Tag Archives: Ben Dewey

by | 07/07/2014 · 7:47 PM

Comics Underground: Over. FOREVER

Comics Underground, June 12, 2014. Photo by <a href="http://patmoran.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Pat Moran Photography</a>.

Comics Underground, June 12, 2014. Photo by Pat Moran Photography.

… BUT WE’RE REALLY GLAD you came out to see it! Thanks to Pat Moran, we’ve got a slew of photos from the final Comics Underground ever—featuring Paul Tobin, Ben Dewey, Cat Farris, Jeff Parker, Joëlle Jones, and Matt Fraction. They’re available for your perusal right here.

Thanks to everybody who came out—whether it was to just one of the shows or to all 12 of them. Thanks to all of the phenomenal creators who worked with us to make sure the event one was we could all be proud of. Thanks to the Jack London Bar for hosting us, to our trusty sponsors at Bridge City Comics and DC Vegetarian, to Bobby Roberts and Grant Peterson for helping out with the details, and to… I don’t know. Comics and basements in general? We had a good run.

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by | 05/12/2014 · 1:11 PM

Announcing the Final Comics Underground!

Sex Criminals by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky

Sex Criminals by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky

SINCE WE STARTED Comics Underground, waaay back in 2011, Alison and I have been lucky enough to work with some of the world’s greatest comic book artists and writers to produce an event that—if we do say so ourselves—has turned into something pretty special.

And now we’re going to stop doing it. Quit while the quitting’s good, we always say. (Okay, we’ve never said that before, but we’re saying it now.) For the final installment, we asked four of our very favorite creators to return to Comics Underground to help us blow the goddamn roof off the joint. They graciously agreed.

• BENJAMIN DEWEY (Planet of the Apes, Star Wars: The Clone Wars) will be presenting work from The Tragedy Series, which is, as everyone knows, the single best thing on the internet.

• JOËLLE JONES (Helheim, You Have Killed Me) is creating something just for this. GO BACK AND READ THAT AGAIN, and to reiterate: Joëlle Jones is making something just for this, the final installment of Comics Underground. Shit. That more or less justifies the existence of the entire event, doesn’t it?

• JEFF PARKER (Batman ’66, Agents of Atlas) will help us fix a glaring and humiliating problem that has plagued Comics Underground from the very beginning: a critical deficit of Aquaman. I probably should’ve mentioned before now that Parker is currently writing DC Comics’ super-fun Aquaman series.

• MATT FRACTION (Casanova, Hawkeye) will be bringing his beloved Sex Criminals to Comics Underground. There’s a reason everybody can’t stop raving about the funny, sweet, sexy Sex Criminals, even though just typing the title probably puts you on some government watch list.

So mark your calendars: The final Comics Underground will be on Thursday, June 12, at 8 pm at the Jack London Bar (529 SW 4th, Portland, Oregon). 21+, admission $5. Be there.

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by | 10/16/2012 · 9:44 AM

Here’s a Sneak Peak at This Thursday’s Comics Underground! You’re Welcome!

Goddamn! Comics Underground is this Thursday! That’s really soon. Uh… we should probably finish getting ready. There will be…

Jeff Parker & Ben Dewey’s DAMN DIRTY APES!

Lucy Bellwood’s SAILING ADVENTURES ON THE OPEN SEA!

Matt Bors’ ELECTION-SHATTERING POLITICAL COMMENTARY!

Erika Moen & Leia Weathington—WHOA, SWEET! A THREESOME!

Comics Underground! This Thursday, October 18! The Jack London Bar (529 SW 4th, Portland)! 8 pm! $3!

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by | 10/01/2012 · 1:21 PM

Comics Underground Guests: Jeff Parker! Ben Dewey! Matt Bors! Leia Weathington! Erika Moen! Lucy Bellwood!

THE NEXT Comics Underground is Thursday, October 18! Here’s who’s gonna be up onstage, kicking ass and taking names. And, um, doing comics-y type stuff, too, probably:

• Two all-around hilarious dudes, JEFF PARKER and BEN DEWEY are studiomates at Portland’s Periscope Studio, where they collaborated on a Planet of the Apes story. Yes. That means this Comics Underground will feature talking monkeys. With guns! And hookahs!

