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We have sad news for you this morning, as the seemingly universally well-liked cartoonist Joe Kubert has passed away. Kubert's biographer Bill Schelly has written the artist and Kubert School founder's obituary for us. An excerpt:

Born Yosaif Kubert on September 18, 1926, in what was then southern Poland (now Ukraine), his family emigrated to America when he was an infant. The Kuberts settled in a Jewish ghetto in Brooklyn known as East New York. Inspired by the colorful Sunday newspaper strips, Kubert decided at an early age that he wanted to be a cartoonist, and by 1939 he was working in the comic book production shop of Harry “A” Chesler in Manhattan.

Kubert received his only formal art training at the High School of Music and Art in New York City, a school for artistically gifted youths. Most of his training was “on the job” from such legendary comic book artists as Mort Meskin, Charles Biro, Irv Novick and others. At 14, Kubert was assisting on “The Spirit” in Will Eisner’s studio in Stamford, Connecticut.

There are many memorials to the man already posted, and more to come. Mark Evanier and Stephen Bissette have two of the more substantial up right now, and Tom Spurgeon has collected just about everything in his usual "Collective Memory" feature.

This is also the first day on the site for our latest Cartoon Diarist, Noah Van Sciver. Entry one is here.

And Sean Michael Robinson reviews Shigeru Mizuki's NonNonBa.

Elsewhere:

—I know I promised to weigh in on Dan's controversial Kickstarter/SP7 blog post, but it seems to me that at this point, more or less everything to be said on the matter has been said. I finally did find a comic that more or less perfectly encapsulates my views on the whole thing, though.

(I actually do have an opinion, but it's a boring one: Dan's thoughts on the historical problems evident in that Kickstarter pitch were right on, but it would have been a more effective example if he could point to the finished product. Some of the rhetoric was over the top, but obviously so, because it was meant to be funny. The "comix" paragraph should have been cut. That people often "look like schmucks" in their Kickstarter pitches shouldn't be a controversial position. Otherwise, I have no real problem with crowdfunding other than to think it's worth exploring options before starting one, and it does seem like it's become a bit overdone. I don't feel so strongly enough to write a rant about it, though. And I think that's it.)

Finally, Matt Bors discovers a crowdfunding campaign bound to give anyone pause.

—Curator Sara Duke gives a short online tour of the Library of Congress's I'm sure amazing cartoon collection.

—Marc Tyler Nobleman appeared on the NPR radio show All Things Considered to discuss his new book arguing that Bill Finger deserves more credit as Batman's co-creator.

—Abhay Khosla has one of his typically insane comics reviews up, this time of Brandon Graham's Prophet.

—Paul Gravett looks at the under-loved comics publisher, ACG. Its most popular character, Herbie, of course deserves all the attention he gets, but there are lots of little-known gems in that company's back catalog, and man are they easy to get cheap in back issues. Wait, what am I complaining about?

It's Friday morning, so why not dive into the weekend arm in arm with Tucker Stone and friends? This week it's new comics (natch) and the excellent duo of Garfield and Rob Liefeld.

Elsewhere online:

I didn't know that the band The Teardrop Explodes took its name from a line of dialogue in a Daredevil comic. Here the band, the Daredevil team and others remember how it all happened.

Another new one -- a Tumblr devoted to comics Australia and New Zealand -- great Stanley Pitt work here.

Sean Witzke and Matt Seneca continue their duet on the series Solo, this time it's Paul Pope's turn.

Should you need more Tucker in your life, along with Jog and Mautner, here's the latest Comic Books Are Burning in Hell. It's mostly about Garth Ennis, so you can expect a high degree of passion.

Hey, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez are going on a proper tour in September. Good news.

Finally, as proof of my continued cliquishness and editorial malfeasance, I present you with the news that erstwhile columnist Frank Santoro is having yet another comic book sale tomorrow, this time with sales assistants Ben Marra, Jonny Negron, Lala Albert and Aidan Koch.

Enjoy the break.

Today, we bring you Michael Dean's report on the Society of Illustration's recent purchase of MoCCA. An excerpt:

Asked who approached whom, [MoCCA President Ellen] Abramowitz told the Journal, “They approached us about eight months ago just about shared memberships and things like that and we had a few friendly meetings. Then, our lease was coming due for renewal at the end of July. I thought, 'MoCCA needs to go to the next level. If these are our goals and I don’t see them happening and I can’t do this with one person, do we really want to sign a new lease at this location?' Our debt wasn’t high. What hurt us was we had rent. I called them [in late June] and proposed the transfer and they very quickly said yes. They agreed to everything we wanted and even things we didn’t ask for. Some [MoCCA] trustees were initially upset, but it was a unanimous vote by the board.”

And my wife forgot to buy new coffee yesterday, and I'm not about to try and address anything more complicated than that without caffeine.

Here are a few links:

—Tom Spurgeon is trying to start a conversation about crowdfunding, and Anne Hambrock compares Kickstarter to Indiegogo from a practical standpoint (without getting into the more controversial areas).

—Matt Madden drew a much-linked-to six-panel history of American comics to illustrate an essay on the same by academic Paul Lopes. The article is a more-or-less solid bit of history, though little of it will be new to Journal readers, and he makes a few questionable assertions (such as his claim that manga saved the American graphic novel in the 2000s).

—Cecil Adams at the Straight Dope tracked down the first person to use the letter "Z" to indicate snoring during sleep—it was a cartoonist, as you might expect, considering the fact that I'm mentioning it here. (via)

—Steven Heller briefly interviews Blab editor Monte Beauchamp.

—And Noah Van Sciver provides a "Directors Commentary" to the Forbidden Planet blog.

