Friday, January 5, 2024

You’re My January Friend – This Week’s Links

January 05, 2024 Philippines , Pinoy 0 Comments

…and we’re back - staggering bleary-eyed and blinking into the new year, still not fully sure what day it is, when it’s necessary to know such things, and the memories of well-intentioned resolutions are fading into nothingness when confronted with the back-to-work inbox and all those tasks that would ‘wait until January’, the most pressing of which, naturally, being the compiling of a fresh batch of links, which can be found below.

This week’s news.

• Starting the new year as the old one ended - in the courtroom - as Frazetta Properties shared a press release announcing that the lawsuit brought against them by J. David Spurlock and Vanguard Publishing, alleging various breaches of contract, has now ended, after a jury found in favour of Frazetta Properties and Frazetta family members on all counts, barring monies owed to Spurlock of $2,627.03, with all ties to Vanguard Publishing severed as a result, bringing the long-running legal battle to a close.

• Awards news, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan announced the winners of 17th Japan International MANGA Award, with Jason Chien winning the Gold Award for Wind Chaser Under the Blue Sky, and Silver Awards given to Bonnie Pang for Chronos Express, Nachi for The Dancing Universe, and Ana Oncina for Just Friends. However, one of the awardees in the Special Encouragement category, Chiya, had their prize revoked after the Executive Committee was informed that their entry, Blend Dark and Light, had been submitted without original author Hua-Ling's permission.

• Elsewhere, the finalists for the 8th Annual Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics were announced over the festive break, with Ripple Effects by Jordan Hart and Bruno Chiroleu named as 2023’s winning book during a prize ceremony streamed last month.

• Comics prizes of the future news, and the call for submissions to this year’s Cartoonist Studio Prize was announced, with submissions invited from print and web comics in the long-form and short-form categories, and an application deadline of the 30th of January; and the call for submissions to this year’s Cartoonist Cooperative Minicomic Awards was also opened, with submissions invited for publications of 32 pages or less in various categories, and an application deadline of the 1st of February.

• In memoriam, remembering those the world of comics has lost, and news was shared of the passing of artist John M. Burns, who died at the end of last year - Burns’ retirement from comics illustration, following a career spanning over six decades, was announced last October.

This week’s reviews.

TCJ

• Oliver Ristau reviews the calculated minimalism of Dario Sicchio, Letizia Cadonici, et al’s Children of the Black Sun #1-4 - “Inspiringly educative and small drawings surround the prophet's cuckoo tale, part of a well-constructed visual concept integrating onomatopoeia along the nuchal line of cracking cervical vertebra: the result of the prophet's ever-expanding mind whilst simultaneously contracting his muscles, breaking his bones. Just as much the next woman, I love me some qualified anatomy lessons every now and then.”

• Leonard Pierce reviews the smart satire of Léa Murawiec’s The Great Beyond, translated by Aleshia Jensen - “But what really makes the book special is Murawiec’s excellent visual sensibilities. Much of The Great Beyond is in black & white, but its urban landscapes–dense, suffocating, grandiose and artificial–are rendered in blues and reds that give it a three-dimensional pop, seeming to lift these scenes right off the page.”

• Helen Chazan reviews the lurid entertainment of Shin'ichi Sakamoto’s Innocent Omnibus Volume 1, translated by Michael Gombos - “There is a rigid precision to how spaces are composed, with impersonal linework and smooth computer screentones that put the spectacular allure of the pictures at a distance, as if under museum glass. I hope Innocent will go further and allow itself to be drawn in more fully by its own glamor, but perhaps when showing executions to a mass audience like the readers of Young Jump, a little restraint is necessary.”

 

AIPT

• Piper Whitaker reviews the fulfilling finale of Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Max Raynor, et al’s Action Comics 2023 Annual #1.

• Collier Jennings reviews the perfect paceing of Joshua Williamson, Tom Reilly, et al’s Duke #1.

• David Brooke reviews the exciting dynamism of Taigami et al’s Kid Venom: Origins #1.

 

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

Maite Urcaregui reviews the intersectional approach of Beyond the Icon: Asian American Graphic Narratives, edited by Eleanor Ty.

 

The Beat

• D. Morris reviews the unusual structuring of Marc Guggenheim, Álvaro López, et al’s Beware the Planet of the Apes #1.

• Yazmin Garcia reviews the continued yearning of Shou Harusono’s Hirano and Kagiura Volume 4, translated by Leighann Harvey

 

Broken Froniter

• Andy Oliver reviews the varied highlights of Rebellion’s 2000 AD Prog 2362.

• Lydia Turner reviews the resonant introspection of Mylo Choy’s Middle Distance.

 

House to Astonish

Paul O’Brien has capsule reviews of Marvel Comics’ X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #118 & 119, Wolverine #40, Astonishing Iceman #5, Uncanny Spider-Man #5, Uncanny Avengers #5, Original X-Men #1, Immortal X-Men #18, X-Force #47, and Predator Vs. Wolverine #4.

 

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics

Dianna Baldwin reviews the varied explorations of Jessica Baldanzi’s Bodies and Boundaries in Graphic Fiction: Reading Female and Nonbinary Characters.

 

Publisher’s Weekly

Have capsule reviews of:

- The manic satire of Dave Baker’s Mary Tyler MooreHawk.

- The terrifying fierceness of Lucy Sullivan’s Barking.

- The expressive renderings of Jody Houser, Ryan Kelly, et al’s adaptation of Robin Hobb’s Assassin’s Apprentice.

- The powerful solidarity of Erin Williams’ What’s Wrong? Personal Histories of Chronic Pain and Bad Medicine.

- The grim humour of Dave Maass and Patrick Lay’s adaptation of Peter Kien and Viktor Ullmann’s Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis.

- The unsettling erotica of Miguel Vila’s Milky Way, translated by Jamie Richards.

- The intimate searching of Julie Delporte’s Portrait of a Body, translated by Helge Dascher and Karen Houle.

This week’s The Best Comics of 2023.

Some more round-ups focused on the best comics published in 2023 from outlets around the world wide web, that arrived over the festive break, including TCJ’s own mammoth 44-player appraisal of the year just gone; The Beat selecting the top offerings from DC and Marvel in the old year; NPR staff recommending their favourites from the year; and general best of lists from CBR, Forbes, From Cover to Cover, The Hollywood Reporter, The Irish Examiner, and The Mary Sue; while The Daily Cartoonist presents round-ups of the best editorial cartoons that appeared in publications across the United States, Canada, and beyond.

This week’s interviews.

Broken Frontier

Andy Oliver chats with Xiaoyi Hu about Fire Flowers, Edinburgh art education, comics as a transportative medium, and the appeal of comics as an artist.

 

Brown Political Review

Michael Citarella speaks with Alan Jenkins about 1/6: The Graphic Novel, and ringing the alarm regarding misinformation and insurrection.

 

ICv2

• Brigid Alverson talks to Larry’s Comic Book Store’s Lary Charet about retail origins, early Direct Market memories, and the birth of Chicago Comicon.

• Milton Griepp presents a three-part conversation with Mile High Comics’ Chuck Rozanski about the beginnings of the Direct Market, and the current comics retail landscape.

 

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics

Vera Camden and Valentino Zullo interview Dave Chisholm about Miles Davis and the Search for the Sound, early comics work, and the challenge of visually depicting music.

 

Variety

Gene Maddaus talks to the Air Pirates’ Dan O’Neill, as well as various legal scholars and professionals, about the arrival of early versions of Disney characters arriving in the public domain.

 

Vulture

Jennifer Zhan speaks with Anna-Laura Sullivan about Instagram comics followings, relinquihing creative work to the social media crowd, and readership interactions.

This week’s features and longreads.

• Here at TCJ, Hagai Palevsky reports from last year’s Thought Bubble Comic Convention, presenting thoughts on a selection of titles purchased while visiting Yorkshire - “It is true that few things are easier than to get me, specifically, to buy books, but Thought Bubble is remarkable at that regard - there's a beautiful range on display, and all you have to do is look around. It really is enough to make you ask yourself that terrible, shudder-to-think question: might comics, in fact, be good?”

