13.Jul.2011 Hey Kids, Comix!
I’ve not done one of these for a bit, been busy with summer cleaning and moving, and thought I might as well let Eric Dyck’s Mon Qui Towne have centre stage for a little bit.
I’d like to add a couple more strips like his to the site as syndicated features this summer, just thinking on who to approach right now. if you have a suggestion let me know in the comments here.
In other comics news;
At carte blanche, where I serve as Graphic Fiction Editor, we are now open to submissions for the Fall Issue, #14!
The Issue will include a special feature on Obsessions. From your vintage stapler collection to spying on your exes, we want to know about your passions, compulsions, and preoccupations. The Theme is optional but it will win you brownie points if you can fit it. Submission deadline is September 15th, 2011. My birthday! So send me your comics, consider them presents for me as editor!
Contributors receive a $45 honorarium per published piece on carte-blanche.org, and since I began editing I’ve published a set of the runner-up comics here on Sequential too. Check out the submission guidelines for more information. Please indicate in your cover letter if your your work is themed for the feature on obsessions. REMINDER: All submissions from Quebec residents that are selected for publication in carte blanche are eligible for the 3Macs carte blanche Prize ($300) sponsored by MacDougall, MacDougall, & MacTier Inc.
Ok, on to the comics.
Been wasting time on the new Google+, this strip from xkcd sums up a lot of people’s take on it, though really it’s shaking out to be something a bit different, a hybrid of twitter tumbler and blogger with facebook like networking. Pretty cool, lot of cartoonists there posting their work. A few of this weeks comics come from things I’ve seen posted there.
12.Jul.2011 MON QUI TOWNE: SIGNS OF SUMMER 2011
18.Jun.2011 Hey Kids, Comix!
Another Saturday morning, and another batch of great free comics from the interwebs.
By the by the The Calgary Expo is on this weekend and The Joe Shuster Awards take place tonight at the con.
They have a web comics category and a few great strips are up, along with my own Dream Life. Good luck to everyone, check this post out for the work of the nominees featured in a past “Hey Kids, Comix!” post.
Ok, and now on with today’s funnies and not so funnies…
31.May.2011 Carte Blanche 13 Graphic Fiction
The newest edition
of Carte Blanche
is alive, it’s Alive!
For lucky 13 we are happy to present a special feature on CRISIS.
There’s a lot of great stuff in the issue, including two excellent graphic fictions stories by some heavy hitters.
From the Eisner Award–winning creator of ‘Too Much Coffee Man’, Shannon Wheeler, ‘Oil Spill’.
And from James Romberger, of ‘Seven Miles A Second’, ’2020 Visions’, ‘Bronx Kill’, and ‘Aaron and Ahmed’, we are very proud to present ‘Raymond’.
We had many other excellent submissions we couldn’t accept, but i’m pleased to present a few of them here instead! To read the stories just click on the art to go to the next page…
‘The Boat People: My Name is Tuan’
By Daniel Ha.
A 10 page story about a young Vietnamese boy getting ready for school. Once there, he meets and befriends a Canadian girl in the school yard…
‘Dates’ Dates’
By William Brian MacLean.
A 16 page story of a pair of new lovers, comparing their experiences.
’13.0.0.0.0′
By Paul Houston and Alan Ackerman.
A short 4 page story about what might happen in the year 2012. The year in which the Maya have predicted as a year and time of great change.
Tell carte blanche what you think about their site by filling out their short readers’ survey.
You can help improve the magazine by filling out the survey, and get a chance to win a funky t-shirt from the fabulous Montreal t-shirt store, Montréalité. Check out their designs at montrealite-tshirts.com.
16.May.2011 Monkey Comics!
Troy Wilson writes to remind me of the Panels for Primates project at Act-i-vate. This series of monkey-themed webcomics by a huge bunch of cartoonists is all to raise awareness of the Primate Rescue sanctuary in Kentucky. The creators are donating their comics to encourage readers to donate to the charity. The last strip in this international virtual anthology will be posted on June 1st, but in the meantime there is a ton of great stuff to read already, including comics from 13 artists from across Canada. So far my favourite is Colin Upton’s entry. Upton is still putting out a ton of comics and he is smart and funny (one of my favourite moments from last week’s TCAF was listening to Adrian Tomine debate the relative merits of Colin Upton vs the Hernandez Brothers).
Troy, an editor and contributor to the project, writes: “It’d be great if you gave this a mention on Sequential. You did indeed mention the very earliest Canadian contributions many moons ago, but I think a master list of all the Canadian contributions might now be in order.”
How right you are Troy!
Kari-Lynn Winters (St. Catharines) and Scot Ritchie (Lower Mainland)
Jonathon Dalton (Lower Mainland)
Mark Shainblum (Montreal), Toren Atkinson (Lower Mainland), and Jeff LeBlanc (Montreal)
26.Mar.2011 Hey Kids, Comix!
Hey, so been a while since i did one of these.
I have an excuse, had a lot on my mind. But that’s no reason not to post da’ comics! Lifes too short not to post da comics.
Going to start with something that didn’t get done in time for the last carte blanche deadline but would have been a worthy submission, “Sunset“ from Daniel Ha
Fellow blogger here Dalton Sharp suggested i check this out. “The Machinators” by Jeff Bent. A Canadian expat living in Austin, TX.
For some riotous action fun, Kill All Monsters!
KAM! is written by Michael May, drawn by Jason Copland
and lettered by Ed Brisson.
Rich Barrett does an interesting comic called Nathan Sorry, about a hapless investment analyst who is supposed to have died on 9/11 but instead has gone on the run.
Think of the Children by Christian Sager is a 24-page satirical horror comic about the events leading to the original Comics Code Authority. The members of the Senate Subcommittee are secret monster hunters, seeking to destroy evil children, who they believe are corrupted by the stories of EC Comics.
Nomad Tofu a science-fantasy adventure series about “a weirdo-with-a-past who fell out of the sky and into a world of monsters”. Created by Harry Myland.
Over on my own sites i’ve got a few new pages for you.
On RevolveЯ all new pages of The rise and fall of it all are going live.
And on Dream Life, page 67 reveals how bad a bad ass Gary is.
Ok that’s it this week. Thanks to the whitechapel message board for some of these great links, check out this thread for more amazing comics – i’m probably be pilfering the list there for more next week!
Cheers
max
12.Feb.2011 Hey Kids, Comix!
Hey all, we got your awesome free comics right here! Going all over the place for them this week, starting with Mars. Dylan Horrocks’s The Magic Pen.
Did you know James Kochalka is the Cartoon Laureate of Vermont? It’s true.
Simon Fraser’s Lilly Mackenzie & the Treasure of Paros
on Act-I-Vate looks pretty awesome.
Also really impressive looking is the guns of shadow valley
by David Wachter & James Andrew Clark.
For out there is Cleopatra in Space by Mike Maihack.
Days of Leviathan by Wei Li is very lovely.
And Dirty Pony by Hector Lowe is usually pretty funny.
Destructor by Sean T. Collins and Matt Wiegle is pretty evil.
But sometimes the bad guys are good.
In the latest installment of my comic Dream Life
we’re getting to know Gary the antagonist a little better…
And page 3 of Where the wild things went is up at RevolveЯ here.
Ok, that’s it for this week!
05.Feb.2011 Hey Kids, Comix!
So for this weeks post, the no brainier I thought would be to highlight the Shuster Nominations!
Though, one might make the argument that i’m biased being one of them.
Bah, harldy, with a pen name starting with an ‘S’, i’m like second last in the list!…
We’ve spotlighted most of these before, but all all my fellow nominees are well worth a second look.
First up with some fun magic realism, is ATTILA ADORJANY for Metaphysical Neuroma!
Next, and serious favorite i suspect for the trouphy,
brake-out sluger in her full on power suite,
KATE BEATON for Hark! A Vagrant!
But favorite’s aside, these are all awesome, next up
with a loaded deck, is EMILY CARROLL for His Face All Red,
Dream Journals, The Death of José Arcadio,
Out the Door, & The Hare’s Bride.
I have to say i’m particularly fond of her work.
TXComics has two creators nominated in this category,
first is founding member, KARL KERSCHL, for what else, his lovely very
creative and personal work on
The Abominable Charles Christopher
Next up, bringing the Gothic and strange, Edward Gorey and Jan Balet’s love child,
DRAZEN KOZJAN for Friday’s Fables: The Happy Undertaker!
