We had a little site outage yesterday, but we're back now. Note that yesterday brought us a great interview with Josh Simmons by Rob Kirby. Simmons is quietly producing a substantial body of work that burrows pretty deep into world-making in comics.
How have the reactions to Black River been so far?
Reactions seem pretty positive. Everyone talks about how depressing it is. I had thought it my most hopeful book, in a way, compared to most of my other work. But I’m not the best gauge for what my work is about, or what it’s doing, I suppose. I still get plenty of haters. I don’t understand at all when people call it gratuitous or “shock value” work. Or pointless. I always worry my stuff is, if anything, too obvious in its text or subtext or meaning or whatever. And people will have completely opposing reactions. One thing I heard was a reader thought that I was enjoying the violence too much. And another thought I was taking a kind of ethical stance, sort of wagging my finger in the reader’s face about how much they enjoy violence. Sometimes I want to take to the Internet and write a screed telling people how it is. But I think it’s best to just let people have their reactions. That’s part of the fun of art, right? And it’s nice there seem to be a fair amount of reviews online, and that people seem to be talking about it…
And today Mike Dawson chats with Dan Zettwoch and Rina Ayuyang about Linda Barry's The Freddie Stories.
Elsewhere:
Here's a nice obit for Marmaduke's Brad Anderson.
I'm intrigued by this Octobriana research and book.
Charles Hatfield walks us through his Jack Kirby exhibition:
