Thanks for Partying with the Strumpets, New York!

Thanks to everyone who came out on a very dark and stormy night to party with the Strumpets at 

Bergen Street Comics this Friday!

We owe a lot to the amazing staff at Bergen Street, who were so welcoming!  This is Casey, a writer and zinester who works in the shop - Tucker, Tom and Amy, thanks to you guys too!

A look at the fine folks who made our event fizz...

Editrix Ellen Lindner signing for a fan...

                         

Thanks so much to Bergen Street for letting us do an art show!  Here, Army of God illustrator Tim Hamilton, Jean Lee-Hamilton, and Strumpets Robin Ha and Kat Roberts hang out in front of some of Robin and Kat's original work from Strumpet 2.  

The Voyeurs author and amazing all-around cartoonist Gabrielle Bell, with up-and-comer Dre Grigoropol.

Eisner Award-winner Nick Abadzis.

Hypothetical Islander James Smith gets cuddly with Zegas' Michel Fiffe.

Woo hoo!  Thanks again to all the Kickstarters....and if you'd like to buy the Strumpet, check out our Etsy or visit Bergen Street Comics, 470 Bergen Street, Brooklyn, NY.

NYC Launch December 7th at Bergen Street Comics!

So excited to be formally announcing our NYC launch for Strumpet 2, Friday Dec. 7th at Brooklyn's truly quite fabulous Bergen Street Comics. 

Three Strumpets, Ellen Lindner, Robin Ha and Kat Roberts will be present - come along and get your copy of the brand-new Strumpet!

Bergen Street Comics is located right by one of Brooklyn's biggest train stations, Atlantic Avenue/Barclays Center, so you can take an express Q, N, 2, 3, 4, 5 or a slow-as-molasses-but-quite-lovely R train to your destination.  It's walkable to some of Brooklyn's best restaurants and bars - we're partial to Bark, right next door, as well as cute luncheonette Bonnie's.

This is Editrix Ellen's birthday party, too!  There will be a raging afterparty in honor of our leader's special day.

See you on December 7th!

Strumpet 2: Our London Launch at Orbital Comics

Wow! What a bash! Our London launch at Orbital Comics was a great success, bringing together The Strumpet, the artists who make it possible, and those who love them - plus some awe-inducing celebrity guests! Sharing with our friends at ink+PAPER made the night even better - not to mention that it was a great privilege!

Our NYC launch will take place at Bergen Street Comics on 7th December, after which The Strumpet - and ink+PAPER 3! - will be available in our Etsy shop.

This weekend (17-18th November) you can catch up with a limited supply of Strumpets at Thought Bubble, located in Leeds and ranking very high up the list of must-visit UK comix festivals.


Comix stars Gary Northfield (Derek The Sheep), Darryl Cunningham (Psychiatric Tales, Activate!) and newly minted Strumpet Myfanwy Nixon talk ink+PAPER.

Many, many thanks to Orbital Comics, located in London's high-drama West End, for their hospitality and generosity with the booze. Karl, Camila, Chris, James, Liz, and all the other staff were phenomenal (and it's Camila's lovely photos we have to remember the night by - check out her Flickr set here.

Thanks again to all of our Kickstarter pre-order folks - some of whom we were lucky enough to meet at the launch - we couldn't have done it without you!

Some fun photos...courtesy of Camila Barboza! Look for her by her full name on Flickr...


A Strumpet and her pals: Issue 2 contributor Karrie Fransman (The House That Groaned, Guardian, Times of London) and two fine gents - Andy Poyiadgi (Teapot Therapy), and Gareth Brookes (The Black Project).


Issues 1+2 Strumpet Maartje Schalkx joins forces with the prodigiously talented Tobias Tak and Comics Gosh!p (London's premier comics reading group) leader Mike Medaglia.


A Strumpet in Motion: Issues 1+2 contributor Tanya Meditzky (The Man Who Clapped, Two Sentences).

Head Strumpet Ellen Lindner prepares for the first purchase of the evening.

