Spring Con

FRESH from our weekend at TCAF, I'll (Justin) be at the MN State Fair Grounds on Sat. with a limited supply of pre-formal US debut copies of Strong Eye Contact:

...along with the usual 2DC array. You're likely to find portions of 2DC's catalog split between Eric Schuster and Uncivilized Books' respective tables for day 2, so track those two down and check out their books while you're at it!

This is the only other local summer show for 2DC between now and Autopic, so if you just can't wait until August and like to buy from 2DC directly, this is the weekend for it.

Deep in the Woods press release

May 7th, 2013

Minneapolis-based comics micropublisher, 2D Cloud, announces their second release of 2013, Deep in the Woods, a double-feature from Noah Van Sciver and Nicholas Breutzman. Debuting at the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo June 15th & 16th and at finer independent bookstores and comic shops in June 2013.

Deep in the Woods by Nicholas Breutzman and Noah Van Sciver. 30 pages, 11”x17.5”, newsprint, $6.00.

Available now for ADVANCE-ORDER. All orders will ship in June.

Levitating disembodied cow heads, crack witches, mutant children, urban myths, half-remembered folklore: from the minds of Noah Van Sciver and Nic Breutzman comes Deep in the Woods, a double feature that pairs two of 2D Cloud’s favorite cartoonists in one oversized newsprint.

Robin, the dutiful daughter of a drunk runs away from her home, an evil step-family, deeper into the haunted woods. Who knows what she’ll find? Whiskey's solace? A floating cow head's kiss? Find out in Noah Van Sciver’s “The Cow’s Head”.

Heartbroken Sammy must convince her grandfather to crawl out of the well he’s holed himself up in. But first, it’s a walk through the woods with googly eyed mutant brothers and a stop at the crack witches hut for a ssssmoke. Take a toke with Nicholas Breutzman’s “The Mayfly”.

About the Artists:

Nicholas Breutzman

Nic is a Minnesotan native by way of New York who has had a number of comics published both through 2D Cloud as well as in collaboration with other artists, such as Sharon Lintz (Pornhounds 2) and a collection of SVA grads (Jon Vermilyea, Eamon Espey, Raymond Sohn, et al) for the anthology Critical Citadel. He placed at #24 on The Comics Journal’s Top 50 comics of 2009 for his graphic Novella Yearbooks, has been listed as a notable in multiple editions of Best American Comics for work in Motherlover and Yearbooks, and his work with Sharon Lintz on Pornhounds 2 secured him a place on numerous best of 2011 lists.

Noah Van Sciver

Noah Van Sciver was born in 1984 in New Jersey. He first came to readers’ attention with his comic book series Blammo, which earned him an Ignatz award nomination in 2010. His first 2D Cloud release, The Death of Elijah Lovejoy, brought him his second Ignatz nomination in 2012 and a place in the top 10 minicomics of 2011 for The Comics Journal. His work has appeared in the Alternative weekly newspaper Westword, Mad magazine, and multiple graphic anthologies. His first book The Hypo: The Melancholic Young Lincoln from Fantagraphics books is a graphic portrait of Abraham Lincoln’s early years in Springfield, Illinois.

Strong Eye Contact Announcement and Pre-order

April 25th, 2013

Minneapolis based comics micropublisher, 2D Cloud, announces their first release of 2013, Strong Eye Contact, a conceptual meta-fable and funny-book by Christopher Adams. Debuting at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival May 11th & 12th and available at finer independent bookstores and comic shops in early July 2013.

Strong Eye Contact by Christopher Adams. 104 pages, 9”x6.75”, color paperback, $14.95.

Available now for PRE-ORDER. First 25 pre-orders get a copy of Christopher Adams’ last 2D Cloud release, Period, gratis! In addition, all direct orders come with a free interview zine! All pre-orders will ship in July.

Part strip collection, part art book, Strong Eye Contact performs over the course of 104 pages a very obtuse, but careful meditation on what might be seen as the cultural position of the cartoonist by employing a series of narrative contrasts and formal tensions. The use of mediums often associated with childhood mark-making (crayons, colored pens, markers), gives the book a simplistic sheen that belies the formal sophistication operating just beneath the surface.

