BLOG

Today on the site:

Tucker Stone has some choice words for you.

Elsewhere:

Tom Tomorrow has a catch-up post that is pretty fun to peruse.

Philip Nel and Eric Reynolds talk Barnaby on Inkstuds.

Here's an interview with cartoonist Nina Bunjevac.

The New York Times profiles outgoing Vertigo chief Karen Berger. Tom Spurgeon has some thoughts on the profile itself.

And here's a report on the ongoing Book Expo America over at The Beat.

Today we bring you Steven Ringgenberg's obituary for the recently departed Dan Adkins. An excerpt:

At the time of his death, he was mostly living on the proceeds of private commissions for comic art collectors, usually drawing characters he’d worked on in the past, such as Tower Comics’ Dynamo and the Iron Maiden, Vampirella, Batman, the Sub-Mariner, and so on. Like many old-time comics professionals, Adkins never managed to build up much in the way of savings or assets, though his art was highly regarded by comics fans, who voted him one of the 100 Best Comic Book Artists of all time.

Elsewhere:

—Yesterday also brought news of the death of Jack Vance, one of the twentieth century's greatest prose fantasists. Here is Christopher Priest's obituary for him. Vance's association with comics was mostly limited to a small number of adaptations of his work, including at least one by Moebius, who was clearly highly influenced both by Vance's visual descriptions and his depictions of bizarre social systems. A good profile of him ran in the New York Times Magazine in 2009.

—Publishers Weekly has a profile of Rutu Modan, the Chicago Tribune takes on Art Spiegelman, and the Herald-Tribune has a story about Nick Cardy, focusing on his WWII experience.

—Sampsonia Way has an interesting short interview with Iranian cartoonist Kianoush Ramezani.

—Criticism. Sarah Horrocks writes about the horror of Junji Ito's Uzumaki, and William Leung has a two-part essay on Darwyn Cooke's Before Watchmen books.

—Yesterday saw the release of Panel Nine's Sequential comic-distribution app. Paul Gravett interviewed Sequential's Russell Willis, and Robot 6 interviewed participating publisher Kenny Penman from Blank Slate.

Today on the site:

Marc Sobel contributes a lengthy interview with Rutu Modan, author most recently of The Property.

SOBEL: Was it difficult to write a character that’s so much older than you?

MODAN: It was hell! <laughs> It was so difficult. Mostly because I didn’t know if I would be able to describe Regina the way I wanted her to be: a full, real person. I was used to looking at my grandmother only through her role in my life.

The writing was much, much harder than Exit Wounds, not only because the characters were more complex but also because the story takes place in Poland. Exit Wounds took place in Israel, and that is, needless to say, a background I am very familiar with. Poland, on the other hand, was a place that even compared to other countries, I didn’t know anything about. I didn’t even have a picture in my head about how it looks. This makes inventing the story quite difficult. And the Holocaust is a very complicated subject, too, to deal with in art. So much has been written about it already, and it is a subject that can easily lead you to melodrama.

SOBEL: Can you talk a bit about the research that went into the book?

MODAN: The first thing I did was open Wikipedia and read the history of Poland. I wanted to know more about the country, not just its Jewish history. I also read books and talked with people. I was living in England at the time when I started the research and my yoga teacher’s wife was from Poland, so I asked if I could interview her. She is in her 30s and she came from a small village near the Ukrainian border. I asked her to tell me about her life in Poland. She knew I was from Israel but she didn’t know anything about the book; I barely knew anything either at that point. I just told her that it was going to take place in Poland, but I didn’t tell her anything about the story or the theme. Literally five minutes after we started talking, she told me that her parents are living in the house that belonged to a Jewish family before the war and that they are really frightened that the Jews are going to come and take their home. I swear to you, I didn’t tell her anything. So that was when I knew that I had a good subject in my hand. <laughs> Because if there is a conflict, than there is drama, which means it can be a story.

Also I realized that, in a way, it’s similar to what happened in Israel between the Israelis and Palestinians. The history is different and it’s different circumstances, but the fact that the Jews were thrown out of their houses and then came to Israel and threw the Palestinians out of their houses… It’s the tragic repetition of history. Many Israelis don’t see the connection. They can fight for their house in Poland, but to think that they should give something to the Palestinians… they don’t make the connection.

Elsewhere:

Here's a piece by the reliably good Tim Marchman about the non-effect comic book movies have on comic book sales.

