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Today we are pleased to bring you "Jovial" Jeet Heer's lengthy and considered review of Spain Rodriguez's latest collection, Cruisin' with the Hound. It's really great to have Jeet back and writing for us semi-regularly. Here's an excerpt:

Several times in this book, Spain alludes to EC comics as the taproot inspiration for comics. While Crumb internalized storytelling lessons from Carl Barks, John Stanley, and Harvey Kurtzman, all of whom were masters of integrating visuals and text for story that had a headlong rush, Spain was shaped by the clunky text-heavy mode found in EC horror and science fiction comics (what I like to call the “picto-fiction” tradition). The strength of these comics often came from the power of single images of violence and decay, and the stern morality of revenge found in the story (vengeance continues to be a Spain obsession with many of his characters curling their lips in anticipation of exacting retribution). The weakness of the picto-fiction tradition is that the images rarely flow easily from panel to panel as they did the works of Barks, Stanley, and Kurtzman.

Many of the traits of the picto-fiction mode show up in Spain, notably captions which fill-in readers on information missing from the pictures and relatively static images that require time to decipher. Still, because he controls both the writing and drawing, Spain manages to avoid the major pitfalls of picto-fiction, notably the heavy redundancy that the EC stories possessed with pictures simply repeating the information already provided by the captions.

—Jeet is also an expert link-spotter, and pointed me to the second part of Kevin Plummer's wonderful profile of the Canadian cartoonist Jimmy Frise.

—After some tech problems that temporarily shut down his site over the weekend, Tom Spurgeon is back with a vengeance. I am especially glad to see him reviewing so much again. We've already linked to a few of his "Comics I Read In Series Form In The 1980s" pieces, I believe, but I particularly liked his new one on Miller & Seinkiewicz's Elektra: Assassin, and this review of the new Ed the Happy Clown collection.

—Spurgeon also has analysis of the recent speculation/belief that Walking Dead #100 is set to become the single biggest-selling issue in July, beating all of the titles released by the so-called "Big Two." Whether or not that happens, Spurgeon's thoughts are worth reading. (Perhaps fittingly, the situation in general can't help but remind me of Kim Thompson's still relevant 1999 pseudo-manifesto, "More Crap Is What We Need".)

—Your Alison Bechdel Interview of the Day comes from The Advocate.

—Does anyone in the world think the second image in this comparison looks better?

—Tim Kreider talks to the Good Man Project in support of his new essay collection.

Well, another day is here. I went to Frank's comic sale over the weekend. My major find was Joe (brother of Tim) Vigil's Dog #1. Luckily, Joe "Jog" McCulloch covered it over in our old neighborhood. Like so many comics, the Jog description is better than thing itself, which is, as far as I'm concerned a time saver, allowing me to just page through, absorbing the essence of the shit without actually stepping in it. Frank manfully comped me that issue and then took a ten dollar bill off me for assorted other comics.

And so you can read more of Jog's thoughts (thusly avoiding reading more comics, which is a goal of mine) this very day since he mightily brings us a bunch comics coming out this week.

Elsewhere:

Daredevil artist Paolo Rivera announced he's leaving the title and Marvel to make his own work, and own it too. His and Mark Waid's Daredevil is a great superhero effort, and he's proven himself a very inventive cartoonist in the fine David Mazzucchelli-influenced lineage.

And lots of things are being previewed and people interviewed. Here's the great Brendan Burford, of King Features, interviewing editorial and Mother Goose & Grimm cartoonist Mike Peters. Noah Van Sciver talks about his Fantagraphics release, The Melancholic Young Lincoln at MTV. Over at Drawn & Quarterly there's a nice looking preview of the company's Pippi Longstocking graphic novel, Pippi Moves In. Apparently an artist has made a comic entirely by painting on walls. And Dave Sim reflects on his Kickstarter success. I didn't know he was working on a graphic novel about Alex Raymond's death. Finally, Tom Gauld comments on Ray Bradbury.

And on the history front, Steve Bissette on Tijuana Bibles and Richard Samuel West on post-Punch American cartoon weeklies. This time it's The Jester:

In the prospectus, Williams declared that The Jester’s contents would be "entirely original, both in letter press and embellishments, furnished expressly for this work, by the first authors and artists of the time.  In these days of general Copydom, and distorted locality, The Jester deemeth it not too presumptuous to advance that he will be the first to cast off the second-hand garments of European literature, which however excellent when ‘worn in their newest gloss’ must perforce lose, not only much of their fashion, but of their freshness, from the circumstance of travel.  He therefore, with a justifiable degree of pride, announceth that he will appear in a thoroughly new suit.  Home manufacture, both in weft and woof.  American in make, look and feeling!”

Now that's an intro.

Today brings us the second installment of Ron Goulart's column of correspondence with great cartoonists of the past. This week, his subject is Sheldon Mayer, of Sugar and Spike and Scribbly fame. Here's an excerpt:

Always an editor at heart, Mayer would give me advice for Gil [Kane], mostly about his interpretation of my copy. Then we’d get to talking about his days with M.C. Gaines and DC. He’d talk about staff members, about the ones who gave him a pain in the ass, about some long-ago secrets. A few times, about ten minutes after hanging up, he’d call back and say, “About that business I was talking about, don’t use it in any of your books. I don’t want to jeopardize my pension.”

We also have Sean T. Collins's review of Guy Delisle's Jerusalem, about which his feelings are mixed:

Delisle is not Joe Sacco, as a joke near the end of the book drives home, and he’s not out to tell a “story” in either the sense of a storyteller or a reporter. His M.O. is to record his life when that life is placed in an unfamiliar and (to put it midly) politically problematic environment, under the assumption that the result of that recording will provide a useful window on the interaction between the personal and the political. That’s all well and good when you’re in such underreported environments as North Korea, China’s designated Special Economic Zones, or Burma. But unlike those sealed-off locales, Jerusalem (even the out-of-sight out-of-mind Palestinian areas) is arguably the most reported-on location on the planet, as befits its centrality to the current Ocenania/Eurasia/Eastasia arrangement of fanatical Islam, Judaism, and Christianity as they attempt to draft the rest of us into their divinely ordained assaults on one another. As such, unless you’re as much of a tyro to the entire topic as Delisle portrays himself to be — not realizing Yom Kippur is anything other than a war, or that Gaza residents can’t leave, and so on and so on — you need a reason to revisit this material that you can’t get anywhere else.

And then of course there's Frank Santoro's Sunday column. This week he went into "blind item"-mode.

Elsewhere ...

—The Swedish Supreme Court has ruled that certain Japanese manga depicting children in sexual situations are not child pornography, reversing the earlier conviction of a translator in that country.

—Coincidentally (but not unrelatedly), Neal Gaiman writes a defense of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, after a reader wrote in expressing qualms about supporting figures like Christopher Handley, an American manga collector convicted of possessing "obscene" manga depicting children in sexual situations.

—To keep this pornographic comics ball rolling, Stephen Bissette continues his illustrated exploration of early gay-themed sex comics and other Tijuana Bibles.

—Ed Champion has a long audio interview with Alison Bechdel, and I believe we neglected to link to MariNaomi's earlier illustrated interview with Bechdel for The Rumpus.

—You of course have already heard of Ray Bradbury's death. Michael Dooley has collected images from the EC Comics work based on his writing.

—Trevor Von Eeden has disowned the art to at least two issues of the 1990s series Black Canary, due to what he regarded as editorial interference. Daniel Best has posted scans of his original artwork next to the finished pages here so you can judge for yourself.

—Finally, Grant Morrison was given an award.

It's the end of a long week here in sunny Carroll Gardens. This weekend I plan to go to Frank's comic book sale, where you can tell me which version of TCJ was better than this one, and why. What better way to spend a beautiful Saturday than inside a sweaty inferno of back issues? No kidding!

You know who doesn't kid around? Tucker Stone. He is a serious, intense man. And he has words he'd like you to read now. These words will be about numerous new comics about which the less said the better.

Elsewhere, things are, as Tim mentioned yesterday, quiet.

-Great cartoonists Dan Zettwoch and Kevin Huizenga are making a couple of appearances in support of their excellent new books Birdseye Bristoe and Gloriana. One of them today in Chicago! Go see these guys.

-If you need just a little more Tucker to carry you through the weekend, then check out his podcast with Joe McCulloch and Matt Seneca. I listened to the whole thing! This week it's all about Otomo and Kidd.

I really enjoyed Chip Kidd's Batman: Death by Design. The story was wonderfully structured -- a kind of architectural whodunnit designed like a deco building: Elegant, with a bunch of surprises, some wonderfully strange moments, and loopy personal touches. Naturally it's also an awfully attractive object. Worth tracking down.

-This is a cute comic book store/Ray Bradbury anecdote.

-Evan Dorkin tells us about the time he almost published a Rocketeer story.

That's it. See you at the con!

Today, we present Eric Buckler's interview with the Swiss cartoonist Frederik Peeters, probably best known for his graphic HIV memoir, Blue Pills. An excerpt:

I’m not the author in Sandcastle. I see it more like metaphysical fairy tale if you like. The reader is not much involved as in Blue Pills, where you live things through the main character point of view. In Sandcastle, you’re more like a distant spectator. Blue Pills talks about two persons, Sandcastle talks about the whole world. But you could say that the aspects that appealed to me in the Sandcastle script, the deterioration of the flesh, time, what we do with our lives, why and who you desire and love, couple as an antidote to loneliness, etc., are already present in Blue Pills. But I guess they’re present in all my books, because they’re present in my head.

Elsewhere, comics links are fairly light today.

—Dept. of Interviews. The National Post has a short interview with Gabriella Giandelli, the Gainseville Sun talked to Tom Hart (about SAW), and, for those who like to read between the lines, Robot 6 has a q&a with Dave Gibbons.

—Ng Suat Tong has a long post analyzing the original art from Howard Chaykin's Time².

—Letterer Todd Klein has posted the first leg of a "tour" of DC's production offices, circa 1979.

Today on the site we bring you another pearl from the archive: Alan Moore interviewed by Gary Groth in 1987. This one's about Moore's decision to cease working for DC Comics amidst the ratings controversy of the day. What's interesting here is how thoughtful and articulate Moore is on his moral and ethical concerns. And that will more or less conclude our Before Watchmen coverage. Although! I will say I found this article at Hooded Utilitarian particularly silly, even by the high standards of silliness set by this whole debate. The author for some reason includes me in a list of writers ("us"?) who somehow maintain a moral high ground because of the artists involved in these comics. Let me be clear: The list and corresponding argument makes no sense, in that, (a) I've never stated a moral position on BW and nor do I intend to; (b) the idea that different artists that the writer thinks are closer to my taste would make the project more or less palatable, is a serious misreading of the whole issue; and (c) I don't think the writers on that list would agree on a whole lot when it comes down to it. That's all. Sermon over. And no, I won't be responding in comments my excitable little trolls.

On a happier site note, we have Rob Clough on beloved former TCJ-podcaster Mike Dawson's Troop 142.

Elsewhere:

Frank Santoro is in NYC. I know this because I saw him (twice!) and he's texting me with greater frequency. We even went to the comic book store together. He's having another comic book sale at his palatial West Village studio in a building that should be seen regardless of what you may buy. Anyhow, the sale is on again this Saturday, June 16th. Don't miss it. For less than the cost of a sandwich you can be entertained by Frank AND take home a really good (or "good") comic.

MORE New York news... Friday is the final day for exhibitors to apply to The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival, which I co-organize and exercise my terrifying moral high ground upon.

But it's not only about New York, I'm told. One Tom Devlin continued his comic book world tour with a stop in Oslo involving stilts, Canadians, non-Canadians, and, yes, nudity.

And finally, this dive into personal and comic book history is mind-boggling and lovely.

Today is Tuesday, and that means Joe McCulloch has your Week in Comics! New Sacco, new oversize reprints, new this, new that.

We also have Sean T. Collins's review of Jean-Pierre Filiu and David B.'s history of U.S./Middle East relations, Best of Enemies. An excerpt:

[David B.] is one of contemporary comics’ true visionaries, the speaker of a visual language of his own devising. Despite personal, cultural, and surface-visual connections (all that high-contrast black-and-white) that might make it look otherwise, as an image-maker he has much more in common with, say, Jack Kirby than with Marjane Satrapi. This gives everyone and everything he depicts a hyperreal aura, and in Best of Enemies he goes full-throttle on it. The headdress of an imperious ambassador becomes a globe the pirate ships whose attacks he permit circumnavigate. A stand-in for the WWII-era British government becomes a three-faced Janus-like figure, issuing contradictory proclamations about the future of the region out of every mouth. The chronically bedridden Mossadegh becomes a disembodied set of pajamas, wielding a scimitar against the floating Sauron-like eyes of British spies and provocateurs. America’s chief goon in Iran, spymaster Kermit Roosevelt, is a virtual gremlin, his rictus-like grin affixed to his diminutive frame as he hides beneath a blanket to conduct clandestine meetings with the Shah. Bought-off officials open their jaws like Hungry Hungry Hippos to swallow American dollars. Even as familiar a figure as FDR himself has his eyebrows transformed into a cigarette to demonstrate the gravity of his banning smoking while negotiating with the Saudis.

Elsewhere there are many comics-related things worth your time, if you're so inclined. For example...

