Jim Woodring at the Walker Art Center this Saturday!!

Special Announcement: This Saturday, the Walker Art Center and Rain Taxi Review of Books are throwing together a little something for comics lovers outside of the cities here to be damn jealous of-- as a special midnight performance, Jim Woodring is going to compose a series of drawings live with a 7 foot tall pen!! Last year he raised funds for the giant pen via the United States Artists Special Projects, a crowd funding site in the vein of Kickstarter but with a non-profit spin. For more info check out Rain Taxi or the Walker Art Center.

Also, did I mention it appears to be free and open to the public? You would be wise to not miss this!

2D Noah Van Sciver

Photo by Tom K

"Noah Van Sciver was frozen in this position for the entirety of Spring Con. Raighne & Justin thought that was funny. Weird Funny. Not haha funny." --Tom K's Flickr page.

Spring Con 2011 was a lot of fun-- more so than I would have expected for a non-alternative/indie/art show. Part of that fun came from the excellent company of one Noah Van Sciver. We hosted that fella and premiered his book at the show. A big shout out to Zak Sally for the printing-hell to get it done in time for Spring Con. It's a beautiful little book and I am certainly proud of it. While at the show and shortly thereafter it's made some noise here in MN via a review by local cartoonist Alexander Fukui, and a brief interview with the nice chaps over at the Geek Report. Included in the interview/Spring Con post is Lars Martinson and the North Star Roller Girls.

Photo by Will Dinski

Speaking of The Death of Elijah Lovejoy, it is now available to order from the shop. So, head on over there and pick it up!

Also at our table we had Nic Breutzman, who drove up from Rochester MN on Sat. He is in the process of moving back to the cities. He has quite a load of work coming out the second half of the year. Keep a look out for it, 'kay? Other 2DC regulars included Justin, my wife Meghan and myself. We kept the table and a half stocked with people and books. Thanks to all who stopped by and chatted us up!!

I am sure everybody's done hearing about how the rapture/end of the world scenario did not happen this weekend, but we did get some heavy rain and a tornado dropped down in North Minneapolis and made a mess of things. That was a little worrisome...

Photo by Tom K

One grave error that I made during the duration of the show was forgetting to bring cash, thus I ended up staying put and not tempting myself with books I could not buy. Which was sad as I wanted to check out lots-o-stuff. And I opted to not use an ATM as I HATE doing that. Little did I know I would end up having to do that at Matt's Bar in South Minneapolis as Justin, Noah, Tom K. and myself had lunch there AND they do not accept plastic. I really should have known better. No matter.

Photo by Tom K

On monday I stopped at Big Brain and picked up 21 by Wilfred Santiago, Evolution by Kevin and Zander Cannon of Big Time Attic, True Swamp 01 by Jon Lewis, Book of Logo's by Dan Wieken.

Oh, and if you happen to stop over at Itchy Keen in the next week or two, my apologies-- it's in the middle of a redesign.  

Fleeting Pages & SpringCon 2011 + notes

Last week Justin sent out some copies of Yearbooks to Fleeting Pages, a pop-up book store in Pittsburgh, PA. They ended up taking over the Borders that went out of business and will be selling independently published and small press books of all stripes in their HUGE 24,000 square foot shop until early June. They have also been getting a ton of press coverage on their venture. If you are in Pittsburgh between now and early June, stop by, pick up some gorgeous small press books and check out their workshops and film showings!!

Next on the agenda: This Saturday and Sunday is SpringCon 2011! We will be premiering Noah Van Sciver's 'The Death of Elijah Lovejoy' at the show. The show opens to the public at 10 am both days and ends at 5 pm and takes place and the MN State Fair Grounds. Below is the address for quick reference.

1265 Snelling Ave North
St. Paul MN 55108

At our table will be Nic Breutzman, Justin Skarhus, Meghan Hogan, and myself (raighne here). Noah might be at our table too, not sure if he has his own table or not... Hrm. So visit us, say hi, take a look at our new book!

2 quick notes:

1:
Help Zak get this baby out in the world!! Pre-ordering the book is only 12$!

2: in a future post, after SpringCon I will talk a bit about my curatorial picks for MIX-- sorry about the delay JP.

Maggie's 30th: A Photo Post

Last Monday was my wife's 30th Birthday. As Meghan is not much of party-person we kept it a mostly solo affair. In the morning Meghan opened some gifts, about 95% comics. Some of the new additions to our comics library include: Doghead by Al Columbia, Stigmata by Lorenzo Mattotti & Claudio Piersanti, From Inside by John Bergin, The Kim Deitch Files put out by the ever lovely La Mano. It's pretty wonderful being married to this wonderful gal-o-mine as our interest in comics, art, music, literature is about 90% spot on-- thusly I do SO enjoy getting her comics! Ha!

Meghan and I went had breakfast and picked up a bottle of ice wine and a vegan cake then headed back home, where I began cooking some dinner, a mango tofu stir-fry.

Maggie helped get the cake out of the fridge.

Mmm. Cake!

A double dose of dat Noah Van Sciver fella'

First, as seen from the picture, The Death of Elijah Lovejoy has been a little cursed over at the printer -- running into snags and complications due in part to the way I coloured and designed the cover and inside cover. The good news is that 10 or so copies have made it through unscathed and will be giving 2D Cloud a minor presence at TCAF today and Sunday via Zak Sally of La Mano 21. Should you find yourself in Toronto-Land this weekend, stop by the downtown library for comics goodness and be sure to checkout the beautiful books at La Mano 21 and Uncivilized Books! And while we're dispensing recommendations, stop by Sparkplug Comic Books and i will destroy you!

Ok, I lied about the Noah double dip, it is a Quad Powered trip into the Van Sciver world: A week or so ago our pal, Noah Van Sciver, had the latest issue of Blammo reviewed over at The Comics Journal. It was maybe a sterner review, but still a positive one. Shortly thereafter he was interviewed over at Ink Panthers. They talk about getting harsher reviews, make it or break it deals with their female counter parts, etc. It's interesting and funny stuff -- go give it a listen. If you want to take a peek at one of the stories included in Blammo # 7 (and trust me, you do), head on over to Top Shelf 2.0 for 'Who Are You, Jesus?'

And speaking of this Noah Van Sciver fella', The Death of Elijah Lovejoy is getting closer and closer to  finally being realized in print and will be premiering proper at SpringCon 2011 in exactly 2 weeks!! Noah will be on hand for the show, so stop on by then and chat him up. We will have more news on SpringCon soon.

TCJ's Top 25 Minis of 2010: 2D Cloud makes the cut

!!!!

The last book in the Good Minnesotan series, GMN4, makes it into The Comics Journal's Top 25 Minis of 2010. Hoo-haa, heady company we is in -- landing in the #2 spot, as decreed by indie comics maven Rob Clough feels, I don't know, nice. I worked my beard and bum off on that issue, so thanks much to Rob for digging into and appreciating the work. But don't take my word for it -- go check out the article! Fellow Minnesotans (past and present) like Tom K, Toby Jones, Ed Choy Moorman, and Nic Breutzman, not to mention our newest 2D Cloud artist, Noah Van Sciver, all made the list for their own releases over the past year as well. Congrats to them, and keep an eye on the future releases page as you're likely to see some, if not all of these great cartoonists in new 2D Cloud books in the future.

A big thanks to our contribs/supporters as well. You know, I still have yet to finish binding all 500 copies of GMN4. Ugh. Gotta get back to that prior to SpringCon!