– Tom Spurgeon interviews James Kochalka.

– The Chicago Tribune talks to the guy who models as Superman for Alex Ross.

– S. Clay Wilson is now out of the ICU.

– Tintin made Herge “sick” according to recently discovered letters.

– I enjoyed this LA Times piece on the legal battles surrounding the Watchmen film.

– Buy a copy of Stan’s Soapbox and get it signed by John Romita Sr.

– If you can read Polish, here’s an interview with Milo Manara where he talks about his X-Men project he’s working on with Chris Claremont.

– Finally, here’s Watchmen, the Condensed Version.

I’ve read enough bad or lackluster anthologies over the years to know it’s not something you can just slap together. It takes real editorial vision and guidance to put together a solid collection of work, whether you’re talking about new material or older reprints.

Which is my roundabout way of saying just how impressed I am with Ivan Brunetti’s two Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons and True Stories. I had already known Brunetti was a first-rate cartoonist (Schizo, Misery Loves Comedy), but these books, taken together, show him to have a considerable sensitivity and thoughtfulness towards the medium, not just in his choices, but in their arrangement and layout.

While the first volume provided a strong art-comics overview for the uninitiated, the sequel casts a somewhat wider, though no less fascinating net. I was pleased, for example, to discover there were a few artists new to me, while the stories I was familiar came with a slightly new perspective due to their juxtoposition with other works.

I talked to Brunetti recently over the phone about the new collections, the challenges of putting together these anthologies in general, and the chance that we’ll see a new issue of Schizo in 2009 (sadly, probably not likely).

Q: What made you decide to do a second volume?

A: Besides insanity? At the time I put together the first book, my list of stuff I wanted to put in there got so huge I had 800 pages at one point. Actually the first book was supposed to be no more than 300 pages but I convinced Yale to let me do 400. And at some point I was thinking “500 pages would be good.” (more…)

– Alison Bechdel and Harvey Pekar, together at last.

– Steve Duin has some good news about underground cartoonist S. Clay Wilson, who has been in ICU for the past several days.

– Ada Price talks to Dave Gibbons about his new book, Watching the Watchmen.

– Looks like it’s official: Naruto Nation 2009 is totally a go.

– Sam Thielman looks at the significance of Alan Moore’s run on Swamp Thing in light of the new super-fancy collection coming out soon.

– Over at Stars and Stripes, Gary Trudeau answers some of his critics.

– Van Jensen talks to Mike Allred about the revamped Red Rocket collection.

– Here’s my idea of a fun time: Dan Nadel, Gary Panter and CF sitting around, talking about art and comics.

– Did you know About Comics is 10 years old this year? I didn’t. Chris Murphy has a recollection.

– Sandy Bilus is giving away a copy of Alan’s War over at his blog.

– Oscar Pedro Musibay looks at the Comics Galaxy event that was held at last weekend’s Miami Book Fair.

– Frank Santoro considers the new Popeye collection.

– So Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki’s Skim was named as a finalist for the Governor-General’s Award for children’s literature up in Canada, except that Tamaki’s name was left off of the official list of nominees, because technically, she’s the artist and not the “writer.” Letters of protest were written, but apparently to no avail. Tom has reactions from those involved, including Jillian Tamaki.

– Spurgeon also has an interesting interview with Slow Wave cartoonist Jesse Reklaw. I never knew, for instance, that Reklaw left Yale to pursue a career in comics.

– Some people were worried that Tribune Media might be ending the Dick Tracy comic strip. But it turns out those fears may have been premature.

– Aaron Albert talks the Hellboy talk to Mike Mignola for About.com.

– Hey, Kramer’s Ergot 7 is going on tour!

– Another day, another editorial cartoonist gets laid off.

– Finally, Vice magazine talks to Lynda Barry.

Gene Yang gets the choice seat in the New York Times Sunday Magazine’s Funny Pages section with his new serialized story about sibling rivalry.

The notion of comics made expressly for kids is nothing new, but Toon Books, Francoise Mouly’s new-fangled publishing line, is notably different in that it produces comics exclusively for very young readers. It’s the sort of idea that seems so ingenious you wonder why someone else didn’t think of it first.

