Literary Comics

Every day in July the great Gabrielle Bell a href="http://gabriellebell.com/2011/08/01/31/"> posted a comic. . Out own July was a bit too chaotic for regular reading but it's all up now -- but only until August 15th. We caught up with our own reading, and it's a fascinating trip into a world of nosy supers, computer cables, post office frustration, lost keys, self doubt and survival. Check it out while you can ...and congrats Gabrielle.

At San Diego Comic-Con it was announced that Anne Rice's classic vampire novel, Interview With a Vampire, is being adapted into graphic novel format by webcomic creator Ashley Marie Witter for Yen Press, due out in 2012.

It's been a year since comics writing legend Harvey Pekar passed away at the age of 70, but thanks to the amount of work he had in the pipeline, not only has his legacy lived on, but it's still growing. And friends are remembering.

We hadn't seen this formally announced anywhere but we might have missed it: ICAF, the annual meet-up for international comics scholars, will be hosted at CCS this year. The conference will be held September 29-October 1, and spotlight the American Bande Dessineé Society.

In spite of the dramatic international intrigue Sparkplug Comic Books and its affiliates faced at the Canadian border on the way to TCAF last weekend, we managed to simultaneously invade a whole other continent at Stockholm Sweden’s 11^th Annual SPX Festival. Sparkplug was honored to be invited to the festival for the 3^rd year in a row along with many other hella distinguished international guests.

It's pretty obvious that next week's Toronto Comic Arts Festival is going to be he most awesome show of the year. And just to back that up. here's an awesome preview video featuring Chester Brown, Michael Comeau, Steve Charles Manale, Vicki Nerino, Michael Cho, Michael DeForge, Seth, Fiona Smyth + Britt Wilson.

The MoCCA Festival at the Lexington Armory a few days ago was a fun weekend -- the numerous photo shows filled with smiling faces of dedicated artists and publishers show that. Look at Peggy Burns' engaging set or Dan Nadel's. Fun is fine, of course, but that's not entirely why people go to indie shows like MoCCA, SPX, and TCAF. I'd argue that the social aspect of hanging out with fellow cartoonists is a major motivation for attending, but that's not why D&Q or PictureBox or Fantagraphics attends. These are important shows for promoting authors and selling books.

For those of you who couldn't get over to last week's Strandicon and Comics Journal panel with Gary Groth, Dan Nadel, Tim Hodler, and Kim Deitch, the Strand has YouTubed the whole thing!: And BONUS Strandicon interviews with Ben Katchor, Nadja Spiegelman, Trade Loeffler, Dash Shaw, Brecht Evens, Joe Ollmann, R. Sikoryak, Jillian Tamaki, and Pascal Girard.

Better late than never, new stuff by Austin English, Chuck Forsman, Rina Piccolo, and dozens more!!!!

It's billed as the world's largest book store, with 18 MILES of books, but The Strand -- New York City's legendary used book store -- is increasingly comics friendly and on Friday, April 8th, they'll make it official with Strandicon, a full afternoon of talks by such greats as Ben Katchor, Ben Katchor, Brecht Evans, Joe Ollmann, Jillian Tamaki, Pascal Girard, R. Sikoryak, Dash Shaw, capped off by a panel on the past and future of The Comics Journal, which is worth the trip all by itself.

Although my "official" news story about last weekend's Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival was published in PW Comics Week, I still had some pictures I wanted to put up. Over all it was an awesome day. Not much more to say. I thought last year, set in a dramatic blizzard, would be hard to top for that special something, but the cheerful, can-do spirit of this show equalled that. Everyone seemed to be finding like-minded souls to share their work. As I said several times, "Who knew so many people liked good comics?"