New to the site: Hayley Campbell joins the Journal team with a review of Kiki de Montparnasse.
Also, five new issues are up for viewing in the archives. Check them out now before they go up behind the subscriber paywall.
Issue 42 features an interview with Stan Lee.
In issue 43, Gary Groth meets Neal Adams.
Issue 44 finds Kim Thompson talking to Marv Wolfman (and an enjoyable pan from Gary on Sabre--funny how having standards can pay off in unexpected ways thirty years later).
Issue 45 features Marilyn Bethke interviewing Joe Staton.
And in issue 46, Will Eisner talks to Cat Yronwoode.
Dig in while you can.
Elsewhere on the webonet:
“Lichtenstein did no more or less for comics than Andy Warhol did for soup.” I don't remember coming across that Art Spiegelman quote before, but it's nice in that it does a lot of work in not so many words. Ernesto Priego dug it up for a traditional (but not philistine) comics vs. pop art post.
The cartoonist, editor, and, um, enthusiast (?) Sammy Harkham is good at pretending to be excitable and aggressive during interviews, and his recent Comix Claptrap appearance is no exception. It's all an act, folks. Honestly, what I really appreciate in Harkham's public appearances is his willingness to be candid—a surprisingly rare trait among cartoonists, as you'd think it would go hand in hand with a talent for the form. (The Claptrap is also one of a very small handful of comics interview podcasts worth following, so get on it already.)
Jeremy Sheldon wrote an online essay for the "Aliens" issue of Granta — as far as I can tell, it's the only content in the journal about, like, real aliens (meaning the outer-space kind). Otherwise, it's all immigration issues and such. In the essay, Sheldon discusses the deep meaning of science-fiction book covers, and draws much inspiration from the fact that the big alien monster at the end of Watchmen looks like human genitalia.
Our own Kristy Valenti writes about the artist Mike Kelley's take on the bottled city of Kandor here. If you don't know Kandor, that was a shrunken city from the planet Krypton that Superman kept around in his house. Whenever he got really lonely, he'd occasionally shrink himself down and hang out with the little people inside. Most comics theorists will tell you this is a metaphor for something or other. Schizophrenia?
For CCCBC members only: The occultist Kenneth Grant, whose work played a key role in Alan Moore's recent Neonomicon series, has died.
As has been mentioned a few times here on the blog (and in the site's comments), former Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter has recently published a series of rather dubious claims regarding the infamous Marvel/Jack Kirby artwork debacle. For those of you unfamiliar with this history, Rodrigo Baeza has gathered together much of the relevant information into one place. Is it depressing that this recent Shooter activity is sparking so little discussion?
The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction recently held an industry day, and there are three big reports online about it: here, here, and here. (I particularly recommend Tom Spurgeon's.) It still amazes me that the CCS exists, even now that it's nearly reached the status of a institution.
