Literary Comics

In spite of the dramatic international intrigue Sparkplug Comic Books and its affiliates faced at the Canadian border on the way to TCAF last weekend, we managed to simultaneously invade a whole other continent at Stockholm Sweden’s 11^th Annual SPX Festival. Sparkplug was honored to be invited to the festival for the 3^rd year in a row along with many other hella distinguished international guests.

It's pretty obvious that next week's Toronto Comic Arts Festival is going to be he most awesome show of the year. And just to back that up. here's an awesome preview video featuring Chester Brown, Michael Comeau, Steve Charles Manale, Vicki Nerino, Michael Cho, Michael DeForge, Seth, Fiona Smyth + Britt Wilson.

The MoCCA Festival at the Lexington Armory a few days ago was a fun weekend -- the numerous photo shows filled with smiling faces of dedicated artists and publishers show that. Look at Peggy Burns' engaging set or Dan Nadel's. Fun is fine, of course, but that's not entirely why people go to indie shows like MoCCA, SPX, and TCAF. I'd argue that the social aspect of hanging out with fellow cartoonists is a major motivation for attending, but that's not why D&Q or PictureBox or Fantagraphics attends. These are important shows for promoting authors and selling books.

For those of you who couldn't get over to last week's Strandicon and Comics Journal panel with Gary Groth, Dan Nadel, Tim Hodler, and Kim Deitch, the Strand has YouTubed the whole thing!: And BONUS Strandicon interviews with Ben Katchor, Nadja Spiegelman, Trade Loeffler, Dash Shaw, Brecht Evens, Joe Ollmann, R. Sikoryak, Jillian Tamaki, and Pascal Girard.

Better late than never, new stuff by Austin English, Chuck Forsman, Rina Piccolo, and dozens more!!!!

It's billed as the world's largest book store, with 18 MILES of books, but The Strand -- New York City's legendary used book store -- is increasingly comics friendly and on Friday, April 8th, they'll make it official with Strandicon, a full afternoon of talks by such greats as Ben Katchor, Ben Katchor, Brecht Evans, Joe Ollmann, Jillian Tamaki, Pascal Girard, R. Sikoryak, Dash Shaw, capped off by a panel on the past and future of The Comics Journal, which is worth the trip all by itself.

Although my "official" news story about last weekend's Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival was published in PW Comics Week, I still had some pictures I wanted to put up. Over all it was an awesome day. Not much more to say. I thought last year, set in a dramatic blizzard, would be hard to top for that special something, but the cheerful, can-do spirit of this show equalled that. Everyone seemed to be finding like-minded souls to share their work. As I said several times, "Who knew so many people liked good comics?"

The following is a selection of new titles due to be published in September 2010.

There is no particular order to the titles presented below.

This list is not comprehensive, as there are over 275 graphic novel titles scheduled for this month. If you would like to browse them at your leisure, click here. Instead, I have selected titles which caught my interest. These are not necessarily titles I will purchase, but which I will definitely look at once they arrive at my local comics shop or bookstore. Please be advised that publication dates are not set in stone. Also, your local comics shop might receive copies before your local neighborhood website or library. Links connected to publishers will link to the publisher's website, sometimes to the exact title. Links for the ISBN-13 (also known as the Bookland EAN) will take you to the title as featured on BarnesAndNoble.com . I consider my tastes to be rather eclectic. If you feel I've neglected or slighted a title, publisher, or creator, please feel free to mention it in the comments below.

Monthly lists such as this will be posted at the end of the previous month. I will also be posting specific subject lists (comic strips, comics history and surveys, superheroes...) for each season, but these will not have a set schedule.

Over at Blog Flume, Alvin Buenaventura announced that his much admired Buenaventura Press -- publisher of such seminal works as KRAMERS ERGOT #7, FIGHT OR RUN, and THE COMPLETE JACK SURVIVES -- was forced to close its doors in January, due to a single devastating financial blow. Buenaventura wrote:

Another intriguing looking Viz Signature manga is coming via their partnership with IKKI Magazine, Hisae Iwaoka's SATURN APARTMENTS. According to the blurb: Far in the future, humankind has evacuated Earth in order to preserve...

One of the hottest promos at MoCCA was the Pantheon flyer for this fall's new Charles Burns GN, X'ed OUT, and we've sneakily scanned it in to give you a sneak peak. The cover is...