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The Locust Moon Top 40: June 2014 – Nemo Edition

This is the space where we usually spotlight 40 amazing things from the last month — adorable cat videos, cheesy songs we can’t stop listening to, and COMICS COMICS COMICS. For the month of June, we’ve decided to do something a little bit different.

If you’ve been anywhere in our general vicinity or exist within nine degrees of separation from us on Twitter, you are probably by now aware of the epic Kickstarter campaign we’ve launched for our insane, Quixotic, 16″ x 21″ hardcover Winsor McCay tribute LITTLE NEMO: DREAM ANOTHER DREAM. This is one star-studded anthology — maybe the most star-studded comics anthology of all time — and there’s been a lot of press and attention on the big names who’ve come together to pay tribute to our favorite Sunday strip: the Paul Popes, John Cassadays, Michael Allreds, J.H. Williamses (and Yuko Shimizus and Bill Sienkiewiczes and Dean Haspiels and yada genius yada).

So we wanted to use this space to draw attention to 40 artists in DREAM ANOTHER DREAM whose names you may not know yet — cartoonists and illustrators whose work is stunning, beautiful, restlessly inventive, original and bold, but who haven’t yet achieved the name recognition of the people mentioned above. One of the things we love most about LITTLE NEMO: DREAM ANOTHER DREAM is that it combines the biggest artists of its day with the biggest artists of tomorrow. Here, in no particular order, are forty folks you should be hearing a lot about in the next few years.

Note: click on any artist’s name to get to his or her website and see more.

40. RAUL GONZALEZ. Raw and refined. Sweeter than sugar, harder than real deal moonshine.
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39. BODIE CHEWNING is, quite simply, one of the most talented people out there. If only we could get him to draw more than six pages a year…
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38. Master of puppets JENNA TROST charms and creeps in equal measure.
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37. DAVE CHISHOLM slings a pen and a trumpet the exact same way — like he invented the thing, and he’s gonna show you what it can do.
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36. With a precise cartoonist’s eye, KATIE MOODY turns stories upside-down, inside-out and back again.
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35. BISHAKH SOM‘s mind-bending architecture, gentle characters, and inviting colors can keep us staring for hours.
bishakhsom Continue reading →

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Kickstarting the Quarter Moon

Now being Kickstarted!

Locust Moon is undertaking a lot this fall, between the publication of QUARTER MOON #2: “Locust Man vs. Monster” and Rob Woods’ 36 LESSONS IN SELF-DESTRUCTION, the hosting of our second comics festival (at which both of those books are set to debut), and putting together all of various other comic projects we currently have in the works. That’s why we’re asking for a hand on QUARTER MOON – we’ve got a lot riding on October 2013, and we hope you can help us make it through in one piece!

Any little thing you can donate will earn our eternal thanks – but we’re not about to ask for money for nothing! We want to send you stuff in return like the book itself (naturally), the first issue of QUARTER MOON (“Silence”), signatures, sketches, and some special extra stuff thrown in from Locust Moon projects old (ONCE UPON A TIME MACHINE) and new (36 LESSONS).

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Pages from “Bow to the Wizard” by Bodie Chewning

QUARTER MOON #2: “Locust Man vs. Monster” will be 48 pages and contain 5 complete stories, by cartoonists Steve Lafler (Bughouse), Kate Farquhar (Zodiac & friends), Dave Proch (Once Upon a Time Machine), Bodie Chewning (IdN Extra 02: Neo York – Mightnight Sessions), and Daryl Seitchik (Smarter Child). It will also include 3 one-page strips by James Comey (American Monster Buffet), illustrations by Lindsey Wavrek & Steven Bradshaw, and exclusive peeks into the sketchbook of Farel Dalrymple (Pop Gun War, It Will All Hurt). Providing this issue’s cover – and title – is Ulises Farinas (Gamma, Catalyst Comix).

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The beginning of “A Hard Boiled Heart” by Dave Proch

Here’s a little breakdown of the main stories we’re going to be sharing with you guys:

Bodie Chewning‘s “Bow to the Wizard” or “Don’t Get Your Diapers in a Twist It’s Only a Cthuloid” stars a narcissistic Wizard who may need a little more help from his assistant than he thinks.

Dave Proch‘s “A Hard Boiled Heart” teaches us that underneath every hard shell is the wrong man who will go to the ends of the Earth for the right woman.

Steve Lafler will introduce us to an expat family in Oaxaca, where Steve currently lives. There’s a wannabe superhero Luchadora (female Mexican wrestler), an existential encounter with death, and a 2500-year-old vampire. Chickens are involved.

Kate Farquhar is uncovering some secret, fantastical histories of Philadelphia.

And Daryl Seitchik will take us on a semi-autobiographical jaunt through a cartoonist’s dreams.

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Page from “Oaxaca” by Steve Lafler

Like the first issue of QUARTER MOON, “Locust Man vs. Monster” will be partially in color and partially in B&W, depending on how each artist wishes to present his or her art.

But unlike the first issue, “Locust Man vs. Monster” has no single theme. The guys & gals are running wild here.

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1 of 3 prints by Lindsey Wavrek & Steven Bradshaw

QUARTER MOON #1, “Silence” (56 pages), spotlighted wordless comics from Charles Fetherolf, Alex Eckman-Lawn, Sophia Wiedeman, Jeremy Baum, Alexandra Beguez, Chris Stevens and Rob Woods, along with sketch pages by Farel Dalrymple and a wraparound cover by Jeremy Baum.

We hope you guys will help us out! We love the idea of getting this great work out into the world, and it’s really wonderful to see other people getting behind the idea, too.

See you in Kickstartland!