*First Thursday has been moved to Wednesday this month due to the Independence Day holiday.

Established in early 2012, three friends joined forces to expedite the success of their publishing goals. Jason Leivian from Floating World, Zack Soto from Study Group, and Francois Vigneault from Family Style shared their knowledge, pooled their resources, travelled far and wide to form a collective as dangerous as their reputations would suggest – a Press Gang!

One year later we are proud to present four monumental new releases -

Object 10 Works by Kilian Eng. Floating World Comics presents Kilian Eng’s second monograph of retro futuristic illustration and graphic design in a gorgeous hardcover edition. Limited edition archival prints will be on display and for sale.

It Will All Hurt by Farel Dalrymple. As regular studygroupcomics.com readers already know, this is one of the coolest science-fantasy adventure comics you will ever read. Printed on bright Golden Age newsprint with risograph covers, IWAH is a weird, sad, silly, and sketchy, fantasy adventure strip with magic and science-fiction and some fighting action. Original art by Farel Dalrymple will be on display and for sale.

Study Group Magazine #2. The second issue of this award winning comics anthology/journal is the perfect accompaniment to Zack Soto’s acclaimed comics website.

Titan #1 by Francois Vigneault. 32 pages of duotone Sci-Fi comics glory. When Mngr João da Silva is sent to Homestead Station on the moon of Titan he finds himself caught in the simmering tensions between the geneticly-engineered Titan workers and the Terran management.

WHO: Farel Dalrymple, Zack Soto, Francois Vigneault
WHAT: Object 10/It Will All Hurt/StudyGroup Magazine #2/Titan release party & art exhibit
WHEN: Wednesday July 3, 6-10pm
WHERE: Floating World Comics, 400 NW Couch St.

Artwork will be on display until the end of July.
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Join us in celebrating the best holiday of the year: Captain Picard Day!

You can view the inspiration here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiKwAS1qaCk

Once again, we will be holding an art contest and show to honor the man, the myth, the legend: Jean Luc Picard. As always, it will be completely free to enter and attend. Since I know all of you will want to spend Captain Picard Day with your families and loved ones, this year we are celebrating it the week before, on First Thursday June 6th.

If you want to submit art for the contest, great! Like I said, it’s free to enter, and there will be hundreds of dollars worth of prizes.

Rules for entry -

1. In order to submit you have two options: You can drop it off at Floating World Comics between Saturday June 1st and the show itself, but we really recommend bringing it in by Tuesday June 4th. Alternately, you can mail it to us.  If you do, please label your package ‘Attn: CAPTAIN PICARD DAY’

2. Attach a label or index card to the back of your art with the following contact info: your name and phone number or email address. If the art is for sale include a price (Floating World takes a 1/3rd commission on art sales), or write NFS (not for sale).

3. We start hanging the art show on Wednesday June 5th. If you bring artwork in the day of the event (Thursday, June 6th) we cannot guarantee good placement. To reiterate, I REALLY RECOMMEND BRINGING IT EARLY.

4. All artists will have the option of selling their art through FWC. Sales are cash and carry, meaning after the prizes are awarded at 9pm, art will be sold directly off the wall. It is important to include your contact info so you can receive payment.

5. All art that does not get sold at the event will be displayed in store through the month of June (if you want it to, that is. If you would rather hide your art in a cave where no one can see it, that’s your business). You are responsible for claiming your artwork anytime before June 30th.

If you don’t want to submit art, but you do want to attend the event… ummm… just show up between 6 and 10 and look at the arts. It is pretty straightforward. But you should really submit some art! Last year I gave out prizes just for submitting stuff! This year I will do that again!

LISTING INFORMATION:

WHO: You, a bunch of TNG fans, guest judges
WHAT: Group art contest
WHEN: Thursday, June 6th, 6-10pm, judging and prizes at 9pm
WHERE: Floating World Comics, 400 NW Couch St.

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Join writer Jeff Parker on Wednesday May 29 to celebrate the release of ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #1, featuring work by Jeff Parker and Chris Samnee, plus stories by Jeff Lemire and the team of Justin Jordan and Riley Rossmo. 100% of the proceeds from this issue will be donated to Allout.org to support their fight for LGBT equality.

From Portland Mercury, 2/21/13:

DC Comics recently hired Orson Scott Card to write a story in the first issue of their new Superman comic, Adventures of Superman. Card’s a hell of a writer—he wrote Ender’s Game, one of my favorite novels, the long-awaited film adaptation of which will come out this fall. He’s also a relentless, shameless bigot.

