Cartoon Crossroads 2015

This weekend the Hidden Fortress will be traveling west for the first ever Cartoon Crossroads in Columbus, Ohio! They're trying to spin it as a "trial" or "beta" run of the show, but with three days of awesome events and programming, and special guests like Bill Griffith, Art Spiegelman, Francoise Mouly, Jaime Hernandez and Jeff Smith (among others!), they already seem to be rolling with the big dogs. I'm really looking forward to being a part of it all!

Not sure exactly where the Hidden Fortress table will be located (here's where I'd typically attach an incredibly useful floor map), but there are so many good folks in the room, we're sure to be sitting next to somebody good! The exhibit hall will be located at the Cultural Arts Center, 139 W Main St, from 11AM until 6PM on Saturday, October 3.

At the very least, I'm psyched to check out the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum while I'm there!

Entering a Room Full of People, by Tom Toye

If you've been following Tom Toye's Tumblr, then you've probably seen bits and pieces of his epic project, ENTERING A ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE (EARFOP). Well, Tom came up and visited us at the Hidden Fortress last weekend, as we put the finishing touches on the book:

EARFOP is a joint production of the Illogical Comics Estate and Hidden Fortress Press, it features 44 pages of stomach churning, brain-breaking comics printed in 2 colors on the offset press, wrapped up in a beautiful and insane cover, silk-screened by Tom himself. 

I spent two weeks printing this book, and spent most of that time in the shop blasting early 80's Teutonic thrash metal (the unholy trifecta of Kreator, Destruction and Sodom), so it's no surprise that in talking about EARFOP I keep dropping descriptors like "corpse-ripping", "morbid" and "total destruction", but it's really a thing of beauty. Like a fragrant, pallid night-blooming flower, grown from a carcass that has rotted and become fertile.

See what I mean?

It was awesome having Tom join us in the shop! It was a real nose-to-the-grindstone weekend, and I was thankful to have him there for the tedious chore of folding and collating...

Tom will have copies of EARFOP for sale this weekend at the Paper Jam Small Press Fest, and is now available to purchase in the Hidden Fortress store!

BUDDIES FOR SALE

BUDDIES, the 2015 Providence Comics Yearbook, is now available for purchase at the Hidden Fortress Storenvy store!

Or if you're local to Providence, you can alternately find BUDDIES at Ada Books, Multiverse, Time Capsule and others!

RIPExpo 2015

We'll be having a book release party for BUDDIES at Ada book tonight, so come on down if you'd like to lay your hands or eyes on the book on it's birthday. Ada is at 717 Westminster St, here in Providence.

If you'd like to come visit us this weekend at the RIPExpo, here's where we'll be:

You can find BUDDIES at the Hidden Fortress table in the Ship Room, or at the PCC table down in the pit!

See you there!

Short Run 2014

Tomorrow I'll be flying west for the Short Run fest in Seattle, WA. I've been to Seattle once before, but literally breezed through on my tour of the mountain ranges of the Pacific NW earlier this year. I'm looking forward to taking the time to get acquainted this time around!

It's my first time at Short Run, but I've heard it's a wonderful show, and the folks who put it on are top notch! If you're in town, come out and visit me at table E-21

The main exhibit space is at Washington Hall, 153 14th Ave in Seattle, WA, but there are events happening all over the city over the course of the week! I'll only be there for the weekend though, so plan accordingly

MICExpo 2014

This weekend, October 4-5, the Hidden Fortress will be setting down in nearby Cambridge, MA for the 5th annual MICExpo (Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo). Look for us at table C-125, in the Crumb room, with all the other crumbums!

We'll have all the MONSTERS, wrestling comics, t-shirts and stickers you could ever possibly want!

New Additions to the Hidden Fortress Catalog

We've added two new items to the Hidden Fortress Storenvy store:

the mighty SCREWJOB anthology is available for purchase! Featuring 64 pages of pulse pounding, intestinal fortitude building, four color offset printed comics by: Matt Leines, Box Brown, Pat Aulisio, Lale Westvind, Josh Bayer, Blake Sims, Brian Ralph, Paul Lyons, Mickey Zacchilli, Walker Mettling and featuring a grotesque cover by James "Gunsho" Quigley!

and this new gross-out Hidden Fortress shirt, three color silkscreen on black Anvil T. comes in all the most popular sizes!

