Nix Comics Quarterly #4 on Kickstarter

Nix Comics Quarterly, the rock music inspired horror comic created by Ken Eppstein, is getting ready for its fourth issue to go to press, and we all have a chance to help this effort by contributing to Ken's Kickstarter campaign.

Nix Comics Quarterly is well worth supporting, not only because the stories, mostly written by Ken, are great fun to read but because Ken pays the artists who illustrate his stories.

Issue 4 features cover art by Michael Neno as well as a story illustrated by Matt Wyatt. Michael Neno's work has appeared in the first three issues, and Matt Wyatt and Max Ink contributed to Issue 3.

If you haven't yet explored any of the Nix Comics Quarterly issues, for a mere $20 you can get all four issues and support a fantastic venue for independent comic creators. If you can contribute more, you can get ad space or even original art work from the issue.

Coffee + Comic Book Art = Awesome

Attention Comic book fans! Boys and girls!  Ladies and gents!  Now presenting... an adventure in geekdom at Kafe Kerouac! Check out what the local comic book talent has to offer at the Kafe Kerouac's Comic Book Fans and Artists Night Out on Friday, November 11 from 8p-11p. There will be plenty of comic book art & goodies to be had.

So you think you know all there is to know about comics? From Alan Moore to Warren Ellis? From Archie to Xenia? Prove it! There's going to be a trivia game where you can get to use that nerdy knowledge to win prizes provided by the ever popular comic book store on High Street: Laughing Ogre.  There's also going to be a "comics caption" game. Show off that rapier wit in head to head competition! 

Also! A huge community poster jam will be going on so that anyone can add in their own little drawings and jam with the indie artists who are at the show.

So, come out, have a cup of coffee or some brewskies (or wine!) and mingle with local creators and see their artwork featured on the walls and on the shelves.

Local Comic Book Writers Roundtable

On October 5, local comics writers Ken Eppstein,  Dara Naraghi and Max Ink were interviewed by Doug Dangler for the WRITERS TALK program.  The interview is available in audio as well as video.  It will also be broadcast this week:  Monday, November 7, 7 pm., on WCRS radio (98.3 & 102.1 FM) and Wednesday, November 9, 8:00 p.m., on WCBE radio (central Ohio's NPR station, 90.5 FM)

Enjoying the SIMPLEXITY of it all

Much fun was had by many on Thursday night to celebrate Michael Neno’s SIMPLEXITY gallery show at the Wild Goose Creative.  Here are some pictures to prove it!

Mid Ohio Kick Off Party at Packrat Comics

Mid-Ohio Con is landing in Columbus this Saturday and Sunday, but the fun begins on FRIDAY at Packrat Comics in Hilliard! 


Beginning at 1pm, comic artist Steve Scott will be at Packrat signing comics. His most recent work includes Batman prior to the DC relaunch, X-Men Forever, Wolverine and JLA! He'll be here all afternoon to sign your copy of Batman 713...the issue that shows the second location of Packrat in Gotham City next to the Wayne Foundation!

Then, at 7pm the annual turkey dinner will be served to get the Mid Ohio Kick Off Party in full swing! There's free transportation to and from the convention center, plenty of free food and drinks, and an exclusive showing of our Mid Ohio Comic Con Publishing Contest comic book winners in their brand new art gallery. There's also the charity comic book Texas hold `em poker tournament, live music with disco lights & a fog machine.  So come to Packrat Comics and join the fun!


Shuttle Service provided by Packrat Comics:  Starting at 6:30pm and every 30 minutes thereafter there will be a shuttle to pick up party goers at 400 High Street in front of the Columbus Convention Center on the corner of Goodale and High.   RSVP on the Facebook Event to reserve space on the Packrat Comics Kick Off Party Shuttle.

View Larger Map

WANTED: NIX #4 Cover Art

Ken Eppstein, the head honcho over at our friendly neighborhood NIX Comics, is looking for a few good artists.  Well, actually, he's looking for ONE good artist, but never mind that right now. Ken is prepping for the fourth issue of NIX Comics Quarterly and is in search of a cover artist.  As he writes on the NIX website, "it will require someone with a decent feel for the rock music/horror comic crossover material that is the bread 'n' butter of Nix Comics Quarterly."    The artist that gets the gig will receive $300 for the cover art upon completion, plus 12 contributor copies of the book after printing is complete.  The initial print run will be 2500 books.  "If we are lucky enough to go into a second print, we'll negotiate a second deal for use of your art."

All the details and such can be found at the NIX Comics website. 

A Maus in the Haus

  

Thursday, October 27, from 7:30 to 9 pm, Capital University, Mees Hall

Capital University is proud to present one of the icons of the comics medium, the Pulitzer winning Art Spiegelman for its annual Gerhold Lecture in the Humanities. Art is on a publicity tour for MetaMaus, (a very special new edition packed full of extras to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his stunning work Maus) and is combining that with his lecture on the history of the medium entitled What the %&*! Happened to Comics? 

For those of you who don't know: in 1992, Spiegleman won the Pulitzer Prize for his masterful Holocaust narrative Maus, which portrayed Jews as mice and Nazis as cats. Maus II continued the remarkable story of his parents’ survival of the Nazi regime and their lives later in America. His comics are best known for their shifting graphic styles, their formal complexity, and controversial content. In his lecture, What the %@&*! Happened to Comics? Spiegelman takes his audience on a chronological tour of the evolution of comics, all the while explaining the value of this medium and why it should not be ignored. He believes that in our post-literate culture the importance of the comic is on the rise, for "comics echo the way the brain works. People think in iconographic images, not in holograms, and people think in bursts of language, not in paragraphs.”

