Friend or Foe?

"Friends IV" print available online from GRSF

2009-12-16T11:06:00.000-08:00

My whale v. squid print, "Friends IV", is available now online from the Giant Robot gallery!

This is a large print made up of eight 12 7/8" square panels that connect together to make an image that's over 2' x 4'. Each panel was hand-printed by me on a letterpress proofing press from hand carved linoleum blocks, and is one of a signed and numbered edition of 20. If you'd like more info on how this monstrosity came into existence, check out my progress reports that I wrote as I was working on it: #1 (Design), #2 (Carving), and #3 (Printing).

The print is available from the wonderful folks at Giant Robot SF, click here to go straight to my piece, but don't forget to check out the rest of the fantastic Printed Matter show online, too! The bargain basement price for "Friends IV" is $100!

Progress Report #3 - Printing

2009-12-05T10:41:00.000-08:00

So, here in our third and final post about my linoleum printing process, I wanted to give you an idea of how I printed the thing, and what the final art will look alike at the Giant Robot Printed Matter show, opening tonight (12/5)!

So, after carving all my linoleum, I had to mount them all on plywood blocks (generously cut for me by the wonderful Paul Stepahin). There were 15 blocks in all, eight for the black and seven for the red (there is just one panel, with the whale's flukes, that doesn't have any red in it). Here you can see the black blocks at a mid-point of the printing process (I've already printed the two blocks in the lower right hand side, as you can see).

Each of the blocks was set into the Vandercook press (at my work, Hello! Lucky: thank you, bosses!), which is a flatbed cylinder proof press. I had pulled prints on one before (the covers for Friends #3, for instance), but this was definitely by far the biggest project I had ever worked on, and I had a lot to learn, from registering the prints to cleaning the press at the end of the day! My mentor in all this was the incomparable Aaron Cohick, the head printer at Hello! Lucky and the proprietor of the fantastic New Lights Press. I learned so much durning the two weekends I spent printing, and I owe Aaron a considerable debt (maybe you can help me out by buying some of his amazing artists books, or his crazy new broadsides).

The red image (the squid + the whale's mean eye!) was printed first, since the red is a lighter intensity than the black print. The images below are from my second day of printing (I spent two 11-hour days on it!), so you will see the squid already printed and the whale being printed on top of that.

Because the blocks were so huge, and there were some irregularities with the linoleum, I would double ink the block, both by hand with a brayer (seen below), and as I pulled the prints, with the Vandercook's ink rollers. This added a ot of time to the process, but I got into a pretty good rhythm after awhile.

Below you can see one of the panels directly after printing the second color. For a final edition of 20 prints, I pulled about 34 of each panel (several were inevitably damaged, under-inked, or otherwise unusable), if you multiply that by the 15 blocks that's about 510 passes that this print took altogether! Yikes! I was definitely exhausted at the end of each day, but both the learning process and the end result were definitely worth it.

When I was done printing, I finally got to see the whole thing! I was really pleased... the print really is huge (you can see the pallet behind it for a sense of scale), and reflected the subject matter to a tee. I even like the irregularities of the print, I think there is a real beauty to it... some sections even look like they have a dappled, aquatic light on them that I couldn't have imagined would be there when I set out on the process. And of course, even though I knew it would happen, it's sort of shocking to see the whole thing flipped over!

Finally, I trimmed all of the sections down to 12 7/8" square. Below is a quickie montage of the eight sections together, I'll of course have a better photo up before long, that more accurately shows the piece in its entirety.

Thanks for your interest in this project, if you've been following along! Again, the print will be available as part of Giant Robot SF's annual Printed Matter show. The show opens tonight, Saturday, 12/5 (I'll be there early, around 6:00 - 7:30), and continues until 1/6/10. The prints, a numbered edition of 20, will be available for $100, both in the gallery, and online about a week later. After the show comes down I'll begin selling remaining prints on on the Family Style website and at comic/zine shows, I'll put up an announcement then! Again, thanks to Luke of GRSF, Paul, and Aaron for their encouragement and assistance!

Progress Report #2 - Carving

2009-11-26T11:36:00.000-08:00

So, having designed the image, and having already carved the first part (the whale), I set about carving the red squid portion of the design. I drew the image on a grid, and each square of 7/8" got blown up to 3 1/2" on the linoleum (each section is 13" x 13", to fit in the window panes of the door which inspired the project in the first place... which presented some problems in that linoleum really only comes in pieces of 12" x 12", so that in a few of the panels seams show where I had to add an extra inch to the blocks to fit... you can see such an extra piece in the middle of the photo below. I still like the way it looks, however).

