Trans Atlantis

Blog

  • 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!

  • Sketchbook 035

    by Tom Kaczynski

  • Best Totalitarian Pop Song

    I pilfered these videos from Graham Harman‘s blog. Graham is right, this is the best totalitarian pop song to emerge from an evil dictatorship.

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58bMFEqTKTE&w=480&h=360]

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKz9Z086P8g&w=480&h=360]

    I love both versions, but this second one opens up a Soviet sized nostalgia zone in my head. Even though I’ve never heard this song before, it contains all of the elements that I remember from my Communist childhood. The marching/military tempo, the upbeat/downbeat choral arrangements, it’s all there. All the notes this songs hits are familiar and mysterious at the same time.

    It’s as if this material exists in a deep well somewhere in my soul; the building blocks jumbled up and suppressed deep within, only to occasionally manifest when I stumble on a YouTube memory. The best totalitarian pop song is already inside of me, aching to make itself known.

    If anyone is interested, I wrote about my my favorite Soviet song here.

  • Sketchbook 034

  • Sketchbook 033

    by Tom Kaczynski

  • Sketchbook 032

    from quest for fire

    drawn from Quest for Fire.

  • Sketchbook 031

    from quest for fire

    drawn from Quest for Fire.

  • Le Corbusier

    le corbusier by tom kaczynski

    Le Corbusier visits the USSR in 1928.

  • 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

  • Sketchbook 030