Wow Cool Alternative Comics will be returning to the PLCAF Small Press Comics Expo on Saturday, February 2, 10:00 AM–4:00 PM, at the Foster City Library. Like the 2018 event we will be bringing a variety of books and zines from Alternative Comics and Sparkplug Books with a variety of other...
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Originally appearing on the DVD set Space Ghost & Dino Boy: The Complete Series this is the only documentary on the life and work of the great cartoonist Alex Toth that we’ve ever heard of. There is an anecdote involving Jack Kirby around 43 minutes in that will blow your freaking mind...
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Reading Chris Cilla’s The Heavy Hand, I felt a tremendous sense of déjà vu. Each page felt like one I had already read somewhere, even though I hadn’t. One reason it may have felt so familiar is that The Heavy Hand is the ultimate “fusion” comic...
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If Red Eye, Black Eye was K. Thor Jensen’s version of a comics senior thesis, then his short story collection Cloud Stories was his PhD. dissertation. The former had all that young cartoonist energy, for good and ill, especially as a work of autobiography. There were plenty of times where...
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OK, that little holiday break thing is past us now and we’ve got a few treats for you old and new. We are also still taking pre-orders on Rad Erwank/Conspiracy Dog. As you may have heard, online social networks have been a bit of a rats nest in recent times. After reviewing our main image...
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K. Thor Jensen’s Red Eye, Black Eye (Alternative Comics) is the work of a young cartoonist. That is literally true, as the book was published in 2007 after being serialized online, but the tone and content is very much of a man in his mid-20s trying to figure out his life. As such, a...
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I’m not going to hold your hand on these. It’s been a long week. Go click some links and stare at some stuff. Stop by my shop later today and we can chew the fat about it. Tempeh if you’re vegan. Firstly: Variety has A First Look at: Alan Moore’s ‘The Show,’ Starring Tom Burke...
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One reason why I love comics is that I occasionally run into a creator producing art that would only work as comics. I prefer not to use reductive terms like “pure cartooning”, but I have a great appreciation for many artists who rethink this idea of making marks on paper for a...
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It is interesting to consider what Annie Goetzinger, “la grande dame de la bande dessinée”, chose as the last two projects of her life. After many years serving as the illustrator for most of her projects, she wrote and drew her last two books herself. Dying a few months after her...
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Something I’ve noticed as a recent trend in comics is a style that somewhat trades in primitivism or outsider art on the surface, but in reality is a sophisticated integration of word and text. The plastic qualities of text are not something separate to be read in the comic, but instead...
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Take a look at the new books and comics from the first week of December. Coming this February from Alternative Comics is Rad Erwank & Conspiracy Dog by Lukasz Kowalczuk, Kek-W & Jack Teagle. It is available for exclusive pre-order from WowCool.com at a special discount price. Recent...
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Jack Teagle is a freelance illustrator based in South West England. He has worked in a large variety of fields, including editorial, character design, storyboarding, poster/ product/ textile design, and worked as a cartoonist for Front magazine from 2010-2014. He wrote tutorials and worked as a...
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This past month at Wow Cool we have been hard at work migrating the site to a faster server and doing a ton of housecleaning on WowCool.com. If you poke around enough you may notice a few other new additions as well. Coming this February from Alternative Comics is Rad Erwank & Conspiracy...
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Eleanor Davis’ first book was Stinky, which was released in 2008 by Toon Books. It won a number of awards and deservedly so, because it’s brilliant on any number of levels. What’s interesting about her kids’ and YA books is that they are chock full of eye...
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Revisiting another Sparkplug classic, here’s my original review of Julia Gfrörer’s debut book, Flesh and Bone, from 2010. Julia Gfrörer’s Flesh And Bone takes fairy-tale and folk legend tropes and both turns them on their heads and gets at their true roots. The plot of the...
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There are over 100 new items on WowCool.com! Browse books, comics, and records from the month of October. This week’s highlights: Fante Bukowski Three: A Perfect Failure and One Dirty Tree by Noah Van Sciver — two new graphic novels by comics superstar NVS exploring literary...
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Writing a children’s book that both children and adults can enjoy is a tricky proposition. Aim too far over a kid’s head to reach an adult, and you risk alienating the target audience. (And at $12.95 a pop, this is an expensive risk to take!) Going too far in the other direction...
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You visited us for Free Comic Book Day back in May. This event is just like that but with ghosts! It’s a haunted Free Comic Book Day. It’s the Halloween Comic Fest. Wow Cool Alternative Comics is hosting The 2018 Cupertino Halloween Comic Fest from Saturday October 27th through...
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One reason why Eleanor Davis is such an intriguing cartoonist is because her output is so unpredictable. While she has explored everything from science fiction to kid lit to satire and beyond, there is a constant theme running through them: mental health. That includes the ways in which...
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Wow Cool is 30 years old. Founded by Sam Henderson, Tom Hart and Marc Arsenault at the School of Visual Arts dorms in 1988, it is now a bookstore, publisher, distributor & music label. To celebrate we are offering 30% off everything in our store through the end of the week. Use coupon code...
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This week’s headlines: Franchise Lost: Eleanor Davis’ The Secret Science Alliance Link Hustler This week’s highlights: Descender Vol. 6: The Machine War — the final chapter of Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen’s acclaimed sci-fi saga (but not the end of the universe...
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Art We have been surveying the comics works of Eleanor Davis the past few weeks through the eyes of new regular reviewer Rob Clough. The Comics Reporter pointed us towards the archive of Eleanor’s contributions to Psychology Today. Check those out. it is worth the extra click-through...
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If Chris Ware were to do a book aimed at preteens, it might look a little like The Secret Science Alliance. As a long-time fan of Eleanor Davis (I still vividly remember the micro-mini-comics vending machine she brought to SPX), I was stunned to see her completely reinvent aspects of her visual...
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Check out this week’s articles and browse the new books at Wow Cool from the last couple of weeks! Derf’s True Stories #4 — the last issue in the series — is available for pre-order until Monday at a discounted price. The comic will debut at Small Press Expo 2018 this...
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