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Today we feature the return of Matthias Wivel's Eurocomics column, and it's been way too long. In this installment, Matthias writes in depth about the work of French-Beninese artist Yvan Alagbé, and his recent return to the characters from one of his key books. But Matthias also examines the artists' group Amok, the sociopolitical legacy of French colonialism, and much more. Here's a sample:

Alagbé’s brush-and-ink cartooning is alternately lush and sparse, scruffy and exacting, black and white, with echoes of Muñoz and Aristophane Boulon. He selectively lends texture to areas of focus, while leaving others defined only by contour. Although he makes selective use of symbolic passages, he is a realist at heart, attentive to facial and bodily expression. At times he errs on the side of the obvious, but he also occasionally catches real moments of ambiguity as well as emotional clarity—the combination of apprehension, skepticism, boredom, and impotence drawn on the faces of the siblings listening to Mario’s tales of African adventure; the genuine expression of affection shown by Mario as he speaks to his daughter on the phone; and so on, moment after moment.

Alagbé modulates his rendering skillfully. Everybody, whatever the color of their skin, alternately appears lighter or darker, and specific physiognomic traits, particularly those of the black Africans, are occasionally emphasized to contrast strongly with their white surroundings, reflecting the social context. The point, however, seems to be that in a graphic world consisting uniquely of black marks on white paper, everybody is black.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—Interviews & Profiles. Chris Ware follows Robert Crumb as the second cartoonist to get major interview treatment in The Paris Review. They've posted an excerpt of Jeet Heer's talk with Ware online. Brian Heater at Publishers Weekly catches up with John Porcellino before the impending release of his Hospital Suite. The Atlantic talks to Pat Oliphant. Paul Karasik interviews Jules Feiffer in comics form. Alan Moore talks Lovecraft. Liz Prince talks about growing up a tomboy.

—Reviews & Commentary. Paul Constant on Jim Woodring's Jim. Robert Wringham on R. Crumb. Sarah Moroz on Quentin Blake. Robert Boyd on a variety of different comics.

—Misc. Michael J. Vassallo has more on Stan Goldberg. Gene Luen Yang gave a well-received speech on diversity at the National Book Festival. Small Press Previews may turn out to be very useful.

Today on the site it's R. Fiore on Mike Dawson and two "great men"-type books about comics.

To all appearances we have entered into an environment in which its never been easier to disseminate your work and its never been more difficult to make a buck from it. It’s easy to see the disappearance of means by which cartoonists used to make their living and it’s difficult to see what’s going to replace them. I couldn’t say that things are going to come out all right in the end, I just don’t see how. I can’t really see casting your bread upon the waters as a business plan. And its not just a matter of digital media and that sort of thing either. For example, for 20 years or so a cartoonist used to be able to publish his work in a magazine, being paid as he did it, and then publish it as a book and get paid for it again. Somewhere along the line, however, people began to realize that everything was going to come out as a book, so they decided to start waiting for the book.

Due to vacation confusion, both Tim and I forgot to blog. So please do check out Joe McCulloch's week in comics, complete with a Tezuka mini-essay.

Elsewhere:

Longtime comic book artist Stan Goldberg has passed away. He was notable for his coloring work for Marvel in the 1960s and a long run for Archie. Sean Howe has a nice tribute, and Mark Evanier does, too.

The Cartoonists of Color Database has launched.

This is a solid piece about the history and mechanics of Francoise Mouly's Toon Books. Sounds like a lot of rules and regulations to follow to make those things work.

Here's a report on the new London comics festival, Safari, hosted by my candidate for most-promising young publishing house, Breakdown Press. What makes an exciting young comic book publisher? Well, pull up a chair and listen to this bitter old failure preach it: Precise and adventurous taste; a sense of serving an actual community (not fake mascot- or brand- driven community); the discovery and nurturing of young avant garde talent; a strong editorial vision; a crystalized production/design aesthetic; an ambition to advance the art form. Besides Leon Sadler's Famicon, I can't think of another publisher that's done this lately. Pretty much everyone else right now is struggling for an identity or aping someone else's, which may be related to the profusion of festivals and avalanche of self-publishing concerns. There's so much stuff being made, so few venues, and so few rewards that people are literally taking to the road to just get the shit out. Another beacon of hope for me is Happiness, Leah Wishnia's enthusiastic anthology of comics and underground culture. I like the spirit of it, the focus on unique creative voices, and the ambitiousness of her editorial and graphic scope. I also really appreciate the low price point and sense of a localized community. Hey humans who read this, I sure would like some writing about all this on TCJ.com. Send me your ideas! Boy, listening to this Grateful Dead channel on Sirius really got me going. Howard Stern is in repeats, so I'm on my other medicine. Phew. Ok, back to your daily links...

Robert Boyd writes about books-on-comics, including some of the same territory as Fiore's piece, above.

And finally, here's Douglas Wolk on the collected Grant Morrison Doom Patrol. Wait, I feel a rant coming on... I link to this review as I sit on a train to Providence and kind of imagine that in 20 years these reviews will be like reading rave reviews of Soundgarden records in the 1990s. I mean, those records are FINE but it's still totally dull, pretentious music sung by a shirtless urban hippie. Grant Morrison's comics are fine (and the rantings of a shirtless guy who never formed an identity independent from referentiality, but I guess that's the point?), but I guess I just look on and think how profoundly fucking silly it is to take any of this seriously as art, criticism, or anything at all. Not that I don't take cracked-out superhero comics seriously. Like I've said, I take DK2 very seriously.

Eleanor Davis is here with the final entry of her very strong week of Cartoonist's Diaries. IF you haven't been reading them, I highly recommend doing so. Thanks, Eleanor!

