Hello world. I’m glad to report that we have not one, but two new releases from Mickey Z. Not just the latest issue of R.A.V. – Number six – but also a short horror tale called Sagari. All of it hand produced with the miraculous Risographical technologies. Mickey was both awesome and economical in her shipping practices. All the books showed up at Wow Cool HQ in a stylish Riso ink box. Very appropriately emblazoned with a big Z.

Brand new in the shop is the second book release from Space Face Books, an anthology digest by the name of Rat Hex featuring brand new art and comics by Robert Beatty, Clint Colburn, Michael DeForge, Jesse McManus and Matt Lock.

Sorry it’s been a slow week in blog-land, the main machine is in the shop at the moment. All should be coming at you quicker again soon.

We are scheduled to get the last of our shelving for the too long in developing physical Wow Cool store in Cupertino sometime in June. So look for an announcement no later than July 4th about that opening up. Hours will be limited to start off (likely just Saturdays and by appointment for the summer).

Oh, and don’t miss the latest Ant Comic by Michael DeForge.

Thanks for visiting. Talk more soon. OK?

First up are the first three offerings from Austin English’s Domino Books: Dark Tomato #1 by Sakura Maku, Spider Monkey #1 by Jesse McManus & Austin English, and Difficult Loves by Molly Colleen O’Connell.

Sugar Booger! Yes, Kevin Scalzo’s books live and thrive again at Wow Cool! Both issues of Sugar Booger, Aw Nuts and Sweat Book are all in stock. Vital stuff.

And then there’s Nurse Nurse by Katie Skelly, collecting all eight issues of her minicomic in a lovely paperback package. The first new release from Sparkplug since founder Dylan Williams’ passing. Michael DeForge says, “Nurse Nurse is perfect! It is beautiful and funny and deeply weird, and unlike any other comic out there right now”.

Sparkplug, Teenage Dinosaur, Revival House and Floating World join forces to bring you their 2012 FCBD anthology, BRAD TRIP. Eight Portland artists take you on a journey that explores vagaries, innuendoes, dreamscapes and weirdness in narrative form. Featuring all new comics by Virginia Paine (Milkyboots), Annie Murphy (I Still Live), Kinoko Evans (Zine City Comics), Aidan Koch (The Whale), Dunja Jankovic (Department Of Art), and Maria Sputnik (Gazeta) & Connie Hockaday. Covers by Lori D and Brenna Murphy (Oregon Painting Society).

Brad Trip is a 32 page black and white comic book with color covers. FREE with any order (or plus postage on it’s own) while supplies last. Any orders placed on WowCool.com this Saturday, May fifth (Cinco de Mayo!) will also receive as many other random free books as will fit in the box. We have all sorts of goodies waiting for you.

In Portland, Oregon? Go to the book release and art exhibit Thursday, May 3rd. Then join the artists the following Saturday 12-2pm for Free Comic Book Day.

WHO: Lori D, Kinoko Evans, Annie Murphy, Virginia Paine, Maria Sputnik
WHAT: Brad Trip free book release & art exhibit
WHEN: Thursday, May 3rd, 6-10pm
WHERE: Floating World Comics, 400 NW Couch St.

After a brief hiatus during the recent troubles, the mighty Injury Comics by Ted May and company has returned. Issue number four is here! The books are in stock and ready to ship to you. Successfully funded as a Kickstarter project, our friends at Alternative Comics have kicked in the extra help to up the print run on this baby and get it out to the masses through the usual channels. The book makes it’s official debut on June 16 at CAKE – The Chicago Alternative Comics Expo. Shortly after that it will be showing up in an indie-friendly comic shop near you. Until then you can only get them direct through Ted or from us. Grab ‘em while they are hot, true believer!

Came out end of last year but new to us. Dense jam comic from Pat Aulisio & Josh Bayer (Bowman, Raw Power, Rub the Blood, etc.). The cover art is printed again on a vellum overlay that lies out of alignment with the cover to create nausea inducing panic in the viewer. Guaranteed to upset Roy Thomas. CONON!!!

New to our shop is the first installment of Gabrielle Gamboa’s ambitious adaptation of Nathanael West’s agony column expose Miss Lonely Hearts. Frank Santoro says: “The tension between the styles builds and the rhythm of the 1,2 of the panels and the page turns is executed precisely and makes you want to read it all again and again. I forgot how intense this story is – it very much lends itself to a comic book treatment. Why it works is that the treatment is rooted stylistically to the time period rendered.” Go get yours now.

Slater is a man-dog who is beaten up, de-beagled, tied up and attends group therapy in this harrowing tale of identity and redemption. Go get yours now in the Wow Cool Shop.

Malachi Ward’s new comic is the haunting 29 page tale, “Real Life” that makes up all of the first issue of his new series Ritual. You may know Malachi from his books Utu and Expansion with Matt Sheean. He’s also contributed to Study Group Magazine, NoBrow #6 and Prophet #24. Ritual #1 is in stock and available to you now in the Wow Cool Shop.

It’s the last weekday of spring break. My family stopped by the office with smoothies after their trip to San Jose’s Happy Hollow. Shortly after recovering from the discovery that there was broken glass in mine, I notice my son flipping through an old issue of Mad Magazine. He loves Spy Vs. Spy, and was explaining the silent series of traps to me. On the facing page I recognized a story drawn by Harvey Kurtzman. Then I saw my name written there. I had totally forgotten about this personalized copy and don’t really remember the exact circumstances. This is from Mad #274, the October 1987 issue ($1.35 Cheap!) I was a student in Harvey’s class at The School of Visual Arts at that time. I imagine that I showed up early to class having just discovered that he was drawing for the magazine, brandishing the thing in one hand like Senator Joe McCarthy going after commies in the State Department. No idea when or how he snuck in there to jot this note. Thanks Harvey! I believe you now!

Each and every copy hand made by Zak Sally on his own press as shown below. Go grab yours now.

Thanks to Branwyn Bigglestone for remembering. She had the following to say and I couldn’t sum it up any better.

25 years ago today Rory Root & Michael Patchen opened Comic Relief in Berkeley, CA. The store has since closed, but its impact is still felt today, and I’m personally thankful for them helping me get my start in comics, and for giving me the opportunity to meet lots of people who have become some of my closest friends.

I wanted to just use the Dan Clowes CR logo on this post, but couldn’t find a good version on the web, and running across town to the office to dig up a better one was not going to happen on a Sunday. So… you get the above video. I’d not seen it before. Enjoy.

Fresh off the boat from swinging London is issue six of NoBow Magazine. For their first double issue NoBrow asked over 60 artists to contribute work to the theme of Doubles or Doppelgangers. With contributions from Tom Gauld (The Gigantic Robot), Kevin Huizenga (Ganges), Blanquet (Toys in the Basement), Malachi Ward (Utu) as well as new narrative work from Nobrow stalwarts Jon McNaught (Birchfield Close, Pebble Island), Jack Teagle (Jeff: Job Hunter) and Luke Pearson (Hildafolk) and the formidable talents of Michael Deforge and Ignatz newcomer award winner Joseph Lambert, among many, many others. Illustration submissions from the likes of Sean Lewis, Roman Muradov, Golden Cosmos, Gwenola Carrere, Andrea Kalfas, Viviane Scwartz, Katia Spitzer, Luke Best and many many more!

We’ve also got the newest issue of the excellent Mother’s News in; and, while supplies last, anyone whose order ships out from the Wow Cool shop via Media or Priority Flat Rate mail gets a free copy. The last couple issues flew out of here pretty quick. For those who don’t know, Mother’s News is a free monthly newspaper out of Providence, RI. It features regular comic strips by Michael DeForge, C.F., Brian Chippendale, Mickey Z. and many other that you can’t find elsewhere.

There are many new books that should be arriving any day, in the meanwhile we’ve recently added some older gems, including: fresh stock of Eric Haven’s The Aviatrix and Andy Ristaino’s Tunnel; Scott C.’s Double Fine Action Comics Volume 1; Tom Gauld’s The Gigantic Robot; the very fine second and third issues of the anthology Pencil Fight; and a Craig Thompson rarity in the Dark Horse magazine Reveal.

In other news, there is finally some proper art in the shop header, courtesy of Andy Ristaino.

