Amazon.com: The Monster of Frankenstein by Dick Briefer

This volume appears to have been out since July, but I–like many folks–seem to have been unaware of it until just today.  Dick Briefer is one of my favorite artists, albeit one whose work I own precious little of, so I’m definitely going to pick this up.  If I had to pick an incarnation of Briefer’s Frankenstein character to see collected, I’d have admittedly prefered the more comedic 1940s version to the straighter version from the 50s that’s collected in this book, but, hey, I’ll take what I can get…

UPDATE: So, apparently this is some print on demand thing, which would explain it’s appearance “off the radar.”  The print quality of this sort of thing is sometimes pretty dodgy… so I hereby ratract my Briefer excitement and will hold it in check until there’s a decent complete collection of the 40s incarnation of the character.

Visit Exhibit A Press, home of Batton Lash, Jackie Estrada, Supernatural Law, etc. for some pics from SPX 06, including “The Nose:”

20 Questions for 20 Years of Slave Labor Graphics: The Dan Vado Interview

This interview has really been making the rounds online lately, and one of the most discussed sections is the following:

KLEID: With the comics-related focus shifting to graphic novels and the bookstore market, will SLG’s publishing plans alter at all regarding the kind of product you put out? I know some publishers are moving to all-graphic novel. You?

VADO: I answered that above, We will be moving to serializing comics in digital form as downloads. I think, though, that if everyone starts moving to graphic novels that the resulting glut will take some people out of the game altogether. Anyone hoping that the bookstore market is somehow going to be this place where their books will all instantly sell simply by existing in book form is dead wrong. The returns will kill them, without a doubt. The book market is really now a carbon copy of the Direct Market, with two major players (Viz and Tokyopop) taking up most of the space and making most of the sales. Tough nut to crack, and a risky nut to crack because unlike the Direct Market the publisher ends up paying for his book that does not sell.

The whole graphic novel/book store market thing is something that’s been on my mind for a while, as it likely has been for any cartoonist whose main interest isn’t superhero comics, which is one of the main reasons I find the statement above interesting. Oh, yeah: that… and also the fact that it seemed like at last weekend’s SPX there were more cartoonists with recently signed graphic novel deals from book publishers than those without.

Having never actively pursued a book deal with any of these new graphic novel divisions of major publishing houses that seem to be sprouting up at the rate of one or two a week, I often picture myself twenty years hence, on my rocking chair on my front porch, as all of the contributors to those Flight anthologies drive by in their new BMWs pointing at me and lauging, “There’s old man Towle that never went after a book deal! Haw Haw Haw!” (Laugh sound effects courtesy of Jack T. Chick.)

On the other hand, despite all the book store brouhaha, I can only off the top of my head think of two non-manga cartoonists who have sold significant quantities of books in the bookstore market without coming up through the direct market/”floppy” comic book system: Craig Thompson and Marjane Satrapi.

Stay tuned to find out if I’ll be yelling “You damned kids stay away from my house!!!”

20 Questions for 20 Years of Slave Labor Graphics: The Dan Vado Interview

Slave Labor Graphics editor, Dan Vado, is interviewed over at Newsarama today. He has some interesting insights about a number of things including the non-Direct Market comics readership that supports the work of some of SLG’s A-List cartoonists like Jhonen Vasquez and Roman Dirge, as well as the recent graphic novel/bookstore boom (and perhaps soon-to-be glut). My favorite part of the interview, though, was this hilarious zinger from Dan, referrencing (I assume) an event that I witnessed myself while at the SLG booth at the San Diego comic-con in 2004:

I have never really gone about “acquiring” anyone. Everyone we publish is someone who has come to us. You kind of have to want to be here in order to be here. I’m not the kind of guy who is going to walk up to a creator while they are sitting at another publisher’s booth and hand them my card (like certain Vertigo editors like to do).

OH, SNAP!

The editor in question I’ll leave unnamed, but the creator is one Jim “Street Angel” Rugg, who was blatently cherry-picked right off the SLG table!