May 24, 2008

TCAF 2007

Daniel Libeskind's Royal Ontario Museum Expansion in Toronto

Here's another event I failed to write about after it was over: TCAF. Hard to believe it's been almost a year...! I was excited to visit Toronto, the city of Seth, Chester Brown & Joe Matt! Sadly, I missed their appearance together. Still the show and the city were amazing... and as ususual I managed to take very few pictures at the actual show. Instead, during brief moments away from the table, I filled the camera with images of unbuilt luxury condos, monumental residential building and deconstructed museum sharkitecture. You know... the usual stuff. All this was just blocks from the show! Someday, I would like to go back and see the rest of the city.

Posted by tomk at 12:34 AM | Comments (0)

May 23, 2008

Lutefisk Sushi 3

From Ransom Strange: Voodoo Economics

Here's another event I participated in, but failed to mention on the blog. Lutefisk Sushi 3 is an (almost) annual comics event in Minneapolis. Practically every able-bodied cartoonist in town makes a mini-comic, makes 150 copies of it and they all end up packaged together in a fancy box. This year the box was designed by Kevin Cannon of Big Time Attic. On top of that there is also a nice exhibition of some of the art held at the Altered Aesthetics gallery. My slice of sushi is a short 8 page Ransom Strange story titled Voodoo Economics. Check out the excerpt above. The Ransom Strange character first appeared in Swindle Magazine No. 12 (and he may appear in some future comics...). The original art from that story is now available for sale and viewing at the art show. The exhibition is open until the end of May. Anyway, click on the pic to see some blurry pictures from the opening event:

Mike Toft of Brainfood checking out the art.

Posted by tomk at 12:27 AM | Comments (0)

May 19, 2008

Cartoon Dialectics Vol 1 - New Edition

I've finally had a chance to put together a new edition of Cartoon Dialectics Vol 1. This new edition debuted at Stumptown a few weeks ago, but I didn't manage to make enough copies to offer online... until now. The cover is brand new and was silkscreened by the talented Squad 19. This is a good time to mention a not-full-on review of the book that appeared quite some time ago on the excellent ComicsComics site. I don't think I've linked it before, now I have. Get your copy here.

Posted by tomk at 08:38 PM | Comments (1)

Mome Volume 11

Click to see bigger.

I suppose I should update this blog... It's been a while!

I already wrote a little bit about this here, but this time the new issue of Mome is actually on the stands. My contribution is a 12 page story called "Million Year Boom." Check out page 1 above.

A few reviews have appeared already: Sequart (as part of a monster of a review of Momes 6-11), Jog, ADD, Copacetic (scroll all the way down), and ComicMix. Get a copy at your local comic-book store, or direct from Fantagraphics.

Posted by tomk at 01:09 AM | Comments (2)

February 09, 2008

Yokoyama Update

The Garden dust jacket. Click to enlarge	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)

December 10, 2007

A Flume Full of Blog

A new stream of blog (that sounds vaguely obscene) has began to flow through the wilderness of the interweb. But it's not a wild and chaotic brook, rather a finely chiseled flume. It meanders, certainly, but along a pleasing and picturesque path... er...

... Blog Flume, is a new blog (what else?) launched recently ago by Alvin Buenaventura, Jonathan Bennett, Tim Hensley, Todd Hignite and Ken Parille. So far it's been a great read. Some standouts: Tim Hensley presents a slideshow he delivered at a lecture at the Hammer Museum. It's about Suiho Tagawa, the creator of Norakuro. It's excellent despite using some of my amateurish photos from the Norakuro Museum in Tokyo. Jonathan Bennett looks at the work of Charley Harper and 1000 frames of Hitchcock. Ken Parille brief look at cartoonist Pete Morisi. There's plenty more. Take a look.

Posted by tomk at 12:15 AM | Comments (0)

November 27, 2007

Enigmatic Engineering - Yuichi Yokoyama's Visionary Architecture - Part 1

The most interesting comic-book of this years SPX was easily Yuichi Yokoyama’s New Engineering. I’ve been obsessing about Yokoyama’s work since I first saw random pages from his books posted online. Now that I actually got my hands New Engineering I’ve been concocting all kinds of strategies for reading and understanding this work. I decided to string together a bunch of notes, observations and theories I’ve accumulated over the last few of weeks into this loose essay. Hopefully this will make some sense to someone out there and they will find it useful in looking at Yuichi Yokoyama’s work. By no means do I think any of this is the definitive way of looking at this work. Picturebox plans on publishing further volumes in the near future, and that work may contradict some of things I say here.

I see the stories in New Engineering fall into two distinct, though interconnected, categories. First, there are the ‘engineering’ stories, where massive architectural projects are realized by gigantic machinery with some aid from the humans (are they human?). The second category contains everything else. These are stories of combat, athletics, warfare, fashion, etc. I’ll first talk about the separate categories. Later I’ll attempt to make some sort of unified statement on their relationship. First up is engineering.

Spread from Memorial To Newton (read from right to left). Click to enlarge.

I. Enigmatic Engineering

The first thing that came to my mind when I saw pages from New Engineering (the story with that title also shared by the book) was J.G. Ballard’s first novel The Wind from Nowhere. In the book, the surface of the whole planet is rapidly destroyed by a powerful wind, which increases in force with deadly regularity. As the planet is literally sandblasted into a cue ball, and civilization is on the brink of annihilation, a mysterious structure is being built – in secret – by a megalomaniacal millionaire Hardoon. The description of the building process has an uncanny resemblance to the Yokoyama depicts the massive feats of engineering in his stories. Here's a taste:

“The hill had gone, obliterated beneath the gigantic jaws of fleets of bulldozers, its matrix scooped out like the pulp of a fruit and carried away on the endless lines of trucks.
Below the sweeping beams of powerful spotlights, their arcs cutting through the whirling dust, huge pylons were rooted into the black earth, then braced back by hundreds of steel hawsers. In the intervals between them vast steel sheets were erected, welded together to form a continuous windshield a hundred feet high.

Even before the first screen was complete the first graders were moving into the sheltered zone behind it, sinking their metal teeth into the bruised earth, leveling out a giant rectangle. Steel forms were shackled into place and scores of black-suited workers moved rapidly like frantic ants, pouring in thousands of gallons of concrete,

As each layer annealed, the forms were unshackles and replaced further up the sloping flanks of the structure. First ten feet, then 20 and 30 feet high, it rose steadily into the dark night.”

Detail from Memorial To Newton. "Like frantic ants..."

This is only the first of several similar passages in the novel. Ballard totally dispenses with a human perspective. The construction is apprehended from a series of unnatural vantage points that allow us to experience the massiveness of the endeavor. Humans at this scale are “like frantic ants.” Since Ballard doesn’t have any visuals accompanying his prose, we have to imagine the scene.With Yokoyama, we are provided with vague glimpses. Chris Lanier has a great description:

“Yokoyama uses off-panel space with a droll brilliance — machines that cut rock or drill into the earth appear from the edges of the panels, needing no plausible leverage or further apparatus to do their work. The mysterious engine that runs these tools is the invisible will of the artist; the drill bits and jackhammers are really extensions of Yokoyama’s pen. The people in these stories have far less presence than the machines — they come at the end of the narratives to make the finishing touches and voice their approval.”

What distinguishes New Engineering from The Wind from Nowhere is that Ballard eventually tells us what is being built and why: a gigantic steel pyramid designed to withstand the force of the wind. Hardoon, the builder, hopes not only to survive the catastrophe but thrive in it as well. But his motives aren’t entirely clear and sometimes the reader is led to believe the pyramid exist solely so Hardoon can comfortably sit in his steel cage, watch the world turn to dust and listen to the savage howl of the hurricane. Hardoon is a typically Ballardian character who transforms and adapts as best he can to circumstances on the ground (disasters in this case and in his early novels, but in his later work modernity and technology are enough). We encounter these characters in what we recognize as ‘our’ world, but they already belong to another, hidden world, emerging in our midst like one of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. And with the new world come new psycho(patho)logies. This is what’s missing from Yokoyama’s structures. The author consciously avoids depicting the psychology of his world. In the interview that is published in New Engineering Yokoyama says that he wants to create

“ Characters without psychology - I am interested neither in the feelings of people nor in their emotions. I examine only what is to the eye. My characters do not work towards the satisfaction of a collective or individual interest, but to achieve a great goal, to achieve a great mission. ”

From New Engineering. Click to Enlarge.

These “great goals” and “great missions” are opaque to us. They seem absurd, strange and bizarre.Again Chris Lanier:

“ Its four stories show the construction of strange monuments and spaces. They describe huge mobilizations of resources for apparently useless ends. One “public work” is a fluorescent-lit room, set into a boulder, positioned in front of an absolutely straight (and also artificially constructed) canal. Another is a glass room, outfitted with chairs and a floor of Astroturf, set under the surface of a man-made lake. These constructions are not only absurd in themselves, the methods of construction are entirely impractical. The third “public work” is an artificial mountain, assembled from boulders that are dropped from airplanes, then coated with glue flowing from a single hose.”

If Yokoyama wants to banish psychology from his pages, we as readers want to put it right back. Because we lack direct knowledge of Yokoyama’s world we proceed archeologically and anthropologically. We compare our world, or the artifacts of our world to the ones depicted in New Engineering in an attempt to excavate the smallest bits of meaning. Chris Lanier finds similarities between New Engineering and the kinetic architecture of superhero comics. James Benedict Brown can’t help but wonder about the ‘why,’ ‘how’ and ‘where’ of the New Engineering projects and compares their depiction to the sterility, purity and disconnection of contemporary mainstream architectural photography.

