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Today:

The tables are turned as Dominic Umile reviews Sam Henderson's most recent book.

Even as Scene But Not Heard is confined to rigid set of what’s usually 16 panels per page in this 6” X 9” book, Sam Henderson’s hilarious strip swirls and sputters uncontrollably, percolating with riotous energy and wordless pandemonium. The 128-page collection mines back issues ofNickelodeon Magazine, to which the New York-based cartoonist began contributing in 1993 under comics editor Anne Bernstein. Henderson’s work ran in the magazine until 2009, when the nationally distributed Viacom-owned kids publication abruptly folded. While he freelanced for Bernstein and subsequently for co-editors Chris Duffy and Dave Roman, the Scene But Not Heardcreator also snagged a full-time day job as a writer and storyboard director on the immensely popular television seriesSpongeBob SquarePants beginning in 2001 (Duffy would go on to helm the print comic property), and earned an Emmy nomination for his efforts. Sandwiched between contributions from Craig Thompson, Art Spiegelman, Ellen Forney, and more, Henderson’s Scene But Not Heard was the longest-running strip in Nickelodeon Magazine’s 159 issues.

Tove Jansson is the subject of a very good BBC profile.

If you're in Toronto this weekend this Seth/DeForge/Smyth/Heer event looks good.

FirstSecond has some advice on submitting manuscripts.

Nobrow, previewed.

Today, the cartoonist Sam Henderson is here with a review of a retrospective of the work of the mid-century gag cartoonist he says he's more often compared to than anyone else, Vip: The Mad World of Virgil Partch. Here's how Sam starts:

A doctor has his nurse hand him instruments to operate on a set of paper dolls. A man working out in a gym crashes through a wall when the springs on his weightlifting machine backfire. A man working in the basement says to his kid, “Run up and ask Mother to turn off the iron”—as a hot iron burns through the ceiling dangling by its cord. None of these descriptions do the work justice, or even make any sense when described. But the work is familiar to you, whether you know it or not.

One of those cartoonists whose works I spent my twenties tracking down in countless dusty old used-book bins, Virgil Franklin Partch a/k/a VIP has now had his work collected in Vip: The Mad World of Virgil Partch. It's one of many coffee-table books being printed now collecting rare out-of-print artifacts which, if I had known back then that they would be reprinted eventually, I might not have wasted all that time trying to find them.

Elsewhere:

—News. The South Carolina House of Representatives doubled down on their decision to cut funding to two colleges for recommending books with gay-themed subject matter (including Fun Home).

—Interviews. CBR talks to John Romita Jr. HuffpostLive talks to New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff.

—Misc. Michael Dooley at Print revisits the time when a Jonah Hex miniseries prompted Edgar and Johnny Winter to sue DC Comics. Dangerous Minds revisits the illustrations William Steig made for the controversial psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. Paolo Patricio explains how to make panel grids fast.

—Reviews & Commentary. Dooley also alerted me to this website hosting a pdf of Ariel Dorfman & Armand Mattelart's classic 1970s critique of imperialistic content in Disney comic books, How to Read Donald Duck. Rob Clough continues his month of daily short reviews, and Tom Spurgeon seems to be similarly inspired lately. MariNaomi sort of reviews Diane Obomsawin's On Loving Women, in comics form.

Today on the site: Shaenon Garrity looks at two web comics about Irish history.

I’ve said this many times before and I’ll say it many times again, but one of the joys of webcomics is their ability to cover every possible subject and fill every conceivable niche. Say, for example, you’re into early Irish literature and you want to read it in comics form. Webcomics are happy to help you out. At this very moment, in fact, there are at least two ongoing webcomics based on the Táin Bó Cúailnge, or Cattle Raid of Cooley, the central epic of the Ulster cycle: Patrick Brown’s The Cattle Raid of Cooley and M.K. Reed’s About a Bull . Thank you, webcomics! You’ve justified the existence of the Internet yet again!

Elsewhere:

This is an excellent profile of the important underground comic Tits & Clits.

David Mamet remembers his friend Shel Silverstein.

Great new R.O. Blechman image over here.

Love these illustrations for various 1960s editions of Don Quixote.

Aaron McGruder, of Boondocks-fame, has a new cartoon on the horizon.

A new director of the Smithsonian has been named, and he has a positive outlook on funding for the arts (scroll down).

Tuesday is Joe McCulloch day, in which he not only previews the most interesting-sounding new comics releases of hte week, but also writes a short essay on the autobiographical manga of Moyoko Anno:

This is not the Harvey Pekar tradition of American alternative comics, and I doubt it will appeal to those who value autobiographical comics primarily for their arrangements of unvarnished life. On the contrary, this is an extremely varnished life; H. Anno, in an afterword of sorts, advises that M. Anno would rearrange events to make them funnier, even allowing her husband to check the finished pages and suggest additional jokes and references. Indeed, the book’s English-exclusive annotations run a spectacular 30 pages, so dense are these vignettes with geek speak, at times venturing into Poto and Cabengo territory as H. Anno is depicted communicating in verbalized manga sound effects, apart from whole passages consisting of seemingly nothing but quotes and allusions to/from beloved anime and tokusatsu shows.

