Simon Gane brings us a preview of several panels from his 28 page adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 41 page* horror story from 1892, “Lot No. 249“. The comic will run in Graphic Classics Volume 23: Halloween Classics, due for release this August. The book will also feature adaptations of Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, H.P. Lovecraft’s “Cool Air”, Mark Twain’s “A Curious Dream’, and an interpretation of the silent film classic “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”, with art by Matt Howarth. The story was the first bit of lit to introduce the character of the vengeful bad ass mummy — later much popularized by hollywood — right during the height of Egyptomania in Victorian England. Simon also steps out in a co-adaptation of The Strange Case of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde in the revised Graphic Classics edition to be released in April.
SAW is proud to open its doors to the public and showcase Gainesville comix artist Derek Ballard.
Derek Ballard has worked extensively as a illustrator and t-shirt designer and has had comics published in Vice, Juxtapoz & Beautiful/Decay, Faesthetic, Typhon, and The Drama. Cartoon Show is his first book collection. Ballard’s comics are a combination of intense imagery rooted in visionary science fiction, 80s style and modern street art, drawn with bold, angular brush strokes and vivid colors. Cartoon Show is a genre comic of futuristic originality.
SAW, is located at 17 SE 5th Ave, Gainesville, FL 32601 (behind Citizen’s Co-Op.)
SAW is a non-profit organization dedicated to the prosperity and promotion of sequential art and artists, offering comprehensive instruction in comics, graphic novels and sequential art. In vibrant Gainesville, Florida.
Among Tom Hart’s many achievements, he co-founded Wow Cool 24 years ago this month.
Kramers Ergot #8 will be having itself a release party at Family in Los Angeles at 7pm on Thursday, January 19, 2012. Contributors Ben Jones, Johnny Ryan & Tim Hensley and editor Sammy Harkham will be in attendance. Can’t make it? The book is now in stock at Wow Cool.
Welcome to the linkdown and shop update for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Weekend. My five-year-old told a very curious tale about King Luther, whose ‘last name is Junior’, when he came home from school the other day. He also executed the assemblage above out of junk we gathered by the train tracks near the Wow Cool office in Cupertino. Note the wooden train track. We found several of these. If you follow Wow Cool on Twitter, you might have noticed there was a fire near those same tracks last week. We’re fine, the office is fine, but it sure stunk like smoke that afternoon.
In other news: On the ‘How Mid-Westerners See The North East’ side of things, you should check out John Porcellino’s King Cat Winter Tour Diary posts on Maybe Blogging Will Help.
Steve Ditko’s cover to his new book Sixteen is previewed.
Alan Moore gets the ‘comics aren’t for kids anymore treatment’, but worse, and also better, in the following:
OK. New in the Wow Cool shop.
The big stars this week are two solid hardcovers that are much less than a million miles apart.
Although originally seen at some shows and available some places back in October, due to a distributor switch it has not been until now that we are able to offer the excellent collection of Jesse Moynihan’s Forming from NoBrow Press. We also have his previous book Follow Me available.
And then there is Kramers Ergot #8. The book made it’s debut at December’s BCGF in Brooklyn, but is only just now on general release. It is a package seemingly designed to encourage discussion (or argument of plate throwing). Few reviews have surfaced yet, but this short write-up and interview with editor Sammy Harkham by the very knowledgeable James Romberger on Publisher’s Weekly is well worth your time.
In the meanwhile, there is not much NEW new stuff in the shop this week, but a number of older titles of interest have been floating in. You may have missed these: Funny (Not Funny), edited by Ryan Standfest who also gave us Black Eye; several books by David King, including his recent Lemon Styles and a stellar contribution to the new Study Group Magazine; the serious gem of a jamcomic Play Overlord by Sean Christensen, Amy Kuttab & Theo Ellsworth; we got some of the last available Wowee Zonk #3 in; one we’ve had for a while that deserves another look is the Stalagmite anthology with Kevin Scalzo and Brian Ralph; and, then there’s Grendel Tales: Homecoming by Dave Cooper, Pat McEown & Matt Wagner… about the oddest thing Dave Cooper worked on, but a real classic.
Yes, it is I. The irregular Wow Cool link dump. Usually posted on a Monday or Tuesday, often in two parts, often skipping many weeks. We are well back from the holidays, and therefore it is time to obliterate every open tab and share the good bits that emerge.
We open with the fight song from of the original St. Trinnian’s films. As you may have heard, St. Trinnian’s creator Ronald Searle passed away a few days ago. He has been remembered far and wide. I tried and failed to find what I thought would be the perfect image to present, so I went with the video instead. If you are going to read only one obituary of the late British cartoonist, you should read the one by Steven Heller in the New York Times. And, hey, I actually liked the newer St. Trinnian’s films.
