New York’s indie comics world has ONE MORE SHOW before the years draws to a close: Comic Arts Brooklyn, to be held this weekend at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. The show takes place ONE DAY, Sunday November 11th.
(Art above by Connor McCann.)
Curated by Gabe Fowler and Matthew James-Wilson, CAB moved to Pratt last year and got bigger, and more adventurous, with installations and bigger panel venues. This years show will feature a lot of cool stuff including the NEW YORK DEBUT of Jim Woodring’s giant pen.
Guests include: Ariel Schrag, Jim Woodring, Julie Doucet, Doug Allen, Austin English, Charles Burns, Dirt Palace, Frank Henenlotter, Lauren Weinstein, Mark Newgarden, Matthew Thurber, Mike Diana, Nick Thorburn, Olivier Schrauwen, Patrick Kyle, Simon Hanselmann, Todd James / REAS and Xander Marro. Whew! Something for everyone.
As is our tradition, we wrap up the year in indie comics with a list of books debuting at the festival. Blurbs were supplied by creators, but you may find an editorial comment or two.
PS: wow there are some incredible comics in this list. And so many we have to break it into two posts! Please look!
Conundrum Press
Rebecca Rosen
FLEM
Fictional biography of a disturbed performance artist
Julia Maarten’s a mess: she’s running out of inheritance money, failing out of art school, and haunted by the ghost of her depressed mother. And then there’s the compulsive nose-picking thing…
When Julia meets a group of radical feminist performance artists in a Brussels squat, she is convinced by their political perspective and enchanted by their counter-cultural lifestyle. But has she found her tribe… or lost her mind?
FLEM, by newcomer Rebecca Rosen, takes the reader on a colour-coded journey into the dark heart of the “other” Brussels by way of a damaged young woman’s inflamed nasal canal.
Nouveau système
Al Gofa – Backstab #1
– Slick funny action serialized comic book made under the publishing house Nouveau système and to be published as a full book with Peow Studio.
Maxime Gérin- Ensemble
Ground breaking naturalist comic book made under the publishing house Nouveau système.
PACIFIC REVERB SOCIETY
Bill Wehmann
Death by Comics issue one
“Death by Comics” is a story about a comic book colorist named Morgan Marie whose friend and collaborator Rocco Versace kills two of their coworkers in a fit of rage. Decades later a reflective Morgan, and highly delusional Rocco cross paths at a comic convention.
DOOMED issue one
Doomed is a collection of three short stories; “Death by Comics”, “Depths of the Abyssal Yawn”, and “Go Ahead Beat Yourself Up”.
Siobhan Gallagher
What I Did This Summer
-a compilation of illustrated diary-type entries and notable moments from my summer (2018) along with comics and scenes from June-September.
HIGH FASHION Fashion illustrations of clothes I’d like to own but will settle for just drawing them.
Who What Wear?
Illustrated t-shirts with phrases and illustrations that I wish I could wear, ranging from absurd to confessional.
Lucio Zago
Williamsburg today is one of the most well known neighborhoods in the world. What was once a desolate, industrial landscape is now populated with luxury waterfront high-rises and shiny new condos. But beyond all the hype of Bedford Avenue and the explosion of real estate is an enduring side of Williamsburg that new transplants and visitors may not know…
This comic book brings a glimpse of events and characters that lived through the cultural and economic clashes, as witnessed by Lucio, during this dramatic period of gentrification.
Coin-Op Books
Peter and Maria Hoey
KARL MARX BOLAN
(Spaceball Ricochet alt. take)
11th in our series of Coin-Op Singles:
In August 1977, dead rock stars Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent return to the land of the living to save Marc Bolan from a fatal car crash. The cosmic groover uses his new life to launch a musical tidal wave that upends the global political order and makes him the Prime Minister of Great Britain. A musical alternate history with a revolutionary beat!
Calamity no. 2
Each issue of Calamity is a curation of surreal narratives inhabiting a seemingly contemporary landscape. Where Larone’s stories are varied and experimental, playing with psychic communication and symbolic imagery, McClellan’s ongoing story is linear, playing with parallel notions of disorientation and signification.
Greg Kletsel
“Do This Instead: A Sketchbook Coloring Book”
A collection of my sketchbook pages organized in a coloring book format. The drawings were made in that fuzzy zone where mindlessness and mindfullness overlap. Hopefully coloring the pages in will take people to that zone as well.
FANTAGRAPHICS
Roman Muradov
Written and drawn in thirteen styles, from comedy and confession to prophecy and interpretative dance, Vanishing Act is a polyphonic play of interconnected stories, synchronized in time and space on one melancholy evening.
Various Artists
Now #5
Under a cover by cartoonist Stéphane Blanquet, our fifth issue features 125 pages of ALL-NEW comics by Theo Ellsworth, DRT, DW, Ana Galvañ, Maggie Umber, Eroyn Franklin. Roman Muradov, Jose Quintanar, Walt Holcombe, Walker Tate, Keren Katz, Darin Shuler, Jesse Reklaw, and Nick Thorburn! At $9.99 for 125 pages of all-new color comics, NOW is the best value in comics!
Mike Taylor
In Christ There Is No East or West
“Ok, here I go. Remember to steer into it — Don’t take your mind off it, get comfortable in your discomfort — Your body isn’t trying to kill you — Panic attacks aren’t actually dangerous — your heart will beat totally normally soon…” Thus begins Mike Taylor’s raw and beautiful soul cry for America, as a modern-day Virgil in a hoody traverses the gasping and confusing psychological landscape of right now.
Olivier Schrauwen
Parallel Lives (East Coast Debut)
From one of the world’s most celebrated cartoonists comes this unique collection of six wildly inventive short stories, each a surrealist tour de force that might collectively be dubbed “speculative memoir.”
HEIDI’S NOTE: Schrauwen is lit! Looking forward to checking this out.
Little Pieces.
It’s a short stories collection that includes comics about the creative crisis, traveling alone for the first time as a teenager, social media jokes, little punks, a story about growing up as a woman and discovering feminism, daily illustrator life. It’s the first time I self-publish my comics in English, I’m super happy to finally share my stories outside of Italian readers.
James Vanderberg
“The Lump”
The Lump is a fictionalized nightmare loosely based on the author’s real life experience with a minor medical surgery, the birth of his third son and the anxieties and trappings of quotidian urban life. What lies beneath the surface is never quite what it seems.
16 pages, full color 8.5 x 11 format.
DEAD RECKONING
Trench Dogs
Celebrating the 100th year anniversary of the Armistice on Nov 11, 2018, Trench Dogs is based on first hand accounts of World War One, a collection of ink & watercolor vignettes across five anthropomorphized armies fighting on the land, sea, & air, a nonstop horror show in an era of emerging industrial warfare. 184 pages +20 pg StudyGuide
Fluoride Panther
A precognitive dream about transmogrification of an extinct species.
Lithium L-ion 2019
hand-silkscreened psychedelic comic calendar.
Congratulations
A large format risograph book of new illustrations by Connor McCann.
–Phil McAndrew
Caveboy Dave: Not So Faboo
The second book in the Caveboy Dave series of children’s graphic novels. Twelve-year-old Dave Unga-Bunga is having a great year, but suddenly Shaman Faboo–the glue that holds the community together–goes missing. With no one to tell them what to do or how to think, the village panics and elects Dave as their new leader. If Dave can’t find Shaman Faboo and bring him back, he’ll be doomed to a life of boredom and something much worse: public service.
Sam Grinberg
Scumburbia Issue 1.5 Mini-Comic
The half follow up to “Scumburbia Issue 1” features the continuing adventures of Spike & Spunk on their journey through suburban stupidity.
Sanika Phawde
Coffee Shop Bar
Coffee Shop Bar on the corner of 16th Street and Union Square closed down after being in business for 28 years. It was a strange and endearing establishment with interesting food options, that only hired models. I went to Coffee Shop Bar 8 times. This is pop-up accordion zine that narrates the story of my relationship with the bar through mix-media drawings on location. This book is my farewell to Coffee Shop Bar.
Showering in the Crier
This graphic novella explores my relationship with my parents over the course of winter break 2017 spent in Mumbai and Kerala. My father is a difficult person to love, and I made this book consisting of a month of daily single panel comics styled journal entries, to remind myself of all the reasons I love him.
I Know What You Did
‘I Know What You Did’ is an interactive illustrated children’s book about a secret-stealing toilet named Meera, who squats in the bathroom of a three year old girl named Aspirin, living with her hipster parents in Bushwick, New York. It explores the question of what topics we as a society chose to keep concealed as taboos, versus what we invite into our conversations, and the metaphorical repercussions of bottling up your emotions and secrets. The book consists of flaps on certain pages that can be opened to reveal full colour images, each time something in the story isn’t as it seems.
Daniel Shepard a.k.a Danyboydoid
Road Rider
“This collection is a celebration, a toast to SKATEBOARDING. And these illustrations are a representation of how I remember the moments that encouraged me, broke me, captivated and pushed me, taught me, lost me, but kept me keeping on. The type of memories that I’m grateful for rolling in and around. For this rider the world is his road.”
In A Rut Comics
In A Rut Comics: Issue 3
Written by Eros Livieratos & Illustrated by Maria Sweeney
In A Rut Comics: Issue 3 is a standalone issue of the series, written by Eros Livieratos and illustrated by Maria Sweeney. Issue 3 focuses on the different lives of three characters living in New Jersey. A slice-of-life story captures the local New Jersey punk scene and regular hangouts, such as punk dive bars, basement venues and other loved New Jersey spots. Working crummy jobs, aimlessness, and making changes to change that are some of the center themes of this issue.
Brittle Joints
Maria Sweeney
Brittle Joints is a collection of stories based on my experience as a person living with very rare disability. Autobiographical vignettes demonstrate the sometimes uncomfortable, and often unspoken aspects of a disability, as well as the “good days” that gave me the most autonomy and independence. Short stories include topics about navigating relationships, social struggles, transportation, lack of accessibility and commonly misunderstood elements of disability culture. Other stories seek to capture the mental strains that accompanies living with a physically-restricting disability. Brittle Joints is an effort to shed light on disabled representation in literature and comics alike.
Scott Roberts
Get Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable
An art comic adventure romance.
Meghan Turbitt
Pregnant and Fired
A comic about a woman who is pregnant and fired
Space Cow Press
(from Siberia!)
Alexey Zhulikov, ‘Like Everyone Else’: an emotional coming-of-age story about relationships with parents, bullying in school and the real friendship. 4-color RISO-printed, 46 pages, saddle-stitched.
Maria Foot, ‘All Sheep Get Back Home’: a travelogue story about Maria’s trip to Altai mountains – and the misterious sheep that inhabits the Altai fields. 4-color RISO-printed, 20 pages.
Andrew Garin, ‘Strong Culture’: a wordless graphic poem about unstoppable force of nature. 3-color RISO-printed, 16 pages.
Georgy Elaev, ‘The Tyuman’: a drug-addicted oil-powered superhero from Siberia looking for happiness in the grim streets of Russian suburbs – but finds only frustration, aliens and portals to inner dimensions. 2-color RISO-printed, 48 pages, saddle-stitched.
And with that so we don’t crash your browser we’ll diect to you PART 2!
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