Cenotaph for Sir Isaac Newton, by Boulle.

Indeed, Yokoyama’s world is close enough to the one we live in to make direct comparisons irresistible. In the “Memorial to Newton” sequence Yokoyama provides us with a clue as to purpose or origin of these enigmatic works. The comic shows crowds of people irresistibly drawn to climb the immense Memorial to Newton structure. This is the only building that has any reality in our world and can be looked at as a key of sorts. It refers to the unbuilt and imaginary Cenotaph for Sir Isaac Newton by the 18th Century visionary French architect Etienne Louis Boulle. Reading New Engineering comics I couldn’t help but think of the endless variety of massive and visionary architecture that has been built or un-built in the course of human history. Starting with the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Egyptian Pyramids, Roman Aqueducts and Temples, the great Gothic Cathedrals, the visionary paper architecture of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, The Crystal Palace, to the massive and often baffling projects of today’s starchitects that are going up all over the world. The list goes on.

The Pyramids of Las Vegas and the wonders of Dubai.

Many of these structures, especially the ancient ones, are as unfamiliar to us as Yokoymas. What do we make of the Great Pyramids? The Easter Island sculptures? After centuries of trying to ‘solve’ the riddle of the Great Pyramid we’re really no closer to understanding the psychology of the builders.

Like frantic ants… to the top!

Perhaps the closest relatives of Yokoyama’s context-less plastic mega-structures can be found in places like Dubai (or Las Vegas, etc). Dubai is a veritable laboratory of modern architectural gigantism. Artificial islands and archipelagos in the shape of palm trees or the world itself, rotating skyscrapers, tallest towers in the world, these are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Ostensibly we think we understand these structures. They are supposed to be engines of economics growth, steel and concrete representations of financial capital.When we look at them in the larger context of globalization, global warming, war, and peak oil they seem baffling and foreign, but they retain an irresistible and seductive pull. We are drawn not just to what these structures represent, but also to their sheer physicality. In fact climbing great monuments of civilization is one of the great past times of today (and yesterday). People will travel thousands of miles for the privilege of climbing not only the Great Pyramids, but also the pyramids of Las Vegas. What has been the initial impulse of the many people who first encounter the Great Pyramid of Egypt? To climb it!

Part 2 coming soon.

Posted by tomk at 02:04 AM | Comments (2)

October 24, 2007

Yuichi Yokoyama Fashion in Second Life

Well... sort of... I've been obsessed with the manga artist Yuichi Yokoyama lately. Everywhere I look I see something that refers me back to his comics.

Gift Box Hat Couture...

I was checking out the newly formed Evil Robot blog, specifically a post on Ideal World, a film about virtual worlds. One of the clips on the film site is about a Second Life fashion designer. At one point there is a Yokoyama fashion moment as she tries to learn the new virtual tools of her trade. Makes you wonder what would have happened if she just went with it. Virtual worlds full of inexperienced avatars is kind of an interesting way of thinking about Yokoyama's New Engineering now that I think of it... I will have lots more to say about Yokoyama in the very near future.

Paper Bag Hat. Vintage Yokoyama fashion. Image from New Engineering.

Posted by tomk at 10:30 PM | Comments (2)

October 20, 2007

Fall Con 2007

Actually this sketch is from TCAF, but I never wrote a report from that.. so there.

A very late (and very brief) report on Fallcon in St. Paul from a couple of weeks back.

Fallcon 2007 ended up being a great show despite the fact that it mostly catered to the back-issue crowd. That's actually what made it so refreshing for me. I haven't been to a convention like this in a long time. On top of that tables were free for creators and there were free sodas and hot dogs... how can you not go wrong!?

It also helped to have awesome neighbors: Will Dinski, Sara Morean and Sam Hiti. I was sorry I had to miss the second day. I wish I had taken pictures! Here are a few people that did: The Cartoonist Conspiracy, Big Time Attic and The Daily Crosshatch.

Posted by tomk at 12:15 AM | Comments (0)

October 19, 2007

Mome 9 Fall 2007

Here's yet another item I should have posted sometime ago, but I have a new story in the current issue of Mome. It should be in stores already and can also be ordered directly from Fantagraphics.

A couple of reviews of the volume have already been posted by Jog and The Comics Reporter.

Posted by tomk at 12:09 AM | Comments (0)

October 18, 2007

USS Catastrophe Resurfaces

This is another thing I should have posted a while ago. According to Dan and Kevin the USS Catastrophe Shop is open for business... The ship was thought to be sunk sometime ago, but it has resurfaced like the Flying Dutchman to briefly navigate the turbulent seas of hand-stapled pamphlets once again... for the last time. I think it's the only place right now where you can still get copies of my Leisure mini. Go order a bunch of comics! It will be missed...