Elsewhere:

—News. Taiyo Matsumoto and Emily Carroll are the winners of the annual Slate/CCS Cartoonist Studio Prize.

—Giving & Spending Opportunities. The eBay auction of original art to benefit Stan Sakai and his family's need for medical funds has begun. Lots of interesting artists on board, from Dave Berg to Mike Mignola. New art from additional artists will go up every week. Dave Sim has taken to Patreon to fund his Strange Death of Alex Raymond project. Steve Ditko has a Kickstarter.

—Interviews. The Billfold interviews newish New Yorker cartoonist Tom Toro. Salon briefly interviewed Chris Ware about modern education and Joseph Cornell. And here's Peter Bagge:

—Reviews & Commentary. Darwyn Cooke suggests eight Will Eisner stories for neophytes. Chris Randle compares True Detective to Kerascoët's Beautiful Darkness. Kristian Williams thinks he sees feminism in Frank Miller comics. Tom Spurgeon reviews Lob & Rochette's Snow Piercer.

Today on the site we have an excerpt from Brian Evenson's forthcoming book on Ed the Happy Clown, to be published this year by Uncivilized Books.

The idea for this book started just a few days after Drawn & Quarterly’s 2012 re-release of Ed the Happy Clown. More specifically, it started when I picked up that book in the bookstore and noticed the subtitle:“a graphic-novel”. Chester Brown’s name was in all-caps, the title too was all-caps, which drew my attention to the fact that the subtitle seemed deliberately lowercase. Part of me felt this was simply just a matter of typography, a choice made to distinguish between title and subtitle. But another part of me believed—and still believes—that there are no accidents, and that it is these small, seemingly random choices that accumulate into the larger distinctions that end up shaping not only a book but an entire genre.

Standing there in Modern Times, I found myself wondering what made a ‘graphic-novel’ different from a ‘Graphic Novel’? It seemed a question of simple arithmetic: the subtraction of capitalization and the addition of a hyphen. The first gesture strips away a level of formatting, going against common title capitalization guidelines. The second adds a piece of formatting we wouldn’t expect to be there, a hyphen, and which isn’t there in any other use of the phrase “graphic novel” that I can remember. Both seem incredibly small things. But it is of such small things that greater effects are both built and sustained.

Elsewhere:

Tom Spurgeon interviews MK Brown about her great new book.

Here's a great chat with Roz Chast.

British comics crew Decadence gets a spotlight.

And Eddie Campbell interviewed over at Robot 6.

It's always a pleasure to read R.C. Harvey, and today on the site he's here with a column on Playboy cartoonist Eldon Dedini. Here's a brief excerpt:

Gus Arriola, another supreme stylist whose Gordo comic strip was a stunning fiesta of design and color, counted Dedini his closest friend in a friendship of over fifty years that was grounded firmly in their mutual passion and respect for the visual art they practiced and in a unique camaraderie they shared, living in Carmel, California.

“Even his signature was a design,” Arriola once said. “—bold, succinct, an autograph as distinctive as the rich humor it identified. Simply, Dedini —much as one would say Bernini, Modigliani, Dali—Dedini—all those ending in -I appellations signifying high art. Few humorists can draw passably, if at all. Eldon was both an accomplished illustrator and a proven humorist. His pictorial and literary recording of international events and domestic culture through his award-winning years was always timely, always cogent and always remarkably funny.”

Quoted in the Monterey Herald’s front-page obituary for Dedini in January 2006, Lee Lorenz, cartoon editor at The New Yorker for many of the years Dedini’s cartoons were published therein, said: “While a million people can draw, very few can cartoon well. To be a cartoonist you have to be a stylist, and that’s not easy to come by. It transcends technique. And he was an excellent idea man. He had a wide-ranging imagination. He was tough to edit because he didn’t need much editing. I never asked him to redraw, which at The New Yorker is quite unusual. If 20^th century cartooning is ever looked at seriously,” he concluded, “Eldon Dedini will be one of the outstanding figures of American comic art.”

We also are posting another of the late great Bhob Stewart's pieces for The Comics Journal, his 1985 appreciation of Howard Nostrand. A sample:

As a humorist working in an Eisneresque mode, Nostrand was obviously given a high-voltage jolt by the early issues of Mad. One can almost see the gears and cogs clicking into place in his 23-year-old head. It was, we might say, good timing. The right talent in the right place at the right time: when Nostrand skipped out of the Powell studio in March 1952, he began his solo career in the very same season Kurtzman was hatching Mad #1 (Oct. 1952–Nov. 1952). Kurtzman’s original idea for Mad was to parody types of comic book stories (horror, SF, romance, sports, crime, etc.); his revamp of that concept into direct satires on specific radio/TV/comics/movies came later, with issues #3 through #8 making this transition throughout 1953. The revolutionary Mad feature of contemporary movie satires with recogniz­able caricatured likenesses, timed to coin­cide with the film’s general release nation­wide, did not happen until Mad #9 (Feb. 1954–March 1954) with “Hah! Noon!” — followed by others in 1954 (“From Eter­nity Back to Here,” “Wild Vi,” “Julius Caesar,” “Stalag 18”). After 30 years of Mad, it becomes almost impossible to explain why it was so exciting and so much fun in 1954. There just had never been anything like it. Opening an issue in a newsstand was like … was like …

