This is the second Achewood Christmas strip, from December 24th 2002. Ray and Roast Beef have gone on a road-trip to a scuzzy titty bar, and Ray, drunk (and drinking) on a toilet, remembers that it is Christmas Eve and he has not gotten a gift for his best friend. He tries to do so via the gift-options available to him in a strip-club restroom. He passes out on the toilet without flushing. This, unfortunately, becomes a plot-point in following strips.
– Christopher
Begun in October 2001, Chris Onstad’s ACHEWOOD quickly became my favourite online comic strip. I was reading this stuff since before the cats. In fact I did not like how cat-centric the strip became, at first, missing the absurdity of “Phillipe is standing on it,” and Teodor dressed up as Archie. That’s how O.G. I am.
But enough preening. I present to you the first Achewood “Christmas” strip, which arrived on the day after Christmas 2001, with a message of anti-cheer. On actual-Christmas, Onstad posted a photo of the roof of his house, the gutter of which had sprung a leak, presumably on Christmas Eve. What I’m saying is that, like all of us, Chris Onstad has a complicated relationship with Christmas that he shares with you through his characters. Join him and them and us, all this week.
– Christopher
My Christmas spirit is now in full-cheer, and so I’m about-ready to dig into these fascinating new graphic novel adaptations of classic Christmas tales, published by the good folks at Harper Collins. While they aren’t actually part of a branded ‘line’ of books, Lilli Carre’s adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Fir Tree, Joel Priddy’s adaptation of O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi, and Alex Robinson’s adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s A Kidnapped Santa Claus all share a handsome and complimentary hardcover design, lovely art, and perfect timing for holiday reading.
As I mentioned I haven’t had a chance to read these ones yet… I have bought them and flipped through them though! I guess I’m just waiting for tonight’s first snowfall, a warm cup of cocoa, and maybe a Christmas special on the TV in the background. If you want to take a peek, I’ve got a gallery of images from the book below, and you can find reviews/discussions of the work at CBR and Rob Clough’s High-Low.
All three books are available now for US$14.99 each.
– Chris
©2009 Evan Dorkin. From Dork #5 & Dork Volume 1: Who’s Laughing Now?. 75
If you followed the second part of Liveblogging the November 2009 Previews you saw mention of the new Mega Man manga being published by UDON. I should point out that I’m friends with the UDON guys so, grain of salt and all that, but I am pretty excited about the new manga, because I like the games and everything I’d heard pointed to this series being a strong adaptation of the original games. Did I ever tell you I made a Mega Man tabletop RPG when I was in grade 7? No? Well you learn something new every day.
All of that said, my friend Derek Haliday is so much more excited about this manga than I am. His appreciation of the character and the upcoming series mentions the Astro Boy-ish origins of the character, amongst other things. Go read it, it’s enthusiastic. 🙂
Related: Udon released a preview of the first volume coming this January/February: http://www.udonentertainment.com/blog/?p=1375
– Chris
©2009 Evan Dorkin. From Dork #5 & Dork Volume 1: Who’s Laughing Now?. 74
Todays Christmas Comic comes to us from… Geoff Spear and Chip Kidd’s The Golden Age of DC Comics: 365 Days. Released a few years back, it was a meaty slab of beautifully photographed excerpts from Golden Age DCU Cover-art, with each of the images corresponding to a day of the year. This image is from the cover of Action Comics #105 (1947) and corresponded to Christmas Eve. I have to admit that I don’t know who drew the original… perhaps someone in the comments can add to this posting? According to CBDB, the issue features a 14 page Siegel/Shuster story called “The Man Who Hated Christmas”, which was reprinted in the 80s I think, possibly in one of the treasury books. Anyway, it’s not easy to find, that’s for sure (and it doesn’t look like Shuster drew the cover to my eyes…).
I believe this book (the Spear/Kidd) is technically out of print, but it’s certainly not too hard to find at all… Though it’s original price of $40 might have been a bit off-putting, it’s a great discount-bin find just for the fun finds like Superman’s unique way of helping Santa down the chimney.
As for Action Comics #105, the copy pictured would probably set you back a few grand. So maybe settle for the lovely cover-art here. 🙂
– Christopher
©2009 Evan Dorkin. From Dork #5 & Dork Volume 1: Who’s Laughing Now?. 73
So I wrote a post a week back called “The Myth of All-Ages” and people seemed to really respond to it, for which I am always grateful. I’ve read all of the comments at my original post a couple of times, and the responses that have appeared on other blogs, and I’ve really only got a one bit of follow-up. It’s a little scattered, but I figure it’s worth posting so here goes.
Some comics retailers are just out of touch with contemporary kids comics: Look, I’m all for venerating the pioneers of the Direct Market and I do respect their experiences selling comics, but I don’t think most retailers complaining about this issue are really aware of what comics are actually available for young readers these days. This is typified by the main arguments of Buddy Saunders of the Lone Star Comics chain as posted to ICv2. They seem to be entirely about the nature of superhero comics being different than they were 20 years ago, and that’s ‘fine’ I guess, but that’s an irrelevant argument to comics for kids. I think Tom Spurgeon summed it up best: If Mr. Saunders wants to keep moving the goalposts until he scores, by all means, but that doesn’t really solve anything.
Mr. Saunders’ most recent post at ICv2 is castigating the comic book market for not being able to capitalize on the successes of Twilight or Harry Potter like the book market has. This is based on an argument provided by a bookseller of prose books & graphic novels, of all things. At best Mr. Saunders is comparing apples and oranges (graphic novels and novels are both printed matter, but are different media). At worst, he’s brutally out-of-touch with both the graphic novel market and the market for teen/YA fiction. Simply, the market for YA and teen prose fiction is massive, with more books published for those two demographics than there are total graphic novels published in English every year, maybe 6-10 times the amount. ICv2 estimated about about 5000 graphic novels a year are published, and that’s for every age group. This site estimates nearly 30,000 books were published for ‘juveniles’ alone last year, and that may not even include material for teens. Mr. Saunders and his quotee are comparing apples to industrial watermelon farms.
So, yes, it makes sense that when Harry Potter and Twilight do well, there are lots more books to sell those older kids and teenagers, because there are 2500+ books a month being published for kids and YA and teenagers anyway. So yes, book publishers had a breakout success, and started refining and promoting their existing lines and developing new ones to capitalize on it. That’s awesome! But unfortunately graphic novels for teens didn’t have that same breakout success, novels did, and the two don’t (necessarily) directly relate. Further, while there has been a consistent build in the number of comics and graphic novels for kids (and their quality!) published in the last few years, that number still pales in comparison to how many novels for that same audience are being published, and to be honest there are dozens of great comics and graphic novels for kids, teens, and everyone in-between, that completely fly under the radar anyway, not finding the marketing support or sales they deserve in comic stores or ‘regular’ book stores. The market is printing books for young readers as fast as they’re salable, perhaps even more so. Saying otherwise underlines a profound lack of experience in this market.
I’ve had the pleasure of a nice dinner with Chris Powell, Buddy’s right-hand-man at Lone Star Comics, and he’s a smart, passionate retailer who really believes in bringing in comics for every age group walking through the doors of a Lone Star Comics shop. I have no doubt that those are great stores with an amazing selection of kids comics, and with more and more coming in every day. I really look forward to visiting a Lone Star Comics at some point. But I don’t understand why Mr. Saunders is still arguing that these books don’t exist, unless it is still the fact that it’s really just about him getting the exact sort of comics he wants, which are superhero comics from the early-80s or older, which were targeted at older readers but could still be enjoyed by some younger ones, which I took great pains to point out ain’t gonna happen in that last post.
So, anyway.
I didn’t mention anywhere in the original post that in 2009 I published a comic book for kids. Like, I actually did that myself, with the help of some very talented creators. It’s called COMICS FESTIVAL! and we sold about 22,000 of them into the direct market. It’s a great book, if I do say so, with like 30 pages of comics for kids, leading to more than a dozen comics and graphic novels currently in-print for kids. If you can track one down, I recommend it!
I truly believe in comics for children, and middle-grades, and young adults, and teens, and I spend a lot of time with that material. I know it’s not really fair as an arguing tactic to ask people to just accept on faith that I know what I’m talking about and things are ACTUALLY really great right now when it comes to comics for kids, but they are, and I hope they will.
I don’t just write 4,000 word essays about stuff for nuthin’. Peace-out.
– Christopher
©2009 Evan Dorkin. From Dork #5 & Dork Volume 1: Who’s Laughing Now?. 72
