Help me publish The Wolf: Fundraiser Part 4

I am self-publishing my new graphic novel The Wolf very soon. But I need to raise some money to do that. This is Part 3 in a series of fund-raising sales that I'll be doing in the coming weeks.

Blot Art Time!!!

These are from the 2005 series of paintings that lead me to my graphic novel The Blot.

These are all 20x24", ink and watercolor on heavy watercolor paper.

They are all framed in simple black wood with plexiglass.

Comes with a signed copy of The Blot.

$500 each.

(click for larger view)

"Lemon Tree"

"Laying on a wall"

"Working against youself"

"parade"

"so much beauty"

Also these paintings from the second series of Blot paintings from 2006.

These are all ink and watercolor on paper, mounted on cradled hardboard.

sizes and prices vary:

(click for larger view)

"Everything is going to be okay"

12x14"

framed

$350

"I don't want to be saved"

12x14"

framed

$350

"curtains"

12x14"

framed

$350

"cocoon"

24x24"

mounted on 2" hardboard

$500

"pulled"

24x24"

mounted on 2" hardboard

$600

All purchases are first-come, first served.

All art purchases are final.

Please contact me by e-mail to make purchase:

iwilldestroyyou (at) roadrunner (dot) com

Shipping and insurance costs will be calculated at time of purchase.

All art sales come with extra items, too!

Payment: I prefer paypal, but other arrangements can be made.

Please look at my other fund-raising sales. Or buy some of my other prints and books that are in my webstore. All purchases will go a long way towards helping me publish my book.

Thank you very much!

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Saturday Morning Cartoons at Silverlake Jubilee!

The Silverlake Jubilee is a new neighborhood street fair that is happening this weekend- May 22nd and 23rd.

I will be joining a great group of local cartoonists for

COMIX JUBILEE!

SATURDAY May 22nd at 10.30 AM

COMIX JUBILEE! @ EL CID, 4212 Sunset Blvd., 90029,

featuring live reading performances by cartoonists:

ROBERT GOODIN, JESSE MOYNIHAN, DAVID KING, TOM NEELY,

TED STEARN, & MALACHI WARD

COMIX JUBILEE! SIGNING, @ LITERARY VILLAGE

at the Molossus table on Myra Avenue

12.00 PM ROBERT GOODIN, DAVID KING, TIM HENSLEY

01.00 PM JOE MATT, TED STEARN, OLGA VOLOZOVA

02.00 PM MALACHI WARD, TOM NEELY

I know most of Silverlake isn't even awake at 10:30 AM, but set your alarm clock and please come out and see us on your way to brunch! Lots of great stuff happening. This is a really great group of some of my favorite local cartoonists. The readings will be fun and hilarious. David King is coming up from San Diego- you don't wanna miss that!

My wife and I will be performing selections from

Henry and Glenn Forever.

And Tim Hensley has a new book that is amazing!

Special thanks to Molossus for hosting us cartoonists at their table.

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Interview with Molossus part 2

Part two of my interview with the poetry blog Molossus is now up for your reading pleasure!

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Interview with Molossus

Go read part one of my interview with the poetry blog Molossus.

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Wanna buy some Blot art?

I'm offering some of the original paintings that lead to The Blot for sale now.

To explain how these paintings lead to The Blot, I'll quote myself from an interview with The Comics Journal:

"I wanted to create sort of a generic, nameless man that I could do anything with; a character that could represent me or anyone else. But when I started this series of paintings with him, something still felt stifled about the way I was working. That's when I started dropping ink on top of the paintings. I would finish one, lay it on the floor and drop ink on it to break myself away from the preciousness of constructing a picture... Pretty soon, those ink blots began to take on a life of their own. They became a conceptual element within the paintings as well as a formal abstract element.

... After doing a lot of these, some of them started to feel connected, so I began writing a story around them. The process that has grown out of this is that the paintings serve as a space for me to freely express some stream-of-consciousness ideas without having to worry about the bigger picture. Then later, I come back and see if they work their way into the comics... I had all of these short stories worked out that were based on paintings... I tied all those short stories together with some autobiographical elements, and that's what became the final book "The Blot."

These all date back to 2004/2005

They are all 20 x 24 inches

Watercolor and ink on paper

They come with a nice black wood frame

I've sold a few from this series in the past for various gallery prices.

Right now I'm offering them at a bargain for $500 each (+ shipping):

Contact me at tom (at) iwilldestroyyou (dot) com

if you want to purchase them.

Paypal accepted.

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Best Comics of the Decade #19

This blog called Only the Cinema has a list of Best Comics of the Decade and The Blot comes in at #19:

Tom Neely's self-published long-form debut, after a string of minicomics and shorter pieces, is a real shocker, coming out of nowhere to introduce a wholly new and exciting sensibility. His cartoony characters and obtuse symbolism add up to a difficult work, slippery in its meanings and intent, that is nevertheless impossible to look away from. With few words and very little narrative, Neely traces the experiences of a cartoon everyman, with a bulbous, rounded head, comically big feet and Mickey Mouse-style gloves, as he is consumed and pursued by an amorphous black inkblot that sometimes appears as small splotches within his white world, and sometimes threatens to flow across the page, consuming everything in its path. Neely presents various encounters between the man, the blot and a woman who sometimes seems to be helping him and sometimes seems fixed on his destruction. The book deals with conformity, creativity, love and humiliation, all through these enigmatic, nearly silent strips where the blot's seeming meaning and purpose fluidly changes depending on context.

This reminds me... I need to raise some money for future publishing projects, so I'm possibly going to be offering some more Blot-related artwork for sale on my blog soon.

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I made it: #90!

The Blot made it as #90 on Rob Clough's list of 100 best comics of the 00's:

90. The Blot, by Tom Neely (self-published). Neely achieves a level of immediacy on each page of his stunning debut graphic novel, creating a powerful emotional shorthand with his ink splotches designed to get across the intensity of a feeling, be it dread, joy, fear, desperation or longing. His iconic imagery acts as dense bundles of emotional information that, when unpacked by the reader, provide a powerful experience and insight into the creative process.

The full list is over at TCJ.com.

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Comics as Poetry

"Like all the best poetry, what a reader gets out of comics-as-poetry is entirely dependent on how willing they are to truly engage the material and articulate the feelings it evokes."

The new and improved The Comics Journal Online has been redesigned, has a slew of new writers and bloggers, and is quickly filling up with a lot of great articles about comics.

And whaddaya know- the writer/critic Rob Clough has written a very good 3 part article on "comics-as-poetry" and he focuses on 2 of my favorite books: Asthma by John Hankiewicz and The Blot by lil' ol' ME!

I can't say enough good things about Hankiewicz's art and comics. He's probably in my top 5 contemporary artists and Asthma is always one of my all time favorite books. I'm flattered to see my work examined next to his.

I also think that Clough's examination of The Blot is one of the most thoughtful interpretations I've read so far. And I really enjoy what Clough has to say about the emergence of "comics-as-poetry" as well as his call for a new way of making, reading and looking at comics.

Read Part 1 here

Part 2 focuses on Asthma

Part 3 focuses on The Blot

If you haven't read Asthma- get it now!

If you haven't read The Blot - what's wrong with you?

side-note: Clough also wrote a review of my comic strip poem collection Brilliantly Ham-fisted and Your Disease Spread Quick here.

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Reviews

Here's a couple of nice reviews.

First, a review of The Blot from a blog in Singapore called Power of Pop:

"...Despite not being about anything concrete per se, I felt drawn to Neely’s “hero” to his ups and downs and to his seeming helplessness in the face of cruel and fickle circumstances. There seems so much pain and darkness in these cartoony figures that I found it disturbing and carthatic at the same time. It’s not often that our fiction gives us enough space to insert our own emotions and thoughts into the expression but that’s exactly what The Blot does. And for this reason, I would highly recommend The Blot – its simplicity belies the depth of soul that is plumbed. It will give you endless hours of contemplation…"

Read the full review here.


Next is a round-up of mini-comics that includes a short review of my latest mini-comic Self Indulgence that I debuted at San Diego Comic Con.

"This little mini is a wordless bit of body comedy/horror from an artist who combination of bigfoot drawing and naturalism creates an unsettling atmosphere. The concept is simple: a pair of naked twins faces each other and one starts eating the other whole. As he's doing this, his twin is excreted out the other side, until the original image is duplicated as the book's final panel. With Neely, the fun is in the visceral, inky details and exaggerated body language. The way he elongates arms and legs while drawing pubic hair in exacting detail is the sort of thing that creates the old/new tension in his comics, a visual signature of sorts. I believe he customizes the cover for this comic when purchased at conventions (he did a drawing of the wolf from THE BLOT on mine), which is just a bonus for this beautiful comic."

Read the full round-up here.

I will have the remaining copies of the limited edition of Self Indulgence available at SPX later this month.

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2 Years Old!

My first born is two years old today.
Happy Birthday Blot!

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Spanish magazine on El Borrón

I can't read this, but it's a two-page spread in a Spanish magazine about me and El Borrón.