Today on the site Craig Fischer returns to excellent column, Monsters Eat Critics, and an examination of Jonah Hex, which includes meditations on Westerns generally, plot structures and torture porn. Here's a bit:

My biggest problem with All Star Western, however, is Gray and Palmiotti’s recalibration of the Western’s civilization/wilderness dialectic. In Hex #63, Jonah Hex is untamed, yet still bound by a personal code of honor, and he’s also the character we connect with the most. Hex appears in almost every scene of the comic; we are given access to his intimate memories of Aaron’s death, and we share his desire to stop Loco. I don’t think our identification with Hex is total; he brutally slits the throats of Loco’s men, he follows his father’s example by torturing Loco (and cutting out his eyes), and at moments like these some readers might put up some psychic barriers between Hex and their own emotions and sensibilities. We do have a strong sense of Hex’s status as a loner, however, and over the course of Gray and Palmiotti’s original series we come to know Hex as a character whose allegiances to both wilderness and civilization are mercurial and complex. Hex emulates the elegiac, conflicted gunslingers in earlier Western fiction and film, and Hex benefits from its dialogue with these predecessors.

And Rob Clough reviews Leela Corman's graphic novel, Unterzakhn:

If there’s a villain to be found in Leela Corman’s return to comics, Unterzakhn, it’s hypocrisy. While this story of twin Jewish girls growing up in New York’s Lower East Side in the early 20th century is also about the art of survival and the arbitrary nature of what determines who lives and who dies, it’s really a celebration of human kindness in the face of the abyss and a condemnation of arbitrary, rules-based ethics systems. Corman jumps forward and back in time to tell the story of Esther and Fanya Feinberg, their father Isaac, and their mother Minna.

Elsewhere online:

One of my all-time favorite comic strips, Zissy and Rita, now has a web site featuring all their adventures. Zissy and Rita, how do I love thee? This is one of those hilarious masterpieces that scratches an itch (or a whole rash) that you didn't know you had.

Illogical Volume has a post up on Mindless Ones about the recent Sean Rogers/Flex Mentallo piece over here.

Daniel Best has posted a fascinating article about Jerry Siegel's life as an enlisted man in WWII.

And Tom Spurgeon has some thoughts on the late critic Robert Hughes.

Looks like I picked a good week to go on vacation—have the last ten days been the most contentious in the site's history during our tenure or does it just appear that way when you return only half-aware and see all the comments and cross-talk at once? (I don't have enough patience or curiosity to find out whatever was going on on Twitter and Facebook a week ago, or I'm sure it would seem even more overwhelming.) Anyway, I didn't have time to do much more than skim Dan's post on SP7/Kickstarter shortly before my departure, and I spent my flight wondering what kind of reaction it might stir up. Now I know. On one level, the whole thing seems like a classic molehill-sized mountain, but the issues involved (and the discussion it spawned) deserve more than a day's reflection before comment from me, especially considering just how much talk from other thinkers, both smart and dumb, has already been offered. Other than in the comments of this site (ha), some of the most even-keeled commentary on the controversy has come from Sean T. Collins, Secret Acres, and Tom Spurgeon. I will probably have more to say on this (and maybe on subsequent dustups on the site) in the near future, but those are good places to go in the meantime.

Other than that elephant in the room, the main topic of today is, of course, Joe McCulloch's usual Tuesday column on the Week in Comics.

Link-wise, I'm a bit out of date, obviously, and will try not to be too redundant, but here's what I've got for you so far:

—Drew Friedman recounts every kid's dream, an adolescent visit to the offices of MAD magazine in 1974.

—Gary Groth talks to Chris Mautner at Robot 6 about this magazine's recently announced partnership with Alexander Street Press.

—The University of Chicago has finally begun posting video of some of the panels from its acclaimed Hillary Chute-organized "Comics: Philosophy & Practice" conference. Links to the videos will be posted here, and so far include Art Spiegelman's talk with the great academic W.J.T. Mitchell and a group panel featuring Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Justin Green, Carol Tyler, and Phoebe Gloeckner.

—The Wall Street Journal has a report on the MoCCA/Society of Illustrators move.

—Leela Corman is interviewed at The Millions.

—Domingos Isabelhino writes on Marco Mendes.

—Muddy Colors has video of the late, great Moebius drawing in 2010. (via)

Welcome to the new week.

Today on the site:

The great Richard Gehr returns with a brand new Know Your New Yorker Cartoonist, this time featuring the most excellent Arnie Levin. Here's a choice morsel:

GEHR: Did you have any relationship with your father?

LEVIN: When I went to get a passport, they ask me, “What’s your father’s name?” I said, “Ernest.” And the gal said to me, “No, it’s not.” I said, “Yes, it is!” She said, “No. That’s not what’s here.” So I called my mother and aunt to ask if Dad had any other names. Nothing. We were there all day calling people. I was getting desperate because we were gonna take a trip and I needed a passport. Then the gal asked me, “What borough did you live in?” I said the Bronx, She said no. I said, “This is impossible!” and asked her what she had down for his name. She said, “E.” [Laughter] I said, “E?” “Yes. E. Lawrence Levin.” She suddenly wants to get literary!

And of course, if you follow the site 24/7 you'd know that Frank Santoro posted a column yesterday detailing some of his current obsessions:

  currently obsessed with old issues of Optic Nerve. They look really really good and the stories hold up. The graphic design of the individual comics is great. And I really like Adrian’s “stage blocking” when he composes scenes. There is a very real sense of space in his comics. People in the landscape, in chairs, cars – all feel real and drawn and observed. Very hard to do without relying on photo refs. Tomine has a super developed sense of timing. I also like how he uses the “set” of the room or landscape to show physical as well as emotional distance from each other. Like a good cinematographer.

That should really quench your comics thirst, but if you're like me, and you find yourself parched for comics, here's a little more:

-Paul Gravett on comics history books.

-An entire Tumblr devoted to absurd images of Lupin III.

-Al Williamson and Joe Simon do a collaborative dance.

-A fine new Kate Beaton comic.

-More New Yorker cartooning: Bruce Eric Kaplan, who wrote the Seinfeld New Yorker cartoon bit, interviewed on that very subject.

-And not comics, but surely picture stories: The late Chris Marker once made a really excellent CD-ROM, which is now online. (via Jog)

Another week done gone, huh? And into the weekend for all of us. I'm feeling a little jaunty about it. But not to worry, Tucker Stone and co. are here to leave you with some feelings about the medium you love and cherish.

Elsewhere, the big, rumored-about news is that MoCCA has announced via press release that it will "transfer its assets" to the Society of Illustrators. This apparently includes "its permanent art collection and the MoCCA Fest name". Also, from the PR:

The Society will continue and expand MoCCA’s mission in a number of ways: staging MoCCA Fest in its current location, dedicating a gallery in the Society building to MoCCA’s Permanent Collection, continuing MoCCA programming, and curating a special exhibition of works from MoCCA’s Permanent Collection in their Hall of Fame Gallery (on display March 5-May 4), which will run in conjunction with a major exhibit, “The Comic Art of Harvey Kurtzman,” curated by graphic designer and comics-anthology editor Monte Beauchamp. There will be extensive arts programming around both of these exhibits, including lectures, workshops, film and music series. Current MoCCA memberships will be honored at the Society of Illustrators.

I think it's a bit of shame to place comics under the umbrella of illustration (though I love the latter), if only because it only just recently crawled out from under said umbrella and I prefer the medium stand on its own. Then again, as above, their histories are well intermingled, so a smart curator could do some interesting shows working deep in the Society stacks. I'll be very curious how the Society handles comics, and also how it handles the current (very controversial) MoCCA board/staff. I'll refrain from reading too much into the PR. We'll have full coverage early next week.

And in other places online: It's TCJ-contributors run amuck, writing for other publications like they haven't a care in the world, throwing words hither and yon with great flair.

Here's our Northern friend Jeet Heer on Blown Covers: New Yorker Covers You Were Never Meant to See for the LA Review of Books:

Mouly’s new collection Blown Covers: New Yorker Covers You Were Never Meant to See, documents the Brown era and beyond, and shows how she gave the public face of The New Yorker a make-over, turning out covers that are much livelier and more timely while also skirting at the edge of good taste, and occasionally getting reined in by the magazine’s governing code of propriety. What does a cultural agitator do when she’s put in charge of the covers of a venerable publication, one that, in recent decades, has had a tropism towards stuffiness? One predictable innovation was recruiting a cohort of artists from Raw, including Burns, Richard McGuire, Robert Crumb, and Jacques de Loustal. Eventually, Mouly also brought on a wider array of cartoonists from outside the Raw orbit, like Daniel Clowes, Adrian Tomine, and Seth. These artists brought the inventiveness and élan of contemporary narrative cartooning to The New Yorker.

Here's that Tucker Stone again, co-opting Joe McCulloch (patron saint of the unreadable-yet-intriguing), Matt (handsome man) Seneca, and Chris (wise & stable) Mautner with their gold darned podcast.

Oh heavens, here's Sean T. Collins telling you about Batman books for Rolling Stone!

And, beneath that handsome cover there will be some comics in this year's Best American Comics. Here is a list of them.

Finally, despite my intense love for his work, I did not know that Seymour (my fantasy football league illustrator/designer of choice for my life) Chwast had a column over at Print. Now you know, too.

Well the internet has arrived to my dwelling here in Copake, New York. It's a nice internet, though replete with strange angry vibes that my dog, Mr. Fatty Pants, wisely tells me to ignore. Fatty Pants says: "Hey man, just chill." And so I do.

But my chilling should have no bearing on your comics reading habits.

Today on the site we have Ron Goulart continuing his correspondence column, this time with Basil Wolverton. If I haven't mentioned this before, I should note that Ron is an absolute living treasure of a comics historian. He was the first to document and explain Jack Cole's life and work, and his artist-centric approach to the medium has yielded numerous essential books, including both volumes of The Great Comic Book Artists, and my personal favorite, The Encyclopedia of American Comics. Anyhow, here's a bit from Wolverton:

After Wolverton replied, I learned that he didn’t labor in the New York area but in the Pacific Northwest. He resided in Vancouver, Washington and contributed by mail. The Funnies, Inc. shop handled much of his comic book. His letterhead contained the bottom line “Producer of Preposterous Pictures of Peculiar People.” He sent me a small original drawing of Powerhouse, which I immediately tacked to my bedroom wall to add to my growing collection. In a later letter Wolverton enclosed a snapshot of himself holding his dog. He looked unlike Spacehawk or Powerhouse Pepper. But was a chubby fellow with curly hair. In the letter he explained, “the one with the coat is me.” He was always polite and helpful and upbeat.

And elsewhere online, a diverse selection of reading material with which to wile away your summer day...

Brokelyn talks to Leslie Stein, Lisa Hanawalt, and Brendan Leach about how they make a living (or don't) in comics.

Howard Chaykin has resurrected his erotic comic book series, Black Kiss, and talks about it here. Chaykin is one of those artists I'm perpetually interested in, for the arc of his career as much as the work itself.

Sean Howe, whose forthcoming Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, is a miracle of research and storytelling, has a classic bit of correspondence from Steve Ditko.

Warren Ellis writes about British adventure comic strips. I've only just gotten on to Modesty Blaise, and am enjoying the strip a lot.

Michael Dooley's two part interview with Susie Cagle, with a guest appearance by Ted Rall, is here and here.

And finally, not comics, but this is an excellent and stylistically diverse career in book cover design.

Well it's a new day here. Tim is still on vacation, my internet situation remains iffy, but we must soldier on.

Though I'm not going to get into the comments on my little screed last week,  I want to take a minute (despite my better instincts) and clarify a couple things for the record. First, it should be evident that the piece references the use of Kickstarter for one particular project, which, to me, represents a species of projects, by one kind of entity. It was not covering Kickstarter in general, or individual artists using Kickstarter, etc.  I'm glad it lead to discussion, but I certainly wasn't, as has been intimated, taking a position on Kickstarter in general. And second, I noticed some confusion about my role in the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival vis-a-vis what I wrote. BCGF is run by three people. It is not dictated by my tastes. It's run with the goal of making the best and most diverse festival possible, and in all cases the majority rules, not any one person's ideas. And that's it. Now on to important comic book business.

