Category Archives for COMICS

New Comics Day: POP GUN WAR: Chain Letter by Farel Dalrymple

Awesome, the Pop Gun War: Chain Letter zine is at the printers right now.  If you’re in Portland this weekend come say hello to Farel at his table at the Stumptown Comics Fest (April 18-19) and pick up a handmade copy with limited edition silkscreen cover!  Before we get to the new pages here’s an excerpt from Farel’s introduction to the book:

This comic book is the first 23 pages of Pop Gun War: Chain Letter.  Chain Letter is a sequel to a comic I did quite some time ago called Pop Gun War: Gift.

Ultimately, Chain Letter will be a 160-page book, told in four separate parts, with Emily starting the adventure.  Next will be Sinclair’s story told in full color.  The segment after that will be a Ben Able detective story done in black and white with grey washes.  The fourth segment will be set in the future and will be black and white with one spot color.

It has been several years since I started this project and I am quite anxious to finish it.  Jason Leivian from Floating World Comics in Portland, Oregon helped me put this special preview edition (limited to only 100 copies) of Pop Gun War: Chain Letter together.

I hope you enjoy it.  Thanks.

Looking for parts 1 and 2?  Read them here and here.

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"King Top" by Panayiotis Terzis

Panayiotis Terzis contributed to issue 3 of my comics newspaper, Diamond Comics, and it’s great to collaborate with him again for Arthur Comics.  He’ll be sharing one new page of King Top on the 13th of each month.  The original pages are huge watercolor prints, please click on the image for larger size.  Pan also has some info about some new projects he’s working on:

The literary journal Salt Hill, published by Syracuse University is going to have 8 pages of watercolor comix and drawings by me, and one of my prints wrapping around the cover.  Should be out mid April.  I also will have two pages in an anthology of abstract comics put out by Fantagraphics, due out by Mocca (early June)..  And I’m working on a newsprint zine published by the Dynasty zine people who operate out of Athens Greece.  I’ll make a new artist-book for SPX I think.

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"PINK TOMBS" by Pete Toms

We’re pleased to share a new comic Pete Toms created specifically for the website.  Pete sent me some notes for a script he was working on:

Just wanted to let you know I’m working out the script for the Arthur blog.  It’s essentially going to be about the relationship between two people that get fed up with popular furry culture and realize they like to dress up like Spiegelman’s maus characters and have sex with each other.  But that’s just on the surface.  Obviously it’s really about the death of corporate culture.

Not really.  Though after typing that it doesn’t seem like a bad idea.

Pete, I wanna read that comic!  Fortunately the idea he went with is just as cool and the execution is gorgeous.  PINK TOMBS OF YOUTH is about a cartoonist with memory problems that’s having trouble distinguishing between his comics and reality.  Here’s the first 6 pages… 

— Jason Leivian

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EXCERPT: "COLD HEAT" 5/6 by Ben Jones & Frank Santoro

Did you hear the news earlier this year? Comic books are dead. But the the first rule of comics, if there are any rules at all, is that no one stays dead in comics. So no one really expected comics to stay dead for long did they?

It’s only been about two months since comics “died” yet here we have a brand new issue of Cold Heat, with staples and everything. So if one era of comics just ended (the one that started with Action Comics #1), then let this be the beginning of a new Golden Age. A lack of widespread distribution to comic shops is discouraging, but it’s not gonna stop creators who are this passionate about the art form.

Cold Heat is one of my favorite comics from the past couple years. Ben Jones’ writing is just as hilarious as his Paper Rad stuff. But this story’s already over 100 pages long, so he and artist Frank Santoro have a lot more room to play. If you’re new to the world of Cold Heat you can read the first four issues online. But I recommend finding the books. The colors and artwork look great on paper and you also get the bonus short prose stories that are only printed in the issues.

The series focuses on Castle, a high school student who is really bummed out because her favorite rock star was just found dead of an apparent suicide. This subject matter seems strangely appropriate to me because I remember exactly where I was when the radio announced that Kurt Cobain was dead. I was at a comic shop in Phoenix, going through some dollar boxes on the floor. I paused for a moment to listen to the report, then went back to the long boxes of cheap Vertigo comics. The surreal satire that follows has a nice stream of consciousness flow that reminds me of other favorites like Ed the Happy Clown or Gilbert Hernandez. There’s a brilliant twist that takes the series to a whole new level in one of the later issues. I shouldn’t have even mentioned it exists.

Here’s the first six pages of issue 5/6. We thought we were gonna have to wait for the whole story to be collected as a trade, but they couldn’t wait either so issues 5 and 6 have been self-published as a limited edition zine.  It’s a beautiful book.  The 100 copy print run is almost gone, but you can still get one from the Picturebox website…

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