05/04/2018 Small Press & Indie Comics Galore

Nice Art

§ This month’s “Nice Art” feature showcases the work of Hwei Lim. I’ve talked about Hwei Lim’s work a few times in the past due to the stellar series Mirror written by Emma Rios. I recently came across an illustrated children’s book written by Rebecca Hainnu and illustrated by Hwei Lim called The Spirit of the Sea. It’s a retelling of an Inuit traditional legend about the spirit of the sea (who goes by different name such as as Nuliajuq or Sedna). It’s a wonderfully engaging story for young readers and it’s so beautifully illustrated. It was really just an excuse to showcase the gorgeous work of Hwei.

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Plugs

§ There will be a sequel to the comics anthology Sweaty Palms, Sweaty Palms 2 will launch it’s kickstarter in July,  be on the lookout.

§ Take a look at this official Kate Leth’s Ready Player One poster. It captures the essence of the book and the movie so accurately, I barely know what to say.

§ Final plug of the month, Tom Williams commented on last month’s post to inform me of the upcoming Backporch comics events called SPACE (Small Press & Alternative Comics Expo) taking place in Columbus, Ohio on April 28th and 29th. I’ve never attended and can’t vouch for the quality of the festival, but based on the exhibitor and guests, I realized I didn’t know most of these comics artists and that’s a good thing. Any opportunity to learn and discover new artist is welcome. Let me know how the show went if you go.

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News

§ Update from 401 Richmond. A few months ago, I reported that there was an online petition asking the government of Ontario to reconsider their decision to increase property taxed on the Toronto building located at 401 Richmond. This building has emerged in the last decades as a central hub for many entrepreneur, businesses and artists as a place to rent affordably in Toronto. This is where Koyama Press was housed since it’s creation. The proposed rate hike would have seen many, if not all current tenant priced out of the location. It seems that based on the support of this petition and the voice of the community, Toronto City Council has reviewed and agreed to lower the property tax on this specific building for the time being. It’s a good thing for Toronto’s artistic community!

§ Dash Shaw wrote about Nancy and How to Read Nancy over at NYBooks

§ There’s a wonderful new children’s book called Ours – Brun, Blanc, Noir illustrated by Pascal Girard. It’s a documentary book about bears. Very charming

§ Cecil Castelluci on her latest comic Shade, The Changing Woman

§ On Anya Davidson’s podcast Mindkiller, she talks with Tommi Parrish

§ Speaking of Tommi Parrish, NPR reviewed her latest Fantagraphic graphic novel The Lie and How we Told It

§ Michael Kupperman provides some much needed analysis on the topic of death tributes comics

§ J.A. Micheline talks to Sloane Leong about her latest series Prism Stalker, one of the best new comic series of the year.

§ Over at Vice, there a series of beautiful illustration on International Women’s Day on female artists by female artists.

§ Google Doodle comics for International Women’s Day featured the work of amazing creators including Anna Haifish, Tillie Walden, Philippa Rice and countless others.

§ NPR talked with Penelope Bagieu about Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World

§ The hit French-Canadian graphic novel of March was the latest work of Catherine Ocelot called La vie d’artiste. Here she is talking on Radio-Canada’s literature show and here is an interview with her over at La Presse.

§ Jeff Lemire was on CBC’s The Next Chapter to talk about some of his inspirations and things that makes happy

§ Jessica Barden was on CBC’s Q to talk about playing in The End of the Fxxxing World.

§ There’s a new episode of Cathy G. Johnson’s podcast focusing on the concept of “Canon”.

§ Andrea Ayres has a comprehensive previews of Archie Bongiovanni & Tristan Jimerson’s upcoming graphic novel A Quick & Easy Guide to They/Them Pronouns on this very site

§ And finally, this is “Not Comics” but it’s art related so I’m putting it here. I’m a really big fan of the Metroid video games series and was really happy to see these crazy fan art by Ian Baker that takes inspiration from the series and redesign it into something quite innovative, alien and strange.

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Comics

§ Sarah Mirk & Isabella Rotman on Lara Croft Tomb Raider

§ Lauren Weinstein on #NeverAgain

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Reviews

§ Andrea Ayres, one of my favourite fellow Beatsters, talks about Speak: The Graphic Novel, Emily Carroll’s graphic novel collaboration with Laurie Halse Anderson.

§ Oliver Sava on Eleanor Davis Why Art?

§ Kim O’Connor talks about Charles Forsman’s latest comic series Stalker. I didn’t quite know what to make of it. I found his other work, Celebrated Summer and Revenger to be quite interesting, but Slasher was a disappointment for me. Reading her analysis of his work was really helpful in cutting at what fell flat in this series. 

§ Sam Ombiri on Benjamin Marra’s Night Business

§ Tom Spurgeon talks about Lauren Weinstein’s Normel Person

§ Throwing out the “Conflict of Interest” warning since I wrote for that site previously, but Kawai Shen reviewed Mother by Céline Loup and Rae Epstein reviewed Crawl Space by Jesse Jacobs over at Your Chicken Enemy

§ And finally, Tegan O’Neill has been doing tremendous work over at The Comics Journal. Here she is talking about the new Kick-Ass series and Mark Millar’s work in general.

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§ We’ll be taking a break for the monthly Small Press & Indie Comics Galore in May and we’ll be back for our regularly programmed list on June 1st. In the meantime, if you see something I should know about, tell me in the comments or tweet at me @Leblanc_Phil