the longest running real time comic strip, ever. Under the title of Walt and Skeezix after the main characters, Drawn and Quarterly have published 3 collections of his daily strips, as well as the ginormous Sunday’s collection from Sunday Press Books. This has been one of my most favoritist shows in the 2 years of doing the Inkstuds, and you will enjoy it as well.
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So I have a big stack of mini’s that I am very happy with picking up and need to share
with people. Even though I was unable to make it SPX, I still got some mighty fine stuff at Stumptown and Vancouver’s Comix and Stories convention.
Entering Joanne – Angela Stork had an awesome selection of arty goodness, but budget limited my to just picking up the one book. Its a really neat mix of a surreal story of a spider colony juxtaposed against one woman’s sexual frustrations. Angela’s work is a really nice tight ink-wash with dynamic figure drawings. I like the way she is able to capture simple honesty in her characters without pushing too far into them, she just uses enough to tell the story. Check out her site for goodness.
Skully Flower #3 – Dragon Green was nicely situated next to my good friend Joseph Bergin at Stumptown and happily exposed me to her comic fun. Collecting a selection of goods that she has been posting in her site, Skully Flower is a nicely drawn fun book about a young lady and her roommate, Skully Flower, whose name describes it perfectly. Dragon’s work is a really nice clean inking line that’s filled with fun. Go read the strip on her site and get sucked into the shlocky horror influenced silliness.
Jason McLean is one of my favorite Vancouver artists. While I didn’t get his stuff at either cons, it’s still nice small press stuff you should check out. Most comix folk will be familiar with his work through Marc Bell’s Nog A Dod. The most recent stuff he has been putting out, are nice collections in limited edition runs of 100 copies each. The first is called You Are So Far Away, it’s a collection of lists that seem like poetry that comes from your local telephone posts, espousing lost and forgotten ideas. The second is Wooden Heart, drawn over Dec/Jan of 2006/07. Wooden Heart is collection of freeform idea’s that seem to grew into odd semi-organic mechanations. Jason’s work is some of the more original stuff that you can come by. If you are interested in picking these up, go to the Gaff Gallery and check out the selection of t-shirts by artists Marc Bell, Jason, Keith Jones and more.
More stuff tmrw.
Rod Filbrandt is the talentsed cartoonist behind Wombat, Dry Shave, and Tar Paper Town. His work has been a stable of awesomeness in the Georgia Straight for many years, and is one of Vancouver’s most read and recognizable cartoonists.
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To celebrate 50 years of the Space Age, Nick Abadzis joined us to discuss his new book, Laika. Laika is a wonderful piece of historical fiction, looking at the history of the first animal in space, the russian dog, Laika. Published by First Second books, Laika is a great insite in the world of coldwar USSR and some of the unique characters that surrounded this special event.
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Chris Staros and Brett Warnock joined the Inkstuds to discuss 10 years of publishing Top Shelf Comix. Top Shelf has been at the forefront of publishing interesting creators, breaking in new talents like Craig Thompson and Jeffrey Brown, and old pro’s like Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. The line is nice diverse selection, aimed at attracting a nice wide audience, keeping readers excited for new works.
Top Shelf publishes some of my favorite comix, and you should be reading them as well.
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David Heatley is the imaginative man behind the self published series Deadpan. His work is a nice mix of revealing autobiographix and surrealist dream comix. His work can be found gracing the cover of the upcoming Best American Comics 2007 collection from Houghton Mifflin. If you are going to be at SPX, he designed the passes. Not only do you get to hear us talk about his comix, we also play some of his music.
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