Slipping lazily into the heatwave calm before the storm, as San Diego Comic-Con looms in the wings, a mere month away, in what I think could be comfortably termed as an unremittingly interesting time for the comics industry, and society in general, so we shall wait with baited breath to see what curveballs are flung haphazardly towards this week’s links in the meantime.
This week’s news.
• Checking in with Diamond Comic Distributors’ bankruptcy, as this week entered what seems to be a comprehensive bridge-burning phase to close things out, with Diamond (as was) this week announcing plans to liquidate remaining inventory of their creditors (read: comics publishers) in order to clear debts to their financiers Chase Bank, coming the same week that Oni Press stopped distro via Diamond (as is), and Previews catalog was announced as moving to digital-only from this month’s edition, bringing to an end a decades-long print-run — TCJ’s piece on the status quo, as it stood a fortnight ago, can be read here.
• In other news, as various copyright cases brought against owners and operators of generative AI platforms start to reach their endgame, decisions were passed this week in suits brought against Anthropic and Meta by two groups of authors, with a court ruling in the former that Anthropic made fair use of copyrighted materials to train its AI, but infringed copyright by utilising more than 7 million pirated books to do said training, and in the latter ruling that insufficient evidence had been presented to prove that Meta had acted in contravention of copyright law, but also noting that in cases where such models had been trained on copyrighted materials without permission or payment (again, referencing pirated materials) such conduct would 'likely' be illegal — Disney and Universal recently brought a lawsuit against AI company Midjourney over alleged piracy, and a number of other similar cases brought by authors, artists, and publishers are still on the boil, with summary trackers available of those still awaiting judgement.
Happy #makeaterriblecomicday2025! It’s mandatory that you create some piece of sequential art — what it is and how you make it is up to you! Have fun! You might as well!
— pseudonym jones (@pseudonymjones.bsky.social) 2025-06-24T04:00:03.193Z
This week’s reviews.
TCJ
• Henry Chamberlain reviews the unique resource of Peter Kuper’s Insectopolis: A Natural History — “The next time you see a silverfish skitter across your bathroom floor, be sure to give it a salute, pick it up and set it free outside. After all, these critters have survived for over 400 million years and deserve some respect. That’s the frame of mind to be in when you read Insectopolis: A Natural History, Kuper’s new book on the world of insects and how it interacts with humans.”
• Sommer Browning reviews the tremendous beauty of María Medem’s Land of Mirrors, translated by Aleshia Jensen and Daniela Ortiz — “To say the book is dreamy is an understatement. How Medem can utterly transport you from your world of Instagram and work deadlines and traffic jams is almost miraculous. Sure, it’s the sparseness of the text and the ravishing (see I told you I’d need to use it again) hues on every page—Antonia’s world is either a red, pink, and orange-streaked dawn or dusk or an asphalt-black moonless night—but it’s also the way Medem lays out the pages, breaks down simple actions over many panels, and visually constellates emotion, time, and action into singularly hypnotic scenes.”
• Valerio Stivé reviews the unfiltered madness of Massimo Mattioli’s Joe Galaxy, translated by Jamie Richards and Adrian Nathan West — “Mattioli had a huge impact on underground comics and pop culture, and reading Joe Galaxy we find ourselves stepping into such a composite rich narrative universe that it appears deceptively simple but is deeply complex. Unlike the overtly violent, direct, and explicit nature of Squeak the Mouse, Joe Galaxy presents a protagonist who, while no less violent, offers a more elaborate narrative.”
AIPT
• Colin Moon reviews the moving ending of Tillie Waldern’s Clementine, Book Three, and the quiet juxtapositions of Dix’s The Idris File.
• Landon Kuhlmann reviews the masterful collaboration of Jonathan Hickman, Greg Capullo, et al’s Wolverine: Revenge.
• Diane Darcy reviews the successful streamlining of Mark Waid, Todd Nauck, Jerry Ordway, et al’s New History of the DC Universe #1.
• Kevin Clark reviews the surreal brutality of Alice Darrow et al’s Tramps of the Apocalypse #1.
• Chris Coplan reviews the enjoyable nostalgia of Melissa Flores, Daniel Gete, et al’s Biker Mice from Mars#1.
• Collier Jennings reviews the nightmarish mystery of Chris Condon, Jeffrey Allan Love, et al’s News From The Fallout #1; and the intriguing opening of Mairghread Scott, Sebastián Piriz, et al’s VR Troopers #1.
The Beat
• Jared Bird reviews the masterful conclusion of Tillie Walden’s Clementine, Book Three; and the impressive return of Rick Remender, Paul Azaceta, et al’s The Seasons #5.
• Jordan Jennings reviews the brilliant action of James Stokoe’s Godzilla 70th Anniversary Foil Classics: Godzilla: Half-Century War #1; and the effective framework of Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, C.F. Villa, Rafael Loureiro, et al’s Giant-Size Age of Apocalypse #1.
