Chris Ware was the subject of a 25 minute documentary on French TV recently which a Ware fan has obtained, converted and put online. It's mainly interviews in English with subtitles so no language barriers, and as well as being, you know, a Chris Ware interview it's interesting to compare the approach to BBC2's recent look at David B.

It's a 113mb Quicktime file distributed via BitTorrent. If that''s greek to you and the explanation on the site doesn't help and you're desperate to see it, let me know and I'll hold your hand.

Matt Madden, of Exercises In Style fame, is interviewed over at Comixpedia, the online comics magazine.

Link cribbed from the ever excellent Egon

Last Saturday's Guardian magazine, Weekend, contained an exclusive Sacco strip. It is available online in the form of a pdf, but please note, it is 37.4 mb. If that is too much for dial-up users, back issues info is available here, although I'm sure someone could sort something out somehow.

Darren Worrow writes:

Toonedelic Times has just released issue 5. It is availble for £2/2e/US$4. cheques payable to "D.L Worrow" from: Toonedelic Times, 18a High Street, Devizes, Wilts, SN10 1AT, Uk.

The issue, with full colour cover has contributions from Rich Nairn of Pantomime Press, Sally Anne Hickman of Cheese Comics, John Miers of Slab comix, Tea Krulos of Riverwurst, Joff, Steve Smith of Oink!, Mike Knowles and Roy Conolly. We have our ususal alternative comic reviews, pop whinges and an all new, 10 page Rat Arsed And Shit Faced story entitled "Human Traffic Jam."

The issue will be on sale online with Smallzone and in the US through Quimbys within the coming month.

I hope to attend this years webcomixthing so if you spot me, stop me and buy one!!

The R. Crumb Handbook from MQ Publications is published next week, and to support it a number of events of interest are planned:

The R. Crumb Handbook featured in exclusive Guardian G2 series w/c 7th March

The Culture Show featuring R. Crumb, BBC 2, 7.00pm 10th March

The R. Crumb Exhibition, Bonhams’ Gallery, New Bond St. 9th – 18th March

Crumbland at Foyles. Mrs Robert Crumb in conversation with Pete Poplaski at Foyles Bookshop, Charing cross Road, London. Tuesday March 15th 6.30pm. £5/£4 conc

The NFT Crumb film season 16th -22nd March

Stella McCartney previews R. Crumb T-shirt, Bruton Street 17th March

The Guardian Interview at the NFT: Robert Crumb with Steve Bell 18th March

R. Crumb exhibition at Whitechapel Art Gallery 1st April – 22nd May

The Paul Morris Gallery also has a selection of Crumb online.

Q International, an Italian based publication describing itself as 'the first wordless comics magazine in the world', writes to let us know about their submission plans for a special issue for the Winter Olympic Games, taking place in Turin, Italy, in February 2006.

Theme: Winter Sports
The best stories will be published in the magazine.
We don't pay for printed stories.
If you are only artists, and not writers, too, we can give you a plot.
Stories must be in black and white, totally wordless.
Height-base ratio of each page 1,46.
First deadline: April, 30th, 2005.
Don't send original art, but good xeroxes, or Cd files (tiff or jpg) for Mac. Send to:
G. Peruzzo
c/o Q Press
via Saluzzo 20
10125 Torino
Italy
e-mail: qpress@qpress.info

The UK Web and Mini Comix Thing in London is coming up soon, March 19th to be precise. The current list of exibitors is looking as eclectic as last year, if not more so with the likes of Weebl and Bob attending along with the usual suspects.

There's a really handy map for those who got a little lost last year. Mile End station is your best bet. And it's £2.50 in.

Personally I've been roped into managing the gate, so if you're going I'll definitely see you.

From The Guardian web watch:

Strinberg & Helium is a witty web cartoon that features August Stringberg and "a joyous, floating friend created to brighten his day". It is so popular that it tops anything by the Swedish writer on the all-important Google rankings.
www.strindbergandhelium.com

Art on the move

Grafik Dynamo is an artwork by Kate Armstrong and Michael Tippett that loads live images from blogs and online news sources into a live action comic strip. The site, inspired by the work of Ray Liechtenstein [sic], is constantly refreshed with new material.
http://turbulence.org/Works/dynamo

Jason Little has started serialising the his second Bee comic, "Motel Art Improvement Service", following on from 2002's "Shutterbug Follies". Two pages so far, looking good.

A single on-line stop for all things Strip For Me, as the blurb says. Inside you'll find some of the best strips from the first fourteen issues of Douglas Noble's internationally acclaimed small press comic, Strip For Me, plus some never before seen strips that are exclusive to the website. Plus it updates each and every Sunday with at least one new page – but more often more.

