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Looking Forward: April Releases, Yeti Press and Sparkplug Books Announce 2015 Publishing Slates
MoCCA Comics Fest is just around the corner, and some small presses have begun to send out their plans for this year’s publishing slate. Two books I’m excited about from two different Canadian presses – Koyama Press’ koyamapress Mighty Star and the Castle of the Cancatervater from A Degen adactivity and Towerkind from Kat Verhoeven…
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Comics Review: The Hospital Suite by John Porcellino
Review: The Hospital Suite, by John Porcellino John Porcellino is a stalwart of the indie comics scene. King-Cat Comics is going on its 26th year, and Porcellino’s zine distro, Spit and a Half, was how I bought some of my first indie comics at SPACE in Columbus last year. Late in 2014, Drawn and Quarterly released…
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Review: UR by Eric Haven I try as much as possible to keep up with Ad House Books; Chris Pitzer has a good eye for comics, publishing last year’s Noah Van Sciver book and Operation Margarine from Katie Skelly. Published in October of 2014, UR is 48 pages of full color short stories from Eric…
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Appropriation, Western Imperialism, and Privilege: Thoughts on Mahou Shounen Breakfast Club
Author’s note: When returning to my writing from a short internet hiatus, I came across the MSBC “scandal” after it had generally run its course. I wanted to think about root causes and talk about the responsibilities of artists and critics. I hope that this piece causes you to pause, at least for a minute, and…
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Linkblogging #5
Linkblogging is a monthly “go look” feature on Sequential State that I’m using to feature fun comic things aroundthe internet. There is a lot of great stuff to look at on the internet. Thestuff featured is just the stuff I’ve been looking at lately. If I missed yourthing, send me a message! Crowdfunders: Lots (and…
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2015-02-222021-05-22_SkypeCall_sequentialstate_Serafina20Dwyer-1 It’s good to be back! Late in February, serafina-dwy and I had a chat about the Kickstarter project Serafina is running, Love in All Forms: The Big Book of Growing Up Queer. While I’m still trying to transcribe the audio to make the interview more accessible, I’m going to post the audio from that…
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Review: First Year Healthy by Michael DeForge Plenty of folks have spilled ink on Michael DeForge’s latest print comic First Year Healthy. The book defies explanation, which is likely what makes it so fascinating. Its slight stature and bright imagery makes it seem more like a Little Golden Book than an alt-comic about mental illness,…
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Review: Baby Bjornstrand, by Renee French I’ve been slowly catching up with books published in 2014,and while I’m not in ‘the struggle is real’ kind of territory, it does mean it’s taken a while to get around to books I’ve been meaning to read for months, including the enigmatic Baby Bjornstrand from Renee French and…
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Interview: Katie Skelly on her new comic TONYA
Last week I got the chance to chat with Katie Skelly over email about her newest comic, TONYA. Released through the digital content delivery site Gumroad, this book immediately caught my attention because of its protagonist – the infamous Tonya Harding. Katie and I talked about the conflict between Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, isolation and…
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Review: The Sculptor, by Scott McCloud
One of the more highly-trumpeted comics to be published in 2015 is Scott McCloud’s The Sculptor with interviews and reviews in national media like NPR and on popular media sites like Boing Boing. McCloud is best known for his nonfiction comics about understanding and making comics, but The Sculptor is a work that apparently…
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Musings: Beauty by Hubert and Kerascoët It is hard to thoroughly discuss any work with any brevity. Often times a critic’s thoughts and ideas about a specific piece must be abandoned due to word counts. I admit I do this regularly – instead of bringing up all of the thoughts I have about a piece, I tend…
