Dunno if we had a thread about this before, I haven't been here for a loooonnng time but it's pretty important...Alvin Buenaventura, publisher of Buenaventura Press and latterly Pigeon Press, was found dead a couple of weeks back. He put out some milestones in modern "art" comics, not least the big Kramers Ergot 7 he's pictured with and of course Kramers 4. He published Lisa Hanawalt's first pro books, took over the great Comic Art magazine and edited The Believer comics page. And Boys Club too featuring our favourite Pepe...Pigeon Press put out some great stuff too; all in all a sad loss.
Then last week I see that Sparkplug Comics
have stopped publishing and are unloading their catalogue to Wow! Cool...what the fuck, /co/? Do any of you give a fuck about this shit? Tim Hensley posted pics of the galleys of his Alfred Hitchcock book that was to be put out by Pigeon, it looks amazing and if that fails to see the light of day I for one will be gutted...
literally who
and literally who cares
not enough people here care about good comics to discuss this. case in point >>80559554
but boy howdy if you were discussing how the sjws are ruining cape comics you'd have yourself a heck of a thread, OP.
Isn't the whole point of independently-produced comics is to have loose ties with interchangeable publishers?
>>80559579
Y'know, I thought, hoped and prayed that /co/ may have changed for the better in the 7 or 8 months I've been away...and it doesn't look like it. Thing is though, I see enough people in shelf threads with really decent, catholic collections so there ARE Anons who care about non Big Two/genreshit...
Also that Tim Hensley Alfred Hitchcock book looks amazing, it's completely finished (I know it contains the Hitchcock strips from the last Mome but the rest is all original content) so I'm really, really hoping it finds a home stat.
Thanks for an intelligent reply.
>>80559554
Only the guy to publish some of the most literally game-changing "art" comix of the '00s...just google him, apparently loads of people care, not least Daniel Clowes (who was one of his best friends).
>>80559642
Yes but I think you may be missing the point a little bit, no disrespect intended Anon.
All else aside, that $100 Kramer's Ergot encapsulated, at the time, everything that was wrong with art comics. The sooner that thing is forgotten the better.
>>80559469
>Do any of you give a fuck about this shit?
Not really. His comics look like they're boring as fuck.
One less artsy fartsy "indie comix' hipster to push his shit upon the world.
>>80561100
>catholic collection
Sparkplug going under is a big disappointment, I mean I love Kramers Egot and there were still some things I wanted to by from them. Though what the fuck does the pope gotta do with this?
>>80562014
Dude "catholic" is basically a synonym for "eclectic"!
And Fanta are putting out the next Kramers, dope line up, new John Pham!--that cover, though!!!
>>80561942
Did it fuck, if anything it veered totally in the other direction from the "Kramers Brand" what with being packed to the gills with all the "stars" of alternative cartooning. For a start all the strips were mostly narrative based and not arty adventures in mark-making, it was basically straightforward story-telling and not crazy experimentation. Did you actually read the fucking thing?
>>80561966
More or less boring than cookie-cutter characters with exaggerated musculature going through the millionth iteration of the same old stories spouting the same cliched dialogue? Go back to your "who would win in a fight between Thor and The Hulk?" threads Anon.
>>80562543
Jesus calm down- your guilty conscience is showing. I was talking about presentation, not content. That book was like the comics equivalent of the new Wu-Tang album that no one gets to hear. The fact that it contained actual comics by high level artists just made it worse.
>>80559554
Fuck off capefag
>/co/ in charge of not being giant comic plebs
![6786_large[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/UmYClAg.jpg "6786_large[1].jpg")
>published Boy's Club
I blame /r9k/
>>80563873
Oh you were talking about PRESENTATION....Harkham and Buenaventura wanted to make something bg to harken back to the old early twentieth-century funny pages in size, make the readers feel like they were reading a modern day version of that. And god-damn if it didn't succeed. Not sure how that presentation equates to "what's wrong with alternative comics", though. Most small/micro presses have beautiful design and production values which purposely stand out from the staid look of mainstream comics. Shit, mainstream comics are STILL scared to even change a main COVER FONT from issue to issue in the fear that "the consumers won't recognise it!", like we're all too thick to realise it's the same comic with a different letterform for the title!
>>80562543
>Dude "catholic" is basically a synonym for "eclectic"!
Since when? Catholicism isn't about diverse tastes, it's about beating yourself up, feeling guilty, and making lots of babies.
>>80559469
>was found dead a couple of weeks back.HE CAN'T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH IT
>>80564098
SInce forever...look in a dictionary, Anon.
>>80559469
>was found dead a couple of weeks back.
Someone's picking off comic book creators.
>>80559469
>another indie shit bites the dust
Good
One less pretentious cockwipe in the world
>>80564073
What I didn't like about "art comics" (not "alternative comics" (nice misquote)), and still don't- is when they are fetishized as objects rather than as vehicles for the comics they contain. If someone wants to make a gigantic, limited editioin, ridiculously expensive comic, it's not normally going to be on my radar of stuff to care about, but when they fill it with never-to-be-reprinted work by Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, or whoever was in there- relevant stuff that normal people would like to read but basically can't- then the presentation rises to the level of "really annoying" and works against the content, which it should (for the most part, IMHO) serve.
this is a good thread
>>80564098
I think it comes from the era of the Catholic church just absorbing every pagen religion they could (hence Easter and Christmas)
alright OP I thought this was a good thread, but you are an insufferable elitist. Cape comics, genre comics, they can and are very good at times, and at times they aren't. They are not inherently worse or better than art comics. Get off your high horse you piece of shit.
>>80561100
>some of the most literally game-changing "art" comix of the '00s
So... nothing?
Absolutely nothing has "changed the game" since the fucking 80s.
