As the poster says, I’ll be appearing at Forbidden Planet in NYC with Pood creators, Adam McGovern, Andrés Vera Martínez, Kevin Mutch, Henrik Rehr, Bishakh Som and Mark Sunshine on Thursday August 5th at 6pm to sign and doodle in copies of Pood #1! Please come out and support this exciting project (Pood #2 will be coming soon!) and this wonderful comics shop, Forbidden Planet!

Forbidden Planet
840 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
United States

Phone: 212.473.1576

Member of Facebook!? Join the Pood Facebook group and RSVP to this signing at the Facebook Event Listing!

The fine folks at 11 O’Clock Comics Podcast, VinceB, Chris Neseman, David Price, and Jason Wood talk Pood #1 in their 117th Episode. And the consensus is they love it! YAY! Special nods go out to USApe by Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca and Rammy & Soupy (seen above) by yours truly!

Thanks, 11 O’Clock Comics Podcast!

This year the Harvey’s have nominated a website (!) in the Best Anthology Category–www.act-i-vate.com! This seems to reflect a significant acknowledgment of the role digital/web comics play in our current comics landscape. Among creators (who are responsible for the nominations), it’s clear that comics in digital form are comics like any other. Congratulations are in order to all the wonderful and talented creators with whom I have the privilege of being a peer at Act-i-vate. Huzzah!

Well, I stand corrected. After some investigation, it turns out that Act-i-vate.com is not nominated but the Act-i-vate publication, The Act-i-vate Primer is. So much for my proselytizing about the Harvey Awards embracing digital comics. Well, they did it by supporting the Act-i-vate Primer. Congratulations again to all who participated in that book! Huzzah!

Sorry for any confusion, folks!

Featuring: Joe Infurnari, Jim Rugg, Sara Edward Corbett, Chris Capuozzo, Connor Willumsen, Hans Rickheit, Bishakh Som, Adam McGovern, Paolo Leandri, Lance Hansen, Mark Sunshine, Tobias Tak, Andrew Vera Martinez, Fintan Taite, Henrik Rehr, Kevin Mutch, Geoff Grogan.

Pood is a larger, broadsheet-style comics anthology in the manner of DC Comics’ Wednesday Comics, featuring 16 of today’s most exciting alternative comics creators. Celebrating the variety and style of Sunday comics sections of the pre-World War II-era, each creator has a full page to display their dynamic talents in strips of comedy, adventure, parody, and science fiction.

All this for the great price of only $4! How could you go wrong!? You can’t. Here are some samplings of reviews of Pood #1:

“One of the Best Comics from the 2010 MoCCA Art Festival”
New York Daily News

“The most interesting release – the most “buzzworthy” release of the entire (MoCCA 2010) show, really, was pood #1, from Big If Comics. pood is an oversized newsprint anthology, with plenty of great-looking artists featured inside.”
Timothy Callahan
comicbookresources

“Pood pushes the envelope so far that it becomes a promise of what comics can be and an always-welcome reminder that there is no limit to the kinds of stories comics can be used to tell.”
Louis Vitela
ComicCritique

“Truly an awesome comics experience, both to hold and to read… an incredibly entertaining read. It’s an experience you won’t find easily matched in today’s comics…. something that you won’t want to miss!”
Tyler Chin-Tanner
Broken Frontier

If your local comics shop doesn’t stock it, please ask for it using Diamond Order code: MAY100817. If you are need of finding your local comics shop, visit www. comicshoplocator.com.]

There’s a new Slush Pile installment available at SlushPileFunnies.com. This one’s called, “The Happiness of Wonder Toe”. Enjoy!

I’ll admit things have been quiet here for a while. Besides the very long graphic novel I’ve been illustrating, I’ve been squeezing in some time for another side project, Slush Pile Funnies. Slush Pile Funnies is a gallery of some of my worst ideas become a reality. I’m really stretching the alchemical model here, folks. Here’s the blurb from the About page:

Every artist has ideas that we reject. We call them ‘bad ideas’ for any number of reasons and choose to focus our efforts on the ‘good ideas’. What if we did the opposite? What if we forced ourselves to entertain these denizens of our cerebral Salon des Refusés? How would you develop them and what form would they take? Would you still think they were ‘bad’ when you were finished? Can this mental base matter be transmuted into some kind of gold? If so, would you still believe in the existence of ‘bad’ ideas? Maybe the ultimate question is, “are there any bad ideas for art?” I don’t know but these questions are certainly a good place to start and they are the genesis of Slush Pile Funnies!

This site will be an online anthology of story ideas for graphic novels and comics that have been developed into various stages. Some will be transformed into covers while others will  have one-page synopses, excerpts etc. Most will be the product of my own warped imagination but as the site builds steam, I hope to have more contributions coming from guest creators and readers.

So there you have it. Take a look and if you’re moved to do so, please leave a comment. In the coming weeks, I expect I’ll send out official press releases and try to drum up some exposure. In the meantime, enjoy!

Louis Vitela has a glowing review of Pood #1 up at Comic Critique.com. He gives the paper 5 out of 5 stars!

He had this to say about Rammy & Soupy in Dreams of Flight:

“Rammy and Soupy in Dreams of Flight” by Joe Infurnari (with characters created by Joe Infurnari and Cecil Castellucci) is a hobo tale that is by turns gut-wrenching, poignant, and hopeful. Clearly it was an attempt to unman me, to elicit public sobs of understanding and empathy while I Pood on the bus. But it failed; I went somewhere private to sob.

Thanks Louis!

At this year’s Mocca Art Festival, I’ll be spending time at the Act-i-vate table, F27, and while I’m there I’ll be signing copies of The Act-i-vate Primer as well as selling two limited edition posters. Each poster (13″x19″) sells for $20 or $35 for both. Buy any book at the Act-i-vate table and a poster goes for $15! Each poster is signed and includes a sketch.

Italy’s premier national newspaper, La Repubblica, did a 9 page piece on the NYC graphic novel scene for their Saturday glossy magazine insert, D. In it you will see that I have been glorified with a full page photo and if you can speak italian, you’ll find that I even provide a blurb as well! Also included in this article are photos and information about such luminaries as Mike Allred, Becky Cloonan, Simon Fraser, Dan Goldman, Laura Lee Gulledge, Dean Haspiel, Josh Neufeld, George O’Connor, Kat Roberts, Jim Shooter, Joe Simon and Art Spiegelman! Molte grazie go to writer, Anna Lombardi, photographer, Seth Kushner and Chris Irving at Graphic NYC! Congratulations to all involved!

Today both Robot 6 and The Beat posted about the imminent release of Pood, the extra giant sized newspaper anthology by Big If Comics. Here it is from the horse’s mouth:

One of the most exciting new packages debuting at the MoCCA festival in April will be pood – an oversize newspaper anthology featuring some of today’s hottest alternative comics creators! Kevin Mutch and Alex Rader of Blurred Books have combined forces with Geoff Grogan of “Look Out! Monsters” to form BIG IF COMICS and to bring together an exciting array of talent in pood – a giant new package that lets each cartoonist strut their stuff!

Among the cutting-edge creators in the first issue of BIG IF COMICS’ pood: Joe Infurnari, Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca, Hans Rickheit, Connor Willumsen, Sara Edward-Corbett, Chris Capuozzo, Adam McGovern and Paolo Leandri, Lance Hansen, Andres Vera Martinez, Fintan Taite, Henrik Rehr, Bishakh Som, Mark Sunshine, Tobias Tak, Geoff Grogan and Kevin Mutch.

pood is a 16-page comics section in full color (and black and white) printed on newsprint, with a page size (17? x 22 ¾”!) that just may make it the biggest comics package on Earth! (or at least New Jersey). pood is BIG, COLORFUL, EXCITING comics in a beautiful broadsheet newspaper – right out of the Golden Age of Sunday Comics! pood has it all: sci-fi, Western adventure, bizarre drama, slapstick comedy and more! Each creator (or team) has turned their enormous page into a big, beautiful work of art!

pood offers a daring new (and old!) format for alternative comics, unlike anything on the store shelves today – and it’s a steal at $4.00! (Look for pood at the Blurred Books table at MoCCA!)

Following its debut at MoCCA, pood will be listed under the BIG IF COMICS imprint in the May 2010 Previews for comics shipping to stores in July 2010. pood will be published quarterly thereafter.

For more information and pics visit the pood blog!