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Sunday Morning – A New Model For Comics

Published Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:22:26 -0600

Older, but none the wiser. And thankfully the internet didn't break in my absence.

The New York Daily News has splashed with a piece on Model Life, a graphic novel by… a model. Isobella Jade has written the book with artist Jazmin Ruotolo, telling the story of a model trying to make it in the internet age, drawing on autobiographical aspects along the journey.

I wanted to show the not-so-glamorous experiences and share it honestly. I've overcome a lot of mistakes… I just wanted other things for myself. I wanted to create and be a part of something.

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The Guardian have run a large preview of Joe Sacco's new graphic journalism collection, Footnotes In Gaza and interview the man here. And stories that history is trying to erase.

Both towns stand in for all those places, all those things, that are more widely left out of history. They're footnotes, but these were also an important day in some people's lives.

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Andy Ristaino's graphic novel Escape from Dullsville, collects 7 issues of his comic Life of a Fetus, with eighty pages of extra material including the unpublished last issue, from Slave Labor Graphics. Sadly, as happened with that last issue, orders from comic stores through Diamond Comics Distributors failed to meet its new minimum order terms, and so the collection is to be cancelled.

Unless.

Unless Andy can persuade enough people to order the book directly from Amazon. Previews pages here, synopsis here. Tweet away!
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Neal Adams, big in Japan. And probably getting bigger if his expanding-Earth theory is anything to go by.

It won't change our moral beliefs, but it will totally change our view of the universe. It won't help us find more oil, but it will guarantee that we have more than enough oil while we change over to hydrogen power.

One of my favourite moments from San Diego was meeting an old internet comics friend, when along popped Josh Adams in his Continuity Comics t-shirt. My friend instantly asked Josh how he found it possible to work for a man who had such mad ideas. I interrupted saying "Tom, this is Josh Adams, Neal Adams' son. Josh, this is Tom." Tom was aghast, Josh was highly amused.
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Graphic novels outperform volumes of Twilight – in libraries at least! And we get some stats from one library over the last two years, first individual volumes;

1. Naruto, v. 30 (20)
2. Naruto, v. 4 (19)
3. Naruto, v. 2 (19)
4. Naruto, v. 17 (19)
5. Immortal Iron Fist, v. 1 (19)

And as entire runs; (Total/Average per)

1. Case Closed, 30 volumes (259/8.6)
2. Bleach, 27 volumes (254/9.4)
3. Batman, 27 volumes (243/9)
4. Inu Yasha, 38 volumes (217/5.7)
5. Exiles, 15 volumes (200/13)

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Although it seems that graphic novel library readers have a real trouble putting their books back. One librarian writes;

It's not uncommon to find a stack of these books in either the adult or young adult section in piles on top of the books correctly shelved — a joy for any shelver to find.

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Free sample PSP Comics for their new Comics Reader can be found with these codes;

Astro Boy: Movie Adaptation #1 – FF3N-H7B6-M2JF

Star Trek: Year Four – The Enterprise Experiment – 724K-A4BG-JLD7

Transformers: All Hail Megatron #1 – EC2N-9HBR-HJD6
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Chris Mautner gives us a fantastic interview with Larry Gonick on the completion of the Cartoon History of The Modern World.

I expected some complaints. That's because people are used to reading big fat books about recent events that loom large simply because they're close to us.

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The Belfast Telegraph are giving away copies of The Beano and The Dandy all next week
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And the Telegraph visits the Cartoon Museum in London. Which reminds me, I really need another visit to that place. It is rather remarkable.

In the 19th century, print shops would hire cartoons to people for a couple of days, rather like we hire DVDs

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I always wondered what happened to the Pete Ross character from early Smallville. Who no sooner than he learned Clark Kent's secret, suddenly nicks off across the country, written out, not to be heard from again (aside from a one-off return last year). I wondered if he'd ever return as a criminal?

Well, that plot-twist has been realised in reality, actor Sam Jones arrested and charged as part of a conspiracy to purchase and distrubute the restricted drug oxycodone…

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