Thank You For The Music – This Week’s Links

Returning with This Week’s Links, below, in the span of days when, traditionally, everyone has a bit of a rest, as I still don’t fully grok how the cycle of federal holidays works, and instead took a break last week by mistake and spent most of my spare time sleeving Magic: The Gathering cards, as is my wont.

Free sea

— Deb JJ Lee (they) (@jdebbiel.bsky.social) 2024-11-22T17:57:03.079Z

This week’s news.

• Beginning our catch-up with recent news stories by checking back in with an entry from the end of last year, as The Beat reports that the class action law suit brought against Action Lab Entertainment has been dismissed, as the terms of the various contracts submitted as part of the claim were too varied to comprise a class action - the plaintiffs have 45 days to file an amended complaint.

• News out of Japan, and stories started circulating last week that Sony had begun talks to acquire Kadokawa, the media conglomerate that publishes, amongst others, manga magazines Monthly Shōnen Ace and Young Ace, before an announcement was released by Kadokawa confirming that a formal expression of interest in the buyout had been issued by Sony - Bloomberg has a breakdown of the possible deal, with the publicly traded Kadokawa in a slightly shaky position of late, following the resignation of former chairman Tsuguhiko Kadokawa amidst allegations of bribery, and a massive databreach during the summer.

• In memoriam, remembering those the world of comics has lost, as news was shared of the passing of Ryan McCardle, book designer at Fantagraphics and co-founder of record label Furious Hooves, who has died at the age of 35 due to metastatic chordoma cancer.

• News was also shared of the passing of Clydene Nee, comics colourist and co-ordinator of San Diego Comic-Con's artists' alley, who has died at the age of 66.

Dreamed about a plant the other night night

— Gianna Meola (@giannameola.bsky.social) 2024-11-20T22:19:34.651Z

This week’s reviews.

TCJ

• Leonard Pierce reviews the confident silence of Maggie Umber’s Chrysanthemum Under the Waves - “But while some stories will resonate more than others, it’s an extremely worthwhile collection that overcomes the challenges it sets for itself and blends its internal diversity with an overall coherence that is an incredible accomplishment.”

• Tom Shapira reviews the inward gaze of Yoshiharu Tsuge’s Oba Electroplating Factory, translated by Ryan Holmberg - “This is Tsuge unleashed and unbound. But to what end? Again and again we meet these sad men, none of whom are particularly different from their successors or predecessors, fucking over (metaphorically) the woman they are with while fucking (physically) some other woman (whether she wants to or not).”

• Nicholas Burman reviews the engrossing strangeness of Dave Cooper's Dog Head #1 - “Despite Cooper's time spent in the fine art world, Dog Head is certainly not weighed down with pretension. The art is hyper cartoonish. The main flourish Cooper has allowed himself is the offbeat color palette.”

AIPT

• David Brooke reviews the thrilling start of Peter J. Tomasi, Francis Manapul, et al’s The Rocketfellers #1.

• Andrew Isidoro reviews the festive capers of Jeff Parker, Lukas Ketner, et al's Batman/Santa Claus: Silent Knight Returns #1.

• Marvel Maximus reviews the varied satire of Dave Cook et al’s Nano Jams.

The Arts STL

Sarah Boslaugh reviews the creative layouts of Caitlin McGurk’s Tell Me A Story Where the Bad Girl Wins: The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund.

The Beat

• Ricardo Serrano Denis reviews the masterful tone of Rick Parker’s Drafted.

• Clyde Hall reviews the simplistic setup of Tim Seeley, Mike Norton, et al's Archie Is Mr. Justice #1.

• Jordan Jennings reviews the enjoyable humanity of Dave Baker, Kevin Anthony Catalan, et al's Godzilla Rivals: King Ghidorah vs SpaceGodzilla.

• D. Morris reviews the unbalanced opening of Caleb Goellner, Hendry Prasetya, et al's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles X Naruto #1.

• Steve Baxi reviews the interesting lessons of Alan Moore, Steve Moore, et al’s The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic; the visual feast of Emma Ríos’ Anzuelo; and the harmonic debut of Rick Quinn and Dave Chisholm's Spectrum #1.

Boing Boing

Thom Dunn reviews the timeless message of David Lester and Paul Buhle’s Revolution by Fire: New York's Afro-Irish Uprising of 1741.

Broken Frontier

Lindsay Pereira reviews the admirable recipe of Benoist Simmat and Stéphane Douay’s The Incredible Story of Cooking, translated by Montana Kane.

Four Color Apocalypse

Ryan Carey reviews the alluring extremity of Maggie Umber’s Chrysanthemum Under the Waves.

From Cover to Cover

Scott Cederlund reviews the reflective moments of Taiyo Matsumoto’s Tokyo These Days, translated by Michael Arias.

House to Astonish

Paul O’Brien has capsule reviews of Marvel Comics’ X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #23 & 24, Uncanny X-Men #5, NYX #5, Psylocke #1, Venom War: Wolverine #3, Exceptional X-Men #3, Wolverine #3, Phoenix #5, Storm #2, and Sentinels #2.

Los Angeles Review of Books

Daniel Lukes reviews the refreshed scares of Charles Burns’ Final Cut and Kommix.

PopMatters

Shyam K. Sriram reviews the sprawling meditations of Anders Nilsen’s Tongues.

Publisher's Weekly

Have capsule reviews of:

• The dazzling imagery of Keiichi Koike's Ultra Heaven, translated by Ajani Oloye.

• The gonzo bizarreness of Shirakawa Marina's UFO Mushroom Invasion, translated by Ryan Holmberg.

• The sweeping majesty of Sarah Airriess' adaptation of Apsley Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the World.

• The manic twists of Matt Madden's Six Treasures of the Spiral: Comics Formed Under Pressure.

• The luxuriant details of Lee Dean's The Girl Who Flew Away.

Studies in Christian Ethics

Paul Wilson reviews the timely reflections of Peter Admirand’s Destruction, Ethics, and Intergalactic Love—Exploring Y: The Last Man and Saga.

Solrad

Nicholas Burman reviews the overlapping horror of Lonnie Nadler and Jenna Cha’s The Sickness, Volume 1.

CALA is a 100% volunteer-run community show and we need your help to make the show happen! If you're interested in volunteering to help out during the show in return for free lunch and a CALA volunteer T-shirt and everybody's gratitude, sign up here: forms.gle/DncVPWnKwPWo...

— Comic Arts LA (@comicartsla.bsky.social) 2024-10-15T20:34:33.515Z

This week’s interviews.

TCJ

• Brian Nicholson interviews Michael Shea-Wright about ATP, teaching art to younger students, fortuitous plane meetings, and action influences - “A real fight between two people who have never met is not glamorous. I like adding these panels of chaos where you’re not totally sure what’s going on. I haven’t been very successful in that so far because I am obsessed with clarity to a certain degree but it’s something I would like to include more of in future action based things.”

• Valerio Stivé interviews Francesco Matteuzzi and Luca Debus about Funny Things: A Comic Strip Biography of Charles M. Schulz, the book’s route to publication, and the respect for its subject the book has - “I don’t think that the place of publication influenced our work. However, the production method did. We had the chance to spend almost three years working on it, an amount of time that, in my experience, you rarely have at your disposal. Of course books like this are not easy to make, but that also meant that we could sift through every single, small detail, allowing ourselves to polish every word and every drawing. “

• Irene Velentzas interviews Boum (aka Samantha Leriche-Gionet) about The Jellyfish, shifting away from autobiography, the visually static nature of comics, and digital work processes - “I think if I ever start losing my vision in my other eye, I'm probably going to want to do something that's even more high in contrast. So probably if there's color, it's going to be like huge pops of color. I want my next book to have some color in it, but I want to use just two colors, probably like hot pink and dark blue, just because there's a huge contrast between the two, and I think that's where I want to be going.”

AIPT

• Chris Coplan speaks with Gerry Duggan about Falling In Love On The Path To Hell and retaining retailer and reader attention, and with Curtis Clow about Slightly Exaggerated and putting good out into the world.

• David Brooke talks to Al Ewing and Steve Lieber about Metamorpho and anatomical challenges, and to Christian Ward about Two-Face and courtroom dramas.

• Michael Guerrero interviews Mark Waid about Justice League Unlimited, natural story progressions, and the fun of matching characters.

Anime News Network

MrAJCosplay speaks with Tsubasa Yamaguchi about Blue Period, art imitating life, and the significance of the colour blue in Japanese culture.

The Asahi Shimbun

Tomoko Yamashita interviews Mako Saiki about Who Did What is Unspeakable? and the research that went into creating the manga.

The Beat

• Diego Higuera talks to Kenny Myers about comics marketing platform Bindings, the bottled lightning of comics, and plans for the future.

• Deanna Destito interviews Karl Kesel about Impossible to Love and the joys of crowdfunding, and Ed Brisson and George Kambadais about Silverhawks and the fun of expanding established properties.

CBC

Mattea Roach interviews Teresa Wong about All Our Ordinary Stories, the meaning of the book’s title, and generational shifts.

Forbes

Rob Salktowitz talks to Crucial Comix’s Shay Mirk about the company’s business model, building community, and societal survival strategies.

The Guardian

Rachel Cooke speaks with Lesley Imgart about winning the Observer/Faber Graphic Short Story Prize, and the inspirations behind the winning entry - Witch Way?.

The Peak

Rachel Genevieve Chia interviews Sean Lam about Geungsi, comics making origins, adapting Ringworld, and using comics to share Singaporean culture.

Print

Steven Heller speaks with Chris Ware about The ACME Novelty Datebook Volume 3 and the connections between cartooning and typography, and with Alen MacWeeney and Michael Maslin about At Wit's End: Cartoonists of the New Yorker and curating the artists featured in the book.

Publisher’s Weekly

Shaenon K. Garrity talks to Kay Sohini about This Beautiful, Ridiculous City, the allure of New York, and the perspective and distance that drawing comics affords oneself.

Ultraman private commission

— Eli Minaya (@badking.bsky.social) 2024-11-22T14:55:07.909Z

This week’s features and longreads.

• Here at TCJ, Bob Levin provides thoughts on recent reading, comprising Brandon Graham’s Moonray and Damir Stojnic’s meduSalem - “Sanity is not a must for me, unless its lack is causing someone to fling debris about the café. (Or, as it appears, it had seized the controls to the frontal lobes of a majority of the Supreme Court.) Certainly its representation on the printed page or gallery walls do not disturb me; indeed, it often increases my interest.”

• Also for TCJ, Maïa Hamilcaro-Berlin shares experiences from a month in Seattle helping with the behind-the-scenes goings-on at this year’s Short Run Comix Festival - “If I had one last thing to say about Short Run and its satellite events, I’d say that it’s a festival that proves to everyone that comics can be a collective art form, just waiting to be shared, enjoyed with friends and family, forging links across the world. So go for it, and see you there, in one, two or three years.”

• More from Short Run for TCJ, bidding farewell to the show’s previous home of Seattle Center’s Fisher Pavilion, Colin Blanchette reports from the show floor of this year’s festival - “This year, the diversity and variety of the exhibitors was the star, which is usually how Short Run works. Most small press comic shows try to bring in “big names” in the hopes of attracting attendees, much like their mainstream comic convention counterparts. However, Short Run eschews big name cartoonists and casts a wide net when it comes to bringing in special guests and exhibitors.”

• Also reporting from recent entries in 2024’s comics event calendar, for TCJ, Chris Anthony Diaz presents photographs from this year’s Eisner Awards, including 2024’s hall of fame induction ceremony.

• Writing in remembrance of recently departed giants of the comics form, for TCJ, Dean Simons provides an obituary for Pierre Christin, co-creator of Valérian et Laureline, who passed away last month at the age of 86 - “Although hired as a visiting professor of French he negotiated it into conducting seminars on surrealism and the French New Wave. Only familiar with the USA of movies and novels, the arrival was a huge culture shock for Christin. In later interviews he would remark that America was like a Technicolor film while France was stuck in black and white.”

• Further remembrances for TCJ, as Stanford Carpenter writes on the life and work of cartoonist and historian Tim Jackson, author of Pioneering Cartoonists of Color, who died earlier this month at the age of 66 - “In 1985, Jackson graduated from SAIC and founded Creative License Studio Inc., primarily as a provider of art and graphics. By 1995 he was syndicating editorial cartoons and social commentary to newspapers around the country and publishing comic books focusing on social awareness through the Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Department of Public Health.”

• For The New Yorker, as Richard McGuire’s Here celebrates 35 years since the original comic’s publication, and nearly a decade since the graphic novel’s publication, Françoise Mouly and Genevieve Bormes write on the history of the book and the making of the original strip.

• For Vogue, Grace Edquist writes on the life and work of Tove Jansson, the impact of the Moomins on readers around the world, and reports from the Helsinki Art Museum’s “Tove Jansson - Paradise” exhibition.

• Elsewhere on the continent, for Solrad, Hagai Palevsky reports from the Centre Pompidou’s “Comics 1964-2024” exhibition, which just closed after a 6 month stint in Paris, presenting thoughts on the curation and presentation of the comics art in question.

• Over at Shelfdust, continuing the Spawn De Replay retrospective of the life/death and times of Albert Francis “Al” Simmons, Steve Morris welcomes one Alan Moore to the eighth issue of Spawn and its conception of the afterlife; and Chad Nevett reports from the trial of Thor Odinson, presiding judge Thor Odinson, as the conclusion of Matt Fraction and Barry Kitson's Thor #22 leaves the audience wanting.

• From the world of open-access academia, writing in the journal of International Public History, Alexandra Lourenço Dias presents an essay on Portuguese comics that focus on the April 25th Revolution of 1974, including analysis of Raquel Varela and Robson Vilalba’s Utopia.

• From the Journal of Eye Movement Research, Hong Yang presents a study of the ways that the eye movement patterns differ between expert and non-expert readers of comics, and the ways in which both groups process text and image content.

• In the International Journal for Talent Development and Creativity, on page 43, Kimberly Croswell examines the representations of violence against women, in the context of depictions of lived experiences, as found in Sabrina Jones’ Whose Body? and Rebecca Migdal’s Intimate Partner Violence Escape Room from World War 3 Illustrated.

• Mike Peterson rounds up the recent editorial beat, over at The Daily Cartoonist, as there is little to no escape to be had from drawings of one Donald Trump and/or turkeys.

Notebook drawings

— Jack Teagle (@jackteagle.bsky.social) 2024-11-24T19:47:57.918Z

This week’s audio/visual delights.

• Austin English hosted the most recent meetings of the New York Comics & Picture-Story Symposium, as James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook spoke about 7 Miles A Second, memories of artist David Wojnarowicz, and the book's path to publication with DC Vertigo; and Anna Haifisch spoke about book design and its importance in the process of comics making, the fun of drawing animals, and moving away from traditional comics panel formatting.

• Brian Hibbs convened the Comix Experience Graphic Novel Club once more, as Justin Hall spoke with Dash Shaw and Olivier Schrauwen about Blurry and Sunday (sound kicks in around the 12m30s mark), and Brian Hibbs talked to Jorge Aguirre and Andrés Vera Martínez about Monster Locker and comics reading and making origins.

• A couple of recent episodes of Off Panel, as David Harper welcomed Jamie McKelvie to the show to talk about One For Sorrow and publishing the book with DSTLRY, and spoke with Alex Segura about The Question: All Along the Watchtower and juggling projects across literary forms.

• Calvin Reid, Heidi MacDonald, and Kate Fitzsimons got together for a fresh episode of Publisher's Weekly's More to Come, as they discussed the simmering deal between Sony and Kadokawa and various imprints and start-ups in the comics market, and Meg Lemke interviewed Graphic Mundi's Kendra Boileau about the Penn State University Press' comics imprint's growth.

• Closing out this catch-up edition with some trips in the Word Balloon with John Siuntres, as Karl Kesel spoke about the return of Impossible Jones, Dan Jurgens discussed The Bat-Man: First Knight, Mark Russell talked about Batman: Dark Age, Joe Illidge spoke about Shadow Cabinet, Crystal Skillman and Fred Van Lente discussed Eat Fighter, and Joe Casey talked about Weapon X-Men.

crazy busy

— ながべ(nagabe) (@mucknagabe.bsky.social) 2024-11-13T18:03:33.230Z

No more links this week, more links next week, unless (and it’s completely possible) I once more unilaterally decide to change the calendar of federal holidays.