The Comics Reporter

November 30, 2011

Go, Read: Lady’s Night

two Gabrielle Bell comics posted on-line in a week!

posted 2:00 am PST | Permalink

Go, Read: A Translation-Worthy Interview With Guy Delisle

There's a bunch of interesting material to mine from this interview with Guy Delisle about his forthcoming Jerusalem (Chroniques de Jerusalem in the French-language version). He provides an easy contrast between his work and that of Joe Sacco's for example (Delisle does a page a day, so therefore works differently, and he personally considers his work as something of an opposite to what Sacco does). One potentially newsworthy thing that slips out is that this may be the last of his travelogues: his wife's work situation has changed as their kids have become older.

posted 1:10 am PST | Permalink

A Not Comics Classic: 1962 Mars Attacks Cards

posted 1:05 am PST | Permalink

Go, Read: A Couple Of Pieces Of Editorial Cartooning Commentary

* Michael Cavna has a nicely conceived little piece up here suggesting that the great state of Colorado has become the bellwether for developments in the editorial cartooning field. I do wonder if there really is any reason to hope that a new revenue model will emerge at this point, no matter if you talk money straight-up or couch that conversation in terms of opportunities or whatever.

* Teresa Puente at ChicagoNow looks at a recent New Yorker cover in terms of its "Mexican immigrants as pilgrims" metaphor. I'm not sure it's surprising that a metaphor like that hasn't been employed before; a lot of the best editorial cartoons repeat tropes but do so in a way that's timely and informed. We should probably be more hesitant in praising the originality of certain cartoons as well.

posted 1:00 am PST | Permalink

Go, Look: Henry Eudy

posted 12:55 am PST | Permalink

Go, Bookmark: A Devoted Gray Morrow Site

posted 12:45 am PST | Permalink

This Isn’t A Library: New And Notable Releases To The Direct Market

Here are the books that make an impression on me staring at this week's no-doubt largely accurate list of books shipping from Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. to comic book and hobby shops across North America.

I might not buy all of the works listed here. I might not buy any. You never know. I'd sure look at the following, though.

*****

SEP110962 RASL TP VOL 03 $15.00
I'm deriving a great deal of pleasure out of this series right now, enough to pick it up in all of its iterations. This seems like a really light week for comics given the holiday rush and all. Maybe we're out of the holiday shipping rush at this point.

AUG110037 BPRD BEING HUMAN TP $17.99
Your Mignolaverse book of the week. Again, I admire how consistent these are. I bet there are people that go to the store and buy nothing but.

AUG110377 DOCTOR WHO DAVE GIBBONS COLLECTION HC $50.00
There's a smattering of comics collections out this week that may appeal to fans of a specific artist or creator; this was the one that popped for me. I can't say as I'm familiar with this work at all, and that price point is scary, but I've been on a mini-Dave Gibbons kick recently and would certainly pick it up.

SEP110410 COMPLETE INVINCIBLE LIBRARY HC VOL 03 $125.00
SEP110441 WALKING DEAD OMNIBUS HC VOL 01 NEW PTG (MR) $100.00
SEP110417 MORNING GLORIES HC VOL 01 $39.99
That is three very solid Christmas-style collections of solid genre work from Image. I prefer the comic book in almost every case, but these books are much nicer than the trades, but the giant, three-figure Kirkman books seem to me much nicer than the standard trades. I'm still trying to warm to Morning Glories. It reminds me of one of those TV shows where I admire how it's being done -- I like how little information gets revealed, and how this manages to be non-infuriating -- more than I enjoy the actual material. So far, anyway.

AUG110495 WALKING DEAD LUNCHBOX $14.99
Please tell me they did product placement for this on the show.

AUG110762 DIARY OF A WIMPY KID HC VOL 06 CABIN FEVER $13.95
I'm hoping that if the comics industry bands together in support of this plucky project, it can survive to another volume.

AUG111134 SALVATORE GN VOL 02 AN EVENTFUL CROSSING $14.99
This is Nicholas De Crecy, which of course makes it worth a look. I'd show the cover, but I can't find an image of any decent size.

DEC100735 MOUSE GUARD BLACK AXE #3 (OF 6) $3.50
I tend to like these comics just fine when I get them in the mail, although with the exception of one trip to Meltdown I'm not sure I've ever seen them in the store. That said, I don't get to many stores and sales would indicate that these books have as much store saturation as any not-mainstream series right now. These tend to be really handsome little books, and they have a monopoly on a certain kind of deliberate tone I would have adored as a middle-single-digit aged kid.

*****

The full list of this week's releases, including some titles with multiple cover variations and a long, impressive list of toys and other stuff that isn't comics, can be found here. Despite this official list there's no guarantee a comic will show up in the stores as promised, or in all of the stores as opposed to just a few. Also, stores choose what they carry and don't carry so your shop may not carry a specific publication. There are a lot of comics out there.

To find your local comic book store, check this list; and for one I can personally recommend because I've shopped there, albeit a while back, try this.

