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Today on the site, Alex Dueben interviews Miss Lasko-Gross. Here's how their talk begins:

How do you describe [your new book] Henni?

The adventures of a dangerously curious young girl/cat, who's desire for truth exposes some truly unsavory secrets. Henni is forced to flee her insular village to avoid death by stoning and venture out into an unknown and hostile world. It's a bit of a fairy tale as well as an allegory about the dangers of fundamentalism.

I was inspired by Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel to consider what life would be like in a world with an extreme paucity of natural resources. What direction would social evolution take with no domesticated animals, extremely limited metal and communication options. It's a very post modern fantasy, instead of adding magical or romantic elements, I've subtracted many of the casual miracles which have driven our history.

Where did the idea for the book come from?

I was working on a pretty grim piece of non-fiction–about a friend of mine who was injured in an explosion–and started Henni as a side project for the House of Twelve Comixology app. I had only meant to do the bare minimum for the app, but as I worked the story began flowing and expanding into a complete book.

Graphic novels take years to complete, and there isn't much sustainable money in it, so there's really no reason to labor on anything you're not passionate about. Henni is the kind of story I've always loved as a reader, kinetic, strange and full of juicy little surprises. So, basically, I abandoned the other project and threw myself into Henni with no regrets.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—Funnies. Alison Bechdel has drawn and published online a "coda" to Fun Home, just as the Broadway adaptation is about to premiere.

—Interviews & Profiles. NJ.com talks to Kitchen Sink Press founder Denis Kitchen. Inkstuds talks to Lale Westvind.

—Reviews & Commentary. While accepting the George Polk Career Award, Garry Trudeau delivered a speech criticizing Charlie Hebdo.

For Artforum, Kaelin Wilson-Goldie has a long, somewhat complicated take on satire, caricature, and censorship in the cartooning cultures of both France and the Middle East.

Domingos Isabelinho was disappointed by Jan Baetens & Hugo Frey's new The Graphic Novel: An Introduction, from Cambridge University Press.

For The Guardian, Rachel Cooke reviews Julie Birmant & Clément Oubrerie's Pablo. At Broken Frontier, Tom Murphy looks at the first two issues of Ley Lines (featuring Annie Mok and Warren Craghead).

—News. Richard McGuire and Winston Rowntree have won the Slate Cartoonist Studio Prize.

We've got two reviews for you this morning. First up is Bob Levin writing about the first three issues of Aaron Lange's fairly scabrous-sounding Trim. Here's a sample of Levin:

Since 2013, Lange has been on a comic-a-year jag with Trim (The Comix Company), a 28-page, five-and-a-half-by-eight-and-a-half-inch, color-covered, black-and-white of, to use his word, “transgressive” humor, which reads like a 3AM walk down a back alley, with windows you didn’t expect opening into shops you can’t quite believe were licensed, and from whose contents you slightly recoil, only to recognize enough relief at their public availability that, while stepping faster to flee, you stare more intently at each one. Then you turn around to check you weren’t mistaken. (Trim’s predecessor, Romp, reads like an alley you – unless your sensibility comes more sturdily carapaced than mine – step into, and then withdraw to spend twenty minutes scraping your shoe clean on the curb. Romp is an – okay, perhaps necessarily boundary-busting – exercise in its gleeful expression of effrontery; but I found it a positive for Lange’s maturation that, with Trim, his characters no longer discharge bodily fluids upon their sexual partners as tokens of their affections.)

Lange, though, still displays a uniquely configured, mind, capable of scooping from the cultural souk references to and “appreciations” of such figures as Damien Hirst, Georges Bataille, William Burroughs, Zoe Lund, Elliot Rodgers, and Slavoj Zizek, which, you have to admit, is quite a collection of cats to stuff into one sack. (Reading Lange, it helps to keep Wikipedia handy. Me, I knew two of those six, unassisted.)

Next we have Rob Clough's review of the first two issues of Ink Brick, an anthology of comics-as-poetry. Here Rob goes:

The subgenre of comics-as-poetry has been exploding of late, with an anthology of that name being published a couple of years ago and several artists forming collectives such as Team Weird Comics as both a collaborative and motivational measure. Still, it wasn't until the first issue of Ink Brick came out in 2014 that a regularly scheduled publication devoted solely to comics-as-poetry emerged. Ink Brick casts a wide net on comics-as-poetry, including the sort of experimentation for its own sake that I feel falls outside of poetry as well as some instances of mere illustrated poems. For the most part, however, the submissions here are great examples of combining word and image in immersive and evocative ways as well as creating worlds both abstract and concrete.

The editors-in-chief are Alexander Rothman and Paul K. Tunis, with Gary Sullivan and Bianca Stone being listed as editors. Rothman's own comics work has advanced quite a bit since he first began; he has moved beyond simply illustrating a poem and improved his line such that it can now carry the poetic narrative almost entirely on its own. His use of negative space in his poem "Keeping Time" helps create that sense of heat, of time clicking by slowly, while bees devour sugar from a nearby soda can as a hot summer day bursts open with rain.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—Reviews & Commentary. Bart Beaty again at the What Were Comics? site with a strong post on the formal properties of Alison Bechdel's Fun Home. I hope they can keep up the momentum there; it's a very promising site.

Brian Nicholson writes about Devin Flynn's Hawd Tales, and ponders the reviewer's responsibilities when writing about an artist tackling tricky subject matter.

As previously mentioned in our comments section, DVD Talk has a review of the new digital "motion" version of Dave Sim's High Society.

Rob Clough catches up to recent work by the prolific Noah Van Sciver.

—Interviews & Profiles. The New York Times profiles Alison Bechdel again, just as the Broadway version of her Fun Home is about to debut.

Heidi MacDonald talks to Comix Experience owner Brian Hibbs about his San Francisco store's new graphic novel club and why he's felt compelled to start it. (He attributes it to a minimum-wage hike.)

Darwyn Cooke continues to avoid (or be in denial about) the actual issue people have with his involvement in Before Watchmen.

—Publishing News. Koyama Press has announced their fall 2015 lineup; it's typically very strong-looking.

Today on the site Frank Santoro brings us up to date on the world of back issues.

Went to the dollar sale out at the secret spot. Me, Jim Rugg and Jasen Lex. It was three different buildings. An old GC Murphy store, a VFW hall, and an old smallish storefront.

I’d never been in the VFW before. Despite the warm weather outside it was freezing inside because the place hadn’t been heated all winter. We only stayed for a few minutes. I found a Frazetta romance reprint.

Over at the main building we waded through the crowded aisles and dug for hours. Then Lex and I found a stash of coverless romances from the 1940s and 50s. It was like leafing through a dank basement if such a thing could be materialized as a pile of comic books. They just stank and little bits of dried newsprint would flake off all over us when we looked through one. But it was worth it. I scored a half dozen Simon and Kirby romances and a stack of really bizarre Charles Burns-esque looking material. I never see old cheap romances anymore ever. So I was fine with smelling like a sewer for them. 

Elsewhere:

Drawn & Quarterly previews its massive anniversary book.

Sammy Harkham announces pre-orders for his newest issue of Crickets. I have read chunks of this issue and it's sure to be the best narrative comic you'll read this year. Masterpiece level.

Michael Barrier's DELL book, reviewed by Paul Gravett.

The NY Times on a spate of new, internationally-focused Pop art exhibitions, taking in oft-forgotten greats like Erro.