Head Strumpet Jeremy Day, two-time Strumpet Patrice Aggs (The Boss, Count Karlstein), and Myriad Editions boss Corinne Pearlman share a laugh at our launch.


The ever-helpful - and ever-cheerful! - Stephen Betts, head of Comix Influx.



Honorary Strumpets Dr. Mary Talbot (Dotter of Her Father's Eyes), Sarah McIntyre (Vern and Lettuce, You Can't Eat a Princess) and Comica organiser Megan Donnolley, assembled into a lovely pyramid of Lady Comix Power.


A happy customer...


Internationally renowned critic, curator, festival organizer and Comica godfather Paul Gravett (1001 Comics, Great British Comics).


The very fetching David O'Connell (Tozo, Monster and Chips), editor of ink+PAPER. Flanking him are John Aggs (The Boss, John Blake, Robot Girl) and comics professor-in-training John Miers.

Thanks so much for coming, London! See you in New York!

Thanks so much to all of our Kickstarter folks!

The book just got back from the printer, and we will be sending this brand new issue

out to you as soon as possible!  It looks fabulous, and we couldn't have done it without you.

Very soon the Strumpet will be headed off on her European tour...but she didn't want to leave without saying thanks....

Sneak peek the next : Kat's squirrel

Just time before bed to offer one last sneak peek from The Strumpet -- this strip by Kat Roberts blew me away when it first dropped into our submissions box, and it's improved on every re-reading. Who are the folk riding the squirrel? What does the squirrel make of all this? You'll have to wait for The Strumpet 2 : Going Places to find out where they are headed. Not reserved your copy yet? Pre-order on Kickstarter.

Joint Launch Party with ink+paper

Joint launch party for The Strumpet and ink + paper anthologies at London's loveliest comic shop Orbital Comics (right by Leicester Square tube station) Friday 9th November 2012 7-9.30pm. We hope to see you there!!! Part of London's Comica festival.

Not ordered your copy yet? There's still time to pre-order on The Kickstarter!

sneak peek the next : Rachael's crows

Back in the 1990s, Rachael Ball ran a women's comic class in the (now long gone) London Comics Centre*, a colourful London venue which at the time offered the only courses in comics in the country. I remember attending occasionally, scraping my way up into the big smoke on a cut-price bus ticket and the promise of a floor to crash on. I met astonishing people there -- Lee Kennedy, artist of life and dreams, and the amazing Cinders McLeod, author of Why are there no Women Cartoonists? (still the definitive work on the subject), many others. Rachael drew comics for Deadline, broadsheet newspapers, trendy magazines, and of course Fanny. I remember her as very glamorous, kind of intimidating, my sketches of her always turned into a mass of curly, scripply lines. And here she is now, in 2012, pen still on paper and facing down a mass of angry crows -- whatever could be happening in her story? You'll have to buy The Strumpet to find out. Pre-order your copy on Kickstarter to be sure of a copy.

*I realise suddenly that I'm not sure if that's it name. Was it the London Cartoon Centre?

sneak peek the next : Karrie's wolf

Karrie Fransman is a fantastically busy artist, and her peregrinations around the comics scenes of the world made her a perfect travelling companion for The Strumpet: Going places. I first met  Karrie's comics in The Guardian, but she has done much, much more than that, including  her remarkable graphic novel, The House That Groaned, is published by Random House's Square Peg and was chosen as Graphic Novel of the Month in The Observer. One of the very exciting things to me about Karrie's work is how varied it is, including cakes, models and even comics sculpture!

There's still time to pre-order your strumpet on kickstarter : go on! Karrie wants you to :)

More  about Karrie; she has talked about her work at Saint Martins, London College of Communication, The University of Birkbeck, the Institute of Contemporary Arts and for The British Council and exhibited her work in London, Belgium and Moscow. Karrie was born in Edinburgh and lives in London in a house not so dissimilar to the one in her book, The House that Groaned.

