A weekend at the Fumetto Festival

Tardi, Norwegian artist Pushwagner, Cowboy Henk, the duo Goblet-Pfeiffer and The Swiss Art of Rock are the main themes of the new edition of Fumetto Festival, from Saturday 7 March until Sunday 15 March in Lucerne. The International Comix-Festival is happening far and wide in the Swiss city, with a small comic market and a long row of awesome exhibitions perfectly set up in museums, industrial spaces, hotels, galleries, historical buildings and so on. In this post I'm proposing a photo gallery of my two days in the country of Carl Gustav Jung, Stéphane Chapuisat and Ursula Andress, beginning with some pictures I made on the way to the festival and absolutely not related to comics...

And so I arrived at the Small Press Heaven, in the central Kornschütte, the core of the show and a place where about twenty exhibitors from different European countries can sell their self-produced comics, while Analph bookshop from Zurich provides a good choice of books from all over the world. The list of past weekend exhibitors included Ampel Magazine, B.ü.L.b Comix, Centrala, Hécatombe, Hollow Press, kuš!, Misma and many others. New publishers and creators will be in Lucerne next weekend (names available here).

Speaking of the exhibitions, the retrospective about Tardi is absolutely the most significant and also striking. The Neubad, a former swimming pool with an industrial feeling, hosts the most comprehensive collection to date of Tardi's original artworks, from the comics about the First World War to the adaptations of French crime stories by Malet and Manchette, with the beautiful work made on the reconstruction of Paris, with its buildings, bridges, shadows and rain. There were also pages from Le Cri du peuple series, from the book Ici Même written by Barbarella's creator Jean-Claude Forest and obviously from the adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (included the first episode Adèle et la bête, dated 1976), one of the milestone of adventure comics. Tardi is one of the special guests of the show with the musical comic reading Putain de guerre next Friday 13 March and he'll also do a session of signings Saturday 14 March.

Another special guest is Norwegian pop artist Pushwagner, with a stunning exhibition at Kunstmuseum, mostly centred on Soft City, a comic masterpiece from the Seventies. This is an extraordinary parable about human existence depicted through the regular day of a man like many others. The themes of conformism, capitalism and control are rendered with detailed illustrations of lines and lines of men caught in their obsessive daily routine, while rows of cars and buildings communicate a sense of claustrophobia and oppression. Unfortunately I couldn't take pictures in the museum, so I'll post some photos from the other exhibitions, as the two events dedicated to Cowboy Henk, the extremely funny and widely imitated cult figure created by Belgian cartoonists Kamagurka and Herr Seele (the latter, another special guest of Fumetto, is meeting visitors at Hotel Schweizerhof in the days of the show).

The set-up of the exhibition about Dominique Goblet and Kai Pfeiffer is also very remarkable. The two creators published the graphic novel Plus si entente for Fremok last year, a story centred on a mother who, after a divorce, spends her days on dating websites. This key idea is well represented in the main room, where drawings become an installation, a sort of "garden of love" populated by personal ads, profiles, faces, objects and sounds from the potential partners of the woman. The original artworks from the comic, characterized by the versatility of styles and techniques, are exposed in an equally interesting second room.

The Kunsthalle hosts Die Not Hat Ein Ende - The Swiss Art of Rock, an exploration of the symbiosis between graphics and rock music in Switzerland through the works of 19 Swiss designers and artists who made LP covers, concert posters, flyers and illustrations for prog, hard rock, punk, new wave and noise bands, from H.R. Giger to Cédric Magnin, from Dirk Bonsma to many others.

For further informations about the festival and the other exhibitions, you can visit the website and the Facebook page of Fumetto, where you can also find a lot of pictures documenting the first days of the event.

