I consider Eleanor Davis to be one of the five best cartoonists working today. I’m going to take a look at some of her older, shorter work here and also contribute new reviews of more recent comics. Libby’s Dad. This 2016 Retrofit release is further proof of Davis’ versatility...
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Mimi Pond’s follow-up to her 2014 book Over Easy, The Customer Is Always Wrong, takes the best parts of the first book and amplifies them. The story of Pond’s stand-in character Madge, an inspiring artist working as a waitress at the colorful Imperial Cafe, takes a bit of a back seat...
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Reading Mimi Pond’s book Over Easy (Drawn & Quarterly), one gets the sense that this is a book that had to be written. As a professional writer and cartoonist for over thirty years (The Simpsons, Pee Wee’s Playhouse and Designing Women are among her credits), Pond has an...
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The Short Con by Pete Toms and Aleks Sennwald Pete Toms’ and Aleks Sennwald’s graphic novella The Short Con is on its surface the first of what hints at a larger series of children’s comics, but beneath that lies an examination of the power of belief. The way belief in ideas, no matter how...
Read moreRob Clough wrote a wonderful review of the final Reich issue over at High-Low: “Reich was a fantastic series about the ways in which ego and personality conflict with seeking the truth, and how those conflicts affect those around us.” Read the full review here.
Read moreRob Clough gave a nice little write-up of Asher Craw’s Hungry Summer for The Comics Journal. Clough says: “Craw updates the myth of Baba Yaga and puts it in a feminist, modern context without removing an ounce of her capricious and sometimes menacing nature. Those...
Read moreThe ever-on point Rob Clough reviewed Olga Volozova’s Golem of Gabirol! We are honored to have Rob take a look at our books. Here’s an excerpt: ” For Volozova herself (who dedicated the book to her late husband, who was also a rabbi), The Golem of Gabirol represents her...
Read moreOnce again Rob Clough reviews a Sparkplug Mini! Hungry Summer by Asher Z Craw is one of our latest releases, and we are cheered by Rob’s apt writing! Here is an excerpt: “Craw’s quasi-autobiographical comic, Zebediah, was an unpredictable, absorbing and ultimately humane...
Read moreWe are pleased to share Rob Clough’s review of our most recent release: The Anthropologists by Whit Taylor! “The idea was to study and talk to Aboriginal people as part of their cultural anthropology program. Paired with a hyperenthusiastic fellow American student and filled...
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In case you hadn’t heard, we are having a big sale on Saturday at our Cupertino, California store and on WowCool.com all weekend. You will have to make it to Cupertino to dig through the 17 longboxes of comics we are selling at a quarter a pop (or 25 for five dollars, as it says
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I don’t remember exactly what I was searching for when I stumbled across Jacque Nodell’s excellent Sequential Crush blog… and I don’t care anymore, my heart was swept away for the love of this glorious collection of lush images from 1960s and 1970s romance comics. There...
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OK… That’s not really true. But this thing is a major potential time-suck of unusual proportion. Well… size of the earth proportion… or, the bit of it that Google Street View has gotten to… or the portion that developer Anton Wallein has deemed fit to drop you in...
Read moreTom, Emily and I have done our Top Ten Comics lists again, but first…please check out this excellent review of Riech #9 by Rob Clough! Also, Nurse Nurse made it onto CBR’s Top 100 comics of 2012, so congrats to Katie Skelly! And now, the lists: Emily: My top 10, in no...
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I know it’s CCI now or something, but whatever. I went to San Diego Comic-Con for the first time in 14 years this past weekend and this is a quick run-down of artists, books and places that were either new to me or finally stuck in my mind enough to want to pass them along.
Read moreHello Chicago! Sparkplug will have a table at CAKE this weekend, June 16th & 17th. This is a new show and we’re very excited about it! There will be a ton of awesome artists and publishers there. Click here for more info. Also, Rob Clough has written a wonderful...
Read moreHave you read William Cardini’s Vortex yet?! You should, and it’s in our online store now! Rob Clough (High-Low, TCJ) says: “I’ve enjoyed Cardini’s development as an artist and the refinement of his heavily Mat Brinkman-influenced style. Cardini works...
Read moreOur IndieGoGo campaign is doing great. We owe many thanks to our friends and supporters everywhere for spreading the word! Thank you, Jason T. Miles, Rob Clough, Austin English and many others! Thanks to all our Facebook pals for sharing the link every day! I also wanted to...
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We’re dancing on the desks at Wow Cool HQ – which we do normally – but we are dancing extra vigorously at the news that Rob Clough selected Sam Henderson’s Free Ice Cream for the coveted #18 position in his Top 30 Minicomics of 2011 review in The Comics Journal. Sam sent...
Read moreThe wonderfully eloquent Rob Clough has posted his Top Fifteen Comics list. Included on the list is Sparkplug’s own Passage! Please give it a read!
Read moreRob Clough has reviewed Reich #8 over at his blog, High-Low. Check it out! “…Brubaker’s moody and angular drawings throw the character’s emotions into sharp relief; his use of shadow in particular evokes despondency and uncertainty, while a careful use of cross-hatching...
Read moreOver at the Comics Journal they have a thorough and thoughtful review of Chris Cilla’s the Heavy Hand, in which Rob Clough compares Chris to a turntablist: “Cilla finds every kind of storytelling convention totally interchangeable and mixes them with the elegance of a DJ or a...
Read moreAn incredible review of Dunja Jankovic’s Habitat #2 over at the Comics Journal. As usual Clough has insight rare among today’s comic reviewers. http://www.tcj.com/reviews/habitat-2/
Read moreSteve Lafler has been interviewed by Rob Clough at TCJ. A career retrospective interview, that is, with Steve. Part one of three, here: http://www.tcj.com/alternative/explaining-reality-to-myself-the-steve-lafler-interview-part-one-of-three/ Read, enjoy and look forward to parts two and three...
Read moreThe one and only Rob Clough reviews Robert Sergel’s Sparkplug book Eschew #2. Long and thoughtful, as always: http://www.poopsheetfoundation.com/profiles/blogs/review-eschew-2 “Sergel’s comics are all about panel-to-panel rhythm and the use of still, static imagery to create an...
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