Next is with Paleo-Shamanic-Psychedelia & Noir,
SIMON ROY for Dead Lands,
& SIMON ROY & ED BRISSON
for Skimming the Till, Catching Up!
Skiping to the Ws, we have young but phenomenal creator of many
long, scrolling, truly web native comics,
CONNOR WILLUMSEN for Everett, Hot Brunette,
Batman Comic, & Explanation for Sator Stuff!
And finally, last but not least, a doodler of the mid east,
second member of the TX crew in the category, yours truly,
SALGOOD SAM, not for RevolveR [but you should look there too]
but for
Dream Life | a late coming of age!
Here’s the latest page, 62, live today.
THAT’S ALL FOLKS!
see you next week!
29.Jan.2011 Hey Kids, Comix!
Ok, here we go for another year, our weekly presentation of fun comics you can read online!
First, in our year end in review podcast, David Hains mentioned the pending Cat Rackham book from Koyama Press. Ann previewed the cover last week, here’s a look at that, and here’s a link to the comix online…
Looks promising.
Ty Templeton pays tribute to his early childhood indoctrination
in Franco-Belgian comics with this little ditty in last weeks Bun-Toons…
You think that’s crazy? Check out this weeks plot twists!
Colin Upton has been posting his auto-bio ‘Self-Indulgent Comics’
in this Facebook gallery for a while now, you can read quite a few there…
And now for something completely different.
I recently discovered BLUE by Pat Grant,
“A comic about the beach”. Lovely work.
OpinioNation on roostertree.com is a policticaly themed strip
I recently discovered by William Brian MacLean.
By contrast, Kyp Harness‘ Mortimer is subversive for other reasons.
Wei Li’s Lotus Root Children on EPI Digm looks interesting.
Aaron Costain, a Toronto architect and designer,
offers some interesting looking comics on his site here. Below is the start of ENTROPY part 6.
And i really like this one about table manors from Lezley Davidson’s Peeling Onions.
And last, the latest page of my own project, Dream Life is up today.
Page 61, introducing Gary Greenberg.
And over on RevolveЯ, the first chapter of the rise and fall of it all completed last week,
for a few weeks while i get some headway on the next chapter,
i’m posting some old short stories.
First is this, Where The Wild Things Went from 1998!
Ok, that’s all for this week.
Don’t forget, if you’re a comics creator, let me know about your web comics for these weekly posts.
And check out carte blanche,
where i’m the editor of graphic fiction!
|We’re looking for stories for our 13th edition still,
the next upcoming deadline is March 15th.
18.Dec.2010 Ho Ho Ho, Comics!
Last big ol’ mostly Canadian but not only, comics post of the year, Hey kids, check this out…
Ok, to kick it off, Kate Beaton has made the move to NY, and promptly lost her first comics to it’s not so mean streets. She posted a big whack of diary comics in it’s place, this one highlight jumped out at me as tieing in with the next well…
He he, yeah, and that does follow through well with this,
by Michèle Laframboise, about a paranoid fan!
For more B&W loveliness and strange tales,
Jillian Tamaki posts fun fast little comics
here on her sketch blog…
Also from NY, this great very fank comic
about the realities of making comics today from Gabrielle Bell…
Too true.
OK, Montrealer, now in Vermont attending CSS,
Jai Granofsky has been posting a lot of stuff
over on this blog lately,
like this one about
a failed romance…
And saw this one on facebook via Kelly Tindall, buy the talented Asaf Hanuka…
He he.
Kelly is also got some more That’s So Kraven!
Karl Kerschl is busy with the Assassin’s Creed comic, but posted this hot one pager for laughs…
Which reminds me of a cool series of how to posts by fellow TXcomics guy, creator of The Princess Planet & Smooth ‘n’ Natural, Brian McLachlan. The Webcomics Tutorial series. 10 Lessons For Better Colouring, Ideas part 1: How To Start A New Comic & Ideas part 2: 12 Ways To Keep Updating. Which also reminds me of this great blog about proses by Jessica Abel & Matt Madden. And this cool idea for a Jam Game by Matt.
Dakota McFadzean is also at CSS, and is doing a comic series related to that. He posted a comic about a moment every cartoonist has after spending too much time at the desk and inside otherwise…
It’s a life of glory for the doodlers indeed.
And then some of us get to look foreword
to being called villains for our efforts
[see the comments there].
Jason Kieffer is reportedly
nearly done his book about Zanta.
Here’s a strip published as a sample from it he did.
And more meta cartoonist comics stories,
Dylan Horrocks‘ Sam Zabel is crowned King
in the latest magic pen installment…
Claude Lalumière & Rupert Bottenberg
bring us The Quantum Oracle’s Labyrinth
of Meta-Awareness with the latest Lost Myths…
And check out this canvas Ruppert and 9 other artists
did at the Cirque du Soleil Montreal headquarters.
Cool eh? Ok, so next, check out the work of Tin Can Forest here.
And the awesome art of Connor Willumsen ici.
And last, I’m Salgood Sam, and i’ve me own comics you know.
Dream life will be posting the last page for 2010 today,
here’s last week’s [so as to not spoil the end of act 1]
And the rise and fall of it all will continue on through the holidays.
And that’s it for 2010 for me. Hey if you know some cool comics online use the comments to share a link!
See you all next year!
max
04.Dec.2010 Hey Kids, Comix!
Time for the weekly funnies!
First lets catch up with the other guys on TX
Click on the art to read larger versions on their own sites…
Karl Kerschl posted a new episode of
The Abominable Charles Christopher,
it’s got some action!
And Brian McLachlan’s
Smooth ‘n’ Natural has some classic
combat this week too!
Eric Vedder posted a new page
of Aardehn in November I missed.
And my Dream Life
also has a new one,
page 55.
Also the latest colour page of
The rise and fall of it all
is up at RevolveЯ
Over in
Ty Templeton’s Art Land,
we’ve got Saturday Morning
Pig Toons!
We haven’t seen Kyp Harness’s
Mortimer the Slug in a while here,
wonder what’s on his mind….
And last for this week,
Nick Maandag wrote me
about his comic a couple of days ago,
here’s a look at Laff Depot.
Ok, that’s it for today,
go read the comics,
leave the authors a note and some love!
With the checks some small,
we live on the stuff!
Cheers! -Max
27.Nov.2010 Hey Kids, Comix!
To start off this weeks comic post, i’m putting my hat on as Editor of Graphic Fiction at Carte Blanche, and presenting the short listed works from our submissions for issue 12.
I was a bit slow getting the word out about submissions, still getting my sea legs – but we had a very strong set of stories to choose from. Here they are. Click the pages to read them at full size…
First, Coveted Nails by William Owen & Dominic Salerno.
Next we have Dakota McFadzean’s Ghostie: The Happiest Damned Ghost Around
Daniel Ha’s Sand Castles appeared in Sequential Pulp 2 at TCAF 2010,
it’s one of his strongest pieces to date. An upcoming artist to keep an eye out for.
And last we have a submission from Mara Sternberg,
the author of Hush, the story featured in issue 11 of carte blanche.
For 12 she submitted Ella.
Nice eh?
And finally, For issue 12 of Carte Blanche, i’m happy to present WAITIN’ FOR CHIP by Nina Bunjevac. Click on the first page here to go on to the site and read the rest.
Nina is a Toronto based cartoonist and illustrator. Her arts education began at the Djordje Krstic school of applied art in Nish, Yugoslavia. And continued on to Central Technical School Art Department and the Ontario College of Art and Design.
Her work has been published in a variety of literary magazines and comics anthologies in Europe, US and Canada. Recent publications include: Mineshaft magazine (USA), Giuda, InguineMah (Italy), Le Dernier Cri (Marseille, France), Komikaze (Croatia) and Komiko (Serbia).
Ok, that’s it for now. For all you doodlers, FYI, submissions are open for the next issue of Carte Blanche!
Spring issue – March 15th (May publication)
Fall issue – September 15th (November publication)
cheers
Max
20.Nov.2010 Hey Kids, comix!
Have we got some for you today. A couple of interesting links first. For the aspiring artist, the New York Times has Line By Line, a series on learning the basics of drawing, presented by the artist and author James McMullan. Very cool.
Colleen Doran wrote a blog post on The Hill on comic pirates. Compelling piece with a lot of chatter in the comments. I tend to agree with her regarding illegal scans, especially when it comes to the sites that make a profit off of adds.