Finally, there is this great video by Lale Westvind for the stellar new Lightning Bolt record:

Today on the site, Jay Ruttenberg (who many of you may know from The Lowbrow Reader) interviews musician/cartoonist Jeffrey Lewis about his dual career. Here's a small sample of that.

You found an audience for your music fairly quickly, right?

I had been making the rounds with my comic books, doing the rejection letter thing. Meanwhile, while I was getting rejection letters for my comic books, I was getting more and more acceptance for the music and ended up with Rough Trade Records signing me. It was this incredible, bizarre thing to happen. I had never sent my music to record labels or to clubs the way I was sending my comics and getting rejection letters! With music, everybody was coming to me. Bands started asking me to go on tour with them. I was like, “This is great. I don’t have to get a day job—this will be great for drawing my comics.”

And how’d that work out?

It didn’t! The amount of time it takes to book concerts and all that stuff is all-consuming. So I probably draw less comics than ever. But I just managed to do two more issues of Fuff. And my album packaging is always some kind of elaborate design. Look at this packaging [2007’s 12 Crass Songs CD]—I should have won a Grammy! See, there’s a disconnect between the realms. When the label sends out the CD to reviewers, it’s in some blank slipcase. So none of the reviewers know that I put more time into the packaging than I put into the recording.

When you started, how much of a lark was music?

It was not a career goal at all. Which is not to say that I didn’t think the songs were really good. I knew I couldn’t sing and I knew I couldn’t play. But I also knew that I was expressing things in a way that affected me and felt powerful to me. And in some ways, it was a comic-book aesthetic. Joe Matt’s Peepshow comic was as much an influence on my songs as any songwriter.

How so?

Just the idea of, Okay, your life is crap. But if you can express that, it’s so funny. It’s just a way to turn tragedy—all of your loneliness and terrible habits—into comedy. Today that’s a bit of a cliché. Oh great, another confessional comic or songwriter—spare me. But at that time, it was a revelation to me. And it fed into my songs, which are more influenced by Joe Matt and Chester Brown than by Bob Dylan or what-have-you. There’s a huge amount of comic-book stuff in my head that feeds into the way I think of language and pacing in the songwriting.

—Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—Interviews & Profiles. The LA Times talks to Scott McCloud and the Chicago Tribune talks to Lucy Knisley.

—News. Prominent SF retailer Comix Experience is launching a graphic novel club to increase business, and attributing the need for the move to a local recent hike in the minimum wage.

—Commentary. Bart Beaty is trying to decide if The Spirit counts as a comic book.

—Not (Exactly) Comics. Fans of the aforementioned Lowbrow Reader may not yet know that its cover artist John Mathias had a book come out recently, a collaboration with writer Brian Abrams called Party Like a President; it includes many Mathias cartoons.

—Video. This is the weekend of the MoCCA festival in New York, and Friday night marks the debut of Tough Being Loved by Jerks, a new documentary on Charlie Hebdo:

It's Tuesday, so Joe has recovered from his 2000 A.D. journey and is here to bring you the week in comics.

Elsewhere:

The biggest news on the comics internet is the announcement of Dan Clowes' next graphic novel, albeit obliquely and without any details. But a very fine teaser indeed. Kudos to corporate overlords Fantagraphics for bringing him back in the van.

Speaking of Fanta, Eric Reynolds tweeted out this amazing Zippy strip. Heh.

I don't think I've ever seen a photo of this long-rumored Percy Crosby mural, and it's better than I hoped.

And, not comics here: A fine interview on criticism with Robert Storr.

Today, Frank Thorne and Hy Eisman share their memories of Fred Fredericks, the cartoonist who drew the Mandrake the Magician strip for half a century. Here's an excerpt from Thorne:

Fred was the fastest ink-slinger in the West in that he treasured the old Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers movies, but also was the fastest comic artist alive. Period. And his stuff always displays a stunning freshness. I’d seen his work, admired it, but never thought we’d have him living just a few miles from us in Gillette, NJ. “Burial place of the MGM lion!” Fred would boast. How Fredericksian! Of course, Franny would shoot him down with “The lion was buried somewhere in Sterling!” (The adjoining town.) Actually, over the years, town fathers, visualizing a lucrative tourist attraction, have been trying to locate the grave, turning to trans-mediums, mystics and dowsers. They thought they’d found the bones in one location, but they were remains of a dead whale. It was positively identified as once belonging to a traveling carnival. The leviathan died en route to Gillette and the carcass began to stink, so the roustabouts dubbed it “Smelly Dave.” The boney mass still lies beneath an isolated greensward on the edge of town. The locals say that on steamy summer nights the odor of old Smelly still lingers.

In the late ’50s, just before we met, Fred and Franny were a newly married couple living the Bohemian life in Greenwich Village in lower Manhattan. Fred was fresh from a three-year service in the Marine Corps, most memorably under the gimlet eye of General “Chesty Puller,” a name that always brought a scalding laugh from Franny, who often belittled his Marine service in casual conversation. Fred often quoted Fran’s remark when they visited the Marine Corps Museum in Quantico, Va.: “There’s all these Marine heroes, and then there’s you.”

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—News. The Doug Wright Awards have announced their nominations.

Malaysian cartoonist Zunar was charged last Friday with nine counts of sedition.

—Interviews & Profiles. Michael Cavna talks to Robert Russell, executive director of CRNI (Cartoonists Rights Network International).

Part II of Pádraig Ó Méalóid's latest long interview with Alan Moore covers Crossed and H.P. Lovecraft.

Youth in Decline has posted four interviews with creators featured in their Frontier series: Hellen Jo, Sascha Hommer, Ping Zhu, and Sam Alden.

—Reviews & Commentary. D&Q publisher Chris Oliveros remembers Yoshihiro Tatsumi for The Paris Review.

Steven Heller previews the republication of Milt Gross' New York. Here's hoping editor Craig Yoe doesn't draw all over Gross's pages.

Comics writer Joshua Hale Fialkov says that comics artists work harder than writers, and should be rewarded accordingly.

I never should have doubted it. Today, at along last, Tucker Stone and Joe McCulloch present some kind of overview of of 2000 A.D. I hope this serves as... who knows? I don't go to comic book stores anymore! If one opened up again in my neighborhood, I'd probably start reading Matt Fraction comics. Anyhow, I'll let Joe explain:

The Comics Journal has looked at 2000 AD before, and interestingly enough for a magazine now mostly (and not undeservedly) associated with elitism, it looked upon 2000 AD and the reprinted classics with no small measure of affection. During the time period when Brian Bolland was composing new covers for the Quality reprints of Dredd and other semi-popular stories, the 122nd issue devoted itself almost entirely to British Comics. Behind a Brian Bolland cover that represents both how America views itself as well as how much Britain likes to yank its chain for being so serious about everything, the Journal pretty much stuck to praising the comic, remarking that it was pretty much the best thing that the Brits had produced. They weren’t wrong to do so at the time, and while the art and alt comics scene has certainly become a force to reckon with, 2000 AD is still a thing that the Redcoats (whatever) can hold up as a sterling example of comics as pure entertainment.

