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!

Extra, Extra: Spring Cleaning Addition

So, some news: we at 2DC have been doing some spring cleaning on this old blog, perhaps you have noticed it looks a bit less-- fugly? Well, I do hope so, dear reader. I have been distracted working on it, instead of colouring comix, which puts me at 3 weeks behind schedule. I will, however, have time to catch up soon as I'll be shaving a day off my schedule by months end.

Our pal, Noah Van Sciver was recently interviewed on Indie Spinner Rack, pimping his new works: Blammo 7; The Hypo; and the first book we are doing with him, The Death of Elijah Lovejoy! WOO-YAH! Sorry, excited there. We have some big plans for that little book. More news on that front soon.

The Chicago Zine Fest was Justin and I's first out of town solo show without the ladies in tow. You know, for a minute there, I thought we'd probably get a little too blissed out in our adventuring. Not so much though, nearing and hitting 30 does that I suppose. Megabussing in also took some of that wind out of our sails. Enough wind that after Neil Brideau directed us to his fun-house, Ed Moorman gave us a ring and asked me when I/we started drinkng-- haha! No drinking, just dehydration, hunger, and my own sense of goofy-odd behavior.

CZF, which was a blast and is now about 2 weeks in the past. While we did not have a final finished version of The Death of Elijah Lovejoy available at the show, we did have some last minute ashcan's dropped off by none other than Zak Sally the very day prior to our departure! I was super thrilled to have them there-- I am seriously indebted to Zak for pushing to get us those ashcans for the show. Ed did a huge favor by us with lending us usage of his awesome stapler-- a life saver fer sure, as those books needed binding bad (Michael Jackson Bad).

Another huge thank you to Neil for helping to make CZF the awesome show it is AND for letting us crash at his pad! And before I forget-- thanks to everyone who made it out there and stopped at our table to chat us up and/or purchase something!! We love yah!

In other beleaguered and belabored news, a spell back I, Raighne here, was announced to be one of the curators for MIX. I am in some pretty cool company, the curators are as follows:

Rob Stenzinger
Michael May
Ursula Murray Husted
Brittney Sabo
Jason Loeffler
Barbara Schulz
Michael Drivas
Raighne Hogan
Tom Kaczynski
Zak Sally

Purty neat. Well, thanks for lending me your earballs and eyeholes. More pots and pans banging concerning our 2011 plots and plans soon! Also, apologies for any bad grammar or spelling issues. J-Stud, our co-pub, moved to NE recently and has been needing to get his place in order-- Justin normally makes me sound/look better in all regards, including editing my posts before they go live. Regards!

3/26/11=2DC@CZF

We're a mere 10 days away from 2D Cloud's first appearance in Chicago at the illustrious Chicago Zine Fest! After hearing good things from our friend, GMN4 contributor, and recent Top Shelf published cartoonist Will Dinski about the show last year, we decided that this is a show we wanted to be a part of. Since we didn't take CZF organizer and minicomiker Neil Brideau up on his offer to table with him in Stumptown this year, this is the ONLY confirmed beyond-our-borders show we're going to this year, so if you can't make it to MN to see us in person, this is most likely your only chance!

A word on the status of Noah Van Sciver's The Death of Elijah Lovejoy: the files have been sent to Zak Sally of La Mano, and if everything runs smoothly, there's a slight chance the comic will still make its debut in Chicago. Considering the chance for unforeseen developments is high, don't be flabbergasted if there's no Noah on the table come Saturday. We'll do our damndest to get it there though!

Looking forward to seeing one of our first contributors to GMN (GMN2) outside of our immediate social circle(s), Ed Moorman, as well as the rest of you beautiful zinesters and small-press whackjobs...

Chi cag o.

Lovejoy Proof

High draw-ma in Noah Van Sciver's The Death of Elijah Lovejoy. The above pic is a rough proof to catch any tom-foolery like mirror-flipped pages in the guts prior to dropping it off at La Mano. The book should be seeing print the end of March or early April. Keep your fingers cross-eyed for a debut at the Chicago Zine Fest on the 25th of next month.

Oh, those requiring regular nourishment of info on Noah Van Sciver may wish to check out the NVS interview saga over at Itchy Keen. It's a 1 2 3 parter, partner. Gettyup on all that already.

Noah Van Sciver on Itchy Keen + new book pre-order ready

Well it's late into the night or early into the morning and I've just finished re-organizing the Itchy Keen blogsite.  There's more work to be done, but, I gotta a whole lot of other things to take care of, know what I mean?  Anywho, as the title suggests, I have also put up the first part of that Noah Van Sciver interview I've been working on.  Parts 2 & 3 come next week.

Oh, the weird illustration.  I hate prep work.  Sometimes it works to my favor, sometimes not.  These are some attempted doodle's for the interview.  It's supposed to be Noah.  Not sure that it looks like him.  I think the final one included in the interview does all right though.  They were fun to do in any case.

Here I am quoting myself, from an email to Noah 2 months back:

"Last year and early this year I re-read a bunch of the single issues of Yummy Fur, and seeing/reading Blammo definitely put me in mind of Yummy Fur. What you are doing Noah is some of my favorite comic work right now. Your push of the traditionally sized comic single and the regular out put and how quickly you are growing-- if I could I afford it I would do my damnedest to steal you and your Blammo series."

Although I cannot (yet!) steal Noah, we will be doing a number of books with him in the coming years. The first one out the gate drops late next month. The Death of Elijah Lovejoy is now available for pre-order!

Yearbooks made it in Drawing Words & Writing Pictures Notables for 2010!

Nic's work was recently mentioned as a 2010 notable on Drawing Words & Writing Pictures ran by Jessica Abel and Matt Madden. I'm happy to see Nic's Yearbooks get a shout out. I'm obviously a little biased, but if I didn't think it was quality work I wouldn't have worked so hard to see it published. I also really enjoyed colouring it, and will be colouring about 130 pages of comix before the year is out. 100 of those pages are comix by Mr. Breutzman. This is going to be a packed year. Hopefully y'all will keep an eye or two on some of the projects we got coming up. Thanks!