If you have a couple days to spare you really should take the time to read this interview with amigo Steve Bissette – part of the Comics Reporter holiday interview series. I could list about half of the rest as must reads too, but I’ll let you pick your own favorites.
Our late friend and inspiration Dylan Williams, of Sparkplug Comics, is being chronicled in bloggy fashion at the DYLAN WILLIAMS ARCHIVES – The life and work of Dylan F. Williams 1970 – 2011. “We are attempting to archive the life and work of Dylan Williams: Collected writings, comics, artwork, sketches, letters, stories, photos and tributes. This is an ongoing project compiled by Dylan’s friends and family. If you have something you would like to contribute, please write to tom (at) iwilldestroyyou (dot) com” If you knew Dylan, then the Amazon reviews will make you chuckle and miss him all the more. I lied a couple paragraphs ago, you also must read this Comics Reporter holiday interview with the current proprietors of Sparkplug.
I would be amiss to not give a shout-out to Sean T. Collins for giving us a Shout-out in this post-holiday roundup of amazing comics stuff. It’s part three of… how many? Does this guy ever sleep? So much goodness out there.
In related news, CBR’s Robot 6 has gone into overdrive the last few days (while most of us were relaxing) with great news, bits, previews and more. Seriously, too much to mention, just start digging.
And give special attention to this Robot 6 exclusive preview of titles coming from Koyama Press in 2012. We’ve just added a couple more Koyama titles to the shop here at Wow Cool. Snatch those up, because they are low in quantity and not likely to be reprinted.
In the meanwhile. Many, many new items (and a bunch more old ones) have been floated into the Wow Cool shop since we last mentioned such things here on the blog. Of special note are: Josh Bayer’s ROM & Raw Power; John Porcellino’s King-Cat #72; three issues of Press Ganger Zack Soto’s Ghost Attack; Study Group Magazine #1 (Zack & those Press guys again!); oversized Image Comics in the 90s love letter Rub the Blood; Nancy & Sluggo hate mail Suspect Device; and, we finally have Michael Kupperman’s Tales Designed to Thrizzle #7 in stock.
We look forward to your custom, true believer. May your eyeballs bleed and your spleen splinter at these wondrous delights.
Now in stock at Wow Cool is Sam Henderson’s “Free Ice Cream” comics that debuted a couple weeks ago at BCGF. It’s Sam’s first solo publication since 2008′s Magic Whistle #11 Body Armor for Your Dignity. Subtitled “And other cartoons you could have drawn”, it collects Sam Henderson’s gag cartoons from 2009 and 2010 (148 of them, by our count). Sam has been posting these online and in Smoke Signal for the last couple of years. Also included is a 2-page “Jerrold K. Footlick” adventure. It’s 40 pages and a little bigger than comic-book sized. You can get yours here on Wow Cool at three dollars a pop. If you are feeling adventurous you can grab them up at one of the many wholesale options: It’s a three for the price of two (actually 3-5 copies for two dollars each), 6-19 copies at $1.50 each (50% off!) or, if you want to buy 20 or more copies it’s a full 60% off, or $1.20 per copy. Go jump on that!
Hey comic book shops! You can also get your copies of Free Ice Cream through our distributor Last Gasp, or, if you order through Tony Shenton, please do!
In the east bay this weekend? You like some alternative press? Get on over to this! The East Bay Alternative Press Book Fair is going on at Berkeley City College, 2050 Center Street in Berkeley, CA on Saturday, December 10, from 10-4. Dig it.
Hey! Peoples in Brooklyn and nearby! Be on the lookout for the eleventh issue of Smoke Signal! You can grab them from Desert Island, 540 Metropolitan Ave., Brooklyn NY 11211 and elsewhere nearby. They should be showing up soon online exclusively in the Desert Island web store. This issues features a lovely cover by Charles Burns and a strip by Benjamin Marra and Michael DeForge. Also inside is an ad for Wow Cool, designed for us by Steven Cerio. We will have copies available for bay area peeps just as soon as our new shop in Cupertino opens. Still picking out displays and matching doilies and whatnot.