Already past its goal with a couple days to go, but still needing some extra help to safely up the print run to a thousand is Injury Comics #4. Please help these guys out.

Thanks!

As the seasons renew and the days last longer, lo!, there are new books in the shop and I stay up later to tell you about them. We have lifted the curse of a seemingly endless array of books published in 2008, which made up the bulk of additions to the shop last month, and moved on to actual new things.

First up we have Wild Glass Look Back by R. Clint Colburn, a full color sketchbook collection from new publisher Space Face Books. This is a very limited edition at a very reasonable price.

Next is the very latest in the Retrofit series, Noah Van Sciver’s 1999: The Year My World Ended – a possibly slightly ironic (given the year depicted) take on the putting the pathetic loser through a possibly semi-autobiographical hell tale.

Lastly, to prove that April is far from cruel, we give you fear in a handful of dust (wait that’s not right…) No, we give you D.I.Y. Magic by Anthony Alvarado – spawned from his Athur Magazine column and now taken root in heavily illustrated (by Ron Regé, Jesse Moynihan, Malachi Ward, Farel Dalrymple and many others) bound paper form from Portland’s Floating World Books.

Stay tuned for more goodness. This is looking to be an exciting year in funny book land.

I don’t have a subscription at my local shop. I don’t do all my new comics shopping at one store (we’re lucky to have several in the San Jose area). I don’t go every week. There are very few titles I buy every issue of. I check out several new books when I shop. Some I just browse. Some I flip through. A few I buy to take home and check out. I often buy books because they feature a favorite artist or writer. I frequently mutter in disgust and put the book back on the shelf when the art on the inside is no match for what’s on the cover. The last time I went at least once a month to the comic shop was when Brian K. Vaughan still had 2 regular series coming out (which was only for a short while after there were three). I often go and don’t find anything I want. Several times in recent months a book I was looking for was not available.

One thing that gets me into shops is online previews and reviews at the various popular comics news sites. I check at least four a day with the rest of my morning news. Some of the most talked about titles of the last many months on these include Image’s Mud Man, Saga, King City, Nonplayer, Orc Stain and Prophet. Saga was easy enough to find. The same shop that had that for me turned me on to Nonplayer. The rest, I have had to hunt all up and down the San Francisco bay to keep up with. If I could easily get Image titles online in print I would do that. It took several months to track down one elusive issue of King City. I don’t buy digital comics. I do read web comics.

Anytime I’m in a shop looking for particular titles it’s a safe bet I won’t find at least one of them. Sometimes the book hasn’t shipped when I thought it had. More often I’m told “we only got one of those, I guess it sold” – as was the case with the much hyped Mud Man #1. Most commonly the shop hasn’t ordered it and the clerk has never heard of it.

I also look for comics my son might like. His favorite is Scooby Doo. It is very rare to find more than the most recent issue available. Shop owners! If you take nothing else away from my little ramble, do yourself just this one favor. Order more Scooby Doo. They’ll sell.

The mighty tabloid from Philadelphia returns! They met their (way too modest) goal on the first day and have now set a secondary goal of $1,500 to double the print run. From the same team that brought you the mighty Rub The Blood. Get on over and Kickstarter this monster!

The latest issue of Desert Island’s excellent tabloid comics anthology Smoke Signal is out now and available for free from the store in Brooklyn or for a mere $3 online. It’s 28 pages, color and black and white, printed in an edition of 2000. Includes work by Brian Ralph, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Kamagurka and Seele (Cowboy Henk), Gabrielle Bell, Glenn Head, cover art and five pages of “Belligerent Piano” by Tim Lane and much more. Be sure to look for Wow Cool’s full color ad in this issue featuring art by Andy Ristaino.

Desert Island is located at 540 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211 | Map

Our fine friends at Sparkplug Books are getting set to publish three new titles – the first big batch since founder Dylan Williams’ passing last year – and they need your help to make it happen. There is an excellent array of reward items, including original art and t-shirts. Get yourself over to Indiegogo and help them out.

Sparkplug Comics is ready to take on new publishing projects and we’d like to ask your help!

This campaign is a fundraiser for three of Sparkplug Books’ upcoming publishing projects.  Our soonest release, scheduled for April of 2012, is the graphic novel Nurse Nurse, by Katie Skelly.  This book compiles the previously self-published first seven issues of Katie’s ongoing sci-fi saga of nurses traversing the planets of our solar system.  The new book includes an eighth chapter to conclude the story.  The book has a two-color cover and black and white interior.

Our next two projects come from artists with whom Sparkplug has worked on multiple books in our past.  Reich, a series by Elijah Brubaker, is the ongoing biography of eminent sexologist Wilhelm Reich; this will be issue 9.  Olga Volozova, who has released Rock That Never Sleeps (a collaboration with Juliacks) and The Airy Tales through Sparkplug, brings us The Golem of Gabirol.  Each of these will have full color covers and black and white interior pages.

These books are of special import not only because they are amazing in themselves, but because they are the last projects on which Sparkplug founder Dylan Williams was working before he died of cancer in September 2011.  We are honored to see these through to completion and work with such great talent.

Sparkplug has had a long working relationship with Portland company Brown Printing and we intend to use them again to get these books printed out.  Currently the layouts are complete for each project and finishing touches are being made before they are sent to Brown.  The money from this fundraiser will go towards printing costs of each book, as well as shipping costs for the books and other gifts we are offering as perks.

Please join us in making these books a reality!  Donate to the Sparkplug fundraiser today!

DONATION PERKS!

• $5 New mini comic Brad Trip, published in collaboration with other Portland small press companies,  plus postcards & sticker
• $15 All of above, plus Nurse Nurse book
• $25 All of above, plus Reich #9 (printing in June 2012)
• $35 All of above, plus Golem of Gabirol (printing in August 2012)
• $55 All of above, plus one grab bag Sparkplug title
• $65 All of above, plus tee shirt (choose from Renee French, Dylan Williams or Austin English designs while styles and sizes last)
• $100 All of above, plus three Sparkplug grab bag items & poster
• $200 All of above, plus original signed artwork by Sparkplug artists Chris Cilla, Aron Nels Steinke, Trevor Alixopoulos, Jeff Levine, and others.
• $300 All of above, plus invite to movie night party at Sparkplug Headquarters.  Pick out a movie, get tour of our facilities and drink beer / eat snacks with us.

From 2008 – but new to Wow Cool – is Microsoft’s Zune Arts sole publishing project: The Lost Ones. We received a stack of these direct from author Steve (30 Days of Night) Niles, who was nice enough to sign them for us. This 80-page full color graphic novel is surely one of the stranger entries in any of the contributors bibliographies. On board for the cover art and the final quarter of the story is Gary Panter. Also contributing are Morning Breath, Dr. Revolt and Kime Buzzelli.

Other recent additions to the shop you will want to check out (most of them from 2008… right before the crash, it seems…) are: Omega The Unknown #7 (also with Gary Panter), the Gary Panter 2-volume massive hardcover slipcased thing from Picture Box, Scott C.’s Double Fine Action Comics, the excellent anthology Meathaüs SOS, Tom Gauld’s Gigantic Robot, urban exploration zine Underneath Providence, and, from filmmaker Michel Gondry and Picture Box (Them Again!): You’ll Like This Film Because You’re in It: The Be Kind Rewind Protocol, and We Lost the War but Not the Battle.

In other shop news: The WowCool.com server has been upgraded. We are all kinds of faster and smoother now. The shopping cart software has been upgraded to the most recent version. Thousands of changes, adjustments and additions have been made to the product listings. Best news of all – especially for our non-US customers – the shipping calculations have been massively improved, accommodating the most recent overhaul by the USPS of their shipping rates and regulations. Rates for everyone will now (in most cases) appear from the cheapest to the more expensive options. As always, we recommend Priority Flat Rate as the most reliable – and in many cases, most affordable – option. Thanks for shopping with us. Wow Cool, global leaders in the freaky and the messed up.

The great French Master of Comics Art Jean Giraud has passed away age 73.

Kim Thompson has written the definitive English language obituary of Jean Giraud for The Comics Journal.

Ted May is all done with the fourth issue of his Injury Comics series. The catch is, he’s without a publisher at the moment. The book’s all done – featuring contributions from Jeff Wilson and Mike Reddy – they just need to be printed. And, yup, Ted needs your help to do that.

The first three issues of Injury and other works by Ted May are available in the Wow Cool Shop.

Northlanders Vol. 6: Thor’s Daughter – March 20, 2012

Dropping onto shelves later this month: Simon Gane illustrates writer Brian Wood’s tale of lost Viking history. Foot soldier Mads gives a grunt’s-eye view of the famous Siege of Paris where hundreds defended against thousands, and political maneuvering was as important as the clash of the shield wall. Even while they fight off the invading horde, Mads and company still have to make it through the brutal winter to survive. Collects Northlanders 37-39 “The Siege of Paris” + #40 “The Hunt” – illustrated by Matt Woodson, and #41 “Thor’s Daughter”, illustrated by Marian Churchland. Also, as mentioned recently, Simon will be the regular artist on the new Godzilla series starting in May.

Zack Soto, the mastermind behind Press Gang partner Study Group, was nice enough to flow us a small stack of stickers and postcards recently (as seen in the impossibly bad phone photo above). Anyone who orders Study Group 12 #4 or Study Group Magazine #1 or any books by Zack Soto will be getting some bonus goodies (while supplies last).

Hello. Thanks to anyone who somehow got here because they saw this ad. It is currently running on certain popular comics sites and a particular search engine. It will also be appearing a bit bigger in full color in Smoke Signal #12. A big thanks to the awesome Andy Ristaino for providing the art. Feel free to use and share. We’ll be putting all sorts of shameless self promo banners, buttons and bobs up in the near future that we will be likewise be urging you to utilize. Note the clever use of the Thurston Moore YR Vs. the LolCats UR. Which side are you on?

Brand new publisher Hic & Hoc announce a call for submissions to their non-fiction comics anthology of Unsolved Mysteries. They also have books coming soon from Neil Fitzpatrick, Lauren Barnett, Pat Aulisio, Alabaster, Bernie McGovern, Philippa Rice, Dina Kelberman and Emi Gennis.

“I HAVE TRAVELED HERE FROM THE YEAR 1984 TO MAKE COMICS FOR YOU ALL. It was a long trip and I started it as a baby. I think I’ve always been drawing and writing little stories going as far back as I can remember; my first real effort though was a goofy autobiographical web comic I started at the end of high school, followed by my first zine a few years later. That early stuff was pretty bad though, I think I had to get out and go through some shit and learn a lot more about life before I started making comics I was satisfied with. I started Sacred Heart about two years ago and in that time have started self-publishing Cyanide Milkshake and some other minis as well.” – get acquainted with Liz and her mad comics in this interview by Janelle Blarg on Maximum RockNRoll. Take the full plunge and pick up her comics from Wow Cool.

Guest post by James Arsenault, done as a present to his sister. The pattern will become clear. Partly inspired by a little too much Schoolhouse Rock, in particular the audio CD “Math Rock”, which we are pretty sure has no connection to certain bands from a decade or so ago, largely from the fine state of Kentucky.

The popular Godzilla comics series from IDW is getting a relaunch in May and Simon Gane will be the regular artist. Simon had previously illustrated Godzilla Legends #2 starring Rodan for the company, but this will be his first full-on go at the Big G. Full solicitation text follows.

Godzilla #1
Duane Swierczynski (w) • Simon Gane (a) • Art Adams, Tony Harris (c)
Godzilla is back… in an all-new ongoing series! Duane Swierczynski and Simon Gane launch this ultimate action-movie blockbuster, ushering in a new era of monster battles. Ex-special forces tough-guy Boxer is a man with a grudge and vows to end the terror of Godzilla, no matter what. He assembles a top notch team to take down monster-sized threats… at $7 billion a bounty. What starts as a vendetta could become a lucrative business for Boxer… if he can live past day one!
FC • 32 pages • $3.99

*Variant Covers:
Ryan Kelly movie-tribute cover!
Art Adams gatefold cover!