We also have a review from Sean T. Collins of Renee French's Baby Bjornstrand, which sounds typically atypical. Here's a sample of Sean's review:

A thing comes into three lives, without warning or explanation. A thing leaves those lives in much the same way. The time between: Baby Bjornstrand, the new Renee French graphic novel completing and collecting the webcomic of the same name. In the past, I've written that the hazy, watery wasteland inhabited by Baby Bjornstrand's masked, hooded protagonists and monstrous fauna evokes a post-apocalypticism that is, if not belied, then at least transfigured by the comic tone of the proceedings. Now that the series is finished, that's only true to a point. As the uniform proscenium staging of its panels suggests, Bjornstrand remains much closer to Samuel Beckett than Stephen King, despite French's astonishing proficiency with painstakingly penciled menace. Yet its morose ending has a bite that doesn't require the jaws of a monster.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—It may not be quite as necessary or useful as Adaline Glasheen's Census of Finnegans Wake, but Robert Boyd's who's who of characters from Jesse Moynihan's Forming is still pretty fun.

—Hannah Means Shannon reports from the Seth Kushner benefit earlier this week.

—And yesterday was Jack Kirby's 97th birthday. This being a three-day weekend, I suggest making a whole Jack Kirby holiday of it. Hand of Fire author and TCJ columnist Charles Hatfield posted an essay called "Kirby's Second Act". Tom Spurgeon posted his traditional overwhelming gallery of Kirby images. You might want to visit the Kirby family's Kirby 4 Heroes page.

Today on the site: Mike Dawson talks to Caitlin McGurk and Jim Rugg about Ghost World and The Death Ray.

And Eleanor Davis brings us Day 4 of her excellent cartoon diary.

Elsewhere:

Gary Panter is opening a new painting show next week. It's a really remarkable body of work, linked together by a new approach to his paint handling and an ongoing preoccupation with the idea of water. I've watched this work develop over the past two years and I'm just blown away by seeing it all together. In other Gary news, he's written this fine appreciation of Ray Johnson for The Paris Review.

In other art news, here's a review of the very excellent Chicago Imagists documentary, which includes Gary and yours truly.

Back in comics, here's a funny interview with Johnny Ryan. And a San Diego rundown by Michael Dooley; also: a nice look at a manga-in-America footnote.

In swipe file news, somewhere Kate Beaton is thinking: "Ripped off again?!"

Eleanor Davis is back again today, with the third entry in her Cartoonist's Diary series. If you haven't been reading along, catch up now.

Also, Rob Clough is here with a review of a NSFW collaboration between Brontez Purnell and Janelle Hessig, The Cruising Diaries. Here's a sample of what to expect:

The format of the book is text from Purnell on the left-hand pages and an illustration (sometimes in comics form) from Hessig on the right-hand pages. Each anecdote concerns young Purnell's anonymous sexual exploits "told in the style of anti-erotica." Each encounter has a title; the first is called "Sweet Talker", and it ends with the following three sentences: "I went to his house where he had pictures of his wife and kids everywhere and every solo-male jerk-off film ever. We spent three hours in the shower pissing on each other and he bought me a burrito later. PERFECT DATE." This gives the reader a pretty good idea of what they're in for: total honesty and a heaping of irreverence.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—News. Mimi Pond won a PEN Center Literary Award.

—Interviews. Berkeley Breathed talks to Comics Alliance.

—Reviews & Commentary. Ng Suat Tong has kind words for Isabel Greenberg's Encyclopedia of Early Earth. ARTnews on Dan Nadel's What Nerve. Prompted by Joe McCulloch's excellent post on this site, Abhay Khosla has more thoughts on Grant Morrison's Multiversity. Noah Van Sciver explains his periodic superhero binges.

Today on the site:

Joe McCulloch's week in comics plus a much-needed digression.

Eleanor Davis brings us day 2 of her diary.

Elsewhere:

Jules Feiffer's Kill My Mother has one of the oddest back cover blurb-fests ever. At this time in graphic novel publishing we can pretty much expect most of these usual suspects, but rarely all in one place. Stan Lee AND Chris Ware? But best of all Legion of Superheroes writer Paul Levitz, who continues his remarkable transformation from corporate comics apologist and perennial punchline to grand old man of comics. That aside, does anyone outside the superhero comic book industry even know who Paul Levitz is? Fascinating times we live in.

Still further into space:

I love no comedian more than I love Gilbert Gottfried. Drew Friedman shares my love, and writes about him here on the occasion of his appearance on Gilbert's podcast. Also very much worth your time: An amazing article on the comedian by the great Jay Ruttenberg, who has interviewed Friedman for TCJ. See how it all goes round and round?

And one of the only reasons I look at Facebook is that sometimes something like this happens: Robert Boyd's impromptu story of working for Roger Corman's comic book line.

Amazon is buying another thing. This time a live streaming video game service. It's always wise to track what Amazon buys.

Today is Jules Feiffer day here at the Journal, starting with a new interview with the legendary cartoonist by Greg Hunter, in which they discuss crime fiction, long-form storytelling, politics, and background-drawing. Here is a sample:

Did drawing Kill My Mother force you to do anything as a cartoonist you hadn’t done before

It was a complete revolution for me, in my way of thinking, in my way of approaching art and toying with it. I spent over forty years doing Village Voice strips, almost never doing backgrounds, because the characters were the prominent thing and the conversation was the prominent thing. I thought backgrounds would be distracting, and in addition, I didn’t know what anything looked like that wasn’t a human figure.

I’ve never had an eye for the inanimate. And so I never drew cars or planes—all the things that boys generally love to do. They were totally foreign to me, alien to me. Buildings, bridges, all of that stuff. And noir, if you take a look at any of the movies—Double Indemnity [1944], Maltese Falcon [1941], any of them—they’re full of atmosphere. And atmosphere is backgrounds, reflected light, shading. All that stuff that I had perfectly no experience in drawing or in thinking about. So I had to completely rethink my entire approach to drawing, at the age of eighty.