—Jeet Heer takes to the Globe and Mail to report on what made superheroes gay even before recent developments.

—Derik Badman points out a recent essay by comics scholar Hannah Miodrag on literary comics. I haven't read it, but based on his description, she seems to be using an argument similar to the one I used to make a lot over on Comics Comics over the past few years—it's not theme and subject matter that makes a comic "literary," but rather the use of text itself. It's the definition that makes the most sense to me, and one that avoids the problems that come along with the more standard one.

—Tom Heintjes has a roundtable with several people carrying on the family business, in this case comic strips, including Brian and Greg Walker, Jeff Keane, and Mason Mastroianni.

—Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows's Neonomicon has been challenged and pulled from a South Carolina library. I don't think any books should be off-limits for libraries, and hope that it is restored soon. But that book... it's not hard to imagine that presumably unprepared mother's reaction.

—Paul Pope links to his own 1996 interview with art theorist Rudolf Arnheim, which I plan to read post-haste.

—Two unusual reviews of Before Watchmen, from the Mindless Ones-affiliated Andrew Hickey, and from Alan Moore biographer Lance Parkin, reporting in from an alternate dimension.

—Not comics. Via Sean Howe, the secret history of Lisa Lyon, the bodybuilder used by Frank Miller as a model for his Elektra character, and her "connections to Robert Mapplethorpe, voodoo, Arnold Schwarzenegger, PCP, Huey Newton, cocaine, Jack Nicholson, and Day of the Dolphin."

Today on the site:

Shaenon Garrity has the fist installment of her Webcomics Capsule Reviews, in which she writes about the many and various webcomics sent in by readers of this very site. And yesterday Frank Santoro wrote about his comic book blowout sale and promises more to come.

It was a slow news weekend, but herewith some links:

-Kate Beaton's Walrus cover is very nice.

-Comics-related: A Peter Blake pop music-themed retrospective.

-John Buscema covers are fun.

-And the latest "What Are You Reading" over at Robot 6 includes cartoonist and TCJ-contributor Matthew Thurber writing about Ron Rege and Frank Stack.

Ok, more later in the week!

Today, Tucker Stone and his pal Abhay Khosla take you on another wonder-filled journey through the funhouse world of genre comics, with a particular interest in the internet reaction to the corporate announcement that one of the many DC Comics characters named Green Lantern is about to be revealed as gay.

And Sara Varon offers the last day of her week in the Cartoonist's Diary chair. Thanks, Sara!

I'm sick, and have been all week, so the rest of this blog post will be a bit bare bones, but here's the news.

—Paul Gravett has a nice Posy Simmonds profile up on his site.

—Bill Kartalopoulos reviews Clowes, Krazy Kat, and Rory Hayes for Print.

—Christopher Allen has an amusing Freudian reading of the latest Darwyn Cooke cover. (Related.)

—Jim Woodring's thoughts on "Bimbo's Initiation" won't be news to anyone who read our interview with him last year, but it's a great cartoon to revisit.

—Rob Clough tackles the influence of movies on cartoonists from a different angle, namely how his screenwriting career has affected Daniel Clowes's approach to comics.

—Domingos Isabelinho looks at M.S. Bastian and Isabelle L.'s Bastokalypse.

—Bad news for independent publishers up North: the Literary Press Group was just denied funding by the Canadian government.

—The Archie Comics executive suit/soap opera has ended (for now) with a settlement.

—Finally, propaganda comics from 1950s Communist China.

On the site today:

Ryan Holmberg continues his march into history with a look at the great cartoonist Sugiura Shigeru (you can read translated comics of his in The Ganzfeld 4 and 5, as well as Raw 7) and his pre-WWII sources. NOTE: Ryan is looking for your help in identifying some of these sources -- please comment!

The history of comedy is a notoriously nebulous and difficult subject. Especially when the laughs are half in a foreign tradition. At any rate, it’s more than I can handle competently just now. So what I put together instead was a “visual essay” on Sugiura and Shin Seinen’s cartoons. What follows on the next pages is the result of combing the magazine from 1929 to 1937, at which point it turned strongly pro-war and increasingly anti-Western. This period overlaps with Sugiura’s debut (1932) and early work for Kōdansha’s major youth periodicals (particularly Shōnen Club, Shōjo Club, and the Picture Book series beginning in 1937) as well as his occasional work for Shin Seinen’s junior edition, Shin Shōnen, as well as Shōnen Shōjo Tankai, published by the same Hakubunkan. Some of the comparisons I make are specific, with exact cases of swiping. Others are more general. You can tell me if you find them convincing or not.

Sara Varon takes through another day of her excellent visual diary.

The major news everywhere else is the passing of Ray Bradbury. The NY Times has a fine obituary.

Elsewhere around the internet... there is the good news that Drawn & Quarterly will release Shigeru Mizuki's classic Kitaro material. Mizuki is a first class cartoonist -- I can't wait.

More good news -- a new comic at Study Group by a young cartoonist I know very little about Sean T. Collins profiled, but whose work I've really enjoyed -- Julia Gfrorer.

Excellent cartoonist, late of Conan, Becky Cloonan is interviewed about a recent self-publishing effort over at The Beat.

Daniel Best has a 1975 Jim Steranko interview with some fine nuggets, like this one on Frank Robbins...

I know Frank; he's a terrific artist, but for some reason he doesn't seem to have the fan following that he warrants. But believe me when I tell you that there are very few artists who have the cinematic approach of Robbins, especially in his Johnny Hazard strip. I collect Robbins stuff, the forties right on through. His cinematic approach is incredible. Even more perhaps than Milton Caniff, even though he works in that Caniff or Sickles style. I think he deserves more credit than most fans give him. Sometimes fans think a lot of little lines makes good artwork, but it doesn't. He's a guy who really knows how to tell a story. Maybe like you I've been disappointed with his comic book work, but you have to remember you can't turn out a masterpiece in a week.

And finally: Vintage Ogden Whitney (I'd never heard of this one) and vintage Daniel Clowes. Together at last.

Today Charles Hatfield returns with a review of Bernie "The Jam" Mireault's latest self-published book, To Get Her. An excerpt:

My own knowledge of Mireault dates to his collaboration with Matt Wagner and Joe Matt on Comico’s Grendel, way back in 1987 (an arc later collected as The Devil Inside). That collaboration put Mireault on my radar, and so I dug into his quirky, low-rent superhero pastiche The Jam, a generally lighthearted riff on the genre but laced with semi-autobiographical, underground-flavored elements. The Jam began as a backup serial in the Canadian series New Triumph back in the early mid-'80s, then began to find its own way after 1987 (Comico published a one-shot after the Grendel run that I glommed onto very happily). By the mid-'90s I thought of The Jam as a humorous but soulful alternative to superheroes-as-usual, a project that, despite its fitfulness and its caroming between publishers, promised what Mike Allred’s Madman also seemed to promise at the time: life, energy, and homespun storytelling within the straits of that oh-so-familiar genre. I dug it the way I dug Allred’s work, and Mike Gilbert’s work on Mr. Monster, and the way I still dig Paul Grist’s myriad superhero comics.

Sara Varon continues her week contributing the Cartoonist's Diary feature.

And we've also opened up the archives to bring out a 1986 panel discussion with Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons about Watchmen, moderated by Neil Gaiman. Here's an excerpt:

FROM THE AUDIENCE: Do you actually own Watchmen?

MOORE: My understanding is that when Watchmen is finished and DC have not used the characters for a year, they’re ours.

GIBBONS: They pay us a substantial amount of money. ..

MOORE: … to retain the rights. So basically they’re not ours, but if DC is working with the characters in our interests then they might as well be. On the other hand, if the characters have outlived their natural life span and DC doesn’t want to do anything with them, then after a year we’ve got them and we can do what we want with them, which I’m perfectly happy with.

GIBBONS: What would be horrendous, and DC could legally do it, would be to have Rorschach crossing over with Batman or something like that, but I’ve got enough faith in them that I don’t think that they’d do that. I think because of the unique team they couldn’t get anybody else to take it over to do Watchmen II or anything else like that, and we’ve certainly got no plans to do Watchmen II.

Also, I thought I'd draw attention to one other part of the interview, regarding the comic's connection to Charlton comics. Moore explains:

I started mapping out a few ideas, and originally it was just a murder mystery, “Who killed the Peacemaker,” and that was it. We sent all this stuff to Dick Giordano and some of it was extreme. We were going to treat the Question as a lot more extreme than he’d been treated before. Dick loved the stuff, but having a paternal affection for these characters from his time at Charlton, he really didn’t want to give his babies to the butchers, and make no mistake about it, that’s what it would have been. He said, “Can you change the characters around and come up with some new ones?” At first I wasn’t sure whether that would work, but when Dave and I got together and started just planning these things out, it all really snapped into place and worked fine. I’m much happier now doing it with original characters. It’s worked out much better than it would have done if we had used Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, and all the others, and I’m pleased with it.

Emphasis mine. The whole, depressingly common argument that Watchmen is just a ripoff of Charlton characters, and thus everything is now fair game is risible. The Question and Rorschach are not the same characters. If DC were planning a miniseries featuring characters who were sort of reminiscent of the Comedian and Dr. Manhattan and Sally Jupiter, etc., no one would be batting an eye right now.

Anyway, speaking of which, David Brothers has an enjoyably vicious editorial on the publication of Before Watchmen here. His thesis?:

Buying Before Watchmen is a vote for:

-A comics industry that prizes properties over creators
-A comics industry that will effortlessly use its legal muscle to screw over creators
-A comics industry that strip-mines the past at the expense of the future

Brothers draws attention to a recent USA Today story on the series in which DC co-publisher Dan DiDio offers the following mind-boggling quote: "The strength of what comics are is building on other people's legacies and enhancing them and making them even stronger properties in their own right." An inspirational way to start the morning! Maybe it's best if we moved on to other topics ...

—Such as DC's sales figures, which Marc-Oliver Frisch analyzes here, and more or less convincingly finds (albeit with less than ideal information), that the New 52 initiative gave only a temporary positive push to sales.

—Dept. of Interviews. James Sturm talks to Julie Delporte. Graeme McMillan talks to Jessica Abel and Matt Madden. Ashok Kondabolu (!) talks to Ben Marra. And finally, an interview with the late Harvey Pekar from close to his passing has come to light.

—I don't think we've yet mentioned Tom Spurgeon's annual head-exploding guide to attending the San Diego Comic-Con, and it's probably because neither Dan nor I wants to come to terms with the fact that we won't be there.

—Stephen Bissette reveals the secret cinematic origins of Ben Grimm.

—And if you've ever wanted a chance to talk (and buy) comics in person with our Sunday columnist Frank Santoro, this weekend in NYC is the time and place to make your dreams come true.

Well hello there. The book world, or parts of it, has gathered at Book Expo America. I'll be there today, all day, attempting to sell books or myself, whichever comes first.

Today on the site Joe McCulloch brings us his wisdom pertaining to the comics scene of today and yesterday. And Sara Varon continues her tenure as diarist-in-residence.

Elsewhere in the universe... a series of bits of information:

-Julia Wertz nicely summarizes the comic convention experience.

-Oliver Schrauwen is self-publishing a "long story". Looks good.

-Robin McConnell interviews Maurice Vellekoop.

- Jordan Crane has a Tumblr. The Seattle Star profiles Jeffrey Brown.

-Tom Spurgeon reviews some 1970s Avengers comics.

-Tom Gauld and Guy Delisle draw each other.

-And finally, the Stripper's Guide profiles Tarpe Mills.

Big day on the site today. First, we have Ryan Standfest's report from the University of Chicago's recent "Comics: Philosophy & Practice" conference. An excerpt from his write-up on the Art Spiegelman/W.J.T. Mitchell panel:

Addressing what happens when comics become wall art allowed into galleries and museums, Spiegelman noted: “There is more to the Faustian deal than I originally thought. There are sub-clauses. The mingling of words and pictures is now allowed, and what is being achieved is way past Lichtenstein, way past Barbara Kruger. Something new is emerging. The avant-garde is exploring a new place where the pictures are not as easily articulated, not as happily contained.” This led the conversation to a dual consideration of new media and how a younger generation of cartoonists is reconsidering the form itself. “A book is easier to make because of this thing that is supposedly killing it. There is now a focus on the book as object—a new function in the world of the iPad.” Spiegelman noted that the history of comics has been the history of printing up until now, and that the medium has looked to the book-as-object as an answer. “The book, or ‘graphic novel’ is the current dominant form of the comic. The problem is that it requires great labor.” He indicated, however, that the book does not play to the greatest asset of the comics form—that the medium is one of compression, of reducing-down— the shorter, the better. In response, Spiegelman sounded a note about a move away from the book and a return to short-form comics out of the necessity of doubling as “wall art.”

Yesterday brought with it, of course, another installment of Frank Santoro's Riff Raff column. In it, he writes short reviews of comics by Tin Can Forest, Connor Willumsen, and Ed Choy.

Sara Varon, creator of Robot Dreams and Bake Sale, is the latest artist to agree to contribute to our Cartoonist's Diary feature. Her week begins here, appropriately enough with an interdepartmental cookie bake-off.

