Candle Light Press

CREATORS Carter Allen, Mike Ayers, Will Beard, Ian Bennett, Will Grant, Austin Allen Hamblin, Josh Kulseth, David Larmour, Julia Skinner, Jeremy Smith, and John Ira Thomas

[candlelightpress]

JUNE 6th, 2026! 4pm! Daydreams Comics in Iowa City, IA! John Ira Thomas reads from the new TIRE! THE BEST OF TIRE CLASSIFIEDS is here, and one ridiculous thing in it has already come true! Hear the rest, so you're not so shocked when they happen!

THE BEST OF TIRE CLASSIFIEDS was possible because of a very narrow tranche of rights that popped up in an online IP auction. Candle Light Press plans to shove an entire camel through the eye of this needle and bring you more TIRE goodness!

John will be reading and signing and hawking TIRE Magazine t-shirts! You do have an official TIRE Magazine shirt, right? How will you know another TIRE fan without one? Get your phren right and cloak it in a TIRE t-shirt, available NOW at Daydreams Comics in downtown Iowa City, IA!

[candlelightpress]

Are you guys open to submissions/pitches from comic book artists or writers? Because I’m both and based in Iowa! Would love to work with you guys.

Hi! We don’t operate on a pitch/submission model at CLP. We only look at completed work. Even then, we’re often a little slow to grow the circle. That’s just inertia more than anything. I occasionally have projects where I need a couple illos, and that’s where we try people out. Tell me a little about yourself, if that’s cool.

Just so it’s not weird: I’m an academic advisor by trade and I’ve been making books and comics over 30 years. My background is Philosophy, Greek, and Latin. I went into publishing to express all the weird things I think about. I figure the big guys already do mainstream better, cheaper, and more often, so they can keep it.—John

[anulumgygis]

Writing something like TIRE either creates ripples in the universe or narrows your focus so you notice new things. But since this started in 2024 and they made the “the” part of the official title, my guess is someone thinks they found defunct IP to exploit.

Home - The Tire Magazine

Since they’re content to only write about tires, I figure meh and enjoy what the fires of my creation have wrought.

They post about once a week, which makes me more curious.

[candlelightpress]

TIRE messes with reality. Confirmed.

[candlelightpress]

Plato lied to us... for our own good.

It was Karapace that laid Atlantis low in a single day. He is the “King of the Kaiju,” and he is coming for Coastal City, Oregon.

All that stands between Karapace and oblivion for this city are two organizations, centuries-old sworn enemies – the Big Spirits and Immortal Tomorrow. Which one is really prepared to take on this monster of monsters? Which one is ready for The Wrath of Karapace?

From Carter Allen, the creator of “Ectyron”, and Leroy Douresseaux,the editor of “Time is Squared”, comes the next big thing in kaiju-themed action.

$16.95, available now wherever books are sold.

[candlelightpress]

What are the cues we use to determine humanity? Have we been cutting actual humans too much slack in this department? This work explores notions of identity and AI, but is solely the work of humans. For what is the difference between a human seeking a scripted outcome and a script seeking a human outcome? Also, it's pretty funny.

John Ira Thomas takes his metafictional TIRE series into the future and looks back at the same weird beliefs that continue to propel us. It's 2038 and John Ira Thomas is nowhere to be found. A new, legally-mandated issue of TIRE magazine must be written.

Corley Tire Company decides to farm the project out to AntiJITBot, an AI programmed with all of Thomas' writings. The result is an entire issue of a New Age magazine, right down to the classified ads.

Once again, this was written by actual humans. No mystery digits or nightmare palettes. It's just some good old-fashioned human fun with technological concepts that we're going to have to resolve.

TIRE MAY 2038 is available now for $24.95 wherever books are sold. ISBN 0989537162, 172 full color pages of the TIRE you know and love.

[anulumgygis]

Welcome to the new digs. I’ve created a new tumblr as part of a consolidation of my media presence. I’ll be adding things here and there and posting more often. The old Freedom City tumblr will remain active at johnirathomas.tumblr.com, but johnirathomas.com will point here. I’ll keep you up to date on exciting projects like, well…

There’s this handsome devil, out just before Thanksgiving, 2023. It’s the first in the Candle Light Press Classical line. Kulseth and Larmour draw a line connecting modern Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and ancient pankration fighting. It may be the first such book written by at least one person who’s been in a proper fight or three. I served as editor and saw this work through production. It’s an incredibly interesting work and I hope you’ll check it out.

Here’s their blurb:

What has Brazilian Jiu Jitsu to do with the Ancient Greeks? A lot, according to Joshua Kulseth and David Larmour, investigating the connections between the Greek pankration and contemporary BJJ and MMA. They argue that today's Brazilian Jiu Jitsu gyms, training, and competitions offer the closest modern analogy to Ancient Greek wrestlers and pankratiasts and to the ideals of Greek agonism embodied in the Olympic Games.

Their book, Agony: Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and the Greeks combines Kulseth's first-person narrative of experience in combat sports with Larmour's expertise in ancient Greek athletics, literature and mythology, and is illustrated by original artwork by Jeremy Smith.

When we struggle today for self-improvement or victory in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Mixed Martial Arts, the ancient Greeks walk among us-not only the ordinary citizens of Athens or Sparta doing their daily training in the local palaestra, but also famous athletes like Milo and Arrichion, heroes of myth like Odysseus and Heracles, poets like Pindar and Sophocles, and even gods like Zeus and Prometheus.

The ISBN is 978-0989537155 and is available or orderable anywhere books are sold.

[johnira]

It’s possible that the clown car status of Twitter made me wonder what to do if that went away (or turned into a ghost ship). I have a number of accounts and manage not to use any of them very much. In this case, the potential of fewer choices actually spurred me to come here and write this.

Updates: Issue #1 of LOST IN THE WOODS is very nearly complete. Will G and I are releasing it the same way we did LOST IN THE WASH—three issues and the collection instead of a fourth issue. It’ll be worth it. A little time has passed in Isco, but the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I just finished 5RAGMENTA, an expanded collection of the first five FRAGMENTA books. Some changes at our printer knocked a couple of them out of print, so I decided to take the first five out and replace them with this. It’s 316 (!) pages, hardcover. It’ll go for $50. The first five FRAGMENTA, while different from each other, represent a specific phase of that project. It started as a dare to the rest of Candle Light Press to make art books. Once that door was opened, though, a lot of other stuff came out.

Coming very soon is THE WORLD WEST, an anthology by me, with art by Will Beard, Jeremy Smith, and Will Grant. It’s four loosely connected stories about why there are no vampires in Texas. Price TBD, but it’ll be 8.5x11.

And, yes, I am writing a new (third) TIRE. I’m done pretending there’s an end to this. Making it delights me in every way, so prepare your souls and soul-carriers. There’s seeking to be done!

As to actually appearing in public, I’ll be at the Quad Con Cedar Rapids on Feb 5, 2023. You can come see all the stuff I’ve been making from quarantine onwards. I did man a table with Will G and Carter at the Van Meter Visitor Fest in September, and it was fun. I am so rusty with my table banter, though. Y’all gotta come in Feb and help me practice!

#candlelightpress

#TIRE

#QuadCon

[candlelightpress]

“Wait. So the ontology here amounts to our conflict being the sole animating force in our relative divinity? To argue makes us divine? I gotta say, I’m on board with that.” —John Ira Thomas

TIRE ANNUAL 2021, available at @prairielights Daydreams Comics and your favorite online booksellers.

[candlelightpress]

Van Meter Visitor Festival!

Carter, Will, and John will be at the Van Meter Visitor Festival in Van Meter, IA September 24, 2022! We’ll have new art, new books, new weird stuff. Come see what we’ve been up to! Times are 1p-6p, at the Veteran’s Reception Center, 910 Main Street in Van Meter, IA!

[candlelightpress]

Upcoming Price Changes

Hey everybody. Supply chain fun has made two of our books a bit pricier. Starting 5/20/22 (unless you nab copies already in stock elsewhere), TIRE Annual 2021 is going to $39.95 and Man Is Vox: Paingels is going to $49.95. But if you get them directly from us, we’ll make sure to add some stuff to take the sting out. 

Also, since I had to update the cover for both to make the price changes, I also changed one detail on one of the covers (besides the price). You know it’s TIRE Annual 2021, but now you’ve gotta know what’s different...

And here’s a bonus. Head over to http://www.dativebooks.com and pick up the ebook of The New JITV Edition of the Holy Bible for free! 

[candlelightpress]

TIRE Annual 2021 is here! No 2021 is complete without it! Available now at all the usual Internet places. Local (aka Iowa City) availability coming in the next few days. (UPDATE: Head to @prairielights and Daydreams Comics in Iowa City to score yours!)

[candlelightpress]

And that’s how a year can get away from you. Hope everyone is well and inoculated. After the initial screaming brain stuff quieted down, we’ve all been back at work making books.

Will is hard at work drawing the LOST IN THE WASH sequel. In fact, today he’s in Colorado to take in some inspiration. Maybe he’ll send a postcard from Isco.

Carter is, as always, plotting something kaiju-sized. More as that develops.

John is writing and laying out TIRE 2. He’s picked up a brush and has started jitting in watercolors.

Jeremy is drawing a ZOO FORCE story starring Snowball.

Julia is hard at work on her Root Kitchens projects (https://root-kitchens.com).

Candle Light Press is ready to unleash more books on an unsuspecting world soon. Sit tight, stay safe.

Root

historic food for the modern world

[candlelightpress]

We’re here at Quad Con Cedar Rapids, in the Marriott on Collins Road from 10-5 today (Jan 26). Come on down! Fun fact: John created one of the bad guys for the Lost n the Wash sequel while in this same hotel.

[candlelightpress]

We’ve updated our upcoming shows link for 2020! Link in above menu.

[attila71]

The Ectyron resin figure

[candlelightpress]

These are amazing, and available! Hit up Carter for details!

[candlelightpress]

Candle Light Press showcases local works

In the center of Prairie Lights, there is a display of books. These are a wide range of stories, such as remixed cookbooks from the 17th cen

[leroydouresseaux]

Review: "Man is Vox: Paingels" Expands the Surrealism and Craziness | Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a I Reads You on Patreon

Official Post from Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a I Reads You: MAN IS VOX: PAINGELS (Expanded Edition) - An I Reads You ReviewCANDLE LIGHT PRESS – @candlelightpresWRITER: John Ira Thomas – @johnirathomasARTIST: Carter Allen – @attila71PENCILS: Carter AllenINKS: Carter Allen; Jeremy Smith (“Dessert” story)LETTERS: John Ira ThomasCOVER: Carter AllenISBN: 978-0-98