Industrial Revolution, World War and a Tetsupendium

The Italian Hollow Press is back but this time the news isn't about the new issue of Under Dark Weird Fantasy Grounds (scheduled for the beginning of April) but about two new publications both from Japanese artists debuting at the Fumetto Festival in Luzern next 7 and 8 March. The new books are Industrial Revolution and World War by Shintaro Kago, a new entry in Hollow Press roster, and Tetsupendium Tawarapedia by Tetsunori Tawaraya, already published in UDWFG. 

Kago's book is a dystopian nightmare where man is reduced to a machine, the brain is only a way to command him and his body a weapon, while two alien factions battle in an architecturally majestic scenery. Bodies mingle with buildings, violence with sex, horror with humor in the typical Kago's style. Industrial Revolution and World War is an A4 book, 32 pages with hardcover, limited edition of 350 copies. The pre-order is 15% off until 11 March at the Hollow Press website, where you can also buy the original artworks.

Tetsupendium Tawarapedia collects the best of Tetsunori Tawaraya's work from 2002 to 2012. If I have defined his style in UDWFG as an "underground pointillism", this time he uses a wider array of solutions. The long sequence of illustrations and short comics highlights the stylistic growth of the Japanese cartoonist, so that the reader can become more familiar with his mutant nightmares, populated by winged creatures, deconstructed human figures, monoliths, zombies, skulls, children with too many arms and legs.

The mood is very different from Kago's  book, but there is a work on the human body, redefined and sometimes brutalized, that is similar in both these new books from Hollow Press. Even the Tetsupendium - 400 pages in black and white, A5 format, limited edition of 500 copies - is available at a special pre-order price until 11 March.

Labyrinthectomy/Luncheonette

Chris Cilla, Revival House Press, New York (USA), November 2014, 32 pages, black and white, $ 4.99. 

Labyrinthectomy/Luncheonette is a comic book by Chris Cilla published by New York-based Revival House Press. As the title suggests, this is a flip-book with two different stories merging into a two-page spread, where the characters meet in the same location. Cilla has been self-publishing mini-comics since 1987 and his work has been featured in anthologies such as Paper Rodeo, Kramers Ergot, Studygroup Magazine. In 2010 Sparkplug Comics printed his graphic novel The Heavy Hand, his most ambitious work to date. He draws weirdos with huge noses, freaked-out cops, hippies and dopers with a typically underground curvy line. The most distinguishing feature of Cilla's comics is the way he develops the plot, using an almost literary stream of consciousness, sometimes expressed through a dadaist free association of ideas, others with a polyphony of voices that generates flashbacks, flashforwards, cross-references, catchphrases and pure nonsense. The mood is light-hearted and hilarious, but the varied formal solutions build a multilayered narrative, recalling a book by William Burroughs or Thomas Pynchon. Alluding to Burroughs, as Cilla depicts in Labyrinthectomy, the viewer is treated to such evocative imagery such as a limbless man spitting grape seeds and a walking brain coming out from the mouth of the author's stand-in character. Certain Pynchonesque-qualities seem more apparent in Luncheonette which is populated by anthropomorphic dogs dressed as detectives, hippie chefs and reactionary cops.

Eccentric theological theories and original considerations about existential themes lead to the end, set in a "minigolf maze" shaped as a "tofu cube", while a solar event spreads destruction outside. The central two-page spread rounds up almost the whole cast of the comic book, introducing a dynamic partition of the page that follows a diagonal line rather than the traditional horizontal and vertical coordinates we are used to. The final effect is unusual like observing everyday life with new eyes, without taking anything for granted. And perhaps this is the core of Cilla's comics, the marked opposition between ordinary contexts and anything but ordinary characters and situations. If you are a brain with hands and feet or an insect reading the newspaper on the toilet, you can understand what I mean.

15 Comics for 2015 - Part Three

Third and last part of my previews of new year's comics. If you still haven't, you can read the first and the second part.

