MARINAOMI and 2DCLOUD announce 'Turning Japanese'

We've been big big fans of Mari's work for some time now and are FUCKING THRILLED to announce to the world that her new graphic memoir, Turning Japanese, will be published under the 2DC banner!! Turning Japanese is the follow-up to 2011’s award-winning Kiss & Tell: A Romantic Resume, Ages 0 to 22.

To read the full press release, click here.

In celebration of this announcement, MariNaomi and Gordon Warnock of Foreword Literary have set up a little contest: you can win a personalized avatar, drawn by Mari! For full details, visit the contest page on their blog.

More to come next year on this book, but we couldn't wait until then to share the news!

Hey EVERY/BODY, Little Heart gets a sequel!....and other 2DC updates.

We've some new NEWS pertaining to Little Heart. Gina Carchedi has become our Little Heart representative and advocate. She will be meeting with MN United and other marriage equality advocacy groups to discuss having them take over the distribution and selling of Little Heart directly, with 100% of the profits going to support these groups!! We're really excited and grateful to Gina for joining the team! We are also hopeful that some real progress is made on these efforts!!

While ownership of Little Heart may be moving into the hands of the groups actively fighting for the cause, there is what we've come to describe as a follow-up or sequel to Little Heart on the way, Every/Body, edited by Greer Lawson, which focuses on people as individuals by examining the topics of body and gender.

This project began as a part of Greer’s internship at 2D Cloud, where it grew rather quickly into something that is 100% Greer’s baby. She's in the process of self-publishing it via a Kickstarter / pre-order program, with 2D Cloud handling distribution upon its release, which is set for TCAF, May 11th-12th.

Contributors include MariNaomi, Annie Mok, Jim Rugg, Rob Kirby, Anna Bongiovanni, and many, many, others. For a better look at the project, please please check out their Kickstarter page, or visit some of the works showcased here.

Interested parties should act fast though, the Kickstarter ends in a handful of days!!


In other 2DC news:

At SPX last year we debuted Will Dinski's latest major work, Ablatio Penis. It's an interesting cocktail of politics, ethics, and how sex can get mixed up in it all in ways the reader can't always guess. This book was launched shortly after all that ugliness in Wisconsin involving governor Scott Walker and his attack on unions. As a nod to that, Dinski chose to have the comic printed at Johnson Litho, a union printer in Wisconsin. The image above is a new postcard we'll be disseminating to continue spreading the word about this great comic throughout the year.

In the future releases camp:

Chris Adams’ debut graphic novel, Strong Eye Contact will be debuting at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival this May. You can catch an extended peep of it and Chris’ work via the TCAF tumblr preview.

Noah Van Sciver & Nic Breutzman’s Deep in the Woods had it’s own Kickstarter pre-order late last year. Due to some production snafu’s, that newsprint broadsheet has been pushed back from spring to early summer. Folks that pre-ordered should be receiving their copies a little deeper into this spring, just prior to CAKE, where attendees will see it's official debut! 

And finally, Anna Bongiovanni, in addition to her painted contributions to Little Heart, turned in one of the lengthier works to Every/Body. Not only will you have a chance to see some new work from her this summer, but 2DC will be debuting her first book, Out of Hollow Water, at the Small Press Expo in September!

Stick with us as these and other projects develop (coughcough2dc2.0cough)

Thanks for reading,

xo!
-Raighne

2D Cloud 2013: headlong into the future.

Now that we're working our way through the last few weeks of winter up here in the great north, it's time for 2DC to stretch beyond our borders once again and show the world what we've been up to.

Raighne is putting the final touches on something that has been in the 'pipeline' for a while now, our first book of 2013, Strong Eye Contact by Christopher Adams! Those of you who've been paying attention saw that we published a mini with Chris for SPX last year, Period, which gave us a glimpse of the distinct vision that Chris brings to comics.

Our first exposure to Chris was by way of the work that became this book, and we couldn't be happier to be the ones helping bring this into the world. Strong Eye Contact will make its international debut this May at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, May 11-12th.

Hot on the heels of our TCAF weekend will be the perennial local favorite, Springcon! We formally don't have our table assignment yet, but we have been doing this show since we started with Good Minnesotan 1 back in 2007, so you can expect to see us there again come May 18-19th.

We'll get a few weeks off before we move down to Chicago for the second year of CAKE, June 15-16th, where we'll not only have our stateside debut of SEC, but also our debut of another comic that's been a long time coming, Deep in the Woods by Noah Van Sciver and Nicholas Breutzman! This will also be going to press in a matter of weeks, with advance copies starting to ship to our Kickstarter backers by hopefully late April. Below is a rough image of a page that didn't make the Kickstarter campaign, from Nic's half of the comic, "The Mayfly"

As I was writing this post, it looks like our intern Greer Lawson's anthology Every/Body made its goal, and in record time! There's still a full three weeks to secure yourself a copy and get in on the rewards offered. Every/Body will also debut at TCAF in May and will be distributed by 2D Cloud following the event.

