Comics Blog: The Scattered Evidence of Emily Carroll

November 8th, 2010

In the last few days, I received an email from Tim Kinnaird and several tweets alerting me to a haunting new online comic called His Face All Red.

See if you can carve out a few minutes without distractions to read it. You’ll be glad you did.

The artist, Emily Carroll, is a new name to me, but she’s obviously been at this for a while and her storytelling has the confidence of a veteran. I’ll be eager to see what she does next, but looking for evidence of what she’s done in the past has proved frustrating.

Notice how I didn’t add a link to her name in the above paragraph? That’s because I wasn’t sure which link to pick. She has a Livejournal. She has a Twitter handle. She has a Blogspot account. She even has her own domain, but if you go to the main page it’s just a “Coming Soon” page.

And none of them give the reader more than random, scattered evidence of who she is and what to expect from her in the future.

Carroll is the real thing. She deserves a more consolidated online presence.

She deserves some noise.

Posted in Cartoonists, Webcomics
Discussion (17)¬

Joe Grunenwald says:November 8, 2010 at 10:02 am

Here here! His Face All Red just might be the best online comic I’ve ever read. Haunting is definitely the best word for it. I can’t wait to see more of Ms. Carroll’s work.

Jenn Manley Lee says:November 8, 2010 at 10:06 am

I second Mr’s Grunenwald’s comment!

I found it delightfully appropriate that I found “His Face All Red” on All Soul’s Day (courtesy of Chris Baldwin)

Mark Stroud says:November 8, 2010 at 10:08 am

I echo Joe’s comment. Someone tweeted the link around Halloween and it was the perfect read. more please.

Samantha says:November 8, 2010 at 10:09 am

The link to “His Face All Red” went around my twitter circle around Halloween time. I enjoyed it SO much. (Just now hit the “follow” button on her twitter page. YAY!)

Emily, More comix please!

Scott says:November 8, 2010 at 10:41 am

Yeah, I’ve started following her on Twitter and Livejournal myself.

Nick Shaughtzer says:November 8, 2010 at 10:11 am

When I first read this I assumed it was by a well known artist that I hadn’t heard of simply because I am completely inept when it comes to keeping up with stuff like that. This is certainly an interesting development.

Scott says:November 8, 2010 at 10:43 am

Well, she might have already been well-known to some. I just wish it was easier to find out!

EdKanerva says:November 8, 2010 at 10:13 am

The excellent Kate Beaton alerted me to this via the Tweet machine!

ReplyDigital Strips: The Webcomics Podcast : McCloud Demands Bigger Online Presence For “His Face All Red” Creator Carroll says:November 8, 2010 at 10:33 am

[...] Scott McCloud, finder of all things amazing and new, blogs briefly about Emily Carroll, the creator behind the overnight success that is His Face All Red. Steve mentioned in our (now lost to the Interether) most recent episode that I probably recognized her name from combining poet Emily Dickinson and author Lewis Carroll, which is entirely possible. The entire comic, all ten, infinitely-canvassed pages of it, is incredibly haunting and does a great job of evoking that classic horror style in the vein of Edgar Allan Poe. [...]

Javier says:November 8, 2010 at 11:21 am

The Death of José Arcadio, also in her blog, is simply great!

Derrick says:November 8, 2010 at 11:51 am

Just so you guys know, I also recently found her work and was able to glean from one of her internet outlets(twitter, livejournal, blogspot) that the website actually is coming soon and is to give her an official “home-base” on the internet. Also, she has a flickr.

Steve Weiner says:November 8, 2010 at 12:40 pm

She’s really good. Thanks Scott!

David Dedrick says:November 8, 2010 at 7:30 pm

There is some information about her on the excellent Picture Book Report site, which is where I first found her work. She is illustrating Brave New World. Here is a link to her one-shot Short Report, which was turned into a continuing series of illos. You can follow the links once you’re there.

http://picturebookreport.com/2010/08/02/short-reports-emily-carroll-vs-brave-new-world/

Scott says:November 8, 2010 at 9:29 pm

Ah-ha! In that article this simple sentence:

“…an animator living in Vancouver…”

…tells me far more than I’ve known to the this point. Shouldn’t have been that hard to find out!

If I can summarize my crazy-ass resume on a single page, surely anyone can.

Brett Harder says:November 8, 2010 at 8:49 pm

Wow… this is haunting… I love how she experiments with the page format too, really effective and inspiring!

ReplyWebcomics Wednesday: New Favorites Link Dump! « All About Manga says:November 9, 2010 at 10:13 pm

[...] McCloud posted more information about the creator, who has a bit of a scattered online profile, on his blog. I am totally enamored with Carroll’s sensual faces and [...]