The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival 2011 is happening this Saturday, December third in Brooklyn, New York. The event has become the go-to show for the type of art comics/comics art that we peddle here at Wow Cool, and a great many of the artists whose works we distribute will be at the show (Full exhibitor list). Many excellent new books will be making their debut, and we will be featuring several of them in the Wow Cool shop as soon as we can. Among the titles to look out for: Sam Henderson’s new book Free Ice Cream, š! #9 ‘Female Secrets’, guest edited by Ryan Sands from kuš! komiksi, Smoke Signal 11 with a Charles Burns cover and six pages of goodness by Michael DeForge and Benjamin Marra (also, look for the Steven Cerio designed Wow Cool ad in this issue), DeForge himself will have two new digests available, Zack Soto’s anthology title Study Group Magazine #1 (also with DeForge!), and the much anticipated Chameleon #2.
The guest list this year is simply stunning and includes appearances by Al Columbia, Gary Panter, Phoebe Gloeckner, Brian Ralph, Jack Davis, Lisa Hanawalt, David Mazzucchelli, John Porcellino, and Michael Kupperman.
Keep up-to-date on BCGF goings-on via their blog and on Twitter #BCGF or #BCGF2011 (can we get an official hashtag?)
BCGF 2011
Saturday, 12/3/2011
Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church, 275 North 8th Street, Brooklyn, NY
12-9 pm Free and open to the public
AND
Union Pool, 484 Union Avenue #A, Brooklyn, NY
1-8 pm Free and open to the public
The latest in a semi-weekly roundup of the most interesting news from comics, art, music, video, games and more that have managed to reach us in the technological backwaters of Cupertino.
Printrbot: Your First 3D Printer by Brook Drumm — Comfy couch not included on Kickstarter. Also via RPS, same link as above.
Two games I’ve been exploring today that are well worth checking out are Kairo (available as a very affordable pre-order with an alpha download) and English Country Tune, which is in full release, but you might want to wait to see if your mind survives the experience of playing the demo first before making the plunge. Again, both via RPS.
The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy “The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence. Occupy has touched the third rail of our political class’s venality.” Also in the Guardian.
The archives of Anthony Burgess reveal many gems on the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of his notorious Clockwork Orange. I had a great book-nerd conversation with the clerk at Shakespeare & Co. in Paris a few years ago about Burgess. He totally hard sold me on one of his later books. Sly bastard.
I could probably add tons more, but it’s late. Sorry, not much in the way of images or videos this time… click on for that. In case you missed it, Image Comics is having an SF Bay Area shindig this coming February. We haven’t signed off on anything yet, but Wow Cool will likely have a presence there. So, hope to see you at the Image Expo in late February in Oakland, CA.
Be the next person to order any of these three items from the Wow Cool shop and you will receive a custom heavy duty canvas totebag at no additional charge:
Holli Hoxxx #1 by Austin Tinius, Adam Tinius & Stefano Cardoselli
The new shop is forever growing, so keep watch on the new items page. Recent highlights include Bowman by Pat Aulisio, Ganges #4 by Kevin Huizenga, Never Learn Anything From History The first collection of Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton, R.A.V. #5 by Mickey Z, the much acclaimed Pope Hats #2 by Ethan Rilly and the 30 page monster minicomic Stay Away From Other People by Lisa Hanawalt – a 2009 Ignatz Award Winner now back in print.
Monday was the first day of being somewhat set up in the new Wow Cool offices. Got a record number of orders out the door. Got us on the interwebs. Printer is on the network. Still much to do. I am freaking exhausted. Still way too much interesting stuff going on to not share.
There is going to be an Adventure Time comic series debuting in February from Boom! Studios’ all-ages imprint Kaboom! in February 2012. The book will be written by Dinosaur Comics creator Ryan North. Get up close and personal with the artists behind Adventure Time in this report we posted last month.
Watching Rise of the Planet of the Apes while I work on this. Somewhat more disturbing during the current occupied climate.
š! #9 ‘female secrets’ is out! It contains stories by 27 international female cartoonists on 164 pages! Guest editor Ryan Sands. You know you need some of that! See the big preview. Be getting some of those here soon.
Gang of Four’s Dave Allen digs through old notebooks and posts thoughts on Damien Hirst, Johnny Rotten, JG Ballard, Brian Eno and the American suburbs.
I could post many, many more, but am oh so very tired. These were the big ones. Check this space for Black Friday deals and other such nonsense later in the week.
I’ve been pretty terrible about posting new books in the Wow Cool Shop here on the blog, but, I was pretty excited by today’s arrival, and, since I can barely walk after today’s big move to new offices on the other side of town, here’s a brief rundown…
As seen above, we’ve got the very limited (numbered edition of 300, and all the ones we currently have are in the first 50) brand new this week issue of Mickey Z’s R.A.V. #5 in stock for a meager six bucks. Includes a guest appearance from Michael DeForge.
Brian Ralph’s Daybreak collection is an absolute must have. Brian Ralph… zombies. What more do you need to know.
