“The bottom line is print is expensive,” says Mike Norton of the Chicago-based comics company Four Star Studios. The pressure of funding a printed comic book “can really affect the type of story you decide to tell,” adds co-founder Josh Emmons, “you’re going to tell a different, safer, more broad story” that will appeal to the masses. Through digital distribution, however, Four Star Studios has the financial ability to offer new comics to the public monthly for just ninety-nine cents.

Their iPad App, DoubleFeature, offers a new issue with two stories from a single genre each month. “We’ve started with two action stories,” says Emmons. “Next month will be horror, then sci-fi, then fantasy… eventually looping back around to action stories again.” Four Star Studios is also able to offer in-depth special features with DoubleFeature. The Four Star crew, made up of Norton, Emmons, Tim Seeley and Sean Dove, “really thought about what the iPad can offer and what are the things comic readers and art enthusiasts would like to see,” says Dove. “A lot of people don’t really understand all the stages that go in to making a comic and the DoubleFeature app really shows you layer by layer all the things that went in to drawing and creating the comic, from pencils, inks to final colored artwork.” (Tiana Olewnick)

Chris Ware Self-Portrait

“There are two sides of comics that are always competing: the text and the image,” says Ingrid Olson. If last year’s Comic Symposium of Chicago emphasized the image, this year’s successor event hones in on the word when School of the Art Institute hosts its second annual Small Press and Comics Symposium (spandcsc.tumblr.com) March 24.

Organized by Olson and other SAIC alumni, the event features two panel discussions with ten Chicago presses and comic artists aimed at exploring the connections between the small press, independent publishing and comics communities. Moderated by University of Chicago comics scholar Hillary Chute, the comics discussion will include Chris Ware, Onsmith, Corinne Mucha and Aaron Renier, and will tackle such questions as the “changing cultural status of comics.” The Chicago press discussion features panelists from Front Forty Press, Featherproof Books, Green Lantern Press and Poetry magazine, and is moderated by publisher Sally Alatalo. Both panel discussions are free and open to the public. Read the rest of this entry »

Though Daniel Clowes soared to indie-culture celebritydom when his stories “Ghost World” and “Art School Confidential” made the journey from regular installments in his ongoing comic book, “Eightball,” to the movie screen, he’s never actually crafted a fully realized graphic novel without serialization before his latest, “Wilson.” Perhaps it’s not surprising, given that, that this native Hyde Parker (now living in Oakland) structures the story of a lovable misanthrope, who suffers from a toxic mix of yearning to make connections in his lonely life with a tourettic tendency to blurt out uncomfortable truths, as an episodic narrative of one-page comics. It’s like they’re drawn for the Sunday funnies of a better world’s newspaper, one in which real people age and progess through a life never quite as good as it should be or as bad as it could be. Wilson’s a handsomely crafted book, in Clowes’ distinguished graphic signature, with interspersed stylistic interruptions that make for some interesting interpretation, both visually and narratively. Chicago makes a big cameo as well, when Wilson’s father takes ill, a parallel narrative to Clowes’ own journey home a couple years back, when he sat bedside as his father died of cancer. Given the accomplishment of “Wilson,” this weekend’s return should mark a significantly happier homecoming. (Brian Hieggelke)

Daniel Clowes appears at Quimby’s Bookstore, 1854 West North, (773)342-0910, June 12 at 7pm, and again on June 13, in conversation with Newcity’s Ray Pride, at the Printers Row Lit Fest, Center Stage, at 11am.

Artist and local resident Alex Ross is one of a very short list of comic-book artists working in the superhero genre anymore with a truly idiosyncratic visual style. Particularly notable is that what others draw, he paints. So his new sketchbook, “Rough Justice,” wherein he too draws, in preparation for painting, is revelatory. This guy could easily work with pencil and ink alone, since his “roughs” are often on a par with, nay superior to, the finished work of many of his peers. Equally interesting are the insights into the creative process, as practiced by the mainstream comic book industry these days, that emerge in his descriptions of some of the projects that never saw the light of day, such as proposed creation of an imagined son of Batman, called Batboy. It’s all fanboy fantasia. (Brian Hieggelke)

Alex Ross signs copies of “Rough Justice” at Chicago Comics, 3244 North Clark, June 5 at 3pm.

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The challenge of writing fiction evoking the consuming technological machinations of our time is the swiftness, and fickleness, of the subject. Today’s Facebook becomes yesterday’s MySpace, or worse, Friendster, faster than anyone can write, draw and publish. And so, though Peter Bagge’s first all-original graphic novel seeks to plumb the evolving meanings of identity in a truly au courant manner, it arrives, alas, as something of a period piece, more 2007 than 2010. This is because Bagge’s situated much of his action in his version of the virtual world Second Life (here called Second World) which, for a minute, was a really big next thing.

Unlike many of his contemporaries in the wave of comics artists who came to prominence in the early nineties, Bagge’s work has always been especially of-the-moment. His comic-book family “The Bradleys” and its later spinoff “Hate,” seemed to convey the emergence of Gen-X “alternative” culture better than anyone, helping make his work and his—like him, Seattle-based—publisher at the time, Fantagraphics, as seminal to the era as the neighboring Sub Pop Records and its bands Nirvana and Soundgarden were. That they were released as periodicals, as comic books, helped reinforce the powerful sense of immediacy. Read the rest of this entry »

Zines, often relegated to a tiny shelf in most bookstores like a footnote or a last-second addendum, are taking center stage this weekend as four Chicagoans put on the first ever Chicago Zine Fest. “We went to the Milwaukee Zine Fest and were surprised by how many Chicago people went up for that,” says co-organizer Matt Czerwinski. “It planted the idea to have one in Chicago.” The fest will kick off this Friday with a reading at Quimby’s which features “King Cat” author John Porcellino along with Anne Elizabeth Moore, Jeffery Brown and five zinesters who were selected by random lottery. There will also be a zine-related art opening at Johalla Projects Friday night, which will conclude with a screening of the Gadabout Traveling Film Festival. Friday’s events, aside from entertaining, attempt to start a dialogue between zinesters and the public. “We tried to figure out a way to get people talking to each other and get zinesters meeting each other. That’s a drawback of zine fests that we saw,” says Czerwinksi. “A lot of times you don’t meet anyone, but that’s why these events exist.” More info can be found at chicagozinefest.org. (Peter Cavanaugh)

A crisp, lively fall afternoon with a brilliant blue sky, and comics artist Ivan Brunetti’s book signing has been going surprisingly—given his cult status among comic lovers—slowly. “A Columbia College student was here earlier filming [for her documentary] and she was like, ‘This was a bad idea,’” he says.

“No, actually I said that,” he adds, the comic equivalent of burnt toast.

A short stack of unsigned books rest on the table, while behind it, there is no line to speak of. Over the next hour a handful of fans, all of who seem to know Brunetti personally, trickle in at widely spaced intervals.

The comic scene at the venue contains barely enough energy to turn on a Christmas light, let alone constitute enough intrigue for a junior filmmaker’s voracious enthusiasm.

But cozy looking and brightly lit, Third Coast Comics is inviting to the passerby; though this isn’t typical with most comic shops, owner Terry Gant points out. Most comic stores are “not inviting to normal people, “ he says, but entering Third Coast “feels like your stepping into a book store, not an opium den.” Read the rest of this entry »

By Beatrice Smigasiewicz

As part of a project to help readers rediscover their online archive, the Poetry Foundation’s Ed Park turned to Chicago cartoonist Paul Hornschemeier. What followed was a two-page comic rendition of Ted Kooser’s poem, “The Giant Slide,” which felt oddly at home in Hornschemeier’s rendition of the poem. “There was something about the aching Midwestern nostalgia in there… something I feel when I’m traveling home to southern Ohio, the graying asphalt cutting through rust-and-mustard-hued fields…I could see the whole cartoon as I was reading the poem,” says Hornschemeier.

It’s not the first time a comic-book artist invites such collaboration but Hornschemeier’s style seems particularly open to it. Both illustrious and emotional in content he manages to remain immensely conceptual and visually grounded. He avoids self-indulgent sentimentality by keeping his drawing style flat and stark, and with a few exceptions he uses only muted colors. There is a kind of language quality to his drawings that read like the subtle degrees of expressions and gestures you can only register on faces of people you know well.

His 2003 debut included a somber coming-of-age allegory that centered around an 8-year-old boy who loses grasp on reality after his mothers death in, “Mother, Come Home.” A subsequent book project, “The Three Paradoxes” outlines a nostalgic visit home that’s interrupted by intersecting narratives that dwell—similar to Kooser’s poem—on the paradox of the passing of time. Though Hornschemeier himself will say that he doesn’t set out to write dark or brooding books, “I just think there’s something about doing longer, sustained narratives that causes one to become introspective and draw on things deeper within themselves: bigger questions, darker elements in their own persona or thoughts,” adding that “people are routinely surprised to find that in person I joke around all the time and am obsessed with comedy: they think that I must walk around in a constant fog of philosophical conundrums and Weltschmerz.” Read the rest of this entry »

The flier offers readings, sellings and most promising of all, human interaction for fine comic book readers—a novel concept in the age of texting and tweeting. Technology aims to bring us together, and yet it works to isolate us. The 2009 Punchbuggy Tour has hit its Chicago leg. Featuring Liz Baillie (“My Brain Hurts,” “Freewheel”), Ken Dahl (“Welcome To The Dahl House,” “Monster”) and MK Reed (“Cross Country,” Americus”), the tour features original readings and book signings.

Chicago is the ninth stop for the irreverent trio. A modest thirty minutes late, Dahl arms himself with a banjo. Baillie has a ukulele. Something’s not right here. Is this a show? “Somewhere along the way we developed a bit of apathy,” says Dahl. “So we added a soundtrack to the readings.” Indeed, the stringed authors provide a folksy twang to the readings. The music adds an exclamation point to the stories. Taking frequent beer breaks, the speakers seem to have a knack for creating an intimate reading space.

Reed fiddles with the computer, and presents a selection from her graphic novel “Cross Country.” Baillie begins her readings, humbly warning, “Mine’s not as funny as theirs,” though it proves entertaining enough. Dahl reads an excerpt from his latest work, “Monster,” a graphic novel about a man humorously stricken with herpes. At Dahl’s cue, Baillie lets out a monstrous burp. This reading has surround sound. (David Stockdale)

By Tom Lynch

The runaway success of Audrey Niffenegger’s “The Time Traveler’s Wife” was as much a surprise to the author as it was to everyone else. Her first novel, Niffenegger’s story of a relationship between a man who suffers from a disorder that frequently transports him through time and the woman he so often leaves behind, mixes science fiction and romance without necessarily adopting either. A quirky piece of literary fiction, it’s not the type of novel that sells two million copies in its first week, as Dan Brown’s newest work did just last month.

However, “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” which was published by the relatively small press MacAdam/Cage, opened in the top ten of the New York Times bestseller list, and local author and attorney Scott Turow appeared on “The Today Show” and recommended the book, prompting the first run to sell out completely. Various book-club selections followed and Niffenegger’s little engine became something of a sensation and catapulted the Chicago author out of relative obscurity into a position of publishing powerhouse.

“It was very strange indeed,” Niffenegger says of the experience as we sit at Lincoln Square’s Café Selmarie. “I imagined my audience as a fairly small group, people about my age, in their mid-forties, who remember punk. I imagined this kind of small book with MacAdam/Cage, a tiny press, and we just didn’t expect anything like this. Of course the big thing that changed it was ‘The Today Show,’ when Scott Turow had chosen it, and I was just like, ‘OK, this is really a different experience than anything I imagined.’” Read the rest of this entry »