It was a fairly simple process to take the smaller image and draw it on the larger grid, I would just look at an individual square and think "Okay, so this tentacle passes just under the upper right corner, and continues on the the middle of the left side", etc. Old school! You can't get a perfectly exact reproduction of your initial image this way, but that was part of the fun for me, to let the idiosyncrasies of the carving process take the image in somewhat new directions. I was especially taken with how well the process of carving worked with the subject matter of these undersea creatures in mortal combat... the details of a Sperm Whale's hide really are a tracery of gouges and scratches in a huge field of color (I was lucky enough to see Sperm Whales in New Zealand, and they really barely look alive, they are too big to take in). When I was carving in the small details, like the wrinkles around the eyes, for instance, I would use a sharpie to make the lines pop out more and be easier to visualize. Overall, the final design was very close to my original drawing.

The tricky part was trying my best to make sure that the squid blocks lined up correctly with the whale blocks. Using the grid, I would line us the blocks up, one on top of the other, and use an awl to make little punch marks at the edges of where I would have to carve away the black block to show the red image (for instance, where a tentacle lay over the whales body). I tried to be very meticulous, but I won't really know how well I did until I print the black over the red and see! Yikes!

Okay, that's it for now... I'll be back next week with a post about the actual printing of the thing, with the extraordinary assistance of Aaron Cohick of New Lights Press. Until then, have a happy Thanksgiving!

Print Project - Progress Report #1

2009-11-07T17:30:00.000-08:00

I have been slowly chugging along on a large-scale linoblock print for a month or so now... as always with me, the process was in fits and starts, I'd do a lot of drawing one weekend, carve the linoleum another, but there would be huge gaps in between where the whole project got shelved.

So, I was delighted when I ran into Luke, the manager of Giant Robot SF, at APE, and he asked me if I had anything I'd like to include in the upcoming Printed Matter art show (Dec 5). I'm really honored to be included in such a terrific show (I haven't seen the line up yet, but the print show I worked a few years back was excellent, and I'm sure that Eric and Luke are doing a bang-up job curating this one), and it has lit a fire under my ass to get this project finished.

I'm going to be updating this blog with progress reports for the remainder of the month, as I finish my design, carve everything, and finally pull the prints. This is certainly the biggest and most chalenging printing project I've yet to embark on, so I'm sure that it will be a learning experience for me, and perhaps interesting for you, too!

Part 1 - Design

The impetus for this work comes from the realm of interior decorating, as it happens! About a year ago my girlfriend Hannah and I came across a construction site... they were refurbishing a house and there was a very nice window frame sitting outside. We asked the contractor if we could take it. "Sure thing", he replied, "but what about these, too?" Inside the gate there were dozens of frames in varying states... We picked out a few especially cool ones: a very large (35" x 48") picture window and a eight-pane door. The picture window I used as a frame for a beautiful but battered canvas I had found in an abandoned house in Oklahoma, but we weren't sure what to do with the door. We ended up putting panels of decorative paper in each of the panes for our holiday party last year, which was fine, but we both really felt that it wasn't engaging enough.

After ruminating on it for a bit, I realized the long format of the door would perfectly frame the image of a whale. I love nature illustrations and nautical imagery (Moby Dick has long been at the top of my "favorite books" list), and I liked the idea of the design, a huge whale, being chopped into smaller panels, a bit like a comic, or the painting Nila byWalton Ford, one of my all time favorite artists. With that in mind, I drew out the design:

Then I spent a Saturday afternoon carving it from linoleum, expanding it by grid from a 14" x 7" drawing to eight 13" x 13" pieces (so the whole thing will be big, over 2' x 4'!):

But I decided that the design wasn't quite "there" yet. The compliment to the piece was more inspired by color than anything else: I had been slightly obsessed with black-and-red print designs (I'm planning on using that palette on the next issue of Friends), and the black bulk of the whale conjured in my mind a red counterpoint, as if the colors themselves were having a battle of dominance. So I added in a Giant Squid to battle my Sperm Whale, drawing it in with red gouache. I'm really pleased with the result.

So now I've got to do some more carving, jigsaw piecing the squid in with my completed whale and mounting all the pieces onto plywood. I'll have another post up this week with pics of the carving process.

New Stuff: Bird Brain + Pen Pals

2009-08-10T09:49:00.000-07:00

I've got a couple of new things coming out for the upcoming SF Zine Fest:

The first is the premiere issue of my ongoing nature journal series, Bird Brain. BB will be a series of slim little zines, with fairly high production values (full-bleed, book-trim, rounded corners, Gocco covers), and a bunch of my journal entries and illustrations from my bird-watching. Expect another issue out for APE in the Fall.
Also, in the spirit of maintaining some regularity with releases of Bird Brain, I'm going to be updating this blog on a semi-frequent basis, with my sketches, thoughts, and journal entries regarding birds and nature. Bird Brain is currently available on my Etsy page, look for it in the Family Style catalog soon. Coming shortly: A few of my notes from a canoeing trip on the Russian River in June!

The second new product is a rather fun one: "Pen Pals" Stationery Grab Bags! I've gone through my overly expansive collection of I Japanese stationery, goofy postcards, and a couple of hand-printed pieces, too, like my "Quail Mail" and "Snail Mail" designs... I had a lot of fun drawing up the little packaging, inspired by (of course) Japanese designs, and also this guy Aaron Meshon, who's little products have very fun and cute packaging! You can get your Pen Pals grab bacg on my Etsy page, too!

Vampire Club

2009-05-19T18:48:00.000-07:00

While I was up in PDX for the Stumptown Comics Fest I did a couple of doodles in my sketchbook that I am now giving some extra love and attention... Here is the illo that led Jesse Reklaw to call it my "facials sketchbook." Um, I better color this red soon. Gross.

Interview with Sari

2009-05-02T18:34:00.001-07:00

Interview with Sari
Originally uploaded by François Vigneault

Being in school now, I occasionally have the sorts of assignments which lend themselves to a bit of creative license. I recently had to conduct an interview with someone outside of my cultural/ethnic/national group... I had originally wanted to interview my friend Massoud, a filmmaker who was a student in Iran during the revolution 30 years ago, but he wasn't available, unfortunately (I'm still hoping to get an interview out of him!). But I had a great back-up candidate, the owner of my neighborhood liquor store, Tim's (there is no Tim, I found out). Sari was very obliging with his time and in addition to my presentation in class, I drafted this very quick (less then 1 1/2 hours) comic with some of his interesting reflections on his life in the U.S. versus his life in Palestine... It was fun to draw up something so quickly; I might do some more of these "talking head" style interview comics.

The Garden, redrawn before its time

2008-11-30T00:13:00.001-08:00

One of the tricky things about my comics "career" is that I am still trying to figure out how I want to draw... Case in point: I have had the basic outlines of my first longish (90-100 pages) comic, "the Garden," in mind for years now, but I had been putting off getting started until I had more of the narrative particulars down... but about a year ago I was like "Fuck it" and dove right into the thing, figuring that i would be able to piece together those story details as i went forward (I'm still working on those, no surprise).

I liked my pacing, and the sort of more cartoony character design I had come up with for the story. But, when I started drawing the Prologue, I was illustrating it in this somewhat scritchy-scratchy cross-hatchy style which I was playing with then... I guess the main reason was that I wanted it to look a bit old-timey, and to contrast with my other project which I was also drawing at the time, "Territorial Pissings" (which has also landed in comics purgatory in the last year... sigh). However, after completing about eight pages in that cross-hatched style, I began to look at the pages with utter dread... I didn't want to finish out the remaining pages of the Prologue in this style, much less the entire book.

And so, with great trepedation, I began experimenting with redrawing the first couple of pages in a modified style... drawing the blacks with a brush (which I feel much more comfortable and expressive with), and filling in the mid-tones with a grey Pitt brush pen, which I had also done with "Schooled," a recent comic I did for John Issacson's transit anthology... For most of the marks, I found the brush pen was a neat and simple way to insert that second tone, easier than doing an ink wash. However, it was nearly impossible to achieve a nice solid block for the word balloons, etc.

Here is the page after I have played around in Photoshop for awhile... I was able to separate the tones (thank God for the threshold tool), and to clarify the grey layer into a solid block of color, eliminating the various grades in the original drawing (I also cleaned up the first four panels with the Hoepoe bird alighting on the branch, where an inadvertent "figure/ground" problem had arisen when i introduced the grey). Tho' I wouldn't want to do this for everything I draw (I like my little mistakes and sloppiness, truth be told), I like the effect here... it feels modern and old, but still hand-crafted. It feel professional to me.

I'm feeling a bit silly for revisiting these pages, which will certainly delay the publication of the first few chapters of "The Garden" in the next issue of Friends, number four. But, I really do think that I like these newer drawings. This being my longest work to date, and with over two years since my last issue, I'm feeling a need to bring my most professional A-game to the process. Hopefully I'll be able to resist any temptation to further revise the newer pages before the story is all finished!

Mini Comp

2008-11-24T20:18:00.001-08:00

Mini Comp
Originally uploaded by François Vigneault

I made these little journal/sketchbooks a while back... the covers are reused envelope box tops! I just loved the retro, composition book, marbled pattern... I am finally selling them on my Etsy shop! So go get one! Or not!

Ilyana in the Afterworld

2008-11-15T18:24:00.001-08:00

Ilyana
Originally uploaded by François Vigneault

Ilyana - color
Originally uploaded by François Vigneault

I have a bit of a problem, in that I basically never draw on a regular basis. The only time I sit down at the table is when I am trying to get an actual comic done... I have almost totally lost touch with sketching, or doing a drawing for its own sake. I'm a little worried about this trend, I am sure that my "skills" are suffering a bit for it. Plus, my illustration portfolio over on tourdefrancois.com is looking a bit spare, populated with a lot of older pieces... and that's not gonna help me get any of that filthy freelance illustration lucre. Anyways, I am trying to get into drawing for drawing's sake again... so hopefully there will be more little drawing postings soon.

This is a character and scene from my submission for Elfworld Vol. 2, but more tightly drawn than I would for the comic... I'm quite happy with it; I am working on some colors for it, too... just to get more practice doing that. I've been trying to get "good hair" in my drawings for awhile, and think I've got something good here. It just takes a lot of patience, more than I can usually muster! I love drawing this swords and sorcery stuff.

I Sewed a Pillow!

2008-11-12T23:02:00.001-08:00

I sewed a Pillow!
Originally uploaded by François Vigneault

Very rarely I do a sewing project... I made this pillow tonight from fabric I got at Whiz Bang Fabrics, an amazing and adorable micro-sized fabric shop in the Mission... everyone should go there, it is a very cool place with the best cute and graphical fabrics. Hannah, of course, helped me out with this! But i made it myself... and now I know how to set a basic zipper! Next up: A birding bag.

Paper Cut

2008-11-06T20:42:00.001-08:00

Paper Cut
Originally uploaded by François Vigneault

A quick little sample for someone's Bat Mitzvah... the actual finished product will be created by another artist, and laser cut; this was just an example I was asked to make for the client. It was fun, it is supposed to look vaguely like Jeruselem. The paper is this very fancy cork paper! Maybe I will do some more of these, even tho' it is ver "fashionable" right now...

Halloween Owl

2008-10-26T20:50:00.000-07:00

I went over to my pals Mara and Chuck's place for some pumpkin carving action the other night! I had always wanted to make one of these jack-o-lanterns with the relief cuts... I'm quite happy with my mean little owl! If you want to check out everyone else's delightful handiwork, go to Mara and Chuck's daughter Dottie's blog!

Handmade Hellos - New Book From Chronicle!

2008-10-17T19:31:00.000-07:00

I created a project in Handmade Hellos, a really great book with tons of how-to articles created by an amazing "who's who" of creative stationery creators: Foxy & Winston, Egg Press, The Small Object, and many others, including yours truly!

My project is a "road trip postcard set"... inspired by these amazing multi-postcard scenes I've seen before (which I can't find an example of online now... ugh!), with each postcard showing a different portion of a scene of image. I thought that a map could be a great image to chop up to make a fun series out of... for a road trip, or what have you! Of course you could use almost any big image... Just send them in series to the recipient over the course of a couple weeks.

It was a real treat to work with the folks at Chronicle and my wonderful bosses at Hello Lucky (where I now work part-time, too!). You can buy the book, like, everywhere! It comes with templates and lots and lots of great crafting ideas!

Bird Brain

2008-10-04T08:11:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year I started trying to keep a sketchbook of my experiences as an amateur bird watcher, with the intention of starting a new zine, called Bird Brain... It will be a very modest little series, maybe 16 pages an issue, perhaps 2-4 issues a year. Hopefully it will help me to both keep up a semi-regular self-publishing schedule (since my comics work can develop rather slowly), and also encourage me in going out birding, which has become a very special hobby for me in the last few years...

I hope that as Bird Brain develops it might become an outlet for all sorts of nature writing and illustration from me, but for now I'm happy with just getting to spend some time observing and drawing the world around me.

Bird Brain No. 1 should be out in time for APE, November 1 + 2.

SFZF X Treasure Island

2008-09-29T23:05:00.000-07:00

If you want to see me rambling in my position as de facto SF Zine Fest spokesperson, check out this video from the Treasure Island Music Festival on Rhapsody Blog... I make a couple of appearances, pontificating on zines, the Fleet Foxes, and garlic fries.

New Distraction

2008-09-16T21:37:00.000-07:00

The confluence of my recently getting an iPhone and my new semi-lengthy train commute to school has conspired to create a new distraction for me. I had never owned an iPod or other portable music player (not even a CD player... the last such technology I had was a cassette Walkman that I brought with me on a trip to Europe, long long ago!), and I have spent the last month belatedly catching up to the widespread reality of being able to hear music on the go, which has been rather amazing, I must admit!

But, the best thing has been some of the various podcasts I have begun to subscribe to... many of them are just versions of radio shows I already listened to, either online or on an actual radio station, like This American Life and All Things Considered... But there are a few new ones I am beginning to explore as well. My favorite recently is the New Yorker's fiction podcast, wherein one of the magazine's impressive stable of writers chooses a story by a different author from the archives, reads it, and discusses it with Deborah Treisman, the magazine's fiction editor. It serves a bit like a succinct and delightful book club; the two always have good points to make on matters of style, language usage, etc. I was esp. impressed with this month's pick by Tobias Wolff: Stephanie Vaughn’s short story “Dog Heaven.”

It's sort of funny, though... I almost never read any fiction in the actual magazine!

Support Small Press Poster

2008-09-10T10:34:00.001-07:00

Support Small Press Poster
Originally uploaded by francois vigneault

The SF Zine Fest is hosting a zine library at the upcoming Treasure Island Music Festival. We are styling the whole affair with a" vintage library" look, and we will have some posters designed by some local cartoonsts and zinesters; this is my design... I was inspired by the wonderful posters of the WPA from the 30s and 40s, some of which are delghtfully guilt trip laden!

New Website!!!

2008-09-01T13:49:00.000-07:00

If you are at all interested in me, and what I do (even a little!), you'll want to take a look at my new website, tourdefrancois.com! This is my first portfolio site, and also the first site which I have designed myself... nothing fancy, but hopefully it should be easy to navigate and peruse some of my illustrations, comics, and various other projects which occupy my time. I'm also going to be updating this blog more often, so keep an eye out for some new art projects and comics cropping up here in the coming weeks... Promise!

New One-Pager

2008-08-12T09:06:00.000-07:00

This is a comic I did for John Isaacson's new Transit Anthology...

This comic is actually a re-do of an old comic that was 90% finished in my sketchbook for maybe 4-5 years. My style has changed quite a bit!

Here is the old version:

And here is the magic transformation in progress!

I'm pretty happy with this evidence of my progress over the last few years... I mentioned this to my Friend Aaron Cohick (of New Lights Press, he's also a teacher), and he thought it would be a good project for a class... revisit a project from the begining of your educations, semester, etc... the student will invariably have learned quite a bit (I feel like I have)!

Article in the New Issue of CRAFT:

2007-11-07T16:49:00.000-08:00

I was tapped by the lovely people over at CRAFT to write and illustrate a how-to article in their new issue, which should be on the newsstands any day now! The issue is all "paper" themed, so they asked me to do an article on papermaking! All the illos are watercolor, which was fun to do... I was trying to give the whole thing aq bit of an "old-fashioned" look, which should be interesting to see in CRAFT since their asthetic is so clean/modern. Anyways, check out my article if you see it, and if you end up making some paper from it please e-mail me pictures!

2007-10-04T18:04:00.000-07:00

Wow, the Zine Fest is tomorrow! How time flies... I really do think that this year will be much cooler than last year, despite some issues we've had to wrangle. Everyone, please come join us!

Friday, October 5 from 2:00pm - 8:00pm
Saturday, October 6 from 11:00am - 7:00pm

The Women's Building
3543 18th St. (between Valencia and Guerrero)
in the Mission District of San Francisco

It's a FREE annual two-day conference for independent and underground publishing. Exhibitors come from all over the West Coast, and while the focus is on zines, all walks of DIY life are represented — comics, arts and crafts, literary presses, and more.

www.sfzinefest.com

36 Views of Sutro Tower (Dolores Park in July)

2007-07-21T10:54:00.000-07:00

Finally really getting started with this big project! As I mentioned in a previous post, ever since I first moved to San Francisco I've wanted to do a series of illustrations: "36 Views of Sutro Tower," (inspired, of course, by the incomparable Hokusai) as I've often been struck by how often that ubiquitous landmark will pop into view behind various everyday scenes here... A restful (yet unnatural!) background presence underscoring and countering what is going on in the foreground view. A month ago, I found a postcard book of Henri Rivere's "36 Views of the Eiffel Tower", which was an even greater inspiration, given the similarities of our subject matter (with the great exception of the Eiffel Tower being so truely magnificent on its own; the Sutro Tower is a bit ungainly in comparison!).

So, I have re-started the project with a renewed vigor. I liked Rivere's limited color palette, so I am planning on sticking with that. I'm very pleased to have this vehicle to explore my wonderful city and its environs.

The above scene is in Dolores Park in July... I happily ran into my friend Aliza, who obliged me by being my model.

Root & Branch Mini

2007-06-16T11:25:00.000-07:00

Jonas and I just finished up a little mini version of the first chapter of Root & Branch, our waaay too-long in the making collaborative fantasy comic... Just a fun little thing to have at MoCCA since neither Jonas nor I have a new issue out of our "regular" series (Ochre Ellipse and Friends, respectively). The mini's got a hand-sewn binding and fancy metallic ink on the cover! If you are in New York this coming weekend (june 23 + 24), come the Puck Building by and visit me at my little spot with Greg Means and Alec Longstreth!

MoCCA bound + Couple of Elfworld Reviews!

2007-06-06T19:39:00.000-07:00

I will be heading out to NYC for the MoCCA Art Fest on June 23 + 24! Family Style will be setting up camp with those affable chums Greg Means and Alec Longstreth, the brilliant masterminds behind Tugboat Press and Phase 7 Comics, respectively! It looks like they will have new stuff; Papercutter #5 (great line up for my favorite anthology with Elfworld contributors Kaz Strzepek & Liz Prince, and Bwanna Spoons, who I'm trying to get into Vol. 2!) and another part of Alec's "life with comics". Yay! I am trying to have a mini-comics version of the first chapter of the François/Jonas epic fantasy colaboration, Root & Branch, and of course the still fresh smelling Elfworld.

The reviews are starting to come in for good or ill:

From SFist, a local Bay Area general interest blog:
"Overall great art, very good writing, high quality throughout, and cast of indie darlings that are definitely, definitely deserving of more attention".

From Rob Clough at Sequart:
"The stories that work best here are the sort that take after Lewis Trondheim's approach in Dungeon. There, the sword-and-sorcery stories are ridiculous but told with a straight face, and the humor comes out of the situations that arise rather than with easy parodic targets. Walking the line between understanding what makes the genre work and how to transcend its limitations isn't easy, and only a few of the artists in Elfworld got it right to my eyes."

The one I was waiting for, Tom Spurgeon's review on The Comics Reporter: "Elfworld, for its part, is almost ruthlessly cohesive. While there's no one must-have short story within its pages, there are a number of solid shorts, among them one-pagers by Matt Wiegle (please someone give him a solo comic) and his longer, viscerally satisfying adventure story collaboration with Sean Collins "Destructor Comes to Croc Town"; funny and diverting stories from Kazimir Strzepek and K. Thor Jensen, a lovely two-pager by Jeffrey Brown, and fable-like stories from folks like Dalton Sharp that are modest but surprisingly satisfying."

Sarah Morean had this to say on the delightful Daily Crosshatch: "The familiar art of Liz Prince, Martin Cendrea, K. Thor Jensen and Souther Salazar, among others, is a treat. It’s rare to see an anthology so slim busting with notable talent... The title of the anthology clearly had a huge influence the contributors’ imaginations. Each story contributes to the greater land of Elfworld, which is mapped out on the first page. The map is a clever touch, but there are words on the back cover promising “a swords-and-sorcery anthology” that really only consistently delivers elves. Wizards, trolls, royal romancing, trebuchets, dwarves, and yes, even fairies appear to be missing from the Kingdom of Elfworld’s treasury of tales."

Click on the links above for the reviews in their entirety!