Features
Clark Burscough | August 9, 2024
My neural cache is currently full from temporarily learning the rules to sports like handball and artistic swimming for the duration of the Olympics, which – if Johnny Mnemonic taught me anything – means that I’ll need to visit Ice T and a dolphin (???) at some point to clear things out again and free up some kilobytes, but, in the meantime, this week’s links, below.
protect each other! pic.twitter.com/UJvJdiimxp
— B. Mure 🇵🇸 🕊️ (@beemure) August 8, 2024
This week’s news.
•We return, once again, to the auction house, with the collectibles market remaining surprisingly bullish, as the current owner of Rob Liefeld’s original artwork for the cover of New Mutants #98 has set a price of $7.5 million dollars for its sale via Heritage Auctions, which would make it “the single most valuable piece of original comic book art ever sold”; and the auction of a childhood collection of comics in the UK saw sales of The Incredible Hulk #1 for $7,000 and The Fantastic Four #1 for $8,200.
•In memoriam, remembering those the world of comics has lost, news was shared this week of the passing of Joyce Brabner, co-writer of Our Cancer Year with late husband Harvey Pekar, and editor of Real War Stories, who has died at the age of 72.
Eisners 2024 winners group photo by @cad_pictures pic.twitter.com/IEn1ukoDid
— Domino Books (@DominoComics) August 8, 2024
This week’s reviews.
TCJ
•Brian Nicholson reviews the crisp anger of Atsushi Kaneko’s Search and Destroy, Volume 1, translated by Ben Applegate - “The game of telephone is now one more step removed. We still receive the pleasures of action storytelling, with violence intensified and sequences where the only thing to translate is sound effects this side of Yuichi Yokoyama. Yet the greater satisfaction found in Volume One comes from seeing how the Dororo mythos is plugged into this more materialist milieu, what elements are retained and what are remixed.”
•Hagai Palevsky reviews the varied textures of Allee Errico’s Froggie World, Volume 1 – Love, Angel, Music, Bike - “The daily, real-time structure of Errico's comics means she willingly denies herself the framing of retrospective significance; new things happen every day, after all, and she rarely lingers on the same events for more than one page, or one day. See the six-page "Severance," in which Errico is at first downgraded then outright fired from her job; "Severance" is the longest and most 'significant' piece in the collection, but its events are scarcely mentioned again, not treated as a pivotal moment in her life.”
AIPT
•Chris Coplan reviews the special appeal of Joey Esposito, Sean Von Gorman, et al’s The Pedestrian #1.
•Kevin Clark reviews the atmospheric mystery of Cullen Bunn, Andrea Mutti, et al’s Arkham Horror: The Terror at the End of Time #1.
•Collier Jennings reviews the twisting entertainment of Stephanie Phillips, Goran Sudžuka, et al’s Red Before Black #1.
•David Brooke reviews the pulled punches of Marvel Comics’ Spider-Man: Black Suit & Blood #1.
•Jonathan Jones reviews the compassionate beginnings of Gail Simone, David Marquez, et al’s Uncanny X-Men #1.
•David Canham reviews the central thesis of Jonathan Hickman, Valerio Schiti, et al’s G.O.D.S..
The Beat
•Samantha Puc reviews the complex characters of Michelle Lam’s Meesh the Bad Demon: The Secret of the Fang.
•Zack Quaintance reviews the driving anger of Joe Casey, Dan McDaid, et al’s Kneel Before Zod #8.
•Jordan Jennings reviews the enticing world building of Kieron Gillen, Caspar Wijngaard, et al’s The Power Fantasy #1.
•Steve Baxi reviews the thematic connections of Aidan Koch'sSpiral and Other Stories.
Broken Frontier
•Lindsay Pereira reviews the appealing ideas of Lily Thu Fierro and Generoso Fierro’s Absolute Simultaneity.
•Lydia Turner reviews the deadpan hilarity of Michael Sweater’s Everything Sucks and Everything Sucks: All Cats Go to Hell!.
•Andy Oliver reviews the strong debut of Oni Press’ Epitaphs from the Abyss #1, the important activism of Last Gasp’s Won’t Back Down!, and the elastic cartooning of Peter Bagge's Hate Revisited! #1-2.
From Cover to Cover
Scott Cederlund reviews the powerful brutality of Atsushi Kaneko’s Search and Destroy, Volume 1, translated by Ben Applegate; and the delicate balance of Kieron Gillen, Caspar Wijngaard, et al’s The Power Fantasy #1.
The Hindu
Joshua Muyiwa reviews the haunting images of Marjane Satrapi et al’s Woman, Life, Freedom.
House to Astonish
Paul O’Brien has capsule reviews of Marvel Comics’ X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #8, X-Men: Heir of Apocalypse #4, X-Force #1, Hellverine #3, and Ms Marvel Annual #1.
Kirkus Reviews
Have starred capsule reviews of:
•The joyful expressiveness of Vikram Madan’s Beware the Dragon and the Nozzlewock.
•The honest exploration of Magdalene Visaggio and Paulina Ganucheau’s Girlmode.
•The delicious strangeness of George O’Connor’s Asgardians: Thor.
Solrad
Jonathan McBurnie reviews the entertaining juggling of Josh Bayer’s Unended.
The Tyee
Dorothy Woodend reviews the poignant humour of Walter Scott’s The Wendy Award.
Women Write About Comics
Lisa Fernandes reviews enjoyable momentum of Jonathan Hickman, Marco Checchetto, David Messina, et al'sUltimate Spider-Man #3-6.
Calling all Exhibitors! We want to invite you to apply for our MICE Mini-Grants!
Each year the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo supports self-published comics by awarding MICE Mini-Grants to our exhibitors. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/kf5JuCiDB0
— Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo (@MassMICE) August 5, 2024
This week’s interviews.
TCJ
•Zach Rabiroff interviews Flying Colors Comics’ Joe Field about the store’s new location, merchandising lessons learned, and unhealthy realities of the comics market –“I worked in radio. I was in sales and marketing for KJOY-AM in Stockton, California. And for Marvel's 25th anniversary, I had the crazy notion to ask Marvel to designate Stockton as the official birthplace of the Fantastic Four. Marvel agreed, and sent Stan Lee and a guy dressed as Spider-Man to deliver a proclamation on the steps of the Stockton City Hall.”
•Em Frank and Patrick Kyle interview one another about the creation of their latest books - I Never Found You and Baby - “[Em Frank]: I never really think about things thematically or metaphorically, but when a story starts coming to me I just let it rip and try not to get in its way or like artificially add myself or some opinion I have about the world in it. But I think when you trust your creativity, things just fit.”
•Mardou interviews Jerome Gaynor about Microwave Brick 3, pessimistic outlooks, and quitting medical school - “Earlier I said I do autobiography because I don’t feel as naturally oriented toward fiction, but I think partly that is because of how strong my need to process is. Sometimes I’ll think how fun it would be to write fiction, but when I try, the autobiography just keeps stepping in front of it – the unfinished business of the past demanding to be dealt with.”
•Jean Marc Ah-Sen interviews Ian Bertram about Little Bird and Precious Metal, lucking out with writers, life imitating art imitating life, and the attraction of gallery shows - “I don't think that I had an upbringing where a larger cultural idea of what was sophisticated and not sophisticated was accessible. It was more that it felt very natural and easy to enjoy comics and I never really thought much about what that would mean in terms of how it would be received by people. “
AIPT
•David Brooke speaks with Zack Kaplan and Chris Shehan about The Dark Empty Void and visual studies of Alien, Brian K. Vaughan and Chris Burnham about Kids Rule OK and the joys of the original British comics series, and Michael Gaydos about Beneath and physically relatable monsters.
•Chris Coplan talks to Stephanie Phillips about Red Before Black and obeying the law, Kieron Gillen and Caspar Wijngaard about The Power Fantasy and asking the big questions about superheroes, and Christopher Cantwell about Plastic Man No More! and the disconcerting nature of ‘Eel’ O’Brien.
The Beat
•Avery Kaplan interviews Alex Segura about Dick Tracy and Warren Beatty memories, and K.A. Applegate and Michael Grant about Animorphs and the cultural impact of the original series of books.
•Rebecca Oliver Kaplan and Avery Kaplan speak with Samuel Sattin and David Saylor about Unico: Awakening, and how the reimagining of Osamu Tezuka’s work came to fruition.
Black Girl Nerds
Jamie Broadnax interviews Walter Greason and Tim Fielder about The Graphic History of Hip Hop, the wide impact of hip-hop, and global readerships.
Forbes
Josh Weiss talks to Steve Darnall and Alex Ross about the return of Uncle Sam, history repeating itself, and eschewing the norms of superhero comics in the 90s.
The Guardian
Vanessa Thorpe interviews Sean McLusky about donating father John McLusky’s James Bond comic strip artwork to the Margaret Herrick Library in Los Angeles, and the history of the strip.
The Post
André Chumko talks to Ant Sang about Duffy and the Bullies, career concerns for artists in New Zealand, and dream cartoonists to invite to a dinner party.
Smash Pages
JK Parkin speaks with Samuel Sattin about Unico: Awakening, the legacy of Osamu Tezuka, and collaborating with Gurihiru on adapting Tezuka’s work.
Happy heat wave, friends! Despite the dank Midwest weather, SLICE will be out and about this August and we'd love to see you all. ❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥 https://t.co/FdjjBQGSuZ pic.twitter.com/dX2QwMat4V
— SLICE - St. Louis Independent Comics Expo (@slicexpo) August 1, 2024
This week’s features and longreads.
•Excerpted from The Comics Journal #310, Thierry Smolderen, Peter Maresca and David Kunzle, scholars of pre- and early 1900s- comics, discuss the history, development, and re-origination of the comic strip form - “[Thierry Smolderen:] Well, some of the concepts I’ve developed as a historian of comics. For example, what I call polygraphy — which is a way of playing different styles against each other in a story, as if looking at things through different lenses. That was a thing that really impressed me in 19th-century comic artists, how they play with radically different ways of seeing the world.”
