Recent Reviews
Recent Articles
Digital Bath – This Week’s Links
This week’s links are brought to you by some better living through chemistry, as cold and flu season hits olde London towne.
The 2024 Eisner Awards and Hall of Fame induction ceremony: photo galleries
The 2024 Eisner Awards Hall of Fame was held on the morning of July 26 during the San Diego Comic Convention (Comic-Con). Each year the Eisner Awards judges select 19 individuals to automatically be inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame. This year’s inductees included 12 deceased comics pioneers – Creig Flessel,… Read more »
Arrivals and Departures – November 2024
It’s November and you know what that means: another month to kiss the ground with gratitude that RJ Casey has read enough zines for another Arrivals and Departures column.
The Silent But Deadly (and Otherworldly But Political) Art of Geof Darrow
A quiet take on Geof Darrow’s Shaolin Cowboy with Dark Horse’s Silent But Deadly edition of Cruel to Be Kin- while words are lost, Mark Peters tells us what we have to gain as readers.
Orochi: The Perfect Edition Vols. 1–3 (of 4): The Comics Journal Yearbook: The Best of 2022
In this essay from The Comics Journal Yearbook: The Best of 2022, McCulloch explains why 10 creators/critics placed Umezz’ Orochi in the Top 5.
Here, There, and Everywhere – This Week’s Links
If, somehow, inexplicably, you’ve still not had more than your fill of news in this quadrennial newsiest of weeks, then allow me to present a brief remise en bouche of comics-focused happenings.
Maria Llovet’s effortless line: glimpsing Crave and the Direct Market
To begin it must be said, at the risk of stating the obvious, I remain perpetually distracted by the depiction of female beauty in comic books. To which certainly, you nod your head in weary resignation. We noticed. Honesty brings you to strange places. That’s the theme of the book we’re looking at today,… Read more »
Kazuo Umezu (1936-2024): so long and thanks for all the screams
Kazuo Umezu has died at the age of 88, leaving behind an incredible legacy of horror manga for us all.
Kazuo Umezu: In His Own Words by John A. Lent
From TCJ #254 (July 2003): mangaka Kazuo Umezu (Umezz) talks to John A. Lent about The Floating Classroom, the heart’s sound and much more.
Umezu Kazuo: Japanese Overtures to Madness and Death
In this review from TCJ #233 (May 2001), Ng Suat Tong provides an overview The Floating/Drifting Classroom series and Umezu/Umezz’s sensibilities.
‘We worry about everything’: A World War 3 Illustrated roundtable
Ian Thomas sat down with the editors of the latest issue – Susan Simensky Bietila, Nicole Schulman, Seth Tobocman, and Jordan Worley – to talk about the latest issue of the anthology, World War 3 Now, as well as a certain election.
Gone Till November – This Week’s Links
And so, we arrive at the final This Week’s Links before the upcoming presidential election, with a selection of reading/viewing/listening, below, to distract from the feverish pitch of the political dog and pony show’s grandest spectacle.
The Literati and Painters Depicted in Great People Manga
A 1980 Shimizu Isao essay on the who’s who of literati and painters Depicted in Great People Manga, translated by Jon Holt and Ayumi Naraoka.
Shall I project a world? The art, artists and artifice of Charles Burns
Final Cut is Burns’ latest attempt to answer the question that all artists must, from time to time, grapple with: Who am I, in relation to my art, and in relation to the art of others?
The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic: Incantations of the present day
In which the new illuminated manuscript on magic practice by Alan Moore & Steve Moore is considered, on top of the state of things.
Bob Foster: Nov. 16, 1943 – Sept. 30, 2024
Cartoonist, Myron Moose creator and animation artist Robert Michael “Bob” Foster passed away in hospice care on Sept. 30, 2024.
Gabe Fowler on Desert Island’s past, present and future
Zach Rabiroff talked with Desert Island owner Gabe Fowler in the wake of the store being kicked out of its home and a successful GoFundMe campaign to find a new location.
There is Much to be Learned From Beasts – This Week’s Links
A (slightly) pre-emptively spooOOooky™ edition of this week’s links await you.
Remembering Larry Todd: 1948-2024
Larry Todd, a multifaceted and talented artist whose work included wondrous science fiction paintings and trippy underground comix, died on Sept. 28 following a long illness.
‘I don’t think it’s anybody’s dream to make art under capitalism’: An interview with Bianca Xunise
Bianca Xunise talks with Gina Gagliano about her new book Punk Rock Karaoke, Poly Styrene, punk and plagiarism.
Remembering Bernie Mireault: 1961-2024
Mireault was never the sort of artist likely to make the front of a Previews catalog, but it is wholly possible to imagine the sort of alternate world where he might have been, and where anyone with verve, talent and tenacity for the art form might do the same.
Photos from the Pinoy Power!: A Celebration of Filipino Komiks exhibit
Pinoy Power!: A Celebration of Filipino Komiks from the Archipelago to the Bay exhibit at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco ran from Dec. 23, 2023 to Sept. 8, 2024.
White Noiz – This Week’s Links
A hectic week getting used to a new commute, which means much of this week’s links, below, were read while being ferried through London’s underground system.
Sunlight Maggots: Eroticism and Absence in Margot Ferrick’s Half Gold/Half Dung
Helen Chazan wanders through the pages of tender masculinity in Margot Ferrick’s book of illustrations, Half God/Half Dung.
