Gee whiz, between Chris and myself, we've been representing Top Shelf across the country and around the world. First, in early April our ATL contingent did the FLUKE show in Athens, GA. The very next weekend Chris was pimping TSP at the mammoth New York Con. The week after that, Leigh and myself set up at Stumptown here in Portland. (Aided and abetted by new guy on the block Tim Sievert.) Chris then set sail for a comics festival in Sweden, got home, had one day off to check his 2,326 emails, then turned back around and right back across The Pond for the Bristol Con in England. At the same time, Leigh and myself were in Seattle for the Emerald City Con, along with Matt Kindt, Jeffrey Brown, and Andy Runton. Meanwhile, Chris left this morning to attend Editor's Day at SCAD (Savanna College of Art and Design).

Whew!!! Book Expo is in a week and a half (Staros will be flying solo for that one), then we'll be representing in force at MoCCA in two and a half weeks.

• So, yeah, Emerald City was great this year... big ups to Jim D. for pulling out all the stops, and making sure that the indy set wasn't entirely overshadowed by Will (STTNG) Wheaton, Apollo (BSG) Adama, three contestants from Stan Lee's So You Think You Want to be a Super-Hero?, and more big-name mainstream artists than you can shake a stick at. For the record, Will (Wesley Crusher) Wheaton is one helluva nice guy.

I scored some great loot. While i'm not a big back-issue bin flipper, i do like to check the magazine boxes and scored a great deal on three really old back issues of Comics Feature, two old issues of The Comics Journal, the very first issue of Amazing Heroes, and a sweet Wally Wood Treasury, all for a mere $20.

Fantagraphics got a big-ass pile of change from me (well, Eric did gimme a sweet discount!), since they had a plethora of amazing new books, including the new issue of The Comics Journal (Peanuts on the cover), Dash Shaw's MAMMOTH new tome Bottomless Belly Button, the revised and much better designed paperback edition of Patrick Rosenkranz's Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution, Craig Yoe's new ARF!, and an incredibly gorgeous new volume of Jules Feiffer strips called The Explainers. Good lord, these cats never take a break.

• How cool is THIS!
Small Press Spotlight on Andy Hartzell (Fox Bunny Funny) at the Cartoon Art Museum. Exhibition runs May 10 – August 10, 2008.

• Rising start Will Dinski is interviewed by Tom Spurgeon at Comics Reporter. I LOVE Will's comics. Seriously, this guy is the shit. We'll be seeing more of his work in the future. Check out his blog, baby! His recent book Beautiful, Cool, and Irreplaceable (picture below) is awesome! Buy it!

ink-stud J.R. Williams has a wild as heck, day-glo web-comic up on his Flickr site called Felyna. Good, old-fashioned comics goodness.

Here's a pic of J.R. and table-mate Jim Blanchard at Stumptown last weekend. (Lifted from said Flickr site.)

This is the piece i bought from him at the show... Metamorpho, baby!!

• Tender Loving Empire, the little boutique shop-that-could is celebrating their 1st Birthday!! And they're throwing a bash on May 11 at Berbatis, so if y'all aren't up in Seattle for the Emerald City Con, you should come out and rock the house. They also have a bitchin' new comic anthology out called Shitbeams on the Loose.

I really dig these kids at Tender Loving Empire, and their taste as a record label, screenprint shop, t-shirt maker, publisher is astounding.

• VERY lean month (of good stuff, that is) in Diamond Previews this month. The one book i'd like to point out is the new Meathaus S.O.S. anthology on page 328 of Previews. Farel Dalrymple had advance copies of this at Stumptown, and it's fucking gorgeous. Indy anthology lovers... TAKE NOTE!!

• This year the Eisner Awards are allowing On-Line Voting, and the ballots just went live. The registration process only took about a minute, and the voting another 2 or 3.

Just go to: www.eisnervote.com and follow the instructions. And go ahead and do it now, so you don't forget (though the deadline is June 13th).