And Bryan pointed a nice review for the Doug Wright books out to me here.
Ok, to the comics!
I met a few people at Expozine with exceptional work, here’s two.
Duy Thang Nguyen showed me his portfolio,
pretty sure I’ve seen his name somewhere before but still a bit of a revelation.
Interesting intense stuff. He had a great halloween cover this year for a local weekly.
{not seen here but you will find it on the site}
Samara Leibner was sitting next to me at the show.
I interviewed her for the youtube clip i made.
She has a very lyrical and interesting comic online called Astronaut.
I ran into my old friend Ruppert Bottonberg, who happen to have a spare ticket to an awesome The Unsettlers show due to the fact his collaborator on Lost Myths, Claude Lalumière, was feeling under the weather after day one of Expozine. Lost Myths is a cool project, and a big part of what they have in mind is a live show for it as well, you should check it out if you can.
Also saw Kelly Tindall at the zine fair, nice guy,
and his wife! i’m just saying.
No cartoonist is supposed to attract that much heat. 
His That’s So Kraven! project with Trina Johnson continues as silly as ever.
Getting away from Expozine,
i recently discovered the work of Irma Kniivila
via my man Kalman – She’s not doing a lot of comics
online that i can see here but what she has is good.
Worth a look. She has a formal site here as well.
Drazen Kozjan has more of his Happy Undertaker for you to read
on his blog, and as a regular feature
on the Strange Kids Club blog.
And last from me myself and I, two pages.
New Dream Life: this page introduces us to Lionel,
last of the main cast to make an appearance.
Lionel us always late for things…
And The rise and fall of it all. Eliot makes a visit to the welfare office.
ok, that’s it for this week, till next time kids.
cheers
max
13.Nov.2010 Hey Kids, Comix!
Ty’s back at it, now with Science and polka dots!
I love science, and i love comics, and…i love drag? Well….
two out of three? [but i do love some folks who love it!]
I’m also a long time Cyberpunk fan,
Greg Dunford wrote me this week
to remind me of his project
with artist Renzo Podesta.
Hard Drive.
The new the new Assassin’s Creed: The Fall, comic by Cameron Stuart & Karl Kerschl came out this past week, and there’s a big pile of preview pages online here to check out, with a few sketches from the guy’s trip to Russia to research the book! Think this is Karl’s work seen below. Also a review here online with G4′s Blair Butler, she says thumbs up!
Ok my personal big new,
Dream Life | a late comig of age
is back to a weekly scedule of new pages for it’s fall season!
Page 52 went up today!
And, more Rise and Fall of it all in colour was posted as well!
Ok, that’s it for now.
If you’re in Montreal, go check out Expozine this weekend!
Going to be lots of cool comics and other stuff there for sure.
And me!
cheers
06.Nov.2010 Hey Kids, Comics!
Going farther abroad for this weekends comics. Quite struck by the art of Tim Hamilton, he has a Act-I-Vate strip worth checking out, Pet Sitter.
That’s some pretty ink.
This is a fun little ditty by one of my favorite doodlers from the US, Dustin Harbin. A quick bit of silly called the GRUMPY DETECTIVE
Little closer to home my mate at TX draws a great raccoon, i love raccoons…
He’s probably down in New England right now for the big Web comics Weekend there.
I’ll try not to be jealous.
Likely a lot of these folks are there.
Not quite web comics, though Cameron’s award winning Sin Titulo is awsome – but on his blog he shared some of the lovely art he’s done for Batman & Robin 16 in B&W. All digital i hear. Kind of a shame but great stuff anyway.
And i’ll wrap it up with a mention of my own stuff on RevolveЯ, The rise and fall of it all. Also i’m back to inking pages for Dream Life and will be returning to weekly updates there starting next weekend!
Cheers!
30.Oct.2010 Hey Kids, Spooky Comix!
Trick or treat!
Boo!
Ok, wrapping it up with a bit of nostalgia, I’ve posted a big set of old comix jam pages from back in the days when i hosted them here in Montreal. The tagging function is very handy for this, it not completed but you can roll over the panels of the pages to see who did many of them. And if you know who some are by that are not tagged yet feel free to add them!
11.Oct.2010 Hey Kids, Comix!