Doug also hopes to be able to take orders via the website very shortly, so watch this space.

From The Political Cartoon Gallery:

Armengol, born in Catalonia, Spain in 1909, first became politicised whilst attending the Madrid School of Art. Distressed by Spain’s severe poverty, be began to criticise the Monarchy and the landowners through his cartoons. Armengol was a passionate Republican and after General Franco’s triumph in the Spanish Civil War, he fled to France and swore never to return to his homeland until democracy had been restored. The French threatened to send him back to Spain if he did not join the French Foreign Legion. Given no alternative, he agreed and was posted to the Sahara where he produced a series of outstanding ink and watercolour illustrations, documenting the realities of life in the Foreign Legion. In May 1940, Armengol ended up in Narvik, part of an ill-fated Allied expedition designed to pre-empt a Nazi invasion of Norway. The expedition was a dismal failure. Evacuated from Norway, Armengol ended up being disembarked from a troopship in Liverpool. Once in Britain, Armengol was recruited by the Ministry of Information as a graphic designer and political cartoonist. Throughout the war, his cartoons appeared in many publications, including France (the Free French newspaper), the Chicago Sun, Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph. Armengol continued cartooning well into the 1980s, lampooning Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet ministers. He died in 1995, his funeral attended by his many friends and admirers from around the world.

‘Through Spanish Eyes’ opens to the Public on 24 February 2005
and runs until 19 May 2005. Free to the public.

The Political Cartoon Gallery, 32 Store Street, London WC1E 7BS, is open Monday to Friday 9am – 5.30pm and on Saturdays between 11.30am – 5.30pm. Phone Dr Tim Benson on 020 7580 1114 for further details or images email him at info@politicalcartoon.co.uk

Over at the Guardian Online Web Watch bit Jack Schofield profiled this site, that I thought looked of interest.

www.lookatbook.com

N.B. Requires Flash plugin

"For 36 weeks, a sketchbook was sent in random order between four artists, two in Brooklyn and two in Belfast. Each time, each artist filled a spread, and the much-battered book travelled more than 60,000 miles by the end of the project on February 2. The results are available on the web, where you can bring up each spread and read or listen to the artist's comments. You can also pay a virtual visit to the exhibition of the pages at the Laganside Weir in Belfast, or follow links to the individual artist's websites, or buy reproduction prints or copies of the book."

I stumbled across ilXor.com, which seems to be some sort of bulletin board that hosts an I Love Comics board, which can be subscribed to with RSS. It looks interesting.

Engine Comics write to let us know that:

Both the AUK newsblog and the ENGINE COMICS newsblog have both been recently updated with new previews of upcoming projects due for release in May, and if you still haven't read them yet, catch Januarys' Alan Moore and Ben Dickson interviews.

Please note that you need to click the images on the interviews page to access the interviews.

An entry on Tom Spurgeon's blog, The Comics Reporter, links to a Nicholas Garland commentary piece for the online Telegraph on a poll to find the Greatest British Political Cartoon.

Following Tom's link to The Political Cartoon Society, I discovered the poll itself on www.historytoday.com, direct link here. It's in the March issue, but it appears to be a vote from the shortlist of ten or submit your own deal. The shortlist, drawn up by Tim Benson, founder of the Political Cartoon Society, is:

1) James Gillray ‘Plum Pudding in Danger’ 1805; Print (click on each title to see picture.)

2) Sir John Tenniel ‘Dropping the Pilot’ March 29th, 1890; Punch

3) Bruce Bairnsfather ‘Well, If you knows of a better ’ole, Go to it’ November 24th, 1915; The Bystander

4) Will Dyson ‘Peace and Future Canon Fodder’ May 17th, 1919; Daily Herald

5) Leonard Raven-Hill ‘The Gap in the Bridge’ December 10th, 1919; Punch

6) David Low ‘Rendezvous’ September 20th 1939; Evening Standard

7) Strube ‘“Is it all right now, Henry?” “Yes, not even scratched.” ’August 29th, 1940; Daily Express

8) Philip Zec ‘“The Price of Petrol has increased by one penny” – Official’ March 1942; Daily Mirror

9) Philip Zec ‘Here you are! Don’t lose it again!’ May 8th, 1945; Daily Mirror

10) Vicky ‘Introducing: Supermac’ November 6th, 1958; Evening Standard

Note:

Do you agree? Is there a brilliant cartoon Tim Benson has forgotten? History Today readers are invited to vote for their choice of the best political cartoon of all time. All entrants will be submitted to a prize draw for an original drawing by David Low.

You need to log-in or register at history today

The competition closes on March 31st 2005.

