Once again, the first Saturday in May, this Saturday, May 2, 2009, is (Hooray!) Free Comic Book Day!

Comic book shops across the U.S. will offer a number of free comics, published specially to be given away as examples of the publishers’ lines. Many shops also hold creator signings, sales and other special events.

For more details, see my previous posts on Free Comic Book Day 2008, Free Comic Book Day 2007 and Free Comic Book Day 2006; particularly the latter, in which I discuss the event in more detail and suggest why those who don’t ordinarily read comics take the opportunity to check some out and see your local comic shop on its best behavior. I also give a brief introduction to comic book specialty shops for those who don’t usually venture therein.

The Free Comic Book Day web site features a convenient Zip Code based comic book shop locator to find a shop near you. Check with the individual shops to see the degree of their participation. Some offer all of the free titles (”Silver” and “Gold” titles), others only the most popular (”Gold” titles).

My recommendation this year, if you find a shop that is offering the “Silver” titles, is to look for the Love & Rockets Sampler (above, top center), with art by Gilbert and Jamie Hernandez.

At one time the brief description line at the top of Paolo Rivera’s blog read: “I am a painter for Marvel Comics. Really, I am.”

If that seems odd, you may not be aware that many comic book overs are painted (a practice that has a fairly long history) and, in recent years, an increasing number of comics stories themselves are being told in fully rendered painted panels.

I trace fully painted comic stories back to the pioneering work of Will Elder on Little Annie Fanny in the 1960’s, though perhaps there were antecedents in European comics I’m not aware of. The limiting factor in mainstream American comic books was printing technology. For a long time comics were printed by letterpress (like newspapers), and color was applied by hand-cutting stencils.

That has changed dramatically, of course, and in modern comic book printing almost anything is possible; and the main limitation on painted comic book stories is that the process can be even more work and time intensive than traditional ink outline with filled colors.

Some purists don’t like the painted approach, feeling that it’s not “comics” unless it’s black line art with color fills, but I think it works fine as long as the artist has good visual storytelling skills.

Though within the practice of painted comics stories artists can take a variety of approaches, and in the hands of some artists it can feel forced and stiff, with the visual weight of the fully painted images slowing down the pace of the story.

Rivera, I think, is an artist who has a light and varied touch to his painted interior panels, and a natural feel for this variation on the comics medium. He has an approach that flows with the story, propelling it rather than slowing it down, and providing a wonderful textural quality to the images that only painted panels can provide.

Rivera grew up around art, his parents owned an art supply store, and he started working for Marvel comics while still a junior at the Rhode Island School of Design. He found his calling in comics, particularly painted comics, when he was struck by the painted comics work of Alex Ross on Marvels.

Rivera has become well known as a painted cover artist and for his painted storytelling work on a series called Mythos as well as titles like Spectacular Spider-Man.

Lately he has been showing himself to be adept at the traditional line art style of comic storytelling, tough I hope it doesn’t mean we’ll see a lot less of his painted work.

As part of the lead-up to the New York Comic Con, coming up February 6th - 8th, where Rivera will be among the guest artists, he is giving a lecture on Comics, Color and Composition at the Brooklyn Public Library on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009.

The lecture will be at 7pm in the Dweck Center of the Central Library on Grand Army Plaza. It’s free and open to the public and will be followed by a question and answer session, so comic-artists-to-be can grill him on his drawing and painting techniques.

Independent filmmaker Wayne Alan Harold, who has done segments for MTV News, and underground films like Killer Nerd, Bride of Killer Nerd, Girlfriends and Townies, recently launched an online video network called Lurid.com (a great name).

One of the leading items on the site is a series called PCR TV, featuring short segments, not quite interviews, more like expositions, by P. Craig Russell, the veteran comics artist who I mentioned in my recent post about his graphic adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, as well as in one of the earliest posts on Lines and Colors back in 2005.

In the segments, Russell talks about various aspects of graphic stroytelling. Subjects in the four videos so far include Introductions, for which he uses as reference his work on graphic adaptations of Pelléas & Mélisande and Salmoe; and Parallel Narrative, for which he makes reference to his adaptation of Gaiman’s Murder Mysteries.

They are instructional both for comics artists and anyone interested in the craft and techniques of graphic storytelling.

The idea for the feature is a spin off of Harold’s recently completed documentary, Night Music: The Art of P. Craig Russell (Amazon link here).

The segments are being added to once a week. I don’t know how many there will be.

