Space Basket Preview

Space Basket is the new book by Jonathan Petersen, one of our favorite artists at DOMINO. Petersen is an incredibly creative and prolific artist—he seems to make a new comic every month, in addition to statues and other art objects. His stories are clear and simple but bring out a lot of conflicting emotions—they are funny, oddly frightening and always pivoting to new action. While his work is a touchstone for artists like Marc Bell and Keith Jones, he remains mostly unknown in the USA. We hope that with the publication of this book, more readers will come to enjoy Petersen’s work. We send the book to the printers this week and it will be available for order in the DOMINO SHOP next week. For now, here’s a look at the front and back cover of the book.

New Distro Items

Hey hey…new comics up in the DOMINO SHOP. Go get em…

Hyperspeed to Nowhere by Lale Westvind

Dubble Feecher by Lale Westvind

Chromazoid edited by Lale Westvind

Hot Dog Beach #1 by Lale Westvind

Checklist 2

Hey y’all. Here are some little bullet reviews of comics Iäve read lately (a bunch of them which I picked up at CAKE in Chicago) that I think are worth your time.

Zebadiah by Asher Z. Craw

36 pages, self published mini comic, black and white.

This is a fairly beautiful comic—after putting it down, you don’t want to consume more art for a little while, because it has the weight of something substantial. Craw, I was told, is a student of Julia Gröfer, an artist I really admire. At first Gröfers influence (solely on the drawing end) seemed like it might be a tad too thick, but upon closer reading (and the neccesary work on the readers part to not make lazy assumptions aboput influence and take those assumptions too seriously), Craw is defintley making his own visual decisions and personal image making breakthroughs. There is Gröfers delicate line, but Craws characters carry themselves with a different kind of weight. They are a tad more compact (less of the stretchy, hair strewn Gröfer characters here) and they have a different world of facial expressions. A little more tenderness worms its way into the characters lips and eyes, although its thankfully subtle and balanced.

 The writing is what really moved me here. A rural couple go through various actions of the day, but this is not fanciful slice of life. Everything we see Zebediah do colors him for us more as a character—he resists selling his hand made basket to craft collectors at the Smithsonian, he gets rid of tooth ache. Skillfully, Craw keeps us at a distance from Zeb—we like him but not too much. We like him at a respectful, not fully illuminated angle, but we are brought to this angle by Craw in a very deliberate way.

 Then, suddenly, there is a very swift pivot and Craw again seems to be a close call from Gröfer territory. The pivot imploys a tragic mingling with the subpernatural (or at least the hint of it). But again Craw is his own artist through and through. His art is slower and perhaps less immediatley overpowering than that of his teacher, but every bit as powerful and vital.

Hair Extensions #1 by Wiley Guillot

26 pages, self published zine, black and white

This is a collection of drawings by Brooklyn based artist Guillot, and I believe his first zine. Guillot shows a wide range of drawing interests here: light pencil shapes loosely sketched sitting on top of a slightly more rendered table are on one page, next to line-drawing character sketches with cartoony faces made with a fine pen. We turn the page and find a more fleshed out face study, with smears and washes. Then, further on, simple torso drawings that have not so simple faces. We go further and find llarge blobs of black ink that serve as the facial details for fleshy figure studies. Guillot even includes drawings made on old MS Paint style programs.

What’s exciting about this zine is that no matter what material or type of drawing Guillot gives us, they all have a unified mission of visual gestalt. I feel an aesthetic thrill looking at all these drawings and it leads me to believe that even in experimentating with different pallates, Guillot is an aritst that knows the look he wants, even if he’s not sure what it is until he gets it. I, for one, relate to that feeling a lot and I relate to these drawings. This is a beautiful package of work that Iäll be flipping through for quite some time.

Hot Dog Beach #2 by Lale Westvind

42 pages, color cover, black and white interiors. Oversized. Self published

Well, I’ve written about Westvinds comics quite a bit at this point—-I really think they are some of the best comics I’ve seen in a long, long time. But man, I was not accepting the phenomenal leap in achievement that Hot Dog Beach #2 demonstrates. Westvinds world of characters expands a thousand fold in this one—Hot Dog Beach #1 had a few characters and a relatively simple landscape that they all lurched around. This edition, you can feel Westvind slipping deep into her characters world and wanting to get it all to look the right way: The hallway looks THIS way, and the secretary looks THIS way.

In fact, ‘getting it to look right’ misses the point. Westvind actually wants it to all look as rich and overflowing with creative energy as possible. A secretary character isnt scribbled off as set dressing, Instead, every character (or wall, or chair, or eyeball) is an oppurtunity to pour out drawing, character design, humor, and intricate compositional work. The story is RELISHED here, and we relish it too, because Westvind is in some kind of crazy zine where she has the energy to draw it all and make it look razor sharp—and vastly fun.

 My favorite sequence here involves a hired motocyclist named Dinky spitting at a snake. Westvind spends so much energy drawing Dinky turning to spit that you almost want to cheer. The amazing part is, Hot Dog Beach is full of moments like this and for all their pleasure, the story itself chugs right along.

Lollygag

edited by Lark Pien, published by Yam Books

This is cartoonist Rina Ayuyangs first publication from Yam Books, superbly edited by Lark Pien. Lollygag reproduces pages from cartoonists sketchbooks—and unlike a sketchbook section in an anthology, Lollygag takes great pains to make itself as beautiful as an actual sketchbook—specifically, a sketchbook with really really good paper. With an artists caring eye, Pien makes sure greywashes come through just as good as pen and ink sketches. John Hankewiez’s greying shapes are understood with the same sensitivity as Vanessa Davis sharp character studies. What we have here is an anthology with a lot of different styles, unified by an editor (and publisher) with expansive taste and a unified vision of presentation. I don’t think a more impressive debut from a publisher is possible. And for those who don’t care about stuff like that, I don’t think a better sketchbook facsimile will come along for quite some time.

The Jiggy Jiggy Boys

Someone please send me the name of this artist, as the comic itself is unsigned.

16 pages, over-over sized. Self published, black and white

First, check out that awesome cover. A photocopy of an old Spider Man cover with the actual comics name graffitied on top. Why more ‘punk rock’ comics dont take risks like that is beyond me—and the aesthetic punch yielded here makes the transgression even more fun.

Now, forget the cover. The real show is inside. I love the drawing in here—dripping with lines and detail and grime, it’s an unpleasant place that’s laid before you. But I also felt a real sense of comfort too—there is a humanist voice coming through the refuse here. For its dark subject matter, aggresive presentation and unsettling character design decisions, this comic has some kind of thick beating heart.

Spider Monkey #2 Preview

Jesse McManus just sent over a bunch of preview pages of Spider Monkey #2—out from DOMINO in early 2013 (leaving plenty of time for you to get up to date with Spider Monkey #1). Looks pretty amazing so far—here are a few scattered pages to get you going (and be sure to check out an endless supply of Jesse McManus artwork over at his tumblr, Cartography Club):

Floating Word and 2D Cloud Distro Items

Great stuff from publishers 2dCloud and Floating World Comics new in the DOMINO SHOP . Go check these comics out…

Violence Valley by Jesse McManus

The Caterer by Jeff Lint

Mother Lover by Various

Things You Carry by Vincent Stall

Face Man is here!

Face Man by Clara Bessijelle is now in stock at the DOMINO store!

We couldn’t be more thrilled with how this book turned out—this comic was a long time coming and a lot of hard work getting it just right for print. So, it’s exciting to finally get to share this thing with readers. Hope you enjoy it!

More distro items

Another day, another batch of distro items here at DOMINO HQ. All these titles are available for order right now in the DOMINO SHOP.

Wild Glass by R Clint Colburn

Lizz Hickkey Comix Grab Bag

This is WW1 by Raymond E. Biesinger

Picnic by Gigi Perron

Face Man Preview

Face Man by Clara Bessijelle will be officially out in the world on Friday! That means Wednesday is the last day to pre-order copies. Remember, each pre-order will come shipped with an original drawing by Face Man author Clara Bessijelle.

In the meantime, here’s a preview of the book—a sequence towards the end of the story and the newly designed cover!

Silk screened distro items!

Some great new silk screened items in the shop today, from Anthony Meloro and from Montreal. Check em out!

Ghost heat Up #1 by Anthony Meloro

Ghost Heat Up #2 by Anthony Meloro

Ghost Heat Up #3 by Anthony Meloro

1998/2008 by Iris

Difficult Loves reviewed at TCJ

Really thoughtful review of DIFFICULT LOVES by Molly O’Connell by Sean T Collins is up at The Comics Journal.

So that’s the “Difficult.” Where’s the “Loves”? In the story — yes, there is one! — that’s where. A pair of estranged snakes reunite for a trip to Trollhättan, “the first truly erotic city,” where the female hopes to put their lingering issues and complicated, sticky past to rest with the use of psychotropic erotic pottery on display there…but they have to act fast, because pretty soon they’re gonna bulldoze the place and build a strip mall. Would you believe this is enormously affecting, despite the fact that it’s about knitwear-sporting snakes?