Marfed - Furry Comics

Already an exciting year for comics, July is poised to be even more so as Emma Rios and Brandon Graham put on their curator hats for a brand new collaborative project for Image. Launching the sci-fi fantasy series 8house, Graham alongside Emma Rios will be bringing together a diverse range of artists, writers, and illustrators for their new anthology project, Island. At over a hundred pages an issue, and printed in an oversized European format, the new “comics magazine for comics” will feature a unique mixture comics work, illustrations, prose and fashion spreads.

Farrel Dalrymple

Graham has always displayed a fascinating mix of influences in his own comics from graffiti art, porn comics, and both European and Japanese styles, it’s fitting to see this approach applied to an entire anthology. Promising to be a ‘stack of comics within a comic’, it’s one of those rare projects, with a real sense of “something for everyone” about it. A generous grab-bag of ideas and concepts from, among others, Gael Bertrand, Lando, Amy Clare, Michael DeForge, Kate Craig, alongside Ludroe, Jose Domingo, Johnnie Christmas, Fil Barlow, Simon Roy, E.K. Weaver, Lin Visel, also with Malachi Ward, Matt Sheean, Will Kirkby, Helen Mair, Marian Churchland (whose work will be a part of the aforementioned 8house arclight) and previous collaborator Farel Dalrymple whose work has featured in the revived Image title Prophet. With such a large pool of creators involved it’s almost guaranteed to do just that as well as introducing fresh and interesting talent to even the most well-read comics fan.

Even from such a wide range of creators, with my particular interest in all things anthropomorphic I’m personally looking forward to seeing the story that Onta, known predominantly for his adult work within the furry fandom, has contributed to the series sixth issue. Having been a fan of Onta’s work for many years I’m eager to see his work being introduced to a wider audience. His art style is cute, sexy and strikingly playful and I anticipate his more cheeky and tender adult work will fit in perfectly with the likes of Graham’s Multiple Warheads work.

Emma Rios

Among some of the other highlights on offer is Graham himself in the much anticipated return to the world of Multiple Warheads, after a few years absence. This time in colour, it will once again feature the exploits of Sexica and her werewolf partner, Nikoli as they forge ever onwards into their strange world. Having been inspired by his work on Pendleton Ward’s Adventure Time, Graham promises to delve even deeper into the pairs’ surroundings and explore the world beyond the viewpoints of the two central characters. Fellow curator Emma Rios, already a fan favourite from her ground breaking work on Kelly Sue DeConnik’s “Pretty Deadly” (also featured, contributing a prose piece no less!) is another story, that has piqued my interest. Featuring aspects of transhumanism and exploring the themes of identity and body image, ID is set around a group of individuals undergoing full body transplants and from the artwork previewed it looks gorgeous.

I managed to rope Brandon Graham into talking to Bleeding Cool about this special new project.

Emma Rios

Jason Karlson: Where there any creators or artists you had in mind right from the start when envisioning this project and starting to bring it together?

Brandon Graham: Yeah, certainly. One of the ways I stay excited about comics is digging around to find artists whose work excites me. On the book Prophet, I had a lot of fun digging up artists to present their work in the back. This feels like a much larger scale version of that.

There’s a lot of people making comics whose work I’m amazed by and just want to show other people- look at this amazing comic! There’s a couple creators in Island whose stuff I’ve followed for years but who haven’t really done much in Print. Like Lin Visel, whose online work is some of my favourite stuff, Effort comics and her Adult work on Slipshine.

JK: Will there be returning creators between issues?

BG: Yeah, I think that’s important. The idea is for every issue to have at least one returning story and one new story. So there’s both a reason to catch up on the next chapter of something and get something entirely new.

JK: What do you see as the risks in bringing together artists and writers so different from each other in the current marketplace?

BG: A big part of the creators whose work I’m putting in the book is that they gel together, there’s a feeling I’m aiming for. I feel like readers who like what I do or what Emma Rios or Farel Dalrymple do will like the other work in the book.