For at least 20 years, the Mormon author has been doing his sanctimonious best to deny respect and basic civil rights to everyone who isn’t heterosexual. There’s a huge chasm between the person who I imagine wrote Ender’s Game—a fantastic, nuanced story about the brutal lies of war, the strength and frailty of human beings, and neat rooms where kids can float around because there isn’t any gravity—and the person Card’s revealed himself to be through actions like serving on the board of the National Organization for Marriage. When he isn’t saying that gays and lesbians should be arrested—

What we do with small children is to establish clear boundaries and offer swift but mild punishment for crossing them. As their capacity to understand and obey increases, the boundaries broaden but the consequences of crossing them become more severe…

Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society’s regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society. (Via.)

—he’s (apparently seriously) vowing to overthrow any government that lets gays and lesbians get married.

Marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down. (Via.)

I also spoke with Floating World Comics’ Jason Leivian, who—like Chicago’s Challengers Comics—has found a pretty fantastic solution: Yes, he’ll be selling the issue, but 100 percent of Floating World’s proceeds from the book will be going to “All Out or another LGBT charity organization.”

“While I feel that a financial boycott may hit DC’s bottom line a little harder,” Leivian says, “I like that there has been a large public response to this story and I’d like to spin it in the opposite direction by using this controversy to directly support organizations Orson Scott Card would be opposed to.”

A couple weeks later artist Chris Sprouse announced that he would not illustrate the story written by Card, citing the media attention surrounding the controversial author. As a result DC has cancelled the Orson Scott Card story, possibly to be published later with a different artist.

WHO: Jeff Parker
WHAT: ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #1 release party, benefit for All Out
WHEN: Wednesday May 29, 5-7pm
WHERE: Floating World Comics, 400 NW Couch St.

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Comics illustrator Tommi Musturi and editor Ville Hänninen will discuss their work on Finnish comics as part of the International Comic Arts Forum’s 16th Annual Conference in Portland on Thursday, May 23 at 7:30pm. Floating World Comics, located at 400 NW Couch Street, is hosting this special event, which includes a pre-talk reception at 6:30pm and Q&A following the artists presentations.

WHO: Tommi Musturi and Ville Hänninen
WHAT: Art exhibit and artist talk at 7:30pm
WHEN: Thursday May 23, 6:30-9pm
WHERE: Floating World Comics, 400 NW Couch St.

Musturi is among the most popular and well-known illustrators and comics artists in Finland today. A member of the Kutikuti Collective, he has published his work in Kolor Klimax: Nordic Comics Now (Fantagraphics, 2012). He also serves as artistic director for the Helsinki Comics Festival and blogs at: boingbeing.wordpress.com.

Hänninen has been writing comics criticism for various magazines and newspapers in Finland since 1997. He has written or edited 12 books, including The Finnish Comics Annual 2011, a colossal anthology of Finnish comics, and In the Face, a book of interviews with contemporary Finnish comic artists. He has also co-curatored  “Eyeballing!”,  an exhibition of Finnish comics in the Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA in Helsinki. At the moment he’s working on an education, publication and exhibition project (“Building up the stories”) that aims at getting talented young artists to fulfill their potential as comics artists.

Since 1995, the International Comic Arts Forum (ICAF) has been dedicated to promoting the scholarly study and appreciation of comic art, including comic strips, comic books, comics albums and graphic novels, magazine and newspaper cartooning, caricature, and comics in electronic media. The forum provides a supportive, collegial environment to showcase innovative comics scholarship and comic art for critics, historians, teachers, and comics professionals from around the world.

For more information, including the full schedule of ICAF 2013 events from May 23-25, please visit: http://www.internationalcomicartsforum.org/

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The creator of the acclaimed graphic novels Bottomless Belly Button and Bodyworld hits the road in support of his new graphic novel, New School, as well as the one-shot comic book, 3 New Stories. At Floating World, Dash Shaw will be signing copies of his new books before their wide release, with a gallery full of original artwork and presentations of his animation works (including the Sigur Rós video, “Seraph”).

New School is a full-color, classic coming-of-age story that encapsulates the current generation, both trapped and enthralled by pop culture. Shaw dramatizes the story two brothers, one moving to an exotic country where an ambitious new amusement park recreates historical events and the younger one who goes to find his brother after years of little contact. New School is unlike anything in the history of the comics medium: at once funny and deadly serious, easily readable while wildly artistic, personal and political, familiar and completely new.

Here’s a trailer for the book with art and animation by Shaw, killer music by Lily Benson and Doron Sadja.

WHO: Dash Shaw
WHAT: New School book release & art exhibit, presentation at 7pm
WHEN: Thursday May 2, 6-10pm
WHERE: Floating World Comics, 400 NW Couch St.

Artwork will be on display until May 31.

Dash Shaw lives in Brooklyn, NY. He is currently writing and directing an animated feature film, The Ruined Cast.

“A former student of the genius artist-seer-cartoonist Gary Panter, Dash, it’s fair to say, is something of a genius as well.” – Chris Ware (more…)

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