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Thursday, October 29, 2009

Stuff of Life a YALSA Nominee



The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) has nominated The Stuff of Life as a "2009 Great Graphic Novel for Teens." Says YALSA's website:

"The list of 53 titles, drawn from 154 official nominations, is presented annually at the ALA Midwinter Meeting. The books, recommended for those ages 12-18, meet the criteria of both good quality literature and appealing reading for teens."

Thanks to Steven Stwalley for the heads-up, and thanks to Tom Spurgeon for showcasing Stuff's beautiful cover here.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

For You Kill Bill Fans Out There...

Thanks to Miguel Vasconcellos for scanning and sending me this sketchbook drawing I did in San Diego this year. God bless themed sketchbooks.


Punch for higher resolution

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Fallcon Fotos 2009

Convention neighbor and collaborator Gene Ha

The convention floor

Verily, only the worthiest may lift yon mighty hammer!

The closest safe distance from Lord Vader and his entourage

The drawing I later bought from...

...Brittney Sabo.

Jin "Little Jin" Cannon meets Gene "Big Jin" Ha.

Peter Gross wearing his new adjustable reading glasses. And holding a Gene Ha drawing of Phantom Girl (for his Legion of Superheroes fangirl daughter).

Ryan Kelly

Paul Fricke

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

24 Hour Comics Day EXPOSED

Check out Sarah Morean's great video of this year's 24HCD event in Minneapolis. Watching the documentary made me regret missing this year's event, but at same time I'm glad that I didn't set out the welcome mat to H1N1 like Sarah did.



Read the completed comics at the official Minneapolis 24HCD site! Zachary Garrett's wonderful watercolor strip particularly caught my eye. Congrats, everyone!

Friday, October 09, 2009

Kevin and Zander Cannon at FALLCON 2009!

Surely everyone in the Twin Cities knows about the MCBA's FallCon, the best local comic convention ever.

This year, both of us will be in attendance, though not on the same day. Zander will be there on Saturday (coming in at 11 due to a previous engagement) and Kevin will be manning the booth on Sunday. We will have comics, minicomics, ultra-secret previews of upcoming comics, and originals, and Zander will be doing sketches. We will be accepting credit cards on Saturday.

Come for the guy dressed as 1960s Batman, stay for the 25 cent bins! Oh, and don't forget to bring your copies of HATE and ATARI FORCE; Pete Bagge and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez are gonna be there!

Watch this space, there will be moblogging of the event, you can be sure.

Monday, October 05, 2009

Zander Cannon's 2009 12-Hour Comic!

It's true, the pressures of having a child have caused me to dial back my output and led to this year's mere 12-hour comic, "The Mysterious Skeleton".

I completed it in the same manner as a 24-hour story, deciding the genre beforehand (a spooky mystery) and then drawing a Pictionary card to determine the plot points. The words this year were:

Skeleton (lucky draw!)
Gong
Fingerprint
Drought
Black Eye

I also had a cast of characters I had to name, so I drew another card for that:

Centipede
Earmuff
Amputate
Reporter
Pothole

The comic was completed in 12 hours, 1 hour per page. I wrote, pencilled, and inked each page before moving on to the next one in order to keep on schedule.

The result is obtained by clicking the link:



I also changed the formatting of the book from the 5.5" x 8.5" I've done for 24 hour comics in the past to basically a 5.5" x 5.5" format, where each page is half as wide and one-third as tall as an 11 x 17 sheet of paper--that's 6 pages on each side. That way I can photocopy a 12-page minicomic on one sheet of paper. No one ever said Zander Cannon wasn't thrifty!

There are also a bunch of names in this comic that are homages to friends and people who have interesting names: Jesse Gillespie, Alice McGee, Jason Horshaw, Danno Klonowski (nee Ochsendorf), Tom Nguyen, Shawn Van Briesen, Ryan Dow, Lupi McGuinty, and my grade school gym teacher, Mr. Udovic.

Many thanks to Steve Stwalley and David Steinlicht for their camaraderie during the event!

Friday, October 02, 2009

Reviews A-Plenty*

People keep writing reviews, so we'll happily keep posting them!

First up, a great review of Big Funny from Mark McGinty, our friend at The Boogle.



Next, a Far Arden review from Rain Taxi, which is notable because it's IN PRINT. That's right, a rare ink-on-paper review. You can pick up a free copy around town, or better yet go to Rain Taxi's annual Twin Cities Book Festival happening October 10th at the MCTC cafeteria. BTA has proudly manned a booth there for years, but unfortunately we have to miss this year because of a vortex of scheduling conflicts. But you should go, as it showcases everything awesome that's happening in the local literary scene, from poetry to comics to novels to children's literature.



Next up is a review of A Time to Thrill from Adrean Clark at Comics Bento. Thanks, Adrean!




* As opposed to "Reviews A-Pawlenty," which makes no sense.