And in case you're interested, we (Top Shelf!) got 3 nominations this year:

2008 Eisner Award Nominees:

• Best Graphic Album-New: Essex County, vols. 1-2: Tales from the Farm/Ghost Stories, by Jeff Lemire
• Best Graphic Album-Reprint: Super Spy, by Matt Kindt
• Best Writer/Artist: Jeff Lemire, Essex County: Tales from the Farm/Ghost Stories

• Andy Runton made this fine Owly piece promoting this coming weekend's Emerald City Con up in Seattle. The guest list this year is swell, including our own afore-mentioned Andy Runton, as well as Jeffrey Brown and Matt Kindt. Come on out and say hello.

Stumptown is come and gone once again, and continues to improve every year out. Kudos to Indigo, Cosmic Monkey, and the entire amazing force that organizes this show, which grows in stature each time out. The vibe was terrific and the venue fabulous.

Tim Sievert made it out from Minneapolis to represent at the Top Shelf table, while Liz Prince came out from Boston to promote her new Top Shelf book Delayed Replays. She had her own table and was selling some nifty new t-shirts. Hometown boy David Chelsea had his own table as well, and was pimping his hot-off-the-presses 24 x 2, which collects two of his ten 24-Comics efforts.

My old pal Garret Izumi was our neighbor (along with Scott Mills), and took these snaps. (This one at the table has Timothy on the left and me on the right.)

This one outside my favorite restaurant ever, Taqueria Nueve. Not only is the food incredible, but they make the best margarita in the cosmos. Better even than my own! (Gasp!)

The Saturday night event at Cosmic Monkey was so freaking crowded, i literally couldn't make it ten feet into the large cavernous space. Hot, sweaty, and surrounded by comics. So i grabbed Timothy, and we headed to the Candlelight Room up by PSU downtown, and we danced our asses off to my new favorite local band, The Strangetones.

These cats rock so hard i can't stand it. Rootsy, roadhouse blues, and world-class musicians. Their act is tight as hell, Suburban Slim kicks out the jams like there's no tomorrow, and if you catch them on a good night, they might have the mondo-sexy Volcano Vixens doing their GoGo grooves alongside the band.

Flush with dough from the convention floor, i picked up their last two cds and i'm happy to report that they rock just as hard. Please, if you dig smokin' blues, listen to the samples on the website, and if you dig what you hear, pick up one or both of their recent albums, Crime-A-Billy and We're On Our Way.

• Ganges #2 is out, and while it lacks the emotional charge that author Kevin Huizenga's comics usually do, it's still a formidable comic, and as per usual, a triumph of formalism and comics mastery. The titular hero works at a dot.com company a decade ago, and he and his office drones addictively play violent user-to-user video games after hours. The set-up to the story is one of the most visually arresting sequences i've ever seen in comics, being a sort of psycho-spiritual video game battle. Again, i miss the usual human pathos that Kevin can bring to the plate, but this issue, like most of his work, sticks in my brain-pan long after i've finished it.

• Here's some teaser art for Jeff Lemire's forthcoming original graphic novel with Vertigo.

As described to me by Jeff:
Large Mouth, a tiny, isolated northern fishing town, didn’t see much excitement. That is until an odd Stranger, wrapped completely in bandages, and wearing strange goggles, arrives in the sleepy town one day, taking up residence in the local motel.

Driven into a curious frenzy by the mysterious visitor, the townsfolk quickly learn the tragic story of his past, and of the terrible accident that left him horribly dis-figured and alone.

Eventually, Large Mouth welcomes the Stranger as one of their own, giving him the fresh start he never thought possible. But, as his story starts to unravel, they begin to question whether his bandages may hide more than just scars.

• From the Hickee Crew, superb artist Scott Campbell writes about upcoming events:
CUTE HUNTER. (Solo Show) Secret Headquarters in LA. Saturday, May 3rd. 8-11pm (Runs through May 29th)

ONE TO GROW ON (Group Show) Gallery 1988 in LA. May 20 – June 1st. Opening reception May 20th.

Scott will be posting paintings on his blog.

• Our submissions editor Claire sent this link my way. All i can say is WOW.

• My old buddy Brandon Huigens from Samurai Comics in Phoenix has a new comic available for your viewing pleasure at his MySpace page.

• James Kochalka is signing at Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, MI on Free Comic Book Day.

The Detroit paper Metro Times wrote an article about him, titled Manifest Cuteness, written by mini-comics legend Sean Bieri.