Okay. Forget the analogies. Lemme put it this way: You’re in a small American town. Some people there have TV sets. You don’t. So you can’t even see Sid Caesar. Your high school reading assign­ment is deadly — Alexander Pope (1688–1744), right? The teacher calls him a satirist, but no one laughs. School’s out. You buy Mad #12 and read — in color — “From Eternity Back to Here.” You think about the Life photo of James Jones leaning on his manuscript, pages stacked almost to his own height. A month later From Here to Eternity — in black and white — arrives at the town’s only movie theater. After seeing it you reread the Mad parody to relish the specificities. So then you spend part of the summer reading the entire James Jones novel and wind up knowing Prewitt as if he were a personal friend. Then you reread the Mad parody again. See? There was more to Mad than Mad itself. Cultural reverb, that’s what it was. Can you dig it? Well, forget it, man, it can’t be explained. You had to be there.

Elsewhere:

—Interviews. Fader talks to Charles Forsman. Dan Berry interviewed Julia Wertz and Sarah Glidden. Steve Sunu talks to Evan Dorkin. Chris Sims talks to Tom Scioli and John Barber.

—Reviews & Commentary. James Guida at The New Yorker appreciates Tove Jansson. Ana Benaroya reviews Diane Obomsawin's Loving Women. Mike Mignola appreciates Will Eisner. Tom Spurgeon reviews Forever Evil #6. Richard Metzger remembers Sean Kelly and Neal Adams's Son-O'God Comics from National Lampoon.

—Misc. Fantagraphics has announced their fall 2014 books. Whit Taylor gives advice on cartooning while holding a day job.

—Digital. ComiXology announced yesterday that its security was breached, and that they recommend all account holders change their passwords.

Today on the site:

Sarah Boxer on Woman Rebel.

Who would have thought that Margaret Sanger, the mother of American birth control, would one day have her story told in a drawing style that simultaneously recalls that of Cathy Guisewite (Cathy), R. Crumb (Mr. Natural), and Jack Cole (Plastic Man). Sounds, ungodly, doesn’t it? But such is the hysterical, intense, rubbery look of Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story, by Peter Bagge, best know for his Hate comics. In Woman Rebel, Sanger, though her story is definitely of the superhero variety, comes across visually as Mary Poppins on a bad day — red-haired, booted, angry, her shoulders stooped, her mouth a weird worm crawling across her face. (I’ve seen pictures of Sanger and this isn’t even close; she’s actually quite fetching.)

Elsewhere:

Francoise Mouly interviewed at Mutha.

Heidi MacDonald on the new Heavy Metal.

Frank's friend Derf reports back from travels abroad.

Some of what's not in the upcoming Alex Toth book.

A cartoon report of Al Jaffee at Columbia.

Mervyn Peake rules.

Today, Rob Steibel uses his column to explore some of Jack Kirby's '70s pencil work.

And George Elkind reviews Jon Vermilyea's Fata Morgana.

Elsewhere:

—Reviews & Commentary. Illogical Volume reviews Harvey Pekar & Joseph Remnant, Ulli Lust, and others. Chris Mautner reflects on the scatological in comics from Johnny Ryan and Michael DeForge. Tom Spurgeon reviews the new collection of Henry comic books. In the you'll-know-if-you-want-to-read-it category, Dave Sim responds in his own inimitable way to the misogyny allegations recently laid against Alan Moore.

—Profiles & Interviews. Daily Life talks to Alison Bechdel. HiLobrow briefly celebrates Ronald Searle.

—News. Jen Sorenson won the Herblock Prize. Former DC publisher Paul Levitz has joined the board at Boom! The playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is the new chief creative officer at Archie. Image publisher Eric Stephenson won the 2014 appreciation award from retailers' organization ComicsPRO. (If you read a lot of online comics discussion besides this site, you're probably already heard of Stephenson's controversial speech at the annual ComicsPRO meeting. Aaron Kashtan explores the speech in two posts.) Major Japanese publisher Kadokawa plans to introduce a new digital manga reader, including titles in English.

—Misc. Stanley Kubrick's photos of New Yorker cartoonist Peter Arno. Last Gasp is hosting a logo design contest. (Greg Irons drew the original.) A longtime 48-year-old comic-book collector is selling off most of his collection, and started a blog documenting the process.

—Ways to Spend Money. The Yeah Dude subscription drive Kickstarter is almost over, and as of this writing this-close to reaching its main fundraising goal. Space Face has announced a subscription drive. Inkstuds superfans might be interested in their Kickstarter to fund an American interview tour. A new Pigeon Press Gallery site is selling original art from Ivan Brunetti, Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes, and others.

—Historical Link of the Day. In a 1987 Bullpen Bulletin for the ages, then Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter stands up for what he really believes in.

Today on the site, Joe McCulloch brings it all back home.

Elsewhere in this world:

After reading Joe the most important thing for you to do is watch this (NSFW) Throbbing Gristle video made a long ago by the great and under-appreciated French artists Bruno Richard and Pascal Doury (seen in the US mostly in RAW).

