Sean Collins has brought up an interesting idea... While it seems almost a no-brainer that the big 2 should be packaging certain comics in digest size to take advantage of the manga market , at least where the content matches up to the demographic, what about other publishers? Oni is doing this, as are Antarctic, SLG (i think), and others... But what about, say .. Fantagraphics?

Sean:Honestly, this is something that even altcomix publishers could learn from. I'd certainly be interested to see how some old Love & Rockets stuff, particularly Jaime's, would do in manga format; I'd imagine quite well. Blankets is a great fit as well; it may be tough to shoehorn that book into a digest without splitting it up, but could trade dress be experimented with in an attempt to catch the eye of shoujo fans? Hell, even Jim Woodring's Frank stuff might find an interesting new, young audience if repackaged appropriately. I don't want to get carried away here, but there are many possibilities. And from a publisher's viewpoint, I'd think they were both intelligent and enticing.


I know for a company like fanta with limited means, it's kind of hard to turn around and immediately consider doing a new line of reformatted books.. But man! think about it- a line of digest sized Locas books! I really believe that would find an incredible reader base.. The content is not any more risque than half the shojo manga out there, and it's actually very similar in terms of content and characters.. Plus there's a LOT of material to pull books from.. It wouldn't be a definitive archival format like the new Palomar book- it'd be almost the exact opposite, but I can only imagine fanta finding thousands of new readers from across the age spectrum getting hooked on the various episodic stories of Maggie, Hopey and the gang.  ¶ 4:31 PM 0 Comments

  hey, I just made a messageboard!!
Check it out!  ¶ 11:14 PM 0 Comments

  need to do/doing/doing in the next few weeks..

mailing sg12s out.
working on secret voice 2
printing more sg12s (a lot) to meet the demand
rescheduling classes that were purged for no reason (!!!)
working on top secret projects to make stuff, to have for APE hopefully
working on cover art for CDU #0
working on my extended story for Serializer.net, posted over 6 months starting weekly in febuary. (around 60 pages!)
printing more secret voice #1
going to APE
working on senior projects
  ¶ 6:36 AM 0 Comments

  I had a dream last night that Dave Sim was on the TCJ boards in order to defend himself from his attackers here, but he didn't sign on under his own name. So the only way anyone would have known that the screenname he was using was really dave sim would be for them to have seen the big paper signs he made and wrote on with pencil saying "Hello, this is dave sim and I have come to the comics journal board to clear up a few things" etc etc. But like I said, these paragraphs were not included in his posts, they were written on big sheets of paper and propped up on the side of the street where he lives. So no one at tcj.com knew it was really dave sim they were flaming when he came on the board!

That was part of a real dream. I had it last night, don't ask me why.  ¶ 7:33 PM 0 Comments

  I got new comics today after not going to "the store" for a month.. It's better that way, as I actually end up with more than 5 minutes worth of reading material.. I get so few regular comics it's usually not worth my time to take the trip to get them weekly. On top of that, I've fallen out of using the shitty PREVIEWS at all over the last year, because any books in there that I need to special order I can usually pick up from the creator or publisher themselves at one of the conventions I go to (admittedly not at the sweet 25% discount I get as a former employee of the local comics pimp).

Another trend in my reading I'm noticing is how much more excited I am about certain mainstream genre books than I am to read many new "alternative" comics. I mean, I subscribe to both NEW X-MEN and EVIL EYE, and I would make no bones about the fact that I think that NXM is a far better comic than EE (as long as Grant Morrison is writing it, and even when someone like Phil Jiminez is drawing it), even though I must like Richard Sala on some level or else I never would have put it on my pull list.. I just don't get as excited about pulling the Evil Eye out of it's mylar to read the convoluted 11th installment of the annual installment of "goofy-but-allegedly-creepy-pulp-pastiche-characters Killing each other off repeatedly" as I used to. Sometimes I want a really well written genre comic, even if it's disguised as a superhero comic, like NewXmen (sci-fi), Sleeper (espionage thriller), Alias (detectives), Planetary (more pulp nonsense but more fun), or whatever.

That said, the new ANGRY YOUTH COMIX (#6) is the best issue yet, andone of my favorite things I've gotten in a while. From "Sherlock McRape" ("Sherlock McRape! I need your help!" -"sure, but it'll cost you 66 rapes!") To an alien encounter where the matians come out and tell Loady and Sinus that "MARS NEEDS NIGGER SHIT" ... Turns out martians call ice cream Nigger shit! It only gets better.. but then I love that kind of absurdity/immaturity. The new BLACK HOLE was really good too, but there are unfortunately no mentions of nigger shit.  ¶ 3:39 AM 0 Comments

  2003 is gone. Well, I'm a little glad.. 2004 promises much for me personally. Anyhow, here's a list of some of my favorite books, comics and minis, and maybe I'll throw in some of the music I liked a lot this year if I don't get too tired- you know, thinking so hard.


PAPER PRODUCTS:
(in no particular order)

100%, by Paul Pope
Teratoid Heights, by Mat Brinkman
The Acme Novelty Date Book, by Chris Ware
Low Tides #6, by CF
Daredevil, by Brian Bendis & Alex Maleev
Alias, by Brian Bendis & Michael Gaydos
The Asshole, by Gary Panter
Kramers Ergot 4, by Sammy Harkham and various
Rubber Necker, by Nick Bertozzi
One Piece, by Eiichiro Oda
this crazy Japanese "mook" I got from last gasp with no title that I can figure out, but it has lots of nice illustrations in it.
Shrimpy & Paul and Friends, by Marc Bell
New X-Men, by Grant Morrison & various
Drawn and Quarterly Showcase, the Kevin Huizenga part
Sleeper, by Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips
Come one Come All & In Case of Emergency, by Souther Salazar
Ninja #3, by Brian Chippendale
The Fixer, by Joe Sacco
National Waste #3, by Leif Goldberg
AEIOU, by jeffrey brown
Isaac The Pirate, by Christophe Blain
Reggie 12 strips in Giant Robot magazine, by Brian Ralph
Those short pieces in Nest Magazine about the one legged girl, by Chris Ware

AUDIO SOUNDS:
(also in no particular order)

Outkast - Speakerboxx/The Love Below
Fannypack - So Stylistic
The Rapture - Echoes
Themselves - No Aiffs remix album
The Gold SParkle Band - Fugues & Flowers
Jennifer Gentle - Funny Creatures Lane
Peaches - Fatherfucker
V/A - Lost In Translation OST
Alvarius B. & Cerberus Shoal - The Vim and Vigour of Alvarius B. & Cerberus Shoal
We Ragazzi - The Ache
Dwayne Sodahberk - Unfortunately
Beans - Tomorrow Right Now
GOGOGO Airheart - Green cover S/T re-release
Dance Disaster Movement - We Are From Nowhere
Nettle - Firecamp Stories Remixes
V/A - DFA Compilation #1
Daedelus - Rethinking the weather
DM + Jemini - Ghetto Pop Life
Lightning Bolt - Wonderful Rainbow
Kinski / Acid Mothers Temple split CD

and more I've forgotten, I'm sure. Also, this is the kind of thing where I feel the need to say- especially with the music- that I am not making this my BEST OF 2003 list, somehow. That is to say, technically speaking. Because it's just a big list of stuff that I liked, and I just made it and I didn't use the golden mean to figure it all out.

Also, you may notice that my list of comics has lots of genre material and superheroes mixed in with all the artsy stuff. This is because I am extremely cool and not stuck up. And everyone should have an open mind, even us art fags. ;)  ¶ 1:21 AM 0 Comments