King Con

I'll be at King Con this weekend at the Brooklyn Lyceum with copies of the TRADITIONAL COMICS comics, NIGHT BUSINESS and GANGSTA RAP POSSE. The usual convention deal applies: Buy both issues of NIGHT BUSINESS for $5 and get the first issue of GANGSTA RAP POSSE for FREE!! Hope to see you there. I'll be at Devin Clark's table with the rest of the crew from Mammal.

Shiny As Hell | Interview with Vice and Super Satan comic

I did an interview with Nick Gazin from Vice. You can read it here. Nick Gazin asked great questions to which I responded with more of my ramblings about comics and art. Check it out here.
I also supplied Vice with a brand-new, never-seen-before, two-page Super Satan comic, which you can check out right here.

TRADITIONAL COMICS

TRADITIONAL COMICS, my comic book publishing company, officially exists now. Go check out the website here, WWW.TRADITIONALCOMICS.COM. You can also find us on facebook and Twitter and Flickr. In addition, there is also a blog for T.C. news.

Where The Wild Things Are | Comic page for VICE

Recently I made a comic page inspired by the childrens book, Where The Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak, for Vice. Check it out here. They've set up a mini-site devoted to the movie based on the classic book. You can see that here. They're going to be releasing other pages by 24 other comic artists every day, leading up to the release of the movie. Where The Wild Things Are is an amazing book, perfectly illustrated. The imagery from that book has been etched on my brain since I first saw it, like I'm sure it has for all it's readers.

Panelfly

Night Business, Issues 1 and 2, and Gangsta Rap Posse, Issue 1, can now be found on the iTunes app Panelfly. Panelfly enables you to buy and read comics on your iPhone. In the past few weeks there's been the release of a few of these apps designed for reading comics on mobile devices. Panelfly blows them all away as far as user-interface goes, in my opinion. It is an incredibly elegant UI and made me a believer in comics translating to mobile devices. I'm a purist about comics being published in the pamphlet format but I was extremely impressed with Panelfly. For those of you out there with an iPhone I wholeheartedly recommend getting the Panelfly app at the app store. And be sure to check out Panelfly's website here.

MoCCA Special

Gangsta Rap Posse | On Sale Now!

The first issue of Gangsta Rap Posse has dropped!

1991. South Central, LA, is a world of crushing beats, hard rhymes, murderous days and police-chased nights. The kings of South Central, the most notorious rap group in the world, Gangsta Rap Posse, is on the loose, eliminating rivals, dealing stolen dope and getting rich! They're wanted by corrupt cops and hot women equally. In between gun battles and getting paid, they're dominating the mics and working on their much-anticipated upcoming album! It's sure to be a wrecking ball on the charts! Witness the first chapter in their story, Californiapocalypse.

Order your copy today! »

Gangsta Rap Posse | Promo images

Here's some promo images from my upcoming comic, Gangsta Rap Posse. At the bottom is the cover in progress, in its penciled state. I usually don't do pencils that tight but I'm beginning to see the benefits of planning ahead with the ol' graphite.

Gangsta Rap Posse | Sketches

Here's some sketches for my upcoming short comic, Gangsta Rap Posse.

Rabid Rabbit | Cat

My contribution to the next issue of Rabid Rabbit. The theme was to include the word "cat" in the title. Above are two versions, one with the weird gray tones and one with just the line art. I'm sort of liking just the line art.

Gangsta Rap Posse | The Logo

Night Business | In the hands of Jim Lee

At the NYC Comic Con I handed out Night Business issues to several creators (Rob Liefeld!). One of which was Jim Lee. My friend Jevaun Howell took a photo of Jim looking at the Night Biz covers (that's me to the left with my chin). He was signing at the DC booth and I just happened by as he was leaving. Jim was the reason why I stopped reading B&W, anthropomorphic, indy, TMNT-rip-off comics back when I was a kid and started reading Marvel books. He had just started his run on Uncanny X-Men, the story with Psychloche getting captured by The Hand and getting turned into the next Elektra. He's done mighty well for himself since those days. Even though I don't really dig his work any more, he's a hero to me.

NY Comic Con

Above is a map of the NY Comic Con occurring this weekend, Feb 6th to 8th, and where I'll be with the Nerdcore dudes and Mammal bros, doing business at our booth.

Night Business Makes Eric Reynolds' Best of 2008 List

Eric Reynolds — who, amongst other things, writes for the Fantagraphics Blog, a.k.a. Flog! — included Night Business in his Best of 2008 list. Obviously Eric doesn't really know what he's talking about. All those others on the list — Gary Panter, Los Bros. Hernandez, Daniel Clowes, C.F., Dash Shaw, Jonathan Lethem, etc. — make high-quality, literary comics worthy of a place in a historical context. Night Business is exploitive, degenerative, irresponsible, anonymous trash! It is the best of nothing and represents the worst of humanity! ... I am only joking of course. Thank you, Eric, you absolutely have full knowledge of what you're talking about.

Night Business | Issue 1 | FOR SALE!

Order your copy today! Right here!
http://benjaminmarra.com/pages/shop.html
(or see the list below of local NYC shops where copies are also available)

Discover a world where vigilante justice takes the form of one man's fists furiously hammering down on the faces of his enemies with righteous vengeance on the neon-slime-covered streets of the city. A world where sin, sex and hedonistic desire are hot commodities and true, pure love is in short supply. A world of violence and murder running wild, where civil institutions of authority are as morally corrupt as the city's criminal element. This is a world that has given up on hope, but not on revenge, money or power. This ... is Night Business ...

... And if you live in New York City, Night Business, Issue 1, can be found at these fine establishments:

· Cosmic Comics
· Desert Island Comics
· Forbidden Planet
· Jim Hanley's Universe
· Soundfix
· Spoonbill & Sugartown
· St. Marks Comics
· Time Machine Nostalgia

VICE Magazine Comic Page

In the most recent issue of Vice (which I believe is a no-photo issue) I have this comic page. It is a very short story of a fantasy team-up I have: Arnold Schwarzenegger as a Terminator Conan teaming up with Charles Bronson. Sort of like that movie Red Heat where Arnold was a Commie Russian cop teaming up with an American cop played by Jim Belushi. Directed by Walter Hill I think ... good movie.

Night Business | Issue 2 | Preview

Super Satan | Pages

These are the two pages I have in the upcoming issue of Rabid Rabbit. The theme for the issue is Horror.

Night Business | Character Sketches

Here are some preliminary sketches I made years ago when I was just beginning the first ish of Night Business and then when developing it into an animated series.