Isotope Award Submissions are Open!

Bring Your Best for the Seventh Annual Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics

SAN FRANCISCO (August 11th, 2009) San Francisco comics retailer James Sime, proprietor of Isotope – the comic book lounge, announced today that submissions for the 2009 Isotope Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics will be accepted until October 1st at midnight. “It’s our seventh annual award, and I’ve got a feeling we’re going to be especially lucky and help discover an amazing new talent this year!”said Sime, “In 2009 one mini-comic creator’s career will be forever changed, so fire up your xerox machines and get ready to submit your minis!”

The five comic professionals who will serve as this year’s Isotope Award judges include:

Brett Warnock– Co-publisher and art director of the amazing Top Shelf Books. Brett’s great taste in comics and enthusiasm for the artform are legendary. His shrewd eye for discovering new talent has played no small part in unearthing and introducing some of indy comics greatest talents to the industry. We love Brett, don’t you?

Tom Spurgeon – The editor of The Comics Journal during its best years (1994 to 1999), Tom has gone on to become the industry’s most esteemed comics scholar, historian, and journalist. Often referred to as “the smartest man in comics” by at least one comic book retailer, there simply is no better place for interviews and news from the world of independent comics than on Tom’s website www.comicsreporter.com.

Eva Volan – Supervising children’s librarian for the Alameda Free Library in Alameda, California, the chairperson of the ALA/YALSA 2010 Great Graphic Novels for Teens committee, a former judge of the 2008 Eisner Awards, and also a writer for www.graphicnovelreporter.com. She is amazing!

Kirsten Baldock – The Isotope’s Special Projects Director, acting manager of the Oakland Main Library’s Magazines and Newspapers Department, and Kirsten is also the author of the warring-gangs-of-cigarette-girls graphic novel Smoke & Guns.

James Sime – Proprietor of Isotope – the comic book lounge in San Francisco.

The award, which comes with a particularly dangerous-looking carved ebony fossil stone and satin silver trophy by famed designer Frank Crowe, has been instrumental in bringing attention to mini-comic creators the world over and launching the professional comic careers of Daniel Merlin Goodbrey (ASTONISHING TALES: IRON MAN 2020), and two Eisner Award Nominated cartoonists Joshua Cotter (SKYSCRAPERS OF THE MIDWEST), and Danica Novgorodoff (A LATE FREEZE).

Entry to this competition is five copies of your mini-comic sent to Isotope’s address (326 Fell St. San Francisco, CA 94102) before the October 1st deadline. The award will be given out at a grand ceremony during APE AFTERMATH at the Isotope in conjunction with San Francisco’s ALTERNATIVE PRESS EXPO. The APE convention has been a forum for small and independent publishers in the industry for many years. Because of the nature of this award, the winner will be contacted in advance and must be present at the Isotope at 9 PM on Saturday, October 17th for the award presentation ceremony.

“I consider each year’s winner of this award to be the Isotope’s Miss America for the year and always love helping to get their work under the noses of the entire industry!” Sime said, “Oh… and speaking of which, don’t forget to place your preorders for two previous winners of this award who both have new original graphic novels coming out this September, Danica Novgorodoff‘s Refresh, Refresh from First Second and Joshua Cotter’s Driven By Lemons from AdHouse Books!”

For more information contact the Isotope at (415) 621 – 6543 or at isotopeaward@gmail.com

Gentlemen, start your engines.

Kristy Valenti has a wonderful look back at Oh! My Goddess!, a series I remember always being curious about but unwilling to break out of my “Anime should be about FIGHTING! and sometimes being sad but mostly FIGHTING!” mold as a teenager. Not that I’m any better now, of course, since I re-watch Ninja Scroll a couple times a year. Anyway, it looked interesting, and I liked the idea of the cosmology/theology/bureaucracy in it, so her look back is very welcome. She does a good job of explaining its place historically, too, which is always fun to see when someone’s talking about an older series, where “older” here means “pre-Naruto explosion.”

Kate Dacey sat down and read and reviewed all of the current Shonen Sunday manga chapters. Shonen Sunday is one of Viz’s TWO online manga endeavors. IKKI and Shonen Sunday are aimed at two different markets, more or less, with IKKI seemingly being a bit more mature and Shonen Sunday being aimed at the teen-ish market. Kate’s observations seemed dead-on to me when I read a couple of the installments, so bam! Take her word as holy writ and go and read.

Slaughterhouse, the hip-hop supergroup composed of Crooked I, Joe Budden, Joell Ortiz, and Royce da 5’9″, dropped their debut album today.

I’ve got a soft spot for Royce, since his classic Bad Meets Evil record with Eminem is 100% responsible for re-igniting my love for rap and opening me up to what we called “underground” rap back then. Ever since, I’ve stuck with him, through highs and lows. He’s in the middle of a career renaissance right now, with a leaner, meaner flow and a sicker sense of humor. You can legally download his Bar Exam 2 mixtape from Hip-Hop DX. The title of this post is from one of his freestyles from that tape.

Joe Budden I discovered a couple years ago. I’d heard Pump It Up, wrote him off, and played the hater for a while, but his Mood Muzik 3, particularly the Mood Muzik Third remix album that mixed his rhymes with Portishead beats, turned me right around. He brings a simultaneously intensely personal and deeply arrogant style to the mic, kind of like Slug from Atmosphere but with less self-loathing. He’s dope, always ready to talk trash, and funny.

Crook and Joell are newer to me, but no less dope. I realized recently that Crooked was on a Chino XL Felli Fell (I think) freestyle I’ve had for years, probably back to when he was on Death Row, but I only really started listening to him lately. He brings a thug swagger to the gang that reminds me of a younger Ice Cube, secure in who he is and a beast on the microphone. All you need to know about Joell is that he says “Yaaaowa” and dropped one of my favorite mixtapes this year, with him covering a whole gang of classic rap songs.

My advice? Cop it. If you’re fond of lyrical rap, heavy on punchlines, and with listenable beats, cop it. 9 bucks is a steal, really, and these guys put out enough free music that supporting them through this is no big deal for me at all. Buying the mp3s through Amazon helps us out with hosting here, too, so if you like us, and not them, use that Amazon search box that’s sitting off to the right there.

Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka is an adaptation of a classic Osamu Tezuka Astro Boy and probably the best comic to drop this year, with only Asterios Polyp (review here, amazon) and Darwyn Cooke’s Parker: The Hunter (spotlight coming, amazon) coming close to toppling it.

The story it’s based on was also turned into a cartoon years upon years ago. Luckily, because Manga Entertainment understands how to use the internet the way it should be used, you can check it out for free and legally here:

Well, hello, Tony Starks! Ghostface Killah – Cell Block Z.

To his fans, Cole Dennis is a heavyweight contender with a devastating right hook. To a city being held hostage to chaos and terror, Dennis has a grit and charisma that make him the shining hope for justice–until he is arrested for a brutal murder. Framed for a crime he did not commit, he finds himself captive in a foreboding high-tech superprison whose masters secretly conspire to turn inmates into tomorrow’s most terrifying bioweapons–with Cole Dennis as the intended prize specimen. But Dennis is nobody’s lab rat. Reborn as a towering engine of destruction, Dennis will prepare for the fight of his life. He will rename himself Ghostface Killah. And his cry of righteous rage will echo beyond the cold steel walls of Cell Block Z.

I need to get in touch with somebody at Hachette asap. This is right up my alley.

Preview.

It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you…

Here’s some catchup for you, Joe Casey Fanclub style-

-I joined my Joe Casey Fanclub gang on The Factual Opinion‘s Television of the Weak a couple weeks ago. Thrill as I talk about Leverage, the last TV show I watch! You can read the first entry here and click on through to the second. Read the third here. Just wait until Matthew Brady gets back on the Television of the Weak train. That’s the Comics Blogger Death Squad right there.

