#aaron lange

Mineshaft #45 - The 25th Anniversary Issue!

Believe it or not, Mineshaft #45 is the 25th Anniversary Issue!  How?!?

It features a trippy-yet-appropriate wrap-around cover by Aaron Horkey, along with a slew of new work by a bigger than ever roster of contributors, including R. Crumb, Drew Friedman, Aaron Horkey, Billy Childish, Mary Fleener, Christoph Mueller, Gunnar Lundkvist, Simone Baumann, David Collier, Glenn Head, Aaron Lange, Kim Deitch, Sophie Crumb, Bill Crook, Max Clotfelter, Robert Armstrong and Kayla E.

As with all issues of Mineshaft, this issue has a small print run. In other words, it won't be around forever.

SPX2017 

The highlight for me came within the first 30 minutes browsing Frank Santoro’s long boxes between Gilbert Hernandez and Marc Sobel. I got to eavesdrop on their wise cracks and Frank told the story about Ed Brubaker being called out at the 1990 San Diego comic for biting Gibert’s style. I bought a Basil Wolverton comic with an Alan Moore drawn cover and a set of Epic’s Akira trades. Frank lored me on the ramshackle cooling setup that Steve Oliff had to use for his digital coloring computers.

I always intend to buy mostly minicomics at SPX, but there seems to be a growing style (quality?) gap between self-published comics and comics available from publishers, even the smallest micro-publishers. There are lots of cute in the self-published comics on-hand with fuzzy animals and feel-good vibes.

Jenny Zervakis was there with her book of collected minis, “Strange Growth”, from John Porcellino’s Spit and a Half. She said they were 1/3 of the way back to breaking even on the book. She also had minicomics for sale that were made after the material collected in the book. Her work overflows with pesonality and sharp observations in a way that feels nearly lost to the modern world of alternative comics. 

One minicomic I picked up was “Swell #1” by Adam Szym, which was a short collection of mixed media horror stories with photographs and big headed Nintendo Mii looking character design. In one story a boy stares at a wall until deer that look a bit like Michael Deforge’s “Spotting Deer” peel themself off and walk away leaving our presumed protaganist to become the art on the wall himself. Perhaps a comment on the anxiety of influence within the art comics world.

Simon Hanselman had copies of Lagon Revue’s “Dome” from 2016, which I had nearly resigned myself to never getting a chance to see. Lagon Revue is on the list of publishers I wish would make it out to SPX, along with Landfill Editions, Fremok, Hollow Press, and Breakdown Press. “Dome” does this thing about midway through where all the comics start blending together with strips from different artists sharing the same page, as if the anthology was a witch’s brew and the editor were stirring it around. You have to have a lot of juice as an anthology editor to be able to pull this off. The best comic in the anthology is Olivier Schrauwen’s two-page, 120 panel comic about a dad coming unglued. Hanselman told me Schrauwen was working on a new comic written by Ruppert and Mulot (!).

AINT IT FUN TP • cover art • Aaron Lange [Nov 2023]

In the 1970s, Peter Laughner was a founding figure in a primordial ooze of what would come to be called punk rock, in the somewhat unlikely, somewhat necessary place of Cleveland, Ohio. Bands like Pere Ubu, the Electric Eels, Rocket From the Tombs, the Dead Boys, Devo, and the Pagans all intermingled in this psychosphere; Laughner touched them all. In 1977 at the age of 24 he became punk rock’s first casualty. While his short life ended more than a half a century ago, his legacy continues to resonate. Henry Rollins and Guns N’ Roses have covered his songs, while Wilco and the Mountain Goats drop references to him in their lyrics.

Underground comix stalwart Aaron Lange makes his much-anticipated graphic novel debut with this deeply researched biography. Through extensive interviews with the people who were there, Ain’t It Fun charts the cultural, environmental, and societal factors that shaped both Laughner and the Midwestern proto-punk subculture he championed.

Ain’t it fun when you know that you’re gonna die young? “Grounded in real crime, with blazing and withering faces looking into their precious moments and looking back at what’s left, this is a mystic story of a city wrapped around the life and death of a musician whose talent, on certain nights, on certain records, was otherworldly. A sense of disbelief churns through the intricate, exploding pages. It seems a wonder there’s anyone left to tell the tale.” - Greil Marcus, author, music journalist and cultural critic.

Some creators who'll be appearing at Philadelphia's Locust Moon Comics Festival on October 25...

Aaron Lange Aaron Lange is the writer and artist of the comics series Razor Burn, ROMP, and the still continuing TRIM. Additionally, his art and writing have appeared in publications such as Mineshaft, Cinema Sewer, Sleazy Slice, Lunch Meat, Liquid Cheese, and other small rags the world at large remains deeply ignorant to.

Website: aaronlange.com

Adam McGovern Adam McGovern is the writer of Nightworld, a four-issue grindhouse horror, gallows-humor epic from Image Comics with pop-art Kirby visuals by creator Paolo Leandri. The team wrote and drew an "Alias, the Spider" yarn in Image's Next Issue Project #3 (aka Crack Comics #63), and created the cult-fav Dr. Id, Psychologist of the Supernatural. Adam also writes comics regularly for the Magic Bullet newspaper from D.C. Conspiracy, and has worked with Coin-Op Studio and AdHouse Books. He adapted some 50 issues of nine comics series from Italy's GG Studio for the American market in 2010-12, including the all-ages A Skeleton Story and the probably-should-be-no-ages Route des maisons rouges. He has written comic-styled stories for videogame companies, stage productions, and educational textbook publishers. Nightworld started on August 6, 2014. Be sure to find it on facebook!

Website: indieinkstudios.net Facebook: facebook.com/nightworldcomic Twitter: @AdamMcGovern

Aimee Fleck Aimee Fleck is a freelance illustrator, zine artist, and general tastemaker whose art deals with fat, feminism, and science fiction! A recent graduate from the Maryland Institute College of Art, she currently lives in Brooklyn, NY, and in her spare time she enjoys reading fanfiction, fighting the patriarchy, and making pies.

Website: aimeefleck.com Tumblr: aimeefleck Twitter: @aimeefleck

Alan Brown Alan Brown is an illustrator and comics creator based in Bear, DE. Together with his partner Kati Driscoll, Alan began Medusawolf, an online store featuring prints and original watercolor paintings of fantastic monsters and nightmare landscapes. As of 2014, they self-published his first comic book, Ovoyyamar, an ongoing series set on a hostile planet which follows the grim adventures of several alien creatures as they seek revenge, battle weird beasts, and struggle to survive. Alan is a 2004 graduate of the Delaware College of Art & Design.

Websites: ovoyyamar.blogspot.ca, etsy.com/shop/medusawolf

Alex Eckman-Lawn Alex Eckman-Lawn is a Philadelphia born illustrator who lives in the gutter and sleeps in the sewer. His work has appeared in comic books, album covers, book covers, t-shirts, and posters. He is currently hard at work trying to burn his name into the ground and pull the sun out of the sky. Alex's work has appeared in the following comics: Awakening (Archaia Entertainment), Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard Vol.2 (Archaia Entertainment), Popgun Vol.4 (Image Comics), The Graphic Canon Vol.1 and 4 (Seven Stories Press), Moon Lake Vol.1 and 2 (Archaia Entertainment), and Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream (Locust Moon Press).

Website: alexeckmanlawn.com Tumblr: dudenukem Twitter: @alexeckmanlawn