Dialogue Balloons: Cartoonists From Brazil
Jason Novak’s new column, Dialogue Balloons, begins with a trip down South…to Brazil, to discuss the scene, the comics, the politics and more with seven of Brazil’s finest cartoonists!
Features
“Medi-Cal Was Outlawed Yesterday”: Dori Seda and the Reverberations of Reaganomics
Edward Dorey takes a long look at a cannibalism-themed 1986 short by alt-comics legend Dori Seda, and teases out the wider implications of conservative ideologues feasting on a nation’s health.
Excerpt: PANDORA: The Receding Sound of Footsteps
A full story from the new collection of misty, lyrical manga by Hagiwara Rei, coming next year.
“Fun Doesn’t Mean It Can’t Be Intelligent”: A Conversation with Ram V
Jean Marc Ah-Sen sits down with one of the rising stars of English-language genre comics, who holds forth on creativity, accessibility, and what comics need for the future.
Lucca Comics & Games 2022
What’s it like attending the second-largest comics show on Earth? Valerio Stivé reports from Lucca Comics & Games 2022… the “Comics” part, at least.
An Appreciation of Kevin O’Neill, 1953-2022
David Roach looks back at the work of Kevin O’Neill, one of the most unique artistic voices in British comics, whose influence will forever be felt, even as his style remains impossible to imitate.
Drew Friedman’s Maverix and Lunatix: Icons of Underground Comix: “A masterpiece, a treasure, an encyclopedia”
John Kelly didn’t just read Drew Friedman’s new book of portraits, he asked seven of the subjects what they thought of their depictions. Plus: Friedman himself sits down for a new interview.
In The Flagon With The Dragon – This Week’s Links
Throw your phone and its broken apps into the sea and go (to the library, where there is another computer, and) click these links!
The Kevin O’Neill Interview
We are pleased to present Douglas Wolk’s 2010 interview with Kevin O’Neill (1953-2022), one of the titans of the past 50 years of UK comic art.
Drew Ford, 1974-2022
Remembering a dedicated cartoonist, editor and publisher, responsible for some of the most idiosyncratic and rewarding reprint projects of the last 10 years. Drew Ford died on October 2.
It Doesn’t Not Make Sense
Tegan O’Neil is back, and today she’s looking at recent works from artist Ashley Wood – one of the singular talents to emerge from genre comics’ rough late ’90s, who’s carved a place in the wider popular culture.
“You Can’t Have Me Talking About D-Man”: An Interview With Kyle Starks
Kyle Starks went from a bucket list item to Kickstarter success followed by widespread adoration from the Rick and Morty community: but what he really wants to talk about is what you’ve all got wrong about D-Man.
Spins A Web, Any Size – This Week’s Links
If all the internet has been collapsed into four or five social media platforms, what happens when they all break? I for one will be linking to this news column from my favorite anime web rings.
Visiting Short Run Comix & Arts Festival 2022
In addition to Chris Anthony Diaz’s photo coverage, TCJ went to Short Run 2022 and jotted down some notes on printing, satellite events vs. panel blocks, and the joys of seeing new comics, new faces and old friends in person.
Notes on Charles Johnson: Cartoonist, Radical
Aubrey Gabel examines a new collection of vintage gag comics by the National Book Award-winning novelist and academic Charles Johnson, situating them in the particularities of Black radicalism in the ’60s and ’70s.
Inside the World of Korea’s “Digital Snack Culture”
RJ Casey gets a peek behind the curtain of big money comics in this conversation with former Fantagraphics intern Jiwon Kim as she walks him through NSFW webcomics 101.
Hard to Hold a Candle – This Week’s Links
Never more violent has been the barbarous bearing of a cruel destiny.
Losing Faith in Comics Translation
Are more accurate translations more faithful? Foreign comics in translation are among the best-selling works today – and Bart Hulley is here to ask the million dollar question of our automated age.
Big in Ohio: A Massive Justin Green Exhibit and CXC’s Triumphant Return
Two big reports in one post, as John Kelly attends Binky Brown’s Funeral Pyre, a memorial exhibition for the late underground pioneer currently running in Cincinnati, and Cartoon Crossroads Columbus, the 2022 edition of the popular east coast comics show.
COVID, Comics & Manga: A Talk with Juan Albarran, the Mangaka from Spain
In this rare look at comics cultures in juxtaposition, Ritesh Babu & Ari Bard sit down with former DC Comics inker and current seinen manga artist Juan Albarran, one of relatively few western talents to headline a weekly serial for a major Japanese publisher.
Joseph Greene, Comics Creator
A profile of an industrious Golden Age comic book writer, a collaborator with Jerry Robinson, Jack Kirby and Mort Meskin – one of the first to see his fortunes flower on television, before politics took its toll.
Seinen Manga Legend: Remembering Miyaya Kazuhiko
In this deeply personal reflection from 1997, Natsume Fusanosuke considers the work of the late gekiga artist Miyaya Kazuhiko (1945-2022), and how his early works embodied the aspirations of young Japanese readers in the late 1960s.
“We’re In An Unavoidable Age Of Twitter-metrics”: An Interview with Daniel Irizarri
Daniel Irizarri talks about his early self-published comics work, coming up via DeviantArt, working with a publisher versus Kickstarting a project, the current political and environmental challenges in his home of Puerto Rico, and how one does all these things while grappling with a hurricane.
