From My Laboratory In The Castle East – This Week’s Links
Oh my soul! That is a lot of links!!
Oh my soul! That is a lot of links!!
The first-ever edition of the Philly Comics Expo was held on October 2, 2021, and we’ve got a massive report! Featuring interviews with three exhibiting artists, reviews of nearly a dozen comics, and plenty of observations on this celebration of the small press.
The second in our line of sponsored videos from the Comix Experience Graphic Novel of the Month Club interview series finds proprietor Brian Hibbs in discussion with two creators bringing an original digital comic to print format.
Now that he’s on the other side of reading every single Marvel comic ever published, Douglas Wolk is catching up with Laura Hudson on whether that was (or was not) a good idea, what sort of lessons that etched into his subculture, and laying down some dogma for future cultural archaeologists to grapple with.
Michael Dean reports on the recent legal efforts of individuals, heirs and estates to pursue copyright terminations for Marvel superhero characters, and share in the mammoth profits generated by the properties those creators made possible.
Thanks to Uncivilized Books, we’re pleased to share this excerpt from Ex Libris, by Matt Madden.
Remembering a pioneer of Japanese comics, the creator of the mighty Golgo 13 and an icon of the gekiga era.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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?
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.
The artist Marc Tessier remembers a giant of Montreal underground comics, who died on August 31 at the age of 62.
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!
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.
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.