Archive | Bay Area Comic News

Escapist seeks local creators for Small Print Fest

EscapistThe Escapist is putting a call out for local creators who have a minicomic and are interested in being part of their annual Small Print Festival:

If you are a local comics creator and have printed a minicomic, please contact us by October 15th, 2013 and let us know if you are interested in being a part of this event. Please give us examples of your work. The Festival may run both Friday, November 29th and Saturday, November 30th depending on the amount of people who sign up. The first event ran two nights and was lots of fun with readings and projections on the screen. Be a part it, network with other creators, showcase your work, and sell your mini-comics at the store.

Contact us at hello at the escapistcomics.com, call us at 510-652-6642, or come by the store. You probably should call us first before stopping by. We may want to carry your minicomics before the event.

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Doctor Lollipop debuts on Cartoon Hangover

Doctor LollipopWhat happens when a raptor finds his way to the Fancy Forest and gets rumblies in his tumblies due to eating too many talking animals? He calls on the medical expertise of unicorn physician Doctor Lollipop, of course.

Doctor Lollipop is the creation of San Francisco’s Miss Kelly Martin.  On Thursday, Martin’s independently published and distributed comic made the leap to short animated film with it’s debut episode on Cartoon Hangover. Readers of Martin’s two issue comic will see some familiar faces in the first episode including Nurse Crackers the rabbit and surgical intern Rococo the raccoon (who has a chainsaw). The cartoon also introduces the “crazy handsome” Doctor Woodsman who Doctor Lollipop is forced to rely upon due to hooves not being “fashioned for the type of incision work needed.”

The second issue of Doctor Lollipop is available at Martin’s store envy shop.

Fun fact: Doctor Lollipop is voiced by Chris Diamantopoulos who recently played ostrich farmer Marky Bark in the fourth season of Arrested Development.

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Sarah Clark brings baseball to the Cartoon Art Museum

Panel from Sarah Clark's "Season Ticket Diaries"

Panel from Sarah Clark’s “Season Ticket Diaries”

At the start of this year’s baseball season Oakland-based illustrator Sarah Clark found herself with season tickets to the A’s. Seeing so many games in her future she decided to document her summer of baseball through short comic strips called “Season Ticket Diaries.” She’s currently up to her 18th game of the season which documents the August 4 showdown with the Texas Rangers. Clark has been tapped to be the next “Cartoonist-in-Residence” at the Comic Art Museum on September 21. Visitors to the museum will be able to view her illustrations, watch her work, and ask questions. She’ll be at the museum between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., which also happens to be the same time the A’s will be playing the Minnesota Twins. Be sure to thank her for choosing to spend part of her day at the museum instead of at the ball park.

More information on Sarah Clark is available at sarahclarkart.net. You can follow her on Twitter @sjeanetteclark.

Comic Art Museum
655 Mission St.
San Francisco, CA 94105
415-CAR-TOON
Website: www.cartoonart.org
Twitter: @cartoonart
Facebook:
cartoonartmuseum

APE 2013 exhibitor list now available

Alternative Press ExpoBadges officially went on sale for the Alternative Press Expo on Tuesday and this morning the exhibitors list was released. The Alternative Press Expo enters it’s 20th year of staying true to its mission of being focused on truly independent creators and publishers. This will be the last year for APE at the San Francisco Concourse Exhibition Center, a venue it’s called home since 2004, due to plans to raze the building. It’s not yet known if APE will remain in San Francisco in 2014. Special guests this year include Bill Griffith, Diane Noomin, Raina Telgemeier, and Dan Vado. More than 400 exhibitors are expected on the floor this year with a complete list available here. Over the two days of APE more than 5000 attendees are expected to meander through the aisles, watch panelists, and attend workshops. Additional programming and workshops are expected to be unveiled in the coming days.

If purchased in advance badges are $10 per day or $15 for the full weekend. APE will be held October 12 and 13 starting at 11 a.m. each day.

Comics by the Bay: Treasure Island in “Station-to-Station”

Station to Station cover

Headlines in May revealing “alarming radiation levels” on Treasure Island make it the perfect candidate for spawning inter-dimensional kaiju to stomp all over San Francisco. That isn’t exactly the premise of the Dark Horse Comics one-shot Station to Station, but it would fit. The one-shot released on August 28 collects a three-part serial by Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman that ran earlier this year in Dark Horse Presents. It features an experiment going terribly wrong at a secret lab on the Bay’s historic man-made island resulting in the appearance of dinosaurs, laser guns, and a massive tentacle monster. The issue is receiving rave reviews around the Internet.