And Dash Shaw was written a review of Feiffer's new book for us:

Feiffer has frequently voiced his envy for the drawing abilities of noir guys like Eisner and Milton Caniff. Personally, I love Feiffer's drawings. Eisner and Caniff draw like they're looking at film stills, while Feiffer draws like he's sketching from the front row of a play. He draws dancers and his drawings themselves are live performances. They only move forward. It would be difficult to retake or remove a single stroke. If you follow the line of a Feiffer leg down, it flies from the front of the thigh to the back of the calf. It travels through the body like muscles, or fabric. Think of artists comparable to Feiffer. Quentin Blake might look like Feiffer on first glance, but Blake's legs and arms are more tube- or stick-like. They don't have a gesture sweeping through them. Another comparable post-Steinberg smart drawer is Tomi Ungerer, but Feiffer acts faster and freer. Feiffer's women dance; Ungerer's are tied up. If you copy a Feiffer drawing, at some point you'll think, "This is like a scribbly Al Hirschfeld drawing!" Al Hirschfeld, of course, has a deep love of the theatrical that Feiffer shares.

And we've excited about the latest artist who has agreed to contribute a Cartoonist's Diary to the site, Eleanor Davis. Don't miss it; this is going to be a good one.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—Feiffer. If you want more Feiffer, he's also been interviewed by Carolyn Kellogg at the L.A. Times, by Michael Mechanic at Mother Jones, and reviewed by Maureen Corrigan on NPR.

—Other Interviews & Profiles. Charles Burns is interviewed at Boing Boing. UK political cartoonist Phil Evans gets an obituary from Kent Worcester. Butt Magazine talks to Gengoroh Tagame (and Anne Ishii). Vulture talks to Frank Miller. Semiotic Bushmiller. And at Fumetto Logica, Milo Manara has responded to The Great Spider-Woman Controversy of 2014.

—Reviews & Commentary. Derf Backderf defends Steve Gerber's Howard the Duck. Rob Clough kicks off a week of reviewing Chicago-related comics. Abraham Riesman chooses his 25 favorite moments from the Sin City comics.

—Misc. Medium posts some of Joseph Lambert's sketchbooks. And if you've never watched this:

Today on the site:

Ahead of next week's publication of Kill My Mother, we have Jules Feiffer's introduction and afterword to his landmark book The Great Comic Book Heroes.

And:

Self promotion alert: I curated this show opening September 18th at the RISD Museum of Art. Also, there's a 368-page catalog I put together with texts from faves Nicole Rudick, Naomi Fry, among others. The show attempts to create an alternate lineage from 1960 to the present and includes comics people Jack Kirby, Gary Panter, Mat Brinkman (and Forcefield) alongside the Hairy Who, Christina Ramberg, Elizabeth Murray, Destroy All Monsters, Joan Brown, Peter Saul and others. You'll hear more about it as it goes. 10 points if you can name both objects on the cover of the book.

Still elsewhere:

Speaking of Rudick, Tim and I tried to draw her into a contentious email discussion about whether or not Santa Claus is a super hero, as so named in this article. To my dismay she refused to respond!

Great deep dive into history with a spotlight on workaday early cartoonist C.H. Wellington.

Hilarious Milo Manara swipe file here. I would maybe feel bad about people making fun of Manara if he was still a hippie. As it is: Eh.

Jason Miles recommends Eroyn Franklin.

Nice review of Brecht Vandenbroucke’s .

I got this Multiversity comic book thing in the mail and tried to read some of it this morning because I am a masochist, but was baffled. This annotated guide may help me, but I may also never read it or the comic itself.

Have a good weekend!

Sean T. Collins is bringing back the column in which he investigates the work of up-and-coming artists, and today he's introducing the Brooklyn painter turned cartoonist Meghan Turbitt. Here's a sample:

You were doing fine art back then.

I was doing large-scale oil paintings of geishas incorporated with Catholic imagery—prayer cards and rosaries. I was also using the image of the Virgin Mary and other female saints as inspiration for making large-scale geisha prayer card portraits. I also painted directly onto Catholic prayer cards, turning the saints into geishas. I became obsessed and made over one hundred of them. I incorporated Japanese culture into my work. In school I also became interested in Jenna Jameson, started listening to Howard Stern, and really was exploring my sexuality. I painted myself as Jenna Jameson and did collages of myself using porno mags and birth control pills. Lol.

What was the connection you saw between the saints and geishas? Did the cultural familiarity of saints give you an entry point into a less familiar culture?

I was rejecting my upbringing and culture, and wishing I was anything else -- and, probably, being a bit disrespectful. I think I even told my mother and grandmother that I wished I was Japanese at one point, which is something a ten-year-old would do. I remember being intrigued by the fact that the geishas and the female saints were wearing very similar outfits, even though they were such different ladies.

And now that you're making comics rather than fine art, have your underlying ideas about this changed along with your medium of choice?

In Lady Turbo and the Terrible Cox Sucker, my sidekick is a geisha named Brent, a friend in real life, so I guess I'm still using geisha imagery now. I'm just more interested in making work that's funny and a commentary on how ridiculous my life is right now, and I think I'm less angry at my family, so I'm making work that's less an "F U" to them.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—Profiles & Interviews. Sean Howe has a nice, long profile of Frank Miller for Wired, and it's easily the best, most thorough one I've seen in this latest round of media for the artist.

Amazon interviews editor Chris Duffy about his recent anthology of comics based on WWI poetry.

Harper Harris talks to Farel Dalrymple about The Wrenchies, which I've been hearing a lot of good things about.

—Reviews & Commentary. Aaron Noble has an in-depth analysis of Jack Kirby art, comparing a 1950s Boys Ranch spread with a similar 1970s spread from Mister Miracle.

—Misc. I think it's kind of hilarious that iO9 thinks it's necessary to repeatedly inform its readers that Michael DeForge's "Canadian Royalty" story is "fake."

Ralph Steadman letters.

The Comic Book Attic has released a new Basil Wolverton e-book.

Hi there,

Today on the site we have more coverage of Brian Evenson's book on Ed the Happy Clown, this time via an excellent conversation with our own Mike Dawson. Why? Because there can never be enough discussion of great comics. And great comics is Chester Brown. Or Chester Brown is great comics. Whatever. You know what I mean. Every cartoonist I respect is intimidated by Chester's work. That's a good thing.

Elsewhere:

Gabrielle Bell, another amazing cartoonist, is selling her journal comics day-by-day on eBay.

Here's an interview with Annie Koyama by Anne Ishii about Koyama Press.

In other sale news: I am intrigued by this Joe Sinnott book currently being Kickstarted. Why? Because I like to know what a longtime workhorse cartoonist dreams of towards the end of his career.

Here's another Frank Miller piece, this time an interview with Playboy in which Miller sounds exactly like the guy who draws Sin City should sound. That's not a good thing. But! Miller's work was inventive and interesting for many years... I still like that DK2 book. Or at least I like my memory of it.

Speaking of macho men, here's the story of the ill-fated first Nick Fury TV movie.

I can't remember if I linked to this already, but who cares! Here's an excellent article by Gabriel Winslow-Yost on Tardi's war comics. There is not nearly enough written about those incredible comics.

Today, before laying out a guide to this week's new comics releases (with spotlight picks from Raina Telgemeier and Ed Piskor), Joe McCulloch writes about one of the manga giants still largely unavailable to Anglophone readers: Leiji Matsumoto.

I was very much struck yesterday by Ryan Holmberg’s characterization of the manga studies terrain as “a field dotted with crumbling edifices and surrounded by vast tracts of virgin territory.” Specifically, it appealed to the conservationist in me to check after the health of the edifices.

Is Leiji Matsumoto an edifice? I’d argue he’s barely a foundation right now; in spite of the enduring success of animated iterations of his works, dating from Star Blazers in the 1970s to last year’s Space Pirate Captain Harlock CG movie, the sum total of his officially translated manga oeuvre consists of a single short story (“Ghost Warrior”) printed in Frederik L. Schodt’s Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics in 1983, and five volumes’ worth of a 1990s revival of his Galaxy Express 999 manga published by VIZ 17 years ago in conjunction with the release of various anime. There may be more pages of licensed Matsumoto tribute comics from the ’80s and ’90s like Comico’s Star Blazers and Eternity’s Captain Harlock series than there are actual Leiji Matsumoto comics accessible in translation.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—News. The latest slate of Ignatz Award nominees were announced yesterday. Read and enthuse/grow despondent, as is your wont.

MariNaomi is making a database of cartoonists of color. She has instructions on submitting names and other FAQ here.

—Interviews & Profiles. Chris Mautner spoke with comics scholar David Ball about a new series of critical anthologies he is editing.

Tim O'Shea talks to Jesse Jacobs about Safari Honeymoon.

I'm behind on both listening and linking to podcasts, but recent episodes of possible interest include the aforementioned Jacobs on Make It Then Tell Everybody, Rob Liefeld on Inkstuds (with guest cohost Brandon Graham), and Aron Nels Steinke on Comix Claptrap.

—Reviews & Commentary. Robert Boyd reviews recent books by Sam Alden, Gabrielle Bell, and Peter Bagge. George Elkind looks at Mould Map 3. Rachel Cooke likes Emily Carroll's Through the Woods. And a Ferguson-themed cartoon by Tom Toles makes the National Review's Tim Cavanaugh so sputteringly angry he calls him "the worst cartoonist in America." It's nice when political cartoons spark a reaction.

—Misc. One and only one person will buy this at SPX.

Sometimes the comics blogger's imperative to shove every possible topic into a superhero frame is ill-advised.

That Sergio Aragonés poster of fifty years of MAD history which went around online a while back is now being annotated by Doug Gilford.

Is Lilli Carré the youngest HiLo Hero?

Ben Towle posted an image of Charles Burns inking over John Romita Jr pencils from an old Official Marvel Comics Try-Out Book.

Today on the site: Ryan Holmberg discusses his recent residency at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Art and Cultures, as well as contemporary art and Seiichi Hayashi's recent visit to London.

In my opinion, the social and cultural value of contemporary art is grossly overblown. I am not saying that I think contemporary art is bunk. There is an amazing amount of imaginative and thought-provoking work out there. Simply that the amount of capital invested in it, the amount of press coverage it is given, and the claims made for it within curatorial statements and critical essays are all so utterly inflated that it actually does most artists a disservice. The lucky few are rewarded with fame and fortune. But the vast majority is stuck in a web of puffery that effectively cuts artists off from meaningful feedback and meaningful relationships with a wider public. This has created a situation in which one has to be wealthy not only to buy art, but also to afford the education required to understand art, and moreover to afford the social privilege of maintaining oneself in a community that does not ask too many fundamental questions about the actual social, political, or intellectual worth of contemporary art. Such questions are necessary for any field’s long-term health, and of course there are people asking them. But my general sense — as someone who has had extensive contact with the art world in New York, Tokyo, and Mumbai, who writes art reviews with fair frequency and tries to keep up with what’s published in the field — is that contemporary art is suffocating on its own hot air.

Elsewhere:

The British Library features a post about female cartoonists.

Famed Garbage Pail Kids painter John Pound has quietly been producing comics made from coding languages. He's profiled over at Wired.

Chris Randle discusses the dominent color palette in superhero movies.

The New York Times had a very comics-heavy weekend on opposite ends of the content spectrum. Jules Feiffer's new book was featured on the cover of the Book Review. And here's a very, uh, gentle profile of Frank Miller, as well as a sidebar with suggested reading.

