I'm the new Lead Blogger at ComicsAlliance!

This is way overdue, but you may have noticed that I haven't been around much on this blog. In the event that you haven't heard this elsewhere, this is because I am now the full-time lead blogger over at ComicsAlliance, a comics site that is part of the AOL/Asylum network. In some ways, it feels like a natural extension of some of my work with Comic Foundry, particularly since my goal is to make the new site an intelligent (if sometimes pithier) take on comics culture and lifestyle (yeah, that word again).

Anyway, I'm good for seven posts a day over there, so add me up to your RSS and/or Twitter if you want to follow along. Myriad Issues will also remain quasi-active for the moments when I have something to say about comics that might not be appropriate or well-suited for ComicsAlliance, so feel free to keep this URL around for occasional missives.

Finally, many, many thanks to everyone who has been so supportive of me throughout my work at Comic Foundry, my scarily poor year and a half of freelance in New York, my move to Portland, and now my new gig. I wouldn't be here without the support of people like Tim Leong, Heidi MacDonald, Calvin Reid, and the small kindnesses of many others who helped me on my way. Nobody does it on their own, particularly not in an industry this small, and I consider myself very lucky.

Stumptown 2009 Art Battle photos!

My Flickr set of Stumptown 2009 photos is up! The Comic Art Battle at Cosmic Monkey Comicsafter the Stumptown Trophy Awards was a particular treat, with lots of emcee Jeff Parker in a turban dancing with a gorilla.

One of the events involved reinterpreting the infamous Mark Trail comic where a man gets jealous of his wife's relationship with a deer and shoots it.



Ryan Dunlavey's interpretation is on the left, while Carla Speed McNeil (right) responded by making it into Garfield Without Garfield:


Ryan Dunlavey (left) and then Zack Soto's entries, prompted by "puppets":


More of my Stumptown Photos are also up at PW Comics Week!

Top Shelf Swedish Comics

I've got an article up over at PW Comics Week about Swedish comics , including a whole slate of books coming from from Top Shelf, and the Anders Loves Maria webcomic by Rene Engstrom:

"When a Swedish student and cartoonist named Niklas Asker first wrote Top Shelf Productions publisher Chris Staros asking him to be his thesis adviser, it seemed like a long shot, to put it mildly. But after seeing the student’s artwork, Staros not only accepted his request, he later decided to publish the thesis at Top Shelf as a book titled Second Thoughts, hitting shelves later this month."

The Eternal Smile preview at PWCW

A shy young woman lost in the corporate machine tries to escape her anonymity in the exclusive 16-page preview The Eternal Smile I have up over at the most recent PWCW. The excerpt is from one of three short stories in the book produced by American Born Chinese creator Gene Luen Yang and Same Difference author Derek Kirk Kim.

Wherein I write a Star Trek parody comic strip.

So I recently wrote a script for a comic strip that was just published in a marketing magazine. This was my first time scripting a comic, albeit a very short one, and it was both educational and kind of exciting. I can't say the strip as a whole works as cohesively as I wanted it to, but there is one panel I'm willing to share. It is all you will EVER see.

Prince Valiant: WTF

I don't typically read the comics section in the newspaper, because it is terrible, but I was leafing the Sunday section at a cafe the other day and came across this:

(click to biggen)


I don't know what may have preceded this installment of the comic, but it doesn't matter, because OUR STORY still = WTF. Basically, Prince Valiant has brought uncontrollably horny monkeymen named Nudder, Bup, and Ig to court, and when they encounter attractive maidens, rapey hilarity ensues! They can hardly be blamed!




I love how rather than horror or concern, their primary reaction is mild embarrassment, like they accidentally screwed up the seating chart. Whoops! Social faux pas! They totally should have foreseen this.


Thanks for bringing giant bonobo sex offenders to court, P.V. You know how to keep it interesting!

Spider-Man rescues autistic Thai boy

This is the best story:

Teachers at a special needs school in Bangkok alerted authorities on Monday when an autistic pupil, who was frightened on his first day at school, walked out on to the third-floor ledge and refused to come inside, a police sergeant told AFP...

The rescuer dashed back to his fire station and made a quick change into a Spider-Man costume before returning to the boy, he said.

"I told him Spider-Man is here to rescue you, no monsters are going to attack you and I told him to walk slowly towards me as running could be dangerous," Mr Somchai told local television.

The young boy immediately stood up and walked into his rescuer's arms, police said.

[Thanks, Alan!]