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Today, at TCJ, Matt Seneca is here with a look at Criminal #11, the most recent issue of Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips long-running company-hopper of a book. Check it out, then circle back here for more TCJ updating:

I was worried I'd be lost coming in so cold, but Brubaker's frequent, terse, and declarative narration pulls all the weight of situating readers comfortably in the middle of his story's action. This being said, it does have a puzzling tendency to switch back and forth between past and present tenses whether or not there's a flashback sequence going on, and if anything, Brubaker does his job too well. There's not much in this issue, at least, that indicates why its content exists as a comic and not a novel - a cardinal sin in my book, even if its creators still manage to put forth a pleasant read. It's even more confusing given that the whole point of Criminal as an enterprise is comic-izing a form whose prose existence is so robust. Each page is laid out in the three-tier/widescreen template that's been stale since the moment Darwyn Cooke finished codifying and perfecting it in New Frontier, and the interplay between words and pictures makes no attempt to move past Comics 101. Brubaker tells us some crooks change into phony security guard uniforms and Phillips shows us beefcakes buttoning shirts and donning ballcaps; Brubaker tells us they walk across the parking lot and there Phillips shows them going between cars, in the same two-shot framing as before. The substance of it does nothing to get your blood moving, even if it does a good job of proceeding apace.  

It's Christmas Eve! Regardless of whether or not you celebrate this, the apex of the world's one true religion (rampant hyper-consumption), the impact it has on one's ability to get to the grocery store is felt by all, provided you are lucky enough to live in a country that has grocery stores, provided as well that said country is not on fire. Let's assume then that if you've got time to read these TCJ blog entries--few and far between as they may be, then you're someone not feeling the impact of a collapsing economy, a terrifying political climate, freakish, life-decimating weather patterns, but are instead blessed with the free time to keep up with us over here at The Comics Journal as we clear the decks and prepare for 2020, a year which, by even the most optimistic accounts, is sure to be the most obnoxious one in recorded history. As well as the hottest? Probably.

This week, we'll be ladling out our Best of 2019 posts--one focusing on the comics that various contributors felt earned the name, and one where we look back on the pieces those contributors wrote. My feeling on these lists is that they're a good test of whether or not a house of criticism has done its job: namely, that your Best of Year list should be the least surprising thing you do all year, because every first-time-mention on that list is a book that should've been looked at earlier. It's a public report card, often reflecting an editor's failings, and while I'm not looking forward to it, I can't wait for other people to do so. Look for those pieces to go up on Thursday and Friday of this week. (There may be other surprises this week as well).

Last week was a syrupy one, as any week with a new Bob Levin should be. Monday, he took a classic Levin look at J.T. Dockery & Sexton Ming's Kenttucky Pussy, published by Ohio's own Nix Comix. I like that Nix guy, he's a good dude. Bad graphic design on those Nix comics though. Put that on the 2020 bucket list, Ken!

His relationship with Dockery had begun in one of those but-for-that moments which Goshkin treasured. He had acknowledged in-print the influence on his prose of the not-exactly-of-the-canon Nick Tosches, whose story “Spud Crazy” Dockery just happened to be adapting for a comic. Dockery and Goshkin had progressed into praising each other’s work in publications that reached audiences not much larger than those which filled Ming’s pubs. Now, an hour before typing that sentence, his daily doppio barely begun, Goshkin had read Tosches’s obit, in which he’d been quoted as saying “one of the rewards of being 50” was the right to wear leopard-skin loafers.

For Goshkin, 77 had meant eel-skin boots.

Everything connects.

Tuesday, Marc Sobel returned to The Book Nook, an Atlanta staple that should be the second place you go on any trip to the South, the first being Bizarro Wuxtry. He found and bought some old Steve Bissette as all good heroes should:

Bissette has long been a champion for sophisticating the horror genre in comics, but in these early works, he had a very different agenda. These stories were obviously geared toward Scholastic’s juvenile readership, however, for Bissette, they served a greater purpose than simply providing momentary diversions from the drudgery of schoolwork. Having grown up in the ‘50s and ‘60s, Bissette was a huge fan of science fiction and horror from a young age. In his Afterword in Fear Book, he recalls being inspired by everything from classic monster movies to the Mars Attacks! trading cards to Aurora model kits. As for comics, he mentioned Kirby’s Atlas books, the Warren magazines, various Charlton and ACG horror anthologies, and the seminal first issue of Ghost Stories by John Stanley, though undoubtedly this is an abbreviated list. However, as a young man in the ‘70s, he was frustrated with the deluge of graphic, adult-oriented bloodbaths which had come to dominate the horror genre. He lamented what he referred to as a dearth of “innocent horrors.” Thus, he viewed his work in Weird Worlds not just as a professional gig, but also as an opportunity to introduce “a new generation of young readers” to his beloved genre.

Wednesday, Austin Price took a nice long look at Taiyo Matsumoto's Cats of the Louvre, the latest affectionately received Matsumoto title to make it to English. Look for bonus Jog content in the comments section!

But if Cats is deeply preoccupied with death and critical of escapism it’s not lacking for humor, or for warmth; it’s hardly what might be described as grim. There’s something moony about Matsumoto’s approach to our inevitable end that removes it of its sting. This might be easily attributed to the prominence of the cats. Here as in life it’s the contrast between their cool remove, preening stylishness, and obvious foolishness that makes Matsumoto’s felines such a joy to follow; there’s an observed quality to their play, their fights, even the aforementioned frivolity they display in the face of death that captures so much of their appeal. Anyone who’s spent long enough around a pack of cats or even an afternoon (a Caturday?) browsing cat-themed videos on Youtube knows how arbitrary their moods, how particular their politics, how engaging their dramas can be, but we’ve so long emphasized the cuteness of these idiosyncrasies that we forget how bizarre they must seem to somebody on first encounter. Not Matsumoto, whose decision to emphasizes just how truly strange these animals are gifts the book an absurdity that mitigates against its more dour inclinations.

Over at Chimera Obscura, podcaster Gil Roth shared the audio of remarks made Tom Spurgeon's memorial service, which took place on December 14th in Columbus, Ohio. It was a moving event, well attended by Columbus friends, Spurgeon's family, and a healthy contingent of those who came to know him online. 

Our obituary of Tom Spurgeon is here, written by Michael Dean. Tom's loss is and will continue to be felt by us for a very long time. Hopefully some of the pieces we will be publishing this week will help readers and friends process their own grief. It is doing that for me. Last week's blog post will continue to serve as a "Collective Memory" of Tom Spurgeon related pieces for as long as those pieces arise.

Today, Edwin Turner reviews Chris Ware's Rusty Brown for us--and next week, we'll hear a different take on the book, that one from Tegan O'Neil. Today though, it's Turner time:

Rusty Brown is a sprawling story about memory and perception, about minor triumphs and chronic failures, about how our inner monologues might not match up to the reality around us. In Ware's world, life can be blurry, spotty, fragmented. His characters are so bound up in their own consciousnesses that they cannot see the bigger picture that frames them.

Appropriate to this theme, Ware frames his novel as a day of network television programming, beginning with the beautiful program "Snow" (aka "Our Science Minute"). The two-page chapter is a brief, simple meditation on snowflakes. Can we be so sure that no two are truly alike? the cursive-voiced narrator wonders. The final paragraph of "Snow" subtly announces one of Rusty Brown's major themes:

Like the growing rings of a tiny hexagonal tree, billions of water molecules spin around and around, each finding the closest, easiest, and most comfortable bond (just as people, who seek the companionship of like minds and bodies, cannot simply be thrown together and expect to thrive)...

The characters of Rusty Brown are stuck in miserable "easy" bonds; thrown together, they do not thrive.

Elsewhere, a review: Here's an Abhay Khosla review on Scott Snyder and Charles Soule's comic they did with Giuseppe Camuncoli  for Image Comics. Come for the part where Abhay describes a thing that sounds professional but lousy, but stay for the part where the comic ended and becomes a no-shit advertisement for DARPA.

Elsewhere, a review: Ryan Carey takes a look at Tad Martin, from Casanova Frankenstein. 

Elsewhere, a comic: Michael Kupperman showed up at Harpers with a comic reminding us that 1989 was a formidable year for cinema. 

Rambling: When I first started up with Tim here at TCJ, one idea I had--I probably should put quotation marks around the word idea there--was that we should have a week where we get the absolute best minds of comics criticism, including all the in retirement or no-longer-willing-to-talk-to-TCJ-types, the fun academics, maybe Jeet Heer and his sister, the whole wrecking crew, all to write about some old issue of Daredevil that I had just read for the first time. Tim didn't shoot the idea down--in my experience, that wasn't how Tim did things--but he did just look at me quietly for a second, which is always long enough for one to realize that the other person hates the idea you've just proposed, you don't look cool in the shirt you've asked them about, and that hairstyle is for somebody who has a different, better face. Then he just said--"Okay. Why, though?" 

I didn't have an answer to that question, so I moved on. I am reminded of this moment only now because Amy Garvey wrote about that exact issue of Daredevil for Women Write About Comics and while it is not everything I hoped it would be--simply because it is one single article, and my hope was for as many articles about this single issue as there are hot takes on impeachment hearings--Amy's work is the first step towards a utopian future, wherein the only super-hero comic we talk about is Daredevil #261. I want the good recaps from the recap factory, as much as I want the overly obsessive panel dissections where they draw Microsoft Paint arrows on stuff but the arrow goes in the wrong way. I want to inhale some misspelled ramble that discloses way too much personal information about the writer, I want the overly politicized readings that conclude in mangled quotes of Adorno, I want to hear from the kind of comic book critics who have rearranged their collection to be alphabetical by title, than writer, than artist, than given up. I want to read the wet boyz who are just gonna plagiarize Zainab Akhtar, because that will also mean there is a Zainab take on Daredevil #261 to plagiarize. I want to read those yokels who goes way overboard talking about who the colorist is, one of those writers who you can go through their entire catalog of reviews and see, time and time again, how they write the same sentences over and over again about how this color made them feel a certain way, how these same sentences always show up midway through the final third of the review, right before they insert the staple line about the lettering being "excellent". Does blue make you feel cold, you stupid piece of shit? I love you, you dumb fucking moron: but how did all the red make you feel? I want all the takes! Let Amy lead the way out of this depressed world, towards a world where every episode of Cartoonist Kayfabe is a 24 hour livestream of Jim Rugg and Ed Piskor talking about what Ann Nocenti meant to them, but only in the context of this single issue of Daredevil that has way too much of the Human Torch, the favorite super-hero of people who wish they could be served oatmeal instead of rice when they go to chain restaurants.

Tom, this isn't going to be as much fun anymore.

I'm sitting in the airport in Austin, trying to ignore the gnawing sensation that I've made many terrible mistakes, a sensation that has come about because I decided to spend the 4AM hour reading this long article about Michel Haneke's earlier films. Austin is a fun town, although there is a certain point where you get tired of seeing all the drawings of guitars on everything. I don't want to take a dump in a guitar, thank you! You can put my water in a cup!

Thankfully, the site can continue apace regardless of me and my feelings. Starting off, we've got an interview with Kelsey Wroten, thanks to our old pal Annie Mok. It's a good one, and I share Kelsey's desire for more speed-based acclaim for cartooning types. Has anyone topped Kyle Baker's Dick Tracy pace while maintaining legibility?

As far as other thematic inspiration goes, I was exploring the notoriety aspect of creative work. If a person is an athlete it is easy to understand why one is greater at any one thing. If a person is the fastest there's nothing to debate. Creative work is somehow devoid of those external markers. It's experiential. It's like instead of being the fastest, a work is on the racetrack of trying to make someone feel something, whatever that comes to mean. The work that does that best is given a prize. This all seems well and good, but it also plays into other factors, like market saliency, accessibility, audience, and zeitgeist to name a few, all having nothing to do with the content of the work at all. Caroline is a 4 on the Enneagram test. She needs external validation for her internal life, which is setting herself up to fail from the start.