On this surface, the reader is led by a quixotic, Buster Keaton-like figure through a kaleidoscope of crystalline memory fragments, coalescing into one narrative track. As this unnamed figure tries, with limited success, to be a typical American: using consumer products, failed vacations, fabricated family life, he also attempts to be a successful comic, much like the collection of pages he lives on.

The day to day saga is wet and alive with water colors, crayon, markers, and steady beats of spacious white deluges. Landscapes are populated with mountainous close-ups, cacti, abstracted-patterns, confusion, vast empty spaces, gaps -- cartooning as a potent puzzle where the strangest magic happens inside the reader's mind.

>>For a web preview // downloadable link, click here<<

About the Artist:

Christopher Adams was born in the New York Metropolitan Area. He is between 5' 10" and 5' 11". He does not eat animals. He is an artist and musician. His latest recordings are Baby Hair, Vegetables and Xmas Boogie. His artworks include videos and comic books. His first published comic is Period, released by 2D Cloud in the fall of 2012. TCAF will see the debut of his first full-length book, Strong Eye Contact. He currently lives and works in Baltimore with his girlfriend and plants.
"Death is not an event of life." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

Praise for Strong Eye Contact:

“Rarely have magic markers worked such luminous brilliance.” -- Matt Seneca, comics critic, and cartoonist

"Weird, imaginative, and raw. Adams creates a textural experience leading you through the follies of his character's life." -- Aidan Koch, The Blonde Woman, The Whale

"A bloody Q- tip, the crumbs of a waffle, and an airplane on fire...it all comes together with Christopher's unique drawing system. Is the comedian dreaming or is the comedy a dream?"-- Eamon Espey, Songs of the Abyss, Wormdye

“Like a Mr. Hulot transposed into the America of soft-serve and mini-golf, Adams’ comedian is a normal guy trying to deal with work and relaxation in a landscape of perplexing patterns.”-- Matthew Thurber, 1-800-MICE, Infomaniacs

MARINAOMI and 2DCLOUD announce 'Turning Japanese'

We've been big big fans of Mari's work for some time now and are FUCKING THRILLED to announce to the world that her new graphic memoir, Turning Japanese, will be published under the 2DC banner!! Turning Japanese is the follow-up to 2011’s award-winning Kiss & Tell: A Romantic Resume, Ages 0 to 22.

To read the full press release, click here.

In celebration of this announcement, MariNaomi and Gordon Warnock of Foreword Literary have set up a little contest: you can win a personalized avatar, drawn by Mari! For full details, visit the contest page on their blog.

More to come next year on this book, but we couldn't wait until then to share the news!

Hey EVERY/BODY, Little Heart gets a sequel!....and other 2DC updates.

We've some new NEWS pertaining to Little Heart. Gina Carchedi has become our Little Heart representative and advocate. She will be meeting with MN United and other marriage equality advocacy groups to discuss having them take over the distribution and selling of Little Heart directly, with 100% of the profits going to support these groups!! We're really excited and grateful to Gina for joining the team! We are also hopeful that some real progress is made on these efforts!!

While ownership of Little Heart may be moving into the hands of the groups actively fighting for the cause, there is what we've come to describe as a follow-up or sequel to Little Heart on the way, Every/Body, edited by Greer Lawson, which focuses on people as individuals by examining the topics of body and gender.

This project began as a part of Greer’s internship at 2D Cloud, where it grew rather quickly into something that is 100% Greer’s baby. She's in the process of self-publishing it via a Kickstarter / pre-order program, with 2D Cloud handling distribution upon its release, which is set for TCAF, May 11th-12th.

Contributors include MariNaomi, Annie Mok, Jim Rugg, Rob Kirby, Anna Bongiovanni, and many, many, others. For a better look at the project, please please check out their Kickstarter page, or visit some of the works showcased here.

Interested parties should act fast though, the Kickstarter ends in a handful of days!!


In other 2DC news:

At SPX last year we debuted Will Dinski's latest major work, Ablatio Penis. It's an interesting cocktail of politics, ethics, and how sex can get mixed up in it all in ways the reader can't always guess. This book was launched shortly after all that ugliness in Wisconsin involving governor Scott Walker and his attack on unions. As a nod to that, Dinski chose to have the comic printed at Johnson Litho, a union printer in Wisconsin. The image above is a new postcard we'll be disseminating to continue spreading the word about this great comic throughout the year.

