Today on the site, we present Mat Colgate's interview with Tom Oldham, Simon Hacking, and Joe Kessler, three of the names behind the UK's Breakdown Press, which publishes some of the most challenging and/or exciting comics coming out right now, including works by Connor Willumsen, Lando, Antoine Cosse, Inés Estrada, and our own Ryan Holmberg. Here's an excerpt from the discussion:
How do you get hold of the stuff that you want to put out? You're a bit more established now, so do people approach you, or do you approach them?
S: Everything we're ever put out has begun with us approaching someone. It's usually been someone that we like already. Antoine Cosse was a friend of a friend of ours who was putting out comics, so we asked him if he wanted to do something.
J: Me and Antoine met through sports. I went to a book launch of his and me and him were eyeing each other up. We didn't really like each other because we'd played basketball together in Stoke Newington.
There aren't many comics stories that involve sporting rivalries, to the best of my knowledge.
S: He's not very tall either.
T: Is Antoine any good at basketball?
J: No, but he's better than me at comics.
S: Connor Willumsen who does Treasure Island, we spotted his work online and emailed him. I get pessimistic about these things, I always think “He's so good, surely he's got a deal or something?” But Connor was like “yeah, I'd love to.” We couldn't believe that he hadn't been published before. He'd done mini-comics here and there and he'd done an issue of The Punisher which I'd seen people talking about, but there was all this amazing, weird stuff on his website. We didn't meet him until six months after 'Treasure Island' had come out. Now we do get people approaching us by email with all kinds of stuff, but nothing that's made us want to put it out. The reason we bonded in the first place was over quite specific types of comics, so it's very particular stuff we go after.
Meanwhile, elsewhere:
—Reviews & Commentary. Ng Suat Tong reviews Dylan Horrocks's much-anticipated Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen.
Adam McGovern pays brief tribute to Dwayne McDuffie, and reviews Swifty Lang and Skuds McKinley's Plunder.
Illogical Volume of the Mindless Ones reviews recent comics, including The Multiversity Guidebook.
Anya Ulinich reviews Nina Bunjevac's Fatherland.
—Interviews & Profiles. Palestinian cartoonist Muhammad Sabaaneh talks to the The Independent about being suspended from his newspaper for drawing a (positive) cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammad, and being imprisoned by Israel.
The Iranian cartoonist Mana Neyestani talks to the L.A. Times about his book An Iranian Metamorphosis, and being imprisoned for drawing a cartoon.
Darling Sleeper checks in with Melissa Mendes.
I missed this interview with Dan Perkins/Tom Tomorrow.
Al Jazeera profiles nine political cartoonists around the world facing challenges of various kinds due to their work.
