Patrick Wray Storyteller Spotlight

                                                               Patrick Wray

                                                         "Clapton Pond" (2018)

Instagram

Bluesky

blog

YouTube

Bandcamp

Patrick Wray is the epitome of a multidisciplinary artist. I love everything he does comics, music, writing. I don't even recall the exact posting where I came across his work on old twitter the first time but I instantly was taken with his un-primitive, exploding with color, drawings. This humble list is an attempt to give a small idea of the dizzying breadth of Wray's talents and obsessions.

For a more in depth examination of Patrick Wray's life and art, I highly recommend checking out his biography page on his website. Much more art on the site, as well (look for the gallery of hand-painted t-shirts!).

WORK (2006-PRESENT): Bookseller at Foyles Bookstore on Charing Cross Road in London. Here is a video tour of the store from 2020 (I've never seen any store this big, let alone a bookstore!):

LucAbroad

Here is a link to a TikTok video book review by Wray of I SPIT ON YOUR CELLULOID by Heidi Honeycutt (via @thebigfoyles)

COMIC (2024): THE END OF THE BEGINNING: SOME DRAWINGS AND PAINTINGS 2020-2024. Exactly what the title says, full color on cardstock covers and glossy paper inside. I quite like the biro portrait of actor Sadie Sink, very complex with an unusual technique. They're all good, though. Buy here and the artist's store

ARTICLE (2024): One thing I love most about Patrick Wray is you never can predict what's up next. Case in point, a 10-page article in THE DARKSIDE MAGAZINE #262 titled "Ghosts, Monsters and UFOs!". Wray examines the 80s era WORLD OF THE UNKNOWN series published by Usborne:

pocketmags.com

MEMOIR (2023): "97 Lost Futures" article by Wray about watching the football match as the Hillsborough Disaster unfolded. "I still remember that day. I was at home, I was safe." Read the entire piece on the Exit Press substack

SCORE (2023): Wray provided the music for Sarah Alwin's short film "Surprise View". Sarah explains the project here.

And, a second collaboration with Sarah Alwin titled "Single Use Only". Sarah's commentary here

Both: YouTube

INTERVIEW (2022): "Dean Alioto: Found Footage pioneer" the filmaker is interviewed by Wray about his 1988 alien invasion movie UFO ABDUCTION (aka THE McPHERSON TAPE).  Read the in depth interview here

COMIC (2022): GHOST STORIES I REMEMBER published by Colossive Press. This may be my favorite Patrick Wray comic. I absolutely love the intensity of the drawings of his recollections of ghosts and supernatural phenomena he's encountered in his life, combined with the casual text recounting same. Available from Colossive Press

Andy Oliver review at Broken Frontier

COMIC (2022): GRANDAD REG story by Clara Heathcock art by Patrick Wray. Published by the excellent kus! of Latvia. I bought this as soon as it came out and Wray's art/collage is well served by the always high kus! production values. (Try a kus! anthology as well if you order from the publisher)

kus!

Andy Oliver review at Broken Frontier

Kevin Bramer review at Optical Sloth

Justin Giampaoli review at Thirteen Minutes

COMIC (2022): WE CAN COLLECT THE KEYS story by Clive Judd art by Wray. Published by the sadly defunct Exit Press. Description borrowed from the Iglootree retail site: "For Exit Press' first single author release, we take a dream-like walk through Clive Judd's last days in London. Patrick Wray's surreal illustrations show us the texture of his dreamscape. One moment, Clive is packing up boxes, the next he's recounting Philip K. Dick's theories of the ways that we slip between worlds." I missed picking this up when it first came out, but it definitely sounds of a piece with Wray's solo work. Copies still available from the artist's store

Patrick Wray

DOCUMENTARY (2021): "The Extraordinary Life of Clive Murphy" produced by Patrick Wray. Based on Wray's 2019 interview with the creator of the "other lives" series, Ribald Rhymes series, prose novels, etcetera. Listen here

soundcloud

Kindle version

ZINE (2021): COLOSSIVE CARTOGRAHIES #21: MIRROR MIRROR published by Colossive Press. Indescribable foldout object, has to be seen to be fully appreciated (although I did try to take a picture of the main image below, there are a number of other images by Wray that tell a whole story). Available from Colossive Press

MUSIC VIDEO (2021): "Oh Blimey! (It's Rachel Riley)" Described by Wray as, "A short song about 'Countdown' presenter and maths genius Rachel Riley". From the album 
LEARNING TO SWIM which was part of the 20X20 Project.

YouTube

GRAPHIC NOVEL (2020): One of my obsessions soon after I joined twitter in 2020 was completing a run of every title published by Avery Hill Publishing in 2020, including the singular stamp art graphic novel THE FLOOD THAT DID COME by multidisciplinary artist Patrick Wray. Even looking back five years later, it's incredible how Patrick using just a half  dozen or so recurring images is able to construct a compelling narrative.

cover

 

Andy Oliver review on Broken Frontier

Ryan Carey review on SOLRAD

John Seven review on The Beat

Rachel Bellwoar review on Comicon

Win Wiacek review on Now Read This!

COMIC STRIP (2020): "The Teenage Magus" an unusual four-page story by Wray in a more realistic style, featuring a character that speaks in quotes from his novel-in-progress. Read here.

deep overstock

ARTICLE (2020): RECORD COLLECTOR #512 "Under The Radar" article written by Wray on unjustly obscure 80s band Sudden Sway. Read the full article here. "Fartherized" song mentioned in the article:

YouTube

Bonus full interview with A&R representative Mike Alway quoted in the above article. Read here

COMIC (2018): PERFORATED EARDRUM!!! story by Clara Heathcock art by Patrick Wray. Published through Honey Bee Books. Available from the writer and the artist's store

Patrick Wray

Patrick Wray produced a "making of" video of this comic, directed and edited by Shane Bordas

YouTube

Victoria Bailey review on the f word

INTERVIEWS:

Signals From the Hill #30

Artlyst

The Haunted Generation

Comix Reading List #1: CANON ANNUAL 2024

 1. CANON ANNUAL 2024 (Colin Blanchette) Mail

Cover: Noah Van Sciver

Contents page

Have you ever had a dream where you find an out of the way comics shop with bins of comics and comics related books that you always wished existed and were within reach before you woke up and they vanished? Well, this is a book I would have glanced at in those elusive fever dream bins.

Colin Blanchette first tackled THE COMICS JOURNAL'S "100 Best Comics of the 20th Century" in a ten-part video series that I spotlighted on this very blog November 30, 2022. Unfortunately, Colin's channel was deleted along with this important series of videos a few weeks later. Fast forward a couple years and Blanchette (with CANON cohort Alex Eklund) has not only started reconstructing this 10-part video series, but he has doubled down on researching every aspect of the list in TCJ #210 in this special giant-sized CANON ANNUAL.

We start off with an excellent homage to Seth's original cover to TCJ by Noah Van Sciver. The few characters depicted from the 21st century set this apart from the original cover, as if we are looking back on the comics of the previous century from our current vantage point.

I say I'm a pretty big nut for THE COMICS JOURNAL, however even I never gave much thought to the mechanics behind compiling this impossible list that no one outside of the Journal offices even wanted. Colin begins his deconstruction by interviewing the five surviving list makers (as well as Eric Reynolds and Seth who made lists at the time that were not counted against the final list). We begin to get a good sense of the typical seat-of-the-pants way things seem to have been done at the Journal. Tom Spurgeon was editor of the Journal at the time and seems to be the ringleader of the enterprise, with Gary Groth and Kim Thompson hammering the eight lists commissioned into a unified whole. There doesn't initially appear to be any rules as to what the list makers could put on their lists but that eventually narrowed to English-language North American comics and cartoonists only, leaving British, bande desinee, and Manga off the final list. I love the various viewpoints revealed through the interviews (especially supposed odd man out Ray Mescallado whose list is an interesting anomaly), and the inimitable wide range of the individual lists that Blanchette was able to dig up. 

I was not initially enthused by the conceit of the dialogue section where Colin and Alex go entry by entry through the entire "100 Best Comics of the 20th Century" list. At first glance it fairly reeks of navel gazing, twice over. Well, that probably would have been the case if it weren't for the chemistry between Colin and Alex. In fact, as far as a general audience goes I think this feature makes the whole book more accessible. I was immediately drawn into the conversation as I read along, agreeing and disagreeing on the why's and where's of each entry on the list. It's a really ingenious move to humanize a 25+ year old list that's probably not familiar to a lot of people today. Personally, it helped to hear that neither gent was intimately familiar with every work on the list, makes for a more relatable case when their opinions clash with their readers.

No discussion of TCJ #210 would be complete without at least a mention of Dave Sim's CEREBUS being left off the list. Colin Blanchette goes a step beyond a step further and solves the mystery. The slippery mechanics of the final list come to light in Blanchette's research, CEREBUS the complete series and individual runs received votes multiple times by multiple list makers. You'll have to buy the book for more specifics. I'm satisfied with the answers that he has dug up, especially since the process that excluded CEREBUS is the same process that led to multiple entries for Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez.

I would be fine if the book ended there, but Blanchette and Eklund dig deeper with lists of their own! "Where Are They Now?" and "Deceased Cartoonists and Writers That Appeared on the Top 100" covers all the creators on the list. "Notable Omissions" is a compilation of a second 100 titles from all the extant individual lists, whining in Blood & Thunder, as well as the editors own personal preference (list nerd that I am, this is one of my favorite sections). Wrapping this motherfucking beast up is a compendium of statistics that are at least invaluable in showing the biases of the list 25 years later.

i don't know if there is a widespread audience for this niche in the comics world. However the first printing sold out according to the website. So what do I know?

Five Highlights From The Comics Journal #47

                        Dennis Fujitake

                 Colors: Kim Thompson

"I believe that sequential art is the oldest communicating art form, I think it has the validity of any other art form - and while it may not have the breadth and dimension of motion pictures and it may not have the ability to cover abstracts the way lines of words do, and it may not be able to do a lot of things - it has served humanity since early man because it has the ability to transmit a story." -Will Eisner (page 43)

THE COMICS JOURNAL #47 (July 1979)

1. ESSAY: THE DEATH OF THE SUPERHEROES by Steve Skeates. 

Framed by a scene of fictitious Doc Savage responding to real life Jim Jones and the Guyana cult massacre, is an autobiography by Skeates and a eulogy for the end of revelance in mainstream superhero comics. Skeates (1943-2023) was one-of-a-kind. 

2. NEWSWATCH: ALTERNATIVE PRESS. 

[Fantagraphics Forgotten Line]

From Love & Maggie blog 12/12/09: Unfortunately, for some unknown reason this line of comics never materialized (with the exception of THE FLAMES OF GYRO, which I always considered the first Fantagraphics comic book) at Fantagraphics. At least three issues of HORNY COMIX were published by Rip Off Press in 1991 and PORTIA PRINZ OF THE GLAMAZONS was published by Eclipse Comics beginning in 1986 with a trade paperback (original or reprint, I don't know) by Marlowe & Co. in 1994. The Dwight Decker material is probably lost [...], and, likewise, the science fiction anthology never came together.

                                GCD

3. NEWSWATCH: UNDERGROUNDS by Bruce Sweeney. 

Lots of rare self-published comix listed this time around, including a band sponsored mini, four from Valentino, and one of the last small press comix from Dave Geiser. Following the first six pictured mini-comic releases are the earliest Clay Geerdes minis released. I love Geerdes underappreciated artwork, and his solo book DISCO MOUSE is particularly charming.

            Above: Poopsheet Foundation

                    Comic Book Realm 

            Above: Poopsheet Foundation 

                         Comixjoint

                   Comic Book Realm 

          Above: Poopsheet Foundation 

4. COLUMN: PANEL PROGRESSIONS: EISNER THE MASTER STYLIST by Greg Potter. The first in a long-running series by Greg Potter continuing in #53(Neal Adams), #59(Jack Kirby), #63(Alex Raymond and Hal Foster), #67(Harvey Kurtzman), and #71(Bernard Krigstein).

 

5. ADVERTISEMENT: CARTOON CARNIVAL. 

Cartoon Carnival of Wallingford PA was a regular advertiser in early issues of TNJ and TCJ. 

This isn't an original, but this is an excerpt from a 1926 THE BUNGLES daily as advertised above...

                                 ebay

Comix Reading List #98-112: Final Readings of 2024

 98. THE LOST WORLDS OF GEORGE METZGER (Fantagraphics Underground) Hoopla

What a great opportunity to catch up on one of the more unusual underground cartoonists. Metzger brings what would these days be called a manga-influenced art style, highly intricate and equally well-suited to action and drama. This reprints all of Metzger's solo comics (MOONDOG 1-4, TRUCKIN' 1-2, and MU, THE LAND THAT NEVER WAS) and nearly another dozen more shorts for anthologies. I say unusual because the little sex that Metzger injects into his stories is only used to move the narrative forward, not self indulgence like many other underground cartoonists. 

99. WORLD WAR 3 ILLUSTRATED: 1979-2014 (PM Press) Hoopla

Good post-election reading material. I borrowed scans of the contents page from archive.org to show the wide range of subject matter and artists in this magazine.  

100. ANARCHY COMICS: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION (PM Press) Hoopla

Jay Kinney, Paul Mavrides, and company started this slightly tongue-in-cheek, slightly earnest political comic a couple years before WW3 ILLUSTRATED began. My favorite parts were definitely the Spain Rodriguez biographies of radicals Nestor Makhno, Buenaventura Durruti, as well as the Roman Spring and Paris Commune. Sharon Rudahl and Melinda Gebbie were also regulars.

101. BATMAN: THE CULT DELUXE EDITION (Penguin Random House) In Stock Trades

A DC hardcover Batman collection from the grim and gritty era following THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS? I don't fucking think so. Enter Ryan Carey, who reviewed this recent reprinting of the Jim Starlin written, Bernie Wrightson drawn series on his patreon. This was definitely readable despite the usual melodrama of superhero comics, but the extended helping of Wrightson art is most worth a look here.

102. UFO MUSHROOM INVASION (Bud Plant) Library

I've become a big fan of Manga horror, especially Kazuo Umezu, this is more in a post-apocalyptic science fiction vein. Shirakawa Marina was little-known to me before I found this at the library. The art in this is really a cut above in it's slowly building tension and absolute dread as the alien spores take over. The over the top ending was brilliantly played. I normally wouldn't recommend a book from this publisher, but I do support the efforts of Ryan Holmberg who is behind this imprint.

103-106. COMICS BLOGGER #3-6 (Comics Blogger store) mail

 I'm trying to play catch up after buying the first three (including #0) issues way back when I was still on twitter. Thomas Campbell has a great vision of  comics and cartoonists that deserve more attention and analysis. Highlights from these (still in print) early issues are the Katie Lane (#3), Audra Stang (#4), and Tia Roxae (#6) interviews. The long form analysis of a Lynda Barry strip in #5 was particularly effective. Everybody's favorite transgressive comix critic, Ryan Carey, stops by for a debate with Campbell in #4. Hopefully in 2025 I can complete my run of a very worthy zine.

107. THE COMICS JOURNAL YEARBOOK: BEST OF 2022 (Fantagraphics Books) G-Mart pre-order

I don't know if this summary of the best in 2022 is necessarily unique, but it's certainly effective with critics and cartoonists writing on their favorites, interviews with creators, and excerpts of comics discussed. Everyone does such a thorough job in limited space to champion each selection. Helen Chazan writing on Yuichi Yokoyama's PLAZA combined with a sample from the graphic novel is my favorite section of the book. I've not been a fan of Yokoyama, Chazan does a wonderful job mangasplaining this truly experimental artist who I have not been able to wrap my head around. Austin English analysing Tim Hensley's use of classic comics visual language in his adaptation of MAGGIE: A GIRL OF THE STREETS by Stephen Crane, the accompanying interview and process work is fascinating.

108. THE SLIVERS OF LIGHT IN AN ENDLESS NIGHT (Self-published) Mail

Pivoting from an explosion of solo work in his revived CRANIUM FRENZY in recent years, Steve Willis puts together a jam anthology with old friends from his days editing CITY LIMITS GAZETTE: Bob Richart and Buzz Buzzizyk. Steve also collaborates with Charles Brubaker of LAUREN IPSUM fame. I don't recognize the names Cascadia Artpost or Anvil, however I really enjoyed their playing off the art of Steve Willis. I believe there's more to come in 2025!

109. RANDOM ALERT FACTOR (Self-published) Mail

There's autobiographical comics and there's autobiography via comics, luckily we have the latter here. Chris Cajero Cilla reviews EPIC ILLUSTRATED #11 (1982), WEIRDO #10 (1984), and DESTROY ALL COMICS #3 (1995). Instead of a fannish regurgitation of contents Cilla remembers the circumstances when he picked up each book, their effect on him personally at the time, and how they contributed to his evolving artistic sensibilities. I love the whole attitude and presentation of this zine from the cut and paste cover, the fake Mr. A movie poster, and the unique "Peripheral Playlist" from notes in the backs of his sketchbooks. If I found a listing for this zine in an old issue of FACTSHEET FIVE I would not be surprised.

110. WHERE DEMENTED WENTED: THE ART AND COMICS OF RORY HAYES (Fantagraphics Books/OOP) Hoopla

 

Flickr

Flickr

 I've been in awe of Rory Hayes forever, the mix of primitive characters and intensely detailed inks make for a singular comix experience. This book not only puts Hayes's artistic output in perspective, but also his unusual life living and working at the San Francisco Comic Book Company as well as his later life before his death in 1983.

111. DRAWING POWER edited by Diane Noomin (Abrams) Hoopla

 

Google Books

 

Google Books

Diane Noomin had a long comix career full of accomplishments, but beyond her brilliant Didi Glitz character this anthology will probably be the legacy for which she's justly remembered. The subject matter is handled in a wide variety of narrative and artistic styles. I'd like to think this anthology could serve as an educational tool for future generations, however I literally have little to no faith in my fellow man.

112. HURRICANE NANCY edited by Alex Dueben (Fantagraphics Books) Hoopla

Alex Dueben does an excellent job not only introducing us to the very early psychedelic comic strips of "Hurricane Nancy", but also introduces us to Nancy Burton and her latter day creations, as well. A fine way to close out my year of catching up on underground comix.

2025 reading will bring more actual underground comix issues and the Fantagraphics Willy Murphy book. My most immediate reading for the New Year will be a ton of J Webster Sharp...

FONDANT 1-4 by J Webster Sharp (Self-published) Domino Books here here here here

Also on the reading pile and also available from Domino Books: