April 10, 2008
The Magik Show
Zack Soto uploaded some pics of The Magic Show which opened on Thursday last week to his Flickr page. The show looks great, and I look forward to seeing it later this month during Stumptown.
Update: More and higher-res pictures here.
Posted by tomk at 12:08 AM | Comments (0)
April 04, 2008
Off-Kilter Magik
click to enlarge
I was going to post this in time for the opening night of The Magic Show a group show at the Pony Club Gallery in Portland, OR. But I just realized that the opening was last night! Duh! I think I must have confused it with the opening night of the Off-Kilter Comics, which is IS tonight. I have a drawing (pictured above) at The Magik Show but not at the Off Kilter Comics show. Anyway, both shows feature a lot of great artists so if you're in either Portland or Minneapolis, go see the one closest to you.
Posted by tomk at 02:37 PM | Comments (0)
February 09, 2008
Yokoyama Update
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| The Garden cover. Click to enlarge. |
Since I wrote the Enigmatic Engineering post 'Yuichi Yokoyama' has consistently become one of the top 5 search strings (after communist, Wolverine, Karl Marx and zombies) that have brought readers to this blog. There have been a few responses to it across the internetosphere that I wanted to mention.
First, no less an authority than Tim Hodler at Comics Comics gave a nice shout-out to the article not once but twice. I look forward to the Comics Comics dissection of Paul Pope's Heavy Liquid a comic that influenced me a lot when it came out. Although I voted for Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, which has gotten near unanimous high praise since it came out. It would have been interesting to see a more critical take on the book (which I liked very much). On the other hand, I don't think I've ever seen a proper critical assessment of Heavy Liquid, so maybe it deserves the spotlight.
A couple of Noguchi Park to Yokoyma comparisons. Click to enlarge.
Tim Thornton e-mailed me a link to a PingMag post about Isamu Noguchi's Moerenuma Park in Sapporo, Hokkaido. The park has many wonderful 'Yokoyama' touches, including an artificial mountain! Some of the other attractions are reminiscent of scenes from Yokoyama's newest book The Garden. (Thanks for getting me a copy Mike!)
The amazing image on the inside of the dust jacket. Click to enlarge.
Both Tim and Jose Luis Olivares alerted me to the Yokoyama exhibition at Rappongi Crossing. I wish I had been able to see it. Fortunately Dan Nadel, a Comics Comics co-editor and Picturebox publisher, posted a few pictures of it. I hope that Picturebox will publish an english version of The Garden sometime in the near future. Since I don't read Japanese I'm very anxious to see another meticulous translation of all the sound effects. There's also a lot more dialogue in this book compared to New Engineering. Although, according to Luis, the dialogue is mostly descriptive of the various unusual sights the characters encounter.
Last, but not least, Simon Sellars has been kind enough to include Enigmatic Engineering among all things Ballardian. His site is the place online to watch the extensive influence of J.G. Ballard unfold... in (almost) real-time!
I'm still laboring on Part 2 of Enigmatic Engineering... but I have a good excuse. I was Momed.
Posted by tomk at 08:02 PM | Comments (2)
January 31, 2008
Momed
panels from Mome 11
The term 'Momed' was coined by Gabrielle Bell (if I remember correctly) and it refers to MOME contributing cartoonists who, in an effort to meet their deadlines, forgo normal social behavior and lock themselves up for extended periods of time in a desperate attempt to make comics at a highly depressing rate of speed... In short, I've been Momed over the last few weeks, which is why this blog has been very quiet lately. But my next MOME contribution is done and so this blog can resume it's semi regular posting schedule.
panel from Mome 10
Speaking of MOME, the current issue (MOME Vol. 10, Winder/Spring 2008) is out now. This time I contributed a four page story called Phase Transition. It's a kind of a prequel for the story I just finished. It wasn't intended that way originally. As I worked on the MOME Vol. 11 story it slowly became clear that the main character from Phase Transition should play a role in it.
In addition to the story, I'm also the subject of an interview conducted by Gary Groth. I was very nervous before this interview because I've read so many of his interviews over the years and he's definitely one of my favorite interviewers. It turned OK in the end and the conversation was pretty interesting even if I didn't always give a good or coherent answer. Apparently Fantagraphics will be putting up all the MOME interviews online at some point, so look for it to appear there soon. I'm sure I'll link it here when it goes up.
Posted by tomk at 05:32 PM | Comments (0)