Beginning in 2010, Simon & Schuster took over the role of publishing collections of 2000 AD material in hopes of reaching a U.S. audience. What follows is an attempt to give this work some measure of context, review, discussion and/or responsssssssss *ss*sSSsssssssss*ss*SsssssSssssssssSsSss*ssSs*SSsSSSSss
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Hi, this is Joe McCulloch. You might know me from the treasures of wisdom I impart each and every week in the shopping list column elsewhere on this site, but today I am addressing you from the crossroads of time! To the best of my knowledge, the preceding text was written by Tucker Stone at some point in 2011; at that time, Tucker was not yet an active columnist for the Journal, though his keen interest in 2000 AD — coupled with his formidable work as a blogger and outside columnist — had led the editors of this site (then not yet a year into its present incarnation) to suggest he write an overview of the 2000 AD collected editions which Simon & Schuster had begun releasing in North America the year prior. This publishing endeavor remains a work in progress – as did this essay, until earlier this week.

I had initially entered the picture in 2013, when Tucker had approached me with the idea of turning his overview into a dialogue between the two of us. I didn’t (and don’t) own many of the S&S books — which, for the purposes of clarity, are sometimes new collections of 2000 AD comics released especially for the North American market, but more often are simply slight variants on UK editions printed in (or sometimes just distributed to) the United States — but I had read many of the component parts. I do not know if this was intended to speed up the process, but suffice to say involving me in something like that is not so much leaving a fox to guard the henhouse as actually cooking the chickens for the fox and then fastening a bib around its neck. For months (years) we picked at a Google doc, while Simon & Schuster kept publishing books. Lest we forget, 2000 AD itself continued to publish a new issue almost every week. Tucker suspended his Journal column, became a comics publisher, accepted an industry job and his family grew; life took over. As luck would have it, however, *I* remained in complete personal and professional stasis, which made me the ideal candidate for posting something resembling a finished product on tcj.com for all of you to enjoy. Everything written by me appears in italics, while everything by Tucker will look normal.

And that's going to have to be enough! It's a day off today!

Mike Dawson returns with a new episode of TCJ Talkies, in which he and Zack Soto discuss Mark Waid and Alex Ross's Kingdom Come.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—News. Mad writer Tom Koch has passed away. Paul Levitz remembers Lobo co-creator Roger Slifer. BK Munn has an obituary for Canadian Dell artist Mel Crawford.

Malaysian satirist Zunar will reportedly face sedition charges tomorrow.

—Audio/Video. There's a lot of new comics-related podcasts out there. Drew Friedman just appeared on WTF. Ed Luce is on Inkstuds. (Robin McConnell of Inkstuds just launched a Patreon site, by the way.) Josh Bayer is a guest on Comics for Grownups.

Comics Studies Society has just posted a video of a lecture Bart Beaty gave earlier this year, "Qui Est Charlie Hebdo?"

—Reviews & Commentary. Jonathan Guyer at Nieman Reports takes a long look at the world of political cartooning and how it has dealt with various recent events.

Scott Cederlund reviews the newest Love & Rockets.

Bart Croonenborghs reviews the Christin & Balez Robert Moses book.

—Interviews & Profiles. ComicsDC has posted a new excerpt from The Art of Richard Thompson, featuring a conversation between Thompson and Bill Watterson.

JT Dockery talks to Gary Panter about Philip K Dick.

Tom Spurgeon talks to Jen Vaughn, who's leaving Fantagraphics to go freelance.

Brigid Alverson talks to Spike Trotman about making money out of comics (which she knows how to do).

Canadian Art interviews Wendy creator Walter Scott.

CBR talks to Don Rosa about Carl Barks and Donald Duck.

The Philly Voice profiles several local female cartoonists.

—Misc. Secret Acres has their first con report of the year, from RIPE.

This Vox list of 50 comic books that explain comic books is only good if you're trying to explain comics to an monolingual American who is a little freaked out by comics that don't feature superheroes (and if you don't read the captions).

CBR finished posting the results of their poll on the 50 best female comic book writers and artists. It too is very superhero-centric, as you'd expect considering the CBR readership. Also, I understand why they split it into writer and artist categories, but I think that led to some skewed results. If Carol Tyler can't crack the top 50, the list is bunk.

Paste has their own list of women who changed the comics industry.

I don't understand this Nudes Reading Minicomics Tumblr. [UPDATED TO ADD: Jinx.]

Hi, today it's Brian Nicholson interviewing Connor Willumsen:

So I really like that comic Swinespritzen a lot, which reminds me of Philip Guston a lot and Ben Jones also, so I’m sort of interested in new influences, but there’s also that quote someone said about Guston, “a mandarin pretending to be a stumblebum,” as he made the transition from abstract expressionism to the more cartoony figures, and I was wondering if, when you draw in more straight-forward or cartoony, or dumbed-down style, especially since Swinespritzen is about art and trying to draw, do you find it preferable, or do you find it “cheating,” like it’s using a shortcut, or is it faster, in any way?

No it’s not really any of these things to me. I definitely don’t qualify it in relationship to something I’ll do like an underdrawing for. I don’t qualify it as faster or dumber. I’m not intentionally trying to do something “stupid” when I make it. The way that particular comic looks is more of a result of how I draw it and where I chose to draw it. It’s more of a result of circumstances than it is a decision to be or think in a certain way. That comic was drawn on loose-leaf tear-out pages from a drug store notebook that was quite thin with a thin ball-point pen. That alone had an effect on the way it looked because I was restricted from being able to do certain things. It was less flexible. So I had to make deliberate movements that would accomodate that surface, which tended to be simplistic in profile. At times I would get in trouble with space organization and I’d have to overlap things. and I couldn’t be too clever about making things clear I had to be more blunt. The result of that is a more naive appearance at times but I made no effort to diminish technical prowess or whatever it is the quality distinction we’re making between that and something that looks more conventional or commercial or whatever.

What are your tools generally?

Well I have them here. It’s pretty simplistic. I try to use simple paper as much as possible. Inexpensive materials, loose papers. I use this little ballpoint pen here, that’s more thin than a normal ballpoint pen. This is the pen I did Swinespritzen in. Thin line pencils. Really simple. What I do and how it looks is a result of making my studio space as portable as possible. I’d like all of my supplies to fit into a relatively small backpack, if possible.

Elsewhere:

The filmmaker Susan Stern has revived her late husband Spain's classic character Big Bitch for a series of animated shorts.

Anne Ishii has gathered a pretty hilarious group of quotes from Japanese cartoonist Jraiya during his visit to the US.

And, via Kim Deitch comes this amazing bit of early Disney animation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H58meqbp5Ps&list=PL1FEC991B4F3ACBCF&feature=share

It's the day of the week when Joe McCulloch brings us all his guide to the Week in Comics!, with spotlight picks from Étienne Davodeau and Hiroaki Samura.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—Interviews & Profiles. At The Paris Review, Nicole Rudick has a typically great interview with the Zap cartoonist and poster artist Victor Moscoso. (And if you missed it, Nicole wrote about Zap for us earlier this year.)

And The Beat talks to Hope Larson about adapting Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time.

—News. The parent who initially complained about Gilbert Hernandez's Palomar being shelved at the Rio Rancho High School library is appealing the recent decision to retain the book.

—Reviews & Commentary. Sarah Horrocks wrote about Sam Alden's Hawaii 1997, and Berliac wrote another piece in response.

Hayley Campbell gives her time as a comic-shop employee the BuzzFeed treatment.

—Misc. Discussing his reading history with the Globe & Mail, novelist Tom McCarthy praises Hergé.

