Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Exhibitor: Suzanne Baumann

1) Tell us a little about yourself.
I live in Hamtramck, MI, a couple of blocks in from the Detroit border, and keep active in the cartooning and art scene that exists here. Five days a week I drive out to the suburbs to work as some sort of graphic designer/web developer hybrid. I’ve become interested in organic gardening in recent years and my backyard is covered in vegetables when it’s not covered in snow. Comic jams are my favorite sport.

2) Tell us about your comics.
They’re minicomics; mostly humorous, and the humor is usually a mixture of mundane and absurd, with lots of wordplay thrown in. Mostly. Usually. Three ongoing series have emerged over the years: As Eavesdropped, which is a collection of single-page comics based on overheard conversations; Turtleneck Boy, an anthology series open to all contributors as long as they include the title character in their submission; and The (x) of Ball Point, a sketchbook series I give away for free. In addition to these I’ve made tons of one-shot minis over the years. Whenever I have the time and an idea, I’ll make a minicomic.

3) How long have you been self-publishing?
Since 1995.

4) Why did you decide to start self-publishing your comics?
It wasn’t so much a decision as a revelation: “Really? I can print up my own comics and staple them together into a book and total strangers will buy and read them?” I like to make things, so I had no excuse not to do that.

5) Who are your main artistic influences--both in and out of comics?
I hate answering that question, because I’m influenced by everything; even things I don’t particularly like and wouldn’t want to recommend to others. If I had to narrow it down, though, I’d say the 20th century has made a big impact on my work.

6) What comics do you read?
Whatever makes its way into my hands, I read. I never really got into a regular comics-reading habit, but fortunately I accumulate a wide variety of good stuff at shows like SPACE; and through friends, colleagues, etc. It all goes on the pile and gets read by me eventually. Sean Bieri (fellow Hamtramck cartoonist) started a graphic novel book club last year, so now I’m actually reading them on a regular basis. I’m on my way to becoming a legitimate comics geek.

7) What are some of your favorite books? (the kind without pictures)
I’m especially fascinated with ephemera: magazines, textbooks, political books predicting all sorts utopian and dystopian scenarios that may or may not have come true… stuff that usually gets tossed out because it’s 20, 50, 100 years past its relevance. I read history books, too, but I really like augmenting that with the materials people were actually soaking in at the time.


8) Where did Turtle-neck Boy come from?
He came from a self-imposed deadline. I had jokes for a mini-comic scripted out, but no characters in mind for it. A comic convention was coming up fast and I wanted to have something new out, so I used myself for one of the characters and picked Turtleneck Boy (a random doodle from my sketchbook) to be my sidekick.
I didn’t want to give off the impression that Turtleneck Boy was a real guy, so I called him my imaginary friend on the cover. Then I decided that making up cartoon friends for myself was actually kinda sad, so at the last minute I added a page at the end saying “Turtleneck Boy can be your friend, too! Submit your own comic!” and people did, so now it’s an ongoing anthology series.
No one’s submitted a Turtleneck Boy origin story yet, so honestly I’m not sure where he really came from.

9) What’s in the water in Hamtramck ?
Hydrogen, oxygen, and other.

10) Will you have anything new for SPACE? Or are you working on anything new?
After a long absence, I’ve gotten back to the aforementioned Turtleneck Boy. Issue number six should be ready by SPACE, and hopefully a couple of free minis as well.


11) A chicken walks into a doctor’s office and says “_______________”.
“How can I get in on one of those health insurance coops I’ve heard so much about?”
(sorry.)

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Thursday, March 25, 2010

Beyond BAM! POW! SHAZAM!


Beyond BAM! POW! SHAZAM! Saturday March 27, 7-10 pm Galleria Evangelia kicks off the spring season with an homage to comics, art and literature’s bastard love child. “Marvel” at quirky views of everyday life and politics by Columbus Dispatch Editorial illustrator Jeff Stahler, nationally syndicated cartoonist Steve Boreman, creator of “Little Dog Lost”: CCAD professors Stewart McKissick, Ben Mahan and freelancer Raymond Tomczak. Veteran Uko Smith along with young upstarts Jonathon Riddle, Mathew Calvert and Salim Cortes take comics out of the shadows of the super heroes into the literature of the future. Besides Riddle and Tomczak , Columbus' comics collective, Sunday Comix, will be represented by work from Sue Lense and Bob Corby. Join us for an evening with quirky and cosmic characters. The show runs for March 27 to April 10, 2010. See gallery hours below.

Galleria Evangelia
4269 North High St
Columbus, OH, 43214
614-354-6557
Fri - Sat: Noon - 8:00 pm
Sun: Noon - 5:00 pm
Mon-Thurs: by appointment

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Exhibitor: Brian John Mitchell

You've had a chance to see the SPACE Anthology. Now meet the guy who put it together.

Brian John Mitchell makes mini-comics the size of a pack of matches for Silber Media. Some are slice of life comics & some are sci-fi horror & some are westerns. Currently out are XO, Worms, Lost Kisses, Just A Man, & Marked. Don’t be surprised if there’s a couple more series by the time SPACE comes around.
He wanted to be a writer as a child, but it didn't work out because he lost interest when he found out it wouldn't come easily for him. He had short stories & poetry published a few times when he was 17. At 19 he started a music zine called QRD which still continues online. At 21 he self-produced a hand stitched book of short stories called Subhorrea which was followed by the never printed 4 Hours Old. At 22 he started the now defunct business-card-sized zine Random Kisses, a poetry zine with an edge towards swearing & violence. At 23 he started Zombie Kisses, a zine about life after a zombie plague & personal responsibilities. In 2004 at age 29 he came back to zining with his smallest zine & first regular comic, Lost Kisses which is 50% Lad-Lit & 50% Charlie Brown. He is best known as the head of Silber Records & for his musical works under the names Remora & Small Life Form. He has a few other mini-comics called xo (about a recovering murderer with art by Melissa Gardner), Worms (a surrealist adventure with art by Kimberlee Traub), Marked (art by Jeremy Johnson), & Just A Man (art by Andrew White).

1) Tell us a little about yourself.

I was born in 1975. I run a record label to make money & spend a lot of time taking care of my grandmother who has dementia (by a lot of time I mean about 13 hours a day).

2) Tell us about your comics.

Well, the first thing anybody would say when mentioning my comics is that they are only as big as a pack of matches with one panel on each page. Given that fact, I try to tell a lot of different stories. I have cowboy stuff & slice of life stuff & Lovecraftian things & a hitman story & then I’m working on a post-apocalyptic thing as well. I guess eventually I’ll do a superhero book as well, just to round things out.

3) How long have you been self-publishing?

Well, my girlfriend in high school did a zine in 1993 & so that’s when I was exposed to the small press as something I could really do myself. I started my own music zine in 1994, but it took 6 months to put it out.

4) Why did you decide to start self-publishing your comics?


I was asked to do a zine for the San Jose Museum of Contemporary Art in 2004 & I didn’t have anything I was doing at the time because I had a bad case of the girlfriends sucking away my money & energy at the time (2004). So I just wrote & drew this little comic that would only take one sheet of paper to print & it was well received, so I’ve just stuck with it.

5) Who are your main artistic influences--both in and out of comics?

I grew up on 1980s Marvel & all that stuff is forever trapped in my brain. That said, I like to think my big influences in comics are Frank Miller (particularly Daredevil & to a lesser extent Sin City), Will Eisner (I strangely haven’t really read anything before his “come back” in the 1970s), Matt Wagner (Grendel, I haven’t even read Mage for some reason), Peter Milligan (I liked Shade a lot & some of his other Vertigo stuff as well & his X-Force stuff was pretty great as well), Sam Kieth (The Maxx specifically, but Batman Secrets & some of his other work is great as well), John Ostrander (Wasteland & Grim Jack were two of the edgy books I liked in middle school), & Dave Sim (Cerebus obviously, & he actually drew a comic for me, truly ridiculous). It’s probably worth noting that my main interest in comics is the storytelling & how well the art compliments a story rather than how “good” the art actually is. Out of comics the big influences to my comics are probably Lovecraft, Kafka, Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Joe Lansdale, Kathe Koja, Kathy Acker, & John O’Brien. Pretty much anything from between World War I & World War II in America is good in fiction or cinema.

6) What comics do you read?

Nowhere Band (webcomic) is always great. There’s another webcomic called Masquerade that I like a lot. I’ll read a Grendel book anytime it comes out. I read Dave Sim’s stuff as it comes out. But I generally buy trades & graphic novels over individual issues, I just want to read an entire story & I can’t remember things well enough to wait a month (or sometimes a couple of years) until the next installment comes. I’d rather read it five years out. I like Josh Howard quite a bit & wish the Pander Brothers would do more work. If I had more time & money I’d probably read a lot more & maybe get back into Marvel, but for now I feel satisfied knowing what’s going on in Marvel & DC by reading blogs & listening to some podcasts.

