Love Love Hill

Kendra here! I’ve been making comics together with Kat for seven years. We’re a Washington, D.C.(ish)-based comic team that draws everything from erotic space shenanigans to recipe books inspired by The Rock. You can find our ongoing webcomic Spacejinx and other NSFW comics atMisadventure Central, and you can buy our all-ages stuff at Go Team KK! We’re taking turns to spotlight some comics we like for Our Comics, Ourselves this week.

Super Life On The Hill by Love Love Hill (@lovelovehill - Dirchansky/Wai/Kim) is important to Kat and I for many reasons–the most important being that we only started printing comics and zines after discovering their self-published minis, and were inspired to try out their print/layout tutorials they had been posting online. Love Love Hill is a comic circle with three core members and a rotating lineup of guest artists depending on the work. Super Life on the Hill is a perfect-bound anthology collecting their previous stapled mini-comics about their lives, their friendships, and their struggles with, well, everything! Important topics like: coming across cute things in Japan, needing to get out of a too-comfortable bed, J-pop group Arashi, and the stuffed animal scale of charm; along with strips about dealing with bed bugs and racist coworkers; all collected thanks to an intense long-term friendship that brings the comics together.

The three artists’ styles all provide a lively counterpoint to one another, and especially cool is seeing how each of the members draws the others. The art is shoujo-influenced with sparkles and screentones, but the content and the style is all unique–and with this being an anthology that spans collected comics from 6 years of content, one can see a bit of art evolution from beginning to end. Overall though, since Life On The Hill has been a side-project for the artists, the strips really just get across a down-to-earth feel that really connected with us.

Kat and I find a lot to relate to with the autobio comics here–a love of comics, a love of friendship, a love of nerdy things, and a lifestyle that involves being a single, 20-30something woman is all reflected in the comics in SLOTH. Love Love Hill is having fun with this, which should be the # rule when making comics–why *wouldn’t* you have fun with this?

Debuting at TCAF 2017 Martial Spirit by Dirchansky, Wai Au, Kage

Self Published (available via Love Love Hill) 5 x 7.75" 40 pages Risograph red interiors, on natural stock Silkscreen cover $10.00

Debuting at TCAF 2017 - Super Life on the Hill (SLOTH) by Dirchansky, Wai Au, Kim Hoang

Since 2011, Dirchansky, Wai, and Kim have been drawing unfiltered autobio comics and making them available in copybon/zine format. This SUPER edition compiles Life on the Hill 1-5 mini zines, plus brand new pages of comics and previously unprinted content! Silly but real autobio comics by 3 core members of Love Love Hill.

Super limited online pre-order bonus coming soon!!

So excited to announce the first volume of the Plant Fever Zine: An autobio zine by a group of plant lovers! Debuting at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival 2017!  This zine contains a collection of short stories about our experiences with plants. We truly have Plant Fever…

Plant Fever Zine Vol 1 Color + B&W 44 pages cover to cover Contributors: @rurupoi @powerswithin @dirchansky @belugachop

In the West, plot is commonly thought to revolve around conflict: a confrontation between two or more elements, in which one ultimately dominates the other. The standard three- and five-act plot structures–which permeate Western media–have conflict written into their very foundations. A “problem” appears near the end of the first act; and, in the second act, the conflict generated by this problem takes center stage. Conflict is used to create reader involvement even by many post-modern writers, whose work otherwise defies traditional structure.

The necessity of conflict is preached as a kind of dogma by contemporary writers’ workshops and Internet “guides” to writing. A plot without conflict is considered dull; some even go so far as to call it impossible. This has influenced not only fiction, but writing in general–arguably even philosophy. Yet, is there any truth to this belief? Does plot necessarily hinge on conflict? No. Such claims are a product of the West’s insularity. For countless centuries, Chinese and Japanese writers have used a plot structure that does not have conflict “built in”, so to speak. Rather, it relies on exposition and contrast to generate interest. This structure is known as kishōtenketsu.

Hey comic-makers!  Looking for funding or short/long term studio space to help you make your comics?  I put together a list of grants, fellowships, and residencies with an established, positive track record for accepting cartoonists!  (There are also many, many arts grants/etc. out there that have not accepted any cartoonists yet, and I absolutely encourage you to apply for those too!  But I’ll be limiting this list to ones that already have demonstrated interest in comics.)

I’m sure there are ones I’m missing, so feel free to drop me a line if you know one I should add!  I’ll keep updating the list periodically :)

GRANTS

Creators for Creators

Cupcake Award

The Dash

Heinz Award for Arts and Humanities  

PRISM Queer Press Grant

Slate Cartoonist Studio Prize

Society of Illustrators M Prize  

FELLOWSHIPS AND RESIDENCIES

Boston Public Library Writer-in-Residence

Catskill Center Artist in Residence

Comic Art Workshop

Donaldson Writer-in-Residence

Inbound and Outbound TRANSIT

Maison des Auteurs  

Sitka Artist Residency

Thurber House Graphic Novel Residency

Tulsa Artist Fellowship  

Human Plantation, Love Love Hill [purchase here]

Plant-themed femme body horror short comics anthology from Toronto based manga collective Love Love Hill. As you may know, femme body horror comics are VERY much my wheelhouse, so when I saw this at TCAF I obviously had to pick it up. I like that each piece had kind of an artist’s statement at the end talking about the approach they took to the assigned theme. Nice to see some people who had never or rarely done horror comics taking a shot at my favourite genre!