Friend or Foe?

Ilyana in the Afterworld

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 02:24:00 +0000

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!

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 07:02:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 04:42:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 03:50:00 +0000

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!

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 02:31:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 15:11:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 06:05:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 04:37:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:34:00 +0000

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!!!

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 20:49:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:06:00 +0000

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:

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 00:49:00 +0000

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!

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 01:04:00 +0000

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)

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 17:54:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 18:25:00 +0000

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!

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 02:39:00 +0000

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!

Hard Working Nerds

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Tue, 01 May 2007 03:17:00 +0000

Some bios for the amazing contributors to Elfworld...

<Jeffrey Brown has yet to write any autobiographical comics about his nerdy, D&D-loving, Tolkien-reading, Magic-card collecting days of youth. He looks like a big Hobbit.

Martin Cendera is a continuing contributor to MOME and also has a new continuing series titled Sublife, both published by Fantagraphics.

Sean Collins has written about comics and popular culture for Wizard, The Comics Journal, Stuff, Giant, Complex, WWE, and the A&F Quarterly. His comics have been published at TopShelfComix.com. He lives on Long Island with his wife and their cats.

K. Thor Jensen lives in New York City with his wife and their dog, cat, and unborn child. The child will probably be born soonish. His graphic novel, Red Eye, Black Eye, is in stores now.

Dave McKenna’s comics have appeared in House of Twelve, Mauled!, and Legal Action Comics. He dwells inside an enchanted Roger Dean poster in the mystickal land of New York City.

Erik Nebel recently finished writing and drawing a 234 page graphic novel called Happy Birthday. His next project is a graphic novel adaptation of War and Peace. Erik believes that if Tolstoy were alive today, he'd be big, big comic-book fan.

<Jason Overby lives with his wife and their cat in Portland, Oregon. He works on comics all the time, but he's generally too lazy to scan them in and print them out.

Liz Prince has been drawing comics ever since she was in 3rd grade. Her first full length book is Will You Still Love Me If I Wet the Bed? (Top Shelf Productions).

>Ansis Purins is an artist who resides in the ancient port town known as Boston. A freelance illustrator who's clients include Wheelhouse Pickles, he self publishes the comic series Zombre and Duppy.

Ron Regè, Jr. lives in Los Angeles, where he has been playing drums in a musical group called Lavender Diamond. Their debut LP will be released in May 2007. His most recent books are "The Awake Field", and "Skibber Bee~Bye" from D&Q, as well as Yeast Hoist 12 from Buenaventura Press.

<Jesse Reklaw has been drawing the self-syndicated, weekly comic strip Slow Wave since 1995. It's currently printed by ten newspapers around the United States, and online at www.slowwave.com. Currently he is working on a comics memoir, one chapter of which was published in the 2006 Best American Comics by Houghton-Mifflin.

Grant Reynolds lives in Chicago and is a regular contributor to The Skeleton News, a monthly underground paper. His books “Smaller Parts”, “To the Mouth of the Source”, and “M'Lady Serene” are available through Short Pants Press.

Souther Salazar lives and works in Los Angeles.His many works include the children’s book Destined for Dizziness (Buenaventura Press).

Dalton Sharp works on his comic Love is Lava. He is a member of The Crown Commission. He lives in Toronto.

Kazimir Strzepek RACE: Higher Nerd DIETY: None ALIGNMENT: Neutral Chaotic STR:7 INT:13 WIS:14 DEX:13 CON:10 CHR:14 SKILLS: Jump +4 Handle Animal +2 Drawing +1 Bicycles +1 Tetris +3 BACKGROUND: Kazimir was raised by Owlbears and draws Mourning Star put out by Bodega Books.

Jason Turner & Jody Turner are Canadian brothers, born in Manitoba, but spent most of their lives in Ontario. Jody builds props for television and movies in Toronto. Jason works crappy day jobs in Vancouver and recently had his first graphic novel, True Loves, published by New Reliable Press. When the brothers are in the same place they sometimes write goofy comics together.

<François Vigneault has recently converted his alignment from Chaotic Good to Lawful Neutral, much to his chagrin. He draws the comic Friends and lives in San Francisco.

Matt Wiegle lives in Brooklyn and draws things. He is responsible forthe mini-comics "Ayaje's Wives," "The Ghosts," "The Four Husbands" and "Seven More Days Of Not Being Eaten." He is a member of the Partyka comics collective.

Rollin' Hatin'

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 04:59:00 +0000

Here is kind of what the Elfworld contributor's section in the Rollin' Hatin' art show looked like:

From left to right: Ron Regé, Jr. + Souther Salazar, me, Grant Reynolds, Jeff Brown, K. Thor Jensen, and Jesse Reklaw. Not sure where Ansis Purins' and Liz Prince's work got to...

Comic Conventions: Somewhat Exhausting.

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 03:30:00 +0000

APE happened! Wow... this was a huge big year for me, with Elfworld Vol. 1 coming out for the show... The reaction to the book was very warm, with lots of people who's opinions I respect giving me great, positive feedback. I had a bit of an over-inflated idea of how the book was going to do, I have to admit... I imagined that at least once there would be a crowd three deep around the Family Style table, clamoring for their copy of the hot book of the show... but we had strong sales for our first book ever, and we didn't even stick out like a sore thumb down on the main floor (tho' I was very sad our constant APE neighbors Tim and Stephanie weren't next to us this year!

Because the work on the book was done so early (Jonas and I finished work on it over a month before APE, and it arrived on the Monday before the show (50 boxes x 60 books each = 3000 books or 1400 lbs!), I had a bit of time on my hands! I Occupied my time with various "extra-credit" projects... like this special edition version:

It is actually a sort of hard bound folio slipcase that goes around a copy of the actual book. I would have loved this when I was actually still playing D&D... I'm a dork.

A short list of some nice things I picked up this year:

PS Comics #3 by Minty Lewis: Sooo funny! I hadn't read Minty's comics before she gave me this issue, and now I'm in love! "Fruit Pals" is just full of little mannered details that read perfectly.

Monsters #2 by Ken Dahl: This amazing series continues... very sad, beautiful, and bitter work.

Range Life by Tim La Juenesse & Ellis Parker Walks Into a Bar by Stephanie La Juenesse: As always, Love Letter Press delivers a couple of delighful gems... Range Life finishes of Tim's series well, and I like the stories from Stephanie's chap book that I have read thus far (still have to finish it. Nice letterpress covers on both.

Sidewalk Bump #2 by Dan Moynihan et al: I have been waiting for this to come out for a long time... not only am I in it but I really like Dan's loopy, open artwork... There is an unexpected theme of "night skating" in many of the stories, including my own...

Hunter & Painter and Three Very Small Comics Vol. III, both by Tom Gauld: He must be in Elfworld Vol. 2!

Monster Parade by Ben Catmull: Another person I want in Vol. 2... Damn these too busy cartoonists!

Back from the Dead!

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 03:50:00 +0000

Due to a lack of other large sheets of watercolour paper and my impatience to begin working on my painting for We're Rollin', They're Hatin', I went ahead and brewed another cup of tea (see last post for info on my tea disaster) and doused the rest of the drawing with it, giving it an uneven tea-stain all over... it worked! I began the painting yesterday night and I reckon it is nearly finished!

I'm pretty happy with it... Not perfect, and the birds at the top aren't quite showing up very well, but I think I am improving as a watercolorist! It is a theoretical scene from Root & Branch, the fantasy comic that Jonas and I were doing, and perhaps will start up again.

Share the Pain

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 16:03:00 +0000

I woke up this morning to discover that in my sleep I had knocked over a half-full cup of tea (a remenant from a lovely breakfast in bed I made as part of Hannah's birthday festivities) onto not only the pencil drawing for my piece in We're Rollin', They're Hatin', but also several pages of artwork from my colaboration with Jonas, Root & Branch!

Oh, woe is me! I can start my new drawing again, and I guess I can digitally knock out the coffee stains on Root & Branch, but still. What a thing to wake up too. Ugh. I've got to be neater.

Family Style Jamboree #8 out for APE!

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 17:59:00 +0000

Sarah Gion has spearheaded a monumental effort to get Family Style Jamboree back on track to finish up this year (we've got 4 issues to go)! It looks like No. 8, the Gabe Ramos issue, is definitely going to be out for APE... we're still going to try and see if we can get the Nicole Issue out by then, too, ut it looks less likely. I am editing that issue (No. 9), so if you have any tales of Miss Bennett you'd like to share with the world at large, contact me.

(The above image is from my 1 page contribution to the Gabe issue).

Elfworld Cover Art Preview!

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 22:39:00 +0000

Yup! Beautiful watercolor painted wrap-arround cover art for Elfworld Vol. One by Master of the Northern Forests Jesse Reklaw! Soon to be available for pre-order online and at APE!

2006 Self-Published Favorites

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 19:39:00 +0000

I recently wrote up a few reviews for the upcoming issue of Best Zine Ever, a wonderful, charming and super useful guide to some of the best zines and comix of the year... Greg Means of Tugboat Press and the excellent I.P.R.C. and a whole slew of contributors put it out every year. Greg said that my submission was late enough that not all my reviews will make it in (Me? Late?), but it is pretty cool to be involved at all and get to promote some of my favorite self-published comix from the last year.

Anyways, here are all the reviews I wrote... obviously, these aren't all of my favorites... I just wanted to highlight a few that really struck me.

Spacecase
By Tim Le Jeunesse
Love Letter Press
The premise of “Spacecase” is like the set-up of your new favorite joke: “An astronaut, a cowboy, and a French pirate with a peg-leg land on the moon...” The hapless protagonists (mysteriously thrown together in the previous installment, “Out to Sea”) wander around their Little Prince-esque environment, bicker endlessly, and eventually meet up with a garrulous cosmonaut and his space-faring doggie. Tim’s spare drawings are nicely balanced by the vast, solid black of space that fill up nearly every panel, and there is a great, absurdist quality to the dialogue. There’s one more chapter left in the trilogy (the cowboy’s chance to take a star turn, one surmises), so maybe we’ll finally get to know what the hell’s going on here, but I doubt it. I’ll just go along for the ride and enjoy the company. By the way, Tim and Stefanie (the other half of Love Letter Press) also make tons of great silk-screened t-shirts, underwear, and more under the name Confiserie Lingere!

Animal ABC Book
By Ayumi K. Piland
Apak Studio
I was super pleased when I saw that Ayumi had put out a print edition of her Animal ABC images... I had been planning to buy one of her prints (I would still like to), but it was so hard to choose! The original prints, reproduced here in super-mini format, are linoleum block prints with added accents of pasted-on bits of Japanese washi papers... The animals range from the expected (lions, monkeys, elephants) to the exotic (unicorns, queenbees, x-traterrestials), all drawn in a festive, earthy style. This book (or even better, one of the actual prints) would make a great present for any parents or little kids you might know.

Let Me Tell You Where To Stick It/ Let Me Tell You Where Not To Stick It
By Jay Howell and Audrey Erickson
Mt. St. Mtn.

This book was amongst the funniest things I’ve read in a long time! “It” is just what you might suspect it is, and Jay and Audrey give you a quick and informative list of places where you might want to try and “stick it” (somebody’s vagina, a birthday cake) and an equally essential set of situations which might be icky, unpleasant, or downright dangerous for “it” (a bucket of nails, a time warp), all illustrated, of course!

Trilobite
By Josh Frankel
Hungry for Brains

This is a follow-up of sorts to Josh’s equally brilliant comic “Seafood” from a couple of years ago... like that comic, “Trilobite” silently follows a day in the life of it’s hero, this time a trilobite, a common inhabitant of the Earth’s seas during the Cambrian Period, about 500 million years ago. The little guy scurries along the sea-bed, seeking out a meal while avoiding becoming one. Josh’s loving depictions of the utterly bizarre inhabitants of the primordial ocean are a delight, bringing to life creatures unlike anything we can see in the world of today. It’s a bit harder to relate to an extinct invertebrate then it was to see life through the eyes of a tuna (the protagonist of “Seafood”), but the sheer thrill of peeking into such a seemingly alien world makes “Trilobite” a must-read.

The Basilisk
By Kazimir Strzepek
Available from Bodega Distribution
Short, sweet, and nearly perfect, this fantasy comic cracked me up so much that I embarked on a gigantic publishing project just to see the rest of Elfworld in print! Kazimir perfectly captures the nuances of a Dungeons & Dragons style adventure story in this tale of a obnoxious Audubon-esque illustrator looking for new monsters to add to his bestiary. When he hears about a dangerous Basilisk in the vicinity (after getting clues at a tavern, naturally) he goes searching for the creature with his barbarian bodyguard Boor and the friendly local kobold. The fruits of his quest are, suffice it to say, not what he expected. Kazimir’s cartoony, textural style is perfect for this sort of story, the characters and environments pull you right in from page one. The cover to this mini is a screen-printed onto a parchment like card stock, and the whole thing is bound up with thread; it really adds a fantasy feel to the comic. If you missed this version, I will be publishing this story again in Elfworld Vol. 1, which is where it was meant to be in the first place!

Fox Bunny Funny
By Andy Hartzell
Available from Global Hobo
I feel that I almost can’t call this a mini-comic, it is such an elaborate, lavish presentation; but Fox Bunny Funny was by far the most interesting and accomplished self-publishing effort I saw last year. I had previously been a fan of Monday, Andy’s still unfinished take on the Garden of Eden, but his new comic really blew me away. Really a self-contained series of three books, F.B.F. comes packaged in a handmade, silk-screened black slipcover. The art is bold and attractive, and in the third book (“Funny”) Andy’s illustrations take on an extremely graphical style.
Inside, Andy has created a silent, fable-like story of anthropomorphized Foxes and Rabbits. Unlike your typical funny-animal story, F.B.F. doesn’t shy away from the ethical quandaries of having carnivores and herbivores sharing the same world; the Foxes wantonly prey on the Rabbits, going far beyond hunting them for food: the Foxes live in a virtual death-cult society, vilifying the Rabbits and inculcating racial hatred in their young. The protagonist of all three books is a Fox who is secretly drawn to the oppressed Rabbits’ society. His fascination torments him throughout his life, and he eventually ends up going “down the rabbit hole” and entering a world where everything he has ever known is turned upside down.
Like the best fables and myths, F.B.F. doesn’t give any easy answers, the symbolism can be read in a variety of ways and parallels can be drawn to any number of real world problems, from state-sponsored violence to gender and identity issues. This comic is a real work of art.

Elfworld on the Horizon!

noreply@blogger.com (François Vigneault) — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 19:18:00 +0000

Work on Volume One of Elfworld is gaining momentum... We are looking good for our premiere at APE here in San Francisco on April 21st + 22nd, and the Elfworld contributors have also been asked to participate in We're Rollin', They're Hatin', an massive show of D&D themed artwork (it is a part of Chicago's Version Fest 07)! I love this amazing flyer art for the show:

Awesome! The show starts April 20th, so Elfworld will be making a sort of dual premiere! Whoa... We're so big time!