Hypercastle Blog

September 4, 2018

KC Zine Con #4, Riso Print Grab Fundraiser, and Rise for Climate in Johnson County

Filed under: Comic Fests,Events,Online — Tags: climate change, KC Zine Con, Oddities Prints — Will Cardini @ 10:50 pm

This Saturday, September 8th, is going to be busy in the Kansas City metro area!

From 9 to 11am, climate activists will march in downtown Overland Park, in conjunction with sister marches nationwide, to demand that local governments will commit to a clean energy future and oppose all new fossil fuel infrastructure. You can see more info and the march route on this Facebook event page.

I won’t be at the march (except in spirit) because I’ll be slinging comics at KC Zine Con #4, from 10am to 6pm at Pierson Auditorium on the UMKC campus. Come find me at Table #88!

I’ll have Tales from the Hyperverse, Vortex, my latest riso prints, a selection of Retrofit comics, and more.

Oddities Prints, my KC-area print shop, will also be at KC Zine Con, selling (among many other things) riso print grab bags to benefit RAICES, the ACLU, and Planned Parenthood! Here’s a mockup of the print I designed for this fundraiser:

If you can’t make it to KCZC#4, you can also order these grab bags online.

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July 31, 2018

An Ingenious, Anti-Capitalist Alien Invasion Story

Filed under: SF Reviews — Tags: Clifford D Simak, They Walked Like Men — Will Cardini @ 8:01 am

They Walked Like Men by Clifford D Simak is one of the most clever alien invasion stories I have ever read. It’s also an exploration of the downsides of private property and capitalism which surprised me from Simak, who doesn’t usually talk about economics in his novels.

Cover artist unknown, MacFadden Books 1963.

This book is written in the first-person POV of Patrick Graves, a science journalist for a city newspaper. The book doesn’t say what year it is but it was published in 1962 and doesn’t have any SF elements other than the aliens. Simak was a journalist so I would guess that he was heavily mining from his experience for the milieu. It makes it more real and offers us a glimpse into a job that doesn’t exist in the same form anymore.

One curious aspect to the setting is that Simak never specifies the name of city in which this story is set. It feels like a mid-sized midwestern city. From his other novels I know that’s where he usually sets his stories because that’s where he lived but it does make some of the phrasing awkward when Simak is trying to dance around naming the city outright. A novelist should pick a place to tell their story and tells us where that place is.

Graves is a bit of a drunk and a misogynist. In many ways Graves exemplifies stereotypes I have about how a typical man in the 1950’s to early 60’s would think about things like drinking and women.

Simak does a terrific job conveying the dread that Graves feel as the alien invasion upends his sense of comfort and normalcy. Here’s a choice quote from page 87 of the 1963 MacFadden Books edition:

Now I saw the great black of the night outside and could sense the coldness and the arrogance that held the world entrapped. The room contracted to a cold place of gleaming light shattering on the shine of the laboratory bench and the sink and glassware, and I was a feebleness that stood there…

As someone who suffers from anxiety and panic attacks, I can testify that this is an accurate description of what it feels like when panic begins.

I won’t spoil the ending but I am going to describe the clever premise. I went into it with no prior knowledge of the plot (I didn’t even read the back cover copy) just a strong appreciation for Simak’s writing and themes (I’ve also reviewed his book The Werewolf Principle) so be forewarned that I’m going into detail about things the book slowly reveals in the following paragraphs.

Click here to read spoilery details

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June 13, 2018

CAKE 2018 Recap

Filed under: Recaps — Tags: CAKE, Quimby's — Will Cardini @ 10:15 pm

I had a blast at CAKE, thanks to everyone who came by my table!!

I stayed with my friend Jon Mastantuono (AKA Jon Drawdoer). He draws great psychedelic comics that grow from slices of reality, check out his stuff here. He also helps organize CAKE so I got to see some of all the hard work the organizers put into making a show happen.

A drawing from Jon’s Tumblr.

Chicago is such a cool city, I’d never been before. KC is only a ten-hour drive away so hopefully I’ll be back soon. As a Texan, that was the coldest June weekend I’ve ever experienced, and I loved it!

The Friday before CAKE I went to Quimby’s for the first time. That’s an amazing comic book store! I felt so honored to see my Vortex promo print up on one of their bookshelves.

Do you want a promo riso print of Vortex for your comic book store? Let me know…

CAKE is in a gymnasium. I went to BCGF in Brooklyn in November 2012 and I was in the gym part of the show. It was so hot and humid in there. Everyone was sweating and the books were curling from the humidity. So when I saw that CAKE was in a gym I got worried. But the gym was freezing which I prefer to heat. It’s kind of ironic that BCGF was in November and sweltering and CAKE was in June and frigid.

View from the balcony of the third floor of the Center on Halstead, where CAKE happens.

One bummer for me was that I ordered a PayPal chip card reader for CAKE but it could not connect to my phone via Bluetooth (the only connection option) when the show was bumping, probably from all the interfering signals. Fortunately I brought my Square card reader that just plugs into the headphone jack of my phone as a backup. But I would advise against buying the PayPal chip card reader. I’ve heard the Square chip card reader is better but it’s much more expensive.

My table.

Sales were brisk. Selling some books from Retrofit Comics helped me out. Tyler Landry’s Shit and Piss really draws the eye. I was also in a good spot in the gym, in between Paradise Systems, a micropress who translates and publishes Chinese indie comics and other quality comics, and Secret Acres, who had a new, wonderfully out-there collection of short comics by Edie Fake, Little Stranger.