And in our reviews department, Sean T. Collins tackles Katie Skelly's Nurse Nurse. An excerpt:

Katie Skelly has an endearing cartooning style, an unlikely hybrid between Junko Mizuno and John Porcellino. While they’re in motion — and in this Barbarella-esque, demurely sexy sci-fi spaceship romp, that happens fairly frequently — her characters have a fluid, curving quality to them. Their designs are usually pretty strong, too. The title character, a young interplanetary nurse named Gemma whose inaugural assignment to treat colonists poisoned by alien atmospheres that goes badly wrong right out of the gate, and her eventual rescuer, a Inuit-like Martian named Träume, are strong enough that Skelly’s choice to duplicate them with clones and identical siblings is a delight in and of itself; the furious, furry black-and-white space pirate Pandaface has such a cool design I want to steal it wholesale.

Elsewhere on the internet:

—You have until midnight tonight to vote in this year's Eisner Awards.

—Jeet Heer wrote to draw my attention to part one of a very in-depth look at Canadian cartoonist Jimmy Frise, which he compares to Seth and Brad Mackay's work on their Doug Wright book.

—Interviews dept. Here's part two of Michael Dooley's interview with Squa Tront editor John Benson, this time focusing in on The Sincerest Form of Parody (which I highly recommend for Mad fanatics, by the way). Tom Spurgeon talks at length with Zack Soto. Michel Fiffe interviews Tony Salmons.

—Robin McConnell of Inkstuds weighs in on the Before Watchmen controversy, and Noah Berlatsky editorializes upon it for Slate.

—Andrew Rilstone tries to find neutral ground in the Jack Kirby/Stan Lee wars.

—A hand-drawn Tintin in America cover sold at auction for a record-breaking $1.6 million.

—As I believe we reported on the blog a while back (if not, I meant to), Ruben Bolling recently decided to begin offering digital subscriptions to his long-running Tom the Dancing Bug strip. Last week, he announced that it has already become his single biggest source of revenue.

Today on the site:

Nicole Rudick reviews Are You My Mother? and finds it a mixed experience.

Memoirs, even if they’re meant to describe the life of a person other than the author, are necessarily in part about the author—the story is, after all, from his or her perspective. Though Fun Home thoroughly traces her father’s life and works to show his interior life, the must haves and probablys Bechdel uses in imagining things he might have said or done make her the subject as much as her father; it is every bit about endeavoring to know a man she felt she may not have fully known. Mother, however, reveals little about its ostensible subject. There are too few details about her relations with her mother—we revisit some of the same events, each time with a new set of tools (courtesy Winnicott) with which to dissect the moment, to peer deeper into its inner workings, its dark corners. The results are sometimes fascinating—such as the multiple viewings of the same play at different points in the timeline—but it’s unfair to the potential richness of the narrative (and to the relationship) to make a handful of scenes stand in for five decades of mothering and daughtering.

And the mighty Tucker Stone, aided and abetted by Abhay Khosla, presents a more meditative column this week, taking in Chicago, the '90s and the Wall Street Journal. Also, props to our own Mike Reddy! Now that's a column.

Some quick links today:

Somehow these guys find time to talk about comics EVEN MORE. So here are Joe McCulloch's latest notes on Comic Books Are Burning In Hell,with Matt Seneca and Tucker Stone. Intense comics tawk.

-This has been making the rounds and so why not a stop at the TCJ station: Bill Murray as the Human Torch in 1975. That reminds me of Saturday Night Live, which reminds me of two things: First, I still really enjoy early Chevy Chase movies: Fletch, National Lampoon's Vacation... even that one with Goldie Hawn. And second: I've never seen Where the Buffalo Roam. Is it good?

-Ah, and step back in time, then move forward again and think of the lost stature of early 20th century illustrator Frederic Rodrigo Gruger.

-Well, I certainly love Jimmy Thompson and Robotman.

-Finally, and not that this matters, but my earliest comic book art memories are of Jim Aparo's drawings. His fan club site hasn't been updated in a while. Makes me realize I know very little about the man, so maybe I'll just dip in for a minute this weekend.

First up, here on the site, Rob Clough is back with another High-Low column. In this one, he's going international:

One of the interesting things about reading current comics is the truly international reach that small press artists now have. Thanks in large part to the internet, artists have a chance at reaching audiences from across the globe. It’s not just the web, however—in what seems like a fulfillment of Dylan Horrocks’s Hicksville, minicomics and handsome books are appearing from countries not necessarily known for their alt-comics scenes. In this column, I’ll be looking at comics by cartoonists from Poland, Latvia, England, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Turkey. (I’m still waiting for the Mongolian mini-comics mentioned in Hicksville to show up on my doorstep.)

Elsewhere there are a million things.

—First, all the interviews. Every single one of these is worth reading, watching, or listening to, believe it or not. Don't let your eyes glaze over. Daniel Clowes spoke to the AV Club, and to NPR. (Yr pal and mine Frank Santoro has thoughts on the latter here.) Alison Bechdel also spoke to NPR. Longtime Mad writer Dick DeBartolo talked to the Paris Review! Guy Delisle spoke to the Guardian. Comics scholar and Squa Tron editor John Benson talked to Print. Dylan Horrocks talked to the Italian website Conversazioni Sul Fumetto. (Barely comics--& some people could skip this one, actually: Glenn Danzig talks to the L.A. Weekly about his alternate-dimension movie performance as Wolverine.) Finally, via everyone, a really great Fear No ART interview with Chris Ware:

—Awards winners were announced for both the Eagle Awards, and the Reubens.

—Dept. of the World is Changing. Herman creator Jim Unger has passed away. Tom Batiuk was profiled on the 40th anniversary of Funky Winkerbean. Dave Sim announces a Kickstarter project to release digital editions of Cerebus (and more or less immediately reaches his goal). There is now a Jack Davis blog.

—Dept. of Miskellaneous. Zak Sally follows up his recent Inkstuds appearance with a longer explanation of his position on Jack Kirby, Alan Moore, Stan Lee and creators' rights. Warren Ellis talks webcomics page (or screen) formatting. The Team Cul de Sac auction has begun (and is selling lots of great-looking stuff). Stephen Bissette shares some really early, rare gay comic books. Matt Seneca names Paradax as one of the Greatest Comics of All Time.

—There, that oughta hold the little bastards!

Today on the site:

Ken Parille brings us Six Observations about Alison Bechdel’s Graphic Archive Are You My Mother?:

Bechdel subtitled Fun Home (her previous graphic novel) “A Family Tragicomic.” Are You My Mother?’s subtitle, “A Comic Drama,” echoes this phrase. Both genre terms (comedy and drama) are curious words to preface this book with. Though it includes a few lightly comic scenes, Are You My Mother? is relentlessly serious. Its non-linear structure often moves rapidly between scenes, excerpts from other writers, and personal archival materials —usually without identifying the chronology.

Elsewhere:

-Paul Gravett scoops us all with a check-in with the great Mark Beyer.

-Designer, illustrator and the author of a couple recent graphic novels, Seymour Chwast, has a new children's book out.

-Paul Tumey dissects a classic Milt Gross Sunday page.

-Of course. What could be better?

-I may be late to the party, but I really enjoyed Angie Wang's Girl Apocalypse mini-comic. Great imagery and pacing.

Today, we present Chris Mautner's interview with Eddie Campbell about his latest graphic novel, The Lovely, Horrible Stuff. An excerpt:

CAMPBELL: Most people take a lot of things for granted, like what a thing is worth and how much they should get paid for an hour’s work etc., but for a few other people nothing arrives without a set of negotiations. Like agreeing on how much is to be paid then, when the time comes, having to phone up to make it happen, then having to shepherd the money through international exchange channels. Nothing is ever worth the same amount twice. I don’t take anything for granted. There was a time when I got two Australian dollars for one American. Now I get less than one. And I make all my income from foreign countries, so multiply the problem by Euros and pounds. So yes, I guess I see money differently from Joe Average. Explaining it to my wife is where the difficulty resides.

And of course, Joe McCulloch is back with his usual Tuesday column on the week in comics.

We're still running on vacation time here, so undoubtedly we're missing a lot, but here are a few comics-related links worth looking at.

—Perhaps the most surprising development was the Wall Street Journal's publication of this review, which uses the occasion of Christopher Irving's Leaping Tall Buildings to display attitudes towards Marvel and DC and creators' rights more typical of your average comics blogger than you'd expect to find in a financial newspaper. (A sample: "If no cultural barrier prevents a public that clearly loves its superheroes from picking up a new 'Avengers' comic, why don't more people do so? The main reasons are obvious: It is for sale not in a real bookstore but in a specialty shop, and it is clumsily drawn, poorly written and incomprehensible to anyone not steeped in years of arcane mythology.")

—J. Caleb Mozzocco notes the appearance of a creator portraits page at the DC Comics website, which Mozzocco thinks may have been spurred on by some of Chris Roberson's public comments upon his departure from the company.

—Finally, it's always worth noting when Robert Boyd is writing about new comics. Here he is on three recent "art comics" he thinks show signs of being influenced by the more cosmic side of Jack Kirby.

It's coming up on Memorial Day here in the States, so we've got a meaty article to keep you going over the weekend, an excerpt from TCJ columnist Jared Gardner's recent Eisner-nominated book, Projections. Among other things, this chapter features the now-little-known debate between Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston and Cleanth Brooks (!) in the pages of The American Scholar. A taste:

In the next issue of American Scholar, Cleanth Brooks and his Louisiana State colleague Robert Heilman responded with a long, facetious account of their sudden conversion to Marston’s philosophy in their literature classes, claiming that they now will even employ models dressed as Wonder Woman to help illustrate their lectures and demonstrate female superiority. Brooks and Heilman maintain their deadpan approach throughout their letter, expressing their gratitude to Marston for inspiring their “conversion” to comics over traditional literature, and they conclude by calling on Marston and the editors of The American Scholar “to tell us more about the comics by means of comics”—even offering to furnish the editors with the zinc plates necessary to transform the journal into a comic book: “We are sure that there are literally thousands of Phi Beta Kappas who will happily contribute their keys, if need be, to bring the power of the ‘visual image’ to the aid of puny reason in the great fight to save the humanities to which we are all committed.”

And then of course, it's Friday, so Tucker Stone is here (along with friend Abhay Khosla), with another hair-raising look at the commercial dregs of the industry.

Elsewhere:

—First Flannery O'Connor is outed as a closet cartoonist, now this. Maria Popova takes a look at Gertrude Stein's forgotten picture books.

—Daniel Clowes talks to Wired about his aversion for digital comics.

—With this article on the history of gay characters in supehero comics, Alex Pappademas shows that his excellent Stan Lee profile at Grantland was not a fluke, and apparently they're going to be featuring intelligent comics coverage on at least an irregular basis.

—Leonard Pierce has a good response to the recent Scott Kurtz anti-Kirby diatribe (which previously I felt was too moronic even to mention).

—Rob Clough surveys the current state of comics for children.

—I keep forgetting to link to this really great audio interview with Bill Griffith recorded by Benjamen Walker at WFMU. (You may remember his Chester Brown interview from last year. If not, check it out, too.)

—And finally, I missed this before, but Tom Spurgeon caught a fascinating article on Roy Lichtenstein and comics, featuring Hilary Barta among others. I wish someone would write or edit a book on this subject.

Today on the site:

Michel Fiffe on the idea and history of one-man anthology comics:

As if it wasn't enough that comics are the domain of the obsessive control freak, there is a cartooning sect that perfectly defines the creative mania responsible for some of our greatest works: the one-man anthology. It's a publishing sensibility that may have had its moment in the sun decades ago, but it's never really been a dominant point of interest for cartoonists.

And I'm really pleased to welcome Sean Rogers back to the site with this incisive review of the new Nancy collection:

Certainly, the comic’s self-contained gag-a-day format, along with the clarity and force of Bushmiller’s compositions, can often make each strip seem like an instance of emphatic singularity, a totem to be worshipped in dumb awe. But Nancy is Happy returns to this gag-a-day strip precisely its daily qualities, so often overlooked. There is, we rediscover, an aspect of the quotidian to Nancy, a rhythmic unfolding in time, an ordinariness repeated with such unrelenting frequency that we’ve opted to shunt it into the sublime. Reading Nancy in continuity, rather than in isolation, may be an unfamiliar experience, but it is one which reveals the strip’s patient and inquisitive reaction to the bric-a-brac and ins-and-outs of everyday life—an attentive curiosity whose effect is diminished by removing the comics from their daily or weekly contexts.

-From Forbidden Planet comes word of an Oliver Schrauwen exhibition in Antwerp.

-From TCJ-contributor Tucker Stone comes word of a Suicide Squad celebration by the aforementioned Michel Fiffe.

-From yet another TCJ-contributor, Matt Seneca: This week's Greatest Comic of All Time.

-From me to you: Oh those little wise guys!

Today on the site, Hayley Campbell returns after a too-long absence to interview Tom Gauld, the cartoonist behind the new graphic novel, Goliath. Here's Gauld on adapting the Bible:

I don’t have a religious faith, but I’m interested in the Bible because the stories are such well-known, common parts of our culture. A few years ago I did a version of the story of Noah (for Kramers Ergot 7) and I liked that I could rely on the reader’s knowledge of the story, and play with their expectations. That story was one of the things which led me to do Goliath. I didn’t want my book to be anti-religious, or even to paint David as a fraud or a villain, but the God (or maybe just strong religious faith) which makes David so powerful is definitely not there for Goliath.

We also have a review from the indefatigable Sean T. Collins, who reports in on the latest release from the Closed Caption Comics group, Molly Colleen O'Connell's Difficult Loves:

O’Connell’s weapons of choice are perspective and detail, throwing enough conflicting examples of both at you at once to make each turn of the page a “wait, what?” experience. Her characters limbs elongate at odd points so that you’re never sure exactly how large their bodies are in relation to their environments — is this some weird, deliberately inconsistent use of foreshortening, or are they just built like warped marionettes?

Elsewhere on the internets...

—Okay, easily the link of the week comes from Gene Deitch, who writes at length (and with copious illustrations, videos, and archival evidence) about his experiences adapting Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are into a short animated film.

—Your Alison Bechdel link of the day comes from Ng Suat Tong, who focuses in on the psychoanalytic content of Are You My Mother?, which is sounding more and more fascinating as the reviews come in. As Dan mentioned yesterday, our own coverage will be coming soon.

—Nick Gazin interviews Diana Schutz about working with Milo Manara in his latest Vice column. (He also falls for that Jack Kirby Spider-Man image hoax, so caveat lector.)

—I missed it on Monday, but the great Bob Levin wrote about his heart attack for the Broad Street Review.

—I also missed the Chicago Tribune's excellent coverage of last weekend's "Comics: Philosophy & Practice" conference.

—The outrage of the moment just over came when McSweeney's announced a cartoonist contest, which would award a $500 prize to the winner, in exchange for two cartoons a month. This sparked something of a revolt online, mainly from cartoonists concerned about what they perceived as exploitation, which eventually led to McSweeney's apologizing and canceling the contest. This seems worth mentioning after the fact, if only for taking note of changing comics-community standards, and the force an internet-focused protest can have, at least when aimed at a smaller, community-minded organization.

—Finally, there's apparently some kind of TV and tabloid frenzy going on over the fact that a few characters at DC and Marvel are about to be revealed as either gay and/or getting married while gay. I wonder how many times those companies can get PR mileage out of this kind of thing; it feels like they've already done this multiple times, but the media's obviously still buying. In the meantime, someone should tell the New York Times about Maurice Vellekoop.

On the site today we present the entire Alison Bechdel interview by Lynn Emmert from TCJ 282 (April 2007). We'll cover her new book, Are You My Mother?, shortly. For now, enjoy this comprehensive conversation. As ever, Joe McCulloch treats us to the new, the newsworthy and the necessary (to some).

Joe has also apparently been holding out on us. Here's proof: A blog post described as follows:

Being a series of comments on Episode 0.1 of Comic Books Are Burning In Hell, a podcast by Matt Seneca, Tucker Stone and myself.

Is this mutiny? We'll work to bring you the answer.

Frank M. Young delivers unto us answers about John Stanley in reference to questions you didn't know you had, and we should thank him for that. This kind of deep comic book archeology is needed. It gets to the weird smudgy bottom of aesthetic developments. So here's Young on proto-Tubbys.

Here's a funny thing: A group of documents containing an alternate plot point for The Little Prince was recently sold at auction. It sounds interesting:

In this version of the story, after visiting six planets, the little prince arrives on an alternate-reality earth. One particular line reads as an homage to the melting pot of New York City: "If you brought together all the inhabitants of this planet close together as if for a meeting, the Whites, the Yellows, the Blacks, the children, the elderly, the women, and the men, without forgetting a single one, all of humanity would fit on Long Island."

Not comics, but TCJ: Tim has a great short interview with novelist Richard Ford, whose new book I'm greatly looking forward to.

And finally, in case you missed it: Chris Ware's Building Stories is going to be an incredible object.

R.C. Harvey profiles V.T. Hamlin, creator of the classic caveman comic strip Alley Oop. An excerpt:

Hamlin kept up a merry round of madcap adventures in Moo for the next five years before beginning to feel constrained by the narrow range of story possibilities imposed upon him by his chosen locale. Then Dorothy again supplied a vital prompt: remembering a story her husband had written in high school, she suggested introducing a time machine. If Alley Oop and Ooola could travel through history, stopping here and there wherever a good story seemed likely, the story possibilities would be limitless.

Hamlin’s interest in prehistory had by this time broadened considerably into ancient history (as it would eventually into all history), and time travel enabled him to pursue this interest in the strip. He went to the syndicate editors in Cleveland immediately and, after “the best part of a week” of persuading and pleading, got permission to change the strip, a violent wrench of a change, something no other strip at the time had managed.

On April 6, 1939, Oop and Ooola suddenly fade from our sight in the Moovian jungle; and two days later, they materialize in the laboratory of a twentieth century scientist, Elbert Wonmug (a punning last name celebrating science’s most famous theorist, “en stein” being German for “one mug”). Wonmug has invented a Time Machine, and, seeing the rugged resourcefulness of the prehistoric pair, he subsequently sends Alley and Ooola on “fact-finding” missions through the ages: they become time travelers and have adventures in every famous epoch in history.

Frank Santoro's back in Pittsburgh right now, and shares Bill Boichel's new theory about Frank Frazetta.

And Jeet Heer reviews the new IDW collection of Otto Soglow comics. I'm kind of surprised I haven't heard more about this book. Soglow is hilarious. Here's an excerpt from Jeet's review:

One of the great strengths of Cartoon Monarch is that it gives us a very generous sample of Soglow’s work from many facets of his career so that we can see that the clear line style was a hard won victory for the cartoonist. Rather surprisingly, Soglow started off as a student of such Ash Can School masters as Robert Henri, George Luks, and John French Sloan. Like them, he specialized in charcoal-dark representations of urban squalor (some of which appeared in radical publications like The New Masses).

Soglow’s move to the clear line wasn’t a complete break from his earlier art since he continued to do anecdotal art about urban life, but his art started to become more line-focused and less shadowy as he became a fixture in The New Yorker, where the Little King first appeared in 1930. I’d speculate that Rea Irwin was an influence. Contractual wrangling with the New Yorker seems to have prevented Soglow from immediately moving the monarch to newspapers when the Hearst Syndicate hired him in 1933. As a stop-gap measure, Soglow created The Ambassador, who was the Little King in everything except title and facial features (the Ambassador had a bulbous nose and a walrus moustache).

Elsewhere on the internet:

—Your regular dose of Alison Bechdel profiles/interviews can be taken at both The Guardian and Comic Book Resources.

—By all accounts, the star-studded, Hilary Chute-organized "Comics: Philosophy & Practice" conference held this weekend at the University of Chicago was a huge success. Many of you hopefully found some time this weekend to watch the live streaming video of various panels, but if not, know that many of them will soon be archived at this page at the Critical Inquiry site.

—Creators' rights issues make their way into the Washington Post by way of Michael Cavna's interview with Roger Langridge about his decision to no longer work for Marvel or DC.

—Joe Sacco has a short story, "Kushinagar", in the New York Review of Books(!). (Am I right in thinking this is the first comic strip ever published in that magazine?)

—Talking to The Guardian, Dan DiDio tries to justify DC's decision to create Watchmen sequels, and responds to Alan Moore's stated opinions on the matter: "Honestly I can understand why he [Moore] might feel the way he does because this is a personal project to him. He has such a long and illustrious career and he's been able to stand behind the body of work he's created. But quite honestly the idea of something shameless is a little silly, primarily because I let the material speak for itself and the quality of the material speak for itself."

—Ron Goulart takes a look at Jack Cole's Betsy and Me.

—Tom Spurgeon interviews Faith Erin Hicks.

—Conan artist Ernie Chan passed away last Wednesday.

—Jason Thompson's manga column, always worth reading, concerns Cromartie High School this time around.

—And finally, assuming those of you who are interested didn't already see this at one of the many, many places that linked to it over the weekend, Neil Gaiman gave the commencement address at the University of the Arts:

Welcome to the end of the week. We are veritable volcano of content today, all crammed in on this mid-May day for a variety of time-based reasons.

First let me say this:

If you are a TCJ print subscriber and would like unlimited access to the online archive, please e-mail our customer service department: fbicomix@fantagraphics.

Please put "TCJ Online Archive" in the subject heading and request unlimited access to the archives in the body of the message. Also, please include your name, username and e-mail address (if you've already made an account; if you haven't, an account can be created for you).

If you have questions about the above, do not post them here. Rather, email the above address. Thanks!

And now, on the site today we have Tom De Haven's commencement address for the Center for Cartoon Studies. Thanks to James Sturm and Michelle Ollie for this. Tom discusses his own comics education, as well as that of others, and drops this fine story:

The lessons of the Famous Cartoonists School were written by (or ostensibly written by) such luminaries as Al Capp, Milt Caniff, Rube Goldberg, Willard Mullins, Whitney Darrow Jr., Gurney Williams and Virgil Partch. Of course, I sent away for the informational material, but the cost was prohibitive. My mother worked in a bank and brought home less than $45 a week.  It was crushing blow, although (and this such was a wonderful thing, for which I’m still grateful) my mother looked around on her own and found a far less expensive illustration and cartooning home-study course, the Washington School of Art, out of Port Washington, New York. And she signed me up for it. Twelve booklets and an impressive, to me, box of supplies consisting of two pencils, one brush, one pen staff with three different nib points, a fabulous soft blue eraser, a few charcoal sticks, a Conte crayon, a bottle of ink, and a T-square. I  took that course, imperfect as it was, and I wish I still had all my returned artwork with their taped-on see-through overlays with corrections made in red pencil. Unfortunately, for me, only two of the lessons pertained specifically to making comics, but even so, it was realinstruction–and there were real teachers telling me what I’d done right, and what I’d done wrong and how to correct it.

In less happy news, Steve Ringgenberg contributes an obituary of Tony DeZuniga. Additionally, we have Brad Mackay on The Art of Daniel Clowes and, as ever, and thank heavens, Tucker Stone on the global comic book trend.

I suppose it's possible you will want to go elsewhere for yet more comics content, in which case you might  be overdoing it. Still, I feel compelled to guide you:

Is there anything more awesome than a Gilbert Hernandez comic book called Fatima: The Blood Spinners? Of course not. Read what the man himself has to say about it.

Thank you, Warren Ellis. Keeping it real.

I also love Frank Robbins. In fact, I love the whole dang Caniff-school of comic drawing. Lee Elias, William Overgard, et al. So good. But Frank Robbins in the '70s was hallucinatory and great. Milo George has a great appreciation here.

Oh, and I can't believe I'm missing this. Luckily we have embedded a TCJ correspondent on the ground to bring back all the dirt.

Today, R. Fiore returns to our shores with a report on graphic novelist/animator Mark Kalesniko, as well as an extended look at the history of animated film by way of UPA. An excerpt:

No one who’s seen the internal strife on the macro level portrayed in the documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty would doubt the verisimilitude of the fictional office politics on the micro level of Freeway. Kalesniko never quite puts his finger on the factor that made for the difference between in animation from the 1930s through the 1950s and of today, and that is the phenomenon of seven minute theatrical animated short subject. The contemporary animated feature is a massive undertaking along the lines of an aircraft carrier or a cathedral. Each individual picture is a do or die effort costing in the hundreds of millions and needing to rake in hundreds of millions more to pay out, and a failure can crush the career of the people in charge. Even the vaunted Pixar will pull a project out of the hands of the director who instigated it if the investment appears threatened. Feature length requires characters who engage the emotions of the audience in a way that throttles the anarchic spirits of the form.

Elsewhere, there are many things to read & ponder.

—Journal columnist Tucker Stone reviews Jean-Perre Filiu & David B.'s Best of Enemies: A History of US and Middle East Relations, and at the Los Angeles Review of Books, Sarah Boxer writes about George Herriman's Krazy Kat (and explores why critics have had such a hard time talking about it).

—ICv2 has an interesting three-part interview with Image publisher Eric Stephenson about everything from digital publishing to creators' rights. ("If Image comics had been around when Allen Moore and Dave Gibbons wanted to do Watchmen, they would have had someplace else they could have gone to do that type of work. The situation that developed out of what did or didn’t happen with those contracts would have been irrelevant because they would have had a deal that offered them 100% creator ownership.")

—Speaking of creators' rights, the recognition of Jack Kirby's accomplishments in mainstream media continues to slowly grow, with an article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, featuring input from Glen David Gold and Rand Hoppe.

—People seem to really be enjoying this "oral history" of DC's semi-recent series Countdown to Final Crisis, but I found it too depressing to get very far.

—Blown Covers posts the old form rejection letter from RAW, which is amazing.

—Milo George inaugurates a series at Study Group honoring Dennis the Menace artist Al Wiseman.

—Boing Boing has a nice short profile of the Herblock Prize-winning political cartoonist Matt Bors.

—Have we already mentioned the "master class in comics narrative" Paul Karasik is going to be teaching in Vermont this August? If not, we should have.

—Closed Caption Comics has the penultimate TCAF report, with karaoke photos. Chris Butcher has the ultimate one.

—Steven Brower takes a look at changing reproduction strategies for reprinting old comics.

—And finally, Robot 6 has found something of interest for 20th Century Boys fans: Naoki Urasawa singing "Bob Lennon".