Still have time? Fine. Here:

This guy's view of contemporary comics is profoundly limited, but I like his analysis of mid-century realist comics technique.

Robert Boyd reminds us that great Canadian picture story The Cage has been reissued.

There's lots of movement at Archie Comics.

This is a slightly random look at Charlton Comics.

There's going to be a Frank Quitely documentary episode.

These images of Otomo posters installed for show are fantastic.

Our own Jacq Cohen enjoys a puff.

When I was a kid I used to be thrilled that Stan Lee was seemingly always meeting with a groovy French movie director named Alain Renais. Yeah baby. Alain Renais is dead now, but paper lives on.

If I was a cartoonist I'd be very very reluctant to publish in the same book as Ronald Searle. Anyway, here are images from a recent Searle exhibition and accompanying catalog.

Today Rob Clough reviews the hard-to-describe comics project, Dog City #2:

Dog City is part anthology, part art object, part stunt, part value-added merchandise, and all comics. What makes it more than a stunt is the overall quality of the comics within, which range from good to excellent. The concept behind Dog City is to put a lot of different comics and art objects into the hands of readers without simply jamming them all into a single anthology. So it begins with a screenprinted box that has a couple of comics on it and inside of it, and tissue paper used for packing that also has images on it. There are beautiful, dog-related "art cards" (small prints) by Caitlin Rose Boyle, as well as a poster by Christina Lee and patches by Ian Richardson. While these are not relevant to the project's status relating to comics, they are part of the overall aesthetic of hand-printed, tactile objects.

Editors Juan Fernandez, Luke Healy, and Simon Reinhardt are all students at the Center for Cartoon Studies who extended their reach a bit for this project. In addition to the above items, there are also eight minicomics, a minicomics anthology, and a magazine about comics. CCS is certainly represented, but not just by current students. Faculty member Steve Bissette, for example, reprinted and reformatted "Sand Papel", a story he did for another CCS anthology called Tales of San Papel. Bissette hasn't done many comics in recent years, but this one is very much in line with the sort of scratchy, gritty horror comics he did so well in the past. Reformatting the comic to landscape and keeping it to just two panels per page allowed the story to breathe a bit more and creep into the reader's consciousness.

Elsewhere:

—Reviews & Commentary. Rob Clough has also begun one of his occasional one-review-a-day months on his blog. Matt Leines reviews some vintage Paper Rad. Sarah Horrocks begins a multi-part essay on Inio Asano's Nijigahara Holograph. Abhay Khosla writes about several newish releases. Then he looks into my brain.

—Interviews & Profiles. James Sturm celebrates Ed Koren. Xavier Guilbert has posted his TCAF interview with Tagame Gengoroh. I always enjoy the mini-biographies on HiLobrow. Here they tackle Milton Caniff. Dennis Kitchen talks Will Eisner.

—News. The National Cartoonists Society has announced its Cartoonist of the Year Reuben Award nominees.

—Misc. Gary Tyrrell writes about former web cartoonist John Campbell's controversial Kickstarter essay (for lack of a better way to describe it). Jim McLaughlin writes about the financial side of the comics convention business.

Today on the site, Matthias Wivel reports on the Angouleme Grand Prix award process. and talks to Louis Trondheim about it.

Elsewhere:

Cincinatti has a fine stash of early Dr. Seuss cartoons, but they're not on display.

Chris Mautner on Prison Pit and Ant Colony.

An interview with colorist Matthew Wilson.

The D&Q Blog on Beautiful Darkness, which Joe McCulloch wrote about here.

Frank Santoro's back from France, and sharing the comics he got over there.

Elsewhere:

—Sean Howe has posted three snapshots (1, 2, 3) from what was reportedly the first museum exhibition of underground comic art, curated by Bhob Stewart. Michael Dooley at Print has a short appreciation of Stewart.

—Chris Butcher of TCAF and The Beguiling has a two-part interview at Guys With Pencils.

—Kristy Valenti found a great old Kim Thompson quote on what's-wrong-with-comics, published in a 1983 issue of Heavy Metal.

—Rich Tommaso is selling original art.

—Bill Watterson drew a movie poster.

—Alfred Le Petit caricatures.

Today on the site Bill Pearson remembers Bhob Stewart. And we've posted Bhob's classic obituary of Wally Wood.

Elsewhere:

Michael Dooley on Bhob Stewart at Print Magazine.

This new book on anime history sounds great.

Gerry Giovinco on Dark Horse Comics history.

Not comics: TCJ-contributor Naomi Fry has an excellent review of The Wolf of Wall Street over at the LARB.

Ron Rege is opening an exhibition in LA this weekend. Looks great.

I didn't know about the Bosko comic strip.

Mimi Pond is going on tour for her forthcoming book.

Hey, excellent Lane Milburn comic strip over here.

Joe McCulloch is here to help, with his weekly guide to the most interesting sounding new comics releases, and an essay on pre-Tezuka manga by Henry (Yoshitaka) Kiyama.

