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It's a brand new year, and here at TCJ (Internet division) we have a brand new attitude. Dan and I are well-rested and have spent our web-free days meditating on how to provide better criticism and coverage of the art of comics. I think it's fair to say that 2014 will likely be the best year here yet. So prepare yourself.

To start things off, we have Joe "Jog" McCulloch, who has a recap of his own personal experiences with the last two weeks of comics. (This has been a trying fortnight for Joe, who has been e-mailing us regularly to see if he might be allowed to post during the holiday hiatus. I'm feeling a little guilty now, seeing what he Joe resorted to reading during his imposed vacation.)

Elsewhere:

—Comics websites and writers of all kinds have been posting end-of-the-year ruminations and summations of all kinds, including Robot 6's list of favorite 2013 comics, The Beat's annual comics-creator-survey, Tim Callahan's best-of-2013 list, Nick Gazin's top ten list, Abhay Khosla's best/worst-of-entertainment list, Jeff Smith's favorite comics, and Rob Clough's typically exhaustive list.

—News. Marvel has decided to stop selling individual issues of their comics in traditional bookstores. Columbia University's library has received the Kitchen Sink archives.

—Funnies. Kate Beaton went home for the holidays and posted a slew of comics about her visit. Joe Ollmann on the job. Sean T. Collins has started a new Tumblr called Comics Democracy reposting only the most popular webcomics, without commentary. He explains his reasons here.

—Interviews & Profiles. Paul Gravett on Leo Baxendale. Chris Mautner talks to Anna Bongiovanni. Emine Saner talked to G. Willow Wilson about the new Muslim Ms. Marvel. Chris Sims talks to Michel Fiffe. Tom Spurgeon interviewed many people, too many to link to, but you can figure out how to find them. The latest talk was with Ed Piskor.

—Reviews & Commentary. J. Hoberman reviews Peter Maresca's Society is Nix. Bob Heer reviews the Chris Duffy-edited Fairy Tale Comics. Becky Cloonan wrote an essay on self-publishing.

—Don't Feed the Troll.

Well, this is it for us for 2013, everyone. Click on over to our TCJ year-in-review and read yourselves silly.

Well,folks. R.C. Harvey is here this morning, with a column on George Baker and Sad Sack:

A few months following the Sack’s debut in Yank, Baker was transferred to the staff of the magazine, and he served there for the duration of World War II. Yank sent Baker to military installations all over the world to expose him to every possible phase of Army life in order that he might reflect it in the cartoon. In the early months of Yank’s run, Baker also distributed subscription blanks wherever he went. Eventually, the magazine acquired a circulation department, which involved Baker only to draw promotional posters. One of these gave the cartoonist “the first tangible evidence” that the Sack was a success. The poster said: “Subscribe to Yank and see the Sad Sack every week.”

Baker shouldn’t have worried. As perennial low man on the regimental totem pole, the Sad Sack was popular from the very start. He epitomized the frustrations and disappointments of Everyman, dragged somewhat reluctantly into a military bureaucracy he didn't understand and could never master. The Sack's adventures took place entirely in pantomime; each cartoon was a series of eight-to-ten borderless pictures that progressively depicted the cascading persecution of the week. Like some dumb animal being inexplicably punished for behaving in a perfectly natural way, the Sack was all the more pitiful for being mute.

Elsewhere:

—Interviews & Profiles. Fast Company talks to Neil Cohn about his research into the visual grammar of comics. Ruben Bolling and Vanessa Davis are guests on the latest Gweek. Jesse Reklaw was on Inkstuds. Comics Journal regulars Joe McCulloch and Sean T. Collins talk about the business of alternative comics with Tom Spurgeon. I love both those guys, but that is a very odd and even skewed discussion to read, at least from my perspective. (I'm probably too close. Maybe they're too close, too.) One thing I do think is worth saying is that given that the closing of PictureBox was a personal decision and not one forced by economics, it probably shouldn't be overinterpreted; if Dan was a slightly different guy, or in slightly different circumstances, it would still be running. And I don't agree with Sean's comment that it's hard to "imagine another 30-year anniversary of an alt-comix publisher after Drawn & Quarterly has theirs, maybe ever again." Top Shelf is more than halfway there. AdHouse could easily make it, if Chris Pitzer wants to do it. If anything, there are more stable or semi-stable small publishers around right now than at any time I can remember... A thirty-year-plus run in independent publishing has always been the anomaly. Those guys are always worth listening to, though, so go to it.

—News. Stumptown is merging with Rose City Comic Con. The comics writer Scott Lobdell has admitted to being the mystery aggressor in MariNaomi's xoJane story, and has given a statement to Heidi MacDonald. Screw publisher Al Goldstein, who employed many prominent cartoonists in his day, has died.

—Reviews & Commentary. Rob Clough looks at the perennially underdiscussed Mineshaft. Paste picks the 13 best webcomics of 2013.

—Misc. Zak Sally shares the history of La Mano.

Today on the site: An anonymous (by request) article recounting one female cartoonist's experience with being made to feel uncomfortable by unwanted attention.

I don't normally feel like being a woman in this field is enough to justify having to answer questions about it all the time, most frequently: "What is it like to be a woman cartoonist?" Let's face it, this is not dangerous work.  This is not even physically demanding.  I am not a police officer, I am not a fireman, I am not in the army.  I don't put my life on the line every day.  Hell, I don't even work in an office where some asshole could potentially pinch my butt.  I work from home!  I am practically a housewife. So please, stop asking that question.

And Frank is here with his final column of the year: Best of Greatest Hits 2006-2012.

Elsewhere:

In related news, the cartoonist MariNaomi has also just posted an article on XOJane about being harassed on a comic convention panel.

The Shia LaBeouf craziness continues. The Beat has an update, and I'm in the absurd position of reporting that it's been brought to my attention that, yes, yours truly was also plagiarized by young Shia. Seriously. The "about" page of his publishing company is lifted from the "about" page for PictureBox.

Here are my words:

Why is PictureBox? Because I love the things I love and I want to champion them. I tend toward outliers and I'm obsessed with the history of visual culture writ large and small. But look, ostensibly PictureBox is a publishing company. I publish around 10 books a year (graphic novels, prose, design, art, etc.) as well as assorted specialty items like DVDS, CDs, and prints. Each project comes from my own tastes and relationships, and are rooted in what I believe in.

And here's Shia:

Pretty amazing. And sad.

I should also note that this site reviewed LaBeouf's comic books (since discovered to also contain lifts). We have amended the reviews.

Otherwise, let's see... here's an interview with Jesse Reklaw on Inkstuds, and Tom Spurgeon talks to Paul Pope.

Zak Sally has begun writing a history of his publishing company, La Mano.

Couple of end-of-the-year announcements: Columbia University has acquired the collected papers of Kitchen Sink Press.  And TCAF has announced the first of its 2014 guests.

And... the most unusual R. Crumb appearance I've seen yet:

Today, Rob Clough has his last column of 2013, with an enthusiastic introduction to the gay/wrestling/death-metal humor comics of Ed Luce:

Luce's storytelling structure is far more loose, and in some ways, far more self-indulgent [than Bryan Lee O'Malley's]. I mean this in the sense that Luce simply writes about everything that interests him and throws it into one big stew. He's a huge music nerd and manages to throw in references to everything from death metal to dance music to Morrissey to punk. He's a knowledgeable fan of professional wrestling, so of course his lead character Oaf is a former pro whose nom de ring was Gote Blud. Luce can't help but throw in musical puns and references, as Oaf's finishing move involved him wearing a goat horn mask that spewed fake blood and was called "Raining GoteBlood"--a reference to the band Slayer. Luce is fascinated by cats, and so the cats here have weird fantasy lives of their own. And of course, Luce is gay and writes extensively about gay culture, particularly what he refers to in the comic as "oafs and bait"--big, frequently muscular and sometimes fat men (popularly known as "bears," though Luce puts the kibosh on that term here) and their smaller lovers. There are elements of magical realism and just plain weirdness at work here, such as when the cat's hair sometimes take on a life of its own or a future story where Oaf is the savior of the new cat race.

Elsewhere:

—Rob Clough takes to his own blog to review comics by Jonathan Baylis, Matt Runkle, and Jason Martin. Chris Randle has a really strong take on Gilbert Hernandez's Maria M.. Jason Heller of the A.V. Club appreciates a Carl Barks Christmas story. Impossible Mike at HTMLGiant reviews the much-anticipated reprint of Martin Vaughn-James's The Cage. And Bobsy, one of my favorite Mindless Ones, did a best-of-2013 via Twitter.

—Also, Paul Gravett has profiled Yves Chaland, and Sean Witzke interviews Michel Fiffe.

Hey, it's Tuesday on this web site and that means Joe McCulloch is here to tell you about the week in comics.

And elsewhere in the world:

-The big news is that actor Shia LaBeouf has allegedly plagiarized a Daniel Clowes comic for a short film. Buzzfeed has the story. This is a weird and sad one.

-The writer about comics Sarah Horrocks has posted a link, with commentary, to her 2013 writing.

-And a couple over at Vice: Molly Crabapple talks to Art Spiegelman and Nick Gazin has a roundup.

Today, John Hogan examines the hidden connections between conceptual art and gag cartooning through a comparison of Mark Newgarden and Richard Prince:

Whereas Newgarden’s humor manifests as functional jokes about how jokes are created, Prince's jokes are simply defused and deconstructed, and his humor remains more withholding. The jokes he appropriates are unfunny borscht-belt groaners. Gags like a woman catching her husband in his office with his secretary on his lap become vaguely disturbing and sad without the levity of an appropriate zinger attached. According to Nancy Spektor, in her essay for his 2008 recent retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, this is Prince “bring[ing] to the surface the hostility, fear, and shame fueling much American humor.” (Spektor, p.37)

In the conceptual art mindset, the humor must be obfuscated and neutralized before the nastiness beneath it can be revealed. I would argue as much shame, fear, and hostility are evident and made obvious in Newgarden's work, and with a functional sense of humor intact.

The comedic motivation behind pairing tired jokes with tired imagery on a large canvas is blatantly nihilistic. The failure of the jokes and gags are built in to the composition of the work, relegating humor into a subject rather than a tool for communication. These neutered sex cartoons are incapable of triggering any honest laughter, and thereby reinforce the objecthood of the painting and its status as painting as painting --art as art-- thereby keeping it firmly entrenched in a tradition of the avant-garde and safe from being confused with entertainment.

—Reviews & Commentary. Jeet Heer reviews George A. Walker's wordless graphic bio of Conrad Black. Bob Heer reviews Matt Kindt's MIND MGMT. Steven Heller puts together a slideshow of design and comics books for the Times. Corey Blake looks back at Miracleman. Julian Darius at Sequart does a more expansive look at Miracleman coloring & reprinting than Robot 6 did last week. Rob Clough reviews Faction.

—Interviews. Jim Woodring was a guest on the Gweek podcast. The other Boing Boing podcast has had two interesting recent guests, Ed Piskor and printmaker Joe Lupo.

—News. Brian Hibbs of Comix Experience is expanding to a second store. I can't believe we neglected to link to this New York Daily News story about accusations against Archie's Nancy Silberkleit last week.

—Hmm. Hmm.

—Video. James Sturm at ESAD Art+Design:

Ed Piskor at the Chicato Humanities Festival:

And Lynda Barry at the National Book Festival:

Today on the site we bring you Ryan Holmberg and his tales of bird poo Indian comics.

I had been under the impression that Comix India, inaugurated in 2010, was the first amateur comics magazine in India. It might have been the first with significant heft and geographical reach. Chronologically, however, there is at least one precedent.

Out of Kolkata’s Jadavpur University in 2009 came Drighangchoo. It only lasted three issues. It is a pamphlet affair in black and white. The first issue is half prose, but by no. 2 Drighangchoo is a robust comics magazine. It is printed cheaply but the artwork can be as good as what one finds in the luxurious mini-comics from Manta Ray in Bangalore. And dealing as some Drighangchoo comics do with harder social issues, it is generally a meatier magazine than its more polished peers. It definitely feels like something produced on a university campus, due to its jocular but palpably self-conscious editorial commentary, peppered with baroque self-deprecations and mocking academy-ese. But the evident earnestness of the project and the increasing quality of the contents and production from issue to issue suggest that, had it lived a bit longer, Drighangchoo might have become a standard-bearer in amateur comics publishing in India, or at least in Bengal.

Elsewhere:

I am so baffled by all the year-end list and how they don't coincide at all with my experience of the comics-reading year, and yet I can't look away. I'm fascinated. Why here's the Montreal Gazette. Here's part four of Comics Alliance. This one from the Village Voice is incredibly confusing and yet alluring in its singularity. Naturally I approve of this take on Pompeii. That confuses me not. Had enough? I might've.

Also bizarre is the first paragraph of this Gilbert Hernandez profile. Read it and then think about the last half-decade in comics. Then read it again. Strange, right?

Here, go cleanse yourself with this funny Steve Brodner list. Have a good weekend.

Today, Shaenon Garrity has a column exploring the way cartoons and comics are shared online, often without their original creators being credited.