10 years of portraits for The Believer by Charles Burns will be on view at Adam Baumgold Gallery beginning Thursday evening.

Canadian cartoonists suggest some Canadian graphic novels right over here.

Paul Karasik has a comic online (and in print) about a Martha's Vineyard dock builder.

A reminder: Eisner Award voting is open now until June 12.

I enjoy the work done at the art center Creative Growth. Here's a video about a comics-related artist.

I hope all of our United Statesian readers enjoyed their three-day weekends, and that our un-American readers understood why we were away. Today, we make it up to you with a strong entry from Joe McCulloch, detailing the Week in Comics' new releases, and exploring the connections between the Palme d'Or-winning lesbian graphic-novel adaptation Blue is the Warmest Color and the gay manga of Gengoroh Tagame.

Elsewhere:

—The Reuben Awards winners have been announced, with Rick Kirkman and Brian Crane taking top honors, and artists like Joann Sfar, Roz Chast, Brian Basset, Hilary Price, Jen Sorenson, Bernie Wrightson, and Chris Ware winning divisional prizes.

—Interviews. A longish talk with Shary Boyle at Hazlitt. Matt Madden's conversation with Blutch at CBR. And new TCJ reviewer/fan favorite Alex Dueben's talk with Lisa Hanawalt at the same site.

—The Guardian has published a small annotated selection of Posy Simmonds' sketchbook pages.

—Carol Lay has entered the crowdfunding ranks.

—Laura Sneddon writes in the New Statesman about the exploitation of comic-book creators.

No Tucker this morning, but instead we present the Rick Veitch interview from  1995.

Elsewhere:

Good news: Dan Zettwoch built a rocket.

I always like that Sid Check.

More Ayn Rand from Darryl Cunningham.

And for your weekend thinking: Dusty and the Duke: A cultural choice.

Today we have two new reviews for you. First, Alex Dueben reviews Lucy Knisley's Relish, which disappoints him:

Lucy Knisley is a talented cartoonist, and Relish: My Life in the Kitchen, her new book out from First Second shows off her skills as an artist, which are considerable. However, the book demonstrates her failure as a writer on multiple levels. Relish seeks to be a memoir that is also a meditation on food and food culture and cooking, but it reveals almost nothing about Knisley, and while it demonstrates that she loves food, there is little evidence that Knisley knows much about food or food culture. Every time Knisley tries to make a larger sociological point beyond her own experiences, it’s unclear whether she’s simplifying the issues so that they’re impossible to understand or whether she simply doesn’t understand the issues she’s raised.

And then Robert Kirby reviews Kolor Klimax, an anthology of Nordic comics:

Klimax works well as both a follow-up and an expansion of the In the Shadow of the Northern Lights anthologies (2008 & 2010, Top Shelf), which were limited to Swedish cartoonists, and From Wonderland with Love (2009, Fantagraphics), which was devoted to Danish artists. Klimax adds artists from Finland and Norway to the talent roster. In his introduction, editor Matthias Wivel helpfully distinguishes some of the aesthetic traditions of the various countries. The Finns, for example, with less of a comics tradition to fall back on, tend to favor experimentation and creative freedom. Artists from Norway are often the opposite; their comics scene has sprung from more traditional, commercially-based roots. Meanwhile, the Swedish artists tend to create more reality-based and autobio work, while the Danes, skewing southward, have traditionally been more influenced by Franco-Belgian album comics and American comic strips. Whatever the countries’ aesthetic differences, their work melds together successfully; the result is a wide-ranging, vibrant collection that should be enjoyed by fans of the burgeoning European alt-comics scene as well as anyone with an art comics bent.

Elsewhere:

—CNN profiles Ali Ferzat.

—Matt Fraction has trouble getting people to believe him about Bob Kane's grave.

—Webcomics get the BuzzFeed treatment.

—Webcomics continue to get the Sean T. Collins treatment (every Wednesday).

—Alan Gardner notes that Lynn Johnson has posted a series of rejected For Better or Worse strips.

—The Glyph Comics Award winners have been announced.

—And I don't often point out crowdfunding projects on here, but this one started by Jack Kirby's grandson will surely be of interest to a lot of you, so there you go.

Today on the site, we bring you R.O. Blechman's speech from the opening of his retrospective at the Norman Rockwell Museum. Here's how it starts:

If anybody had told me back in the 1940s that there would be a museum dedicated to Norman Rockwell, I would have thought it was a joke. A museum for a Saturday Evening Post illustrator? Impossible. And me in that museum? Sheer fantasy.

In 1947 I was graduating high school. For the Senior play I was cast as somebody called Alfred. I had only one line in the play. When an actor very proudly showed me a painting he had just done, I said— and here comes my line: “Gosh, that’s almost as good as a Norman Rockwell.” That brought down the house. And no wonder. Norman Rockwell was not considered a serious painter. As The New York Times once asked—this in a headline-- was he “a painter,” or “merely an illustrator”? That question answered itself.

Elsewhere:

—Interviews. Michael DeForge talks to Open Book Toronto. Peter Bagge talks to CBR. Mike Diana talks to the Miami New Times (via). And I'm pretty sure I posted this before, but I can't find it now, and someone e-mailed it to me: Paul Pope in his studio:

—TCAF. Former Heroes Con coordinator Dustin Harbin weighs in on the debate surrounding TCAF programming. Fantagraphics has another huge photo recap. And Brad Mackay has the video footage of David Collier's already legendary award acceptance speech.

—Misc. Dick Locher's retiring. Comics Alliance is winking? Robert Crumb is rushing the stage. The first review of Ivan Brunetti's Aesthetics I've seen in the wild.

Greetings from Chicago, where I've had the finest mole sauce of my life at Sol on Cicero. But that's no concern of yours. You just want to get to the good stuff: Joe McCulloch.

Elsewhere:

Following (coincidentally) on Tom Spurgeon's recent thoughts on comics fitness/lifestyles, here's Brian Wood on CrossFit.

I'm sorry to hear that the illustration blog Drawn! is no more.

Dustin Harbin has some thoughts on TCAF programming and how we place value on such things in comics.

Dash Shaw (known primarily as a TCJ-contributor) has some animation art he did with Frank Santoro up on eBay. Check it out.

Finally: True enough.

Today on the site we bring you the great R.C. Harvey with his latest column, a look at Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie. Here's an excerpt:

Oddly enough perhaps, Little Orphan Annie reached the zenith of its popularity during the thirties. "Odd" because it was the decade of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the man who gave government a social conscience. FDR's mission ran in directions diametrically opposed to Gray's ideas of self-sufficiency. Under Roosevelt's tutelage, the down-trodden and the poor, the halt and the lame were encouraged to look to government for help rather than exhorted to help themselves by toiling determinedly and exercising tenaciously the principles of free enterprise. Gray's message was precisely the opposite—although it was as much an accident of his story as it was a matter of political conviction.

The best way for a little orphan girl to make her way in the world without being simply a weepy milksop is for her to be self-reliant. As a good story-teller, Gray knew that. Warbucks and the rest of Annie's entourage were natural outgrowths of this central notion. As Gray's exemplar, Warbucks could scarcely espouse self-reliance and free enterprise during the Roosevelt years without, at the same time, seeming to attack FDR's policies. And so Little Orphan Annie became the first nationally syndicated comic strip to be unabashedly, unrelievedly, "political."

Last Friday afternoon, as most of you probably are probably already aware, we posted a special report on the end of the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival, checking in with the three founding partners, who told conflicting stories of the reasons for its ending.

Elsewhere:

—Lots of Interviews to Read and Watch. Art Spiegelman & Françoise Mouly talk to the National Post. Mouly also talks to Hazlitt. Rutu Modan talks to the Jewish Journal. William Stout talks to Comic Book Resources. Lisa Hanawalt also talks to Hazlitt. Garry Trudeau talks to CNN. Ryan Sands talks to the Chemical Box.

—An Interview-Related Anecodote. From Anne Ishii, translating for Gengorah Tagame, talking to Butt magazine.

—So Many TCAF Reports. The official report from Brad Mackay. A report with a thousand photos from Robin "Inkstuds" McConnell. A short one from Brigid Alverson. A collection of TCAF-related videos at Forbidden Planet. And finally, an almost-as-long-as-War & Peace report from Tom Spurgeon, most of which is very positive, but part of which delves into the controversy this year over reportedly messy programming. TCAF Director Christopher Butcher responds to that part of Tom's report here.

—Awards. Steve Gerber and Don Rosa win the Bill Finger Award.

