../../blog/news We distribute handmade and hard-to-find comics. en-us Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT hello people, I'm sorry to say that after the end of February, Global Hobo (version 3) will be closed for the foreseeable future. Last orders please, it's time. The reasons are nothing dramatic, just cumulative fatigue. It hasn't been a collective for a long time, and this kind of thing isn't really sustainable as a more-or-less-one-person outfit (unless you're a force of nature like John Porcellino). And there are more good outlets for this kind of stuff than there were 9 years ago, like Sparkplug, the aforementioned John P's Spit and a Half, Secret Acres, and Poopsheet. Many, many, many thanks to all the artists who made books, all the stores and upstanding individuals who bought them, to Jesse Reklaw for helping out with stores and shows in Portland, and especially to the original Hobo crew who got it all started and gave me their blessing (not to mention their great website graphics and the famous cardboard table sign) for the revival. It really was a great trip. cheers, Eli ../../blog/item/7460 ../../blog/item/7460 Tue, 26 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT Please note that we've got a new PO box address - we were still checking the old one for a while, but now it's gone. The new one is '''PO Box 40667, San Francisco, CA 94140'''. ../../blog/item/5944 ../../blog/item/5944 Thu, 21 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT Two great cartoonists are being published in snazzy non-handmade volumes, and it's about time. Read these! * [[MariNaomi]]: ''[[http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Kiss--Tell-MariNaomi?isbn=9780062009234&HCHP=TB_Kiss+&+Tell|Kiss & Tell]]'', from Harper Perennial, collecting stories from [[Estrus]] plus a lot of new material. * [[Leslie Anne Mackenzie Stein]]: ''[[http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=1994&category_id=671&manufacturer_id=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=62|Eye of the Majestic Creature]]'', from Fantagraphics, collecting issues 1-3 and the long-rumored issue 4 of the series of the same name. ../../blog/item/5913 ../../blog/item/5913 Wed, 06 Oct 2010 22:00:00 GMT Sorry for the general lateness of updates here... lately. Life intervened. However, there WILL be shiny new things here in the second half of October, so feel free to hold your breath until then. A poorly timed but essential vacation means (a) Global Hobo is not at APE this time, and (b) orders placed before October 18 will be processed after October 18. And then everything will be cool. ../../blog/item/5329 ../../blog/item/5329 Sat, 27 Feb 2010 22:00:00 GMT Possibly the most insanely entertaining and labor-intensive thing we ever sold here was Jason Shiga's ''Meanwhile'', an 80-page, zillion-panel multidimensional choose-your-own-adventure comic involving time travel, memory transference and hideous death. It uses an intricate system of cut-out page marker tabs, and Jason used to make the whole thing by hand. Well now he'll have to find some other way to spend his time, because ''Meanwhile'' has FINALLY been published in hardcover (and in color!) by Abrams/Amulet Books. [[http://www.abramsbooks.com/Books/Meanwhile-9780810984233.html|Check it out]] and give it to brave children. ../../blog/item/4517 ../../blog/item/4517 Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:00:00 GMT Are you in Hamilton, Ontario? If not, why not? You could be hanging out at [[http://www.mixedmediahamilton.com/|Mixed Media]] and finding books, including some of our comics. ../../blog/item/4492 ../../blog/item/4492 Fri, 15 Jan 2010 22:00:00 GMT Are you in Providence, RI? If so, why not put down that copy of ''Rhode Island Sluts''* and check out the eclectic offerings at Ada Books, the latest retailer to carry comics books from Global Hobo. (* cultural reference from ''Dumb and Dumber'', which is the source of almost all I know about Rhode Island-- sorry) ../../blog/item/4468 ../../blog/item/4468 Sun, 27 Dec 2009 22:00:00 GMT Our newest retail pail is the spiffy new-ish San Francisco store and gallery Mission: Comics and Art. It's really an extremely cool store--let's hope it won't get so cool that we can't go there. Leef has declared this Indy Comics Week, so stop by and show him some love. ../../blog/item/4401 ../../blog/item/4401 Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:00:00 GMT If we haven't had books from someone in a while, it almost never means we forgot about them. People are making things, just not necessarily minicomics: * [[Rina Ayuyang]]'s collection ''Whirlwind Wonderland'' has been co-published by [[http://sparkplugcomicbooks.com/books/whirlwindwonderland/pages/www.html|Sparkplug Comic Books]] and Tugboat Press (Sparkboat? Tugplug?). Rina also made a [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/rinaok/3943458794/|baby]]. * [[Vanessa Davis]] has been doing a ''big!'' ''Monthly!'' ''COLOR!!'' strip about all kinds of things in the online magazine ''[[http://www.tabletmag.com/author/vdavis/|Tablet]]''. * [[Theo Ellsworth]] has a new non-self-published comic, ''Sleeper Car'', from [[http://www.secretacres.com/store/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=65|Secret Acres]]. He's been working on a new website which isn't up yet, but there's all kinds of flabbergasting art on [[http://theoellsworth.blogspot.com/|his blog]]. * Back in September, [[Lisa Hanawalt]] and [[Damien Jay]] [[http://www.spxpo.com/?page_id=22|WON FREAKING IGNATZ AWARDS]]. ../../blog/item/4297 ../../blog/item/4297 Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:00:00 GMT If you're one of those "social" type people: Global Hobo Comics Distribution You can become a stalker fan, etc. - mostly it'll be the same stuff that's on this blog, just may be more convenient for people who hang out on Facebook a lot. ../../blog/item/4294 ../../blog/item/4294 Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:00:00 GMT Just to keep people in suspense, for what it's worth, here are some reports from artists whose work we've been pretty excited about: * [[Damien Jay]] has the second issue of ''[[The Natural World]]'' done. He'll be debuting it next weekend in San Diego and we should have it around the same time. Also, don't miss Damien's medieval ghost story in the latest ''[[http://tugboatpress.com/|Papercutter]]'' (also featuring a long story by Minty Lewis, and a little taste of ''[[Bluefuzz the Hero|Bluefuzz]]'' by Jesse Reklaw). * [[Josh Frankel]] is working on [[Water Column]] #2, ETA late August "if the cursed stars align." * [[Andy Hartzell]] has been distracted by his day job, but what a day job it is: Andy was chiefly responsible for writing and directing the new [[http://www.telltalegames.com/store/frightofthebumblebees|Wallace and Gromit videogame]]. * [[Till Thomas]] has been living in Cambodia and working on ''Zirp'' #4, which he hopes to complete early next year. Issue 3 will be reprinted "sooner or later." ../../blog/item/3877 ../../blog/item/3877 Sat, 11 Apr 2009 22:00:00 GMT The website has had a slight facelift. The main difference is that the book format descriptions (in between the number of pages and the price) are now shorter and more cryptic, but also more specific; see [[codes|what the codes mean]]. If you use an iPhone or other mobile Internet thingy, the site will look ''very'' different--it reformats itself to be easier to use on a small screen, at least that's the idea. Apologies in advance for any glitches that may result. ../../blog/item/3454 ../../blog/item/3454 Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:00:00 GMT To catch up with the Post Office, and just to be mean, we've made shipping rates a tiny bit less cheap: the minimum shipping is now $1.50. Man, I remember when a soda was a quarter. ../../blog/item/3098 ../../blog/item/3098 Sat, 22 Nov 2008 22:00:00 GMT At some point in the last couple of months, the website programming became less brilliant than it was supposed to be. Symptoms: 1. It can be reeeeal slow when you log in, if you have an account. Except sometimes it's fast. 2. It would let you put items on backorder without giving your E-mail address or password, so there wouldn't be any way to tell who ordered the item. 3. The feedback form for reporting problems like this was broken. Very sorry for any inconvenience; #2 and #3 are fixed, but it's not clear what's going on with #1. ('''Update:''' Okay, that's been fixed now too, I think.) Since the contact form does work now, please [[contact|let us know]] if you've had any problems with the site. Also, whoever was trying to backorder ''Knock Knock'', please get in touch. ../../blog/item/2959 ../../blog/item/2959 Sun, 28 Sep 2008 22:00:00 GMT Okay, so that took a whole lot longer than it was supposed to, but now the new site is up. Hi! Let's hope this works. This is version 3 of Global Hobo, I guess. Jesse Reklaw and Thien Pham had this very good idea back in 2003. Despite the typical hassles that always arise with such things (although the only major mistakes they made that year that I know of are (a) they started a war in the Middle East and (b) they allowed me to go on some bad Internet dates), the project really took off, and made a huge difference to all of us stapler-wielders who were getting a little tired of trying to remember to truck another 5 copies of our little books around to the local stores. Global Hobo was everywhere, from the usual alt-comics shows to cool little events at bars and other stuff that I really wish I had helped out more with. Around the same time, [[http://usscatastrophe.com/|USS Catastrophe]] was stepping into a similar niche and carrying all kinds of great books. Between these two very different stores, it seemed like we might be starting to revive that critical mass of mail-order community that used to be nourished by Factsheet Five and by John Porcellino and all those legendary creatures. Well, we still are starting to; stuff just gets in the way sometimes. First, Reklaw got absorbed by Portland, Oregon--which, if you remember from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lathe_of_Heaven|''The Lathe of Heaven'']], is a nexus of shifting dream-universes that constantly threaten to destroy reality--and everyone else got busy with whatever. Fortunately it had never been a "one superhuman guy doing everything by himself in a shack" John P.-type deal, various people continued to help out so there was no big moment of "must stop now!!"... it just slowed way down and some people just assumed we had gone out of business or had renounced our vices or something. Sadly, the Catastrophe Shop really did shut down(*)--although it was for the best possible reason, which is that Kevin and Dan are busy making tons of their own brilliant comics. (* That is, it shut down as a general store/distro; it's still there as an outlet for books by the core people.) So then this year in Portland at the Stumptown Comics Fest, a stray piece of alternate reality got into my brain and I started saying things like "Hey let's re-expand the store and make a new website, it'll be ''easy''. I can finally help out and be totally organized, after all I'm only working part-time now!" That last part turned out to be very false, but by then it was too late, people were already getting all excited about it. And well they might; this is a really fun thing to do, and (knock wood) this is just the beginning--there are all kinds of grandiose ideas that are patiently waiting in the wings while the basic "buy some books from people and sell the books to other people" part is getting back up to speed. That's the best part anyway, because--I kind of forget this sometimes--everyone gets to read good things, and there are a whole lot of good things to read. cheers, Hob ../../blog/item/183 ../../blog/item/183