We’re even got work that influenced what I do into it. I managed to get a series from 1986 called Zooniverse that I first read when I was a kid. Fil Barlow, who made it is fixing up the pages for a new edition to run in Island. It’s one of my favourite comics ever made and a think it’ll be new to a vast majority of comic readers. As far as the current marketplace. I get this feeling that readers now are up for anything. Especially at Image. I keep joking that if I’m gonna try something stupid that right now at Image is the best place and time to do it.

Brandon Graham

JK: What drew you to the anthology format? They seem to be having somewhat of a renascence on kickstarter, but do you feel there is a lack of them on the shelves otherwise?

BG: It sounds dumb, but a lot of it for me is not thinking of it as an anthology. That invokes the idea of a bunch of 5 page stories, and that’s cool, but I want this to read more like a reader is getting a stack of full comics that are under one cover.

JK: Do you think anthologies like this play and important part in introducing readers to new creators, themes and artists they wouldn’t have previously known about or considered?

BG: Oh yeah, I think that’s a big part of my job here, to dig up interesting creators and see what they have to say. My high hopes are that it will help in the conversation about where comics can go. In the first issue I started a series of comics talking about how I think about comic storytelling. I like thinking about what you can do past basic storytelling. Also I’m really interested in seeing what happens when an Image book publishes a guy like Michael Deforge whose work is huge in the indie scene might not be known by a lot of Image readers.

JK: Island is billed as a mix of comics, illustrations and text pieces, do you think there is too much of a divide between the three, or an issue of what people commonly accept as “comics”.

BG: I think a lot of the divide might be the intent of the creators. I like the idea of letting some things not be comics. Not every great illustrator is going to do great panel to panel, and that’s ok. I still wanna see what they can do.There’s still storytelling in that. So far almost everything we’ve got in Island is made by a single creator. So when we bring in writers who don’t draw– like Kelly Sue in #1. I like seeing their prose work where there’s none of it being passed through another creator drawing it.

JK: You’re including the work of Onta, a furry artist whose work I love by the way, did it worry you at all about people’s possible knee-jerk reaction to “furry”? What drew you in particular to his work and are there any others you’d like to include in future issues of Islands?

BG: I’ve joked with Onta about how he’s done most of his work not only in furry comics but a lot of it gay furry porn, he’s not trying to get a job on X-men.

I think there’s a huge value in that. He’s doing the work about he’s most excited about -I have faith that readers will connect with that honestly and past that he’s just an amazing storyteller and illustrator. Yeah, there’s a lot of great work being done in that scene that you don’t often see on comic shelves.

Simon Low

JK: You’ve spoken previously about issues opening with pages of illustrations and about creators “doing what they like”, do you think too many comics are too rigid or structured in terms of themes and art currently?

BG: I think it’s a pretty great time for comics here in North America. That said, I think things could always be pushed farther or in different directions. I think a lot of great publishers and creators are moving in cool new directions. I love seeing what Image and Koyama and Nobrow and the like are putting out. It’s a vast art form with vast potential.

JK: What are you your feelings about returning to the world of multiple warheads after a few years of being away from it?

BG: Warheads is weird for me in that it started as a porn comic a million years ago. Returning to it feels like a way of rethinking how I feel about where I’m at with my work now as opposed to where I was when I started it. I got to work on the cartoon Adventure time this year (I co-wrote/boarded Jermaine with Jesse Moynihan), and it got me thinking differently about storytelling. They do a cool trick in that series where they often go off the main story to build on the outside world. I like the idea of allowing myself that same freedom in Warheads. But yeah, I also have a lot of other comics I wanna make for Island. Much to do.

“I have an ambitious need; I want to watch you destroy me. The fun part will be knowing that you won’t.”

One subject that I’ve already tackled a few times is how much I love the myriad of ways that anthropomorphism can be presented in comics and indeed, across other media. If the few posts I’ve made about furry comics so far prove anything it’s that there are countless ways to tackle subject or explore other subjects with it.

Rory Frances is another artist whose work I really love, and although he has a longer on going comic at the moment that I want to write about in the future,I really want to focus on his shorter comics and the personal interests he showcases in them. His works is currently being featured in the on-line video game mico-zine Zeal.