11) Gulag Casual by Austin English - Another praiseworthy initiative of 2D Cloud from Minneapolis, which in November will release an extensive collection of comics by Austin English, a cutting-edge cartoonist with a style closer to the Avant-gardes than to indie comics. Gulag Casual collects the already published The Disgusting Room, My Friend Perry and Here I Am!, plus the unreleased Freddy's Dead, a comedic thriller where English started drawing in a new way, relying mostly on graphite, and A New York Story, which promises to combine the comics-as-painting style of the author with a strong narration as never before. A New York Story is also dedicated to friend and colleague Dylan Williams, passed away in September 2011.

12) The Weight by Melissa Mendes - Recently a guest at Bilbolbul Festival in Bologna with Charles Forsman, whom I mentioned in the first part of this special, Melissa Mendes is the author of the series Lou for Oily Comics and of the graphic novel Freddy Stories. The Weight is a webcomic that you can financially support on Patreon, where you can also order the first chapter of the printed version. The story follows a woman named Edie from birth in 1938 in a rural area of the state of New York. Half fiction half memoir based on the diary of the author's grandfather, The Weight seems destined to become a Great American Novel-Comic.

13) Blodappelsiner by Berliac - Berliac is an Argentinean artist who started drawing manga for some time, while he made of Berlin his new home after a period spent in Norway. And it will be a Norwegian publisher, Jippi Comics, to put out next June his new comic about the story of Roar Mariero, a writer and criminal loosely inspired by the figure of Jean Genet. The 96 pages of the book will follow the main character from his childhood in Scandinavia to his travels around the world, focusing on his captivity in a Russian prison and on his biggest crime, literature. The text will be in Nynorsk, while a Spanish edition will be published later this year in Argentina thanks to Editorial La Pinta. At the moment an English version is not scheduled yet, so you have to cross your fingers if you want to read this new effort from an artist to absolutely keep an eye on (here I talked about his beautiful mini Kuš!).

14) š! #20 - And speaking of š!, after the eight issue dedicated to comics from Finland the Latvian anthology will come back next 19th February with a new book made by artist of one nation, in this case Portugal. The title Desassossego is taken from Fernando Pessoa and the theme of the comics selected by š! team and by guest editor Marcos Farrajota of Chili Com Carne is disquietness. The contributing artists are Amanda Baeza, André Lemos, André Pereira, Bruno Borges, Cátia Serrão, Daniel Lima (author of the cover above), Daniel Lopes, Filipe Abranches, Francisco Sousa Lobo, Joana Estrela, João Fazenda, Marta Monteiro, Milena Baeza, Paulo Monteiro, Pedro Burgos, Rafael Gouveia, Tiago Manuel... And from the first images published on š! website all their works seem graphically stimulating and exciting.

15) Mighty Star and the Castle of the Cancatervater by A. Degen - Next April Canadian Koyama Press will publish a 172-page book containing the complete collection of Mighty Star by A. Degen, a silent and fascinating journey into a baroque and surreal universe, combining the atmospheres of James Robinson's Starman and Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy with the settings of Meliès, German Expressionist films or even of Tim Burton's Batman. In the meantime, you can get an introduction to Mighty Star with The Philosopher, a sort of compendium released a few months ago from Snakebomb Comix.

15 Comics for 2015 - Part Two

Part two of my previews of new year's comics. You'll notice I left out some cartoonists I already talked about several times to introduce new artists and publications. You can read the first part here.

6) Ur by Eric Haven - Adhouse Books has already started its 2015 with this collection of short stories by Eric Haven previously published in various anthologies and magazines. As I could see from a preview pdf, these are absolutely brilliant and hilarious comics, where Haven blends superheroes parody, classic underground comics, the strange worlds of Fletcher Hanks, the rhythm of newspaper strips and... explosive diarrhea. The true leitmotiv of the book is the author's fascination for absurd, paradox and exaggeration. If you want a taste of all this, you can take a look at Haven's website, where he posted some of the comics contained in Ur, and at this interview on Robot 6.

