Fredo Kicks All Your Asses

I had seen this cover before. Many times before, in fact. I've picked it up everytime I encountered it, admired the artwork, thought about buying it, and put it down for some completely insane and stupid reason that is escaping me right now. Emo self-deprecation aside, I eventually did buy this issue (Shpilkes #0), along with it's follow-up Shpilkes #1. And goddamn, I'm glad I did.

Fredo's art has a weird, spooky, creepy, dreamy element to it, and is backed up with substantial short stories. His Xeric grant in 2000 lead to the publication of Shpilkes #0, and I can see why he caught the eye of the judges. He comes across as a confident artist with a twisted narrative. What's not to love?

But all this fangirling aside, what made me want to sing his praises publically was his mini that I picked up at the Olympia Comic Festival (see Dylan's post, if you haven't read it already).


B'NAU-5000 first caught my eye with it's cool screenprinted cover, but it kept my attention with a very cool all-ages story about a planet-wide race and clean, crisp art style.

So you lucky bastards going to MoCCA: do yourself a favor and check out this gem.

And for you fellow cool kids in Seattle: go to Marjane Satrapi's talk at Town Hall tonight, courtesy of the lovely folks at the Seattle Public Library. We'll be lost in the crowd of comic peeps, literary snobs, bored folks wanting to get out of the nasty rain we are having, and people who just like going to free events.

And for you sad bastards who don't fall into either of the categories, check out Fredo's sketch blog. It'll at least give you a cure-all from a boring and uneventful Friday night.