Nick Gazin's Comic Book Love-In #25

Hey everybody,

Here's some comic related news.

1) The trailer for the new Tintin movie is public and it looks pretty great. I was wary when I heard it was going to be CGI, but they seem to have avoided the common pitfalls that fuck up modern CGI movies based on old comics or cartoons. Maybe your uncanny valley runs deeper than mine.

2) The female ex-CEO of Archie comics is being sued for sexual harassment by employees of Archie. Apparently she pointed at male employees and shouted “Penis penis penis!” I'd really like to know the speed and tone that she used when shouting that. Was it like a shaking head and chuckling kind of thing or a big world-weary sigh followed by saying people at Archie could stand to relax a lot.

3) Ray Sohn and Tomomi drew this because they are sorry that they stopped doing comics for VICE and started giving most of them to Picturebox. I'm going to fucking ruin their lives for making me suffer this humiliation.

4) More new images from the forthcoming Captain America have turned up on the net. Pictures of the Howling Commandos have been released and Dum Dum Dugan looks pretty great.

5) Everyone was really psyched to hear that the live-action movie based on Akira was cancelled. But then it turned out that it wasn't canceled! OH NOOOOOOOO!

Well here are some reviews of what's good and bad in comics and books.

Thickness #1
Edited by Michael Deforge and Ryan Sands
Drawing naked ladies is a time honored human tradition that separates us from lower life forms. You can celebrate real women, make your ideal woman, or draw the Predator fucking Batgirl. The oldest art artifacts are little hyper-sexualized statues of women, and now that the internet allows (but also forces) everyone to look at porno all the time we're getting closer to maybe being honest about how much we want to draw naked ladies all the time.

There have been a few porno comic anthologies featuring the work of sensitive artist alt-comickers in the past, but this one's definitely the best. There was Robyn Chapman's True Porn and Zack Soto's All About Fucking, but Thickness is better than both of those, as it’s a work of all hits and no shits.

The cover is a bonified mind-blower by my favorite new guy, Jonny Negron. The first comic by Katie Shelly is about an aquatic mutant girl who has sex with a water flower, eats a deer carcass, and then has sex with another female creature like herself before swimming away happily. It's the weakest offering of the book but it's still pretty good.

The next is Granddaddy Purple, by the cover artist, Jonny Negron. It starts out with two odd characters speaking on a roof before being beautifully murdered by a ski-masked character with a dookie chain named Grandaddy Purple. It's then revealed that he was on a game show and now has the option to choose an “exotic prize.” He has long drawn out sex with a thick chick, occasionally using his forked tongue on her. It's an interesting comic because it's beautiful, but also full of spelling errors, which left me thoroughly confused as to what Jonny Negron might be like or if he could speak English. I did an interview with him for VICE that will be up soon and I still have no idea who the fuck this guy is. Still, great stuff.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that each story was printed in a different color ink, and Grandaddy Purple was done with purple ink which looks awesome.

The next comic is by Zejian Shen. It’s about two women who go to the beach one night to go clam digging and have sex. During the act of gay lady boning their clitorises have cute faces and say “hi” and kiss. It's very sweet.

Derek M. Ballard did a great-looking comic that doesn't really have a strong narrative story, but it ends with a lady getting porked by a unicorn's horn.

Finally there's a one page True Chubbo comic by Ray and Tomomi Sohn about their hilariously cruel sex life involving eating a dozen donuts and sex.

This is a great comic from beginning to end. Most anthologies are full of people whose work isn't worth looking at even once, let alone owning in print but this thing is a true object of beauty. I don't know all that much about Ryan Sands, but Michael Deforge is one of the best relatively new guys in comics and he has taste for days. I asked Ryan and Michael about this book.

What led to Thickness? Whose idea was it? Where'd the name come from?
Ryan: We worked together last year putting out a Lady Gaga fanzine called Prison for Bitches, and knew we wanted to do another project together. I think we came up with the idea for a new series of erotic comics over whiskey and burritos at a comics show last fall. We’re not sure how many issues we want to do, but the main idea is to make our favorite cartoonists draw really dirty stuff highlighting different proclivities, orientations, and depictions of “sex.”

Before settling on “Thickness" we kicked around a bunch of ideas for titles including: SWAMP LOVE, FLANKS, THE SEXUAL PANOPTICON, etc. Thickness stuck because it can apply to lady and dude parts equally, and it's fun to say.

Oh right. Michael Deforge, why isn't your art in here beyond a few logos?
Michael: I am in issue two. My contribution fits the tone of the second issue more that the first, I think.

Ryan, who are you? I… know you somehow… What do you do?
Ryan: I spend all my free time either writing about indie manga at my blog Same Hat or publishing zines. My main thing is called Electric Ant. You were in issue two, remember?

**Are you familiar with the *True Porn* or All About Fucking alt-comic anthology books?**
Yes.

Have you guys jerked off to Jonny Negron's comic yet?
Michael: No.
Ryan: A few people told me they have.

Is Thickness 2 going to happen?
The next issue is underway and will debut at Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco on October 1st. This one features new stuff by Brandon Graham, Angie Wang, Lisa Hanawalt, Mickey Zacchilli, along with a 13-pager by Michael and another color strip by True Chubbo. We’re trying to figure out if we can do a holographic 3D animated cover and a pin-up, but we’ll see.

What are each of you working on at the moment?
Michael: I am juggling a few things at the moment, including my Thickness 2 contribution. I am also working on a strip called “Rescue Pet” in Maisonneuve magazine, the next issue of my series Open Country, a mini comic I’m producing with Secret Headquarters called “Note by Note,” and will be launching a weekly web comic on Zack Soto’s Studygroup soon-ish.
Ryan: Right now I’m working on a few manga translation projects and editing an all-women issue of this Latvian comics anthology called (ku)š! After Thickness 2 is done I’m going to be working on Electric Ant #3 and starting up a Risograph print shop in my neighborhood.

What do you think of me?
Michael: I like you.
Ryan: You draw stuff sometimes and funnel VICE money to our cartoonist friends, both of which I am into.

Get Laid or Die Trying
Jeff Allen
Gallery Books
God, this book is depressing. No used bookstore will buy it so I've kept it and use it for Bible dipping whenever I need advice on what not to do.

I Love My Bike
Matthew Finkle & Brittain Sullivan
Chronicle Books
Hey, it's a bunch of boring people who all like the same mundane thing. Bike people are the worst, especially John Prolly and his boring ass blog.

NICK GAZIN