There was a point last week, after my empty wine glass got vibrated clear off the side-table of my sofa at the fancy cinema screening Christopher Nolan’s Homer’s The Odyssey, the screeching of Polyphemus so loud in the mix blasting out of the 7.1 surround sound system that nothing could stand in its wake, as I walked back out into the baking heat of late summer in climate-crisis London, that I started to wonder whether we are indeed heading towards the dying of the light of civilisation and the extinguishing of the written word, but then I got the ding of a Google alert arriving in my inbox, which was just a wall of referrals to games sites doggedly churning out top-ten lists of superhero power-rankings, and I realised that, no, we will always have this week’s links, below.
This week’s news.
• Starting this week’s selection with a return to a previous news item from March of this year, as a third-party panel at Japanese publisher Shogakukan found that editorial staff at the publisher had encouraged violations of human rights by, through a convoluted series of actions, re-hiring and protecting authors Kazuaki Kurita and Tatsuya Matsuki, in full knowledge of their having committed sexual misconduct, and facilitating their publishing under pseudonyms, while also attempting to mediate with the victim of Kurita’s grooming to allow for the continued publication of one of Kurita’s titles.
• Elsewhere, as the Diamond Comic Distributors bankruptcy saga approached its twentieth month, some light at the end of the tunnel (for a select few), as the ad hoc committee of publishers whose stock is affected by the bankruptcy proceedings and the trustee for Diamond reached an agreement (finally) on parts of the inventory consignment currently sequestered in Diamond’s Mississippi warehouse, laying out grounds under which included publishers will be able to reclaim their stock — The Beat has a summary of this recent development, or, if you have a week to burn, you can catch up on the 1300+ court dockets currently filed in the proceedings here, to get the full details on escrow holdings of monies from alleged sales of held stock, and what other claims remain to be settled.
• News from the West Coast, as San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum announced that its doors would be shuttering following an apparent slowing of footfall following the COVID-19 pandemic, and the expiration of its lease for the museum’s current location — the museum was also in the news recently, following the arrest of former curator Andrew Farago for secretly filming guests in the bathroom at a party hosted at Farago’s home.
• Finally this week, following their voluntary recognition in June, Dark Horse Workers United, the union of employees of Dark Horse, shared allegations that the publisher has apparently been attempting to reduce the number of workers eligible for the union by reclassifying Senior Editors as holding supervisory roles at the company, thereby making them ineligible for union membership, which would represent some good old fashioned union busting 101 in this year of 2026 CE — Dark Horse recently announced leadership restructuring at the publisher, as parent corp Embracer group decided that the publisher would henceforth be part of Fellowship Entertainment, “an IP-led entertainment company,” back in May.
Frogs in cups
This week’s reviews.
TCJ
• Tate McFadden reviews the narrative directness of Katie Skelly’s Heaven — “Heaven is a story about sex work, adolescence, and eldritch horrors. Skelly has been examining the abjectness of girl- and womanhood in her work for almost a decade. Her art is always minimalistic and simple, bordering on cute, but her subject matters are often as off-putting as they are tempting. The dual nature of the medium, where the text says one thing while the image say another, makes comics ripe for such contradictions in terms.”
• Brian Nicholson reviews the upsetting desperation of Naono Yoshiko’s Hide and Seek, translated by Ryan Holmberg — “I like to intellectualize that the reason I love horror has little to do with the gore or kills, these things to which a certain camp value can be attached to, and more to do with how it’s in touch with these deep wells of emotion, like dread, which cannot otherwise be articulated, and can only be mediated through a mixture of deep technical ability and avant-garde tendencies towards dissonance to communicate feelings of wrongness.”
• Kristian Williams reviews the distracting distortions of Andrea Chalupa and Brahm Revel’s Mrs. Orwell — “Only in the afterward, an essay titled "Fighting for the Future," do we find any acknowledgment that "Mrs. Orwell is a work of historical fiction. . . ." This would have been good information to have at the outset. In any case, the decision is questionable. Mrs. Blair's life was eventful enough, sufficient in both outward incident and inward complexity, without any need for added drama or outright fabulism.”
AIPT
• Jonathan Waugh reviews the clunky worldbuilding of Sean Murphy’s The Last Driver #1.
• Robert Reed reviews the stellar debut of Zack Kaplan, John J. Pearson, et al’s The Smart Division #1.
• David Brooke reviews the opening intrigue of Matt Kindt and Brian Hurtt’s Fort Psycho #1.
• Collier Jennings reviews the refreshing take of Paul Allor, Gustaffo Vargas, et al’s Power Rangers: Green #1.
• Kevin Clark reviews the enjoyable bite of Chuck Brown, Paulo H. Mel, et al’s Vampirella Versus Red Sonja: Red City #1.
The Beat
• Clyde Hall reviews the winning introductions of Iman Vellani, Marianna Ignazzi, et al’s Chachu #1.
• Jordan Jennings reviews the accessible lore of Rich Douek, Gavin Smith, et al’s Masters of the Universe: Genesis #1.
• Lawrence Marable reviews the birthday celebrations of Marvel Comics’ Mary Jane: Face It, Tiger #1.
• Joe Grunenwald reviews the underappreciated qualities of Matt Fraction, Jorge Jiménez, et al's Batman #12.
• Zack Quaintance reviews the understated horror of Katie Skelly’s Heaven.
• Avery Kaplan reviews the excellent start of Christopher Cantwell, Dennis Menheere, et al’s Star Trek #1.
• Ricardo Serrano Denis reviews the fandom chills of Ram V, Christian Ward, Riccardo Burchielli, Fábio Veras, et al’s Super Creepshow #5.
• Masha Zhdanova reviews the beautiful melody of Hamachi Yamada’s Crescent Moon Marching, Volume 1, translated by Arthur Miura.
Broken Frontier
• Gary Usher reviews the crisp presentation of Fantagraphics’ Shock Treatment and Other Stories.
• Swati Nair reviews the colourful contrasts of Yudori’s Lovers of the Empire, Volume 1.
• Andy Oliver reviews:
- The narrative juggling of Nessie Mooo’s Laika.
- The poignant depths of Katriona Chapman’s The Pass.
- The uncompromising anger of Peter Kuper’s Wish We Weren’t Here: Postcards from the Apocalypse.
Comics Grinder
Henry Chamberlain reviews the compelling storytelling of Emil Wilson’s The Nightingales, and the cultural cornucopia of Jasper Jubenvill’s Horrific Romance Comics.
Four Color Apocalypse
Ryan Carey reviews the off-kilter sensibility of Chris Cilla’s Scum Wizard, and the near-flawless construction of Ben Sears’ Young Shadow & the Watchdogs.
From Cover to Cover
Scott Cederlund reviews the momentous details of Paul Chadwick’s Concrete: Stars Over Sand #2; and the little mysteries of Iman Vellani, Marianna Ignazzi, et al’s Chachu #1.
The Guardian
Tim Jonze reviews the visual disconnect of Kevin Del Aguila and Brad Alexander’s adaptation of Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man the Musical.
House to Astonish
Paul O’Brien has capsule reviews of Marvel Comics’ X-Men #34, Generation X-23 #6, Bishop #2, and X-Men: Outback #2.
Solrad
Hagai Palevsky reviews the diminishing returns of Paul Karasik, Lorenzo Mattotti, and David Mazzucchelli’s adaptation of Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy.
Theatre Weekly
Oliver Valentine reviews the messy silliness of Kevin Del Aguila and Brad Alexander’s adaptation of Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man the Musical.
WhatsOnStage
Theo Bosanquet reviews the enjoyable performances of Kevin Del Aguila and Brad Alexander’s adaptation of Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man the Musical.
Yatta-tachi
• LB Bryant reviews the bothersome choices of Ito Kira’s The Idol’s Mistake, translated by Matthew Alberts.
• Kai reviews the cross-species explorations of Yuki Kazami's Sea Melt Lover, translated by Freya Ohara.
• Borealis Capps reviews the familiar safeness of Hana Inui’s Marriage to the Wolf: An Interspecies Union, Volume 1, translated by Amber Tamosaitis.
Pinwheel Of The Damned.
— Evan Dorkin (@evandorkin.bsky.social) 2026-08-05T22:58:33.933Z
This week’s interviews.
TCJ
Hagai Palevsky interviews Katie Skelly about Heaven, the realities of publishing Maids during the COVID-19 pandemic, being surprised by your characters, and moving between coasts — “I look forward to working on my comics at the end of the day or on the weekends. Sometimes I'll use vacation days to draw or catch up on things. When I was younger I'd get up before work and draw, but I need more energy these days so it's primarily an after work thing.”
Aftermath
Isaiah Colbert speaks with Zawayuki Taki about Tie Me Up, Stare Me Down, bondage and SM bars, human connections, and the specifics of shibari.
AIPT
• Chris Hassan talks to Christopher Yost about Maximum X-Men, harking back to the teams of yesteryear, and throwing Marvel’s mutants into troublesome situations.
• Chris Coplan chats with Mark Russell about Firefly and working with other creators’ characters, and with Oliver Mertz about A Ghost Arm Made of Angry Ghosts and pursuing unexpected paths in a mystery narrative.
• Gary Catig interviews Rob Guillory about Innards and oil rig experiences; and AJ Mendez, Aimee Garcia, and Ildy Modrovich about East Side Saints and genre fiction fandom.
• David Brooke speaks with Jordan Morris about Amazing Venom, the reluctant adventures of Fred Meyers, and the deep bench of Spider-Man’s many foes.
The Beat
• J.D. Harlock interviews Bryan Talbot and Mark Stafford about Cherubs!, the origins of the book, and changes necessitated by musician deaths.
• Avery Kaplan talks to Tasia MS and Barbara Perez Marquez about To Dance the Moon and Stars, their collaborative writing process, and inspirations from across other mediums.
• Deanna Destito speaks with:
- Tini Howard about Sicko and reasons that art should be disturbing.
- Leah Williams about Voyeur and creative learning curves.
- Ande Parks about Bad Thoughts and Tyler Rake: An Extraction Story and publishing with Ignition Press.
- Jeremy Haun about Ignition Press' presence at this year's San Diego Comic-Con just gone.
Broken Frontier
Andy Oliver interviews Jesse Moynihan about Forming and making the hustle public, and Joe D'Esposito about The Outsider and the appeal of Bernie Krigstein as a subject for a graphic novel.
Cosmopolitan: Middle East
Leila Darwish talks to Inanna Sarkis about Inanna: The Name She Lost, the Sumerian mythology the book draws upon, and the team behind the graphic novel.
Fanbase Press
Barbra Dillon speaks with John Barber and Stuart Moore about Marvel Artist Archive: Jim Lee and looking back to the early days of Lee’s comics career, and with Tomm Coker about Undying Love and The Black Monday Murders and creator-owned realities.
Graphic Memoir
Jonathan Sandler interviews:
- Kelcey Ervick about The Keeper and the balance of graphic storytelling.
- Eric Drooker about Naked City and what success looks like for artists.
- Felix Cheong about A Mild Case of Mass Hysteria and the interesting gaps to be found in history.
Smash Pages
JK Parkin talks to Damian Alexander and Alex Krokus about Hand-Me-Down and Talking to My Father’s Ghost, the individual paths through grief, and other creative works about losing family members.
tabling at a ceramics fair
This week’s features and longreads.
• Here at TCJ, William Schwartz writes on the work of webcomic creator Øyvind Thorsby, and the coherent logical cores to be found in Thorsby’s quarter-century body of work — “This kind of highly functional worldbuilding, with less of an emphasis on the creativity involved in the worlds rather than the often weird behaviors they inadvertently incentivize, is an even more old-fashioned form of comics storytelling than Thorsby's strange mix of squiggly character profiles and highly geometric shapes. Yet his work is forward facing in one quite surprising way. His panels are organized vertically.”
• TCJ’s retrospective series of Rebuttals and Regrets continues, as The Comics Journal celebrates its 50th birthday, and this week Tate McFadden is looking back on Rachel Pollack’s 90s run on Doom Patrol, and how Pollack’s storytelling builds on and evolves from what came before it — “Once Pollack and Medley had the series firmly under their belts, however, they abandoned the more episodic structure in favor of longer stories that could tease out the interiority of the cast. Pollack’s second arc lasts over 200 pages compared to the first’s 80, and slowly develops its antagonists and conflicts in a way that feels more contemporary than the stories during Morrison’s tenure.”
• Further Rebuttals and Regrets for TCJ, as Bob Levin presents thoughts on the cultural monolith of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen — “The Doomsday Clock is at 85-seconds before midnight now. Only two nuclear powers disturbed Moore’s sleep. Now nine nations have the bomb. In Watchmen, as now, defense spending had stolen money from children, the aged, the homeless, the infirm. Ordinary people withdrew into fantasies of the future or past. The super-rich factored social rupture into investment portfolios. They established private islands to which they – and Jeffrey Epstein – could flee. Mars was capable of crystal towers where Elon Musk could dwell.”
• For Print, Steven Brower writes in remembrance of educator and writer Steven Brower, author of Fatal Femme Fatales: Women in Crime Golden Age Comics and Astounding, Mysterious, Weird and True: The Pulp Art of Comic Book Artists, who passed away recently at the age of 74.
• Elizabeth Sandifer’s Last War in Albion continues, for Eruditorum Press, as we move into Grant Morrison’s Aeon of Superheroes, and consideration is given to Flex Mentallo and the work of one Frank Quitely.
• Over at Solrad, Charles Hatfield writes in appreciation of the work of Carol Tyler, presenting thoughts on last year’s Write It Down, Draw It Out exhibition at the Billy Ireland, and Tyler’s curation of gallery installations, as well as the comics art to be found therein.
• Shelfdust’s Year of Evil continues, as this week Steve Morris looks back to the first decade of this millennium and the time-locked misadventures of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim and the culminating confrontation with Evil Ex Gideon Graves.
• For Nippon.com Miyamoto Yūko writes on the life and work of mangaka and animator Kon Satoshi, director of Paprika, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, and the Freudian and Jungian elements, as well as other recurring themes, to be found in Kon’s work.
• For The Times of India, Madhu Daithota reports from the Museum of Art and Photography’s exhibition A Moving Line, curated by creator Amruta Patil, and the history of Indian comics that the show explores.
• Paul O’Brien’s census of the villains of Daredevil continues, over at House to Astonish, as not judging a comic by its cover leads to Ann Nocenti and John Romita Jr. introducing us to the surprising staying power of The Wildboys.
• Mike Peterson rounds up the week’s editorial beat, for The Daily Cartoonist, as Gianni Infantino briefly managed the surprising achievement of drawing press focus from the latest intrigue surrounding the administration of President Donald Trump.
We have the honor to present to you, this year’s SPX 2026 poster done by none other than the recipient of the 2025 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Series, Sanika Phawde!
To say that we are proud to have this as our poster is an understatement.
— Small Press Expo (@smallpressexpo.bsky.social) 2026-08-05T17:07:15.705Z
No more links, until next time, when there will indeed be more links.
This year’s festival was a blast. Let’s do it again, shall we?Mark your calendars: TCAF will return to the Mattamy Athletic Centre on May 7-9, 2027.We’ll be sharing info on exhibitor applications, calls for programming, sponsorship opportunities, and everything else #TCAF2027 this fall!
— Toronto Comic Arts Festival (@torontocomics.bsky.social) 2026-07-31T16:43:37.207Z
The post Revving at Full Throttle — 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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