[T]he uncredited versions of comics often spread more quickly than the credited versions. After all, the sites and individuals sharing the uncredited versions are likely to be less ethical about how they use the art. While the credited version may be reposted by fans sharing it with a small circle of friends, the uncredited version can wind up on a series of image-sharing sites dedicated to spreading maximum content for maximum hits.

“In some cases, an individual edits out attribution in order to pass the work off as their own,” says [Rachel] Dukes. “More frequently, attribution is edited out by staff of meme-based websites like 9GAG that profit off of ad revenue. The reason that they do this is because they want readers to stay on their website, clicking from image to image, for a long period of time. That’s how they make their ad revenue.” The last thing these sites want is for users to leave their site to look at an individual artist’s website instead.

Elsewhere:

—Reviews & Commentary. Art Spiegelman on Ad Reinhardt. Françoise Mouly on Ad Reinhardt. The cartoonist and critic Derik Badman writes about a slew of comics. I like Badman's writing partly because though his tastes are sometimes baffling (to me), he is always upfront and forthcoming about them, and doesn't seem to be posturing or rancorous. Sean T. Collins has moved all of his Vorpalizer webcomics reviews to a new location. Kevin Melrose compares the coloring of the new Marvel reprint of Miracleman with the Eclipse originals.

—Best of Lists. The A.V. Club's list includes some interesting choices. The Comics Alliance list is occasionally weird, superhero-heavy, and published in multiple parts annoying for linkblogging, but some of the entries are written by strong reviewers familiar to readers of this site. (1, 2, 3). Whitney Matheson at USA Today and Publishers Weekly also have lists.

—Interviews. Alex Dueben talks to Jennifer George, Rube Goldberg's granddaughter and the editor of about the new book celebrating his work. Bryan Munn asks Jeet Heer about his new endeavors as a comic-strip writer. Former DC publisher Jenette Kahn was interviewed at the Chicago Humanities Festival:

—News. Forbes takes a look at how the growing popularity of tablets may affect the comics business. NPR's All Things Considered devoted a segment to the Billy Ireland library. Bleeding Cool has promoted Hannah Means-Shannon to editor-in-chief. That site's coverage of alternative and independent comics has improved measurably since she started writing for it.

—Random. Brandon Graham continues to be a good blogger.

Hi there,

Today on the site Rob Steibel returns with a reading of Fantastic Four Annual 6.

Over the years plenty of writers have discussed Jack’s work from a feminist perspective, many criticizing what they consider his lack of strong female characters. Hundreds of articles have been written about the role of fictional women characters in comics so I don’t want to go off on a long tangent, but I do want to say although I understand Sue not running around beating up bad guys when she’s 9 months pregnant, I am disappointed that Crystal doesn’t take a more active role in these books and in FF Annual # 6, it would have been great to see her kick some ass in the Negative Zone. It is also noteworthy that around the time of the birth, Alicia Masters all but disappears, and Crystal is relegated to the sidelines, standing by Sue’s side worrying. It’s a strange decision: here’s an online conversation where the topic is touched on.

Here’s my guess as to why Jack did this: I think Jack wanted to make FF Annual # 6 about the four original members of the team. There was no X-Men to save them, no Avengers to save them, no Hulk, no Thor, no Nick Fury — the FF had to rely on themselves to get out of this jam. That’s why Crystal is pretty much nothing more than a cheerleader. It keeps the story simple, and it shows you the stability of the Fantastic Four family unit – the core of the team is still the same. Crystal can’t replace Sue. The story ultimately is about the four adventurers who started the journey together. Everyone else is a minor supporting player. You could also argue FF Annual # 6 is just another stereotypical testosterone-driven superhero story where the men do all the fighting and rescue the damsel in distress, but as soon as the baby is born Crystal takes a far more active role in the stories while Sue spends time with the newborn.

Elsewhere:

Andrew Farago interviewed about the upcoming Bobby London Popeye book. It's good news that work will again see print.

Our own Paul Tumey on Ving Fuller, entertainer.

And in more TCJ-contributor news, Jeet Heer is now writing a comic strip drawn by the very talented Ethan Rilly.

Finally, enjoy this video by the great Leif Goldberg. Over and out.

It's the second day of the week, which is the day that Joe McCulloch runs down the most interesting-sounding new comics set for release in comics-specialty stores this Wednesday. The title for this recurring feature is This Week in Comics! His spotlight picks this week include the end of Joe Casey & Tom Scioli's Gødland and another of Darwyn Cooke's Richard Stark adaptations.

Elsewhere:

—Interviews & Profiles. Chris Mautner has a brief interview with Gilbert Hernandez about his about-to-be-reprinted Grip: The Strange World of Men. Tom Spurgeon talks to academic Benjamin Saunders about an expansion of the comics studies program at the University of Oregon. Paul Gravett profiles Jaime Hernandez.

—Reviews & Commentary. Dana Jennings reviews The Art of Rube Goldberg. A grateful and relieved Rob Clough reviews Jesse Reklaw's Couch Tag. Jason Heller reviews Lance Parkin's new biography of Alan Moore. Michael Dooley of Print lists his favorite books of 2013.

—"News"? J. Caleb Mozzocco grieves for PictureBox. Chris Mautner recommends six PictureBox titles. And Heidi MacDonald invites comment from several comics retailers over the question of serialized comics vs. original graphic novels.

—Giving & Spending Opportunities. Zak Sally is holding a 21st anniversary of La Mano sale. Julia Wertz is selling art, photos, and books (with today the last day for Christmas delivery on photo prints). I used to only rarely post links to sales and fundraisers but they have become so common now that I guess my policy has changed. Please feel free to contact me if I've missed an important one. I won't promise to list every one I get, but I haven't been looking for these carefully up until now so I'm sure a few have slipped by unnoticed.

Today on the site:

James Romberger interviews Paul Kirchner, of "The Bus" and "Dope Rider."

Paul: Don’t worry, I don’t feel bad about my association with High Times, really. If I did I suppose I’d refuse to have the work reprinted, or condemn it like someone who’s had a religious conversion and renounces his past.

Dope Rider originated because when I showed my samples to Dennis Lopez, the editor of Harpoon, he liked a surrealistic Western story I had drawn but said I should do a similar story and make it drug-themed. The drug element was necessary to have the surrealism make sense to most readers. Because of the drug element, High Times wanted to run it, and I had no qualms about working for a drug-oriented magazine if it provided an outlet for the kind or art I wanted to do.

I have always been interested in the conflict/connection between the “real” world–the world of material things, orderly transitions, and logical, predictable outcomes–and the other world, the world of spiritual forces, visions, dreams, and delusions, that follows illogical and unpredictable rules of its own. I’m not sure that latter realm is any less real in our lives.