>>80566317
It's probably from the time of Protestantism and their criticism of Catholics. In some protestant countries "catholic" even means "crazy"
>>80565113
I was being VERY SPECIFIC when I said "art comix". All art comics are alternative but not all alternatives are art comics. You made a fuck-huge generalisation there, Anon. Which, as someone who owns many, many "art" comix knows is completely wrong.You probably know that art comics are more concerned with mark-making and visual experimentation than coherent, straight-forward narratives, it wasn't supposed to be a misquote.
I don't think it's fetishisation at all, merely the desire to make a nice-looking object that stands out from the glut of homogeneous product--and, lets be honest here, art, alternative, whatever you wanna call them is where the real innovation in the medium is happening, not in genrestuff and certainly not in cape comics. So I think most of those comics live up to the "enticing" nature of their packaging. This is Kramers 7 and one of (maybe the?) last Pigeon Press releases. Fetishised packaging in Facility Integrity? I think not, just a pleasantly designed, funny comic.
>>80564261
Fuck off back to your "Batman vs so-and-so with no preptime" threads, ya fucking philistine
>>80566362
First off, if you're gonna start insulting me, fuck off. Secondly, my collection contains many cape/genre comics so calling me an elitist is plain bullshit. The only way I'm an elitist is that I like good, interesting comics. There's good and bad in all genres. I never said genrestuff is inherently better than alternative stuff, way to put fucking words in my mouth. Fuck you.
>>80566911
D'ya read many comics, Anon?
>>80566952
I don't know the etymology of the word as meaning eclectic...but it IS in the dictionary! I'm buggered as to why we're having this argument......
>>80566362
Btw, these are my latest "non-alternative" purchases
>>80570290
Ooops...didn't mean to post upside down...but you get the picture, right?
Elitist, pftf
So this guy created pepe?
And he's only posted here because /sp/, /pol/ and /r9k/ spammed pepe reaction images a few years ago and OP thought we cared?
>>80571172
No, Matt Furie created Pepe, Alvin Buenaventura published the comic (Boy's Club) from issue #2. I thought peeps might care because he, y'know, published some epoch-defining comics and an anthology that was compared to Raw. Y'know, nowt important or anything....
>>80568161
Well you're just a pretentious snob. The fun thing that comics are supposed to strive for is accessibility. Artists should want to make as many new editions as possible. Making a limited edition $100 book in this day and age is like mocking anyone who considers themselves a comic lover.
>can't afford the book
>no one will share the book
>the art will never be reproduced
And it's all our fault because superheroes are popular, not because many indie artists choose to limit who sees their work rather than face the shame of popularity by actually marketing themselves.
>>80573406
Your argument is fucking riddled with inconsistencies. What about rediculously overpriced "rare" variant covers and the like? Is that "mocking anyone who considers themselves a comic lover"? You want to apply one standard to perceived "elitist" comics and another one to supposed "populist" fare. Plus there are many, many small presses that only print in editions of 1000 or even less and don't charge a premium...Kramers 7 was obviously SUPPOSED to be an expensive collectors item. There's a certain cachet with things like that--the knowledge that they won't be reprinted, the cachet of owning etc--it's merely comic collecting culture applied to alternative stuff...if anyone's being pretentious, it's you.
I'm a snob, for sure but only for good (or interesting) comics. Capeshit, genreshit, artyshit, whatever, if it's good, it's good.
>>80573838
>What about rediculously overpriced "rare" variant covers and the like?
Not the guy you're replying to but
1. They usually don't go for $100 unless autographed
2. They're VARIANTS. Meaning there's a different, usually much cheaper version out there for you to get instead.
3. The price to hours of enjoyment of comics has always been fucked up. $100 dollars is roughly ten movies in theater. 100 if you Redbox it. That's.at least two video games, possibly more, each of which will likely give you ten hours of game play at bare minimum. That's 100 singles on iTunes.
I get that it's art and maybe a conversation starter but c'mon. You HAVE to expect a tag like that to be a barrier.
>>80574048
If MOST alternative comics were highly priced collectors items then I get what you're saying but the fact is that for the same price as a say two Big Two floppies you could get on average three to four times as much content from one "alternative comic". The last issue of Kramers was, what, 12 quid? 7 was a SPECIAL PROJECT which likely bankrupted Buenaventura Press! Out of a print run of 3000 a third of those were lost in a warehouse flood! It wasn't about money it was about pure love for the medium, plain and simple, and if you can't respect that, well, go buy Fortuna 500 and be a hedge fund manager or some shit.
>>80573838
I don't have to buy a rare cover if I can find the same story with the regular cover. I can't help it that other people choose to buy variants as much as I can't help that you'll pay $100 for one book that should've been half that. The truth is that you're being cheated by people who don't have a corporate middleman to hike their prices for them.
>>80575547
No, I just recognise and support someone who's trying to do something different purely for the love of the medium and not for profit. Yes, it's noble. Yes, it's a romantic notion. But people like Alvin stood up to be counted--like Dylan williams, the Sparkplug publisher. These dudes who toil away putting out comics they believe in, they're lucky if they break even but they're furthering the medium utterly unbound by notions of "what comics should be"...such iconoclasm deserves to be supported, too right I support the fucking underdog, Chris Ware was putting out Acme since the mid nineties, how long did it take for mainstream comics to start assimilating his innovations?! FUCKING YEARS. Now we have Samnee (?) using Ware-style layouts in Daredevil...buy what you want. I don't tell you what to buy, I'll drop 100 quid on a limited run comic if I want. And I tell you what, I'm fucking proud to own a piece of comics history! Same as my pre-Penguin Raw! They always ridicule the innovators....
>>80577304
Not Samnee, I meant Aja...
