Excerpt: Ex Libris
Thanks to Uncivilized Books, we’re pleased to share this excerpt from Ex Libris, by Matt Madden.
Features
Takao Saitō, 1936-2021
Remembering a pioneer of Japanese comics, the creator of the mighty Golgo 13 and an icon of the gekiga era.
Fresh Air: Comics in Dialogue at the Arab Comics Initiative
Comics maker, academic and convention curator Lina Ghaibeh speaks with TCJ about how political upheaval, COVID-19 and the ongoing impact of the devastating Port of Beirut explosion in 2020 has failed to stop the Arab Comics Initiative upcoming festival, which opens in Beirut this week.
Charlie Brown and Me
Charles Schulz’s Peanuts celebrated its 71st anniversary this weekend, and we are commemorating the occasion with a new perspective: the first-ever English translation of a 1999 essay on the strip by artist and scholar Natsume Fusanosuke, who compares the Schulz characters with those of the similarly massive Japanese media franchise Doraemon.
Trouble Every Day – This Week’s Links
These robots are sad about the crypto economy. But you will be happy when you see all the news! I mean, it’s not happy news, really… but you’ll be happy it’s there.
Metamorphosis – The Comics of Sophie Campbell
When did the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles turn to community building? If you’ve been following the work of Sophie Campbell, it makes perfect sense.
More and More Comic Books is the Point: Small-Press Publishers and Lunar Distribution, a Roundtable
RJ Casey sits down with Lunar Distribution co-owner Christina Merkler and the principals of three small-press comic book publishers that have recently inked distribution deals with Lunar, for the purposes of surveying the new retail landscape of 2021.
My, My, My, My, My, What A Mess – This Week’s Links
That’s right: there’s news this week about Spawn! There’s also a lot of comics news that isn’t about Spawn, sure. But how could we neglect updating you about Spawn related developments? Come on inside and get you some for yourself!
Ditko Con 2021
A visit to the first-ever comics convention dedicated to the life and works of Steve Ditko, held in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on September 11, 2021.
Making It Just in Time: Author-Creator Matsumoto Taiyō
Artist and scholar Natsume Fusanosuke returns with an expansive 2018 essay on Matsumoto Taiyō, translated by Jon Holt & Teppei Fukuda. The ever-popular Matsumoto is here positioned as the exemplar of a sea change in manga history, as the power of serial magazine editors just started to decline, making room for new ideas.
Born Slippy – This Weeks Links
You walk through the streets, confident–but do they know something you don’t? Their faces seem writ with knowledge, their eyes, round with whimsy. Oh no: you haven’t read your weekly Clark yet! How will you keep up in this Golden Age of Sequential Art, without his trusty hand to guide you towards the last week that comics saw? Never fear, friend. His hand is reaching out. Won’t you take it?
An Embarrassment of Obsessions: From Apes to My Stan Lee Moment
Michael O’Connell got an early start on the goodbye all comics readers will either have to make, or have made for them: a goodbye to their collection.
Henriette Valium, 1959-2021
The artist Marc Tessier remembers a giant of Montreal underground comics, who died on August 31 at the age of 62.
I Found Myself In Love With The World – This Week’s Links
Are your obligations sneaking up on you? Does it all feel a little too-much-y? Never fear. Clark is here, and he’s got all the last week’s comics news, interviews, reviews & points-of-views organized in a fashion that get you free and clear, and put those pesky doubts in the rear view mirror. Get to clicking!
Translating Terrors: Translating Kim Jung Gi’s and Jean-David Morvan’s Graphic Memorial McCurry, NYC, 9/11
Translator Bart Hulley offers his thoughts on working from English to French and back to English, as was his task on a 2016 album profiling photographer Steve McCurry, who was present in NYC for the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Life is Worth Living
Caving to popular demand like a craven huckster, TCJ editor Joe McCulloch presents an adaptation of a 2013 audio broadcast on the topic of infamous religious cartoonist Jack T. Chick, updated to the present day.
Frame Thy Fearful Symmetry – This Week’s Links
The news is coming. The reviews are here. The interviews? The points-of-views? It’s all too much for one brain…but if you had a guide, someone who could help you find your way through it all? Clark. Clark would know!
Basil Wolverton: Daft Drivel Dished on the Daffy Dude Who Drew Us Out of the Dumps
Damn, a doggoned disquisition on the 20th century master, in honor of a new collection of ’40s and ’50s filler frolics.
Chokepoint: The Comics Code Authority and COVID-19
Historian Brian Puaca compares two chokepoints in comics history: the formation of the self-regulatory Comics Code Authority in the 1950s, and the economic threat posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ziggurat Vertigo – This Week’s Links
From here, you can see the world! From here, you can click any link! Any point on the horizon! Yes! Yes!
Scrawling Editoons & Pop’s Place: When Your Surname Is Rawls And Your Initials Are S & C
Bob takes a look at Sam C. Rawls (Scrawls), whose name never provided him a choice about what kind of profession he was best suited for, his work throughout the 80s and 90s both as a strip & editorial cartoonist, and his more recent environmental activism.
Comix Experience Talks Elfquest With Wendy & Richard Pini
Brian Hibbs of Comix Experience speaks to Wendy and Richard Pini of ElfQuest fame in a long, free-wheeling interview about this pioneering work.
Help, I’m A Rock: Reading O. Schrauwen’s graphic novel Arsène Schrauwen
The artist and poet Sommer Browning presents an idle (if not an idyll) with the work of Olivier Schrauwen.
“I Think I Have A Bit Of An Antagonistic Relationship To Nature”: An Interview with Shing Yin Khor
Cartoonist and carpenter Shing Yin Khor catches Tiffany Babb up about the inspiration and work methods behind her new graphic novel, The Legend of Auntie Po. Pie and puppetry are also discussed!