Today on the site we bring you Sean Rogers on Flex Mentallo and Grant Morrison's writing tropes. Here's a taste:

...So far, so good, right? Scope, complexity, ambition—all the hallmarks of a potentially expansive SF experience. But despite the abstract appeal of Morrison’s ideas and approach, there is very little enjoyment to be had in their execution, not least because he assails his readers with verbiage at once high-flown and ham-fisted. The Morrison touch—deployed everywhere, endlessly—is to crowd one high concept after another, reverently leaving each alone, never to return to any one idea again.

And finally, hey, all of TCJ will now also be available via Alexander Street Press, which provides digital archives to subscribing institutions.

Once again it must be a short post. More soon!

Sorry to miss you yesterday. Tim is on vacation and I found myself both without and far away from the Internet. Currently an iPad and 3G are it so this will be a minimal post. But it sure looks like things have been busy around here.

If you're just tuning in, there's a ton of new material on the site.

-Nicole Rudick on one of the all-time great comics, Gloriana, by Kevin Huizenga.

-Joe Daly, whose Dungeon Quest series is one of the best and strangest surprises in recent years, was interviewed by Eric Buckler.

-Here's everyone's face European, Brecht Evens, live from SDCC.

-Frank Santoro reporting on his one-man comic-con.

-And finally, no week would be complete without Joe McCulloch's "Week."

Enjoy.

Today on the site Tucker Stone, who recently told me "Everything's coming up roses for Tucker Stone", and then sold me some Punisher comics, is sticking to his "positivity" vibe, and also ropes in Tim O'Neil to tell us more.

And our fearless leader, Gary Groth, interviews Gilbert Shelton in this video straight from the streets and alleys of SDCC.

And now, instead of a buncha links, I have to get something off my chest. I am irritated by this Kickstarter project for a Garo tribute book called SP7: Alt. Comics Tribute to GARO Manga, edited by Ian Harker and Box Brown. Here's why...

This is some of the pitch:

The concept behind SP7 is to contextualize the post-manga wave in western art-comix within the broader history of manga itself by paying tribute to the ground-breaking publication GARO. In short, we feel as though the GARO phenomenon of personal, idiosyncratic, and experimental manga is re-manifesting itself within contemporary art-comix due to the residual influence of the 2000’s manga boom in America.

-It's deeply stupid about history. Yes, Garo contained plenty of avant-garde work, but, as anyone who has read any of the work therein would know, that was more than equally balanced with genre historical fiction; sentimental memoirs; literary fiction, etc, etc. The editors would also know that if they'd actually stopped to consider the material they're claiming as their own, or, hey dipped into any random hundred words written on this web site over the past year by Ryan Holmberg. He also wrote a book on the subject! It amazes me that even now, in 2012, with all the resources available, that people supposedly engaged in the medium aren't actually curious about it. They're far more entrenched in making it reflect themselves than in actually learning something. It's just a lot easier to just grab something (Rob Liefeld! Garo!) and make it your "thing" than to actually carve out an identity or do some research.

This passage is particularly silly:

What EC was to the Undergrounds of the late-60’s/early 70’s, Manga is to today’s most interesting underground cartoonists.

Here manga suddenly comes to mean the same as Garo, and Garo the same as manga. That would mean that the less-than-a-dozen books in the US containing Garo-related material somehow equals all of manga. Manga has been an influence on a generation of cartoonists, from Bryan Lee O'Malley (Underground? Art? I have no idea) to Brandon Graham to Dash Shaw to C.F., but it's not primarily Garo so much as the overwhelming mass of manga that hit these shores over the last decade.

And what the fuck is "underground comics" in 2012? I literally have no idea. I mean, not so underground that it's not being promoted on an Amazon.com-administered web site? Worse yet, the writers don't even know their US-comics history/theory. EC was a comic book company. Manga is the Japanese term for comics. Garo was an anthology. Three very different things. But let's just follow this windy logic -- Sure, EC was important  to 1960s-70s underground comics as a liberating influence, but was equally a weight to get out from under. Just ask Bill Griffith, who decried its pervasiveness. Many of the best of those cartoonists (Crumb, Spiegelman, Green, Kominsky, Noomin, Wilson, et al) show no influence by EC at all.

By featuring the works of these western artists together in a traditional right-to-left/newsprint/pulp-manga format we hope to engender discussion about the trans-national influence of manga on the broader world of art-comix.

-Ok, we're back to manga again. From Garo to manga. How does a format engender a discussion? You know what engenders discussion? Intelligent writing or informed art on the subject. And if you want to make a groovy anthology just make it -- don't latch onto something you don't understand (in the slightest) to make your point. It's sleazy. Stand on your own. Then again, maybe it's time I got around to my "Metal Hurlant Tribute Anthology". Wait a minute...

-And what the fuck does art-comix even mean? People call what I publish "art-comix" and I  look over my shoulder as though someone called me "Mr. Nadel". I don't understand. What is art-comix? Different than regular comics? I like comics. I also liked the zine I Like Comics. But I don't think I like "comix". Garo contained comics, right? Was there an "x" involved? I doubt it. Was Winsor McCay "art comix"? If you make comics, make comics.

-And finally, Kickstarter. Guess what? You don't get to call yourself underground if you're on Kickstarter. Guess what else? You don't get to call yourself a publisher either; you're just someone who pays a printing bill. Take pre-orders on your site. Sell your boots. Do what you have to do. But don't go begging for money so that you can then give 5% of it to Amazon.com, which is actively trying to put you (!), and the stores you hope to shove this shit into, out of business. I'm all for raising money for art, but it would be nice if there was some sense of proportion. No one needs this anthology but it might do fine "in the market". I'm so sick of seeing perfectly viable (viable, but not smart or interesting; viable) comic book projects on there. People can do what they want, but when you're out there hustling dough for your movie-ready zombie-baseball graphic novel, or fucking Cyberforce, or your poorly thought through Garo book, you just look like a schmuck.

