ZOMBIES ARE SO YESTERDAY!

Welcome to the era of the werewolf!! ( insert wild howlllll here) Well ok maybe not the era, werewolves have never had the kind of limelight vampires have. Even zombies and pirates have seen their 15 minutes extended. What about the wild children of the moon? Swifty Lang and Michael Lapinski unite real life dramatic events from the Mexican-Arizona border along with Werewolves and give you 64 pages of comic. Half in English and half in Spanish- serious! I say it's a risky move that has so many ways it could go wrong, but alas the duo find a way to avoid all the pitfalls that can befall a horror comic especially one that tries to unite both sides of the border. The covers alone are frame-able pieces of art. Comixology describes FEEDING GROUND, "In this factious story, a famine caused by Blackwell Industries drives Diego Busqueda, a noble 'coyote,' to lead a band of Mexican border crossers across the unforgiving Devil's Highway, a desert cursed with blistering days and deadly nights. Back home, Diego's daughter Flaca discovers that something hungrier prowls the factory fields. Stalked and persecuted, can the Busqueda family maintain their dreams of immigration or will the horrors of the desert tear them apart?" If Lang & Lapinski keep it up this could be the next WALKING DEAD! doing for werewolves what they have longed for, a little limelight, some attention. These aren't shirtless brooding teenagers with nothing better to do then fight over goth chicks, this is great storytelling that transcends what you think you know about the genre!

ALL HAIL THE ZOMBRE PART 2

Ansis Purins, art school drop-out, rock singer, human being. Yet what separates Ansis from the run of the mill Bostonian homo sapien rat race is the way he tells a story with his illustrative style that lends itself to early century funny papers. Zombre is far from old school though, we were digging on the first issue of ZOMBRE so much we told everyone we knew how awesome this indie comic was. He recently sent us a preview of what is to be the 2nd issue and not only were we flattered but we were digging on it even more. A departure from the 1st issue and it's silent movie B-Horror film noir quality, this one is campy, tongue in cheek, bitter sweet and ends with a cliff hanger that would fit right in at the end of a LOST episode. Ansis' work reminds me of Kochalka (SUPER-F#$KERS) without being a copy of anything else, it is full of original thought and style and I'm a convert and die hard fan and you will be too.

TAKE NO PRISONERS

"Remember that kid in school? The one with the pen sketchings on the back of his Trapper Keeper full of wicked violence and jagged lines? Ever wonder what happened to him? Well, he's Johnny Ryan and he's all grown up and making some of the most in your face comics today." - Ain't It Cool News

What more can I say that wasn't just mentioned? Prison Pit has been one of my favorite indies the past couple years and the depraved madman behind that is Johnny Ryan, born in Boston, Massachusetts and grew up in Plymouth, just a mile away from the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant. He now lives in Los Angeles with his wife creating madness and political incorrectness galore. Robert Crumb thinks he's dumb and infantile.

Prison Pit is his first original graphic novel.It's an over-the-top orgy of escalating ultra-violence and perversity as intergalactic monster criminals battle for supremacy in a barren negative zone! What?!! This has to be too good to be true, right??!!. Be ready to be grossed out and laughing your a$$ off.

NYCC 2010 Day 1

Here it is, Day 1 of Action Chad and Gerald von Stoddard taking on NY at the 2010 New York Comic Con, maybe its not under the radar but it was a blast...stay tuned for the next couple episodes of the next two days of comic madness, as Gerald steals from Rick Remender, Ivan Reis loses his mind and Chad loses to a World Champion Street Fighter player..

MY GRAMPA WILL BEAT UP YOUR GRAMPA

Yea you heard me, because my Grampa is a cutting edge Brazilian juggernaut punching you in the face with awesome! Rafael Grampá first attracted widespread attention in North America in 2007 with his work on the Eisner Award-winning anthology 5, a collaboration with Gabriel Bá, Becky Cloonan, Vasilos Lolos and Fabio Moon. There has been casual references to his work resembling the kinetic line work of Frank Quitely and the dark tones of Frank Miller even one his real life heroes Paul Pope. Though Pope has said he doesnt see it, Grampa takes that a gesture of humility which makes Pope that much cooler in the comics world. This week STRANGE TALES II #1 released with great success and part of that is due to an amazing cover by Senor Grampa himself. The list of talent on this book is phenomenal but it's Grampa's cover art and introdcutory Wolverine story that turned me on, and man did it! Rafael's artwork is unstoppable and ready to explode off the page, theres so much movement and energy in his lines it makes my heart race and my life is now more enriched having experienced his awesomeness. From Daredevil to Madman to his own work, Mesmo Delivery, "a bloody story about two delivery men — Rufo, a brawny ex-boxer, and Sangrecco, an Elvis impersonator who views violence as performance art — who are hired to deliver a mysterious cargo. Everything appears to be going fine, at least until they encounter a group of drunken locals at a rest stop." (ROBOT 6) You can check out more about Rafeal at: http://furrywater.wordpress.com Rafael dances a fine line between creator owned anarachism and mainstream comics and it's in the pages of STRANGE TALES we can see how he orchestrates his own sense of comic independence when dealing with such mythical characters. So while Disney uses Marvel to push the upcoming TRON film with upcoming variant covers, Rafael doesnt seem to notice and gives us pure unadulterated adrenaline all in a 2 dimensional page, mucho gracias Grampa.

WOLVERINES, WENDIGOS AND MAN THINGS ..OH MY!

STRANGE TALES II #1
stories and art by
Rafael Grampa
Nick Bertozzi
Gene Luen Yang
Frank Santoro
Kate Beaton
Jillian Tamaki
Shannon Wheeler
Jeff Lemire
Nicholas Gurewitch

Phew that's a long list of insane talent that you may or may not have heard of, but Marvel is doing an awesome job of letting loose their properties for these mad scientists to do their respective tweeking to. These are tales that you wont find anywhere else. I personally find it genius to take characters firmly embedded into the mainstream comic world and giving them an underground, contemporary non super hero take. This takes peanut butter and jelly and gives you awesome! The cover art is by the indie warrior from Brazil, Rafael Grampa whose artwork is staggering and unforgettable and it probably wont be long until Marvel has him illustrate a full book on one of their beloved super dupes. Jeff Lemire brings his rugged Canadian bad ass self and mixes up a Wendigo slash man thing cross over, chock filled with mounties. Frank Santoro creates an amazing colorful dream like Silver Surfer tale of unrequited love, its heartbreaking and rewarding and beats any recent Silver Surfer material. Just grab a copy today and stop choosing sides at least for one day and walk that neutral line where you dont have to be too cool for school indie and neither super nerdified wolverine obsessed fanboy. Strange Tales gives us what should be a national holiday. Stay tuned for the Hernandez brothers and the Scarlet Witch, come on too good to be true right?

UNDER THE RADAR @ NYCC '10 part2

The pictures are in, the con is over and Maine feels like a reprieve but there's one thing I love about NYCC and that's the wealth of talent of those working hard in the trenches who live just below the mainstream equator but still crank out high quality artwork. I wish I could have had spent more time with these unsung warriors but if you have never been to NYCC then you don't know the maelstrom of sensory overload it is, so I feel lucky to have met the few I did and want to shine a light on their amazing work.

First, let's talk Tofu and let's talk Squirrel together that's TOFUSQUIRREL. This wasn't what I expected it to be. Elizabeth Siegel from Boston,Mass. creates unique, surrealism from Band posters to one of a kind creatures from a universe you've never been to. Hailing from Boston, Siegel is as one one of a kind as the emo squirrels she makes buttons out of. check out her website @: http://tofusquirrel.com

As I continued my travels down the underground path I stumbled upon a familiar print that once adorned Coast City Comics computer screen. Let me introduce, Ulises Farinas A cartoonist/illustrator living in Brooklyn, NY. He draws MOTRO as part of the webcomix collective ACT-I-VATE and is the founder of the Bear Party Collective.His Batman prints were tragically beautiful and his line work is kinetic and brings his work to an electric level. Check out more of Ulises at his website: http://www.ulisesfarinas.com

From the corner of my eye I caught the cover of one my highlights from Indy Comic Book Week last winter, that comic being AMERICAN TERROR published by Alterna Press and created by Jeff McComsey. As part of his participation in a new graphic novel called FUBAR. With artist Steve Becker they were selling stunning zombie prints underneath a recreation of a WWII bunker that they want to bring to the shop this winter and I say hell yea! You can find out more at their website: http://zombiefubar.wordpress.com

And last but not least, our very own Ben Bishop was in attendance peddling his wares but also to announce his involvement with Jim Krueger's re launch of THE STAND-IN on ATLAS books. Stay tuned for UNDER THE RADAR part 3 that I will be dedicating solely to Bishop's NYCC exploits.