Night Train, Sean O’Brien & Birtley Aris (Flambard Press) £9.99 Night Train’s horizontal format seems chosen merely to accommodate the train-scape panoramas drawn in black and white by Birtley Aris, an important part of the “poet-artist’s sketch-cum-notebook,” but ultimately the less satisfying half of the collaboration. His drawings are good and they do reflect the [...]
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British Limiteds, Part 2
David Blamires, The Books of Jonah (Incline Press) £20 (£15 w/o insert poem) This letterpress-printed short book was published in a limited edition of two hundred numbered copies to commemorate a special exhibition at Chetham’s Library in Manchester, England. The Books of Jonah contains Blamires excellent thumbnail history of the Jonah story in print and image, [...]
Super Underachievers
Superf*ckers, James Kochalka. (Top Shelf Productions) $14.95 Kochalka’s irrelevant superheros smoke superdrugs, experience mostly unconsummated superlust, supercurse and superfight each other in multiple dimensions. The book is set at the Superf*ckers’ headquarters and its nearby surroundings, and is divided into several chapters as the story was first published serially as a Top Shelf comic book. [...]
Hope Isn’t: A Conversation with Tom Neely, Part 2
In this, the second half of our interview with Los Angeles cartoonist Tom Neely, Illustrator Geoff Gossett takes the role of lead questioner, as we learn more about Neely’s art and process. Neely will be featured at the Silver Lake Jubilee, a Molossus partner event, at the Jubilee Comix Showcase. Read the first half of our [...]
Hope Isn’t: A Conversation with Tom Neely, Part 1
Tom Neely is a painter and cartoonist living in Los Angeles with his wife and a dog. His art has been featured in galleries in San Francisco and Los Angeles, in dozens of magazines and literary journals and on album covers. His debut graphic novel, The Blot, earned him an Ignatz Award for “Promising New [...]
Our Mighty Muscles Salute the Sun: An Excerpt from The Troll King by Kolbeinn Karlsson
The Troll King will be released in April. Kolbeinn Karlsson was born in 1982 and lives in Uppsala, Sweden. From 2006 to 2007 he was a student at Kvarnby School of Comic Arts in Malmö. During this time he self-published several mini-comics, which earned him a reputation as one of Sweden’s most original cartoonists.
Joy by the Shovelful: Javier Mariscal
Drawing Life, Javier Mariscal (Phaidon) $69.95 Javier Mariscal is and has been Spain’s leading artistic everyman since he gained international notoriety in 1992, when he created Barcelona’s beloved Olympic mascot, Cobi. It’s a simple, happy, stumpy, dog-like creature who, according to Mariscal’s new hardbound collection of work from Phaidon, seemed able to express the happiness [...]
The Literature of Justice
Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A., Mumia Abu-Jamal. (City Lights Books) $16.95 Abu-Jamal has been writing the same rhetoric for years, but he has avoided sinking into rote regurgitation by narrating the fascinating stories of his fellow inmates. His intelligent reasoning traces the birth of the Prison Litigation Reform Act, maps the prison-industrial-complex, [...]
Geoff Gosset on More Things Like This
The Editors of McSweeney’s have compiled a selection of art based on a simple premise: that each piece incorporates words to humorous effect. In his introduction Dave Eggers contends that after the 90s the line between fine art and comics was blurred, largely due to Raymond Pettibon’s success (who’s responsible for the more notorious Black Flag and Sonic Youth album covers).
…like a bird beating its wings over water: Sanskriti’s Ayyanar Sculpture Project
The renowned Tamil Nadu potters, who create traditional village figures and panels in their pottery at the Sanscriti Kenda in New Delhi, packed up a selection of their work to send to a major exhibition in Paris.
Molossus Los Angeles: Lucha VaVoom
As a Los Angeles-based publication Molossus is proud to showcase the best cultural events in the last city, as well as important events elsewhere around the world. Future coverage will include the forthcoming Serenade Sunset series, the Poetry Translation Centre’s UK Mexican Poetry Tour, and more. Past coverage has included Skylight Books readings by Paul [...]
Geoff Gossett on Canadian & Japanese Comics
Essex County is a fantastic collection of stories by Canadian artist Jeff Lemire about a fictitious group of people in the Lemire’s real hometown in Ontario.