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!

DIGESTATE contributors at SPX 2012

Turns out 18 of the Digestate contributors will be at SPX this year, so we've put together this handy map in case you'd like to get your book signed by them.

Victor Kerlow, Josh Burggraf & J.T. Dockery will be at SPX, although they don't have a table this year. But, if you want them to sign your book, you're in luck! Victor & Josh will be signing at the Birdcage Bottom Books table (H13) from 1:30 until 2:30 on Sunday and J.T. Dockery will be signing from 3:00 until 4:00 on Sunday.

We'll be handing out copies of this map with each book, so don't worry about trying to print out this lo-res version!

Shout-out: Jeff Zwirek

DIGESTATE CONTRIBUTOR:

JEFF ZWIREK!

Jeff Zwirek's comics work includes Jack Rabbit, Black Star, Pinstriped Bloodbath, and Burning Building Comix. He has received a nomination for an Ignatz award, and his comics have been named "Notable Comics" multiple times by the Best American Comics anthology. He lives and works in Chicago, with his wife and two sons.

www.jeffscomics.com

Editor's note: Mr. Zwirek is one of the few people who can keep me from being last in an alphabetical listing. He also knows how to create a striking mini comic. So much so, in fact, that I always bring copies of his 'Burning Building' series and 'Pinstriped Bloodbath' anthology along as examples of superb presentation whenever I sit in as a guest lecturer at C.M. Butzer's 'Creating Independent Comics' class at SVA. 

'Burning Buildings' features ten independent stories linked together by the fact that they all take place in an apartment building that has caught fire. The stories each center around the inhabitants of each floor of the building, with the fire creeping slowly upwards. Each issue contains two stories (in both senses of the word), and each issue is meant to be placed atop the last to form the entire building. Plus, each issue has a hand-burned drawing glued inside!

Jeff recently got funding to produce the series into a full-color book, so I can't wait to see how he tackles the logistics of translating it from separate minis into a single piece. 

Front cover of "Burning Building Comix'

Page 8 from 'Burning Building'

Page 14 from 'Burning Building'

'Pinstriped Bloodbath' is a fantastic anthology of true-crime comics featuring artists all from Chicago. Arguably the best part of the anthology is it's cover: a wraparound silk-screened suit that "unbuttons" to reveal the comic inside. The crowning touch is a hand-splattered splash of blood (red ink) on each issue. That Ivan Brunetti illustrated belly-band ain't bad, either!

Reviews in High Low / Brooklyn Comics & Graphics Festival

Rob Clough reviews a bunch of comics he picked up at SPX including "Old Man Winter & Other Sordid Tales", "Tales of Good Ol' Snoop Doggy Dogg" and "Losers Weepers #1" on High Low (click to read it).

He also reviews my table-mate Sophia Wiedeman's "My Terrible Tearable Heart", new comic friend L. Nichol's "Jumbly Junkery #7" and "J J #8", both of which I just picked up this weekend at the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival, as well as Julia Wertz's excellent "Legend of Rebob Mountain", Noah Van Sciver's depressingly funny eponymous mini comic and Jeff Zwirek's beautifully designed "Pinstriped Bloodbath" anthology of Chicago artists, all of which I also picked up at SPX.

The Brooklyn Comics & Graphics Festival was the first local fest that I haven't had a table at this year, and I was very upset by that fact. Of all the cons I've attended, this one seemed to jibe with my personal aesthetic the most. Nothing against traditional super-hero comics, but they're just not my bag and there were none to be found at this particular con. There were only about fifty or so exhibitors, and they seemed to all be really great. The place was packed the entire three hours I was there, and I almost couldn't make it to the next table without running into friends. There was no fee to get in, which undoubtedly helped combat the fact that it was sort of hailing outside.

I picked up some wonderful looking new (to me, anyway) comics at the con including a bunch of new ones from Matt Wiegle, an absolutely insane looking one called "I Want You" by Lisa Hanawalt that features lots of anthropomorphic animals wearing human clothing (one of my own favorite things to draw) and a new anthology featuring a two-pager about pigeons by yours truly. The anthology is called "SuperTalk", and it has pieces by some really really great artists that I've had the pleasure of working with in the past.