• Joe Grunenwald reviews the kinetic action of Mark Waid, Dan Mora, et al’s Justice League Unlimited #8.
• Zack Quaintance reviews the bold beginnings of Greg Rucka, Michael Lark, et al’s Lazarus: Fallen #1.
• Ricardo Serrano Denis reviews the ominous darkness of Chris Condon, Jeffrey Alan Love, et al’s News From The Fallout #1.
• Clyde Hall reviews the deft farce of Eliot Rahal, Phillip Sevy, et al’s Don’t Forget Your Briefcase #1.
• Kathryn Hemmann reviews the stylish details of Tan Juan Gee's Model Five Murder.
Broken Frontier
• Gary Usher reviews the winning friendship of Derek Charm’s Toxic Summer.
• Lindsay Pereira reviews the fascinating history of Guy Delisle’s Muybridge.
• Andy Oliver reviews the lively capers of David M. Booher, Bradley Clayton, et al’s Killer Queens 2.
• Edward Picot reviews the effective creepiness of Gou Tanabe's adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space.
Comics Grinder
Paul Buhle reviews the emphatic messaging of Sue Coe and Stephen F. Eisenman’s The Young Person’s Illustrated Guide to American Fascism.
Four Color Apocalypse
Ryan Carey reviews the disarming realness of Katie Lane’s Girls Gone Wild #1.
House to Astonish
Paul O’Brien has capsule reviews of Marvel Comics’ Astonishing X-Men Infinity Comic #25, X-Men #18, Wolverine #10, Psylocke #8, Weapon X-Men #5, and Emma Frost: The White Queen #1.
The Nation
Jillian Steinhauer reviews the navigable tapestry of Alison Bechdel’s Spent.
The Observer
Rachel Cooke reviews the towering achievement of Craig Thompson’s Ginseng Roots.
Salon
Andi Zeisler reviews the meta mirrors of Alison Bechdel’s Spent.
The Village Voice
Rob Staeger has reviews of the educational journey of Andrew Wheeler, Rye Hickman, et al’s Hey, Mary!; the dread inevitability of Tom King, Peter Gross, et al’s Animal Pound; and the textured details of Steve Cuzor’s adaptation of Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage.
Yatta-tachi
AJ Mack reviews the fresh elements of Curryuku’s Not So Shoujo Love Story, Volume 1; and the endearing romance of Saku Nonomura’s Otonari Complex, Volume 1, translated by Jenny McKeon.
(@ceeejus.bsky.social)
This week’s interviews.
TCJ
• Irene Velentzas interviews Peter Kuper about Insectopolis: A Natural History, the influence of receiving one of New York Public Library's Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center Fellowships on the book, and recurring themes in works from a career spanning decades — “So doing a deep dive study of science, then talking to entomologists, and then getting all this terminology, and all of it became dessert. I mean, I was learning, but it was so interesting and it didn't stop being that way, or lose any of the momentum of joy until I finished. With many other projects, as I'm getting towards completion, I'm getting desperate to be done. With Insectopolis, I actually asked for an additional six months. I was working intensely — almost seven days a week on it — and yet I didn't run out of steam, or get overwhelmed by the information.”
• William Schwartz interviews Dana Simpson about Ozy and Millie and Phoebe and Her Unicorn, the early days of webcomics, ignoring the trolls, winning the Comic Strip Superstar competition, the weirdness of Hollywood, and future projects — “I've known for years that this was where I was going to end up. The fact is, as much as it pains me to say this, newspaper comics are in decline, because newspapers are, whereas graphic novels for younger readers have exploded and are showing no signs of slowing down. And, relatedly, I'm a moderately successful syndicated cartoonist, but a very successful graphic novelist, with (mostly) the same material. My audience is mostly pretty young, so they don't really read newspapers, they read graphic novels. Way more people read me in book form than in newspaper form.”
AIPT
• Chris Hassan speaks with Tom Brevoort about the current state of Marvel’s line of mutant-focused books, and engaging with the readership.
• Chris Coplan talks to Paul Pope and Philippe Labaune about The Philippe Labaune Gallery’s ‘Paul Pope ф Pulp Hope’ exhibition and not picking favourites, and to Jordan Clark about Ancestral Recall and the filmic inspiration for the project.
• Michael Guerrero speaks with Chris Condon about Green Arrow, the interesting elements of Oliver Queen, and living with inherited guilt.
The Beat
Ollie Kaplan interviews Aron Wiesenfeld about Playtime, the convenience of post-it notes as a medium, and the importance of limitations.
Fanbase Press
Barbra Dillon speaks with Philippe Labaune about The Philippe Labaune Gallery’s ‘Paul Pope ф Pulp Hope’ exhibition and working with Felix Comic Art to curate the show, with Aron Wiesenfeld about Playtime and where the book falls among other works, and with Orson James and Roman Calais about Bad Influence and advertising world origins.
Forbes
Tiffany Leigh talks to Maytal Zchut and Leila Leiz about Sisterhood: A Hyde Street Story, friendship break-ups, and wardrobe choices.