This event is FREE and open to the public.

Michael Neno's SIMPLEXITY

Mutated cats

A heat-seeking dwarf 

Val Crocodile, Associate Professor of Linguistics  

What do these things have in common? 

They all oozed out of the mind and hands of Michael Neno and will be on display at the Wild Goose Creative from Oct.20 until Oct. 24. There you will witness a wide variety of Mr. Neno's comic book art pages, story book illustrations, webcomic art, minicomics, as well as an example of Michael's working process from notes to the finished page. There will be a gala opening on Thursday night from 7p-10p complete with exhibition notes, comic-related music, and snacks to fill the margins.

Mr. Neno is a recipient of a Xeric Grant and the Ohio Governor's Award of Excellence. He's been writing, drawing, lettering, coloring and publishing comic books since the 1980s. Michael's also curated three previous exhibits at Wild Goose Creative (including "Hey Kids! A History of Comic Book Advertising" which was featured throughout the 2010 Wild Goose Creative Geekfest).

SIMPLEXITY: COMICS, DRAWINGS and DAYDREAMED DOODLES by MICHAEL NENO

Opening Reception: Thursday, October 20th from 7-10 PM

Wild Goose Creative: 2491 Summit Street, Columbus, OH 43202 

RSVP the event on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=284180084933739

See more of Micheal's work at http://www.nenoworld.com and http://eventized.blogspot.com

Available Light Theatre Presents Skyscrapers of the Midwest

[adapted from the original post on Ray Tomczak's Gutter Talk]

Skyscrapers of the Midwest, a graphic novel by Joshua Cotter, is an odd yet haunting and affecting tale of two young boys, depicted as anthropomorphic cats, growing up in the 1980's. As he writes in his blog, Matt Slaybaugh, founder of Columbus, Ohio acting troupe Available Light Theatre, began to see the possibilities of adapting the comic for the stage shortly after first encountering it in 2008. Thus, Slaybaugh got in touch with Cotter and began the process of transforming the sequential narrative into a live theatrical experience.

The results of that process are on display beginning tonight as Skyscrapers of the Midwest, the play, written and directed by Slaybaugh, runs for two weeks (Apr 14-23) at the Riffe Center's Studio Two Theatre in Downtown Columbus. Appearing in the production are Emily Bach, Acacia Duncan, Drew Eberly, Jordan Fehr, Adam Humphrey, Brant Jones, Leigh Lotocki, Elena Perantoni, and Ian Short.

When I wrote that Skyscrapers, the comic, was odd, that was by no means intended as a slight. Based on the fact that he included giant robots in the story, I get the feeling that "odd" is, at least in part, exactly what Cotter was going for. It was those same giant robots that lead me to wonder as I read the book how Matt was going to bring this story to the stage. I'm looking forward to seeing how he pulled it off. I've been told that the art of puppetry is involved.

Available Light employs the "pay what you want" pricing strategy for nearly all of its productions, Skyscrapers included. This means there are no set ticket prices, allowing patrons to pay what they can afford or what they feel the show is worth. As stated on Available Light's web-site, "It’s simply a better world when we can all afford to see good shows, no matter how much cash we’ve got in our wallets on a daily basis....it’s about removing the barriers between you and great art"

Skyscrapers of the Midwest promises to be another great show from Available Light Theatre, and I strongly urge anyone in the Columbus area with an interest in either theatre or comics to head downtown this weekend or next and check it out.

If Ray's preview above didn't convince you you about the awesomeness of Skyscrapers, how about a very very cool video from AVLT:

Skyscrapers of the Midwest video preview from Available Light on Vimeo.

Seriously... check it out.

Sunday Comix Raffle to Benefit AFSP at S.P.A.C.E.

"Every 15 minutes someone dies by suicide."

That sad statistic comes from the web-site of The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.  As far as I'm concerned, once every twenty years is more than enough.  In my life, I have lost two people that I have cared about to suicide.  First, my childhood best friend Eric "Igor" Brown in 1991, and most recently my nephew Steve Pisarchick in 2008.  

Thus, this past weekend at the 12th Annual Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo (S.P.A.C.E.), I organized a raffle at the Sunday Comix table, the proceeds of which went to the AFSP.  

Before the show, I took a basket, donated by fellow Sunday Comix member Canada Keck, around the room, filling it with comics generously donated  by many of the exhibitors to be the prize.  Throughout the day, as well, several other artists came up to the table and added to the prize pool.  By the time we finally held the drawing, the basket could no longer hold all the comics that had been donated.  

Selling tickets for $2, or 12 for $10, we managed to raise $168.  To that I added $32 from my own pocket to make a $200 donation to AFSP in Steve's memory.  

I would like to thank everyone at the show who donated comics, all those who bought tickets, and, most of all, my fellow members of Sunday Comix, especially Canada and Max Ink, for all their help and support.  I could not have pulled this off without it.

You can find more information about the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and make a donation on-line, at afsp.org.

Our New Home

ANNOUNCEMENT: The Sunday Comix Cartoonist Group will now be holding both our monthly Sunday afternoon meetings and weekly Wednesday evening meetings at Packrat Comics (in their "Comics Cave"). Special thanks to the friendly support of Jamie and Theresa Colegrove for giving these gypsy cartoonists a more permanent home. Our inaugural meeting is tomorrow-- we'll be eating pizza and folding & stapling our collected Jam Comics books, Sunday Gold and Blue Sunday.

SPACE

Join us at SPACE this weekend, March 19 and 20, for the release of our two new collections- SUNDAY GOLD and BLUE SUNDAY--. (Each available for $3 or buy both for $5!)