The above titles are listed with their Diamond order code in the first field, which may assist you in finding comics at your shop or having them order something for you they don't have in-stock. Ordering through a direct market shop can be a frustrating experience, so if you have a direct line to something -- you know another shop has it, you know a bookstore has it -- I'd urge you to consider all of your options.

If I failed to list your comic, that's on me. I apologize.

*****

*****
*****

posted 12:40 am PST | Permalink

Go, Bookmark: Days Of Adventure

posted 12:35 am PST | Permalink

Go, Read: Adrian Tomine Interview At Comic Book Resources

I enjoyed this piece by Jorge Khoury at one of the Comic Book Resources-affiliated columns with Adrian Tomine, one of the better thinkers and talkers about comics that actually interviews relative rarely given his status in the field. Like Sean T. Collins, I was interested in Tomine's attempt at a longer, stand-alone graphic novel that didn't work out; I don't feel the same regret that Collins initially does that the project was never completed. These kinds of things are pretty rare in comics, I think for the same reason you don't see a lot of heavily re-edited work: the labor involved fairly encourages completing what you start. I do remember that James Sturm talked in our before-CCS-happened interview (TCJ #251) about doing a graphic novel featuring art-school students that I'm not sure is ever going to be finished, and there were pages or at least breakdowns done on that. For the most part, though, I'm drawing a blank.

posted 12:30 am PST | Permalink

Go, Look: A Norm Maurer Three Stooges Comic

posted 12:25 am PST | Permalink

If I Were In Hamilton, I’d Go To This

posted 12:20 am PST | Permalink

Go, Look: Good-Looking Early ‘50s Joe Kubert Pages

posted 12:10 am PST | Permalink

Random Comics News Story Round-Up

* here's a bit of good news I initially missed: Frank Santoro's Fall correspondence course is going well enough he's considering running another set of classes beginning in March 2012. If you're interested, you should bookmark or maybe get in touch.

* the well-established, veteran editorial cartoonist Mike Keefe talks to Daryl Cagle about his recent decision to take a buyout offered to him by the Denver Post. The good news is that this fit right into Keefe's plans for semi-retirement; the bad news is that any connection that's severed between a major newspaper and a popular cartoonist these days is cause for concern about the long-range future of that profession as we've come to know and value it over the last several decades. The strange news is that Keefe is the current Pulitzer Prize winner, which isn't the time you ever think of someone changing their employment status. I think Keefe is right to suggest that print media was slow in reacting to the rise of digital media. My additional suspicion is that the business was in a really bad position when it started to get punched in the nuts a few years back. For one thing, I think the easy and reliable profits that those enterprises kept bringing in kept newsrooms from being as ruthlessly efficient as possible in terms of staffing even as technology really cut back on some time considerations in terms of the nuts and bolts of newspaper reporting.

* via Stefan Dinter comes word of an audio version of Ana-Marie Jung's recent presentation at the University of Portland. Speaking of audio presentations, Sarah Morean alerts us to a bunch of interviews related to the Minneapolis Indie Xpo held much earlier this month. Seriously, that seems a long time ago, which is weird given how quickly the weeks rattle by anymore.

* Rodrigo Baeza alerts us to comics-makers that may be owned foreign royalties. I don't have any way to confirm that, so please tread carefully. On the other hand: potential foreign royalties.

* I believe I was one of a few comics-related folks that received a note over the weekend from Jaynelle Rude, Steve Rude's wife, about a point of clarification in their public statements as to what Steve did the night he was arrested. She wrote to CR:

I want to clarify something for anyone who thought Steve was throwing rocks at the dogs. Steve tossed rocks at our side wall (we don't have wood fences here in AZ, everything is bricks or rocks). He has noticed in the past that when he opens and closes his studio window (which faces their yard) the dogs will stop barking for a minute or two). The dogs were in the backyard on Halloween and being allowed to bark nonstop. After about 15 minutes of nonstop barking he decided to try and distract them.

Steve loves dogs and I would hate for anyone to think he was throwing rocks at the dogs! Barking dogs is a problem with the owners, not the dogs.

We haven't been following the news (been overwhelmed and overworked). Please let everyone know that Steve would never harm an animal of any kind. He wanted to cry last year when the neighbors had a bee problem and the guy came out and killed instead of relocated all of them.

For what it's worth, I thought the nature of what Rude did and that it wasn't throwing rocks at dogs was clear from the start to everyone except in a couple of sites on the Internet where this was initially misreported and perhaps a place or two where a fan or commenter misread what was actually written. But it's always good to have a clarification.

I've read elsewhere that the Rudes won't be saying much for the duration of the legal process, which is completely understandable. I join many of their comics industry friends in wishing a just and speedy outcome in this matter for Steve and Jaynelle. They have always treated me and this site extremely well. This is a good time to pick up some art from the illustrator if you're so inclined.

* finally, Brad Mackay on the masterwork of comics-maker/logging industry veteran the late Bus Griffiths, Now You're Logging.

posted 12:05 am PST | Permalink

Happy 54th Birthday, Brian Basset!