• From the end of last year, the Cartoonist Cooperative presents a two-part history of the comic book labor movement, in the context of 2023’s summer of strike actions, and the unionisation of employees of various publishers.

• Some looking backwards and forwards from The Beat as Brian Hibbs presents a fresh Tilting at Windmills, containing thoughts on the current crop of problems facing the direct market and what these may lead to in the long run; while Heidi MacDonald shares the results of the site’s annual survey of the comics industry on their year just gone and what the new year might hold.

• As part of ICv2’s coverage of the 50th anniversary of the Direct Market, Brigid Alverson profiles the life and work of Carol Kalish, who passed away in 1991 aged 36, and the influence Kalish had on the comics industry.

• For Shelfdust, Harry Kassen writes on how Pornsak Pichetchote and Alexandre Tefenkgi’s The Good Asian #6 explodes the Model Minority Myth, and Leo Healy tries to reach the kill screen of Cary Bates and Carmine Infantino’s The Flash #304.

• From the world of open-access academia, the Lusophone Journal of Cultural Studies presents a special edition, edited by Nicoletta Mandolini, Cristina Álvares, and María Márquez López, which seeks to explore ‘the role of gender in the production, consumption and circulation of graphic narratives created  in  the  Ibero-American  context.’

• For the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, Fátima Susana Mota Roboredo Amante writes on Joana Estrela’s Pardalita, examining the experiences of the book’s protagonist, Raquel, and the journey of self-discovery Raquel undergoes.

• Writing in Research in Language, Ilana Shiloh explores the conceptual metaphors to be found in Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli’s adaptation of Paul Auster’s City of Glass, and how these enrich the visual dimension of the source material.

• For the British Medical Journal, Paul Mitchell presents analysis on three HIMM comics (works at the intersection of Health, Illness, Men and Masculinity), looking at depictions of ill health in John Porcellino’s The Hospital Suite, Matt Freedman’s Relatively Indolent but Relentless, and Peter Dunlap-Shohl’s My Degeneration.

• Paul O’Brien’s census of the dastards of Daredevil continues for House to Astonish, as The Plunderer is given permission to board, or takes said permission by force.

• Mike Peterson rounds up the recent editorial beats, over at The Daily Cartoonist, as the reasons for the season gave way to the joys of an election year and a side-helping of plagiarism-related resignations.

This week’s audio/visual delights.

• Noah Van Sciver presents video of a conversation with Drawn & Quarterly’s Tom Devlin, speaking about the division of labour at D&Q, comic book publishing origins, paper stocks and book aesthetics, and reading submissions to D&Q.

• Calvin Reid hosts the latest edition of Publisher’s Weekly’s More to Come, talking with Walter Greason and Tim Fielder about The Graphic History of Hip Hop, the size of the project and connecting with the readership, and the book’s codifying and recording of the diverse sources of history of hip hop.

• David Harper closed out 2023 by welcoming Lucie Byron to Off Panel, as they discussed Ocean, its publication as part of the ShortBox Comics Fair, colour palettes, travels in Japan, the French relationship with manga and bande dessinée, and gateway comics.

• Joining John Siuntres in the Word Balloon for conversations with Tim Seeley about Local Man and the economics of creative endeavours, Christopher Priest about Vampirella and wanting comics to be an immersive experience, and Bryan Hill about Blade and establishing yourself as a writer.

• Closing out our first week of the year with a recent interview from Cartoonist Kayfabe, as Ed Piskor and Jim Rugg spoke to Todd McFarlane about getting your foot in the door, the growth of Image Comics and its current status, promoting the Spawn line during a weird time for the industry, and hitting some big milestones for ongoing comics periodicals.

That’s week one in the bag, let’s reconvene for the next fifty or so and see how it all shakes out.

The post You’re My January Friend – This Week’s Links appeared first on The Comics Journal.


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