Elsewhere online:

My favorite comic strip in America, True Chubbo, has moved to its own site.

Robert Crumb interviewed at, uh, Red Bull Academy.

The great psychedelic artist Martin Sharp, who I wrote with Norman Hathaway for our book Electrical Banana, has passed away. Here's a solid appreciation of his early cartooning in Australia and London.

Paste has a top ten list. I'm really glad to see Dash Shaw's New School getting some play on these lists. That's a my personal favorite (ahem, non-PictureBox) comic of 2013.

I somehow missed the fact that classic 90s comic Big Mouth is being featured over on Boing Boing.

Tom Spurgeon interviews Karl Stevens.

Jeez, this Kim Deitch artwork is gorgeous.

I was very flattered and grateful for these appreciations of PictureBox, one from the boys at Comics Books Are Burning in Hell and one from Frank at The Washington Post. It's nice to read eulogies while I'm still alive.

Today, after nearly three years of virtually no comics convention coverage on this site at all, we present our second full report in a row. This time, it's columnist Paul Tumey on the Short Run festival in Seattle. Here's a bit of what Paul had to say:

Short Run was created in 2011 by two talented, crafty, artistic friends who love D.I.Y. publishing - Kelly Froh and Eroyn Franklin (Janice Headley became an organizer in 2013). It makes sense that this would eventually happen. SPX (Small Press Expo) has been going on for years, New York's MoCCA and Chicago's Cake Alternative Comics Expo are well-established. Seattle, which may well have more cartoonists per square inch than any other city in the world, seems a natural for a small press festival. The first Short Run Small Press Fest, funded by bake sales and the organizer's bank accounts, featured exhibitors and drew 800 people.

Insert a narration box at the top of the next panel that reads "Three years later..." and Short Run (this time partially funded by grants from Humanities Washington and 4Culture) 2013 drew about 1700 attendees and featured 120 beautifully mad people makin' copies, comics, zines, prints, and doodads for sale and trade. This year, Short Run took a long sprint across the entire month of November, with such events as November 9th's Rookie Yearbook 2 signing party with editor and fashion sensation Tavi Gevinson, the small press art show at the Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery, and November 29th's Read/Write event that featured a panel, an interactive performance with David Lasky and Greg Stump, a silkscreen workshop with Eric Carnell, and much more.

Also, we are republishing a rare, comprehensive interview with Calvin & Hobbes creator Bill Watterson, conducted by Richard Samuel West in 1989 and published in issue 127. Here's a sample:

WEST: Let’s talk about Hobbes a little bit. He seems to be older and wiser than Calvin, but not much. Which of the following more accurately describes him: a pet, a brother, a friend, or the father that Calvin never had?

WATTERSON: Hobbes is really hard to define and, in a way, I’m reluctant to do it. I think there’s an aspect of this character that’s hard for me to articulate. I suppose if I had to choose from those four, the brother and the friend would be the closest. But there’s something a little peculiar about him that’s, hopefully, not readily categorized.

WEST: Well, in a way that says more about Calvin than Hobbes because Hobbes is implicitly, explicitly just a product of his imagination.

WATTERSON: But the strip doesn’t assert that. That’s the assumption that adults make because nobody else sees him, sees Hobbes, in the way that Calvin does. Some reporter was writing a story on imaginary friends and they asked me for a comment, and I didn’t do it because I really have absolutely no knowledge about imaginary friends. It would seem to me, though, that when you make up a friend for yourself, you would have somebody to agree with you, not to argue with you. So Hobbes is more real than I suspect any kid would dream up.

WEST: Well, at the risk of getting into psychobabble, a lot of psychologists would say that children create imaginary friends to play out family dramas. So an argument can be just as much a part of an imaginary world as, you know, a sort of sentimental, gooey friendship can be.

WATTERSON: Yeah, well, I would hope that the friendship between Calvin and Hobbes is so complex that it would transcend a normal fantasy. The resolution of the question of whether Hobbes is real or not doesn’t concern me or interest me, but, hopefully, there’s some element of complexity there that will make the relationship interesting on a couple of levels.

Elsewhere:

—Reviews & Commentary. There have been a few more articles and testimonials written about PictureBox, including from Corey Blake at Robot 6, Calvin Reid at Publishers Weekly, and George Elkind.

Our own Rob Clough has reviewed Peter Bagge's Margaret Sanger bio Woman Rebel, and completed his thirty-day examination of figures connected to CCS. Paul Morton reviews Jon Lewis, Andrew Aydin & Nate Powell's March.

There are more best-of-2013 lists coming out too. Here are two from Douglas Wolk at Time and Hillary Brown & Co. at Paste.

Finally, one of the best retailer-run comics bloggers around, Mike Sterling, just celebrated his tenth anniversary.

—Interviews. Xavier Guilbert interviews John Porcellino at du9, Michael Cavna interviews Ed Piskor at the Washington Post, and Michael Dooley interviews Ted Rall at Print.

—Giving Opportunities. In Wednesday's post, while listing a slew of people and organizations looking for help (most of which are still ongoing), I neglected to include this indiegogo fundraiser for Tom Hart & Leela Corman's worthy SAW. Also, many cartoonists of interest to readers of this site are involved in Providence's Mothers News, which is currently raising money via subscription for 2014.

Today Zainab Akhtar covers the UK festival Thought Bubble.

Conventions are generally a whirlwind of events, but this year was even more hectic than usual: I was working, helping to man the OK Comics (the fab comics store at which I work) tables with the guys, was conscious of doing this write-up and so attended panels for due diligence (panels are deathly boring, yo) as well as having a list of things on my “to buy” list and people I wanted to see. The guys had done the hard work lugging all the books to the Armouries in a van and setting up, so by the time I strode in with a packed lunch of Irn Bru and Jammie Dodgers on Saturday, the queue was happily snaking around the building in the cool sunshine. I knew we were sharing table space with publishers SelfMadeHero, but it’s still pretty daunting to have one of your favorite cartoonists- Frederik Peeters- in much closer proximity than imagined. I had a plan, right? At some point in the day, I’d just naturally strike up a conversation, and we’d talk like normal people, but then the kindness of others resulted in the world’s most awkward handshake and introduction, a complete lack of eye contact and brain freeze on my part, which in turn meant I had to ignore him the rest of the weekend. Peeters has a proper superstar air about him. I don’t mean that he’s haughty, but that he has a tangible presence. That presence was keenly felt on Saturday, as he spent most of the day arms folded, stalking up and down two meters of tight area as he waited for copies of his new book, Aama, to arrive, which didn’t happen until the last 15 minutes of the evening. He was calmer on Sunday.

Bob Levin covers Ray and Joe: The Story of a Man and His Dead Friend.

Ray and Joe: The Story of a Man and His Dead Friend, edited by Bob Fingerman and Gary Groth, is a 184-page collection of Rodrigues’s most scabrous work, all of which seemingly ran in the “Lampoon” between 1978 and 1989.  I say “seemingly” because the book omits any delineation of which appeared when as though to keep all statutes of limitations on the table as potential defenses against any group libel claims from the tissue-skinned.

The volume contains four narrative pieces,  20 to 84 episodes in length, and several more abbreviated efforts.  (A collection of Rodrigues’s gag cartoons is slated for future release.)  They seemingly – there’s that word again – appeared, one installment per issue, in primarily nine-panel, single-page strips, with story lines that could shift as abruptly as a dirt track Chevy.  The strips do not build to a single, concluding laugh but pull smiles and chuckles at disparate points en route.  Rodgrigues works like a silent film comedian, choosing a situation and wringing as many laughs as he can from it before moving on, like Charlie Chaplin starving in a cabin or Harold Lloyd climbing a building, though Rodrigues’s situations are more likely to produce an uplifted eyebrow or sharply sucked in breath: rooming with a corpse; a private detective in an iron lung; the ugliest little girl in the world.

Elsewhere:

And the lists are coming in like crazy right now. Here's one from Comics Alliance. And here's another from NPR. Here's a nicely illustrated one from Ryan Cecil Smith.

Tahneer Osman on Co-Mix. Kevin Huizenga on page layouts. Sean T. Collins on Fantagraphics and PictureBox.

Today, we have another of R.C. Harvey's portraits of cartoonists from years past. This time, he tells us about Marty Links (aka Martha Arguello), the creator of the teen-girl comic strip Bobby Sox. Here's a brief excerpt:

Readers sending her letters usually began “Dear Martin.” Links, responding to such letters, usually added “a little note at the end,” she explained, “saying that I’m not Mister Links but the mother of several children. For many years,” she added, “the National Cartoonists Society [which, until assaulted by Hilda Terry, had been an men-only club] sent all my letters addressed ‘Mister Links.’ I finally sent them an announcement that I’d just had a baby.” (Links was one of the first women admitted to NCS, and other accounts of her encounters with the Society’s sex-myopic bureaucracy report that her response was to offer to send them her bust size.)

[...]

In the 1960s, Links began to get letters from feminists. “They’re against Emmy Lou,” she said, “because Emmy is shown sitting by the phone, waiting for a boy to call. They say I’m perpetuating a custom that’s been going on for generations and that it’s wrong. But I feel that I’m just reflecting what’s still happening. I see my own kids doing it, and I’ve done it myself, I’m sorry to say, even at my age. It seems to me that we women are still not [in 1976] in a position where we can just call whomever we want to. However, I try to get in touch with these feminists who write because I’m very much in sympathy with what they’re trying to do.”

Elsewhere:

—Reviews & Commentary. James Vance discusses Will Eisner. Kevin Huizenga reviews Jesse Reklaw's Couch Tag. Salon picks "ten unforgettable graphic novels of 2013." Noah Berlatsky discusses the Ted Rall/Daily Kos controversy, prompting Rall to call for his firing. Long-timers may find the comments section, which includes a debate between Rall and nemesis Danny Hellman, will bring back some vivid memories. Mahendra Singh talks about draftsmanship. Tom Spurgeon has collected Twitter reactions to the PictureBox announcement. Brian Nicholson responds to the same news.

—Interviews & Profiles. Joe Procopio profiles Matt Baker. Alex Dueben interviews the great Richard Sala.

—News. The Guardian reports that Albert Uderzo has sued his daughter for "psychological violence."

—Giving & Spending Opportunities. Comics Journal regular Rob Clough is raising funds. The Fantagraphics Kickstarter is only hours away from being finished. Rina Ayuyang's typhoon-relief auction is in its final days. Mark Newgarden & Megan Montague Cash are holding a sale to raise money. Ryan Sands is offering subscriptions to Youth in Decline. Drawn & Quarterly has extended its holiday sale. PictureBox is having a 50% off everything sale.

So, what's going on? I had quite a day yesterday. No more PictureBox new releases. You can read about it over at The Comics Reporter.  People said very nice things on Twitter. Thank you all for that. But really, you're here for other things. Like Joe McCulloch who has something a little saucy for you to start off the month.

Elsewhere, it's all coming up lawsuits:

More drama over at Archie.

Dragon-Con co-founder Ed Kramer will not go to prison.

And finally, enjoy these goopy covers from Charlton.

Welcome back. This blog space has been inactive since last Wednesday, due to the American Thanksgiving holiday, so there's a lot to catch up on.

First, today we bring you an obituary of Al Plastino, one of the iconic Superman artists, written by Bob Hughes.

We also have arranged the publication of two key excerpts from Last Superman Standing: The Al Plastino Story, a forthcoming biography of the artist written by Ed Zeno. Here's a bit from that:

Al Plastino was impressed with Wayne Boring’s art: “They gave me some of his pencils to ink early on. This helped give me a feeling of how Wayne drew Superman.” He occasionally saw the older man (born in 1905) in the art room at DC, though not too often, since most of the guys worked from home. The two artists got along fine. “Wayne had really tight pencils.”

Nevertheless, Plastino had mixed feelings while under his senior’s shadow. When he looked at “The Three Supermen from Krypton!” from Superman #65 (July–August 1950) from today’s perspective, Plastino noted: “That is crap, because I was still influenced by [him]. But at least you can follow the story. My faces were lousy, but they were consistent.” When asked why he broke from following Boring’s lead, Plastino said, “No one said change it. Wayne’s work was really clean cut and professional, though the characters were a little stiff. It almost hurt me to draw like him. I tried to keep the look consistent, but it gradually did change.”

Because Jack Schiff was handling Wayne Boring’s work, he was also Plastino’s first boss at DC Comics. The goal was to maintain Superman’s artistic continuity. “Jack was one of the editors for Superman. He was a mild guy, very shy and gentle, nothing like Mort Weisinger. Jack was not a good idea man, unlike Mort, who was a great idea man. He would just say, ‘Here is the story, Al.’ He wouldn’t give directions, per se. I started working with Mort a little later.”

