New Alternative and Small Press Comix Arrivals (January Week 4)

 1. John Porcellino's Spit and a Half store has been around longer than the internet! I'm not sure if I had a copy of the print catalog back in the day (I was more into the OTHER Colorado distributor, Fandom House), but luckily Rick Bradford has a cover archived at Poopsheet Foundation:

I'm certain Jeff Zenick's classic travel diary zines were well represented in those print catalogs, and sure enough here Mr. Zenick is represented by a comic in Porcellino's online iteration of Spit and a Half:

2. The origins of the Wow Cool online store go way back. According to their site, "Wow Cool was founded by Marc Arsenault, Sam Henderson, and Tom Hart in January 1988 in New York City". They were all students at the School of Visual Arts in New York at, or around, that time. Here's a very early Wow Cool publication from July 1988 (cover and information from Rick Bradford's Poopsheet Foundation)...

Continuing our impromptu journey through the oldest alternative comics distributors, what better example than a piece of history: a Jeff Zenick travel diary from close to when I first discovered his comics, MODERN HISTORICALITY #1 (1992)...

3. Outside of Domino Books I've never seen any COWBOY HENK imports, until All The Old Poisons  posted this one...

4. A Swedish translation of a book originally published in France with a separate English translation included, that's TIDENS ANLETEN by Sammy Stein from our favorite Italian online store, Just Indie Comics:

5. VERITE #3 is an anthology of "Indian comics and Japanese alternative manga". Features by Paul Gravett and Ryan Holmberg. Fat Bottom Books has all three issues of this Comix India series...

6. CRUX #2 by Vigil Warren published by Dead Crow (TINFOIL) available from Silver Sprocket...

7. Set of LA TRANCHEE RACINE #3 #4 #5 tabloid format anthologies by Stephane Blanquet's United Dead Artists (find contents of each here), available from The Secret Headquarters...

8. I like Jake Machen's comics. If you're in London, Gosh Comics has a lot of his work available now...

9. DEXTROSA #1 is a Mexican comics anthology out of Monterrey, another great find by Ines Estrada available from her Gatoshop...

10. Jake Turnbull is a veteran self-publisher his latest, THE LEGEND OF DEERSKIN DAN, is available from Domino Books...

EVENT: MADE IN NEW YORK exhibition at The Society of Illustrators

BREAKING NEWS:

I just received the first issue of Larry Reid's newsletter of Seattle comix history, COMIXITY. It's got an exclusive interview with Peter Bagge and reviews by Colin (CANON) Blanchette and Kelly (Short Run Comix Festval) Froh. Other staff include Associate Editor Bella Rowland-Reid and masthead design by Marc Palm. No ordering information, but trythe Fantagraphics Bookstore. Nice work by all!