Today's review is from Leonard Pierce. Leonard didn't ask to be the Monday critic anymore than Hillary asked to be the Friday closer, but it certainly has been nice having that system in place. Leonard's looking at Luke Healy's new book with Nobrow, Americana, about his experience hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. My sister hiked the Appalachian Trail a few years ago, and the main thing I remember was when she had to stop and go to an emergency room in the middle because she got this psychotic spider bite and walked around with what looked like a tennis ball of infected flesh stuck to her body. Around the same time her husband woke up with spiders inside his ears! Leonard doesn't focus on those kind of gross-out elements of Luke's book in his review, which is why Leonard is a pro.

Artistically, Americana is a quite lovely book; though Healy is not a traditional illustrator of nature, his skill in conveying both the glory and the tawdriness of wild places is effective and compelling. There are long passages of text, a device that I normally don’t care for and which I find disrupts the flow of comics as a visual medium, but Healy loads in a lot of background that would make the story unwieldy if it were drawn. I can’t say I’m happy about it, but to leave this important material out entirely would be a huge loss, so I’m more kindly disposed towards it than I ordinarily might be. One of the charms of the book is how it draws you in to the argot of the trail and the distinct characters of those who follow it, and Healy’s medium-shot caricatures of oddly nicknamed fellow travelers (Spreadsheet, Craftsman, Secret Squirrel, Centerfold) gives you a real sense of their personalities as the drop in and out of his long quest along the trails. It’s an absolute fish-hook of a read, burying itself in you right away; Healy meets with constant travails and setbacks and always presses on, and I found myself pushing forward with him on every page. Putting the book down seemed like a surrender.

Time to go home! By way of Detroit?

It's Tuesday here at TCJ central, and we're charging forward with our week, which will see me returning to my birth state of Texas for the second time this year. I know you don't care: but these intro sentences need something for a focus, buster. Yesterday, Katie Skelly filed a conversation with Kate Lacour, a cartoonist whose work I fondly remember being picked up in zine form by people who often thought they were getting something cute, only to discover they had entered the raw: as today, as forever, she did not disappoint.

It’s a strange thing, you know -- your pupil looks black because it’s a hole. Physiologically, it’s a dark tunnel filled with transparent jelly, and at the end of that are the nerves straight to your brain. You see with it, but you can’t see it, just the empty dark space. Light goes in, hits the fovea, and doesn’t come out, the same as a black hole. When you look into the center of your face, the center of your eye, you’re seeing the darkness inside your head. It’s spooky. You know it’s emptiness, but there’s an unshakeable feeling of presence.

So this piece relates to a single experience, the one time I did ketamine, which is a horse anesthetic, back when I was 16 or 17. I took a dose -- too much, as it turns out -- and was suddenly sliding down this black tunnel and then just complete obliteration. Absolutely without time or physicality, totally without self. And in that non-space, there was this presence, if I can call it that. Utterly without form or qualities, this deep substrate. It seemed to go on forever.

Today, we're welcoming Qiana Whitted to these august pages for a look at Hot Comb, a collection of comics by Ebony Flowers that Drawn & Quarterly put out earlier this year.

In Hot Comb, hair is the visual narrative’s barometer of the self. The eight interlocking black-and-white stories use the social, historical, and economic politics of hair to chart the different phases of African American girlhood and illustrate how ideas about racial identity, trauma, beauty, sexuality, and power pass from one generation to the next. Some of the stories appear to draw on Flowers’ personal experiences as the basis of character and conflict, while a few shorter pieces read like journal entries of conversations in which hair is the main provocation. In the salon or at the kitchen stove, the intimate relationships that develop in these black women-centered spaces are cultivated to safeguard and to equip mothers, sisters, and daughters against the dangers beyond.

Reviews? We got those too. So far this week, Leonard Pierce has swung by for a look at The Hard Tomorrow, which is another D&Q release--this one, by Eleanor Davis. Leonard was feeling this one, y'all:

Books sometimes come around at such a timely moment, and speak to you in such a precise way, that it’s almost alarming. The trick of speaking to one’s current moment is to make what you’re saying immediate and meaningful to your audience without making it so specific that it will seem dated within a short period of time, and seeing the main character of a book pick up her phone and smash likes for DSA chapters and extremely online leftists was so close to home I almost dropped The Hard Tomorrow in shock twenty pages in. 

And today, our pal Frank Young delivers his take on Brain Bats of Venus, the second volume in Greg Sadowski's much-appreciated retrospective look at Basil Wolverton. Frank's into it:

Sadowski’s compelling text makes keen use of Wolverton’s papers to tell his story. His tone is clear, level-headed and objective. The book’s hundreds of illustrations, many sourced from original art, show Wolverton trying different methods, including a short-lived detour into airbrushing. His working methods are seen via rough drafts, hand-written notes and story breakdowns. It’s a pity that no complete “Powerhouse Pepper” stories were included, but that is possibly due to rights issues. The reader gets an eclectic dose of Wolverton’s work over this decade. As with the first volume, I’ll often dip back into this one when I need a dose of homespun madness.

And that's it for the week so far! Thanks for sticking with us through the previous weeks of technical difficulties.

It's been a tumultuous week at TCJ, and we're still hammering the kinks out right now. But we're not dead, and there's some excellent pieces coming on Guts, Paper Girls, Bradley of Him, Rusty Brown and...there's a LOT. There's a lot! And we're hustling to get it up and running.

Today at TCJ, I'm pleased to share you with Mel Gillman's roundtable conversation with cartoonists Blue Dellinquanti & Dylan Edwards on the importance of LGBTQ speculative fiction. 

Blue Delliquanti: You don't realize how much RAM in your day-to-day processing system is taken up by just, like, justifying your existence. It's really interesting to see a character like yourself in a speculative world. I like to play in the same playground as Dylan, where I'm really interested in infrastructure.

Dylan Edwards: I think this bounces back to the concept of seeing yourself in media in the first place. If you had told me as a 12 year old that asexual was a thing you could be, that would have changed my life. One of the things that spec fic allows you to do is ask things like, what if society wasn't transphobic to begin with? What if trans people's humanity was just accepted as fact?

Earlier this week at TCJ, we welcomed Tim Hayes to the team. His first piece is a look at one of the latest additions to the world of comics reprints: Rebellion's restoration and re-release of the IPC Youth Group, a whole catalog of British comics ranging from the violent to the weird, with another stop on the way through weird violence.

Swimming in an ocean of British comics mostly unseen since the 1970s and 1980s can give you a nostalgia trip or the bends. The sentimental aspect, inevitable if you happen to have been reading some of this stuff the first time round, is less interesting now than the stylistic approaches of creators faced with a relentless weekly schedule of short four or five-page episodes, mostly in black and white. The baseline pace of the art is supersonic; the style is rough hewn and aggressive, plainly the work of human hands; and the plots look set to roll on for as long as the comic may last, all digression squeezed out by the density of the storytelling while definitive endings recede like the horizon. And notwithstanding the laudable resurrection of historical cartooning, it's a clash of original form and newfound function. Although Rebellion does not reveal sales figures, and the numbers for the Treasury imprint can only be guessed at, routes into 150-page slabs of 150-MPH black-and-white comics created for teenagers might not materialize for casual readers without some decent guidance and husbandry. Closing the loop between Judge Dredd and Dirty Harry via One-Eyed Jack is one thing; but what readership is out there keen to beat a path back to Dirty Harry? And how old are they?

Tim isn't the only new face 'round here--Simone Castaldi also filed his first piece with TCJ on Massimo Mattioli, whose recent passing blows a giant hole in the part of comics where our boundary pushing goes. If you haven't kept up with Mattioli--of which a scant amount is available in English--than Castaldi's article will serve just as well as an introduction as it does a fond remembrance.

Massimo Mattioli, Italian comic innovator and irreverent mixer of genres, styles, and cultural levels, passed away last month at age 75. He was a central figure in the movement that conjugated the pop language of comics with the highbrow world of contemporary arts in the late 1970s and 1980s. Since 1977, he was also a key member of the Cannibale group, a cluster of artists (including Andrea Pazienza and Stefano Tamburini, among others) tied to important magazines such as the eponymous Cannibale and Frigidaire. Known to English-speaking audiences mainly for his Squeak the Mouse saga, Mattioli’s artistic output is in fact tremendously vast and diverse, ranging from deceptively innocent children’s stories, published in Italian Catholic magazines such as Il Giornalino, to the sex-guts-and rockets yarns of his Frigidaire contributions. Mattioli’s career is also singular, in the context of Italian comics, because he was one of the very few Italian comic artists to make a name for himself abroad before actually establishing his career in his own country.

And on Monday, Cynthia Rose delivered her third piece in as many weeks--have you felt spoiled lately? Because you have been--on Edgar P. Jacobs Blake & Mortimer comics, which have seen renewed interest in the past few years. 

Jacobs died in 1987 at 83, having produced Blake and Mortimer only between 1946 and 1973. This legacy comprises eight tales and ten albums. Nine years after their author died, however, Dargaud brought back his duo. Since then, numerous pens have kept Blake and Mortimer going. The franchise attracted names like Bob De Moor, Ted Benoit, Teun Berserik, Jean Van Hamme and Peter Van Dongen. Now they are joined by megastar François Schuiten, who is a lifelong devotee of Jacobs' work. Schuiten is behind the new, eighty-page Blake and Mortimer tale Le Dernier Pharaon (The Last Pharaoh).

Le Dernier Pharaon is a tribute in story form that, as I write, has topped BD best-seller lists for seven weeks. Schuiten, who created Les Cités Obscures with Benoît Peeters, assembled a trio of collaborators for it: film director Jaco Van Dormael, writer Thomas Gunzig and the exceptional colourist Laurent Durieux. This quartet spent four years pondering Jacobs' question What does it mean, in one's own time, to save the world?

So far this week, we've had reviews from Brad Mackay on Nick Maandag's The Follies of Richard Wadsworth, Chris Mautner on AJ Dungo's In Waves, and Robert Kirby on the Diane Noomin-edited collection, Drawing Power. Today, cartoonist Patrick Kyle also tried his hand at the review game, with a look at Inés Estrada's Alienation.

Here's a lovely and welcomed update regarding Jeremy Sorese, by Jeremy Sorese, who recently returned home from the hospital. The fundraiser he describes in the letter is still active at GoFundMe.

Over at Smash Pages, Alex Dueben can be found speaking with Jorge J. Santos, the author of a new academic book about comics that and how they can engage with the legacy and meaning of the Civil Rights Movement. There's also some talk of the Hernandez Brothers, because they rule:

You teach Gilbert and Jaime in Latino literature? Which books do you use?

I have trouble imagining teaching that class without some Gilbert or Jaime Hernandez. I usually use Gilbert and the first Fantagraphics collection. I have a class on Junot Diaz and I use Poison River because he said that was the book that he has emulated the most in terms of what he wants to sound like and Gilbert is his biggest influence. The students are really receptive to it because it’s not plot oriented and the stories can be surreal. Gilbert Hernandez is like a Swiss Army Knife, he has so many interests that I can usually say that I have a list of topics I like to touch on and Gilbert will let me do four of these. Jaime I use less so. I don’t think I’ve taught Jaime successfully yet, but Gilbert’s a staple.

Over at Fleen, Gary Tyrrell has a long, personal look at the new Tillie Walden book, Are You Listening. It's not really a review, but it's an interesting, passionate piece of writing. Walden's work continues to impress me as much with the fervency with which its fans react to and describe it as I am by her skill at drawing. Despite my own misgivings about  Are You Listening, it's impossible to argue with the cultural impact her work continues to amass with each new release.

Your experience will be different; some of you will likely hate this book and you won’t be wrong. It’s a reflection our personal landscapes, which are no more stable than memory because we are each distinct and always changing. But if you want a book to challenge you — not just what you think about comics, or narrative, but what you think about you — then you will love it as I do, and we won’t be wrong.

SPX takes place this weekend, and you'll be expected to provide a hot take on...a poster that Chris Ware drew? Ha. Nope! If we're all going to play to form, then I'm going to spend the weekend reenacting my favorite cliche by reading this hardcover collection of Crossed comics by Garth Ennis that I skipped back when it was....ah shit, this some online crap that was illustrated by Mike Wolfer. Fuck!

Well, I hope you have a great show, imaginary reader! See you tomorrow for Ryan Flanders and reviews.

The week, she continues tearassing along. Have you kept up with us? It's a rhetorical device intended to keep you reading this blog entry.

Kurt Ankeny's Cartoonist's Diary made two more stops since we last spoke: on Wednesday, it tried to go swimming and today, it hung out with a teenager.

Wednesday, your very own Paul Tumey swung by with a look at the latest Tom Van Deusen comic, and he pulled out the big guns: references to Classical Philosophy!

The ancient Greek philosopher Hepatitis once wrote, “The purpose of truth is so that we may know ourselves and each other.” If that’s the case, then Tom Van Deusen’s Expelling My Truth, reveals nothing and everything. The choice of the malapropism “expelling” in the title is a prime example of Van Deusen’s deadpan wit. As with all good comedy, there’s a core of truth to the gag. The definition of “expelled” is to deprive someone of membership to an organization or a society. If you read enough Van Deusen, you’ll soon see one of the recurring themes running underneath the surface of his hilarious, off-kilter comics is that of not belonging; of being an outsider.

Today, Sean Witzke is here with a dive into William Gibson, whose decades long dream of having his vision of franchise expansion fulfilled by Dark Horse Comics and Johnnie Christmas via Alien 3: The Unproduced Screenplay.

Alien 3 has a certain reputation with different groups -- to David Fincher, it was a nightmare first production for the enfant terrible director, one he has since refused to be associated with because the studio will not restore his child autopsy scene, which even the biggest Gone Girl fan in the world would admit is a bit much. For movie dorks, it’s a movie you like to argue is better than whoever is tolerating listening to you remembers. For most people, it’s the one where Sigourney Weaver got head shaved. For losers, it’s the one where Newt dies off-camera and they get angry. I remember Alien 3 as the first rated R movie that had a very large toy push, meaning I was being sold ephemera related to a product I technically wasn’t supposed to see.

And then Marc Sobel returned to us with the first of a two-parter revealing what he managed to track down on a visit to the Book Nook, a store that got a whole bunch of my money (and all my old cassette tapes and a bunch of my CD's) when I was growing up. Sobel doesn't say that his column--whose focus is primarily the British comics anthology Trident--is a present for me, but that's okay, some guys have trouble talking about their feelings. Thanks Marc! I see you!

My tastes in comics are all over the map, but I have a special love for ‘80s and ‘90s British anthologies. There was such intense passion for the medium back then, and it went so much deeper than just 2000 A.D. and Warrior, or Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Grant Morrison. There were hundreds of talented creators publishing comics in series like Crisis, Revolver, Escape, Deadline, A1, and Electric Soup.

Trident Comics, an offshoot of Neptune Distribution, a comics distributor based in Leicester, was a small press publisher in the late '80s, and this short-lived anthology was its flagship title. The series was edited by Martin Skidmore, who had previously edited the Fantasy Advertiser, a British adzine. If you think of these anthologies as a poker hand, Trident had a pair of aces: Bacchus by Eddie Campbell and St. Swithin’s Day by Grant Morrison and Paul Grist. But the series attracted a surprisingly large number of other well-known creators to its eight issues, including Neil Gaiman, Phil Elliott, John Ridgeway, Alan Davis, and Mark Millar.

 

Today at TCJ, we're roaring into a short week with plenty of TCJ branded online content for you: hopefully you'll stick around for the duration. I'll be hanging out at a school bus stop for the first time in over twenty years, if you need me. I'm the guy who is sick of sharpening pencils.

That's not the only trip that's going down though--why not relax into the brain of Cynthia Rose, who'll walk you through the halls of Paris' Musée Guimet for their current show, On the Road to Tōkaidō? With a focus on the work of Utagawa Hiroshige, it's...well, let's let Cynthia explain it:

The show is a virtual trip down a route with 53 stops, in works that depict enchanting views, breathtaking scenery and delightful picnics. But these holiday-style high points are grounded in reality. So there are also weary parents with cranky kids, unwelcoming locals and screeching roosters that shatter the traveller's sleep. Each new village has its own tourist traps, from hustling hoteliers to overpriced bars. It may sound a lot like National Lampoon's Vacation. But it's all happening in 1833 – on a Japanese trail once as iconic as America's Route 66.

Today's review comes to us from Rob Clough, who is here with a look at 2017's What Is Left, by Rosemary Valero-O'Connell. As Rob puts it:

Often, when the work of an emerging cartoonist starts to gain attention, it is useful to consider their most recent work prior to their breakthrough comic. Rosemary Valero-O'Connell is not only gaining praise for illustrating the Mariko Tamaki-written YA book Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me published earlier this year, but she's also signed with First Second for two books of her own. Prior to that, she's released an impressive series of mini-comics, including one for Zainab Akhtar's ShortBox, What Is Left.

In a bit of synchronistic timing, Akhtar announced just yesterday that ShortBox were crowdfunding an extensive reprinting of What Is Left (along with other stories by Valero-O'Connell). 

We're also pleased to be roaring into the week with yet another Cartoonist's Diary--if you haven't been keeping up with them, there's an easy fix for that. This week, we're in the hands of Kurt Ankeny. In Monday's installment, he annoyed his son and in today's, it's Mother Nature who is altering his plans.

Finally, there's this. Following years of allegations, rumors, insinuations, the publisher hopping, Crossfit-preaching, did-you-know-I-have-a-daughter self-declared champion of women the world 'round found himself smashed right up against some new allegations of sexual harassment, and this time, he actually lost a job over it. Who would that be? Well, since you haven't clicked the link yet, it would be Brian Wood, and the newest claims would be from Laura Hudson. Full disclosure: Brian Wood and I have not gotten along for years, although initially that had to do with me disliking some of his comics, while I have gotten along just fine with Laura Hudson, because she hired me and paid me money to write about comic books. My general pessimism towards Wood increased over the years, especially after he made some weird claims about how I treated him at a party to some people who he thought liked him (they did not, and promptly rushed over to tell me about it as soon as he left), and continued after I attempted to repair the breach so as not to alienate my employer at the time. But eventually I--like most of the people who worked with Wood at Vertigo--gave up on trying, because life is too short, his comics were pretty generic, and you'd hear some fucked up rumor about the guy every other couple of months. (Meanwhile, Laura "Total Champ" Hudson kept finding ways to hire and pay me, won an Eisner for comics journalism, and generally stuck to being great.) Eventually, the noise around Wood got loud enough that it transitioned from people in Brooklyn talking shit about him at parties and became something you could read about online. (That's another Beat article about Wood's alleged behavior towards women, and it's from six years ago.) 

At the time--2013--I was also writing a regular column for this site, often partnered with Abhay Khosla. We had discussed the idea of doing actual journalism on the allegations surrounding Wood, as both of us had found been pissed off by the claims made in a blog post by Anna Scherbina (which are now hosted here), claims which were subsequently covered in The Atlantic by none other than Noah Berlatsky. Instead, we took the safe route, and turned the whole thing into a mean joke.

And now, here we are again, right? Six plus years Wood has continued to work in comics, and while one can argue that his assignments have been less plum, it certainly doesn't seem like he's had to suffer any consequences for a consistent pattern of behavior described by multiple women, again and again--hell, the first comment on Samantha Puc's piece from a few days ago is someone saying "Damn that’s really disappointing. Still think he’s a great writer and i will most likely buy his books but he seems to be a shitty human being", a note perfect distillation of the philosophy that ensured Wood's employment would never truly be seriously questioned....until this past weekend, when, after years of insinuations Dark Horse Comics figured that they could hire somebody with a little less of a toxic cloud around them to handle the 113th comic book mini-series spun-off from a 1979 Ridley Scott movie. Congratulations all around. 

Today at TCJ, we're taking a look at Ernie Colón, who passed away last week. First up, you'll find Steven Ringgenberg's obituary, and after that, you'll find Kent Worcester's 2007 interview with Ernie, first published in Comics Journal #285. 

Did you always feel a sense of pride in being a cartoonist?

I always shared Will Eisner’s belief that comics could be something more. I felt this very strongly, from my first years in the business. As far as I am concerned, the only people who tried to put down comics were staffers at DC and Marvel, who would refer to what I did with Richie Rich and Casper as “bigfoot” drawing. That would piss me off. I somehow thought that what we were doing was cartooning. 

I only met Will Eisner a couple of times, but as far back as I can remember I thought that comics could be a lot more than simply superhero comics. When I was growing up there were all kinds of comics, from Westerns and romances to kids’ comics. I resented the fact that superheroes became the major genre in comics, and I probably made a mistake when I let people know how I felt at DC and Marvel. 

Our latest Cartoonist Diary of the week launched yesterday, and continues all through the week. Alison Wilgus, who recently made her solo debut with Chronin, is sharing her experience at Wiscon, a feminist science fiction & fantasy convention that took place in Madison Wisconsin earlier this year. Today, she describes her experience at a "vidding" showcase.

Has Daniel Best been posting excerpts from his Todd McFarlane book for a while? I hadn't seen 'em before. One fun thing to do is watch those videos advertising Neil Gaiman's writing Master Class, where he describes stories as being the imagination's kiss, who arrives promptly in a dream carriage every morn if you have a smiling heart, and then read an actual letter he and a lawyer have put together.

Over at Comicosity, Jude DeLuca has a long, hard take on that Heroes In Crisis comic--which appears to be even more offensive than previous reports had made it seem--that concludes with multiple examples of times when super-hero comics have engaged with more complicated issues of trauma with in more delicate, compassionate fashion. It's interesting to note that none of these examples that Jude pulls are from recent super-hero comics.

Well, July--otherwise known as the first month that TCJ didn't have Tim Hodler to legitimize this place and keep the trains moving--has reached conclusion. Is it clear on your end how bumpy it has been? Don't answer that: I've already heard from most of you, and it's my aim to keep making progress from wherever we are right now. This week, we'll be sharing space with the extraordinarily talented Molly Mendoza, whose Cartoonist Diary begins today. We may very well have a new one of these every week for a bit.

Our other piece of the day comes to us from Alex Dueben. He's speaking with Joan Steacy, the new-to-the-scene cartoonist behind Aurora Borealice, from Conundrum Press. 

Beyond just drawing 200 something pages, the act of putting your life on the page like this is exhausting.

It’s very revealing. Most of my life I’ve hidden my vulnerabilities, and here I am putting them out there. I’m a stronger person now and fine with it, so hopefully some people can relate to it. We all have insecurities, anxieties and obstacles to overcome, life can be hard at times. Eric’s response to my first book, which is now the first chapter. I wasn’t sure what he'd think  because he plays a big role in it. I got this letter back and he really liked it but one of the things he said that surprised me was "What you don't realize is that I too--and still, largely, am. I have always been debilitatingly shy and unable to relate to people" To me, I couldn't believe it because I easily related to him and found him so easy to talk to. Sadly, I lost Eric last year and he never got to see the completed version. The strength he gave me over the years was such a valuable education. 

I've made my way through most of the responses to San Diego Comic Con, and the one I thought handled the best was Chuck's from Mile High Comics-I like it even more as the days go by. The rest I don't have any patience for.

Finally, one of the great joys of my time spent working at Nobrow Press was having the chance to work with Jeremy Sorese on Curveball, his book with them. Beyond being impressed by his wit and style, Jeremy's generous and kind attitude towards young students and cartoonists was a shining example of how one could carry themselves in this particular field--I genuinely treasure the opportunity I had to work with him. As such, seeing the outpouring of support he has received from the comics community following the horrible assault that befell him in New York last Thursday doesn't surprise me--he is one of the true bright spots that this artform has. For more information on what happened to Jeremy, and how one can help support him at this time, take a look at this gofundme campaign set up by his friends. 

