Size Matters reviews Tom Gaul's Three Very Small Comics vol 2.

Chris Reynolds has put together three Mauretenia collections: Adventures from Mauretenia, Cinema Detectives and House of the Moon Queen. They're available from Lulu books, an American based print-on-demand service, as printed books or downloads.

I was sent a review copy of Pictures and Words - New Comic Art and Narrative Illustration by Roanne Bell and Mark Sinclair so I reviewed it.

An SPX overview from Size Matters lists a whole bunch of minis and thus gives a nice snapshot of the US scene.

Debra Boyask has posted up details of the Midwinter Comics Retreat set for the weekend of December 2nd-4th 2005. It's essentially a bunch of cartoonists in a Cotswold farmhouse drawing comics - keen idea if ever there was one. 16 people are already on the list - contact Debra if you're interested in going.

Cool photo of booty from SPX

Sean of Paper Tiger Comix writes on the BugList to say that the Paper Tiger Xmas special has been cancelled and they're concentrating on issue four of the anthology, the deadline for which is October 31st. They also have a Yahoo group for contributors to join.

Willie Hewes writes: "Available now on the GothBoy site: the third GB mini! All you need to get this unique publication is a printer, a pair of scissors and a staple. GothBoy chronicles the surreal adventures of a morose young man and his friends. It was a webcomic for several years, and now lives on as a series of very small comics."

I'm just going to repost this verbatim from Kottke: The NY Times Magazine has launched The Funny Pages, their comics+ section. PDFs of the comics are available online...here's the first Chris Ware strip. They're also podcasting and the first episode is an interview with Ware by John Hodgman, assisted by organist and radio-man Jonathan Coulton.

Issue eight of the Glasgow based anthology Khaki Shorts is available to order featuring a whole bunch of stuff including veteran 'toonist John Miller.

Long time small press cartoonist Darryl Cunningham is posting stories and, of more relevance to us, strips on his LiveJournal about his job nursing on a dementia ward. He writes:

"After five years working as a health care assistant in an acute psychiatric ward, I decided to train to be a psychiatric nurse (I'm now half way through the three year course). Mental Health is a great area to work if your interested in people. It's no ordinary job. From day to day, you can experience boredom, anger, fear, hilarity, frustration, occasional violence, and guilt (I've witnessed two suicides and felt helpless both times). But if you want life experience, short of going into the army or the police force, it's the only game in town. In mental health, you really find out what you're made of."

Mark Woodland of FutureQuake discovers BugPowder and writes...

"We are an Indie-Publisher and currently publish FutureQuake twice a year and have a new comic being launched at the Brighton Comic Expo in November this year (more details below). Our aim is to be an outlet for 'up-and-coming' artists and writers mainly from the UK and Ireland, but we have recently widened our submissions to include work from around the world and we have also been lucky enough to attract some professionals who have been willing to give up their time (free of charge) to provide us with work. We offer constructive criticism to everyone that submits, not just those who get published and have had several of our contributors go on to be professionally published.

"FutureQuake #5 is being launched at the Brighton Comic Expo at the new low price of £3.50 (!) in conjunction with our new project; MangaQuake. Featuring five all new strips and a full colour cover from some amazing all new talents. One of these is Japanese artist Michiru Morikawa, of whom John McCrea has said 'She's going to be a superstar'. With a forward by Jonathan Clements, author of The Anime Encyclopaedia, this 48 page comic will retail at an amazingly low price of £2.50."

A glowing appreciation of Jason Shiga's comics including a movie of his interactive comic Hello World. (via)

Doctormondo2000 writes...
"Bristol based Publishers Dead By Dawn are releasing Issue one of the Dead By Dawn Quarterly, in time for Halloween. Editors Andy Richmond (Dusk, Winslow Cairns, Naked Magazine and even The Kochalka Puppet Theatre) and Shane Chebsey (Smallzone) are currently accepting submissions for what has been dubbed a 24 day comic. The Horror Anthology will be available from the creators at the Brighton Expo."

Warren Ellis Is Going To Have Me Killed. Slowly. - Scans of Warren Ellis' small press comics from 1984. (via)

Nick Abadzis has updated his site with some 'Russian stuff', sketchbooks and previews of upcoming comics. Well worth a look.

James Vallely writes in to introduce himself. "I'm a Cartoonist from Co. Galway in Ireland who has had my work featured in a number of small press publications including Skacomix, Goalpost and Fun Stuff. My site is entirely Flash based and features short animations and an interactive comic strip 'Lucky Island'." Fun Stuff #1 was reviewed here.

Will Dawbarn has started posting his new strip The Barnstables daily as a blog.

The Fantagraphic blog has details of the Chris Ware strips appearing in the New Yorker which we won't get to see for "a long long time" (unless some kindly soul scans them). Rusty Brown is one while Building Stories is the other. The latter sounds really keen.

The Asia-Europe Project is being run by the Asia-Europe foundation to "deepen understanding amongst Asian and European creators, storytellers, artists and communicators by encouraging cross-cultural exchange and production". They're using comics as their main vehicle and are open to submissions. (via Baz)

Barry Renshaw writes...

"We want to expand the current enginecomics.co.uk website with some new material. We have a batch of interviews that we aim to add on a monthly basis, as well as a few articles (though we do tend to slip by a few weeks as you can see). We also want to add some new webcomics on there, as we're kinda short on that area at the moment.

"What i mean by webcomics is a self contained tale, either in the normal portrait A4 style (like Herohunter) or panel by panel (like Axel Heysts Gwendoline). So it can be of any subject, ideally colour, just a good story really, and that have not been available elsewhere.

"We also need self contained 8 page strips for FUSION, as we're getting a few new artists in (though we always need more!). So if you've an idea lying around that could be reworked, polish it up and send it my way."

Send stuff to Baz at this email.

I've set out a framework for the British small press comics entry on Wikipedia. It's by no means comprehensive and quite possibly contentious, but it's a start.

Brighton-based Paper Tiger Comics are putting together an Xmas special of their anthology. "This can be as imaginative or as subversive as you like, whether it be a comment on anti-xmas consumerist bollocks, twisted yuletide tales, a story with christmas simply as the backdrop or just a funny comic on the xmas theme." The deadline for submissions is November 21st. They're also looking for strips for the regular issue #4, to be in by November 1st. Submission details are here.

Paul Gravett's new book, Graphic Novels: Stories to Change Your Life, is out in October in what looks to be the same format as his Manga book. There's a related talk at the ICA on October 26th. Jenni has more info.

more previews of Andi Watson & Simon Gane's Paris can be found here

Doonesbury-gate is over. The strip returns next week. Victory in under 14 hours!

The Comics Reporter picks up on the Guardian / Doonesbury debacle while I have a big strop.

As part of their (actually rather good) redesign and shrinkage, the Guardian newspaper dropped Doonesbury this morning after running it for decades. While this is their prerogative the fact that is was apparently done for space reasons is, to be frank, bloody outrageous, especially from a newspaper that has a long history of supporting quality cartoonists. If you think so too (and this isn't really about Doonesbury, more the way comic strips are treated by newspapers) you can leave a comment on this blog post, email or phone on 0800 839 100.

This has been your BugPowder complaining campaign for 2005.

Leonie O'Moore writes...

"Just to let you know those crazy cats at There Goes Tokyo... have been invited to attend this years Waygood Art fayre, which is a chance for artists who collaborate to get together, share ideas and show off their work.
We will be unveiling our new comic, a 12 hour comic by Leonie O'Moore, Andy Smith and Nigel Auchterlounie. We will also be selling limited edition artists prints in association with hole editions and there will an artists sketchbook made during the event which will be raffled at the closing party."

The Comixpedia WebcomicWiki has been running for a week or so now and is looking quite impressive, if not quite comprehensive yet. Have a browse through the Big List and if your webcomic isn't there yet, add it! (via)

Since Herc was the only person to submit a BugPowder logo he gets the spot. If you don't like it, submit your own.

Jim Woodring Audio Interview

Pictures and Words: New Comic Art and Narrative Illustration is a new book by Roanne Bell and Mark Sinclair of the Creative Review that looks to be the overview book for this era, or something. Will tell more when we see a copy, though the nice cover by Tom Gauld is a major plus. More info here.

The Comics Journal #270 has a Jessica Able interview

Paul Burke writes " Just want to announce my new blog site is now up and running. As Staff Writer and Co-Executive producer for Raging Psycho Comics it promises to be an insight into the mind of a webcomic creator, with plenty of news and sneek peeks at upcoming issues and titles. There will also be an ongoing production diary for the UK Film Council funded Digital Shorts animation Blasted Angels which I will be writing and directing."

Slim Palmer writes "Hot on the heels of not one, or two, but three short stories published, in August, through American POD publisher Lulu Slim Palmer, who does a cartoon called The Surreal World of Albert writes to say that a collection of the illustrated short stories based on the cartoon has been published as a Print On Demand book with UK based Diggory Press - available from September 14th for £9.99."

Some new comics availble from A Bit Nice including Ohagi Mochiko (by Toko), Milkkitten and Gloomy Delight

wilBur's website has recently been updated with a backlog whole bunch of cartoons for your enjoyment...
and
he's also gone & created one of these Livejoural things showcasing his semi-sort-of-not-really auotobiographical strip the barnstables'

An hour long interview with James Kochalka from 2000 has been posted on the Kochalkaholic blog. "For the most part this is an unedited and somewhat disjointed chat that will probably be most of interest to hardcore Kochalkaholics who just want to hear the guy eat pizza and talk to two strangers about his comics, his music, his life, his superpower, and whatever else that came to mind"

Birmingham-based cartoonist Matt Broersma is in the Masters degree show at the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, Gosta Green on the 20th - 21st September, 10am to 5pm. Details, map (pdf), flyer.

Read Yourself RAW is an Alan Moore special this month, bringing together his 1984 feature on Arcade, a transcript of the Brain Eno / Moore Chain Reaction interview and a recommended reading list.

UK smallpress minx, Lucy Sweet, has a chick lit novel out in the shops 'Have Love Will Travel'. Read an interview with the multi-talented comics starlet here. (Amazon link)