As if Top Shelf launching not one but two digital comic apps wasn’t good enough news – In addition to the “regular” Top Shelf app, there’s also one dedicated to their all ages books, Top Shelf Kids Club – the publisher is also promoting their digital offerings with a pretty great sale on digital graphic novels. $1.99 for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1910? $1.99 for the first collection of The Surrogates? That’s a really good deal. But I admit, I’m waiting for the great digital deals on the Eddie Campbell books…

Steve Ekstrom, a long-time Newsarama contributor, has written a short story published today on Top Shelf 2.0, titled “Breakfast.” It’s genre-appropriate for today’s holiday, and as you can see from the panel above, even takes place in October. “Breakfast” was originally published in black-and-white back in 2008 for Desperado Publishing, now (as is probably pretty obvious) it’s in color. Read it here, and, if you like what you see, “Haunted,” a story written by Ekstrom and published by Top Shelf 2.0 last Halloween, is here.

Brecht Evens’ late 2010 graphic novel The Wrong Place was a great one, but it was also a revelatory one. Evens used words and pictures to tell the story, but he also used color, page space and implied, invisible panels co-created by the reader’s act of reading to tell that story in a unusual, perhaps even unique way.

I haven’t read all the comics yet (although I’m working on it!), but I’ve read a lot of them, and I can honestly say I’ve never read anything quite like The Wrong Place.

This week Top Shelf released Evens’ Night Animals, and while it’s rather different than The Wrong Place, it is a new Evens comic and thus the most like Wrong Place of anything I’ve seen so far.

The title page of the slim, 48-page volume bears the sub-title, “A Diptych about What Rushes through the Bushes,” and the contents that follow are two short, wordless stories that indeed share a nighttime setting and a massive menagerie of beautifully, bizarre creature.

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Alec: “The Years Have Pants” (A Life-Sized Omnibus)
Written & Illustrated by Eddie Campbell
Published by Top Shelf

If you’ve not read Eddie Campbell’s Alec stories, this book is perfect for you, as you’ll be almost entirely caught up with just one tome. If you are a reader, you’ll get a new story along with some other odds and ends, and you’ll get most of the Alec tales under a single cover. In a well-designed, sturdy, and quite heavy brick of a book.

Alec, if you’re unaware, is Eddie Campbell. So Alec is, thinly veiled, an autobiographical comic. It’s also the on the short list of contenders for the best autobiographical comic. Actually, you can forget the comic part – it’s among the best autobiographies. No navel-gazing here, reader. Eddie Campbell’s a visionary, and Alec: “The Years Have Pants” (A Life-Sized Omnibus) collects the many facets of his own narrative: youthful adventures in and around the pub, marriage and children, relocating to the opposite side of the planet, anecdotes about the behind-the-scenes comic book business, and Campbell’s own philosophies on creativity, wine tasting and family.

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Who doesn’t like free? You know what’s even better? When the free thing you’re getting is quality awesome. Top Shelf announced today they’ll be offering Colleen Coover and Paul Tobin’s new graphic novel Gingerbread Girl online at Top Shelf 2.0 for FREE!

Top Shelf 2.0 is the company’s dedicated webcomics site where they also released the Eisner-nominated graphic novel Super Spy by Matt Kindt and publish several other titles. Gingerbread Girl, the most recent title, will be serialized with a new mini-chapter appearing each Monday and Friday.

You may know Colleen Coover & Paul Tobin from the fabulous talking-monkey adventure Banana Sunday, the adorably erotic Small Favors, or the wonderful work they’ve done with Marvel superheroes. But here’s your chance to get in on the ground floor of the newest project by this dynamic duo!

But hey, you ask, what’s it about? Gingerbread Girl is the story of one adorable and bewildering girl, Annah Billips, and the exasperated attempts by everyone around (boyfriends, girlfriends, neighbors, bystanders, passing animals) to figure out what makes her tick. That’s all we can tell you – for more, you’ll just have to read the story!

The story is set in Portland, Oregon and from the official summary, sounds completely wacky and fun. “There are plenty of established facts concerning 26-year-old Annah Billips. She likes sushi and mountains, but hates paper cuts and beer breath. She dates girls and boys, and loves to travel. She may have a missing sister, or she might be insane.” Sounds like my kind of book. All of the chapters will be eventually be released as a hardcover in the Spring which is available for pre-order or you can start reading now!

The Playwright
Written by Daren Write
Illustrated by Eddie Campbell
Published by Top Shelf

It’s nice to end the year with a review of one of 2010′s best comics. If I were compiling a “best of” list, rest assured, The Playwright would rank high on it.

The back cover of Daren White and Eddie Campbell’s latest, The Playwright, describes the book as “a dark comedy about the sex life of a celibate middle-aged man.”  If that sounds awesome to you, as it does to me, let me assure you, The Playwright actually exceeds its promise.