And here's a link to recent writing by Kevin Huizenga on Saul Steinberg. After years of sustained interest in Steinberg, I've somehow lost interest in his work. It's smart and frequently beautiful, but the symbology became formulaic after a while, and the flavor of his intelligence somehow became less intriguing to me. I don't think it's a reflection of the work itself, but rather my own changing taste. It's like I don't want it all quite so spelled-out for me, and I want a little less of that analytic New York feel. It's also possible my taste is just degenerating. Ha.

We're excited today to introduce a new column from the cartoonist Julia Gfrörer. It's called Symbol Reader, and in it Julia plans, in her words, to use "principles of psychoanalysis, philosophy, and comparative mythology to deliberately overthink the symbolic language of comics." In her inaugural column, Julia overthinks comics by Joe Decie, Eleanor Davis, and Michael DeForge. Here's a sample:

The psyche requires an "other," the hypothetical imaginary friend to whom we address dialogues we cannot entrust to actual people in our lives. Often this other takes the form of an idealized version of a person close to us (we imagine a loved one holding our hand during a difficult medical procedure), or even someone we dislike (we visualize delivering the tirade an unscrupulous friend deserves, and enjoy imagining that person's reaction) and we withhold the pursuit of the experience in reality because we know it cannot produce more satisfaction than its counterpart in fantasy. In fact the task of reconciling our actual relationships against the projected desires with which we mentally conflate them can be aversive, leading us to dodge true intimacy lest actual events somehow contradict a more comfortable constructed narrative. Essentially this is the question posed in the very first panel of Eleanor Davis's comic for The New Yorker: Who needs friends when you have Terry Gross?

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—News. The Joe Shuster Awards' most recent Hall of Fame inductees have been announced.

—Reviews & Commentary. Rob Clough reviews the British volume of the Hic & Hoc Illustrated Journal of Humo(u)r, and pans Lucy Knisley's latest.

—Interviews. Shaenon Garrity talks to Gene Luen Yang, and Chris Mautner talks to translator/publisher Ryan Sands. Oh, and Ed Brubaker reveals some interesting Tom Hart/Jon Lewis trivia in an interview about the end of Fatale.

—Misc. Melissa Mendes wrote a candid short essay on her struggles with depression and anxiety.

The L.A. Register takes the 80th anniversary of Al Capp's Li'l Abner as a hook to run a timeline of American comics strips.

Cartoonist Hillary Price visited the home of Mort Walker.

Sean T. Collins takes to Rolling Stone to explain the history of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Wired has a nice, fascinating article on Topps veteran John Pound's code-based comics.

Seth likes his refrigerator.

—Funnies. Mike Lynch posts the midcentury pyschoanalysis-flavored cartoons of Marcel Vertès.

This Pete Toms comic going around is really strong.

—Not Comics. Still, this excerpt from ace designer Peter Mendelsund's new book, What We See When We Read, and the book as a whole, is worth reading by those interested in the comics form, both for the way he integrates visuals into his text, and for his analysis of how readers of prose visualize what they read themselves (a process that, according to one point of view, cartoonists supplant when they provide readers with their own artistic representation).

Today on the site: Sean T. Collins on the latest comic from Lala Albert:

True, in a way, to its title, Lauren “Lala” Albert’s Alien Invasion III has two primary concerns: aliens and invasiveness. The former are presented in the fashion that has become Albert’s trademark as an artist working with science-fictional imagery in an underground context — otherworldly and elfin, their ubiquitous third eyes a collective locus of mystical enlightenment, erotic fascination, and viscous physicality all at once. The invasions are varied. Aliens visit Earth, humans visit other worlds, humans and aliens travel between worlds together. Alien biology is probed by a human performing an autopsy, explored by two aliens in a body-modification ritual with romantic undertones, inserted unexpectedly and forcibly into an unsuspecting human’s more familiar body. In all four cases the theme is intimacy, invited or not.

Elsewhere:

Robert Boyd uses the NY Times Chronicle tool to track the mentions of "comic strip" or "comic book".

PW examines the current digital landscape for graphic novels.

A look at Japan's anti-piracy campaign.

And here's a chat with Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller about the new Sin City film. I think there's probably some value in watching that movie from a visuals standpoint. I don't know what value, but some kind!

Today we have Greg Hunter's interview with the novelist and translator Brian Evenson, who earlier this year published a critical monograph on Chester Brown's Ed the Happy Clown stories and the various incarnations they have been published in over the years since they first appeared. Here's a little of their conversation:

I’d like to tug at one of the notions in your book. Specifically, can we overstate the importance of a transition to a comics culture that includes the graphic novel? Since most young cartoonists still publish mini-comics or single-issue comics before moving onto larger volumes of work. Publishing in the graphic novel form can be as much a matter of resources and profile as it is an aesthetic choice. I think the graphic novel does come hand in hand with a greater respectability for comics, but is the shift in form as substantial as the shift in perception?

I think the shift in form—you’re completely right, that there’s all sorts of ways, web comics and other things, to get your work out as a comic artist that really have nothing to do with the graphic novel. But at the same time, when Chester Brown was publishing Yummy Fur, there was really a robust culture of independent floppies. So you could go out and you could count on selling quite a few issues. I think he lived on his comic books for a while, and I think it’s very hard for most people to do that at this point.

So I think that’s it. It’s not that that a culture [of independent floppies] doesn’t exist; it’s not that you can’t use it, as a comic artist, as a testing ground; that you can’t do some really amazing things with it. It’s just that it no longer has the kind of prominence—it’s not a kind of necessary step that everybody goes through. And it’s also not something that—I think it’s less likely to lead naturally do the graphic novel than it used to be. A lot of people publish first as a graphic novel, but of course that has a lot to do with finding the right editor and things. And then a lot of people who publish comic books just never get to that point.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the internet:

—News. At Publishers Weekly, Bruce Lidi analyzes the state of digital comics publishing post-Amazon/comiXology, and Deb Aoki reports on a Japanese effort to curb online manga piracy.

