Ben Claassen III's Crafty Bastardly Paper in City Paper

Ben Claassen's done artwork for the guide to this weekend's Crafty Bastards fair that's in the Oct 1 City Paper.

Washington City Paper's Jonah Hex contest

Win a comic book and t-shirt from the movie Jonah Hex

[boy, I wish they'd tell me about these things]

Emily Flake cover contest over at City Paper

Jon's wondering what Emily Flake's City Paper cover girl is listening to. Tell him and you get to choose from his office's cultural detritus.

Emily Flake covers the City Paper

Emily Flake's done the cover for this week's City Paper and you can glimpse it here. She also did the illo for The Gig Chill.

Clowes interview up at City Paper - he's at Politics and Prose tonight

“Likable Characters Are for Weak-Minded Narcissists”: A Chat with Daniel Clowes
Monday, May 3rd, 2010 is short email interview that he did with me - he's very funny. Go read it now, and then see him tonight at Politics and Prose at 7 pm.

Here's the PR from his publisher:

Dan Clowes On Tour! WILSON in stores!

All of our North American distributors have shipped the most anticipated book of the year to stores -- WILSON by Daniel Clowes, the cartoonist of David Boring, Ghost World and Ice Haven and the legendary Eightball comic book series. Today, WILSON is available everywhere in North America, at a finer store near you. In the next year, foreign language editions will also come out in the UK, Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Netherlands and Denmark.

Dan Clowes embarks on his tour next week in support of his first ever original graphic novel. In each city, Dan will be talking with a special guest moderator complete with slide show. (and it's a great slide show) And in Boston you get to see Ghost World after the event, with an introduction by Dan himself.

05/03/10 | 7 PM Washington DC POLITICS & PROSE With Dan Kois
05/04/10 | 6 PM Cambridge BRATTLE THEATER & HARVARD BOOKSTORE With Hillary Chute
05/05/10 | 7 PM NYC THE STRAND With David Hajdu
05/07/10 | 7 PM Toronto TCAF & TPL With Mark Medley
05/08/10-05/09/10 Toronto TCAF & TPL
05/13/10 | 7:30 PM San Francisco THE BOOKSMITH With Glen David Gold
05/14/10 | 7:30 PM Los Angeles SKYLIGHT BOOKS With Dana Gould
05/16/10 | 7:30 PM Portland POWELLS With Greg Netzer, Director of Wordstock
06/03/10 | 7 PM Oakland DIESEL With Eli Horowitz
06/12/10 | 7 PM Chicago QUIMBY'S (signing only)
06/13/10 | TBA Chicago PRINTERS ROW With Ray Pride

ABOUT WILSON: Meet Wilson, an opinionated middle-aged loner who loves his dog and quite possibly no one else. In an ongoing quest to find human connection, he badgers friend and stranger alike into a series of one-sided conversations, punctuating his own lofty discursions with a brutally honest, self-negating sense of humor. After his father dies, Wilson, now irrevocably alone, sets out to find his ex-wife with the hope of rekindling their long-dead relationship, and discovers he has a teenage daughter, born after the marriage ended and given up for adoption. Wilson eventually forces all three to reconnect as a family - a doomed mission that will surely, inevitably backfire.

Full Color, 80 pages, 8 1/4 by 11 1/2 inches ISBN: 9781770460072 $21.95 US / $22.95 CDN
For more information visit www.drawnandquarterly.com/blog

Whither Thingpart, late of the City Paper

Before the City Paper's great (blood-)shedding of comics a couple of years back, they ran a strip called Thingpart close to the front. Here's an interview with the cartoonist - Joey Alison Sayers Interview, Dan Copulsky, Question Riot blog March 25th, 2010.

Washington City Paper best of DC poll

I haven't looked at this yet, but the City Paper (for whom I now freelance) is running their annual Best Of poll. I was a surprised winner of Best Comics Blog in 2008, especially since that wasn't a category.

More ComicsDC than ever before!