Posted by tomk at 12:35 AM | Comments (0)

October 17, 2007

Post SPX 2007 Report

SPX 2007 was one of the funnest comics shows I've ever attended. There are tons of SPX reports out there already, so I'll refrain from going into to much detail. My favorite acquisitions:

Yuichi Yokoyama's New Engineering was easily the book I most anticipated. I'd been reading about it online for some time. Finally getting my hands on this book was very satisfying. The book's mixture of absurd combat and surreal construction projects did not disappoint. I will have more to say about it in the near future.

Papercutter #6. This little anthology is getting better with each volume. This issue didn't disappoint. Alec (Phase 7) Longstreth, who also edited it, delivers a solid story that could easily make this Phase 7 #12.5. Ken Dahl spews out a Gordon Smalls stream of consciousness rant. I kept thinking it was set in a parallel world where John Zerzan was not only a cartoonist but funny too. Julia Wertz and Laura Park collaborate on a sweet story of youthful sexual awakening... er... or something like that.

My favorite mini of the show was Sarah Glidden's How to Understand Israel in Sixty Days or Less. It's dense, understated and well paced. Well worth whatever she was charging for it.

And last, but not least, Acorn Reindeer's new mini The Karaoke Encryption combines a foul mouthed vegetable Tintin with Hitchcock's The 39 Steps.

Other highlights included being on my first comics 'theory' panel, signing copies of Mome with Mome-mate Eleanor Davis, talking J.G. Ballard with Andy Hartzell and many others too numerous to mention.

Posted by tomk at 06:16 PM | Comments (3)

October 09, 2007

SPX 2007

The Small Press eXpo is upon us again and I will be attending again. I'm going to be sharing a table (E9) with Jon Lewis, Karen Sneider and Alex Holden. In addition, I will be signing copies of the Mome Anthology at the Fantagraphics table. Click here for the signing schedule. Also, I will be participating in the 'Not Graphic-Novels' panel on Saturday at 1:30pm. Details here. Stop by and say hello!

Posted by tomk at 11:41 PM | Comments (0)

August 25, 2007

Covering Vague Cities

Vague Cities 1st & 2nd Edition (roll over to see back cover)

I was never very happy with the covers for Vague Cities. I liked it conceptually, but the execution always left something to be desired. Not to mention the fact that visually it had little to do with the art between the covers. The cover of the third edition was created to address the shortcomings of the previous editions.

Vague Cities Collection 1st Edition (roll over to see back cover)

It was last minute design decision. Just days before the MOCCA festival, I decided I needed a new cover and that the previous 'collected' edition just wasn't working (I'm ironing out the kinks out of new collection that will appear at SPX... although a 'test' edition 'debuted' at TCAF... more on this later). I went back to the original small book idea, but with a new cover. I had some leftover black cover stock that I've been meaning to use for some time, and a brand new tube of silver Gocco ink. It turned out ok.

Vague Cities 3rd Edition (roll over to see back cover)

This sort illustrates one of the great things about doing mini-comics. Print runs are generally low enough to allow multiple takes on the same book. Every time I sell through an edition, I like to think about the packaging again. I'm not always happy with the results, but it's always a fun exercise. Why keep the same cover when you can change it? Oh and the new edition of Vague Cities is now available at the robot26.com store.

Posted by tomk at 01:07 AM | Comments (0)

August 17, 2007

TCAF 2007

I will be attending TCAF in Toronto this weekend. Here are the details on the show. I guess I will be in the area known as VC108 and I'm listed as 'Tom K.' I will be sharing space with my pals Jon Lewis, Karen Sneider, Damien Jay and Melanie Lewis. If you're in Canada, come by and say hi!

Posted by tomk at 02:26 AM | Comments (0)

August 09, 2007

Mapjam

Over a year ago I was asked by Isaac Cates to contribute to his collaborative comics project Mapjam. The book came out at Mocca this year and because of my recent move I never got a chance to mention it. It was a fun exercise (in collaborative worldbuilding) and there are many interesting contributions. More details and a way to own your own copy can be found here.

Posted by tomk at 12:54 AM | Comments (3)

August 06, 2007

Swindle Magazine Number 12

a couple panels from Ransom Strange

I almost forgot this, but the new issue (12) of Swindle Magazine should be on the stands by now and it features a 2-page, full-color Ransom Strange story. Ransom Strange is a character I've been sort of batting around for a while. I may do more with the character in the near future.

The magazine should be on most newsstands, or can be ordered directly from here.

Posted by tomk at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)

June 20, 2007

MoCCA 2007

Panel from Mome 8

MoCCA Art Festival is this weekend and I'll be there. This year I have an actual schedule there. First I'll be signing copies of Mome at the Fantagraphics table:

Saturday 12-1 with Jonathan Bennett and Kurt Wolfgang
Sunday 11-12 with Jonthan Bennett

Here's the full Fantagraphics signing schedule.