—Comics History. The Billy Ireland museum finds early Jack T. Chick work, a Flinstones-esque gag strip. Paul Gravett writes about Crime Does Not Pay, which he considers America's greatest crime comic. Michael May at Robot 6 highlights a Mark Evanier blog post I meant (but forgot) to highlight myself, on Chaykin, Infantino, and the historical treatment of comic-book artists. Jerry Beck, Scott Shaw, & Chad Frye talk Carl Barks (via):

—And Finally, a Lot of Video. The Society of Illustrators has posted video from several of the panels held at this year's MoCCA festival. Here's the one with guest of honor Bill Griffith:

Tucker is here to blow those blues away.

Elsewhere:

You may have heard that the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival is no more. Tim will have a story shortly.

Let's see...

Looks like Oily Comics is going to publish a Josh Simmons book. That's a coup. An interview with Cecil Castellucci and one-time TCJ Diarist Sara Varon. A Groo review.

And I thought the news from Scott Eder Gallery of "Will Eisner's 'A Contract with God' and Other Images, an exhibition featuring original art, sketches and drawings from the title story" of the book was interesting. For one thing, I can't think of another show devoted to just a single comic book story. And also, I'm curious to see the process work. That is one of Eisner's better visual efforts.

Finally, enjoy your weekend with Stan and Jan Berenstain.

Today, Faith Erin Hicks continues her week on A Cartoonist's Diary, today depicting her post-Stumptown reverie.

Elsewhere:

—Ng Suat Tong released his annual survey of the "Best Online Comics Criticism" of the past year, including several mentions of works printed on this site. This is the first time I can remember being previously familiar with everything chosen (besides the year I helped judge, naturally), and also the first year that I largely agree that most of the picks deserve recognition. I remember past years featuring more adventurous, and just plain more choices, but I also remember past years featuring more clunkers, so maybe the two go hand in hand. Matthias Wivel weighs in on the selection here.

—The Beat has gathered audio from a selection of panels held at last weekend's TCAF Festival.

—The only reason I don't link to Rob Clough's blog more often is that he's so prolific that doing so would quickly become a full-time job. But maybe today's a good day to remind readers of his other gig. Recent entries include a review of Abel & Madden's Mastering Comics and Robyn Chapman's Drawing Comics, and a roundup of recent minicomics.

—Jonathan Winters was also a cartoonist?!

—And finally, Jon Longhi talks to Robert Crumb (via):

Today we have Day 3 of Faith Erin Hicks' Diary. And Robert Kirby reviews Lilli Carré’s Heads or Tails.

Even better is “The Carnival,” a gorgeously colored 32-page story that unfolds with mesmeric dream logic. Like Madeline, the hero of the piece, Henry, is a salesperson (his line is cars). He plods through life listlessly until one night when he impulsively skips town for a few days. On a whim, he stops at a carnival and meets a nameless woman with a young boy in tow (who upon closer look resembles Henry). Though Carré leaves the woman’s role ambiguous—she may be aligned with some elemental or supernatural forces, especially considering the memorable manner in which she exits the story—it is clear that she sparks something in Henry: sexual desire, to be sure, but perhaps also the ability to dream of a life less prosaic – or even the ability to dream at all. Subtle and ambiguous but not opaque, Carré leaves the story particulars and ultimate meanings for the reader to suss out, inviting a re-read or two.

Elsewhere:

It's a slow news day.... Tardi and Luc Besson fans will be happy to know that The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec is getting a proper DVD/Blu-Ray release. This is a good relic. And I sure like that Emil Gershwin (yes, the same Gershwin).

And here's the Doug Wright Awards video:

It's Tuesday, which means it's Joe McCulloch day, and today he's got not only highlighting the Week in Comics' most interesting releases, but also writing in depth about the creator of some of the most uncomfortable manga ever made, Suehiro Maruo.

It's also the second day of the Cartoonist's Diary of Faith Erin Hicks. Today, she's on the way to Stumptown.

Elsewhere: Not so much.

—Devlin Thompson at Bizarro Wuxtry has some great photos of Peter Bagge and Daniel Clowes's Hateball tour, which took place twenty years ago.

—Chris Mautner isn't that big a fan of Bazooka Joe comics. Go figure.

—Graeme McMillan notes that despite Marvel's recent claims, Avengers: Endless Wartime is hard to justify as “Marvel’s First Original Graphic Novel." Does the phrase "graphic novel" really have such fetishistic power that it's worth making bald-faced lies like that?

—And finally, Jeet Heer takes to the Globe & Mail to review Gilbert Hernandez's latest two books.

