SPECTATORS - Part 73
Plus, what's your favorite dream sequence?
How the hell was it already the first day of school?
Brian here, and I was deep in some heretofore undiscovered stage of REM sleep when the alarm blared this morning. Wherever you exist within your journey through the education system, I hope you navigated Monday’s return to reality okay.
Exploding Giraffe had one of its biggest week’s ever with the release of Spectators: The First 180 Pages, so to celebrate (and because I refuse to accept that the summer break is over), we’re going to extend our Summer Bonanza Sale through this weekend, your final chance to join The Tower for just $2.50 a month.
Along with all the usual perks of membership, we’ll also be giving away our last two Founder Prize Packs to one existing paid subscriber and one new member (anyone who signed up last week or joins before next Monday), so don’t miss your shot at these one-of-a-kind items of varying artistic merit:
Winners announced next week.
For now, Spectators continues with some exquisite new pages from artist/co-creator Niko Henrichon and letterer Fonografiks, as future-haunting specters Val and Sam deliver their respective hot takes on the 1903 film The Great Train Robbery…
Cinema dead? Say it ain’t so! Why, I just caught a feature film at my local theater the other evening.
More on that in a bit, but first, thanks to everyone who stopped by last week’s open chat to introduce yourself and let us know where in the world you’re from/heading/currently residing.
Our intern Genesis the Exploded Giraffe has a couple of these rad Paper Girls tote bags…
…which they’ve awarded to these two randomly selected commenters:
Lisa R.:
I’m born and raised in northwest Indiana, and recently bought a house 1 block from where I grew up. Even though my parents still live there and I’m over all the time it’s funny how easily my house feels like home and the one I grew up in is just a place to visit when I realize I’m out of sugar or dish soap.
John:
I’m from Galway on the west coast of Ireland. Famed for its Bohemian vibe, yearly Arts Festival, and the Galway Races (both of which just ended for this year). I haven’t gone far. I lived about 25km away in a town in County Galway but moved to the city to my father’s home at 10. It’s also often known as “the graveyard of ambition”, because so many people come here for education or work reasons “temporarily” but fall in love with life here and decide to stay and make it their home. I love Galway and I am happy to stay here forever.
P.S. I’m happy to be a new member of The Tower and to be able to support your work as I have read so much of it for free from the Galway library.
Thanks so much, John! You, too, Lisa.
Extremely cool to know what nice folks all over the world are reading our oddball smut.
Ready for more free comics?
I was recently emailed this bittersweet update from The Nib, an important comics publisher I’ve been reading and loving for a decade:
The Nib magazines are free to download!
The Nib is wrapping up ten years of publishing and closing down at the end of August. But before we go, we are making all 15 issues of our Eisner and Ignatz award-winning magazine available for anyone to download for free. That’s more than 1,600 pages of comics, including our out of print Secrets, Nature, Food, and Color issues.
Through the month of August, you can download a PDF of any of our issues below and, if you feel like it, kick us a few bucks to help preserve the website. If you prefer print, pick up issues of the magazine from our store.
Donate to preserve The Nib’s archives
The Nib has published more than 6,000 comics over ten years. We are making plans for the longterm preservation of the website to ensure all the work we published remains accessible to the public. This involves ongoing web hosting and regular backend maintenance for years to come.
Can you make a donation? All funds go toward making sure The Nib and the work of our cartoonists can be read and enjoyed for many years to come.Buy The Nib magazine in print!
Grab copies of The Nib magazine in print, including our new Future issue and many other graphic novels, in our store!
Thanks to everyone at The Nib and their many gifted contributors for all the excellent comics.
Right, for today’s bonus nonsense, I thought we’d talk dream sequences.
Recently, writer (and loyal Tower member) David Harper was nice enough to cover an old issue of Y the Last Man over at Sktchd, his must-visit site of comics discussion and exploration.
Illustrated by the great Goran Sudžuka (also a Tower member, not to mention one of the most talented storytellers I’ve ever worked with), Y #42 focused on Yorick’s capuchin “helper” monkey Ampersand, and included a surreal look into the animal’s sleeping mind.
After our obligatory paywall, I’ll be sharing my complete script for that 18-year-old (!!!) issue, as well as giving away a signed copy of the collection in which its included:
If you’d like a shot at winning, please just let us know: What’s your favorite dream sequence from any work of fiction?
Mine happens to come from a movie I was fortunate enough to catch on the big screen last Tuesday. While half of my nuclear family was trapped at some boring stadium…
…I got to escort my much luckier child to the New Beverly to see a pristine print of my favorite film of 1974 (and that includes its director’s other release that year, The Godfather: Part II).
