Comics News Roundup: New Chester Brown, Michael Cho, and David Collier

The big news out of the comics world is the announcement from Oni Press that Bryan Lee O’Malley has sold his one millionth book (yes, that would be for his Scott Pilgrim series). That’s no small number of books. According to Heidi MacDonald at The Beat:

“It was a wise man who said that comic book movies function as $20 million advertisements for graphic novels…and in the case of the Scott Pilgrim series it is certainly true. According to Oni, the six-book series now has one million copies in print—in North America alone, making it (along with Bone and the works of Alan Moore) one of the biggest graphic novel success stories of the modern era.”

Now, perhaps, you’ll consider answering Vanity Fair‘s call to go and pay to see the movie? Aw, heck—remember the library? Go take the books out there if you don’t believe me.

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Drawn and Quarterly and Top Shelf are both having some pretty fantastic sales, too. Techland has the scoop on the companies’ 10 best books to pick up. I recommend Far Ardern from Top Shelf, and Masterpiece Comics from Drawn and Quarterly myself.

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Probably the biggest news break this week has been the announcement that Chester Brown has finished his new graphic novel, which his publisher Drawn and Quarterly is setting up for a spring 2011 release. The title will be called Paying For It, and like much of Brown’s groundbreaking (and controversial) work, it will cover some very personal and autobiographical ground dealing with sexual taboos. The novel apparently explores Brown’s very long relationship with a sexworker he’s been seeing for over 20 years. Brown has long been a propoenent of safe, consentual, sex-worker conditions, and this work will look at some of his ideas about the nature of sex and relationships, and the nature of intimacy. It all sounds very revealing (ahem). Some insights into Brown’s philosophy on these issues can be found here and some further commentary here. I’ve heard reports that the faces of many people in the work have been left blank, which should only add more mystery and resonance to Brown’s presentation of his case. As the publisher says, it’s bound to be one of the most talked about graphic novels of 2011. I’m very much looking forward to reading it.

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This year’s cover of The Best American Comics—edited by the very famous Neil Gaiman—was drawn by Toronto’s own Michael Cho. It is a beautiful and compelling cover, and the irony that the cover celebrating America’s best comics is done by a Canadian is certainly not lost on us. Mr. Dalton Sharp tells me that two of the featured artists—Cho and Dave Lapp—appeared in Taddle Creek‘s comic issue. As Mr. Sharp pointed out ot me, this demonstrates that a well-edited small anthology can punch above it’s weight class. Good on editor Conan Tobias.

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Speaking of small-press powerhouses, celebrated new publisher Anna Koyama of Koyama Press is interviewed by David Hains at Canada’s Comics News and Culture blog, Sequential.

“As a kid I read and loved Little Lulu, Nancy, Archie, Peanuts and some superhero comics,” Koyama says. “My uncle had Pogo comics so they were around too. I didn’t read them again until Calvin and Hobbes came out. I got back into comics because I found and loved Michael DeForge’s art and when I approached him to work together, we decided to publish his Lose comic. I credit him with introducing me to the work of a lot of current comic creators.”

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Speaking of Mr. David Hains and Sequential, he also recently interviewed the New Narrative and Visual Arts coordinator, and University of Toronto instructor, Andrew Lesk on the syllabus for Lesk’s second-year course offering, ”The Graphic Novel, at U of T:

“Most reactions deal with the perceived difficulty of a work. This usually doesn’t surprise me (eg, Eddie Campbell’s The Fate of the Artist), but in other instances it does (eg, Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan). I suppose that I think that in university “difficulty” is something to be expected, even anticipated. Perhaps some of that difficulty arises, though, in that many students aren’t schooled (no pun intended) in how to read art. Even texts as presumably self-evident as Watchmen can be remarkably complex, especially in its artwork.”

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When local artist and teacher Dave Lapp is not protecting Toronto citizen’s civil liberties by documenting the Black Bloc during Toronto’s G20 summit, he is collecting some very good reviews with his Children of the Atom collection, winning some very strong praise from such places venues as The Comics Journal and Seen Magazine. From the Comics Journal review:

“With these influences and references so clearly on display, it’s astonishing that Lapp manages to imbue Children of the Atom with any semblance of originality. However, despite its obvious debt to other strips, it carries a highly original, singular voice. He has managed to hone the rhythm of strip cartooning in such a way that it feels more like poetry than narrative storytelling.”

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And finally, Conundrum Press  announced  June it will publish comics icon David Collier’s next book, which looks at his stint in the Canadian Armed Forces. The book is called Chimo, and Max Douglas of Sequential found a sneak peak from Doug Wright Awards co-founder Brad Mackay (see Torontoist’s interview with Mackay here). Below is a page for your reading pleasure.