White and Campbell structure the story, for most of its duration, with three panels per page, each accompanied by a caption box. The delivery, dry and sardonic, captures the timidity and bleakness of the titular writer’s life, while the illustrations move back and forth between his lusty ambitions and his staid actions. If you like Campbell’s strong pen and ink and watercolor artwork or appreciate seeing your own follies reflected back at  you, The Playwright’s one of the best books in recent memory, darkly funny, insightful, and quite unforgettable.

Er, I mean comics.

The prolific cartoonist James Kochalka recently released two more of his little hardcover kids comics, which come across as a cross between a children’s picture book and a traditional comic book.

He continues his cheerfully silly series about “the best little ghost in the world” and his “pet ghost” in Johnny Boo and The Mean Little Boy, the fourth Johnny Boo book.

As with the previous installments of the series, The Mean Little Boy offers a pretty perfect distillation of Kochalka’s greatest attributes as an artist, and while it’s all-ages work with nothing adult or inappropriate in the content, it is a kids comics that adult can enjoy for its interpersonal character dynamics, goofy humor and the accomplished cuteness of Kochalka’s art.

In this volume, Johnny blows off his friend Squiggle, whom Kochalka draws to resemble an apostrophe-shaped marshmallow with emoticon-simple expressions, to play with his friend, Rocky the Rock (who is actually just a rock).

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And Top Shelf is collaborating with the foreign invaders—in fact, they’re rolling out a red carpet!

This spring Top Shelf is launching a “Swedish Invasion” initiative, in which they’re planning on introducing elements of Sweden’s vibrant alternative comics scene to American readers. In addition to publishing seven titles, they’re also bringing many of the cartoonists themselves over for a visit in April.

On April 9, Rocketship Comics in Brooklyn, New York will host about a dozen Swedish cartoonists, plus the Top Shelf crew, and that weekend they’ll all be appearing at the MoCCA Arts Festival (along with non-Swedish cartoonists Nate Powell, James Kochalka and Alex Robinson).

Later in the month, on April 17, Mats Jonsson, Kolbeinn Karlsson, Simon Gardenfors and company will be at Double Door in Chicago for a party (at which Gardenfors, a “well-known Swedish rapper”—four words I don’t hear grouped together in that particular order often enough—will also perform). That weekend, April 16-18, they’ll also be appearing at the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo.

Of course, that probably doesn’t matter all that much to you if you don’t live in NYC or Chicago, or aren’t going to visit either town on those particular weekends. What does matter wherever you are and are interested in comics is what Top Shelf is publishing.

The books that are part of their “Swedish Invasion” initiative are…

—Hey Princess by Mats Jonsson, a $15, 470-page autobiographical graphic novel about moving to and trying to make it in the big city.

—120 Days of Simon by Simon Gardenfors, a $15, 415-page original graphic novel that resulted from the artist’s challenge to himself to spend 120 days away from home, with the stipulation that he couldn’t spend more than two nights in the same place. Epic adventures ensue.

—The Troll King by Kolbeinn Karlsson, a $15, 160-page, full-color fantasy graphic novel that sounds awesome: “A dwarf falls into a river and is taken to a place beyond space and time. A carrot takes a bath and finds itself transforming…Welcome to the surreal world of The Troll King.” I never knew how badly I wanted to read about a bathing carrot that finds itself transforming until just this moment!

—Second Thoughts by Niklas Asker, a $10, 90-page graphic novel about two artists who meet one another and share a moment in a London airport.

—From the Shadow of the Northern Lights Vols. 1 and 2 by Galago, a pair of 200-page anthology collections of  comics from Swedish magazine Galago, featuring, Top Shelf says, the work of the finest comics artists Sweden has to offer. My ignorance of Swedish comics art means I have to take their word for it.

—Swedish Comics History by Fredrick Stromberg, a $20, 125-page, nine-by-nine-inch softcover book devoted to the, um, history of Swedish comics, from ancient picture stories the Vikings etched in stone to the comics of today. Well not today-today, but the day Stromberg submitted the book to the publisher, I imagine.

It’s a common enough story: Company A makes the best darn little widgets and builds up a reputation. Along comes Company B who buys out Company A and sucks the soul out of what it bought. That is a fate that Top Shelf Productions, a leading publisher of indepenent graphic novels and comics, has avoided. So, it’s wonderful news from Top Shelf that they have entered into a deal with genuine kindred spirits that they’re excited about that should actually enhance the company. The deal is with new media entrepreneur John S. Johnson and independent film producer Anthony Bregman’s company, Likely Story. They have bought a 33 % interest in Top Shelf Productions.

The deal seems as fair as one could hope for. Co-founders Chris Staros and Brett Warnock  get to keep a controlling interest and Johnson and Bergman provide their substantial resources to take things to the next level. What makes things appear promising is the impressive line up of movies that Bergman has produced over his career which include Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Lovely & Amazing and Sense & Sensibility. Currently, his production company, Likely Story, have two films premiering at Sundance: Please Give, starring Catherine Keener and The Extra Man, starring Kevin Kline.

Johnson and Bergman will have a first-look option on all new Top Shelf publications for possible film and TV development. Could this inhibit seeking out more experimental comics that may not transfer all that well to other media? And what are the particulars of the first-look option?

The first Top Shelf book to benefit from this new arrangement is Too Cool To Be Forgotten by Alex Robinson which is considered to be his best work yet. About a dad who must come to terms with his bad habits, namely smoking, the story transports him back in time as a teenager with a unique chance to get things right. As for Top Shelf, it looks like they have the most unique chance of all to continue to get things right.

You can read the full press release over at the Top Shelf Productions Web site.

Okay, this is pretty cool — Kevin Cannon has created a comic story in the shape of a car.

But underneath that unassuming cardboard chassis is 26 segments of alt comics horsepower. The whole thing is readable at Top Shelf’s web site. Click here, and you won’t regret it.

Top Shelf Productions has announced that it will be releasing three new books in preparation for the film adaptation of the Surrogates, due out September 25th starring Bruce Willis!

According to the publisher, at San Diego Comic Con they will release the following three books:

- The Surrogates, Vol. 2: Flesh and Bone, an all-new prequel to the original graphic novel.

- The Surrogates, Vol. 1, with a brand new cover.

- And The Surrogate’s Owners Manual, a signed and numbered collection of both volumes, limited to 1,000 copies.

In addition, writer Robert Venditti and artist Brett Weldele will be at Top Shelf’s booth for signing!

Yet if you are not able to attend the convention, don’t worry — if you order the books via Top Shelf in the month of July, you will get free media shipping. Click here for more details!

Kevin Cannon is one half of Big Time Attic, the art studio that’s worked with writer Jim Ottaviani on some of his best science-fueled comics, T-Minus: The Race to the Moon, Stuff of Life and, my personal favorite, Bone Sharps, Cowboys and Thunder Lizards.

If the production of those books can be considered analogous to the work of a rock band, then Cannon’s Far Arden (Top Shelf) is his solo side project. Sure, he might have been a perfect drummer, keeping the beat while half obscured by his bass drum in the background, while Ottaviani and fellow artist Zander Cannon dominated the stage, but it turns out Kevin  Cannon can write, sing and play guitar just as well as his bandmates. And man, can he shred.

The story of Far Arden is a wild one, but there’s a structure to the wildness, so all of the seemingly random happenstances and coincidences, the betrayals, reversals and unlikely alliances, the big reveals and zany plot points ultimately make a sort of sense. Parts of Far Arden might seem completely, hilariously insane, but never just for insanity’s sake—Cannon’s gags all serve his story.

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My excitement for DC Direct’s output to kick off 2010 was tempered just a tad this week with the latest solicitations (Sept. 2009). Not to say that the product is bad, necessarily (I’m actually quite excited that DC Direct is doing a third series of “Women of the DC Universe” mini-busts), but it’s hard to muster up enthusiasm the months where they unveil what amounts to repainted action figures.

Take the Batman: Mad Love Collector Set. Now I don’t doubt for a moment that there’s an audience for this item, but it’s “been there, done that” for me since I got Joker and Harley Quinn the first time around.

It’s mostly the not-lacking-for-colons “JLA Classified: Classic: Series 2:” set of four figures that caught my attention for not all the right reasons. For one thing, the lineup of Aquaman, Superman Blue and Kyle Rayner certainly underscores the fact that DC Direct has confoundedly ignored an incredible opportunity to do a wave or two of Justice League figures based off Grant Morrison’s classic run on JLA. I was almost dumbstruck when I realized that, for all the Aquaman figures produced over the last 10 years, this is only the first time they covered his bearded/hooked design. Though, to be fair, this figure is anything but a simple repaint despite DC Direct using the Ed McGuinness template for the umpteenth time. I have plenty of the EM2-based figures in my own collection, but getting that Aquaman and Superman Blue (of which I have Mattel’s far superior version anyway) for the first time ever from DC Direct based off that distinctive style is sort of a letdown.

Though what’s downright puzzling is the inclusion of Batgirl Cassandra Cain. At what point has she EVER been in a Justice League story, much less illustrated by McGuinness? Why they went with her over — oh, I don’t know — Green Arrow Connor Hawke (still inexplicably untouched by DCD), Aztec, Zauriel, Prometheus or Tomorrow Woman, just for starters, I’ll never know. Going through Morrison & Co.’s seminal Justice League output, I would’ve gone through over a hundred heroes and villains before even considering a Batman character outside Bruce Wayne himself.

What say ye all collectors? Did DC Direct push the right buttons with this lineup (all of this actually dropping in February 2010, not next September), or do retailers have their latest batch or peg-warmers?