If you’ll excuse me going of on a tangent for a moment, you should really check out Zeal too! I’m not a video games fan by any stretch and still love the unique perspective they give on classic and “rarely discussed” games, showing new and strange ways of thinking about them. It’s an ethos I can completely get behind.

The comics presents a world with humans and ‘toon characters co-existing. I won’t focus or dissect the world too much as neither does the comic, Frances seems far more interested in focusing on the interactions of it’s characters. Boys Are Slapstick deftly delves into the idea of identity, especially in relationships and how partners perceive each other. Here it’s emphasised by certain characters being literal ‘toons. Safe and non threatening. I think maybe a lot of us can relate to this? That stage in a new relationship, the act of performance as you present yourself in the way you think the other person would like you to be. Even perhaps liking it? Not having to deal with the spikier, altogether more complicated and messy version of yourself.

Read it in it’s entirety over at the Mammon Machine: Zeal website along with his second contribution ‘Date Nite’. I was going to throw up the NSFW warning, which I guess it still might be if you think situations involving large cartoon mallets fall under that category…

When I wrote my first webcomics spotlight I featured two original anthropomorphic comics, however I eventually switched out one of them at the last minute for another comic. This spotlight hasn’t been featured on a website anywhere as at the time I was just getting back into writing and was hesitant to feature something that is a little more sexualy explicit then people might have ready for on bleedingcool. Consider that fair warning that the comics tumblr is very NSFW! Song of the Outcasts by Van Weasel Song of the Outcasts is a comic that stood out to me for both it’s treatment of anthropomorphism as well as it’s unique art style. Van Weasel presents a world in which a small portion of anthropomorphic citizens live among regular humans, referred to as ‘altered’. Once fashionable but now outlawed and shunned, it shows them eking out a meagre living on the fringes of society, presenting a tale of the rash decisions of youth and what happens when the music stops and party ends. The work of American artist Van Weasel who presents their post-humanist science fiction story through the eyes of Solomon, a young man born altered as he navigates life and with weighty themes of persecution, belonging and alienation. I was reminded of Robert Crumbs work in the unapologeticly fluid and grotesque depictions of the characters. Like plasticine models rendered in comic form, presented wrinkles and all. The frank and explicit sex scenes (no, wait! come back!) might not be for everyone but fit with the artwork, giving the whole comic the whole 70’s underground comix vibe. The artist also recently completed the hilarious high concept “Leather High”. It’s about as family friendly and not safe for work as you’d expect a comic called “Leather High” and if you have to ask what it is, it’s probably not for you.

“Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders”

There was an unexpected surprise waiting for me on my doormat today…

At first I thought it might be a kick-starter reward, but felt a little light to be any of the ones I’m expecting. Turns out it was a copy of Ian King’s graphic novel, Pies. Thanks in part to both long international shipping times and my terrible memory I’d entirely forgotten that I’d ordered it.

In the few articles I’ve written over the last half a year I’ve already mentioned rrufurr and the artists involved quite a lot. With my particular interest in the anthropomorphic side of comics and the sheer amount of talent on offer with these guys, I doubt this will be the last time either.

Ian King is another artist whose work I first encountered through the rrufurr but had been reluctant to order Pies after finding out it was completely and utterly wordless. Ridiculous I know, but for the price I wrongly worried it would be something I’d breeze through within a few minutes. It was only a fantastic praise filled review from Matt Healey over at Hooded Utilitarian and $30 sitting around in paypal, burning a hole in my digital pocket that finally persuaded me to order it. I’m a real sucker for a beautiful print edition, and without even tackling the story or artwork, Pies is gorgeously presented. Thick card stock, textured cover, sharp printing all make it a stunning graphic novel.

I won’t delve much into the story, only to say that the review I’ve linked above does it far more justice then I ever could but I will say that my initial worries about it being wordless are completely unfounded. It’s truly astounding in how it conveys emotions and evokes a distinct dreamlike feeling throughout.