• Nationally syndicated political cartoonist MATT BORS was short-listed for a Pulitzer earlier this year! Political comics? At Comics Underground? Mere days before an election? How timely! How relevant!

• LEIA WEATHINGTON and ERIKA MOEN are two Portland creators who teamed up on the very adults-only story “Easy,” for the lady-friendly anthology Smut Peddler. We repeat: Adults only. Excellent.

• Up-and-coming cartoonist LUCY BELLWOOD recently raised more than $10,000 on Kickstarter to fund her autobiographical comic True Believer. This fact alone should give you some idea how good Bellwood is.

Is this a fantastic lineup? YES. So. See you there: Thursday, October 18 at the Jack London Bar (529 SW 4th, Portland). 8 pm. Cover charge is $3, which will be waived for anyone who brings a real live monkey.

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by | 07/30/2012 · 12:35 PM

So, About This Thursday’s Comics Underground…

… it’s going to be fairly fairly fucking awesome, and you can trust me when I say this, because I am someone who is in the know.

BEN DEWEY will present some tragedies from his phenomenal Tragedy Series. Your life will be made immeasurably better by Dewey’s comics, because they will remind you how much worse your life could be. For example:

SARA RYAN will read from her Flytrap series, specifically “Episode Four: Performance Anxiety,” featuring art by Sarah Burrini. Of the comic, I will say only that much of Sara’s story takes place at the Alibi—which means approximately 98 percent of Comics Underground attendees will suffer cripplingly humiliating karaoke flashbacks during the event. Wheeeee!

SUZETTE SMITH will read her story “The Man Who Dies,” which features both outer space and sexual intercourse. Can one ever go wrong combining these things? No, one cannot. It is impossible.

As for MATT FRACTION:

That “BATMAN DREAMS… thing” would be the piece Fraction first performed at w00tstock, “Batman Dreams of Hieronymus Machines,” which Warren Ellis called “brilliant” and Laura Hudson called “a smart, funny, and very personal reflection on comics.” So whatever Fraction’s cooking up for Thursday will likely be similarly brilliant, smart, and funny. Or it will be once Fraction gets it to us. Which he hasn’t yet. Because he’s writing Thor. But not even the God of Thunder will prevent us from debuting it for you on Thursday.

See you then.

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by | 07/06/2012 · 3:46 PM

Comics Underground Guests: Ben Dewey, Suzette Smith, Sara Ryan, and Matt Fraction!

FINALLY. The next installment of Comics Underground will take place on Thursday, August 2! And who, you ask, will be that evening’s special guests? Possibly because you didn’t read the above headline? Regardless, I’M SO GLAD YOU ASKED:

• BEN DEWEY, artist and creator of the hilarious The Tragedy Series, which provides inspirational reminders that things could always be worse. (Art via.)

• SUZETTE SMITH, cartoonist and all-around fetching gal whose work appears weekly in the Portland Mercury. (Art via.)

• SARA RYAN, young adult novelist (Empress of the World), librarian, and comics writer. Her first graphic novel, Bad Houses, with art by Carla Speed McNeil, is forthcoming from Dark Horse Comics.
(Art via.)

• MATT FRACTION, Architect of the Marvel Universe, writer of The Invincible Iron Man, and creator of the beloved high-concept spy comic Casanova. (Art via.)

YES. This is a lineup we are ridiculously stoked about. Be there: Thursday, August 2 at 8 pm at the Jack London Bar (529 SW 4th, Portland, Oregon). Admission is $3. Everything will be great.

P.S.! Comics Underground is now sponsored by Bridge City Comics and DC Vegetarian! Bridge City’s one of our favorite bookstores in town—visit ’em at 3725 N Mississippi, or online at bridgecitycitycomics.com. DC Vegetarian is where we eat. A lot. They’re on SW 3rd between Stark and Washington, and online at dcvegetarian.com.

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