Two very odd and popular webcomics are collected in book form by mainstream publishers, while their creators continue to innovate on the fringes of the internet.  Axe Cop, a fever dream of a comic featuring gun-toting dinosaurs and ninja moon warriors, is written by six-year-old Malachai Nicolle and illustrated by his 30-year-old brother Ethan.  Dash Shaw's BodyWorld originated as the digital equivalent of a biblical scroll, telling the otherworldly yet strangely familiar story of a quiet community entranced by a plant with telepathic powers.

Special thanks to Mel Reslor, who edited the Dash Shaw segment, and to Liam Delta for his recording assistance on the AxeCop segment.

You can support KBOO and add to your graphic novel library during our Spring Membership Drive by clicking here and joining at the $60 level.  Enter the appropriate code below.

Axe Cop   Ethan & Malachai Nicolle    BK AXECOPn1

Unemployed Man   Gan Golan & Erich Origen    BK unemploy

War Is Boring   David Axe & Matt Bors    BK warbored

Words & Pictures tours the studio of comics artist, illustrator, voice actor, and bon vivant David Chelsea, teasing out the twists and turns of a thirty-year career in the lively arts.

David's new book and DVD set Extreme Perspective! For Artists has just been published by Watson-Guptill.  Years in the making, the book features surprising tips and entertaining background history about the role of perspective in art, and the DVD includes resources useful to both mainstream and experimental cartoonists.

A book signing is scheduled for Saturday, March 12, from 2 to 4pm at Cosmic Monkey Comics in Portland.

Special thanks to Emily Young for editing this month's show!

For its seventh anniversary show, Words & Pictures returns to its Northwest roots with guest Barry Deutsch, an up-and-coming Portland cartoonist whose debut graphic novel Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword has just been published by Amulet Books.  Hereville has been drawing rave reviews with its modern folk-tale story of a troll-fighting eleven-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl.  Barry also talks about crafting political cartoons for Z Magazine, Dollars and Sense, and his own website LeftyCartoons.com.

Ted Rall and Matt Bors spent the month of August traveling across Afghanistan without official handlers, meeting the local residents and sending stories back to their blogs in comics form.  Ted is the immediate past president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and author of several books including the recent Anti-American Manifesto.  Matt is a syndicated cartoonist whose work appears occasionally in the Oregonian; he's also illustrated the stories for David Axe's book War Is Boring.

Additional web-only stories of Ted & Matt's Afghani odyssey can be heard at this link.