Talking Comics writes: “Bechko and Hardman’s work reads like a classic episode of The Twilight Zone: mysterious, character-driven, and filled with shock-and-awe psychodrama.”

Bloody Disgusting writes: “The result is a story that moves with incredible pace, and a casual approach to creatures from alternate dimensions. It’s fun, original, and awesome on the eyes.”

Borg.com writes: ” Unlike a lot that comes out of Dark Horse Presents that have grown into ongoing series, Station to Station doesn’t need a series because it does what it needs in a single issue.”

Comic Booked writes: “Every page, every panel runs like pure poetry in the way that it comes together. There’s a full sense of composition and dynamics that crackles and bristles with energy.”

Performance: Cartoonist Jim Woodring with Beautiful Dreamers Trio

Ignatz and Harvey Award winner Jim Woodringfrank will be joining Bill Frissell’s Beautiful Dreamers jazz trio onstage at the SFJazz Center on September 14. Woodring, who is best known for his surrealist comic book Frank, will be creating illustrations live while the trio perform music from their self-titled debut.  In 2006, Woodring and Frissell collaborated on Probability Cloud which resulted in the duo being among the first to be honored as United States Artist Fellows. Woodring and Frissell will be taking part in two performances on September 14. The first is a Family Matinee at 2 p.m. which is intended to provide an all-ages accessible window into the world of jazz for an affordable ticket price. The full performance with Frissell’s Beautiful Dreamers and Woodring will be at 7:30 p.m.

More information on the Family Matinee can be found here.
More information on the Beautiful Dreamers performance with Woodring can be found here.

Image from Jim Woodring’s Congress of the Animals.

 

 

Berkeley’s Madefire releases IDW motion books

madefire-logoIDW comics are on the move. On August 28, the company launched a first wave of motion comics on Madefire’s Motion Books platform. The platform brings new life to comic titles by allowing for partial animation and the inclusion of audio. IDW kicked off their adventure into motion with Transformers, My Little Pony, and Star Trek. IDW issued the following press release:

One of the most-buzzed about announcements the week of the San Diego Comic-Con was Madefire’s partnerships with 3rd party publishers and bringing the Motion Book treatment to their top properties. That day has come for the award winning and top 4 comics publisher IDW as they bring a trio of their most-popular titles-My Little PonyStar Trek, and Transformers-to Madefire’s groundbreaking experience on August 28th.

“It has been fantastic to see our properties come to life as Motion Books – with just the right amount of animation and audio, it has truly created a new experience,” stated Jeff Webber, IDW’s VP of Digital Publishing. “Additionally, the partnership with deviantART exposes our comics to an incredibly broad network of illustration fans.”

Madefire spent the last year perfecting the Motion Book with their own acclaimed content on iOS mobile devices and the web. Their web-reading partner is social network and creative powerhouse deviantART.com, and the Madefire app has been 5-star rated since launch, even landing on the App Store’s “Best of 2012” list.

“The move to digital reading is about more than just scanning in print – we are at the start of a new grammar for books,” said Ben Wolstenholme, CEO of Madefire. “We are pleased to welcome IDW’s comic book properties to help continue to evolve the medium of Motion Books.”

With more content debuting as Motion Books in the coming months there’s no better time to familiarize yourself with the new grammar of the future of storytelling!

The Berkeley-based company announced the app in June of 2012 with a new comic created by Dave Gibbons. The new title, Treatment, is written specifically to take advantage of the unique style of sequential storytelling made possible by Madefire.

The motion comics are also available through a partnership between Madefire and deviantART. By partnering with deviantART the company gains access to a large community of illustrators who may be interested in applying the motion comics publishing platform to their own work.

IDW will soon be joined on Madefire by BOOM! and Top Cow.

 

 

Comic event: Dirt Candy authors to speak at Omnivore Books

dirtcandyComics delight me to my core and cooking soothes my soul. So I loved Dirt Candy, a graphic novel that serves as both accessible cookbook and charming memoir, before I even owned it.

How brilliant of Chef Amanda Cohen, co-author Grady Hendrix, and artist Ryan Dunlavey to combine the two arts of cookery and comics! Illustrated recipes and techniques can be far more effective with images than in text alone—when Cohen explains how to easily smoke vegetables on my stovetop without fancy equipment, the set-up and technique feels within my grasp. And the apparent magic of a fast-moving chef’s knife translates perfectly to the bam!pow! excitement of a comic book layout. (I’m not alone in this belief—check out Anthony Bourdain’s graphic novel Get Jiro in which a sushi chef turns action hero.)

Dirt Candy made a zealot out of me. Not only was I on a mission to make my vegetables more interesting, I was a comics/cookery proselytizer. “The market is ripe for practical non-fiction in my comic shop!” I cried far and wide. “Let there be graphic novels for cocktails next! Try this spring pea flan I made!” Dirt Candy occupies such a tremendously unique niche that I fervently hope similar works follow.

Fans of good food (creative vegetable-based cuisine in particular) and good comics have the chance to hear Cohen and Hendrix talk on Sunday, Sept. 22 from 3-4pm at Omnivore Books in San Francisco. In her blog, Cohen calls it “the East Coast/West Coast Peace and Harmony Let’s Stop Hating Each Other And Eat Vegetables Instead Tour” and promises “I’ll be talking about cooking vegetables, eating vegetables, running a restaurant, graphic novels, why no one can find a line cook in Manhattan anymore, AND there will be free food for everyone.”

Launch Party: Isotope to launch “East of West” trade with Nick Dragotta themed cocktails

Nick Dragotta's Death from "East of West"

Nick Dragotta’s Death from “East of West”

When 2013 comes to a close there’s little doubt Jonathan Hickman and Nick Dragotta’s East of West will be on many “best of” lists. There have been many versions of the age old Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse story, but what’s unfolding in East of West is unlike any that have come before. In only the first handful of issues Hickman and Dragotta laid the groundwork for a future Earth that’s rich with storytelling possibilities. The title smashes genre barriers and becomes at once original and familiar. While at the core is a sci-fi western, a reader may taste a bit of Alphaville on one page, but three pages later the flavor of Lady Snowblood.

The title will see its first trade paperback hit the shelves later this month. To celebrate, Isotope has invited Dragotta for a launch party on September 21. Per Isotope tradition,  mixologist Kirsten Baldock will serve up thematic cocktails based on Dragotta’s work. The full announcement from Isotope is below:

Our favorite new series of 2013 is definitely the post-apocalyptic western EAST OF WEST and we couldn’t be more excited to get to celebrate the launch of the collection with the book’s amazing artist… Nick Dragotta!

Nick’s art has dazzled us for a few years now with mystic arts and high mutant weirdness on X-STATIX PRESENTS: DEAD GIRL (with Isotope favorite Peter Milligan), explored the uncomfortable underbelly of the Marvel Universe on VENGEANCE (with another IsoFave Joe Casey), dazzled our poor little minds on FF (with yet another favorite ’round these parts Jonathan Hickman), transported us back to yesteryear on CAPTAIN AMERICA: FOREVER ALLIES (with comics legend Roger Stern), and always always brings a smile to our faces with his awesome site HOWTOONS.

Come celebrate with us! Our beloved Kirsten Baldock is crafting up a palette-stunning cocktail list based on Nick’s work in honor of the evening. Mister Dragotta promises a sketchbook-filling Four Horsemen styled evening… and we’re hoping he’ll bring in some original art for us to buy as well!

Isotope Presents: Nick Dragotta
EAST OF WEST Vol. 1 Launch Party
Saturday, September 21st 2013
8pm – Midnight

Are you ready for the Post-Apocalypse Now? We are!

Opening Reception: “The Robot Life” – Sam Garland at Mission Comics

fatherobotSan Francisco-based illustrator Sam Garland will be the next featured artist in Mission: Comics and Art‘s gallery. The shop will be showing off original pages and illustrations from Father Robot and his solo project Fall Forward. Father Robot is a new graphic novel written by Kristopher White and illustrated by Garland. The story follows the first self-aware mech who’s convinced he’s the father of a young girl he’s been sent to rescue.  Garland will be signing copies of the graphic novel at an opening reception on September 7 at 7 p.m.

 

Mission: Comics & Art
3520 20th St, Ste. B
San Francisco, CA
(415) 695-1545
Website: www.missioncomicsandart.com
Twitter:
@MissionComics
Facebook: MissionComics
Mon, Tue, Thu-Sat: 12 p.m.-8 p.m.
Wed: 11 a.m.-8p.m.

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