Small Presses

The Balkan comics anthology š! from kuš! is one of the more challenging delights of the comics world, grafting the sensibility of a contemporary art gallery onto the comics page. It regularly presents challenging and edgy work, often abstract, but with enough show of personality that you can see these are the works of real humans, and it comes in a striking mini-digest format that evokes Little Big Books, adding to its appeal as an object to display.

Robyn Chapman is once again collecting information for her annual Micropress Survey, which is not only a fact filled compendium of the state...

Recorded live in New York, it's More To Come, the weekly podcast of comics news, interviews and discussion with Calvin Reid, Kate Fitzsimons and...

And yet more awesome comics are on the way from Koyama Press, with a particularly fresh line-up of indie comics up and comers. Patrick Kyle is known for his oddball fantasies while Aidan Koch has already gotten attention for her evocative experimental comics. Cathy G. Johnson is a fast rising star with a book coming out from First Second next year and an Ignatz under her belt; while Ben Sears name came up constantly when I asked about emerging male cartoonists. In addition, Koyama Press will put out its first translated comics: What is Obscenity? The Story of a Good For Nothing Artist and her Pussy, the story of Japanese artist Rokudenashiko (“good-for-nothing girl” or “bad girl”) whose work achives being truly transgressive; the Massive duo of Anne Ishii and Graham Kolbeins bring this one to English. PLease note, this comic is not about cats. And here's the complete lineup:

In yesterday's discussion of Marvel's new Red Wolf comic and comics journalism, I had talked a lot about other comics by and about indigenous people but cut it from an already lengthy piece. However, in the discussion of whether Red Wolf needs to be supported just because it promotes diversity, I suggested some other options -- please list more in the comments!

It truly is a new Golden Age of comics, not just because of the fantastic output from such publishers as Image, Fantagraphics, Oni, etc.,...

Continuing our look at this fall's top graphic novels, Koyama Press is reissuing Julia Wertz's Drinking at the Movies, originally published by Three RIvers...

Comics Beat contributor Seth Ferranti has had a long and storied past.  A writer well and truly familiar with life on the streets, Ferranti...

In 2008, Oliver Mertz and Mike Isenberg came up with the idea for First Law of Mad Science, an affecting and strangely portentous story about...

Today, digital publisher Panel Syndicate released the second and final volume of writer Brian K. Vaughn's (Saga, Y: The Last Man) and artist Marcos Martin's...

Of course there are some great graphic novels in Conundrum Press's fall line, but the book I'm choosing to headline is "You Are a Kitten!' -- a shoose your own path book that will redefine how we perceive reality and yarn balls. But all these books look great. In particular, Fitzgerald had a great debut with Photobooth, a non-fiction graphic novel about the history of the photobooth. Turning her storytelling to her own tale sounds very promising.

Canada's Koyama Press continues to present a lively slate of boundary-pushing work, and this fall they are putting out their biggest line ever, including two books by Michael DeForge, new books by Jane Mai, Cole Closser and some newcomers, a kid's book and a revamped version of Julia Wertz's Drinking at the Movies. I expect one of the most interesting will be Robin Nishio's Wailed which follows "a group of friends who also happen to be the vanguard of alternative comics making." And you thought The Sponsor was shattering! All the details below: