First Screen print…

…since high school, at least. It’s for Sara Varon‘s awesome screen-printing class at SVA. The piece could be better, but I’m pretty happy with it for a start.

 

 

 

3rd Ward Drink & Draw

Here are some drawings from a Drink and Draw at 3rd Ward that I attended with the extremely talented Demetrios Vital. Definitely a great place. If you are ever in the neighborhood, absolutely eat at Nam Nam, which manages to have bubble tea and banh mi that are both excellent.

For Andrea “Two Bombs” Tsurumi

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! Please go cause some mayhem in the name of love.

A-Changin’

Dearest Fans, Detractors, and Passersby

As you can see, it has been a while, and things have fallen into disrepair. I’m overhauling the site as quickly as I can. This area will soon be an actual blog, with a separate, Webcomic-plugin-powered section of the site to display comics-poems.

It won’t be too much longer. Many thanks for your interest and patience in the meantime.

The HoneySuckle Wall

Poems About Running

First of the new collection. Poems primarily about running and probably plants.

Honeysuckle Wall, Winter page 1, Versequential Comics Poetry by Alexander Rothman

Honeysuckle Wall, Winter page 1, Versequential Comics Poetry by Alexander Rothman

 

Kōjō No Tsuki

Formerly known as “Monk’s Japanese Folk Song”

Here’s the third and last piece I’ll post from Circulating Drafts. There’s one more in the print edition, so if you feel like playing the patron, head on over to the Versequential Etsy page and consider picking one up.

 

Versequential Comics Poetry: Kōjō No Tsuki page 1 by Alexander Rothman

 

Versequential Comics Poetry: Kōjō No Tsuki page 2 by Alexander Rothman

 

Versequential Comics Poetry: Kōjō No Tsuki page 3 by Alexander Rothman

 

Studies

Running Engine

Here are some studies for upcoming projects: stealing shamelessly from Andrea Tsurumi, I’m planning a series of 13 blackbirds. And the next bunch of comics-poems will be about running. Probably a whole chapbook of pieces about this.

This blackbird is Andrea

This blackbird lives in a bog.

This blackbird is diving from a perch.

This blackbird knows what you are thinking.

Studies of barefoot runners

More barefoot running

My continuing ed. class is over—thanks again to Sal Amendola for his wisdom. Now it’s time to save money, but still time to keep learning.

New Gulf

Another from Circulating Drafts

Well, Andrea pointed out to me that my “About” section and links had disappeared. So… they’re back. And here is the revised version of “Gulf” from the new, printed book.

 

Versequential Comics Poetry: Gulf page 1 by Alexander Rothman

 

Versequential Comics Poetry: Gulf page 2 by Alexander Rothman

 

Versequential Comics Poetry: Gulf page 3 by Alexander Rothman

 

Versequential Comics Poetry: Gulf page 4 by Alexander Rothman

 

Versequential Comics Poetry: Gulf page 5 by Alexander Rothman

 

MoCCA Roundup

Riches and Wonders

It’s now been a week since MoCCA Festival 2011, and I finally feel somewhat back to normal. As in previous years, the weekend went by in a flash—or maybe more accurately in some sort of demented fever dream, fueled by a week of little-or-no sleep, InDesign-cursing, and severe onset of Stapler’s Wrist. That said, this year felt a lot less stressful at the Tapir Tooth table, which I think speaks to how far we’ve all come since we started doing this.

 

I was selling my new mini/chapbook, Circulating Drafts, which is available through Etsy (note the new link in the sidebar). I’ll post more material from it soon, but some will remain exclusive to the print edition.

 

I walked away from the weekend with a light wallet and a small treasure trove of comics. There were way too many great finds to list everything, but here are some highlights.

 

First and foremost, there were exciting new offerings from my Tapir Tooth compatriots—a gorgeous set of postcards from Andrea Tsurumi, a preview of a Reconstruction-era western by Peter Quach, a collection of Centaur-a-Day postings by Miriam Gibson, and a Pokemon-based collaboration between Miriam and Blūjay.

 

detail from "taking a violin on the nyc subway"

Art by Meredith Leich

 

We were lucky to have two sets of talented and friendly neighbors: Meredith Leich and Liana Finck on the one side, the folks at Nerd Comics on the other. (That’s a detail from Leich here. I was struck by how lyrical her work was, and I’m excited to check out more.) A few tables down was Kenan Rubenstein, our neighbor from last year. All awesome cartoonists and well worth checking out.

 

detail from "vita"

Art by Anthony Cudahy

I was kind of blown away by Anthony Cudahy’s brushwork (here’s a partial detail, which does not do justice to the work), and totally delighted by Caitlin McGurk’s flash cards to sort out members of the Wu Tang clan—including, of course, our generation’s William Blake, one Ol’ Dirty Bastard.

 

NEON

Cover to Finnish Comics Annual 2011

I splurged on this giant, pink, weird anthology of Finnish comics, which I’m still working my way through. Neat stuff.

 

There was new work (mostly minis) from a number of my friends and mentors, including Tom Hart, Tom Motley, Jason Little, Jon Lewis, Karen Sneider, Josh Bayer, and C. Che Salazar. I finally caught a panel, featuring young New Yorker cartoonists that included my old schoolmate Zach Kanin.

 

I’m mooching off Andrea’s copy of Kate Beaton’s new book. The NBM table fed my addiction to Dungeon, the satirical French fantasy series.

 

cover to "farm 54"

Cover to Farm 54

And reaching a crescendo, if I had to pick two clear highlights from the convention, they’d be Joseph Lambert’s I Will Bite You and Galit & Gilad Seliktar’s Farm 54. The former is kind of indescribable, and you should go pick it up right now. (I’ll just say that “TURTLE, KEEP IT STEADY!” has immediately entered our daily usage.) The latter (cover pictured here) is a fictionalized memoir of growing up in Israel, told in dreamy, exquisitely rendered vignettes.

 

Whew! That’s it for now. Keep an eye out for more revisions, and perhaps an eventual move away from the blog format, toward something a little more focused on finalized content.

 

MOCCA Festival

Come visit Tapir Tooth at Table I-11

This Saturday and Sunday, I’ll be tabling at the annual Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art’s annual festival, along with the other members of the Tapir Tooth collective. It’s being held at the 69th Regiment Armory, on Lexington Ave. between 25th and 26th Streets in NYC.

Come visit us at table I-11—and if you feel so disposed, pick up a copy of my first print collection, Circulating Drafts. As a teaser, here is the revised version of a poem that was posted here earlier, now titled “Magnolias: What Spring Has.”

 

Versequential Comics Poetry. Magnolias: What Spring Has page 1 by Alexander Rothman

 

Versequential Comics Poetry. Magnolias: What Spring Has page 2 by Alexander Rothman

 

Versequential Comics Poetry. Magnolias: What Spring Has page 3 by Alexander Rothman