No checkpoints for Rainbows

You should bookmark Guy's blog, even if you don't speak French, his entries can be easily translated online or just look at the blog for his drawings. I swiped this photo from his February 17th entry where Guy remarks that the rainbow starts on the Israeli side and extends towards Ramallah.

Read More

Maira Kalman loves Abraham Lincoln (TLA)

I cannot get enough of Maira Kalman!! I loved 2007's The Principles of Uncertainty and I can tell this new series, "And the Pursuit of Happiness," is going to be just as great. This month is an particularly excellent Lincoln strip. Is it a strip? It seems like a strip to me. Do we want to argue like this? C'mon we both like pictures and reading what's the big deal? Sheesh. (psst, Maira call me!!)

Read More

Hear that Johnny Ryan? Less @n@l r@pe!

Wired has an awesome slideshow up right now interviewing comic shops clerks around the country. The Secret Lives of Comic Store Employees covers our favorite stores including Midtown, Jim Hanleys, Forbidden Planet, Dr. Comics & Mr. Games, and Cosmic Comics where a Ms. Olive Panter works. With Sophie Crumb having worked at Comic Relief, do I sense a trend here?

Read More

You, Marjane and Chris (But not as intimate)

Angouleme 2009
Originally uploaded by Buenaventura Press

Chris Ware and Marjane Satrapi will be in conversation withe Francoise Mouly tomorrow in NYC, 8:15 PM at the Skirball Center. It is put on by the French Consulate.

Read More

SJP: Total Schizo fan.

{Spotted by R. Boyd}

Read More

What in the world is Dylan up to?

Nicest guy ever Dylan Horrocks checked in with us yesterday to share a few updates. 1) New Zealand has a new copyright law, which prompted Dylan to create the below comic and donate it to the public domain. 2) Dylan is going to launch his new website Hicksville Comics where he is going to be serializing comics including a completely new story called The American Dream, and Sam Zabel & the Magic Pen and will go LIVE next week with new stories!!!!! For more information, visit Dylan's site.

Read More

Attn. Dundas, ON!

Do not miss Seth's appearance at the Dundas Museum and Archives this Friday at 7:30 PM, where he'll be conversing with Andrew Hunter, director/curator, University of Waterloo as well as presenting a slide show on Dominion City.

Read More

Our new publicity assistant, Claire Bennett!

Our Associate Publisher Peggy Burns has a new Publicity Assistant, Ms. Claire Bennett. That means there is now a new full-time person ignoring your email or phonecall. What! No, I mean to help get you the press materials you need. Here she is being hazed by the staff in the giant chair in our well-appointed offices. Hey, there's a sneak peek for the cover (IT'S HUGE!!) of Seth's upcoming book George Sprott: 1894-1975. I thought it might be nice to see the scale of these mammoth new books. Welcome, Claire!!

{Please note: This isn't the final cover for the Sprott book. It will change slightly. FOR THE BETTER!!}

Read More

Interns are awesome (early 2009 edition!)

I gotta do something to knock that Hibbsy photo out of the top slot. What was I thinking.


Tomorrow is the last day for our Guelphite intern Lisa Drake. She was here for most of the month of February. Every day, with the scanning of the John Stanley and the Zach Worton and the cleaning up of the R. O. Blechman. She did good work, she is awesome.


Our other intern in the office right now is Emily Darrow. Twice a week with the scanning and the cleanup and the proofing of the Katsumata and fonting of the Aya vol. 3. I'm sure there's more. And I don't want to overshadow her good work here but she brought brownies to work recently. TO SHARE! Look, it's not a competition, people.

Read More

Phone

Brian Hibbs called Peg half an hour ago and they are still on the phone. Cheez-loueez.

{Update: it's 2:30 here now--like 4 hours since Brian originally called and HE'S STILL ON THE PHONE. I think him and Peg and both sobbing and saying "I love you, man."}

Read More

Oh, there's this as well...

Jeez, does anyone at this company even read this blog? One post in a week. Pathetic. BUT, good news!! Doug Wright Volume One is in the office and should be making its way to stores in a couple of months.


Shiny!


So shiny you can see yourself in it! And look at that embossed Nipper in the die-cut there.


Lynn Johnston talks a bit about how she grew up reading Wright's work and how it gave her the basic tools for cartooning--a cartoonist's cartoonist that Doug Wright.


I think I've said it before but Doug Wright fits my romantic ideal of a cartoonist--a 9-to-5 working man who sits down at the drawing board and looks at his day's assignment and gets to work. Maybe he has a pipe clenched between his teeth while doing it. And a dog at his feet.




I think you've seen enough by now. Get your store to order this book, buy this book, treasure this book!!

Read More

A Drifting Life

It just rolled in this morning! Look at the size of this thing! I'm pretty sure this is going to be the book of the year. Tatsumi switches into autobio mode and takes us through the birth of gekiga as well as giving us a look at his early interactions with the popular but not yet legendary Tezuka.

Read More

Garfield Friday

{Garf garf by Aaron Shive.}

Read More

Entering his "late-career Ditko" phase

Ron Rege, Jr. has been blogging about his latest comics adventure, Cartoon Utopia recently. It's some pretty fascinating stuff and I think we'll all look back on this time as a distinct and important new phase in Ron's always interesting approach to comics-making. I've been friends with Ron for something like 15 years and he can still surprise me with what's going on in that head of his.

Read More

To Be A Fly on the Wall

Alvin Buenaventura does a great and thorough job of documenting Dan Clowes, Adrian Tomine and Chris Ware's trip to Angouleme, which included visiting R. Crumb. Pretty nice, right?

However, I viewed his stream as a slideshow, and suddenly looked up from my desk to see the following picture!


I had no idea that Sammy Harkham and Jaime Hernandez were arrested and thrown in the back of the paddywagon at APE. Scandalous.

Read More

ADORABLE!

Standing next to Seth is Claire Hunter, 7. Part of the Dundas Museum installation includes an old-style theatre with a selection of NFB shorts curated by Seth. Claire worked as an usher on the night of the opening.

Read More

Adrian in Angouleme!

What is going through Adrian's head while he is walking around Angouleme? Watch this video to find out.

Read More

Kids Love Seth! (Huh?)

The kids of Dundas, Ontario are loving Seth's Dominion City exhibit that recently opened last week at the Dundas Museum and Archives. The Star News provides a thoughtful overview of the show, and provides the regional context to how Dominion City fits into the history of post-war, small town Ontario. On February 27th at 7:30 PM, Seth will visit the Dundas Town Hall to discuss his artwork with Andrew Hunter, director/curator, University of Waterloo as well as present a slide show.

Read More

Animated Shortcomings

OK for anyone who wants to know how to post an animated jpeg on blogger, you have to use photobucket, if anyone knows how to center the image on a blog, let me know!



Yes, this does mean the new paperback will come in three colors!

Read More

Valentines Day Gift Suggestions (Masked Tomine Update)

OK, so chances are, you're sitting there, wondering what the heck you are going to get your girlfriend for Valentine's Day, which is this Saturday! Look no further friends, as the Cartoon Bank of the New Yorker has been selling Adrian's covers that you can buy as prints (framed or unframed) or as stationary, and now the magazine is selling his interior illustrations as prints.


What's new with Adrian? Well, last week, Paul Gravett of Comica hosted Adrian for the Faber edition of Shortcomings, which drew such a large crowd that the ICA had to move the event to a bigger room. While in London, Adrian signed for four hours at Gosh and spoke to Intelligent Life, the cultural magazine of the Economist.




This June, Adrian will be on the road again promoting the softcover edition of Shortcomings and the boxed set of 32 Stories...more on that later...

Read More

Gabrielle's acceptance speech at the Oscars...

will have to wait a year but I swear it's coming. Our friend Charlie Orr just gave me the heads up that the trailer for the Michel Gondry film based on Gabrielle's story "Cecil and Jordan in New York" is up on the apple site. That movie, Tokyo!, opens March 6th, by the way. Gabrielle's brand new book collection featuring that story arrives in stores about a month later.

Read More

Mat Brinkman

When did Mat Brinkman become Brian Posehn? An-ny-ways...I had seen this Flickr set posted anywhere so I thought I'd share--Mat in France working on his Dernier Cri book. I hear they nearly rejected it because there weren't enough severed penises. Thank you!!

Read More

Victoria, British Columbia

I was in Victoria, BC in December, visiting my parents and made my ritual trip to Legends Comics, which was a fixture of my life when I lived there. Run by Gareth Gaudin (featured in the above picture), Legends always has a good selection of books and is a pleasure to go visit. Plus, customers like the guy below are always happy to talk about the most recent Frank Miller gossip, etc...


But wait, isn't that just Eric Reynolds in a headband?

Read More

The final FCBD cover(s)!

Read More

New Vanessa Davis Strip at Nextbook.org

These are so good! Be sure to check out the previous installments if you've not yet done so.

Read More

YALSA

Did we mention that our own Lynda Barry and John Porcellino had books on the YALSA list of 2009 Best Books for Young Adults?I don't recall. But congrats to them both--Lynda was picked for What It Is and John was selected for his Thoreau at Walden from Hyperion. Seems like a good time to mention that if all goes according to plan we hope to release somewhere in the vicinity of 1000 pages of comics from John P in the next few years. And, well, Lynda! Everytime I turn around she has a new book for us. More later!!

Read More

Garfield Friday

Above image by Seth Scriver. {Look for a Petits Livres from him later this year.}

Read More

Next step

Read More

IT'S ON!

So it seems that Chris Butcher is all like "our FCBD comic is going to be the best again" and I'm all like "oh, no you dih-ent" and he's "all like show me the goods, Devlin!" and I'm all like "oh, I will, Butchie!"

So, up above is the rough sketches by Seth for our John Stanley Library Melvin Monster/Nancy flip comic. (I should point out that it will make a perfect Halloween giveaway comic too!). I apologize to Seth and the heirs of John Stanley for the above "dialect comedy."

Read More

Tune into CBC: Guy on Q Today!

Calling from Jerusalem, Guy Delisle speaks with CBC's Q. I'll put a link to the podcast as soon as it is posted!

Read More

In the office, due in stores soon!

We just got a box of Gabrielle Bell's new collection, Cecil and Jordan in New York here in the office. Oh, this book came out nice! It's filled with your favorite stories from Kramers Ergot, Mome, and D + Q Showcase. In stores sometime in March, I believe.

Read More

Mark Your Calendar: Diane Obomsawin Event Tuesday February 3rd at 7PM!

Read More