The Indy Graphic Novel Library Project

I managed to finally land a full-time job a year ago.  It's at Fogler Library at the University of Maine, my alma mater.  It has been fantastic.  I was already in love with the campus after my four and a half years there almost twenty years ago, so getting an opportunity to work there, in the library, is amazing.

The library has the beginnings of a respectable graphic novel collection (though they are found in various spots throughout the stacks) including books by Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman, Chester Brown, Neil Gaiman, Brian K. Vaughan, G. Willow Wilson, and others.  But I really wished they had more.  And then I noticed the suggestions sheet in the main reading room on the first floor.  So, a few months back, I began putting suggestions there.  One a month.  And the library has purchased every one, thus far.

I've steered away from the obvious books and tried to get in some eclectic work from small publishers.  So far, the University has added the following books:

Vietnamerica by G.B. Tran.  No, not a small publisher (Villard), but a book worthy of a wider audience and one I don't believe has gotten the attention it deserves:

Inanna's Tears by Rob Vollmar & mpMann (Archaia Press).  I was introduced to this story by Brett Warnock, when he discussed its online serialization at the Topshelf blog.  Great book that I featured in my Pulse column, back in the day.  Plus, it has a quote from me on the back cover.  So, cool!

Storeyville by Frank Santoro (Picturebox Inc.).  Santoro is an artist who has shot to the top of my must-read list since I first encountered his work in Cold Heat after the MoCCA Fest in 2007 (I believe).  His colors and fine-art background, coupled with a wealth of comic historical knowledge, makes everything he does interesting and challenging.  Great, great stuff.

and the latest addition is Joshua Cotter's Skyscrapers of the Midwest (AdHouse Books).  I only have a screenshot from the online catalog, as I am currently reading it.  At the halfway point, I can tell you the plaudits it has received are well deserved.  Emotional, heartfelt, and compelling - Cotter's story and art mesh together nicely to create something special here.  Well worth checking out.

As more graphic novels get added to the collection, I'll drop them here on the blog.  And if you have suggestions of some great independent graphic novels, let me know.

Thanks,
chris

SPX 2011 – an advance preview

This coming weekend – September 10-11, 2011 – the Small Press Expo will be happening in Bethesda, Maryland. The premiere showcase on the East Coast for small press and self-published comic artists, SPX is an amazing show full of energy and incredible writers and artists whose love of the medium shows through in everything they do.

Some of the big name guests the Expo has attracted to Maryland this year are Jim Rugg, Chester Brown, and Craig Thompson. If you know anything about comics (other than the offerings from the “Big Two”), you are probably already familiar with these names. Rugg is the mastermind behind AdHouse’s Afrodisiac (with Brian Maruca) and his own Rambo 3.5, which was one of the most entertaining comics I read last year. Chester Brown made his mark with Yummy Fur and the 2004 biographical comic Louis Riel, and is garnering a lot of critical discussion around his recent book, Paying For It, which looks at his personal experience with prostitution, as a john. And Craig Thompson will be debuting a special advanced edition of his long-awaited new book, Habibi. After sweeping the major awards in 2004 with his seminal work, Blankets, it has been a long wait for this new volume, and I cannot wait to read it.

Those are the big guns, but I want to point you in the direction of some of the lesser-known, but equally talented, creators that will be in Maryland this weekend.

Mike LaRiccia is a printmaker by trade, but he was awarded a Xeric grant for his debut graphic novel, Black Mane. LaRiccia has a rough and raw art style that meshed very well in that initial book, which looked at his personal experiences dealing with racism in our contemporary world. It’s a terribly honest and frank portrayal of the subject and one that asks more questions than it answers. A thoughtful and emotional book that really gets one thinking, it is a book that I always recommend to anyone seeking out something that will challenge while also providing a satisfying story. Mike will be debuting a limited run of his newest comics, Too Fast, at SPX. If you want to read some good comics from a talented artist, check him out.

A longer spotlight of Black Mane can be found here.

Alex Cahill & Jad Ziade are New Radio Comics, and they’re bringing the truth to the Expo. Since 2006, they have been working on their science fiction “novel” Poison the Cure. Planned to be four over-sized issues, the New Radio boys will have the first three issues at SPX, with issue three making its Expo debut. Pulitzer-prize winning author, Junot Diaz, says of Poison the Cure: “POISON THE CURE is stunning. One of those comics that makes you want to pass it on to everybody, even those friends of yours who don't read comics. Rowdy, hilarious, cruel, beautiful, highly original, and true." Definitely seek them out on the convention floor in Maryland. These guys have a distinct style and voice that is worth experiencing.

You can check out a spotlight of Cahill’s wordless comic, The Last Island, here.

G.B. Tran was one of the first creators I met at my first SPX in 2006, and I’ve had the privilege to watch him grow as an artist through the intervening years. Earlier this year, he debuted his new graphic novel memoir, Vietnamerica, from Villard Publishing. This is one of the most moving books I’ve read in a long time. Taking the story of his parents’ flight from Vietnam just at the end of the American conflict and juxtaposing that with his own upbringing and strained relationship with his parents, Tran has created a beautiful and moving work that will stay with you long after the cover is closed. And the experimentation in Tran’s layouts and lettering and coloring elevates this book even more, in my mind. Tran chose to take what makes comics unique as a storytelling medium and utilize those distinct aspects to his advantage, and the result is nothing short of amazing. This book deserves to be on any comic – and non-comic – fan’s shelf. It’s that good.

You can check out a spotlight of his earlier series, Content, here.

Finally, Nate Powell will be in attendance. His 2009 graphic novel, Swallow Me Whole, which I profiled earlier this week on “the dork” won the Eisner award for best graphic novel, and deservedly so. Powell is a stellar storyteller, and reading Swallow Me Whole for the first time was an incredible experience. He will be debuting his newest graphic novel from Top Shelf, Any Empire, at SPX this weekend. If it is even half as good as Swallow Me Whole, this will have the potential to be short-listed on many critics’ best-of lists come December. Seek Powell out, and pick up some of his mini-comics too; they are equally wonderful.

My review of Swallow Me Whole can be found here.

Those are some of the creators you should certainly seek out at this weekend’s Small Press Expo. And take the time to really look at all the tables. The hidden gems are numerous at SPX, and the discovery of those is part of the fun of this show. I wish I was making the trip down from Maine this year, but I’m going to have to hope for next year.

But if you make the trip, drop a line here and let us know what hidden treasures you found. It will give me something to look forward to next year.

-chris

To read more of Chris’s thoughts or to check out his short prose and comic work, go to www.warrior27.com, the online home for the comics/prose anthology, Warrior27, created by Chris and by Dan Fleming – with contributions from Matthew J. Constantine (half of In the Mouth of Dorkness), among others.

SPX 2009

The Small Press Expo was last weekend and Dan and I hit the road for Bethesda. A few months ago, if you had asked us, we weren’t planning on having anything new for the show. But a lot can happen in a few months. Once we started talking about doing a new issue of WARRIOR27, it turned out we would have the craziest and biggest issue yet for SPX 2009.

As usual, we wanted to have a variety of stuff for the anthology. Little did we know. Our friend Matt Constantine, who put us up for the weekend at his place in Fairfax and with whom we had worked before (he has a short prose piece in our second issue from 2006, which was our first year at the Expo) also contributed to this issue.

In the end, we went with a multimedia extravaganza of different pieces for this issue. Dan wrote three short stories illustrated by three very different artists and put them into a standard size comic. I contributed a short prose story, “Fractured,” which was in a smaller chapbook. Dan and Travis Dandro (who created the freaky and sometimes disturbing comic Mr. Gnu) created a mini-comic that folds open telling a story from “the mall” and which has, on the back once it’s completely open, a game board wherein one must make it through the mall with money left. The mini-comic went into a small baggie, while a die, money, and two Homies (playing pieces) went into another baggie, which when stapled to the first rested nicely over our issue wrap. We also had a CD-ROM of a color comic done by Matt and Paul Petzrick and a b/w preview of a webcomic, also written by Matt with art from S.A. McClung. It was a load of stuff in various formats, all for $6 (or $5 on Sunday). It’s a pretty fun bundle, and the Homies pulled people in.

Overall, the show this year was better than last year. There were a lot of people saying this, and I think it’s a matter of everyone having had a year to adjust their budgets/spending/whatever. It was amazing to hear EVERYONE saying that last year was a rough one and that 2009 was so much better. I would have liked to have known that last year, having left MD disappointed and thinking it was just us. Too often, we find ourselves living in a bubble, believing that what we’re fearing or feeling is unique to us, when, in reality, our experiences aren’t all that unique at all. But I digress (can’t get too preachy here).