I've been asked by the Washington City Paper to freelance for them so I'll be writing longer pieces on comic art, most often for their blog I'd guess. I've submitted an introduction tonight and hope to have a piece about Wednesday and comic books up later this week. I will of course link from here to anything I write for them.

Real World DC's cartoonist's taste questioned

Amanda Hess has got a couple of stories on The Real World: DC's cartoonist, Andrew at her Washington City Paper blog, The Sexist. The first is an overview "Rape Cartoons by the Real World D.C.’s Andrew Woods" of his work at the Rocky Mountain Collegian while the second is "Sexist Comments of the Week: Real World Rape Cartoons Edition" on the preceeding week's story.

I bow to Amanda's actual reporting as opposed to the "Eh, he was mentioned in this article as a cartoonist" approach that I took. She even tracks him down to being an intern at the Washington Times and getting an editorial cartoon published.

Ullman and Flake in 12/3 City Paper

Emily Flake illustrates an article on Costco, and Rob Ullman's got a full-page ad later in the current issue.

Rob Ullman covers City Paper again

Rob Ullman has the cover of this week's City Paper - a bit of a change as he's doing cute gay guys rather than cute girls.

Ullman covers City Paper!

Rob Ullman returns to do an illustration for the Washington City Paper! I've really missed his work - I don't even read Savage Love anymore without Rob's drawing to pull me in.

Straight Dope on Superman's diamonds

The Straight Dope column in the July 24th City Paper is on whether or not Superman could make diamonds by squeezing coal. It's also online.

Washington City Paper Best of DC 2009 comic stores

I missed this the first time I skimmed the issue desparately looking for my name to be a best of again, but in "Best Way to Come Out to Yourself as a Geek," Glen Weldon first recommends the Freer's anime marathon which has passed, but then suggests a comic book store crawl beginning with Big Planet Georgetown, moving to Fantom Comics in Tenleytown and wrapping up with Big Monkey Comics on 14th St.

I didn't realize or remember Weldon was local - he writes regularly for NPR's Monkey See blog which I'll start throwing links up to.

Greg Houston covers Washington City Paper

I like Greg Houston's illustrations for the City Paper quite a bit. There's only one online, but the current issue has 4 or so in it.

City Paper on Nanoman web comic / proto graphic novel

See "The Future Is Closer than You Think: A Review of Nanoman: The Post-Human Prometheus," by Mike Riggs, Washington City Paper's City Desk blog Feb. 26, 2009. We had a press release of this here earlier, Riggs says the editor of the graphic novel, Arthur Delaney, also writes for the City Paper which is cool to know. The first issue is online or for sale as print on demand, but it's planned to be a 144-page graphic novel.

Chicago Reader reports on City Paper's comics 'savings'

See "Comics Stripped: As alt-weeklies drop their funnies, is the end of a genre near?" By Michael Miner, Chicago Reader February 12, 2009, which reports on how much money the City Paper saved by dropping all its comics except Dirtfarm. Tip from Spurgeon.

Ullman, Ullman, Ullman, Ullman, Ullman

Five illos by Rob Ullman in this week's (January 15) Washington City Paper, one of which is the traditional scantily-clad girl that we got used to seeing when he illustrated Savage Love. One's on Obama-influenced menus. One's on the difficulty of counting attendees when the Park Service refuses to do it for you. Unfortunately one is just a broom and another is a Masonic symbol. Still, it's good to see him in there again.

Bash Magazine publisher profiled at City Paper

Randy spotted this blog post in which the Bash Magazine publisher is profiled - "Talkin’ Bash," Posted by Andrew Beaujon, Washington City Paper's City Desk blog Jul. 28, 2008.

President Bill (not Clinton)

At a used book store yesterday, I ran across President Bill by William L. Brown. This panel used to run in the Washington City Paper in the late 1980s - the Bill is not Clinton, but Bill of Takoma Park, MD who is chosen at random to be the president. Bill's pretty left-wing and had some odd ideas about how to run a country. Brown's artwork was done on scratchboard, leading to a woodcut-like look. The book has an introduction by Jules Feiffer. The story holds up okay, especially after the past 8 years.

Brown still does illustrations every once in a while for Washington papers.