If you're attending the New York Comic Con this weekend, Al "Mad Fold-In" Jaffee will be on the Arf book panel on Sunday, Room IE03 at 3:00. Here's hoping for a good turnout for Al, who at 87 years young is rarely at cons. Also, a reminder that Craig will be signing the few limited number of the new "Arf" book, Comic Arf at the Fantagraphics booth. They're having a few advance copies flown in from China and the signing will be Sat. 11-1, Sun. 1-2:45. Besides Jaffee, Comic Arf has special art done for the book by R. Crumb, Jules Feiffer, Patrick McDonnell, Art Speigelman, Bil Keane, etc

Here's affable Al Jaffee:

• And if you're in Portland next weekend for the Stumptown Comics Fest, here's some haps you might want to check out, courtesy of Dylan Williams from Sparkplug.

James Kochalka is expanding his American Elf archives in a big way. 2008 marks the 10th Anniversary of James' massive daily diary comic strip undertaking! And while, yes, i'm the publisher of this work, believe me when i tell you, this is some of the most profound comics work anywhere.

• David Chelsea's most recent 24-Hour comic, titled "Now Open the Box" (and which we'll be posting right here on our revamped webcomics section in a couple weeks or so), is based on a New York Times column for which he provided an illustration, by "Modern Love" author Lori Jakiela.

• Finished reading Comic Foundry #2. (The Spring 2008 issue.) Boy i really really dig this mag. I hope their efforts to gain mainstream newsstand acceptance succeed. The feature interview with Matt Fraction was pretty good. In fact, it made me go back and start over reading the first Iron Fist trade paperback that i'd picked up on good buzz, and honestly couldn't get into. (See review below.)

I do like the staccato nature of the contents — understanding the limited attention span of most Americans — but i'd like to see at least a couple more meatier features; whether that be interviews, series overviews, or what have you.

• Sat down then and read the new Immortal Iron Fist tpb mentioned above, titled "The Last Iron Fist Story." First, what i didn't like AT ALL, and the reason i couldn't get into it on the first attempt; Fractions use of voice-over narrative is not just not good, it's horrible. Especially the way that he starts a sentence at the top of one page, and doesn't finish it until 2 pages later or more. Of course, he's not as bad as Jeff Loeb, who uses this cliched narrative device to horrible affect, but really, this is an old comics convention that i think for the most part has served it's purpose, and — except when truly important to the story at hand — should be left alone. (I wonder if this is part of the advice that Ed Brubaker imparted to Matt, as alluded to in the aforementioned Comic Foundry interview.)

That said, i dove in and suffered through the narration, and i can happily say i'm glad i gave this book a second chance, Because overall it kicks some serious ass. The story itself rocks, and utilizes flashbacks to good effect, while the dialog is snappy and fun. I don't know enough of the Iron Fist backstory to know if this is a major ret-con, but it read so clearly that i didn't care.

And the art by one David Aja is simply amazing. Fluid and stylistic, with clear storytelling (something so many of today's HOT artists are clueless about — and shame on their editors for not correcting this), this is one relative newcomer that i'll totally be keeping my eye on. I read recently that a new writer/artist team is taking over on this book soon; i can only hope that Matt, Ed, and David have a chance to wrap up their storyline with a definitive conclusion. (And that the whole run eventually winds up in one of the bitchin' oversized hardcovers Marvel has been doing with popular books.)

• This sounds cool as heck! I wish i was in Seattle this Thursday.
Thursday evening at 7:00 PM, Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery’s resident curator Larry Reid will speak at the Frye Art Museum, 704 Terry Avenue in Seattle. Reid will present a slide lecture on the topic “WEIRDOS: Seattle’s Alternative Comics Culture in the Context of R. Crumb’s Underground.” If you have yet to see the phenomenal Crumb exhibition at the Frye, this represents one of the last opportunities to view this comprehensive collection and explore Crumb’s considerable influence on comics in the Northwest. Admission is free. Reid assures us that you’ll get your money’s worth. More info at 206.622.9250.

• Finally, here's James Kochalka's brand new cover art for a repriint of his kid's book Pinky & Stinky.