Tuesday Tease

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Tuesday Tease: Once Upon a Time Machine vol. 2

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The book that brought Locust Moon together is coming back with a sequel! Once Upon a Time Machine began as a grassroots, pie-in-the-the-sky idea for an anthology by a bunch of folks trying to break into the industry (helped out by a few of our favorite artists, including Brandon Graham, Jill Thompson, Khoi Pham, & Todd Klein). It was picked up by Dark Horse and published as a big, beautiful, Harvey-nominated book – and inspired Chris, Josh, and I to keep doing whatever we could do to make more comics. That’s how Locust Moon Press was born.

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Now we’re working with Dark Horse again on Once Upon a Time Machine vol. 2 – and where the first book took us on a time-bending tour through world folklore and mythology, this second volume focuses on bringing one specific pantheon into the future: the Greek gods.

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Gideon Kendall and I tackled the myth of the high-flying Icarus and his father Daedalus – whose future counterparts build a (titular) time machine and test the limits of discovery in a whole new way.

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I won’t spoil it here, but I can’t help but mention that there is one particular page in this short story that marks my proudest moment in comics collaboration to date – I think Gideon and I were right on the same wavelength, and made something really special, particularly in that one moment.

Gideon Kendall is just a fantastic artist and storyteller, in case these few peeks aren’t enough to tell for yourself. If you want to see more of his work right away, check out his gross and wonderfully imaginative comic Whatzit.

– Andrew Carl

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Tuesday Tease

Prometheus Eternal Cover frontToday we’re sharing a beautiful page from a book that’s been a true gift for us.

Prometheus Eternal is a 24-page comic (with, really, 28 pages of content – not even an inside cover goes unused!) that represents the first collaboration between the historic Philadelphia Museum of Art and little old Locust Moon. Just a few months ago now, the Museum called us in to see if we could conjure up some kind of project to tie into their fall exhibition, a collection of art that seemed to share deep connective tissue with the modern heroics of comic book superheroes. They didn’t even realize, at first, that comics re-exploring mythology and calling back to classic historical art were precisely our specialties.

And what followed was an exhilarating ride – we managed to (successfully!) wrangle some the best folks working in comics, including a few legends with whom we’d never had the chance to work before. By turning the project into a miniature anthology, we could make the turnaround time as feasible as possible (even if it was still dangerously tight), given that no creator would be on the hook for more than 5 pages of work. But we also, then, had to keep all that many more plates spinning at once, with no room for error. And, one way or another, we actually did it. The comics were delivered from the printer directly to the Museum just in time to go on display and into the gift shop. And they are beautiful.

The exhibition, “The Wrath of the Gods,” opened this past week. And displayed there, right alongside works by Michelangelo, Titian, and the centerpiece Prometheus Bound painting by Peter Paul Rubens, you’ll find a readable copy of Prometheus Eternal. (Of course there are copies for sale, too.)

The artists in this book all refer back to Rubens, to his mythical subject Prometheus, and to the grand tradition of using art to capture mortal defiance of and punishment by the gods. Grant Morrison & Farel Dalrymple, Dave McKean, Andrea Tsurumi, David Mack, Josh O’Neill & Lisk Feng, and James Comey all wove their own Promethean tales, while Paul Pope, Bill Sienkiewicz (with his front and back covers), and Yuko Shimizu contributed paintings and illustrations inspired by Prometheus and Bound.

So here is “A Portrait of Prometheus Sans Titan” from Yuko Shimizu:

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Tuesday Tease

This week’s special TUESDAY TEASE goes out in honor of all those who’ve backed, supported, and spread the word of our insane LITTLE NEMO: DREAM ANOTHER DREAM Kickstarter campaign. We’re halfway through, and thanks to all the wonderful comics fans who’ve found us so far, we’ve raised an outright astounding $90,000!

Calvin Reid at Publishers Weekly wrote a great piece on the book & success of the campaign today, for which we unveiled another beautiful page from DREAM ANOTHER DREAM: CRAIG THOMPSON‘s! Craig (Blankets, Habibi) is a pillar of modern American cartooning, and one artist (among many!) that we are absolutely honored to have take part in this project. Here’s his page!

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Now, over on the Kickstarter site, I’ve written a lengthy update to give backers a look behind the scenes at what goes into something like this (and what we get out of it) from a financial standpoint, so go read that if you haven’t yet and are at all interested: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1576907254/little-nemo-dream-another-dream/posts/904343

The ultimate point of that post is to explain and announce our campaign’s brand-new STRETCH GOAL: if our campaign hits $125K before it’s through, we’ll be able to add on some beautiful new stuff to people’s rewards. A big bookmark from FAREL DALRYMPLE, a print of GERHARD’s majestic introduction to Slumberland, and an exclusively crazy 3D print of DENIS KITCHEN’s Little Nemo strip (colored by BOX BROWN)! Take a look:stretch125-bookmarks stretch125-prints

So that’s what we’re shooting for now. And we hope that everyone — current, future, and even never-backers who just care about cool things — will help us keep spreading the word about this book. On social media, in person, over fax and through plastic cup telephones. Let’s make sure everyone hears about this book now, when there’s a chance to get all this awesome stuff with it (if you haven’t seen all the rewards at the Kickstarter page yet, check it out — what’s pictured above is only the tip of the iceberg!).

– Andrew Carl

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Tuesday Tease

The topic of the month? Little Nemo. We thought we’d unveil a new page for you in celebration of the humblingly successful first 24 hours of the LITTLE NEMO: DREAM ANOTHER DREAM Kickstarter!

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James Harvey, editor of the rather absurdly perfect (or perfectly absurd) BARTKIRA project and artist/writer of the upcoming Image title PLANET PLANET, blew our minds with this stunningly ambitious, lovingly faithful take on Little Nemo for DREAM ANOTHER DREAM. Watch where the clown tells you to start reading — this thing reads left to right, doubles back on itself, arcs over the Flatiron building, peeks in at the First Second offices then plunges through the pavement into the subway.

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James also put an astonishing amount of thought into replicating the turn-of-the-century New York Herald’s then-cutting-edge color processes — these colors are formatted as three plates, as McCay’s strips would have been. The love and talent and invention on display here are obvious. And of course, it took a Brit to craft the most iconically New York strip in our book of tributes to an iconic New Yorker.

But the rest sure are pretty, too!

It’s been a little while since our last Tuesday Tease, but between Locust Moon’s unofficial westward expansion and our preparation of a certain Kickstarting book, we’ve all been pretty swamped. Apologies!

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Tuesday Tease

We’re more than ready for May to bring some summer along with it, and Andrea Tsurumi is going to help get us in the summer groove.

Our fourth issue of QUARTER MOON has been built around the theme of “underwater” comics. Andrea decided to make us a part-comic, part-instruction-manual on going under.

Here’s the first spread from “How to Pool.” Remember this advice for the months ahead:
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In our last Tease, we gave a glimpse of Mike Sgier’s story for this same issue. I think this one’s going to be good competition for Quarter Moon’s best issue yet.

– Andrew Carl

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Tuesday Tease

QUARTER MOON #4, due out next month, is our “underwater” issue. This one’s got stories ranging from melancholy to existential, hilarious to absurd, from the likes of Andrea Tsurumi, Rob Woods, Daniel Elisii, Dave Proch, and Mike Sgier.

We thought you might enjoy a peak at one of the stars of Sgier’s tale — the bright light in the darkest depths, the savior, the wondrous Maka:

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You’ll see more of Maka — among other ocean spirits — in “The Drowned Man” by Mike Sgier, in QUARTER MOON #4.

-Andrew Carl

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Tuesday Tease

Maris Wicks and Joe Quinones are one of our favorite working couples in comics. Their work seems to always bring a smile with it, whether they’re teaming up or going solo on books like FF, Primates, Wednesday Comics, Batman ’66, or Spongebob Comics. 

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So we’re super proud to welcome them into the Locust Moon family for LITTLE NEMO: DREAM ANOTHER DREAM!

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They’ve collaborated on one of the most charming strips in our tribute to the great Winsor McCay, complete with a certain hungry dinosaur who’ll end up printed about a foot tall on these broadsheet-sized pages!

To show any more would spoil the fun. But needless to say, a certain dinosaur’s appetite is very well documented. You’ll see!

– Andrew Carl

By the way, we’re keeping this list of Nemo names updated with most of the contributors we have publicly announced – so check it out if you’re wondering who else has signed up! And our first revealed pages from the book can be found here.

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Tuesday Tease

With the announcement of three new contributors to LITTLE NEMO: DREAM ANOTHER DREAM, the least we could do was share a panel from one of these guys’ pages for the book.

So here’s how DAVE CHISHOLM‘s loving (and in this case, wonderfully destructive) marriage of comics and music kicks off:

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And it’s all downhill — for Nemo, but certainly not for us — from there…

– Andrew Carl

By the way, we’re keeping this list of Nemo names updated with most of the contributors we have publicly announced – so check it out if you’re wondering who else has signed up! And our first revealed pages from the book can be found here.

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Tuesday Tease

Special treat this week: another page for you from our biggest labor of love, LITTLE NEMO: DREAM ANOTHER DREAM!

Toby Cypress has wowed us consistently, from the epically badass RODD RACER to his newest, killer series from Dark Horse, THE WHITE SUITS. Toby came by the store last week to celebrate the release of THE WHITE SUITS’ first issue (of which we still have some signed copies – get one!), and we had a grand old time. He also pitched in on our little anthology mag QUARTER MOON to provide one of our favorite covers to date. We can’t get enough of this guy.

So enjoy the glorious, beautiful insanity of Nemo’s dreams unbound in Toby’s vision of Slumberland:

LittleNemo_LocustMoon_TobyCypressToby will be selling prints  – and if you’re lucky, maybe even the original art! – of his NEMO contribution soon, so look out for those at the Out of Step Arts website.

Here’s a glimpse of that original art in progress, which Toby shared with us:

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And remember, you’ll see that beast among good company this fall in LITTLE NEMO: DREAM ANOTHER DREAM. News on how and where you can reserve your copy of the book will be coming before you know it.

– Andrew Carl

By the way, we’re keeping this list of Nemo names updated with most of the contributors we have publicly announced – so check it out if you’re wondering who else has signed up! And our first revealed pages from the book can be found here.

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Tuesday Tease

Today we’re announcing yet another addition to our biggest, craziest, for-the-history-books-est book, LITTLE NEMO: DREAM ANOTHER DREAM.

COLE CLOSSER has weaved a beautiful, poetic, colorful, and intricately rendered revisit to McCay’s slumbering world. Here’s as much as we can show you now:

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We discovered & met Cole Closser at last fall’s SPX, where he was showing off his wonderful new book from Koyama Press, LITTLE TOMMY LOST: BOOK ONE.

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As you can probably tell, Cole’s dark, early-20th-century newspaper strip pastiche made him the perfect person to ask about participating in our tribute to McCay’s work — and Cole did not let us down, not one bit.

– Andrew Carl

By the way, we’re keeping this list of Nemo names updated with most of the contributors we have publicly announced – so check it out if you’re wondering who else has signed up! And our first revealed pages from the book can be found here.