Welcome to the working week. Today we have Gary Groth in conversation with Irwin Hasen for what was his final extensive interview.

GROTH: Any other stories from the old days you want to tell?

HASEN: I went to a whorehouse one night. I came back to my buddies and said, “You bastards, I got laid.”

GROTH: How old were you?

HASEN: Around 17 or 18. A prizefighter took me up there. The gangsters sent me up there. I mean it. [When] I worked for a boxing magazine called Bang Magazine, gangsters were all over. One day I’m sitting at a typewriter while the boss is in bed with some woman, and this guy comes into the office, wearing a gray suit. That was Bugsy Siegel’s partner. I’m sitting at the typewriter. He’s a famous murderer. Forgot his name. How quick you forget famous murderers. And as he’s leaving he turns around to me and tells Billy Stevens, my boss, he said, “The kid’s got pimples, get him laid.” [Groth laughs] And he turned around and left. Izzy Singer was a prizefighter—right there, his picture’s up on my wall [pointing to a photograph]. He was sitting and reading the comics and my boss says “Izzy, here’s ten bucks, get the kid laid. Take him uptown.” He took me uptown and I’m shaking like a leaf, I’m 17. I felt like I was gonna crap in my pants. Izzy Singer took me uptown on the subway and he takes me to an apartment building up on 97th Street. I’ll never forget it: whorehouse. And a girl opens the door and says, “What’s this?” “Billy wants to get him fixed up.” And she took me into her room—and a gentle lovely lady, it could’ve been worse. I’ll never forget her, and she says, “Take it easy, relax.” And I got through and it was a gentle sex thing for a young kid. I go up to my buddies who were playing cards on the floor in their home. And I come into the room with them sitting there, and I’ll never forget their look, I said, “You sons of bitches, I got laid this morning.” This is from the gangster. He’s a tiny guy, murderer. One of the worst murderers—I forgot his name. So that’s what happened.

News:

Charlie Hebdo Scoop: "From April Fool's day,” a source at Charlie Hebdo told TCJ, "using an international team, the weekly will also boast an English-language version. After issue #1179 (25 February), we debuted a digital version designed for smartphones and tablets. Now, starting with CHARLIE #1184, every week's paper will appear in English. Our application is available on iPhone and iPad, for Android tablets and smartphones and for Windows 8.1. The application is free, but each issue will cost €2.99 (euros). Subscriptions, via http://charliehebdo.fr, are also available. Francophone fans abroad will still have the digital option."

Elsewhere:

Palomar has passed a review and will remain in the Rio Rancho, NM libraries.

It's new Peter Bagge!

The sex-comic/Spider-Man connection continues: Bill Ward assisted John Romita in the 1960s.

R.C. Harvey is here today with an obituary for Roy Doty, grand old man of the NCS. Here is how Harvey begins:

Roy Doty’s line is immaculate, naked and unadorned and therefore vulnerable. With a more complex line—one that waxes and wanes with great flexibility, say—little mistakes in the drawing are overlooked, ignored amid the flash and filagree of virtuoso linear flourishes. But with a “clear line,” there’s no room for mistakes. A clean, uncluttered line is unforgiving: every tiny flaw in composition or anatomy leaps out, shrieking for attention. But the pictures Roy Doty drew are silent and well-behaved. No shrieks. Just sheer unadulterated competence.

Doty, too, was unadulterated. But not silent. In declining health since suffering a stroke late last year, he died March 18, defiant, I like to think, to the very end.

He was 93. He always scoffed at the idea of retirement. “Retire from what?” he’d say. “You have to have a job first.”

He was a proud freelancer and had been all his working life. “I have an unblemished work record,” he’d say. “I have never held a job in my life, and I intend to keep it that way.” He was a cartoonist, artist and illustrator, creating humorous pictures in books and magazines, packaging, advertising, comic strips and television.

We also have Rob Clough's review of the most recent Eric Haven book, UR:

Ur has two meanings: it is a reference to an ancient Sumerian city, and also a word indicating that something is the most original, basic or primal form of something. In Eric Haven's comic UR, he gets at the dark and primal portions of his own imagination, as attractive bartenders are actually reptilian monsters and the world can crack in half at any time. It's also a reference to the sort of comics that clearly influence him, especially Marvel comics from the 1960s. It's not so much the stories that seem to interest him but rather the trappings: the weirdness, the emotional exaggerations, and the frequent stiffness of the art. His goal is not to imitate it nor even parody it, but to celebrate it in the most absurd and strange manner possible.

Above all else, and despite the fact that it's listed as "Mature/Adventure/Superhero/Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror" on the back cover, UR is at its heart humorous. Darkly humorous at times, to be sure, but there are dozens of superb punchlines to be found here. Take "The Equestrian", for example. This is a plotless story about the titular character (a ghoulish, near-skeletal jockey) intent on destruction for its own sake. First she uses her riding crop to smash a lighthouse, causing a ship to run aground. Then she takes out an airplane's engine, causing it to crash. Then she strikes the ground twice and destroys the earth. The end. Haven perfectly gets down that EC Comics-style appearance minus the explanatory narrative and builds the story up in a rhythm that escalates the action until it reaches an over-the-top ending. It's not funny, per se, but it has the rhythm of a joke and embraces its own silliness.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—Reviews & Commentary. Dorian Lynskey has an article at The Guardian about recent more woman-friendly titles (and recent controversies) at Marvel and DC. It upholds the proud tradition of headlining all articles on comics with the word "Kapow," and is obviously very superhero-centric, but is otherwise a fairly solid piece.

—Interviews. At The Beat, Pádraig Ó Méalóid has begun another one of his regular, highly readable, multi-part interviews with Alan Moore.

—Crowdfunding. Julia Wertz is looking for funding for a followup to Drinking at the Movies, but is doing it on her own site rather than through Kickstarter or Patreon. (She also has a three-page story up on The New Yorker's website, about the lost decades when pinball was an illegal activity in NYC.)

I don't think we've previously mentioned that Michael DeForge is on Patreon now, but if we have, it's still worth repeating.

—Funnies. Ger Apeldoorn has posted some Roy Doty Laugh-In strips.

Today:

Ryan Holmberg returns with a look at an interesting comics initiative in Mumbai.

Recently Dharavi [an area in Mumbai] midwifed an interesting comics project. There are more than a hundred NGOs active in Mumbai’s slums, engaged in issues ranging from tenancy rights and access to potable water to literacy and social tolerance. The one that concerns us isSNEHA (Society for Nutrition, Education, and Health Action), based primarily in Dharavi and dedicated to women’s and children’s health. According to the organization’s website, “SNEHA targets four large public health areas – Maternal and Newborn Health, Child Health and Nutrition, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Prevention of Violence against Women and Children. It recognizes that in order to improve urban health standards, its initiatives must target both care seekers and care providers. It works at the community level to empower women and slum communities to be catalysts of change in their own right and collaborate with existing public health systems and health care providers to create sustainable improvements in urban health.”

Elsewhere:

Here is the video of Norman Hathaway's superb interview with Victor Moscoso a few weeks back.

The late editor Archie Goodwin gets a deserved hometown tribute.

Comics adjacent: Nayland Blake talks sculpture.

Totally not comics: Luc Sante can write about anything and do it really, really well.

Today, we are happy to present the Comics Journal debut of Tasha Robinson, who has conducted a lengthy interview with Scott McCloud about the ending of The Sculptor, which she believes is "easily its most controversial and difficult element." If you don't like spoilers, avoid this interview until you've read the book. Here's a short sample of their talk:

You said you don’t mean for his final work to come across as a masterpiece, though it’s hard to see that from the story.

No, I don’t. Though I don’t want to say one way or another. I don’t even think it’s an interesting question. [Laughter.] How it stands up as art is completely beside the point. He’s keeping a promise, and creating something that can’t be ignored in the bargain. But almost accidentally. Almost as a proxy for her.

The proxy aspect is bothersome. It feels like David’s trying to recreate Meg, as he has at so many other points in the story, for various reasons. And his last act is looping back to this thing he’s done multiple times in the past. It feels like after all the growth he’s been through, he still hasn’t learned much.

I don’t think that’s true. I think he’s learned quite a lot. But what he chooses to make—it’s two things. It’s her, and we’ve established that he has this preternatural memory for detail, so we hope he would have the chops to do this. That was important from the get-go. But in the end, all he can do is honor his promise to her. And what he chooses as an image is something from their recent past, when she’s outside St. Patrick’s cathedral, tossing the baby in the air. But it’s also about what she said to the baby in that scene. That’s his way of also acknowledging that it’s all down here.

It’s hard for me to explain why, for me, it feels like the right image. But I think he’s learned a lot. The only problem is that he can’t apply it all. He can’t apply the acceptance he’s learned, because that’s been taken away from him. I suppose he’s going to a smaller place inside his mind, of just being with her. It’s one last communion, one last message, one last interaction with her, almost to the point where she still exists for him. She’s still there, suspended in that moment. Something he’s been doing all along is to try to stop time, to stop the clock. This time he’s just stopping it on her. He knows he can’t bring her back. He can honor a commitment, he just can’t conjure her back to life, any more than Harry could. But he can at least, in his last moments, go back to a place where she’s still there.

We are also publishing Brandon Soderberg's review of the new Guy Colwell collection, Inner City Romance:

The sociopolitical parables of Inner City Romance, an underground comic published between 1972 and 1978 are pure, uncut products of cagey, post-Sixties radicalism. Across five issues,  cartoony-photorealist from the Bay Guy Colwell shakes off his free love hangover and wrestles with the disillusionment that pops-up once idealism hits a wall. More often than not, an Inner City Romance story ends with a shocking moment of politically loaded brutality that acknowledges how much work still needs to be done. There's no other underground comic quite like this one.

Let's start with Colwell at his most successfully blunt: "Sex Crime," a didactic stunner from issue #5. We witness a woman raped in an alley by a white man, only to be stopped by another white man who also takes it upon himself to assault her. She shoots the second rapist, and then, an African-American man, dressed in a Black Panther turtleneck comes to her aid after hearing the shots and the woman shoots and kills him without hesitation, a big bullet hole blasted through his chest. The whole thing is drawn in a reedy, EC Comics pop-expressionist style, but devastating in its neorealist moralizing. And although this black character is a clear cut, tragic victim of circumstance, Colwell still doesn't indulge the idealizing-the-underclass-and-minorities hippie-dippie nonsense common amongst even engaged white outsiders. Spending nearly two years in prison for non-cooperation during the draft presumably added a lived-in pragmatism to his characterizations.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—News. Two Turkish cartoonists, Bahadır Baruter and Özer Aydoğan, have just been sentenced to 11 months in prison over a magazine cover that supposedly "insults" Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The CRNI has more background on recent government attempts to persecute Turkish cartoonists.

Eleven staff members of Charlie Hebdo are asking for stock options in the magazine.

Zunar has announced he will seek legal action against Malaysian police for returning damaged art.

After a recent controversy about shelving Tintin in America in a Winnipeg branch of Chapters, the same book has now been pulled from the Winnipeg public library system, pending review.

—Interviews & Profiles. The always great conversationalist Dylan Horrocks is the latest guest on Inkstuds.

Kaulie Lewis spoke to Alison Bechdel shortly after her MacArthur grant win.

Alex Dueben talks to Stan Sakai about his planned return to Usagi Yojimbo.

Zainab Akhtar talks to Jen Lee about her upcoming Vacancy.

—Reviews & Commentary. June Chua has a short look at Cartoonists: Foot Soldiers of Democracy, a new documentary showing at the Toronto film festival this weekend.

At The Guardian, Jennifer Lucy Allan writes about her personal relationship with the work of Yoshihiro Tatsumi.

Frédérik Sisa reviews Noah Berlatsky's Wonder Woman book.

Today Joe McCulloch brings you the comics of the week.

Elsewhere:

The illustrator and illustration historian Walt Reed, best known for The Illustration House gallery and his essential and unmatched the Illustrator in America, 1860-2000, has passed away. DB Dowd has a lovely appreciation up on his blog.

Dangerous Minds has a preview of a book I'm much intrigued with: Pulp Macabre: The Art of Lee Brown Coye's Final and Darkest Era, which collects the great pulp artist's work from the late 1960s and 70s. These spare and terrifying drawings, which call to mind contemporary artists like Noel Freibert and Carlos Gonzales, were published mostly in fanzines and small press books during the tail-end of the great rediscovery of pulp art. This was an effort led by and large by fans, with no real support except each other. It's an amazing thing... people tracking down beloved artists, many no longer producing and coaxing them back to the drawing board. Pulp history, like comics history, was largely the invention of "fans", without whom we simply wouldn't have...  history. In Coye's case the results were stunning: minimal drawings of fallen flesh, demons and torture in stark black and white. Remarkable stuff.

Speaking of history, this is a remarkable memoir of Gilbert Shelton and the Texas comics scene which I'd somehow passed over.

And yesterday's Marketplace discussed the business machinations behind the current crop of Marvel movies.

Today on the site, we bring you a John Kelly report on the new Society of Illustrators "Alt-Weekly Comics" show. Here's a bit from the piece:

By appearing in the alt-weeklies, several generations of talented cartoonists gained access to audiences well beyond the world of fans of college papers, mini comics and zines. Their work was brought to the attention of alternative music and other fringe culture fans, especially in Seattle, where it’s two weeklies, The Rocket and The Stranger, thrived during the rise and fall of that city’s grunge era. And like the underground cartoonists of the 1960s and '70s (but to a lesser degree) some of the alt-weekly cartoonists literally became as big as the rock stars whose albums and concert posters their work appeared on.

“There’s a way in which the animation culture of the 90s and 2000s and what goes on now with Adult Swim and all that [has its roots in] the strips in the alternative-weeklies the same way National Lampoon was to early Saturday Night Live,” said Michael Grossman, former art director for The National Lampoon, The Village Voice and Entertainment Weekly.  “It was sort of this thing that was going on and the exploded into something else that left the original behind.”

More than 100 examples of work of that initial burst of energy are on display at the SOI show, ranging from little seen examples of the original artwork for the strips to pages literally torn from the old newspapers. It is also significant to note that the show takes place at the venerable Society of Illustrators, not somewhere like the CBGB Gallery or Max Fish, places where such exhibits took place during the alt-weekly heyday. Additionally, the show received an enthusiastic endorsement from no less that The New Yorker.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—News. Longtime Mad writer Lou Silverstone has died.

—Interviews & Profiles. Shawn Starr interviews Raighne Hogan of 2D Cloud.

Matt Emery talks to Emory Liu about designing books for Fantagraphics.

Reaxxion listens to Erik Larsen explaining his side of the controversy that exploded after his recent comments on superhero costume design on Twitter.

Panel Patter checks in with Jillian and Mariko Tamaki.

CCS talks to Scott McCloud about process.

Paul Gravett introduces Scottish cartoonist Malcy Duff.

Anodolu Agency speaks briefly to the French cartoonist Zeon, who was arrested this month for cartoons deemed anti-Semitic.

—Reviews & Commentary. Caroline Wazer shares and writes about the caricatures of Punch cartoonist John Leech used to illustrate The Comic History of Rome, sort of a "for Dummies" book from the 19th century.

Panel Patter looks at Corinne Mucha's Get Over It.

John Adcock writes about the history of "chalk talks."

—Funnies. Responding to Ronald Wimberly from last week, Connor Willumsen has his own comic at The Nib about editorial tinkering at Marvel.

—Video. Maclean's visits the home of Seth (via):

Today on the site: James Sturm and Marek Bennett have organized a roundtable about "applied cartooning" for us, and the results are fascinating. Here's a bit of the intro:

The graphic novel boom of ten years ago coincided with the bottom dropping out of the publishing industry and lifted the fortunes of too few cartoonists. Working on a graphic novel for three years with only a $10,000 advance (if that much) is not going to work. As a teacher I try to fully support my student’s artistic and career ambitions but at the same time I have a responsibility to help prepare them for the reality of the marketplace.

So what’s a cartoonist to do? One positive sign is that comics are quickly branching out into other fields like education/visual literacy, graphic medicine, comics journalism, and graphic facilitation. Last summer, Marek Bennett and I created a comic, The World is Made of Cheese, The Applied Cartooning Manifesto that grew out of conversations we were having about forging a life in comics beyond the traditional publishing model. I always admired Marek’s cartooning career because he has done just that.

“Applied Cartooning” is jargon to be sure, but I hope it can become useful jargon. The idea is to better position cartoonists in the marketplace so our expertise is recognized and we are compensated more fairly for the skills we bring to the table.

Elsewhere:

Well, I, along with Tucker and Jog, am disappointed in this news.

Here's a nice profile of the LA gallery Dem Passwords, which has hosted shows by the likes of Frank Santoro, Ron Rege, Jessica Ciocci and Lee Perry. Long ago Santoro and I went and got very high in the mountains of Switzerland with Lee Perry under the auspices of Sebastien, co-owner of this very gallery. Frank and Lee jammed on a Batman drawing that I deeply regret not taking with me. We also climbed a small snow drift. That was fun!

Also, let's pause for a moment and remember that Gilbert Hernandez is one of the greatest cartoonists of all time and has mercilessly unleashed more work than even I can keep up with lately. This page is from a Wonder Woman comic that was apparently released by DC on mobile devices this year, and which I've not seen. The drawing here is stunning -- deceptively simple pen-lines delineating forms that make no claim on reality. That's the brilliance of Gilbert's approach -- like his fellow greats Ditko and Kirby, he has a language of forms that he can apply to any given situation. Wonder Woman's bulbous body, the robots, even the oscillating machine all signal a Gilbert Hernandez visual world. And what's more, there's no fuss -- it is comic book economy storytelling at it's best -- taking the reader through the action without any unnecessary diversions, and yet... the details are so compelling -- Wonder Woman's hair is a repeating wave pattern (shades of Karl Wirsum) and her face a mask of stoicism; chains fall without incident, and yet perfectly curved motion lines indicate the force of her arms. It's happily more a Gilbert Hernandez comics than a DC comic -- Wonder Woman being a way for him to exercise this mode of storytelling and this particular kind of drawing. This is just superb comic book art by one of the few geniuses to grace the medium.

Today on the site, French cartoonist Émilie Gleason and the American cartoonist Gina Wynbrandt, both of whom have upcoming books being published by 2d Cloud, interview each other. Here's some of that:

Gina: Do you think the personality traits associated with your zodiac sign are an accurate representation of you?

Émilie: I’m a balance; this zodiac sign was the first excuse to justify my youth bipolar disorder. Now it’s like, “Mm, am I hungry? Am I not? Urrh, life!"

Gina: What's your favorite French idiom or phrase that might not translate well in English?

Émilie: Well I always heard Anglophone people envy us the word dépayser. It is actually one of my favorites. Everybody once must have lived a dépaysement, when absolutely nothing looks like what you know, where you live, or like what you eat daily (on trips, or in jail, for example). Some people are in desperate search for the place that will break their routine; some others use this word to explain their homesickness.

Also, Rob Clough reviews Steve Lafler's Death in Oaxaca #1. Here's a sample of that:

It's only fitting that a veteran of the '80s black & white publishing boom should put out another standard-issue comic book in 2014. Steve Lafler, known primarily for his magazine-sized, surreal quasi-autobio series Dog Boy and his psychedelic anthropomorphic jazz series Bughouse, is back again. He's kept his hand in comics, mostly by self-publishing, since Top Shelf published the final Bughouse volume. In many of his comics, Lafler has explored the relationship between life and death, of art and commerce and of purpose and aimlessness. The shifting nature of identity is another regular theme, especially plays on superhero costumes in real life being a form of drag. All of these themes are explored in his new series with Alternative Comics (themselves back from a along hiatus with a new publisher in Marc Arsenault), Death In Oaxaca.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—Reviews & Commentary. Bart Croonenborghs reviews Paris Revisited, the latest collaboration of Schuiten and Peeters, and Andy Oliver looks at Noel Freibert's Old Ground #1.

Dan Priepenring writes about Roz Chast's new gallery show of painted eggs.

—Interviews & Profiles. The Seattle parenting website ParentMap interviews Megan Kelso.

The Jewish Review of Books has a nice profile of Joann Sfar.

—News. Roy Doty has passed away.

Dave Sim is reportedly recovering from surgery well.

According to a CBC report, a Winnipeg branch of Chapters temporarily removed Hergé's Tintin in America from its shelves following a customer complaint about its depiction of Native Americans.

On the news that Comics Alliance writer Chris Sims had been hired to write an X-Men comic for Marvel, comics blogger/writer/editor Valerie D'Orazio has written a widely shared post claiming that Sims once engaged in and instigated online harassment against her, harassment intense enough that she was later diagnosed with PTSD. Sims does not dispute her account, and explained why he never apologized in a blog post of his own. He apologized more specifically and fully in his regular column. Comics Alliance, which has established itself as a prominent anti-harassment voice, released a
statement about the situation, alleging that this news broke because Sims and Comics Alliance have been targeted by anti-feminists associated with GamerGate. This struck some as irrelevant if the charges are true (as Sim admits), prompting former Comics Alliance editor Laura Hudson to weigh in in support of CA herself.

—The Funnies. Ronald Wimberly's "Lighten Up" at The Nib.

Today on the site it's Bob Levin on Inner City Romance.

The collected ICR takes a sustained, unflinching look at lower depth America through a variety of lenses. In issue one, three newly released convicts explore their post-prison options.

For two the choice is easy, sex and drugs; but the third is tempted by armed struggle. By ICR’s second issue (1972), Colwell had become part of the collective putting out the San Francisco Good Times, an underground newspaper. If the city had been ground zero for the counter-culture’s explosion, its Hall of Justice was where some of the most lethal fall-out was contained. Colwell served as his paper’s sketch artist for the criminal trials of members of AIM, the White Panther Party, and the Soledad Brothers. He also covered anti-war demonstrations which ended with the police firing tear gas or charging on horseback, swinging batons. And he authored a comic strip, written in verse, “Radical Rock,” about a neighborhood rallying against police violence, which, after the Times folded, he completed in his book. (While I found the verse to distract from, rather than enhance the drama, it did contain one compelling rhyme, which I doubt either Cole Porter or Bob Dylan could have managed: “bum their scene” and “Thorazine.”)

Elsewhere:

Always good news when a new Mineshaft comes out. Great covers on this one.

Paper Rad member Jacob Ciocci has a new way to show work online. Intriguing.

I dunno, I could read interview with Peter Max for a while. He's a great huckster of our time.

More on Milestone comics by Noah Berlatsky.

When Tuesday rolls around, you know it's time for Joe McCulloch's guide to This Week in Comics! This entry highlights new titles from Julia Wertz and Kyle Starks.

We also have Greg Hunter's review of the new relaunch of Howard the Duck, with writer Chip Zdarsky and artist Joe Quinones trying to fill the shoes of Steve Gerber and Frank Brunner/Gene Colan. Here's Greg on how the title fits into the modern Marvel universe:

Several years ago, Zdarsky’s Sex Criminals collaborator Matt Fraction scripted a brief, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead-style run on Punisher War Journal in which the lead character prowled the fringes of whatever “event” storyline was taking place. A few years later, Jeff Parker and Kev Walker took a similar approach with Marvel’s Thunderbolts series, dispatching a band of super-convicts to fight the minor battles of recent major events. Howard 2015 suggests the limitations of this storytelling style. Howard’s as suited to it as any other Marvel character, but the new series arrives at a time when Marvel’s properties—always the contents of a shared universe—have been so thoroughly integrated as to contain Iron Man, Spider-Man, and a few thousand Rosencrantzes and Guildensterns. The first issue’s tagline reads, “Trapped in a world he’s grown accustomed to,”[3] but this world has also grown accustomed to a figure like Howard. His role as a witness to costumed absurdity has become increasingly common.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—News. The Miami Herald reports on Xavier Bonilla, the Ecuadorian cartoonist who has been persecuted by his country's government and who recently received a death threat from a person claiming to be a member of the Islamic State.

Dave Sim has checked into the hospital with stomach cramps

The longtime Mandrake the Magician cartoonist Fred Fredericks has passed away.

DC has cancelled a controversial variant cover for an upcoming issue of Batgirl, at the artist's request, following many reader complaints. Ardo Omer explains some of the issues fans had with the artwork here. As with a few other recent controversies, whether or not you think the fan critiques are legitimate, it seems wrong to decry this move as censorship, as some have; this seems more like a corporation trying to please a book's fan base.

—Reviews & Commentary. Tom Murphy writes about Dylan Horrocks's Sam Zabel and the Magic Pencil.

Abhay Khosla writes about meta-superhero exhaustion by way of reviewing Multiversity: Mastermen and Supreme: Blue Rose.

Sophia Foster-Dimino initiated a Twitter discussion on the alleged unpopularity of autobio comics which attracted many cartoonists, and which has now been Storified. I remember when I used to "hate autobio" (even while I read a ton of it); it seems to me this is something people tend to say for reasons that aren't always rational.

—Interviews & Profiles. The Beat talks to James Kochalka.

Black Girl in Media has an interview with Cheryl Lee, the blogger and Ormes Society founder.

—Funnies. Dane Martin has published many of his recent comics on Tumblr.

Irwin Hasen, the Dondi and golden age comic book cartoonist, has passed way. Steve Ringgenberg has our obituary.

Hasen’s earlier experience depicting boxers would stand him in good stead when he teamed up with Batman co-creator Bill Finger to dream up Wildcat, a heavyweight boxing champ who moonlighted as a costumed hero, initially to clear his name after getting entangled with organized crime, and whose only superpower is the cat-like “nine lives” power he had bestowed on him by magic. He also possesses extreme strength and vigor even at an advanced age. Although he has no real superpowers, his toughness and boxing skills enabled him to survive many perils in the pages of Sensation Comics (debuting in issue #1 alongside Wonder Woman, eventually becoming the second-most popular feature in the title) and All-Star Comics, where he was a member of the Justice Society of America. Wildcat trained Batman, Black Canary, and even Superman in the pugilistic arts. Wildcat was Hasen’s best-known creation in comic books, though during this period, he also did stories starring The Green Lantern, succeeding original artist Martin Nodell.

We will publish a recent and candid interview with Gary Groth very soon.

And Doug Harvey reviews The Sculptor by Scott McCloud.

Having somehow acquired two university degrees in Painting and spending the subsequent 20 years as a professional artist, curator, and critic, I am as sensitive as the next artworld insider to the ways in which art schools, gallery scenes, and the state of contemporary art are depicted in popular narratives. They usually get it embarrassingly wrong.

The medium of comics seem particularly susceptible, riddled as it is with whining fanboys traumatized to learn in their art school foundation year that the drafting chops that kept them from being beat up since the third grade haven’t been considered relevant since 1837. Even brilliant social satirists like Dan Clowes and Chris Ware can miss the mark by aiming at straw men patched together from sitcom stereotypes anhat I approached The Sculptor, Scott McCloud’s first substantial foray into graphic narrative practice after decades devoted to graphic narrative theory, with his inescapable Understanding Comics and its sequels.

Elsewhere:

Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson remembers Hasen.

Sarah Boxer on the Charlie Hebdo - Charlie Brown connection.

Matt Groening and Lynda Barry take New York.

The David Boswell renaissance continues with a documentary.

Today on the site, we present Shaun Clancy's interview with former National Lampoon art director Michael Gross. Here's a sample exchange:

CLANCY: But how did you land that National Lampoon job?

GROSS: Well, my assistant at Family Health was looking for a job—nice guy—and he got called up to Lampoon. He came to me and said, “You know, I got called up but I’m not right for it and they know I’m not right for it but you might be the right person to do this!” And I’d read their Time magazine parody and I said, “You know, I looked through the magazine and it’s a complete mess.” So my wife looked at it and she said, “Why would you want to work on that rag? This is terrible. I thought we were trying to get Esquire one day or, you know, Vogue! You were going to be a major player in the publishing world. This is a piece of shit.” [laughter] I said, “I think I know what I can do with that magazine.” So I applied. I went in for an interview. The story I tell is basically, Doug Kenney asked me—You gotta remember, Doug Kenney had just come out of college. So they didn’t know how to run a magazine! They were brilliant, but they didn’t even know what an art director did. And they hired an underground studio, because they thought, we’re not Mad so we’ll do the contemporary version which would be largely like underground comics. Now, I went in there and said, “No, no, no. You’re doing this all wrong. Matty Simmons, the publisher, was looking for a new art director because he couldn’t get advertisers with that look to the magazine. They wanted to be slick. That’s his only answer. So I was called in, and Doug Kenney was probably told they had to replace the art director but I’m not really sure and I sat with Kenney and I remember distinctly that they did a series of postage stamps.

I said, look at these stamps, you did these postage stamps. They’re very funny. But their drawings are by underground comic book artists on every stamp. I said, this is like Mad magazine, where they have Mort Drucker do every drawing. This is not the same. The way that this will pay off is if they look like real postage stamps. Then the humor is doubled. And they got that and that’s what I hoped. And that changed the magazine. It was a reflection of my vision.

Meanwhile, Elsewhere:

—News. Roz Chast's Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? has won the National Book Critics Circle award for autobiography. The NBCC is one of publishing's biggest prizes, and arguably has a stronger track record of consistently rewarding real achievement than either the Pulitzers or the National Book Awards.

Bernie Wrightson's wife has posted an update on the artist's post-brain-surgery health on Facebook.

Paul Gravett writes about recent comics auctions in the UK and France.

—Interviews & Profiles. Multiversity talks to Fantagraphics associate publisher Eric Reynolds about the parental complaint lodged in New Mexico against Gilbert Hernandez's Palomar.

Abraham Riesman conducts an entertaining interview with Art Spiegelman and Philip Johnston about their Wordless! show, and discovers that Spiegelman has significantly softened on his anti-Kirby stance.

Ward Sutton talks to Warren Bernard and Bill Kartalopolous about the Alt-Weekly Comics show they curated for the Society of Illustrators in New York.

The Montreal Review of books has a short, funny conversation with Joe Ollmann.

Ginnis Tonk interviews romance-comics blogger Jacque Nodell.

Broken Frontier talks to James Kochalka about his new project.

—Reviews & Commentary. Hyperallergic reviews the Victor Moscoso show up in NYC right now (which Dan co-curated).

Boing Boing has published another excerpt from Peter Schilling Jr.'s Carl Barks' Duck.

Neil Cohn has presented new information on reading navigation in comics.

—Crowdfunding. Here are two projects worth highlighting for a moment. Hazil Newlevant has put together an already successfully funded Kickstarter for Chainmail Bikini, an "anthology of women gamers," and Stefan Vogel is attempting to fund a graphic novel called The Illegalists, about a gang of anarchists in early twentieth-century France. Letterer Todd Klein makes a case for that project here.

On the site:

Ryan Holmberg has written a comprehensive obituary of the great Yoshihiro Tatsumi. I'm grateful to Ryan for turning this around so quickly.

Tatsumi is famous as the artist who helped fashion a new style of manga known as “gekiga” (dramatic pictures), a term he coined in 1957. He played a major role in broadening the possibilities of the medium to accommodate mature-reader genres like mystery, action, and horror, oftentimes in 100-plus-page, single-story books that predate the advent of the “graphic novel” by many decades. Though there was hardly a genre Tatsumi didn’t try his hand at, he is best known for the stories he created in the late 60s and early 70s about the bleak lives and perversions of aging white-collar and low-level blue-collar workers. French and Spanish translations of these stories in the early 80s first introduced Tatsumi’s work to an outside audience. But the artist’s star took off like a comet only with new and expanded editions of this material in Japanese and English in 2004-05. A Drifting Life (2008-09), his massive 850-page autobiography in comics form, cemented Tatsumi’s reputation as one the comics medium’s most important artists. Late in life, Tatsumi was awarded three of the industry’s top awards: the Angouleme (2005), the Tezuka (2009), and the Eisner (2010).

Frank Santoro returns with some thoughts on a recent trip to NYC (I make a guest appearance) as well as the relationship between comics and music.

Something I like to think about a lot is how music influences the organization–or the arrangement–of my comics. All the elements are like an orchestra and I’m the conductor who also writes the arrangement and plays all the instruments. I felt all this intuitively for years. There really wasn’t any “science” to it–or so I thought until I began investigating the connection between what is intuitive and what is measured.

Dan Nadel called Fort Thunder “the antithesis of rules and restraint.” Leif Goldberg said “The Fort was really open but also had rules. There are always rules of some kind. Unwritten rules that guide you.”

Indeed. I’m not a musician but I listen to music all day, everyday (I’m slowly learning my way around a piano). I believe the music creates a sense of order which my thoughts and creative activity can “jump” into/onto at any moment. Basically it’s a daily diet of classical works and jazz (many jazz musicians don’t call it jazz anymore –like cartoonists may or may not use the term “comics”–it’s art–it’s music–’nuff said). The orchestration of classical and the improvisation of jazz truly fascinates me. It connects directly to my brain without translation. Music is the universal language. I can feel it even if I can’t play it. I know there are rules in music. For some they are unwritten and for some they are written. Regardless, there was a time when music did not have a notation system yet the rules still applied.

Elsewhere:

Diana Schutz is leaving Dark Horse after 25 years. She's had a long and good career in comics, and talks about it to CBR. We profiled Schutz back in 2011.

Here's an interview with Mad Magazine Art Director Sam Viviano.

And the great animator Jeff Hale, of Sesame Street, has passed away.

We have continued to add tributes to the late Yoshihiro Tatsumi to our memorial post.

Rob Clough reviews the first three issues of the group anthology, Maple Key Comics. Here's how he begins:

Maple Key Comics is a Mome/Shonen Jump style anthology, with each issue containing a single chapter of a longer serial (usually three to six chapters). Each issue also contains shorter, self-contained stories as well, from a mix of CCS grads, students, and others. Editor Joyana McDiarmid goes for a wide net in terms of genres, visual styles, and levels of polish. The serial nature of each issue can lead to some rockiness as a reading experience, but it's also unearthed some real gems. Rather than evaluate each issue on their own, I'm going to review the first three issues together, while evaluating them artist-by-artist. Each issue features several serials, a few one-offs, and a "star artist" one-off feature.

Jon Chad (star artist, issue one). His "The Surena Grant" uses sci-fi as a horror vehicle, rather than as an expression of pure joy and learning as in his books for kids or as a celebration of genre excesses in Mezmer. Here, the horror of apathy permeates this story about a group of scientists who investigate the weird deaths of a local animal species, only to become victims of the same extreme apathy that overtook the animals. Chad's detailed line, usually used to emphasize excess, is effective here because he understood that restraint was the order of the day for getting across the emotional punch of this story, both from a visual and narrative perspective.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

—News. Reporters With Borders spotlights eight cartoonists around the world who are being threatened or persecuted for their work. Cracked, in that ineffable Cracked prose style that you either hate or tolerate, spotlights five cartoonists who have died for their work.

A variety of groups supporting free expression, including the National Coalition Against Censorship and the CBLDF, have written a letter to the Rio Rancho school superintendent asking that Gilbert Hernandez's Palomar be allowed to stay on shelves.

On Facebook, Al Plastino's daughter, MaryAnn Plastino Charles, calls for DC to give her father credit for his creations, and asks for reader support.

—Reviews & Commentary. Rob Salkowitz reviews Todd Allen's Economics of Digital Comics. Adam McGovern reviews Eric Stephenson & Simon Gane's They're Not Like Us.

J. Caleb Mozzocco looks at a few Julia Gfrörer pages.

—Interviews & Profiles. The Billy Ireland library previews a short excerpt from their new lengthy and rare interview with Bill Watterson. (Michael Cavna has more on the book that will include the whole thing.)

Paul Morton at The Millions talks to Scott McCloud. He's a good talker, whatever you think (or don't think) of The Sculptor.

Copra creator Michel Fiffe answers ten questions for Comics Tavern.

Bart Croonenborghs interviews Belgian artist Ben Gijsemans.

—Video. John Lewis just appeared on The Daily Show to support the new volume of March.