Why, hello there.
It’s Wednesday, and that means it’s new comic book day at my shop.
Well, the books aren’t new, but the shop is.
Go to glenisip.square.site to get physical copies of Valentine’s Day, Kelly Ranger, and Create, Destroy, Repeat. It’s also your last chance to get the first printing of Four Worlds.
Exciting, huh?
With a beautiful Labor Day weekend finishing up in New York City, it’s time to take a look back at the summer, don’t you think?
June kicked off with me tabling at my first comics/book convention at the Filipino-American Comics and Book Festival. It saw the debut of not one, not two, but three print collections of my work. For those keeping score, those titles are:
For those of you who couldn’t pick up copies at the show, I’m happy to announce that you’ll soon be able to purchase each of them online through an upcoming shop. Expect more on that later in the month.
July and August saw me completing my first non-comics artwork in a while, which I’m calling “Lady in the Forest.” This was inspired by a vacation to the woods I took in June, though the execution took far longer than I expected. For the time being I will not be revealing the full artwork, the reasons for which I’m hoping to detail in a future blog entry on a subject that I’ve been meaning to address for a while. In the meanwhile, enjoy a few details:
In late August, Anime NYC 2025 saw me tabling again, this time at the Denpa booth. We debuted new books (March Comes In Like a Lion, vol. 4, as well as the first Under Ninja box set); were nominated for American Manga Awards (Short Game and They Were 11!, both in the running for “Best New Edition of a Classic Manga”); and hosted our mangaka Kengo Hanazawa (Under Ninja) for an autograph session at the booth. I even managed to hold my own again at the Denpa panel on Saturday night. I’m grateful to all the fans who showed up to the booth and expressed their support, and especially grateful to Hanazawa-sensei who roughed out a busy four days of panels, signings, and awards.
Here are a few shots of the Under Ninja box I designed to house the first 6 volumes of Hanazawa’s action comedy thriller:
So, what’s next on the horizon? Well, now that I’ve finally gotten everything else in order, I’m continuing on to the production phase of my next story, an as-yet-untitled medical drama set in the same world as Valentine’s Day. I’m also working on resetting a public domain book, offering a fresh layout for an older text. I hope to unveil that before the end of the year.
That wraps it up for now; with any luck there will be more news in the coming months!
Hello again! This Sunday, June 1, you’ll be able to find my work at the Filipinx-American Comic and Book Fest in New York City. This event features the print debut of three of my art projects: Four Worlds, Valentine’s Day, and the newly-arrived Kelly Ranger. Also available will be some remaining copies of Create, Destroy, Repeat.
Valentine’s Day tells the story of four knights defecting to a neighboring state. One final enemy lies between them and new lives, but can any of them defeat this new foe? And what are the consequences of victory? This one-shot contains the webcomic Valentine’s Day and its epilogue.
Four Worlds follows a hapless author as he travels through different realms of his own creation. Between the demons, monsters, gangsters, and the actual afterlife, will he ever find his way home? This book collects a single Inktober’s worth of illustrations.
Kelly Ranger sees a girl’s dream of becoming a fashionable, magic-wielding Princess of Justice thwarted when a magic crystal turns her into a masked superhero instead. Another collection of Inktober illustrations, with several new revisions to the art and story.
Create, Destroy, Repeat: A Comic Anthology of Rebirth and Redemption features eleven stories showcasing characters who face life-changing scenarios. My story Giver is included.
Also on display will be a copy of Trash 2 Transit, a comic I wrote and illustrated for Benchmark Education. The story follows three school-aged cousins who build themselves bicycles out of scrap metal. Will their creations lead to a transportation revolution? Find out here! Trash 2 Transit is designed for classroom use, so if you’re a teacher, pick up some copies over at Benchmark Education.
The Filipinx-American Comic and Book Fest will be held on the same day as the Philippine Independence Day Parade: Sunday, June 1, 2025 from 12:30 – 5:30pm at Coppa Nomad, 21 East 27th Street, New York City. Admission is free.