There is a dispute between Greg Theakston and the Jack Kirby Museum over art.

—Reviews & Commentary. At Hazlitt, Will Sloan writes about the history of Dick Tracy. At NYRB, Gabriel Winslow-Yost covers Jacques Tardi's war comics. Brian Nicholson reviews Farel Dalrymple's The Wrenchies.

—Profiles & Interviews. Chris Randle visits Emily Carroll. Nikolai Fomich talks to filmmaker Robert Emmons about his new documentary on Fredric Wertham.

—Misc. BuzzFeed did a weird sort of "listicle" about women cartoonists drawing themselves naked?

—Giving & Spending Opportunities. The Independent Publishing Resource Center is raising money for a Dylan Williams scholarship fund to help cartoonists in financial need.

Jesse Reklaw has a successful, but ongoing Kickstarter. And there's another successful but ongoing Kickstarter for a reprint of Jon Stables adventure comics.

Today on the site , Joe McCulloch on the week's comic book offerings from all your favorite publishers.

Elsewhere:

Old pal Kayla Escobedo sent along this link to a fine online mag, Nat. Brut, with work by Mark Newgarden and Gary Panter, among others.

Female cartoonists write about drawing themselves in the nude.

Here's a good, brief discussion of the idea of "literary comics" by Joe McCulloch, Tucker Stone, and Ryan Cecil Smith.

Project alert: I want to see more photographs of Tove Jansson's world.

Not comics but why the hell not: George Plimpton's plaster head!

Okay, back from vacation and ready to go. First up, Rob Kirby is here with a review of the third collection of Esther Pearl Watson's strip Unlovable. Here's a sample:

Unlovable, which has been running for over a decade in Bust magazine, is based on an actual diary Watson found, apropos, in a gas station bathroom. It follows the travails of Tammy Pierce, an overweight, generally unlovely high school sophomore in a small Texas town, circa 1988-1989. Though Watson illustrates Tammy's life in excruciating, embarrassing detail to often-hilarious effect, her clear affection and empathy for her subject shines through. She universalizes Tammy's experiences, taking us back to relive our own tortured, giddy, deadly serious, horny, boring, and horribly self-conscious teenage years. Tammy is like the heroine of a John Hughes flick, minus the forced happy ending or the perfect Prince Charming (Tammy’s prince calls her "Puke Face," among other things).

This third volume of Unlovable opens at the start of summer vacation. Tammy’s adventures are presented in vignettes, touching on both the big events and quotidian details of teenaged life. In between laying out in the front yard for 40-minute sessions and visits to Collin Creek Mall, Tammy goes to summer school (bummer!), and hangs out with her skanky, big-haired friend Kim, whose boyfriend Erick Tammy eternally pines after (and he’s by no means her only heartthrob). Tammy is the third wheel of the group, but she remains undaunted: “Sometimes Erick tries to get me to do degrading things. But I would still go out with him.” Despite the pain of her unrequited crush, Tammy manages to have some fun times with Kim and Erick, especially making mischief, like when Erick shaving-cream-bombs a car full of screeching girls, or when they toilet-paper the yard of mean girl Courtney Brown on the night of her big party (to which they pointedly weren’t invited).

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—News. RIP, Dana Crumb.

Amazon has expanded its battle with Hachette, and is now also taking on Disney.

The original art for the Stephan Pastis/Bill Watterson Pearls Before Swine strips raised over $74,000 for Parkinson's Disease research.

For perspective, the original art for the infamous Brian Bolland page depicting the shooting of Batgirl also just went on auction, and sold for more than $107,000.

—Reviews & Commentary. Gary Panter on Victor Moscoso's poster designs. Kevin Huizenga has started an ongoing project involving Saul Steinberg. Rob Clough reviews David King's Crime World. Abhay Khosla looks at the end of Ed Brubaker, Sean Philips, & Elizabeth Breitweiser's Fatale. Tim O'Neil ponders the Marvel Miracleman reprints.

—Profiles & Interviews. Chris Ware gives a funny interview to Dazed Digital, in which he reveals the time the police let him off with a warning after he was recognized as "that alternative cartoonist." Heidi MacDonald interviews Mike Dawson about being a midlife cartoonist. Paul Gravett profiles Matilda Tristram.

—Misc. Jerry Moriarty has a Tumblr.

Today we have Bob Levin on J.T. Dockery's Despair Vol. 2.

J.T. Dockery has been at it most of his thirty-eight years. He is from Grey Hawk, in rural eastern Kentucky, baptized at eight, out of the church by ten, diagnosed at twenty with psoriatic arthritis, caged within its pain since. Heavy drinking was replaced by heavy reading, when his liver quit on the former. The tuburcular novelist Hubert Selby, Jr. became an inspiration, the noir-enraptured author Nick Tosches another, the manic depressive, psychobilly one-man band Hasil Adkins, a third. Dockery draws, writes, and plays in garage bands. He has said, "(T)he only gods I believe in are concepts of endless mystery, endless questions, and guiding precepts of love, compassion and forgiveness..." He has been to Berea College, UK, and Morehead State and, after a lengthy stop in White River, VT, lives in London, KY.

Elsewhere:

Remember: Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit is also a cartoon you can watch.

Chip Kidd talks Batman to Comics Alliance.

Nice to see old highlight from the Sparkplug Books list.

Informational comics over heeeaaaahh.

Here's a video of the always entertaining Rob Liefeld.

And finally, a cool process post on Saul Bass.

Today on the site we have Sean T. Collins on Kjersti Faret's Danny Boy.

Why is a comic a comic and not some other thing? This question tends to get brandished most frequently in the direction of high-concept genre comics that one suspects were created because access to the big-budget filmmaking industry eluded their authors. But it's worth asking about most any comic, no matter the form of artistic expression that comes to mind when contemplating the alternatives. Is it a series of astutely composed images separated from illustration only by a sketched-in narrative skeleton? Is it an essay in comics drag, the art that should carry it serving as little more than glorified gutters between panels of the text where the authors' attention truly lies? Does it describe a thought the intensity of which masks its banality -- the kind of thing better left a private journal entry than offered for consumption as a comic to the world?

In creating Danny Boy, a comics adaptation of the lilting Irish ballad -- its melody the traditional "Londonderry Air" from present-day Northern Ireland, its lyrics written by English barrister Frederick Edward Weatherly in the 1910s, its presence ubiquitous among communities of Irish ancestry throughout the English-speaking world -- cartoonist Kjersti Faret makes the implicit argument that the comic serves a purpose the song does not or cannot. That, of course, is a tough row to hoe.

And elsewhere:

The New York Times on Bill Mantlo, Keith Giffen and the rights issues around superhero films.

The great artist Jess, known to comics people for his Tricky Cad series, was born yesterday. Here's a good place to start.

-Cranky art critic alert! I love cranky people. Another cranky person: artist Randy Queen, who is doing battle with Tumblr critics.

-Here are some really fantastically repulsive comics from the Children of God church.

-I wonder if anyone at Marvel thought this tweet might be, I dunno, totally offensive given Brian Wood's self-confessed sleazy/actionable behavior? Whatever, it's cool, bro! 

Hi there,

Today we have Cynthia Rose on the four-volume graphic novel series PABLO.

Julie Birmant and Clément Oubrerie’s PABLO tackles something big: what – and who – turned a young Spanish painter into Picasso? Set between 1900 and 1909, their four-volume series covers Picasso’s earliest years in Paris. It’s a true story, but one whose details are largely forgotten. Birmant presents it with sympathy for the elements at its heart: youth, love, friendship and artistic transformation.

Anglophones may know Oubrerie’s art from the Aya series (published by Drawn and Quarterly in the US and Jonathan Cape in Britain). Birmant, who penned 2010′s Drôles de Femmes (“Curious Women”), works in both television and live theatre. Together they introduce us to a Bohemian, fin-de-siècle Paris. Here, the population is eccentric: a bearded chap whose pet donkey learns to paint and ‘sing’, drug-fuelled anarchists and plenty of girls who will pose in the nude. But some of its figures – like Georges Braque, Henri Matisse and Gertrude Stein – make lasting contributions of their own to art.

And elsewhere:

The best-ever film about comics, Artists and Models, gets some love at the AV Club.

The book jacket designer Peter Mendelsund has been getting a ton of press for his two new books. Deservedly so. He's actually a good designer, not an illustrator pretending to be a designer.

It still cracks me up when Image is cited as a mecca for "creator-owned" books. I love that that's a thing stupid people think. I mean, you'd have to be basically an idiot? I guess? Here's one of those people talking about one of those things in Wired, which seems to specialize in overawed coverage things of comics with little merit. In case I need to say it clearer: Ownership and character diversity in comics has existed for over 50 years. Nothing new here. Move along.

Here's a review of a graphic novel by an artist I've never heard of. In the New York Times. Scooped! The comics world is just that big now.

I wonder if this documentary about The Million Year Picnic will also interview that many publishers and artists the store never paid. I'm available. It remains sad and funny to me how you can totally fuck people over in comics and get away with it. It's in the DNA of the medium, and it helps that we eat our own. Kim Deitch wisely wrote about this recently on Facebook and the reaction was predictably not in his favor, because, y'know, artists should shut up and stop whining.

Speaking of real talk, Abhay Khosla has a couple of responses to Mike Dawson's recent writing about his own career.

Today Joe McCulloch welcomes August with a merry list of comics and ideas.

Elsewhere:

The great National Lampoon art director Michael Gross has announced he has terminal cancer, and this profile is worth a read.

Mike Dawson wrote a very candid post about the economics of his cartooning life, which is instructive also of a possible dilemma for a lot of graphic novel-only cartoonists (i.e. almost everyone under 35).

There's more information now on Studio Ghibli -- it looks to be not a full closure, but a shrinking/hiatus.

TCJ-contributor Chris Mautner interviews publisher Ryan Sands.

This drawing will make your day better.

A new small press comics festival has been announced in LA.

Today on the site R.C. Harvey remembers Etta Hulme:

Etta Hulme is an icon in editorial cartooning, a trailblazer for women cartoonists. She was a full-time editoonist on the staff of a major metropolitan daily newspaper before any other woman cartoonist was; she was widely syndicated at a time when no other woman cartoonist was. And she is also a treasure—short and gray-haired grandmotherly in appearance, witty and waspish in her opinions and deft in her drawing. I liked her a lot and admired her skill and talent, both as a thinker and as a cartoonist.

For 36 years, she drew editorial cartoons for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where she was a decisively liberal voice on a conservative newspaper. Her last cartoon was published in December 2008, one farewell poke at two of her  favorite targets—President George W. Bush and his cohort, Dick Cheney, the president of vice—as they left office.

The National Cartoonists Society twice named her best editorial cartoonist of the year—for 1982 and for 1998 (this last, mind you, when she was 75, long past everyone else’s retirement age; but then, Etta never really retired).

Elsewhere:

Apparently Studio Ghibli is closing down. Not much info yet, though.

Gabrielle Bell is now posting new diary comics again. This is very good news. A daily dose of masterful comics.

Celebrate Jack Kirby's upcoming birthday with Kirby beer.

Psychology Today (?!) on a Gahan Wilson documentary.

Three for the movie crowd: Here's an interesting piece about the authorship of the movie Guardians of the Galaxy, getting at gender issues therein as well. And the New York Times recommends some related comics to the movie. Over at the AV Club, a look back at how bizarre the last round of Batman movies became.

I've never seen this Mort Drucker horror comic. It's wonderful.

Animation dept: This new DVD set looks incredible.

