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Today we're giving the site over to Dylan Williams. We are posting the first handful of a series of tributes we hope to continue, as well as an unpublished 2008 interview with Dylan about his relationship to punk rock. We want to thank everyone who contributed, and especially Chris Cilla, an author whose masterpiece-to-date, The Heavy Hand, was recently published by Sparkplug, for turning around a wonderful portrait of his friend and publisher in record time. And I speak for Tim when I extend our deepest condolences to his friends and family.

Elsewhere:

Zak Sally has written a lengthy and very moving piece about Dylan at The Comics Reporter, where Tom continues to collect links to other tributes and remembrances.

Most other links would seem rather silly, so instead I'll offer two by artists that Dylan  completely schooled me on:

Here's a wonderful page of original art by H.G. Peter (it was Dylan who was responsible for Peter being in my book Art in Time) translated into Spanish.

And here's a link to a trove of great Mort Meskin stories -- ditto the above.

Thank you, Dylan.

This morning sees the debut of another episode of TCJ Talkies, this time featuring Mike Dawson's interview with the cartoonist and podcaster Alex Robinson. It was recorded at last weekend's SPX.

We also have another review of Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill's latest League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volume, this time by Sean T. Collins. It was written before Charles Hatfield had turned in his review, and so shouldn't be viewed as a direct response.

As far as other links go, I believe we neglected to mention that the winners of this year's Ignatz Awards have been announced.

Gabrielle Bell gives an interview with Comic Books Resources regarding her recent month of webcomics and her work on Mome, among other things.

Frank Young takes a look at John Stanley's use of violence.

Patrick Marfort reviews The Comics Journal #301.

I hadn't realized that novelist Ishmael Reed actually took classes in cartooning to help with his most recent book, much less that he'd since become a regularly published cartoonist himself.

Finally, Tom Spurgeon continues to collect links to online stories and remembrances of Dylan Williams, well worth reading. Stay tuned for our own coverage as the week continues.

On the site today:

Shaenon Garrity relates her own experiences with Kickstarter.

A couple of months ago, I needed $10,000 to self-publish a big omnibus collection of my webcomic Narbonic. By way of explanation, I am not one of your big-name webcartoonists. At this point people are vaguely familiar with my work, but I’m not one of those folks with half a million page views and people queuing up to buy t-shirts with my characters’ hip and witty comments printed on them. I have a moderate but very devoted (and very entertaining) audience, and I am in no danger whatsoever of making a living from my comics.

Joe McCulloch, who, this weekend, via SPX, finally stayed long enough in one place to really get talking, brings us the week in comics.

And Rob Clough brings us a review of Lewis Trondheim's book Little Nothings Vol. 4.

More later, people. Forgive the short entry.

We just returned from SPX, which was the first convention of its kind I ever attended, and which still seems to me to be the one I always have the most fun at. (I still have never gone to TCAF, though. And the Brooklyn festival probably has a higher percentage of comics & art that I am interested in and wouldn't be able to find elsewhere. But I live near NYC, so that doesn't have the same out-of-town event feeling.) Anyway, though I missed seeing Frank Santoro and various other people who didn't make it, this was one of the most fun and successful-seeming SPX shows that I can remember. We will have further and fuller coverage of the event in the near future.

News of the death of longtime show fixture Dylan Williams could not help but cast a pall on things. He was an inspirational figure to many, and a champion of deserving work that was often almost impossibly uncommercial. Chris Mautner at Robot 6 has gathered some of the online tributes from people in the comics world who knew him (here is another), and I expect there will be many more coming. [Tom Spurgeon is collecting links about Williams here.]

Today on the website, we bring Steven Brower's examination of the dream comics of Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, and Mort Meskin.

Elsewhere:

Amazon's Omnivoracious reviews the latest issue of The Comics Journal.

Stephen Bissette shares how he responds when people ask him to draw their graphic novels.

Maurice Sendak talked to the Paris Review in advance of his upcoming book.

Mike Rhode at Washington's City Paper interviewed many of this weekend's exhibitors, including Craig Thompson, Keith Knight, etc.

Last week, Kevin Huizenga did a brief but good online q&a with the Fantagraphics website.

Dylan Williams, cartoonist, writer, and publisher of Sparkplug Comic Books, reportedly passed away yesterday after a long battle with cancer. He was one of the defining figures of the contemporary independent comics world, and beloved within it. He will be greatly missed.

A benefit art auction to help pay for his medical costs is ongoing.