Also on Sunday (12:55-1:50) I'll be on a panel with some of my local cartoonist pals. The full panel schedule is here.

At other times I'll be hanging out at the table (A50) I'm sharing with Alex Holden, Damien Jay, Melanie Lewis, Jon Lewis, Karen Snyder and Robyn Chapman. Stop by and say hi!

Posted by tomk at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)

June 19, 2007

Kajko i Kokosz in the Uncanny Valley

One of my favorite comics growing up was Kajko i Kokosz (I'll have more about the comics and their creator Janusz Christa in my future 'Comics in Poland' posts). I just stumbled on a trailer (high def, youtube) for a CGI movie version of the comics. It looks like it's relatively well made, with some pretty big stars used as voice talent. Unfortunately it suffers from the 'uncanny valley' effect.

The uncanny valley effect describes the way positive emotional response to human-like robots (and other entities like zombies, cgi-humans etc.) turns into strong repulsion as their appearance gets closer to our own. The chart above illustrates the effect. This is something that plagues a lot of CGI movies like The Polar Express and Final Fantasy.

Generally the effect is referred to when looking at humans, but I think the effect can also be applied to originally 2 dimensional cartoon characters who become translated into the (virtual) reality of 3D through the magic of computers. Once they are translated into 3 dimensions, all of a sudden the characters have to acquire additional properties like motion, weight, etc. In 3D space they may have to be seen in angles never shown in the 2D space of comics. In Kajko i Kokosz the 3D models try to be extremely faithful to the comics characters, but end up looking very creepy, unnatural...

... and positively evil!

I haven't actually seen the entire movie, so I'll reserve judgment as to it's quality. But if the trailer is anything to go by, the great characters that I (and other kids) grew up on, are not in this movie.

But what about the kids who will first see Kajko i Kokosz (or any other character) as a CGI puppets? Will they find the comics versions somehow creepy? Can the Uncanny Valley effect work in reverse? If we grow up surrounded by close approximations of ourselves, will we be shocked by our own mirror image?

Posted by tomk at 12:03 AM | Comments (0)

June 18, 2007

Mome 8 Summer 2007

As I write this the new issue of Mome should either already be in stores, or will arrive shortly. It's already available via Fantagraphics here. My story in this issue is nine pages long and is titled 10,000 Years. Unlike the story in the previous issue, this one is brand new and created explicitly for the anthology.

A lot of themes you may have seen in my Trans books have been sort smashed into a single dream like narrative. Zombies, Mars, Psychoanalysis, Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, Advertising, Consumerism, the Future and the (im)possibility of utopia, they're all in there one way or another.

Posted by tomk at 12:22 AM | Comments (0)

June 04, 2007

Comics in Poland

I stumbled on an interesting post about Polish comics and comics scene. It's really just a brief overview of some of the current books found on the shelves of Polish comics stores.

Actually I wasn't even aware that Poland had any comic-book stores. When I lived there in communist 80's the only way to get comics from newsstands with very erratic delivery schedules. Instead of going to Catholic school classes, I would always stalk the newsstand in hopes of getting my hands on the latest issues of Swiat Mlodych, or Fantastyka.

In the 90's, when I'd visit Poland after my family had moved to the US, it always a chore to find a place that would have a decent selection of comics material. Albums and collections were rare in bookstores, and pamphlet comics would frequently sell out quickly at newsstands. Flea markets (especially the Gdansk flea market during the Jarmark festival) would often be the best places to find older and even recent material.

In the near future I hope to do a more detailed look back at the comics I read and collected when I lived in Poland in the 80's.

Posted by tomk at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)

May 01, 2007

Ransom Strange

Sometime in the future...

Posted by tomk at 12:52 PM | Comments (0)

April 19, 2007

APE 2007

I will be at APE this weekend. I'll be at the AWP table along with Alex Holden, Vanessa Davis and others. I will also be part of a couple Fantagraphics signings. Details here.

Posted by tomk at 10:12 PM | Comments (1)

April 11, 2007

MOME Spring 2007

My blogging frequency was never great, but it has slowed to a glacial crawl in recent months. One of the reasons for the slow-down is MOME, the quarterly comics anthology published by Fantagraphics. I've been asked to become a regular contributor so now I spend most of my free time working (or thinking about working) on comics for the publication. The quarterly deadline has been a difficult adjustment. Time for all sorts of other activities (like this blog) has pretty much evaporated. I've heard some say that I've been MOMEd... But I'm not writing this to complain. I'm honored to be included in such good company!

The MOME 7 (Spring 2007) story is actually a reprint of a story that first saw the light of day in The Backwards City Review #4 a few months back. This was done to give me a little bit extra time to develop new stories for the subsequent issues. All future MOME stories are going to be new, and created specifically for MOME. One thing MOME has allowed me to do is use color. I ended up converting the graytones (roll over the image above to see comparison) to a second color.

Anyway, the book should be in stores now. You can also pre-order it on Amazon, or get it now from the source itself: Fantagraphics.

Posted by tomk at 08:36 PM | Comments (3)

October 26, 2006

Drama 9 Release Party

Another issue of The Drama magazine is set to hit the stands very soon. In just a few issues the magazine has evolved into one of the best new magazines on the stands. And I'm not just saying that because they published another comic of mine. They are celebrating the release of their 9th issue with a few parties in select locations. I will be at the New York one. More details here. Stop by and get a free copy of the mag before the print medium expires altogether!

Posted by tomk at 11:45 AM | Comments (0)

October 20, 2006

SPX 2006 Part 2

SPX 2006 turned out pretty great. The new venue wasn't too bad, though the food around the hotel sucked. But I won't bore you with an exhaustive account, there are plenty of them out there. No need to add to the noise. Thanks to everyone that stopped by to say hi.

For those that have been following my notes posts to Trans-Alaska, but haven't been able to get ahold of a copy of the book: I have finally re-printed all three of the Trans-Books. They have brand new covers hand made on the amazing, soon-to be obsolete Gocco.

They are available on my robot26.com site. Older editions should still be available from other places.

Posted by tomk at 03:14 PM | Comments (0)

October 13, 2006

SPX 2006

I will be attending SPX later today. I believe my table is next to Alec Longstreths table. See you there!

Posted by tomk at 01:06 AM | Comments (0)

September 27, 2006

Random Quotations

Click on panels and drawings for relevant links. Transcription for clarity: "Power operates most effectively not by persuading the conscious mind, but by deliminating in advance what is possible to experience." – CCRU "Kapital really is a planet-wide artificial intelligence, feeding matrix-style, on the energy of human slaves." – K-Punk "The opposite of real isn't phony or illusional – it's optional." – Thomas DeZengotita, Mediated, p. ? "We are lucky that the organic realm reached the foot of evolutionary ladder before the inorganic." – J.G. Ballard, The Atrocity Exhibition, p. 22 "Why believe in work when it doesn't believe in you?" – Pat Kane, The Play Ethic, p. 79 "What if the 'idea' of progress were not an idea at all but rather the symptom of something else?" – Frededric Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future, p.281

Posted by tomk at 01:32 AM | Comments (0)

September 25, 2006

Proto Trans-Alaska

As I started to compile my notes on Trans-Siberia, I realized there was still a couple of things left unsaid about Trans-Alaksa. If you haven't read the first batch of Trans-Alaska notes, you can catch up here.

Trans-Alaska was a very formless book. It was done without preparation and 'straight to ink', without any pencilled art. It's title was a kind of last minute tribute to a series of dreams about Alaska that I had in the mid 90s. Those dreams inspired an attempt at a 24 hour comic. Instead of producing a 24 page comic in 24 hours, I made a 10 page comic in 6 hours.

That comic saw 'publication' in my last (semi) regular mini-comic Reduction #7. The story, titled 'Slow', was quickly forgotten. Recently, I re-read the story and I realized that 'Slow' was in effect the blueprint for the entire Trans series!

panel from Slow

For those of you interested, I'm posting the entire story here. Also, for those of you that still care about physical objects, a limited number of copies of Reduction #7 are available from me at robot26.com. It's pretty embarassing stuff so don't laugh! ;)

It's pretty clear that a most of the ideas in the Trans books were already in 'Slow,' though in a very unformed fashion. It's definitely stuff I was thinking about back then, but for one reason or another (working to pay the rent) I put that stuff on the back burner. Even some of the visuals are very similar. I guess I'm just a cheap copy of myself!

panel from Trans-Alaska

Posted by tomk at 12:32 AM | Comments (0)

September 23, 2006

100,000 Miles of Cars

I briefly mentioned this one before. But, I just found out that it's finally out! Available from the fine folks at Backwards City Review. My story is an 8 page meditation on cars and cities. It's sort of in the same vein as the Vague Cities mini-comic. Here's page one. But don't get it on account of me alone! There are plenty of other great contributions.

Posted by tomk at 12:19 AM | Comments (0)

August 23, 2006

100,000 Miles

I've got another short comics story coming out soon in the new issue of Backwards City Review. They just announced the contents of the issue. Here's a preview of page 1. It's an 8 page story with lots of cars. Cars on every page. Perhaps I've been reading a little too much J. G. Ballard lately. It's supposed be out in about 3 weeks.

Posted by tomk at 11:02 PM | Comments (0)

August 21, 2006

World 2.0

I tricked another magazine to publish one of my comics. This time it's Punk Planet. The current issue (75) has a theme: The Revenge of Print 2. I was asked to contribute a 3 page comics essay on the topic. It ended up being an apocalyptic rant on the state of the world... somewhere in there I managed to talk about immanent Death of Print. Comics at the end of history.

Keeping up with the digital bibliography theme from the last post, here's some of the works that were cited and/or influenced the piece:

The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil. Ray's Law of Accelerating Returns (LOAR) makes a prominent showing in the story. I'm not very nice to it.

Techgnosis by Erik Davis. Erik's take on the intersection of occult/religion and technology informed a lot of what I had to say about Ray Kurzweil. This should a text book in every high school or college.

So Many Books by Gabriel Zaid. A short and sweet book on... other books. If you like books you will probably like this book as well.

buzzmachine.com by Jeff Jarvis. Jeff has been on the forefront of the print-to-digital meme. He will have to get this issue of Punk Planet to see what I wrote about him ;)

Collapse by Jared Diamond. A really thorough and illuminating (if a bit dry) look at how and why complex civilizations collapse.

T.A.Z. by Hakim Bey. Actually it was really an online (the irony!) interview I read with him that I haven't been able to find again. He was talking about turning off computers and digesting information at a slower pace.

Business Week In 1975 published the first article on the Paperless Office.

The issue should be on the stands now. It can also be ordered here: Punk Planet 75.

Posted by tomk at 11:40 PM | Comments (0)

Trans-Alaska Notes

One of the reasons I started this blog was to make it a sort of digital bibliography for the comic-books I create. This is especially relevant to these three books: Trans-Alaska, Trans-Siberia, and Trans-Atlantis. All of the books are out of print at the moment. I've started working on new editions and I wanted to expand the notes section that can be found in the back of each book. I'm planning on a series of entries that hopefully will help me do that.

Trans-Alaska is the first book in the series. It was written and drawn over a period of about 2 weeks prior to the 2004 MoCCA Art Festival.

The notes section identified three main concepts that underpin Trans-Alaska. They are: Richard Florida's Creative Class, Pat Kane's Play Ethic and Momus' Metaphysical Masochism of the Capitalist Creative.

Pat Kane's Play Ethic is an attempt to create a new kind of philosophy of work in the 21st century. If the capitalist economic system has always relied on the Work Ethic as it's engine, then in today's (and tomorrow's) post scarcity economies we will need something new: a Play Ethic. "If work doesn't believe in you, why believe in work?" seems to be the general attitude. Kane is convinced that by embracing our inner homo ludens we can all become more creative, playful (responsibly so - hence the ethic) and happy. I sort of dismissed his ideas in the comic by pointing to the dangers of blurring the boundary between work and play in a capitalist context. At that time I hadn't read Kane's book The Play Ethic. I had only read his blog and some articles. The book is a much more nuanced examination of the possibility of a wider shift from work oriented culture to a ludic one. Although Kane suffers a bit from too much technophilia (for my taste) and is perhaps a little more over optimistic about the potential for play in a profit driven environment, nevertheless the book is a chock full of great ideas and concepts. I'm rooting for you Pat!

Florida is more of an urbanist and his concept of the Creative Class is deeply connected to cities. He sees the Creative Class (artists, designers, programmers, etc.) as the real economic engine that drives the vitality of cities... and economies. In that he is not that far off from the late and great Jane Jacobs. Florida's book hinges on his Creative Cities Index. These cities, according to him, are attracting the creative work force necessary for competitiveness in the global creative economy. The book is almost a how-to guide for cities on how to re-create themselves to attract the creatives and by extension the businesses that want to hire them. And business brings all the 'benefits' like higher real-estate prices, more tax revenue, etc. This focus on the intersection of money and urbanism is pretty much what turns me off from Florida's ideas. Momus said it best here. The influx of capital (and consequent rising prices) into creative city centers (often low-rent and marginal neighborhoods) chases those very creatives away. Soho in NY is a good example. San Francisco (number one on Florida's Creative Cities Index) during the 90's internet boom is another.

Speaking of Momus, he is probably the primary the catalyst for my doing these little theoretical comic tracts. Specifically I was very impressed by his Metaphysical Masochism Of The Capitalist Creative essay. In the essay Momus is taken by the ability of creatives to create metaphysical value out of the capitalist cesspool of money and greed. The equivalent of alchemical transubstantiation of shit into gold. Any designer trying to squeeze a drop of quality out of a clueless client will know exactly what Momus is talking about.

The notes ended with a bunch of Name dropping: Karl Marx, George Orwell, Chip Kidd, Witold Gombrowicz and André Breton. Karl Marx is a pretty obvious choice given the generally critical approach to capitalism in the comic. More will be written on him later.