I haven’t had a chance to read everything I bought, but some highlights for me so far have been:

Behind is Late by Cynthia Alfonso – a formally experimental and beautifully produced (it has a laminated cover!) poetry comic
Grip by Lale Westvind – a fantastic, frenetic homage to the power of the hand
But is it… Comic Aht? – a new, all-newsprint comics mag put out by Domino Books with in-depth interviews and articles for slow reflection in today’s too-fast times

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May 29, 2018

CAKE 2018

Filed under: Comic Fests — Tags: CAKE, Risograph — Will Cardini @ 7:38 am

This weekend I’ll be tabling for the first time at the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo AKA CAKE. CAKE is Saturday June 2nd and Sunday June 3rd from 11am to 6pm at the Center on Halsted. I hope to see some of y’all there!

I’ll have my comics Tales from the Hyperverse, Sphere Fear, Drumstick Pit, and Vortex; the climate change poetry comics anthology Warmer, which has one of my comics in it; some Retrofit comics; and these two new risograph prints:

The prints are Rainbow Robot on the left and Diana in Ghost Arrow on the right. I got them printed by a local shop, Oddities Prints.

I’ll be at Table 410A.

If you’re not going to be at CAKE, you can buy my new prints here.

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May 10, 2018

For the Love of Indie Interview

Filed under: Press — Tags: For the Love of Indie, interview, Tales from the Hyperverse — Will Cardini @ 10:25 pm

In Episode #58 of the For the Love of Indie podcast, Drew Van Genderen reviewed Tales from the Hyperverse, and then in Episode #61, he interviewed me about the comic and other relevant topics.

A panel from the last story in Tales from the Hyperverse, showing the Miizzzard’s floating head and the Floating Crystal Witch.

We discuss my history with comics, my influences, the themes of Tales from the Hyperverse, my favorite character, my character development process, the potential of Tales from the Hyperverse #2, and more!

A drawing of the rainbow robot (name TBD) for Tales from the Hyperverse #2.

~~Give the episode a listen here!~~

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May 1, 2018

For the Love of Indie Reviews Hyperverse

Filed under: Press — Tags: For the Love of Indie, Tales from the Hyperverse — Will Cardini @ 8:47 pm

The indie comics podcast For the Love of Indie has reviewed Tales from the Hyperverse in a recent episode, click here to listen via Apple Podcasts!

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April 17, 2018

Read all of Skew on Study Group

Filed under: Comics,Web Comics — Tags: Skew, Study Group Comics, William Cardini — Will Cardini @ 10:55 pm

Study Group has posted the final update to Skew! You can now read all four parts of my second graphic novel on their site.

Skew Page 221.

Here are some of my favorite pages from Skew: Click here to see these pages

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March 16, 2018

Recent Reviews

Filed under: Press — Tags: Mindless Ones, Optical Sloth, Sphere Fear, Tales from the Hyperverse, William Cardini — Will Cardini @ 10:33 am

Two of my comics were reviewed in January!

First, my latest comic Tales from the Hyperverse entered the Reviewniverse in episode #244 of the SILENCE! podcast by the Mindless Ones out of the UK, Gary Lactus and The Beast Must Die.

SILENCE! podcast header by the inimitable James Stokoe.

A quote I jotted down from the Ones about TftHV is, “The color is amazing in this comic.” Also they mistakenly attribute Prism Stalker to me for a sec before realizing their error – Prism Stalker is by Sloane Leong. The first issue of that comic came out last week and it’s a psychedelic, intriguing beginning to a mind-bending SF epic! I’m looking forward to seeing where Leong takes us. Lots of other meaty stuff in that episode, you can give it a listen here.

Second, Sphere Fear AKA Sphere Hear due to my illegible fonts was reviewed on the venerable minicomics review site Optical Sloth. Here’s a quote:

I love the fact that William has been living in this Hypercastle world for roughly a decade now, and he shows no signs of slowing down. Or of making his work more “commercial,” although I have no idea what that would look like in this universe.

Read the whole review here.

One great thing about Optical Sloth is its deep archive. Bramer has been reviewing comics for years and years – he reviewed one of my first minicomics in 2009. Another great thing is that he scans each comic for his review. I hope he doesn’t mind that I’m posting his scans of Sphere Fear so y’all can see the great risograph printing by Issue Press:

Scanned by Kevin Bramer.

Finally, if you’ve read my comics, please consider giving them a review at my author page on Goodreads.

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Abstract Test on the Abstract Comics Blog

Filed under: Comics,Web Comics — Tags: Abstract Comics, William Cardini — Will Cardini @ 9:50 am

Last year I was experimenting with an abstract comic. It was one panel per page and I started each page with a circle in the same spot.

Here’s the first page:

Mike Getsiv posted the first seven pages on the Abstract Comics blog last October. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it in the future but I might keep adding to it.

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January 16, 2018

Watercolor Commission of Diana

Filed under: Artwork — Tags: India Ink, Watercolor, William Cardini — Will Cardini @ 7:10 am

Near the end of last year, I painted a watercolor commission of the character Diana in Tales from the Hyperverse. I did two versions and let the commissioner choose.

Here’s a detail of the first version, with additional lines in India ink:

Here’s the second version, without any India ink:

If you’d like to commission a drawing or painting from me, send me an email at william cardini at this website.

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