Sneak peek the next : Myfanwy's cycle helmet

I first became aware of the work Myfanwy Nixon - then Miffy Tristram, Tristram Puppy, or other names and alternative names and pseudonyms of which I am unaware (it was an age of made up names; comics artists collected them and wore them like jewellery) back in the 90s sometime, when the Oxford-Brighton train service and a handy friend with a Kemptown flat (long since moved to America) meant that regular visits to the Brighton small-press comics scene were desirable, possible... inevitable? Miffy was one of the artists in Erica Smith's beautiful, boisterous, Brighton-based underground grrrl zine Girlfrenzy. I wasn't best suited to fitting in with either the hardcore undergrounders or the artschool revolutionaries who made up the bulk of the comics parties in town at that time, and maybe Myf wasn't either, as when we came to discussing it later, I don't think we ever met; but we have met since, though, because she (like me) is a comics artist that was distracted by the internet. We've known each other for ages online, but only met recently when the company she works for now used a cafe in Oxford as a meetspace. When she blogged about doing art duties for someone else's comic, I remembered how much I had enjoyed reading her own stories, and asked her if she would do us one. To my great delight, she agreed.

For such a continuity-based medium, comics often seem to forget their ancestors; I see so many anthologies or titles billed as the only this or the first that, or the ultimate the other. This obsession with firsting and landgrabbing and forgetting your past is risky. When we deny our own predecessors, that bit of history is lost, and in its place another history is substituted, which is typically a simpler story, more ordinary, less diverse, and containing many fewer people, most of whom are men. The Strumpet proudly and humbly salutes those all-female anthologies that have come before us, and those which are yet to come. You are our past and our future. You are our continuity.

You can purchase your own copy of The Strumpet via our Kickstarter. Prices range from $3-$100. Please support us in any way you can.

Ellen Lindner Preview Art - And New Rewards!

Above: page one of Editrix Ellen Lindner 's five page contribution to the upcoming Strumpet issue 2!

Recently we Strumpets posted our new issue on Kickstarter - and this is the time for you to grab your own copy, before we go to press!

Why pre-order? Well, first of all there's brand-new artwork from Kripa Joshi, Emily Ryan Lerner, Lisa Rosalie Eisenberg, Shamisa Debroey, Karrie Fransman, Nicola Streeten and many more - for a grand total of 92 pages!

Plus you can get amazing rewards, like this incredible Patrice Aggs print, just added at the $100 level:


But the best answer? You'll be certain to get a copy, period. Kickstarter is our main distribution network - Diamond, et al aren't interested in small-run books that come out once a year. So you're not likely to see us at your neighborhood shop. We're aiming at a grand total of 100 pre-orders - 100 people who like what we do and want to read our work!

But most of all, you'll be supporting a small but determined group of storytellers - people for whom comics is a labor of love.

Strump it up on Kickstarter today, and help us to reach our goal of 100 pre-orders!

Sneak peek the next : Patrice's duck

Patrice Aggs joined us for Edition 1 of the Strumpet in 2011 and we are delighted to invite her back for The Strumpet 2 for a brand new story about the trials and tribulations of Going Places (pre-order your copy here) which provided the ducky detail above. Patrice is a regular contributor to Britain's finest weekly children's comic, The Phoenix, and has illustrated more books for children than I can easily mention! The Strumpet allows her to kick back and talk to adults instead, and the results are amazing! Patrice also makes beautiful etchings, which are then made into limited edition prints.  She has provided Travelling (below), number 38 of 50, to The Strumpet fundraising drive, which we will shortly be adding to our Kickstarter page as the toppiest of all top prizes. Here's to giraffes on flying carpets! They make everything better.

Sneak preview the next: Badaude's bee

Badaude's Tate-published book London Walks was featured in the review column of last year's Strumpet, and this year we are delighted to welcome her into The Strumpet as a contributor (pre-order your copy here). A familiar sight to fans of The Idler or The Metro or indeed certain books, Badaude's airy, loose and louche style is a delicious addition to the Strumpet's pages. Here is a tiny taste of what is to come:

As Badaude is also from Oxford, editorial meetings have been an informal affair; below is a picture of us meeting in local snazzy cafe Oxfork, sipping tea and talking about the Wellcome Trust, Djuna Barnes, Alfred Jarry, the various problems and disturbances of life and, here and there, her contribution to The Strumpet 2 : going places. 

