Indie Comics

Save the date! December 4th will see the second Brooklyn Comics and Graphic Festival at a new, bigger venue and with a guest list that would be the envy of any show this year, including Kate Beaton, Lynda Barry, and Johnny Ryan. Details below:

This year's Small Press Expo was so wonderful that we can't stop reading about it! It's the first time in a while that it wasn't too cold or too hot but just right at an indie comics show we've attended and that made it special. PLUS, SVA and MICA and CCS and MCAD and SCAD have been turning out lots and lots of excellent new cartoonists and the established people are putting out great stuff and there is real excitement everywhere. There are tons of 'em, including this video made by Steven Greenstreet...we selected a few because they were interesting or especially charming.

Just a very quick moment to jot down a few thoughts on SPX. (My "official" report will be in PWCW tomorrow.) In short, it remains the summer camp of comics, with a bunch of people who are there for love just hanging out, talking, drawing, drinking, smiling and laughing.

Presented Saturday night at the Small Press Expo, here are the 2010 Ignatz Award winners. Nominees were chosen by a panel comprised of Anders Nilsen, David Kelly, Rob G, Joshua Cotter, and Trevor Alixopoulos....

Vampires beat zombies this month, as the first issue of IDW’s new series based on the True Blood TV show is the top selling “indie” comic, beating an anniversary issue of The Walking Dead....

What's new at SPX this year? Click the images for more info!

We declared a moratorium on Bluewater Comics news a while ago due to their awful back-end work for hire contract (and were taken off their PR list as a result) but whatever we think of their business model, we do have to give credit where it is due: they are absolute monsters at PR, and the recently announced Betty White Female Force comic is no exception. It's popped up on our news feed from EW, the LA TImes, the New York Times and everywhere else; a Google search for "Betty White Bluewater" yields 74,000 results. Even the Today Show blog picked up the Reuters story about the comic.

Khepri Comics is a web-based comics seller that's been around for over a decade, offering a lot of indie books but specializing in work by Brian Wood, Cliff Chiang, Becky Cloonan, and other "new mainstream" creators. Over the years, owner Brian Scot Johnson has built a strong relationship with these creators by promoting their work via special sales and so on. By partnering with Khepri these creators -- who, in addition to their distinctive work, have well-defined fanbases which they maintain via web interaction -- would be able to, say, offer a blog preview of their small press work with a link to Khepri and know that consumers would be able to purchase a copy.

The following is a selection of new titles due to be published in September 2010.

There is no particular order to the titles presented below.

This list is not comprehensive, as there are over 275 graphic novel titles scheduled for this month. If you would like to browse them at your leisure, click here. Instead, I have selected titles which caught my interest. These are not necessarily titles I will purchase, but which I will definitely look at once they arrive at my local comics shop or bookstore. Please be advised that publication dates are not set in stone. Also, your local comics shop might receive copies before your local neighborhood website or library. Links connected to publishers will link to the publisher's website, sometimes to the exact title. Links for the ISBN-13 (also known as the Bookland EAN) will take you to the title as featured on BarnesAndNoble.com . I consider my tastes to be rather eclectic. If you feel I've neglected or slighted a title, publisher, or creator, please feel free to mention it in the comments below.

Monthly lists such as this will be posted at the end of the previous month. I will also be posting specific subject lists (comic strips, comics history and surveys, superheroes...) for each season, but these will not have a set schedule.

Portland's Stumptown Comics Fest, an increasingly popular stop on the indie comics festival circuit, is moving to the Oregon Convention Center, a bigger venue that will allow for growth. it has been announced. Initial...

Meanwhile, out in Minneapolis -- prime comics country with 11 comics shops, the MCAD art school and more -- a new indie comics fest is taking place with three days of activities. The Minneapolis...