Last week, we were gone, but our columnists kept going. Frank Santoro turned in a short post on sexism last Thursday, and Tucker Stone and Abhay Khosla turned in a much longer column offering advice to young men aspiring to work in a sexist comics industry. Here's a snippet from that column's legal disclaimer:

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: This week's column is not referring to any specific individual, entity, person, event, or thing that exists or has ever existed or that may exist, that is either living or dead or neither, that is even a thing that has been contemplated as a possibility of a thing living or dead or neither. It refers to nothing. As an example, if this column should refer to the disastrous employment practice reputations of any company in the comics field, any resemblance of the company that is described to any company that actually exists in reality, including but not limited to, as a wholly random example, DC Comics, it is wholly coincidental and unintentional on the part of the authors as well as The Comics Journal -- any comic company described in the column should be understood to have no real-world significance and the column itself should be understood to be at most a shoddy work of fiction or some lesser form of random typing that should be given by this or any other reader even less weight than fiction. Indeed, the fact that the mere letters utilized resemble words that are understood by the reader should be seen by the reader more often than not as an unpleasant coincidence. Nor should the timing of this particular column be understood to be referring to any real world events, including but not limited to any news items that may have appeared either on this site or any other site, anywhere in the known universe, this year or any other year in the past or in the future, in perpetuity. [And so on...]

Elsewhere:

—News. [UPDATED TO ADD: My co-editor Dan Nadel has announced that his company PictureBox will no longer be releasing new titles as of December 31. He gave further details and explained the move to the Comics Reporter.]

The New York Times also published an obituary of Al Plastino. Mark Evanier comments on how unlikely such an article would have been only a few decades ago, and also airs some skepticism regarding the timing of the Superman/JFK story that has been in the news lately due to an ill-fated Heritage auction (detailed in both the Times and the TCJ obituaries).

The political cartoonist Ted Rall claims that he was asked by an administrator of Daily Kos to stop posting cartoons that depict President Obama as "ape-like." Rall (and fellow cartoonist Ruben Bolling) plausibly argue that Rall depicts most of his characters that way. Rall and Bolling describe this as a case of censorship.

Usagi Yojimbo creator Stan Sakai and his wife Sharon are reportedly facing tremendous financial bills to deal with medical issues. You can learn how to help through the Cartoon Art Professional Society here. Mark Evanier has more details here.

Tom Spurgeon reports from the Billy Ireland opening weekend, and Richard Bruton reports from Thought Bubble 2013.

—Interviews. Salon talks to Joe Sacco about The Great War. Alex Dueben at CBR talks to Kevin Huizenga and Dan Zettwoch about Leon Beyond. NPR's On Point featured Neil Gaiman. Inkstuds had on Hellen Jo. Comics Bubble talks to Paul Gravett.

—Reviews & Criticism. Kevin Huizenga likes Jim Woodring's Fran. Whit Taylor writes about Charles Forsman's Teen Creeps. The Chicago Tribune reviews Cole Closser's Little Tommy Lost. Ben Towle takes issue with the coloring in Fantagraphics' recent Harvey Kurtzman EC collection. J. Caleb Mozzocco writes about the Paul Buhle-edited Radical Jesus. Jessica Lee reviews Leah Wishnia's Gut Feelings. Jack Turnbull reviews Simon Hanselmann's Life Zone. Bob Temuka appreciates Larry Gonick. Sarah Horrocks does the same for J.H. Williams III. Rob Kirby picks his top twenty self-published comics of 2013.

Today on the site we have what's called a "Double Mautner". This is a technical term for when we publish not one but two pieces by our friend in Pennsylvania, Mr. Chris Mautner. First up is his interview with Gene Yang.

Tell me about the research you did. Ho much did you have to dive into to learn about this time period?

I definitely still feel like I have a lot to learn about research. I’m not very good at it. This is the first time I’ve done historical fiction and I started by just setting aside a few hours every week, I would go to my local university library for a few hours every Tuesday or Wednesday and just read. I would try to read as much as I could get my hands on about the Boxer Rebellion and also about China during that time. There were a few books that were helpful to me. The one that was especially helpful was called Origins of the Boxer Uprising by a man named Joseph Esherick. I relied heavily on that book, especially for the Boxer side. And then I was able to get other books as well. There’s a book put out by the Catholic church in Taiwan a brief biographies of each of the canonized saints. I was able to go to a Jesuit archive in a French city and there they had these letters and photos sent in by missionaries to China. I wasn’t able to use a lot of the letters because ethey were in French but the visual reference was amazing. I took a whole bunch of photos and brought them home and that served as the basis of my visual refernces for the book.

And here he is on Peter Bagge's Woman Rebel.

Bagge doles out Sanger’s life in short, episodic fashion, with each page or two chronicling a significant episode in her life. It might be a bit too cursory for a reader used to 1,000-page biographies, but the book’s hectic pace effectively mirrors Sanger’s own frantic work ethic (at one point her son compares traveling with her to “chasing a hurricane”). More to the point, Bagge’s book is clearly designed not only to refute some of the nastier claims made about her by pro-life forces (namely that she was a bigot who supported eugenics and the KKK) but to also serve as a re-introduction to Sanger’s life and times (I for one had only the barest knowledge of her significance before reading this book).

Elsewhere on the internets:

Stan Sakai and his wife could use your help.

A couple of pieces on the late Al Plastino. One on his tryout for Peanuts and one from The Beat.

Brian Doherty on a new Siegel and Shuster bio.

The AV Club on a bunch of comics.

Heidi MacDonald on comics criticism.

Do you like to look at other humans at events? Well, here's a photoset from the Art Spiegelman opening, and one from the Billy Ireland opening.

Finally, Mould Map is a really fantastic and, in the present, essential anthology. They're Kickstarting the next edition, which looks great. Oh yes, I know the irony. I'm OK with it. Anyhow, I suggest supporting this worthy effort.

When Tuesday comes around, you know it's time for Joe McCulloch to highlight the most-interesting sounding new releases of the Week in Comics, and this time, he also has a bit to say about a comic that just won a British Comics Award, Garen Ewing's Complete Rainbow Orchid, which he describes as...

a glossy evocation of mid-20th century Belgian bande dessinée, as wedded to the ripping yarns of H. Rider Haggard and the golden age of silent movie comedy. North American iPad owners can purchase the book through the Sequential app, although no such print publisher has picked the material up for distribution; you’ll have to import Egmont UK’s 9″ x 12″ softcover album, or any of the three component albums which the same publisher has been releasing since 2009, though the origins of the work date back to 1997, with magazine serialization, self-publication and webcomic avenues duly explored. To outside observers, it may seem the classic overnight success of 15 years’ making, though I know Ewing had also been active in the UK fanzine and small press scenes for a while.

I first learned about The Rainbow Orchid though Forbidden Planet’s terrifying suite of Best of 2012 lists, though my appetite was really whetted by learning about the artist’s influences; no simple Hergé devotee, Ewing counts Edgar P. Jacobs as a crucial motivator, while also maintaining a keen interest in Yves Chaland, one of my own personal favorites. It was Chaland, in fact, which raised certain expectations about the work – perhaps unfairly, in retrospect.

We also have Robert Kirby's review of Treasury of Mini Comics, the first in a series of anthologies to be edited by Michael Dowers. Here's a sample:

There are some excellent excursions into surrealist realms here from Roberta Gregory, Fiona Smyth, and Max Clotfelter with Marc Palm; a good dose of “Cynicalman” hilarity from mini-comics great Matt Feazell, an amusing tribute to Beatrix Potter from Mark Campos, a nicely-made Mixtape from Nate Beaty, and some charming early work from John Porcellino. The collection would not have felt nearly as complete without the inclusion of these small press mainstays. Within Treasury there is also the joy of discovering (for me) heretofore unfamiliar talents, such as Peter Thompson, with his strikingly presented I’m the Devil, Mark Connery with the awesomely stoopid humor of Rudy (if you like the comics of Liz Hickey you’ll like this), and Karl Wills, whose art puts me in mind of Joost Swarte, in his tale of mean girl vs. mean girl, “Jessica’s Good Deed”. I could read a cart-load more of comics by all three of these creators.

And yesterday, we published a review by Paul Buhle of Dark Horse's Original Daredevil Archives, featuring anti-Hitler comics from the Biro/Wood studio.

Michael T. Gilbert, himself a professional cartoonist of many years standing, has written a very fine, thoughtful introduction—unlike the occasionally mediocre of the introductions to the reprints written on the fly, or without much historical knowledge beyond the names of the artists.

Gilbert does a fine job of leading us through the saga, especially highlighting the weirdos who made the pages sparkle. Take Charles Biro, who would shortly emerge as a major artist for Crime Does Not Pay, the noir classic or exploitation-fest, however one wishes to see the violence of the most popular comic in the postwar 1940s. Gilbert shrewdly notes that when it came to drawing, Biro would never be a master of the field. But when it came to weaving a story, he could hardly be matched. His criminal characters almost invariably proved the most exciting, in the way that the Devil got the best parts in Milton.

Elsewhere:

—News. Mark Evanier reports that Al Plastino has died. We will have more on that later. As alluded to earlier, the British Comics Awards were announced. Here's a solid roundup of the recent Apple/Sex Criminals fracas. Tom Spurgeon has a massive post recapping his experiences at CAB. Jeff Smith's new webcomic has just launched.

—Spending Opportunities. Drawn & Quarterly is having a major holiday sale, with 40% off all everything on their web store. Rina Ayuyang's auction/fundraiser for typhoon relief (which features lots of really impressive art) is in its final stretch this week. You should really check it out.

—Reviews & Commentary. Hillary Brown at Paste looks at Frank Santoro's Pompeii. Emily Thomas takes issue with Glyn Dillon's Nao of Brown. And one more early best-of-the-year list, put together for the Washington Post by Michael Cavna. Bully talks comics numbering.

—Interviews. Alan Moore is in fine form talking to The Guardian, mentioning in passing (again) that he doesn't think much of superhero comics, and in the process angering (again) a bunch of superhero fans on the internet. (This routine has gone on so long that it started out as funny, gradually became less and less funny, and has now gone around to being funny again.) The same paper also talks to Neil Cohn about his upcoming book, The Visual Language of Comics. And there's a really short interview with Tom Gauld at The New Yorker regarding his first cover for the magazine.

Today on the site:

Alex Dueben interviews Zeina Abirached.

Alex Dueben:  Often when I’ll do an interview I’ll ask the artist to give some background information about the setting of their book, but I know that we could be here for a day or two talking about the origins of the Lebanese civil war. You were born during the war; what is your earliest memory of it?

Zeina Abirached:  I have a very striking memory of the first time I crossed the green line and went to West Beirut (It is not my earliest memory of the war, but it was an experience that helped me to become aware of a lot of things).

It was in the early nineties, at the end of the war, at the time the war was essentially in the eastern part of Beirut where I used to live. I remember we had to leave our flat in a hurry and run away in our car to a more secure place. My parents decided to go to West Beirut for a while to be safe and make plans. I remember that the first things I saw in that part of my town I didn’t know yet–I was ten years old–was people in the streets, lights, animation, and the calm Mediterranean sea.

I felt like I was in a foreign country. I just couldn’t understand I was still in Beirut! I remember the first two days I couldn’t speak Arabic or French–which are my two mother tongues–I could only use the only foreign language I knew at that time: English.

Elsewhere:

Leif Goldberg has released his 2014 calendar. You should really buy it.

A look back at an attempt to make an underground newspaper supplement.

Ken Tucker reviews a bunch of comics at the NY Times.

Lots of End of the Year lists are appearing. Here's Filth and Fabulations. And here's Michael DeForge. Sean Rogers has a good one, too.

Here's our own Jacq Cohen on Tell Me Something I Don't Know.

Oh Frank Robbins, how I love the way you slathered ink all over the page like you owned the joint.

And amazingly enough, all of The Wiggle Much is now online.

Hello, friends. Today on the site Dan Nadel writes a review of the Art Spiegelman "Co-Mix" career retrospective being shown at the Jewish Museum in New York.

Having a good pair of eyes sifting through the archive is essential. Just when you think you have Spiegelman nailed down, he kind of slips away again. Oh, there's a Viper page, and there's a Maus print I hadn't seen, and, oh, those Boris Vian covers... And this is thanks largely to the efforts of Rina Zavagli-Mattotti, the owner of Galerie Martel in Paris. Zavagli-Mattotti curated the original exhibition, which opened nearly a year ago in Angouleme. With Spiegelman, she selected the work for that show and each iteration thereafter (it has made stops at the Pompidou in Paris, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, and the Vancouver Art Gallery). So, yes, the "hits" are all here, but so are lesser known pieces, including the largest showing of underground work yet (certainly more than I've ever seen in an official compilation) and a fascinating set of layout progressions for Spiegelman's Raw #7 cover. Maus is rightly given pride of place, and beautifully installed, with Spiegelman's nearly frantic preliminaries occasionally jutting out from the finished pages like word balloons.

Elsewhere:

—Interviews. Joann Sfar went on Inkstuds. Georgia Webber shares her bookshelf to Hazlitt. Adrian Tomine talks about New York with British GQ. Rian Hughes answers questions from Steven Heller. Alex Schubert talks for two seconds to something called B Rad. Box Brown talks wrestling with Grantland.

—Reviews & Commentary. Tom Murphy at Broken Frontier reviews Gilbert Hernandez's Maria M. Mike Lynch shares strips from Chester Gould's pre-Dick Tracy career. Scottish crime novelist Ian Rankin reviews the new Asterix story set in Scotland. Dylan Williams wrote about Mort Meskin in 2003.

