Today at the Comics Journal, we're sharing a 22 page look at Nobrow's Darwin: An Exceptional Voyage. I first heard about this book when one of the people (not a Nobrow employee) who worked adjacent to it condescended to me about how he'd already read it, and hadn't realized how good Nobrow was until he had read that specific book, and why hadn't I told him about the book before? (At the time of this conversation, I had not worked at Nobrow for 16 months and had never heard of the Darwin book.) As I was listening to him and nodding and wondering how soon I could leave the conversation and go anywhere else in the world, I realized that he must think that I care to be this nasty--he must think I want something, to talk like this? But I had just said "hi", you know, trying to buy time to surreptitiously look at his name tag. Never figured that one out. Comics is a weird business.
Today's review comes to us from Josh Kramer, and he's taking a look at Brian Fies A Fire Story, the extended hardcover edition of Brian losing his house in a 2017 California wildfire, which he had previously described in a webcomic.
On the first page, after Fies’ name, an asterisk leads to text at the bottom that reads, “but not to his usual standards.” This caveat makes the deft cartooning and vulnerable storytelling that follows all the more impressive. But it also begs the question, what would this be like if it were up to Fies’ standards? The full-length graphic novel version, also titled A Fire Story, came out this March from Abrams ComicsArts. And not only is the book inspired by the original webcomic, it is more or less a faithful recreation.
Over on Facebook, you can find an impressive collection of Alberto Breccia images. If you'd like to see them without Zuckerberg's involvement, there's two exhibitions--one in Argentina, one in France--that'll solve that problem for you. For more information 0n that, John Freeman has you covered.
Over on Tumblr, our very own Matt Seneca has launched a webcomic edition of his Infinite Prison--according to him, you've only got a couple of weeks to read it, so get cooking.
RIP, Kazuhiko "Monkey Punch" Katou. The manga creator most known for Lupin III reportedly passed away last week.
