Welcome to AiT/Planet Lar

Today at AiT/Planet Lar

May 05, 2007
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Free Comic Book Day? OK!

Because we're meeting here on the Internet, I can only give you a few free pdfs. But if you like what you read, feel free to surf around the website and look at the other great books we offer. We've been doing this a while now, so if you like one project, chances are there's another with a similar look-and-feel with the same kind of top-notch entertainment value. Tell your retailer, and he'll be happy to get 'em for you.

Let's start off in full-color! Here's a link to The Black Diamond: On Ramp by Larry Young and Jon Proctor. Hit this link to find out more.

A twenty-four page color teaser isn't doing it for you? HOW ABOUT A FULL GRAPHIC NOVEL? Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing blogged it; now you can read it: Jason McNamara and Tony Talbert's Continuity.

Speaking of Cory; Doctorow's got a blurb on the back of the remastered Shatter. Tenuous as that segue is, I'm taking what I can get and sending you towards the first-ever Shatter story, straight from the original files.

True Story, Swear to God makes an appearance with a sweet tale. This one's from Volume Two of the AiT version, but ol' Tom Beland is hitting those base hits monthly for our friends across the bay at Image, nowadays.

A pdf of Ursula, by those award-winning Brazillian twin forces of nature, Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba, can be downloaded and read and enjoyed and discussed. More information is available for your perusal.

...and what would a Free Comic Book Day be without a link to the one that started it all; the reason we're here. The toast of the town; lightly buttered... the non-fattening sugar substitute in your tea... Astronauts in Trouble!

May 03, 2007
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Alasdair Stuart really liked our newest graphic novel: "The Homeless Channel defies description in the way that all the best stories do. The central concept of the book is clearly altruistic but there’s precious little tub thumping on display and no stirring speeches at all. The interplay between Darcy and her network counterpart Grady is unforced, natural, often very funny and clearly romantic but there’s no tear-stained reconciliation in the rain. Instead what you get is a story about smart, funny, nice people trying to do the most difficult job of all; make the world slightly better. There’s the same slightly crumpled, wry idealism at work here as there is in the very best episodes of The West Wing and that’s not a comparison this reviewer uses at all lightly. Silady has caught lightning in a bottle here, and the end result is one of the best graphic novels, and arguably the best debut, in the last five years.

"There’s a real visual flair to Silady’s work, made all the more astonishing by the fact that he’s a self-taught artist who got around his own shortcomings by inking over reference photos. The characters are natural and realistic, never once losing their individuality and there are moments of visual humour that never let the story get preachy. A conversation between Darcy and Grady spreads out across two pages with arrows helpfully telling the reader where to go next whilst a second double page spread turns Darcy’s ever more complicated life into an elaborate version of snakes and ladders. The end result is a book which is so confident, so perfectly held together that it’s almost impossible to believe that this is Silady’s debut.

"Intelligent, pragmatic and colossally assured this is one of the best graphic novels you’ll read this year. Balancing altruism, cynicism, humour and a great ear for dialogue, Silady has created something which comics don’t contain nearly enough of; the best kind of surprise. This book deserves not only success but your attention. Familarity may breed contempt but originality, in this case, breeds total admiration. Unmissably good."

May 02, 2007
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Bill Sherman reviews Last Sane Cowboy for Blogcritics: "A surprisingly poetic meditation on the power of grief, couched in a series of dream-like images and absurdist tactics: not exactly the kinda comic you expect from AiT/Planet Lar (which more typically traffics in more straightforward genre storytelling).

"But perhaps that fact adds to Last Sane Cowboy's lingering effectiveness. This isn't a graphic collection that you put down and easily forget. Once a map has been unfolded, it's never quite the same..."

May 01, 2007
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Marc Mason reviews Last Sane Cowboy: "I had the privilege of reading most of this material when it first appeared in Goodbrey’s award-winning minicomics, and I’ll say the same thing now as I did then: if you’re a fan of mind-challenging surrealism, or just like discovering new talent, then you must buy this book. Yesterday. It’s just that good."

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Matt Silady is interviewed by Adrienne Rappaport over at this month's Sequential Tart: "It seems to me that anyone who wants to make comics for a living should, at some point, actually 'make' a comic. I mean, physically put the thing together from script to pencils to inks. Pick out the paper. Letter the thing. Buy a stapler. Research distributors. Sit at a convention table and learn to hand sell. Get frustrated. Lose some money. Make some friends. Go have a beer.

"Did all of those non-creative jobs take a lot of time? Sure. But now that I've got a publisher doing much of the heavy lifting for me, I appreciate what they're doing all the more because of my own self-publishing experience. Hopefully, I'm also a better creator for publishers to work with because I know what a pain in the butt their job can be."

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Speaking of Last Sane Cowboy, Johnny B gives it up: "BEST OF SHOW, at least the three-week period this column covers, a tie between THE LAST SANE COWBOY (inspired surrealism), and ALL-STAR SUPERMAN 7 (fast, furious, and smart)."

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...and Our Man in New York City, Brad Hatfield, has just launched The Comic Collective. Poke around; there's interviews, reviews, and... videos! Go, Web 2.0! Hit the link for the video page for a great interview with David Lloyd. Underneath, Brad teases video interviews with me, Garth Ennis, and Darick Robertson. I think it's awesome the projects he picks to contextualize us three. Worth the click.

April 30, 2007
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Poland, Maine's finest, Matt Bernier, checks in on our latest, Last Sane Cowboy: "I hate computer lettering. I hate computery-looking art. And I sure as hell hate when people manipulate photos on the computer to use as backgrounds. So why do I just love this comic? For the same reason that Keith Knight, Mike Mignola, and Gabriel Ba are exempt from my firey hatred of markers in finished comic art. Because it looks good, enhances the work, and because Dan is a genius who could make a good comic using a bit of ink on the end of a broken stick. The book takes place in a world where reality has sort of unfolded itself, relaxing into a less rigid, less orderly, and more confusing shape. The world has now become a giant Terry Gilliam cartoon. The Earth is actually the head of a guy with a planet for a head. Bread tastes different. Cheese hasn't always existed for everyone. So the art, which is weird, disconcerting, and unfamilliar, only helps to enhance the mood that you're really somewhere very uncomfortable and alien. It's hardly surprising to me that this was written by an Englishman- this entire book functions on a principle I first heard articulated by John Cleese. Cleese was saying how it's perfectly okay to have a world where everyone is wearing shoes on their ears, but as soon as someone walks onscreen without shoes on their ears, you must explain why, because that person's presence disturbs the logical order of that world. In one story, Dan makes sure to explain why he has a dolphin flying around a park catching frisbees like a dog, when he's already clearly established that dolphins in this world are super-smart. The reason is that this dolphin is mentally ill, and believes it is a dog. However, Dan feels no reason at all to explain why the dolphin can fly. Flying dolphins make perfect sense in this world. I have always said that the best comics always have an instantly interesting first panel or line. The first line of dialogue in this book? 'I bleed scorpions.'"

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