You’ve Got Just Enough For Gas – This Week’s Links

An interesting week, if your main pastime is watching market figures pinging up and down, like they’re going for a spot in the National Yo-Yo League, and trying to figure out how this and looming austerity measures will affect your pension. Time to turn to a trusted source. Oh, Magic 8 Ball, will Diamond Comic Distributors’ debts and Schrödinger’s tariffs decimate the comics market over the next year? Reply hazy, try again. Fine. Are this week’s links below? Signs point to… yes.

— ascalaphid (@ascalaphid.com) 2025-02-01T06:18:50.865Z

This week’s news.

• Beginning yet another week in the courtroom, as the estate of Superman co-creator Joe Shuster filed suit against Warner Bros. Discover and DC to block the release of the upcoming motion picture Superman: Legacy in various territories, amidst claims regarding the reversion of the character’s copyright in jurisdictions outside of the US.

• Elsewhere, following a number of sexual assault allegations levelled at writer Neil Gaiman, a former nanny for the author has filed suit against Gaiman and Gaiman’s ex-wife Amanda Palmer, alleging human trafficking, sexual abuse, and rape.

• Shifting focus to the Direct Market, as The Beat reported this week that layoffs had been enacted at Dark Horse and IDW this week, as both publishers looked to "streamline" their businesses and cut operational expenses (read: salaries).

• Comics awards news, and it was announced at last week’s Angoulême International Comics Festival that Luz’s Deux filles nues is the winner of this year’s Fauve D’or for Best Album, while Tommy Redolfi and Jean-Christophe Deveney’s Les Météores: Histoires de ceux qui ne font que passer was named as this year’s selection for the Special Jury Prize.

• In other comics prize news, it was announced this week that Samuel Teer and Mar Julia’s Brownstone has won the 2025 Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature, as the prize celebrates its 25th anniversary.

madcap

— adam (@kumerish.bsky.social) 2025-01-30T18:16:15.970Z

This week’s reviews.

TCJ

• Kevin Brown reviews the generational explorations of Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s Dog Days, translated by Janet Hong - “The artwork mirrors the simplicity of the plot, in that she sticks to a black-and-white palette, with many panels often appearing sketch-like. Even when she does focus more on details, especially of the dogs, there are limited backgrounds, if any. She often uses the dark backgrounds that she does create to help nurture a feeling of foreboding or even suspense, especially when humans approach the dogs.”

• Leonard Pierce reviews the restless inconclusiveness of Chris Ware’s Acme Novelty Library Datebook, Volume 3 - “Our punishment was to live long enough to need reading glasses to make out the savage little jokes he still somehow manages to stick in every open space of the Datebook; his is to become one of the most acclaimed cartoonists in modern history while still being a fussy, nervous wreck who doubts his own self-worth at every turn and wonders who his audience really is and what they expect of him.”

AIPT

• Colin Moon reviews the anticolonial explorations of Ta-Nehisi Coates, Daniel Acuña, et al’s Black Panther: The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda.

• Michael Guerrero reviews the shifting spotlight of Charles Soule, Stefano Landini, Ron Garney, et al’s Daredevil: Mayor Fisk.

• Rory Wilding reviews the compelling characters of Chip Zdarsky's Public Domain, Volume 2.

• David Brooke reviews the bold remixing of Deniz Camp, Juan Frigeri, et al’s The Ultimates: Fix the World; and the captivating opening of Matthew Rosenberg, Stefano Landini, et al’s We’re Taking Everyone Down With Us #1.

• Collier Jennings reviews the shining dialogue of Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Thomas Sniegoski, Peter Bergting, et al’s Frankenstein: New World – The Sea of Forever #1; and the thrilling approach of Shobo, Shof, Alexandre Tefenkgi, et al’s Bronze Faces #1.

The Beat

• Tim Rooney reviews the character enrichment of Charles Soule, Luke Ross, et al’s Star Wars: Legacy of Vader #1.

• Joe Grunenwald reviews the average conclusion of Chip Zdarsky, Jorge Jiménez, Tony S. Daniel, et al’s Batman #157.

• Samantha Puc reviews the apocalyptic vivacity of Sina Grace, Bradley Clayton, et al’s West Hollywood Monster Squad.

• Kerry Vineberg reviews the skillful characterisation of Dani Diaz’s Dreamover.

• Merve Giray reviews the unhurried charm of Machi Yamashita’s Love on the Horizon, Volume 1.

• Zack Quaintance has reviews of:

• The solid craft of Bryan Lee O’Malley, Leslie Hung, et al’s Snotgirl #18.
• The wonderful details of Briana Loewinsohn’s Raised by Ghosts.
• The striking design of María Medem’s Land of Mirrors, translated by Aleshia Jensa and Daniela Ortiz.

Broken Frontier

• Lindsay Pereira reviews the straightforward documenting of NBM Publishing’s Willie Nelson: A Graphic History.

• Lydia Turner reviews the effective thoughtfulness of Tereza Čechová and Štěpánka Jislová's Bald, translated by Martha Kuhlman and Tereza Čechová.

• Andy Oliver has reviews of:

• The accessible clarity of Ada Jusic, RAMZEE, Marie Bamyani, Sonya Zhurenko, and Nadine Kaadan’s The Power of Welcome: Real-Life Refugee and Migrant Journeys.

• The endearing humour of Huda Fahmy’s Huda F Cares?.

• The changing tempo of John-Paul Kamath, Craig Cermak, Adam Jakes, Alan Patrick, et al’s London Horror Comic #11.

Four Color Apocalypse

Ryan Carey reviews the thematic variation of Comics Blogger Books’ Death Spark #2, edited by Thomas Campbell, and the glorious visuals of Tony DiPasquale’s Nugget #3 & #4..

From Cover to Cover

Scott Cederlund reviews the initial layers of Kieron Gillen, Caspar Wijngaard, et al's The Power Fantasy #1.

Frontline

P. Vijaya Kumar reviews the comprehensive delights of G. Aravindan’s Cheriya Manushyarum Valiya Lokavum.

House to Astonish

Paul O’Brien has capsule reviews of Marvel Comics’ Astonishing X-Men Infinity Comic #8, X-Men #10, Psylocke #3, Sabretooth: The Dead Don’t Talk #2, and Storm: Lifedream.

ImageTexT

• Benjamin Fraser reviews the evident expertise of Monica Chiu’s Show Me Where It Hurts: Manifesting Illness and Impairment in Graphic Pathography.

• Amelia Skinner Saint reviews the vital recording of Margaret Galvan’s In Visible Archives: Queer and Feminist Visual Culture in the 1980s.

• Prateeti Chowdhury reviews the strong readability of Reginald Weibe and Dorothy Woodman’s The Cancer Plot: Terminal Immortality in Marvel’s Moral Universe.

Kirkus Reviews

Have starred capsule reviews of:

• The imaginative instruction of Raina Telgemeier and Scott McCloud’s The Cartoonists Club.

• The candid dialogue of Betty C. Tang’s Outsider Kids.

• The winning whimsy of Aliza Layne’s Beetle & the Chimera Carnival.

• The incisive tenderness of Alison Bechdel’s Spent.

• The fast-paced storytelling of Taha Siddiqui and Hubert Maury’s The Dissident Club: Chronicle of a Pakistani Journalist in Exile, translated by David Homel.

NPR

Maureen Corrigan reviews the vivid storytelling of Kay Sohini's This Beautiful, Ridiculous City.

Solrad

Robert Iveniuk reviews the reframed monstrosities of Ram V. and Sumit Kumar’s These Savage Shores.

Picked this sphinx back up while in-between jobs and now I really want to do a huge print of her

— Pam Wishbow (@pamwishbow.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T21:18:22.315Z

This week’s interviews.

TCJ

Rob Kirby interviews Jon Macy about Djuna Barnes: An Extraordinary Life, comics making history, fascination with Djuna Barnes as a subject, and similarities between comics and silent films - “This is my first all-digital book. I do start out in a sketchbook, but then I scan it and the rest is on a tablet using Procreate. It was hard to find the right brush for the inking though, it wasn't until I found the roughest, nastiest– like drawing with a burnt stick – brush that I felt it looked like real ink on paper to me.”

AIPT

David Brooke speaks with Jeremy Adams and Morgan Hampton about Green Lantern Corps and what readers are looking for from a comic book series, and with Jason Aaron about Absolute Superman and the last son of Krypton’s place as an outsider, and with Alex de Campi about Full Tilt Boogie and entitled royal jerks.

Parents

Anna Halkidis chats with NASA astronaut Leland Melvin about Space Chasers, showing the next generation of space explorers what’s possible, and letting children express their creativity.

Polygon

Susana Polo talks to Kieron Gillen about The Power Fantasy, the ongoing evolution of superhero storytelling, and the archetypes to be found in the book.

I took a break from the sketchbook but now I am compelled to draw again

— alice (@aliceduke.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T17:31:10.959Z

This week’s features and longreads.

• Here at TCJ, Brigid Alverson examines how we got to last month's filing of Chapter 11 bankruptcy by Diamond Comic Distributors, and surveys the market response to this announcement, before laying out what may come next - “Five years ago, Diamond’s Chapter 11 filing would have been disastrous for comics as a whole, but the industry has not been standing still. With the boom in manga sales, bookstores and mass market outlets are carrying more graphic novels than ever. Kickstarter and Zoop have emerged as important platforms for funding individual projects, with Patreon as a way for readers to directly support creators.”

• Also for TCJ, Zachary Garrett writes on Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s Dog Days, contextualising the book with regards to Gendry-Kim’s body of work, the wider genre of autofiction, and attitudes towards dogs in Korea - “While animal rights groups and dog farmers may agree on the scale of dog farming, they debate whether or not consuming dogs as food is a core part of Korean cultural history. Eating dog meat has waxed and waned, allowing both sides to select preferred periods and claim those as distinctly Korean.”

