DCFC + JB = awww

I'm sure there are a lot of bloggers out there talking about this already, but I had to mention something about the Jeffrey Brown animated video for the band Death Cab for Cutie. If you don't love Jeffrey Brown you are a cold-hearted bastard and if you don't like Death Cab for Cutie you are...well...entitled to your opinion. But beacuse I love both, I thought I would pass the love on. Thanks Beaucoup Kevin for the link!

Check it out. Now. Or your heart will wither away out of neglect and the opposite sex will be unexplicably repelled by your presense.

Smiles all around

Remember where I kept going on and on about Jessica Abel being so awesome? Well apparently there is some cosmic favor being bestowed on me in the highly prized form of a nerdfest.

Olympia. Comics. Festival.

Fuck yeah, I'm so there.

And in other nerdfest news, Dylan and I are flying back to our former stomping grounds to get our APE on. We both had a blast last year and I am more prepared for the total monetary liquidation that will occur. It will be a short, expensive trip but it will kick so much ass it will be so worth it.

Hidden Treasure

So how is it that one of the most amazing used book/record/magazine/comic book stores I've ever visited is quite literally about 4 blocks from my house, on a route I drive almost daily, and it took me 2 and a half mmonths to set foot inside? I'm talking about the imaginatively and accurately named Half Price Books on Belmont, in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, a repository of used (and presumably overstock) bookssold at half the publisher's original price. As if that wasn't cool enough, they also have a nice, neat little record (as in vinyl) section near the front of the store, used CDs, and most importantly, a treasure trove of comics in the basement!

Now, I won't say the selection is huge, but what it lacks in size, it more than makes up for in diversity and, sometimes, rarity. Digging through their bins of back issues yielded a good selection of older Fantagraphics books (old Eightball and Hate and Artbabe issues were prominently represented); tons of Sarah Dyer's Action Girl series; piles of Love & Rockets (the original magazine sized series as well as newer issues and trade paperbacks); a fine selection of Oni Press titles; and lots of other little treasures. Of course, you have to dig through piles of old Image Comics and lots of undersold crap from other big superhero publishers to get to the good stuff, but it looks worth it. A couple of scores:

Acme Novelty Library #1 (Fantagraphics Books, $3.95)

Everybody's read Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan of course, but most people (myself included) have read it in book form, rather than in the serial form it was originally published in, and there's a little bit of material that was left out of the collected edition. A few early Jimmy Corrigan pieces are available in this book, from 1998. Most notable is the extended fantasy sequence involving a young Jimmy Corrigan shrinking, building a rocket, splitting himself in two, and regenerating body parts. Not exactly the morose, caustic realism we expect from this particular protagonist, but it certainly piles on the misery as we'd expect. Also included here are a few short strips featuring Ware regulars like Big Tex, God the superhero, and the cycloptic robot. Definitely worth a look for the Jimmy Corrigan fantasy piece alone, even if you've read the colelcted Jimmy Corrigan.

Different Beat Comics (Fantagraphics Books, $3.50)

This is a collection of short strips by various Fantagraphics cartoonists, including the Hernandez Bros., R. Crumb, Roberta Gregory, Joe Sacco, a collaboration between Dan Clowes (art) and Peter Bagge (story), and others. Pretty scattershot as far as subject matter is concerned, with everything from sci-fi (Jaime Hernandez's Cheetah Torpeda story), autobio/ranting (Joe Sacco's "Painfully Portland"), and bizarre fantasy (Jim Woodring's "Frank" strip). It's like a b-sides and outtakes collection from a hip indie records label, full of curiosities and hidden treasure.

On a previous trip to the aforementioned Confounded Books, I picked up another little gem:

Papercutter #1 (Tugboat Press, $3.00)

An anthology title by a trio of artists, Aaron Renier, JP Coovert, and Sean Aaberg. Renier's piece is the centerpiece and obvious standout story, a gorgeously drawn (true?) account of chance encounter and instant romantic connection set at a zine convention and a museum. The writing is casual but carries the mood perfectly, with a few amazingly illustrated sequences of magical realism (along similar lines as the beautiful cover pictured above). Is the Ben character based on Ben Snakepit perhaps? Hmm....maybe not. Coovert's piece is a brief but effective pantomime, a simply drawn slice-of-life moment that implies a lot, but needs little explanation. Aaberg's work I was less enthralled with; his idiosyncratic art style and jagged, stream-of-conciousness writing felt less developed than the two previous pieces, despite the obviously meticulous attention and skillful tone work that went into it. Chalk my dislike up to personal taste perhaps, or just being disappointed after the strength of the first two entries.

P.S.: By the time you read this, I will have added cover images to my previous post about The Mourning Star. Check 'em out, they're beeeeeeeautiful.

A Few Recent Reads

Ah, Seattle. Home to such great comics stores as Zanadu Comics (not Xanadu comics, as I've previously spelled it) and Confounded Books (a small-press/indie comics/zine emporium that shares space with Wall of Sound Records, a mere block from my humble apartment), and comics friendly bookstores, like Bailey/Coy Books on Broadway. Here, a man has options when he decides it's time to pick up the latest in picto-narrative printed matter. And, if he knows where to dig, he can find some cool little gems that he may not have found otherwise.

Take, for example, the work of the Finecomix Collective, whose new anthology Moxie, My Sweet showcases the work of several authors bringing to life the stories of Mark Campos, who in turn delves into the styles of several authors from diverese fields such as science fiction, fantasy, magical realism, and funny animal cartoons. Highlights here include Elijah Brubaker's handling of the fairy-tale "Colony of Cats," a story that feels familiar yet fresh with it's re-working of bedtime story themes; Scott Faulkner's take on "Can of Beans," a bittersweet love story (aren't they all?) set in the music industry; and Dalton Webb's Pogo-esque jazz funeral in "The Crow Passes."

But my favorite work from the Fine Comix folks is by one Kaz Strzepek, who is here responsible for the art on a short, wordless piece by Campos, that could be about making the best of a worst situation, or about how the world always gets you down in the end. Or maybe it's about howwe can try to craft our own destiny, but are ultimately at the mercy of the cosmos? Could be all of the above. But aside from this story, Strzepek is also responsible for a series of minicomics (2 so far that I know of under the title The Mourning Star. 2 beautifully undersized mincomics, quite generous in length, with handscreened covers and matching binding thread, The Mourning Star is sort of a post-apocalyptic sci-fi/fantasy rendered in a cartoonish yet detailed manner. In the space of two issues, Strzepek has crafted a world full of wandering souls troubled by their own pasts, as well as the very real threats of the present (including desert creatures and possibly hostile strangers speaking foreign languages). The art style has an omnipresent whimsy that neverless does not detract from the occasional menace and grotesquerie of the setting.





And with that said, I leave with vague promises of "more later," but exactly what and exactly when is left unclear.