Friday, June 14, 2024

Just Tell Me Who Won – This Week’s Links

June 14, 2024 Philippines , Pinoy 0 Comments

Thankfully, as the links, below, are collated for another week, we are heading into a faintly ridiculous run of international sporting events, taking place across the whole of the summer, and so, while my comics reading backlog has finally been tamed over the last month or so, I can now switch to my second-favourite reality avoidance technique of complaining to people, who are also emphatically not athletes at the top of their game, about how and why I would have done things differently to active participants in sports I have little to no experience in, outside of pick-up games in the park.

This week’s news.

• Beginning this week’s selection with news out of Iran, as Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court has sentenced cartoonist Atena Farghadani to six years in prison for ‘insulting the sanctities’ and ‘propaganda against the state’, following an arrest in April while posting caricatures on a wall near the presidential palace, during which Farghadani was severely beaten by agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps - Farghadani previously served 18 months of a nearly 13 year prison sentence, following an arrest in 2014, for charges that included ‘insulting members of parliament through paintings’ and the aforementioned ‘propaganda against the state’.

• Moving to Tokyo, where the Japan Association of Translators has released a statement in opposition to publishers using artificial intelligence to facilitate high-volume translation of manga for publication overseas, stating that “AI translation is extremely unsuitable for translating high-context, story-centric writing, such as novels, scripts, and manga. Quick and easy AI translation not only risks hurting the translation industry or the manga industry, it is not in the country’s best interests.” This statement comes as the Japanese government released its new “Cool Japan” strategy to increase cultural exports, and boost the number of tourists visiting the country from abroad.

• Comics prize news: Pop Culture Classroom announced the winners of this year’s Excellence in Graphic Literature Awards, with Deena Mohamed’s Shubeik Lubeik named as Book of the Year, and Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas taking home 2024’s Mosaic Award - a full list of winners can be found here.

• Auction news: A pair of comics up on the block in the UK have sold for five times their estimate, with a copy of Superman #1 bringing in $125,000 and a copy of Batman #1 selling for $40,000, with the former setting a new record sale in the UK.

• In memoriam, remembering those the world of comics has lost, and news was shared this week of the passing of cartoonist and comics historian John Adcock, editor of Yesterday’s Papers, who has died at the age of 74.

• News was also shared of the passing of comics YouTuber Ben Potter, aka Comicstorian, who has died at the age of 40 in what Potter’s wife Natalie termed ‘an unfortunate accident’ in a social media post.

This week’s reviews.

TCJ

• Tom Shapira reviews the shifting identities of Dennis O'Neil, Denys Cowan, et al’s The Question Omnibus Volume 2 - “There’s a world in which The Question and Green Arrow (for all of its sins) become the face of ‘respected’ 1980s superhero fiction and it is, probably, a better world than ours. Superhero comics were already as inward-looking a genre as one can find, especially in the post-Roy Thomas era, and the works we chose to put on a pedestal from that era – good works mind you – were more comics about comics.”

• Leonard Pierce reviews the timely narrative of Emil Ferris’ My Favorite Thing is Monsters Book Two - “Book Two is unquestionably of a piece with its predecessor, with only the most minor visual and narrative differences, but it is also a work of progress. Ferris’ art has taken on a more precise, more haunting, more intense quality, especially in its use of color. ”

 

AIPT

• Lukas Shayo reviews the compelling world of Andy Diggle, Leandro Fernandez, et al’s Gotham by Gaslight: The Kryptonian Age #1.

• Christopher Franey reviews the questionable value of Saladin Ahmed, Paul Davidson, et al’s Giant-Size Daredevil #1.

• Keigen Rea reviews the effective violence of Benjamin Percy, Victor LaValle, Geoff Shaw, Cory Smith, et al’s Wolverine: Sabretooth War Part 1.

• Collier Jennings reviews the inventive hilarity of Brian Posehn, Joe Trohman, Chris Johnson, et al’s Rifters #1.

• David Brooke reviews the eerie adventuring of Zac Thompson, Hayden Sherman, et al’s Into the Unbeing Part One #1.

• Chris Coplan reviews the robust successes of Doug Wagner, Daniel Hillyard, et al’s Plastic: Death & Dolls #1.

• Rory Wilding reviews the compelling conclusion of Chip Zdarsky and Jacob Phillips’ Newburn Volume 2.

 

The Beat

• Zack Quaintance reviews the creative energies of Henry Chamberlain’s George’s Run: A Writer’s Journey through the Twilight Zone.

• Steve Baxi reviews the exciting style of Daniel Warren Johnson et al’s Transformers Volume 1: Robots in Disguise.

• Michael Kurt reviews the narrative consistency of Zac Thompson, Hayden Sherman, et al’s Into the Unbeing Part One #1.

• Cy Beltran reviews the solid return of Steve Orlando, Jacopo Camagni, et al’s Scarlet Witch #1.

• Christian Angeles reviews the fresh take of David Pepose, Dave Wachter, et al’s Punisher: The Bullet that Follows.

 

Broken Frontier

• Lydia Turner reviews the deep lore of Davilorium and Alba BG’s Grog the Frog: The Book of Taurus.

• Ellie Egleton reviews the flowing visuals of Image Comics’ Dandelion.

• Andy Oliver has reviews of:

 

From Cover to Cover

Scott Cederlund reviews the personal focus of Ngozi Ukazu's Barda.

 

House to Astonish

Paul O’Brien has capsule reviews of X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #142, X-Men #35, Ms. Marvel: Mutant Menace #4, Wolverine: Blood Hunt #1, and X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #1.

 

ICv2

Nick Smith reviews the genre combination of Junepurrr’s SubZero, and the unpleasant protagonist of Paul Southworth's Lake Gary.

 

Solrad

Kevin Brown reviews the changeable characters of Tommi Parrish’s Men I Trust.

 

The Washington Post

Michael Cavna has reviews of:

  • The painful poignancy of Maurice Vellekoop’s I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together.
  • The brisk efficiency of Eddia Ahn’s Advocate: A Graphic Memoir of Family, Community, and the Fight for Environmental Justice.
  • The delicious soapyness of Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie’s Aya: Claws Come Out, translated by Edwige Renée Dro.
  • The bewitching rhythms of Nate Powell’s Fall Through, and the stirring chiaroscuro of Powell’s adaptation of James W. Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbooks Got Wrong.

 

Women Write About Comics

Caitlin Sinclair Chappell reviews the gripping carnality of Blue Delliquanti’s Adversary.

This week’s interviews.

TCJ

• Zach Rabiroff interviews Miriam Libicki about recent events surrounding the Vancouver Comic Art Festival, with comment from VanCAF’s former Executive Director Robin McConnell - “Basically they offered me a deal. They said, we will give you a half table if you don't have Jobnik!, and if you don't display any IDF imagery, which I guess there is one background backdrop I have that is based on the book cover. So that could be construed as displaying IDF imagery. So again, it seemed like I was being singled out, but on the other hand, my partner and I had already discussed maybe retiring Jobnik! from shows for a while, because it is an older book.”

• Jason Bergman interviews Derf Backderf about Kent State, the relevance of the book to contemporary responses to student protests, researching and depicting the Kent State Massacre, and the restorative power of comics - “The visionary iconoclasts who built these papers and made them so interesting, and loved comics and understood their value, were replaced by dull business types, who didn’t. It was pretty aggravating. Now I look back and understand that everything has its time, and the era of the alt-weekly was over by 2000.”

 

AIPT

• Chris Hassan speaks with Jordan D. White about the end of Marvel Comics’ Krakoan era, and the resolved mysteries and ongoing plotlines for the House of Ideas line of mutant-focused books.

• Chris Coplan chats with Geoffrey D. Wessel and Dan Cornwell about Rogue Trooper and the singular nature of 2000 AD’s pantheon, and with Andy Diggle and Leandro Fernández about Gotham by Gaslight: The Kryptonian Age #1 and keeping Batman in-character.

 

Anime News Network

Rebecca Silverman talks to Mini about Doctor Elise, adapting the novel as a manhwa, and checking the comic’s medical veracity with the source material’s author.

 

Artforum

Maegan Dolan interviews Aidan Koch about Spiral and Other Stories, working between art and ecology, climate change fears, and editorial collaborations.

 

The Beat

Christian Angeles speaks with Oni Press’ Hunter Gorinson about the return of EC Comics, the state of comics publishing today, and what to expect from this line of titles.

 

Broken Frontier

Ellie Egleton chats with Sean Von Gorman and Joey Esposito about The Pedestrian, visual inspirations for the eponymous character, and what makes a comic character real.

 

Chicago Tribune

Christopher Borrelli interviews Emil Ferris about My Favorite Thing is Monsters Book Two, potential adaptations of the work for screen, AI fears, and the way that stories come to you.

 

The Hindustan Times

Arunima Mazumdar talks to Appupen about Dream Machine, engaging with fears surrounding AI and the organisations operating such technology, and adapting CS Chellapa’s Vaadivaasal.

 

ICv2

Brigid Alverson interviews:

  • Junepurrr about SubZero and the Webtoon editorial process.
  • Oni Press’ Sierra Hahn about the publisher’s foray into bringing Webtoon titles to print.
  • Manta’s Travis Kim about the company’s growth and business strategy.
  • Andrews McMeel’s Betty Wong about the publisher’s partnership with webtoon platform Tapas.
  • Rocketship Entertainment's Tom Akel about webtoon publishing trends in the current market.
  • Yen Press' Mark DeVera about the Ize Press imprint and differences between manga and manhwa publishing.

 

Print

Steven Heller speaks with John Kascht about The Mysteries, the collaborative process with Bill Watterson, finding the sweet spot of skill overlap, and how the story evolved during creation.

 

Publisher’s Weekly

• Shaenon K. Garrity interviews Becky Cloonan and Tula Lotay about Somna, the longform genesis of the book, and creative synchronisation.

• Amanda Ramirez speaks with Sangu Mandanna about Jupiter Nettle and the Seven Schools of Magic, graphic novel collaborations, and fantasy as a reflection of the real world.

• Gilcy Aquino chats with Briana Lawrence about The Essential Manga Guide: 50 Series Every Manga Fan Should Know, and writing for an audience who may not know what manga is at all.

• Brigid Alverson talks to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s Jeff Trexler about the evolving issue of book bans in the US, and to Hyun Sook Kim and Ryan Estrada about Banned Book Club and the history of censorship in South Korea.

 

Vanity Fair

Anthony Breznican speaks with Frank Miller and Silenn Thomas about the documentary Frank Miller: American Genius, creative critiques, alcoholism, and getting sober.

This week’s features and longreads.

• Here at TCJ, Jon Holt and Teppei Fukuda present a translation of Natsume Fusanosuke’s 1996 essay on parody manga and the work of gag manga powerhouse Yamagami Tatsuhiko - “​What he was doing was a perfect reflection of how I personally felt about myself in the early 1970s: a depressed person still somehow nursing the image of himself as some kind of “rebel,” who then burst out laughing at that aspect of himself in the past, leaving that person behind to scamper through the era.”

• Also for TCJ, Joe Sacco’s series of visual columns ‘The War On Gaza’ continues, with previous instalments also available to read here.

• For The Beat, Andrew Farago writes on the passing of artist George Pérez, who would have turned 70 this week, and details the recent inclusion of portraits of Pérez into the National Portrait Gallery’s collection.

• Over at Shelfdust, Shaenon K. Garrity writes on Taiyō Matsumoto’s Ping Pong, and its place in the sports manga league tables.

• As part of the site’s Pride month coverage, Broken Frontier’s Andy Oliver looks back on Mark Russell and Mike Feehan’s Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles, and its interweaving of dark humour and real world history.

• For Forbes, from their Tax Breaks newsletter, Kelly Phillips Erb covers the realities of donating a collection of 80,000 comic books, and the tax implications of handing them over to an educational institution.

• Print's Steven Heller writes on meeting Harvey Kurtzman as a student in 1970, the personal and professional influence of Kurtzman and Kurtzman's work, and bringing the origin story of MAD's Alfred E. Neuman to print.

• For The New York Times, Walker Mimms writes on the early cartoons of Philip Guston, now in the public domain, Guston’s varied influences, and how the racism on display in these may give an insight regarding the intensity of later works.

• From the world of open-access academia, for History and Anthropology, Peter Wade contrasts depictions of Indigenous Americans in Rico Tipo and La resistencia indígena al conquistador, and examines how both publications show the apparent difficulties in avoiding stereotyped portrayals.

• Paul O’Brien’s tallying of the villains of Daredevil continues, for House to Astonish, as this week the action skips along to the soapy secrets of Brother Brimstone.

• Mike Peterson rounds up the week’s editorial beat, over at The Daily Cartoonist, as 2024 continues to be a year focused in large part on felony convictions and presidential elections, as is its wont.

This week’s audio/visual delights.

• Sally Madden was joined by Dash Shaw for the latest edition of Thick Lines, as they discussed Chantal Montellier’s Social Fiction and speculative stories being outpaced by reality, as well as visits to the recent Bubbles Con.

• Ahead of this weekend’s inaugural Zine Not Dead Fest: A Comics and Small Press Fair, comics readings from the Zine Not Dead stable can be enjoyed from the fifteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth iterations of the quarterly live series.

• The Chicago Public Library hosted an in-conversation event as Emil Ferris spoke with Kurt Devine about My Favorite Thing is Monsters Book Two, journeys through the creative arts, and the beauty of eternal love.

• Gil Roth welcomed Stan Mack to the latest edition of the Virtual Memories Show, as they discussed Stan Mack’s Real Life Funnies, the origins and growth of the strip, editorial experiences, and activism in New York.

• 2000 AD’s Thrill-Cast returned, as this week MOLCH-R spoke to Dan Cornwell about Spector, taking over art-duties on the comic following the death of Carlos Ezquerra, other collaborations with John Wagner, and driving buses.

• David Harper welcomed Popverse’s Graeme McMillan to this week’s edition of Off Panel, as they spoke about McMillan becoming the site’s editor, the shifting status quo of comics journalism, and the impact of comics being adapted to other formats.

• Heidi MacDonald was joined by Frank Miller for Publisher’s Weekly’s More to Come, as they spoke about Frank Miller: American Genius and Frank Miller Presents’ upcoming slate of books, alongside interviews from this year’s MoCCA Art Fest with Joel Priddy, Grace Desmarais, and Kevin Huizenga.

No more links for this week, as it’s the Euros, and so I have a date with a beer garden.

The post Just Tell Me Who Won – This Week’s Links appeared first on The Comics Journal.


By at
Labels: , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)