Hi everyone! Good to be back up and running. I took a break last week to focus on studies for a big certification test. I tested on Wednesday, and I’ll know the results in 2 months.
Meanwhile, some interesting projects have hit the crowd funding sites, and I figured I would point a few out that have caught my attention.
#1: New South Festival in Austin
Danithan, one of the co-founders of Foxing Quarterly (tumblr: foxingquarterly), is putting together a curated alt-comics and literature show in Austin, Texas that is hopefully going to be June 6-7th 2015. The show is New South and seems to be in the vein of other CAFs (TCAF, SPX) but perhaps a little more inclusive. They’re looking for 20k, not a small sum. In order to help raise the funds for the show, they’re allowing backers access to post-it art by cartoonists such as Roman Muradov, Ryan Cecil Smith, Jim Rugg, and Alex Schubert. If nothing else, this is a great way to build the community and get some cool art. At the time of this writing, the festival has a bit over 18 days left and needs to fund-raise a majority of its goal.
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Hymn Collection (tumblr: hymncollection) is a collaboration between two artists from Calgary, Christian Frederiksen and Emily Chu, and they’re looking to reprint Volume 2 of their two person anthology. The book is 166 pages and is double sided, with Emily’s work on one half, and Christian’s on the other and a transition in the middle. I think the idea is really fascinating – it honestly reminds me of the Yen Press two-sided anthologies of manga and OEL that they published in the late 00’s early 10’s.
There’s some pretty stunning artwork featured on their Kickstarter page so I’ll point you in that direction. They’ve got about 3 days left and a little over $1,000 CAD left to raise.
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Last but not least, sparkplugbooks is trying to launch it’s Fall 2014 line with the last issue of Elijah Brubaker’s Reich and a collection of William Cardini’s Vortex mini comics. Reich is a long-running series (this issue will be #12) and features the life and times of Wilhelm Reich, a scientist and psychoanalyst who had some run-ins with the government.
Vortex is a comic that Cardini has been making since 2011, and it looks like there’s going to be a lot of touch up and revamping from the original minis to this new collected book, so if you want to see the final vision of the comic, this is your best bet.
I think supporting small press is important, and Sparkplug still has a ways to go – $2500 in about 4 days. If you’re looking for goopy wizard comics (and to be honest, who isn’t), then maybe this KS campaign is for you.