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Today at AiT/Planet Lar

September 23, 2005
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Brian Scot Johnson, of the online retailer Khepri, sends word that for three weeks running critics' darling Smoke and Guns has been in his Top Five sales leaders.

Just as I'd never given much thought to where "chamois" comes from, and I was surprised to learn today it's actual leather from a small deer-like animal endangered everywhere except New Zealand where they were introduced and thrive, I'll bet most people don't know what a "khepri" is, so I'll save you the trouble of googling and merely relate that he was a sun god of ancient Egypt, and it was Khepri who pushes the sun across the sky in much the same fashion that a scarab pushes a ball of dung across the ground. Or boxes of graphic novels to USPS, one imagines.

September 22, 2005
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Scott and Ty, the guys with the View From the Cheapseats, do a nice comics review podcast and turn their critical eye on Full Moon Fever. They touch on Astronauts in Trouble ("A Michael Bay movie on paper"), The Black Diamond, the company as a whole, and Joe Casey's career in general. I love these review podcasts folks are doing now.

+++++

Also, just got an email from Steven Badlands Grant that I hope he doesn't mind me excerpting here: "By the way, was at my kid's high school for open house last night -- she's sixteen now and a junior in high school, believe it or don't -- and it turns out there's one and only one graphic novel in the school library: Astronauts in Trouble."

That one warmed my black heart, it did.

September 21, 2005
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Chris over at the Lefty Brown's Corner digs on the Full Moon Fever: "I have to admit, this book is now one of my favorite AiT/Planet Lar books. It's a book that by the time you finish, you want to talk to someone about it."

September 20, 2005
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From Booklist:

Baldock, Kirsten and Moon, Fabio. Smoke and Guns. 2005. 104p. illus. AiT/Planet Lar, paper, $12.95 (1-932051-36-8). 741.5.

What if the milieu of the noir films of the late 1940s and early 1950s had paved the way to a gritty future in which cigarette girls with guns ruled the streets? That’s what has happened in this hysterical send-up of pulp culture. Scarlett is a Fifth District Puff with ambition. She pushes the boundaries when she starts selling cigarettes outside of her district. In fact, she triggers an all-out cigarette-girl turf war. Baldock’s writing is hip and clever; she’s unafraid of letting the world she creates unfold as much through the events we see as in the actions and reactions of the characters. The art is in a stylized, high-contrast monochrome that pays homage to the atmosphere of noir yet keeps its distinctiveness; Moon well conveys the story’s dark humor without tilting towards slap-stick. ––Tina Coleman

September 19, 2005
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H over at the Comic Treadmill digs on Full Moon Fever: "Oh yeah... written by Joe Casey and Caleb Gerard and drawn by Damian Couceiro is a good time--a thriller that rips an edge of your seat monster movie (albeit one that was never made--yet) from the screen and puts it almost flawlessly in a comic book format."

Richmond, Virginia's Velocity Comics: "For my indy pick…let’s go with Joe Casey’s werewolf sci-fi free-for-all Full Moon Fever. It might just change your lives."

Johnny B reviews both Electric Girl Volume Three ("In a time where everyone seems to be looking for a goodwill ambassador to the great unwashed non-comics readers out there, I think that Electric Girl is a definite contendah. Pass one along to someone you like today.") and Full Moon Fever ("...a throwback to those great old drive-in B-movies of yore, designed to excite and sell popcorn and little more. The concept is as high as the spotlights on top of the drive-in screen: outer-space waste disposal techs meet werewolves on a service run to a lunar space station.").

...and Erin Schadt looks at Black Diamond: "Of course, the high-concept plot by Young is unrivaled: a no-holds-barred highway connecting the two coasts comes, literally, crashing into the lives of two people living below the massive, elevated Black Diamond highway."

Find any AiT/Planet Lar publication at your nearest comic store.

Can't find it at your local retailer? Get it online at Khepri.com