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Ignatz winner, Eisner-nominee Laura Park is a cartoonist who veers into “national treasure” territory for me. Her classically styled linework and delicate coloring mix with an ineffable, inspired mix of sadness and tenderness. Do Not Disturb My Waking Dream, her mini comic, is a small classic, released in small numbers. But hooray, D+Q will be publishing a collected edition of her comics under the Waking Dream title.

In what will be her graphic novel debut, Do Not Disturb my Waking dream will collect these minis, one hopes, along with some new comics.

The book was acquired by Tom Devlin, who states, “Laura Park is a good old fashioned power drawer. She can draw anything and is one of those rare people who can actually crosshatch. As anyone who has seen her sketchbooks can corroborate, Laura is able to dig deep into her mental and physical pain and turn that into some of the scariest, saddest, and most beautiful drawings around.”

Park’s work has appeared in Best American Comics, Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Vice magazine, and Saveur.com, and she illustrated two JAmes Patterson books, Middle School and I Funny.

No publication date announced, but this is already something to look forward to.

Walter 'tolerating' my primate need to hug on him.

A photo posted by Laura Park (@calamitymagnet) on Mar 13, 2015 at 10:10am PDT

Laura Park is a cartoonist in Chicago who illustrates work with ink and color washes, and keeps detailed and personal sketchbooks. Her website is SingingBones.com.

Laura shares many pages of her sketchbook drawings and personal diary-style comics on her Flickr account. The work is as humorously self-deprecating as it is accomplished. Other pages that aren’t focused on the artist herself are just as keenly observed and rendered.

Laura also consorts with the Trubble Club, a group of Chicago-area cartoonists who get together regularly to produce absurd, funny and filthy jam comics. The Trubble Club recently created The Infinite Corpse (an online take on the Surrealist exquisite corpse game) in which cartoonists contribute three panels at a time to further the adventures of character called Corpsey. Laura’s contribution to that is here, among many others by notable cartoonists and animators alike.

BY JEN VAUGHN – Read it and weep! Go have yourself a good cry (probably at a Disney movie). In the tradition of occasionally free newsprint tabloid comics like the one-shot Caboose and quarterly Smoke Signal, a collaborative comic will be available this weekend at MoCCA! Official press release below:

The word “comic” has always been a bit of misnomer and The Cartoon Crier hopes to set the record straight. Sorrow and woe is the focus of this free 36-page newspaper tabloid that highlights the work of members of The National Cartoonists Society and of The Center for Cartoon Studies’ community.

The Cartoon Crier will premiere on Saturday, April 28 at The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival (MoCCA) in New York City.

The Cartoon Crier features the saddest strips from iconic comics like Family Circus, Beetle Bailey, Dennis the Menace, B.C., and For Better and For Worse. The Cartoon Crier also includes comics by Ivan Brunetti, Mell Lazarus, Melissa Mendes, Joe Lambert, Tom Gammill, Hilary Price, Laura Park, Richard Thompson, and Mo Willems as well as new work from the paper’s editors Cole Closser, R. Sikoryak, and James Sturm.

The Cartoon Crier will be available as a free download on May 1 from cartoonstudies.org.

—

Jen Vaughn is ready to weep tears in four colors: CMYK.

keep on trudgin’ (by Laura Park)

Nursery Rhyme Comics
Edited by Chris Duffy
Introduction by Leonard S. Marcus
$18.99
ISBN: 978-1-59643-600-8
Ages 9-12
On shelves October 11, 2011

Nursery rhymes. What’s up with that? (I feel like a stand up comedian when I put it that way). They’re ubiquitous but nonsensical. Culturally relevant but often of unknown origins. Children’s literary scholar Leonard Marcus ponders the amazing shelf life of nursery rhymes himself and comes up with some answers. Why is it that they last as long as they do in the public consciousness? Marcus speculates that “the old-chestnut rhymes that beguile in part by sounding so emphatically clear about themselves while in fact leaving almost everything to our imagination” leave themselves open to interpretation. And who better to do a little interpreting than cartoonists? Including as many variegated styles as could be conceivably collected in a single 128-page book, editor Chris Duffy plucks from the cream of the children’s graphic novel crop (and beyond!) to create a collection so packed with detail and delight that you’ll find yourself flipping to the beginning to read it all over again after you’re done. Mind you, I wouldn’t go handing this to a three-year-old any time soon, but for a certain kind of child, this crazy little concoction is going to just the right bit of weirdness they require.

