Reviews: Flamingo, Spoonful, Blanket & bicycle travel journal!
Posted by Amy on Friday October 28, 2011
This week has been rather jam-packed, what with me falling sick with a bad flu! While sneaking in an occasional nap during the day to clear my head, I’ve also kept myself entertained with a stream of magazines and books that was delivered in the mail the last couple of weeks! I’ve bundled some of them together for this weeks review — enjoy!
Bicycle travel journal with illustrations by Nigel Peake
It’s no surprise that I love Nigel Peake’s works (see a previous review here) and so when I received his bicycle travel journal in the mail, I was smitten. I don’t really bike or travel enough by bike to write a journal about the experience, but I know that I’ll most probably be using it as a sketchbook instead (sorry Nigel!) The papers are gorgeous – lined, unlined, semi-lined, kraft, white and graph papers – they’re all here, and spread among them are Nigel’s excellent illustrations. And best of all, there’s 4 pouches sandwiched between the pages to hold all your stubs, tickets and paraphernalia you gather along the way.
Flamingo magazine
Siobhan from Flamingo magazine sent me their latest issue: the Outdoors issue and it’s chock full of lovely illustrations and articles about music, art, the environment, traveling and a whole lot of other fun things. The magazine is a generous size of 21 × 30 cm, with a matte finish from front to back. Siobhan’s team did a great job of putting together interviews for the magazine – while I find that a chunk of it goes to music makers, they weren’t dry or boring. Their eclectic offering also has an interview with founders of a floating cinema project, photographs of current day Chernobyl and a guide to hitch-hiking.
As Flamingo is just on their second issue, it will be great to see how the magazine grows!
Spoonful zine
As Thea, the founder of Spoonful zine puts it – Spoonful is a happiness companion that can be finished within a train ride. Fully colored and a good solid 24-pages of articles, stories, interviews and craft tutorials, this zine is more feminine than the ones that I usually read (not that it’s a bad thing!) So if you’re in need of a little pick-me-up, this zine would probably do the trick – it’s like having a cup of hot tea while you’re on the train.
Blanket magazine
Blanket started out in 2006 as an online magazine. And this right here is their inaugural print issue – all the goodness of Blanket as you know it – jam packed into this small perfect bound bundle of goodness. I’m a big fan of editor Bec Brown’s good taste and the magazine continues the tradition that she has brought to their online offerings. Blanket may be the the first magazine (that I know of) that has gone from PDF downloads to physical print copies (it usually goes the other way!) I’m treated to the usual goodies – art, illustration, design and photography – only this time I don’t have to boot up the lappy to get a look.
You can see more images from the publications featured here on my Flickr stream – inside pages, sneak peeks and more!
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Happy weekend folks, and I’ll see you again on Monday!
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Artists interview: The Strumpet
Posted by Melanie Maddison on Wednesday October 26, 2011
Cover of The Strumpet by Ellen Lindner
The Strumpet is a new comic anthology from the ladies behind the Whores Of Mensa comics (which were published in the UK between 2004-2010). The Strumpet brings together a brilliant team of female comics artists from the UK and USA, to produce a transatlantic collaborative publication containing eclectic illustrative and comics styles and techniques, and unique stories around the theme of ‘Dress-Up’.
With Ellen Lindner (UK) and Jeremy Day (UK) at the helm as co-editors, The Strumpet is due to have contributions (amongst others) from Mardou (USA), Megan Kelso (USA), Lisa Rosalie Eisenberg (USA), Kripa Joshi (UK), Patrice Aggs (UK), and Tanya Meditzky (UK).
I spoke to these eight women about The Strumpet, their involvement in this first issue, women in comics, and about the Kickstarter campaign that is running to fund the publication of the first issue through a process of pre-ordering.
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Ellen, What prompted the move to relaunch Whore Of Mensa as ‘The Strumpet’, and how do the two projects differ?
Ellen: There are two main motivations behind the relaunch of the Strumpet. One is that our mission had changed – instead of publishing three artists on a regular basis, we’d decided to move towards a rotating cast, around the three original stalwarts. We thought this new approach warranted a new identity. Second, we’d had some trouble because part of our old name, Whores of Mensa, is a trademarked term. We wanted to be able to grow without worrying about that.
Where does the title ‘The Strumpet’ come from, and is it just a title, or does it dictate the theme of contributions to the comic?
Ellen: The Strumpet came from discussions we had as a group. The acting Whores of Mensa – that would be Mardou, Jeremy Day and I – wanted a name that connoted the same kind of free spirit and sass as Whores of Mensa (WoM), but that had less of a hard edge to it. We also liked the idea of having an avatar of sorts, a figure that embodied the lady-friendly ideals of our comic.
The Strumpet is a cross-Atlantic project, where do you currently call home?
Ellen: At the moment I live in London but I’m moving to New York. The Strumpet will be a wholly transatlantic entity – I’m hoping I can bring some cool Americans to the Strumpet’s banquet, while gaining a new audience for the UK cartoonists I’ve come to know and love. Hopefully it means we can promote the comic simultaneously in both places.
Patrice: England, though I continue to call myself an American
Mardou: St Louis, Missouri though I’m originally from Manchester, England. I married the American cartoonist Ted May, so hot love and comics bought me here.
Megan: Seattle, Washington.
Jeremy: Home is Oxford, in the UK, where I live with my husband, cats and haphazard garden. It’s a lovely city, especially at this time of year, when it’s filling up with new incomers, students and hopefuls. It reminds me of the first time I came here.
Tanya: London, England
Lisa: I currently live in Portland, Oregon, US.
Kripa: I was born and raised in Nepal, pursued my BFA in India (where I met my husband), then lived in New York for three years while I completed my MFA and now I have been in the UK for three years… so home has been always changing. I guess I have to call UK home right now… it is where I reside… but Nepal will always be home as long as my family is there.
Patrice Aggs
How did you become involved in The Strumpet?
Patrice: Through the indefatigable Ellen Lindner. I’m in awe of her.
Tanya: Ellen Lindner invited me to contribute.
Megan: Ellen, who is an old friend and comrade of mine from New York invited me to participate.
Kripa: Through the great Ellen Lindner! I met her a couple of times during various events and when I saw the Whores of Mensa anthology, I mentioned that I would like to be a part of it. She is a very welcoming and generous person.
Lisa: I was tabling at the 2011 Stumptown Comics Fest here in Portland, which is where I met our Fearless Leader of Strumpets Ellen Lindner and her husband Stephen. The three of us got to talking outside the awards ceremony on the first night of the Fest, and the next day we visited one another’s tables. I got her book “Undertow” and she and Stephen picked up the third issue of my comic “I Cut My Hair.” In August Ellen wrote and asked me if I’d be interested in contributing to The Strumpet, and I quickly took her up on the offer.
Mardou and Jeremy, you were original members of the group that created Whores Of Mensa (alongside Lucy Sweet). What are your thoughts on the direction that the idea has now taken with the publication of The Strumpet?
Mardou: My original idea was to base WoM on the comic ‘Triple Dare’, who was in that? Tom Hart, James Kochalka, Jon Lewis. I like that they each had 10 pages, so many anthologies around that time contained so many artists with just one or two page strips, they were a little dizzying. Having just myself, Lucy Sweet and Jeremy Day (nee Dennis) gave us a bit more room and we sort of juxtaposed our different styles around a common theme and created something a bit different. I’m still very proud and fond of it. Ellen joining us for the second issue was a dream and as I’ve stepped back from it, to focus on having a kid and working on a graphic novel, Ellen’s surged ahead. I think she’s created something more expansive but it still has that quality which sets it apart. Chic and slightly dirty-minded. Just like Ellen.
Jeremy: If Whores of Mensa was Mardou’s brainchild, The Strumpet is Ellen’s; it’s a fantastic idea and I support it fully, but I’m not the best person to talk direction. Ellen’s in the driving seat for this one; I’m in the engine room, spinning dials.
What is your own personal history in making comics? How did you get started, and what sort of things have you created over the years?
Patrice: My first ‘comic’ was illustrating the hybrid graphic novel by Philip Pullman, Count Karlstein. Although I’ve contributed short pieces to anthologies and periodicals, my work in comics has mainly been by stealth; whenever I’m asked to do a children’s book, I manage to slip in at least one illustration that includes a speech balloon!
Mardou: I started drawing a Tank Girl rip-off when I was 17 but didn’t get too far. A few years later, in my last year of college I discovered Dan Clowes and Peter Bagge’s comics. Dan Clowes had this line in an Eightball comic something like ‘there are beautiful, 22 year old women who would rather read than watch television’, and I loved that and I was 22 at the time, so I sent him my very first comic and he wrote back saying ‘do more comics’. So I did, just kept putting out little books. I did a series called ‘Stiro’ with my friend Fortenski, he wrote it, I drew it, then I did a solo book called ‘Manhole’ which got some Arts Council funding. And with those books I started going to comics shows where I met Lucy and Jeremy and we started ‘Whores of Mensa’. I’m now working on a graphic novel called the ‘Sky in Stereo’, which I’m serializing as a mini-comic.
Tanya: In 2002 I was laid up in bed for weeks, I had at the time been trying to work with various people on creative projects, which led nowhere, never came to fruition, etc, so I just started drawing ‘milkkitten’, to entertain myself. The comic world was completely unknown to me, so when Mark from Page 45 [British comic book store] ordered a batch from me at a festival, it encouraged me to think of it as a real ‘comic’ and to continue.
Kripa: I started making comics while I was doing my MFA in Illustration at the School of Visual Arts (in New York) as a Fulbright scholar…. so I started quite late! As a part of the course we had to study the History of Comics. I had never thought about making comics before that. I was always interested in story telling, even as a child, but had never ventured into comics. In New York I came to understand the scope of comics and graphic novels… and that it was not just about superheroes. For my thesis I created a character called Miss Moti and made two comics about her called ‘Miss Moti and Cotton Candy’ and ‘Miss Moti and the Big Apple’. I drew inspiration from Little Nemo (by Windsor McCay) and the style of Chris Ware. Since then I have done several Miss Moti comics for anthologies like Rabid Rabbit and Secret Identities (Asian American Superhero Anthology). I have also created illustrations and comics for magazines and NGOs based in South Asia.
Jeremy: Like many comics types, I started at school, passing around sarcastic one-panel cartoons drawn in my ancient history workbook during class. When I went up to Oxford in 1989, I found the Comic Book club there (founded by Jenni Scott) and spent the next few years in a dizzy whirl of study by day and comics by night. These were exciting years for the small press; desk top publishing, scanners and printers becoming consumer items and then the internet, like a finally-delivered promise. During all this time I was self-publishing, usually solo comics, but occasionally in the women’s anthologies of the time like Erica Smith’s ‘Girlfrenzy’ or Carol Bennett’s ‘Fanny and Dykes Delight’. My comics were typically short-run mini-comics. Later I moved onto the internet, publishing my first comics online in 1999.
Ellen: I got interested in making comics while in secondary school, and after a few false starts actually succeeded in making some at university. I was also lucky enough to go to school in a town with its own comics museum, which was very inspiring (if worrying – Jaime Hernandez’s original art really mystified me, the man never made any mistakes!) My comics ambitions developed further when I went to France as a student – all of a sudden I was in a place where public libraries, bookshops, any place where printed media was sold pushed comics. Cartoonists were like rock stars there, cool guys and girls making wonderful stories on paper. I won a travel grant to extend my stay, a huge privilege – I spent the time it afforded me starting to do an adaptation of Christine de Pizan’s proto-feminist classic, ‘The Book of The City of Ladies’. In terms of making comics, I didn’t ‘get’ all of the processes right away – and I certainly had no idea about how long comics take, or how to develop my skills in an efficient manner. But I stuck with it. After Uni I met a lot of really great cartoonists – I’d moved to New York by then. At every stage I got little crumbs of encouragement that I took to heart, and they gave me the courage to continue. It’s taken a while but I’m now starting to make comics I’m happy with. I’ve done everything from educational comics on the Mayan ballgame to strips for ad agencies and video game companies – not to mention my own personal projects and contributions to great collectives like The Comix Reader.
Lisa: The earliest comic I remember making was at age 9. I drew a comic about a superhero named Super Chicken who fights the evil Colonel Sanders and wins. Throughout high school I made a number of bad attempts at Robert Crumb-style autobiographical comics pieces, but I didn’t start to seriously and consistently make and publish comics until I moved out to Portland five years ago. I have loved to draw as long as I can remember, in high school I got into writing, and though I had read comics my whole life I started to read a whole lot more in college. Although I was enjoying the art classes I was taking in college, comics inspired me much more. It seemed like the ideal way for me to draw in the style I wanted, and to tell the stories I wanted to tell. Indirectly, animated cartoons and children’s books led me to comics as well—the character design and energy of the cartoons; the text/drawing combination of children’s books. I moved to Portland knowing that there were a lot of cartoonists who lived here and thinking it would be a good place to get started, but I couldn’t begin to imagine how supportive the community would be. Part of that is the self-publishing/zine culture here: there are zine sections in all the libraries and plenty of book and comics shops that carry self-published material. That gave me a clear path to getting my work out there. I started drawing comics and self-publishing them through the Independent Publishing Resource Center, a non-profit workspace that has photocopiers, supplies, a letterpress, computers…plenty of tools to help you make something. I brought them to stores like Reading Frenzy and Powells, and sold them at shows like Stumptown Comics Fest and the Portland Zine Symposium, eventually travelling to farther-away comics shows in other cities. I met a lot more cartoonists at these shows, at gallery openings, and at drawing nights, and we exchanged work with each other. Through the cartoonists and small-press folks I met I got some of my first opportunities to be published by others, and to do some readings and presentations of my work. As for my work, I got started with autobio. “I Cut My Hair” began as a daily journal comic series, but the most recent issue is one longer story about cross-continental travel. Lately I’ve been working more on some fiction stories (aka thinly veiled autobio!), many of which star this little monster character who lives in a world of little monsters, which are really just stand-ins for people. He is the central character in my story for The Strumpet. This story is also one of a few pieces I’ve done with cats as characters, despite my distaste for them in real life.
< CLICK HERE to read their whole interview! >
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Nick Edwards / Dinopopolous
Posted by Amy on Thursday October 20, 2011
Martin from Blank Slate Books sent over Nick Edwards latest work, a comic entitled Dinopopolous – and I think Nick is a genius! While he’s still studying, he’s also balancing it with professional illustration works for clients.
Read on for a quick little interview I did with him:
Could you tell us a little bit about yourself, and how you got into comics?
My name is Nick Edwards and I am currently studying Illustration at Brighton. I got into comics when I was about 11 and a friend in the year above lent me a copy of Squee (issue four) and it blew my mind. I’d read a lot of superhero comics up until that point, but a B&W comic made by just one person was just so appealing to me. I immediately started making my own terrible comics, done just in pencil. With the help of the internet I learnt a lot more about craft and got feedback on my work. Later on alt comics by people like Jim Woodring, Crumb and Dave Cooper mixed with other lively “all-ages” comics like Tintin, Krazy Kat and Dragon Ball (to name a few) would really influenced my way of thinking about comics.
I just read your latest comic – Dinopopolous. Could you tell me how the idea for the story came about?
I’d been doodling this boy and his dinosaur character for a while and when I heard from Blank Slate that they wanted to publish a comic by me I just grabbed that idea and ran with it. Most of the comic is planned, but long stretches were just made up on the spot. I like working that way. I hope it reads as being energetic and packed with detail as I intended.
What’s your process like, and what/who are you inspired by?
I tend to doodle and sketch around characters and stories for a while. It can take a year or a few months to nail a story down in my head. When I’ve got some of it laid out I tackle each page as it comes, changing things all the time. I use a mechanical pencil and a Hunt 102 nib with india ink. I’m very inspired by the comic artists I mentioned earlier, but I really love film, cartoons and music just as much as I love comics. Recently I’ve been re-watching Jim Henson’s Labyrinth and Dark Crystal, which are completely insane and incredible. I’ve also been listening to a lot of metal like Melvins, Metallica, Sabbath and Sleep.
