NEW INDY COMIX!!

We've just received a batch of comics from Floating World Comics, one of the coolest shops in Portland, known for their diverse selection of underground and indy comix. Be sure to stop by if you ever find yourself in Portland!

DIAMOND #4

(W/A) Various

The latest issue of Diamond is here! Featuring a magical mystery cover by Michael Deforge and weighing in at 32 pages, this is the coolest one yet. More than ever, I feel this issue represents the friendships and collaborations that Floating World has been graced with the past couple years. Many of the contributors are artists I’ve worked with in previous art shows, animation fests, or have featured online at Arthur Magazine:

-Throne Boogie presents: DMTV ‘Death Trip’
-Derek Ballard shows us sci-fi porn from the future
-Al Columbia shares an incredible new painting, ‘Toyland’ as a full color centerpiece
-Igor Hofbauer sends urban tales from Zagreb, Croatia
-Tetsunori Tawaraya says hello from Japan
-Matt Lock presents his first ever comic!
Sweetest of all, this issue features 7 artists from Portland:
-Cody Brant & Dunja Jankovic set their guitars and drumsticks aside to collaborate on some collage comics action
-Jason Overby continues his ascension with “Meat Density/Tame Destiny”
-Aidan Koch has relocated to England, but we’re building bridges here
-Tim Goodyear shares his cult VHS reviews, just like watching a movie with the dude himself
-Dame Darcy, welcome to Portland!
-Blaise Larmee resurfaces after another successful plunge into the subconscious



DIAMOND #5

(W/A) Various

Edited by Jason Leivian and published by the fine folks at Floating World Comics – also located in Pittsburgh's west coast sister-city, Portland, OR – Diamond Comics has nothing whatsoever to do with the comics distribution behemoth of the same name (except, perhaps, a satiric jab), but is, rather, an excellent tabloid newspaper comics publication that provides a refreshingly bracing outlet/showcase for comics work that is focused on visual impact. #5 is the first ALL full-color issue, yet it remains priced at the super-value price of $3.00 that held through the first four issues (all of which have full-color covers and centerfolds). Artists featured in the latest issue include Benjamin Marra, Panayuitus Terzis, Michael DeForge and plenty more. Previous issues feature such contributors as Al Columbia (whose amazing full color centerspread for #4 is worth the price of admission), Dame Darcy, Jason Overby, Aidan Koch, Blaise Larmee, Dunja Jankovic, Josh Simmons, Marko Turunen, Nathan Fox, Luke Ramsay and many, many others! This newspaper is funded, at least in part, by a Kick Starter grant, which, presumably, enabled the full color printing.

THE CATERER

(W) Jeff Lint  (A) Brandon Sienkel

30 years after the spectacular collapse of Pearl Comics, a celebration of the cause of that collapse – Jeff Lint’s ‘THE CATERER’.

Described by Alan Moore as “the holy barnacle of failure”, The Caterer dragged Pearl into a legal hell when its hero spent the whole of Issue 9 on a killing spree in Disneyland. The smirking Jack Marsden became a cult figure and role model for enigmatic idiots in the mid-70s. His style and catchphrases were such an insider code that hundreds of people got beaten up by baffled or enraged onlookers.

He was a singular character for SF author Jeff Lint who, at a loose end for money in the mid-seventies, was hired by the fledgling comics company Pearl to come up with a launch title. His main contribution to the short-lived Pearl Comics was the baffling action strip The Caterer. Illustrator Brandon Sienkel worked with Lint in those heady days: ‘The Caterer was a strange one – he didn’t have any special powers, he was this blond grinning college kid as far as I could make out. He sometimes pulled a gun …But it was strangely hypnotic, I must say. We had fan mail.’

Floating World Comics has teamed with Lint biographer, Steve Aylett to present a reprint of Issue 3: this stand-out issue includes the beginning of Marsden’s goat obsession, a fierce appearance by the ghostly Hoston Pete, a great example of the Marsden ‘stillness’ and no less than four classic Marsden hallucinations. The leaning Chief Bayard’s preoccupation with our hero results in the violent deaths of six people, and Jack delivers his infamous ‘lipstick for dogs’ diatribe.