On the the occasion of their seventy-fifth release, I talked to the two of the editors behind The Library of American Comics series of books.

Mullaney: Those rights are what we, as individuals, make them. The issue is totally separate from legal rights. From a publisher’s perspective, if I want to reprint Alex’s Zorro comics, I need to pay a licensing fee/royalty to John Gertz/Zorro Productions, who owns the trademark to the character and the copyrights to those stories. If, on the other hand, I want to reprint Alex’s comics for Standard or Lev Gleason, the work is apparently in the public domain, so no licensing fee or royalties are due. If the original publisher failled to register or renew the copyright or that publishing entity no longer exists, anyone is legally free to reprint the stories. In the course of my long career in comics, I have made the personal decision that — in the case of public domain comics in which there is no rights holder requiring a fee or royalties — I would pay the artist or the artist’s direct heirs. I still have letters of appreciation from Jerry Siegel, Jack Katz, Reed Crandall’s sister, Ellie Frazetta, and other creators whose work I reprinted in the 1980s and 1990s and for which I paid them.

These “moral” rights run parallel to a previously obscure part the 1976 Copyright Act, which allows artists, under specific circumstances, to reclaim the rights to their work after 35 years. The intent of the law is to allow creative people a second chance to own material they sold to a publisher earlier in their careers when they may not have had fair leverage. I think we can all agree that very few comics artists in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s understood what they were signing away – or even IF they signed anything away. It seems to me that if we are in favor of Siegel, Shuster, and Kirby trying to reclaim their rights, then we should similarly should pay them for reprinting that earlier work. In my book, it’s all the same thing.

Elsewhere:

I've been at TCAF all weekend selling books. So while two days in the midst of comic-dom would have you think I'd have plenty to say... it doesn't. TCAF was an excellent show for me. The Hernandez Bros were a big focus, which was great. There's a new edition of Chester Brown's The Playboy, with additional notes, new lettering and a whole format reconfiguration. Brown's reworking of his text is so rigorous that each edition is a new work, which is exciting. What else... here are your Doug Wright Award winners, from the PR:

Best Book: The Song of Roland, by Michel Rabagliati

The Spotlight Award (aka "The Nipper"): Nina Bunjevac for Heartless

Pigskin Peters Award: Hamilton Illustrated, by Michael Collier

Held as a feature event of the 2013 Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF), the evening also saw Albert Chartier inducted into The Giants of the North, the Canadian Cartoonists Hall of Fame.

The winners were decided by a jury that included: Joe Ollmann, Pascal Girard, Jonathan Goldstein, Natalia Yanchak and Julie Delporte.

And Tom Spurgeon interviews Ryan Sands, who had two much talked about debuts at the show.

Tucker Stone and Abhay Khosla are here with their Comics of the Weak column. Tucker got a fan letter with advice, and duly turned over a new leaf; Abhay's serving up the same stale negative attitude as always. Maybe they need to get together and talk about this.

And today is the final day of Joe Ollmann's week running A Cartoonist's Diary. There was a whole complicated schedule around this last entry, based on what Joe promised was going to be an incredibly exciting trip to New York City. As you'll see, things didn't go that way exactly. Anyway, this has been a great week for the feature, so thanks, Joe!

Elsewhere:

—Interviews. James Romberger talks to Michael DeForge. Rugg, Lex, & Piskor talk to Jeff Smith. SCPR talks to Gilbert Hernandez, and so does KNPR. In advance of TCAF, Forbidden Planet talks to reps from three companies, SelfMadeHero, Fantagraphics, and Blank Slate.

—Criticism. Ng Suat Tong reviews Fraction & Aja's Hawkeye. Charles-Adam Foster-Simard reviews the Art Spiegelman "Co-Mix" exhibition in Vancouver. Chris Randle reviews Gilbert Hernandez's Marble Season.

—News. Sports Illustrated writes about the influence of the manga Slam Dunk on the popularity of basketball in Japan. P. Craig Russell remembers Dan Adkins. (via) Tom Tomorrow delivered his Herblock acceptance speech:

—Misc. Miriam Katin went to Canada and drew comics. I learned that ulta-hard-boiled crime novelist Peter Rabe also wrote and drew an illustrated humor book about motherhood! Apparently the Man of Steel soundtrack is a little downbeat and a writer at The Guardian is complaining about it. I continue to be amused at the way the complaints of comics nerddom from a decade or more ago become the complaints of everybody else as the entire world of popular culture slowly devolves. I also continue to be amused at pictures of old celebrities clearly not enjoying comic books.