You’re currently studying while illustrating professionally. How do you juggle the two?
With difficulty! I’ve really been feeling it recently. I’m not in a position where I can turn down jobs, so doing both successfully just means I can’t play as much videogames and drink as much beer. Real first world problems.
You’ve worked on character design for Disney TV and also published titles under small publishers – which is your favorite project so far and why?
I think Dinopopolous just because it’s mine. One of the best things about small press comics is the amount of creative control. Johnny Ryan’s “Prison Pit” is a good example of something that couldn’t really exist anywhere else (although it’d make an awesome animation) and its entirely his creation and his amazingly violent and filthy mind. The project I’m most excited about, though, is always my next project. If all goes well it’ll be a story about a beetle in a vast unforgiving universe with lots of monsters and jungles and lazer swords.
Can you email us a picture (or two) of your working studio? And perhaps a few shots of your sketchbooks?
Sure!
What advice do you have for people who are looking to follow in your footsteps?
The usual. Draw every day. Draw for yourself. Keep healthy. Don’t listen to the haters and don’t believe the hype! Also watch a lot of cartoons and buy lots of comics.
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Thanks Nick!
You can get flip through a preview and pre-order Nick’s latest comic – Dinopopolous over at Blank Slate Books !
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Pikabooks: Oh Won't You Come On In?
Posted by Amy on Monday October 17, 2011
I know it’s been awhile, but I’m so pleased to announce the launch of a new zine under our Pikabooks label!
Artist Kelly Lasserre has produced a beautiful 28-page zine called Oh Won’t You Come On In, filled with drawings of her most prized possessions that she doesn’t want to live without. Best of all, with each purchase of the zine, we’ll donate one new book to children in need via First Books.
We did an interview with Kelly on her book and what’s next for her!
Hi Kelly! Tell us a little bit more about yourself!
Oh boy, that’s a big one. Well, I’m an artist and illustrator that focuses on hand drawn letters, telling stories, the horrors and humor of life. I love that I am able to share my honesty and neuroses with other people through making things. I’m always on the lookout for a good laugh, a perfect weather day and an outstanding bloody mary.
Tell us about the zine – what was in your mind when you started drawing the items?
I have always been really excited about the objects that I have acquired over the years. I had previously toyed with the idea of documenting them all, but there are just too many, so I decided to do the several that are featured here for the zine. Once I got it in my head, there was really no going back. I love that these little things have a history, they came from some place, I chose them for some reason and I remember how and where I got them. They each have a story, and however simple or involved the stories may be, I now associate these things with different times, important people, a myriad of feelings and long lost places in my life. A lot of them make me feel quite sad, actually.
What/who are you inspired by?
I am fascinated by all of the people, behaviors, overwhelming beauty and nonsense in the world, mostly. Sure, I draw some inspiration from certain artists, illustrators, musicians, history and specific cultures, but for the most part, it is just being a part of this life each day. The way people act and treat each other, the reality that the ocean is so terrifying and wonderful, the fragility of human life and being here on this earth, the things people write on the stalls of bar bathrooms, the fact that animals are truly insane when you stop to think about it, that humans can create buildings, babies, hearing aids, music, airplanes, murder, complicated machines, etc. These things are not lost on me, and I don’t take much for granted, this place is amazing and really scary.
What’s next for you?
Haha, Interesting timing for this question. As you know, I just “moved” to Brooklyn on Monday so this is a potentially loaded response that I will not overwhelm you poor people with. That being said, I am in a coffee shop using the internet, looking for a job, and pretty upset that they are playing Bon Jovi. Aside from that, I am going to continue making art and working with nice folks on exciting illustration projects (if all goes according to plan!) :D
{Thanks Kelly! Her zine, Oh Won’t You Come On In is only available in a limited edition of 100 copies!}