Dave Allen and Ivor Cutler together? Yes, I need to watch this. You are saying that now. You are welcome. A BBC production from 1974. Dave Allen also hosted “Eccentrics at Play” the same year for the BBC. Dave Allen meets a man named Alexander Stuart Wortley who lives in a railway...
Read moreJonny Negron’s Adapt 2 and more new in the shop
Floating World has delivered the second of their massive oversized really damn big tabloid editions of Jonny Negron’s sci-fi series Adapt, and we have them here as well as having the first issue back in stock. About a bajilion more, well, nine or ten, books (old and new… well, new...
Read moreGo listen: Inkstuds episode 500
The mighty Inkstuds podcast and radio show has logged 500 episodes in just over eight years. The guests for this landmark episode are Frank Santoro and Brandon Graham. Go give a listen. Special guests Frank Santoro and Brandon Graham help me bring in the 500th episode of inkstuds. 8 and a half...
Read moreHot off the Press – Insect Bath
Just arrived in our shop is Insect Bath, the new anthology of cosmic horror edited by Jason T. Miles. Includes comics by: Max Clotfelter (Henry & Glenn Forever), Alex Delaney (Rapt in Fear), Eamon Espey (Wormdye and Songs of the Abyss), Noel Freibert (Weird Magazine), Sammy Harkham (The...
Read moreMany New And Recent Books Now In The Shop
We have added a whole slew of books to the shop in preparation for our grand opening in just a couple of weeks at the new Cupertino store. The store is already open for business from Tuesday through Saturday, noon to 6pm. Big opening party coming soon. Among the new additions are: the giant...
Read moreSparkplug Highlights: Gin Palace, Issue One
In this funny, sweet, and bizarre British anthology, a variety of stories and styles are presented for your reading pleasure! Gin Palace features seven different comics, all of which are pure entertainment. In Rob Jackson’s two-part “The Ballad of Hatty Jack,” a plucky young...
Read moreNew in the Shop – Jesse Moynihan, Frontier and More
Many books new and old have been added to the shop this past week. We’d like to bring your attention to these. Youth in Decline’s first two issues of Frontier are now in stock: Frontier #1 by Uno Moralez and Frontier #2 by Hellen Jo. All three issues of Forming and Adventure Time...
Read moreThirty Years of The Apple Macintosh
Thirty years ago today, on Tuesday, January 24, 1984 the 128K Apple Macintosh went on sale for the first time. I’m writing this in Cupertino, California, the home of Apple, and there are not yet signs of the free apple pie and ice cream I had hoped for. Apple seems to be doing little to...
Read moreLast Day to Join The SAW Indigogo Campaign
Help SAW – The Sequential Artists Workshop – continue its mission of supporting artists, putting artists and students together and offering quality, affordable education in comics/sequential art. SAW was founded by Tom Hart, who co-founded the original Wow Cool and is Alternative...
Read moreSparkplug Highlights: Service Industry, by t edward bak
Though Service Industry came out of the last years of George W. Bush’s time in office and deals in part with the fear and anger of a rational man living during an irrational war, this oversized comic feels as fresh and important today as it did upon its release. Bak uses his job in the
Read moreHappy New Year & Thanks!
Hello and Happy New Year everyone! First off, I would like to thank everyone who has already donated and pre-ordered Reich #11. You guys are the best and we really appreciate it. Amy at 1984 said the books will be shipping next week, so you should be getting your copies soon. On that...
Read moreA Million Links Per Second
Things have been a degree of busy around the Wow Cool | Alternative Comics shop and studios that would be hard to sum up. In the meanwhile, my collection of tabbed web pages of most awesome are overwhelming my browser space. By sharing them I can be free. Thank you to the various folks that
Read moreSparkplug Highlights: Tales of Tiger Balm, by Ariyana Suvarnasuddhi
The first thing that stands out about Ariyana Suvarnasuddhi’s hilarious comic Tales of Tiger Balm! is the fact that it looks like the coolest newspaper you’ve ever seen– it’s 11.5″ x 14″, on newsprint, and has a gloriously colored cover that includes...
Read moreWe’ll miss you Valentine’s
It’s not gone yet, but the writing is on the walls. My old friend Howard Glassman’s long running music hall and beer joint Valentine’s in Albany, New York, is due to be bulldozed soon to make way for some sort of hospital expansion plan. This has been a long and drawn out death...
Read moreSparkplug Highlights: Gay Genius, edited by Annie Murphy
Looking for a wonderful holiday gift for a friend, lover, or family member who could use some incredible queer comics in their life? Look no further! Gay Genius, a 144-page anthology edited by Annie Murphy, will satisfy, invigorate, and deeply touch anyone who sits down with it. From...
Read moreThe Return of He Aims To Please
Sam Henderson is resurrecting the character of He Aims To Please, after an eight year absence, for an appearance in the upcoming Magic Whistle #14 from Alternative Comics. Catch up on his rich history in our Sam Henderson shop.
Read moreThe Wow Cool Alternative Comics Bookstore is now open
The Wow Cool | Alternative Comics Bookstore & Newsstand is now open! Shop online or visit our retail shop in Cupertino, California Wow Cool is now open for business at our new brick-and-mortar shop in the historic Monta Vista neighborhood. We are at 21607B Stevens Creek Blvd.; Cupertino...
Read moreKickstart This – Brown Girls Burlesque
Please help out our good friend Miss Aurora BoobRealis and her Brooklyn-based burlesque troop. Their 2014 season and continued existence are in serious jeopardy, and they need your support. Brown Girls Burlesque is “a company of women of color dedicated to creating our own reflection in...
Read moreRE/SEARCH George Kuchar Interviews Pocketbook
I somehow missed this during a much more busy than usual year… V. Vale has recently launched a series of 4″x6″ pocket book interview volumes – in the format of the 33 1/3 series – featuring his own interviews with icons of the counterculture and the like. I’m...
Read moreSparkplug Highlights: Danny Dutch, by David King
A brilliantly absurd collection of strips, David King’s Danny Dutch features the eponymous Danny and his gang of friends going about their lives and pondering the various vagaries and truths of existence. Let me just prepare you right off the bat: the pictures and words...
Read moreCall For Entries – Ink on Pixels at Wow Cool
This is an open call for entries for an ongoing public exhibition of a curated group showing of video art to run from January 11, 2014 until a date as yet to be determined. The videos will play at a dedicated opening screening in January and will then run in a continuous loop at the
Read moreSupport Sparkplug and get fantastic original art – here’s how!
Hi folks, Emily Nilsson here. I’m throwing lots of art on eBay for the benefit of Sparkplug’s future endeavors. We had a few pieces left over from the Indiegogo upper donation tier gifts, for which the artists have granted permission for us to sell. I’m also...
Read moreKid Mafia Digest by Michael DeForge New in the Shop
Just arrived from SHQ – The Secret headquarters – is this brand new collection of the long out-ouf-print mini comics. That special time between the end of high school and the beginning of college… depicted by Michael DeForge. With bonus skateboard action. The digest collects...
Read moreViktoriya Yermolyeva Tickles The Ivories (In Black)
As pointed out by my bandmate in Fognozzle and Girls of Slender Means (and former partner in Wow Cool), Mr. Pete Von Petrin, the brilliant piano renditions transcribed and performed by Vika Yermolyeva have had too much play in viral reblogs from elsewhere towards certain works and maybe not...
Read more