Trans Atlantis

Category: Comics

  • Beta Testing the Apocalypse

    beta-testing-the-apocalypse-by-tom-kaczynski

    I’ve been quiet about my new book, Beta Testing the Apocalypse (Fantagraphics), mainly because, until very recently, I was still working on finishing all the art & design for it. Fantagraphics has already announced on their site, where it is also available for pre-order (hint, hint). I’m very excited to officially announce it here. What’s in the book you ask?

    • It collects most of my work from MOME. Finally, a single place to see all those stories.
    • Most of my work there was black & white, so I took some time and colored all the stories. The book will be printed in two-colors throughout. A different Pantone color for each story.
    • A brand new story ‘The New’!
    • A full index. I’ve never seen a proper index in a comic-book (at least I can’t remember seeing one). I’ve always wanted to be able to look up concepts or even just drawings or sequences based on an index. It was really fun to put together. I’m hoping to start a trend here…

    Over the last few months, I’ve been wanting to post some art and progress reports on the book. In the end there was little time for that. In a way this felt like I had a chance to one more last MOME story, and it’s also the last time I was MOMEd. Over the next couple of months, in anticipation of the release, I’m going to share a bunch of drawings, ideas and other goodies about the book. Stay tuned!

  • Trans France

    I’ve always admired French comics, now I made one… sort of. I should’ve blogged this months ago. But, I became distracted by work on Beta Testing the Apocalypse. In May, 2012 a French edition of my Trans-series (Trans-Alaska, Siberia, Atlantis, Utopia) came out in two tiny hardcover volumes. Alter Comics published the books. Each one is a flip-book, with two comics back to back. I re-lettered each volume and re-worked a bunch of the graphics & typography to match the translation. I’m really happy how it turned out and extremely excited to have a book in French! As far as I know, there is one French review so far. If you are a French reader who has read it, please let me know what you think. I’m really curious how the translation reads over there.

    This is also a homecoming for me. I grew up reading European comics like Thorgal, Valerian, Asterix, Lucky Luke, Kajko i Kokosz, Funky Koval, etc. I’m honored my own comics now appear on European soil. Seeing my own work translated, made me realize how little European work makes it over the Atlantic to the US. It inspired me to bring more European work to America via my Uncivilized Books project. Look for some announcements about these plans are coming real soon!

  • MIX + Minneapolis / St. Paul Comics Scene Report

    mix 2011 poter by tom kaczynski

    My Minneapolis / St. Paul comics scene report went up over the weekend on Frank Santoro‘s Riff Raff column over at the Comics Journal. Frank asked for 400 words. I pretty much ignored him and turned in 2000. Not on purpose Frank!

    After having lived in New York for almost a decade I expected a hard adjustment to a smaller Minneapolis scene when I moved back three years ago. But it became quickly apparent that the Minneapolis/St. Paul comics scene was nothing to sneeze at. In fact, the Twin Cities really are one of the great comics places in the US. Anyway, I’m sure I missed a lot of people in my report, so feel free to point them out! Heck, if you think you can do a better & more exhaustive Mpls/St. Paul report go for it! And Let me know when/if you do it. Actually, wouldn’t it great if there was a sort of ‘annual report’ that summed up the comics scene every year? I’d love to see something like it. Check out my effort out if you haven’t already.

    As part of the report I was also going to do a MIX 2011 report, but things got wordy and I’m sure Frank appreciates that I didn’t include it in the piece. Instead I was going to detail my impressions on this blog. However, in the meantime, cartoonist Dustin Harbin wrote a great exhaustive report on the eXpo. He pretty much nailed it. Instead of wasting more pixels on yet another report, you should all just read his. I really appreciate his honest take. From my local perspective it was a great show. An amazing array of guests (Koyama Press! Adhouse! Top Shelf! Jim Rugg! Dustin Harbin! Ander Nilsen! Sarah Glidden! Julia Wertz! John Porcellino! Mike Dawson! Eamon Espy! Jon Lewis! Karen Sneider! Robyn Chapman! Rina Ayuyang! David Huyck! Microcosm! + more!) arrived and seemed to have a great time. I made decent money, but it’s hard not to do that at you local show when you don’t have travel expenses to contend with. My main concern was with the out of town guests. I really wanted them to do well, have a great time and come back in the future. I hope they will. Kudos to Sarah Morean for pulling off a great show. Check out Dustin’s report. Oh and I uploaded all my MIX pics to Flicker if anyone cares.

    mix 2011 banner by tom kaczynski

  • True Swamp Halloween

    true swamp no. 2

    It was a True Swamp Halloween, making comics and handing out candy to kids. Almost done! True Swamp No. 2 is available for preorder!

  • True Swamp No. 2 by Jon Lewis

    True Swamp No. 2 by Jon Lewis

    Meanwhile… at my little comix label Uncivilized Books… we’ve got the new True Swamp mini-comic!

  • Missed This Dept.

    trans-utopia excerpt by tom kaczynski

    Another several weeks old story I should’ve mentioned on here at some point. Over at the Comics Journal site I was interviewed by Mike Dawson for his TCJ Talkies podcast. The conversation took a lot of weird but enjoyable turns. We ended up talking a lot about the Trans-Series and the social & philosophical issues that crop up again and again in my comics. Check it out.

  • MIX 2011 Poster

    I’m really excited about the Minneapolis Indie eXpo this year. Last year turned out great and this year promises to be even better. There are some amazing guest coming to town for that weekend. Make your plans to attend the show now!

    This year I was asked to do the poster for the show. My poster idea was to turn MIX into some a of World’s Fair. Here was an early idea which seemed not grand enough. It got turned into a banner for the site:

    MIX Art by Tom Kaczynski

    This is the final poster art:

    mix poster art by tom kaczynski

    It’s a bit of a mash-up of traditional architectural forms and the kind of work I’ve been doing for my Structures project.

     

  • Music for Neanderthals

    mome 22 - music for neanderthals by tom kaczynski

    Here’s another item I neglected to note: the passing of the MOME anthology. My first comic for MOME appeared in issue #7. That time seems impossibly distant. I was still living in New York at that time and hadn’t published much of anything… besides a bunch of mini-comics and short pieces here and there. I was grateful & excited to be included and produced a steady stream of  short pieces for my first few issues. I was unable to keep up that productivity indefinitely, which was just as well. There were other cartoonists waiting in the wings for a chance to be included. But since then, MOME became a constant presence. Whenever I came up with some crazy short story idea I knew it would probably find a place in some future volume of the anthology. Well no longer. MOME closed it’s doors this summer with issue 22. I was fortunate enough to be able to contribute to the last volume. My final MOME story is called “Music for Neanderthals.” In retrospect the theme of extinction was fitting…

    I think MOME’s influence will reverberate into the future and will have an outsized effect on future comics… or maybe that’s just my wishful thinking. Here’s to MOME! It will be missed.

    Fantagraphics posted some preview pics of the last issue. You can ge the book here.

  • Nominated

    ignatz the mouse
    image from andertoons

    It’s been quiet around here for a few weeks. The good thing about job 2.0 is that, unlike job 1.0, you can blow it off without much consequences. Oh sure, your search engine rankings are going to start tanking, people who read your blow start dropping off slowly, cobwebs start forming on your home page… (do people still say ‘home page’?) but really what other consequences are there?

    I’ll try to catch up and post of some recent news. First up, a few weeks ago I got nominated for an Ignatz Award in the Outstanding Mini-Comic category. I probably should have mounted a campaign to try to win the award, but I never got around to it. I didn’t go to SPX either. It looked like a good show from afar. Congratulations to the Ignatz Winners!

  • RIP Dylan Williams

    …