Pre-order The Strumpet 2 on Kickstarter here.

Sneak preview the next : tanya's bat

The Strumpet contributor list is filling out with weird, wonderful and beautiful strips. This wonderful bat from the incomparable Tanya Meditsky just flew in on its journey from Tanya to The Strumpet 2. I can say no more about the comic strip! You will have to wait until the comic comes out. To be sure of your copy, pre-order on our Kickstarter - prices start at just $3.

TCJ Reviews The Strumpet 1!

 

These are heady times in Strumpet HQ.  Our Kickstarter for Issue 2 is live,  editrix Ellen Lindner is part of a panel on British comics (including the Comix Reader and Strumpet!) at SPX this weekend, and now - 

we've been reviewed in TCJ!

And what a nice review it is, with Mardou, Maartje Schalkx, Kripa Joshi and Patrice Aggs singled out for special praise.

Thanks to reviewer Rob Clough for such wonderful words of encouragement - our roster of artists work so hard to bring you interesting, inventive, innovative comics, it's great to see them recognized!

Read it all here - and see you at SPX this weekend! 

Kickstarter is GO!!!!!!

The Strumpet is now full of rich and good strips from a powerful team of supertalented female comiceers. We're really excited about the line-up (more coming about that soon) and the creative and powerful ways all the different contributors have responded to our theme, going places. Very shortly, The Strumpet will be going to the printers, but numbers will be strictly limited. To pre-order your comics and guarantee a copy please visit Ellen's Kickstarter and pick a price point (starts from $3 - The Strumpet is not afraid of being cheap!) If you want to support us further there are a variety of prize-type options, in the usual kickstarter style -- or you can simply show your appreciation in the traditional way*  

The Strumpet 2- A Second Transoceanic Blaze of Comics Glory! 

The second issue of The Strumpet, the only comic to unite comix-loving ladies from the US and UK comix scenes, is in the works - and we need your help to make it a reality!  Read more...
*Reblog, comment, shout, give us money, etc.

We're so happy to announce that a) we've updated our website but more importantly, b) LOOK AT THE AMAZING COVER TO OUR NEW ISSUE!

Our theme for this issue is Going Places...and co-editor Jeremy Day's been very busy capturing the thrill of travel in this brilliant illustration.  WOW! 

In other news, we have a great new contributor on board: Robin Ha.  Born in South Korea and raised in the United States, Robin calls South Brooklyn home.   There she lives a double life: she's an uber-talented cartoonist who also spends a lot of time creating amazing textile designs for clients like American Apparel.  We met Robin because she's a member of the Draw Bridge cartooning studio, based in Gowanus, Brooklyn, and we're pleased as punch to welcome her into the Strumpet family. 


Welcome, Robin!  

We're opening this new issues to pre-orders soon...get ready for The Strumpet, issue 2!

Character Studies, Ellen's Story

Character sketches from Ellen Lindner's story for ths upcoming Strumpet 2.

Get ready for number 2 by taking a peek at Issue 1!  It's on sale in our Etsy, and in the ink+PAPER shop. 

 

Greetings from Strumpet HQ...we got this postcard in the mail the other day and don't quite know what to make of it!  Hope those poor holidaymakers survived!

Well, we're glad that the Strumpet is getting a chance to relax because there's no time for a break here at HQ!   Right now, we're hard at work on our new issue...see you soon with some exciting excerpts! 

****LATE BREAKING NEWS!***

You can now buy The Strumpet at the excellent Bergen Street Comics.  Thanks to Bergen Street for taking this stroppy lady under their wing.  And, as always, we're on Etsy, with cheaper shipping to the US, and the ink+PAPER store, for lower rates to the UK.  

A fantastic image from Julia Homersham's contribution to the Strumpet 2, out this fall.

Sneak peek into Strumpet 2

The contributor list for Strumpet 2 is more or less sorted now, and the first pictures, ideas and scripts are starting to fall into my inbox (lucky me!). I just had to share these beautiful sketches by Kripa Joshi, creator of the inimitable and gorgeous Miss Moti.

Because Kripa's style is so elegant and finished, I was fascinated to see an early stage in the design process -- that and I just loved Miss Moti's space dog!
Look out for more from my editorial inbox soon - Jeremy

The Strumpet and Laydeez Do Comics: This Saturday, April 7th, in NYC!!!

This Saturday Head Strumpet Ellen Lindner will be speaking at the first-ever New York City edition of London comics discussion group, Laydeez Do Comics!

Starting at 7PM, the main event will take place at Studio G, South Oxford Space, located at 138 S. Oxford Street. There's a $1.50 admission charge which goes - as is traditional at the London meetings - towards renting the space.

Ellen will be speaking about her work with Jeremy Day on The Strumpet, as well as her graphic novel Undertow and other projects in comics and illustration.

Other presenters will include Laydeez co-founder and author of Billy, Me and You (Myriad Press) Nicola Streeten, Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women curator Michael Kaminer, illustrator Bonnie L. Millard and Laydeez co-founder and respected academic Sarah Lightman.

The afterparty will be at Pacific Standard from 10 onwards- come and raise a glass with some real-live Strumpets!

See you there!

Whores of Mensa News - New Comic By Mardou Out Now!

Exciting news, Strumpet and Whores of Mensa fans! Whores of Mensa founding editor and Strumpet 1 contributor Mardou has released the first chapter of her upcoming graphic novel, THE SKY IN STEREO, as a chunky-ass minicomic!

This is big news...the idea of a Mardou graphic novel is a very exciting one for us, as it will be for many of you out there. Word on the street is that this project is based on Mardou's experiences growing up in Macclesfield, England.

So, what's in there, you ask? THE SKY IN STEREO tells the story of Iris, a young woman who's working in a local burger joint, crushing out on her punk rocker co-worker, and flirting with a world of drugs, music, and bootleg horror VHS.

We see her world through Iris's eyes, and hear her thoughts, and get a real sense of what it's like to be this self-doubting, witty, intriguing young woman. It's a lovely, personal glimpse at adolescence as it really is - a place full of surprises and disappointments, with lots of possibilities that fizzle out, or take us in very unexpected directions.

This segment is a super-substantial 52 pages, but there's even more coming.

Nick Abadzis, the creator of the Eisner-award-winning LAIKA, has this to say about THE SKY IN STEREO:

"The Sky in Stereo reiminds me so much of my own teenage years; it's one of those books that comes along once in a blue moon to remind you where you've come from and why you are the way you are. I love the way Mardou draws people...with all their flaws, their vital wit and vigour, with all the grit and grey of the landscapes of their lives pierced by occasional shafts of yellow sunlight. Mardou's stories are animated by real, raw souls and their hopes, self-made traps and impractical dreams. This is a small, essential masterpiece."

THE SKY IN STEREO is available now from Mardou's Etsy shop. Buy it - and keep your ears pricked for more ladycomics news, this time about the contributors for the second issue of The Strumpet!

The Strumpet is going places for issue #2

This year the Strumpet is going places. Come along for the ride!

Strumpet Launch!!!!

Honorary Strumpet Stephen Betts.

The scene! Twas hectic.

Strumpet Editor Ellen with ace cartoonist Barnaby Richards.

Editor Jeremy Day with contributor (and past Whore of Mensa) Maartje Schalkx.

Bad boys love the Strumpet!!!

The wonderful Amneet Johal and J. Homersham.


Thanks to everyone who came, and to all of our Kickstarter supporters! Issue 2 is in the organizing stages now...in the meantime keep your eyes peeled on the blog for all the news!