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12 fingered...

Shawn Swanson gives a really nice write-up of two of my books at his 12 Fingers blog.

"...The world is lousy with artists that have no vision; what’s the point of drawing a pretty picture if you have nothing to say. Tom Neely’s work overflows with imagination. Books like “The Blot” are why I created this site! Tom deserves a huge fan base."

Read the whole thing here.

Thank you!

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Wizard's Tops 25!

I was really surprised to find out from this blog that I was ranked #5 on a list of "Top 25 Indie Books of All Time."

I finally have a copy of the magazine in my hands. It's Wizard Magazine #211 Platinum Edition. Apparently there is another issue #211 that is completely different- get the one that looks like this:


The article is "TITANIC TOMES: The 25 Indie Gems Even the Most Ghoulish Marvel Zombie or Dedicated DC Devotee Must Read Before They Die!"

At first glance it appears that The Blot ranks at #5 and beats out such heavy-hitters as Jeff Smith's Bone, Dan Clowes's Eightball, The Hernandez Bros' Love & Rockets, Art Spiegelman's Maus, etc... But in reality, the ranking is misleading because it's just alphabetical order. Here's the whole list:
1. Acme Novelty Library by Chris Ware
2. American Splendor by Harvey Pekar
3. Black Hole by Charles Burns
4. Blankets by Craig Thompson
5. The Blot by Tom Neely
6. Bone by Jeff Smith
7. Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw
8. Box Office Poison by Alex Robinson
9. Curses by Kevin Huizenga
10. Eightball by Dan Clowes
11. Epileptic by David B.
12. The Essex County Trilogy by Jeff Lemire
13. Frank by Jim Woodring
14. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
15. Grickle by Graham Annable
16. It's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken by Seth
17. Johnny the Homicidal Maniac by Jhonen Velasquez
18. Love and Rockets by The Hernandez Bros.
19. Maus by Art Spiegelman
20. Optic Nerve by Adrian Tomine
21. Palestine by Joe Sacco
22. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
23. Pop Gun War by Farel Dalrymple
24. Pistolwhip by Jason Hall and Matt Kindt
25. The Sketchbook Diaries by James Kochalka

I'm honored to be included along side some of my favorite cartoonists. Wizard doesn't cover indie comics very often, so I'm amazed to be included here.

However- I have to make one correction:

They incorrectly list my book as published by Fantagraphics. But my book is self-published. So, I hope Wizard will make a correction and let their readers know that they can order my book directly from me at www.iwilldestroyyou.com or through Tony Shenton, Sparkplug Comic Books Distro, or Last Gasp.

And to any Wizard readers who might be seeing my site for the first time: Welcome!

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Joder, me has fallen the red boat.!

My first Spanish review of El Borrón arrived today. If you can read Spanish, go here.

Here's avery broken Yahoo Babel Fish translation that doesn't make a lot of sense:

Joder, me has fallen the red boat.! This exclamation must of have loosen almost any sketcher to it of cómics, and I also suppose that Tom Neely, the creator of ' The Borrón'. And I dare to venture that the idea of this cómic was born when had a mishap of this type. Perhaps, in one of those moments, it said " we canalize the wrath that this causes and we remove to him something to me of benefit, I will make a tebeo… " TO EXTEND PHOTO ' The Borrón' he is cómic very complex, where Tom Neely has decided, mainly, to play and to undergo with all the mechanisms and techniques that the means allow him, using like protagonist to the red. Is pure metalanguage, in volume where love demonstrates his by cómic at the same time as reference can to serve as for all those sketchers that wants to see what can be done, until where can to arrive in some aspects, where it is the border… and that Neely is young, was born in 1975. History is practically dumb and narrates the life of an anonymous personage, in a city whatever it suddenly begins to see itself persecuted by the Red (the Nothing of ' Interminable' History;). Chapter to chapter, is surrounded in the rocambolescas situations, and every time it is seen more surpassed by the situation until he appears his rescuing angel in the form of woman who will take to him by the correct way, it calms, it cures and it alleviates to him. But everything is not what it seems, and the angel can become demon… In the end, in which the author tries is a happy end, it appears the color in the tebeo, like a metaphor. Between the strongpoints of this work they are all that we have mentioned of dominion of the technique and to experiment with means and to show its possibilities. In it must, is the fact that it needs a little spark, of feeling, although it can be compensated from the above. by Ricardo Mena

If anyone wants to give me a better translation, that would be nice.

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"El Borrón" is Spanish for "The Blot"

I'm really happy to announce the first foreign edition of The Blot.

El Borrón was just published by Ediciones La Cúpula in Spain, who have also published Spanish editions of some of my favorite books by Robert Crumb, Blutch, Gilbert Hernandez, Charles Burns, Gabriel Bell, Dan Cowes, Kim Deitch and many more.

It looks like a French edition of The Blot will happen by the end of the year. More details on that at a later date.

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2008 best of...

I made a couple of Best of '08 lists for other websites.
First- my top 5 comics/graphic novels was posted along with many other cartoonists' lists at The Daily Cross Hatch.

And my top 10 albums + top 10 comics/graphic novels are posted over at the Hydra Head Records site alongside much funnier lists by their employees and bands.

Here's that list:

Top 10 albums I bought and listened to the most in 2008:
(note- a few of these were not released in 2008)
10. Ludicra - Fex Ubris, Lex Orbis
9. Mamiffer - Hirror Enniffer
8. Mission of Burma - VS. (vinyl re-release)
7. The Cool Kids - The Bake Sale
6. Steely Dan - Can't Buy a Thrill
5. Winterfylleth - The Ghost of Herritage
4. Jesu - Why Are we Not Perfect
3. Bloodbath - The Fathomless Misery
2. Low - The Great Destroyer
1. Wolves in the Throne Room - Two Hunters Double Vinyl LP

Honorable mention goes to the most horrendous and bafflingly billiant album of 2008: Guns 'n' Roses - Chinese Democracy

Top 10 Comics and Graphic Novels of 2008:
10. Silver Surfer - In Thy Name - Drawn by Tan Eng Huat, published by Marvel
9. Ghost Rider # 24 - (continuing) - Drawn by Tan Eng Huat, published by Marvel
8. Creepy Archives Volume 1 & 2 by various artists, published by Dark Horse
7. Wormdye by Eamon Espey, published by Secret Acres
6. Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw, published by Fantagraphics
5. Freddie and Me by Mike Dawson, published by Bloomsbury
4. Sammy the Mouse by Zack Sally, published by Fantagraphics
3. Danny Dutch by David King, published by Sparkplug Comic Books
2. Capacity by Theo Ellsworth, published by Secret Acres
1. Ink Weed by Chris Wright, published by Sparkplug Comic Books

Honorable mention goes to You're Disease Spread Quick, The Melvins Comic Book by Tom Neely, published by Robotic Boot... because I did it.

Speaking of "Best of 2008"... The Blot receives a mention as the "Comic of the year 2008" over at this blog. Even though The Blot came out in 2007, the blogger says it is the best book he read in 2008.

Read the nice, glowing review of The Blot here. It's still for sale in my store.

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Review of "The Blot" from The Comics Journal is online now.

This review appeared in The Comic Journal #287. Chris Mautner has just posted it on his blog for everyone to read.

Here's an excerpt:

...And yet The Blot really is that good. I’m actually sorely tempted, for example, to compare it to the first issue of Acme Novelty Library, or The Biological Show or Good-Bye Chunky Rice. Not that it’s necessarily standing on the same high aesthetic ground as those works (though I’d find it hard to believe it won’t be included on my “best of” list come January), but rather that it’s an impressive and declarative debut in the same fashion that those other books were. This is the type of book where after reading it you get the feeling you’re going to start expecting big things from the artist from here on out.

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APE this weekend!

I'll be heading up to San Francisco for the APE comic festival this weekend.

I'll be joining my friends at the Sparkplug Comic Books table.

This will be the first time I've had The Blot at APE.
I'll also have The Melvins Comic Book "Your Disease Spread Quick," and "Brilliantly Ham-fisted" and a few other things.

EXCLUSIVE and NEW: The Obama vs McCain poster above will be a giveaway at the APE comic festival this weekend. Don't forget to VOTE!

Also- I have a few pieces in the PANELISTS IV show at Giant Robot San Francisco.

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Interview on Indie Spinner Rack

When I was at Heroes Con in Charlotte North Carolina this summer, I met Charlito and Mr. Phil of the Indie Spinner Rack radio podcast. They asked me to do a joint interview with my pal Jim Rugg during the convention. It happened on Sunday when I was sleep-deprived and losing my voice and not really thinking all that clearly... But anyway, it's not as bad as I expected it to be.

Our interview starts several minutes into this show (after a long bus-ride conversation about Starbucks and Japanese Engrish between Charlito and some other people in the Heroes Con shuttle). I talk about The Blot, the Melvins book, my big sculpture and other stuff.

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Another review of "The Blot"

Here's an interesting, but short review of The Blot.

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