August, October, Mid-April, November, May – This Week’s Links

Another relatively quiet week, news-wise, as things slowly get back to normal following this year’s comics gathering in San Diego — we’ll need to wait until after a hearing taking place on 18th August to start to see which way the cookie may be crumbling, in the ongoing saga of Diamond Comic Distributors’ bankruptcy proceedings. But in the meantime there are still plenty of links to be had, below, don’t you worry.

Mourning prayers ACID NUN #comicbookart #artist

— Corinne Halbert (@corinnehalbert.bsky.social) 2025-07-28T13:57:38.335Z

This week’s reviews.

TCJ

• Tegan O’Neil reviews the technical precision of Kayla E.’s Precious Rubbish — “Anyway. Precious Rubbish is also unavoidably abrasive, a torturous progress because that is precisely what the book portrays: the systematic torture of a small child, under the star of the most hellacious personal misfortune and abuse. What’s more, it's a memoir. That’s why there’s no real shape to the narrative, per se, because there is no narrative.”

• Tate McFadden reviews the mishmash selection of Bonten Tarō’s Face Meat, translated by Ryan Holmberg — “These stories toe the line between didactic fairytale and pure pulp entertainment. Men’s hubris is inevitably punished in Bonten’s stories. It’s vindictively entertaining, but there’s a broader cultural point being made, a warning not to abandon what makes Japanese culture unique.”

 

AIPT

• David Brooke reviews the stunning entertainment of Oni Press’ Cruel Universe 2 #1.

• Colin Moon reviews the beautiful realisation of G Willow Wilson, MK Perker, et al’s The Stoneshore Register.

• Justin Harrison reviews the frustrating limitations of Jonathan Lackman and Zachary J. Pinson’s The Woman with Fifty Faces.

• Crooker reviews the relative disappointment of Tate Brombal, Takeshi Miyazawa, et al’s Batgirl #10.

• Diane Darcy reviews the enjoyable interactions of Jeff Lemire, Rafael de la Torre, et al’s JSA #10.

• Piper Whitaker reviews the storytelling gold of Peach Momoko’s Ultimate X-Men #18, translated by Zack Davisson.

• Chris Coplan reviews the engaging boldness of Jordan Clark, Atagun Ilhan, et al’s Ancestral Recall #1; and the playful nostalgia of Stephanie Williams, Ariel Medel, et al’s Street Sharks #1.

• Nathan Simmons reviews the bleak honesty of Garth Ennis, Becky Cloonan et al’s The War #1; and the dreamlike mood of Ethan Parker, Griffin Sheridan, Keith Browning, et al’s Blink and You’ll Miss It #1.

• Collier Jennings reviews the sharp humour of Daniel Kibblesmith, Jody Houser, Phil Murphy, et al’s Rick and Morty vs. the Universe: Summer of Love #1; and the intense action of Zoe Tunnell, Tango, et al’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind #1.

 

The Beat

• Clyde Hall reviews the slowburn start of Ethan Parker, Griffin Sheridan, Keith Browning, et al’s Blink and You’ll Miss It #1.

• Jared Bird reviews the witty fun of Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Alex Nieto, et al’s Hellboy in Love: The Art of Fire #1.

• Jordan Jennings reviews the human focus of Ethan Parker, Griffin Sheridan, Pablo Tunica, et al’s Godzilla: Escape the Dead Zone #1.

• Khalid Johnson reviews the compelling beginning of Jordan Clark, Atagun Ilhan, et al’s Ancestral Recall #1.

• D. Morris reviews the striking finality of Charles Soule, Steve McNiven, et al’s Daredevil: Cold Day in Hell #3.

• Kristina Elyse Butke reviews the relatable moments of Mizoko Tsuno’s You Can’t Live All on Your Own, Volume 1, translated by Katie Kimura.

• Zack Quaintance reviews the intricate conversations of Bob Fingerman’s Printopia; and the criminal fun of Greg Rucka, Nicola Scott, et al’s Cheetah and Cheshire Rob the Justice League #1.

 

Blogcritics

Jeff Provine reviews the perfect vibes of Carlos Yacolca and Michelle Lino’s Before We Sail.

 

Broken Frontier

• Lindsay Pereira reviews the perceptive questions of Weng Pixin’s Wake Up, Pixoto!.

• Ray McGrother reviews the refreshing conflict of Madzillus’ The Players, The Fool and a Few Fish.

• Andy Oliver reviews the claustrophobic allure of Phoebe Hedges and Lizzie Styles’ Total Recall of the Heart #1, and the quirky charm of Will Powers' Blood Doughnut.

 

Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Paulo Drinot reviews the rich analysis of James Scorer’s Latin American Comics in the Twenty-First Century: Transgressing the Frame.

 

Comics Grinder

Henry Chamberlain reviews the inventive appeal of Bob Scott and Vicki Scott’s Molly and the Bear.