George Orwell came to mind only briefly in the perhaps over-the-top assertion that the Play Ethic may be in danger of becoming a kind of newspeak version of Work Ethic. Following the 1984 logic of WAR=PEACE I was presenting my own WORK=PLAY. Pat Kane's book rounded out his theory for me and I don't think he implies anything of the sort. However the danger for that kind of misinterpretation is still valid think. Orwell will become more significant in Trans-Atlantis where I take a look utopias and dystopias.

I had read Chipp Kidd's The Cheese Monkeys some time before I made Trans-Alaska. One of the characters, Winter Sorbeck, struck me a perfect Masochistic Capitalist Creative. That's really the only connection here... though the novel did made it easier for me to think of design and it's surrounding issues as a valid topic for a comic-book.

Gombrowicz is one of my favorite authors. Right around the time I was starting to work on the comic I was reading his novel Kosmos. The novel is this amazing study of nothing and everything. The main character from the most random occurrences, signs and coincidences, concocts multitudes of paranoid meanings. In some ways I see this novel as kind of template for the comics... a kind of archaeology of contemporary culture... digging up weird books and objects until they all start making some sort of sense.

André Breton. I probably should have said Surrealism. The influence of Surrealism has been with me for a long time. There are some obviously surreal moments in the comic (like the Giorgio de Chirico moment - see image above the Momus entry), but I won't really get into the surreallity of capital until later books.

Well that's it for now. More soon.

Posted by tomk at 12:09 PM | Comments (0)

August 04, 2006

Power of 6

I was asked by Jon (True Swamp) Lewis to help him out on coloring the covers for his new comic-book: Power of 6. Above is the result. It's an awesome super-hero book with a touch of the Occult. Published by Alternative Comics. It's available in stores now! Go get it!

Posted by tomk at 01:17 AM | Comments (0)

July 19, 2006

Paper Revolution

The new issue (8) of The Drama magazine is coming out! I have another one page comic in it! On Saturday, July 22nd (8-11 pm) there will be a release party at Cinders Gallery in Williamsburg. Be there!

The new issue features lots of cool stuff, design and comics. Get the full details here and order the issue here. It should also be hitting the newsstands soon.

Posted by tomk at 09:35 PM | Comments (0)

June 08, 2006

MoCCA 2006

I will be at MoCCA this weekend. Table A48. If you're in New York stop by and say hello.

Posted by tomk at 06:14 PM | Comments (0)

May 04, 2006

Chinese WWII Comics

A friend of mine went to Shanghai a little while ago and brought me some cool Chinese comics. I got two Tintin reprints and something I haven't seen before:

All the books are 5 inches wide and 3.5 inches high. They are printed on very cheap newsprint. The color of the paper changes throught out and the ink gets pretty faint at times. The swastikas make it pretty clear that it's about WWII. A friend of mine mentioned that it's some sort of spy thriller. I'm not sure if the artist is Chinese or not. The art is very European looking, but then what do I know!

Here are a few sample pages. Click on the images to see them BIG.

Posted by tomk at 12:14 AM | Comments (0)

April 15, 2006

Tunnel

This comic-book is about 4 years old at this point, but I still like it ok. It's my only attempt a dream comics. I tired to be really literal with it and the result is actually pretty close to the actual dream... well as much as I could manage.

I'm posting about it because Poopsheet just gave it a nice review. For those of you out there not as familiar with my comics I just wanted to start occasional posts that describe some of my comics and maybe post sample pages.

Anyway, Tunnel is available either from robot26.com or the Poopsheet Shop.

Posted by tomk at 09:13 PM | Comments (0)

April 12, 2006

Vague Cities 2

Thanks to everyone who came by my table at APE! For those that couldn't make it to San Francisco, you can buy Vague Cities, my new mini-comic, on my other site, robot26.com. I also reprinted 'Leisure'.

Posted by tomk at 10:16 PM | Comments (3)

April 03, 2006

Vague Cities

The cover to my new mini (called Vague Cities as you can tell I'm sure). It will be available at APE (San Francisco April 8&9) and later from my other website Robot26.com.

Posted by tomk at 02:17 PM | Comments (0)

January 31, 2006

Art of Memory

The Drama magazine just came out with what appears to be the biggest issue to date. There are interviews with Julie Doucet, Elvis Studio, tons of other art and a LOT more comics than last time. Some of the other contributing cartoonists are: Vanessa Davis, Zak Sally, PaperRad, Travis Robertson, Tom Gauld and tons of others. Oh and one of those comics pages is a one-page comic by me. Should be available in stores now, or get it directly from the publisher HERE.

Posted by tomk at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)

August 26, 2005

Taedium Fields Forever

The nice people at The Drama Magazine have put out another beautiful issue. Besides the usual gorgeous art and design, this issue has an expanded comics section. There are pages by Vanessa Davis, Ron Rege, Nicolas Robel, Marc Bell, lots of others and by me(!). I'm pretty excited to be in such good company.

Posted by tomk at 01:30 AM | Comments (0)