7) What are some of your favorite books? (the kind without pictures)

Wetwork by Philip Nutman, The Assault on Tony’s & Leaving Las Vegas by John O’Brien, A Fighting Man of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace, Working by Studs Terkel, Dreemz by Ben Stein, Songwriters on Songwriting (I can’t remember the author), Comic Book Writers on Comic Book Writing (or whatever that book is called)

8) You have mistakenly volunteered to head up the SPACE Downloadable Anthology Project. What were you thinking?

I was thinking people would send me stuff & it wouldn’t be that much work to lay out as long as they followed the specs. I have a feeling it might not come to fruition unfortunately. It’s hard to get people to do things sometimes. (Brian failed to realize the deadline was a few days away-Bob C.)

9) What is Silber Records and what's your connection with it?

Silber Records is a record label I run/own. It’s not just a little vanity label which is what people assume sometimes. We have over 80 releases & maybe a dozen artists in the roster right now. It’s on the cusp of me making a living as long as I live in poverty.

10) Will you have anything new for SPACE? Or are you working on anything new?

I try to put out as much stuff as I can. Last year at SPACE I had ten issues of Lost Kisses, four issues of XO, & three issues of Worms – so a total of 17 books. Right now I have eight more comics that I did since last year & I’m hoping to have eight more before April comes around. Also the Lost Kisses DVD is out now. & I guess the big news is Dave Sim drew Ultimate Lost Kisses #11.

11) How many chickens does it take to screw in a light bulb?

It only takes one, but the only one that could do it died a long time ago.




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Monday, March 22, 2010

SPACE Anthology 2010 Now available at ComicsXP!

With only a month to go before the show, the SPACE Anthology 2010 is ready to be downloaded for FREE at ComicsXP. SA10 is the first free download at ComicsXP and includes the work of 30 SPACE exhibitors in 24 complete stories. Sample some of the incredible and diverse work which will be at the SPACE 2010. Check out the line up.



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Wednesday, March 17, 2010

"The Art and History of the Cartoon"- The Works Museum





News Release

Media Contact:Lyn Logan-Grimes, Museum Art Coordinator

The Works: 740-349-9277, ext. 232mailto:232lvn.logan-grimes@attheworks.org

'The Art and History of the Cartoon,' exhibit coming to The Works Museum
NEWARK, OH -The Works Museum in Newark Ohio will host a special exhibit titled "The Art and History of the Cartoon: An Overview of Comics Evolution as Seen byArtists Past and Present."

The exhibit will be held in The Works main gallery from March 26 through May 10,2010. The opening reception for the show will be Friday, March 26 from 6:00 to 8:00p.m. Admission to the reception and exhibit is free.

The exhibit will include works by nationally published artists David Mack, Andy Bennett, Scott Simmons, Michael Neno, Max Ink and Russell Merritt.

Mack is the artist and author of "Kabuki" and has been a cover artist for books such as "Daredevil" and "Wolverine."

Merritt, a Licking County artist, is helping coordinate the exhibit with The Works Museum Art Coordinator, Lyn Logan-Grimes."For comic fans, this exhibit will offer an opportunity to see comics as art and artinspired by comics," said Merritt.

Artists from the Columbus Comics Writers and Artists Group, "Sunday Comix," will also have art in the exhtbit.In addition to contemporary works, historical pieces and information on Ohio's role in the history of comics and cartooning will also be featured in the exhibit. 'The Works is a family destination and educational facility located at 55 S. 1st Streetin Newark, Ohio. Museum, gallery and gift shop are open Tuesday through Saturday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sundays (Oct. -April) from noon to 5:00 p.m.For more information, call 740-349-9277 or visit the web site at http://www.attheworks.org/.
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Friday, March 12, 2010

Exhibitor: Matt Feazell









1) Tell us a little about yourself.
I grew up in Iowa. I went off to college in Illinois at SIU in Carbondale where I majored in Journalism. I didn't do too good at that but I enjoyed working in the production room of the daily student paper. Eventually I started working at real newspapers and ad agencies.



2) Tell us about your comics.
I draw the adventures of The Amazing Cynicalman, America's laid-off superhero. It started off as a series of 8-page minicomics and now it's a newspaper weekly that you can also read on my web site.