-Speaking of Matthew Brady… that guy has been on fire lately. He’s finally finished 100 Bullets, and he came with the big guns in “100 Bullets: Everyone dies in a flurry of arrows” and “100 Bullets: My only friend, the end.” On top of that, he’s doing these Jack Kirby flashback posts that rock my world. In “No goddling! No faltering! No whining!,” he’s got a great big panel, and then a wonderful sequence of Big Barda nonchalantly destroying things while Scott Free quips, and then a look at Holocaust imagery that Kirby used in his 4th World. He’s also got “Wow! Get that Orwell ‘double think!’ I’ve read ‘1984’–It sounds nastier–when spoken!” This is another flashback piece, and just as good as the rest.

If you aren’t reading him, you should be. Here, I’ll make it easy– here’s his blog and here’s his rss.

–Comixology‘s Comics app for iPhone/iPod Touch is pretty great. Just saying. I haven’t gotten a chance to see Longbox yet, though.

–Tucker Stone and Jog wrote my favorite reviews of The Hunter. Tucker’s is here and Jog’s is here. Neither of them approach it like a normal review (here’s the art, here’s the words, here are some opinions, in conclusion…) and the reviews are all the better for it.

–Sean Witzke‘s found a couple awesome things lately. There’s James Brown reading Werewolf by Night and ALL CAPS, an idea that I totally wish I’d thought of first. If something similar appears here, don’t be too surprised. Sorry, Sean! Ideaspace! Information wants to be free!

-Advanced Common Sense Episode 4:

In non-JSCF news–

-Laura Hudson wrote an excellent post on the direct market over at Comics Alliance. You should definitely read it sooner rather than later.
-You should read Charlie Huston‘s Twitter. He’s writing a story. Start from the bottom.

Top Shelf has another goodie with Just Another Post-Apocalypse Story. It’s just 22 pages, and free, so you should definitely go and read it.

Courtesy of Jamie Coville, you can listen to the audio from the Dwayne McDuffie spotlight panel at SDCC09. Here’s a link to the rest of his convention mp3s, if you’re interested. Hat tip to Dwayne McDuffie, as he found it first.

Shouldn’t all comic-cons do this direct from the microphones? It’d be nice to be able to download audio of any panel from the show after a week or so.

Bloody Pulp is the latest offering from Jeff McComsey and Jorge Vega. McComsey is one of the brains behind American Terrorist, which is available now on G1 and soon on iPhone. Its subtitle says it all: “Confession of a Human Smart Bomb.” Jorge Vega is the guy behind Gunplay, a book on vengeance in the Old West that I thoroughly enjoyed last year. Together, they have created Bloody Pulp.

Bloody Pulp has a few of my favorite things. It’s got crime and fisticuffs, for one. The lead is John “Pulp” Polopowski, who is brilliantly described in the synopsis on the Zuda site as “a nightmare for hire.” That’s an inspired description, and from what I’ve seen of Bloody Pulp, it’s true. When you need someone to be thoroughly beaten and disposed of, Pulp is your man.

The twist, of course, is that he isn’t entirely on the level. He’s been secreting people away to a safe house, rather than killing them. It’s kind of like witness protection through a funhouse mirror, only someone might beat you to death for disobeying the rules.

The hook is the arrival of Eustace, “a Negro bandleader”. The synopsis promises that sparks are going to fly due to his presence, and I’ve got the good word from Jorge that says he’s going to dig into the race and class issues of the ’30s. I’m definitely interested.

We’ve got eight pages to look at on ZudaComics.com. Check it out and, if you like it, vote for it on the site. As things currently stand, Jeff and Jorge are ranked #1. If they maintain that position, they get a slot on the Zuda site. The eight pages were just enough to get me interested, and Jorge and Jeff’s prior work were pretty solid. I’m going to be taking a look at a couple of their books, specifically American Terrorist and 9 Months, very soon.

In the meantime, though, you need to vote for Bloody Pulp and tell your friends.

For the hell of it, 4th Letter is now on Facebook! Yeah! If you’re on Facebook, give us a little love.

I’ll mess around with it later, but I figured it might be a cool thing to have around. Maybe. Hopefully. I don’t know.

Crap, this post is too short. I’m going to need something to beef it up…

Blame Suben for making me aware of this. It’s his fault.