We're packing up the two-door sedan and heading down to SPX. You'll see me at the PictureBox booth with Matthew Thurber. Our official SPX correspondent, Nicholas Gazin, will be wandering the halls for two solid days in search of good stories. That's right, while I loll around behind the table and Tim bobs in and out, Gazin will be assembling the "real" story. I'll also be presenting an Ignatz Award with Brian Ralph, who tells me I'm to play his "straight man."

Anyhooooo, Rob Clough has a handy list of 10 Cartoonists to Seek Out at SPX. Me, if I wasn't grumpily selling books all day I'd be attending some killer sounding panels and talks. I mean, there's solo panels with Roz Chast, Diane Noomin, Jim Woodring, and Johnny Ryan, not to mention a lecture by Kim Thompson on Jacques Tardi. Damn.

That said, if you cannot fulfill all your comic book dreams this weekend in suburban Maryland, be sure to read Kim Deitch's latest installment of his memoir, in which he discusses research, booze, SF, and Portland.

And, as we're prone to say, elsewhere online:

-I missed this: Abhay Khosla and Mark Sable discuss Mat Brinkman's Multiforce. It's a surprising read.

-You can never have enough Jack Cole.

-And the NY Times on the late, great George Kuchar.

Good morning, all. Today, we bring you Rob Clough's lengthy interview with the Troop 142 cartoonist and popular podcaster Mike Dawson. A brief sample:

It is true that Chris and I went there with two other friends, and also sadly true that we were the only four mopes at the resort not hooking up with anyone. We took that vacation at a time when we were all single. We all lived in the city, had decent jobs, and some money to spend. We thought it would be a great time. Honestly, Hedonism was a skeevy place to spend a week. Yes, a lot of the details from the story are based on things we saw or experienced. [...] The steroid guy in the story who yells at Christopher Vigliotti and his friends for not scoring, and then brags about having unprotected sex in the hot-tub, that guy was real too. He was the one who had figured out that the thing to do was book a ten-day trip, because that way you'd get two batches of guests at the resort to hook up with, since most people were there for one week. Really, almost every character in the story is based on the people we encountered down there. While the trip was a bust for me and Chris, it gave us a lot of story material.

In sadder news, the underground filmmaker George Kuchar has died. Although his primary reputation derives from his films, Kuchar also had a lot of ties with the comics world, both as a friend of such figures as Bill Griffith and Art Spiegelman (both of whom appeared in his movies) and as a cartoonist and contributor to Arcade himself. If you aren't familiar with his work, I strongly suggest tracking down a recent documentary made about Kuchar and his twin brother Mike, It Came From Kuchar. If you subscribe to Netflix, it is available for streaming right now. This is required viewing for anyone interested in underground art (as are Kuchar's own movies).

Today on the site:

Jared Gardner returns to TCJ with his new monthly column, The Attic, in which he'll explore historical finds buried deep in the figurative Attic of comics history. We're excited for this one, as Jared is really bringing "the stuff". Welcome, Jared.

And Kristian Williams turns in a review of Liar's Kiss.

Elsewhere:

I'm looking forward to this book, and I hope you are, too. Plus: David Lasky! Anyhow, The Carter Family... coming soon.

Gordo was a good strip, and these are excellent examples.

Tucker Stone is writing about Cable comic books (not TV; the character) from the early oughts. This should be interesting. Wait, it already is.

I hope all of you had a good weekend. We spent the last few days holed up in a retreat in upstate New York, plotting out new ideas and directions for the website, & are now energized and ready to go. A sneak peek into our plans: In a few months, we are going to entirely reboot the site, creating new costumes and backstories for all of our columnists and reviewers, and generally revamping the Groth-verse into a faster-paced, "Twitter-style" "hub" for a new larger and younger audience raised on video games and sudoku. Every day the site will be redesigned and relaunched as a "#1," and readers will have the opportunity to sign on and compete with each other to become the "mayor" of their favorite stories! Lots more ideas like that are in store, but we don't want to give the whole game away, so stay tuned...

In the meantime, Frank Santoro checked in this weekend with his latest column (and Michael DeForge cartoon).

Austin English turns in a short interview with the very unusual and original cartoonist Warren Craghead.

And as he does every Tuesday morning, "Jolly" Joe McCulloch previews the Week in Comics.

Some links:

1. The artist and former retailer Dustin Harbin turns in a much-discussed list of "Fifteen Thoughts on Digital Comics". It is thoughtful and worth engaging with. One caveat I have is that I keep seeing many commentators on digital publishing (both in terms of comics and of "regular" books) claiming that the "largest costs" of traditional publishing come from the physical process itself (i.e., the paper, the printing, etc.). In many cases, that just isn't so -- the largest costs come from all of the things you still may want to do with digital (i.e., hiring and maintaining editorial departments, publicity, etc.). This is worth keeping in mind!

2. The Kirby-net now sometimes seems nearly as big as the comics-blogosphere in general. Its latest big story is Rob Steibel's excellent illustrated examination of "Kirby Crackle."

3. There also seems to be something of an online revival of Cerebus talk as well, as indicated in this Journal as well as by writers such as Tim Callahan. The Hurting's Tim O'Neil has now entered the arena with the first part of what looks to be a long examination of how Cerebus is read today.

4. Greg Baldino reviews issue 301 of The Comics Journal over at Bleeding Cool.

5. In a must-read blog post, Eddie Campbell responds to a claim in a review of his work in TCJ 301. The reviewer claims that he could spot where Campbell relied on assistants in Alec. [UPDATE: Please see the comments at that post for an explanation of the error.]

6. Finally, wunderkind Matt Seneca has some thoughts on the new publishing initiative at DC Comics.

Kim Deitch is back with another installment of his memoir via music. It is now the late '60s, the underground era is in full swing, and after working at the East Village Other for a while, Kim decides to head west. A disclaimer:

Before resuming I should say this: Drug taking, by myself and others, really peaks in this chapter. It isn’t something I’m proud of or a thing I endorse. But it is the way it all happened.

Also, Rob Clough reviews MK Reed and Jonathan Hill's Americus.

Elsewhere, and catching up after a lousy week at doing this job, more links than you can read:

1. A fun Jay Lynch (and Ed Piskor) comic about the day Lynch and R. Crumb went to visit Chester Gould in Chicago. [I forgot that Dan already linked to this! Sorry, folks.]

2. For some reason, it never really occurred to me how young Lynda Barry must have been when she was creating the strips found in Girls + Boys, etc. This picture of her at a signing for the book makes clear immediately what my inability to draw obvious conclusions from things like years and dates did not. Those are some really funny comics.

3. Jack Kirby interviewed on the radio for his 70th birthday. Don't miss the end of this, when Stan Lee calls in and they argue over who did what. [Hat tip to S. Howe.]

4. There are two comics pieces by Noel Murray over at the AV Club right now, one a "primer" on newspaper comics that is fairly solid in a conventional kind of way, and the other a remembrance of the long-running erotic anthropomorphic-animal soap opera comic "Omaha" the Cat Dancer. (I have never read a single issue of Omaha, or the comic that is always somehow linked to it in my mind, Cherry Poptart. And have never really felt like I was missing anything. Is this genre-blindness or good sense?)

5. Tom Spurgeon turns in a rambling but insightful piece on DC's recent "relaunch." It is obviously far too early to say with any definitiveness whether or not DC's strategy will "work," or even what "working" actually means (the bigger problem), but two things I can say with certainty: the publicity was everywhere (even NPR), and there were big noticeable crowds in and outside stores in New York. Does it go without saying that the comic itself (Justice League #1) was just serviceable (if stupid and unmemorable)? Does it matter? Probably, after a few weeks, when the publicity boost dies down. Maybe some of the other new titles will be more interesting? If not, I can't see how this is really much of a change over the old way of doing things.

6. A short but fun interview with Jim Woodring.

7. A very nice review of the new issue of The Comics Journal.

8. Dan Clowes won one of this year's PEN Center Literary Awards.

9. The cartoonist Michel Fiffe writes a long and much-linked-to essay over at the Factual Opinion regarding the intersection between independent and alternative comics and more genre-oriented superhero and sci-fi material. (One factual caveat from the D&Q Twitter feed.)

Today on the site:

Kipp Friedman brings us his story of growing up with a case of comic book fever, aided and abetted by his brothers Josh and Drew.

And Charles Hatfield is back, and that's always a good thing. As is his review of the most recent installment of Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Click over to The Panelists to see what Charles did on his summer vacation.

Elsewhere:

-There's a big relaunch of DC comic books right now! If you're interested, here's some info. I've somehow managed to not pay any attention, which seems fine.

-Adam McIlwee tries to untangle some questions of online identity and finds himself tangled up.

Sorry about this week's Hurricane Irene-related delay in comic-book coverage. Other than the contaminated Essex County water supply, it looks like pretty much everything related to the East Coast branch of the Journal is back on track now. We hope all of our affected readers came out okay.

Today in his column, Ryan Holmberg takes a break from documenting the history of alternative manga, and focuses on the immediate and lasting effects of Japan's massive tsunami and earthquake on the manga industry, both in the form of manga reportage about the events, and the actual physical destruction of manga. A sample:

Fans searched Tohoku high and wide to read the newest chapter of One Piece in the March 19 issue of Jump. To find a copy, one man drove from Sendai to Yamagata (over an hour by car when roads are clear and fuel plentiful), bringing it back to Sendai, and lending it to a bookstore owner, who posted on his shop window a sign saying “Read it here!! Shōnen Jump March 19th issue, no. 16. One copy available.” Word spread quickly. Kids biked in from over 10 kilometers. More than 100 kids came to read that single issue.

And Mike Dawson returns with another episode of his podcast series, this time interviewing the cartoonist and publisher Tom Kaczynski.

Links-wise, I'm a little behind on my internet reading, but here are a couple to tide you over until I get back up to speed.

1. Elsewhere on the internet, the indefatigable Rob Clough reports and provides commentary on his top fifty comics of 2010. Always solid stuff, and plenty of titles that almost anyone not named Rob Clough probably missed.

2. Some lucky ones among you will already own copies of the minicomic in which these mutated strips originally appeared, but the rest have only read about them.

3. Comment 53.

It's Tuesday. Summer is coming to a close, which means, at least for me, a return to the Fall book fair circuit. In honor of that, and to explain a significant new move by the Library of Congress, we have an interview with historian/collector/SPX-maestro Warren Bernard.

Also on the site, the Hurricane-proof Joe McCulloch's week in comics.

Elsewhere:

Continuing today: If you're in Portland, please go buy some comics and books and whatever from Floating World for the its Dylan Williams benefit sale.

Ed Piskor has a wonderful comic strip version of the day Jay Lynch and Robert Crumb met Chester Gould.

And, via MG comes this link to some funny/disturbing paintings.

Hi there,

If you're seeing this it means that both Tim and I are without power temporarily. Regularly scheduled posting will resume... shortly!

-Ye Eds

Today we bring part 8 of Kim Deitch's memoir. This is the best one yet and Kim promises it's only getting better. Here's a bit:

The concert was mayhem. You literally could not hear the band. I didn't really know what I was going to do with myself now that I was back, but I was sure I did not want to go back to art school. I wasn't even sure I wanted to be an artist anymore. After drifting through a couple of low-end jobs, I somehow ended up working for a posh nut house in White Plains: New York Hospital. I could write a whole book about that place. Suffice to say, if this is what things were like in a high-end laughing academy, I'd sure hate to see what was going on in a low-end one!

And Sean T. Collins reviews Kevin Mutch's Fantastic Life.

Elsewhere:

-Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat was beaten and his arm broken by security forces on Thursday. The Washington Post has coverage.

-The web site Bleeding Cool released the rather odious terms ComiXology is asking retailers to agree to in exchange for the use of its platform. It's yet another example of the industry killing itself from within, one that dovetails with this interview with Jim Lee and Dan DiDidio at which, shows the clueless cynicism at work in the company.

-And the store Floating World Comics is staging a benefit this weekend for Dylan Williams. There will be great art and books to buy and all the profits are going to help with Dylan's treatment. Tom Devlin summarized why so many other publishers and editors respect Dylan and Sparkplug. Go read that and then go buy some comics.

Ken Parille is back with another entry of his Grid column today. Topic: Independent-era Steve Ditko. An excerpt:

We have yet to appreciate Ditko the philosopher, Ditko the comedian. Many readers lament the artist’s move away from the formulaic superhero story into the uncharted terrain of the philosophical comic. “Why couldn’t he do something more like, maybe, Spider-Man or Doctor Strange?” wonders the bemused fan when confronted with medium-reinventing works like 1969’s “The Avenging World” or 1975’s “Premise to Consequence.” Readers puzzled by Ditko’s independent work or frustrated with its Ayn Rand-based politics should take a hint from the spirit of these comics: read them with a black sense of humor.

Also, Matt Seneca reviews the first issue of Michel Fiffe's Zegas:

Main character Emily Zegas opens the book by telling us, “I realized the apocalypse wasn’t a romantic concept.” She makes a good point, but we’re forced to take it with the gargantuan grain of salt that the accompanying picture provides: hand-painted waves of ochre and magenta swirl majestically over a flooding cityscape, masses of tiny featureless human figures gesture skyward, and the heavens split with beams of brilliant rose-colored light. It’s about the most romantic rendering of the apocalypse imaginable, not to mention a bold declaration of visual purpose.