—News. According to Deadline, Warner Brothers has won another (and possibly final) major decision in its legal battle with the estates of Siegel and Shuster. Charles Hatfield reports from the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library opening weekend. Gary Tyrell writes about some pretty sleazy behavior from PC Magazine, regarding a webcomics listicle. Maggie Thompson is selling a big chunk of her comics collection.

Finally, researchers at the University in Calgary are conducting a study of working conditions in comics. If you are involved with comics creation, you may want to participate in this survey.

On the site today: Frank Santoro talks tour swag. The endless tour swag. Swag!

And Sarah Boxer on Joe Sacco's The Great War: July 1, 1916: The First Day of the Battle of the Somme, an Illustrated Panorama

In the history of comics, Sacco’s Great War lies somewhere between two other near-silent comic-like narratives:  the medieval Bayeux Tapestry, a 230-foot-long piece of embroidery showing the Norman Invasion of England in 1066 (which Sacco cites as an influence), and Building Stories, Chris Ware’s giant box of comic-book-like objects. But for sheer silence these two can’t compete with The Great War. After all, the Bayeux tapestry has embroidered captions that tell you what’s going on, and Chris Ware allows his characters occasional grunts and sniffs. Here Sacco, the cartoonist of human speech and argument, has banned all words.

Elsewhere:

No links today. Instead let me digress for a second.

It's been a good autumn in New York for those interested in comics and comics-related art. There were shows by three Chicago masters: Gladys Nilsson, Karl Wirsum and Art Green; a small but potent show of Peter Saul paintings a A fine exhibition by Seth. And there is, of course, the terrific Art Spiegelman retrospective, about which more later. And now there's an Ad Reinhardt show at David Zwirner (home also to R. Crumb and Raymond Pettibon). Yes, Ad Reinhardt, king of the all-black painting. An unlikely man to make comics. And yet there it is. The Reinhardt show is not just any exhibition though: It features a complete run of his comics work for P.M. (for which Crockett Johnson, among others, also drew) and ARTnews in the 1940s and '50s. And to top it off, Zwirner has published an absolutely killer book of these comics: How to Look: Art Comics. Oversized, impeccably designed and printed, it's my favorite surprise of the year. One of those books you dream of but never imagine really happening. It belongs with the recent Jess book, as well as the Joe Brainard Nancy book (both from Siglio Press), to a now-growing shelf of comics that exist outside both the comic and art narratives. An odd shaped history into which you might also throw the 1960s Hairy Who "comic books", various works by Dieter Roth, a ton of books by Dorothy Iannone, and all sorts of other odds and ends. 

How to Look: Art Comics is an oversized hardcover with a superb essay by Robert Storr, none of which would matter if the comics weren't so damn good. These are more like visual essays in the Peter Blegvad-sense than the newspaper comics of the time, but what else could they be, really? Each comics page is a collage of paste-up imagery and often-punning, always cunning, words, commenting on, well, art. From "The Insiders" to "How to Look at Iconography" to "How to Look at a Mural" (Guernica, of course), Reinhardt winkingly guides viewers through art as he knew it. Along the way there are many now-forgotten artists, critics, curators and galleries, and many still known. But trace-the-reference is only part of the fun. The elegance of Reinhardt's compositions, the deftness with which he juxtaposes text and image, and his infrequent, but jarring use of hand-drawn cartooning make each strip a gem. This work should be brought into comics proper, and perhaps viewed as paradigmatic examples of the comic-as-diagram or the comics-as-explanation, much as Scott McCloud and Dan Zettwoch have used it. Anyhow, all of this is to say: Go out and see the show if you're in NYC, and get the book in any case. It's an education in art and cartooning.

Today we should keep you busy. First, Bill Kartalopoulos has a report from the grand opening of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum last weekend:

This calendar year has seen no shortage of comics-related events and exhibitions, but the occasion most likely to have a long term impact for comics is the opening of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at Ohio State University this past weekend in Columbus, Ohio. The unveiling of the new dedicated museum and library space is the culmination of founding curator Lucy Shelton Caswell’s thirty-five-year vision and sets a new high water mark for comics-related institution building in North America. The ribbon-cutting of the new facility and the opening of its first exhibits was marked with a two-day academic conference, followed by a weekend of public events featuring artists including Matt Bors, Eddie Campbell, Jaime Hernandez, Gilbert Hernandez, Paul Pope, Jeff Smith, and many more. The event also served as the site of major announcements from the BICLM itself, as well as from other organizations represented there including the Center for Cartoon Studies and the International Comic Arts Forum (ICAF).

And then we have Ken Parille, with the second part of his column exploring the use of dialogue and narration in comics. Here's a sample of that:

After Byrne’s super-villain introduces himself in 1986’s Superman #1, Lois Lane goes on the attack: “’Metallo’? You have got to be kidding. Where the heck did you pick up a cornball name like that?”

The trope of a character calling a villain’s shtick “corny” pops up repeatedly in 'Silver Age' comics (c. 1956 -1970), particularly those scripted by Stan Lee, one of Byrne’s major influences:

If you know it’s corny, then why do it? Perhaps Byrne sees no other option: such names are part of the fantasy world he operates in. But admitting to foolishness rather than quietly playing along makes it worse — can you really write something corny and then act like you’re above it? I think "Metallo" is a solid villain name and needs no apology.

Elsewhere:

—Reviews & Commentary. Timothy Callahan reviews three new comics and one old issue of Lloyd Llewellyn. Chris Mautner lays out six comics he found at Comics Art Brooklyn. Then James Romberger beats them all by reviewing eight comics from CAB. [UPDATE: I stupidly missed this extremely harsh takedown of the Art Spiegelman Co-Mix show written by Jed Perl at The New Republic.]

—Interviews & Profiles. Over at the Los Angeles Review of Books, Sarah Boxer has a great interview with Françoise Mouly. At one of The New Yorker's blogs, Mouly herself presents an interview with Joe Sacco. Paul Gravett profiles Algerian cartoonist Sofiane Belaskri. Neil Gaiman talks about Sandman: Overture.

—News. I can't imagine people interested in the ongoing Brian Wood/sexism-in-the-comics-industry conversation haven't seen most of these links already, but just in case, a second woman came forward with claims about Brian Wood, and a blogger has made a timeline of the controversy and its coverage.

Reports that filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki plans to make a samurai manga in his retirement have some visual confirmation now.

Finally, cartoonist and Yam Books publisher Rina Ayuyang has started an online art auction and book sale to raise funds for the victims of the Typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan disaster in the Philippines. Participating artists include Kevin Huizenga, Dylan Horrocks, Vanessa Davis, Eleanor Davis, Jaime Hernandez, and more.