Today, Whit Taylor files a report of her experiences at the 2014 Comics & Medicine Conference in Baltimore, a gathering of academics, health professionals, and cartoonists (Ellen Forney, James Sturm, David Lasky) discussing the special issues involved with creating medical comics. Here's an excerpt:

That night at dinner, a small group of us discussed our backgrounds and initial thoughts on the conference. One medical professional was interested in developing health education comics for her clients. She planned on doing formative research before embarking on a project and wanted to know what “us cartoonists had to say.”

We debated the usefulness of creating a health comic that was targeted towards a specific population versus creating one with “universal” appeal. Would a comic book protagonist need to be ethnically and culturally ambiguous enough to translate to various groups “successfully?" I had never discussed comics in such a calculated way before.

“I have a question,” she asked. “How do you read comics? From left to right?”

I was taken aback. “Yeah… generally. Um, do you not read comics?”

“Not really, I just find them to be stressful.”

And Greg Hunter reviews the Holden brothers' Detrimental Information:

Detrimental Information collects entries in the Holden brothers’ zine of the same name, spanning 2001 to the present. The book is perhaps best read in installments—readers will encounter enough anuses and severed limbs to derail a sustained read. Even so, Detrimental Information’s segments have an undeniable cumulative power. Taken together, they form an unsettling portrait of Catholic boyhood and a life beyond it.

The Detrimental Info collection is coy about the division of labor between John Holden and Luke Holden. According to 2D Cloud, John writes all of the zines’ stories, while Luke hand-letters John’s prose and contributes illustrations. The Holdens have a narrow shared range, tonally and visually—again, reading Detrimental Information as a single discreet work is only for the brave—but they also work nimbly within their limitations. John and Luke’s approach throughout the collection (and across the years) brings to mind John Peel’s old quote about The Fall: “They are always different; they are always the same.”

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—News. SCOTUSblog founder Tom Goldstein has joined the representation of Jack Kirby's family in the Kirby vs Marvel case which may or may not soon go before the Supreme Court.

—Profiles & Interviews.KQED profiles Janelle ("The Real Janelle") Hessig. Susie Allen interviews Hillary Chute. So does Kim O'Connor.

—Reviews & Commentary. Steven Heller praises Drew Friedman's Heroes of the Comics. Tim O'Neil makes the case for Jim Starlin's cosmic Warlock comics. Rob Clough wonders about the propaganda aspects of Li Kunwu's A Chinese Life.

National Review's most recent cover story says liberals are nerds, and nerds are liberals, and—it's a problem, guys.

—Giving & Spending Opportunities. Nick Bertozzi is crowdfunding a new issue of Rubber Necker.

Jeet Heer is back with a nice, typically penetrating essay on the Toronto cartoonist Nick Maandag, focusing primarily on his recent Facility Integrity, which concerns a business so concerned with productivity that its management begins restricting employee bathroom time. Here's a sample:

Facility Integrity is rich in treats. Maandag does a pitch perfect parody of the jargon found in the corporate world: the bullying bluster of the CEO addressing cronies, the slippery euphemism of memos, the gung-ho pep talk of a shareholder’s meeting (“In the fourth quarter we prioritized our pursuables, pursued our priorities, penetrated our eligibles, and rammed our desirables!”)

The ritualized social interactions within the corporate hierarchy are examined with anthropological coolness: the CEO Mr. Aswype is not just a nastily domineering but also a figure of pathos because he is cut off from any frank and honest communication with other human beings. His underlings are mostly apple-polishers but one of them (Bobby Dextrose) is also being groomed for leadership, so acts like the cock of the walk. A middle-manager peeps over a cubicle divider, embarrassed at explaining the new policy limiting the period employees will be allowed to defecate. The employees (nicely described as “associates” – a common bit of corporate blather) hate their job but their resistance takes the form of futile fantasy (buying lottery tickets) or inept attempts to work around the rules. In sum, we’re giving a harrowing picture of a hellish social structure almost without hope (it is notable that the one figure who does fight back is an outsider, an immigrant from an unknown land with no ties to his fellow workers).

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—Reviews & Commentary. Hillary Chute reviews Julie Doucet's great New York Diary for Artforum. Chris Mautner has a very strong, on-point review of the collected Witzend. He's right that it's extremely uneven, quality-wise, but there's something fascinating about it on a historical level: some of the very greatest comic-book artists of its time, finally creating comics without any commercial restrictions and allowed to follow their ambitions wherever they lead, and they mostly came up with variations on classic genre adventure cliches... It's not so far from there to some of the "creator-driven" works praised so highly these days.

Also, Dominic Umile writes about Dan Mazur & Alexander Danner's new comics history. Mark Frauenfelder on Glenn Bray's Blighted Eye. Seo Kim pays tribute to Graham Falk.

Paul Constant thinks that the Nerd World Order may have made the San Diego Comic-Con irrelevant. David Brothers is still enthusiastic.

—Misc. Alison Bechdel is one of many to appear in this video supporting Palestinian rights.

NPR remembers Jackie Ormes.

The Wall Street Journal looks at NYC restaurant choking posters created by cartoonists & illustrators like Alex Holden and Meghan Turbitt.

This listicle of Jim Davis trivia is pretty silly, but I don't think I ever heard the Charles Schulz/Garfield story before.

—Interviews. Beck Cloonan discusses her early career with the AV Club. Off Life talks to Annie Koyama. Kevin O'Neill talks about the time his artwork was declared unfit by the Comics Code with CBR.

I'm not normally a fan of listening to podcasts of live events, but the Inkstuds special at Meltdown with Bryan Lee O’Malley, Jaime Hernandez, Tom Herpich, and Pendleton Ward is pretty charming, as unpolished and dude-heavy as it may be.

—Giving Opportunities. I've previously mentioned Root Hog or Die, the documentary in the works on John Porcellino, but I don't think I've linked to its Kickstarter. Some nice incentives there.