1. James Sturm writes for Slate about the process of trying to get cartoons (examples given) into The New Yorker.

2. Drew Friedman curates an online mini-gallery of Basil Wolverton and Wally Wood covers for Plop!

3. The Harvey Award winners were announced.

4. Dan filled in for me earlier this week, so I didn't have to comment on Grant Morrison's Rolling Stone interview. His comments on Chris Ware and the Comics Journal were baffling, though I feel like others have done a solid job making sense of them, mostly by squinting, switching around adjectives and proper nouns that aren't there, and being generous. But really, generosity is probably the way to go with a dumb phone interview like that, that shows some signs of heavy-handed and possibly meaning-altering editing anyway. Even if not, it was obviously tossed off.

Still and all, in light of the interview, Rodrigo Baeza dug up a pretty funny blurb from GM's past, and then goes on to rightly point out that Morrison's comments on the treatment of Siegel and Shuster, in his new book and in repeated interviews, are both more considered and more disturbing than anything in this particular sideshow.

5. Finally, John Porcellino draws a page of Kirby/Lee's Fantastic Four, and shares what he learned from doing so.

Today on the site, a true meeting of the minds: Joe McCulloch interviews Alejandro Jodorowsky. Sample:

Yes I collaborate in the foundation of Metal Hurlant with my ideas and revolutionary texts like “The sexual life of Superman” where I was describing the Superman ejaculations so strong that the sperm going through the woman vagina, the whole body, the head and went away exploding the head and destroying a skyscraper.

Yep, you'll want to read that.

Elsewhere:

The great Dylan Williams, a comics stalwart for nearly two decades, and a real inspiration for all of us small publishers, could use some help to pay for his cancer treatment. I'm sure the attention is mortifying, but let it be said that Dylan and his company, Sparkplug, have quietly kept the DIY spirit alive. As a publisher you look for other publishers to, well, look up to. Dylan is one of those people. Dylan is also an incredible comics historian whose work on Mort Meskin, Alex Toth, Bill Blackbeard and others has been groundbreaking. So, go buy a ton of books from Sparkplug. They're affordable and they're damn good.

I can recommend the following:

The Heavy Hand by Chris Cilla: One of my absolute favorite graphic novels of the last few years. Fucking brilliant and damned brave. Essential to any comics library. Seriously.

Service Industry by T. Edward Bak: Formally inventive, funny, wrenching, personal comics.

Fleep by Jason Shiga. Just plain brilliant on every level. Shiga at his confounding best.

Windy Corner, edited by Austin English: Wonderful, heartfelt zine on comics.

Orchid by Huizenga, May, et al. One of my very favorite anthologies of all time.

It Lives by Ted May: It's Ted May. That means laughs and perfect cartooning.

Tales to Demolish by Eric Haven: Absurdist adventure comics lushly rendered.

Go. Buy. Good. Comics.

On the site today...

Your weekly comics from Jog, in which he deals with the issue of weight in comics. Or heavy comics. Something heavy!

And Rob Clough reviews Keith Knight's Too Small to Fail.

The big "elsewhere" news is Grant Morrison's unintentionally hilarious interview with Rolling Stone. Morrison, who really does believe the hype (in his book, Supergods, he plays himself as a brilliant hero of comics, always at the ready to tap into the zeitgeist) loves to make big statements, like this doozy about his favorite hobby horse, Alan Moore:

We know Alan Moore isn't a misogynist but fuck, he's obsessed with rape. I managed to do thirty years in comics without any rape!

This is right after [update for clarity/boneheadedness] on the heels of his defense, in Supergods, of the now infamous rape-scene-as-plot device in Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer, which he calls "Joycean," "heart stopping," and "orchestral". Seriously. I will admit, as Morrison totally predicted (tra la la, we're all pretty predictable), that I found Supergods mostly not so great. Not because I didn't understand what he was trying to do (superheroes as modern myth, how the genre can have personal meaning) -- I did. I even fully go in for the idea that there's great life in the genre and that fantastic work has been and will be made. And on some subjects Morrison is great. His explanations of what makes Jim Starlin, Don McGregor, and other writers of the 1970s great is smart and concise. And his description of Image Comics and its place in the larger culture is the best I've ever read. But too often it comes back to new age silliness (Captain Marvel as "alchemical" hero) and self-aggrandization (his relative fame, his oedipus complex with Moore) and then, finally, a long patch where he reels off his fave superhero movies (he was the only guy that liked Daredevil! Cool!). It is also is a book profoundly ignorant and dismissive of the actual circumstances under which his favorite toys were created, and the fates of the toymakers. That said, I think it's especially ironic that in the interview he randomly harps on Chris Ware and TCJ (of course he's right that we are smart asses) in economic/class terms. For someone so interested in class and vibes and making the world a better place, one might ask: Gee, Grant, what have you done to help out the economic situations of creators whose shoulders you stand on? Oh right. Nothing. [update: Not that this matters -- critiquing art by arguing that an artist should drop the thing you disapprove of and go do something you do approve of is inane. But Morrison brought it up, so why not go down his logic road?]. Here's the beauty:

I can appreciate someone like Chris Ware for his artistry, which I think is beautiful, but I think his attitude stinks, it just seems to be the attitude of somebody really privileged, and honestly, try living here, try living on an Indian reservation and shut up, and really seeing all that nihilistic stuff, it really makes me angry, it's unhelpful to all of us, and it's coming from people who have money and success to talk  like that and bring those aspects of the way we live in favor of all the  others, and it's indefensible.

So I never liked that stuff, I  always thought that I had a real Scottish working class thing against  the fact that these were done by privileged American college kids, and  they were telling me the world was flat. "You're telling me the world is  flat, pal?" And it's not helpful, it doesn't get us anywhere. OK, so it  is, then what? What are you going to do about it, college kid? My book wasn't academic. I can't take on those Comics Journal guys, they flattened me, as they did, it's just defensive, smartass kids.

My favorite thing about the above is that he assumes Ware (and I suppose Clowes, whose Death Ray, arguably the seminal superhero comic of the last decade, Morrison ignores in his history of superhero comics), Brown, et al are somehow rich college kids looking down at him and casting bad vibes his way. This coming from the guy who endorsed superhero rape in his superhero history. Bad vibes I guess are only ok if they involve Elongated Man? Grant, baby, it's not a class thing and it's not about nihilism. It's just a different, more complex worldview, that's all. Plus, his assessment of Ware's work simply shows he hasn't read it. Morrison is too smart to have read it and come away with that conclusion. And TCJ certainly hasn't flattened him. In fact, aside from a brief mention from Tim, Supergods hasn't been covered here yet. But we did cover, at length, and positively, The Invisibles. Alas.

Anyhow, that interview is just plain sad. Morrison's a creative guy who has written some excellent comics, but here and in Supergods he seems out of touch, casting about, and adrift in what he more or less admits is his most sustained creation: The character of "Grant Morrison" itself.

On the site today:

We bring you the latest installment of Richard Gehr's mindblowingly great series Know Your New Yorker Cartoonists. This time it's Richard going toe-to-toe with Lee Lorenz. Lorenz is a fascinating artist. Did you know that he was taught by Philip Guston? Me neither.

Philip Guston was one of my teachers at Pratt and became a very good friend. He was best man at my wedding. I’m a great admirer of his work, especially after he turned his back on what became “classical” abstract expressionism. He started doing what people would later call “cartoon figures,” not really cartoons. I had lunch with him one day when I was feeling down, because I hoped I would make some sort of career as a painter. He said, “Let me see what you’re doing.” Well, the cartoons I was doing were certainly not good or very interesting graphically. He told me, “You shouldn’t feel that way. This is a really vital and interesting art form. You should be pleased you can do this.” I thought he was pulling my leg, but he utilized a lot of cartoon clichés himself many years later. This was long before he had that epiphany and changed his whole approach to his art.

Frank is on the road and he's drinking beer and giving out hugs. He will break down your reserves; he will talk to you about comics. He is Frank, and I am glad. Related: Last night I dreamt that SPX had moved to London, and that upon my arrival to London (on a tour bus with CSN & Y and assorted members of Wilco -- Stephen Stills was talking to himself in my dream) I discovered Frank there with boxes, while Jim Rugg told me that Ben Jones had a table, too. Then I woke up, realized this post was overdue, and here I am. Phew.

And elsewhere:

A chain of comic book stores is closing. Tom Spurgeon has the report.

A match made in heaven: Drew Friedman on Plop!

This looks to be some sort of film about men wearing plastic laminates? I'm confused.

Kim Deitch returns with the seventh part of his memoir-via-music, which continues telling the story of his time as a student at Pratt, and covers Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Jody Garland, and Eartha Kitt:

I’m lucky I got through the following twenty years with most of my whole hide. I am very humbly grateful to the man upstairs for that, too. I’ve always had the feeling that there was some kind of good angel watching over me. Take that any way you want. I’m just trying to tell the truth here as I see it. I don’t give a hang about trying to cut some sort of cool figure. I actively hate that kind of shit and there is altogether too much of it running around loose in this world. What I am trying to do is to do my best to pay off my unusually good luck by living a useful life. I may be some kind of a jerk (I guess it runs in the family), but I mean well.

And fan favorite Tucker Stone returns to the site with a review of Ryan Cecil Smith's bizarro sci-fi adventure comic, SF #1:

Smith first came to my attention due to familiarity--not with him, but with Kazuo Umezu, whose story “Blood Baptism” had served as inspiration for an exercise in adaptation that Smith has published in two parts so far. That series, “Two Eyes of the Beautiful”, remains one of the most unnerving pieces of fan-art I’ve read--beyond the plot, Smith’s panels in and of themselves read like adaptations of Umezu's tempo and pitch, copying the emotional noise that Umezu's work resonates with, all while ignoring the obvious temptation to directly clone his cartooning.

Elsewhere....

1. John Porcellino drew a tribute comic to the German publisher Reprodukt. If you ever get a chance to look at some of Reprodukt's books, I highly recommend it —they publish a lot of beautiful stuff.

2. The Ignatz Award nominees have been announced.

3. I don't think we've yet mentioned that the Staten Island branch of Jim Hanley's Universe suffered from pretty severe flooding earlier this week. Jim Hanley's is one of the best comic stores I've ever been to, and worth supporting if you are able to do so.

4. The Graphic Novel Reporter interviews Neil Egan, book designer for AbramsComics.

5. Matt Seneca is clearly wrong to call a particular movie trailer "comics", but it's the kind of "wrong" that hurts no one & helps many to clarify their thoughts. (Full disclosure: I've been similarly wrong myself.)

6. Dana Jennings (a former TCJ contributor!) writes at The New York Times about the latest wave of comics-related art books, and includes a mini-gallery of examples, comparing comics artists to their more highbrow brethren. Comparing Alex Toth to Matisse? Maybe, at least in that particular cover image. Jim Lee as "Dürer on steroids" is slightly tougher to swallow.

Keeping it short today, for lack of time.

Tom De Haven rejoins us for an examination of the textual components of archival editions of old comics. I just made that sound incredibly boring, when in fact it's a great and valuable look at the different approaches to the medium's history. And really, you can't afford not to read anything Tom writes about comics. So there.

That's all I have, folks! Dig in.

Today on the site we bring you the most recent episode of TCJ Talkies, in which host Mike Dawson talks to Lisa Hanawalt about writing funny and drawing at parties.

Also, Rob Clough reviews I Will Bite You, a story collection from up-and-comer Joseph Lambert.

1. Retailer/blogger/TCAF organizer Chris Butcher asked comics creators what they would change about conventions (of the SPX, MoCCA, Stumptown variety) in order to make the artists more money, and got a ton of answers.

2. In the mid-1970s, U.S. copyright laws regarding music publishing were seriously revised, and now for the first time, musicians will legally be allowed to regain control of their songs 35 years after their initial appearance. The artists have to apply for the rights two years in advance, and people like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Loretta Lynn, and Tom Waits all filled out paperwork regarding music from 1978, per the New York Times. Apparently, the record labels apparently aren't going to give up the rights without a big legal battle, so this will probably play out for a while.

Anyway, interesting stuff to keep in mind when thinking about creator rights in comics. It also can't help but make me imagine a world in which pop music was an industry dominated by nothing but songs featuring characters from old Springsteen tunes. Too ridiculous to be believed, I guess.

3. Over at the Mindless Ones, the Doubtful Guest does a little agitation work. I personally find the whole "thrill-power" argument he uses a little doubtful to say the least (as if E.C. Segar alone doesn't prove that a solo artist can provide all the thrills a reader can handle), but your mileage may vary, and the important thing is that another member of a prominent online forum has joined the Marvel boycott.

4. Gary Panter wants to convert you to Peter Saul-ism.

5. I think the people over at the Fantagraphics office need to lay off the Welsh rarebit.

6. Darryl Ayo thinks out loud about representations of race in comics.

7. I haven't read the anthology under review by Craig Fischer, but I have seen the "Hipster Hitler" stuff before, and Fischer's right on.

I found an old, small piece of myself last month that I didn’t even know I’d lost. And the tale of what I misplaced is a fable about mortality, the raw power of trauma, the whim of memory — and The Comics Journal.

This is what was unexpectedly returned to me: a 2,000-word article that I wrote more than 25 years ago for The Comics Journal that I can’t recall writing, that I never saw in print.

It wasn’t like the hundreds of articles I reported and typed in a frenzy when I started out as a punk reporter in rural New Hampshire. This was a magazine article written for a national publication (modest, yes) back when I considered every 250 or 500 words sold another brick in the potential cathedral of my career.

But there it sat — 2,000 words of prime amnesia.

The article lurks in The Comics Journal No. 94, printed on the cheap paper of its day that, in its dotage, carries the sweet reek of decaying pulp. My article was about Futuropolis, a Paris publisher then of vintage American comic strips like Segar’s "Thimble Theatre", Herriman’s "Krazy Kat" and Eisner’s "The Spirit".

And there it waits, on Page 56 of The Comics Journal No. 94. It bears my name, the words sound like me, but I don’t recognize it. And reading it makes me feel queasy, as if  I’ve stepped sideways and backwards into some Philip K. Dick mind-scape.

I retrieved this fugitive in a thoroughly modern manner. As I scanned the The Comics Journal web site recently I noticed the article index. I did remember an article on Will Eisner and the Angouleme, France, comics festival I wrote that appeared in The Comics Journal No. 89 — and I was thrilled to get the byline and the $35. I keyed in my name.

Up popped No. 89 … and the wholly uncanny No. 94. I clicked to Amazon right away, snagged a copy for three bucks — and that’s how the article ghosted into my possession. When I glanced at the cover (Moebius, Crepax, Kojima and more) then read the article, all it did was make my head hurt. It wasn’t until I saw the magazine’s date — October 1984 — that I finally understood.

1984, the year I turned 27, was a tough one. A manageable case of ulcerative colitis, diagnosed two years before, turned feral. I kept working — writing and editing — but in a colitis-induced fog.

When I think about 1984 I recall the betrayal of my immune system, of my body undone by pain and blood loss. Ultimately, in October, I ended up in the hospital — my lips blue, my ribs stark against skin as pale as skim milk. I spent six week in the hospital, got 27 pints of blood, and had my entire colon cut out. Then I convalesced at home for another three months.

What’s an article in the face of eternity … of mortality?

This is what I think happened. As sick as I was in early ’84 I soldiered on — a deadline is a deadline, after all — wrote my article, mailed it off and forgot about it as I worried about my health. Serious illness brings clarity, burns away the underbrush of your life.

I wasn’t fretting over my meager words and The Comics Journal. In October 1984 I grappled with the power of physical trauma and wrestled for my future. As for copies of No. 94, maybe The Comics Journal forgot to mail them to me, or they might’ve got dumped in the trash. But I never saw them, never got my memory — overwhelmed by sickness — jogged by their presence.

Then, as I recovered, I looked straight ahead. My wife and I were ready to start a family. I needed to write another draft of my first novel, there were articles to be written and edited — a career to chase once more.

I put 1984 behind me, save for the sharp memories from the country of near-death. And my 2,000 words about Futuropolis got abandoned, got stuck in that year. My memory — as traumatized as my body  — let that tiny part of me go, ceded a small death.

Staring at that Comics Journal article from 27 years ago now, I still feel wary, somehow unmoored in time. But, too, I realize, I’m looking at other unlikely survivors — article and magazine — from October 1984.

Today on the site:

Writer Dana Jennings discovers a piece of himself in an old issue of The Comics Journal.

Up popped No. 89 … and the wholly uncanny No. 94. I clicked to Amazon right away, snagged a copy for three bucks — and that’s how the article ghosted into my possession. When I glanced at the cover (Moebius, Crepax, Kojima and more) then read the article, all it did was make my head hurt. It wasn’t until I saw the magazine’s date — October 1984 — that I finally understood.

Reliably, today our man Jog brings you the week in comics.

And, elsewhere around town, it's all about lawsuits and masked men:

The estate of Bob Montana is suing Steve Geppi for non-payment for a massive artwork sale. But the story gets weird from there. It's an intriguing one, with wider (though at this point, just rumored) implications for Geppi's Diamond.

And, as expected, the Kirby heirs are appealing the recent summary judgment against their claims.

Paul Tumey has a great Jack Cole Midnight story posted, with analysis.