Friday, September 27, 2024

Let The Rats Inherit The Earth – This Week’s Links

September 27, 2024 Philippines , Pinoy 0 Comments

Well, we’ve made it to the end of September, weaving into that mad gauntlet of autumnal comics shows, which means there’s just Hallowe’en to go, and then it’s basically a sprint finish to the end of 2024, so wolf down this week’s links, below, and then make a start on drafting your end of year list, otherwise you’ll be writing it two hours before the deadline, same as last year, and the year before, while out of your gourd on mulled wine again.

This week’s news.

• The year of the comics-related class action lawsuit continues, as The Daily Cartoonist shares details of a settlement having been reached regarding a suit filed following Andrews McMeel Universal’s 2022 data breach which affected a number of the company’s employees and contractors - details of the settlement can be found in the court-authorised notice, with FAQs on the lawsuit available here.

• In comics awards news, last weekend saw the winners of this year’s Mike Wieringo Comic Book Industry Awards announced at Baltimore Comic Con, with Jeff Smith named as Best Cartoonist, Mariko Tamaki named as Best Writer, and Elsa Charretier named as Best Artist - a full list of this year’s winners can be found here.

• TCJ contributor Marty Brown is seeking a kidney donor, following the failure of a previously transplanted kidney, received following a diagnosis of kidney disease in 1999 - more information can be found on Marty’s CaringBridge page - you can register your details to begin the screening process for living donation at lomalindalivingdonor.org, and you can sign up to be an organ donor here.

This week’s reviews.

TCJ

• Kevin Brown reviews the seamless tapestry of Oscar Zárate’s Thomas Girtin: The Forgotten Painter - “One of the questions Zárate is asking through these three characters, then, is about how we see art and, thus, the world. Throughout the work, they interpret situations differently, whether that’s how they see the models they’re sketching to Girtin’s work to the stories they hear. Zárate isn’t arguing that there’s some stable interpretation of art or experience — a difficult argument to make in 2024 — but he does want to show that each of the characters takes what they need from Girtin’s work and life.”

• James Bradshaw reviews the nostalgic glee of Sugiura Shigeru’s Ninja Sarutobi Sasuke, translated by Ryan Holmberg - “It wasn’t until 1969 that Shigeru Sugiura was entreated by the newer generation of editors and artsy manga makers, who remembered him fondly, to create new works by revisiting his previous popular titles. The resulting comic version of Sarutobi is therefore a late 1960s reinvention of an early 1950s manga.”

• Henry Chamberlain reviews the accessible synthesis of Paul Peart-Smith’s adaptation of W.E.B. Du Bois’ Souls of Black Folk - “But, despite the rage, there is also an impulse to reach out, to reason. The book ends with such a plea: “In thy good time may infinite Reason turn the tangle straight, and these crooked marks on a fragile leaf indeed be not.” It is a desire for a better and just world that can never be overstated.”

 

AIPT

• Ronnie Gorham reviews the diabolical fun of Marc Andreyko, Piotr Kowalski, et al’s Violator: Origin #1.

• David Brooke reviews the violent action of Kyle Starks, Kyle Hotz, et al’s Lobo Cancellation Special #1.

• Russ Dobler reviews the padded visuals of Tim Leong’s Marvel Super Graphic: A Visual Guide to the Marvel Comics Universe.

• Colin Moon reviews the quiet occurrences of Laura Pérez’s Ocultos, translated by Andrea Rosenberg; and the gorgeous craftsmanship of Frédéric Brémaud and Federico Bertolucci’s Walt Disney's Donald Duck: Vacation Parade.

• Collier Jennings reviews the profound questions of Ryan Parrott, Shawn Daley, et al’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Usagi Yojimbo #1; and the subversive beats of Tim Seeley, Freddie E. Williams II, et al’s Masters of the Universe/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles of Grayskull #1.

 

The Beat

• Zack Quaintance reviews the hilarious tension of Samuel Cantin’s Vile and Miserable.

• D. Morris reviews the shifting perspectives of Charles Burns' Final Cut.

• Clyde Hall reviews the fresh foundations of Mark London, Carlos Reno, et al’s Revolution 9 #1.

• Jared Bird reviews the knockout espionage of Pornsak Pichetshote, Terry Dodson, et al’s The Horizon Experiment – The Manchurian #1.

• Tim Rooney reviews the balanced tensions of Jonathan Hickman, Marco Checchetto, et al’s Ultimate Spider-Man #9.

• Diego Higuera reviews the beautiful returns of Jeph Loeb, Eduardo Risso, et al’s Batman: The Last Halloween #1.

 

Broken Frontier

• Lydia Turner reviews the shifting tone of Yasmeen Abedifard’s When to Pick a Pomegranate.

• Andy Oliver reviews the everyday profundity of Caroline Cash’s PeePee PooPoo #1, the evocative reflections of Sam Hart’s Memories: Ruins, and the beautiful bleakness of Charles Burns' Kommix.

 

House to Astonish

Paul O’Brien has capsule reviews of Marvel Comics’ X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #15, Savage Wolverine Infinity Comic #8, X-Men #4, X-Factor #2, Wolverine: Deep Cut #3, and Dazzler #1.

 

Library Journal

• Tom Batten has a starred capsule review of the sharp observations of Mark Russell and Roberto Meli’s Traveling to Mars.

• Martha Cornog has a starred capsule review of the engaging interpretations of Yuval Noah Harari, David Vandermeulen, and Daniel Casanave’s Sapiens: A Graphic History, Vol. 3—The Masters of History.

• Jason L. Steagall has a starred capsule review of the enthralling violence of Cullen Bunn, Jesús Hervás, Federico Sabbatini, et al’s Invasive.

 

Solrad

Nicholas Burman reviews the narrative questions of Leo Fox’s My Body Unspooling.

 

Women Write About Comics

• Monita Mohan reviews the sparkling melody of Jason Loo, Rafael Loureiro, et al’s Dazzler #1.

• Lisa Fernandes reviews the gooey conclusion of Paul Reiser, Leon Reiser, Adam F. Goldberg, Hans Rodionoff, Brian Volk-Weiss, Guiu Vilanova, et al’s Aliens: What If…? #5.

This week’s interviews.

AIPT

• Chris Hassan speaks with Alyssa Wong about Psylocke, the genesis of the project, Psylockes through the ages, and avoiding spoilers.

• David Brooke chats with Scott Snyder and Wes Craig about the DC All in Special, the delights of Darkseid, and the realities of the Omega Sanction.

• Chris Coplan talks to:

 

The Beat

• Dean Simons speaks with John Wagner about Judge Dredd, attempts to retire, future fascination, and the return of Battle Action.

• Avery Kaplan interviews Tina Horn and Lisa Sterle about DEPROG, the book and their collaboration’s origins, and the symbolism of BDSM and kink.

• AJ Frost talks to Justine Cleaves, Diane Piskor, and Bobby Piskor about posthumously publishing Ed Piskor’s Switchblade Shorties.

• Jared Bird speaks with Alex Paknadel about Sentinels, mutant-related stories in the post-Krakoa age, and focusing in on specific characters.

• Christian Angeles talks to Clay McLeod Chapman about Seance in the Asylum, occult summonings in a therapeutic setting, and the story’s historical setting.

• Deanna Destito interviews Brandon Montclare about DuckTales, comics publishing pacing, and following in the footsteps of giants.

 

Broken Frontier

• Lydia Turner speaks with PrideCAF’s organisational team about this year’s event, and creating a safe space for comics-making exhibitors and comics-buying customers.

• Andy Oliver chats with Bobby Joseph about the role of the UK’s Comics Laureate, and promoting the diversity in the UK comics community.

 

CBC

Mattea Roach interviews Alison McCreesh about Degrees of Separation: A Decade North of 60, whether the book is a work of graphic memoir, and the magic of the North.

 

Forbes

Josh Weiss talks to Remsy Atassi and Sal Abbinanti about The Legend of Kingdom Come, and choosing Mark Waid and Alex Ross’ Kingdom Come as the focus of their documentary.

 

The Guardian

Jude Rogers interviews Alice Oseman about Heartstopper, the similarities between storytelling in comics and for television, and speaking out to big audiences about important political issues.

 

The Lantern

Delaney Kerstetter chats with Caitlin McGurk and Jared Gardner about this year’s Cartoon Crossroads Columbus festival, and what to expect from this week’s events.

 

NPR

Scott Simon speaks with Jules Feiffer about Amazing Grapes, following the orders of a book during its creation, and living a happy life.

 

Print

Steven Heller talks to Jules Feiffer about Amazing Grapes, changing methods of work, and crafting a more complicated narrative for younger readers.

 

Publisher’s Weekly

• Meg Lemke interviews Patrick Horvath about Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees, the book being distinctly for mature readers, and the learning experience of your first series.

• Rob Kirby speaks with Sacha Mardou about Past Tense: Facing Family Secrets and Finding Myself in Therapy, bookmaking advice from your therapist, and honouring familial trusts.

This week’s features and longreads.

• Here at TCJ, Jon Holt and Teppei Fukuda present a fresh translation of the writings of Natsume Fusanosuke, this time out from 2022, covering the historical evolution of the profession of the mangaka - “Even manga-ka (manga cartoonists) had to be able to feed themselves to become a part of society. At the time, as for young people who sought to become a (manga) cartoonist, how did they come to be able to feed themselves? The quickest way would have been to become a disciple of Rakuten or Ippei, but if one lived in a rural region, that was difficult to pull off. Other than that, one other option was to submit your manuscript to newspaper companies and win prize money.”

• Also for TCJ, Tom Shapira takes a look at two recent translations of the work of Giancarlo Berardi and Ivo Milazzo, bringing Tom’s Bar and Ken Parker: The Breath and the Dream to English readers for the first time - “The two works in question certainly aren’t, for all their other qualities, American. They are a copy of a copy; they refer not to actual history, even if some research might have been involved, and certainly not to a lived experience. Their main influences seems to be other, earlier works within the same genre. Which, to be fair, was true to American works of noir and Western for a good century now.”

• Finally for TCJ, Gina Gagliano observes 2024’s Banned Books Week with a look to the status quo of comic books in this era of rampant censorship, speaking with various authors about their experiences of having their work banned - “As more and more major publishers are signing up graphic novels, the format’s presence in public libraries and school libraries is growing – giving new populations of readers access to comics. But with that change, there’s an adjustment period that libraries and librarians are struggling to navigate.”

• Further discussion of Banned Books Week can be found at ICv2, where the ALA’s and PEN America’s data on book challenges are considered; and the Los Angeles Times, where an op-ed from Diana Wagman asks “whither the unbanned?”.

• Over at the Inkstuds substack, Robin McConnell has some more thoughts on autumnal reading, including Charles Burns’ Final Cut; Patrick Keck’s Crusher Loves Bleeder Bleeder Loves Crusher; Anna Haifisch’s Ready America; Solano Lopez and Barreiro’s The Young Witches; Taiyō Matsumoto’s Tokyo These Days; Herb Rivera’s Protoplas-Hiss; Tara Booth’s Processing: 100 Comics That Got Me Through It; Tana Oshima’s This Place Sucks So Much; Monica Caicedo’s The Mad Scientist; and Roberto Recchioni, Gigi Cavenago, and Werther Dell'Edera’s Batman/Dylan Dog.

• From the world of open-access academia, for St. Cloud State University’s library repository, Thomas D. Steman writes on the life and work of Ralph Heimdahl, illustrator of the Bugs Bunny cartoon strip for over three decades, and the archive of Heimdahl’s work to be found at St. Cloud.

• Paul O’Brien’s accounting of the villains of Daredevil continues, over at House to Astonish, as fingers are put firmly into ears at the coming of the code-noncompliant Angar the Screamer.

• Mike Peterson rounds up the week’s editorial beat, for The Daily Cartoonist, as your continuing election year coverage was briefly interrupted by glances over at the violence in Lebanon.

This week’s audio/visual delights.

• Katie Skelly was joined once again by Chloe Brailsford for a discussion on the Thick Lines of Lo Hartog van Banda and Thé Tjong-Khing’s Iris: A Novel For Viewers, the impact of the book and its cultural lineage, and the joys of opaque tights.

• Art Dirt’s Gabriel Martinez was joined by Robert Boyd, editor of The Great God Pan Is Dead blog, as they discussed the work of Charles Burns and Gary Panter, underground comix, favourite comic strips and MAD artists, and European comics culture.

• Brian Hibbs welcomed Emma Hunsinger to the Comix Experience Graphic Novel Club, as they spoke about How It All Ends, training your various creative muscles at The Center for Cartoon Studies, making gag cartoons, and collaborating with wife Tillie Walden on the book’s colouring.

• David Harper was joined by fellow journalist Oliver Sava for this week’s edition of Off Panel, as they put forth their seventh annual superhero State of the Union, in a year where DC is hitting the reset button (again), and Marvel is playing the hits.

• Heidi McDonald and Meg Lemke reported from this year’s Small Press Expo for Publisher’s Weekly’s More to Come, as they headed to the show floor to speak with Robyn Smith, Luke Healy, Beth Hetland, Tara Booth, and Sig Burwash.

No more links this week, because I made the awful mistake of dipping back into Cities: Skylines and now my life is a tangle of water pipe design and zoning ordinances.

The post Let The Rats Inherit The Earth – This Week’s Links appeared first on The Comics Journal.


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