DERNIERS TESTS AVANT L’APOCALYPSE at SPX

I’ll be manning the Uncivilized Books table (table i8) at SPX all weekend! I’ll be there with Kevin Huizenga, Dan Zettwoch, Zak Sally & Peter Wartman. Stop by to say hi!

Meanwhile, look what I got in the mail!

The French version of Beta Testing the Apocalypse is a reality! The book is in stores in France now!

The French book is a bit larger than the Fantagraphics version.

It wouldn’t be French without French flaps! I had to extend the cover drawing by more than 50%! More on that in a future post!

The table of contents.

French title card.

Sample pages in French. Thanks to Dalton Webb for creating a great font from my hand writing!

The French edition has an afterword written by novelist & journalist Christophe Tison. I’ll have a translation of it in a future post.

The back cover! I’ll have copies in both languages at SPX. See you there!

SPX 2010

SPX is upon us again. I missed it last year, so I’m very excited to be there this weekend. Here’s what’s in store for the show:

On Saturday, Sept 11, from 5-6 p.m. I’ll be at the Fantagraphics table signing Mome’s and various mini-comics contraband. I’ll be signing alongside fellow Mome contributor Derek Van Gieson.

On Sunday I’ll be part of a panel titled Developing Iconographies. Here’s the brief from SPX programming:

Sunday, Sept 12, 2:30 | White Flint Amphitheater

Distinct from drawing as an art discipline with its own self-ratifying purpose, artists in comics create pictures as part of a visual language. Moderator Ken Parille will investigate the ways in which comics artists develop visual iconographies in individual works and throughout bodies of work. Cartoonists Eamon Espey, Kevin Huizenga, and Tom Kaczynski will participate in this discussion, illustrated with slides of the artists’ work.

The discussion should spirited, I hope all of you out there come and ask some problematic questions!

But what would SPX be without the comics. I’m happy to announce that my micro-publishing venture, Uncivilized Books, has once again teamed up with Gabrielle Bell to produce another mini-collection of her acclaimed diary comics:

Diary by Gabrielle Bell

The book includes her diaries set in Minneapolis, California & New York. The star of the book is Manifestation, Gabrielle’s ‘adaptation’ of the notorious Scum Manifesto. I also contributed a short comic-intro. We’ll have copies of L.A. Diary as well.

Another recent Uncivilized Books production will be on hand: The Petrified Catalogue by Dan Wieken. The book debuted at MIX last month, and this is the first time it’ll be available outside of Minneapolis/St. Paul.

the petrified catalogue by dan wieken

Last, but not least, I’ll have my usual assortment of comics along with Structures 1-11, a collection of architectural drawings that are part of my research for a future story:

strucutres 1-11 by tom kaczynski

We’ll be sharing a table with Julia Wertz, Jessie Reklaw, Andrice Arp, Jon Lewis & Karen Sneider. Stop by and say hello!

Post SPX 2007 Report

yuichi yokoyama tablecloth slice

SPX 2007 was one of the funnest comics shows I’ve ever attended. There are tons of SPX reports out there already, so I’ll refrain from going into to much detail. My favorite acquisitions:

Yuichi Yokoyama’s New Engineering was easily the book I most anticipated. I’d been reading about it online for some time. Finally getting my hands on this book was very satisfying. The book’s mixture of absurd combat and surreal construction projects did not disappoint. I will have more to say about it in the near future.

Papercutter #6. This little anthology is getting better with each volume. This issue didn’t disappoint. Alec (Phase 7) Longstreth, who also edited it, delivers a solid story that could easily make this Phase 7 #12.5. Ken Dahl spews out a Gordon Smalls stream of consciousness rant. I kept thinking it was set in a parallel world where John Zerzan was not only a cartoonist but funny too. Julia Wertz and Laura Park collaborate on a sweet story of youthful sexual awakening… er… or something like that.

My favorite mini of the show was Sarah Glidden’s How to Understand Israel in Sixty Days or Less. It’s dense, understated and well paced. Well worth whatever she was charging for it.

And last, but not least, Acorn Reindeer’s new mini The Karaoke Encryption combines a foul mouthed vegetable Tintin with Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps.

Other highlights included being on my first comics ‘theory’ panel, signing copies of Mome with Mome-mate Eleanor Davis, talking J.G. Ballard with Andy Hartzell and many others too numerous to mention.

SPX 2006 Part 2

new trans-alaska, trans-atlantis, trans-siberia gocco cover editions
SPX 2006 turned out pretty great. The new venue wasn’t too bad, though the food around the hotel sucked. But I won’t bore you with an exhaustive account, there are plenty of them out there. No need to add to the noise. Thanks to everyone that stopped by to say hi.
For those that have been following my notes posts to Trans-Alaska, but haven’t been able to get ahold of a copy of the book: I have finally re-printed all three of the Trans-Books. They have brand new covers hand made on the amazing, soon-to be obsolete Gocco.
They are available on my robot26.com site. Older editions should still be available from other places.