Realm Riders

Roby also debuted a new mini-comic at BCGF, a real life tale of Halloween debauchery called Realm Riders. It was a beast to print, but I think it came out beautifully in the end!

 

Also, the great Jake Austen reviewed two of Roby's minis, Fantasmancer and Rise Up Friends, over at the Roctober blog. Thanks, Jake!

Some Giants Have Sad Eyes

Another experiment with the Ryobi; I made this adorable little book for the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival. The title comes from the mind of my nephew, Shinichi, who after looking through my sketchbook, turned to me and solemnly stated that "some giants have sad eyes"

BCGF and Kevin Hooyman

we spent last weekend at the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival, selling comic books. it was an amazingly sweaty show, we met wonderful new friends, rediscovered some old favorites, and came home with a treasure trove of books. thanks to everyone who visited us, and to all the good folks who put on the show!

alongside our Hidden Fortress books, we had the pleasure of displaying a series of posters from the Worldword project by Peter Glantz and Becky Stark at our table. i can't even count how many times i had to tell people who the genius is that created this:

Kevin Hooyman has been making some of the most beautiful, mind-numbingly intricate comics and prints for years and years, and is one of the sweetest dudes i know. seriously, look at his website, it's full of wondrous things.

also, check out a page from the comic he did for the new Monster:

SPX 2012

This weekend, Hidden Fortress Press manifested at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, MD. We brought the first volume of the Monster 2012 anthology with us, with a super limited edition SPX exclusive dust jacket. Monster 2012 is just under 200 pages long and will be collected in three volumes, each with a beautiful letterpress cover printed by Roby Newton and designed by Heather Benjamin, who is also designing the slipcase that contains the three books.

That's Roby Newton and Ignatz award nominee Mickey Zacchilli representing at the Hidden Fortress Press table. We were psyched to also have Ignatz winner Lale Westvind parked at our table; Hot Dog Beach is well deserving of it's accolades, and Lale is pure badass. 

It was an incredible weekend, we met a ton of wonderful people, saw some dear old friends, met a lot of our heroes, discovered some new heroes, and brought home suitcases full of beautiful books. 

Pressing Issues

the Hidden Fortress Press just keeps rolling along... we should be wrapping up printing this weekend, then on to chopping, folding and binding.
 

we found a red the shade of dried blood, the blue is kinda veiny too

Jon Vermilyea's sinister crow lends some encouraging words

First pages

The first pages of this MONSTER anthology came off the press today. After much experimentation, trial and error, we've settled on two colors that look good and behave the way we want them to. The stickiest wicket has been getting these two colors to register nicely, on a press that really wasn't meant to handle that... but I think we found a sweet spot.

Zissy and Rita

long-time Monster and Paper Rodeo contributor Seth Cooper has launched a Zissy and Rita website! this is great news; his comics are wonderful, and incredibly hard to find. and now they are gathered here for your amusement:

http://i-m.co/zissyandrita/zissyandrita/home

this is the best news of the day!

Andy and Leif

Here now are two of the true Monster Comics OGs: Andy Neal and Leif Goldberg

Andy had a comic in the very first issue of Monster, and now he brings us this tale of mycological horror

check out more monsters at Andy's website

he also runs the best comic book store in the Carolinas, Chapel Hill Comics

Leif Goldberg returns with this Cronenbergian creep-out entitled "They Came From WithIN"

you can find lots of sweet stuff by Leif at Picturebox, and check out his ExplodedView project!

CAKE - Chicago Alternative Comics Expo

Hidden Fortress Press, representing at the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo this past weekend.

Roby and I issued each other a challenge: to create a new comic for Chicago on the Ryobi press, as part of the learning/breaking in process. I would say we had mixed success, but success none the less. Her comic, Fantasmancer #0, came out a lot cleaner than mine, and I had to supplement my pages with some help from Mickey Z's Risograph.

CAKE was a good time, with the greatest people. let's do it again next year

Seth, Jon and Mollie

more fantastic MONSTER comics!

finally, the long awaited return of Zissy and Rita, courtesy of Mr. Seth Cooper, AKA Libythth:

 check out this sweet video of Zissy and Rita rippin' some Sabbath

this comic from Jon Vermilyea is awesome and creeeeepy. and really, really beautiful...

 check out more of Jon's work at his site

and a fantastic new comic by Mollie Goldstrom!

check out more of her work at the closed caption site

Thomas Toye and Keith Jones

time for some more sneak peaks from the new MONSTER anthology from Hidden Fortress Press!

a creepy story from Thomas Toye:

 you can follow Thomas' work at his blog and on his tumblr

Keith Jones brings us a sordid precautionary tale:

look at more of Keith's work at Nobodyland

Michael, Edie and Mike T

let's continue previewing MONSTER comics, shall we? 

this is the handiwork of the super-talented Michael DeForge:

here, see more of Michael's work

Edie has made the most frightening comic submitted to the book so far:

see more work from Edie here

ghastly Mike Taylor presents a chilling ghost epic entitled "Twelve Visits"

 see what else Mike T is up to here

Moving Day

the Hidden Fortress is manifest! today we moved a Ryobi offset press, a Champion paper cutter and a Bostitch stitching machine into the shop. we are one step closer to becoming a fully functional, independent, comic book factory...

our entire printing shop on the back of a flat-bed truck

Al, one of our riggers, delicately maneuvering the Ryobi into the space

the Ryobi. it is glorious.

Sam and Marc

some more rad MONSTER comic previews...

courtesy of Sam Dollenmayer...

check out more of Sam's work at his blog

and look at this sweet page courtesy of Marc Bell:


you can follow Marc's work here

Devin and Mickey

let us begin with some MONSTER previews...

first up, Mr Devin Flynn!



and now, the amazing Mickey Z, whose work can also be seen here...