TCAF

Last weekend, the Hidden Fortress descended upon Toronto, Ontario, Canada for TCAF, the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, and brought some copies of the freshly printed second volume of the three-part MONSTER comic. This volume features the work of Sam Dollenmayer, Michael DeForge, Keith Jones, Mickey Zacchilli, Marc Bell, Molly O'Connell, Seth Cooper and Devin Flynn, and once again has a beautifully printed letterpress cover by Heather Benjamin:

here's one of Marc Bell's pages, painstakingly reproduced on the Ryobi:

TCAF and Toronto were wonderful. Every chance I got to walk away from the table, I found a different nook or cranny where more tables were set up, with more people selling more comics. It was both overwhelming and awe-inspiring. 

here's a picture of Cheryl Kaminsky commandeering the table while I wandered off on one of my forays:

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.

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.