The Ephemerist

I was cleaning out what has become commonly known as the “comic closet” in the Ephemerist Mansions, and came across an old Top Shelf catalog, which featured a beautiful silk screened cover. On the back of the brochure I disocvered this amazing ad for Mars Ink Printing Productions by none other than Craig Thompson.

I guess this catalog must date from about 1997, and I didn’t have the faintest clue about who this Thompson was at that time. I do now, and I dig it.

Every since Craig Thompson started his own blog, it has been the source of stuff too wonderful to behold. Craig’s most recent treat is none other than his very first comic, self-published as a flip book together with Kurt Halsey.

I don’t know whether he knew him back then, but his lines really remind me of Willem. The story itself is pure Thompson, with cuteness and harsh wisdom combined.

I blogged about Nickelodeon Magazine before, and here’s some proof of the cool goodies that you can find in this magazine. Craig Thompson we all know, of course, for his international hit Blankets, in which he already shows his masterful experimentation with page layout. In 2001 and 2002, Thompson published some comics in Nickelodeon Magazine, in which he takes this experimentation to the next level.

Ogre and Bunny and Space Explorers (above, from april 2002) are so-called Cartoonigami comics, with different storylines depending on how you fold them. Just try it, it really works !

The Prankster (above left, from the September, 2001 issue) is a wonderful play on the contextual meaning of motion lines, onomatopaea and the like. Juanita And Clem (above right, from the December, 2002 issue) imagines what would happen if a piece of the page was torn out.

This is the kind of stuff that I would like to see more in conventional comics.

Craig Thompson (blog : Doot Doot Garden) has designed the packaging for Menomena’s new CD. If I’m completely honest, I can’t say I’m overwhelmed by the music. It sounds a bit too much like a well-meant demo to me.

Judging from the images on the website, though, the Thompson artwork is to die for (again), with lots of cutouts and colored transparancies. The image above can’t possibly do justice to it, but we’ll just have to make do…