News

Alternative Comics at Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland
Cartoonists on hand to debut many anticipated books

Gainesville, Florida, August 12, 2002:

Florida comic book publisher Alternative Comics will attend The Small Press Expo (SPX) in Bethesda, Maryland running September 6 through 8, 2002, and will debut a number of eagerly anticipated new books from cartoonists Leela Corman, Matt Madden, Tomer & Assaf Hanuka, Nick Bertozzi, James Kochalka, and Tom Hart, plus Alternative Comics will debut their spectacular Rosetta anthology. A number of cartoonists published by Alternative Comics will also be on hand for autograph and sketching sessions for their fans. In its ninth year SPX now serves as the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comic books and the discovery of new creative talent. SPX will bring together over 300 artists and publishers to meet their readers, booksellers, distributors, and each other.

The United States Library of Congress will also be having an exhibit through September and October related to books and artwork related to September 11 with its opening to coincide with SPX. The 9/11 exhibition which will include photography, comic book creations, prints and drawings, architectural plans and renderings, and other types of original visual materials is scheduled to run September 7-October 26, 2002. Alternative Comics arranged with many of the cartoonists involved with their 9-11: Emergency Relief benefit graphic novel (Diamond Code: STAR14976; ISBN: 1-891867-12-1) for their original art to be housed permanently in the Library of Congress and to be part of this exhibit. The Library of Congress will also sponsor an event and panel with legendary comics veterans Will Eisner, Peter Kuper, Paul Levitz, and Trina Robbins on October 2, 2002. Alternative Comics Publisher Jeff Mason will also be on the panel.

Alternative Comics publisher Jeff Mason will be at SPX where the following Alternative Comics cartoonists will be on hand Friday through Sunday in the Versailles Ballroom at Tables 35-39:

• Graham Annable - with his Harvey Award and YALSA nominated Grickle graphic novel, will be debuting a brand new issue of his Hickee anthology. Graham Annable was classically trained as an animator at Sheridan College in Toronto, graduating in 1992, and has worked as an animator ever since, including work on British children's TV, story boards for Chuck Jones Enterprises, Disney's A Goofy Movie, and since 1994 an extended string of computer game projects for LucasArts such as Star Wars: Obi-Wan, Full Throttle, The Dig, Afterlife, Outlaws, and The Curse of Monkey Island. Annable is the Lead Animator for the LucasArts video game RTX Red Rock . His projects have won numerous animation and graphics awards including the ASIFA Annie Award, animation's highest honor, in 1998 for "Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Interactive Program". Graham currently resides in the Bay Area, California.

• Gabrielle Bell - is responsible for the Book of series: Book of Insomnia, Book of Sleep, Book of Black, Book of Lies, and Book of Ordinary Things. She has contributed to publications such as Stereoscomic, Bogus Dead, Shout! magazine and the upcoming Orchid. She lives in Brooklyn, New York

• Nick Bertozzi - nominated for an Eisner Award for his The Masochists graphic novel, will be showing off the first issue of his recenty debuted Rubber Necker comic book series and debuting the second issue of the Triple Dare comics anthology. Nick lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife and their daughter. His comics credits include: DC Comics' Bizarro Comics, Comix 2000 (L'Association), Boswash for which he also received both the Xeric Grant Award and the Ignatz Award, several stories for the Big Book series (Paradox Press), and many other cartoon anthologies across the globe.

  

• Leela Corman - this Xeric Award winner will debut her Subway Series graphic novel following the exploits of Tina, a frustrated sixteen-year-old city girl whose affections are divided between two guys. The problem is, one has an out of town girlfriend and the other is a complete jerk. Add to that a bitchy adversary whom she once called a friend who's out to humiliate her, and now confused Tina doesn't know which way to turn. Subway Series is a teen Sex in the City. Tina doesn't know what she wants, but she's pretty sure it involves "getting it over with." With whom will it be? When will it happen? Most current comics about female sexual experiences focus on extremes of behavior such as abuse. Subway Series depicts the more average teen experience: coercive, confused and mundane. Leela Corman's, lavish calligraphic drawing style, described as "Music to my eyes" by Scott McCloud, vividly brings to life this singular graphic novel showing real teen sex and angst in all its awkward splendor.

• Dean Haspiel - nominated for an Eisner Award for his Opposable Thumbs #1 comic book, will be talking to fans about his recent and upcoming projects including Muties #3 (Marvel), Captain America: Red, White & Blue (Marvel), X-Men Unlimited #39, a 4-issue Thing/Startling Story mini-series called Night Falls on Yancy Street written by Evan Dorkin (Marvel), Spider-Man's Tangled Web #20 featuring J. Jonah Jameson, a new Billy Dogma picture novella called The Devil's Muumuu (Top Shelf), and the re-launch of Keyhole 2.1 with Josh Neufeld (Alternative Comics). Dean Haspiel is the author of semi-auto-bio comix and super-psychedelic romances. In the mid-80s, Dino worked as an assistant to Howard Chaykin on American Flagg!, Bill Sienkiewicz on New Mutants and Elektra: Assassin, and Walter Simonson on Thor. In 1987, Dino inaugurated his comics career when he co-created and illustrated The Verdict . His comics haved appeared in Billy Dogma, Keyhole, Non, Top Shelf, Minimum Wage, DC Comics' Bizarro Comics and the EXPO anthology, and is a contributor to Harvey Pekar's American Splendor.

• Sam Henderson - Nominated for this year's Ignatz Awards will be showing the recently released Magic Whistle #7 and the DVD God Hates Cartoons, which features his first independent animated short, "Lonely Robot Duckling". His Magic Whistle comic has been nominated for the last 4 years in a row for a Harvey Award for Special Award for Humor. One of the funniest people in comics is Sam Henderson. Henderson's drawing is intentionally crude, but it has the same kind of energy you see in the work of today's best gag cartoonists, whose drawing also tends to be a little basic. Extremely low-brow humor that almost parodies low-brow humor - it's enjoyable on either level. Over the years Sam has done work for many dozens of anthologies, has done a self-syndicated comic strip and published comic Magic Whistle, now through Alternative Comics. Sam was also recently a writer of a number of Nickelodeon's SpongeBob SquarePants cartoon shows.

• James Kochalka - showing off his recently released Fantastic Butterflies graphic novel (co-published with Highwater Books), his latest Peanutbutter & Jeremy all-ages comic, the newly reprinted Quit Your Job graphic novel, and debuting the second issue of the Triple Dare anthology with Nick Bertozzi, Tom Hart, and Matt Madden. James Kochalka's distinction as a "rock star" has been tempered more and more lately by his acclaim as a cartoonist. Critics and fans have responded like crazy to his instantly recognizable comic books and graphic novels. Kochalka has won and has been nominated for many prestigious awards such as the Ignatz award, the Eisner award, the Firecracker Alternative Books award, and the Harvey award. He is also showing off his recently released Pinky & Stinky graphic novel from Top Shelf Productions.

• David Lasky - will be debuting short stories in the anthologies Rosetta and Orchid. His stories and experimental comics have been popping up in a number of recent anthologies, including 9-11: Emergency Relief, Dirty Stories, Bogus Dead, Garlic, EXPO 2001, and Studygroup 12. As a part of SPX/ICAF he will present a slide lecture entitled "The History of Mini-Comics". He also appears on the "New Voices" panel. SPX attendees will be treated to a preview of the long-awaited second issue of Urban Hipster, David's Harvey-nominated collaboration with artist Greg Stump

• Jon Lewis - Nominated for this year's Ignatz Awards for True Swamp: Stoneground and Hillbound, Jon Lewis' 2001 follow-up to 2000's True Swamp: Underwoods and Overtime, which was named #9 on Time Magazine Online's list of the Year's Best Comics. Like its predecessor, Stoneground and Hillbound is a hefty 64-pager teeming with swampy intrigues, mossy insights and earthy humor. Lenny the Frog, in search of a new job, journeys to the hidden grotto of a visionary sculptor who has mastered the medium of clay but not the medium of social interaction. Next to this creature, Lenny looks like the very picture of balance and sanity-- can our frog handle working in such conditions? Meanwhile, we get a good look at Miln the Tortoise's work-in-progress: a cross-species study of the swamp's traditions of death and the afterlife. Her latest bit of research has her tracking down a crow-and-marsupial team who are rumored to have actually visited The City: impossible, of course, but then didn't Lenny the Frog claim the very same thing? Elsewhere, Cartucci, collector of human relics and unscrupulous eavesdropper, learns of the existence of the kind of treasure a collector could gladly give his tail for-- unfortunately, it happens to be the central artifact of the swamp's largest and most fundamentalist religion: the church of Natural Science.

  

• Matt Madden - Fans of Matt Madden's graphic novels Odds Off and Black Candy will now be able to get a regular dose of new work from this innovative young talent with the SPX debut of his regular series, A Fine Mess, collecting various new comics and works-in-progress, including Madden's "Exercises in Style," which has already gained a following on-line. A Fine Mess covers the map, showing Madden's range from rigorous formal experimentation to novelistic human drama. A Fine Mess #1 is a deluxe package whose centerpiece is the playful and bittersweet 16-page "Night of the Grossinator," lushly printed in two colors. "Madden's comics can offer the reader a sense of comic irony, a surprising, often moving poignancy and a playful, thoughtful rearrangement of the elements of comics style." ~Calvin Reid, Publishers Weekly.

• Josh Neufeld - will be showing previews of his upcoming Keyhole collaborative series from Alternative Comics. Josh Neufeld has been drawing comics since he was four years old. He is the co-creator and illustrator of Titans of Finance, also published by Alternative. Josh has contributed artwork to Harvey Pekar's American Splendor (Dark Horse), the EXPO anthologies, 9-11: Emergency Relief, The Big Book of Urban Legends (DC/Paradox Press), and Duplex Planet Illustrated (Fantagraphics), among others. He resides in Brooklyn and makes a living mixing freelance illustration with web design.

• Jen Sorensen - will be on hand to talk about being featured in Attitude: The New Subversive Politcal Cartoonists a new anthology that showcases a new genre of hard-hitting political cartoonists. It comes at a time when more Americans are paying attention to political cartoons than ever before, and here are the artists doing some of the most interesting work in the profession. Jen Sorensen is the cartoonist behind the alternative weekly strip "Slowpoke" which appears in numerous papers, including the Funny Times, Charlottesville's C-Ville weekly, and Richmond's Punchline, and on Slate.com. Jen won a Xeric Grant to publish Slowpoke: Café Pompous, which collects the first two years of the strip, and she has twice been nominated for the Friends of Lulu Kimberly Yale Award for Best New Talent. Her work is also featured alongside that of Ruben Bolling, Lloyd Dangle, Tom Tomorrow, and many others in Attitude: The New Subversive Political Cartoonists just released from NBM. Jen was also a contributor to 9-11: Emergency Relief.

• Robert Ullman - has been diligently pumping out issues of his mini-comics From the Curve and Atom-Bomb Bikini for six years under a blanket of relative anonymity. His comic strip, My Noise, has appeared in several newspapers since debuting in the Daily Kent Stater in February of 1995, and his spot illustrations appear weekly in Richmond, Virginia's Punchline and the Washington DC City Paper. An Addy Award-winning graphic designer by trade, Robert has also illustrated several educational children's books for McGraw-Hill. His mini-comic collection of "journal" strips, entitled Lunch Hour Comix, will debut at this year's Small Press Expo, and his all-new graphic novella From the Curve: Grand Gestures will be published early 2003 from Alternative Comics.