Post York was nominated in the Best Single Issue (One-Shot) category of the Eisner Awards! Congratulations to James Romberger and Crosby!!!
Tag Archive for 'James Romberger'
The thirty-fourth meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Monday, February 25, 2013 (tomorrow!) at 7:00 pm at Parsons The New School, 2 West 13th Street in The Bark Room (off lobby).
Come see James Romberger on his latest books 7 Miles a Second and Post York with a slide show and special musical performance by Crosby. NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium: Monday, February 25, 2013 (tonight!) at 7:00 pm at Parsons The New School, 2 West 13th Street in The Bark Room (off lobby).
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James Romberger’s tale of foraging survivors in New York City after the polar ice caps have melted operates within a genre that’s very near and dear to my heart. Yeah, you can classify this story as post-apocalyptic.
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Romberger introduces us to his engaging world in an impressive 16-page wordless sequence that really forces the reader to study the eerie silence of New York City. The only thing you can really hear in your mind’s ear is the quiet sputter of the small boat as it trolls the streets of submerged Manhattan, or the wake gently lapping up against the overgrowth now intertwined with rubble, the man-made and natural worlds once again trying to find a symbiotic arrangement that actually works.
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Romberger fashions his protagonist after his son Crosby, explicitly concerned with the world we’ll be leaving our children. The very nature of that idea is a nice gateway to the type of tension that the book explores, considering the optimal balance of the natural world and the man-made world, of selfless altruism with that pragmatically selfish survival instinct I mentioned before. In short, if either of these dynamic relationships becomes imbalanced, bad things happen.
Read the entire review here.
James Romberger’s amazing and important book, 7 Miles a Second, hit the New York Times Comics Bestseller list at #5! Congratulations to all involved! Can Post York be far behind?
James Romberger was interviewed about Post York by Comic Book Resources a while back. Somehow the post about it got lost in the internet ether. Here it is again:
CBR News: James, where did the idea for “Post York” come from? Have you written comics before this?
James Romberger: I have written some short stories; one was in the final issue of “MOME.” I have long felt that I was too dependent on other writers, so I went back to college in 2005, mainly to develop my writing. I came up with the “Post York” idea at Columbia University and used it to resolve some assignments. I wrote a few stories and made some paintings and prints, all attempts to depict what New York City would look like after the ice caps melt and the water finds its level. It seemed to me that we would become more like Venice. However, as we can see from Hurricane Sandy, most of New York is not built to withstand the strain that so much water would put on it, the old tenements would collapse and the infrastructure would fail. But, any survivors left in the city would find ways to deal with it as best they could — New Yorkers are hardy and tenacious.
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How did you end up connecting with Tom Kaczynski and Uncivilized Books?
After my last efforts for the mainstream, I decided that I would be happier returning to the alt/lit world. I felt an affinity with Tom’s own work when I read it in the “MOME” books that are part of Columbia University’s excellent comics and graphic novel collection and I like what he is publishing. When I met Tom at his table at last year’s Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival, I said I had some work he might be interested in, and he was. It didn’t take long for it to come together, because here we are.
Check out the whole interview here. Get a copy of Post York here, and make sure you check out the re-issue of James’ of Seven Miles A Second.
After a bunch of production problems and delays, we managed to get a few copies of James Romberger’s Post York to the Brooklyn and Comics and Graphics Festival. Now we finally got a good chunk of the rest of the print run and they are now available! Pre-ordered books have started going out last week and all new orders are shipping right away. Order here.
So we’re getting really excited about the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival! This is easily one of our favorite shows of the year and we’re grateful to be part of it this year! Here’s what we’ve got prepared for you: We’re going to have a table full of great cartoonists. We’re going to be hanging out at our table (Upstairs #23) for most of the day:
- Gabrielle Bell
- James Romberger
- Jon Lewis
- and our publisher/cartoonist Tom Kaczynski.
We’re debuting 3 (three!) new books at the show:
- True Swamp: Choose Your Poison by Jon Lewis (available now!)
- Post York by James Romberger, with a flexi disc single by Crosby! (pre-order!)
- Eel Mansions by Derek Van Gieson (pre-order!)
- Our publisher/cartoonist, Tom Kaczynski, will also be spend some time at the Fantagraphics table (from 2:30 to 3:30 pm more info here!) to sign copies of his brand new-can’t-get-it-anywhere-else-until-December-book: Beta Testing the Apocalypse (available for pre-order here).
