Sundays Anthology Debuting at MoCCA

The Sundays Anthology Blog is now up and running.

The Sundays Anthology, featuring a slew of talent from The Center for Cartoon Studies and the surrounding community, is going to be taking up the majority of my time over the next few weeks. I'll be part of a talented six-man editorial crew, including Alex Kim, Chuck Forsman, Joe Lambert, Bryan Stone and Jeff Lok. The book will be a beautiful, high-end mini, 11" x 17" with a nice screen-printed cover. It will feature broadsheet style Sunday comic strips, basically each creator creating their dream Sunday strip. There's already some great stuff in the works and done, including Ignatz-winner Ken Dahl thrilling us with a time travel strip that has some of the best phallic humor EVER TOLD.

The book will be for sale at MoCCA and I Know Joe Kimpel.

The Indie Spinner Rack dudes also talked to CCSers Adam Staffaroni and Chuck Forsman about the book during their recent visit. I believe that part of the interview, part three, will be up later this week. (Right now you can hear two-hour interviews from James Sturm and Steve Bissette, the masterminds of the CCS experience.)

So, bookmark the Sundays url for future upates, features on contributors and sneak peaks at some of the strips: http://sundaysanthology.com/

Thus ends the day's shameless hucksterisms. But, seriously, this book will be awesome. I mean, look at the logo done by co-editor Joe Lambert...

First Second Internship

So Heidi MacDonald just posted this on her blog, The Beat:

The winner of the first annual First Helpings Scholarship is Sean Ford, a student at The Center for Cartoon Studies. The announcement was made jointly by Mark Siegel, Editorial Director for First Second Books; James Sturm, Director of the Center for Cartoon Studies; and Matthew Murray, Editorial Director of The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. Ford won for his mini-comic entitled “Only Skin.”
“When looking at the submissions, ‘Only Skin’ immediately grabbed my attention, and the humor and playfulness in Sean Ford’s narrative kept me engaged,” said Siegel. “I continue to be really impressed by the quality of talent the Center for Cartoon Studies is spawning.”

Added Sturm, “Sean Ford is a talent to watch, and it’s no surprise that First Second has their eyes wide open.”

“One of the benefits of working at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art is participating in events like this, getting the chance to see the development of an artist’s career,” said Murray. “It was a pleasure to read all of the entries, and tough to have to choose one over the others. ‘Only Skin’ is a great read. I look forward to future works by such a talented storyteller.”

The scholarship is intended to give a young graphic novelist studying at the Center the opportunity to showcase his or her work and learn more about the publishing industry. Ford will be rewarded with a five day internship at First Second Books in New York; free admission to the MOCCA Arts Festival; a $100 gift certificate to the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art; and a one year membership to the museum. In addition, Ford’s work will be posted on the First Second website (www.firstsecondbooks.com), and his manuscript will be read by and receive editorial comments from Siegel.

Said Ford, “This is a shock and an honor. First Second is publishing some really interesting books right now that are helping to change people’s perceptions of what comics can be. It will be exciting to learn more about them in person. I can’t wait.”

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/05/10/1st-2nd-mocca-ccs-unite-for-scholarship/


Very exciting.

Only Skin Endpapers

Here are endpapers for Only Skin #1. The school version of the book is done, but there are many corrections and a new story to add for the MoCCA issue. I am happy to be done with the school version though. But, still, the MoCCA version will be better. And then comes issue two, which this image "hints at" as they say in the biz.

New Cover as the Semester Winds Down

Here's a new cover for Only Skin. It looks deceptively similar to the last one, but if you look closely you can see that the entire thing has been pain-stakingly re-drawn. I still have some corrections to make, but this is the general idea. It's a wrap around, the final version will also be poly-bagged and holo-foil cover with a special Only Skin Pog insert. There will also be Only Skin bubble gum.