iPhones — the Final Frontier.

It’s been an interesting few years for comics, with the digitial revolution being mined by Marvel (with its exclusive online content, as well as the DVD archives of many of its comics) and DC (with its Zuda web comic contest). Even web sites with previews like Newsarama have done their part in changing the field of comics through the World Wide Web with four to eight-page previews (which, when you consider most issues are 22 pages, that’s a lot).

But what about the iPhone?

Smartphones are becoming far more than just cellular devices — they’re making the move to becoming mobile computers. So how will comics adapt?

Slowly but surely, comics are hitting the iPhone. It was announced today by Appstore that publisher IDW is issuing reprints for the iPhone of Peter David’s Star Trek series. The first of the five issues will be a rerelease of issue #13, the story known as “Return of the Worthy.” Trekmovie reports that after this run is completed, IDW will move on with other properties such as “Best of the Borg” and “Best of Deep Space 9.”

But the real kicker?

They only cost 99 cents each.

IDW is far from the only comic taking this route. Jeff Smith, long known as a guy ahead of the curve, has already released the first issue of Bone on the iPhone in October — also for 99 cents. And perhaps its no surprise that that app made Apple’s Pick of the Week.

With prices rising from many of the big companies, one question seems to be obvious: will this be a new method of distribution for comics retailers? If they can successfully work out the iPhone’s bugs — and those of you who have worked on just about any high-memory application can relate to the freezing and weird shutdowns that occassionally occur — maybe. With Apple’s stringent policies for the App Store, it’s the first technology that both promotes commerce and deters piracy… at least for now.

While I know I am particularly attached to the paper-and-staple format, if the economy keeps declining and the culture continues to move on-the-go, maybe your ubiquitous iPhone will start to become your ubiquitous comic book reader.

I’m a Jewish comic-loving woman myself, so when my email inbox turned up “Graphic Confessions of Jewish Women,” from the Forward, I was intrigued. This article hit home in more than one way for me.

Michael Kaminer talks to several young, Jewish women who are creating autobiographical comics described as “raw and revealing.” Like Jewish comedians, these women couple self-awareness with a lack of shame and a willingness to discuss anything. But unlike current comedy darling Sarah Silverman, they appear to actually be willing to examine their own hearts and minds with microscopic vision.

More precisely, says Paul Buhle, author of “Jews and American Comics,” “there’s a Jewish self-identification in these artists’ sense of humor, their unashamed discussion of personal lives, their dealings with angst and unhappiness through a pop-culture art form.” Like Robbins, Buhle connects artists like Davis, Schrag, and Gross to the 1970s underground, “when extremely talented young women did comics about themselves and their lives in ways more frank, shocking, and vulgar than any artist could have been outside of Tijuana bibles.”

I’ve been accused of being a bit too much for most people myself. I’m familiar with the need to spill onto the page, with that feeling that it doesn’t matter what I have to say as long as I say it. The Facebook generation is particularly used to confessional stories, as the article points out.

Still, not just any story will draw an audience, and even more so when it comes to comics. Along with a willingness to bare your soul, you’ve got to have an eye for the visuals to tell a good graphic story, and it appears that these women have that as well.

Monica Gallagher, writer/artist behind Gods and Undergrads and many other self-published comics, has a webcomic strip that I’m loving.

Bonnie N. Collide is a roller derby girl, and the strip is based on her day-to-day life. And so, enjoy.

When the going gets tough, do the tough get going? Or do they stay and fight to the bitter end?

Kevin Huizenga examines both in his new graphic novel Fight or Run, published by Buenaventura Press. The Pulse took an in-depth look at the book:

“I wanted to make up something with a stable structure and rules that I could just draw as an exercise, without having to think about it too much. There are a lot of strips like this–like Little Sammy Sneeze. Threats are indeed an ageless subject. There’s not a real subject though in the strips–it’s just a game…as they say. That means other people can play too, if they want, or not, c’est la vie.”

According to previews, the minimalist book was similar to “prehistoric cave art or the arcade classic Mortal Kombat.” Huizenga said he received a grant from the French government to inspect several cave paintings, which helped influence his work. You can read the rest of the interview here.

Fangoria has a great review up on its “Everyone’s a Critic” page for Trailer Park of Terror.

The movie, based on the Imperium Comics series, is about six young people trapped in isolation after their bus crashes. They are found by Norma, who offers to board them at the Trucker’s Triangle, but things take a turn for the worse when it is revealed she has a bevy of undead brethren.

Here’s a highlight of the review:

“This is buckets of blood (unrated version) and trailer trash zombies (in addition to various others, you get an Asian masseuse and “the meat lady”, who’s actually pretty scary) fun! It’s based on a great premise and I really enjoyed the story of how this Bermuda Triangle of a trailer park came to be.”

You can read the rest of the review here.

[Via Fangoria.]

Clearing out my review pile, here’s a look at some relatively (and I do mean relatively) new books for the tween-age set.

Knights of the Lunch Table: The Dodgeball Chronicles
by Frank Cammuso
Scholastic, $9.99.

The idea of grafting the King Arthur mythos onto a modern-day “boy makes good and new school” tale (a la Diary of a Wimpy Kid) seemed a bit forced to me at first, but Cammuso (Otto’s Orange Day, Max Hamm) does a good job creating an engaging, funny story that thankfully doesn’t force its metaphor the way say Tokyopop’s Avalon High series does. (more…)

Over at the Comic Geek Speak forums, retailer James Sime highlights an independent book that he recently took note of, APE’s Super Human Resources, thanks to their marketing efforts:

I got this in the mail today. 7 days before my orders are placed. These guys really nailed the world’s best timing with this one (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten these kind of things too late for initial orders, huge waste of money!). The package was addressed to my shop, with a big fat “ATTN: James Sime” on the front of it. That’s nice, I like to know they give a crap who is going to be spending his hard earned American dollars on their book. And although I won’t use this poster, other retailers probably will, and I definitely appreciate the money and effort that went into the package.

Sime goes over other things they did right at the link above.

24Seven, Volume 1

Written and/or Illustrated by Jose Luis Ágreda, Jeff Amano, Paul Azaceta, Gabriel Bá, Hilary Barta, Frank Beaton, Nate Bellegarde, Ivan Brandon, Ryan Brown, Chris Brunner, Eric Canete, Benito Cereno, Becky Cloonan, Dave Crosland, Farel Dalrymple, Jonathan L. Davis, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Rami Efal, Matt Fraction, John G, Rob G, Brandon Graham, Miles Gunter, Phil Hester, Mike Huddleston, Adam Hughes, Rian Hughes, Frazer Irving, Paul Lau, Jasen Lex, Sonny Liew, Vasilis Lolos, Andy MacDonald, Jim Mahfood, Alex Maleev, Paul Maybury, Fábio Moon, Tony Moore, Melissa Oeming, Mike Oeming, Dan Panosian, Leland Purvis, Rick Remender, Esad Ribic, John Ney Rieber, Eduardo Risso, Jim Rugg, Neal Shaffer, Lakota Sioux, Mark Andrew Smith, James Stokoe, Rick Spears, Ben Templesmith, Frank Teran, and Danijel Zezelj.

Edited by Ivan Brandon
Image Comics; $24.99

This was a hard review to write. Not because I’m conflicted about the material (though I am), but because I was so completely off in my expectations for the book and it’s taken some work to align myself with what it really is.

(more…)

– 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.

(more…)

– 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.