3) How long have you been self-publishing?(Is any of your work available in ditto?)
I contributed to Steve Shipley's "Dynamite" ditto-zine back in '73-'74. My first self-published zine was "Fan-Thing" in 1975. I did my first photocopied comics in 1979 and the first issue of Cynicalman ("Not Available Comics" #14) was my first minicomic.

4) Why did you decide to start self-publishing your comics?
Cause it was cool! There was no decision to make. It was just the natural thing to do.

5) Who are your main artistic influences--both in and out of comics?
Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Alex Toth, Hank Ketcham, Charles Schulz, The Clash, Ramones, Talking Heads, Tim Conrad, Woody Allen, Elvis Costello,

6) What comics do you read?
Acme Novelty Library, King Kat Comics, anything self-published that people send me in the mail. That's about it.

7) What are some of your favorite books? (the kind without pictures)
"The History" by Herodotus. "The Outline of World History" by H.G. Wells. Do maps count as pictures?



8) You suprized us at SPACE last year with the Amazing Cynicalman Movie trailer. Is there any news on that project? I wanted to audition for a part but the comute is a killer.
All the latest news is under the "Movie" link on http://www.cynicalman.com/! We just finished shooting the Mom & Dad's Boarding House flashback scene. Jim Mackey and I reprised our roles as John Q. Cynicle and "Dad."

9) Why are either you or Eric Adams always the first one to sign up for SPACE each year?
I guess everybody else has to think about it for a while first. I like being able to pay with a PayPal transfer cause all my money in my Paypal account has come in from sales of minicomics and prints and I prefer to spend it on small press stuff like SPACE.

10) Will you have anything new for SPACE? Or are you working on anything new?
We will be able to show off the first three or four scenes of the Cynicalman movie. The job interview scene intercut with flashbacks of John Q. Cynicle in college at home and at a series of crappy jobs.

11) Why did the chicken cross the road?
To walk in to the bar across the street with a horse and a dog.
The bartender says "we don't serve dogs in here, you'll have to leave."
The dog says, "Come on fellas, let's get out of here."
The chicken and the horse look at each other and say "Whatta ya know, a talking dog!"
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Monday, March 8, 2010

SPACE Program Book Ad Dead Line Extention






















We will once again be giving out free program books at the door this year. The progam will contain the exhibitors table locations, the panel program and other little suprises. We're extending the deadline for ads and content to March 21, 2010. If you're interested in buying an ad just go to
http://www.backporchcomics.com/MEDIAKIT.htm for all the information.

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Friday, March 5, 2010

Exhibitor Tables Sold Out!

SOLD OUT!

Exhibitor tables are sold out. If you would like to be placed on the waiting list just fill out the application and send it and you will be notified if a table becomes available. Please do not send any money at this time. Thanks to all our exhibitors for filling up what looks like a great show!

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Thursday, March 4, 2010

SPACE Anthology 2010!























Coming soon the SPACE Anthology 2010! The SPACE Anthology is a free downloadable anthology with 24 stories by the Small Press & Alternative Comics Expo exhibitors. It will be available in a few weeks as a free download from ComicsXP. Here's the line up:

Green by Tom Dellaringa
Desmond's Comic by Joe Foo
Tiny Life by Nick Jones
Fart Tennis by Josh Blair & Nick Marino
SPACE Survival Guide by Jason Young
Searching for Colleges with my Dad by Jeff Gibson
Plastic Farm: Microcosm by Rafer Roberts
Vugz by Bob Corby
The Possum: Criminal Mind by Blair Kitchen
Heinrich & Orwell by Michael Madsen
Night Light Comics : How'd He Do That by Matt Chicorel
Spy Guy : The Death of the Floppies by Mike Kitchen
The Devil in Simon by JT Wilkins
Untitled by Rhea & Kimberly Long-Ewing
Mean Goat v.s. Timmothy's Alien by Kris Lachowski & Justin Lynch
Neko by Grace Cichy
Reed Gunther: Animal Intimidation by Chris & Shane Houghton
Double Clicked Comics by Ryan Rey Tackett & Justin Bradley
The Fearless Force: Entrapment by Steven Meyers
Tree Conversations with Spikehead by Austin Hendry
Chewski Goes Sledging by Matt Dye
Payload by Steve Ogden
Just A Man by Brian John Mitchell & Andrew White
Not Band X by Matt Young

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