Currently stuck in the disconcerting liminal space formed between reaching the part of the year where the days are flying past at a dizzying speed, calendar pages bursting into flames as 24 hour increments ping off into the aether, and the office clock having been stuck on 4:14 for a few days, so minute-to-minute time checks are out of the window, as winter mocks any puny ideals of a diurnal rhythm - and thus the only true temporal constant is returned to, in the form of this week’s links, below.
— 川原瑞丸(Mizmaru Kawahara) (@mizmarukawahara.bsky.social) 2025-02-16T01:16:36.803Z
This week’s reviews.
TCJ
• Sommer Browning reviews the refreshing diversity of Afternoon Affair, edited by Helen Chazan - “And this is exactly what you’re in for: tits and dicks, definitely, but also a bit of voyeurism and a very healthy, fully vaccinated dose of flagrant pleasure. But I think the thing I love the most about the cover is how absorbed in reading (okay…maybe just looking at the pictures) the figure on the couch is. It’s like the masturbating wasn’t planned—the curtains were closed after all—but the content was just so hot it was inevitable.”
• Hagai Palevsky reviews the inward gaze of Peony Gent’s Autobiography Has Become a Stone in My Shoe - “It's not for nothing that she quotes Bo Burnham's Inside, a work that more or less requires its viewer to wholeheartedly agree with its ideological and aesthetic viewpoint in order to actually find something to appreciate. It feels unfair to denigrate a comic for being too easy to agree with, yet it feels almost like cheating.”
• Frank M. Young reviews the acute observations of Chris Cajero Cilla’s Feast of Grease - “Cilla’s single pages hum with activity and thought; they’re comix poems that express the inexpressible with a warped clarity that can be startling, laff-out-loud funny and/or shocking. I have more than one reaction to much of his work. I love the brain fog his pages seduce me into; finding my way out, bit by bit, is the adventure in all his art.”
AIPT
• Collier Jennings reviews the unique stakes of Van Jensen, Kelsey Ramsay, et al’s Godzilla: Heist #1.
• David Brooke reviews the thoughtful curation of The Folio Society’s DC: Superman, selected by Jenette Kahn and edited by James Rose.
• Nathan Simmons reviews the shallow violence of Garth Ennis, Jonathan Mayberry, Doug Braithwaite, Goran Parlov, et al’s The Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe.
• Rory Wilding reviews the tonal shifts of Yoshihiro Togashi’s Hunter x Hunter Volume 1, and the shallow details of Inio Asano’s Mujina Into the Deep.
The Beat
• Michael VanCalbergh reviews the surreal joys of Michael D. Kennedy Milk White Steed.
• Jordan Jennings reviews the kinetic energy of Van Jensen, Kelsey Ramsay, et al’s Godzilla: Heist #1.
• Clyde Hall reviews the eerie unease of James Tynion IV, Steve Foxe, Piotr Kowalski, et al’s Let This One Be a Devil #1.
• Tim Rooney reviews the unclear stakes of Declan Shalvey et al’s Mystique #5.
• Zack Quaintance has reviews of:
- The magical cool of Jamal Campbell’s Zatanna #1.
- The masterful fantasy of Richard Corben’s Den: The Price of Memories.
- The excellent storycraft of Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham’s Lunar New Year Love Story.
Boing Boing
Thom Dunn reviews the cavernous mysteries of Zac Thompson and Hayden Sherman’s Into the Unbeing.
Broken Frontier
• Gary Usher reviews the singular hijinks of Connor B.’s Bring Me the Head of Susan Lomond.
• Lydia Turner reviews the melancholy details of Briana Loewinsohn’s Raised by Ghosts.
• Andy Oliver has reviews of:
• The mythological thrills of Ferg Handley and Alejandro Perez Mesa’s Commando #5829.
• The escapist energy of Treasury of British Comics’ Battle Action Force Treasury Edition.
• The enduring appeal of Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy & Sluggo’s Guide to Life.
• The winning darkness of Yuma Wang’s mini kuš! #129: Fire Rabbit.
• The powerful communication of Cartoonists for Palestine, edited by Yazan al-Saadi, Tracy Chahwan, Shay Mirk, and Andy Warner.
The Harvard Crimson
Isabelle A. Lu reviews the unique visuals of María Medem’s Land of Mirrors, translated by Aleshia Jensen and Daniela Ortiz.
House to Astonish
Paul O’Brien has capsule reviews of Marvel Comics’ Astonishing X-Men Infinite Comic #10, X-Men #11, Psylocke #4, Magik #2, Deadpool/Wolverine #2, and Cable: Love and Chrome #2.
Kirkus Reviews
Have starred capsule reviews of:
• The nuanced action of Uru-chan’s unOrdinary Volume 3.
