2051 posts tagged with comics.
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“Goodbye, Multiversity Comics (or, A Blog of One’s Own)”
Multiversity Comics is saying goodbye, with many parting thoughts from many editors, columnists, etc. From Matthew Meylikhov: "If you don’t have time for yet another self-indulgent thousand word essay on the internet (and who can blame you?), then just skip ahead to the end where the last image break is and read the last few paragraphs alone. Everything else in this farewell piece was written after I wrote those, and the end sentiment is the only thing I really wanted to convey. I’m just a sucker for a long road to a simple point (it’s the journey, not the destination, right?)." Multiversity has appeared previously on the blue. [more inside]
Making knowledge public
The Bobcat Comics series features collaborations between artists and UC Merced scholars. The comics explore research on colonial Alta California, how Latinas use "journey" rather than "war" metaphors when talking about breast cancer, unruly patriarchs and failed women and more. One stand-out is How to Read an Aztec "Comic": Indigenous Knowledge, Mothers' Bodies, and Tamales in the Pot, a collaboration by artist Jordan Collver and Chicana Studies scholar Felicia Rhapsody Lopez about women's representation in the ancient Mesoamerican text, Codex Borgia/Yoalli Ehēcatl. [more inside]
"The noise of being online was becoming almost too much for even me."
From Wonder Island to Kiyosu City
The comics legend lurking in a Sunderland basement
The BBC profiles comic artist and writer Bryan Talbot, following the recent announcement that he will be inducted into the Eisner Hall of Fame. [more inside]
Ed Piskor, 1982-2024
[CW: Suicide, exploitation] Cartoonist Ed Piskor, creator of Hip Hop Family Tree and co-host of comics YouTube channel Cartoonist Kayfabe, was accused last week of grooming by a cartoonist who posted screenshots of a conversation she had with Piskor when she was 17 and he was 38. Two women soon came forward with their own experiences. This morning Piskor posted a response on his Facebook (Currently unavailable) denying any ill intent and expressing suicidal feelings. Shortly after, his family confirmed that he was dead. Ed Piskor was 41. [more inside]
I know damn well it's not going to go over
There are more dead men than living women in the funny pages
Major newspapers restructure their comics pages and guess who's missing? The answer will probably not surprise you, but it's disheartening anyway. [more inside]
The Mystery of the Mysterious Funny Pages
The Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective comic strip only lasted a couple of years, from December 1978 to September 1980, though people saved individual strips, and two collections were later released. Can You Solve The Mystery? came along a few years later, which was an adaptation of the Hawkeye Collins and Amy Adams books. Cliff Hanger showed up around the same time, featuring mysteries in 1930s jungles and that sort of thing, coincident with the popularity of another 1930s-era kinda thing, though it's not "CLIFF-HANGER". [more inside]
I didn't expect to be here. I'm small time.
Dorothy Gambrell of Cat and Girl (which has been running for almost 25 years now... pre·vi·ous·ly) has a new comic reflecting "on being listed in the court document of artists whose work was used to train Midjourney with 4,000 of my closest friends and Willem de Kooning." [more inside]
The Spirit of Vengeance & Bronze Age Horror
From his flaming skull to the hellfire motorcycle, Ghost Rider, aka the Spirit of Vengeance, became a unique symbol of the Bronze Age, embodying the era’s shift towards complex, flawed characters and more mature themes. [more inside]
Happy 50th birthday, more or less, to Dungeons & Dragons!
Tom Van Winkle (01/10/2024), "Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons": "Fifty years ago this month, the first 1000 copies of the original Dungeons & Dragons were printed and then boxed up at Gary Gygax's house. It's supposed to have been late in January of 1974, but we don't have a specific date. January 1974 is good enough for me. And what counts as the specific origin date, anyway? The final draft? The actual printing? The availability for sale? We're close enough. I'm saying it's been fifty years right now." [more inside]
Comics were real good last year
Gordon lives again!!!
“A lone spaceship crash-lands on Mongo - - three humans on a mission of peace. An athlete, a traveler and a mad, desperate scientist. Alone against an empire.” - Flash Gordon returns in style with a new daily comic strip. Creator interview with Dan Schkade.
Bwah ha ha ha ha
Keith Giffen, legendary comics writer/artist (Ambush Bug, Justice League International, Legion of Super-Heroes, Trencher, the Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle, and much, much more) has passed away at 70, and left a final Facebook post for the ages.
He will be fondly remembered and sorely missed.
Comics. Often dirty. Indexed.
A search index for the very-NSFW web comic Oglaf. On Mastodon, Esther talks about how she built it. [previousliest]
Fables Enters the Public Domain
As of now, 15 September 2023, the comic book property called Fables, including all related Fables spin-offs and characters, is now in the public domain. What was once wholly owned by Bill Willingham is now owned by everyone, for all time. It’s done, and as most experts will tell you, once done it cannot be undone. Take-backs are neither contemplated nor possible.
Why Bill Watterson Vanished
By Watterson’s own admission, he cannot accurately recall a whole decade of his life because of his “Ahab-like obsession” with his work. “The intensity of pushing the writing and drawing as far as my skills allowed was the whole point of doing it,” he says. “I eliminated pretty much everything from my life that wasn’t the strip.” While Watterson’s wife, Melissa Richmond, organized everything around him, he furthered his isolation, burrowing ever more deeply into the strip’s world. There was no other way, he believed, to keep its integrity absolute. “My approach was probably too crazy to sustain for a lifetime,” he says, “but it let me draw the exact strip I wanted while it lasted.” [The American Conservative]
Remember how it improved society somewhat
You might already know that political / reporting / general nonfiction comics outlet The Nib is closing down at the end of August. It was too good to last.
You might not know that The Nib is making all fifteen issues of the magazine free to download as PDFs! Consider kicking back a few bucks to help them preserve the website in the meanwhile.
You might not know that The Nib is making all fifteen issues of the magazine free to download as PDFs! Consider kicking back a few bucks to help them preserve the website in the meanwhile.
“Truthfully, I try not to analyse my own intentions”
Disabled Creatives in Comics: Interview with Tee Franklin
Funny, smart and far-ranging interview with the creator of Sun-Spider and #BlackComicsMonth and much more on disability (plus!) visibility in comics. "I’ve always loved comics. Like my villain origin story is me basically blackmailing my older cousin who had his little girlfriend come over, and he was supposed to have been watching me, but since he chose to pay more attention to her, I was like “Give me comics and I won’t snitch.” [laughs], and that’s my introduction into comics." (Podcast available as well, interview by Carolyn Hinds)
THREE MILES OF CANVASS
At 1275 feet, the painted narrative scroll The Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage 'Round the World(Narrated video) is perhaps not quite as long as advertised when first displayed in 1848, but the longest painting in America, now housed at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, is still pretty long. [more inside]
It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth
“I’m not expecting to win any of these bastards, but just to be nominated means the world.” - Zoe Thorogood, 24-year-old from Bradford, UK, has scooped the most nominations for this years Eisner Awards
Life Lessons in Calgary
Illustrator, author, and cartoonist Jillian Tamaki writes about Superman III, Calgary, and change for The Walrus. [more inside]
They draw comics; they aren't stand-up comics
In late 2010, The 92nd Street Y hosted Al Jaffe, Roz Chast, and Robert Mankoff [1h24m] for joint presentations about their work and a question panel. The humor is dry, but the talent is gigantic and the lengthy Q/A is great.
100+ Years of Yuri
Okazu is the internet's longest-running blog devoted to the study and review of yuri, a genre of manga and anime featuring romances between women and girls. Run by noted yuri expert and historian Erica Friedman, Okazu features loads of reviews ranging from recent series to untranslated classics. There are also essays galore. And if you're new to yuri, you can also find recommendations on where to start.
Matt Murdoch's Murder-Free 34 Hours
Daredevil is Present and the Police Arrive Later - David Brothers dissects Daredevil #304 and takes a look at superheroes, race and policing.
Anime is as imaginative as ever. It’s also a lot bleaker...
Anime Confronts a New Apocalypse by Matt Alt [The New Yorker] Back in the day, manga was hopeful and positive. Now? Lots of the biggest players are dark and cynical. Alt's piece examines how and why recent times have changed their outlook.
““We’re off to outer space, we’re leaving mother Earth, to save the human race,” the opening lines of the theme song to “Yamato” and “Star Blazers” went, but modern audiences seem more interested in escapes into inner space and saving themselves. Part of this is simply due to changing tastes and styles, inevitable in any youth-oriented medium, and part to how even the most radical subcultures inevitably get co-opted—witness how hip-hop and punk, so edgy and threatening in the eighties, morphed into mainstream pop. Days after Matsumoto’s death, a column about the artist expressed concern about how “cold and cynical many recent anime seem to be.” But is this a criticism of the current crop of animators and fans—or a reflection of Japanese society itself?”
Can I Offer You An Egg In This Trying Time?
On the memetic rhetoric of transgender coming-out comics... but a lot more readable than the subtitle makes it seem like it will be. [more inside]
Friggin' finally
For the 20th anniversary of Dinosaur Comics, creator Ryan North posted a special giant-size update. [more inside]
It starts in 2023...
A simple tale about how things are going to go. Six parts, just keep hitting "Next".
The Right Place
Surely it’s possible. A place to go that… proves life’s beauty rather than pantomiming it. [more inside]
storytelling by anthropologists and other careful observers
Otherwise Magazine's current issue on Work includes a profile of a teacher in Kurdistan and a visual report "Delivering precarity" on food delivery work in Romania. The issue on Becoming includes an ode to tap water and stories from those detained in refugee camps.
Two Pakistani men used to talk and sing from the small windows at night. I liked listening to them. It made me feel calm. One of them had a little mirror so that they could see each other and he used to joke: "Let's do a video call, uncle."[more inside]
HEY I DRAW THIS STUFF & IT'S DAM' GOOD ... YA' HEAR ME??
One of the pioneers of indie feminist cartooning, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, has died at 74 after a long illness. Kominsky-Crumb, whose alter ego was (and was not) "Honeybunch Kominsky," drew rough, hilarious, vital cartoons about her experience as a young Jewish woman in a raunchy world. (2018 interview, cw: sexual violence.) Her obituary at Comicsbeat shows some of her characteristic strips. She is survived by a daughter, a grandson, and her husband. [more inside]
Not 4-Bit, Just $%@& For RAM
The recently-released Atari 50 100+ game collection/90's-CD-ROM-style multimedia thingy from retro championers Digital Eclipse has been out for about a week, receiving not a single review below 8/10, making things look good for possible DLC. But why wait for more? There's already two entire podcasts aiming to cover every single Atari 2600 game made within the console's lifespan: 2600 Game By Game and Atari Bytes (the latter including bespoke game-related short stories). [more inside]
Rest in Peace Kevin O'Neill
Comic book illustrator Kevin O'Neill, best known for his work on Marshal Law, 2000 AD, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, has passed away of cancer at 69. [more inside]
Look up McGruff crime tips 39 and 888853 on dril's Twitter
In 2011, Joe Staton and Mike Curtis breathed new life into Dick Tracy. In 2008, dril tweeted the word 'no'. In 2009, he helped breathe life into Weird Twitter. And now, the creator of Daily/Hourly Pornhubbed Heathcliff (content warning: random Pornhub comments) has created Dril Tracy, the Twitter bot that replaces sufficiently long text in Staton/Curtis-era-and-onward Dick Tracy comics with random dril tweets. [more inside]
Crumbs of Truth
Black, White, and Grey All Over: Where Binary Teaching Fails Underground Comix - The newly relaunched Gutter Review (previously Neotext Review) takes a look at teaching underground comics, generational changes in reading, Robert Crumb and the place of offense in literature. Previous Robert Crumb. Previously.
Music video & album releases filled my otherwise empty calendar
K-Pop in the time of Covid, an appreciation zine by comics artist Maia Kobabe (author of Gender Queer). E also drew every outfit e wore to K-pop shows.
For grandma, who loved pigeons
A lovely three part Twitter comic about pigeons and the people who love them, by Jenny Jinya: part 1, part 2, part 3. (Jenny Jinya previously.)
"Love & Rockets" at 40
For one trio of brothers raised in Oxnard, there was no use in asking for permission to make their comics. They didn't need it. With all the trademarks of an '80s punk mentality, Mario, Jaime and Gilbert began sharing their work on their own... Fans quickly followed, and their fervor remained steady, as did the brothers' creative output. "Love & Rockets," the brothers' ongoing series — now helmed by Gilbert and Jaime — is celebrating its 40th anniversary. And in celebration an hourlong documentary [more inside]
"Hey Dr. Crane, just one more thing..."
I HEAR THE BLUES A-KILLIN' (or: Frasier Meets Columbo), a 16-page comic by Joe Chouinard.
Kim Jung Gi (1975-2022)
Women in Comics
Hark! A Duck
Cape Breton comics artist Kate Beaton, best known for Hark! a Vagrant has a new book relaesed today, Ducks, based on her time working in the Alberta tar sands industry. Reviews are good, from NY Times (gift link), the Narwhal, The Guardian, Wired, Quill and Quire. There is an eight page PDF excerpt here and a lengthy video from today of Beaton launching/discussing her new book. An early glimpse from 2014 of Ducks, on Metafilter with good discussion. Mefi-affiliate Amazon link.
Far out!! Wow!! YES!! Lynda Barry #1!!
New York Times Magazine: A Genius Cartoonist Believes Child’s Play Is Anything But Frivolous [more inside]
SparklyPrettyBriiiight: Andrew's wonderful world of pop culture
I just discovered a new site that reviews films; graphic novels and books and I really like it. I found out about some cool new graphic novels I hadn't heard of, and I've heard of most of them. The site is by an Australian but not, to the best of my knowledge, by anyone who I know.
A carefully-researched comic about wealth inequality
A comic about wealth inequality in New Zealand, but applicable almost everywhere else as well. "Imagine you're invited to a dinner. There are 10 guests, 10 seats at the table, and 10 plates of food. But then you all sit down to eat and one person gets served nearly 6 meals. 5.8 meals to be precise..."
M A R V E D Y N E
Opplopolis (Twitter, previously) has begun updating again. It is a comic about a weird anachronistic city in which the fates of multiple people - and a completely different science-fiction setting - become entwined with something called Marvedyne. [more inside]
A single chip called life
Kazuki Takahashi, the creator of the hugely successful manga, anime, and trading card game franchise Yu-Gi-Oh!, has passed away at the age of 60. [more inside]