The best comics of 2024, as chosen by TCJ contributors
What were the best comics of this past year? No idea, but here’s some stuff our contributors really liked.
Features
“Make a Thing, Make it Now” Multimedia Art and the Experimental, Lonnie Garcia and Yugo Limbo in Conversation
Lonnie Garcia and Yugo Limbo thaw a fish, watch movies on a CRT, point and click.
Christmas Wrapping – This Week’s Links
Well the weather outside is increasingly constantly frightful, but below we have the final links of the year, which are intermittently delightful.
A book report from the Thought Bubble Festival
Hagai Palevsky dumps his Thought Bubble purchases all over our nice, clean desk and starts talking about three comics that caught his eye.
Where Comics Can Take Their Rightful Place as Righteous Trash: A Look at Matt Seneca’s Pure Evil
Matt Seneca’s Pure Evil may only be 40 pages, but it’s worth 4,000 words of noir-flavored comics industry criticism and history.
Arrivals and Departures — December 2024
RJ Casey takes a dry bath in the shredded pages of this month’s zines, but is this year’s zine the anthology zine? Only he and not you can decide!
‘It’s not an homage, but at least it’s an understanding’: Mark McGuire & Alain Chevarier on Clay Footed Giants
Tahneer Oksman talks to the co-authors about their new book on fatherhood, childhood and generational trauma.
The Eyes of Fred Hembeck’s Eyes by Malcy Duff
Malcy Duff returns to the Journal with “a comic to be read through cartoon eyes.”
Yule Be Sorry – This Week’s Links
It’s the penultimate links post of the year, and so it’s almost, but not quite, time to look back in wonderment on the 8,784 hours that have passed us by.
On Kazuo Umezz, A Child Who Is Not Dead
Friends of TCJ share memories of the work of the late Kazuo Umezz.
No space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused: Olivier Schrauwen’s imagined Sunday
Tegan O’Neil gets a Sunday visit from the spirit of Oliver Schrauwen Present to pontificate one the nature of a long read and how we spend our time- hey, who ate all the Takis?
‘I don’t really like narrative’: A conversation with Wow Cool’s Marc Arsenault
Marc Arsenault talks to Zach Rabiroff about Wow Cool and his storied career in comics, bookselling, publishing, and chatting up customers at the only newsstand in Hudson County.
‘Screw the industry, we’re in it for the art form’: An interview with Shelly and Philip Bond
Shelly Bond is a force of nature, her massive energy just as apparent in her conversation as it is in the abundant flow of information that makes up her two illustrated illustrative volumes of memoir and editing tips: Filth & Grammar: The Comic Book Editor’s Secret Handbook and Fast Times In Comic Book Editing. Once… Read more »
If We Make It Through December – This Week’s Links
Clark is collating this week’s links with a classic bit of (northern hemisphere) winter ennui.
Pretty privilege: The stunning and troublesome Flash Gordon: Classic Collection Vol. 1
William Schwartz takes a look at the dos and don’ts in Flash Gordon: Classic Collection Vol. 1.
My Hero Academia and the Agony of Victory
With the series wrapping up its hit ten-year-run, Shaenon Garrity cracks open some covers to analyze how MHA worked so well.
‘For me, it’s always exploratory’: Discussions with Craig Thompson
Craig Thompson talks to Fredrik Strömberg about his evolving past and future works and selves .
Existence in the midst of ‘corruption, power and micro-violence’: An interview with Joseph Kai
Aubrey Gabel talkes to the Restless author, a comics artist from Beirut, Lebanon.
Thank You For The Music – This Week’s Links
Clark Burscough narrows down all of this AND last week’s links for you degenerates.
Funny-Animal Fictions: Comics Fandom and the Late Introduction of Furry
From funny animals to furries: Brandy Lewis breaks down the history of our little friends.
Remembering cartoonist and historian Tim Jackson, 1958-2024
Soft-spoken cartoonist historian Tim Jackson, who died on Nov. 3, was best known for his 2017 Eisner-nominated book Pioneering Cartoonists of Color, but he was a pioneering cartoonist of color.
Pierre Christin, 1938-2024
Dean Simons provides a remembrance of the co-creator of the Valerian and Laureline series, as well as many other significant works.
A Short Run intern’s diary: Finding festivity, union and friendship
French cartoonist Maïa Hamilcaro-Berlin, author of La Chasse a l’Ourse, shared the experience of interning for the 2024 Short Run Comix Festival.
A Short Run Comix Festival report for 2024: One last hurrah at an old venue
The Short Run Comix Festival manages to be the most significant seven hours of Seattle’s yearly comics calendar.