Today Joe Ollman continues his diary with Day 4.

The longtime cartoonist Dan Adkins has passed away. Adkins was known for his sleek drawing for comic books including T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and Dr. Strange and genre mags like Argosy and Amazing Stories. He was also perhaps Wally Wood's finest assistant, working for the older artist in the 1960s. We'll have a full obituary soon.

Elsewhere:

I'm not sure what this is, but it's delightful.

Inkstuds host Robin McConnell has a lengthy report on his visits to recent comic book conventions.

PW looks at our publisher Fantagraphics' digital moves.

A Neal Adams oddity throughout the years.

Today we bring you Nicole Rudick's interview with the artists James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook, two of the creators (with the late David Wojnarowicz) of one of this year's most impressive books, even if it is a reprint, 7 Miles a Second. Here's an excerpt:

The third part wasn’t completed until after his death. How did you manage it?

Romberger: When it came to the third part, I had a lot less to work with. David had given me the gist of what he wanted, which was “I want to show myself at the current time, mourning the deaths of my friends, but then in the end it’s a beautiful day and I’m happy to be alive.” But by the time I actually got to sit and draw this thing and edit it—after David’s death—there wasn’t anything like that in his texts. There was no beautiful day, so the book ends with him dying.

He had done this really magnificent bit of writing that was in part of the Artist’s Space book that had gotten him in so much trouble with the NEA, and he had told me, Draw me huge on Fifth Avenue. By that time, what I remembered being on Fifth Avenue was St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and David had once gone with Act Up to protest the church’s stand against public health and homosexuality, while mass was going on, so it made it sense to make Fifth Avenue St. Patrick’s and to draw him smashing it. These were decisions I had to make, but they are true to what his intent would have been, as close as I could approximate.

Did he think there would really be a happy ending to the third part? Or that there would be something good to end it with?

Romberger: In a way it’s a vulnerability we all feel—no one really sees themselves dying and if David had been able to hold on another year or two, perhaps the combination therapy that was developed within a couple years after he died might have saved him. A lot of people were brought back from the brink of death, and it is incredibly tragic that due to actions of people like David and others in Act Up—actions that got the medical establishment to loosen up on the approval of drugs trials—a lot of the work on AIDS and cancer was accelerated. And yet so many people died because things were being held off.

Van Cook: People were starting to be diagnosed and become ill, but that was something David wrote to us about in a letter—I’m rejecting that particular view of life and I’m going on to this brighter path. He didn’t want to be celebrating death and darkness anymore, as an artistic trope. He didn’t want to go down that artistic road, he wanted to go somewhere else. So even when things happened to him later on, he had embraced that more hopeful aspect.

Joe Ollmann is still in the middle of his excellent Cartoonist's Diary this week. In today's entry, he talks about his father's recent death.

Elsewhere:

—It's not strictly speaking comics-related, but it would be strange not to take note of film and special-effects pioneer Ray Harryahausen's passing. Journal columnist Charles Hatfield has posted a tribute.

—Chris Ware drew the Mother's Day cover for The New Yorker, and wrote a mini-essay for the site about the holiday.

—The New Yorker's site also has a short video interview with Dash Shaw.

—Sean Howe tags a Deadline story about the "absurdity" of some of the actors who appeared in The Avengers getting only $500,000 bonuses after the movie's success. I wonder if there is anyone else being overlooked in these arrangements?

—Boing Boing has begun publishing stories from Dennis Eichhorn's old Real Stuff comics, which is great news for me.

—The Dylan Williams Reporter site has reposted Williams' 1995 interview with Seth. It's a lot of fun to read the early interviews with major artists over there.

—The Beat talks to L Nichols.

—Finally, Curt Swan's letter to a young Jim Shooter.

It's Tuesday so it's Jog'sDay. And Joe Ollman's diary rolls into day 2.

Elsewhere:

Here's a lengthy exquisite corpse comic.

The comics symposium MIX is coming up, and there's a call for papers.

Abhay Khosla writes the Iron Man 3 review for you.

A trip through Seymour Chwast's rejection pile.

Writer about comics Gene Kannenberg, Jr on typography.

Here's the beginning of multi-author a celebration of Matt Wagner's 1980s alt-superhero, Grendel.

Matt Wagner: “The Hunter Rose version of Grendel was the first comic book character and narrative I ever developed. I wanted to feature the villain/anti-hero as my title character, a motif that just wasn’t done in the commercial comics of those days.

