Tag Archives: john porcellino

South Beloit Journal is an interesting, personal, and honest journal done as comic strips

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“Over the winter of 2010-2011 I found myself at the lowest point of my life: Twice divorced, heartbroken, mentally insane, and living in poverty and isolation in a cold, grey cinderblock apartment in a small, gritty town in Northern Illinois… South Beloit. One of my projects at the time was illustrating a book about suicide, The Next Day, for the Canadian publisher Pop Sandbox. As I trimmed the pages to size, I found myself with ninety-one 2” x 6” scraps of Bristol board. They looked perfect for a comic strip, so I began drawing upon them one little diary comic per day. I tried not to censor myself (though sometimes I still did), but to just let the ink spill without preconception or prejudice. What follows are those comics. I hope you enjoy them more than I enjoyed making them!” — John Porcellino

Story: John Porcellino
Art: John Porcellino

Get your copy now! To find a comic shop near you, visit http://www.comicshoplocator.com or call 1-888-comicbook or digitally and online with the links below.

Uncivilized Books

Small Press Expo Announces the 2015 Ignatz Award Nominees

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2015 Ignatz AwardThe Small Press Expo (SPX), the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comics, graphic novels and alternative political cartoons, has announced the 2015 nominees for the annual presentation of the Ignatz Awards, a celebration of outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning.

The Ignatz, named after George Herriman’s brick-wielding mouse from his long running comic strip Krazy Kat, recognizes exceptional work that challenges popular notions of what comics can achieve, both as an art form and as a means of personal expression. The Ignatz Awards are a festival prize, the first of such in the United States comic book industry.

The nominees for the ballot were determined by a panel of five of the best of today’s comic artists, Lamar Abrams, Cara Bean, Robyn Chapman, Sophie Goldstein and Corrine Mucha, with the votes cast for the awards by the attendees during SPX. The Ignatz Awards will be presented at the gala Ignatz Awards ceremony held on Saturday, September 19, 2015 at 9:30 P.M.

ComiXology will be sponsoring this year’s Ignatz Awards.

The 2015 Ignatz Award Nominees

Outstanding Artist

  • Emily Carroll – Through The Woods
  • Ed Luce – Wuvable Oaf
  • Roman Muradov – (In a Sense) Lost and Found
  • Jillian Tamaki – SuperMutant Magic Academy
  • Noah Van Sciver – Saint Cole

Outstanding Anthology or Collection

  • Drawn and Quarterly, 25 Years of Contemporary Cartooning, Comics, and Graphic Novels, edited by Tom Devlin, Chris Oliveros, Peggy Burns, Tracy Hurren, and Julia Pohl-Miranda
  • An Entity Observes All Things by Box Brown
  • How To Be Happy by Eleanor Davis
  • Pope Hats #4 by Ethan Rilly
  • SuperMutant Magic Academy by Jillian Tamaki

Outstanding Graphic Novel

  • Beauty by Kerascoët and Hubert
  • The Oven by Sophie Goldstein
  • Rav by Mickey Zacchilli
  • Saint Cole by Noah Van Sciver
  • Wendy by Walter Scott

Outstanding Story

  • Doctors by Dash Shaw
  • “Me As a Baby” from Lose #6 by Michael DeForge
  • “Nature Lessons” from The Late Child and Other Animals by Marguerite Van Cook and James Romberger
  • “Sex Coven” from Frontier #7 by Jillian Tamaki
  • Weeping Flower, Grows in Darkness by Kris Mukai

Promising New Talent

  • M. Dean – K.M. & R.P. & MCMLXXI (1971)
  • Sophia Foster-Dimino – Sphincter; Sex Fantasy
  • Dakota McFadzean – Don’t Get Eaten by Anything
  • Jane Mai – Soft
  • Gina Wynbrandt – Big Pussy

Outstanding Series

  • Dumb by Georgia Webber
  • Frontier edited by Ryan Sands
  • March by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell
  • Pope Hats by Ethan Rilly
  • Sex Fantasy by Sophia Foster-Dimino

Outstanding Comic

  • Borb by Jason Little
  • The Nature of Nature by Disa Wallander
  • The Oven by Sophie Goldstein
  • Pope Hats #4 by Ethan Rilly
  • Weeping Flower, Grows in Darkness by Kris Mukai

Outstanding Minicomic

  • Devil’s Slice of Life by Patrick Crotty
  • Epoxy 5 by John Pham
  • King Cat #75 by John Porcellino
  • Sex Fantasy #4 by Sophia Foster-Dimino
  • Whalen: A Reckoning by Audry

Outstanding Online Comic

SPX will be held Saturday, September 19 from 11AM to 7PM and Sunday, September 20, noon-6PM at The North Bethesda Marriott Convention Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Admission is $15 for Saturday, $10 for Sunday and $20 for both days.

This year’s image of Ignatz, as seen above, was created by 2014 Promising New Talent Winner Cathy G. Johnson.

SPX Announces the Small Press Expo 2012 Programming Schedule

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The Small Press Expo is pleased to announce the SPX 2012 Programming Schedule.  SPX has its usual thought-provoking programming featuring leading comics artists and critics in conversation. As in previous years, the Programming Schedule will feature two simultaneous tracks on both Saturday and Sunday, September 15th and 16th.

SPX 2012 programming highlights include special spotlight discussions with headline guests Daniel Clowes, Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, François Mouly, Adrian Tomine, and Chris Ware, all of whom will also join in several other panel discussions.

This year’s programming schedule will include several panel discussions, with artists including Nick Abadzis, Derf Backderf, Michael DeForge, Theo Ellsworth, Renée French, Sammy Harkham, Tom Hart, Dean Haspiel, Stan Mack, John Porcellino, Katie Skelly and Lauren Weinstein.

This year’s panel discussions will include:

  • A discussion of Crockett Johnson’s Barnaby, featuring Clowes, Mark Newgarden and Ware.
  • A spotlight on British comics, including Abadzis, Glyn Dillon, Nobrow’s Sam Arthur, Ellen Lindner, and Luke Pearson.
  • A consideration of comics as children’s literature with French, Mouly, Newgarden and Brian Ralph.
  • Reflections on life after “alternative comics,” with Clowes, the Hernandez Brothers, and Tomine, moderated by Bill Kartalopoulos.
  • A discussion about the needs and challenges of institution building in comics.
  • Our annual hands-on comics workshop, led by Robyn Chapman, Hart, and Alec Longstreth.

The complete SPX 2012 Programming Schedule with full descriptions and participants may be found at http://www.spxpo.com/programming.

This year is the seventh year that SPX programming has been organized by Programming Coordinator Bill Kartalopoulos. Kartalopoulos is a comics educator, critic and curator who has taught classes about comics at Parsons The New School for Design and co-organizes the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival. He is a Contributing Editor for Print Magazine, and assisted Art Spiegelman on the production of the Eisner Award-winning book MetaMaus.

Programming on Saturday will run from 11:30AM  until 7 p.m. Sunday programming will run from 12:30 p.m. until 6 p.m.  The complete SPX 2012 Programming Schedule may be found at http://www.spxpo.com/programming.

The Next Day Trailer

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The things you find through Twitter conversations.  The Next Day is a documentary told through a graphic novel and an interactive online component.  The story comes from interviews with survivors of near-fatal suicide attempts.  Four participants answer the same questions about life, the decision to end it, and what comes after.  Well worth checking out, the project is illustrated by John Porcellino and written by Paul Peterson and Jason Gilmore.