THAT COMIC SMELL 27: Top 3 Creators

The new episode of That Comic Smell is now online. A discussion on some of our favourite comics creators.

Have a listen at iTunes, Soundcloud and YouTube.

From the web:
"TOP 3 CREATORS. GO!!
Is exactly what we did to our guest on episode 27 of That Comic Smell.
We were joined by the oh so amazing Olivia Hicks! (2000AD writer, Betty & Veronica and Cloak & Dagger Lover)
We all bring our own top 3 creators to the table and one by one present them and discuss some of the works that really made us decide that they were the ones for us.
There is also many a usual wild tangent and what we have currently been reading.
All that and so much more on the only podcast that can be understood by household pets and various wild birds.
That Comic Smell!
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Thanks again for listening and supporting the podcast
Here are some of the titles mentioned:
Nando:
John Byrne - Hulk, Fantastic Four, X-men
Moebius - Lt Blueberry, The Incal, Silver Surfer
Paco Roca - Wrinkles, El Invierno del disbujante, Los Sucos del azar
David:
Sam Henderson - Magic Whistle, Humour can be funny
Mary Fleener - Life of the Party, Slut Burger
Al Williamson - Star Wars
Mike:
Akira Toriyama - Dragon Ball, Dr Slump
Bill Finger - Batman
Walter Simonson - Thor
Olivia:
Kate Beaton - Hark a Vagrant
Katie Skelly - My Pretty Vampire
Kathleen Jacques - Band vs Band
Giuseppe:
Sergio Aragonés - Groo the Wanderer, M.A.D, Bogie Man
Bryan Talbot - The Tale of one Bad Rat, Grandville
Darick Robinson - (w/Warren Ellis) Transmetropolitan (w/Garth Ennis) The Boys
Tom:
Derf - Trashed, My Friend Dahmer, The City
Daniel Clowes - David Boring, Ghost World, Wilson
Bill Watterson - Calvin & Hobbes
Some Honourable Mentions:
Tony Millionare - Maakies
Todd McFarlane - Spider-man/Venom
Garth Ennis - Preacher
Kate Leth - Patsy Walker AKA Hellcat
David Robertson - Dump I, II & III, Zero Sum Bubblegum, Wow! Retracted, Berserkotron"

HOW TO READ A COMIC ALOUD TO AN AUDIENCE

I had a blast performing three of my stories for DeeCap - an event held as part of Dundee Comics Expo last Saturday.
 
I had read Sam (Magic Whistle) Henderson’s article on reading comics aloud to a group at tcj.com and had thought it interesting but strange – besides self-promotion, why is doing that a good idea? A notion that is looked at in Henderson’s article. I didn’t think much more about it until I received an e-mail from cartoonist Damon Herd asking if I’d like to take part in DeeCap. I found myself saying yes because despite the above concerns, I also thought “why not?” It would be an interesting challenge to covert the usually private reading experience into a group event.
 
Comics creators are often reticent to use silent panels on their pages, but I’m not as I think they’re powerful. I’ve dealt with them before when reading comics aloud to someone else. You’re reading away and then go silent while they look at the picture. Do you let the panel be silent or not? I decided yes, if the comic is strong enough the information will get across.
I wanted to control the timing of the story – so split up three stories into 139 single panel scans on slides, and used a remote to control the speech patterns. In the event, this decision allowed me to linger on any that were getting a good laugh, or had some chicken fat I thought might be picked up by the audience.
 
Interesting thing about this is that the comics page became irrelevant. I’m increasingly thinking the comics page as a unit, while of great interest to me as a comics reader/practitioner is of no interest to a casual reader. I think a page of comics is sometimes too daunting to a non-comics reader. They are accustomed with a regular novel to starting on word one and continuing in that fashion until the book ends. I have observed that James Kochalka’s ‘Quit Your Job’, with its panel a page is an easier read for some. I can see myself trying something like this in the future when the right story or idea comes along.
There were three other presenters and all our styles were different. We had running the perimeter of the room around the audience, a ticking sound effect and a good old fashioned sing-along. The event was good fun and the audience really seemed to enjoy it.
I also put the cover of Dump #2 onscreen as part of my presentation. Here it is…
 

BORDERS IN TROUBLE

Wow. Something really was going on at Borders. I observed they were pretty switched on regarding comics, i.e. a decent graphic novels section, stocking Crikey! magazine, and US Marvels. I then saw that they had Nickelodeon Magazine on sale too.

Over the years, I’ve read online on various bulletin boards people discussing this kid’s comic based on the TV cartoons of Nickelodeon, and how it features a lot of top notch cartoonists including Nick Bertozzi, Sam Henderson, Kaz, James Kochalka, Roger Langridge, Jason Lutes, Brian Ralph, Scott Roberts, Art Spiegelman, Jay Stephens etc. Really a ludicrously good roster of people, and many more too. But this was the first time I’d seen it in the flesh, as it were, and so I was all set to write it up, when news of Borders going into administration appeared. It’s a great shame.

Then I saw yesterday they are even stocking Dodgem Logic, Alan Moore’s new magazine!

I hope something can be sorted out, because someone at Borders really knows their stuff and is making a good effort to get in quality stuff.