American Splendor is a series of autobiographical comic books written by Harvey Pekar and drawn by a variety of artists. The first issue was published in 1976 and the last one in September 2008, with publication occurring at irregular intervals. Publishers were, at various times, Harvey Pekar himself, Dark Horse Comics, and DC Comics.
James Kochalka is an American comic book artist, writer, animator, and rock musician. His comics are noted for their blending of the real and the surreal. Largely autobiographical, Kochalka's cartoon expression of the world around him includes such real-life characters as his wife, children, cat, friends and colleagues, but always filtered through his own observations and flights of whimsy. In March 2011 he was declared the cartoonist laureate of Vermont, serving a term of three years.
Modern Tales was a webcomics publisher active from 2002 to 2012, best known for being one of the first profitable subscription models for digital content. Joey Manley was the website's publisher and original editor. The site featured a roster of approximately 30 professional webcomic artists. Shaenon Garrity, one of the site's original artists, took over as the publication's editor in 2006. Other Modern Tales artists included Gene Luen Yang, James Kochalka, Dorothy Gambrell, Harvey Pekar and Will Eisner.
The Ignatz Awards recognize outstanding achievements in comics and cartooning by small press creators or creator-owned projects published by larger publishers. They have been awarded each year at the Small Press Expo since 1997, only skipping a year in 2001 due to the show's cancellation after the September 11 attacks. As of 2014 SPX has been held in either Bethesda, North Bethesda, or Silver Spring, Maryland.
Jen Sorensen is an American cartoonist and illustrator who creates a weekly comic strip that often focuses on current events from a liberal perspective. Her work has appeared on the websites Daily Kos, Splinter, The Nib, Politico, AlterNet, and Truthout; and has appeared in Ms. Magazine, The Progressive, and The Nation. It also appears in over 20 alternative newsweeklies throughout America. In 2014 she became the first woman to win the Herblock Prize, and in 2017 she was named a Pulitzer Finalist in Editorial Cartooning.
Sam Henderson is an American cartoonist, writer, and expert on American comedy history. He is best known for his ongoing comic book series Magic Whistle. He was a contributor to the animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants and Camp Lazlo. Henderson has contributed work to Duplex Planet Illustrated, Zero Zero, 9-11: Artists Respond, Volume One, Mega-Pyton, Maakies, Nib-Lit, Legal Action Comics, and the animated shorts compilation God Hates Cartoons. He has also been a past participant in Robert Sikoryak's Carousel multimedia slideshow series.
Nick Magazine is a defunct American children's magazine inspired by the children's television network Nickelodeon. Its first incarnation appeared in 1990 and was distributed at participating Pizza Hut restaurants; the version of the magazine only saw two issues. The magazine returned in Summer 1993 with all types of content, primarily humor and comics. Originally published on a quarterly basis, it switched to bi-monthly with the February/March 1994 issue. It then went to ten times per year starting in March 1995, with a bi-annual December/January and June/July issue until its end in 2009.
Tomer Hanuka is an Israeli illustrator and cartoonist.
The Comics Interpreter (TCI) was a zine of comics criticism, published and edited by Robert Young. Published from 1999 to 2004, it focused on alternative comics, and was characterized by interviews and reviews of greater length and detail than most comics-oriented publications (resembling the long-running The Comics Journal in that regard). Although The Comics Interpreter generally had low production values, well-known artists contributed cover art.
Dean Edmund Haspiel is an American comic book artist, writer, and playwright. He is known for creating Billy Dogma, The Red Hook, and for his collaborations with writer Harvey Pekar on his American Splendor series as well as the graphic novel The Quitter, and for his collaborations with Jonathan Ames on The Alcoholic and HBO's Bored to Death. He has been nominated for numerous Eisner Awards, and won a 2010 Emmy Award for TV design work.
Josh Neufeld is an alternative cartoonist known for his comics journalism work on subjects like graphic medicine, equity, and technology; as well as his collaborations with writers like Harvey Pekar and Brooke Gladstone. He is the writer/artist of A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, and the illustrator of The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media.
Asaf Hanuka is an Israeli illustrator and comic book artist, notable for his autobiographical comic The Realist. He is twin brother of illustrator Tomer Hanuka.
Nick Bertozzi is an American comic book writer and artist, as well as a commercial illustrator and teacher of cartooning. His series Rubber Necker from Alternative Comics won the 2003 Harvey Awards for best new talent and best new series. His project, The Salon, examines the creation of cubism in 1907 Paris in the context of a fictional murder mystery.
Black Eye Books is a small but influential Canadian comic book publishing company founded by Michel Vrana. Under the auspices of Vrana, Black Eye was known as a publisher of artfully designed alternative comics and graphic novels, most of whose cartoonists have gone on to successful careers with fellow Canadian publisher Drawn & Quarterly. For several years, Vrana acted as Drawn & Quarterly's exclusive outside design consultant. In 2019 the company was relaunched as a micro-press with a focus on using crowdfunding to bring projects to fruition.
Graham Annable is a Canadian cartoonist and animator. He is the creator of Grickle, published by Alternative Comics, and one of the founders of the Hickee humor anthology. Annable has created works for the television, film, video game, and comic book industries.
Keyhole is a black-and-white alternative comic book published from 1996 to 1998. A two-man anthology by cartoonists Dean Haspiel and Josh Neufeld, Keyhole was published by two different publishers, starting with Millennium Publications and ending up at Top Shelf Productions. In 2021, Haspiel and Neufeld released a 25th-anniversary issue of Keyhole, with new material from both creators.
SpongeBob Comics was a comic book series based on the animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants, published by United Plankton Pictures and distributed by Bongo Comics. It was initially published every two months in the United States beginning in February 2011 and was published monthly from June 2012 to October 2018.
Notable events of 2006 in webcomics.
Sparkplug Comic Books was a publisher and distributor of alternative comics founded by cartoonist Dylan Williams. Based in Portland, Oregon, the company operated from 2002 to 2016. The publisher's backlist was later handled by Alternative Comics.