From the opening bell on Saturday morning, the show was packed. People were everywhere and you could tell it was going to be a good show. We had our second best sales, breaking three figures, which was nice. It also felt good to sell at least one copy of everything on the table, including copies of issues 1-4 of WARRIOR27, a copy of the Arcana horror anthology, DARK HORRORS 2, in which Dan had a story published, and a few other things.

Like most though, we’re not here to make money. Maybe a little to recoup our initial expenses. But for the most part, the big draw of SPX is getting to catch up with friends like Justin Fox, Mike LaRiccia, and G.B. Tran, having an opportunity to talk directly with publishers and editors like Chris Staros at Top Shelf or James Lucas Jones of Oni, and getting to make new friends like Adam Umak, Julian Lytle, and Frank Santoro. It’s a very cool atmosphere and it can really invigorate you.

I had a great conversation with Frank Santoro (check out his COLD HEAT series, done with Ben Jones and published by Picturebox) about art and comics and how the whole page works, or can work, in a comic if you’re willing to see things in some way other than just a panel to panel progression. I told him about this mini-comic idea I’ve had burning in the back of my mind for three years now and he’s got me convinced to just go ahead and draw it, which has been the big stumbling block for me. Like he said, Wally Wood and all those masters had swipe files for reference because they needed to be fast and accurate. They would find whatever image they needed, get the perspective and proportion from the picture, and draw it in their own way in order to keep drawing. Utilizing something like that in order to manage the perspective and such of the images, while creating my own style (if I can hope for such a thing with this project) should help me get over this hump. I plan on having COMPARE & CONTRAST at the Expo next year.

Some of the highlights of the show for me:

- Catching up with friends, as mentioned above.

-Getting to meet Mr. Phil & Charlito from the Izzer.

-Talking with Adam Umak from the Legion of Dudes.

-Having an opportunity to share a preview of the short story Ape will publish as part of their UFO anthology with Chris Staros, Chris Pitzer, and others.

-Getting a chance to see my old buddy from college, who was not around last year. Hey, John.

-Meeting online friends for the first time in the flesh, like Sam Costello from the Panel & Pixel Boards, who is the brain behind the Split Lip horror anthology. Check it out.

-Finally picking up TO THE HEART OF THE STORM and THE NAME OF THE GAME by Will Eisner for $5 a piece at the CBLDF table. Can't wait to read these.

-And having Gahan Wilson check out our books and wish us luck.

SPX is over for 2009, and I’m already thinking ahead to next year and what I might have. Not only do I want to have that mini-comic, but I’ve got another idea rolling around that I might try to get done. And, I need to follow up with publishers, reviewers, and others to keep my name out there and see where this little trip will take me.

chris

Back Matter Re-Runs: Content by G.B. Tran

Here's another look back at the genesis of my regular column at the Pulse, For Your Consideration. My first time attending SPX was a revelation. I'd walked through Artist's Alley at the larger conventions, but the quality and diversity at those shows didn't even compare to what I saw in Bethesda. One of the artists with whom I had the pleasure of speaking was G.B. Tran. He has published his own Xeric-awarded comic, Content, as well as having contributed to Negative Burn and Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened. What follows is the spotlight and interview I did for the site, Independent Propaganda. Enjoy.

chris

SPX SWAG #3: CONTENT by GIA-BAO (GB) TRAN

GB Tran was one of the more interesting people I met at this past year’s SPX. The hand-lettered Xeric Award sign at his table caught my eye, and his enthusiasm – about comics, about how the show was going – kept me there. Tran has self-published two issues of his comic, CONTENT, and his excitement about the latest issue was evident, recommending it over his initial foray, which was awarded a Xeric Grant in 2002. I asked him about the book and unlike a lot of creators at the Expo with traditional “floppy” comics for sale, CONTENT is not a continuing narrative, but a haven for the stories GB Tran wants to tell.

Issue #1, “Losing Everything You Never Had” is about Elin Ohmart, a man in his early twenties who volunteers for a scientific test being conducted by Dr. Stefania Carani. Carani is researching the brain, hoping to develop some understanding of the 85% of our gray matter that apparently lays dormant. After hooking Elin up to the monitor, the young researcher induces him into a deep state of REM sleep and then stimulates isolated areas of his brain with electromagnetic pulses hoping to heighten activity in those idle sections. For his part, Elin is happy to oblige Dr. Carani as he finds her very attractive.