Taking a page from yesterday’s post about the first issue of Juxtapoz, which featured an article on Zap Comix 13, I wanted to make a hopefully timely post about underground comix artist S. Clay Wilson.

Wilson is a cartoonist and comics artist whose work is rude, crude and full of atti-tude to the point where words like “offensive, politically incorrect, objectionable, demeaning to women, violent, sexually explicit, not safe for work, over the top, graphic, intense, obscene, dangerous, bloody, and shocking” have always seemed a bit tame and inadequate to the descriptive task. Of course, that’s exactly why some people, myself included, hold it in high regard.

Wilson was a regular contributor to Robert Crumb’s ground breaking Zap Comix in the late 1960’s. His characters like the Checkered Demon, Ruby the Dyke, Star-Eyed Stella, and others whose very names were offensive, romped, gamboled, swilled Tree-Frog beer and fought and sliced their way across panoramas of unbelievable carnage, comically exaggerated sexual violence and dementedly bloodthirsty absurdity in the pages of the independently distributed counter cultural comix. (My favorite was the Checkered Demon “…nice day for somethin’…”)

Wilson himself rampaged slashing and burning through the conventions of decency where others only tiptoed, and opened eyes and minds to the examination of those conventions in the process.

Robert Crumb said the it was S. Clay Wilson who opened his eyes to the notion that absolutely nothing was off limits, and made way for unthought of possibilities of expression and the defiance of taboos.

In the process Wilson could be wildly, dementedly funny. If you weren’t the type to take offense to his deliberate offensiveness, and could see the absurdity underlying it, his very degree of excess, and the apparent glee with which his pen wallowed in it, were agonizingly hilarious.

Of course, in our uptight, politically correct, oh-so-ready-to-take-offense society people have actually been arrested for selling material containing his work. He is exactly the kind of cultural buccaneer that keeps thing shook up, something society desperately needs at times.

I can’t point you to a repository of Wilson’s work, I had trouble finding images I could show in polite company (image above via P.J. Donovan), but I’ll try to provide a few links.

There are some collections of his work, like The Art of S. Clay Wilson and Collected Checkered Demon and he has illustrated books of fairy tales (notably Grimm’s, couldn’t find a link) in his own inimitable style. You can also find his work in back issues of Zap Comix and other underground comix if you’re lucky enough to come across copies.

I mention that I hope this post it timely because Wilson recently suffered a grave injury, and as an independent outsider cartoonist, is in need of assistance to pay large medical bills. Some friends, family and supporters are putting on some benefits to help raise the needed funds.

S. Clay Wilson Noise Benefit, January 11, 2009 Hemlock Tavern in SanFrancisco, CA.

Mojo Lounge Benefit, January 24th, 2009 at Mojo Lounge in Fremont, CA.

There is also an address where donations can be sent directly:
P.O. Box 14854
San Francisco, CA 94114

There are columns in the Oregonian in which Steve Duin is covering the story.

[Via BoingBoing]

Note: links here, and all references to and material by S. Clay Wilson should be considered NSFW and not suitable for children; as well as not suitable for adults who take offense easily, Concerned Citizens for Decency, and all others not inclined to celebrate the destruction of the fabric of mainstream society.

Juxtapoz is an alternative art and culture magazine, loosely dedicated to outsider art, urban contemporary art and “lowbrow art” (or “pop surrealism”).

The magazine was started by Robert Williams, who was at one time an assistant to Ed, “Big Daddy” Roth. Williams was also a pioneering underground cartoonist (one of my favorites) and contributor to the original Zap Comix with Robert Crumb and the gang, and is currently a “pop surrealist” painter.

Juxtapoz has actually been going since 1994 (surprised me to realize that), The magazine has an active online presence and has recently been putting full archives of its early issues online. They are now up to issue #10.

The first issue (images above) contains articles about issue #13 of Zap Comix (which was sort of a reunion issue, that sadly also marked the loss of pioneering west coast artist Rick Griffin, and was dedicated to his memory), as well as articles on Big Daddy Roth himself (who many, myself included, consider the “daddy” of this particular branch of pop culture and art), along with articles on Von Dutch, John Pound and others, and includes a Spain Rodriguez sketchbook.

The subsequent Juxtapoz archive issues are a cornucopia of thumbs-against-the-eyeballs lowbrow art, which some people find irresistibly fascinating and others find unconscionably revulsive. A word to the wary.

Personally, I find myself in between those extremes, apparently a rare occurrence. As much as I love the original cultural and artistic streams from which lowbrow art and/or pop surrealism stem (specifically true Surrealism, Dada, early 1960’s Kalifornia Kustom Kar Kulture and late-60’s underground comix), I run lukewarm on the contemporary artists who take their inspiration from that vein, with a few exceptions.

It seems like most of them are trying way too hard to be outrageous or disconcerting; and for all of that the art never has the ferocious life that those originals had, particularly against the backdrop of the restrictive mainstream cultures they so gleefully disturbed.

Nonetheless, Juztapoz does feature work that is fascinating and well worth the attention; provided, of course, that you have the inclination to take the ride through that particular funhouse.

Note: Both the site and the magazine archives should be considered NSFW and not suitable for children.

Since the jolt of receiving my Coraline Mystery Box I’ve been understandably curious about the upcoming animated movie, and equally frustrated that I can’t yet find a significant repository of Coraline concept art (though I did come across some very early concept drawings here).

I’ve also noticed that the Coraline movie web site is now active, with a nicely responsive Flash interface and lots of stuff to explore and download; and the ASFIA-Hollywood Animation Archive has added a few more Coraline Mystery Boxes to its tally.

In the meanwhile, I’ve been happily feeding my Coraline fascination with the excellent graphic novel adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novel by veteran comics artist P. Craig Russell, which Santa, and/or my stepdaughter, brought me for Christmas.

The book is a hardback, a bit smaller in aspect than typical American comic size, but certainly big enough to give the art a good sized canvas. It’s also worth noting that the book, at almost 200 pages and consisting of a complete story, can be correctly called a “graphic novel”; as opposed to the constant misuse of that term by the mainstream comic companies to apply to the last six issues of some superhero comic slapped into a square binding.

Russell is no stranger to working with Gaiman’s material, Coraline is his fifth collaboration (including a stint as my favorite artist for Sandman), and he is currently adapting Gaiman’s The Dream Hunters as a graphic story. When HarperCollins originally proposed a graphic novel adaptation to Gaiman, he immediately asked that it be done by Russell.

Russell’s adaptation of Coraline was begun prior to the release of visual concepts for the movie and is free of the influence of the film. This is a Good Thing; not that the movie doesn’t look great, everything I’ve seen from it looks amazing; I’m just glad the graphic story is an independent artist’s interpretation of the novel and not part of a “movie package”.

Russell’s vision of the story is more straightforward than the highly stylized character designs featured in the film, with a realistic representation of Coraline, her parents and the other major characters; giving it more of the feeling one might conjure up on one’s own mind when reading the prose version.

Russell’s elegant linework, refined draftsmanship and keen sense of design are well suited to the story and its setting, and he seems to take particular delight in his portrayal of the old house and its surrounds.

Lovern Kindzierski contributes restrained and effective color to the artwork, Todd Kline adds nice touches to the lettering and the entire package is very satisfying, almost like a deliciously dark children’s picture book for adults.

There are some pages you can see on Gaiman’s site (from which the image above is taken, also here) and a couple bits of art (and here) on Russell’s site. There is an interview with Russell on Newsarama.

The HarperCollins site has a page devoted to the Coraline Graphic Novel; and both that site and Neil Gaiman’s Mouse Circus page have a Browse Inside link that takes you to a preview that is almost 40 pages long (large and long enough to get you reading and hooked on the story - clever).

Addendum: P. Craig Russell has begun a series of video talks on graphic storytelling on the PCR TV site. In the first installment, he talks about story openings, using his graphic story adaptation of Pelléas & Mélisande as an example. New segments will be added weekly on Mondays.

Ahhh…, it’s that time of year, the scramble through the barrage of “Buy this!” “Buy that!”, mall stuffing, parking lot screaming, credit card swinging, Scotch tape sticking, present buying madness; however tempered it may be this year by the ongoing Collapse of Western Civilization.

So, just as sure as the days shorten, lists appear, guiding us through the maze of what to buy and what was good this year.

In lieu of attempting a list myself, given the sorry state of my “yet to be read” book and comics stack, I give you a short list of lists; in this case lists of the year’s best graphic novels and comics related books as suggested by various sources.

Drawn!: Favourite Comics and Art Books of 2008 Part 1: Matt’s picks

Drawn!: Favourite Comics and Art Books of 2008 Part 2: John’s picks

io9: 10 Graphic Novels That Make Thrilling Gifts

New York Magazine: Top Ten Graphic Novels - The 2008 Culture Awards

Vanguard: Top 10 graphic novels and comics of 2008

NPR: Best Graphic Novels of 2008

NPR: Best Superhero Graphic Novels

Times Online: Christmas Books 2008: Graphic Novels

Booklist Online: Top 10 Graphic Novels: 2008

Comic Book Galaxy: ADD Blog Best of 2008

ALA: 2008 Great Graphic Novels for Teens

Amazon.com: Best Books of 2008: Comics & Graphic Novels

Publisher’s Weekly: Best Books of the Year (scroll down for Comics)

ICv2 - Amazon & PW’s 10 Best Graphic Novels of 2008 (above two lists compared)

(Images above: Coraline Graphic Novel, Sky Doll, Fables Covers, All-Star Superman Vol. 1, Tekkon Kinkreet Black & White, Alice in Sunderland)

Leong Wan Kok is a Malaysian comics artist and illustrator currently living in Kuala Lumpur.

His wonderfully eccentric and at times intricately detailed images combine stylized, cartoon-like figures with intense rendering.

His darkly bizarre subject matter is accentuated by his choice of a dark palette and lots of textural variation, and highlighted with accents of higher chroma colors.

His website, 1000tentacles.com, is shared with illustrator pH Khor, though credits are not given for individual pieces.

The gallery suffers from one of those interfaces in which you must click on each individual thumbnail and wait for a JavaScript to open a new window, load the image, resize and reposition the window, then close and repeat the process for each image. You may find it easier at first to browse his gallery on CGSociety, though the web site has many more pieces, organized in categories for Comic, Illustration and Sketch.

There is a short interview with Leong Wan Kok on Jazma Online. There is also a preview on Liquid Citizen of his contribution to the Liquid City comics anthology (more info here).

Roger Langridge, the brilliantly off-kilter UK cartoonist that I wrote about back in 2006, recently posted to his blog some comics that were done for Nickelodeon Magazine, in which he draws on his fondness for the great classics of newspaper comics to re-cast Sponegbob Squarepants in the mold of Winsor McCay’s and Little Nemo in Slumberland (image above, bottom), George Herriman’s The Family Upstairs (above, top) and Krazy Kat, Milton Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates; and others like Peanuts and Buck Rogers.

Don’t miss the chance to lose your day being delighted and diverted by the rest of Langridge’s blog, The Hotel Fred, as well as his website and the assortment of comics therein.

[Link via io9]

Ah Pook is Here (originally Ah Puch is Here) is a collaborative graphic narrative by writer William S. Burroughs and artist Malcolm McNeill. I was tempted to say “experimental graphic narrative”, but using the word “experimental” and the name William S. Burroughs in the same sentence is redundant.

Named for Ah Puch, the Mayan Death God, the never-finished book was to be part comic, part illustrated book. The comic story segments were drawn as a continuous panorama (top three images above, with detail below), a format inspired by the Mayan Codices, which can be thought of as graphic narrative or a kind of comic book.

McNeill worked on parts of the panorama out of sequence, emphasizing the non-linear narrative and in keeping with the story’s time-travel theme. (For more on McNeill and the project, see my previous post on Malcolm McNeill.)

McNeill didn’t know Burroughs or his work when they first started collaborating; initially without meeting, on a project called The Unspeakable Mr. Hart.

The story, which ran in the English magazine Cyclops until it folded, was eventually expanded into the book project. McNeill and Burroughs began collaborating directly, and worked on the “word/image novel” on and off for seven years before it was abandoned for lack of funding (in the 1970’s, “graphic novel” was a not a widely recognized term or a viable marketplace option).

Burroughs’ text was published by itself in a more conventional form as Ah Pook is Here.

A good deal of art was created for the book, however, and some of it is on display McNeill’s site and on a site devoted specifically to the Ah Pook is Here project.

There is an interview with McNeill online, conducted by Larry Sawyer, that includes larger versions of some of the images from the project, as well as some other examples of McNeill’s art.

McNeill has written an account, not yet published, of his collaboration with Burroughs titled Observed While Falling.

McNeill did a year and a half of research for the Ah Pook is Here project, combing through the Mexican Cultural Library in London and researching the artwork of Frederick Catherwood, a real-life Indiana Jones with a paint box (see my post on Frederick Catherwood).

Other artistic influences seemed to be less from mainstream or European comics and more from art history, in particular the horrific visions of Hieronymus Bosch, shadowy gothic art, mid-20th Century book illustration and the deep chiaroscuro of the Baroque, lending the panels a unique visual tone.

There will be a show of artwork from the project, The Lost Art of Ah Pook is Here, at Salomon Arts gallery in New York (Tribeca) from November 14 to December 14, 2008.

[Note: sites linked here contain some NSFW images]