I realize there are seemingly bigger problems in the comics world, but I guess I'm thinking locally.

Ok, have a great weekend!

p.s.: Frank Santoro is having another big back issue sale this weekend in NYC!

Today we bring you Chris Mautner's lengthy interview with Jessica Abel and Matt Madden about everything from their new book, Mastering Comics, to navigating collaboration as a married couple to the vagaries of style to moving to France to the difficulties inherent in teaching cartooning:

ABEL: Talking about writing, it’s a thing that’s really difficult in the context of the process that we teach. It’s really difficult to teach explicitly.

MAUTNER: Why is that?

ABEL: There isn’t time. We’re trying to get through all of this stuff, all of the basics of cartooning – how to write a page, how to do lettering, how to make a thumbnail, how to whatever – and a lot of this stuff, we teach it somewhat Socratically. It happens in the context of critiques and so on. But we’re not drawing out and talking explicitly about principles of writing.

MADDEN: To interject, at SVA, we teach a fifteen-week semester of three-hour studio classes. Which sounds like a lot of time but it goes by really quickly and it’s usually barely enough. You take attendance, collect homework, and all of a sudden the class is halfway over. It’s very hard to get in-depth, especially when you’ve got a class of fifteen kids or more.

ABEL: Often our classes are in the twenty-student range and if you’re going to be critiquing a comic for each of those students, it’s gonna take the whole class period.

MADDEN: Jessica and I teach a full-year class together called “Storytelling” where a lot of the activities and ideas in the book either come from or are test-run there. But even in that class we never do a lesson on composition and things like that. That’s all stuff that has to come out inductively through the teaching process, where we can observe the individual panels. It’s another reason we wanted to have the book handy — so you can have all this stuff written down and read it separately. That was one of our practical reasons for doing the book in the first place, for teachers to have all this extra stuff, all the real stuff there that in practice most of us don’t really get around to teaching in class.

Elsewhere:

—Kiel Phegley at Comic Book Resources has a new interview with Grant Morrison that's been linked to pretty much everywhere this week. In it, Morrison reveals that he is going to stop writing DC superhero comics for a while (Phegley unfortunately never pressed Morrison on his feelings about recent creators' rights controversies around the company). [UPDATE: I've been told the issues are raised in a later, not yet published part of the discussion.]

—The cult cultural critic Erik Davis (Techgnosis) delivers a two-part examination of underground pioneer Rick Griffin at HiLobrow.

—An old BBC interview with a seven-year-old Neil Gaiman has recently surfaced and been republished at the Village Voice. I'm personally less interested in the fact that Gaiman was talking about Scientology than I am in how assured he is as a seven-year-old.

—At Comics Grid, Kathleen Dunley interviews Seth about his philosophy of book design and the use of computers, among other things.

—There's a new online issue of the academic journal ImageTexT up, with an article from David Kunzle about Carl Barks, along with a John Porcellino illustration and lots of interesting looking reviews. Worth checking out for the more scholarly among you.

—Paul Slade has a massive article up devoted to Reg Smythe and Andy Capp.

—Heidi MacDonald at Publishers Weekly reports that Alternative Comics is relaunching, under the new leadership of Marc Arsenault (Wow Cool), and will be publishing work by Sam Henderson, James Kochalka, Ted May, and Karl Stevens, among others.

—Old school comics blogger Alan David Doane has relaunched his old site, Comic Book Galaxy.

—Michael Kurfeld interviews Robert Crumb for the Los Angeles Review of Books:

—Maira Kalman talks about the meaning of art and life:

—And finally, via Milo George, someone has unearthed and reposted the old Fort Thunder website.

Today on the site we have another SDCC panel, this time The Auteur Theory of Comics, in which Arlen Schumer and Randolph Hoppe theorize that comic-book artist Jack Kirby was a de facto co-creator and co-author, with the credited writer, of his work: with John Morrow and TCJ contributors Charles Hatfield and Craig Fischer. And Brandon Soderberg reviews The Furry Trap, by Josh Simmons:

If the stories in Simmons’ new collection The Furry Trap, were designed to simply freak readers out, they would end in a page or two. But Simmons sticks with his ugly ideas, until the fucked-up-ness is no longer scary or even funny, and just kind of sits there to turn over in your brain. Shock seems besides the point.

I second that thought, except I've found the book frightening in the long term. It's a brilliant and brave book.

Elsewhere:

Tablet Magazine compares the depictions of Jerusalem in recent books by Harvey Pekar and Guy Delisle. Bleeding Cool hilariously calls out Tom Devlin's true nature in this summary of the Drawn & Quarterly / Fantagraphics panel at SDCC.

And this blog looks to be very promising: Terry Gilliam's daughter is chronicling her father's accumulation of stuff.

It's Tuesday, which means it's time to take comics-buying advice from Joe McCulloch. (Also featured: Chris Foss.) Things look a little lighter than usual this week, so it might be a good time to go back into the archives and look at some of Joe's earlier columns, to be reminded of opportunities missed. The important thing is never to go a week without buying something, whatever it is.

We also have Rob Clough's review of the latest Dupuy & Berberian Monsieur Jean volume, The Singles Theory, this time published by Humanoids.

Elsewhere—

—The great Justin Green gives advice on breaking into cartooning, in what appears to be an excerpt from a longer text about the field. I had no idea he was writing such a book, but can't wait.

—Dave Sim is in the midst of a week-long, question-a-day interview over at A Moment of Cerebus, which describes it as "a grilling that would make even The Comics Journal wince." So far, it's mostly just been a chance for Sim to rehearse his tiresome, self-inflicted martyr routine, but now that that's out of the way, I imagine the questioners will move on into more interesting territory.

—Bill Moyers invited journalist Chris Hedges onto his program last weekend, to discuss his latest book, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, which was created in collaboration with Joe Sacco. The episode also features a visit to Sacco's studio:

—Robert Boyd revisits an old Love & Rockets post to honor the title's 30th anniversary.

—Cheers & Jeers Dept. Cheers: The Guardian invited a whole slew of cartoonists, including Gabrielle Bell, Tom Gauld, Ivan Brunetti, Kate Beaton, Lilli Carré, and Nicholas Gurewitch, to create comics strips presenting their worldview.

Jeers: The Guardian invited Dan Clowes to participate in an interview, then edited his answers down to the point of actively misrepresenting his words.

—Diamond Digital launched, which apparently allows customers to buy digital comics through their local comic shop's website. Noted for further research.

—The San Diego Union-Tribune interviews Andrei Molotiu about abstract comics and that terrible Slate series that ran during Comic-Con.

OK, it's really summer -- slow news, hot days, etc. etc. Weekend readers may have found Frank's latest New Talent Showcase, this one featuring Alex Schubert, Matt Seneca and Jaakko Pallasvuo. Frank has also started a Tumblr called Comics Workbook. He's busy! And coming up on today we have the complete footage of another panel, as arranged by the mighty Kristy Valenti. This one is called Comics and Journalism in a New Era and finds PW Comics World co-editor Calvin Reid talking to Susie Cagle, Andy Warner, Stan Mack, Ed Piskor, Dan Carino, and Chris Butcher about using the comics medium for journalism. Filmed by Justin Bloch and David McCloud.

And elsewhere the pickings are slim:

Speaking of SDCC, Jamie Coville has the audio for a number of panels.

Tom Spurgeon graces us with an interview with Jessica Campbell, who is leaving Drawn & Quarterly after over half a decade. I am, as some know, a very grumpy, some would even say "savage" presence at comic book conventions/festivals/whatever but not Jessica. She would roll off an all-night bus, set up, have snacks, make fun of Devlin, and generally be better than me in all ways. Well, good luck Jessica -- and bless your heart for escaping comics. You've done what so many of us have tried and failed to do. See you in Chicago!

Today is the day for Comics of the Weak, and this time, Tucker Stone & Abhay Khosla team up to co-write the column, which is interrupted by convention news, and introduced with a true-life tale:

Perspective--the kind of perspective that will prevent someone from overreacting to a stranger's opposing reaction to an incredibly successful piece of corporate produced entertainment that is in no danger of disappearing in your lifetime, the kind of perspective that will keep you sane. I, personally, cannot honestly admit to possessing this perspective, as evidenced by my near-death experience not but two nights past, wherein I looked directly at a red light and confusedly said to myself "red light means keep going" and was only saved from the wheels of an oncoming vehicle because of a combination of their extraordinary instincts and an excellently tuned set of brakes and not in the least by my own dumbfounded, wide-eyed "what have I done" momentary incapacitation.

We also have video from one of the panels that took place at San Diego last weekend: Gary Groth's interview with Gilbert, Jaime, and Mario Hernandez for the 30th anniversary of Love and Rockets. So that's 90 minutes of my day planned out...

Also on the site, but somehow lost in the blog shuffle and never linked to this week:

—Rob Clough's review of Jon Chad's formally innovative Leo Geo and His Miraculous Journey Through the Center of the Earth.

—Sean T. Collins's review of Batman: Earth One.

Elsewhere, the post Comic-Con hangover seems to have slowed down the normal news cycle, but you can't go wrong reading the aforementioned Jaime Hernandez's memories of San Diego past ("I remember when every panel ended up 'How can we get comics into book stores?'").

—Seth has a new comic strip out, related to that barbershop we told you about last week.

—Jessica Abel reports from the recent Chicago Comics: Philosophy & Practice symposium, in comics form.

—And the only-sorta-comics must-read of the week comes in the form of Tom Spurgeon's notes on his recent 200+ pound weight loss. It's a great read, and even better is the news (if I'm understanding correctly) that he is developing the classic Comics Journal essay these notes are a thematic sequel to ("Comics Made Me Fat") into a book.

Today on the site, R.C. Harvey bring us a slice of Milton Caniff history, namely a time when he ran afoul of his public's taste.

Caniff included a woman in virtually every story for the obvious storytelling reasons: not only does a damsel in distress give a hero a mission, but relations between the sexes are central to the human condition. A man-woman situation enhances the drama of any high adventure, giving it an added human dimension. Since Terry’s early days, Caniff acknowledged the sexual aspects of his storytelling. His erotic or titillating allusions were undertones, but they were evident enough to those who could recognize them. In such man-woman relationships, Caniff once remarked, there should “always be the feeling of potential rape in the air—legal or otherwise.” Words and pictures usually convey this feeling, but not in tandem.

A mark of Caniff’s sophistication as a cartoonist is that when the dialogue dilates with double entendre, the women in the accompanying pictures are typically demurely dressed, softening the suggestive import of the language. When the women slip into something more comfortable, they talk like choir boys. Adjusting his pictures to temper subtly his suggestive words, Caniff controlled his medium masterfully. The sexual connotations of Delta’s backseat struggles would be intolerable for most readers if she wore skimpy clothing. But Caniff dresses her in a conservative skirt and sweater. Admittedly, she fills them amply, but she keeps her knees out of sight most of the time. Caniff focuses our attention on Delta’s dilemma not on her sexuality. Caniff’s treatment of Madame Lynx illustrates the reverse effect. In the absence of verbal reminders of Lynx’s sexual role, the pictures remind us. In this case, however, Caniff for once misgauged his audience and went too far, upsetting the delicate verbal-visual counter-balance.

And in other parts of the internet...

There is more legal maneuvering to report on the Superman copyright case. There's a summary here, with more detail and the relevant documents here.

Sean T. Collins has an epic series of posts honoring the 30th anniversary of Love and Rockets. Go read them and then check out his updated reading guide to the series as well.

Jillian Tamaki chronicled the trash on her block for Print magazine and the full piece is online.

Hey, what does Milo George think about the new Batman movie?

Today, we bring you the inimitable Bob Levin's review of the newly collected cartoons of the great writer Flannery O'Connor. He wasn't wholly satisfied:

Flannery O’Connor: The Cartoons acts as if there was no mystery as to how she managed. It proceeds as if Step One is "Teach a chicken to walk backwards"; Step Two "Mock Physical Fitness Day"; and Step Three... BANG! You have bumped noses with Hazel Motes. It makes nothing of the newt eyes and bat claws bubbling within O’Connor’s cauldron: prematurely deceased father; controlling, disapproving mother; not entirely chosen celibacy; lurking, potentially fatal genes. It overlooks the gasses fermenting in this mix: frustration and fright, bitterness and pain, grief and rage. All brewed while she drew her way through GSCW. All foretold unseen vistas, untasted spice, unheard notes, unscented perfumes, uncaressed flesh. Only her imagination could compensate. Only it could lead her on. And cartoons only carried her so far. She required a greater conveyance to discharge what she held within.

O’Connor would not encourage this type of analysis.

Off-site, I recommend reading the following, among other links I have surely missed or forgotten:

—An article on Dan Dare and Eagle written by the eminent comics historian Paul Gravett to accompany a British museum exhibition. Gravett's always worth reading.

—Rafael Medoff writing for the Jewish Journal about a 1942 cartoon drawn by Theodore Geisel (that's Dr. Seuss), the only cartoon in which he ever explicitly addressed the Holocaust. (via)

—Robin McConnell, the host of the popular comics radio show Inkstuds, has launched Canadian Comics Archive, an online repository for rare and unusual Canadian comics.

—Noel Murray writes about Comic-Con for the A.V. Club, in which he plausibly claims we are currently going through something of a "golden age" of comics. I think this is arguably true. What puzzles me about Murray's article is that he claims this to be the "legacy of Comic-Con" itself, but never really explains why this particular convention is responsible. I think the efforts of historians like Bill Blackbeard, publishers like Fantagraphics and D&Q and IDW, editors like Spiegelman and Mouly, and scores of individual cartoonists have far more to do with the current renaissance than did any particular movie-promotional event, no matter how visible it is. And they would have done it with or without—and maybe even did it despite—things like Comic-Con. But aside from that flaw, Murray's impressions as an intelligent outsider are worth reading, and make me wish I'd attended.

—Jim Emerson writes about the dumb morality of superhero stories. This just one of dozens of these kinds of stories that have been written over the past few years. I am not linking to it for any other reason other than that I enjoy the idea that the bread and butter for decades' worth of TCJ reviews and articles has now become the most popular hobbyhorse of movie critics instead.

—At the Hooded Utilitarian, Ng Suat Tong reviews Joe Sacco's Journalism, and Marguerite Van Cook ponders the "postmodern sublime" she finds in cartoonists like Ben Katchor and Mark Newgarden.

Well, it's a new day. Did anyone else listen to three entire episodes of Comic Books Are Burning in Hell over the weekend? No? Oh. Well, you should consider indulging in this fine podcast, which makes the best case yet that Joe McCulloch could become a religious leader of some kind, maybe like L. Ron Hubbard. He's just the convincing. Speaking of Joe, here's his Week in Comics.

And elsewhere:

This is actually a Punisher "fan film" by Punisher actor Thomas Jane. Why am I fascinated by this? I don't know. Maybe because I was looking at some Klaus Janson over the weekend.

Somewhat comics-related: The Library of America has launched a companion web site to its American Science Fiction series. Here's William Gibson on Alfred Bester.

Bill Kartalopolous profiles our ol' Ganzfeld co-founder, one-time cartoonist and current Vector Park maestro, Patrick Smith.

Not comics: It's been alternately distrusting and fascinating to watch the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles completely implode. There are many lessons here about curatorial integrity, not pandering, fiscal responsibility, and, as the artists all resign from the board, a lot to be said about maintaining the trust of the people who make the stuff a museum is meant to show.

Finally, TCJ-contributor Frank Santoro has an excerpt from his graphic novel, Storeyville, over at What Things Do.

Ah, the long comics-world nightmare is over, and Comic-Con has ended. According to what I have gathered from reading other comics sites in search of links, a new Superman movie poster has been unveiled, as well as the armor from Iron Man 3. The Eisner Award winners have been announced. Many pictures were taken. (We will surely be linking to more photo reports over the next few days.) And the Evil Eisner-winning Tom Spurgeon has provided his traditional show notes, always worth reading for those who couldn't attend. (For the record, Tom is my favorite comics blogger.)

We don't have much exciting movie news here, unfortunately, but we do have Ryan Holmberg's latest essential column on manga history, this time with a closer look at truth behind the conventional wisdom that Disney animation was the primary influence on Osamu Tezuka. Here's an excerpt:

One of the biggest blind spots in the scholarship on Tezuka Osamu is the assumption that his main access to Disney was through animation.

Granted, first contact might have been made watching Mickey alongside other American animation stars like Popeye and Betty Boop in theatres and at home in the 1930s. Wrote Tezuka in 1973 (roughly translated, here and throughout):

I liked Disney, I adored Disney, here before you is a man whose life was determined by Disney.

I first encountered Mickey around second grade at an animation festival [Tezuka was born in 1928]. Also my father brought home a rickety home projector called the Pathé Baby, and amongst the films he purchased was Mickey’s Choo Choo. From that point on I became attached to Disney by a chain that could not be cut.

And then from fascination to emulation,

I first followed the comics of Tagawa Suihō and Yokoyama Ryūichi. But suddenly, once I became devoted to Disney, I set out to copy and master that stuffed-animal style, eventually ending up with how I now draw.

But note that he does not specify what Disney media he “copied,” and nowhere does he say that he learned to “master” the Disney style on the basis of the animation alone.