When Ohmart goes under it is quick and disorienting. He finds himself on a desolate tract and off at a distance he spies a couple and their child. Closer examination reveals the father to be himself a few years on. Happy at the fact that he still has hair Elin is suddenly interrupted by a young child peppering him with questions – the most difficult one being why is he naked? Still confused, Elin soon discovers that this boy asking him questions is again himself, but himself in third grade. Quickly adjusting to the boy’s reality of being in school Elin pretends to be the father of the school bully, the one that picks on his younger self – that picked on Elin when he was younger – and he also tells the boy not to worry about Tatum, the bully. “He’s mean because he just hasn’t matured ...” “He’s not going to bully you forever ...”

And then Elin is back in Dr. Carani’s chair attempting to reconcile the fact that he was under for six hours though it feels as if he only just fell asleep. Elin made little sense at first, but once Dr. Carani was able to question him she realized this was a “breakthrough in exploring the human subconscious.” The test confirmed her suspicions and she was excited to continue her testing on other subjects.

By the time the debriefing was over, Elin just wanted to go home and sleep. Driving away from the clinic he finds himself stopped at a school while a crossing guard shuttles a group of young kids across the street. While sitting in his car, Elin ruminates on the wonders of youth and thinks back to his own childhood. His thoughts wander to Tatum, the bully that picked on him constantly, and about how one day at recess a dad told him to stand up to Tatum. From then on Elin and Tatum were best friends.

And then it clicks (“But why was that dad naked?”). He, as the dreaming Elin, was the dad that told the young Elin to stand up to Tatum. Ohmart was remembering something that he had initiated just hours ago, and yet it also happened years ago to the boy he once was.

This understanding leads to an obsession for Elin. Despite protests from Dr. Carani he wants to return and speak again to the boy he was. His persistence pays off as the doctor eventually acquiesces. But one time back is not enough. Like most of us, Elin is unhappy with the childhood he remembers and pines away for the hurt, lost boy lingering in his past. He believes he can change history and erase all the pain that still haunts him. Even as he finds happiness in the present, Elin continues to pursue this flawed dream. Putting himself at risk, both mentally and physically, he unfairly asks Stefania – who has discovered an affection for him through all this – to join him on this quixotic pursuit. But ultimately Elin gets what we all get, an unchanging history and a blank slate upon which to write the future; but only if he can cast off the ghosts that still linger.

Tran whisks us through a challenging and inventive tale, shedding a light upon the insecurities and anguish we all carry with us. Who doesn’t wish their childhood might have been better? Why do children have to suffer so much – a nasty divorce, being taunted by the other children? All these little pains we endure, we endure fiercely and intimately. But time moves on, and the haze of memory dulls most of the heartache. Like Elin, we are left with the past we have, and nothing can be done about that, unless we want to jeopardize our future. And in the end, which is more important? Elin knows.

I can see why Tran received a Xeric Grant for this book. It is a stimulating narrative that comes to vivid life under his pen. The artistic variation he uses for the “real” world and the “dream” world are fabulous. All scenes in the present are done in a traditional pen and ink style, while scenes in the dreamworld appear to be reproductions of Tran’s pencils, complete with some of the stray lines used to block out the figures. This difference in style also helps to evoke the otherness of the dreamworld masterfully, showing the audience how incomplete it really is. Tran leaves it bereft of backgrounds while anchoring the real world scenes with fully realized settings, using those backgrounds to add to the story itself, layering it with visual cues that fill in much of the unstated narrative. Utilizing much of comics’ strengths Tran tells a full and rewarding story with “Losing Everything You Never Had.”

CONTENT #2, “Kaleidoscope,” was published last summer, four years after Tran’s initial book. This one is bigger in size (11 by 7 ½ compared to the first issue’s dimensions of 9 ½ by 6 ½) as well as scope. With this second issue, one can see GB stretching not only his artistic muscles, but his storytelling muscles as well. “Kaleidoscope” is a book that needs to be read more than once in order to get everything that happens. Certainly, a first read will not leave you confused, but subsequent readings will reveal so much more, giving readers a deeper understanding of the story Tran is sharing with us.

“Kaleidoscope” is a tale of how our lives are interconnected even when separated by thousands of miles and without ever having met. Tran layers this issue with a number of smaller tales, which weave in and over and around one another to tell one dense, complex story. Spanning from Phoenix, Arizona to South Vietnam to southern France and back to Brooklyn, this tale takes place on three different continents and yet its themes and situations are as close as your back yard. Once again, Tran grounds his characters, making them believable while giving his audience people to whom they can relate.

Although stories of this sort often come off as being too “cute” – everything tying up neatly into a pristine package with the final turn of the page – this is not the case with “Kaleidoscope.” Tran deftly intertwines each of the stories around one another, utilizing the “less is more” adage, leaving his scenes quick and sharp, not allowing readers to relax for a minute. This approach keeps his audience interested and doesn’t give them time to think about the whole story, delaying their discovery of just how fully these disparate lives all tie together until the end.

I understood Tran’s excitement about this issue once I finished reading it. It’s a very compelling story told in a complex manner, one that might deter most writers. Tran does not speak down to his audience and asks that they work to understand the story, dropping them into the middle of a scene without any clumsy exposition – leaving readers to wonder about whom everyone is and what their history might be. He allows the story, and the revelation of the characters, to unfold naturally. And once the various pieces are finally put together, all is made clear like some elaborate, well-drawn puzzle.

Tran’s art also takes a giant leap forward with this second issue of CONTENT. One can see GB experimenting on almost every page. He utilizes the symbology of comics masterfully in the beginning, forming images that cannot be taken literally (a “bumper to bumper” traffic jam of airplanes and helicopters leading from Vietnam to the golden arches and skyscrapers of America) but which convey so much more to the understanding of the story. In a scene on the subway, Tran draws one of my favorite comic panels of recent memory. A young man spies a pretty woman on the train and finds himself having to shove his way through the word balloons that clutter the car only to find himself too late to speak with her thanks to the claustrophobic conversations surrounding him. Tran’s linework is also much tighter with this book, his brushstrokes smoother and more confident than in the first issue. GB Tran is an accomplished artist whose work is deserving of a wider audience. If you like comics, and you want to be challenged, then do yourself a favor and pick up CONTENT #1 and #2.



AN INTERVIEW WITH GIA-BAO (GB) TRAN creator of CONTENT

INDEPENDENT PROPAGANDA: Why comics? What does this medium offer you as a storyteller that others might not?

GB TRAN: It’s a very satisfying way to express and convey ideas that require a lot of audience interaction... y’know, reading in between the panels and stuff. And, well, I’m not a phenomenal writer nor a mind-boggling illustrator but with comics I can try to be just enough of both to tell an interesting story.

INDYPROP: I really enjoyed the philosophical questions brought up in issue 1 of CONTENT. I was wondering if you could talk a bit about the genesis of that story.

GB: It came from a dream. I rarely remember my dreams in the morning and the ones I do tend to be mundane and bland so this one really stuck out. Soon enough, it started to evolve into sequential panels and voila, a Xeric submission was born.

INDYPROP: In Kaleidoscope, I could really see you experimenting not only with your storytelling, but also your artwork. Was this a conscious attempt on your part with this issue, and what did you learn from stretching your artistic muscles in this way?

GB: Absolutely... it was great to play with the artwork as much as the shifting narrative structure. It’s very gratifying to explore various approaches and satisfying to not have the story unfold in a singular way.

INDYPROP: Most people making comics - or creating in most any artistic medium - have a day job. I was curious what your "day job" might be and how it contributes, if at all, to your work in CONTENT?

GB: I’m an anonymous commercial illustrator freelancing mainly in apparel graphics. As day-jobs go, it’s flexible and provides opportunities to try different aesthetics without getting too attached or precious about the results. It pays the bills so I feel fortunate, except when I have to draw a koala wearing oversized rainbow sunglasses or something.

INDYPROP: What projects are you working on now and when can readers expect to see them?

GB: I’ve started my next book and am escaping from the Northeast winter to Vietnam in January to do further research for it. Still in its early stages so I’m very excited to see how the project develops. I also just finished a story with writer Chris Stevens for Jason Rodriguez’s POSTCARD anthology due out next summer, and am collaborating with writer Hanvey Hsiung on some stories that—by virtue of currently being sans publisher—will be trickling out whenever funds allow. We’re aiming to debut the first installment at the New York Comic-con in February.