pubsched2015image.jpg
  • Sparkplug Comics

This morning, Virginia Paine of Portland's own Sparkplug Comic Books shared the press's 2015 publishing schedule, which will add new titles to the Sparkplug Minis Series (SMS), "a collection of short run, limited addition mini-comics by up-and-coming and outstanding artists," per Paine's description. Here's the lineup, which features frequent Merc contributor Suzette Smith:

Ce Ze (SMS #4) by Suzette Smith will debut in April. Smith is a graduate of the IPRC comics certificate program. Her work has appeared in Comics Workbook, Bitch Magazine and the Portland Mercury. Description of Ce Ze: "Honey Czarny and Amelia Smith are 7th graders who share fragmented memories of past lives in which they were powerful beings named Ce and Ze. A rival king’s plot to murder Ze forced her to flee her kingdom. Ce and Ze study and emulate human behavior but wish to return to their realm."
• SMS #5 will be by Olivia Horvath and is slated to come out in June. Horvath is a printmaker, comic artist and Xeric Grant recipient from Providence, RI.
• SMS #6 by is by Nalleli Sierra, a.k.a. Naji and is coming out in September. Naji is a graduate of Columbia College Chicago. Her work has appeared in Linework comics anthology.
• SMS #7 is by Portlander Ebin Lee. The release of this comic will coincide with Short Run Comics Festival in Seattle, WA this coming October. Lee is a graduate of PNCA and an accomplished illustrator and self-publisher.
• SMS #8 is slated for February 2016 and will be by Solomon Fletcher. Fletcher is a comics artist from Minneapolis. They are the author of many minicomics and the sex positive webcomic Goldy and the Bears.

ALSO! PICA and New Herring Press are bringing Lynne Tillman to PICA on Saturday, February 21 as part of the reissue of Weird Fucks, Tillman's "first work longer than 10 pages." Here's this gem, from PICA's website:

And what about PICA? It supports artists (us), but are publishers (again us) artists? Are writers? Is somebody fucking up weirdly or being fucked weirdly or is selling a book that may not “work” a weird fuck?

Lynne Tillman! Lynne Tillman is a big fucking deal if you like weird fucking literature. And with local poets/performers/writers/interdisciplinary artists like Kristin Bradshaw and Stacey Tran on hand to reinterpret Tillman's work, this performance should be well worth your time. If you only go to one reading this year, that will make me sad, and I'd recommend this one.