Elsewhere:

—News. R.I.P. historian/writer/cartoonist/editor/filmmaker/etc. Bhob Stewart. Expect more coverage at this site soon. In the meantime, Potrzrebie, his long-running blog, is a treasure trove of the kind of cultural information most readers of this site would be interested in, and gives a hint at his wide-ranging interests.

Kevin Melrose writes about some of the reaction to South Carolina lawmakers' efforts to withdraw funding from two colleges for including gay-themed books in their curricula (one of the books is Alison Bechdel's Fun Home.) Heidi MacDonald writes about fundraising efforts for Bill Mantlo, spurred on partially by the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy movie. The Hollywood Reporter writes about the legal conflict between Disney and Stan Lee Media. Robyn Chapman has launched The Tiny Report, a site/blog devoted to "micropress" comics.

—Interviews & Profiles. BuzzFeed talks to Hayao Miyazaki. Brigid Alverson talks to Charles Forsman about the new Oily Comics Spring Bundle offer. Heidi MacDonald interviews scholar Paul Gravett. Tell Me Something I Don't Know interviews Copacetic Comics owner Bill Boichel.

—Digital. Diamond Digital is shutting down, and Brigid Alverson provides analysis. Ryan Estrada sold his comics through comiXology Submit, and shares the economics of it. Bruce Lidl talks to Chris Ross of Top Shelf about their decision to offer DRM-free graphic novels.

—Reviews & Commentary. Noah Berlatsky and Shaenon Garrity write about Bloom County. At Flavorwire, Kevin Nguyen tries to pick what comics he'd add to the literary canon.

—Giving Opportunities. Worthy comics bloggers Rob Clough and Mike Lynch are both asking for financial help.

—Funnies. John Porcellino shares some old sketchbooks.

Well, it's Monday and so I'm back. Hi. Today we have the indefatigable Paul Tumey on one slice of the giant cake that is all things Rube Goldberg.

The current dusty, dim current understanding of Rube Goldberg and his work is evident in the comics history books and websites that mention him. Sadly, many of these are riddled with errors. Peter Marzio’s 1973 biography, Rube Goldberg: His Life and Work contains a error-filled list of his cartoon series that has led subsequent scholars into fields of confusion.¹ Marzio’s book also asserts that the first full-fledged Goldberg invention cartoon was published November 10, 1914, an incorrect statement that has been repeated in numerous articles, books, and websites for the last 40 years. In actuality, it appears that Goldberg published his first invention cartoon July 17, 1912 — more than two years earlier.

The first known Rube Goldberg invention cartoon, originally published July 7, 1912

The errors about Goldberg’s work have, on occasion, been off not just by a couple of years, but entire decades. For instance, Brian Walker’s comprehensive and authoritative survey of the history of the American newspaper comic strip The Comics: The Complete Collection (Abrams ComicArts 2011), reprints a Goldberg invention cartoon from 1930 with the dating “c.1910s.” It’s also identified as a “daily panel,” when it actually was from a biweekly series that appeared in a nationally distributed magazine, Collier’s Weekly.

In all fairness to hard-working cultural historians, getting one’s arms around the scope and particulars of Rube Goldberg’s career is no easy task. Rube, that cartoonist with the mind of an engineer, was more interested in the next idea than he was in drawing a concept out, exploring every nook and cranny. Thus, for most of of his career as a newspaper humor comic strip creator from 1909 to about 1938, Rube made a new and different comic strip every day. He had several series, like Foolish Questions, Silly Sonnets, and I’m The Guy which he randomly returned to as he pleased.

Elsewhere:

The great Anya Davidson has a new ongoing comic over at Vice.

Tom Spurgeon on the recently deceased writer-about-comics Bill Baker.

Paul Pope talks about his forthcoming Escapo reprint.

Nice Lynch art, Tom K.

I used to like to collect issues of Ballyhoo. Here's a particularly racy edition.

Server problems this morning prevented me from completing today's usual blog posting, but we have reposted a classic interview of Shary Flenniken, conducted by Robert Boyd and originally published in issue 146 from 1991. Here's a sample:

BOYD: You told me that the underground comics didn’t pay any money, that National Lampoon paid good money.

FLENNIKEN: They paid $25 a page, similar to what Fantagraphics is paying now.

BOYD: I know. Although they sold a lot more than we sell.

FLENNIKEN: It’s really sick, isn’t it?

BOYD: Well, I don’t know if anyone was getting rich off of it.

FLENNIKEN: Back then?

BOYD: Yeah. There’s no underground comics millionaires or anything.

FLENNIKEN: Robert Crumb would have gotten rich if he hadn’t been such a bozo.

BOYD: And Gilbert Shelton … what I mean is, I don’t think there’s someone getting rich off of other people’s labors.

FLENNIKEN: No. Gilbert had a thriving business, as far as I know. He was using his own ability as a base. I think it was great. I’m sure that there’s a lot of stuff that I don’t know about, how they ran their business, the fact that they bought that web press …

BOYD: Yeah, that is insane.

FLENNIKEN: And they had a real business. They had a bunch of people who were employed and motivated, and Gilbert was consistently wonderful. A bunch of great people who all got along and were wonderful people. And the whole thing functioned so well! They were buying houses, which was pretty good, especially at that time.

BOYD: I was just saying that it’s not like people at Print Mint or Last Gasp became millionaires printing comics and paying starvation wages.

FLENNIKEN: No, it wasn’t that, but there was definitely … I never did like the artiste attitudes. I disagreed with that. It was mostly people with outside incomes saying that your art has to remain pure, don’t think about money. Which is like saying, “You can’t join our club if you care about how much you’re getting paid.” This is a real thing.

BOYD: It’s a real thing now, believe me. It’s not gone away.

FLENNIKEN: Yeah, and there’s Artie Spiegelman, who — and he still does this, and I really like this guy — yet he makes his money from Topps gum cards and tells people that they should work for him for free to stay pure. I think, as a feminist, I just don’t believe in volunteer labor. That’s just the way it is. See, I come out of all this political stuff and … the whole communist ethic, this whole ethic … it’s not like I was in a serious communist situation, but I hung out with people who felt that you should be fed by the state, and you should work because you love your work. My feeling is that if you really love comics and cartoonists, and you really believe that comics are art and comics have value, then you will try to do what is best for everybody. You don’t ask people to starve for their art. My Air Pirates buddies said, “You gotta go out and get a book deal. You’ve gotta go on your own, you know.”

Today on the site our friend Ryan Holmberg is back with a look at an unexpected body of comics work.

Even if you know only the first thing about postwar Japanese art, the name Shinohara Ushio (b. 1932) should be familiar. He’s the spunky bantam-weight with the mohawk who, in the early 1960s in front of flashing cameras and copy-hungry journalists, interpreted action painting as a sport, wrapping sodden rags around his fists like boxing gloves to decorate sheets of paper and cloth swatches with a series of oversized black and white splats. The “rockabilly painter,” as he was called, was featured many times in tabloids and on television as a representative of the new wave of Japanese youth.

Elsewhere:

Here's an excerpt from a rare profile of Mark Beyer.

This is a cool post about Spanish comics.

I've never seen these Moebius/Dune storyboards.

The LA Times Book Prize nominees have been announced.

There's some kind of kerfuffle with a Denver comic book convention.

Lock up your long boxes: Frank Santoro is headed to Columbus in March.

Hey, good ol' Desert Island is having a 6th anniversary party here in Brooklyn.

Today, John Hilgart of 4CP is here with a review of Blake Bell and Dr. Michael Vassallo's Secret History of Marvel Comics, which looks both fascinating and strange. Here's an excerpt:

Fate introduced a wildcard: Certain comic book creations became national and global myth- and cash-machines, something no one could have anticipated, least of all Martin Goodman. Captain America was just a wartime knock-off of The Shield (the original patriotic comic book superhero), with Goodman bowing to legal pressure from his former co-worker (now competitor) to change Cap’s shield to a different shape. The Human Torch and The Submariner were both accidental Goodman purchases, when he requisitioned content from a third party vendor, due to the popularity of comic books (See Marvel Comics #1).

Yes, Jack Kirby and others turned out to be the Toulouse Lautrecs of their day, undervalued and underpaid. They got shafted by their own youthful engagement with the work-for-hire arrangement, and by the undervaluing of comic books for several decades. There’s no denying that many comic book creators’ grandchildren should now be rich.

But if you accept this book’s thesis that Martin Goodman didn’t give a crap about content, yet was a hoarder and re-purposer of any intellectual property that he possessed – anything that might sell a few thousand more bundles of paper next month – then this is largely a story of two worlds colliding at a very human level. A man built a widget factory that accidentally produced some Stradivarius violins. He didn’t really understand violins, but he understood that they were his, and that they had value.

Elsewhere:

—Interviews & Profiles. ABC talks to Mad magazine's Al Jaffee. Tom Chesek talks to Drew Friedman. The Vermont Digger talks to New Yorker cartoonist Ed Koren. Alex Dueben talks to Isabel Greenberg. Paul Gravett talks to Hungarian cartoonist András Baranyai. Ideas Tap talks to Dave McKean about the covers he created for Sandman (via).

Here's Kim Deitch interviewed by Caitlin McGurk at CAKE (via):

—Reviews & Commentary. Matt Madden ponders the comics seen in François Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451. Vanessa Davis talks about Maus. Ada Palmer writes about manga's place in the weird horror tradition. J. Caleb Mozzocco reviews James Stokoe's Godzilla: The Half-Century War.

—Funnies. Alan Gardner has posted rare images of some of Bill Watterson's high school cartoons. 13th Dimension looks at John Lennon as a cartoonist.

—Process. Jessica Abel has written posts discussing how she uses InDesign and Scrivener to help her make comics.

Welcome to the short week. As per usual, Joe McCulloch has your weekly need-t0-knows, this week with a side dish of recent French language manga releases.

Elsewhere:

Chester Brown has been named a Canadian who changed the world. Like.

Variety talks French comics film/TV adaptations.

Take a look at these pristine Gasoline Alley proofs for sale.

Tom Spurgeon interviews Joe Casey.

This is interesting. It's the first time in over a decade that one of the big two auction houses has gotten involved in comic book art.

The UK's Thought Bubble comics festival announced its 2014 preliminary line-up.