Hello there! In less than two weeks you’ll be able to find my work at the Filipinx-American Comic and Book Fest in New York City. This event features the print debut of two of my art projects: Four Worlds and Valentine’s Day. Also available will be some remaining copies of Create, Destroy, Repeat.
Valentine’s Day tells the story of four knights defecting to a neighboring state. One final enemy lies between them and new lives, but can any of them defeat this new foe? And what are the consequences of victory? This one-shot contains the webcomic Valentine’s Day and its epilogue.
Four Worlds follows a hapless author as he travels through different realms of his own creation. Between the demons, monsters, gangsters, and the actual afterlife, will he ever find his way home? This book collects a single Inktober’s worth of illustrations.
Create, Destroy, Repeat: A Comic Anthology of Rebirth and Redemption features eleven stories showcasing characters who face life-changing scenarios. My story Giver is included.
Also on display will be a copy of Trash 2 Transit, a comic I wrote and illustrated for Benchmark Education. The story follows three school-aged cousins who build themselves bicycles out of scrap metal. Will their creations lead to a transportation revolution? Find out here! Trash 2 Transit is designed for classroom use, so if you’re a teacher, pick up some copies over at Benchmark Education.
But that’s not all! There will be a fifth entry at the fair, a new revision of an existing collection. Learn more in the coming weeks!
The Filipinx-American Comic and Book Fest will be held on the same day as the Philippine Independence Day Parade: Sunday, June 1, 2025 from 12:30 – 5:30pm at Coppa Nomad, 21 East 27th Street, New York City. Admission is free.
Happy to announce that I’ll be releasing Valentine’s Day as my first self-published book. The physical edition will be 32 black and white pages containing the original story as well as the three-page epilogue. More details about availability will be coming soon, but the book will likely be a small print run, made available in Q1 2025. I’m just excited to make good on a soft New Year’s Resolution of mine (from 2024, whoops), which was to print at least one book.
Valentine’s Day is story of four soldiers who defect to a foreign nation, only to discover one final, deadly obstacle in their way. Their fate will reveal an unlikely hero and a valuable lesson. The entire comic is available to read, for free, right here and now, though only until February 14, 2025.
I’m also planning to release a second book before the end of 2025. Not much I can say about it except it will be another self-published collection of my art from my Instagram page.
Quite recently there was yet another decision in the case of Hachette Book Group Inc et al v. Internet Archive, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 23-1260. This case came about from Internet Archive’s unlicensed scanning and lending of copyrighted material from many major U.S. book publishers, which is questionable to begin with, but especially egregious during 2020, when Internet Archive allowed thousands of users to access any given book simultaneously. The judge in this case found that scanning and re-lending a single book does not constitute fair use. Maybe it’s my position within the book publishing industry, maybe it’s my position as an independent creator, but my thought on this decision is: good.
Look, I’m all for the continued existence of libraries and community operations like Little Free Libraries. The essence of both systems is that you can A) only borrow one book at a time, and B) someone in the chain has paid for the book. I also like Internet Archive for keeping a record of the internet, as practically no one else does. The problem is that it’s gotten increasingly difficult to see the purely “archival” reasons for some of these scans.
A copy of The Saturday Evening Post from January 4, 1936? You can find that on Internet Archive, sure. Thing is, you can also find that issue directly from The Saturday Evening Post. OK, so the official version from the Post will cost you a $17 yearly membership, or maybe your country won’t allow access to that particular US publication. But the point is that there is still a copyright holder to this material. The 1936 issues of the Post aren’t even in the US public domain yet, so to say that Internet Archive’s version is doing a service that no one else would is disingenuous.
The Post example is a pretty generous one, because as of this writing, it’s also possible to download “all issues of IDW’s Sonic the Hedgehog (2018-2024),” which is a pretty bad-faith upload. Yes, IDW has had some serious financial problems and there remains the possibility that it (or any company, really) might close on any given day, ending the chances of seeing these particular works in print. The thing is, that hasn’t happened yet — the latest issues of Sonic the Hedgehog, the latest of which were published in Q2 2024, are still on sale from IDW’s site. I know I’m writing from a US perspective about a US company’s property and the internet is a global phenomenon; but you don’t get to steal something just because someone can’t or won’t sell it to you.
