Sparkplug Highlight: Ce/Ze by Suzette Smith

Ce/Ze, the fourth book in the Sparkplug Minis Series, is Suzette Smith’s dreamlike take on Sci-Fi/Fantasy. Amelia Smith and Honey Czarny are 7th grade girls who discover that they share fragmented memories of another world in which they were powerful beings names Ce and Ze. When a rival king’s plot to kill Ze nearly succeeded, Ce and Ze were forced to escape to our world. Honey and Amelia study and emulate human behavior but feel no real connection with humanity. Smith’s dreamy, loose style further blurs the line between dreams, memories, and reality.

(28 pages, black and white with color cover, 5.5" x 8.5", Sparkplug Comics, $5)
Ce/Ze is available for purchase here.
See more of Suzette's work on her website.

Sparkplug Highlight: Dumb by Georgia Webber

The Dumb series is Georgia Webber’s multi-disciplinary exploration of what it means to live without a voice after sustaining a vocal chord injury that required her to speak less than thirty minutes a day for months. Each issue addresses an aspect of the difficulties involved in living without a voice, from the vocal chord pain itself, to communication methods, to dealing with the Canadian welfare system.

The comic is printed in black, white, and red. It’s used for speech bubbles and ambient noise; red also indicates the speaking version of herself with which Georgia struggles in Dumb #2. In Dumb #5, the red version of Georgia is the one doing the talking and interacting that she’d normally be doing, if not for her injury.

(Dumb #1: 16 interior pages; 6.75"x9"; black, white, and red cover and interior; self-published, 2014)

Dumb #1-5 are available for purchase here.

Visit Georgia's Website for more information about Dumb.

Linework NW this weekend!

Sparkplug will be at Linework NW here in Portland this Sunday!  Linework is free and open to the public - doors open at noon.  We'll be debuting our newest book, Ce/Ze by Suzette Smith.

I (Virginia) will also be part of a panel on LBGT comics at some point on Sunday (time TBA).  Linework is a great little festival and the lineup of guests and exhibitors this year is fantastic - I highly recommend coming out for both days!  Hope to see you there!

Sparkplug Highlight: Wicked Chicken Queen by Sam Alden

Wicked Chicken Queen is a story of birth and death, loneliness and loss, told in two parts. An isolated island community discovers an egg that hatches into an enormous chicken. The society flourishes under the chicken queen’s rule, but is eventually destroyed in her death throes. The mythical narrative of the chicken queen’s origin transitions into the narrator’s portrait of her own life in a modern city: coffee with her daughter, laying awake in bed at night thinking about her estranged husband, a lingering sense of incompleteness.

The comic consists of single-page illustrations accompanied by text. Alden depicts the constantly shifting geography of the island with fluid, spontaneous lines, guiding the eye in a winding path through the little vignettes of island life contained in each image. The use of graphite, complete with smudges and erasures, gives the comic a sense of immediacy, as if you’d pulled the pages out of the artist’s hands. Fans of Alden's work will not be disappointed with this trippy fairy tale.

(24 pages, black and white with color cover, 6.5" x 10.5", Retrofit Comics, $5.00)

Wicked Chicken Queen is available for purchase here.

Check out Sam Alden's website for more of his awesome work.

ATTN Retailers! Free Comic Book Day solicit for 2015

Sparkplug, Teenage Dinosaur, Snakebomb and Floating World join forces again to bring you their 2015 Free Comic Book Anthology - FREE STOOGES.

Eight Portland artists present new masterpieces guaranteed to take your face on a wild trip. These line wranglers have harvested the freshest comic jams for your hungry eyeballs. And best of all it's FREE!

Featuring all new comics by Amanda Blix, FuFu Frauenwahl, Ross Jackson, Rusty Jordan, Reuben Storey and Anna Vo!

Covers by Bwana Spoons and Emma Bagley.

32 pgs, b&w interior, fc cover
Mature Readers
FREE - (you just pay the shipping cost)

Ordering info:

Email: virginia@sparkplugcomicbooks.com
to place your order by April 16th to guarantee arrival by Saturday, May 2nd.

We have two shipping options:

30 copies = $5, shipped media mail

100 copies = $12.35, shipped in a flat rate priority box

Sparkplug Highlight: Bird Girl and Fox Girl by Yumi Sakugawa

This minicomic follows the threads of Bird Girl and Fox Girl’s lives after the dissolution of their friendship. Bird Girl moves from the desert to the city, where she works as a secretary, eventually saving up enough money for surgery to look like a human girl. Fox Girl becomes a daredevil model, only accepting potentially life-threatening assignments. Her photos inspire of viral trend of teenage girls taking selfies before committing suicide; her popularity plummets and, jobless and homeless, she leaves the city. Years later, both transformed, Bird Girl and Fox Girl meet again in the desert. The comic’s lack of dialogue produces a distance from the reader in which the text echoes. The art is spare yet intricate; the rhythmic pacing and text create a poetic, haunting story.

(32 interior pages, black and white with color cover, 5.5" x 8.5", $6.00)

Bird Girl and Fox Girl is available for purchase here.