OUTED! The Act-i-vate Primer!

JK Parkin of Robot 6 posted this announcement regarding the upcoming Act-i-vate print venture, The Act-i-vate Primer! The official announcement of this project was made at our recent event at Bergen St. Comics on Free Comic Book Day but I suspect JK had other sources…

I seem to remember reading something about a potential anthology of work from the webcomics collective ACT-I-VATE, but I don’t think I’ve seen a formal announcement yet — unless an Amazon.com listing is considered an announcement.

In any event, it looks like IDW is putting out the ACT-I-VATE Primer in the fall. The book is due Oct. 29, and the site lists the contributors as Dean Haspiel, Nick Bertozzi, Michael Cavallaro, Mike Dawson, Simon Fraser, Michel Fiffe, Tim Hamilton, Ulises Farinas, Leland Purvis, Joe Infurnari, Roger Langridge, Molly Crabapple, John Leavitt, Pedro Camargo and Jim Dougan.

Haspiel, it appears, will have a new Billy Dogma story in it (which is, I bet, where we’ll see this), while Langridge says he’s doing a “Mugwhump” story set before the current strip started. According to Amazon, all the material will be new: “The ACT-I-VATE PRIMER is a PRINT EXCLUSIVE anthology by many of the Act-I-Vate creators none of the material in this book will appear on the Act-I-Vate website for at least one year from publication date.”

So now that it's out there swimming in the digital ether, I thought I'd post a little preview of one of my pages from said book:

This 12 page story is a prelude to the Act-i-vate story and is a memoir of Victor 'The Kid Immortal' Kronos. We see his rise and ultimate fall as a brutal Battle Brawler and, of course, as…ULTRA-lad!

Publishers Weekly Talks Webcomics with SMITH Magazine!

“Smith is known for high quality work and for getting the work published,” said Smith literary agent ICM's Kate Lee, “and publishers that do graphics know this.” Shooting War, the first webcomic published on Smith, was published by Grand Central Publishing in November 2007 and A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld will be released by Pantheon on August 18th. Current projects being serialized on Smith are Next Door Neighbor, an anthology of next-door neighbor stories edited by Dean Haspiel, and Graphic Therapy, an autobiographical graphic series by Emily Steinberg.

Publishers Weekly posted an interesting piece about webcomics this week. In it they talk about the many ways SMITH Magazine has used webcomics to tell unique personal stories. SMITH magazine success stories, Shooting War and A.D. New Orleans After the Deluge provide context for the site's current projects including Next Door Neighbor. They even acknowledge Alexis Sottile's and my recent Eisner nomination for Vs. Click here to read the article.

Graphic NYC Profiles Joe Infurnari

Graphic NYC, the blog profiling New York City's graphic novelists, has posted their profile on yours truly. The post features more stunning photography from my recent shoot with Seth Kushner. It also has  a brilliant and insightful essay by comics historian and journalist, Chris Irving. Working with both of these gentlemen has been a delight and I'm so thankful to have had this opportunity. Here's just a taste:

Daring to be Different with Joe Infurnari:

“I just figured that you’re not going to get anywhere by doing something that everybody else is doing or doing something like everybody else; so do something that’s retarded enough that nobody would dare,” Joe Infurnari says from his drawing table. “The challenge is to make something that sounds nuts actually work. If you can do that then you have something.”

Read more...

SMITH Magazine Honors Vs.

SMITH Magazine, the home for the Next Door Neighbor webcomix series has posted a notice about the recent Eisner nomination. Jeff Newelt, SMITH Magazine Comics Editor, had this to say,

Eisner Nomination for Next-Door Neighbor’s “Vs.”

SMITH Magazine congratulates Joe Infurnari and Alexis Sottile on their Eisner nomination (think Academy Awards for comics) for Best Digital Comic for “Vs.,” their virtuoso contribution to Next-Door Neighbor, SMITH’s truelife webcomic anthology, edited by Dean Haspiel. “Vs.” is the tale of Joe’s nightmarish neighborly encounters, one after another after another after another. Told as an autobiographical monologue written in verse, juxtaposed with rabid remembrances, dizzyingly visualized like a sickedelic melange of EC horror comics, The Twilight Zone, and Universal’s Monster Movies meets Cronenberg and Lynch, “Vs.” has got to be seen to be believed (and you can believe it, because it all happened). (more…)

The above image is my annotation for the page at the top of this post. Now you can read a fully annotated version of Vs. at Act-i-vate.com! If you've read it at SMITH, now read it with all the supplemental information! It's like having the dvd extras for every page! Read my comments for fun factoids and real life anecdotes behind my neighborly misadventures retold in Vs.

If you like Vs. enough, please consider voting for it for the Best Digital Comic Eisner award. You can do so here:

www.eisnervote.com

Thanks so much for your vote, support and readership!

Seth Kushner's Graphic Novelists: Day 49

Thursday evening I had the pleasure of being one of the subjects for Seth Kushner's Graphic Novelists series of photographs. Seth is the amazing photographer for the book, The Brooklynites, and has photographed numerous luminaries and celebrities for an extensive list of publications. His resume is impressive as are his gorgeous photos. It's been a real privilege to work with him and the above photo from our shoot is now up on his blog. While you are there, please take a look at any number of the other eyepopping photographs available there or on his site.

Tales From the Great War Part 2!

This week (May 6th) in comic book stores is the second installment of Tales from the Great War by Mark Waid and myself! This installment will be in Jersey Gods #4 and Act-i-vate has a 3 page preview! Did you miss the preview of Part one? Here ya go! As an added incentive, Glen Brunswick and Dan McDaid continue their cosmic comical craziness in the main, not-to-be missed storyline! How can you not succumb to this heroic hucksterism!? Run don' t walk to your local shop this Wednesday!

The Transmigration of ULTRA-lad! UPDATED!

This week I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that there are two new pages up! The bad news is that this is the last update before The Transmigration of ULTRA-lad! goes on brief hiatus. I'm hoping it won't be for too long since we're so close to the end of the second issue/chapter. I'll have more announcements leading up to it's return. In the meantime, please enjoy any number of the other amazing comics available every day at Act-i-vate.com!

Click here to read this week’s update: http://act-i-vate.com/56-2-29.comic

Click here to read the previous update: http://act-i-vate.com/56-2-28.comic

Click here to read from the beginning of Chapter 2: http://act-i-vate.com/56-2-1.comic

Click here to read from the very beginning: http://act-i-vate.com/56.comic

Thank you!

The Transmigration of ULTRA-lad! UPDATED!

This week, we return to the main storyline with the beginning of ULTRA-lad's final slug fest with the Mace-o-saurus Mechs. Don't you dare miss this!

Click here to read this week’s update: http://act-i-vate.com/56-2-28.comic

Click here to read the previous update: http://act-i-vate.com/56-2-27.comic

Click here to read from the beginning of Chapter 2: http://act-i-vate.com/56-2-1.comic

Click here to read from the very beginning: http://act-i-vate.com/56.comic

Thank you!