This week at The Comics Journal, Austin English delivered his latest 10 Cent Museum column, focusing on the complete Clyde Fans. It's a long, thoughtful piece about the book, and we're pleased to share it. As Austin puts it in his opener, "Seth's skill and talent is not up for debate any longer. We must instead move on to the implication of what he is trying to say, the only way to engage with an artist of consequence."

It's interesting to live in a time when so many of long delayed & long running series are reaching conclusion--along with Clyde Fans, D&Q also published Jason Lutes' Berlin last year, and this fall sees the first major collection of Chris Ware's Rusty Brown arrive. Even The Walking Dead--a comic whose success was at one point anecdotally described to me as the "only reason" Diamond was able to financially survive--has ended. In their wake, larger titles now seem to arrive fully formed, as imposing bricks of value and meaning, no longer appearing without decades of public gestation--or the opposite occurs, with thousands of pages appearing online before some unknown line is crossed and their cultural importance is discussed as a foregone conclusion. 

This week also sees Matt Seneca's review of Pope Hats 6, also referred to as "Shapeshifter". As with Austin's take on Seth, Matt is looking at an artist whose talent and skill demands serious analysis, even if the current work is not to the critic's liking.

We're also pleased to return to France once more, with Sloane Leong's the penultimate interview in her series of conversations with her fellow artists-in-residence at the Maison de Auteurs in Angouleme. This week, she spoke with Giorgia Casetti. Reading these interviews and seeing the general commonality of experience amongst Sloane's peers has been an educational experience, and an enjoyable one. Again and again, these artists describe a drive to create and access their own intangible comics language, the difficulties of managing influence, having a cultural support network that goes beyond mere social ties, and struggling under never-ending financial difficulties. This was all Sloane's idea to do these--I'm grateful she made it happen. 

San Diego Comic Con took place this past weekend. It's not a show that harbors huge importance to me, neither personally or professionally, and this most recent one didn't either. Bright side stuff: I guess if they're gonna reprint Steve Ditko's work against his wishes, I'm glad that the job is going to Scott Dunbier, who is going to do it with a lot more class than the other guy would have.

Well, the week is out here at TCJ: but the geek culture behemoth that is San Diego Comic Con has already begun. That Cats trailer really is as bad as they're saying!

This week at The Journal, we finished out a week of cartooning with two more pieces by Elizabeth Beier, covering her time at the Queers & Comics Conference. Along with the giant line-up for the "Long Form Comics" panel, Elizabeth also delivered her take on the well received "Non-Fiction Comics & Comics Journalism" panel. It looks like we've already locked down our next one of these, so stay seated!

On Tuesday, Matt Seneca took a look at the tenth volume of Kramers Ergot, and spoke with editor Sammy Harkham as well. The book itself is an excellent collection of comics, with Sammy's extensive centerpiece one of the strongest of his career. 

Kramers Ergot 10 makes things plain as can be from its indicia on in, proclaiming debts in bright red capital letters to Raw, Weirdo, andThe Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics, a holy trinity of American anthologies. Weird shit in their time, in combination these titles laid out a rough playbook for the alt-comics style of the '80s and '90s - one that Kramers would provide a necessary pivot from a generation later. The name-drop opening of this volume suggests a circle closing, that focusing on differences between canon and challenger ignores their fundamental connection. "I felt like this issue could be the one where we make it explicit," Harkham told me in an Oakland alehouse on the eve of the book's release, "the relationship Kramers has always had to the history of comics. When issue 4 came out everyone was like 'oh, it feels so cutting edge and new, blah blah,' but the reason they're feeling that way is because it hearkens back to the last one hundred years of comics. There is a lineage that it's connected to. And in this one we just make that more explicit."

Since the pieces publication, the ongoing conversation regarding how its creators are compensated for their work in Kramers has returned in full force, primarily on social media (both public and private), while some have also brought up a lack of diversity amongst the book's contributor list. Both are serious subjects that deserve attention and conversation, and we will speak more about them soon.

But that's not all that went down this week--we're pleased to welcome two new TCJ contributors to these digital pages this week. The first is someone comics criticism readers will be well aware of: Hillary Brown! She's been assembling her first array of pieces for TCJ for the past few month, and the first appeared this week--a review of Tonta, by Jaime Hernandez. Here's how she opens that one up:

It seems like the abiding conception of Jaime Hernandez’s Tonta is that it’s a minor work of his, a sort of tossed-off compilation of stories focusing on a character who’s more an Io than a Jupiter, a character actor rather than a leading lady. But the fact is that reading it, for me, produced the same rush of blood to the brain and almost dizzying happiness as his “major” Maggie and Hopey stories. It’s not quite Stendhal Syndrome, but it’s close. Experiencing work that you love so completely is a sort of out-of-body experience, which is what Stendhal was getting at, whether or not he actually became physically weak by hanging out around various Florentine masterworks. Philosophers have been trying to unpack the idea of the “sublime” for centuries, so it’s unlikely that I’m going to put my finger on it here, but the general point is that it’s something that makes you feel small, as though dwarfed in the presence of a god or godlike force. So how does a comics nerd from Oxnard do that once, much less over and over again?

Our other new teammate is Ryan Flanders, formerly of MAD Magazine. While the unfortunate timing of MAD's transition towards the grave (a mostly reprint magazine selling only via Diamond is not MAD Magazine) forced the initial topic of Ryan's piece for us, he somehow managed to deliver something a lot more positive than one might expect. He'll get his venom on soon enough, one hopes.

To open an issue of MAD Magazine, from any point in its history, is to encounter an assemblage of many of the most brilliant writers, artists and satirists working in that era. It is a whole package you can hold in your hands, an ensemble of voices echoing out as one, an orchestra of insanity, hilarity, and cultural acuity. Though it’s had its imitators, and influenced many successful comedic endeavors, there is truly nothing else like MAD — a regularly-produced menagerie of carefully crafted, intertwining words and visuals. Within the staff, we were never satisfied if an issue was just okay — we always wanted the damn thing to be good. And good takes time. 

And then there's Brenda Dales! Another new contributor? We're not sure yet, as Brenda's main interest was in one book, and one creator, and now that she's delivered her interview with Wilfrid Lupano--whose A Sea of Love was released in the US via Lion Forge, after finding initial success in a Dargaud edition in Europe, and heads into the weekend with three Eisner nominations to its name--time will tell if she wants to go for round two.

In late June of 2019 I met up with Wilfrid Lupano in Washington, D.C. at an event connected with the American Library Association annual conference, and we had a conversation that navigated throughout his creative process for the book. Here I follow up with him in an intercontinental email exchange in early July of 2019 about this maritime masterpiece (he’s now in France, and I’m not).

And finally, this week's reviews were both returns of sorts--a new book by Max de Radigues, which is probably his fifth in the last twelve months--reviewed by Rich Barrett,  and the latest installment in the Brubaker/Phillips Criminal series, the cheekily comics-focused Bad Weekend, reviewed by Sean Witzke. (He seemed to like this one.)

Next week, we'll aim to find something at San Diego worth jawing about, review some comics, interview some cartoonists, and find some decent drawings to look at. 

This week in TCJ, we've kicked things off with a classic monster interview with a stone cold master: Everett Raymond Kinstler, whose career stretches from pulp covers through to US Presidents, with a stopover at Hawkman. If you're at all familiar with my preferences regarding interview subjects, you may know that I love to hear about what goes into working on Hawkman, a character I have absolutely no real affection for nor nostalgic connection to, and yet nonetheless remain fascinated with hi: however, this is the third time an interview with a Hawk-related creator came along where the interviewer refused to engage with the aforementioned Hawk-related creator about what it's like working the Katar beat. In his defense, I didn't actually speak to Steven Brower prior to his conversation with Kinstler, and would have lacked the courage to even make the request--but I can certainly grouse about it now and I believe Kinstler wouldn't have minded a bit as he has dealt with far more difficult individuals than I. Here he is, recapping his first meeting with James Montgomery Flagg:

So I got up and here was this guy, he looked big to me, he wasn’t that tall, but he was maybe 6’1” or 6’2”, a great shock of white hair, heavy brows, and I remember he was wearing a navy blue shirt, with red suspenders, and he said, “Come on, let me see your work, it probably stinks.” Made me feel great, as a 17-year-old, and he looked through the work and I remember he said to me, I have reason to remember this of course, “Well, I see so much crap these days. And Mayor LaGuardia believes they can make art in the school programs, all they do is produce mediocrity.” He started to look, he said, “Young fella, you’re doomed to be an illustrator. Or doomed to be an artist.” And then he asked me about Mr. DuMond, he kind of settled down, and then talked about Mr. DuMond and he told me he studied with him 50 years ago.

Today, we've got an official statement from Robin McConnell on the future of Inkstuds. Robin's decade plus time at Inkstuds has produced hours of interviews with many of the creators and critics featured both here and in our print edition.

This week, we'll be running some non-fiction comics--but this time, they aren't part of our traditional Cartoonist Diary series. Instead, it's Elizabeth Beier's look at various panels from the recent Queers & Comics Conference, hosted at NYC's School of Visual Arts. So far, she's given us her notes on Magdalene Visaggio's  conversation with Justin Hall, and today she's recapping another conversation, this one between Nicole Georges and Mariko Tamaki. Stay tuned for two more installments, arriving on Thursday and Friday.

Our first review of the week comes courtesy of Robert Kirby. He's here with his take on How I Tried To Be A Good Person, by Ulli Lust. Those of you with access to Tim and my email accounts will be aware that more people wanted to review How I Tried To Be A Good Person than any other title so far this year! Here's some Kirby Krackle on Lust for ya:

Her follow-up, How I Tried to be a Good Person, begins a few years after Today. Lust appears more settled, yet no less driven to live according to her own lights, come what may. A thread running strongly throughout both books is the allure of wresting oneself from societal conventions—and the often-heavy costs of doing so. Lust is determined to live her truth, even occasionally putting herself in physical danger. At other times, she’s left contemplating the line between self-actualization and selfishness. Lust relates all this in an uncompromisingly frank manner, with anthropological detail. It’s a rich narrative.

And of course, last week was a full house as well. We delivered a giant look at Polish cartoonist Przemysław Trusciński's TRUST album. Only days later, ICv2 published a galley of overly serious actors dressed up in his Witcher designs. Coincidence, or excellent advance planning and trend-forecasting? (Spoiler alert: anything that distracts Henry Cavill from recording voice-overs for the Synder cut is a waste of time.)

We also celebrated the return of Alex Dueben, who was here talking to J.M. DeMatteis about all things Moonshadow. (The only thing Alex loves more than Moonshadow is apologizing to DeMatteis about his love for Moonshadow. I would do the same if I was talking to Keith Giffen about the 5YL--two sides same coin.)

As I think I’ve said in our previous conversations, I think this is one of the great comics. Period. But I will admit that re-reading it again for this interview, I found myself sometimes thinking, it’s a very wordy book.

You have no idea how much copy I cut out of that book! I’d write a page and then start slicing and dicing. That said, comics aren’t one thing or another. They’re anything we want them to be. And with Moonshadow—and a number of other projects I’ve done over the years—I wanted to explore the line between prose and comics.  

There are some people who say that comics should be “movies on paper.” And they can be that. But they can also be a thousand other things. Want to do three of four pages that are essentially illustrated prose and then shift into more typical, or perhaps even wordless, comics? Why not? Don’t let the format lead you, let the story lead you.

The other big return we had last week (along with Alex and Rob Clough) was Tegan O'Neil's surprise return to her super-hero column, Ice Cream For Bedwetters, which had run its official last installment a few weeks prior. In this follow up, Tegan used an oversized collection of bad Spawn spin-off comics to talk about the dawn of Image Comics. And RUNE! (Stick around for the comments, where Don Simpson shows up with enough sauce to make the whole thing a sundae.)

Malibu was Image’s original publisher, until the money materialized and the founders realized they had no need for middlemen. In their absence Malibu rolled out a new superhero line, too, this time with a bunch of guys you remembered from the 70s and 80s. Which was also a pretty good marketing gimmick for the time, if we’re being completely honest. And, before we go any further, it bears stating for the record that there was good stuff under the Ultraverse banner. A lot of seasoned pros doing very confident but rarely phenomenal work.

Except for Rune, which was one of the very best comics of the decade, and you only don’t think that because you haven’t read Barry Windsor-Smith’s ode to the naked lavender space vampire who likes ripping people in half with his bare fucking hands. I mean, Rune should be a household name. If people know who Spider-Man: Noir is, then by god they should know about Rune -

Other recent reviews included Josh Kramer's take on Cannabis, the latest in Box Brown's attempts to get paid for drawing about all the things he's interested in. Personally, i'm looking forward to future installments where Box really drills into the sort of mundane middle aged things that fascinate me. A whole comic where you keep pretending you've seen TV shows just so your younger coworkers will include you in conversations? A stack of sequential art devoted to how proud you feel when you don't take your phone with you to the bathroom? Here for it, big guy. 

Last week also saw Oliver Ristau deliver review coverage on Diabolical Summer, one of the many European graphic novels that IDW publishes makes physically available on a frequent basis. As part of shout out summer, Oliver has included a dig at a random Grant Morrison comic in the middle of his review as an attempt to lure Marc Singer out for a legit take on that GMoz Green Lantern comic that nobody I pay attention to has ever talked about with more than a cursory nod. Here's hoping!

As someone who enjoyed every cigarette he ever smoked right up until he stopped, it's great to see that John Constantine covers have returned to their original glory, featuring close-ups on the character lighting up a smoke. I can still remember that old 90's SPIN article where Trent Reznor kept talking about drinking protein shakes and thinking: man, growing up must suck. Don't go changing, Hellblazer!

Fleet Foxes. Get the hell out of here, Fleet Foxes.

Sophie Campbell's a very talented cartoonist, but I have to admit that my first thought when I heard there was a female turtle entering the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles universe was: agh, i hope that doesn't mean the turtles are gonna start fucking, nobody wants to see the turtles fucking. Unless they get Zulli back, of course. If they're gonna get sex into the Turtleverse, it's gotta be 100% serious, all the time. (THE HAND)

This week at The Comics Journal, we're going all in on Nate McDonough, whose Cartoonist Diary launched on Monday with a near real time look at his various travels. Today, he's visiting with a Pittsburgh classic: Bill Boichel, the physical embodiment of the phrase "gateway drug" as it applies to comics. What's to come for the rest of the week? Come back and see.

This week's big conversation is with Trevor Von Eeden. In our latest edition of Creator X Creator--the badly named but roughly accurate category of interview where the people who make the stuff talk with others who do so as well--Eeden gets into his history with Josh Bayer, and how that history has influenced the work these two have done together for the next wave of All Time Comics.

I'm COMPLETELY self-taught. As mentioned above, I learn the Zen way--by observation, experience...and as an artist, self-contemplation--because Art is all about expressing The Human Condition...which is inside of EVERY human--so why look elsewhere to learn it? I discovered Alex Toth's work while devouring Neal's photo & art morgue files at Continuity after work (I enjoyed free access to the studio, 24/7)...I also discovered Ayn Rand in '82, while working at Neal's studio. Her book The Fountainhead infused me with the idea that an artist could and SHOULD be a person of INTEGRITY--and her BRILLIANT, dramatic, and highly visual writing style inspired me to create visions of my own on paper--first inside of my head... All of the above, plus my desire to impress and inspire Lynn Varley as an artist (to prove to her her OWN worth) led into the creation of my own comics art and story-telling style in The Batman Annual # 8 (and the early THRILLER issues later on--but that's another story...) I never ask anyone for assistance nor advice in my life, and definitely not in my art...it's all MINE, and that's what makes me HAPPY.  

Today, you'll find the return of Rob Clough's High-Low column--this time around, Rob is taking a look at some more off-the-beaten path work from the boundary-pushing kuš!, who recently released some Chinese underground comics.

R. Orion Martin worked for a time as a translator in China, where he found a burgeoning underground comics scene. He has since published fascinating minicomics translated into English and has partnered with the stalwarts over at kuš! as well. These comics feel familiar in appearance and subject matter for American alternative comics readers, but also strange and original. Martin has noted that while a number of Chinese artists looked at manga and manhwa, they either didn't feel like they could draw in that style or it simply didn't speak to them. When they got hold of European underground comics, that proved to be a game-changer. Let's take a look at a few of these unusual comics.

Our first review of the week comes to ya from Paul Tumey, who returns to us with a look at The Artist Behind Superman: The Joe Shuster Story. Tumey claims he's here to stay, and said the handcuffs weren't necessary. But hey, that's company policy!

I almost didn't read this book. Not only is the story familiar to me, but it also stirs up my dyspepsia something terrible. The shameful saga of how badly the Men of Steal who ran National (the company that eventually became D.C. Comics) treated the creators of Superman, the property that made the company wildly successful, is well documented. In 2004, Gerard Jones told the story in Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book (Basic Books). Almost a decade later, Brad Ricca expanded the story with his in-depth book, Super Boys: The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster—the Creators of Superman (St. Martin’s Press, 2013). Voloj and Campi are well aware they are walking a fairly worn path—these two volumes and eight others on the formation of the superhero comic book are listed in The Joe Shuster Story’s selected bibliography.

Over at Inkstuds, Aisha Franz is talking with Robin about Shit Is Real and the recent Clubhouse anthology. 

Over at The Nation, Jeet Heer is delivering a major comics adjacent article, and it's on the subject that's been the talk of the town since last week: the changes at Mad Magazine. We'll be covering this subject in our own way pretty soon. For now? Get your Jeet on.

Over at Sina Grace's Tumblr, there's a much shared post from the creator about his experience working at Marvel Comics on the Iceman series. While it's easy--and correct--to criticize the people in charge of things at Marvel for being fundamentally lousy at their job and offensively stupid, it's often something you can only reckon with by pointing out how bad most of their comics are, and how gross most of their employees act on social media. Having someone like Sina come along and give you the actual receipts--that's the stuff!

Over at Longbox Coffin, you'll find an article on Alan Moore's Supreme that nails it about as hard as the truth can. Stick around for a guest appearance of a TCJ regular, and then say Happy Birthday. Happy Birthday, Brian!

Over at Ink Logging, Tom Kaczynski has his take on Silver Surfer Black #1, a recent Marvel comic I also purchased and read. Like Tom, I was also impressed with the splash page that is framed with the Surfer's smooth non-penis dead center.

Tom of Finland is gearing up for a special birthday!

Today at the Comics Journal, we're launching you into the weekend with Tegan O'Neil's final column for us under the Ice Cream for Bedwetters banner--what's that? You'll have to read it to find out what comes next--but here's a bit of it, to get you started:

I really didn’t enjoy Spider-Verse - it made me grouchy in a way I hadn’t been expecting because it made me feel decidedly out of touch. It wasn’t that I didn’t get it, it was that I got that it represented a completely new paradigm of fandom that didn’t hold much appeal for me. And after I mulled that over for a while I realized something else: that was OK, too.

Sometimes it takes seeing something you don’t like to bring into relief what you do: all the cool stuff that audiences were responding to onscreen didn’t really interest me because what I really like about these characters and stories has absolutely nothing to do with them as ongoing properties. I can’t identify with a character in a movie when I’ve personally written thousands of words about how his creators hated each other. There’s no way to get back to that place, for me, for so many reasons, but that’s a really big one.

Today's review comes to us from Matt Seneca, who is here with a deep dive into Yuichi Yokoyama's Plaza. I've been suckered into buying expensive foreign editions of comics that are over my head by Matt, Joe McCulloch and Chris Mautner before, but let me spoil Matt's review a bit to say this: Plaza is the real deal. When we get to the end of 2019 and start arguing about which comics are as great as Kevin Huizenga's River at Night, there's gonna be one real contender for the fight--and it's this comic right here.

This might not be the best Yuichi Yokoyama comic, but it's definitely the most Yuichi Yokoyama comic. For my money, the enigmatic mangaka is the contemporary cartoonist whose work carries the highest sum total of uniqueness and quality - the guy out there right now who there's the least amount of stuff as weird as, and the least amount of stuff as good as. Even given that distinction though, Plaza sits in rarefied air. It's a book that challenges you to read it all through in one go, one whose every new panel throws another hard left jab out at your eye and dares you to assimilate its information into the story you've been reading. Yokoyama is many things, but accessible has never been one of them, and this is his least accessible book. It's also the hardest to buy - no American edition, no importer, and almost sold out in Japan - but I bought one, so I'm gonna talk about it anyway.

Yesterday, I hope you read our nice long interview with Polish comics superstar  Przemysław Truściński, in the first TCJ work from Michal Chudoliński, who will be covering the Polish scene in comics for us. Next week, we'll be spotlighting some more of Truściński's work that we weren't able to fit into the interview.

We also had another extended glaring contest from Sean Witzke, who was able to find a way to lower his standards enough to not completely dislike a genre comic about space truckers.

Because of the July 4th we'll be quiet until next week. Tune in then for a new Cartoonist Diary, the return of Rob Clough's Hi Low Column, an interview i'm kinda worried about, and a whole mess of reviews. Here's a picture of me and Gary Groth discussing our plans for the website, taking just this past week! 

Today at the Comics Journal, we're starting off an abbreviated holiday week with Mark Newgarden. Mark's here with a deep dive into a very specific comic: the Bushmiller one where the dog pisses on the guy's couch.

Although intended only as a cheap laugh for his Dutch Treat Club cronies, "How To Housebreak YourDog" assumed an illustrious afterlife. The irresistible (and un-copyrighted) page was promptly bootlegged, perhaps by a fellow Dutch Treater gone bad. It was soon launched into a surreptitious, labyrinthine underworld through which such illicit printed matter of the day was channeled. No other work produced for this obscure social club ever enjoyed such far-flung distinction. In various modes and media over the past six decades, this mutt has stepped up to the couch again and again.

Our review of the day comes to us from Shea Hennum, and he's got his library card at the ready for a look at Manuele Fior's Red Ultramarine. 

The book makes no effort to clarify the relationship between characters, though this is not itself an issue. Rather, it piles on the confusion at the expense of its own emotional gravity. In the mythic story, Daedalus is the focus and the life of his son is at stake. Likewise, in the contemporary story, Silvia is the focus and it is the life of Fausto at stake. Her fear, which we are made to share, is that Fausto might harm himself. This differs significantly from the danger threatening Icarus, and so the parallels between them are limited. This fact is compounded by the vast differences between the narratives themselves, though the characters do occupy similar positions in their respective stories. What’s more, they look identical, so much so that, in a brief interlude, Silvia travels into the Daedalus narrative to encounter Icarus on a beach. She is struck by the similarity he shares with Fausto, and it is only after being warned of his fate that she begins to fear for Fausto’s. Fior presents the relationship between the two figures as though it were something crucial—crucial for the reader, but also crucial for the characters themselves. Yet there is little effort done to make it sensible. In its too neat conclusion, it is Silvia’s love—or so we are meant to intuit from the brief, wordless scene—that saves Fausto, and it is here, most acutely, where the parallels between the characters breakdown. Did Daedalus not love his son? Is that why Icarus dies? Fior does not give the impression that this is what he means, but the problem is precisely that it is unclear what it is he did mean. Rather than being given room to breathe, the characters are suffocated by these tenuous parallels and unclear connections. The ideas fail to meaningfully develop, so they cannot support their weighty pretensions. They cave in on their own hollow center. And, as a result, the story feels rushed, abrupt, confusing, slight.