7) Infinite Bowman by Pat Aulisio - Hic & Hoc Publications will release this spring the ultimate collection of Pat Aulisio's Bowman, a sort of 2001: A Space Odyssey where "slightly dazed" astronaut David Bowman rides horses with the head of Garfield, fights giant robots and after becoming general of Satan's army performs a coup d'état. The book collects the already published Bowman, Bowman 2016, Bowman Earthbound and a new 75-page 4th chapter that concludes the saga, characterized by Aulisio's increasingly detailed style.

8) Treasury of Mini Comics Vol. 2 - After Newave! and the first book of Treasury of Mini Comics, the new anthology edited by Michael Dowers for Fantagraphics explores the most recent ramifications of a subculture based on selling and trading handcrafted comics booklets. The new mini-hardback is already in the stores and assembles as usual more than 800 pages of comics and illustrations, with works by Trina Robbins, Marc Bell, Tom Hart, J.R. Williams, Pat Moriarity, Renée French, Johnny Ryan, Jeffrey Brown, Jim Rugg, Lisa Hanawalt, Souther Salazar and Theo Ellsworth. 

9) A Mysterious Process by GG - "Hi, my name is GG. I am a reclusive author. I make comics and things in my bedroom". Last May a mysterious artist called GG inaugurated her Tumblr, launching soon after the website Ohgigue, where she is also selling physical version of her "loosely autobiographic" comics. After reaching second place at last year Comics Workbook Composition Competition with Semi-Vivi, GG is now publishing on Frank Santoro's website her most ambitious work to date, the evocative A Mysterious Process, a comic in cinemascope with subtitles reporting dialogues. The printed version will be out around May, but in the meantime you can follow the developing of the story and discover the fascinating world of this enigmatic cartoonist.

10) Kovra #6 - 224 pages in Spanish and English for this new anthology, probably the best of the series according to the preview images seen on Ediciones Valientes website. Available in these days, this A5 book hosts new works by Amanda Baeza, Berliac, Cegado, Leo Quievreux, Pedro Franz, Ulli Lust, Victor Dvnkel and many others. A different look at indie comics, between Europe and South America, Kovra is at the moment one of the most intriguing anthologies of the Old Continent.

15 Comics for 2015 - Part One

As I did last year, but in a different way, I'm previewing some comics scheduled for the next months. I'm splitting this list in three parts, publishing them throughout January. Thanks to all the artist and publishers who sent me news and advance pictures.

1) Frontier #8 by Anna Deflorian - Youth in Decline continues to host in its series Frontier the best talents of our days. In May it will be the turn of Italian artist and cartoonist Anna Deflorian, best known for her graphic novel Roghi, who is creating a book described as "full and decorative in a 70s shojo manga vs renaissance painting way (haha)". This is another big hit for Ryan Sands, who discovered Deflorian's work thanks to her comic published in the ninth issue of š!. 

2) Revenger by Charles Forsman - The first issue of Revenger, the new series by Chuck Forsman published by his Oily Comics, marks a drastic change of pace for the author of TEOTFW and Celebrated Summer, now making an "action and violence comic book" characterized by the use of color and a more realistic style that can recall Steve Dillon. Set in a darker version of the USA in 1987, the story follows our "heroine", a sort of a rogue-for-hire, going in a small city to help a teenage boy who is worried about his missing girlfriend. Inspired by comics and movies from 70s and 80s and by contemporary cartoonists as Benjamin Marra (author of the back cover of this first issue) and Michel Fiffe, Revenger is already available for download, while the printed version will be out in February.

3) Terror Assaulter: One Man War On Terror di Benjamin Marra - And talking about Benjamin Marra, Fantagraphics will publish in the fall a book from the author of Night Business and Blades & Lazers, collecting mostly unreleased work, since only one comic book of Terror Assaulter was published so far. For those of you who aren't familiar with him, it's the right time to enter into the violent, provocative, ironic world of the bearded American cartoonist, stylistically reminiscent of unforgettable artists as Jim Steranko and Paul Gulacy and with a strong pop art vein.

4) Drawn & Quarterly: Twenty-Five Years of Contemporary Cartooning, Comics, and Graphic Novels - In May Canadian publisher Drawn & Quarterly will put out a celebratory book of 512 pages for its 25th anniversary, with never-before-seen or rare works from cartoonists as Chester Brown, Michael DeForge, Julie Doucet, Debbie Dreschler, Tom Gauld (author of the cover above), Rutu Modan, John Porcellino, Art Spiegelman, James Sturm, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Adrian Tomine and many others. Besides the comics, editor Tom Devlin is also assembling interviews, personal reminiscences of D&Q staff, photographs and essays by guest stars Margaret Atwood, Jonathan Lethem and Chris Ware. 

5) Viewotron #3 by Sam Sharpe and David Goodrich - The second issue of Viewotron, released in spring 2013, showcased a single beautiful autobiographical story by Sam Sharpe about the relationship between the author/protagonist, depicted as an anthropomorphic dog, and his schizophrenic mother. Given the considerable level of that comic, it is legitimate to expect great things from the third output of this anthology series, which will also mark the return of the co-creator David Goodrich. The tone will be definitely lighter, as you can see from the first panel of The Orb of Mild Disappointment, one of the main stories of this new issue, tentatively scheduled for a summer 2015 release.

Best Comics of 2014: The List

In 2014 I read enough comics and so I think I can do a classic "Best Of" list. I didn't make any distinction between mini-comics, new releases and collections of things already published elsewhere. I simply chose my favorite comics among the ones I managed to read this year and put them in alphabetical order. Thanks for your attention and happy 2015.

The Amateurs, Generous Bosom, Glancing - Conor Stechschulte is the best kept secret of American contemporary comics. Even if The Amateurs, initially self-published in 2011 in a limited edition of 300 copies, has been reprinted in an improved and updated version from Fantagraphics, it still didn't receive the attention it deserves. Too bad, because this story of two butchers who forget how to do their job is one of the most powerful comics in recent years. And the first part of Stechschulte's new work, Generous Bosom, which made its debut in a 70-page comic book published this November by Breakdown Press, isn't less so. A man is coming back home driving in the rain at night. When two tires broke, he asks for help in a house where a married couple involves him in a strange and perverse situation, which culminates in a long sex scene represented with impressive realism. Even the rain is rendered with a wonderful series of detailed lines. Glancing is instead a self-published book made in dark and cloudy watercolors, where Stechschulte doesn't use text but through the gazes of three characters bathing at night manages to convey their desires and interpersonal dynamics. This isn't a minor work in the artist's production, but another expression of a unique talent. I talked briefly about Conor Stechschulte here.

Arsène Schrauwen - A fake biography of the author's grandfather, this elegant hardcover book published by Fantagraphics collects the story printed in risography by the same Olivier Schrauwen. The Belgian cartoonist has already revealed himself as a master of the fake documentary (I think of his contributions to Mould Map and to the Spanish anthology Terry), able to combine refined narrative mechanisms with an anti-realistic graphic style and suggestive coloring techniques. This visionary journey in colonial Africa is also a Bildungsroman that explores the instincts of a young man and a satirical reflection on themes such as colonialism and the unlimited faith in the progress typical of the 20th Century man. Highly recommended.

Felony Comics - Four paranoid crime stories by Alex Degen, Lale Westvind, Pete Toms and Benjamin Urkowitz, a cover by Benjamin Marra and a back-cover by Karissa Sakumoto. The anthology published by Harris Smith's Negative Pleasure does in 32 pages all that a good anthology should do, mixing well-thought-out stories, strong ideas, pop art and visionary features. For further details have a look at my review.

The Inside Case - After This No Place to Stay (here my review), the German Michael Jordan offers another mind-blowing trip in the underground with this 16-page comic book published by Space Face. There's something of Kafka, Lynch and Cronenberg here, a vintage drawing style remembering the EC Comics era, odd conversations, a bit of surrealism and psychoanalysis. Jordan is still able to intrigue, unsettle and excite the reader.