Francis Marshall’s web-comic “Nonsense” recently went on a short hiatus, and it turns out that during this time he was working on another, more personal comic entitled Solstice. While I wouldn’t attempt anything like a longer more formal ‘review’, I still thought it was worth pointing out on here and I’ve been intending to post about it since it came out a few weeks back. Upon reading it back for a second time it struck me just how much it resonates with me.

Solstice features two avian characters meeting up and spending a day together after some time apart. Towards the end there is a definite sense of unease from one the pair, of not quite being in the moment. In knowing that this perfect moment will eventually end. I mentioned it to my partner, in broad strokes, explaining a little of the themes and the feel of it and “Oh! Just like us!” was his reply. He’s right, it does remind me of the beginnings of our relationship. The days of not having a place to ourselves, train, journeys and limited funds. Desperately trying to get the chance to get together and when we did that dreamy sense of time when it seems to both simultaneously pass you by too fast and stretch out forever.

It’s truly breathtaking when someone seemingly takes something from your own life and articulates it so perfectly and in solstice I think Francis has excelled in wonderfully capturing a universal, youthful experience that many, including myself will be able to strongly relate too.

A few years back at Anthrocon in Pittsburgh, I stumbled upon Epiphany and instantly found what I’d been searching for in anthro comics and artwork in general. I’ve followed his work ever since and have a lot of it displayed around at home including a Mountain Goats themed commission he did for my boyfriend.

Oh, and he did the header for this here blog…

Last year I finally got around to writing about his new comic.

Webcomic Spotlight: Ian Jay Hacks The Planet With 90’s Infused Anthro-Cyberpunk In Crossed Wires

Each and every single one of Ian Jay’s comic creations sounds like one of the greatest film that was never made, ever. The descriptions of each read like the fevered elevator pitch of some fresh-faced starry-eyed youngster who has grown up on a diet of the trashiest entertainment, 90’s nostalgia and a deep love of forgotten films. Comic worlds inhabited by gun totting robots, gangster piloted mechs and laser-firing wolves partnered with grizzled FBI agents, all armed with the perfect action movie one liners. You are kidding yourself if you didn’t want to see a hulking supernatural fluorescent rat declaring “I  couldn’t free your minds. But I can free your teeth!”

Jay is a graduate from Savannah College of Arts and Design  (with a B.F.A. in Sequential Art and a minor in Story boarding, in case you were wondering) who has  been producing comics online since 2005. Ranging from self published mini comics to webcomics,  including the bittersweet story of loss, Bunny, or the hilarious tale of obsession, Space Jam Man. Epiphany, his tale of religion, responsibility and errant slacker gods, started out as a  webcomic in 2008, becoming Jay’s longest running comic and eventually coming to an end in 2013 with a successful Kickstarter campaign which resulted in a print version of its entire run.

Returning to the world of web comics, Crossed Wires began in May this year with the first forty-five pages introducing us to Alan Winters, a geeky student by day and elite hacker by night who travels the  online world under the super cool alias of ‘Ultra Drakken’ complete with a katana-welding dragon avatar. From page one Crossed Wires jacks itself into the cyberpunk tradition drawing strong  inspiration from writer William Gibsonand influences from the criminally underrated 90’s  “classic”, Hackers. It’s a comic that should give a little bit of a nostalgic smile to the faces of those who recall a (slightly) more innocent time when people used the term “cyberspace”  frequently and un-ironically. Hacking and database cracking are visualised by frenetic samurai  sword fights and shoot outs, juxtaposed with more down to earth scenes of our ‘hero’ and his ramman chugging gamer entourage.

Like the rest of his comic work, Jay’s Crossed Wires is characterized by bold lines, animated figures,  playful monochromatic pop art colouring and smartly-paced action scenes,  this time firmly  entrenched in the visual language of video games.  Alex holds an everyday conversation about a mysterious girl at his college while battling through a first person shooter environment, complete with respawning and power up graphics, while others are set in vast kitch cyber landscapes. With superb art, retro futuristic stylings and lovable slacker characters, now is the perfect time to delve in to the first forty five pages ofCrossed Wires.