[An occasional roundup of indie/small press comics news and notes, gleaned from PR, social media and elsewhere.]

Alone In Space: A Collection by Tillie Walden

§  A new Tillie Walden collection is coming in June from Avery Hill. Alone in Space will be a HEFTY (324 pages) collection of Walden’s shorter comics:

We start with Tillie’s first published comic The End of Summer, in which Lars battles illness in a secluded castle at the start of an endless winter with a giant cat to keep him company amid mounting family tensions. Also featured are I Love This Part – Tillie’s bittersweet breakout story of small-town teen romance, and A City Inside – a study of growth and adulthood through a surreal and poetic recounting of one woman’s life.

Also included are never-before collected early sketches, prints, webcomics, and short stories from magazines, such as What It’s Like To Be Gay In An All-Girls Middle School.

The book will be available in several special editions, with signed and numbered options and A5 prints. Details in the link — preorders start 2pm GMT 15th February 2021. The US edition is $32 on Amazon.

Walden is best known for her acclaimed memoir, Spinning, but the shorter comics collected here are what built her reputation. If you haven’t read them, the chance to get them all in a beautiful hardcover may be irresistible. And if you already have them? Still irresistible.

§ Breakdown Press has just announced its Spring 2021 line-up, including

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Haway Man Klaus by Richard Short
Haway Man, Klaus! is the first full-length collection of comic strips charting the un-adventures of Klaus, Richard Short’s pensive, anthropomorphic cat.

The stories in Tummy Bugs are by turn absurd, surreal and funny. Short luridly coloured vignettes transport the reader into a deeply individual landscape, populated by strange creatures, where the line between fantasy, reality and science fiction is constantly shifting.

Free Fall by Alexis Beauclair

Free Fall collects nine stories by Alexis Beauclair, originally published in various anthologies over the last decade.


 

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§ Nubia artist Robyn Smith is getting a lot of acclaim for that Future State title, but she returns to an earlier project with this Kickstarter from Jamila Rowser’s Black Josei Press, The Saddest Angriest Black Girl in Town, about being the only Black person in White River Junction, VT.

§ Lynda Barry’s Come Over, Come Over, out of print for about 30 years, is coming back in a new edition from D&Q. It centers on Maybonne Mullen, sister of Marlys, and it’s more sad-sweet recollections of childhood magic and trauma. ‘Bout time.

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§ Jared Greene reveals the cover of his YA GN A-Okay, which is coming later this year from HarperAlley.

Desolation Wilderness by Claire Scully

§ Another one from Avery Hill, even though it came out years ago — DESOLATION WILDERNESS by Claire Skully, a collection of landscapes. 32 full-color pages printed on Tintoretto Gesso stock, 102mm x 152mm. Buy  the digital edition on Gumroad. 

 

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§ Domino Books is constantly selling all kinds of rare and one-of-a-kind books. Here’s Eugene Von Bruenchenhein: King of Lesser Landscollecting the work of the spectacular self-taught outsider artist/photographer.

I saw a show of Eugene Von Bruenchenhein’s work many years ago, and it immediately struck me as some of the most perfect imagery I’ve ever seen. Many images approach the ideal suggested by Sci Fi or Psychedelic imagery that those two genres never quite fulfill. I look forward to reading this book, as Von Bruencheinhein’s career was expansive and not limited to oil paintings. This beautiful book takes a view of his entire body of work. 

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Non-publishing news:

§ For years, Ben Katchor has been holding the New York Comics & Picture-story Symposium, a weekly slideshow on comics/art from a variety of cartoonists/historians/theorists. It’s held every Tuesday at the Parsons School of Art and Design. You can find write-ups of a few of them on this very site. The presentations are now being held via Zoom, which means they can be recorded, and now several are up on YouTube with Simon Hanselmann, Keith Knight, Sharon Rudahl, Jim Woodring, and MORE. This is a gold mine, I tell you! I only wish all 298 of the presentations were online!

§ Shortbox mini-grant proposals are open for March:

Applications for March’s round of ShortBox mini-grants are now open: three £200 grants available to independent cartoonists. Simply email [email protected] linking to your current site/portfolio, with ‘mini-grant’ as the subject. You *must* have a Paypal, deadline is 28th Feb.

§ Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, ordered some comics from Silver Sprocket, and a cute story — and wise exhortation — emerged on Twitter.

[Have some indie publishing news? Hit me up.]