Sparkplug will be involved in a few local events surrounding the Stumptown Comics Festival this weekend. And we’ll be a the show itself too. Thursday: “Learn about the cultural and economic significance of comics with: PSU Special Collections Librarian and Archivist Cris Paschild...
Read moreOut Today: Northlanders 39 by Brian Wood & Simon Gane
Get down to your local comic book emporium today, Wednesday, April 13 to pick up the third and last installment of the Siege of Paris story in Brian Wood’s Northlanders with art by Simon Gane. Pictured above is a character sketch of Mads from the book, as posted on Simon’s Blog along...
Read moreSofortbild: Control your Camera with your Mac
I don’t write much about my photographer’s life here, apart from the occasional mention of the latest big martial arts or fashion thing… Anyway, today I found myself in a serious crunch. My DSLR is having some sort of major hemorrhage or something. Compact Flash Card Reader...
Read morePortland Comics This Thursday at 4pm
http://www.multcolib.org/events/comics.html Srsly Big Deal: Living and Breathing Comics in PDX (April 14 at 4:00pm) Cris Paschild; Dylan Williams; Diana Schultz; Julia Gfrörer From self-published mini-comic zines to traditional comic books, manga and lengthy graphic novels, comics are a...
Read moreOffset Needle Radius Filtered Through The Holga
It’s rare that we get handed a gem like this. Flickr user Dead Air has posted an astounding series of double exposure Holga photos of Joshua Baker‘s Offset Needle Radius performance on KPSU’s What’s This Called program on February 5th. Check these awesome shots out.
Read moreConventions with New Books!
Sparkplug Comic Books is going to both MoCCA Fest and Stumptown Comics Fest and we’ll be premiering new books at each show. The MoCCA Festival is this weekend in Manhattan, NYC Saturday April 9th and Sunday April 10th 11am-6pm. It will be at the Lexington Avenue Armory 68 Lexington Ave...
Read moreSteven Cerio art on Comedy Central’s Workaholics
Tune in to Comedy Central tonight at 10:30 (9:30 Central) to catch the debut episode of the new 10-part series Workaholics. Word has it that several of Steven Cerio‘s prints and/or posters adorn the wall of the cubicle and/or bedroom of one of the characters. We will investigate further...
Read moreHello, Gay Genius and Dan Quayl!
We are busy at Sparkplug today! Two more just-printed books for you – the completely amazing anthology Gay Genius (edited by superstar Annie Murphy) and a multi-publisher, Portland-centric collaboration called Dan Quayl (a steal at just $.01 from our website!). Gay Genius includes work by...
Read moreIndie Street Radio on Sausage Hand and Windy Corner #3
Indie Street Radio posted two great reviews, one of Sausage Hand and the other of Windy Corner #3. Take a look: Sausage Hand:http://indiestreetradio.com/news/indie-street-reads-65 WC#3: http://indiestreetradio.com/news/indie-street-reads-63
Read moreThe Disgusting Room and Reich #8 out today!
Yes! Today we have two brand new books in the shop! The newest issue of Elijah Brubaker’s fascinating Reich series, Reich #8 and Austin English’s The Disgusting Room.Reich #8 tackles the beginning of Wilhelm Reich’s new life in America as well as explaining the origin of the...
Read moreParallel Strokes Tote Bag Offer
Hello! We’ve just been alerted that Wordshape – publishers of Ian Lynam’s book Parallel Strokes – is all sold out of the book, and it seems that we are the last known outpost to stock this fine tome. So, by way of a super-random special offer, Wow Cool will be giving the...
Read moreEvidence present Losperus – Convocation Hall – University of Alberta – Edmonton, Alberta – 04/02/11
13 Minutes on Habitat #2
Habitat #2 by Dunja Jankovic just got a great review at 13 Minutes by Justin Giampaoli: http://thirteenminutes.blogspot.com/2011/03/surveying-habitat.html
Read moreMary Anne Hobbs Returns to Radio and Tours US
It has been announced quite recently that Mary Anne Hobbs is going to host a primetime Saturday night slot on Xfm starting this summer on Saturdays from July 9th 2011. Mary Anne had been on BBC Radio One for many years, and was very much the soundtrack to the Wow Cool office until she retired...
Read moreLast Gasp Celebrates 41 Years at 111 Minna Gallery SF
It’s Last Gasp’s 41st birthday, and to celebrate four decades of publishing the art of the underground, 111 Minna Gallery will host the 2nd annual Last-Gasp-curated art show. It’s the perfect after-party for the first day of Wondercon. Last Gasp is one of the largest and oldest publishers...
Read morePandora’s Box Part 6: A is For Atom
And then it all went to hell. A week ago we were locked inside here on the west coast of America dreading the radioactive plume that had drifted our way from Japan. It was a cold rainy day that did, truly feel odd. Like the radiation made your bones ache and your thyroid twitch a
Read moreKFJC Presents Silver Blood Transmissions: The Music of Neurosis and Tribes of Neurot
On our local low-end of the dial FM radio sex machine KFJC 89.7 I totally by act of random chance heard a demo version of the song “Souls at Zero” by Neurosis today that was all crisply mastered and such and blew my freaking mind. Happily the DJ then related that this unknown gem was...
Read moreFamily Store on Heavy Hand
The Family Store in LA is carrying The Heavy Hand by Chris Cilla and they’ve written a really thorough discussion of the book on their blog: http://blog.familylosangeles.com/2011/03/heavy-hand.html
Read moreEverything is coming up Tessa Brunton!
Tessa Brunton (creator of In the Tall Grass) has a gallery show opening in 3 days at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, CA. http://cartoonart.org/2011/03/small-press-spotlight-on-tessa-brunton/ The show will be up March 26th through June 19th this year, so make a point of checking it out...
Read moreMilk and Moo, Service Industry and more!
I just added four books to our online store: Milk and Moo by Yumi Sakugawa, Service Industry by T. Edward Bak, I Was Born, But…#2 by Emily Nilsson and Drip by Chris C. Cilla. There are descriptions of each if you click through the link, but you can trust me: they are all four fantastic
Read moreThe Stupid Pages 29: Johnny Flatline
Found randomly while repacking for Wow Cool’s move to new offices in San Jose. I have no recollection of drawing this. Readers of Maximum RockNRoll over a certain age (before internet comment troll-ness) will possibly find this pretty funny.
Read moreKeep Reading Frenzy Alive!
Reading Frenzy – An Independent Press Emporium is a small, specialty bookshop/gallery/event space in Portland, Oregon. They are having a rough patch at the moment and could use your patronage. The full message from RF follows. The image you see above is the beautiful print that Aaron...
Read moreThe Heavy Hand, Neptune and Whirlwind Wonderland are released by Diamond!
Diamond Comics stores will be putting The Heavy Hand, Neptune and Whirlwind Wonderland on their shelves this Wednesday. Make sure to stop by and take a look. And if that weren’t enough Joe Mcculloch wrote a great piece on the Heavy Hand at the TCJ...
Read moreGrickle: The Smartest Dog in The World
It’s been a slow week here, apart from the plume of radioactive crap that got dumped on the west coast, so here is this modern take on a Lassie rescue story by Graham Annable. We featured Graham here recently in this pretty thorough career overview. Thanks to Tom Spurgeon AKA The Comics...
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