In the future releases camp:

Chris Adams’ debut graphic novel, Strong Eye Contact will be debuting at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival this May. You can catch an extended peep of it and Chris’ work via the TCAF tumblr preview.

Noah Van Sciver & Nic Breutzman’s Deep in the Woods had it’s own Kickstarter pre-order late last year. Due to some production snafu’s, that newsprint broadsheet has been pushed back from spring to early summer. Folks that pre-ordered should be receiving their copies a little deeper into this spring, just prior to CAKE, where attendees will see it's official debut! 

And finally, Anna Bongiovanni, in addition to her painted contributions to Little Heart, turned in one of the lengthier works to Every/Body. Not only will you have a chance to see some new work from her this summer, but 2DC will be debuting her first book, Out of Hollow Water, at the Small Press Expo in September!

Stick with us as these and other projects develop (coughcough2dc2.0cough)

Thanks for reading,

xo!
-Raighne

2D Cloud 2013: headlong into the future.

Now that we're working our way through the last few weeks of winter up here in the great north, it's time for 2DC to stretch beyond our borders once again and show the world what we've been up to.

Raighne is putting the final touches on something that has been in the 'pipeline' for a while now, our first book of 2013, Strong Eye Contact by Christopher Adams! Those of you who've been paying attention saw that we published a mini with Chris for SPX last year, Period, which gave us a glimpse of the distinct vision that Chris brings to comics.

Our first exposure to Chris was by way of the work that became this book, and we couldn't be happier to be the ones helping bring this into the world. Strong Eye Contact will make its international debut this May at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, May 11-12th.

Hot on the heels of our TCAF weekend will be the perennial local favorite, Springcon! We formally don't have our table assignment yet, but we have been doing this show since we started with Good Minnesotan 1 back in 2007, so you can expect to see us there again come May 18-19th.

We'll get a few weeks off before we move down to Chicago for the second year of CAKE, June 15-16th, where we'll not only have our stateside debut of SEC, but also our debut of another comic that's been a long time coming, Deep in the Woods by Noah Van Sciver and Nicholas Breutzman! This will also be going to press in a matter of weeks, with advance copies starting to ship to our Kickstarter backers by hopefully late April. Below is a rough image of a page that didn't make the Kickstarter campaign, from Nic's half of the comic, "The Mayfly"

As I was writing this post, it looks like our intern Greer Lawson's anthology Every/Body made its goal, and in record time! There's still a full three weeks to secure yourself a copy and get in on the rewards offered. Every/Body will also debut at TCAF in May and will be distributed by 2D Cloud following the event.

Last, but definitely not least, we have been working with some of the best and brightest small-press comics publishers and cartoonists Minneapolis has to offer to organize what will act as a sort of follow-up to MIX from a couple years back, but also an expansion on that concept, Autoptic. Applications are open until MARCH 31ST, so if you want to be a part of what we're planning, the time to apply is now! There will be satellite events leading up to the show on August 18th, one of which your own 2DC will be hosting! Check here or our other channels (FB/Tumblr/Twitter) for further details as the date draws near. For those of us who saw SPX sell out in under an hour earlier this morning, this might be the show to be at for a lot of publishers and cartoonists following CAKE in June.

Lots more to show and tell, but this should be enough for now! More to come as always. 

Chris Adams' Period in a Brown Paper Bag review

Sara Barnes reviews Christopher Adams’ “Period” over at Brown Paper Bag. Please check it out!! Alternatively, just go buy it in the shoppe>>

“[Period] opens up with us look­ing at the sea, mak­ing us feel small. We then delve into the lives of a fam­ily, a tele­phone com­pany employee, and guys hang­ing out play­ing with elec­tric toy cars. The details doc­u­mented are minus­cule, jux­ta­posed with moments that remind us just how BIG things, impor­tant things, are hap­pen­ing in our world. But, we’re often so bogged down with rela­tion­ships, work, and our own lives to con­tem­plate what’s really going on out­side of our front door.”