Prominent self-publishers return to roots

From Friday’s The Oklahoman:

By Matthew Price
Assistant Features Editor

WORD BALLOONS

Three comic-book creators who took self-publishing to great heights are returning with new comic-book series in 2008.

Jeff Smith created “Bone,” a million-selling all-ages fantasy epic that’s now being reprinted in color by Scholastic.

Terry Moore created “Strangers in Paradise,” a long-running romantic comedy-drama which won him an Eisner Award.

And Dave Sim, who preceded both of them with “Cerebus,” created the longest-running independent comic of all time, clocking in at 300 issues.

Smith returned to his self-publishing roots first, with “RASL,” the first issue of which shipped last week. RASL stars an art thief who can shift through dimensions. “RASL” is the tag he leaves behind in place of the stolen art. It’s intended for mature readers.

“So if you were a really rich person who wants to collect, say, a Mona Lisa, you could pay RASL, and he’ll go to another dimension and steal the Mona Lisa for you,” Smith told Newsarama.com.

Texas-based Terry Moore released three issues of his comedy-drama ‘Strangers in Paradise’ through Antarctic Press, before moving to self-publishing the book through his own Abstract Studios. He’s known for his strong female characters, and his new book, “Echo,” released this week, also has a female lead.

He told the Pulse (www.comicon.com/pulse) that Julie, the lead of “Echo,” will be distinct from the women in “Strangers in Paradise.”

“She is new and unique,” Moore said. “I think she lives in the same world and time as the SIP characters, but the story takes place in the Yosemite National Park, near Lake Mono. She is an outdoor person, very down to earth and likable, but her marriage is going down the tubes, and she lives alone. Nothing is going right in her life, the collection agencies are calling, her credit is cut off, she and her dog are sharing the same food. Then this incredible thing happens. The story is what she does about it.”

Sim’s new title, “glamourpuss,” is set for an April release. According to a release from Aardvark-Vanaheim, Sim’s publishing company, glamourpuss is partly Sim’s take on the history of photorealism in comics (starting with Alex Raymond’s Rip Kirby in 1946), partly a fashion magazine parody and partly a “sincerely weird super-heroine comic.”