Reading and re-reading League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 3: Century #1 (Top Shelf), I experienced the usual jumble of emotions—confusion, admiration, awe, frustration, bemusement, dread at the thought of writing about it—but the overwhelming one was relief.

I was relieved that Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s latest go at the LOEG fell closer to the model established in the first two volumes, rather than the Black Dossier hybrid graphic novel. Black Dossier certainly had its charms, and was clever as hell, but Moore made it difficult to appreciate it as anything other than an interesting exercise, the chance to watch an extremely talented writer demonstrate his ability to imitate a variety of styles.  I mean, I like Alan Moore’s writing, and I like Jack Kerouac’s writing, and the idea of Moore imitating Kerouac sounds intriguing, but actually reading pages and pages Moore’s prose echoing Kerouac’s is something I didn’t need to read, particularly in the middle of what was a comics narrative a few pages ago.

In Black Dossier, Moore seemed to take the “What if all fiction occurred in the same world, and the characters and narratives could interact and cross-pollinate” too far away from the original concept of a Justice League of Victorian literature adventure heroes, even abandoning the comics medium for too-long stretches of it.

Century isn’t like that. It’s all comics for one, is set closer to the original time period of the previous volumes, and focuses on better-known characters and works of fiction, although still some much more obscure characters than the ones appearing in the works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.

The format is similarly something between the two previous models; it’s not a six-issue comic book series, nor an original (hybrid) graphic novel, but a series of three original graphic novellas, each set in a distinct part of the 20th century.

This one is set in 1910, and one-time Dracula victim Mina Murray still leads the League, which now consists of the now-young Allan Quartermain, William Hope Hodgson’s Thomas Carnacki, E.W. Hornung’s gentleman thief A.J. Raffles and the legendary sometimes gentleman/sometimes lady immortal Orlando. Led by Carnacki’s prophetic dreams, this dysfunctional League tries to unravel half-understood clues to stop a massacre on the docks and a plot by Aleistir Crowley analogues with apocalyptic aspirations.

That storyline is intercut with two others. One involves the extremely old Captain Nemo’s daughter, who runs away from her legacy and calls herself “Jenny Diver,” and the other is, an, um, musical staring “Mack the Knife” and a prostitute named Suki who sing their scenes, using reworked songs from Threepenny Opera (Or so I’ve heard; these were among the allusions lost on me).

Not lost on me was Moore’s alternate Ripper theories, and the fact that not only does he revisit From Hell through re-examining the Ripper killings (Following Eddie Campbell’s 2008 Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard, now both of From Hell’s creators have revisited that work in amusing ways within the last year), but also by exploring that bigger, denser work’s concept of the 20th century being brought about by magical rituals, and the Whitechapel murders coloring the nature of that century.

It all works about as well as could be hoped—musicals, obviously, don’t translate too well into the silent medium of comics, although O’Neill draws some funny dancing scenes—and Moore provides plenty of action, city-destroying mayhem and colorful, humorous characterization to balance out some of the more obtuse references (I could read a Moore/O’Neill Orlando monthly comic forever, I think).

I was also relieved to see so much of O’Neill, as reducing his contributions to illustrations in certain sections of Black Dossier was another of the things that rankled me about it. O’Neill’s work is enormously rewarding, and the reason I can go back and read and re-read these stories so many times. Each panel is packed with so much visual information, layered behind the most significant actions of the panels, that one can take any given panel in as is, or read it layer by layer for additional sight gags, visual allusions and subtle details characterizing the protagonists and their settings.

And, while this has nothing to do with the work itself, I was sort of relieved on Moore’s behalf, since his new publisher must certainly offer him a less tense relationship than his previous one, and it seems both the creators and the publishers have found a way to continue LOEG in a way that is at once unequivocally Moore and O’Neill’s comics and a Top Shelf production.

This afternoon, I was chatting with a friend about her tattoo appointment. She’s planning on getting the Nautilus as drawn by Kevin O’Neill across her ribs (yay for comic book tattoos). I realized that I have yet to write my own review of the latest League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novel, Century 1910. You already have Troy‘s, but I have some other comments.

This League is a tease more than a complete story–it introduces new characters, heroes (Orlando, Raffles, and Carnacki, as well as “Jenny Diver,” the daughter of Captain Nemo) and villains, and builds to a surprising climax, but it leaves you panting for the next volume, rather the way the first one did.

The character of Janni/Jenny is really the backbone of the story, though she has little to say. Her story relies instead on O’Neill’s storytelling skills, and they’re certainly up to the challenge. Janni flees her father but cannot escape his legacy. The story is familiar, except normally it’s a son trying to avoid having to live up to his father, rather than a daughter fed up at her father’s wishes for a male successor. Janni’s final turn comes not really as a surprise, but still a thrill. For her, embracing her father’s legacy is less a surrender than a realization that she can do that on her own terms.

