25% OFF COMICS SALE at Birdcage Bottom Books

Just a heads up to you not signed up on the mailing list, Birdcage Bottom Books is having a 25% OFF sale on select books to promote our greatly expanded distro service, including:

mammoth Digestate food & eating themed anthology, edited by J.T. Yost

Aron Nels Steinke's Big Plans collects all five mini-comics and more!

Lauren Barnett's Me Likes You Very Much, published by Hic & Hoc

Jeff Zwirek's Burning Building Comix collects all five minis in an unusual format and in full color!

Suspect Device #2 anthology, edited by Josh Bayer

...and if that weren't enough, there's other books at an even steeper discount. Plus, we now carry tons of handmade comics by lots of wonderful indie comic artists. 

Check out the sale (and get the coupon code) here!

Sample Pages from DIGESTATE comic anthology!

Hey y'all,

The comics for our upcoming anthology are starting to roll in, and I'm getting more and more excited. I can't contain it any more, so please share in our elation by taking a gander at some sample pages...

Cha

Jeffrey Brown

Alex Robinson

Box Brown

Josh Burggraf

Noah Van Sciver

Victor Kerlow

Shout-out: Paul Hoppe

DIGESTATE CONTRIBUTOR:

PAUL HOPPE!

Paul Hoppe was born in Poland and raised in Germany, and lives in Brooklyn, NY now.

He is a freelance illustrator for newspapers, magazines and advertising agencies, and a writer and illustrator of children’s books and graphic novels. He also teaches occasionally at the School of Visual Arts. Clients and publications include The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Addidas and IBM . His work has been recognized and awarded by the Society of Illustrators, American Illustration, Communication Arts and others. He has a studio at the Pencil Factory in Greenpoint where he’s surrounded with friendly and super-talented individuals every day.

Characters from "Tales To Behold"

“I love to tell stories with my drawings, whether it’s comics, children's books, storyboards, or editorial work. The reason why I got into the arts were comics I read as a kid. And that’s also a reason why I like children’s books. They are also picture stories.“

"The Woods" childrens book, published by Chronicle

After some years that he focused on design and illustration, the love for comics came back very strongly. He co-founded the anthology RabidRabbit and contributed to Syncopated Comics and other anthologies, while also self-publishing mini-comics and attending festivals such as MoCCA regularly. In Spring 2013, "Peanut“ will be released by Schwartz & Wade / Random House, a graphic novel he’s illustrated, written by Ayun Halliday (another DIGESTATE contributor!). It has been years in the making and he’s excited for it to come out.

Mock-up for "Peanut" cover

“Even though I was very happy and grateful for my commercial work and my books with the big publishers, I realized a couple years ago that all my art was made to have a purpose. I needed to find something that had no purpose at all, and to reconnect with the joy that I had when I first drew my crude comics as a kid. So I started creating my stories around THE BEHOLDER theme, self-publishing them as mini-comics and webcomics.“

Sample page from "Tales To Behold" #2

He’ll have a table at MoCCA together with friend and colleague AnujShrestha (yet another DIGESTATE contributor!!), and will debut his latest mini “Journey Into Misery 4“.

Illustration sample

Editor's note: Paul is a super nice dude, and my daughter loves his book, "The Woods". He's also one of the masterminds behind the Rabid Rabbit anthology.

These are my links:

Website: www.paulhoppe.com

Newsblog: http://paulhoppeblog.blogspot.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Paul-Hoppe-Illustration/136183409777781

BEHOLDER: http://cosmicbeholder.blogspot.com/

Shout-out: Alex Robinson

 DIGESTATE CONTRIBUTOR:

ALEX ROBINSON!

Alex Robinson's books include Box Office Poison, Tricked, and Too Cool to Be Forgotten, all of which are available from Top Shelf Productions. He has won and lost several industry awards and co-hosts The Ink Panthers podcast. He currently lives in New York City with his wife, a cat and a dog. Visit him on the web at www.comicbookalex.com

Sample page from "A Kidnapped Santa Claus"

Sample page from "Too Cool To Be Forgotten"

Editor's note: If you don't listen to The Ink Panthers podcast (hosted by Alex Robinson & Mike Dawson), you need to remedy that as soon as possible. I occasionally listen to other podcasts while I'm inking a comic (This American Life, Radiolab, etc.), but I always find myself coming back to this one. It's just two dudes (virtually) hanging out and shooting the shit. They both happen to be cartoonists, but the show is not about comics. It seems to be more about giving each other a hard time and/or telling extremely embarrassing anecdotes. 

Shout-out: Hazel Newlevant

DIGESTATE CONTRIBUTOR:

HAZEL NEWLEVANT!

Hazel Newlevant is a Portland-raised, SVA-attending cartoonist and illustrator. Her comics are an undisguised mash-up of her favorite topics, especially interpersonal relationships, music and dance, bleak humor, and cute girls. She's into experimental comics and unusual formats, and makes mini-comics that unfold, turn upside down, have cutout bits, or are otherwise odd. 

Her works include the mini-comics Chili Dog Dad and Ci Vediamo, and the faux-children's book People of Coloring Book, with more to come very soon! They're available from newlevant.com and small press-friendly comic book stores, or directly from her, at comics conventions! Hazel will be selling comics and drawing cheap Instant Portraits the Brooklyn Zine Fest on April 15th and the Stumptown Comics Fest on April 28th & 29th, so come say "hi." 

New drawings and comics are posted several times a week on newlevant.tumblr.com, which is a good place to keep up with her moves.
Hazel is also an editor for INK, SVA's free digital comics magazine. The Spring 2012 issue has a tasty variety of short comics by SVA students and alumni, interviews with SVA grads Christopher Hastings (The Adventures of Dr. McNinja) and Drew Friedman (Old Jewish Comedians), and it just came out as a PDF, iPhone and iPad app. It's free! You can download it!

Shout-out: Josh Burggraf

DIGESTATE contributor:

JOSH BURGGRAF!

Josh Burggraf has never lived far from the sea.  He has been drawing for money since 2006 and has been making comics for the world since 2009. 

Josh has worked previously with many of the Digestate contributors on anthology books such as Supertalk, Rabid Rabbit, Suspect Device,Catch Up and the upcoming book FUTURE SHOCK, to be released at MOCCA.  FUTURE SHOCK is a part sci/fi, part psychedelia book, 44 pages, color, edited and printed by Burggraf.  Its gonna feature comics from Anuj Shrestha, William Cardini,Pat Auliso, a comic written by Anuj, Sungyoon Choi and Josh, AND a comic by Victor Kerlow and Josh.

Look for Josh at this year's MOCCA, He'll be tabling with Sungyoon Choi and will without a doubt be loitering near JT Yost and Victor Kerlow's table.  He expects to have a new T shirt for sale, his comic Kid Space Heater, copies of the Coelacanth album Josh did the cover for, Maybe some prints(?) and of course, FUTURE SHOCK.

If you cant catch him in the real world, look for more on joshburggraf.com, which will soon be updated to streamline all of his myriad of blogs and sites.

 Editor's note: My theory about Josh is that his parents left Michael Jackson's "Black or White" video playing at all times during his developmental years, and only allowed him to wear 3-D glasses while watching/absorbing it. His artwork is never quiet or static, the colors are usually blaring and characters are in a constant state of rubbery flux. I'm also told he has beautiful eyes. 

Slaughterhouse comic finished!

I've finally finished my 25 page comic for the DIGESTATE anthology. It's a total bummer!

DIGESTATE anthology!

It's official. We will be releasing the DIGESTATE food & eating themed anthology at this year's Small Press Expo in September. I will be spotlighting each of the artists on this blog in the following weeks leading up to publication. See a list of confirmed contributors (there are a few that may be added in at the last minute) by clicking on the image above.

We'll be doing a Kickstarter campaign to raise the money for printing, so please check back for details.

P.S. The Taco Head guy on this image was drawn by the indomitable Victor Kerlow, esq.

DIGESTATE anthology, Rabid Rabbit #14

Hey folks,

Today was the third day in about two years (when my daughter was born) that I got eight hours of sleep, so I'm feelin' great! Seriously, I felt like I was losing my mind, but now I just feel like I had a half-shot of Maker's Mark or something. Thanks to Lulu for sleeping in to an incredible 7 a.m.

Anyhow, I've been staying incredibly busy. Birdcage Bottom Books (that's me) is putting out a food/eating themed anthology called "Digestate", and I've been doing a lot of legwork to wrangle & rope artists into contributing. So far we've got a really excellent crew of about 45 cartoonists. I'll release a list of contributors at a later date.

My comic for the anthology uses verbatim text from an interview with a slaughterhouse worker. Gail Eisnitz, author of "Slaughterhouse" was kind enough to send me a stack of affadavits from various slaughterhouse workers. It was exceedingly difficult to pick just one from the bunch since each was compelling for different reasons. I may end up doing more comics using other interviews, each focusing on a different aspect of the slaughterhouse workers' plights.

I'm posting two samples from the comic in progress, which will most likely end up being around 24 pages.

Since this material is so heavy in its theme, I was glad to be invited to participate in the next Rabid Rabbit anthology (#14), which has a much friendlier theme: romance. I've written my "script" and thumbnailed two pages (of five) so far.


Well, that's it for now. Check back soon for a list of Digestate contributors. Thanks!