New friend of Same Hat (and scarily-talented illustrator) Jillian Tamaki wrote about our bestie and Electric Ant #2 cover artist, Hellen Jo in the latest issue of BUST MAGAZINE:

Pick up a copy to check this out, where Jillian writely describes Hellen's comics as "brash, cinematic, and deftly tempered by a delicate, virtuosic technique…"   HIGH FIVE HELLHELL!

As we mentioned earlier, Marvel is going ahead with a second 3-issue series of their STRANGE TALES, a series similar to DC's Bizarro Comics, where indie & web cartoonists tackle superheroes. They've posted some sample pages from the new series, including a lush Dazzler page by Jillian Tamaki, and a trippy page from (Electric Ant #2 contributor) Dash Shaw's Spiderman story and Frank Santoro's Silver Surver. The first issue comes out tomorrow, with two more in the coming months. Can't wait to see what Jon Vermilyea did with his pages!

Our own rising comet of talent, Michael DeForge was nominated for the Best Emerging Talent award as part of Canada's annual Doug Wright cartooning awards. The winners will be announced the Saturday night of Toronto Comics and Art Festival in May.

Thanks to GR2 clerk and cool dude Seth Nemec for the nice mention! Giant Robot has been super supportive of Electric Ant since the beginning (and Eric Nakamura even contributed a great piece for the inside back cover of Issue #1!)

Electric Ant Issue 2: Exquisite Corpses

Edited by Ryan Sands

This book is good but it’s no GFTG3. It has a pretty good crew of artists in it. Calvin Wong, Hellen Jo, Ted May, Michael Deforge, Lisa Hanawalt, Kazimir Strzepek, and Harvey James are in there. I’m in there too at some point.  Electric Ant is a perfect-bound zine with articles and photos in it but I only care about the drawings and the comics. If there were more drawings and comics it might have beat Lobo. Sidenote to Zine makers: Stop runnig low contrast photos in your black-and-white zine; they turn into a greyish sludge and look boring.

There’s a comic in here called “Planet X Rises” in which each cartoonist wrote and drew a page before handing it off to the next one. My contribution was to a series by various artists drawing their favorite scenes of violence from popculture. Harvey James drew the riot scene from early in Akira. I drew the scene from Road Warrior where Wez’s blonde boyfriend catches the metal boomerang in his forehead. Ted May drew Iron Maiden fighting the guy in the Eddie suit onstage. Then Hellen Jo, Calvin Wong and some other dudes collaborated on a drawing of Tom Hanks looking at his adult dong in Big while the skyscraper transfomer toy dances around in the background on fire.

Scott Green, the manga/anime reviewer for Ain't It Cool News posted about Electric Ant #2.

He said (among other things):

From the attention seizing Hellen Jo cover to the work throughout, Electric Ant features of a searing collection of exceptional artists who, if you don't know, you should.

Read the write-up here!

As a promotion for the movie, Vice and Where the Wild Things Are have put together a collection of indie comics/manga creators covering WTWTA imagery. The pamphlet was edited by our friend Johnny Ryan, and features a ton of our favorites (Electric Ant contributors in bold!):
Jordan Crane
Frederic Fleury
Ben Jones
Josh Simmons
Esther Pearl Watson
Mark Todd
Dan Zettwoch
Matthew Thurber
Benjamin Marra
Hellen Jo
Lar Merde
Lisa Hanawalt
Martin Ontiveros
Matt Furie
Nick Gazin
Ray Sohn
Ron Rege Jr.
Imiri Sakabashira
Sammy Harkham
Shintaro Kago
Skinner Davis
Ted May
Vanessa Davis
Tony Millionaire

Details on a new movie blog site,  or you can grab the whole PDF here .

I saw this news via Elio, looks like they are shutting down Nickeloedeon Magazine and laying off its staff of 30.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2009/06/my-entry.html

It's always a bummer when a good magazine goes down, but this is especially sad because Nickelodeon Mag published a LOT of indie cartoonists. This includes: Kim Deitch, R. Sikoryak, Karl Kerschl, Richard Thompson, Johnny Ryan, Laura Park, Michael Kupperman, Paul Hornschemeier, Sara Varon, Tom Gauld, Aaron Renier, Jason Shiga, James Sturm, and Mike Mignola. Probably lots others too...

As a last hurrah (perhaps?), they've just put out a 3d Comic Book featuring a cover by Laura Park and comics by a bunch of folks (including Kupperman). The 3d was done by that dude Ray Zone. I'm gonna try to get my hands on this.

So where are the remaining print venues for gags and cartoonists? Seems like... Vice, Arthur, and Giant Robot?

 

I'm so proud I could cry!

The good people at the Chicago Tribune (and the South Florida Sun Sentenial?) have bestowed upon Germart perhaps the greatest of honors.

Don't let us lose against the likes of "Songs for Gay Dogs".

Vote now for #4!