Today we are bringing you the first installment of a multi-author feature. To mark the release of Chris Ware’s decade-in-the-making Building Stories, we are featuring a series of essays from the contributors to the 2010 volume The Comics of Chris Ware: Drawing is a Way of Thinking. Each contributor is revisiting the argument they made in that edited collection two years ago in light of the newly released work, speaking to the ways in which Ware’s comics have either transformed in that time or are returning to the themes of his earlier publications. First up is Martha Kuhlman, with "The God of Small Things". We will continue with other installments over the next few weeks.
The Journal's own Jeet Heer has already weighed in on Building Stories for the Globe and Mail.
—I don't think it's talking out of school to say that Jeet has been really excited about some of the recent Judge Dredd discussions that have been going on on the site. One thing I meant to link to but neglected to was that longtime 2000AD writer/editor Pat Mills has recently started a blog, and is recounting the story behind the character's origins.
—Another Jeet favorite, Seth, recently spoke to the Moscow Times about his work on a new edition of Chekhov. (The paper also spoke to Maurice Vellekoop about what Seth was like in the early years.)
—Slate has announced a new annual Cartoonist Studio Prize, presented in conjunction with the Center for Cartoon Studies.
—Xavier Guilbert at du9 interviewed Anton Kannemeyer of Bittercomix, and very pleasantly for American monolinguists, the conversation has been translated into English.
—Two more interviews: Dane Martin at Murdering the Magic, and Tom Spurgeon at Virtual Memories.
—Another SPX panel has been posted on YouTube. This time, it's Gilbert Hernandez, interviewed by our own Sean T. Collins: