Features

Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out – This Week’s Links

| January 19, 2024

Well, if nothing else comes from 2024, taking a dim view of the year already in progress, I will at least be able to say that I got to watch a dog speedrunning Gyromite, and, as there’s nothing in the rulebook to say that dogs cannot linkblog, maybe the assumption that AI would be coming for my job was misplaced - although, it is objectively unethical to make an animal read that many comics reviews week-on-week - still, in the meantime, here are this week’s human-sourced links, below.

This week’s news.

• Ahead of this year’s edition kicking off next week, the Angoulême International Comics Festival announced the shortlist for 2024’s Grand Prix, with Daniel Clowes, Catherine Meurisse, and Posy Simmonds
 in the running, winner TBA on Wednesday the 24th of January as part of the festival’s pro day.

• The return of auction news, as a copy of The Amazing Spider-Man #1, one of only two copies known to be in ‘near mint’ condition, as rated by the Certified Guaranty Company, has sold for $1,380,000, setting a new record for the comic at auction - Forbes recently covered the booming comics collectibles market, with prices rising once again after the burst of a pandemic-related bubble, and, earlier this month, The Beat dug into the ‘reholdering’ scam that has affected collectors’ confidence in the grading that CGC offers.

• In memoriam, remembering those the world of comics has lost, and news was shared this week of the passing of podcaster, comics blogger, and former contributor to TCJ, Mark Stewart (AKA Amy Poodle), who died unexpectedly on Saturday - a fundraiser in support of Stewart’s partner and son can be donated to here.

• News was also shared of the passing of Francine Grillo, staffer for Marvel and DC across almost three decades, who has died at the age of 72.

This week’s reviews.

TCJ

• Valerio Stivé reviews the visionary power of Guido Buzzelli’s The Labyrinth, translated by Jamie Richards - “These two stories are grotesque, yet graphically virtuosic; one can sense the influence of the Italian art of the Renaissance alongside the avant-garde movements of the early 20th century, Cubism and Expressionism, in the juxtaposition of his images. These are the roots of his comics storytelling, along with the stream of consciousness of writers like James Joyce or Italo Svevo; the blending of all these ingredients produced something that was never seen before and rarely seen again.”

• Kevin Brown reviews the childhood challenges of Manon Debaye’s The Cliff, translated by Montana Kane - “Debaye’s art matches the realistic tone of her story, as each panel is painstakingly drawn with what appears to be colored pencils. She uses dark backgrounds especially to show the menace that often lies behind scenes that might otherwise seem innocuous, a technique that works quite well whenever Charlie goes home. She lives on the edge of the woods, so that trees and shadows are positioned by Debaye to loom over Charlie’s life.”

 

AIPT

• David Brooke reviews the compelling intensity of Joshua Williamson, Andrea Milana, et al’s Cobra Commander #1.

• Lukas Shayo reviews the cowboy heroics of Joshua Williamson, Bruno Redondo, et al’s Superman #10.

• Christopher Franey reviews the fantastic villainy of Jeremy Adams, Diego Olortegui, et al’s Jay Garrick: The Flash #4.

• Nathan Simmons reviews the excellent callbacks of Si Spurrier, Aaron Campbell, et al’s John Constantine, Hellblazer: Dead in America #1.

• Ben Morin reviews the lurking threats of Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Nic Klein, et al’s The Incredible Hulk Volume 1: Age of Monsters.

• Ryan Sonneville reviews the character overload of Charlie Jane Anders, Enid Balam, et al’s New Mutants: Lethal Legion.

 

The Beat

• Zack Qauaintance reviews the gritty aesthetic of Si Spurrier, Aaron Campbell, et al’s John Constantine, Hellblazer: Dead in America #1.

• D. Morris reviews the political commentary of Chip Zdarsky, Daniel Acuña, et al’s Avengers: Twilight #1.

• Steve Baxi reviews the rewarding layers of ill Watterson and John Kascht’s The Mysteries.

• Ilgın Side Soysal reviews the sexual tension of Mafuyu Fukita’s We Can’t Do Plain Love, translated by Renta! and Christine Dashiell.

 

Broken Frontier

• Lindsay Pereira reviews the wider context of Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie’s Aya: Claws Come Out, translated by Edwidge Dro.

• Andy Oliver has reviews of:

- The parodic fun of Ed Pinsent’s Colossive Cartographies #51 - False Alarm: The Collapse of False-Face.

- The kinetic flourishes of Jof’s BUG+.

- The timely observations of Blaise Moritz’s Bar Delicious.

- The ambitious scope of Jem Milton’s The Flying Ship Volume 1.

 

House to Astonish

Paul O’Brien has capsule reviews of Marvel Comics’ X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #121, Rise of the Powers of X #1, and Wolverine #41.

 

International Examiner

Haley Ha reviews the unflinching narrative of Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s adaptation of Park Wan-Suh’s The Naked Tree, translated by Janet Hong.

 

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics

• Gareth Brookes reviews the essential questions of Benoît Crucifix’s Drawing from the Archives, Comics Memory and the Contemporary Graphic Novel.

• Ranny Rastati reviews the fascinating studies of Yoshiko Okuyama’s Tōjisha Manga: Japan’s Graphic Memoirs of Brain and Mental Health.

 

Multiversity Comics

• Brian Salvatore reviews the mixed beats of Jason Aaron, John Timms, et al’s Action Comics #1061.

• Matthew Blair reviews the high stakes of Kieron Gillen, R.B Silva, et al’s Rise of the Powers of X #1.

• Gregory Ellner reviews the slapstick humour of Ian Flynn, Mauro Fonseca, et al's Sonic the Hedgehog: Fang the Hunter #1.

• Elias Rosner reviews the fitting finale of Chip Zdarsky, Kagan McLeod, et al's Kaptara: Universal Truths #6.

 

Publisher’s Weekly

Have capsule reviews of:

- The unsettling atmosphere of Beth Hetland’s Tender.

- The delightful journeying of Veronica Post’s Langosh, Peppi & Yeva: Hot to Trot.

- The meticulous details of Frank Johnson, Secret Pioneer of American Comics, edited by Keith Mayerson and Chris Byrne.

- The hardboiled thrills of Alex De Campi and Ryan Howe’s Bad Karma.

- The playful cheekiness of Irene Olmo’s I Don’t Want to Be a Mom, translated by Kendra Boileau.

- The dizzying emotions of L.Nichols’ I Am Only a Foreigner Because You Do Not Understand.

- The unpolished charm of Enjelicious’s Age Matters.

 

Women Write About Comics

Adrienne Resha reviews the mutant metaphors of Iman Vellani, Sabir Pirzada, Carlos Gómez, Adam Gorham, et al’s Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant #3.

This week’s interviews.

TCJ

Jason Bergman interviews Dave Gibbons about Confabulation: An Anecdotal Autobiography, having your comics burned, Watchmen and what came after it, and the legacy from a life in comics - “I love everything about comics. I've done all sorts of things in comics. I've done fairly menial comic book production tasks. I've done pretty high-profile, award-winning series. But it's just being in that world of comics that I really, really love. And I've made so many good friends in the world of comics as well.”

 

AIPT

• Chris Hassan speaks with Kieron Gillen about Rise of the Powers of X #1, primary influences on wider comics work, finishing up work for Marvel, and rewarding extra-curricular reading.

• Chris Coplan talks to Ryan Parrott, Noah Gardner, and John Pearson about The Infernals, novel approaches to the spawn of Satan, and creating across genres.

 

Forbes

Josh Weiss interviews Dave Maass about Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis, working with Karen Berger to bring the book to print, and the various versions of the source material.

 

NPR

Diba Mohtasham speaks with Joe Sacco and Gary Groth about Palestine, and the enduring interest in the book in the context of the current conflict between Israel and Hamas.

 

Publisher’s Weekly

John Maher talks to Archie Comics CEO Jon Goldwater about the publisher’s future plans, Archie Comics’ distribution in India, and revamping and rebooting classic titles.

This week’s features and longreads.

• Here at TCJ, Andrew Farago writes in remembrance of comics scholar and historian David Kunzle, author of History of the Comic Strip, who passed away at the start of this year at the age of 87 - “Kunzle’s fascination with comics and narrative art guided him through his undergraduate studies at the University of Cambridge, where he majored in French and German literature. He built upon that work with a graduate degree at the Courtauld Institute in the History of Art. It was at Courtauld that he had a fortuitous meeting with Ernst Gombrich, director of the Warburg Institute, who would mentor Kunzle, advising him and encouraging his studies in 19th century comic art.”

• Also for TCJ, Charles Hatfield writes on the importance of David Kunzle’s work to the field of Comics Studies - “In the mid '90s, the out-of-print first volume of the History circulated among my comics scholar cronies as a massive sheaf of photocopies. I remember trading listserv messages about how to get it. That’s how badly we wanted it. Needed it.”

• More from TCJ this week, RJ Casey clips the tickets of some fresh Arrivals and Departures, this edition presenting thoughts on part 1 of a selection from last year’s Short Run Comix & Arts Festival, comprising Anand’s Stories from Zoo, Allee Erico’s Froggie World, Sarah Romano Diehl’s Rootless, Evan Salazar’s Rodeo Comics #3, and Max Clotfelter’s .357 Redwood - “Anand is an artist from Delhi and this collection of eight short stories from his one-man anthology was my introduction to his work. The book is full of people projecting, deflecting, and putting upon others, all sprinkled with magic realism. Some artists are experts at setting the scene and placing things in a concrete time and place. Others focus on their characters’ minor mannerisms and personality tics. Anand asks, “Why not both?””

• A couple more tasting menus of capsule reviews from around the world wide web, as Helen Chazan returns with a new edition of Comics Gridlock (now also taking reader recommendations) for Solrad, with writing on Audra Stang’s The Audra Show, Jeffrey Catherine Jones’ Idyl, and Osamu Tezuka’s One Hundred Tales.

• Elsewhere, the Women Write About Comics team convenes to compare their latest reading recommendations, including Vera Brosgol’s Plain Jane and the Mermaid, Yoko Komori’s Mermaid Scales and the Town of Sand, eon’s How to Become a Dragon, Morangji’s Odd Girl Out, and Jessi Sheron’s The Sea in You.

• For ICv2, Rob Salkowitz considers the recent decision by the powers that be of the Eisner Awards to invoke their legislative rights and splice the journalism category with the comic related books/periodical category.

• Over at Shelfdust, Jake Murray writes on the iconography and symbology of Quentin Quire and friends, in Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s New X-Men #135, and the mutable visual language of mutant rebellion.

• From the world of open-access academia, from Comic Books, Special Collections, and the Academic Library, Thomas Gebhart presents a chapter on the British Library’s Web Comics Archive, and the hows and whys of curating digital comics collections.

• Mike Peterson rounds up the week’s editorial beat, over at The Daily Cartoonist, as the litigious build-up to this year’s presidential election took centre stage with a backdrop of missile strikes in Yemen.

This week’s audio/visual delights.

• Katie Skelly and Sally Madden reconvene to consider the Thick Lines of Osamu Tezuka’s Ayako, similarities in its narrative to The Curious Case Of Natalia Grace, and the darkness of the family at the heart of its story.

• Noah Van Sciver presented a conversation between Dash Shaw and Sammy Harkham, recorded at Chicago’s Book Cellar, as they spoke about the process of conceiving and making their recent books, Discipline and Blood of the Virgin.

• For more on the process of making Blood of the Virgin, Gil Roth welcomed Sammy Harkmham to the latest episode of The Virtual Memories Show, as they discussed the serialisation of the story, and (not necessarily knowing) what comes next.

• David Harper was joined by Nate Powell for this week’s edition of Off Panel, as they spoke about Fall Through, promoting comics work in the age of social media, working on the March books, and the enduring joys of the X-Men.

• Publisher’s Weekly’s More to Come considered a trio of recently reviewed graphic novels, as Calvin Reid and Meg Lemke discussed Edel Rodriquez’s Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey; Ai Weiwei, Elettra Stamboulis, and Gianluca Constantini’s Zodiac: A Graphic Memoir; and Manon Debaye’s The Cliff.

• Brian Hibbs welcomed Vivian Zhou to Comix Experience’s Graphic Novel Club, as they spoke about Atana and the Firebird, childhood comics reading, arts grants, and the process of moving from comics script to the illustrated comics page.

• Closing out a cold January week with some Cartoonist Kayfabe offerings, as Jim Rugg and Ed Piskor continued a look back at January 1962 in Marvel Comics history, with Bryan Moss and Shawn @JapanBookHunter joining proceedings to talk about the Starlog Magazine Vampirella issues, and a shoot interview with Bill Griffith on Zippy the Pinhead and Three Rocks: The Story of Ernie Bushmiller - The Man Who Created Nancy.

That’s all for this week, for now I am compelled to watch someone speedrunning Super Mario 64 using a drum kit.