Fifty artists are handed a nursery rhyme apiece. The goal? Illustrate said poem. Give it a bit of flair. Put in a plot if you have to. So it is that a breed of all new comics, those of the nursery ilk, fill this book. Here at last you can see David Macaulay bring his architectural genius to “London Bridge is Falling Down” or Roz Chast give “There Was a Crooked Man” a positive spin. Leonard Marcus offers an introduction giving credence to this all new coming together of text and image while in the back of the book editor Chris Duffy discusses the rhymes’ history and meaning. And as he says in the end, “We’re just letting history take its course.”

In the interest of public scrutiny, the complete list of artists on this book consists of Nick Abadzis, Andrew Arnold, Kate Beaton, Vera Brosgol, Nick Bruel, Scott Campbell, Lilli Carre, Roz Chast, JP Coovert, Jordan Crane, Rebecca Dart, Eleanor Davis, Vanessa Davis, Theo Ellsworth, Matt Forsythe, Jules Feiffer, Bob Flynn, Alexis Frederick-Frost, Ben Hatke, Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, Lucy Knisley, David Macaulay, Mark Martin, Patrick McDonnell, Mike Mignola, Tony Millionaire, Tao Nyeu, George O’Connor, Mo Oh, Eric Orchard, Laura Park, Cyril Pedrosa, Lark Pien, Aaron Renier, Dave Roman, Marc Rosenthal, Stan Sakai, Richard Sala, Mark Siegel, James Sturm, Raina Telgemeier, Craig Thompson, Richard Thompson, Sara Varon, Jen Wang, Drew Weing, Gahan Wilson, Gene Luen Yang, and Stephanie Yue (whew!). And as with any collection, some of the inclusions are going to be stronger than others. Generally speaking if fifty people do something, some of them are going to have a better grasp on the process than others. That said, only a few of these versions didn’t do it for me. At worst the versions were mediocre. At best they went in a new direction with their mat

Now this is a book of nursery rhymes for me! First Second books has assembled a drool-worthy lineup of cartoonists to interpret classic nursery rhymes in comic form. If the previews are any sign, the contributors didn’t disappoint either!

Above: Richard Thompson, Tony Millionaire, Laura Park, and Matt Forsythe.

I’m sad to report that the phenomenally talented, Ignatz award winning and dear friend to people and pets alike, Laura Park, is in sore need of emergency back surgery (specifically, a discectomy). Even with insurance, she still needs to raise $3500 which she hasn’t got, and that’s where you, Drawn’s faithful and charitable readers, can help.

She has set up a donation page to help offset the cost of the surgery and any amount you can spare will be greatly appreciated. And in return, you will be highly rewarded knowing you’ve helped out an extremely gifted artist return to the craft she loves; creating comics and paintings that are sure to slap a crooked smile on your face and plant an olde tyme song in your heart.

Oddly enough, Laura was featured on Drawn! nearly three years ago to the day, regarding the subject of artists and lower-back pain.

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Tags: back surgery, Comics, discectomy, donate, featherbed, Ignatz award, illustrator, laura park

Who are the People in your Neighborhood is the latest set of letterpress prints from the Cloudy Collection. Meet the neighbors of our first-edition-of-the-year artists: Bob Flynn (previously), Dustin Harbin (previously), David Huyck (me!), Scott MacDonald (previously), Laura Park (previously), Claire Robertson (previously), and (making a Drawn! debut) Dave Taylor. As usual, the full set of seven prints is just $35, with free shipping to the US and Canada! Oh so good!

And for those of you who will be buying all four sets this year, why not save a few bucks and get a t-shirt designed by Elio (previously) and me along the way? Subscribe to Volume II here!

Posted by David Huyck on Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog | Permalink | No comments
Tags: Bob Flynn, Claire Robertson, Cloudy Collection, Dave Taylor, David Huyck, Dustin Harbin, Elio, laura park, Scott K. Macdonald, Sesame Street

This is great. What better way for comic artists to celebrate Harvey Pekar’s birthday? Pekar, whose autobio-comics self is famously drawn by different artists throughout his career, is rendered lovingly by over 90 different cartoonists as part of The Pekar Project.

Shown here: two of my faves, Laura Park and Jeffrey Brown.

Posted by John Martz on Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog | Permalink | No comments
Tags: Comics, Harvey Pekar, jeffrey brown, laura park, portraiture

The incredible Laura Park has been uploading a whack of jam comics to Flickr created by some of her local Chicago comicking friends. These hilarious and oft-disturbing collaborations are created by the likes of Jeremy Tinder, Rachel Niffenegger, Grant Reynolds, Jeremi Onsmith, Lilli Carre, Bernie McGovern, and others.