Last, but definitely not least, we have been working with some of the best and brightest small-press comics publishers and cartoonists Minneapolis has to offer to organize what will act as a sort of follow-up to MIX from a couple years back, but also an expansion on that concept, Autoptic. Applications are open until MARCH 31ST, so if you want to be a part of what we're planning, the time to apply is now! There will be satellite events leading up to the show on August 18th, one of which your own 2DC will be hosting! Check here or our other channels (FB/Tumblr/Twitter) for further details as the date draws near. For those of us who saw SPX sell out in under an hour earlier this morning, this might be the show to be at for a lot of publishers and cartoonists following CAKE in June.

Lots more to show and tell, but this should be enough for now! More to come as always. 

Chris Adams' Period in a Brown Paper Bag review

Sara Barnes reviews Christopher Adams’ “Period” over at Brown Paper Bag. Please check it out!! Alternatively, just go buy it in the shoppe>>

“[Period] opens up with us look­ing at the sea, mak­ing us feel small. We then delve into the lives of a fam­ily, a tele­phone com­pany employee, and guys hang­ing out play­ing with elec­tric toy cars. The details doc­u­mented are minus­cule, jux­ta­posed with moments that remind us just how BIG things, impor­tant things, are hap­pen­ing in our world. But, we’re often so bogged down with rela­tion­ships, work, and our own lives to con­tem­plate what’s really going on out­side of our front door.”

Christopher Adams and Today's Distraction

Self-Portrait of Christopher Adams

As some of you may know, we have some big-big plans with MISTER CHRISTOPHER ADAMS later in the year. We'll have more to announce on that end very soon.

((Our first collaboration with Chris was 2012's 'Period' -- available in the 2dc shoppe!!))

In the interim, our pal recently made it into the current showcase at Eyra, an online exhibition space for contemporary illustration.  Click on his self-portrait above to be transported to the showcase. Chris' piece is titled "Revival Series" and is styled like a short 2 pager comic. All the work in the exhibition is damn solid, so, go waste a fraction of the day for today's internet distraction!

Fall Crop Reviewed at POOPSHEET FOUNDATION

Earlier this year, we snuck the first issue of Meghan Hogan’s Startled Maggie series out into the world at large. It’s a beautiful and quiet little comic. We’ll have some more to announce with this series soon. Check the new reviews -- all positivity from Justin Giampaoli at Poopsheet Foundation!

Startled Maggie

“...it’s hard not to fall prey to the charm of this book; the end shot with the dandelions is a lovely capture of the simple magic of youth.” -- Justin Giampaoli

These last 3 are the latest from our fall 2012 crop at the 2dC comic farm. Ablatio Penis is the first comic we’ve published by Will Dinski -- still pretty-damn excited by that fact. Period is by the young upstart, Christopher Adams. Also a first. We’ve got some mega-schemes with that guy for 2013. MEGA. Lastly, RDCD Fist 1.5 is a new mini by Justin. Very cool and very weird, originally made for Jason T. Miles NO ME. Glad to see Justin’s been working on a whopper for a while now per his RDCD Fist series. Excited for 2.0!

Ablatio Penis

“...proudly printed by union workers and I like the sense that he’s sort of taunting us with the use of the ol’ red, white, and blue cover graphics.”
“...a worthy topic that more people need to be exposed to in any election cycle. Grade A.” -- Justin Giampaoli

Period

“Period is a bold statement on the notion that larger things are happening in the world...” -- Justin Giampaoli

RDCD Fist 1.5

“Inside, it offers a dizzying descent into wavy black and white lines, like an old TV scramble...” -- Justin Giampaoli

Lastly, for anyone interested, we are running a little pre-order for a crinkly newsprint split called Deep in the Woods by Noah Van Sciver and Nic Breutzman via Kickstarter. Vid preview below:

Oop, Missed a Spot: Manly Matters and Re-Minders

Hey! So, I forgot to mention that our pal Will Dinski was interviewed recently over at Stubble Magazine. The talk is mostly focused on his recent release, Ablatio Penis. Check it out!

Tomorrow, TOMORROW! Will Dinski is having his even newer book, the self-published At The End of An Action Movie, debut at the MCBA (details and link below!):

MCBA/Jerome Foundation Book Arts Fellowships Series XI November 2, 2012 through January 13, 2013 Opening reception Friday, November 2; 6-9pm

Hope to see you there!