 

Four Color Apocalypse

Ryan Carey reviews the unapologetic brashness of Dan Heyer’s Nutt, and the bold gamble of Vickie Smalls' Girl Hell #1.

 

From Cover to Cover

Scott Cederlund reviews the streamlined simplicity of Scott Snyder, Nick Dragotta, Gabriel Hernandez Walta, et al’s Absolute Batman: The Zoo.

 

Solrad

Elias Rosner reviews the masterful storytelling of Juni Ba’s The Fables of Erlking Wood.

 

Yatta-tachi

Bill Curtis reviews the thoughtful approach of Yutaka Tazawa's I Want Your Mother to Be with Me, Volume 1.

It’s Franklin Day! Franklin made his historic PEANUTS debut #OTD in 1968.⁠Franklin is calm, cool, and collected, and loves to keep himself busy with baseball, guitar, swim club, and 4H. He also enjoys spending time with his grandpa and sharing wisdom from their talks.⁠

— Charles M. Schulz Museum | The home of Snoopy & the Peanuts Gang (@schulzmuseum.bsky.social) 2025-07-31T19:03:22.309Z

This week’s interviews.

TCJ

• Ian Thomas interviews Chapo Trap House’s Will Menaker about Year Zero, the accessibility of comics as a medium, the decision to make an anthology book, and pre-order business models — “The humor and universe of the show draws from the news, but the way we understand it, the way we talk about it, builds to a constellation of references. But also the absurd and grotesque hyperbole and satire and exaggeration that we do as a form of political humor, I think, lends itself very handily to genres like horror or science fiction or fantasy.”

• Christina Lee interviews Alex Krokus about Talking To My Father’s Ghost, cartooning origins, growing your audience, and anthropomorphic decisions — “I think that the early Simpsons is peak for comedy. Very rarely have animation writers been compensated well enough to be able to comb through scripts over and over and over again to make them so densely packed with jokes. The drawings that are off model in those, like the early hand-drawn episodes, are so visually funny. And I try to take a similar sensibility with my comics where visual gags are sometimes the best kind of punch line.”

 

AIPT

• Chris Hassan talks to Paul Allor about Marvel Rivals Infinity Comic, Marvel jumping on points, and balancing the characters with the story.

• Chris Coplan speaks with Cullen Bunn about Deluge and keeping your schedule filled, with Alex Nieto about Hellboy in Love: The Art of Fire and establishing tone, with Matt Bors about Toxic Avenger and expanding out the Toxie-verse, and with Tate Brombal and Jacob Phillips about Everything Dead & Dying and keeping zombies fresh.

 

Anime News Network

Kalai Chik interviews Banri Sendo and Shibuko Ebara (aka PEACH-PIT) about 25 years of collaboration and clashing on ideas, and Itaru Kinoshita about Dinosaur Sanctuary and the paleontological research informing the series.

 

The Beat

• D Morris speaks with Michael Cho about The Avengers in The Veracity Trap!, the joys of superhero teams, and collaborating with Chip Kidd on the project.

• Jared Bird talks to Kelly Sue DeConnick about FML, writing what you’re interested in, and relative differences between creator owned projects.

• Taimur Dar chats with Dan Slott about Superman Unlimited, on-screen and toy-line inspirations, and moving from the House of Ideas to the Distinguished Competition.

• Avery Kaplan and Ollie Kaplan interview David F. Walker about Big Jim and the White Boy, publishing anniversaries, and script decompression logistics.

 

Broken Frontier

Zoran Djukanovic talks to Vittorio Giardino about Sam Pezzo, fascinations with history, imbuing your characters with parts of yourself, and working for immortality.

 

Cartoonist Cooperative

Speak with Elijah Joseph about Print Is Not Dead!, bringing the anthology together, and coordinating a large collaborative team.

 

Comics Grinder

Henry Chamberlain talks to Bob Scott and Vicki Scott about Molly and the Bear, web syndication readerships, and the meditative nature of physical creation.

 

Hindustan Times

Chintan Girish Modi speaks with Simon Lamouret about L’homme miroir and In the Land of the Lama, documenting the lives of construction workers, and connections to India.

 

ICv2

Milton Griepp talks to Kickstarter’s Sam Kusek about recent comics crowdfunding successes on the platform, retailer and distribution realities, and growth of the platform.

 

Polygon

Matt Patches interviews Michael Cho about The Avengers in The Veracity Trap!, figuring out the god of thunder, and fourth wall-breaking easter eggs.

It's my last week on SMMA and Mario Paint came to the Switch

— Charmaine Verhagen (@charmainevee.bsky.social) 2025-07-29T06:48:41.065Z

This week’s features and longreads.

• Here at TCJ, Gina Gagliano checks in with a cross-section of the comics retail sector, to see how the market is faring vis-à-vis trade tariffs — “Gina Dawson, from Partners & Son in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, said, “The rising costs of printing for small and self publishing are making the retail costs higher, general anxiety of everyone affecting their ability to make their work (we work directly with a lot of artists).” The same is true for Allison Jenkins, of Comic Envy in Asheville, North Carolina, who told me, “Paper pricing will rock my industry, and most of our printing is in Canada.””

• Also for TCJ, Marc Tessier reports from Rome’s Crack! Festival, journeying to Italy to speak on the work of Henriette Valium, and talking to festival founder Valerio Bindi — “Artists are invited to paint and decorate the space they will use to sell their wares. A communal kitchen feeds the artists; all are invited to contribute food, cook for others and keep the Forte clean. This creates a strong sense of community among the artists coming from around the world. This year, there were participants from as far as Sweden, Peru, Colombia, the Balkans and China.”

• A pair of essays from the most recent issue of Lux, as Hal Schrieve writes on the problems with Alison Bechdel’s Spent and its shallow engagement with Marxist theory, and Sophie Lewis unpacks Solomon Brager’s confrontation of hidden familial dirty laundry in Heavyweight: A Family Story of the Holocaust, Empire, and Memory and explores why severing of family ties can be essential to antifascism.

• For the Los Angeles Review of Books, as the Fantastic Four hit silver screens once more, Michael Kobre interrogates the character of Ben Grimm, aka The Thing, as part of a wider exploration of the work of Jack Kirby and Kirby’s relationship with Judaism.

• Over at ICv2, following the coming and going of one more San Diego Comic-Con, Rob Salkowitz delivers a state of the union on the show, as the comics industry in general goes through some fairly seismic upheavals; and Paul Levitz writes on this year’s induction of retailer, distributor, promoter, and publisher Phil Seuling into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame.

• Broken Frontier’s Andy Oliver canvasses members of the comics community, asking “What are your greatest fears for the future of comics if the influence of Generative AI art goes unchecked?”

• For Shelfdust, Steve Baxi looks back on Dennis O’Neil and Luke McDonnell’s Iron Man #192, and considers the relationship inherent between one Anthony Edward Stark and technology.

• From the world of open access academia, excerpted from The Political Cartoon: History and Historiography, Richard Scully presents an overview of the history of the political cartoon and its interpretation.

• For the BBC, Kelly Ng reports on the use of flags bearing the symbol of the Straw Hat Crew from Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece in recent protests against the government of Indonesia

• In Image and Text, Adrie Haese and Deidre Pretorius share an article on Richard Conyngham and Dada Khanyisa’s The Widow of Marabastad from the All Rise anthology, speaking with Khanyisa about the project, and examining how graphic histories can help readers better engage critically with how historical events are portrayed.

• Once more into the breach with the Mindless Ones, as this week there are considerations paid to the architecture of Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth and the collage of Doom Patrol.

• A big name entered onto the register of Daredevil, over at House to Astonish, as Paul O’Brien reaches the 1981 debut of Elektra Natchios.

• Mike Peterson rounds up the week’s editorial beat, for The Daily Cartoonist, as tariffs, recessions, and job figures all loomed large over the White House.

these two

— Michael DeForge (@michaeldeforge.bsky.social) 2025-08-06T05:51:55.587Z

This week’s audio/visual delights.

A selection of recent interviews, as Brian Hibbs welcome Tobias Aeschbacher to Comix Experience’s Graphic Novel Club to talk about In the End We All Die and the importance of page turns; Off Panel’s David Harper spoke with Kyle Starks about Where Monsters Lie, Devil on my Shoulder, WrestleHeist, and hoops; The Final Straw Radio welcomed Mattie Lubchanksy to proceedings to discuss Simplicity and living your politics; The Virtual Memories show’s Gil Roth spoke to Sacha Mardou about Past Tense: Facing Family Secrets and Finding Myself in Therapy and making your therapy journey public; and Fanbase Press reported from the SDCC show floor, interviewing Stephanie Williams about Street Sharks, Don Aquillo about Spawn, David Avallone about Two-Fisted Fairy Tales, Corinna Bechko about Blood Type, and Arthur N. Ebuen about California, Inc.

Rejoice! Tickets are available now for our programming in collaboration with The Wexner Center! This is a great year for animation lovers! Please check out this years programming and grab your tickets! #indiecomics #comicsfestival #animationfestival #animationhistory #disneyanimation #disneyhistory

— Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (@cartooncrossroads.bsky.social) 2025-08-06T19:57:56.683Z

No more links this week, there is a suitcase to be packed, and a passport to be found.

It’s getting real, y’all. Ignatz plates for our prized bricks have arrived!

— Small Press Expo (@smallpressexpo.bsky.social) 2025-07-22T22:00:22.589Z

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