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Webcomics, Storytelling and Books from Smith Online Magazine

Launched as a website specializing in "personal passionate storytelling," the online magazine Smith has managed to become a platform for a series of webcomics based on eccentric and personal narratives. In fact, Smith has become something of online comics laboratory, bringing together an impressive group of young and veteran creators to produce a series of imaginative webcomics that have also been transformed into print books.

Started by Larry Smith and Tim Barkow in 2006, Smith operates on the philosophy that good stories can be told in any form. "Although not [exclusively] a comics site, Smith offers a platform for comics," said Smith comics editor Jeff Newelt. "Comics are given a place of honor and treated as equal with Smith's other big projects."

Both Larry Smith and Newelt stressed that they only pursue one or two comic projects at a time, to ensure they can fully develop and promote that project. While Smith uses audio, video, and other multimedia links, the ultimate goal of each project is to reach print. "I want to see an afterlife for everything on Smith, and make Smith into a platform where stories start and don't end," said Smith.

Toronto Comic Arts Festival Emphasizes the Arts

Cartooning legends from around the world mingled with enthusiastic readers at the fourth Toronto Comic Arts Festival, held May 9-10 at the Toronto Reference Library.

McNally Jackson Books: Turn, Turn, Turn

McNally Jackson Books in the Nolita section of New York City is hip to the latest bookstore trends, including a thriving graphic novel section.
more on comics
Rabbi David Kahn's family receives his will after the stunning discovery that he wasn't really Jewish in this preview of The Big Kahn by Neil Kleid and Nicholas Cinquegrani. The revelation about Rabbi Kahn motivates the family members to reexamine themselves. NMB is releasing The Big Kahn this fall.
Click above for the full preview.
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A World of Japanese Pop Culture at Japan Society

For $10—the cost of one volume of manga—visitors to Japan Society's gallery in New York City can read entire series of manga (in English or Japanese), or watch all four feature anime films in continuous screenings during gallery hours. There are even several video game consoles available to the public to play on in the exhibit, "KRAZY: The Delirious World of Anime + Manga + Video Games," transforming the Japan Society gallery halls into something like an impromptu Japanese manga café.

George Sprott: 1894–1975
SETH. Drawn & Quarterly, $24.95 (96p) ISBN 978-1-897299-51-7

First serialized in the New York Times Magazine, this exquisite extended version of the life of fictional Canadian TV personality George Sprott only adds to Seth's place as one of the form's masters. In the hours and moments before Sprott's death in 1975, the omniscient—and nameless—narrator flashes both backward to key moments in the TV man's life and forward to interviews conducted after Sprott's passing. After spending four years in seminary school, Sprott sets out to be, as he dubs himself, a "gentleman adventurer," taking numerous trips to the Canadian Arctic and filming his exploits. After he lands his own television program, Northern Hi-Lights, in the '50s, Sprott spends the next 20-plus years (1,132 episodes) telling and retelling stories of his adventures with the Inuits. Along the way, we meet his long-suffering wife, Helen; employees of the Radio Hotel (where Sprott lived for the last 10 years of his life); and members of the Coronet Club (where he delivered regular and increasingly boring lectures). Musings by the man himself—on everything from modern life to food to loneliness—help to round out this portrait of a man who never seemed truly satisfied but somehow made do. Seth (Palookaville) manages to make what is essentially the story of one man's slow death into an often humorous rumination on the power of media, memory and loss. (May)

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"I've never allowed myself to fall into the golden rut, and I can't write something unless it's interesting to me, and because I've got such a very low boredom threshold, I find that everything I do I have to make it interesting and exciting to myself, so maybe that's what's done it."

—Alan Moore interviewed by Pádraig Ó Méalóid at the Forbidden Planet International blog.


May 13, 2009
  • Animal Academy Hakobune Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
  • Future Diary Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
  • Hellblazer: Roots of Coincidence (DC)
  • Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit Vol. 1 (Viz)
  • I Kill Giants (Image)
  • King of Debris Vol. 1 (CMX)
  • Luba (Fantagraphics)
  • Robinson Crusoe (IDW)
  • Superman: New Krypton Vol. 1 (DC)
  • Ultimates 3: Who killed the Scarlet Witch (Marvel)

  • Diamond Book Distributors Names Carter Amazon Czar
  • Kids' Comic Con on Youtube
  • Archie Comics Unveils iPhone App
  • This Week @ Good Comics for Kids
  • Van Lente on Punisher/Eminem Comic

PW Comics Week
Editors: Calvin Reid and Heidi MacDonald
Contributing Editors: Douglas Wolk, Kai-Ming Cha and Laura Hudson
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