“I Found It on the Newsstand…”
Comic Foundry
Comic Foundry magazine issue # 3, Summer 2008, $5.98 U.S.
On a recent particularly disastrous trip to Chicago (don’t ask), I managed to find the famous Graham Crackers comic store. While there, I stumbled across a magazine called Comic Foundry. In desperate need for something to read while stuck in the hotel, I picked it up and am very glad I did. This is a magazine that finally talks to the comic reading public like intelligent everyday people. Unlike the juvenile, crude and often insulting style of Wizard or the aloof, scholarly and often isolationist view of the Comics Journal, Comic Foundry is a lifestyle magazine for the adult comic reader. It falls squarely in the middle of the two comic extremes that we have available to us. Issue #3 is packed full of great articles and visuals about our favorite medium. It doesn’t try to be an all purpose pop culture magazine, covering things that are not related to the field just because they are hot. It keeps its focus where it belongs: on comics and comics related materials.
Issue# 3’s cover person is G4’s Blair Butler, discussing her comics “street cred” and how she went from a stand-up to Attack of the Show’s comics guru. The young lady may have her detractors but she is the only voice on the television these days that comics has and I, for one, am glad she is here. There is a great article of how the recession will affect the comics industry. It examines how much time and money the average reader can give to comics and if most comics today are worthy of the effort. It also examines how the switch to comics presented on-line and the straight to trade trend will affect the industry. On a lighter note, CF offers a pictorial Q & A with some of the creator couples in comics such as Stuart and Kathryn Immonen, Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti and Matt Fraction and Kelly Sue DeConnick to name just three. Who says a comic geek can’t get a girl? Or for that matter, who said the comic geek can’t be a girl?
The thing I like most about Comic Foundry is that it covers everyone equally; the big guys and the little self publishers, superheroes and Anime, from Astroboy to Zot! (another of the great articles in this issue) if you will. Every page of this magazine is filled with asides, snippets of information, news, jokes, pictures and just about anything that you as a comic reader should know. You will have to read every page twice just to catch all the editors of this magazine managed to fit in here. They offer a hilarious convention bingo card, a look at the latest comic fashions and , while it is not as in depth on comics creation as, say Sketch Magazine (in stores in September), it offers 63 very informative tips on every aspect of making a comic that works. If you care about comics, you have to be reading this magazine.
If I have only one complaint, it is that this magazine only comes out quarterly. If it were more frequent, I think a certain other magazine would definitely have a fight on their hands. They also have a really good online presence where back issues can be ordered, contents of the magazine and exceptional video content can be viewed. Check them out at www.comicfoundry.com.
Page last updated on October 12, 2008