“Raise your hand if you’re sick of re-launches, new miniseries and one-shots.”

 

Contact me ♦ Follow me
¡Journalista! Homepage ♦ RSS Feed
¡Journalista! 2.0 Archives ♦ ¡Journalista! 1.0 Archives

 

 

Recently posted to our homepage:

• R.C. Harvey reviews the retrospective collection, No Cartoon Left Behind: The Best of Rob Rogers
• International comics: Bart Croonenborghs reports from the recent Birmingham Comics Convention in England: one, two.
• GutterGeek‘s Chris Reilly looks back at the New York Comic Con and reviews Craig Yoe’s… fuck it, he gets too many pixels in today’s ¡Journalista! as it is…
• Over at The Hooded Utilitarian, Vom Marlowe reviews Connie Willis’ homefront World War II novel, Blackout.

And in the news…

 

Above the Fold

 

Life in interesting times

• Longtime Charlotte Observer editorial cartoonist Gene Payne died last week at the age of 91.

 

• “Paddy ‘Pudsy’ Morris, Scottish cartoonist for publications such as Northern Lights, OZ , Dope Funnies and Nasty Tales, he was the creator of the famed character Ganjaman, passed away earlier this week from a heart attack. He was 61.”

 

• Say, remember when I warned you not to take that Marvel price-drop announcement at face value…?

 

• Paul O’Brien presents his month-to-month estimates for sales of Marvel comics to Direct Market retailers, now updated for August. Man oh man, watch those number drop…

 


From Age of Bronze Vol. 3, ©2007 Eric Shanower.
• Rich Johnston speaks with Image Comics publisher Eric Stephenson:

  First, there are a number of creators at Image who make a lot of money. And yes, there are also a number of creators who don’t. How do I reconcile that? Well, a couple ways. To begin with, let me tell you something about being critically acclaimed. It often doesn’t get you a damn thing. Whether we’re talking comics or film or music or books — there is a near endless list of “critically acclaimed” material out there that sells poorly by comparison. I mean, yeah, you can be The Beatles or Radiohead and critical acclaim and world-beating sales go hand-in-hand, but you can also be Nick Drake or Elliott Smith and die a critically acclaimed cult star who’s barely scraping by. Age of Bronze sells quite nicely as a trade paperback collection, but it doesn’t do so hot in singles. And it’s a multiple Eisner winner. It’s been written up in archeological journals. It’s used in schools. It’s a brilliant, brilliant piece of work. That doesn’t translate into sales for the comic.

 

• By any chance, did you happen to see a couple of copies of Kramers Ergot 7 get stolen from the Pigeon Press booth at last weekend’s Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

 

 

Profiles

 

• Laura Hudson on Kate Beaton

  “The audience’s expectation for me to actually teach actual history can be really funny. I wrote a comic about some 16th Century peasants in love, and when he’s about to kiss her, he moves in and says, ‘Oh, I’ve like never ever brushed my teeth.’ And she has this blank look on her face. [laughs] And I got some letters that said ‘You’re perpetuating this and this! That medieval people didn’t have any hygiene when in fact they used this leaf!’ Like, ‘I’m so sick of people saying medieval peasants were dirty when they had some hygiene.’ You read that letter, and that’s really funny.”

 

Also

• Chris Mautner on Johnny Ryan
• Beth Davies-Stofka on Jen Sorensen
• Robyn Chapman on José-Luis Olivares

 

Reviews

 

• Sarah Boxer on Lynd Ward: Six Novels in Woodcuts
  
  From God’s Man.

  “Ward’s simultaneous love of books and distrust of language is, I think, what makes him historically important. He’s the crucial missing link between the graphic novelists of today, Spiegelman included, and the narrative artists of the past, going back to Frans Masereel, Albrecht Dürer, and the muralists who painted Bible stories on church walls in case people couldn’t read.”

  (Link via Arts & Letters Daily.)

 

Also

• Nina Stone and Greg McElhatton on Make Me a Woman
• Larry Cruz on Lovecraft is Missing
• Tom Spurgeon on Nipper: 1963-1964
• Susan Carpenter on The Little Prince
• Sean T. Collins on “Ti-Girls Adventures Number 34″ in Love and Rockets: New Stories #1-2
• Chris Murphy on Kick-Ass 2 #1
• David Welsh on March Story Vol. 1
• Andrew Wheeler on Odd is on Our Side
• Lori Henderson on Ghost Hunt Vol. 1
• John Seven and the Techland critics on various titles

 

Commentary

 

• Angel Garcia: A Mexican otaku

  An interesting look at manga/anime fan culture as seen from a Mexican perspective:

  It’s a world of counterfeit, imitations and rampant piracy, propagated by comics and anime conventions. Most of these events do not prohibit the sale of pirated goods, which gives the low-income otaku a chance to indulge their palate without going broke.

 

Also

• Art Spiegelman on Lynd Ward
     (Link via Caitlin Roper.)
• Kevin Pasquino on recent DC Comics covers
• Katie Moody on Winsor McCay’s Dream of the Rarebit Fiend

 

Comics and Art

 

• What Things Do: Dan Zettwoch’s “Crossfader”
  
  ©2007 Dan Zettwoch.

  Zettwoch is one of those cartoonists who uses the formal mechanics of comics-making to create interesting works without drawing excess attention to said mechanics, and this strip is an excellent example of that skill in action.

 

Also

• We Be Ouija: Eleanor Davis’ sketch blog
     (Link via Scott McCloud.)
• Grantbridge Street: Jack Cole’s Plastic Man
• Grantbridge Street: Rick Geary’s “The Cat at the Window”
• Grantbridge Street: Howard Chaykin’s “Lotus”
• Grantbridge Street: Mort Drucker’s “Bats-Man”
• Grantbridge Street: Alfredo Alcala’s “A Demon at the Door”
• Grantbridge Street: Murphy Anderson’s “The Devil’s Island of Space!”
• Grantbridge Street: Bill Everett’s “The Mad Mountain!”
• Craig Yoe, Pappy, Mykal Banta, Jacque Nodell, Joakim Gunnarsson, Sherm Cohen, Steven Thompson and Everything Else, Too: Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein
• Ger Apeldoorn: Six by Dick Briefer
• Sam Henderson (one, two, three and four): Eh! Dig This Crazy Comic! #1
• The Rack: Hey, Lydia!
• Allan Holtz: “Deadshot Bill,” from Nurseryville

 

Multimedia

 

• YouTube: A visit to Matt Groening’s studio
  

  It’s pretty much worth putting up with Tom Gammill’s overacting for the chance to see the Life in Hell cartoonist in his natural environment.

  (Link via Alan Gardner.)

 

• Comics-related podcasts
  • Megan Kelso falls into the Comix Claptrap (75.5MB) — will no one help her climb back out?
  • Gary Groth, Jeet Heer and Ben Schwartz discuss comics criticism with Robin McConnell in this week’s episode of Inkstuds (55.2MB).
  • Panel Borders‘ Alex Fitch talks to artists Charles Vess and Peter Gross about their work (30.3MB).
  • On a recent episode of Fanboy Radio, cartoonist Jamar Nicholas discussed his new book Fist, Stick, Gun, Knife, a graphic novel he adapted from humanitarian Geoffrey Canada’s true story (13.8MB).
  • Ed Sizemore, Johnanna Draper Carlson and Sean Gaffney discuss the recent twin comics and J-culture conventions in Manhattan on Manga Out Loud (60.4MB).
  • More commentary and criticism can be found at the Daily Cross Hatch (26.2MB), House to Astonish (62.9MB) and Wait, What? (one, 52.2MB; two, 59.8MB).

  All podcasts are in downloadable MP3 audiofile format.

 

Comics Culture

 

• Press release: Lynd Ward graphic novel prize established

  Details about submitting work available at the link.

 

• Your Not-Comics Link of the Day:

  Everyone in New York City likes to stop and touch Adam’s penis.

 

Events Calendar

 

This Week:

 

• Oct. 23 (Los Angeles, CA): Fogtown artist Brad Rader will be signing books and meeting readers at Meltdown Comics on Sunset Boulevard, from noon-2PM. Details here.
• Oct. 23 (McMurray, PA): Meet Scary Godmother creator Jill Thompson at Pittsburgh Comics on McMurray Road, from 2-5PM. Details here.
• Oct. 23 (San Francisco, CA): Watch cartoonists Jamaica Dyer, Kane Lynch, Nicky Nargesian, Doctor Popular, Storm and Sophie Yanow draw a comics jam at Flax Art & Design on Market Street, from 3-5PM. Details here.
• Oct. 23 (Portland, OR): Vanessa Davis and Julia Wertz will appear for a slideshow presentation, Q&A and signing at Reading Frenzy on Oak Street, beginning at 7PM. Details here.

 

Want to see your comics-related event listed here? Email a link to dirk@tcj.com and let me know. Please include an online link to which I can send people for more information. No sales-only events, please — it’s nice that you’ve marked things down at your store or website, but I won’t be listing it here. (Note: Under no circumstances will I link to a Facebook page. Seriously, what idiot “advertises” their event solely on a website that requires registration to see the advertisement?)