“After I moved my attentions to developing my first color series, Mage, I began to hear back from readers, asking me whatever happened to the story I’d abandoned in Grendel. So, I adapted that narrative to fit into 4-page segments as a backup feature in Mage.

“The result was that I had to really stretch my storytelling sensibilities and find a new and innovative way to tell that tale, little realizing that motif would become a hallmark of Grendel throughout its long history.”

And a bit of news on my end, the cartoonist Blutch has canceled his appearances in North America.

Another installment of Ryan Holmberg's perpetually rewarding column, What Was Alternative Manga?, is here, and this time around Ryan is writing about manga in India, by way of Bharath Murthy's Comix India:

What hooked the manga scholar in me was Bharath’s “A form of writing: an essay on the comic,” a McCloudian intro to the medium and his own interests, published in Comix India no. 1. There’s a hefty segment on manga, and it wasn’t the usual. He had apparently been to Tokyo and met a few artists. I was curious. I arranged to meet him. He was giving a talk about manga in Delhi and asked me to piggyback with a lecture of my own. I interviewed him too, stupidly without a sound recorder. Now I am back in India, living in Mumbai – for “personal reasons” that do not include gurus or NGOs. I had to redo the interview.

Bharath presently lives in Pune, where he teaches at the venerable Film and Television Institute of India. On a recent weekend, I yanked myself away from writing and translation work, put myself on a train southbound, and holed up in Bharath’s pad until 2 AM with a litre of one of India’s finer scotches.

Oh, and I'm really excited about this week's Cartoon Diarist, Joe Ollmann. Today he introduces himself and makes a few promises.

Elsewhere:

—The Harvey Award nominations are open.

—Criticism Department. Derik Badman comments on every comic he's read in April, and includes information on what the mysterious Blaise Larmee has been up to for those who've been wondering. Domingos Isabelinho writes about Geneviève Castrée's Pamplemoussi. Bill Morris writes about the new Herblock documentary. Glen Weldon writes about Superman's dog Krypto.

—Interviews Department. Haaretz talks to Art Spiegelman. Tom Spurgeon talks to the writer and translator Anne Ishii. Forbidden Planet visits Karrie Fransman:

—Not Comics: A recent flap sparked by a Publishers Weekly interview with Claire Messud (see two perspectives here and here) has provoked a lot of discussion about the necessity (or not) of likeable characters in fiction. This can't help but remind me of the critical response to Daniel Clowes's Wilson a few years ago, and Clowes's claim: "Likeable characters are for weak-minded narcissists."

It's been a long week. Gary Groth's classic 1992 interview with Todd McFarlane will carry us into the weekend.

Elsewhere:

Tom Spurgeon carries on his convention travels at Stumptown.

Bill Kartalopolous on Eric Lambé’s Le Fils du Roi (Frémok, 2012),

Here's an unusual recent Popeye story that never saw print.

Domingos Isabelinho on Pamplemoussi by Geneviève Castrée.

Finally, one of those lotsa covers, lotsa editions posts, this time for William S. Burroughs.

Today, Rob Clough reviews an anthology of comics from female Polish cartoonists, imaginatively titled Polish Female Comics: Double Portrait.

Elsewhere:

—Howard Chaykin wrote a candid remembrance of Carmine Infantino ("There was no greater animosity in that generation than the one that existed between Gil [Kane] and Carmine") for the Los Angeles Review of Books.

—The Doug Wright Awards has started a series of posts introducing readers to their nine nominated artists. First up is Ethan Rilly.

—Brigid Alverson at Robot 6 talks to Darryl Cunningham.

—Paul Pope draws a short comic about his favorite books.

—Michel Fiffe picks out some of his favorite comic-book fight scenes.

—The satirical website and Twitter account That Comics Blogger has apparently decided to close up shop after the end of Comics Alliance, and offers up reasons why here.

Tuesday morning means it's Joe McCulloch morning, and he's got your Week in Comics right here. Joe also delivers something of a eulogy to Comics Alliance, the popular website that was apparently shut down by its parent company AOL over the weekend. Robot 6 ran the first report, and The Verge has a little more information over here. The reasons for the shutdown aren't clear yet, though CA-affiliated editors and writers have claimed via social media that the closure was not due to traffic or "performance." Comics Alliance was never my go-to site, and it seemed to have lost some momentum over recent years, but it undoubtedly featured some talented writers (some of whom are also occasional contributors to this site) and was very important to a certain kind of comics fan, still emotionally attached to the popular superhero properties of their adolescence, but beginning to question some of DC and Marvel's corporate decisions — the type of people who would invoke (and celebrate) the idea of "geek culture" in earnest. That's not my bag but it is a lot of other people's, so it's a shame to see the site end so abruptly and unceremoniously.