The great NYC gallerist Hudson passed away last week. He is notable in comics circles for having been one of the first in the U.S. to exhibit the work of Tom of Finland consistently, and was definitely the first to show Gengoroh Tagame.

Mr. Velcro.

We're closing out the week with Joe McCulloch's massive tour de force review of UK indie anthology Mould Map 3, which gathers work by cartoonists such as Sammy Harkham, Simon Hanselmann, Aidan Koch, Blaise Larmee, and co-editor Leon Sandler, among many others. Here's an excerpt:

The terror of Mould Map 3, then, is the terror of options: of the necessity of change, and the uncertainty behind anyone's ability to guide it. I am reminded again of a Sammy Harkham anthology, this time 2011's Kramers Ergot 8, a book which all but palpably shuddered with anxiety and despair, surveying the path of comics with a regret born sadly of wisdom, and seeking, futilely, to imagine a future that won't merely reprise the ills of the past. It was comprehensively different from prior installments of that series, down to its physical characteristics: smaller in size; fewer artists; longer pieces.

The same is true for this book. Vols. 1 & 2 of Mould Map (“culture as the physical residue of civilisation and a virally exploding population,” per Frost) were 12- and 20-page pamphlets, 11.75” x 16.5” both, allowing no contributor more than two pages to deliver an image, a story fragment, a revelatory semi-fossil; anything. Editors Frost & Sadler drew inspiration from the zines and anthologies of Hendrik Hegray & Jonas Delaborde: Nazi Knife and False Flag, books of images which stood apart from the gnarled Gallic tradition of Le Dernier Cri by swapping out screen printing and other feats of hand-design for low-fidelity monochrome reproductions of color photographs and drawings that seemed less apocalyptic than severely drowsy. Frost & Sadler brought in heavy color as a unifying factor -- Mould Map 2 remains among the *loudest* comics I own -- but retained a scattered, enigmatic quality: easily dismissible, to be blunt, for those eager to have stories enunciated by their pictures.

Mould Map 3, however, adopts not the production characteristics of Kramers Ergot, or Nazi Knife, or LDC's pus-smeared Hopital Brut, but a properly mainstream Japanese art book: 8.25” x 11.75”, with heavy, glossy paper throughout (some exceptions apply). If you've ever bought anything luxurious from UDON Entertainment, particularly the anime/manga/gaming production art-flavored anthologies Robot or APPLE, you've basically seen Frost's & Sadler's approach here; even the 60 USD-ish suggested cover price is competitive with most of what you'll find on the applicable shelves of your local Kinokuniya. Where Mould Map 3 departs is in periodically inserting smaller booklets into the larger book -- a Le Dernier Cri trademark -- and marshaling all manner of attentive care after the reproduction of wildly varying visual approaches: some burning and fluorescent, others photographic, or heavy with slime.

Elsewhere:

—News. Irwin Hasen, Sheldon Moldoff, and Orrin C. Evans have been selected for the Eisner Hall of Fame, and the Eisners have announced the nominees and opened online voting for the next round. At Publishers Weekly, Brigid Alverson reports on an apparently declining manga market in France.

—Interviews. CBR talks to the founder of IDW, Ted Adams, on the 15th anniversary of his company. Bookworm's Michael Silverblatt speaks to Jaime Hernandez (and novelist Junot Diaz). The Hundreds talks to Night Business creator Ben Marra. Kiel Phegley interviews Dark Horse publisher Mike Richardson about the company's stated intention to expand their creator-owned lineup. In the process, Phegley calls Dark Horse the "original home of creator-owned comics", which seems to ignore a lot of history before the company, but any emphasis on creator ownership is a good one.

—Reviews & Commentary. Matt Fraction breaks down a Miller/Mazzucchelli issue of Daredevil. Harry Backlund reports on Art Spiegelman's Wordless! stage show in Chicago for the online Paris Review.

Today we introduce new contributor Greg Hunter and his review of Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's Batman: Death of the Family, in which he finds the critical response to the comic nearly as disturbing as the book itself:

Since at least Fredric Wertham’s accusation that the Caped Crusader and his Boy Wonder were sleeping together, Batman stories have lent themselves to queer readings. In interviews at the start of Grant Morrison’s multi-title Batman run, the writer even teased “the gay Batman” as an aspect of the series he hoped to revive. Perhaps Snyder sought to explore this feature of the character with the best intentions. But Death of the Family is more reactionary than radical, and Snyder has been the beneficiary of low expectations in the comics press.

The culture of superhero comics encourages repetition; Marvel and DC creators recycle tropes, story structures, and approaches to characterization. Inasmuch as readers approach these comics with certain expectations—to see the last-minute return of a believed-dead hero, the dissolution and reunion of a superteam, etc—this isn’t necessarily a problem. It’s something of a social compact. But the traditionalist character of these comics means creators often recycle the comics’ worst elements too. And in the case of Snyder and Capullo’s Joker, the comics press has signed off on this recycling process.

Elsewhere:

—Interviews. David Brothers has taken over the Inkstuds podcast for the month of February, and has already posted three interviews, with cartoonists Jimmy Robinson and Whitney Taylor, and the scholar Qiana Whitted. A podcast called the Artist as Entrepreneur has posted an interview with publisher Annie Koyama.