Bullet Points:
¥ The new ongoing Godzilla series STARTS HERE!
¥ Bigger, badder and more radioactive… this is the ultimate Godzilla tale!
¥ Every issue contains a random Art Adams monster trading card! 9 different cards available, collect the whole set! Also, look for randomly inserted unique sketch cards from Matt Frank!

Anyone know what he’s thinking? Funniest response gets something unbelievably awesome.

Taken from this slightly off-kilter analysis of Joe Kubert in the context of mid-60s superhero comics.
That piece also gives us this very charming sequence:

I named the only cat I ever had Emmett, after Emmett Grogan of the Diggers.

Hey Silicon Valley folks! Get yr butts down to the SLG Art Boutiki at 577 S. Market St. in San Jose tonight – Wednesday February 15 – from 6 until 9pm for the NerdMart “Geek Swap Meet”. Wow Cool will be there in the form of Marc, with a big Frank Santoro-style bargain box of strange comics as well as a few Wow Cool goodies, including a big stack of Sam Henderson’s Free Ice Cream.

Word has it that our old pals Prank Records (They put out one of the early Hail Mary 7″ records) will be on hand as will be Jim “Blockhead” Pitts – selling old underground comix, Movies, toys, steampunk schwag and more. So, come and check out what people are getting rid of, what people value beyond all other things, and what one person’s crap becomes another person’s cool.

SLG Art Boutiki & Gallery, 577 S. Market Street, San Jose, CA 95113 | View Map

One of my favorite jokes on the original Muppet Show series is a throw-away comment by one of the Statler and Waldorf duo about how the only papers he reads are the New York Times and the Manchester Guardian. It works on several levels, and seems to have been likely constructed thus. On the surface it’s the throwaway comment that indicates he has no clue what, exactly, the other has said. The content of the comment is inclusive with regards to the two primary english speaking audiences of the show – American and British (note: the show was produced in the UK, and the episodes broadcast there had a greater length, typically including a muppet version of an English music hall standard that was omitted in the US version); and, possibly most humorously, the Guardian had dropped ‘Manchester’ from it’s masthead many years earlier – in 1959 – thus playing on the aged dottiness of the character. I only bring this up, because, in my experience, the talented and well traveled cartoonist and musician Jeffrey Lewis has only ever received much press attention from the Guardian and, now, The New York Times. Good work if you can get it, as they say. Create hopelessly obscure personal work, get all but ignored by the underground but routinely receive notice(s) from the best of the mainstream press. So, in keeping with this (perceived) tradition, a nearly decade-old song of Jeffrey’s is given full play by the artist himself in both text and comic form in the New York Times. The NYT itself having recently come under some scrutiny for cartoonist hiring tactics. Although not any kind of clinician, physician, pediatrician, psycheotrician myself, this sounds more like good old-fashioned insomnia to me and not a proper anxiety attack being described in the song. As mentioned somewhere in there, Jeffrey also does the music for Jon Ronson’s series Esc and Ctrl, which is well worth a view anyways.

For nearly ten years, I’ve supported myself producing comics by making merchandise that hopefully, people will buy. All the while, I try to do my best work, writing stories and illustrating them, for free. It makes very little sense.

My comics on this site will always be free to read. But if you want to directly fund the stories you enjoy, please consider signing up for a Scary Go Round subscription. Once a year, you’ll be a bona fide patron of the arts. There are no other benefits. £2 a year is less than a penny per comic.

STANDARD – £2 / $3 every year – receive nothing*
BRONZE – £10 / $10 every year – receive nothing*
SILVER – £25 / $25 every year – receive nothing*
GOLD – £50 / $50 every year – receive nothing*
PLATINUM – £100 / $100 every year – receive nothing*
*but my gratitude

It’s a square deal. You’re free to cancel via your Paypal account at any time – use this link to access your subscriptions. If I decide to abandon webcomics, you will be informed in advance. After 13+ years without missing a scheduled update, you’re probably pretty safe.

I love making comics, and want to find a better way to keep doing it the same way I always have – if that makes sense! If I can fund my work this way, I will be able to work without worry. Thanks for taking the time to read.

Little Heart is a comic anthology created to show support for marriage equality, produced in partnership with 2D Cloud & [MN]Love and YOU. The comics included in the volume cover a variety of material, from auto-bio, science fiction, intimate vignettes, romantic incidentals; work created to show that love strikes all walks of life.

This project was spawned by the very urgent need to fight the 2012 referendum that seeks to instill discrimination and hate in the Minnesota state constitution. Since Little Heart’s inception, the project has grown. The reason for the growth is that the issue itself is bigger than Minnesota. Which is why we have enlisted artists across the US and Canada.

Artists included in the book are as follows:

Tuesday Bassen, Emma Reynolds, Tim Sievert, Michael DeForge, Alex Fukui, Ellen Redshaw, Anna Bongiovanni, Hannah Blumenreich, Megan Tulius, Hedwig Vinson + Rachel Kowarski, Milkyboots, Luke Holden, Ed Choy + Sam Sharpe, Tammy Ray, Noah Van Sciver, Sally Madden, Jeremy Sorese, Emily Carroll + Kate Craig, Sean Lynch, Joseph Remnant, MariNaomi, Maurice Vellekoop, Zak Sally; with Christopher Butcher handling the introduction/foreword.

Coming in at 160+ pages, perfect bound, 5” x 6”, featuring color as well as black and white — this book is going to be a looker. It’s also going to be a little spendy to produce. The production costs are about 4k to pay the artists and another 4.5k for the actual printing of the book. We are aiming to print 1000 copies — should we exceed our goal, extra funds will go towards increasing the print run, higher production values, and paying the artists a higher rate.

Suspect Device 2 on Kickstarter
Suspect Device #1 was released in August 2011, a 35 page book in black and white with one very good idea; making new comics by taking old panels out of context and drawing a new improvised context around them, a new comic from the old. The 2nd issue adds a couple new wrinkles to the game and brings in over 60 artists, including, Noah Van Sciver, Sam Henderson, Chuck Forsman, Johnny Ryan, Kevin Scalzo, KC Green, Brian Ralph, Lizz Hickey, Anne Emond, Brendan Lynch, Box Brown, Heather Benjamin, Noah Lyon of Retard Riot, Pat Ausilio, Keenan Keller, Domitille Collardey and Janelle Hessig.

When this fine volume emerges it will surely show up in the Wow Cool shop. We still have a few copies of Suspect Device #1 available.

Andy Ristaino time, that is. Andy is, of course an artist on Adventure Time, but he has also produced many fine comics. Wow Cool has just this very day acquired fresh stock of his self-published comics The Tunnel and Corporation Earth Needs Our Help! as well as the full color collection of drawings Night of the Living Vidiots. New to the selection, as seen above is “One hundred and forty people from the future, twelve cavemen, one old-timey muscle man, nine beach bums, five pirates, a dog, and a monster”, which is pretty much what it sounds like.

Andy was just recently profiled by the LA Zine Fest as part of their meet your local zinester series. There’s a seemingly endless number of awesome events (many of them going on tonight) in the buildup to the Zine Fest itself next Sunday, February 19. Get all the deets on the LA Zine Fest blog.

Brand new from the Floating World Faction of the Press Gang and available in the Wow Cool shop right now are two wonderful books:

Object 5 – Works by Killian Eng
The first monograph of illustration and graphic design work by Swedish artist, Kilian Eng. The book features over 60 full color pieces created over the last three years. Kilian’s images present alternate worlds where the environment plays a great role.

Violence Valley by Jesse McManus
A bright, dumb, gap-toothed lad goes rambling out-doors, inevitably finding himself within the deepest bowels of a living, breathing dog. His passage out the other end involves homespun dental work, a transforming pan-flute and the kind of reverse infestation which will make anyone look twice before they flush.

We also have the second and third editions of Floating World’s excellent Diamond Comics now in stock in the shop. Few copies remaining, so go get yours now!

We just got a short stack of the January & February issues of the excellent tabloid Mother’s News. They’ll be going out FREE with all orders from WowCool.com that are sent by Priority or Media Mail (while supplies last). Features comic strips by C.F., Brian Chippendale, Michael DeForge, Mickey Z and much more. Wow Cool is proud to be a Mother’s News advertiser and a supporter of this fine publication. Catch the glow.