Irene #4 - Irene is one of the best anthologies of our days. The three editors dw, Dakota McFadzean and Andy Warner collaborate every time in a different way and are also good at finding outstanding new talents. This fourth issue, dating back to last April, gave me the opportunity to know two artists to absolutely keep an eye on as Carlista Martin and Mazen Kerbaj. I still couldn't read the fifth issue, released in October, but I'm sure it won't disappoint me. I reviewed Irene # 4 here.

It Never Happened Again and Wicked Chicken Queen  - I already reviewed It Never Happened Again, a collection of two comics by Sam Alden published by Uncivilized Books, in this post, and I also talked about Wicked Chicken Queen, another excellent Alden's output in this 2014, here. Alden is an artist in constant motion, who always feels like telling and experimenting. Intimate, moving but sometimes also harsh, his stories exploit the different potentialities of comics and lead the medium to new horizons.

Lose #6 - The Canadian Michael DeForge is an old friend of this blog, since the review of Lose #5 has been one of my early posts (I also briefly reviewed his Very Casual here). Among the various things published this year by the prolific DeForge, the new issue of Lose, his series for Koyama Press, contains what at the moment looks like his most accomplished narrative effort, Me As A Baby. The story, raw and ironic at the same time, follows the protagonist Cherelle going to any length to recover the stolen clarinet of her niece. And she'll be ready even to join the Mafia, a criminal organization very different from the one we know from news stories and movies...

Megahex - A big collection of Megg, Mogg and Owl stories already published on Tumblr with 69 pages of never before seen episodes, this hardcover book by Simon Hanselmann has been one of the events of this year and a bestseller for Fantagraphics. I already talked about Hanselmann reviewing Life Zone, so if you still don't know his work you can give a look there. Here I'll only say that his comics more than simply entertaining are unsettling, since themes such as rape, violence, depression and paranoia emerge between a laugh and the other. Just like DeForge, Hanselmann blends humor and brutal realism, leaving the reader amused, amazed and admired. You can't miss it.

Middle School Missy - Missy is Daryl Seitchik's series, a seemingly autobiographical diary of a sharp, edgy and rebel little girl. Middle School Missy, self-published by the cartoonist after two mini-comics printed by Oily, is the most recent chapter, where we follow the passage from childhood to adolescence, marked by the red coming between the usual black and white when the protagonist has her first period. Funny as only brilliant works can be, Missy deals with children in the same way Megahex deals with stoners. For some other words you can go here.

Mould Map #3 - If you were looking for an heir of Kramers Ergot, here you're served. This large volume with glossy pages showcases comics focused on future, street riots, technology and sex, seemingly different topics merged into a well-cohesive anthology, with works by Viktor Hachmang & GHXYK2, Noel Freibert, C.F., Sam Alden, Olivier Schrauwen, Lala Albert, Joseph P Kelly, Blaise Larmee, Lando, Gabriel Corbera, Sammy Harkham, Jacob Ciocci, Joe Kessler. Edited by Hugh Frost and Leon Sadler, Mould Map is published by Landfill Editions. For a few more words you can give a look here.

Now and Here - Avantgarde as a few others, Lale Westvind's comics are a genre of their own and could be the equivalent of Thomas Pynchon's novels, with their recurring suggestions and an experimental attitude crossing storytelling and drawings to the point of transforming facts into metaphysical elements. The latest works of the New York based cartoonist are the three issues of Now and Here, a new series started a few months ago. The first two are relatively conventional comic books, while the third has more pages and the form of an illustrated text. However the themes remain the same, time and space, represented by human and not human figures looking, perceiving, chasing each other, while the echoes of other dimensions and realities hover in the background.