So as Bryan mentioned in the C-list there was a big profile of the Montreal Comic scene in this holiday weekend issue of the Montreal Gazette. I had a pleasant interview for it, so i was a bit disappointed reading it – after living in Montreal for more than 12 years it’s a little annoying to be the only person referred to as the “Torontonian” when half the people featured came from other towns and cities originally. Mixed feelings about that – no, really i just hate it. But hey, they do mention a heck of lot of stuff going on! A few were things i planed to post here. So on with the show.
Had bookmarked this first one to post about before i was called to do that interview even, That’s So Kraven! by Trina Johnson and Kelly Tindall. It’s a pretty goofy fan-fic web strip – to quote the site “The idea for That’s So Kraven! comes from a very simple concept; replace Raven, the female teenage heroine of the Disney television show That’s So Raven, with Kraven the Hunter, a Marvel Comics super-villain.” In most cases they use the dialog almost verbatim from the show.
In the Gazette piece they take some time to talk a bit of the Comix Jams, and Rupert’s involvement them. Claude Lalumière & Rupert Bottenber’s Lost Myths is his current comics project, pretty interesting and also beautifully drawn stuff.
They also talk about my TX collective mates, fellow Toronto ex-pats, and two of the biggest names at TXcomics, Cameron Stewart & Karl Kerschl. I’ve mentioned their comics here before, go check them out, amazing stuff – Sin Titulo and The Abominable Charles Christopher. But i wanted to mention another TX strip in this post, one I’ve just started to catch up on myself. Arthur Dela Cruz’s KISSING CHAOS has been around for a while now, so even know it’s on hiatus there’s a lot of reading to catch up on if you haven’t seen it already. It has an Eisner nomination under it’s belt and a huge following and some interesting sub text.
Book of the NOT Dead is a very well drawn work being posted on the Fabler site, i just came across it and i’m quite impressed so far. “In ancient Egypt, the assistant to the pharaoh has a death wish, and the goddess of luck with a major crush won’t let Adom kill himself. But luckily for him, the pharaoh likes to send him to solve mysteries with a literal deadline! Shenanigans ensue.”
Team Society League is a small Jam collective with a blog, they do some silly stuff of “questionable merit”, it’s the work of Aaron Costain, John Martz, and Zach Warton.
Dave Cooper would approve, and has some of his own lovely doodles of “questionable merit” posted on his blog too, some really nice details of his drawings posted recently.
And finally, it’s Thanksgiving!
I have turkey waiting for me tonight - Ty the Guy is here
to tell you why you should Thank Canada this year!
Salgood Sam – FORMER Torontonian and currently a long time Montrealer, out.
28.Sep.2010 Hey Kids, Comix!
Found some new comics! This is the all Facebook feed line up folks, it’s been the only way i interact with the world the last couple of weeks!
Apolagies to forgetting to anounce the last Moncton’s Monkeytown Comix Jam, sorry Eric! To make it up in part, going to start this weeks posting off with this. Came across this new strip on facebook, quite like it. Eric Dyck’s Mon Qui Towne
Elegant is The Happy Undertaker by Drazen Kozjan
@ http://strangekidsclub.blogspot.com
We published one of the Happy undertaker strips in Sequential 2010!
I just discovered the awsome Cat Rackham by Steve Wolfhar.
Bun Toons! Bun Toons! Bun Toon Animal Facts!
Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas’s Photos – Raven Kept Walking pg 18 on Facebook.
Michael says The story does continue but I think that this would be good place to rest for a while.
Also on facebook i’ve been following Lezley Davidson via facebook as Peeling Onions Pres for a while, like this latest TCAF strip from her.
Steve Murray’s our Stephen Colbert, check out ‘Extremely Bad Advice: Diamond Dating Direction‘ on nationalpost.com.
And to wrap it up, two short flms! First is an interview with cartoonists David Lapp and Phillipe Girard.
This was shot in front of a live audience at Monastiraki in Montreal on Saturday, August 28th from 5-7 pm. Vimeo link: David Lapp and Philippe Girard – Conundrum Press from Immediate Productions!
And second is a trailer. I only just bookmarked this preview of THE LISTENER so far, by David Lester. But i was quite taken by the short film he put out to promote his new Graphic Novel.
Warning, the ending is pretty graphic.