• The expressive vibrancy of Sharee Miller’s adaptation of Rita Williams-Garcia’s One Crazy Summer.
• The empathetic characterisations of Gavin Aung Than’s Creature Clinic.
Hey team - I am the founder of the Make More Comics Arts Grant and each year we give away a cash award to assist a creator or project in physical publishing. The due date for submissions is March 31st. Please consider applying today!100comics996889703.wordpress.com/make-more-co...
— 100% Comics (@100percentcomics.bsky.social) 2025-02-10T15:28:05.482Z
This week’s interviews.
TCJ
• TCJ’s editors interview Tea Fougner about departing from the role of Editorial Director of Comics at King Features Syndicate earlier this year, the changing syndication landscape, and the audition process for taking over legacy strips - “The only real hiccups I saw were in teaching cartoonists not to use rich black! For those of you who don’t know what rich black is, rich black is a black that is printed with cyan, magenta and yellow inks in it, which make a deeper, richer color on the page. It also causes registration errors on comics pages! So, we use standard black, or 100% black with no other ink colors, for line art and text on comics. Getting cartoonists into the habit of checking their blacks took a while, but we eventually got it!”
• Jake Zawlacki interviews Zander Cannon about Kaijumax, comic book origins and thoughts on superheroes, the Alan Moore style of scripting, and working with DARPA - “People can be awful. People or systems are always making people's lives miserable for the sake of money or temporary power or any other inconsequential reason. If you're not going to call that evil, then what's the point of having the word? We always talk about philosophical evil as if it's some kind of element, straight from the devil, but that always seems to be a feint for trying to burn books.”
AIPT
David Brooke speaks with Ram V and Evan Cagle about The New Gods and fallible heroes, with Tom Waltz and Antonio Delgado about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin and what the role of colorist entails, and with Jeff Lemire and Nick Robles about Absolute Flash and character relationships.
Anime News Network
MrAJCosplay and Rebecca Silverman interview TurtleMe about The Beginning After the End, avoiding specific tropes, fantasy fiction influences, and the story’s adaptation to different media.
The Beat
• Diego Higuera talks to Philippe Labaune about the Philippe Labaune Gallery’s Will Eisner exhibition, collaborating with Denis Kitchen on the show, and selecting the pieces featured therein.
• Christian Angeles interviews Kelly Thompson about Absolute Wonder Woman and the core of this version of the character, and David Pepose about Captain Planet and taking the character in a contemporary direction.
Broadview
Kate Spencer speaks with Kate Beaton about Shark Girl, thoughts on the class privilege that's prevalent in the art world, life in Cape Breton, and writing for different age groups.
CBC
Elizabeth Whitten talks to Black Panel Press’ Andrew Benteau about the publisher’s challenges in the face of Diamond Comics Distributors’ declaring bankruptcy, and future plans despite this.
Dying Scene
Forrest Gaddis speaks with Matthew Rosenberg about What’s the Furthest Place From Here?, the New York punk scene, and the musical inspiration for the book’s title.
Forbes
• Rob Salkowitz talks to Sydney Heifler, John Lustig, and Instantmiso about the enduring popularity of classic and contemporary romance comics.
• Tiffany Leigh speaks with Doug Wagner and Daniel Hillyard about I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer, murderous inspirations, and building characters’ fashion perspectives.
The News Tribune
Becca Most interviews Destiny City Comics’ Matt Nebeker about the store’s impending closure due to rent hikes, and the community that built up around the shop.
NPR
Leila Fadel and Steve Inskeep talk to Françoise Mouly about The New Yorker’s 100th anniversary, and the history of covers for the magazine.
Steven Heller speaks with Nathan Fox about The Weatherman, the book’s origins, planning out the story’s narrative, and collaborative processes.
Smash Pages
JK Parkin talks to MK Reed and Jonathan Hill about Budding Crisis, comic strip and newsstand favourites, world building considerations, and differences from previous projects.
Brain Worms poster, 2 colour risograph print
— Jenn Woodall (@funeralbeat.bsky.social) 2025-02-09T01:26:44.971Z
This week’s features and longreads.
• Here at TCJ, Hank Kennedy writes in remembrance of media scholar Martin Baker, author of A Haunt of Fears: The Strange History of the British Horror Comics Campaign, who passed away in September of 2022 - “Was Martin Barker a comics fan? He himself didn’t think so. His daughter was instructed to respond to friends saying “Your dad reads comics” with “No, he studies them.” Nevertheless, there are certain tells that show Barker was more of a comics fan than he let on.”
• Also for TCJ, Valerio Stivé reports from Lucca Comics & Games 2024, as well as (briefly) the emergency room, as neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night nor a cervical hernia will keep a determined person from meeting Daniel Clowes - “In the end, those five days left me feeling like I hadn’t fully experienced this year’s edition of the festival, more than the usual “I haven’t seen enough this year”. As I write this, my back still hasn’t fully recovered — which is why it took me longer than usual to complete this report, written with one hand in uncomfortable positions.”
• More for TCJ, as RJ Casey bids hello and goodbye to more Arrivals and Departures, this month presenting thoughts on Alec Valrius’ BTVS: Chapter 1, Rebecca Kirby’s Slick Susan and The Mysterious Soup, and William K. Ibanez’s Blazing Quantum #6 - “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind a little Sanrio-esque with my seriousness. I enjoy when funny animals are surrounded by earnestness. I once had every Bone collector card in a childhood binder of mylar sleeves, for crying out loud. What I don’t get is when cartoonists who are not beholden to any IP rules, haven’t signed any contracts, and have ostensibly no creative constraints at all wind up with something so trite.”
• For more selected reading highlights, Solrad’s Daniel Elkin has a fresh serving of Books in Bites, which this time out comprises Madeline Mouse’s Belly Full of Heart, Lonnie Mann and Ryan Gatts’ Gaytheist: Coming Out of My Orthodox Childhood, and Tony DiPasquale’s Nugget #3 and #4.
• For a look at the ever-growing younger readers graphic novels market, Elizabeth Segran writes for Fast Company on how sales have changed, and how readers in the younger age brackets have changed, over the last five years.
• For The Print, Tina Das reports from the Brahmaputra Literature Festival, as Anna Sireiliu, Pournima Shinde, Pema Wanghcuk, Canato Jimo, and Pankaj Saikia spoke about their use of different mediums to portray lived experiences of life in the Northeast of India.
• Over at Forward, PJ Grisar writes on Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse, the documentary directed by Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin, a free screening of which takes place next month at Stockton University.
• For those who like a bit of quantitative qualitative data analysis, Jamie Coville has crunched the numbers on last year’s best comics and graphic novels lists to put together 2024’s ur-list of objectively subjectively ranked titles.
• Mike Peterson rounds up the week’s editorial beat, over at The Daily Cartoonist, as illustrators are getting even more practice drawing Elon Musk and Vladimir Putin this year.
CRIME CITY!Just trying to keep the pencil moving here. Been reading a lot of neat/weird underground comics from the 80’s this past week and I think it kinda unconsciously came out in this?
— Jason Bradshaw (@jasonrbradshaw.bsky.social) 2024-04-16T14:31:56.921Z
This week’s audio/visual delights.
• Austin English hosted the latest meeting of the New York Comics and Picture-Story Symposium, as Anand Shenoy spoke about Stories from Zoo, choosing the medium of comics for storytelling, and the realities of making and selling books in India.
• Drawn & Quarterly shared a fresh edition of At Home With, this time out featuring Michael D. Kennedy speaking about the making of Milk White Steed, redefining what it means to be British and experiences of living in Britain, and the horror and children’s comics that inspired the book.
• Beth Accomando welcomed David F. Walker to KPBS’ Cinema Junkie, as they spoke about Big Jim and the White Boy, adapting Mark Twain’s story for the book and the aspects of history that Twain’s narrative avoided, and the contrasting emotions that come with having your book out in the world.
• David Harper was joined by Tradd Moore for this week’s episode of Off Panel, as they discussed Dr Strange: Fall Sunrise, staying off of social media, comics making influences and approaches, and original art sales in the contemporary collectors’ market.
• Calvin Reid, Kate Fitzsimons, and Heidi MacDonald convened for a new edition of Publisher’s Weekly’s More to Come, as they discussed the American Library Association’s Graphic Novel and Comics Roundtable list of best graphic novels for adults, look ahead to next month’s MoCCA Festival, and speak in remembrance of KC Carlson and Turtel Onli.
• Closing out this week with a couple of Word Balloon conversations, as John Siuntres spoke with Matt Fraction and Terry Dodson about Adventureman’s return and the joys of Love and Rockets, and with Alex Segura about Dick Tracy and The Question: All Along the Watchtower.
the poster!! here it is
— Linnea Sterte (@decassette.bsky.social) 2025-01-19T17:14:21.620Z
No more links for this week - the SAD lamp does nothing. NOTHING.
father's last escape
— Louie Zong (@everydaylouie.bsky.social) 2025-02-19T06:53:06.795Z
The post Ethics Gradient – This Week’s Links appeared first on The Comics Journal.
Hello, my name is Jack Sparrow. I'm a 50 year old self-employed Pirate from the Caribbean.
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