Anyway, the line has three new books out for the fall — Stinky by Eleanor Davis, Jack and the Box by Art Spiegelman and Mo and Jo: Fighting Together Forever by Dean Haspiel and Jay Lynch. They say that adults reviewing children’s books — be it comics or prose — is a mug’s game, as we’re not the intended audience for the material (I suppose educators, librarians and those with fancy-shmancy degrees are exempt from this declaration). It’s not a theory I necessarily ascribe to — I tend to think quality and craft shine through regardless of how narrowly focused the work is on a particular type of reader. Yet, there’s still something to be said for getting an additional perspective. To that end I asked my seven-year-old daughter, Veronica to give me her impressions of these books as well. Here’s what we had to say: (more…)

Or rather, he illustrated one. Gallery Ghost, from Birdcage Press, and written by Anna Nilsen, offers a decidedly supernatural take through the halls of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

The idea is that at night in the museum, all the ghosts of dead painters like Paul Gauguin and Lyonel Feininger (hey, he did comics too!) come out and put details from their own work into other people’s paintings, a Rousseau cow inserted in van Ostade’s “The Cottage Dooryard” for example.

The reader’s job is to help intern and art student Sarah out and figure out who added to whose painting and which one added the most (just for clarification’s sake, Sala only illustrated the opening and closing pages, plus the portraits of the painters — he didn’t attempt to replicate Mary Cassatt or anything). To help you in your quest, the book comes with its own magnifying glass. How cool is that?

Sala’s art is much softer and friendlier than longtime fans of his work may be used to, but they’ll still want to track it down, if for no other reason than to his rendition of a ghostly Gustav Klmit, something I’m sure readers of Delphine have long wanted to see.

– Harry N. Abrams plans to publish Barry Deutsch’s acclaimed Webcomic Hereville in book form. Brigid Alverson has details.

– Steve Duin provides an update on S. Clay Wilson’s health. Short answer: “His condition has not improved significantly.”

– “There’s an exotica Americans find in my stories that’s lost on Israeli readers:” Nisha Gopalan interviews Israeli cartoonist Rutu Modan about her new book Jamilti.

– Colleen Doran is looking for a few good cartoonists to help her review data for the Graphic Artists Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines.

– Kai-Ming Cha has a great interview with editor Sean Michael Wilson about Top Shelf’s upcoming AX anthology. “We’re selecting it from the 10 year archive so we’re talking about some 20,000 pages. That’s a lot of stuff to choose from.”

– Peter Sanderson celebrates the 20th anniversary of Sandman with a look back.

– Sanderson also looks at the new Vertigo Encyclopedia.

– The Daily Cartoonist reports that editorial cartoonists Steve Greenberg and Lee Judge are being laid off from their respective newspapers.

– Things to do: David B and Igort will be at the Beguiling in Toronto this Saturday.

– Other things to do: Kim Deitch will be doing a Q&A event with Bill Kartalopoulos at MoCCA tomorrow night. From the pr: “In a unique and wide-ranging conversation, the two will discuss Deitch’s work and
career to date.  Deitch will preview images from his current works in progress and field questions from the audience.”

– Joe Sacco offers an insightful review of Guy Delisle’s Burma Chronicles.

The Slightly Askew Adventures of Inspector Ham & Eggs #1
Written by Stephen Lindsay; Illustrated by Lauren Monardo
Chimaera Comics; $3.95

Like my write-up of Pirat Tales last month, this is going to be a shorter review. Since I’m used to writing longer pieces about graphic novels and collections, I feel a little weird doing these briefer ones for single issues. It feels like I’m slacking off or something.

But thinking about the name of this column, I also feel like it’s a huge part of what I’m supposed to be doing to tell you about new series that look like they’re going to be really cool. Pirat Tales was one of those; Ham & Eggs is another one.

I learned about Inspector Ham and his junior partner Eggs over at Steve Niles’ forum, so I suspected right away that this wasn’t a kids’ book. And of course, any comic that proudly talks on its cover about reveling in the carnal delights of hookers, hatchlings, and hogs obviously isn’t meant for the little ones. So, in spite of the adorable characters and the cute names, I wasn’t exactly shocked at what I found in Ham & Eggs. Still the art and the concept is so disarming that with every profanity and decapitated guinea pig whore I found myself grinning and thinking, “No, they didn’t just do that.” But they had, and they’d continue doing it for the rest of the issue.

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– Over at his blog, Scott Saavedra notes that he is rather ill and could use financial help, either via donations or by purchasing his some of his art work. (hat tip: Tom Spurgeon)

– Bloggers Paul O’Brian and Alistair Kennedy have started a new podcast, titled House to Astonish. It’s going to be an every-other-week affair, and focus on comics news and reviews. The premiere episode looks at recent Batman books, Dark Horse’s Gigantic and other books.

– Chris Butcher has more to say on the Bat-Manga! controversy.

– Tom Spurgeon tells us what comics he’s reading online these days.

– David Baille emailed us to let us know what a busy beaver he is these days. He’s got his first ever story in 2000AD this week, animator David Hailwood has animated a couple of his Zombies Interviews strips, and, perhaps most significantly, he’s started a new Webcomic, the Belly Button Bubble Chronicles.

– The work of cartoonists Josh Neufeld and David Rees can currently be seen at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Library through January 10, 2009. From the press release: “Neufeld will show material from his true-life graphic novel A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, and Rees will exhibit a collection of his “Clip-Art Comics.” Neufeld will be showing original pages, oversized giclée prints, and an example of the creative process from script to final art.”

– The Windy City Times talks to Alison Bechdel about the release of the new Dykes to Watch Out For collection.

– A quick reminder: Quentin Blake is awesome.

– For your Monday enjoyment: Ten years of New Yorker covers.

Vulture has a 12-page excerpt of Caldecott-winner Don Wood’s newest all-ages graphic novel, about a pair of kids that “journey deep into the heart of a erupting volcano.”

– Van Jensen hangs out with Paul Pope to find out about the new reprint edition of Heavy Liquid, which Pope initiated when he discovered out of print copies selling on eBay for as much as $200: ” ‘That was disgusting to me,’ he said. ‘That was money those fans could’ve spent on other books.’ ”

– Kai-Ming Cha talks to Yen Press’ Kurt Hassler about the imprint’s absorption into Hachette’s Orbit imprint.

– Tom Richmond looks at how Mad Magazine has covered close elections in the past.

– Alan Gardner critiques the revamped Comics.com site.

– Erin Finnegan reports on the MangaNext show in Somerset, NJ.

– Apparently Famous Monsters of Filmland’s Forrest J. Ackerman is not doing well.

– Doug Wolk reports on last weekend’s APE convention.

– Noah Berlatsky doesn’t care for S. Clay Wilson’s work.

– Jen de Guzman wonders why Slave Labor isn’t getting that many submissions anymore and decides to blame the Internet.

– Because you don’t have enough to read: Here’s Graphic Novel Reporter.

NBM recently announced the upcoming release of the second volume of Lewis Trondheim’s diary strips, Little Nothings: The Prisoner Syndrome, and has some nice samples up over at their site.

– The final Opus strip ran yesterday.

– Who would like to see some of John Romita Jr’s cover drafts? Now let’s not see the same hands.

– Why does Mort of Bazooka Joe fame constantly cover the lower half of his face? The Onion has the answer and it’s not pretty.

– Kick Ass’ protagonist and Chester Brown: Separated at birth?

– Alan David Doane talks to Ivan Brunetti, podcast-style, about the new Anthology of Graphic Fiction collection.

– Ladies and gentlemen, the top 10 immortal characters of pop fiction.

– Same Hat has some excerpts from their interview with author and manga translator Frederik Schodt, the full text of which will appear in their zine, Electric Ant.

– Charles Brubaker talks with Kevin McCormack, creator of the late-lamented strip Arnold.

– Eric Reynolds provides what will likely be the last 2008 SPX report.

– The Comics Comics blog is all love, flowers and rainbows now.

Ochre Ellipse by Jonas Madden-Conner won the 2008 Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics. The book was also nominated for an Ignatz Award earlier this year.

For more information on the book and its creator, check out his blog.

Via Johanna, one of this year’s judges in the competition

Dennis Hopeless and Kevin Mellon, who created the comic GearHead for Arcana, are doing the second project AiT/Planet Lar are announcing this weekend — a graphic novel that was going to be called Cupid.

“We’ll have to change it because of the TV show that’s coming,” said Larry Young, AiT/Planet Lar publisher, referring to the resurrection of the Rob Thomas-produced Cupid TV show. Plans are for the book to be available early next year.

Young said they will have paper copies of the first chapter at the AiT booth at APE in San Francisco this weekend, but you can check it out online right here.

Hopeless, by the way, is also working with Mike Norton on a new series called The Answer.

APE starts today, and already we’ve got not one but two pieces of news for you. AiT/Planet Lar main man Larry Young has two projects he’s officially announcing at the show, the first being Dodge and Twist by Tony Lee and Paul Peart-Smith.

The book is a sequel of sorts to the Charles Dickens classic Oliver Twist, with young Oliver all grown up. You can check out an unedited advanced PDF of the first 19 pages right here.

The Alternative Press Expo, or APE, kicks off at 11 a.m. tomorrow at the Concourse in San Francisco. It runs until 7 p.m. Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.

For more info on APE, check out the official website, as well as my two previous posts on publisher and creator plans here and here. And if you need directions, go here.

And now, more info from publishers and creators on what they’ll be doing and have on hand this weekend …

*****

Jon Adams posts some info on his plans, which includes a new Truth Serum collection:

We’ll be attending the Alternative Press Expo this weekend (Nov. 1st-2nd). Please stop by our table, where we’ll have a number of items offered in exchange for your money. (Anyone’s money, really.) Debuting at the show will be a limited edition collection of the weekly Truth Serum strip, produced exclusively for APE. It’s a full-color, 48-page book, wrapped with a bellyband.

Also at the show will be Bear Trap, a full-color, 24-page miniature comic. Best of all, it will only be one dollar. A dollar! That’s less than the cost of a bus ride. And most bus rides probably aren’t as much fun. Sometimes they are though. Like this one time on the 22 when there was a woman with feces all over her pants. That was a type of fun.

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David Heatley took time to respond to the recent Comics Comics critical roundtable of his new book, My Brain Is Hanging Upside-Down:

I used to do this a lot, but I no longer spend time wishing works of art were something they’re not. I don’t wish Stan Brakhage made commercial Hollywood films. Or that Kanye West would do something more stripped down, personal and emotionally revealing. I try to accept art for what it is and decide if it has anything of value to offer me. If I take a stance against it, especially if it’s accompanied by a righteous feeling of being sure of my opinion, I’ve found that I’m using someone’s work to further my own unhappiness, discontent and irritability and ultimately it has nothing to do with the artist on whom I’ve fixed my angry gaze.

I admire Heatley for attempting to rebut some of the criticisms hurled at him in a polite, respectable manner, though I think he comes off as just a wee bit defensive and passive-aggressive, though perhaps that’s inevitable given that people are attacking his baby.

Anyway, Tom Spurgeon, Frank Santoro and Noah Berlatsky take him to task on a few points in the comments section before it all gets ugly and the thread gets shut down, so be sure and read those as well.

If you’re the type of comics fan who occasionally likes to peruse the newsstand (and bless you if you do), it should be duly noted that this week’s issue of The New Yorker is their annual “Cartoon Issue,” with Steve Brodner talking about how he sees McCain and Obama everywhere; editorial cartoonist Mike Luckovich counting down the ways he’ll miss about Dubya; a cute two-page spread by Bruce McCall; a smattering of gag strips pertaining to current events; reviews of Tamara Drewe, Burma Chronicles and Bat-Manga!; spot illustrations by Joost Swarte and — for the piece de resistance — an awesome four-page strip by Robert, Aline and Sophie Crumb about their attending a Crumb family reunion in Minnesota. Hey, Drawn and Quarterly even took out an ad for this issue!

But if you can’t find a hard copy, the magazine’s Web site has a good bit of comics-related content as well, including Cartoon Editor Robert Mankoff answering readers’ questions; an audio file of McCall dissecting his cartoon; a video of Brodner drawing and satirizing the election; and an interview with Dilbert creator Scott Adams:

C.L.: Back to the new book, “Dilbert 2.0.”—What is included?

S.A.: It’s a big, beautiful, ten-pound coffee-table book with a few thousand of my favorite comics, including the ones too naughty to get published in newspapers. It also has stories about the trouble I got into for strips that did get published. I tell the story of how I went from cubicle to cartooning, which required lots of luck and the kindness of strangers. We also include a disc that has every “Dilbert” comic published in newspapers from 1989 until we went to production