- Gabrielle Bell will be signing copies of The Voyeurs which was recently named one of the best Graphic Novels of the year by Publishers Weekly!
We’ll be upstairs at table 23! See you there!
Way back in the mid 90′s I was reading a lot of Vertigo comics for their brand of goth inflected urban horror & fantasy. It was a pretty good time for Vertigo, some interesting work was coming out at that time. It wouldn’t have been unusual for me to pick up a Vertigo book, just because it was Vertigo… even if I didn’t know who the creators were. That was the case with 7 Miles A Second. Who was David Wojnarowicz? I didn’t know, but his Polish sounding name made me curious. James Romberger? Never heard of him, but the few snippets of his art I’d seen were intriguing. Once I opened the comic and started reading it, the art detonated in my head… Jason T. Miles over at the defunct (but not dead!) ComicsComics site said it best:
James Romberger is a discovery for me. His work here is awesome and its difficult to look at because it READS. He has an inviting line and he’s got that magic cartoon thing where I feel shoulder to shoulder with his ink. I feel projected into his graphic world. His lettering is lettering! (Dear 2023 Reader, there was a time when comics were only lettered by computers pretending to be humans. I know it sounds stupid but that’s why all that old stuff looks old.) Romberger’s lettering fits somewhere between Alex Toth and Aaron Cometbus. Romberger appears to be coming from the Toth, 80s Mazzucchelli, Tony Salmons side of the yard but in someways he’s more restrained and direct, more functional and attentive to conjuring Wojnarowicz’s script. Flipping through the comic, the layouts look choppy but all those hard breaks evaporate and the eye willingly, thankfully let’s Romberger drive. And its a seasick road because the story is fucked! [read the rest here]
Back then, I never dreamed that I’d ever be publishing James’ work (heck I never dreamed I’d ever be a publisher!). Fast forward to today, and I’m honored to announce Post York a new comic-book by James Romberger! Here’s what it’s all about:
Post York is a multimedia project that takes the form of a comic book with a musical flexidisc attached. The story is set in New York City after the polar ice caps melt. A young man navigates the flooded city, looking for something, anything, anyone…to start again. The comic book by James Romberger takes a postmodern turn as it uses improvisatory cinematic techniques to make the reader a focus group for a pair of alternative endings. The song by Crosby extends the story into another medium to add deeper emotional resonance.
James Romberger’s acclaimed graphic novels include 7 Miles a Second (a new edition is due in December 2012 from Fantagraphics!) with legendary artist and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz and artist and punk diva Marguerite Van Cook, and Aaron and Ahmed (DC/Vertigo, 2010), with Guggenhiem fellow Jay Cantor. The main character of Post York is modeled on James’ son Crosby, the MC behind Hip Hop Howl of SXSW fame and a prolific designer for Swizz Beatz. Crosby provides the back cover collage as well as the song on the flexidisc, which features production by Kidde and also a special appearance by singer Jordan Lane.
Music and comics meet as two generations of artists come together to propel a moving vision of a post-apocalyptic world. Step aboard and try to stay dry.
The comic book is available for preorder and will debut at the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival, with preorders shipping by mid-November. Preorder now!
A couple of great Uncivilized Books related events happening today at the Brooklyn Book Festival:
2:00 P.M. Worlds Built over Time.
This all-star panel brings together the narrative geniuses of Jaime Hernandez (Love and Rockets), Carla Speed McNeil (Finder), Adrian Tomine (New York Stories) and Gabrielle Bell (The Voyeurs) to discuss how they’ve developed characters, stories, and imagined worlds over serial publications. Moderated by Bill Kartalopoulos, co-organizer, Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival. Featuring screen projection.
3:00 P.M. NYC Inked.
Peter Kuper (Drawn to New York), shares a diary portrait of 34 years in NYC; James Romberger (Seven Miles a Second – and who is announcing a new book from Uncivilized Books today!) captures the gritty beauty from the LES to uptown, adapting the late David Wojnarowicz haunting memoir; Colleen Doran (Gone to Amerikay) tells the Irish immigrant’s story across three centuries; and newcomer Ron Wimberly (Prince of Cats) rewrites Romeo & Juliet in a Blade-Runner-esque landscape. Moderated by Calvin Reid, Publishers Weekly Comics World. Featuring screen projection.
Check it out!
