Aaaaand, we’re back, with borderline high cholesterol ignored, in favour of fritto misto and gelato, various volumes of Dylan Dog and Martin Mystère resisted, in favour of not paying a surcharge for breaching check-in luggage weight limits, and an inbox that’s in a complete shambles, but, above all else, waiting at arrivals, with a warm embrace, this week’s links, below.
This week’s news.
• A lot of comics awards news to catch up with, so let’s move right along to the announcement of the winners of this year’s Pulitzer Prizes, with Anand RK, Suparna Sharma, and Natalie Obiko Pearson taking home the Prize for Illustrated Reporting and Commentary for trAPPed at Bloomberg. Adolfo Arranz, Poppy McPherson, Devjyot Ghoshal and Han Huang of Reuters, Ivan Ehlers, and Peter Kuper were all named as finalists in the category.
• Elsewhere, the winners and finalists of this year’s National Newspaper Awards were named, with Michael de Adder taking home the prize for Illustrated Commentary, and Judith Lachapelle and David Parkins named as finalists; and the 2026 National Headline Award winners were announced, with Jeff Koterba named in First Place, Adam Zyglis in Second Place, and Rick McKee in Third Place for the category of Editorial Cartoons.
• In awards yet to be awarded news, the nominees for this year’s Doug Wright Awards were shared, with winners to be announced next month, and this year’s class of inductees to the Giants of the North Canadian Cartooning Hall of Fame named as Emily Hearn, Mark Thurman, and Arch Dale.
• Cartoonists United (née the Cartoonist Cooperative) announced the nominees for this year’s Minicomic Awards, with a prize-giving ceremony airing online at the end of the month, and winners to be named in the fiction, nonfiction, fantasy, humour, horror, romance, and sci-fi categories.
• The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards committee made the slightly confusing announcement that prospective voters will have to apply to be considered for access to voting before nominees in this year’s awards are announced, with a deadline to register, if you didn’t receive an email saying you’re already registered, of May 13.
Introducing your #TCAF2026 poster!It's courtesy of manga artist Battan (Soshite hiroin wa inaku natta / And Then There Were No Heroines) who'll attend TCAF as a featured guest.Purchase Battan's beautiful work as a poster or t-shirt at this year's fest: June 6+7 at the Mattamy Athletic Centre!
— Toronto Comic Arts Festival (@torontocomics.bsky.social) 2026-04-24T14:29:51.261Z
This week’s reviews.
TCJ
• Tom Shapira reviews the storytelling clarity of 2000 AD’s The Complete 2000 AD By Alan Moore: Future Shocks & Other Stories — “The illustrators’ roll call is the who’s who of early 2000 AD greats, including Alan Davis, John Higgins, Ian Gibson, Bryan Talbot, Brett Ewins, etc. Even the artists that I don’t usually consider top-notch, such as Mike White or Eric Bradburry, brush-men of the old-school, give an elaborated performance here. Already at that stage of his career Moore had such acute understanding of how to arrange a comics page that trumped writers, and even artists, many years his senior.”
• Tom Shapira also reviews the frustrating familiarity of Brian Talbot’s The Casebook of Stamford Hawksmoor — “This new album might not be as fresh as the first Grandville story, as I still wish Talbot would try something new with his considerable skill, but it is certainly a step in the right direction. Hawksmoor is a better protagonist for his obvious faults. A brilliant detective that is utterly clueless in both social and political worlds; many Holmes pastiches play-up these elements, Talbot wisely avoids making them into virtues.”
• Robert Newsome reviews the ultimate hopefulness of Bread Tarleton’s Soften the Blow — “American society is overflowing with sports metaphors. For better or for worse, they’re a significant part of how we relate to and communicate with the world around us. I’m not sure how much I actually care about professional wrestling these days, but that doesn’t really matter. It’s a lens through which I see my world. There are other lenses, but this is one of the largest. I can’t do anything about it. My past made it that way, and the past is difficult to escape.”
• Megan Durnford reviews the narrative rhythm of Joana Mosi’s Physical Education — “Lisbon, Portugal’s largest city, where Mosi worked and studied, is central to physical education. From hipster dance clubs and businesses with trendy English names like “Dear Brunch”, there are constant references to Lisbon’s gentrification and trendiness quotient for foreign visitors. But for young Portuguese, the city has become alienating. Living in a city that feels hostile to you is really hard on your self-esteem and your self-confidence.”
• Frank M. Young reviews the absorbing surprises of Dino Buzzati’s Poem Strip, translated by Marina Harss — “A simple palette of pastels act as accents on most pages. The images have the high-impact feel of posters: bold, direct lines augmented with flat hues. Much of Buzzati’s art feels freehand–drawn without the preliminary sketches the average cartoonist might employ. If a drawing goes out of whack, no problem–it suits the anguished mood of the words beside it.”
AIPT
• Collier Jennings reviews the narrative shifts of Joe Casey and Robert Carey’s Ben 10 #1.
• Kevin Clark reviews the balanced start of Rory McConville, Pablo De Bonis, et al’s Red Sonja: She-Devil with a Sword #1.
• George Loftus reviews the fun positivity of Ian Flynn, Adam Bryce Thomas, et al’s DC x Sonic the Hedgehog: The Metal Legion #1.
• Deidre Freitas reviews the revealed pieces of Al Ewing, Sid Kotian, et al’s Absolute Green Lantern #14.
• Alex Schlesinger reviews the rushed bloodbath of Benjamin Percy, Marcelo Ferreira, et al’s Predator Kills the Marvel Universe.
• Jonathan Jones reviews the satisfying mysteries of Olivie Blake and Little Chmura’s Clara & the Devil, Volume 1.
• Colin Moon reviews the wonderful plotting of Jason Aaron, Mahmud Asrar, Ciro Cangialosi, Giuseppe Camuncoli, et al’s Uncle Scrooge: Earth's Mightiest Duck.
• David Brooke reviews the emotional drive of David Dastmalchian, Cat Staggs, et al’s Through.
The Beat
• Clyde Hall reviews the storytelling uncertainty of Lorenzo De Felici et al’s Red Roots #1.
• Jared Bird reviews the standalone whimsy of Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Alex Nieto, et al’s Hellboy In Love: Black Eyes #1.
• Khalid Johnson reviews the concluding answers of Stephanie Williams, Letizia Cadonici, et al’s Roots of Madness #6.
• D. Morris reviews the nostalgic adventuring of Gene Luen Yang, Michael Yg, et al’s Jubilee: Deadly Reunion.
• Diego Higuera reviews the family dynamics of Matt Fraction, Ryan Sook, et al’s Batman #9.
• Avery Kaplan reviews the accessible explorations of Maia Kobabe, Swati “Lucky” Srikumar, et al’s Opting Out.
• Zack Quaintance reviews the effective fun of Ben Sears’ Young Shadow & the Watchdogs.
• Sean Dillon reviews the character contrasts of Pierre-Henry Gomont’s Soviet Land.
• E.B. Hutchins reviews the solid start of Bad Egg’s Chapo Trap House: Year Zero #1.
• Kathryn Hemmann reviews the worthwhile physicality of Abby Howard and Tony Howard-Arias’ The Art of Slay the Princess.
Broken Frontier
Lindsay Pereira has reviews of:
- The narrative layers of Choi Sungmin’s Narrow Rooms, translated by Janet Hong.
- The subtle nuance of Lola Lorente’s Mary Pain, translated by Andrea Rosenberg.
Andy Oliver has reviews of:
- The endearing characters of Hamish Steele’s Go-Man! Volume 1: Champion of Earth.
- The shifting tones of Sofia Alarcon’s Endsickness.
- The clever absurdities of David Ziggy Greene’s Vintage: The Definitive Comics Collection 2009-2025.
- The era-spanning violence of Ken Niemand, Kieran McKeown, Ian Richardson, Anna Readman, et al’s Judge Dredd: One-Eyed Jacks.
Comics Grinder
Henry Chamberlain reviews the gripping intrigue of James Hilger’s Treeboy, and the free-wheeling provocations of Jared Sarnie’s The Machine is Broken.
Four Color Apocalypse
Ryan Carey reviews the gleeful filth of Jack Mulkern’s HELHÖL #1 & 2, and the satisfying conclusion of Corinne Halbert’s Scorpio Venus Rising #5.
From Cover to Cover
Scott Cederlund reviews the comforting brew of Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips’ The Peril of the Brutal Dark: An Ezra Cain Mystery #3.
The Hindu
Radhika Oberoi reviews the pedantic tone of Aakar Patel and PenPencilDraw’s Discovery of New* India (*Conditions Apply).
Homegrown
Rubin Mathias reviews the recognisable archetype of Sarnath Banerjee's Absolute Jafar.
House to Astonish
Paul O’Brien has capsule reviews of Marvel Comics’ Wolverine #19, Cyclops #3, Rogue #4, Uncanny X-Men #27, Generation X-23 #3, and Wolverine: Weapons of Armageddon #3.
Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics
Sk Tousif Hasan and Rohan Hassan review the essential repository of Kaushik Majumdar’s Comics Itibritya.
NPR
LA Johnson reviews the creative contrast of Gemma Correll’s Anxietyland.
Solrad
• Tom Shapira reviews the inexorable formula of Rebellion’s Action – Before The Ban, Volume 1: The Archival Collection.
• Hagai Palevsky reviews the surprising effectiveness of Dave Gibbons’ The Dead are Awake and Walking.
Yatta-tachi
• Alex Henderson reviews the insincere smut of Nikumaru’s Bad Girl, Volume 1, translated by Andrew Hodgson.
• Adam Wescott reviews the oppressive claustrophobia of Choi Sungmin’s Narrow Rooms, translated by Janet Hong.
• Kai reviews the gripping sharpness of Asumiko Nakamura’s Hibana, translated by Jocelyne Allen.
• Borealis Capps reviews the narrative undercutting of Shinichi Sawaragi and Tank Gasuyama's A Pen, Handcuffs, and a Common-Law Marriage, Volume 1, translated by Ko Ransom.
— ARC London (@arcfestivallondon.bsky.social) 2026-05-03T00:03:35.297Z
This week’s interviews.
TCJ
• Jake Zawlacki interviews Frank Quitely about teaching comics at San Diego State University, historical printing methods, and apocalypse aesthetics — “It's the thing where if you give the same script to ten different artists — presuming that you give it to ten different artists who actually know how to tell a story in a visual sequence — you're going to get ten very different results. One of the things that's going to be most striking is the fact that there's something about each of those people that comes through in their work, whether they want it to or not.”
• Gina Gagliano interviews Iasmin Omar Ata about Mayra and the Djinn and Wallflower, a decade of making comics, and putting yourself back together after experiencing catastrophe — “You know that you have djinns that are non-gendered, right? That upset some people when it came out, but who cares? So, those parts I thought were really fun, and I really enjoyed getting to know these non-human characters, and going into a lot of this pre-existing folklore, and seeing these stories that were already written, or parts of stories that were already written, and getting to be in conversation with those.”
• J.D. Harlock interviews Bryan Talbot about Grandville and The Casebook of Stamford Hawksmoor, inspirations for alternate historical settings, and grammar school educations — “If I ever stop drawing at some point—and it’s something that’s looking increasingly likely, as I now have arthritis in my thumb joints, so it actually hurts when I draw—I will continue to write. Whether I could produce enough comic scripts to do it regularly is another matter. I can’t churn out potboilers.”
• From the archives, originally published in 1996’s The Comics Journal #189, Jim Ottoviani interviews cartoonist and educator Frank Stack, who passed away last month at the age of 88 — “I think political beliefs are, like I said before, policy. When you actually get down to talking to people that are on your side politically, trying to reconcile your taste in music, whether you like to live in the city or the country, the kind of car you want to drive, your attitude about family or religion, you find you don’t agree about anything when it gets down to the personal stuff. So I’m not sure that your political beliefs have much to do with your art.”
• Also from the archives, originally published in 1981’s The Comics Journal #69, Robert Gustaveson interviews writer Gerry Conway, who passed away last month at the age of 73 — “But, characters for serial comic books basically say, Here I am, this is what I do, this is who I am, this is where I am, and anything can happen. Or almost anything. You want to set up certain parameters. But, if you establish a mystery or establish an essential conflict that has to be eventually resolved, you’re setting yourself up for disappointing the reader around seven or eight issues into the series.”
AIPT
• Chriss Hassan speaks with Benjamin Percy about Wade Wilson: Deadpool and stretching your comedic muscles, and with Saladin Ahmed about Bishop and making tough guys cry.
• David Brooke talks to Marguerite Bennett about Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and the shift from a focus on teen heroes to adults, and to Stephanie Stalvey about Everything in Color and the realities of evangelical doctrines.
• Chris Coplan chats with Jared Sarnie about The Machine is Broken, euthanasia devices, and the challenging nature of assisted suicide as a topic.
Autobiographix
Amaris Ketcham and Nora Hickey speak with A. David Lewis about Body, Soul, and Comics, pathways to comics academia, fascination with graphic medicine, and literary theory and the nonfiction conundrum.
The Beat
• Taimur Dar interviews Brandon T. Snider about Supergirl’s Family Vacation, Metropolitan family dynamics, and Supergirl inspirations across the decades.
• AJ Frost talks to Mark Russell about The Forgotten Divine, centering a true believer as the protagonist of a story about a cult, and sanity/underwear connections.
Boing Boing
Ruben Bolling speaks with Gemma Correll about Anxietyland, being honest about your mental health, and finding humour in everything.
Elle
Sharon D'Silva talks to Vishwesh Shetty and Jazyl Homavazir about manga influences on the Indian comics scene, mainstream acceptance, and establishing footholds.
Fanbase Press
Barbra Dillon interviews:
- Julie Fiveash about The Froggy Library and the intimidating nature of longform projects.
- Keith Frady about Good Grief: The End of Talking Back and emotional entry points for readers.
- Dave Baker about Halloween Boy: Last of the Halloween Boy and the personal nature of the book.
- Greg Burnham about The Search for Sadiqah and collaborative processes.
- Shreya Davies and Vanessa Wong about To the Last Gram and creative stars aligning.
- Justin Giampaoli and Dave Law about Westside and the story’s autobiographical elements.
- Tim Zajac about Poe Noir and the detective stories of Edgar Allan Poe.
GraphicMemoir
Jonathan Sandler speaks with:
- Amy Kurzweil about Artificial: A Love Story and the book’s structure as a meditation on inheritance.
- Donna Druchunas about digital comics making and family history.
- Julia Alekseyeva about Soviet Daughter: A Graphic Revolution and the project’s origins.
- Natalie d’Arbeloff about making a graphic memoir at the age of 96.
ICv2
• Brigid Alverson talks to Cromulent Comics’ Andrew Falkenhainer about the store’s first year of operation, lessons learned, and the challenges of retail.
• David Harper interviews Cape & Cowl Comics’ Eitan Manhoff about a decade of retail, finding the right spot for the store, and business identities.
• Milton Griepp has a two-part conversation with Newbury Comics’ Mike Dreese about the retail chain’s successes, sales figures, and not getting nickel and dimed by Amazon.
The Montreal Gazette
Susan Schwartz interviews Arizona O’Neill about Opioids & Organs, the contemporary realities of addiction, and the research and storytelling that went into the book’s creation.
Steven Heller speaks with Yevgenia Nayberg about Chernobyl, Life, and Other Disasters and having a playful artistic hand, and with Gemma Correll about Anxietyland and not having a tidy conclusion to your own story.
Publisher’s Weekly
Shaenon K. Garrity talks to Uketsu about Strange Pictures, the novel’s adaptation to manga, true crime catalysts, and fear of the unknown.
RetroFuturista
Dominique Musorrafiti interviews Barbara “Willy” Mendes about Queen of Cosmos Comix Trilogy, panels vs whole page illustrations, color theology, and praying to deities in your own image.
The Skinny
Phoebe Wilson chats with Lorna Miller about Witch, creative and career cycles, and the realities of pitching work to publications.
Smash Pages
JK Parkin speaks with Karen Czap and Suzana Harcum about Four Years and Tripping Over You, romance and love stories, and reading recommendations.
Space
Jeff Spry talks to Ben Mauro about Huxley: The Oracle, the realism arms race of game and film design, and Japanese and French influences on the book.
The Times
Neil Fisher speaks with Neill Cameron and Jamie Smart about The Phoenix and Phoenix Fest, and the changing landscape of comics for younger readers in the UK.
Windspeaker
Shari Nadine interviews Brandon Mitchell about The Search for Gluscap, representing petroglyph styles in storytelling, and the endangered nature of the Mi’kmaq language.
Check out our new Manga imprint's first title: Hideko Mizuno's Fire! blog.uncivilizedbooks.com/2026/04/27/...
— Uncivilized (@unciv.bsky.social) 2026-04-30T15:03:29.359074Z
This week’s features and longreads.
• Here at TCJ, John Kelly writes in remembrance of the life and work of cartoonist and educator Frank Stack (aka Foolbert Sturgeon), creator of The Adventures of Jesus, who passed away last month at the age of 88, including memories of Stack from colleagues and peers — “[Denis Kitchen:] Fearful of losing tenure, he signed his early underground comix work with the nom de plume Foolburt Sturgeon. That was the only instance I'm aware of when Frank gave a damn what anyone thought of him or his work. He was as outspoken as they came on any topic, and I loved hearing him bitch and opine about everything from the art world to Trump world in his soft but distinctive Missouri twang, with always a hint of his Texas origins.”
• Also for TCJ, Zack Davisson writes in remembrance of the life and work of mangaka Yoshiharu Tsuge, author of Nejishiki, amongst many others, who passed away in March at the age of 88 — “Whatever your interpretations are of "Nejishiki," Tsuge would probably say you are wrong. When asked about all of the studies and papers and articles written about the story, he dismissed them all with a laugh, saying none of them were even remotely accurate.”
• From the archives, originally published in 2005’s The Comics Journal Special, Volume 5: Seduction, Béatrice Maréchal on the creative legacy of Yoshiharu Tsuge and the lasting influence Tsuge had on manga as an artform — “[Tsuge] crossed impoverished places like mountain and fishing villages, preferring a desolate thermal spring to the kinds of places recommended by a tourist guide. Most of all, he appreciated the simplicity of constructions, a kind of destitute simplicity that would look miserable if it had not been for the compassion he felt for the land and the people living there.”
• More for TCJ, as Hank Kennedy writes on the history of political cartooning during and under the Third Reich — “Although the First Amendment protects American cartoonists from such obvious suppression, that has not stopped publishers eager to curry favor with the current occupant of the White House from engaging in censorship of their own. After its purchase by right-wing media conglomerate Sinclair, the Baltimore Sun instructed their “ultra-liberal cartoonist” KAL to focus solely on local issues or start looking for other employment. KAL refused and was gone from the Sun by the end of June.”
• Finally for TCJ, our distinguished editors share an excerpt from Paper Airplane magazine, volume two of which is currently available for purchase.
• For Print, Steven Heller writes on the history and impact of Zap comix, ahead of Fantagraphics’ publication of The Complete Zap Comix later this year, profiling the comix artists to be found therein.
• Remembrances were published of cartoonist Nicole Hollander, creator of the comic strip Sylvia, who died last month at the age of 86, including obituaries from The New York Times, Chicago Sun Times, Texarkana Gazette, and Chicago Tribune. TCJ’s 2019 interview with Hollander can be read here.
• The passing of writer Gerry Conway, co-creator of the Punisher and Jason Todd, amongst many others, who died last month at the age of 73, also received widespread coverage, with obituaries from Deadline, Forbes, The Guardian, The Hollywood Reporter, The Los Angeles Times, Nerdist, The New York Times, Polygon, and Variety.
• For CBC, Cassandra Yanez-Leyton writes on Mafalda, creation of Argentinian cartoonist Quino, and the upcoming unveiling of a new statue of the titular character, sculpted by Pablo Irrgang, in Montreal.
• Much like London buses, you wait ages for a comics creator/worker survey and then two come along at once, with the publication of this year’s UK Comics Creator Survey, and the opening of the call for submissions to this year’s US Comics Worker Survey.
• For Polygon, if you’re looking for a reason to exhale slowly for thirty seconds and then gaze into the middle-distance while humming À la Volonté du Peuple, Ryan Epps writes on regularly-embattled YouTuber, performative “boxer”, and wealth-amasser Logan Paul’s decision to price-speculate on One Piece and Dragon Ball.
• Over at Shelfdust, Rhi Daneel Olivaw writes on the lightning in a bottle of Frank Miller’s Batman the Dark Knight: The Dark Knight Returns, and Steve Morris continues a Year of Evil by peering up at Galactus (and trying not to get distracted by the Silver Surfer) in Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four #48.
• A pair of fresh issuances from the Mindless Ones, which bring forth musings on Mauretania Comics, Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira, #FAMILY, Misty, and Unsuitable Boys.
• Paul O’Brien’s census of the villains of Daredevil continues, as Ann Nocenti’s run rattles on, and we’re introduced to The Nameless One and Bushwacker, and consideration is given to the relative positions of guns and magic in Hell’s Kitchen.
• From the world of open access academia, University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Education spotlights Leuven University Press’ Comics and the Global South, edited by Andrea Aramburú, Dibyadyuti Roy, Joe Sutliff Sanders, which can be read for free here, and examines the importance of expanding the reach of comics history and study.
• For the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, Astrid Haas presents an article on recent works of Mexican American graphic fiction, analysing Duncan Tonatiuh’s Undocumented: A Worker’s Fight and Hector Rodriguez’s El Peso Hero, and how these comics inform audiences about undocumented border-crossing and migrant activism.
• Mike Peterson rounds up the weeks’ editorial beat, as the hits are played vis à vis redistricting, gun control, Royal visits, voting rights, tariffs, blood red carpets, and ballrooms.
A Daddy Daughter Card Wars commission for a friend
— Steve Wolfhard (@wolfhard.bsky.social) 2026-05-07T12:17:25.403Z
No more links this week, we’re back to COVID pandemic levels of links, right here, as it is, and I need to stay alert in case the name of the comic in which Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged suicide note was found is released.
ENFRAMEMENT pg 24
— K. Wroten @TCAF
(@jukeboxcomix.bsky.social) 2026-04-21T01:10:58.889Z
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Hello, my name is Jack Sparrow. I'm a 50 year old self-employed Pirate from the Caribbean.
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