Features
The Artists and Cartoonists Who Designed Pee-wee Herman’s World – Part Two
The second and final part of John Kelly’s two-part look at the cartoonists behind the scenes of Pee-wee’s Playhouse – this time looking at merchandise, and plenty of it!
Keeping MAD Alive: A Look at Claptrap
Inside a new crowdfunded book of movie parodies by MAD magazine veterans Tom Richmond & Desmond Devlin.
The Joe Matt Interview
In this extensive interview from The Comics Journal #183 (January 1996), Christopher Brayshaw speaks with the cartoonist Joe Matt (1963-2023) about his career to date.
Seth on Joe Matt, 1995
From The Comics Journal #183 (January 1996): Christopher Brayshaw followed up his Joe Matt interview with a conversation with the Peepshow cartoonist’s friend and fellow cartoonist, Seth.
“There’s A Different Kind Of Energy Around You And Your Work. And That’s Just Life”: Jillian Tamaki at Mid-Career
As part of her chronicle of comics in Toronto, Kim Jooha sits down for an oeuvre-wide talk with Jillian Tamaki, one of the most prominent practitioners on the scene.
Trying To Ice-Skate Uphill – This Week’s Links
One time I messed up a comics trivia event because I forgot the name of Buster Brown’s dog. He ought to apologize to me.
“This Is Where We Make Things Right”: A Report from SPX 2023
Last weekend was the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, MD, and Jason Bergman brings back a survey of the people and events that populated this year’s installment.
Box Brown and The He-Man Effect
Matt Petras profiles artist Brian “Box” Brown, veteran indie cartoonist and a recent specialist in nonfiction graphic novels and journalistic weekly strips.
Arrivals and Departures – September 2023
Wow! RJ Casey’s new column all about minicomics and the contemporary small press starts here!
“I Kind Of Have My Next Three Years Fully Planned”: An Interview with Caroline Cash
Jason Bergman sits down with Caroline Cash, the Ignatz-winning creator of the ongoing solo anthology series PeePee PooPoo, and bigger projects to come.
Murderers’ Row: Marc Silvestri
Perhaps forever to be known as one of the founders of Image Comics, Marc Silvestri’s career nonetheless stretches from the glory days of Conan the Barbarian to a brand-new Batman / Joker team-up project. And Tegan’s here to tell you all about it.
Soldier Dream: Saint Seiya
Revered in some of the world, obscure elsewhere, Masami Kurumada’s Saint Seiya was among the most unwavering martial fantasies of 1980s Japanese boys’ comics. This is a story about loving that burning saga as a youth, and watching it flicker from afar in the long night of adulthood.
Bill Griffith on Love, Loss and the Lives of Ernie Bushmiller and Diane Noomin
Veteran cartoonist Bill Griffith speaks candidly about his new graphic novel on the life of Nancy creator Ernie Bushmiller, and his new comic book tribute to his late wife, Diane Noomin.
The Artists and Cartoonists Who Designed Pee-wee Herman’s World – Part One
Part 1 of a huge two-part feature! John Kelly speaks with the artists who built the Playhouse: Pee-wee’s Playhouse, with all its puppets, gadgets and merchandise. Many unseen images await!
The Dying of the Light: My Grandmother, Dementia, Time in the Comic Strip, and Roses in December by Tom Batiuk and Chuck Ayers
A personal account of time in the comic strips and aging in our real world; living with illness, one day at a time, like in the funnies.
“A Close Approximation To The Way That They’re Thinking”: Talking Lettering with Dean Sudarsky
Spotlight on lettering, as RJ Casey chats with Dean Sudarsky, cartoonist and English letterer for prominent French and Japanese cartoonists published in translation by New York Review Comics.
A Boy’s Life
A reflection on memoir as morbid fiction, the exquisite torture of progress, and the unfinished English translation of Riad Sattouf’s The Arab of the Future.
Fighting the “Masters of White Poop”: Charles Glaubitz On the Kirbyesque Power of Starseeds
Since 2017, Charles Glaubitz has been exploring cosmic/comic symbols through his signature series, Starseeds. Mark Peters sits down with the artist to discuss method and metaphor.
How To Steal The World – This Week’s Links
Roaring in like a column of bats in the desert, it’s a storm of news!
The Conclusion of Happy Mania
Flashback to 2001, as we catch a contemporaneous newspaper reaction to the end of Happy Mania, the breakthrough series of women’s manga superstar Anno Moyoko. Writer Miyamoto Hirohito is translated here by Jon Holt and Saki Hirozane.