It could also be that this is personal to me, as I have my own “victim of piracy” story from back in the day that pretty abruptly put me straight on the “pay artists for art” road, but you know what? Barring the flawed, skewed systems of large-scale publishing, if a creator releases a piece of art that you insist on experiencing before you die, the least you can do is compensate that creator to help them keep living.
The thing about fiction is that the best of it follows a predictable structure of ups and downs, with a clearly defined end point. We expect stories to have protagonists and conflicts, and we have an idea of how many minutes or pages we have before these conflicts are resolved. In real life, things don’t work that way. There are no protagonists but there are more conflicts than we care to know about. Most of us don’t know when the end is coming. We all know that life isn’t fair, and the only satisfactions we get are the ones that we choose for ourselves.
So while it’s normally good to have a biography with an even-handed account, Tom Scioli’s apparent dedication to impartiality turns out to be my biggest gripe with his book I Am Stan: A Graphic Biography of the Legendary Stan Lee. It appears to be an unbiased collection of anecdotes, but it has all the structure of a narrative and expects to be read like one. This left me searching for a story that wasn’t actually there, and wanting for some more insights into the controversies around the most famous name in superhero comics.
Tom Scioli’s author’s bio describes his comicking as having a “singular” art style, with “kinetic layouts and imaginative writing.” I haven’t read Mr. Scioli’s other works, but even a glance at his website suggests that I Am Stan is not his finest outing. Clearly, the cover illustration alone demonstrates that he is capable of a much more weighty, solid, sturdy style; this doesn’t translate into the interior panels themselves. Characters are drawn in a simple style, so I don’t expect a lot of detail. At times, though, it appears as if the thumbnails for the book were used as the final art, which — and this is speaking as someone who is currently drawing thumbnails for his next comics story — isn’t a great look. Luminaries like Jack Kirby and Joe Simon are just distinguishable enough from each other that you can recognize them, though this gets more difficult throughout the book as Lee meets more and more people. Honestly, a little bit of caricature would’ve helped here.
Most of the book’s script and lettering are fine; the book typically features a digestible number of words per bubble, making the dialogue seem like a conversation between two real people. Unfortunately, the storytelling sags tremendously when it quotes dialogue from interviews and roundtable discussions. At points like these, the bubbles turn into walls of text that overwhelm and sometimes obscure the tiny pieces of artwork that can still fit in the panel. This is unfortunate, as the dialogue itself is interesting; it’s just presented in an unappealing way.
As far as pacing goes, the book starts with a speedy recap of Lee’s childhood. This segment, which lasts for about 12 pages, covers a lot of ground economically; it’s clear that young Lee was interested in anything and everything, though whether this is out of curiosity or necessity is left up to the reader. The story slows down once Lee makes it into the publishing world. All the trappings of a narrative are still there: recurring characters, repeated panel layouts, and running gags. Slowly, though, the book loses steam. While it still feels like there’s a story being told, it begins to feel more like a disjointed memoir as public events and personal vignettes start intertwining, sometimes with no fanfare. One page tells a story about how Lee treated his co-creators at Marvel, and the very next page will be about his hairpiece and deviated septum.
To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with vignettes like these, except that there are no breaks in the story to indicate where one vignette ends and one begins. While it’d make the book seem more like an anthology, tagging some stories with a title or chapter number would’ve led to a more user-friendly experience.
Speaking of tagging things, various industry legends and media personalities make their appearance, though they are often introduced diegetically by their first names. Major players are named in full (eventually), but unless you’re already familiar with DC/Marvel history, you would have a hard time figuring out who Neal (Adams) or Carmine (Infantino) was.
I like to think I know a little bit more about Stan Lee than a non-comics fan, but I basically went into this book cold. I know that Lee had his share of disputes, and on these issues, Scioli commendably takes an even-handed approach. Lee is generally presented as a hero, but there are plenty of instances that touch on his ego and forgetfulness.
On a few other occasions, the narrative itself feels cold: the deaths of Lee’s parents are each covered in two to three panels, but the death of Lee’s longtime wife Joan – who appears in the book more than his parents do – is also only given two panels of a five-panel page. The remaining three panels recount Lee’s appearance at Disney’s D23 event. It took me some light research afterwards to find out that the D23 event was a mere ten days after Joan Lee’s death. Whether or not Scioli was critical of Lee for this move is unclear, which leads me back to my main critique of I Am Stan.
My problem with I Am Stan is that its apparent insistence on avoiding bias means that few of the events actually feel important. For example, one of the few Stan Lee stories I’d heard before reading the book was about how he met his wife Joan: Lee claimed that throughout his life, with whatever ability he had, he would repeatedly draw an ideal female figure he considered to be his “dream woman.” The story changes depending on who you ask – some accounts say a friend told Stan the drawings resembled an acquaintance and set up the two to meet at a party; others say Stan answered the door at said party and found Joan there – but it essentially ends with an awestruck Stan asking Joan out on a date.
This event is depicted in I Am Stan, but with no sense of importance; Stan simply meets Joan and says that he’d been “drawing her all his life.” This assertion is all we get: we aren’t treated to any real or imagined view of Lee’s drawings. Scioli seems to be trying to be impartial, but in doing so the work comes off as impersonal. Injecting some drama (which would be biased) might’ve given more insight into Lee’s character and reputation.
Ultimately, I wish I could recommend I Am Stan as Scioli has clearly taken pains to present an objective view of Lee. Objectivity, however, doesn’t always make for a compelling read. Including more content from friends, family, and coworkers, and combining it with a more rigidly defined structure might have made this book really shine.
Everyone knows Stan Lee: His work at the creative helm of Marvel Comics resulted in the creation of many of the superheroes we know and love today, including Spider-Man, Iron Man, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, and more. During his decades-long career at Marvel, Lee turned the comic book publisher into a cultural juggernaut that shaped and defined the burgeoning industry. In I Am Stan, critically acclaimed artist Tom Scioli reveals the man behind the comics and cameos using the same medium Stan Lee revolutionized.
—Promotional text goes here for I Am Stan: A Graphic Biography of the Legendary Stan Lee by Tom Scioli.
Published by Penguin Random House, 2023.
AnimeNYC’s 2023 show ended back on November 20. While I spent most of the time working the Denpa booth selling some new books, I did manage to take a nice stroll through Artists’ Alley and was pleased to find a number of indie comics creators, whose presence I felt was severely lacking in the con’s previous year. So now, here are the micro-reviews!
I Reincarnated as Myself Like Always! by Jane Mai (self-published).
What starts out as a parody of the standard isekai premise turns into a reflective look at a man who’s wasting his life. With solid art and writing, this book starts off funny. But going into the final act, the tone abruptly changes. Not to say that it’s failed comedy, it’s just quite a different turn than what you might expect from such a silly title. It’s a bit like the Guns N’ Roses song “Sweet Child O’Mine”: a catchy first 2/3rds, then a major mood shift in the final act. Neither of the two sections are bad; they just feel like two good parts of two tonally different stories, and they don’t quite jell for me. On a production level, it’s neat that this book was riso-printed and hand-bound.
Half in the Shadows, Half Burned in Flames by Ico (self-published).
An artbook by Washington-based artist Ico and designed by Kan. It features beautiful drawings and paintings of characters from The Legend of Zelda. A satisfying balance of painterly techniques and abstract layouts, these illustrations are simply made to be enjoyed. The comments are about 95% in Chinese, so if you want to understand what the artist’s comments are you’ll have to get it translated. Bafflingly, the author’s bio alone is coupled with an English translation, but that’s a small criticism on a fine piece. The quality of the final book design is exceptional, and it’s almost hard to believe it’s self-published.
Kisha: Demon Eater #1 by Newton Lilavois, Gian Carlo Bernal, and ClonerH! (Dream Fury Comics).
Most people don’t actively search for demons, especially in a world where demons are proven to exist. But that’s what happens to the titular Kisha, who can not only sense demons, but becomes possessed by one who happens to share her name and appearance. The demon Kisha also happens to literally eat other demons, so to say that things get complicated by the end of the book is an understatement. Things move quickly in this book, but possibly at the expense of characterization. The story is strong enough to stoke curiosity in the second issue, and beautiful artwork makes picking up issue #2 seem inevitable. Excellent production values on the book itself, though some of the art and text flirt with the safety margins.
Salvation #1 by Terence Young, Dwayne Robinson, Jr., and John Cruz (Animation, Comics, and Entertainment, LLC).
Vahn is a young warrior cursed with a demon mark, so he seeks the wizard Solomon to remove it for him. However, humans and demons alike want Vahn dead, which means every journey and destination is bound to bring misadventure. I give good marks to the story, setting, and artwork. Unfortunately, the readability is hampered by the panel layout, lettering, and dialogue. It’s sometimes hard to figure out the correct order to read the panels and word balloons. The dialogue has yet to find itself, as it wavers between typical medieval fantasy formality (“Why am I the only one who must shoulder this burden?”) and contemporary casual slang (“Say what?”). Punctuation is also wanting. Still, the well-choreographed action scenes warrant a look at issue #2. Book quality doesn’t differ too much from more mainstream floppies, and seems durable enough.
Ophiuchus by Ali Leriger de la Plante and Natasha Tara Petrović (Image Comics).
A visual standout at this convention, this is a story about warrior robots going on a fantasy adventure to save the universe. Very little not to recommend about this book, as the pacing is even, the characters are distinctive and likeable, and the story is easy to follow despite the numerous names and concepts that show up. As previously mentioned, the art stands out as a signature feature of the book. Authors Petrović and de la Plante use a limited palette and minimal linework to create a world reminiscent of the moody, semi-abstract background art from the Pink Panther cartoons. The characters themselves feature strong silhouettes, enough so that when twelve new characters appear in a single panel, it’s possible to keep track of the action. It’s a fun book that can be read and re-read within an hour, and you might spend even more time appreciating the artwork. Good book quality, though there are a few issues with safety margins and the flat black blending with the dark blue.
Neotera #1 by Randy Toroni (self-published by Studio Toroshi).
In the distant future, humanity has left the Earth in search of a new home. Traveler Nox finally arrives on their new home planet Neotera, except he is centuries late and awakens in a body that isn’t entirely his. Moreover, the planet seems to possess few humans and far too many cyborg dinosaurs. Neotera has all the trappings of a mainstream shonen manga, complete with action, mystery, and sex appeal. Author Toroni’s biggest setbacks are in the script, lettering, and the quality of the final art, all of which feel rushed. Toroni’s concept art at the end of the book is solid, which seems to confirm that the book might have been produced at some speed. Still, the story ends on enough of a cliffhanger to justify a look at the second issue. Another solid print job, though I do get nervous that I’m going to break the spine.
Vonn Sketchbook IV: 2019-2020 by Timothy von Rueden (self-published).
Another artbook, this is a collection of sketches by Wisconsin artist/designer Vonn. Vonn’s drawings are a mix of photorealism and fantasy, which look great rendered in pencil. The inker in me wishes that Vonn would take the plunge and rebalance the grays into black, but that’s a minor nit. I mainly picked this up because it contains the artwork from Vonn’s illustrated playing card deck, an idea I also have been tackling on and off for the past year. The book judiciously uses gold leaf on the cover and along all the edges, giving a highly polished feel consistent with von Rueden’s brand.
Overall, I think I made off rather well this year. Of the new series that I’ve picked up, I’m interested to see how the next issues will turn out, and anyway it’s next to impossible to judge an entire series by its first issue. It also makes me want to pick up the pace on my next comics project, which is already shaping up to be quite a bit longer than Valentine’s Day, and seeing how long that project took… well, comicking isn’t easy. See you again!
