Yearbooks and GMN4 get reviewed AGAIN--Woop Woop!

Over at the excellent Warren Peace Sings the Blues, Matthew Brady writes some thoughtful reviews on a handful of mini's including Yearbooks (which really isn't quite a mini, but--) and Good Minnesotan #4.

Side note: anthologies are generally a bit of a mixed bag. Sometimes they work out better when there is a smaller list of contributors and tighter focus on the vision. Sales tend to reflect this as well.  Obviously, I really like GMN4 as it is, but then, I am the editor.  I'll have more masturbatory thoughts on anthologies over at Itchy Keen in the FUTURE.

Oh yeah, the drawing is another image by Luke Holden from the comic/anthology Mother Lover which comes out next year. It's going to be pretty awesome.

2 new reviews at Playtime Magazine and a post thank you

Thanks to everyone that came out to Rain Taxi's Book Festival!  A double thanks to those that stopped by to pick up a book off our table and gave it a sincere look.  Also, it was nice being sandwiched between Will Dinski and Kevin Cannon and that the cartoonists were all tabling together for the event!

In other news, we got 2 new reviews over at Playtime Magazine, one for Yearbooks here, and the other for GMN4 here.  Both by the tall and quite bearded fellow Matt Kessen!  Playtime Magazine is a smart, cool snapshot of arts & culture, an eMagazine covering comix, trash novels, films, video games; leaning towards genre work- it's top notch and worth checking out !  In the back issue's there is a review of a Primal Rage novel!!  Strange and stupidly awesome! In any case, check out them reviews!

Photo of our table at the Rain Taxi Book Fest by Will Dinski-- thanks Will!

2dc @ Rain Taxi's Twin Cities Book Festival

Us 2d Cloud folk were expecting to be pulling double duty this upcoming weekend, having part of the camp over at Fallcon and the rest at Rain Taxi's Twin Cities Book Festival. When we were asked by one of our GMN contributors, Anna Bongiovanni, if she could share our table this year, we realized we hadn't had any formal communication with the MCBA people for a while, so Raighne took it upon himself to confirm our table. We were told that unfortunately they couldn't accommodate as many creators this year due to the smaller size of the show, meaning that we would have to wait until Springcon to peddle our wares in the ghost-town that is the State Fair Grounds. Looking at the creator list for Fallcon this year, it looks like people from the Big Time Attic/Cartoonist Conspiracy clans have spots as well as some of our GMN contributors, such as Toby Jones, Madeline Queripel and Sean Lynch. The rest of the non-superhero/genre comics scene seems to be setting up shop at the Rain Taxi show (as of now I believe that in addition to us will be Tom K., Will Dinski, Tim Sievert and probably a few other people I'm [Justin] not aware of). 


Raighne and I were speculating as to why so many of the indie cartoonists who have tabled at both MCBA events in years past did not have a table this year, and the first reason that popped into our heads was the existence of MIX. Maybe the MCBA feels that since there's a big show devoted to the local indie comics scene, they need to give the superhero/genre comics creators and fans a little more precedence when it comes to a show with limited space. At first I was a little offended that we weren't invited to Fallcon, but the more I think about it, I think it's really just an indication that the comics scene in Minnesota as a whole has grown to the point that there are enough cartoonists and fans to populate two shows simultaneously, which ultimately is just a testament to the health of the medium.


With that said, we are more than happy to be a part of the Rain Taxi show.Their continued support of comics, both locally and nationally, is also encouraging in terms of the increasing legitimacy of comics to the larger reading public. Dealing with the persistence of a sort of inferiority complex that still crops up in a lot of discussions regarding comics as they relate to casual readers can get a little tiresome, but nevertheless we are glad that our work is considered to have enough merit to be included. There will be a panel at the show, Minnesota Comics, that I believe will highlight the current strength of the local comics scene and will help demonstrate what I mentioned above about the diversity and size of the comics community currently in Minnesota. Not to foster any rivalry between the two shows, but we'll be at the one with free admission, which means more dollars to drop on comics! Hope to see you there.