RIPExpo 2014

This weekend we'll be downtown at the Providence Public Library for the first ever Rhode Island Independent Publishing Expo (RIPExpo). It should be a great time, and events have probably already started by the time you read this; check out some of the amazing programming they have planned! And gaze upon this beautiful poster by Leif Goldberg:

Matthew Lawrence wrote a sweet piece about it in this week's Phoenix, you should all come down and visit!

CAKE 2014

The car is packed, and I'm preparing to take the long way to CAKE, the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo. CAKE has been around now for 3 glorious years, and we've been there since it's inception. It's a great show, so many talented and wonderful people gathered together under one roof!

We'll be setting up shop at table 25, surrounded by some of the best people in the biz: Jo Dery will be holding down the Pegacorn Press table to our right, and Walker and Julia will have the full power of the Providence Comics Consortium on display to our left.

Come visit us, Chicago!

Thirteen Sided Die #2

The Hidden Fortress is packed up and ready to embark on a journey to LineworkNW in Portland, OR this weekend. In addition to the regular staples of our catalog, I just finished printing the latest installment of my sketchbook series Thirteen Sided Die.

I'm still pretty new to this offset printing process, and Thirteen Sided Die is where I try to work the bugs out. The first issue was literally the first thing I attempted printing on the Hidden Fortress Press, and it was a mess; as should be expected, I had no idea what I was doing. This second issue is my attempt at printing four color CMYK color separations on the press, with mixed success:

If you want this book but can't make it out to Portland for the show, I'll be adding it to the Hidden Fortress webstore when I return from the west coast. 

Thanks to Walker for helping me Riso those covers in a pinch! He and the Providence Comics Consortium will be joining me at the Hidden Fortress table at LineworkNW, and I think he's going to be on a panel too. Come say hi to us if you're there!

MONSTER reviews!

Cool! The book has only been in existence for a couple of weeks and we're excited to be seeing some sweet reviews appearing online already:

Tom Spurgeon wrote about it on his blog, the Comics Reporter. I love Tom, he's one of the best people in the business, and every time he mentions us on his blog, our views over here triple! Like most people in the independent comics world, we owe him a lot!

Andy Rench wrote an equally wonderful review over at his Printed-Matters blog. I don't know Andy personally, but he has excellent taste! And his blog belies a deep, passionate appreciation of printed work. Great stuff!

STORENVY

there is now a Hidden Fortress storenvy store, which is a great place to buy all our comics, and whatever else we decide to make, like that shirt i made with this grotesque image on it:

i'll keep the Big Cartel store around for now, but truthfully, the storenvy store will be getting most of my attention.

http://hiddenfortress.storenvy.com/

Muster-List

For the past year or so, Chuck Forsman has been maintaining a database of mini-comics artists and distros called the Muster-List, and it has become an invaluable resource for connecting comic makers/sellers to their readers. As of today, you can find the Hidden Fortress Press among the ranks of that proud pantheon!

Everything that Chuck does is gold. His book The End of the Fucking World will be available in July from Fantagraphics Books, and he is the publisher of the incredible Oily Comics line of mini-comics. An Oily Comics subscription was one of the last wise investments I made this year.

Lale Westvind

Providence was recently visited by the comic book dynamo known as Lale Westvind, and I'm pleased to announce that the Hidden Fortress Press was able to add her to the roster of artists working on the over-sized (it's still growing...) new issue of MONSTER! Lale is incredibly talented. Hot Dog Beach #2 won an Ignatz at last year's SPX, and she has a beautiful comic in the new issue of Arthur magazine. Check out her blog here, or better yet, buy her comics here!

Here's a preview of her 8 page MONSTER comic:

like everything she does, it is awesome.

Mickey Z

well, dear reader, i have good news and i have bad. the bad news is that Mickey Zacchilli has pulled her comic from this current Monster. but fear not! i don't know how she did it, but somehow in the last week she's produced eleven new pages to replace the old strip. she is putting us all to shame... 

now go look at her tumblr!

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"

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.

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!