We also have Frank Santoro's latest "New Talent Showcase", this time with reports from up-and-comers Angie Wang and Charles Forsman.

Elsewhere...

—The Guardian has an audio slideshow linked to Joe Sacco's recent collaboration with Chris Hedges.

—The Evil Tom Spurgeon has the first part of a massive interview with Image publisher Eric Stephenson.

—In an interview with the art blog Hyperallergic, MoCCA president Ellen Abramowitz revealed a bit more about the reasons for the museum's recent closing, claiming they were primarily financial.

—The A.V. Club revisits Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan.

Well, today on the site we have the full complement of Tucker Stone content. I look forward to your complaints. And Sean T. Collins reviews The Walking Dead #100:

When you pick up an issue ofTWD, there’s no telling who’ll be left when you put it down. Your odds of any given issue featuring that kind of shock to the system may be low, but they exist (especially for the milestone issue numbers), which is more than you can say for all but probably under half a dozen monthly comics total. Despite, or because of, the increasing wait between payoffs, Kirkman finds a way to make them worth it, frequently far enough beyond worth it and into gobsmacking awe that he went there that it doesn’t seem like a wait at all.

It's Friday and there's a full weekend of Comic-Con ahead of some of you. The news out of the con thus far is almost completely irrelevant to anything I'm interested in. And yet I can't look away! There's stuff about "dark" things and stuff about "IP" and other stuff. For you TCJ readers demanding things of traditional TCJ interest, you'll be heartened to know that Art Spiegelman's monograph, Co-Mix, named for the now-deceased cutting edge tween culture blog, is coming out from Drawn & Quarterly. Despite his stature, Spiegelman's work remains scattered across decades and mediums, so it'll be nice to have a selection in one book. Anyhow, our man Eric Reynolds has the perfect antidote to all this news: Memories! Sweet, sweet memories from a man who has had waaaay more fun at comic conventions than I ever have.

Elsewhere:

If you can't get enough of Tucker, Jog and the gang, here, listen to their voices!

And if you like comics, you can read about Dennis the Menace here!

And... I bet there will be so much more, so very very soon. But for now, kind people, there's little other comics news. It's all over... there.

For those of you who miss the days when Ken Parille wasn't obsessed with super-powered fights, you're in luck. His new close-reading column is in, and he's set the New 52 issues aside to focus in on John Hankiewicz’s “The Kimball House”. (He also includes a pdf of the comic in question, so as to make it easier to follow along with his formal analysis.) Parille brings it this time. Here's a taste:

Without necessarily knowing the terminology, readers instinctively understand the distinction between a comic’s diegetic and non-diegetic elements. A diegetic element is one that is (or could be) experienced by the story’s characters. A non-diegetic element is not part of their world. For example, a word balloon represents language that characters hear, but the balloon itself is not present; it exists at a level above/outside the narrative. In “The Kimball House” Hankiewicz takes conventional non-diegetic comic book elements and transforms them into diegetic elements. Thus, in panel 2, a thought balloon’s bubble tail (which comes after the command “Think”) becomes a physical object, casting a shadow on the ground. In the next panel, these circular shadows reappear as another form central to comics: the ellipsis. [...]

While the comic’s human characters — the Kimballs and the roofer — are confined to embedded pages, the other ‘characters’ —forms like the ellipsis —appear throughout the comic. “The Kimball House” plays with a limited set of geometrical shapes that function as reoccurring characters: rectangle (as pane, panel, page, house), triangle (as rooftop, arrow top), circle (dot, ellipsis, thought balloon tail bubble, star), along with other main characters — the asterisk (star) and cloud (narration balloon).

Everyone involved in comics seems to be at San Diego right now, so news is relatively light. But there are a few things to read while we wait for the great comics journalists of our time to deliver breathless reports on all of the upcoming movies!

—There are two big interviews with Darwyn "Before Watchmen" Cooke out right now, one on everything Parker/Richard Stark at the Violent World of Parker, which is exhaustive and worthwhile reading for anyone interested in the Stark novels, whether or not you dig Cooke's particular take on the material, and another on superheroes at the A.V. Club, which includes his soon-to-be-(in)famous take on the Watchmen controversy:

In all honesty, I didn’t expect, “Poor Alan Moore.” I just didn’t expect that. So that sort of took me by surprise. I certainly expected people to have an opinion about whether this beloved material should be explored any further, and I believe that that’s a question, but it’s also a challenge that I’m happy to meet. All the stuff with Alan, I didn’t count on that or really give it much thought.

He also maintains that participating in the project isn't as bad as forcing children to starve. Which is true, but maybe setting the bar a little low?

—The Guardian has a report on the great illustrator/cartoonist Quentin Blake's recent work for hospitals.

—Will Brooker, a British academic who specializes in Batman, recommends five comics-related books to The Browser. These are superhero-centric but not stupid choices.

—Tucker Stone previews the next few months of comics releases for Flavorpill.

—And apparently it is comics blogger Heidi MacDonald's thirtieth anniversary as a writer on comics. Torsten Adair has gathered up tributes.

On the site today:

Michael Dean has a report on the news of sudden closure of the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art's Soho location. And Craig Fischer brings us video arguments for the Jack Kirby family. Something to keep in mind as the megalith of Comic-Con rumbles to life. And Sean T. Collins reviews the first issue of Gilbert Hernandez's new series, Fatima the Blood Spinners.

Elsewhere:

-Kevin Huizenga, whose Gloriana (one of the all-time great comics) was recently reissued in hardcover, is interviewed at the AV Club and PW.

-Here's a guide to the Love & Rockets 30th anniversary celebrations at Comic-Con.

-TCJ-contributor Sean T. Collins has a cartoon collaboration with Jonny Negron over at Studygroup.

-I've enjoyed comics by lots of these people, so this Oily Comics subscription seems like a good deal.

-Huh, Peter Milligan and Brendan McCarthy briefly had a comic strip in 1987.

-Finally, here's a mess of Edgar Rice Burroughs covers, just because.