•For the BBC, Brian Farmer writes on the history of Sidney Bates VC, a member of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Norfolk Regiment, on whom the Victory strip "The Charge of Basher Bates" was based.
•For Deutsche Welle, Stuart Braun writes on the history of comics depicting the Holocaust, from superhero books in the Golden Age through to Art Spiegelman’s Maus.
•WPR profile Shawn Robinson, author of Dr. Dyslexia Dude, exploring the real-life, semi-autobiographical inspiration for the series of graphic novels, and detailing the work of Project Success and The Learning Collaborative.
•Boing Boing’s Ruben Bolling reports from the Norman Rockwell Museum’s exhibition “What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of MAD Magazine” and its impressive collection of original art and curios, following up another recent visit to the Society of Illustrators’ exhibition “Jack Davis: A Centennial Celebration”.
•Over at The Beat, Heidi MacDonald marks the quiet end to comics publishing platform Zestworld, which seemingly didn’t translate venture capital funding into a sustainable business.
•For Shelfdust, continuing a retrospective of Matt Fraction and Steve Lieber’s Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, Zack Quaintance writes on the third issue of the series, and the layered humour to be found therein.
•From the world of open-access academia, in Cinergie – Il cinema e le alter arti, Giorgio Busi Rizzi, Lorenzo Di Paola, and Rodolfo Dal Canto examine the history of Angela Giussani and Luciana Giussani’s Diabolik and adaptations of the series for screen, as well as the relationship between fumetti and changing Italian sociocultural needs.
•From Inclusive Cataloging: Histories, Context, and Reparative Approaches, Allison Bailund, Steven W. Holloway, Carole Sussman, and Deborah Tomaras present their chapter From “Afrofuturist Comics” to “Zombies in Comics”: Inclusive Comics Cataloging from A to Z.
•Paul O’Brien’s census of the villains of Daredevil continues, for House to Astonish, as this week Matt Murdoch meets and then summarily dismisses Mr. Kline, while corporate crossovers fail to pan out.
•Mike Peterson rounds up the week’s editorial beat, over at The Daily Cartoonist, as all eyes were on Vice President Kamala Harris, the word ‘weird’ getting its moment in the sun, and potential-Vice President Tim Walz.
join the fun at the DCAF kick-off party at propeller arcade with Wordburglar and Ghoul Lewis !!
Friday August 9th at 9pm
Propeller Arcade
2015 Gottingen St
Halifax!#dcaf2024 pic.twitter.com/gscWQuSrcp— DartmouthComix (@DartmouthComix) August 2, 2024
This week’s audio/visual delights.
•Noah Van Sciver returned with a fresh cartoonist chat, this edition speaking with Tony Millionaire about maritime heritage, the importance of a good rights lawyer, recovering from back problems, the lack of importance of book agents, paintings, and Sock Monkey adaptations.
•2000 AD’s Thrill-Cast returned with a tribute to Steve Dillon, ahead of the release of The 2000 AD Art of Steve Dillon Apex Edition, as MOLCH-R spoke with Dillon’s daughter-in-law Tanya Celine about The Steve Dillon Exhibition, and Steve Morris spoke with David Brothers about Dillon’s work on Judge Dredd: Cry of the Werewolf.
•Brian Hibbs welcomed Simon Roy to the latest meeting of the Comix Experience Graphic Novel Club, as they discussed Griz Grobus, being obsessive about worldbuilding, lessons learned from the collaborative process of working on Prophet, writing for your friends, and trusting your colourist.
•John Siuntres welcomed Chris Burnham to the Word Balloon, as they spoke about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Kids Rule OK, eschewing curves and prioritising angles, violent British kid’s comics, accidental doppelgängers, and Creepshow cover work origins.
•David Harper was joined by Dustin Weaver for the latest edition of Off Panel, as they discussed Paklis and 1949, late night work schedules, interning for WildStorm and lessons learned from the House of Ideas, and creative processes.
•Publisher’s Weekly’s More to Come had a bumper round-up from this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, as Calvin Reid, Heidi MacDonald, Kate Fitzsimons, and Meg Lemke spoke about the highs and lows of this year’s show, and there were interviews from the convention floor with Eric Nakamura, Patrick Horvath, Katie Cook, Joe Sutphin and Juliet Johnson, Jordan Morris, Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta, and Tim Fielder.
Original art from Delights: A Story of Hieronymus Bosch by Guy Colwell is on display at the Berkeley Public Library this month--head to the fifth floor to check it out! And he'll be discussing and signing his newest book there on 8/24 at 3:30 pm! https://t.co/7frCQ5Bozu pic.twitter.com/2SXOvGH6Bk
— Fantagraphics (@fantagraphics) August 8, 2024
No more links this week, and no more international sporting tournaments on the horizon, so what’s even the point of it all?
Something wicked this way comes... 🎃✨ Check out our magical new collection by @LoicLocatelli, Miko Kitka, and @Sibylline_M! Join us for a spellbinding show and meet some of the artists at the closing reception. 🖋️
Don't miss it!
🔗 https://t.co/tqhFKhwu1M pic.twitter.com/TjxCYK5wMp
— Gallery Nucleus (@gallerynucleus) August 7, 2024