Orlando, Raffles and Carnacki may not be as flashy as Hyde and the Invisible Man, but they provide different opportunites for Alan Moore. This is less a book about monsters, as the first two were, and more a book about literature. As Troy notes, it reaches out into music and magic as well. But it was always telling that the main character, the one responsible for pulling together the original League, was a human woman who survived the attack of a monster rather than the monster himself.

Mina Murray remains stiff and proper on the outside, but apparently a bit more liberated in the bedroom. She is, as always, the brains and the wrangler of the operation, the one everyone gripes about and the one they can’t function without. And at the end of this book, while all the other characters are fighting, Mina’s best weapon is still her self-possession, her calm confidence while everything else is falling apart.

The book may be titled “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” and my friend may have referred to the first League as the manliest book on her shelf, but for me, the best parts of this new League are the extraordinary women. I can’t wait for more.

It is a painfully embarrassing moment and we can’t help but watch. She looks like she’s forced to take part in some initiation but it’s by her own design. Sara Goodman, age twelve or so, only wanted to dress up and look like Aunt Jemima for Halloween and join all the other kids in costume at school. That’s the premise for “Cakewalk,” a recent comic drawn by Nate Powell and written by Rachel Borman, which is full of the sweet melancholy of the best of Nate Powell’s work. His graphic novel, Swallow Me Whole, is up for three Eisner Award nominations (Best New Graphic Album, Best Writer/Artitst, Best Lettering) and shares the distinction of being the only graphic novel since Maus to be nominated for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize (Young Adult).  That presentation ceremony will be held on April 24.

Swallow Me Whole is a remarkable book which brings together a vision made up of exceptional outsiders just one step away from running away into the night. With his latest book, Powell has reached a landmark in his comics career. I was able to catch up with him at Emerald City ComiCon in Seattle and then conduct a subsequent interview. Nate was very thoughtful and generous with his time and it made for a great interview.

Blog@Newsarama: There’s a certain beauty in going back to the same story and telling it again. As a cartoonist myself, I suspect that earlier in your career you were finding your way as you retold a story and now it can be a deliberate act, the world of Nate Powell. What do you think?

Nate Powell: I wouldn’t say it’s deliberate by any means, but it is certainly unavoidable. Looking back at older comics of mine, it’s frustrating to realize that I had no concept of doing a story longer than 32 pages, even though I had a lot more to say. Those stories, especially “Conditions” and the main stories from Walkie Talkie, are confusing and cluttered because I tried to cram a whole world, or a year’s worth of thoughts into 32 pages. A few months ago I momentarily got excited to redraw It Disappears and “Autopilot” as 100 page stories, now that I understand a little more about patience and breathing room. Themes are constantly revisited, as are different incarnations of certain characters and activities. Most of that is due to unsuccessful attempts to communicate something in the stories, not that anybody can ever get it just right. I do feel that I worked a lot of themes out of my system in Swallow Me Whole, and it’s really exciting to work on new stories that are free of some older semiotic and thematic elements.

Blog@: The phrase, “swallow me whole,” keeps appearing in your work. How significant is it? Is there a story behind how it came about for you?

NP: Strangely, I had no memory of putting that phrase in so many stories until I stumbled across them over this winter. It’s not personally significant, but in each of the three appearances it seemed to convey meaning in an appropriate way. It’s pretty easy for me to feel overwhelmed by an anxious, agoraphobic terror, and the imagery of being enveloped or swallowed by something does seem reassuring—even when the swallowing isn’t protective. Like in older Dracula movies, when he conceals his dirty work with a wave of his cloak over the body of his passed-out victim: the concept of Dracula’s power is so alluring and effective precisely because people secretly want to feel the security that comes with placing their sovereignty in the hands of something or someone else, even when that means the end of their agency, freedom, or dignity. Re-read Dracula—you get all dizzy and swoony during those moments of vampiric power, and you really sense the sexual allure of safety and domination represented by the vampire. The “swallowing whole” theme is both a refuge and a poison. In It Disappears, the “swallowing” is in reference to the way that snow, frost, rain, or the dark of night covers everything, slows everything during its temporary reign on earth, covering roads and markers of our civilization, reminding us how fleeting that civilization really is.

Blog@: How did your ten years working as a support person for people with developmental disabilities affect your work? I held a similar job for about two years and found it rewarding but draining and didn’t get much art done. It’s an all encompassing world, isn’t it?

NP: Well, it’s simply unavoidable that any line of work done over the course of a decade will deeply affect they way you perceive the world and the art that comes forth from it. For a few years, it hit me that about seventy percent of all the people I hung out with had disabilities of some kind. I grew up with developmental disabilities in my family, and until recently took for granted the special lens through which I navigated my world. Yes, the work is definitely rewarding but draining. There’s a constant turnover of people who work as direct care staff, and awareness of this high rate of turnover is one of the main reasons I’ve tried to stick with it for as long as I can. At certain times I’ve felt that working for folks with disabilities is something that is as important to me, or more important, than drawing comics. I know that, if I’m never able to make a living drawing comics, I’d be fine with direct care work as a primary means of employment. It is so all-encompassing, however, that you can get completely burned-out without ever realizing it, unless you practically force yourself to take regular breaks, trips, tours, and take special time off to focus on other parts of life. Human services work requires a predisposition to be dedicated and self-denying, but those same qualities are what provide for inevitable self-destruction if you’re not careful.

Blog@: You’re in a band and manage a punk record label. How does the punk ethos play a role in your comics?

NP: Fundamentally, I’d say I’ve been so used to the “do-it-yourself” ethic that it’s been difficult to ease up on wanting a hand in every aspect of the production, publication, promotion, and distribution of comics. Not that it’s an issue of trust—most of my publishers have been amazing—but that kind of direct involvement, and that degree of being in-the-know about the stages of production, are difficult to part with. I have absolute trust in the wonderful folks at Top Shelf, and working with them has helped me realize that some folks are way better at those aspects of production than I am. And on the other hand, working with Soft Skull, which required me to personally distribute hundreds and hundreds of copies of my own books, underlined why one can’t assume that a publisher is gonna be competent or responsible just because they can put up the capital to print something.

DIY punk and its culture have also greatly informed my expectations of any scene or community. When I was younger, I believed this quality of support and connectedness was unique to punk, and it was so exciting to see that the comics community is full of the same support, sacrifice, social networking, enthusiasm, and ingenuity. I feel at home with both, and have high expectations of both.

Blog@: From your collected works, Sounds of Your Name, there’s quite a variety of work that’s experimental. I am guessing a lot of the early stuff came out of your studies at the School of Visual Arts in New York City . You’ve said that NYC wasn’t your scene. But surely you enjoyed the tempo on some level. Could you describe what it was like for you as a student back then? And wasn’t it quite a leap of faith to go to SVA in the first place?

NP: Well, I liked living in New York a lot—it was Providence , Rhode Island that crushed my soul. I went to a year of college in DC, and realized I had no idea why I was there. I’d been drawing and publishing comics for years by that point but had only started to take it seriously again. I spent the next three years at SVA in New York , and was really excited to be there, surrounded by lots of folks who were as excited as I was, having teachers whose comics I’d grown up reading. Most of my time was spent strictly on comics; I’d return home to Arkansas during every school break in order to tour and record with my bands, or make new episodes of our DIY sketch comedy show. It was a very dualistic existence at that point, but seemed perfectly natural. I felt at home in New York , but honestly didn’t put much energy into making it my home. When I finished school, I had already booked three tours for the coming months, and had new stories to work on—at twenty-two, it was really easy to adventure onward and leave school in the dust.

Blog@: Can you discuss how you came to develop the characters in Swallow Me Whole? I see hints of Ruth in your earlier comics, right?

NP: Well, the core narrative of the book came to me in a dream I had in October 2001. Perry and the parents were fully formed at that point, and Ruth was a hybrid of herself and a giant, waxy Keroppi-style frog child in the dream. I was also cooking up a comic called “Lightness” at the time, and Ruth was the protagonist in that book. Within a year or so, the two books merged seamlessly and some of the missing narrative components turned out to be related. For the most part, Ruth’s appearance and lots of her personality are patterned after my most beloved best friend. Perry is physically based on another of my best friends. Memaw is very similar to my grandmother, and a lot of her delusional scenes are lifted directly from the last few months of her life, as her cancer treatment began to take a neurological toll. It’s true that there are some similarities between Ruth and the little girl in “Autopilot”, a story I did in 2000 for Walkie Talkie, but those similarities are more due to the revisitation of themes and devices we discussed earlier.

Blog@: Considering that both Ruth and Perry are struggling with schizophrenia in Swallow Me Whole, they still manage to achieve rites of passage for high school: finding a job and someone to date. In that respect, they’re doing better than a lot of kids. Was it important to have them as fully integrated into society as possible?

NP: Certainly. One of the things I was most interested in working with in the book was the reader’s changing expectations of each character, based on their life circumstances. A lot of Ruth’s experiences are ambiguous in that they could represent her subjective experience as a teenager with schizophrenic or obsessive-compulsive issues, and they could also convey the subjective experience of just being a teenager. Ruth struggles a lot with being heard and respected, with finding a little dignity and sovereignty in her life; this issue is magnified once she has the stigma of someone with a mental disorder. After the “Baby Ruth” candy bar incident, the school faculty as well as her parents contextualize the situation through her disorder while she vies for people to listen to the reasons which might push anyone to act in such a heavy-handed way.

Whether someone grows up with or without diagnosed disorders or disabilities, it’s hard enough feeling like shit as a teenager, especially as one acutely dissatisfied with the world around you. I’ve never intended Swallow Me Whole to be a book “about disorders” or anything, as it has as much to do with those issues of sovereignty as love, death, disaffection, loss, and idealism.

Blog@: How important was it to set this book in a small town setting and to comment on it? You get an opportunity to call out some small town bad behavior.

NP: The narrative takes place in a community similar to the one in which I grew up, which is a metropolitan area of a couple hundred thousand people. I contest the notion that racism, ignorance, boredom, and regionalism are behaviors indicative of a smaller town. Growing up in the Little Rock area, I certainly considered smaller towns to be more backwards than my town, but it wasn’t until leaving home that I realized this isn’t necessarily the case. In fact, I think that the social frameworks of racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia thrive from the misconception that these are small-town issues that don’t exist in larger areas. My next book Any Empire focuses on this issue, specifically how Midwestern racism and paranoia thrives from the notion that racism is a Southern problem. My new home of Indiana is far more fucked-up and backwards than Arkansas , and that’s one of the main reasons—a lot of white folks here feel like they have a free pass to be racist assholes because they’re free from mainstream blame in their sheltered, homogenous Indiana environment.

Blog@: Clearly, Swallow Me Whole is an achievement in your growing theme of wonderment. Do you see yourself as focusing on this sense of wonder?

NP: I do feel that my comics focus on the sense of wonder at a universe much larger, more powerful, and mysterious than we can grasp. I find a little peace and ease in realizing how small human beings are, and try to balance that with a focus on the concrete issues with which we struggle. I guess that would be wonder. A lot of that narrative sense is informed by heavy metal of the 1970’s and 1980’s, in which lots of lyrics focus on a narrator expressing disbelief at a fantastic event occurring before his very eyes. Bruce Dickinson does a fine, fine job at conveying that sense of wonder and disbelief.

Blog@: Is there anything you’d like to say to young people out there who are not sure about where their lives are heading?

NP: It’s all true—no one is sure where their lives are headed, and death is the inevitable result. There is no objective meaning or order. Find your own. (I’m not trying to be a downer, but people always try to cram structural frameworks down people’s throats. I mean what I say—make your own meaning, your own noise.)

Blog@: There’s your comments in your comcis about how the X-Men provided you with a social conscience. Anything you’d like to add to that? Maybe some other influences in books, movies, your life? I would think someone like yourself, drawing comics since you were four, is really tuned into the world.

NP: The two biggest (and earliest) political influences in my life were X-Men and speed/thrash metal. I got into both in mid-1990 right as I turned twelve, and both finally seemed to rip open dialogues about war, nationalism, intolerance, alienation, and idealism. Specifically, the 1985-87 Claremont X-books, and the band Anthrax. Growing up with hair bands and G.I.Joe comics, I really didn’t have much of a concept of art and music even having any real content. It blew my mind that folks were making songs and stories about being a misfit, about disaffection, about struggling against the dominant schema. One reason that punk was a natural step was thanks to Anthrax and Chris Claremont.

Also of great importance was growing up with my brother Peyton, who’s six years older than me and has high-functioning autism and a few learning disabilities. It wasn’t until I was 20 or so that I realized I grew up with a unique and specific view of families, communication, affection, and child development. That’s one of my prime motivators for working with folks who have disabilities, and for trying to be more aware of both my social privileges and perspectives I take for granted.

Blog@: Lastly, we all look forward to your next book with Top Shelf, Any Empire. Any other comments about that or working with Top Shelf in general?

NP: I couldn’t imagine working with a better, more approachable, supportive bunch than the Top Shelf folks. Any Empire falls somewhere between being a graphic novel and a comics essay. It’s largely about living in a culture of distrust, and about how much energy goes into keeping people afraid of each other. About how, when, and why we might work to break free from that framework. Specifically, it’s how paranoia, racism, and distrust serve the interests of a state, and how any state’s prime directive is its own survival, even in defiance of a democratic majority. The personal elements intertwined have to do with being a military-obsessed kid, moving from home to home, growing awareness of being a misfit, looking for love and peace, and trying to quiet those paranoid and self-destructive voices within myself.

The book will hopefully be out at the end of 2010. I’m also simultaneously drawing a graphic novel called The Silence of Our Friends, written by Mark Long and Jim Demonakos, and hopefully published by First Second Books (though we have no solid publisher at present). That’ll hopefully be released at the end of 2010 as well.

I know I’m behind the times on this one, really. It’s been recommended to me over and over by comics folks and even those who don’t normally read sequential art. But I finally got around to reading Blankets this week, mostly on Monday when I was sick in bed all day, and it was just as beautiful as promised.

Thompson’s story is billed as a first-love tale, and it is, but it’s more importantly a coming-of-age story, a story of a young man finding love and freedom amid the loss of his faith and family.

I wanted a happy ending, a satisfying ending, but real life doesn’t come with those. Instead, Thompson has woven the threads of his religious upbringing, his relationship with his brother, and his first relationship into the what makes his protagonist the man that he is.