—Reviews & Commentary. Impossible Books has a fun mini-appreciation of Laura Park. Bob Heer reviews the new collection of Alan Moore & Steve Parkhouse's BoJeffries Saga.

—Funnies. The New Yorker has a longish preview of Jules Feiffer's upcoming graphic novel, Kill My Mother. This Noelle Stevenson comic on Tumblr about why she doesn't like to shop at comics stores has struck a nerve. Evan Dorkin celebrates the comics press.

—News. Garry Trudeau is going on another Doonesbury hiatus, this time to work on his television show Alpha House. Tom Spurgeon has an obituary of Cambodian cartoonist Ung Bun Heang. Hic & Hoc has announced its 2014 lineup. The Autoptic Festival has announced its 2015 date.

—A/V. Charles Schulz gave a speech at UCLA in 1971 (via):

And here is the awards ceremony from this year's Angoulême. American comics awards aren't like this. Several English-language creators pop up, including presenter Dash Shaw, whose Tumblr I found this at.

It's a new week of comics and Joe McCulloch will tell you about them, along with other things!

On the internet place:

Missed this, or maybe it's new: A crowd-sourced list of friendly comic book stores. And a story of an unfriendly comic book store.

There's a lot to look at in this photo of Charles Burns' drawing table.

Roz Chast has updated her website, including these awesome textiles.

Jay Lynch pointed out this original art written by Lynch and Art Spiegelman.

A fascinating piece on early anime by Fred Patten.

Today, we present the great comics historian R. C. Harvey, and his obituary for the late Wee Pals creator, Morrie Turner. Here's an excerpt:

Morrie met Charles Schulz at a gathering of California cartoonists, and they became friends. The civil rights movement was gathering momentum with sit-ins and marches in the South, and once while they were having lunch, Morrie asked Schulz why he didn't have any black kids in Peanuts, and Schulz told Morrie he should create his own.

“I couldn’t participate in the marches in the South, and I felt I should,” Morrie later told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I was working and had a wife and kid. So I decided I would have my say with my pen.”

Right about then, Dick Gregory, comedian cum civil rights activist, came along and gave Morrie another nudge.

In 1962, Gregory had published a memoir, From the Back of the Bus, about his crusading adventures. (“Segregation is not all bad. Ever hear of a collision where the people in the back of the bus got hurt?”) The comedian was working on a continuation of this literary venture, a more overt autobiography, which in 1964 he would entitle Nigger (so that every time his mother hears the word, Gregory explained, she’d know her son’s book was being discussed and promoted). And a friend brought Gregory around to Morrie’s place to meet the cartoonist. The two spent the day “rapping” (as Morrie put it), and Gregory suggested that Morrie illustrate his book with cartoons and comic strips.

“It wasn’t the kind of cartoon that I was drawing then,” Morrie remembered when I talked at length with him last spring. “At the time,” he said, “I was doing all right with industrial cartoons. They weren’t making a lot of money, but I was having a lot of fun. Gregory wanted me to do some cartoons that related to black people, and I liked the idea because it was me. All the drawings and cartoons I’d done up to that point were not really me. They were something foreign to me. I would create cartoons about golf, but I knew nothing about golf. Never played the game at all. And medical cartoons, doctors, dentists—not me.”

The cartoons Morrie did for black magazines and newspapers like the Chicago Defender were more to his liking. “Some were very close to being editorial cartoons—very close,” Morrie said, “—but they were not. They were humorous, funny, and then I realized they were funny because they were editorial cartoons.”

But they still weren’t Morrie. Gregory’s proposal, which eventually came to nothing, started Morrie thinking. And just about then, Charlie Brown appeared in a Civil War cap. Morrie pondered: what if Charlie Brown were Black? And what if the cap were a Confederate cap? “Now that,” wrote Tom Carter in the Cartoon Club Newsletter, “was indeed a laugh—a child so naive he could sweep away generations of ill will with one innocent, ironic gesture.”

Elsewhere:

—Reviews & Commentary. Nicholas Theisen has an interesting academic response to Hannah Miodrag's Comics and Language. Dan Kois writes at length about Michel Rabagliati's Paul comics. Bob Heer talks about Preacher, Omaha the Cat Dancer, Stokoe's Godzilla, and Tom Gauld. Christopher Stigliano on Charles Rodrigues's Ray and Joe. Shea Hennum reviews Dash Shaw's New Jobs.

—News. Tom Spurgeon reports that DC no longer retains the media rights to Preacher, for which there was just announced a major television adaptation. He also has published his own Morrie Turner obituary. The Billy Ireland library has announced two big shows starting next month, featuring original art by Bill Watterson and Richard Thompson. Slate and CCS have announced the nominations to their annual Cartoonist Studio Prize. Brian Cremins reports back from a Samuel R. Delany appearance supporting Bread & Wine, the graphic memoir he created with Mia Wolff.

—Misc. Chris Ware was among the writers the New York Times asked to share the literature that taught them bout love. Occasional TCJ contributor Sean Michael Robinson got involved in a complicated, protracted discussion on a Cerebus printing snafu.