ICv2
Brigid Alverson speaks with First Second and 23rd St. Books’ Kirk Benshoff about designing for vertical scroll stories in print, and shelving alignment choices; and with retailers Jennifer King, Shannon Live, and Sam Lee about comic store customers' appetites for webtoons in print.
The Michigan Daily
Nick Denenberg interviews Vault of Midnight’s Curtis Sullivan about the Ann Arbor store’s founding, and selling physical comic books in the digital age.
Solrad
Aria Baci speaks with Bishakh Som about Aspara Engine and Amavaria, Kate Bush inspirations, and sticking with analogue processes.
TechCrunch
Anthony Ha talks to Paul Pope about ‘Paul Pope ф Pulp Hope’ and PulpHope 2, graphic novel making compared to comics making, and the punishing nature of analogue work.
Unpacked
Matt Robinson interviews Stephen Weiner and Dan Mazur about Will Eisner: A Comics Biography, Eisner’s legacy in comics, and the context of the book as a Jewish story.
I like when people write things for themselves, so I've been thinking a lot about Cole Escola and "Oh, Mary!"
This week’s features and longreads.
• Here at TCJ, Ken Parille dissects Chris Ware’s cover ‘Playdate’, from 2015’s June 22nd edition of The New Yorker, digging into the varied interpretations that can be applied to the image — “Perhaps we can interpret this design chronologically: the cover depicts the trend of analog realities giving way to digital ones. The girls may be separating from the childhood things they once identified with, leaving dolls behind for a type of play whose imaginative scope is drastically larger than games like “tea party”: Minecraft’s invention of whole worlds.”
• Also for TCJ, RJ Casey ushers in June’s selection of Arrivals and Departures, this month presenting thoughts on the contrasts between Cameron Arthur’s Broken Wires #1 and Helen Criaco’s Bird of the Streets — “Hi. Hello. I’m going to be sincere with you: Comics criticism seems so meaningless and futile right now. Comics (reading them, making them, writing about them) can, in some rare instances, be life-affirming and perhaps life-saving. I’ll keep doing it. I know. But there are many other more serviceable ways to spend your time. Absolutely no one should rely on comics to save the world and no one should rely on comics criticism to do anything but make you, personally, feel bad.”
• For Publisher’s Weekly, Dean Simons reports on China’s domination in the field of printing illustrated materials, and the problems that arise when those materials don’t fit with what the Chinese Communist Party’s General Administration of Press and Publication would like to see printed.
• As cartoonist Zehra Ömeroğlu’s trial for alleged ‘obscenity’ took place in Turkey this week, with Ömeroğlu finally acquitted after years of delays, Özlem Altunok writes for Freemuse on the case in the context of the country’s history of censorship and bans of freedom of expression.
• More explorations from the Mindless Ones, as discussion is had on Garth Ennis and Henry Flint’s Judge Dredd vs. Strontium Dog, alongside other pieces of storytelling from other mediums, rumoured to exist.
• Over at ICv2, as part of the site’s Webtoon week coverage, Rob Salkowitz breaks down predictions for the industry passed down from Webtoon’s Yongsoo Kim, as the company’s stock price continues to chart a less-than-positive course.
• For Shelfdust, Steve Morris’ retrospective of Mike Carey and Peter Gross’ The Unwritten returns, like clockwork, after a 2-year hiatus, picking up the strands with issue 12 of the series, and the traps that writers lay for their dear readers.
• Broken Frontier’s Inside Look series continues, as this edition sees Lonnie Mann take readers behind the making of Gaytheist: Coming Out of My Orthodox Childhood, and the process of pitching a book to agents, before subsequently pitching to publishers, without a guarantee of it being picked up.
• Mike Peterson rounds up the week’s editorial beat, over at The Daily Cartoonist, as, would you believe it, all eyes were on the build up to and execution of ongoing military action, against the Islamic Republic of Iran, for (most of) the news cycle.
Be safe out there today.No kings!
— Emma LeRae (@emmalerae.bsky.social) 2025-06-14T14:57:59.597Z
This week’s audio/visual delights.
Gil Roth welcomed Paul Karasik to The Virtual Memories Show to discuss The New York Trilogy and what went into adapting Paul Auster’s work, Mangasplaining returned as Christopher Woodrow-Butcher hosted a discussion on Satoru Noda’s hockey manga Dogsred and the speed at which it skates across the ice, David Harper was joined by Tillie Walden for Off Panel as they discussed the conclusion of the Clementine trilogy and working on a project linked to a property as big as The Walking Dead, and Publisher’s Weekly’s More to Come covered the launch of digital platform Neon Ichiban and ongoing collateral damage from Diamond’s bankruptcy.
Krypto
— Karl Kerschl (@karlkerschl.bsky.social) 2025-06-23T21:23:08.725Z
No more links this week, as Weezer are playing London, and so it’s time for a big old plate of Pork and Beans.
wild + roses
The post Panic on Funkotron — 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment