Thursday, June 30, 2011

New in the Store: Foie Gras #1 and #3!



It's been a rough week for Sparkplug but we are surviving! Getting great books like Edie Fake's Foie Gras #1 and #3 in helps. Each page has unsettlingly funny illustrations of cooking techniques accompanied by seemingly unrelated phrases. On the surface, it might appear simple, but these onions have layers for sure. Check them out in our store today!

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Gay Genius Reviewed!



Kristin Russo of everyoneisgay.com has done a lovely lil write-up about Gay Genius on her tumblr! Check it out and then check out Everyone is Gay, because it is great as well.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Now in the store: Doodle Daze by Rina Ayuyang



Just a lil tidbit to start off your weekend: Doodle Daze, a collection of autobiographical sketches and free-form comics by Sparkplug artist Rina Ayuyang. With a whopping 56 pages, it's a steal for only $3!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Annie Murphy Interview!



Kjerstin Johnson over at Bitch Magazine has posted a great interview with Gay Genius editor/all-around comics genius Annie Murphy. Check it out!

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

J.T. Dockery Book Sale, get on it!



J.T. Dockery is having a bit of a summer sale, offering both of his books, In Tongues Illustrated and Spud Crazy, together as a package deal and also separately at a reduced rate.

Go, check out the page for this "event," and pass on the word to anyone you think might be interested:
http://jtdockery.com/summersale2011.html

His comics are awesome, his art is awesome and his writing, Yes, you guessed it: Awesome.

Whirlwind Wonderland, Bookhunter and others, reviewed!



Stephen Sohn has written reviews of five (five!) of our books for the website Asian American Literature Fans. Read the reviews here: http://asianamlitfans.livejournal.com/2011/06/21/

Friday, June 17, 2011

The Latest Papercutter, Dream Grant and Play Overlord!


I've just added Papercutter #16 to the store! It has stories by Joey Alison Sayers, Liz Prince and Alexis Frederick-Frost, so it is as fantastic as you might imagine.


And we've added a mini-comic by Portland artist Sean Christensen called Dream Grant. Set in his Church of Awesome Thought world, it is super cute and entertaining.



And finally, Play Overlord, a collaborative comic created by Amy Kuttab, Sean Christensen and Theo Ellsworth!

Thursday, June 16, 2011

COMICS ON THE RISE

 
Box Brown is starting a publishing house specifically to publish short, cheap, stapled ALTERNATIVE comics a la Drawn and Quarterly in the 90's.  It's called Retrofit and they'll be publishing a new monthly comic for 17 straight months! To kick off funding they are running a kickstarter that you kind find here:

All the info is at the kickstarter site or here: retrofitcomics.com

Here is the line-up of artists:



Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Tom Neely releases New Graphic Novel


“An assaultive, erotic riot of sex and combat and horror and sheer image-making power. There’s great beauty in The Wolf’s blackness.”
– Sean T. Collins, critic (The Comics Journal, Robot 6)


The Wolf is a new graphic novel by Los Angeles-based painter-cartoonist Tom Neely. The book tells a simple love story, but one woven with surrealist horror, werewolf lore and its own brand of nightmare logic. With The Wolf, Neely progresses from the traditional cartooning style he showed off in his previous books, The Blot and Brilliantly Ham-Fisted, to a form that blends comics-style storytelling with a fine arts approach to imagery. The ultimate effect is equal parts touching and chilling.

Neely’s paintings and illustrations have been featured in galleries all over the U.S., in magazines and literary journals, and on records, posters and CDs for bands like The Melvins, ISIS and Wolves in the Throne Room, Groovie Ghoulies, among others. Earlier this year, he garnered a flurry of attention as one of the authors of the cult hit mini-comic Henry & Glenn Forever. Neely’s debut self-published novel, The Blot, won an Ignatz Award in 2007 and made it onto several of the industry’s “best of” lists that year, including “Best Comics of the Decade” in The Comics Journal.

228 Pages, Black & White and Full Color, Paperback, $25.00 (US)
Available now from I Will Destroy You
P.O. Box 39963, Los Angeles, CA 90039
www.iwilldestroyyou.com

Book Release and Signing
July 8th, 2011 at Secret Headquarters Comic Shop
3817 W. Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90026

Some early praise for The Wolf:

"The book talks about a progression, and an inner struggle, but I was most impressed with how Tom masterfully articulates the sentiment of love."
--Trenton Doyle Hancock, artist.

“The Wolf is drawn with skill and heart … It is thrilling to see Neely work this way, and to know that this dedicated artist is in it for the long haul.”
--Austin English, comics author/publisher (The Disgusting Room, Domino Books)

"The Wolf veers from frightening and expressionistic to cartoony at the drop of a hat, sometimes in the same drawing. But Tom pulls it all together beautifully.
--Zak Sally, cartoonist (Sammy the Mouse, Recidivist)

"Tom's work has the unusual ability to provoke anxiety, uncertainty, horror and uncomfortable laughter in equal measure … Mr. Neely has done so here with grace and a crafty precision.
-- Aaron Turner, musician-artist (Isis, Mammifer)


Pre-order the book from the IWDY store now!

Watch a preview video of part one of The Wolf here.

Tuesday, June 07, 2011

Possessed by the Rise of Magik: Chris Cilla's Heavy Hand reviewed on The Comics Journal

 
Over at the Comics Journal they have a thorough and thoughtful review of Chris Cilla's the Heavy Hand, in which Rob Clough compares Chris to a turntablist: "Cilla finds every kind of storytelling convention totally interchangeable and mixes them with the elegance of a DJ or a producer creating new sounds from old. Cilla plays with the reader’s reified understanding of genre conventions to allow the text involved in such conventions to create that immersive environment that allows the reader to experience the comic in a hermeneutic fashion."

http://www.tcj.com/reviews/the-heavy-hand/

If you are able...



It's getting down to the last couple days of our friend's Kickstarter campaign! She is raising funds for another season of her excellent radio show Destination DIY. The rewards are awesome, of course, and if you donate $20 right now, you can get a grab bag of Sparkplug Comics in addition to the satisfaction of funding this program.

Saturday, June 04, 2011

Habitat #2 on Bookgasm



Dunja Jankovic's Habitat #2 got reviewed yesterday on Bookgasm. Check it out!