Paul Schroeder writes in to tell us:

The latest instalment in Mike Weller's American Mythology: The Making of Superman, 3 'They'll get to see Joe's illustrations too.' is here. Zeke S Clough has a new edition of his Pet Static Comic Available & there are updates to his comix.org.uk site here, with new material (colour pictures) starting here.

Stolen Sharpie Revolution is a 160pg DIY guide to creating and putting out zines.

"Alex Wrekk compiled this DIY guide that teaches how to make zines, understand zine culture, and make your own zine related crafts. The stuff you know, stuff you don't know, stuff you didn't know you knew. Just about everything with a focus on zines. Tips and tricks for photocopying, doing creative layouts, mail art, zine ettiquette, how to deal with distros, making paper, starting/working a distro, how to put out a record, how to make your own envelopes and stationary, binding ideas, advertising ideas, cures for writers block and tons more."

After The Grauniad, The Observer takes a turn at reviewing Epileptic.

Review by David Thompson, who also provided the pointer.

"In keeping with the episodic nature of the comic form and, of course, with real life, Epileptic offers no tidy resolution. It does, however, reveal a formidable talent and demonstrates the potential of a medium usually populated by superheroes and anthropomorphic mice."

A mammoth amount of information has come into the bugpowder email address, bugblog@gmail.com, and I'm just going to compile it into one huge post for your edification.

James Nash, The Optimist

James writes in with the news that all three of his comics are now being sold at Gosh! Comics in London. The comics in question are;
June 03 – May 04 £4.00
June – September 04 £3.00
In the Time of your Life £3.00

James has also launched a blog, The Optimist

"...hasn’t got a lot of content as yet but will be updated twice weekly and will also include any news that I have whilst I’m getting a proper site together. Anyway keep checking it because it will become apparent eventually."

Chris Gordon and The Dog's Egg

Chris writes:

"I really don’t know if my creation is of any interest whatsoever to you, but I put a load of my puerile cartoon strips together with a desk top publishing program, added some other, equally silly content, and published it as a PDF e-comic/e-zine. I’ve had to set up a fairly basic website for it, but hopefully it will do the trick. If you could take a look, and perhaps chuck a bit of feedback my way, I’d be grateful.

The website is: http://thedogsegg.freestarthost.com

In case you’re wondering, it’s kind of a one-man Viz. Only free. And possibly not funny. Good value for money, though."

Lars Arrhenius

Pete wanted to post a link to a Lars Arrhenius exhibition. I'm not familiar with him, but here's another link to learn more from.

Engine Comics Adds Interviews

Over at the Engine Comics website two interviews have been added, accessible through these direct links:

Alan Moore

"Watchmen was kind of clever – I was going through one of my clever periods – probably emotional insecurity, I thought: “People will laugh at me ‘cos I'm doing superhero comics. I'd better make ‘em really clever, then no-one will laugh”. (laughter)."

Ben Dickson

"Alfred Hitchcock would have to be the biggest influence in terms of how to tell a story, also Stanley Kubrick. Hitchcock said some great things about telling stories that grip people, and Falling Sky adopts several of them."

New Blogs

Zum Comics noted these additions to the comics blogosphere:

UK: cartoon county

UK: subatomic-phuz

US: talk about comics

Anyone got anymore?

A Movement On Poopsheet

Rick Bradford advises us of email and snail mail address changes. Full details on The Poopsheet website. Well worth checking out for news, reviews and the purchasing of small press.

Taiyo Matsumoto Vs. Paul Pope

The Comics Interpreter informs us of the glorious comics mashup in PDF featuring Taiyo Matsumoto Vs. Paul Pope (w/ a dash of Hugo Pratt). Enjoy...

(A comics mashup is when an artist is remixed into the work(s) of another, often disparate, artist to create an entirely new sequential work showcasing the distinctive elements of both. I didn't know that.)

Metaphrog

I blew this one. Metaphrog are on tour, and yesterday were Belgium for a hey-o-hansen concert + louis 16mm film animation performance by assi:metri.

Apologies to all, and so instead I plug Metaphrog's website, and if you want to be kept up to date on their travels, sign up for their mailing list by emailing metaphrog@metaphrog.com or metaphrog1@hotmail.com with the header "mailing list".

Cardigan Comics Manifesto

It's circa 2003 but it's new to me, so it might be to you.

Australian comics are fiercely local reworkings of an international form. They terrify the natives and befuddle overseas observers.

Secret Friend Society is live

Hope Larson writes:

"Secret Friend Society is Live! And you had better be there!

http://www.secretfriendsociety.com

This site, which serializes comics from myself and Kean Soo, is where all my love and energy has been going for the last couple months. Please check it out and help spread the word!"

Book Of Lists!

Paul Rainey writes:

"Hello

Some Mothers Do 'ave 'em! The first completed list of 2005 is now on-line and available for you to read, and it's Dad Facts!

Also, I've decided to make comic strips that have previously been hidden away in my drawing pad available to you to read either on line or in print. The first of these strips is called Cat Man and can be read here.

Finally, please remember that www.bookoflists.co.uk is updated daily with a brand new panel.

Thanks"

Kingtractorfilms Press Release

Shawn Granger of Kingtractorfilms.com gives us a link to this press release:

Comic Book To Feature Missouri’s Elderly Serial Killers

Little Bee

Jason Little writes:

"I have just posted the first episode of "Motel Art Improvement Service", the second "Bee" story, to http://www.BeeComix.com.

News for how you can subscribe to BeeComix announcements is also on the website.

Thank you for reading."

Morrison Comic Mentioned In Guardian

Zum Comics writes again to let us know The Guardian puffs Morrison's latest comic, Vimanarama.

"Forget Superman, Wonderwoman and even the Incredibles. The new kid on the block from one of America's "big two" comic publishers is a teenage Muslim from Bradford, where his father runs a successful chain of corner shops."

Grant Morrison's website
Philip Bond's website

Stolen

Rob Dunlop chips in with:

"it would be cool if you could mention the Stolen comic. It's a 16 page promo comic based on the upcoming videogame of the same name, and it'll be in the big games mags over the next month. Peter Lumby was the artist on it, and he also draws the Tozzer comics, which is why I'm pretty excited about it. Here's a link, and there's 4 pages of artwork there too."

And finally...

Night Warrior

Paul Burke is keen for us to know about Night Warrior, from fledgling company Raging Psycho Comics. The company are hoping to produce a printed version at some point.

Ian Sansom takes a look at the collected edition of David B's Epileptic.

As a work of evisceration, as a ripping and widening of the soul, and as an honest appeal to the self and to the great, yawning emptiness that you might call God, or you might call the Other, or you might indeed call the Reader, there shall probably be no more profound a work published this year than David B's Epileptic.

Of possible interest is this report from The St Petersberg Times on the Russian Comic Book scene.

"Comics were regarded as a bourgeois, non-Soviet genre. I don't think there was any particular reason why this was the case. Of course literature has always been highly regarded. Comics were possibly associated with American mass production and propaganda, she said."

James Morris, aka Judge Jampot has started a group on the photo-sharing-community site Flickr for people who post their comics on there. So if you're the sort of person who ignores that part in the Flickr ToC about only uploading photographs and not line drawings and the like, then The Comics Group is definitely for you.

You can only register for updates there, but that image still sends a shiver down the spine. You need Flash to see it, btw.

Over at The Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon has welcomed Bart Beaty to the site, to afford Bart the opportunity to see if the blogging life suits him.

His first entry is an essay on the 2005 Angouleme Festival.

"But the pleasure of Angouleme has always been found in the exhibits, which are one of the hallmarks of the festival. This year was a massive disappointment on this front, with a series of uninspired offerings this year."

The bumper-to-bumper panels of this Vancouver comic jam prove an interesting diversion.

The Guardian get around to reviewing City Of Glass, the graphic novel adaptation of Auster's first part of his New York Trilogy, as adapted by Karasik and Mazzucchelli.

"City of Glass has apparently been adapted into several (unsuccessful) screenplays, but it's difficult to imagine any director having the courage or imagination to produce a movie half as visually inventive as this comic."

Martin Eden writes with news of his Omen.

New O Men issue now available! Hold onto your hats – it’s the most shocking and violent O Men issue to date! Yep, as Volume One of the award-nominated series approaches its explosive conclusion, the spotlight falls on popular character Miss Scarlet as she takes on the entire Vicious Circle!

Ordering details via the revamped website, now at new address

Matt Broersma has updated his webpage to include details of his strip for the Drawn & Quarterly Showcase anthology, 'The Mummy'.

Neil Hood writes to mention it's for charity...

Glasgow Comic & Card Mart SAT Feb 5th.

ALAN GRANT, writer of Batman, Judge Dredd, Lobo, and currently BRODIE's LAW, will be in attendance to promote that and other work he's got upcoming, and will be especially happy to sign for fans.
We can also confirm the attendance of FRANK QUITELY - Frank has just finished doing WE 3 with Grant Morrison and is teaming up with Grant again to take over Superman after the Azzarello/Lee storyline finishes!! We will also have NULSH, an excellent cartoonist who is producing a 4 page mini comic to mark the occasion. There will also be fantasy face painting by Tom Green.

The day will have a TSUNMAI Appeal theme with 1/3 of admission price(£1.50) going to appeal fund and other fund raising activities on the day. If you only go to one Mart this year, make it THIS one!

Henry Wood Hall Glasgow 11.30am-4pm.