And, the sleeper hit of the summer (um, are we past that season now?) is the first issue of Holli Hoxxx, A sci-fi comic like you wish Heavy Metal would print more of. Kevin, are you listening?! Don’t make me start a campaign or something!
Busy day week. Tuesday, November 15th is was the official move-in day to Wow Cool’s new offices in the Monta Vista neighborhood of Cupertino (If you know the area, we’re next to Paul and Eddies) The gallery/bookstore will not be open for a few more weeks yet… aiming for early December… we’ll see. There will be no interruption to regular shipping. All orders placed Saturday will ship out on Monday. Weather permitting, all the books and records and whatnot will move into their new home on Saturday. We get internet on Monday. And, in great news for the impatient, the new digs are two blocks from the post office, so most orders placed before 3pm Pacific time on weekdays will ship out the same day.
I’ve been finding the strangest stuff while unpacking and stuffing filing cabinets. Today, the long-missing “Mark Martin” folder was uncovered, also a xerox collection of very early strips that Mike Kupperman sent to me to use in the old Tuna Casserole anthology. Wondering now why we never said, ‘hey Mike, we should print a whole book of this stuff’. Many, many other gems… Once the scanner gets moved I’ll scan a few and share them here. I’ve been planning on digitizing and posting massive chunks of the Wow Cool archive over the course of the next year or so. More on that when it starts happening. (illustration above is a scan from a memo by Mark Martin to the Hyena artists)
In other exciting news there is once again a Pee Dog publication available from Wow Cool. We did a printing of Pee Dog #1 back in the early 90′s and were working with Jocko & Eddie to get a Pee Dog Collection into print for about five years at three different publishers until when – literally the week that production was starting on the book – they pulled the plug on the project, presumably to spare their poor mothers the worry. Now, Picture Box has printed a new edition of Pee Dog #2 and we have that available to you here along with a dozen other fine PB publications.
There’s about a hundred more books and other stuff in the shop since last mentioned here in the engineroom, so, please do some browsing. Highlights include Kate Beaton’s first Hark! A Vagrant collection and the Nedroid collections from Topatoco, a large selection of books by the artists behind Adventure Time, Caroline Paquita’s 2012 Calendar, Mickey Z.’s R.A.V. books (expecting #5 to show up any day now), A very nice and very affordable print and also a very nice and very thick minicomic by Lisa Hanawalt, and the very strange event of when Michael Kupperman (him again!) worked for Timely Comics – All Select Comics #1 featuring The Blonde Phantom and Marvex!
OK. Now for the Tweetdown. The best and brightest bits of news from the Twitterzone from the last few days (follow Wow Cool, already). Usually posted on a Monday.
Liz Suburbia posted five new pages of Sacred Heart late on Wednesday, November 16th. She swears she’ll be getting some of the printed editions to us soon.
The must read item of this list is this interview with the awesome Annie Koyama of the press of the same name on CBR. And, no, I didn’t know she worked for the National Film Board of Canada either. No joke, we get plenty of those productions this side of the border too.
Wow Cool is officially the last place on the interwebs to post a link to this video of Alan Moore talking about Harvey Pekar.
Oh… and though we teased it within minutes of everyone else, if not much earlier, and through the burnt sage grapevine of the Comic Relief Alumni psychic friends network knew all about it at least a few hours earlier, we are now about the last to report that, yes, there will be a big fat fucking book of King City finally. Creator Brandon Graham has the most enjoyable report of this impending publication. The book, will, of course, be available from Wow Cool. M. Graham will also be writing the new Prophet series for Image. Oh, the news of the new complete edition of King City was first announced in USA Today, of all places. The complete King City is to be a 424 page book from Image Comics, released on February 22, 2012 for a meager $19.99 at the ‘Golden Age’ size. Uh Huh. Yup. As mentioned before… we’d like to see an expanded Escalator collection with a special color section.
You like some J. Church? My much missed fellow MRR shitworker Lance Hahn’s unreleased demos have been digitized and unleashed for you to download. I will be re-hosting these here soon, so that you don’t have to deal with the idiocy of Sendspace. Um… remind me if I forget. Seriously. Busy damn week.
OK. That’s probably it until next Tuesday or so. We’ll see how the move goes. As mentioned before, there are many, many books that are in stock at Wow Cool that are not yet listed online. The goal is to get the vast bulk of it ready by good ole’ Black Friday, including the staggering amount of Robert Crumb titles we have. Otherwise, when the new place in Cupertino is open to the public, announcements will be made prominently in all the likely locations. Local pick-up will also be added as a shipping option in the store checkout. You can get in touch through the Contact Us form to make an appointment if you like until then. Thanks for reading.