—Andy Webster at the New York Times Book Review becomes the latest writer to review the new Al Capp biography.

—Michael Cavna at the Washington Post talks to Ruben Bolling about the multi-cartoonist political ad he put together last week.

—I'm pretty sure we haven't yet linked to Frank Young and James Gill's comic-book image site, Panels to Ponder. The Facebook incarnation of it is more active.

—A Moment of Cerebus digs up an old speech Dave Sim gave in 1995 to SCAD consisting of advice to young cartoonists. I think he's wrong on the music thing.

—Not Comics: A 1938 rejection letter from Walt Disney to a young woman interested in becoming an animator. It's easy to discount this as ancient history, but it is actually in living memory for some.

Today we have Charles Hatfield on Gilbert Hernandez's two new books, Marble Season and Julio's Day.

This morning, over breakfast, I read Gilbert Hernandez’s new book Julio’s Day, which I had just gotten the day before.

This evening, before dinner, I read Gilbert Hernandez’s new book Marble Season, which I had found waiting for me on the dining room table when I got home.

Crossing the synapse between these two lit my head up, like fireworks. In the stretch between the two of them, in the distance but also consistency between 2001 and 2013, is fresh proof of Beto Hernandez’s fidgety talent, his rare mix of raw provocation and affirming humanism, toughness and tenderness of heart. When it comes to Beto, the lightning keeps striking, and if it doesn’t strike exactly the same place twice, it does testify to the same divided genius. To read two new books by Hernandez in a day—and both of them self-contained and freestanding, unlinked to the elaborate continuities that shape his signature projects, Love and Rockets and the “Fritz B-Movie” series—this, to me, is a gift.

Elsewhere:

Michael Dooley on Stan Mack.

This is one beautiful Alex Raymond image.

Here's a process piece on the recent Lovecraft graphic novel reviewed here.

Padraig O Mealoid continues on the Alan Moore trail, this time with the end of Eclipse Comics and what happened to Miracleman.

Tom Spurgeon makes a case for the new Matt Bors book.

And here's a new Comics Books Are Burning in Hell from McCulloch, Mautner and (almost) Stone.

Today it's Comics of the Weak time, and that means that Tucker Stone is talking Jupiter's Legacy, and newssnarker Abhay Khosla is talking about whatever it is that's been happening over the past few weeks...

And Rob Clough is here with a review of Jon Lewis's True Swamp: Choose Your Poison, a book that's been quietly influential on any number of important artists you wouldn't expect. Here's an excerpt:

The obvious touchstone comparison for True Swamp is Walt Kelly's Pogo, and Lewis clearly drew inspiration from Kelly in terms of setting up a particular kind of swamp patois and creating a huge, broad cast of colorful characters. Where Lewis sharply differs is in the way he depicts these characters. This is a raw, nasty world where death is always at hand, yet there are small joys to be experienced every day. Love, sex, friendship, jealousy, knowledge, and religion are all important concerns, but they are experienced in ways unique to each animal. The animals have animal needs—food, survival, and sex (just like humans)—and Lewis enjoys playing up the cruder aspects for humorous effect.

Elsewhere:

—A double shot of your daily Gilbert Hernandez interviews, one from Hero Complex and one from L.A. Weekly.

—Other interviews. Tom Spurgeon talks to retailer and TCAF honcho Christopher Butcher, and Alex Carr talks to noteworthy prose writer (and recent comics scripter) China Miéville.

—Michael Barrier reveals a story of Carl Barks in peril as a child that may have influenced some of his later work.

—Alan Gardner writes about a recent controversial Daryl Cagle cartoon (or pair of cartoons, rather), in which Cagle appeared to sell two versions of the same cartoon by changing the punchline to reflect both sides of a political debate. This sparked some consternation, including even the usually so-even-keeled Ted Rall. Gardner's relatively forgiving, but as you can see from the comments to his post, opinions differ.

—Finally, Tom Spurgeon delivers the MoCCA/SPACE report to end all comics convention reports.