The gradual revelations of the narrator’s own unreliability and failings, scattered throughout the horrors of childhood, the teenage years, and the pains of love and loss, make this far more complex than the usual coming-of-age story.  Thompson is unflinching, laying bare all the messiest, scariest, most embarrassing moments and by doing so both conveying their power and stripping them of it.

Most readers won’t know what it was like to grow up in an evangelical family like the one in Blankets, but the fear and discomfort of growing up and realizing that you don’t fit into your family anymore is universal. And the love story is poignant and beautiful, as comforting as the titular blankets and yet still confusing, painful, and even lonely.

Thompson’s art is simple, but magical, showing us the full inner life of a dreamy teenage boy and bringing us to all the heavens and hells of adolescence.

The best first love stories make you remember what it felt like to have your heart touched for the first time, and this book does that and then some.

Why haven’t YOU read it yet?

The LA Times Book Prize nominees were announced today, and there was a bit of excitement for comics readers.

Nate Powell’s Swallow Me Whole, published by Top Shelf, is on the list for Young Adult Literature, right next to another luminary we all know and love: Neil Gaiman with The Graveyard Book.

This might seem like a double victory for us comic lovers, and it is, but Powell’s book is the first comic since Maus (Fiction, 1992) to be nominated on the list. While Gaiman is One Of Us, The Graveyard Book is prose.

“As a fan, I admit I’m kind of hoping Neil and Nate huddle in a corner somewhere in LA and hatch a plan to collaborate on a new book,” Leigh Walton of Top Shelf said, and I can’t blame him. Swallow Me Whole (read my full review here) is a haunting story of a brother and sister in the grips of mental illness, beautifully rendered in black and white, and full of images straight out of a dream.

“We sort of had the feeling Swallow Me Whole would be a sleeper hit. This tremendous honor is a great opportunity for those who haven’t looked at this amazing book to check it out. Nate’s artistic wizardry is obvious from first glance, but the richness of his storytelling is something that grows and grows the more time you spend with Swallow Me Whole. We’re incredibly proud of Nate and delighted that his book is going to reach so many people so deeply — especially young people,” Walton said.

Check out more of Powell’s work over at Top Shelf 2.0 as well—because what’s better than free webcomics?

Lots of linky goodness for you today.

Kevin O’Neill talks League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Marshal Law, and many other things with The Times. That’s right, the NEW League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, coming your way in the not-so-distant future from Top Shelf. Keep an eye out for more on this…

More Twilight-related news (because I totally love it): Drew Barrymore may be in talks to direct the third Twilight film, Eclipse. Drew recently wrapped her directing debut, a film about roller derby (really!) starring Ellen Page (Kitty Pryde in X3).

More academia as well: do you write research papers on superheroes? There’s a call for papers for an interdisciplinary conference at the University of Oregon.

We invite 1-2 page proposals for 20-30 minute conference papers considering the implications of superhero fantasies for our understanding of such diverse topics as gender identity, queerness, theological yearning, and nationalist politics. We also welcome appreciative discussions of superhero comics as significant aesthetic achievements — particularly insofar as those discussions contribute to the ongoing project within contemporary Comics Studies, to map the unique conventions of the comic art form. Above all, we are interested in sophisticated, lucidly written analyses that utilize the conceptual tools and hermeneutic lenses of contemporary literary and cultural theory.

Molly Crabapple hipped me to Sketch Theatre, which is a super-cool site that sets high-speed video of artists at work to music. Molly is the featured artist right now. Also, you can check out her fashion week coverage at Coilhouse, if you’re into that sort of thing (which I so am).

Johanna at Comics Worth Reading previews Secret Identities: The Asian-American Superhero Anthology. Sounds like good stuff. Check it out.

Racialicious takes on Frank Miller and Zack Snyder’s 300.

The Guardian puts Sight and Sound’s top ten movies of all time to the Bechdel test.

Finally, via Daryl Cagle, a lament for another dead newspaper from my former (albeit briefly) hometown.

I hesitate to single out a personal favorite among the works of James Kochalka, on account of the size of the prolific cartoonist’s output and the fact that my favorite changes all the time, but, at this precise moment in time, it’s probably his 2008 kids graphic novel Johnny Boo: The Best Little Ghost in the World.

That single book seems to have synthesized the very best elements of some of Kochalka’s very best works into a single, easily accessible package, the perfect answer to the question, “So, who’s this James Kochalka cartoonist, and what’s his work like?”

It was as brightly colored and lettered as Superf*ckers, as all-ages friendly as Pinky & Stinky, as cute as Peanutbutter & Jeremy and I even detected the same sense of humor that emanates from the cartoon avatar of Kochalka’s interactions with his cartoon sons in his American Elf strip.(This one, in particular, seems to have inspired Johnny Boo, as Squiggle Power plays a prominent role in the first volume).

So Johnny Boo? A pretty great comic book. So here’s some pretty great news—Johnny Boo: Twinkle Power (Top Shelf) is now available.

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