And now, let's talk.

As you've heard, Tim Hodler has stepped down as co-editor, and I will be continuing on as a solo act. What does that mean?

Hopefully, it won't mean that much.

Realistically?

The loss of Tim is the end of an era of reliability, professionalism, humor and fearsome, intimidating intelligence. I've known for months he was going to step down, and as someone who has spent time with his wonderful family, completely support his decision--Tim and his family has sacrificed a lot for his commitment to The Comics Journal, and even if he would never admit it, I will: the exchange was never in his or their favor--it was always in ours. This kind of work is paid attention to by very, very few, cared for by even less, and only provided widespread recognition when it blows up in our faces faces. If you come to it for anything financial, you're a stupid fool, and if you come to it for ego fulfillment, you're something even worse. Either way, it's surefire disappointment to come to it expecting anything from it but the work itself--and Tim has spent years embracing that work, and I'm proud to have been his partner in it for the last 18 months, and even more proud to have been one of his writers years ago. This is something he did because he loves what the Journal has come to represent, and while I may not share his kinder traits or his experience, I share his passion. This is a place where we are trying to remember the history of this artform, to treat its work with interest and intelligence. We're here to document the passing of its participants, and to ask its newest generation what it is they're seeking to contribute. We're here to wave a dismissive hand at work created by people who dismiss their obligation to not suck. We're here to get overly excited about minute details in a work that you'll never be able to see, but that you'll think about for too long. We're here to pump your brakes, and we're here to get your engine going. It's a messy, sprawling thing.

What comes next is intended to be more of the same. There will be less blogging, and we'll be a bit more focused on reviews for the summer as we continue to expand our list of contributors. Some of our upcoming features will be long, some short, and the Cartoonist Diaries will continue. Interviews ain't going anywhere. But throughout the next few months, my non-content related focus will be on a full overhaul and redesign of the site, one that can better serve those who read it (or would like to read it) on mobile devices, and above all, one that will make it that much easier to find, read, and immerse oneself in the Journal's unmatchable archive of interviews, reviews and analysis--while also easily able to see what we've done today and who has been doing it. A good publication is built off of the intelligence, diversity and wit of its contributors--and in the coming redesign, it is our aim that is something that will be inarguably obvious when your browser finds it way here.

It's a weird time in comics right now--many of the old guard institutions are facing obsolescence, some deserved for their repugnant behavior, some expected for their continued financial ineptitude, and some because they just don't seem to care about this stuff anymore. It's my aim that the Journal will take the pulse of those things--but right now, we need to get our own house in order. I'm excited about the changes to come, but i'm not going to ask you to be, nor am I going to ask you to trust me. What I am going to say, instead, is this: we aren't going anywhere. See you in a few.

This is the final day of my final week as co-editor of The Comics Journal. As you might expect, this event inspires mixed emotions. On one hand, it's been eight-plus years of headaches and elevated blood pressure and late nights and early mornings and I'm ready to move on to a more normal life; on the other, the Comics Journal is one of my favorite publications of any kind, it's held a central place in my imaginative life for nearly as long as I can remember, and it's an honor to be associated with it in any way. I'm not sure I've really come to grips with the fact that it's over.

While pondering this farewell, I've considered discussing the transformations that have taken place over the last eight years, both in comics and in internet publishing, but I'm not sure I have much to say that isn't obvious, or that wouldn't seem out of place. Still, I didn't want to leave without any goodbye at all. I'm leaving for no dramatic reason, but because of changes in my professional and familial obligations that have been taking much more of my time over the last year or so. Tucker Stone will be staying on as editor of the site, and I'm sure he will do an outstanding job. He has big plans, and I can't wait to experience them as a reader.

When I look back at my tenure here, my temperament leads me to focus on the missed opportunities and mistakes: articles that needed one more round of editing before publication, interviews that were never finished, emails and projects left undone. But that isn't the whole picture, and it's not the right note for today. Art matters, and so does this site. Because I do believe that even with all its faults, TCJ has for the last eight years been far and away the best, most consistent, most principled, and most thorough publication devoted to comics published in English, on or off the internet. I am proud of that.

So I want to focus on the positive today. Most importantly, I want to thank everyone who helped make TCJ the website that it is: Dan and Tucker, my co-editors, who more often than I'd like to admit did most of the work; Gary Groth, who gave us this opportunity, and whose responsibility for the ever-growing cultural health and relevance of comics over the last forty years can't be overstated; Kim Thompson, whose early encouragement and advice were immeasurably helpful; Kristy Valenti, who has put countless thankless hours into this site, and who deserves more recognition for her work; everyone else at Fantagraphics who has helped in innumerable ways; the site's many writers and contributors, too many to name individually, though of course I will always have a special place in my heart for the ones who came on to TCJ at the same time we launched, and those I personally edited; my collaborators at Comics Comics (Frank, Joe, Jeet, Nicole, Dash, Jason), the site before the site; Mike Reddy, who drew so many great illustrations at such short notice; my wife and family, who have been very understanding; the artists and publishers whose work makes all of this necessary and possible; our many critics and haters, who made this publication better, whether they meant to or not; and, of course, the readers, who make this site feel like a true community. (Any community worth the name includes a few village idiots.)

It is impossible to measure how much I've learned while editing this site, about not only comics, but everything that writing about comics intersects with, which is nearly everything. Thank you for supporting my education.

Today on the site, Ken Parille is back with another Grid column, this time close-reading Steve Ditko in terms of his relationship to "comic-book people."

In 1978 Steve Ditko contributed a curious illustration to the San Diego Comicon’s program booklet:

Shown in outline, an artist leans over his drawing table, hard at work on a page of comic-book art. But before he can finish a few panels, nearly thirty figures storm the page, disturbed and angered by what they see. Some grip their foreheads in disbelief, others raise their fists in righteous indignation. Several deliver a more aggressive form of critique: one steals the artist’s inking brush, another shoves his pencil through the art, while others bend the page and set it on fire.

Fans typically gather at conventions like the San Diego Comicon to celebrate the medium they love and artists they admire. Ditko conjures up an altogether different kind of con: enraged fan-boys (and perhaps a fan-girl) convene solely to attack his work. In the upper-left, he signs the art “regards.” Is he joking? How can he have any regard for a mob out to destroy his art?

Along with comics fans, industry professionals attend comic conventions — and Ditko’s not so fond of them, either. In comics and essays he rails against the kind of “comic people” he derisively calls “handlers.” During a comic’s production, they “handle” (which for Ditko meant “ruin”) pages after the artist submits them. In the Comicon drawing, figures with the brush and pencil evoke handlers who, in order to align a comic with the publisher’s dictates, usurp the artist’s role by erasing or redrawing art or by adding elements such as sound effects without regard for the artist’s compositions. By 1978, Ditko had suffered decades of aggressive mishandling. He cared immensely about his work’s “integrity” (a key term in the Ditko lexicon) but most editors and publishers had no such lofty concerns. They believed that, since they paid for the pages, they could do what they wanted to them. An editor’s goal was not to create “art”: it was to please readers and sell comics.

In Ditko’s anti-con, angry fans and incompetent handlers unite against him and his work. Is anyone brave enough to dissent from mob rule? Perhaps the person sitting calmly atop the chair can see the scene from Ditko’s perspective. Unlike the others, he appreciates visionary comics. Or maybe he’s just waiting for the right moment to join the fray.

Yesterday, the great comics scholar Joseph Witek paid tribute to his mentor, the recently deceased Donald Ault.

When I heard the news that Don Ault had passed away, my first coherent thought was, “This is how Pinocchio must have felt when Geppetto died.” Logic tells me that I still would have existed in some form or other had I never met this brilliant scholar and teacher, wise mentor, and surpassingly kind and generous friend, but the person I am today simply cannot imagine how such an ‘I’ could possibly be. My next coherent thought was, “I never would have thought of that Pinocchio analogy if not for Don Ault.”

And then suddenly I’m back in Don’s classroom at Vanderbilt in the mid-1980s taking “Popular Narrative: Comics, Animation, and Early Television”, and the shortish, slightly hunched figure at the front is explicating the contrast between the nature of evil in Disney’s flagship early animated features: where in Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs evil is localized in the Wicked Queen and containable by virtuous action, but in Pinocchio it’s pervasive and can come at you from anywhere and in fact may very well be inside you, and if you give it free rein you may end up a donkey yourself. And then I’m with another class of students and we’re all in the basement of Don’s house, sitting in seats scrounged from an old theatre while the 35mm projector in the back runs an original print of Snow White (obtained somehow from who knows where), and the Queen’s robes are the deepest, purest colors I’ve ever seen and have never forgotten.

That Geppetto analogy soon breaks down, of course, because Don Ault wasn’t a dogged craftsman shaping students into what he thought they should be, and while the transformative power of the Blue Fairy might hit closer to the mark, Don’s teaching, unlike hers, certainly wasn’t about inculcating socially acceptable conventional behavior, either. But her name does recall a much more appropriate reference point: the concept of faerie as understood by that poet of Don Ault’s life-long study, William Blake--not the tiny dancing woodland creatures but the domain of the uncanny itself.

We also have Day Three and Day Four of Chris Kuzma's Cartoonist's Diary.

Rob Clough reviewed Marnie Galloway's Slightly Plural.

Marnie Galloway began her career with In the Sounds and Seas, a silent comic about the creative, gestational spirit of women. Her comic Slightly Plural is a more literal representation of motherhood—both giving birth and the quotidian experience of being a parent. This comic covers the full gamut of Galloway's skills as a draftsman, cartoonist, and storyteller, as there are poetic comics, gag comics, straightforward autobiographical comics, densely illustrated stories, and minimalist pieces. She keeps each story short for maximum impact as she builds up to an overarching narrative regarding pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood.

"River" is full-on dense Galloway illustration: lush greenery, detailed hatching and crosshatching, and vividly portrayed characters. It's fitting that Galloway, who holds a degree in philosophy, would open the book with pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus' famous quote about not being able to step in the same river twice. It's an apt quote, given that this book is not only about pregnancy but about being pregnant multiple times. The lesson learned here is that "experience isn't prophecy," but experience is helpful nonetheless.

Next, Sean Witzke really doesn't like Adam Smith and VV Glass’s At the End of Your Tether:

Ugly and boring and terrible. An early scene in Adam Smith and VV Glass’s At the End of Your Tether features a bully dressed as if the Karate Kid was fully relevant to our culture in 2019 buying a motorcycle from our lead character’s dad in a dismissive and douchey manner. It is a scene we’ve all watched and read so often that you expect something to happen that’s different or nuanced, or even played as a cliche to the hilt (we live in an era starved for camp). It does none of those. It’s just that scene. That’s when I realized that this comic was not only going to be bad but also difficult to finish.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—Reviews & Commentary. At the New York Times, Brian Selznick reviews Seth's Clyde Fans.

Seth draws time out, both literally and metaphorically. It took him over 20 years to finish this book (he made lots of other books during that time, and published chapters of this one as he went along, the way Dickens did with his novels). His drawing style changed over those years. It’s as if “Clyde Fans” itself is a monument to passing time, and the first direct mention of time in the story is, curiously, a reference to a broken clock. “By the way, pay no attention whatsoever to the clocks. I’d be very surprised if any of them are still wound or working.” This is spoken by the character Abraham Matchcard in 1997, during an extraordinary 69-page sequence that begins the narrative, and it seems like good advice for the whole book.

At HiLobrow, Annie Nocenti remembers Dick Tracy.

These grotesque tales fixated in my young memory, at least as best I can recall down the tunnel of time. As a child, I felt trapped in sheltered suburbia. I scrawled a Jean Genet quote, “Family is the first prison,” on my school notebook. I must have noticed how cool Dick Tracy looked, with his futuristic two-way radio watch. I might have felt relief when he nabbed and jailed the dreadful Pruneface, Mumbles, Pear-Shape. Memory is treacherous. Mostly I recall sympathy for monsters. Dick Tracy’s captivating villains lured me into an early monster love that morphed over the years, the kind of monster love you can only have until you actually meet one.

Today on the site, Matthias Wivel is back with one of his best columns yet, a look at the thoroughly individual (and empathetic) work of Dominique Goblet.

The Belgian artist and comic-book maker Dominique Goblet is intensely concerned with life as lived by others, and life as a communal experience. She is among the most empathetic of artists working in the comics form, with each project pushing further the boundaries of interpersonal hermeneutics. Goblet is of the generation that emerged in the '90s and helped consolidate ‘the graphic novel’ and ‘art comics’ in broader cultural terms—the first, arguably, to unabashedly self-identify as artists.

It is probably unsurprising, therefore, that she made autobiography—the genre that centered that movement—her proving ground. But she differs from most of her peers in that she has consistently looked beyond herself, in the process redefining for reality-based comics the way of working that has determined so much of the historical evolution of comics: collaboration.

Her latest book, Amour dominical, published this year, is no exception. On the face of it, it is less her book than that of her collaborator, Dominique Théate. Badly injured in a motorcycle accident when he was young, he suffered brain damage that radically changed his life. He lives in the area in which he grew up, the Vielsalm municipality in the Ardennes region in southeastern Belgium. Goblet first met him there in 2007 when, as part of a group of comics-oriented artists associated with the Belgian collective Frémok—of which she has been a constituent part since the early '90s—she visited La “S”, Grand Atélier, an arts center for the mentally handicapped located in an old army barracks.

We also have a new artist making the Cartoonist's Diary this week: Chris Kuzma. Here's Day One and Day Two.

Robert Kirby is here, too, with a review of Joakim Drescher's Motel Universe.

The intergalactic adventures of Motel Universe unfold in seemingly free-form fashion, driven by creator Joakim Drescher’s delightfully go-for-broke imagination in both storytelling and visuals, along with his seriously loopy sense of humor. Drescher sneaks in some potent tropes about scapegoating and the exploitation of the most vulnerable members of society, but his satire is offered up in such over-the-top surreality that it all goes down quite easily. Drescher is clearly having a lot of fun with his creations and that fun is contagious.

The plot centers around a hapless slave race of folks known as the Skins. The story opens with two of them, a father and his young daughter named Plum, being cast out of an apparent place of safety by a weird tiny being who rides a bird as if it were a horse. As they are forced to fly off into the dangerous unknown, the father laments: “Nothing changes, there is no sanctuary. As long as the skin of our people is precious – we will be HUNTED FOR IT!”

And AJ McGuire reviews Rich Tommaso's Dry County.

Rich Tommaso’s Dry County has a regular-guy protagonist, Lou Rossi, who plays at being a detective. It’s hard to blame him for this bit of make-believe after he stumbles into what anybody would recognize as the start of a mystery. He meets a pretty girl, Janet Laughton, and then only a few days later she disappears, followed by a note that reads, “Do not call the police or she dies.” He spends the rest of the book trying to track her down with the skillset and street-smarts that would actually be available to him as a young cartoonist and movie critic in the year 1990 - which is to say not much. He bumbles around, recruits some friends to stake out her ex-boyfriends, and runs a contest in his newspaper comic strip to try and send her messages. The most daring he gets is when he climbs through a window and looks around in someone’s house for her, thinking she may be inside being held prisoner, but since she’s not there he leaves the way he came in.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—News. DC has announced a restructuring, part of which will involve finally putting the long-suffering Vertigo imprint out of its misery.

DC will shut down Vertigo, its pioneering non-superhero comics imprint, at the end of the year, a move that has been rumored for weeks. Shuttering the imprint is part of a restructuring that will also eliminate DC’s recently launched Zoom and Ink publishing imprints, which published children's and YA comics, respectively.

All DC titles will now be published via three age-specific publishing lines: DC Kids, which will serve middle-grade readers or readers ages 8-12; DC, for ages 13 plus, which will primarily include the DC universe of characters; and DC Black Label, for readers 17 and older. The newly announced publishing lines will launch in January 2020.

—Interviews. Glen Martin interviews Darrin Bell.

What’s the bedrock ethos of editorial cartooning?

An editorial cartoon is not a gag. Bob Mankoff [former cartoon editor for The New Yorker] called me a few years ago out of the blue and asked me to submit cartoons to the magazine. And I pointed out that I’d never done gag work. And he said editorial cartoons were basically gag cartoons—both have a single image and a caption. But they’re not the same thing. For me, editorial cartoons don’t have to be funny. I want them to make people think and feel, even if they end up thinking I’m an idiot and want horrible things to happen to me.

In Candorville, one of the main characters is a young writer who regularly submits his work to The New Yorker and is rejected. Did you ever submit any of your cartoons per Mankoff’s request?

I did, and one was accepted after eight or nine attempts. And it just ran, as a matter of fact. They held it for a year or so, and then finally published it. I’d been checking each issue every week to see if it had run and then basically given up. But apparently, that’s standard practice—they can hold cartoons for a long time.

The most recent guest on the RiYL podcast is Edie Fake.

—Reviews & Commentary. Paul Buhle uses the occasion of a new edition of Alan Moore & Melinda Gebbie's Lost Girls to write about the history of sex in comics.

Erotic art as actual comic art, sequential art in panels, is necessarily of a still more recent vintage. Anthologies of explicit sex comics, published within the past few decades, reveal very little before the 1920s, when some joke book series, like Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang, pushed at the limits of the publishable. In these cartoons, “college widows” (unattached older women living in the campus area) and hot-to-trot coeds set the pace, with their avid boyfriends, for the rawer material to follow.

“Tijuana Bibles,” eight-to-24-page small-sized comics, began to appear during the Depression, following the expansion and consolidation of organized crime networks. Never sold in public, they circulated mysteriously, and sexual organs were very much on display. They were first distributed in tobacco shops (which at an earlier time had offered a literal entryway to commercial prostitution). Rendered less necessary by the slippage of censorship in wartime, these “bibles” slipped downward to distribution at gas stations and off-the-truck direct sales.

—Misc. Kevin Huizenga has a Patreon account.

Today on the site, Derik Badman writes about Guido Crepax.

Valentina Rosselli was a Milanese photographer born in 1942, fashionable, a communist. She first appeared as a side character in the 1965 story "The Lesmo Curve", which largely focuses on the character Neutron, a.k.a. Philip Rembrandt, an art critic with the mysterious power to stop humans or objects via his gaze. The two characters became lovers and Valentina assumed the role of protagonist in subsequent stories, which were, at first, genre adventures reminiscent of American newspaper serials and mixing science fiction, horror, and intrigue, and later on, grew into tales more concerned with the reality (and the fantasy) of her domestic life.

Valentina's rich dream/fantasy life often features eroticism and a predilection towards s&m, and that last element is probably the main source of notoriety for Guido Crepax, Valentina's creator. Previous to the Complete Crepax series, currently ongoing annually from Fantagraphics (the fourth and latest volume of which I am mostly concerned with here), the easiest English translations of Crepax's work to find were his adaptations of such titles as The Story of O, Venus in Furs, and the Marquis de Sade's Justine. Other translations have appeared in English, primarily in the late '80s and early '90s from Catalan Communications, NBM (via their Eurotica imprint), and a handful of stories in Heavy Metal, but they have been long out of print, and represent only a patchwork of a larger whole. The heavy focus on the erotic aspects of Crepax's work has made knowledge of him in English-speaking countries too limited. He is a master of the comics form, creating beautiful drawings within a framework of innovative page layouts and panel breakdowns.

Yesterday, we published an excerpt of Sean Knickerbocker's Rust Belt.

Rob Clough is here, too, with a review of Mary Fleener's Billie the Bee.

Mary Fleener's first new book in years, Billie the Bee, is one part Jon Lewis' True Swamp (a favorite of Fleener's), one part Jay Hosler's Clan Apis, and one part Fleener weirdness. If you're one of the fortunate few who read her eponymous series Fleener back in the '90s, you'll have a sense of what you're getting into here. Fleener uses highly stylized and surreal character designs, exotic settings, and an overall bizarre aesthetic that differentiate it from Fleener's more familiar autobiographical comics.

Billie the Bee is set in a coastal lagoon that is also part estuary, with a mix of fresh and salt water in the environment. Fleener has clearly done a lot of research into this subject and mixes nature facts into her narrative in the way that Hosler did in his story about a beehive's inhabitants. Fleener adds footnotes regarding these facts and scientific classifications of the flora and fauna in the area. The various insects and animals that we meet have anthropomorphic qualities while still retaining their natural qualities. Things don't get quite as weird as they do in True Swamp, as Fleener is clearly interested in hewing as close to the actual qualities of the creatures as possible, and resists adding the bizarre and supernatural elements that are present in Lewis' work.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—This year's Russ Manning Award nominees have been announced.

—Naomi Fry writes about the comics-adjacent work of Judith Kerr.

"Once there was a cat called Mog. She lived with a family called Thomas. Mog was nice but not very clever. She didn’t understand a lot of things. A lot of other things she forgot. She was a very forgetful cat.” So begins Judith Kerr’s picture book “Mog the Forgetful Cat,” published in England in 1970. Though this was only the first of Kerr’s “Mog” volumes—which ended up numbering more than a dozen by the time the last of the bunch, “Goodbye Mog,” came out, in 2002—these opening lines establish the series’ rhythm and sensibility. Kerr, who died in May, at the age of ninety-five, having published more than thirty much-beloved books in the course of her career, once said that she tried to never use more than two hundred and fifty words in any of her books, so that young children could follow along. But it was, perhaps, exactly this limitation that heightened her ability to pinpoint, with a beautiful specificity, the character of her feline protagonist. Just like Mog—a stout, friendly tabby with a round face, a white bib, and white paws, who gets into a variety of small domestic scrapes because of her limited grasp of the world around her—Kerr’s language is simple and a little plodding. The sentences are short and of consistent length—not unlike the padded footfalls of a rotund cat—and, in their occasional repetitiveness, mimic a feline’s clumsy thinking.

—The Paris Review excerpts the new book from Ulli Lust.

Today on the site, Bill Kartalopoulos reports from a recent panel at the Society of Illustrators, celebrating the Book of Weirdo and including Weirdo contributors (and rivals) including Kim Deitch, Drew Friedman, Glenn Head, John Holmstrom, Mark Newgarden, and Art Spiegelman.

Several of the panelists agreed that Weirdo’s embrace of outsider cartoonists — “outsider” even in the context of underground and alternative comics — was among the magazine’s unique and memorable characteristics. “What I always really dug about Weirdo was that it had this unvarnished kind of originality,” Head said. “So there could be this work like Eugene Teal’s ‘Sunday Frog Funnie’ or the Elinore Norflus stuff, where it really looked like the artist doing the work was completely untutored in art as well as comics. They just didn’t even have a background in it. So you could put Crumb’s work up against it, and a lot of artists’ work up against it, and it was like there was different work from different universes all mixed up in Weirdo. So I was really into that.” Newgarden agreed that among the magazine’s three successive editors, “Crumb tended to go for more what he considered primitive.” When selecting artists to portray on the book’s cover, Friedman was mindful not to only include the magazine’s most well-known contributors. “Weirdo was all about the lesser-known contributors and the fringe artists and the social misfits who contributed to the magazine,” he said. “Weirdo gave guys like Bruce [Duncan] a chance to be published and be seen,” Deitch affirmed. In a sense, Crumb’s openness to artistic outsiders in Weirdo sits in continuity with his embrace of the underground comix work of Rory Hayes, who was very much an artist's artist during his life.

Yesterday, we published the final installment of Michel Fiffe's OVERWORD column, focused on Mark Gruenwald.

We've reached peak clusterfuck in terms of any sort of hardline continuity in comics today. There's a thin narrative thread running through mainstream comics, but we all know it doesn't matter anymore. Anything goes, it just has to be compelling, it just has to sell books, and so the hyper attention to long running, company-wide continuity doesn't hold much weight anymore.

When was the last time it did, though? Crisis in '85? Post-Heroes Reborn? Pre-Hickman's Secret Wars? Like Roy Thomas a generation before him, Gruenwald lived to serve continuity. There was a groundwork for him to study and work from, and it had real value to the readers, too. That was part of the Marvel appeal, being the longest running shared universe in history.

So I can't help but root for the guy who was fighting an uphill battle with the times. Especially when his writing style was geared towards those unwavering convictions. And he wasn't gonna go rogue and do his own thing! No way was he gonna go independent; as established in the Quasar post, the Big Two establishments are where it's at. Anything outside of that simply didn't count. And this isn't some sort of demented corporate loyalty, it's a marriage to the ideas he surrendered to as a kid, as a professional, and as a creative force.

Sean Witzke reviews Rick & Morty Presents Mr. Meeseeks.

Rick and Morty is a television show originally created as a joke where Marty McFly blew Doc Brown for a Channel 101 pilot, and it is now the current cause du jour cartoon for a theoretical 16-year-old white male who hates everyone and thinks he’s smart but really isn’t that smart because he’s still too dumb to realize that true nihilism is going to require a lot more reading than he’s prepared to do because said 16-year-old is too busy saying “tampon tampon tampon” in the comments section of a YouTube video that will be revealed as the work of an astroturfing Nazi in about three months.

Leonard Pierce reviews House of the Black Spot.

Good comics, in whatever form they’re presented – graphic novels, monthlies, daily strips, zines, or any of their other manifestations – have to do one job that is simultaneously stone simple and devilishly complex:  use a primarily visual medium to communicate a narrative story. All the best comics do this well, and all the worst don’t do it at all. 

Ben Sears’ “Double+” series, released around this time each year for the last few, is indisputably in the former category. It’s probably an exaggeration – well, cards on the table: it’s definitely an exaggeration to call it one of the best comics being made right now; Sears’ talents are remarkable, but his work also occupies that porous border between good and great. While he takes care to provide enough chewy content for older readers who want to take what they read seriously, it would be a stretch to call his work thematically weighty in any meaningful sense. But it would also do him a great injustice to call it slight.  Sears’ strength is absolutely as a visual storyteller, but there’s enough happening in his engaging characters, involving storylines, and light-fingered explorations of contemporary issues that the books are always something to look forward to, and the latest, House of the Black Spot, is a perfect example.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—News. I missed this, but earlier this month, the editorial shakeup at Esquire magazine also included the dismissal of cartoons editor Bob Mankoff.

Ronald Wimberly's LAAB is crowdfunding a new issue, including comics from Emily Carroll, Ben Passmore, Hellen Jo, Jonathan Djob Nkondo, Nishat Akhtar, Josiah Files, Freddie Carrasco, Richie Pope, Tanna Tucker, and Gymah Gariba.

—Reviews & Commentary. Jeet Heer has a new position at The Nation, and his first piece is an essay about the New York Times and its recent decision to cease the regular publication of political cartoons.

Speaking for many in his profession, Joel Pett, a Pulitzer Prize–winning editorial cartoonist for Kentucky’s Lexington Herald-Leader, decried the decision as “chickenshit and cowardly.” More politely, CNN’s Jake Tapper told The Daily Beast that this was “just one more nail in the coffin of what is a struggling art form, given how corporate America has taken over local newspapers and gutted the industry.”

It’s undeniable that editorial cartooning, even more than journalism as a whole, is in crisis. A 2012 report by the Herblock Foundation found that there were fewer than 40 editorial cartoonists with newspaper-staff jobs in America, a steep decline from more than 2,000 such positions in the beginning of the 20th century. The situation has gotten only more dire since that report, with the high-profile firing of Rob Rogers from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for penning anti-Trump cartoons. Newspaper editorial cartooning is well on the path to extinction, a dire end for a vital art that has been inextricable from modern political protest.

At the New York Times, Hillary Chute reviews recent books by Mark Alan Stamaty and Jaime Hernandez.

The comics form sets up poignant juxtapositions in “Is This How You See Me?” The book is structured episodically, with present-day sequences — in which the two women, in their early 50s, return home, full of self-consciousness — intercut with scenes from the past. While in the table of contents these sections are marked out by year — 1979, 1980 — the story itself seamlessly slides into the past without announcement or warning. “Love and Rockets” focuses sharply on style, and we see how the characters shift fashions, grow older, change bodies. But other juxtapositions float throughout: the as-obnoxious-as-they-used-to-be young queer couple whom Maggie and Hopey encounter at the art house movie theater; their friend Daffy and her punked-out daughter standing side by side at the reunion for the local band Ape Sex. (The mom has some good advice: “I told her you never wear the shirt of the band you’re going to see.”)

And Michael Sherber writes in the journal Physics about a recent conference in France in which cartoonists and scientists discussed how to depict science through comics.

“The comic strip is a storytelling art,” says Pierre-Laurent Daures, one of the TSDS organizers and the president of Stimuli, an association that directs artist-scientist collaborations. The typical comic contains characters whose experiences are captured in a time-ordered sequence of panels. Scientific findings, by contrast, are usually presented as objective, timeless facts—with rarely any story behind them. “Combining scientific knowledge with comic drawing is a challenge, but it can lead to innovative solutions for communicating science,” Daures says.

These “solutions” were on show at the conference. In the entrance of the Museum of Comic Strips—where TSDS was held—several graduate students displayed comic-strip versions of their Ph.D. theses that were made for university-sponsored outreach programs. In talks, researchers from France, Morocco, and Chile presented a number of science-based comic books, such as one that used Alice in Wonderland to explain elementary statistics.

Today on the site, Simon Abrams interviews Michael Kupperman.

In a lot of criticism, personal art is presumed to be better art. The idea that you have to literally bleed on the page to get people to take you seriously or to find your work “accessible,” which is another critical crutch. Was moving away from your collage-style work your way of making your art more accessible? That is: was it a conscious goal? 

Oh yes, absolutely. I mean, I think there are very few artists who don’t want more audience. Yes, I wanted to make my work more accessible and have it read by more people. The thing about Hodags and Hodaddies which was great was: I would do these comics and then people I know would see them and comment on them to my face. That was really rewarding for me. That aspect to the work disappeared pretty quickly after that.

You’re now on Patreon. How has that worked towards your goal of fostering a more immediate connection between your readership, your work, and you?

I think it’s still developing, really. Patreon is part of a more conscious shift on my part to make that connection and to build it. The old system has so consistently failed me. If I have a chance now to keep making comics the way I want to, it’s only going to be with the direct support of an audience that enjoys them.

Was it harder to be taken seriously by comics gatekeepers—both critics and publishers—because your style is not stylistically dense? You’re not exactly Chris Ware, who puts all the work on the page and kind of overwhelms you.

Absolutely, yes. I am not a designer per se and my work is not design-heavy. And yes, I think Chris Ware’s work, which is omnipresent now, has achieved that status partly, or mainly, because of its design sensibilities. I think design has really overtaken art in our culture right now. People think they’re the same thing and they’re not at all. In some senses I’m anti-design, and I see it as a limitation that our culture has placed on itself now, that everything has to be “designed” just so. I find the disruption caused by the human touch and the human brain to be much more interesting than something perfectly designed.

On Friday, Alex Dueben spoke to William Johnson, deputy director of Lambda Literary, about that organization's relationship to comics.

“The cartoonist Jennifer Camper made a great note at the Lammys,” Johnson said, mentioning the legendary cartoonist who was a presenter at this year’s Lammys alongside other distinguished figures like Jen Benka, Melissa Febos, John Roberts, Paul Tran, and Christine Vachon. “She said we shouldn’t really call it a graphic novel because comics exist cross-genre – memoir, science fiction, poetry. Comics is a huge door and anything can fit through it. That’s important to recognize.”

Since establishing a graphic-novel category, the Lammys has continued to recognize comics in other categories as well. This year, two comics were on the shortlist for the LGBTQ Erotica prize—Crossplay by Niki Smith, and Miles and Honesty in SCFSX! by Blue Delliquanti and Kazimir Lee—competing against prose work, with Delliquanti and Lee winning the prize.

As far as why they were nominated for and won the erotica prize, Johnson said that it was simply what the judges decided. “It’s judged by a panel of their peers so the judging panel is other erotic writers,” Johnson said. “The panel felt that this was the most notable book of the year and that it deserved the award.”

Keith Silva reviews the new collection of Don Rosa's Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.

In Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud writes about how the combination of a cartoon character in a realistic setting creates a ‘mask’ for the reader--think European and Japanese comics or any animated Disney movie ever. And speaking of the big ‘D,’ the popularity of Donald Duck—the most published non-superhero comic book character in the world—is thanks to Carl Barks, a maestro of masking. And so it must follow, as a mother duck with her ducklings, Don Rosa, self-disclosed super fan of Barks’s signature work-for-hire creation, Scrooge McDuck, is a mask maker par excellence too.

Barks and Rosa’s use of masking in Duck books provided the reader with agency, engagement and complicity, the act of becoming, of being—the foundation of fiction, of comics. And what better places to be than a haunted castle, a riverboat plying the mighty Mississippi or a tumble-down town on the frontier? Masking means layering, which makes Rosa's The Complete Life and Times of $crooge McDuck a veritable French pastry full of adventures, history, laughs, thrills, sorrows, failures, triumphs and morals. Most of the lessons like fairness, frugality and forgiveness are child’s play. It’s the sad and wiser truths that The Complete Life and Times of $crooge McDuck masks about comics, corporations and the reader’s (consumer’s) conscience that makes this the ultimate work about understanding comics.

And Tegan O'Neil reviews Benji Nate's Lorna.

Benji Nate’s Lorna is one of the cuter books to cross my transom in a minute. I debated how and whether to use the word “cute” because under certain circumstances it can certainly be an insult, and indeed the last thing I would want to do is be seen to damn with faint praise merely by calling a book “cute.” But in this instance “cute” is the word because it seems difficult to imagine from the results on display that Nate wasn’t striving for cute the whole time.

The titular Lorna is a bit of an odd duck, by which I means she really likes carrying knives and stabbing things. She’s carrying a knife on the cover, carrying a knife on the first page, and although I didn’t actually count she’s carrying a knife on most of the interior pages as well. “Threatening boys with knives is just a hobby of mine,” she relates. Just one of those girls who really likes murdering people, y’know? And only sometimes scavenging their bodies for loot, like sunglasses.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—Johnny Ryan is one of the writers working on a new series of Looney Tunes.

The shorts are part of the studio’s commitment to creating 1,000 minutes of new Looney Tunes animation. When WB announced the project at last year’s Annecy festival, the studio touted that the shorts would take a “cartoonist-driven approach to storytelling,” and based on what was screened today, they’ve stayed true to that mission.

—Andrea Ayres at The Beat writes about the possibility of a union in comics.

Saying you want a guild or union is one thing; actually forming one is an entirely different beast. How do you organize a disparate collective of workers? [Sasha] Bassett believes other industries, like construction, can serve as a template for comics. She says, “Another example can be found in a recent development with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), who has helped establish the IWW Freelance Journalists Union – comics could go a similar route and have all freelancers work within the same bargaining unit, rather than with smaller groups oriented around individual jobs.”

—The NCS responds to the recent New York Times decision to suspend regular political cartoons.

Editorial cartooning is an invaluable form of pointed critique in American newspapers that dates back to the 19th-century work of the legendary Thomas Nast, as well as to pamphlet images published by Benjamin Franklin. The history of our great nation can be read through the pens of our editorial artists and cartoonists. Journals of record are the conduits to this history.

The cartoonists that contribute to your publication are not mere hobbyists, but deeply committed life-long devotees to the art of political commentary. It is not a job that is taken lightly, nor done with ease. It is a passion that not only feeds the national and international conversation, but just as importantly, feeds their families.