Trip City is happy to announce the Trip City Salon at Fornino's in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The event will feature comics, live music, readings, girls (!) and of course, booze! As you can see from the event flyer, the roster is stacked with Trip City favorites. Personally, this is the first time I'll have the honor of performing alongside my lovely lady, Plucky Charms who will be performing a song on the ukelele for your pleasure. Vavavoom! Myself, I will be reading Time Fucker . Knowing that I will be in arms throw of the audience has me a little concerned, however. How many heads of lettuce do you think I can dodge!? Come and see for yourself!. Don't you dare miss this one! See you there!
Marathon Awarded a Kirkus Star!
Kirkus book reviews proudly claims to be the "world's toughest book critics." It's for that reason that I'm so excited that Marathon by Boaz Yakin and I has recently been awarded their highest honor…the Kirkus star review.
Infurnari fills patchwork panels with glimpses of rugged faces, slashing swords and jumbles of martial action with “KLAK” “CHK!” sound effects. Yakin draws from ancient historical and legendary sources but adds invented incidents to round out Eucles’ character and elevated dialogue to heighten the epic atmosphere: “The gods have laid a feast both bitter and sweet before me.”
Marathon hits bookstores and comics retailers June 19th.
Time Fucker in "I'm Taking this Laying Down!" Pt 2 Now at TripCity
I've been remiss in posting here about the latest updates of Time Fucker. Last thursday saw the second installment with the penultimate third arriving tomorrow. For those who didn't get in on the ground floor (let's get real people this is seriously basement quality humor) the first installment is available here.
MARATHON included in School Library Journal Spring GN Selections
Brigid Alverson, writing for the School Library Journal, has included MARATHON as one of it's Spring Graphic Novel recommendations. Here's the skinny:
YAKIN, Boaz. Marathon. Illustrated by Joe Infurnari. First Second. June 2012. pap. $16.99. ISBN 9781596436800.Gr 7 Up—Yakin tells the story of the first marathon runner, a former slave who carried vital messages between the rulers of Athens and Sparta before and during the Battle of Marathon. Although recommended for ages 12 up, this book has some violence and a (tasteful) bedroom scene that might make it inappropriate for some readers.
Marathon hits stores June 19th, 2012.
Time F•cker Arrives at Trip City.net Thursday!
That's right! All you salivatin' salacious sci-fi afficionados will finally be…SATED! I feel like a I usually write in this blog with a certain whiff of snake oil salesman. That's because I'm generally uncomfortable with tooting my own horn unless I do it a little tongue-in-cheek. Not with Time Fucker, however. The few times I've mentioned it, my language has been histrionic to say the least…
I've made claims that it will change the course of comics history forever.
Why? Because I'm really excited about it, and I'm overcompensating for my own insecurities. This project has always felt dangerous because of it's audacious title and content (you'll see what I mean) but also because it's very personal. I don't often write but when I do, it's because it's really something I have to get off my chest and for all it's insanity and levity, Time Fucker means a lot to me. Love it or hate it, this is my sense of humor and it's very very wrong. The image to the left explains how Time Fucking works and believe me when I say that this only scratches the surface.
Okay, I'm doing it again!! Always with the huckstering! Thursday April 5th at Tripcity.net look for this image for the first of four installments throughout the month of April. Each subsequent Thursday will continue this first Time Fucker tale titled, "I'm Taking this Laying Down!"
Thanks for your continued support.
Robot 6 Loves MUSH! Sled Dogs with Issues!
Robot 6, one of the blogs over at Comic Book Resources, has a regular feature by Tim O'Shea called Talking Comics with Tim. In the latest installment, Tim talks to Glenn Eichler and myself about MUSH! Sled Dogs with Issues. More interview than review, it's an interesting piece and I encourage you all to go read me wax rhapsodic or rap idiotic depending on your point of view. Here's a little taste…
O’Shea: Question for the both of you, there appear to be metaphorical fences in this book (between people and between the dogs), in addition to the physical fences. Would you agree?Infurnari: When I read the script, I was reminded of how in art and literature natural landscapes have often represented the depths of the human psyche. There’s something about the dark bottomless fathoms of the oceans, the mysteries of the forest or the wide open expanses of sand or snow that spark our imaginations. In Mush!, the barren isolation of the Alaskan landscape sets the scene for a story about the dogs’ psychological state and ultimately our own interior lives as readers. The fences in this story are boundaries preventing the dogs from being out in the open on a run where they are most happy. The trail is their bliss and the fences that keep them from it mark the breeding area of their issues.
Eichler: Well, definitely. No one can ever know or meld with another person (or dog) entirely, and the isolation in which they all live just throws those differences into brighter relief. But that same isolation also creates fences that enclose the people and the dogs, forcing them together because they really can’t get away from each other. I’m saying the book has a lot of fences. It’s best to read it with a pair of wire cutters.
O’Shea: Glenn, not to get bogged down in details, but naming one’s dog is often a challenge. You really did a good job of naming the team of dogs in this story, did that come to you quite easily as you developed the characters or was it challenging with certain characters?
Eichler: I hate naming characters as a general rule, but I tried for a mix of the silliness and anthropomorphism often found in the names that real people give their real dogs. I also wanted to touch on the way people will give their puppies names that turn out to be either perfectly descriptive of their adult personalities, or utterly wrong.
O’Shea: Glenn (from the book’s acknowledgements you thank the dogs “who talk to him when he sleeps”) how long have you heard the dogs talking to you?
Eichler: I didn’t write that. The dog dictated it.
To read interview in its entirety, click here.
New Interview in the latest Trip City Podcast!
No, that's not me up there. I'm much more handsome than that! All kidding aside, head on over to Trip City, where I have an interview with Jeffrey Burandt and Dean Haspiel in Trip City's latest podcast. You'll be amazed at the things I say with a foot in my mouth!
Thanks to Dean Haspiel, Jeffrey Burandt and Chris Miskiewicz for making this happen.
MUSH! is HUGE in Singapore!
You'll have to forgive my overly histrionic title but when Nicholas Yong, journalist for the Singapore Straits Times writes such a lovely review for MUSH! Sled Dogs with Issues, I can't help but get a little excited. The book is available there through Books Kinokuniya. Here's the review in full:
Guy is going after team leader Dolly’s job. Buddy is lusting after Venus, who is not interested. And all Winston wants is a bit of respect, while nobody knows what Fiddler wants.The dog-eat-dog world comes to life in this wry, offbeat tale of six sled dogs and their two owners in the remote Alaskan frost.
All six pooches have clearly defined personalities and all just want the boss to hitch them to his sled and take them on a run. As Fiddler, a mixed-breed Alaskan Husky, gloomily puts it: “Not much point being alive if we don’t run.” Much of the fun of the story lies in watching the dogs interact between the longed-for runs: These mutts are as flawed as their owners, plagued by ambition, self-doubt and self-absorption.
The outspoken, caustic Dolly, a gorgeous Seppal Siberian sled dog, gets the best lines. In response to Fiddler’s remark about a sled dog who does not run, she says: “The meaning of that dog’s life is, he should be a cat.”
There are also plenty of laughs at the expense of the hapless Buddy, a Greenland dog, whose lust for Dolly is the very definition of, erm, puppy love. He is too dense to tell that she is indifferent to him, although the owners have mated the two several times.
Infurnari’s frenetic, almost cartoonish visuals complement Eichler’s acerbic wit perfectly and make the dogs particularly expressive. The human characters almost pale in comparison.
Dog owners Frank and Patty have their own issues. Frank is determined to disavow human society, declaring that “my dogs care about me more than they do”. Exasperated, Patty has the perfect comeback: “How loving do you think your precious dogs would be if you didn’t control their food?”
There is a strange irony in seeing humans, who consider themselves highly evolved, and dogs, supposedly their best friends, bickering over the same things. Frank might as well be talking about people when he says of the dogs: “They’re never more than one bite away from backsliding into wildness.”
At the end of this charming, enjoyable tale, Frank and Patty face the same issue as the dogs: They just have to learn to get along and work together if they want to survive.
Thanks go to Nicholas Yong for contacting me and bringing this to my attention.