Category: art

Interview: Brian Wood & Ryan Kelly of Local

They say you can’t go home again, but Megan McKeenan will get a dozen tries at it in writer Brian Wood and artist Ryan Kelly’s compelling comic-book series Local, a 12-issue anthology following its fiercely independent heroine through an itinerant life across 12 years and 12 cities, mostly avoiding the megalopolises in favor of mid-size cities like Richmond, Virginia; Burlington, Vermont; and Austin, Texas. Wood is also writing two other comics, the post-apocalyptic New York tale DMZ and the forthcoming cyberpunk thriller Supermarket; Kelly draws Lucifer for DC/Vertigo and teaches illustration and comic art at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design. The series’ first issue is set in Portland, Oregon, home of Local’s publisher, Oni Press. The second issue, which came out last month, is set in Minneapolis in 1995, and features such local landmarks as The Wedge, Hum’s Liquor, and now-defunct record store Oar Folkjokeopus. The A.V. Club talked with Wood and Kelly about Local.

Originally published Jan. 18, 2006 on avclub.com. Read the complete article.

Interview: Minnesota Association Of Rogue Taxidermists

With Halloween looming, it’s an appropriate time to think about what makes a monster. Few know the answer better than Sarina Brewer, Scott Bibus, and Robert Marbury, the three artists at the core of the Minnesota Association Of Rogue Taxidermists, a Twin Cities art collective specializing in gore-drenched, provocative, and defiantly postmodern takes on the hunting-lodge staple. The three share a mordant sense of humor and a strong desire to poke holes in the boundaries between life and death, monstrous and normal. Bibus has a day job making zombies for a company that sells props and equipment for haunted houses. His work, typified by a squirrel gnawing on a bloody human finger, is the most cheerfully gory of the trio’s. Brewer’s self-termed “carcass art” also has plenty of dark wit, and evokes a strong sense of the uncanny. And Marbury  creates fabric animals that are like rabid, nightmare versions of Muppets. The three gained national attention (including a rave in the New York Times) for their first group show last year. Roguetaxidermy.com features galleries of their art as well as the popular Beast Blender. The A.V. Club sat down with Marbury and Bibus (Brewer’s roof collapsed, forcing her to cancel).

Originally published on avclub.com Oct. 26, 2005. Read the complete article.

The Sharpie Marathon

At one table, two devils wandered through a postapocalyptic wasteland. At the other end of the room, a boy and girl passionately embraced, but tragically, she turned into a robotic killing machine and chased him all over the city. (Modern love is like that.) Across from them was another pair of lovers whose affair was much more traditionally romantic, if you overlooked the fact that he was a square and she was a triangle.

They were all stories drawn in ink, pencil, and marker by a collective of artists—eight bespectacled, nerdy guys mostly in their twenties. They call themselves the Cartoonists’ Conspiracy, and they were hunkered down at three tables at the downtown Grumpy’s. Each was focused intensely on a sheaf of thick, white Bristol one-hundred-pound paper. They were participating in the Twenty-Four Hour Comics Day, an endurance contest that took place a couple of weeks ago. Each artist had a single day to complete a twenty-four-page comic, with no advance planning or preparation.

The idea was proposed about ten years ago by author and cartoonist Scott McCloud. While our local crew was inking away, five hundred others in sixty similar groups were putting pen to paper as far away as South Korea.

Originally published May 20, 2004 in Rake Magazine. Read the complete article.

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