It Was the War of the Trenches, by Jacques Tardi, is available in English for the first time.
The graphic novel depicts the life of the average soldier in the trenches of World War I. The artwork looks gorgeous and the story is apparently quite harrowing. A nice big hardcover version seems the perfect presentation.
Here are more photos of the book.
I’ve pilfered the vault over at BoingBoing again because Cory Doctorow posted this hilarious comic by Stephen Collins about how a post-apocalyptic future world will view the Internet. The cartoonist does lots of work for the U.K.’s Prospect Magazine. I like the inky black outline drawings. Mr. Collins has an off-the-side kind of humor that takes me quite a while to actually get because I’m not always the brightest bulb. I’ve always felt that the best cartoonists are never immediately funny. It’s the slow-burn ones that put a little confusion into the picture that really get me.
Cartoonist Lucy Knisley has a comic online called ‘Downloading Optimism: Pessimism Virus Detected.’ It’s a funny but very direct assault on the tendency in some quarters to fret and worry about the emergence of digital books and online reading as the driving force behind the new world of publishing. She doesn’t understand why some of our most creative writers and artists are feeling so gloomy about their prospects in a digital publishing world.
She’s been reading enormous amounts of online text since she was a little girl. Her point of view is dead on the money. One little thing I know is that I began publishing for kids online back in 1995. The kids came and were reading lots of stories. Let’s say a bunch of them were only 5. Well, they’re 20 now, and they are making it plain that they want their books on screens just as often as they might want them on paper. You ignore them at your peril.
I found this comic via Boing Boing
Marvel Comics has a Create Your Own Comic tool that lets you put together either a simple 3-panel strip or an entire 22-page comic book. You don’t actually draw anything, but you choose layouts, backgrounds, characters and objects. You can re-size everything and layer objects on top of each other. It’s great for trying one’s hand at designing a layout that tells a story effectively. So write your comic book and start designing!
Smith Magazine has another Harvey Pekar comic with drawings by Sean Pryor. It’s called Searchin’. I buy every book Pekar publishes. His collected editions keep me fascinated for weeks because I try to read them slowly to make them last.
Pekar makes comic books out of the ordinary. Of course they are much more interesting than anything Marvel has published in forty years. He’s actually one of America’s finest short story writers. No, wait, he is America’s finest short story writer.
I don’t think there is a more significant American comic book writer than Harvey Pekar. Now he is making comics on the web. Smith Magazine offers the first installment of what promises to be a series. It’s called The Pekar Project.
The first story is Pekar & Crumb: Talkin’ ’bout Art. It’s drawn by Tara Seibel.
This might be the best thing on the web today.
Robert Berry is adapting Ulysses by James Joyce into web comic form. It’s very watercolory and seems to capture that disjointed free-floating narrative of the novel pretty well.
I found this via Literary Kicks.
Drawing Words and Writing Pictures: Making Comics: Manga, Graphic Novels, and Beyond
This is a book by Jessica Abel and Matt Madden that leads the reader through a full tutorial in writing and drawing comics. It includes many examples and information about what materials to use for your comics. There are 15 lessons in all which cover everything from writing your story, to laying out your panels, to lettering for dialog.
DC Comics picked Neil Gaiman to write the final two issues of their monthly Detective Comics. The two-part series is called Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? It chronicles the death of Batman. This July, both issues of the comic will go on sale in a hardcover version. After a period of no Batman comics, DC intends to reboot the franchise with new stories. That sounds interesting.
The Gaiman story about Batman’s death sounds fascinating and the artwork looks incredible. The issues were pencilled by Andy Kubert and inked by Scott Williams. This looks like Batman comics just the way I like to see them.
Wired.com has a nice lengthy interview with Neil Gaiman about the creation of the story and his perspective on turning great comicbooks into movies.
Night Zero is a photo comic book aimed at older readers. It’s set in the months following a deadly viral outbreak. It follows the lives of survivors in Seattle, Washington who barricade themselves against the terrors of the outside world and try to build a future for themselves. The novel is riveting and beautifully designed.
The collaborative team of artists shoots the photos on location with a full cast and crew, then uses high dynamic range photography and a process called tonemapping to give the comic a style that is both photography and illustration. The effect really catches the eye and draws the reader in immediately. I found myself turning pages quickly and not wanting the story to end. It’s a very violent, gory zombie story that is not for the very young or the very squeamish. That’s what a good zombie story should be. The two lead characters are vivid and exciting. The actresses who play them are doing a wonderful job and I will continue to follow the adventures of these two in their zombie world!
This thing is just fantastic. You can get all the episodes here.
Marvel.com is posting all the original Spider Man television episodes for free viewing. They originally aired in 1967 on ABC. They are actually very good. Highly recommended. This is the first episode.
Cartoonist Matt Bors has posted a funny AIG cartoon on his blog. He’s got a whole site full of these. He was inspired for this strip by the AIG executive who recently resigned and whined about how the company was treating him. I guess I’d whine too if I woke up one day and realized I was evil.
Adventures in Cartooning is a book that teaches kids about cartooning and comics in general. The basic idea is that you can draw comics if you can doodle. It’s drawn like a doodle comic and it goes over drawing, laying out comic panels, storytelling, and having confidence in your own doodling skills.
There’s an online preview here.
Thanks to BoingBoing for posting this.
Artist Dave Gibbons did a video workshop revealing how he paints the Watchmen character Rorschach using digital tools. The video was produced for ImagineFX magazine which is dedicated to fantasy, sci-fi, comic and manga artists.
