Family Style

Drawing Challenge - Marvel Smackdown

2009-11-09T09:31:00.000-08:00

While we (Jonas and François) while away our time at comics conventions, we often try and use the time to entertaining, if pointless, ends: Drawing the kind of goofy stuff that got us into comics in the first place. With that laudable goal in mind, at this year's APE, we came up with a fun game: Draw a pair of Marvel comics characters battling it out in some fashion. The rules were: One hour time limit, someone else picks the characters, no looking online or elsewhere for costume reference, etc. Here are the results:

Mr. Fantastic vs Doctor Doom, by Jonas

Galactus vs Thor, by François

MODOK ve Speedball, by Jonas (guest-suggested by the brilliant Trevor Alixopulos)

Hulk vs Havok, by François

BONUS! Green Goblin vs Doctor Octopus, by Tim Lajeunesse of Love Letter Press! Coming soon!

Bird Brain #2 available in the Store

2009-10-26T09:44:00.000-07:00

We had a great time at APE this year, and there was a very warm reception for François' newest nature-journaling issue, Bird Brain #2. If you didn't get a chance to pick up this little gem of a zine (everything hand-done, from the Gocco-print cover to the trimming and the corner-rounding; each issue is also serially numbered, edition of 200), its now available in our new store page! And watch the Bird Brain Journals for more updates and journal entries leading up to Bird Brain #3, out in early 2010!

Family Style at APE

2009-10-14T22:11:00.000-07:00

The Family's gonna be camped out as per usual at this week's Alternative Press Expo, table #431! Come and say hi to Jonas, françois, and our pals Nick St. John (Mr. Mortiz and the Machine) and Raquel Reyes (A Tapir Caper). In addition to the trio of new titles that came out for the recent SFZF, we've got a new treat for you: François is putting the finishing touches on Bird Brain #2! See you there!

New Titles in the Catalog! Ochre Ellipse #3, Mr. Mortiz and the Machine, and Bird Brain #1

2009-09-26T18:53:00.000-07:00

We had a little burst of creative productivity recently, and now you can reap the benefits! We've got not one, not two, but three brand new titles for your enjoyment, and all of them are now available for purchase in our catalog:

Jonas Madden-Connor hits another one out of the park with his latest... A sci-fi story reminiscent of Louis Trondheim, Chris Ware, and Alex Raymond, this is one amazing book! Click here to see it in our catalog.

Following his appearance in this year's Best American Nonrequired Reading anthology, Nick St. John follows up with a full-length mini-novella, Mr. Mortiz and the Machine. A layered story of loss and memory, it shares some themes with Ochre Ellipse #3, the two would make a very interesting read together! Click here for more info.

François Vigneault has begun a brand new project with his series Bird Brain: Lovingly rendered sketches of birds from Great Horned Owls to Dark-eyed Juncos, and brief, auto-biographical jounal entries detailing his encounters with them. For more ongoing nature journaling, check out his Bird Brain Journals blog. Click here to buy it!

Nick St. John in Best American!

2009-09-22T13:43:00.000-07:00

I just got to see this year's Best American Nonrequired Reading anthology, with Family Style's Nick St. John's Further Notes on My Unfortunate Condition included! We are so pumped for our good pal! Family Style is delighted to be the distributor for both the original mini-comic version of FNOMUC and Nick's lovely, full-length follow-up, Mr. Mortiz and the Machine. You can read more of Nick's comics on his website, and both are still available from our Family Style catalog.

For more on BANR, go to their blog, where they included updates throughout the selection process for this year's anthology.

Bird Brain #1

2009-08-09T19:39:00.000-07:00

The first issue of François' ongoing nature journal series, Bird Brain, will be released for the upcoming San Francisco Zine Fest!

François is also launching a new blog with sketches, thoughts, and journal entries regarding birds and nature. Check it out!

Nick St. John

2009-07-25T16:14:00.000-07:00

Family Style is super proud to be carrying the new mini-graphic novella by our good pal Nick St. John! The new comic, entitled Mr. Mortiz and the Machine, will be out in physical form for the upcoming SF Zine Fest, but Nick has just launched a website where interested folks can read his new work, along with some of the older stories which were collected in Further Notes on my
Unfortunate Condition (which is available on our "Extended Family" catalog page). Look for his new work in ur catalog and at the Family Style table soon!

There (and Back Again), Stumptown Edition

2009-04-23T08:33:00.000-07:00

Jonas and I had a pretty good time in PDX for the Stumptown Comics Fest over the weekend! I'll post more in my blog soon, but thought I'd share this apearance by Jonas and myself in Jesse's Diary Comic, we are the bewildered bearded dudes in the third panel:

Family Style's Going to Stumptown

2009-04-16T11:05:00.000-07:00

Jonas and François will be at this weekend's Stumptown Comics Fest in Family Style's home away from home, Portland, Oregon. Unfortunately, you won't find us on the official list of exhibitors; the show sold out and we weren't early enough with our application! Yikes! Happily, our old pal Eli Bishop of Global Hobo has agreed to squeeze us in at table #95! Huzzah! Please come by and say hi! We'll have a slightly edited selection of our comics, zines, and stationery, including the newly back-in-print Ochre Ellipse #1 and Friends #2!

2009-03-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

"Extended Family" member Nick St. John's fantastic debut comic Further Notes on my Unfortunate Condition is currently under consideration for the Best American Non-Reguired Reading, a rather awesome anthology edited and selected by a panel of high school students along with series editor Dave Eggers and managing editor Jesse Nathan! Unlike most juried anthologies, the ABNR committee publishes their thoughts and comments as they work through the selection process... click here for the panel's discussion of Nick's awesome comic! Like what you hear? You can grab a copy in our catalog! And of course, please keep your fingers crossed for Nick!

Mini-Comp Sketchbook

2009-01-19T19:08:00.000-08:00

I've had these up on Etsy for a little while, but my hand-made Mini-Comp sketchbooks are newly up on our slowly expanding Crafts catalog page... I've been making these in little batches lately. The covers are reused cardboard lids from envelope boxes... how nice that they print them with that great "composition book" pattern! Each one is hand bound and trimmed, using some of the fancy tools at my lovely workplace, Hello Lucky! Fun Stuff! Get yours today!

Ochre Ellipse Wins Isotope Award!

2008-11-02T13:12:00.000-08:00

Family Style's resident artistic genius, Jonas Madden-Connor, won the Isotope Comics' Award for Excellence in Mini-Comics last night! Our pride knows no bounds! Come by APE today and say hi! Or, check out our catalog to purchase this great book!

Ignatz Nominee in the Family!

2008-09-17T23:39:00.000-07:00

We are so proud to announce that one of Family Style's founding and central members, Jonas Madden-Connor, has been nominated for an Ignatz Award for best Mini Comic of 2008! Congratulations, Jonas!

Click here to buy this amazing comic!

Family Reunion!

2008-05-11T21:55:00.000-07:00

You may or may not know that Family Style has had a hand in running the San Francisco Zine Fest for the last three years... well, this year we are holding a very special Family Reunion panel there! We will be getting the Family Style founding members together for a rollicking discussion of the F.S. Jamboree, the pitfalls of colaborative creation, and the crazy inter-personal drama the project created for us! It should be a seriously hilarious and potentially enlightening panel for anyone who is thinking of creating a collaborative, community-based project, or any one who wants to get to know us better than they already do! It looks like pretty much all of our original members (Beth Bouffard, Chris Brennan, Jonas Madden-Connor, François Vigneault, Antonio & Pablo Roman-Alcala, Gabe Ramos, Jenny Dickow, and Sarah Gion, thus far!) have signed on. So we'll see on Sunday, July 20, at the SF County Fair Building!

New Titles, Available Now!

2008-05-06T13:55:00.000-07:00

We have TWO great new comics from Family members Jonas Madden-Connor and Sarah Gion:

Ochre Ellipse #2 is fantastic stand-alone comic with subtle ties to Jonas' premiere issue; it is at turns amazing, formal, spare, deep... This is the comic where Jonas is really coming into his own as a creator and a serious talent.

Sarah's new issue of her long-running zine/comix series The Science has hit issue 24 with a great mix of hilarious and bittersweet quotidian tales. This is (I believe) her first all comics issue, and she knocks the ball out of the park with her finely tuned observations and sweet drawings.

Both comics are available in our catalog, go get 'em!

All this productivity from my co-creators is making me look bad!

Extended Family

2008-02-03T18:58:00.000-08:00

Exciting news! We have yet another new page in our ever-growing catalog: The "Extended Family" section will feature zines and comics from some special friends of ours, including John P. (King-Cat), Captain Joyce Leslie (The End of a Perfect Day) and Raquel Reyes (Tapir Caper). These are works which we will be distroing for our friends alongside our regular Family Style publications. Much more is to come in the coming year, so check back again soon!

Testing

2008-02-03T17:17:00.001-08:00

Currently testing a new site format.