• Also for TCJ, Andrew Farago curates remembrances of cartoonist and writer Jules Feiffer, who passed away last month at the age of 95 - “[Bob Fingerman:] Lifelong hero, cartoonist, author and playwright, novelist and screenwriter, all-around innovator and genius, Jules Feiffer, has departed. Now, he made it almost to 96. That’s an incredible run. And I’ve often said when people live that long we should just celebrate what a great long life they had rather than mourn their exit. But not in this case. In this case I will mourn. Deeply.”

• For further remembrances of Jules Feiffer, Jeet Heer writes for The Nation on the legacy of Feiffer’s work, and Spectrum News’ Lori Chung spoke with Print’s Steven Heller about Feiffer’s life and work.

• Over at io9, Isaiah Colbert canvassed various letterers and translators of manga about their work, the challenges they face, and the realities of employment in the contemporary manga industry.

• For ICv2, Milton Griepp surveys the events that lead to Diamond Comic Distributors’ filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last month, and looks ahead to the various knock-on effects this may have on the comics industry.

• Over at AIPT, Ryan Perry concludes a three-part series of essays on Wonder Woman and the myth of Pygmalion, writing in this final edition on contemporary takes on the Amazonian hero in the form of Kelly Sue DeConnick, Phil Jimenez, Gene Ha and Nicolla Scott’s Wonder Woman Historia and Kelly Thompson and Hayden Sherman’s Absolute Wonder Woman.

• Inkstuds serves up a fresh selection of reading, as this time out Robin McConnell turned the pages of Charles Burns’ Unwholesome Love, Veronica Graham’s Prop Comic, Desert Island’s Smoke Signal #43, Rick Veitch’s Boy Maximortal, Al Hartley’s Archie’s Sonshine, Paul Haynes Comics’ Captain Tax Time, Yan Cong’s I Love Comics, Who Loves Me?, Ivo Puipo’s Synapses, Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows’ Get Fury, Cam Hayden’s The Least I Could Do, Dennis O’Neil and Norm Breyfogle’s Batman: Birth of the Demon, Deadcrow’s Cowlick #7, and Pat Mills and Simon Bisley’s Sláine: The Horned God,

• Over at The Hollywood Reporter, Aaron Couch shares some out-of-season airing of the grievances from Rob Liefeld, as perceived mistreatment at the premiere of the Deadpool & Wolverine motion picture appears to have been the last straw for working with the House of Ideas, and/or a solid promotional exercise for the old personal brand.

• From the world of open-access academia, there’s a new edition of ImageTexT, as this issue features articles from Anni Lappela on bodily spatial experiences and urban space construction in Yuliya Nikitina’s Polunochnaia zemlia, Justin F. Martin on informing analysis of justice considerations in superhero comics’ through a social cognitive domain theory lens, and Timothy S. Murphy on the history of adaptations of the writing of H.P. Lovecraft in comics and the placement of Gou Tanabe’s adaptations within this body of work.

• Elsewhere, for Modern American History, Brian Rouleau writes on the role played by romance comics from the 1950s in preparing younger readers for the realities of the emerging Cold War, and justifying the Korean War to a US audience.

• For the Journal of Genetic Counseling, Marleah Dean, Josephine K. Boumis, Lingzi Zhong, Alexis Ingle, Gemme Campbell-Salome, Lindy Grief Davidson, Courtney L. Scherr, Shana-Kay Brown, and Deborah L. Cragun present research on the creation and appropriateness of a graphic novel to address issues faced by men with an inherited risk for developing breast, prostate, and pancreatic cancer.

• In the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, Jennifer Howell writes on the layered complexities of Clément Baloup’s Vietnamese Memories, and the ethical considerations raised by the books with regards to women’s narratives and trauma.

• For the Journal of Geek Studies, Olivia Le Moëne interrogates the personalities of Detectives Thomson and Thompson from Hergé’s Tintin books, considering the fluidity and ambiguity of their identities, and their overall eternal nature.

• In Graphic Medicine Review, Briana Martino presents a paper on the intersection between comic and tarot, the politico-therapeutic uses of both, and analyses the work of Trung Le Nguyen and Cristy C. Road in these contexts.

• For House to Astonish, Paul O’Brien continues a survey of the varied villains of Daredevil, as this edition sees Blackwing fail to carve a niche in the bat-themed funny-book space.

• Mike Peterson rounds up the week’s editorial beat, over at The Daily Cartoonist, as this week has made for interesting times in the White House and other federal buildings.

Teeny Tiny Cleanup.

— Andrew Kolb (@kolbisneat.bsky.social) 2025-02-04T18:49:53.862Z

This week’s audio/visual delights.

A quick round-up of multimedia offerings from a busy week, as Drawn & Quarterly’s At Home With series returned to join María Medem for a chat about the making of Land of Mirrors, Kieron Gillen launched a new season of Decompressed to speak with collaborators Caspar Wijngaard and Clayton Cowles about The Power Fantasy, David Harper spoke with Matthew Rosenberg about We’re Taking Everyone Down With Us for Off Panel, and the Publisher’s Weekly’s More to Come crew looked ahead to comics titles coming this spring.