Nowt/Aktion #4 - While I'm still looking forward to read the new and unmissable Days Longer Than Long Pork Sausages, released a few months ago from Space Face Books, I choose this mini-comic printed in a hundred copies to put Gabriel Corbera in this list. The Spanish cartoonist has persistently built his own narrative universe made of recurring archetypes, where shotguns, chains, tigers, cobwebs, caves, destroyed buildings and desolate landscapes return the oppression of the society towards heroic but always exhausted characters. For further details read here.

Le ragazzine stanno perdendo il controllo - Ratigher's comic is in my opinion the best Italian comic of the year and I can't leave it out of this list. I hope it'll be translated soon in other languages, because I think it could have a good success even outside Italy. Balanced and mature but also full of inventiveness and never ordinary, Le ragazzine is characterized by a manga style of drawing, a story recalling Ghost World and above all by the unmistakable mark of its author, as we've known it in Trama and in his work for Under Dark Weird Fantasy Grounds.

Rav - Unfortunately I haven't found the time to talk more extensively of this book, but it would have really deserved a review. Maybe I can catch up with the second chapter, scheduled for next year. Youth In Decline has collected in a beautiful paperback the first issues of Rav by Mickey Zacchilli, an amazing and funny journey in underground basements and hellish bars, full of violence, sex and genuine sense of wonder. Zacchilli uses a unique style, characterized by lines that cross the borders of bodies and objects, creating a chaotic universe where spontaneity and experimentation are at the service of narration.

Ritual #3 - Enigmatic and fascinating, the new issue of Ritual published by Revival House Press confirms the talent of Malachi Ward. In an unspecified future an old woman tells her grandson why everything went from bad to worse. We don't know what happened to this world, but watching a riot in the streets happened 62 years before we understand that the reality depicted by Ward isn't so far from our own. The more and more personal drawing style and the excellent mix between the two colors complete a short story that is also one of the greatest comics of this year.

Rudy - Praiseworthy initiative of 2D Cloud from Minneapolis, this paperback edited by Marc Bell assembles the best strips of Rudy, the anthropomorphic cat created by Canadian Mark Connery. The bulk of the material dates back to the '90s and is taken from eight-page self-published mini-comics. Brilliant, irreverent, hilarious, full of absurd dialogues and bright metanarrative solutions, the book lines up a lot of irresistible gags starring also Ken the fish with pants, Phil the triangle with legs and Trudy "the lady Rudy". I bought it at the SPX and since then I've never stopped reading it.

Under Dark Weird Fantasy Grounds #1-2 - One of the best news of the year was the birth of this new biannual anthology, published in English by the Italian Hollow Press. Michele Nitri, editor and publisher, managed to convince Mat Brinkman to make again a comic and put together a diversified international team of artists including Miguel Angel Martin, Tetsunori Tawaraya, Ratigher and Paolo Massagli. If you still don't have them, you must catch up the first two issues, waiting for the third, due next March. I talked about UDWFG here and here (the last one is only in Italian, sorry!).

Vortex - Let yourself be dragged away by William Cardini's lo-fi sci-fi, so you can start this trip in a land made of pixels, between Tron, Jack Kirby and Mat Brinkman. Find the Miizzzard anywhere near the Hypercastle, even if he'll probably be engaged in freeing the Vortex from slavery to the Empire of Tolx. Enjoy the marvels of the Hyperverse in this book published by Sparkplug, which collects the four mini-comics from the same name. I reviewed Vortex here.

Youth Is Wasted, The Lizard Laughed, I Don't Hate Your Guts - The collection of short stories Youth Is Wasted (here my review) is an excellent starting point to enter the world of Noah Van Sciver, but the cartoonist from Denver created a lot of interesting comics this year, as the bitter confrontation between father and son of The Lizard Laughed and the outstanding diary comic I Don't Hate Your Guts. Blessed at Lucca Comics by Mr. Robert Crumb in person, who defined him as one of the cartoonists he appreciates more at the moment, Van Sciver is now ready to go beyond the boundaries of indie comics. In the meantime we can wait for the new issue of Blammo and for the book editions of Saint Cole and Fante Bukowski.