This teaser image has just been released to the world by Image Comics. What does it mean? More King City, perhaps? A collection? Hmmm. We’ll just have to wait to find out. In the meanwhile, will someone please bring Escalator
back into print?! In other B.G. news you should check out his drawing-rich post from a few days ago with a preview of his “The Speaker” comic for Dark Horse Presents #7 and much more tasty goodness.
Family Circus is an easy target for subversive alteration (quite often mashed with HP Lovecraft), but it managed to be pretty weird on its own and often genuinely funny. The classic “Can I cut things out of People” is one of the best, then there was the crossovers between Family Circus and Zippy The Pinhead in 1994-1995. Billy spent a week under the gaze of the Bill Griffith Observatory in December 1994. Viewable much larger (but harder to navigate) on Zippy’s home site: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
The Mac iOS app of Jason Shiga’s Meanwhile is now available for the iPad and The iPhone. More information is available on App developer Andrew Plotkin’s site, including a link to a great photo of Jason with his five foot square story map for Meanwhile. The physical hardcover book Meanwhile: Pick Any Path. 3,856 Story Possibilities is still available as well.
MEANWHILE: an interactive comic by Jason Shiga
On the way home from the ice cream store, little Jimmy discovers a mad scientist’s wonderland: an experimental mind-reading helmet, a time machine, and a doomsday device that can annihilate the human race. Which one would you like to test out first?
MEANWHILE is not an ordinary comic. YOU make the choices that determine how the story unfolds. MEANWHILE splits off into thousands of different adventures. Most will end in DOOM and DISASTER. Only one path will lead you to happiness and success.
- A thrilling adventure of quantum physics, self-discovery, and kids getting into trouble. (We mentioned the doomsday device, right?)
- Completely redesigned by the author for an infinite scrollable canvas.
- Full audio accessibility with VoiceOver; every panel and choice can be spoken.
Serious funnyman Michael Kupperman is the subject of the latest Gweek podcast over in Boingerland. We just recently got a stack of Mike’s bit of awesomeness he did for Timely Comics a couple years back in the shop – All Select Comics #1 featuring MARVEX!
The guests and exhibitors for the 2011 Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival have been announced. Wow Cool won’t be there in person, but, about sixth tenths of the artists whose books we carry will.
You must go watch this wild Salvador Dalí documentary narrated by Orson Welles! “A Soft Self Portrait” from 1967 on Ubu Web.
Paul Pope talks about teaming up with Legendary Comics (publishing arm of the film studio that produced Inception, The Dark Knight and others) to finally get some more books out, over on CBR.
Susie Cagle has posted a report on AlterNet about her experiences with the Oakland Police Department while trying to cover Occupy Oakland as a journalist. “Oakland has spent more than $1 million on Occupy policing, but nearly all of that overwhelming force has been used against innocent people.”
I’ve been wanting to write something here about Susie Cagle’s coverage of Occupy Oakland for a couple weeks now. But, given the occupation’s escalating nature and Susie’s work on it being ongoing observation and documentation for an eventual full report, there was not an easy way in to hang a post on. Recent events and the press attention given them makes this seem like a good time to jump in. Occupy Oakland has been a strange story to try to follow, from the reports that make it all sound like a raging riot in the Guardian to the feel good piece in the LA Times on Thursday morning about protesters grabbing breakfast burritos from a food truck with the dockworkers Union boss. Add to this the such mindblowing events as solidarity protests in Tahrir Square and it’s all just a bit much to take in. One thing is certain, however, The Oakland Police Department is deeply fucked up. That’s not a big surprise to anyone, but it is shocking that the press has repeatedly been on the direct receiving end of their repressive measures — from their dusting off the riot playbook last Tuesday to this weeks imprisonment and intimidation exercises. Susie Cagle has been one of the most visible targets of their insane anti-journalist campaign — catching an exploding can of teargas right in front of her face (video above) to her arrest, imprisonment and the holding of her personal belongings by the police over the last few hours. As of this writing they are still holding her stuff, including her apartment keys. Yet, she is determined to follow this story until the end despite all of this. That level of commitment is a true inspiration. Just be safe out there, Susie. I don’t ever want to see you added to this roster at CPJ.
UPDATE: Posted late today on YouTube, Susie’s video from the plaza raid right before she was arrested. Yes, the footage is a bit rough. If I was ever in a situation where a large group of people were being told “Get on the ground, you’re under arrest”, I would probably try to run, break into a building, something–all Gordon Freeman style–because I would assume the alternative was far worse…
Print
is still available as well.
