We got another one folks: The Salgood Sam Interview, SEA OF RED and REVOLUTION ON THE PLANET OF THE APES penciller [ha ha] talks to Michael May @ Comic World News!.

Some pretty pictures, I say nice stuff about other people & talk about how clever I am!

What?

An interview I did last week is up now here as a profile on silverbulletcomics.com. it's a bit odd for me to read, it was done on the phone and then edited in email, but it has an odd rhythm to it....kind of broken up....

Also some press For POTA as well here on the same site, this was actually part of the interview originally.

I just read this, apparently controversial New Yorker article.

When I started reading it, I was hopeful. It seemed that this was not to be a piece that toadied to the trends & promised to be critical rather than fawning. I am a fan of a well thought out critical thinking and would like to see more, rather than the purely cynical derisive voices that so often pose as it. This hope didn’t last, as it turned out to be In summery a "the wave has passed" intellectualized modifier heavy tastemaker that tries to make a case for these arguments.

- The literary boom of graphic novels roughly spanning 1998-2002 is over, with nothing of critical note having been published supposedly in the last 2.75 years.

-The form is riddled with camp overacted characterizations and under written stories.

-That the well-stocked graphic novel section in your bookstore is here to stay.

-Expect to see many more books attempting to duplicate the successful and in Peter's mind largely depressing 'formulas' of the 1998-2002 boom.

Putting aside that the piece is written in an over acted intellectual voice, makes a blatant attempt to go for every sacred cow regardless of whether or not the case is worthy, and does it all with a heavy handed bias in regards to maters of personal taste and towards the form as a whole; it's hard to find much to disagree with here. As there is nothing left.

As an argument it's thin, and exploits the fact that the medium is young. That it is experiencing cycles of explosive growth and development followed by roughly equal periods of slower development in the refining of what the community as a whole learns from it's trendsetters, followed by explosive growth and development as what is learned is processed and regurgitated with further evolutionary explorations.

The art movements he lists and sights as dead ends did not occur in a void and have not 'died' at all. Do your history Peter, and read the whole book this time. Each movement leads to another, with a great deal of blurring in-between - our arbitrary classifications of one group from another being in truth purely conceptual structures. Back in time and forward to now, and on to tomorrow. Waves of knowledge and new ideas pass through from avant-garde to establishment and back. This article fails to recognize or ignores the generational, time and space dependent realties of life, and that of art and its artists.

Truths; yes 90% of any medium is total crap, or so personal as to be enjoyed only by a small but still relevant cult following. Leaving a small minority of masterworks to be shared as cream amongst the masses;

Great work takes time - in this medium years and years to complete, None of the books in Peters good list were done quickly, all were ideas that had time to develop, and he doesn't really survey anything new that has come out other than the comps her got from D&Q and DC in that last 3 years it seems.

Joe is a rare bird, a first. A true journalist who is also a graphic novelist. There will be others but it will also take time to populate a new field, and in an era of pop news and corporate media ….

Kids and adults are digging the graphic novel section, making it hard in Peters store to get to the poetry racks.

So…what's to complain about here? Personally I find it boring to bitch about things like the first point, it's a fact, get over it and yourself. The rest, I hardly see as even close to being negatives.

The article also displays an ignorance of new works from the next wave of creators who are putting out some truly incredible stuff, work that would be garnishing more notice if mainstream critics had been paying attention to the whole field, reading many more of the new books published since 2002 then they have, and not just sneering at the rows of candy coated Manga looming over their shoulder as they thumb Howl agine.

Hey, maybe Cris and Art and all the gang are spent, though I doubt it. You think that's it? Hunker down the cultural wasteland will take us all now? Think agine.

If you had keep an eye on creators weaned on the work from the late 90's to now, and are now working themselves on the feedback, mutations and inspirations of that explosion.

Likewise if you have seen the growth in new programs and whole schools devoted to the form. In grants and industry support for books that 10 years ago would have been next to impossible to get published.

If you could extrapolate all the books, both good and bad and the often accidentally avant-garde that will come as a result of all that.

If you really knew what you were talking about Peter and not just mimicking the dated, old school tunnel vision proclivities of your scene, and reading only the few creators you know about through your art director and those other high profile pro graphic novel articles recently published in your immediate cultural vicinity….

You know, a friend told me she recently read that New York was becoming culturally stagnant due to all the gentrification, might explain it….

yawn.

Came across a great self publishing resource via the Engine the other day, collecting them here for ease of future use.
A comprehensive page kept by Jane Irwin here on her site.
LESSONS LEARNED series by Chris Gumprich.
The Poor Man's Guide to Self Publishing by Val Staples
And last an old link but a good one, Jordan Crane's Guide to Reproduction [pdf]
Reminds me, it's been a while since I spent some time grooming my own site. Will have to find some time to do it soon.

taking a few days from drawing monkeys and building the Mr Comics web page to do some illos. He's one that was rejected actually, I tried to get fancy and did my own take on the section of the article it concerns, but he ED wants it more in line with the layout provided so IÂ?m doing that now. But this I like still.