All Outta Angst — This Week’s Links

1 week ago 12

Clark Burscough | May 30, 2025

Traveling across these British Isles this week, so I’m hoping that no era-defining comics news stories break right as I head into one of the many dead zones to be found nestled in amongst the railway network of this land, and so, if anything akin to the above does not make an appearance in this week’s links, below, despite having occurred overnight on Thursday (in order to be buried at the end of the week’s news cycle), then, ah! Well. Nevertheless.

枝を一筆

— こまちみゆた (@comatimiyuta.bsky.social) 2025-05-25T12:14:30.169Z

This week’s news.

• Beginning this week in the French legal system, as a court in Nanterre declared itself unable to hear the case under which author Bastien Vivès faces allegations of producing child pornography in two books — the Foundation for Childhood and Innocence in Danger brought the complaints against Vivès in 2023, citing depictions of sexual acts in La Décharge Mentale and Petit Paul in their accusations, with publishers Les Requins Marteaux and Glénat facing linked charges of disseminating pornographic depictions of minors. As the court was unable to determine that the alleged acts, of production and dissemination, took place in their jurisdiction the matter will be referred back to the public prosecutor’s office.

• Elsewhere, workers at Abrams Books this week announced that they have voted to unionise, with 88% of those returning votes in the recent National Labor Relations Board election supporting the move to form a wall-to-wall union — employees at Abrams cited 2023’s strike at HarperCollins as a motivating factor in the push towards unionisation.

• Literary freedoms news now, as politicians in Canada this week decided to take a leaf from the playbook of their friends to the south, with education officials in Alberta laying out plans to "determine the appropriateness" of books in school libraries, after a group of parents (surely not influenced by the work of US pressure groups) raised concerns about Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Craig Thompson’s Blankets, and Mike Curato’s Blankets (all of which have previously been targeted in school libraries by US pressure groups) being available on the shelves.

• Comics prizes news, as Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights announced that Lalo Alcaraz is the winner of the cartoon category in this year’s RFK Book and Journalism Awards.

• In memoriam, remembering those the world of comics has lost, as news was shared of the passing of Peter David, writer on The Incredible Hulk, Star Trek, and X-Factor, amongst many others, who has died at the age of 68.

• News was also shared of the passing of artist, writer, and musician Barry Fantoni, whose work appeared extensively in the pages of Private Eye and The Times, and who has died at the age of 85.

Introducing your 2025 festival poster!We partnered with the amazing @faitherinhicks.bsky.social to bring the dynamic—and colourful—energy of TCAF to life. Plus, it marks the debut of our new venue, the Mattamy Athletic Centre, in poster form.Grab your copy of Faith's poster on sale at #TCAF2025!

— Toronto Comic Arts Festival (@torontocomics.bsky.social) 2025-05-27T15:51:19.656Z

This week’s reviews.

TCJ

• Hank Kennedy reviews the undermining characterisation of Dave Cowen and Gabriel Wexler’s Should We Buy a Gun? - “Wexler’s drawings of guns also prove problematic. Given how important guns are to the story, it’s essential that they be drawn accurately. Yet, often the guns look not just generic, but unrealistic. It’s a plot point in the climax that Adam can tell a fake rifle from a real one. It’s drawn exactly the same as the other guns in the book, so readers can make no such determination.”

• Tegan O'Neil reviews the swell mysteries of Gerard Way, Shaun Simon, and Chris Weston's Paranoid Gardens - “The career of Gerard Way attests to one simple, incontrovertible truth: comic books are better than rock & roll. You just can’t make a living singing to sold-out stadiums full of adxxoring fans, especially not with the government crackdown on Emo. If you want that steady payday, well friend, it’s comics for the win.”

AIPT

• Chris Coplan reviews the hokey execution of Ethan Sacks, K.S. Bruce, Brian DeCubellis, Fico Ossio, et al’s Dark Honor #1.

• Kevin Clark reviews the punchy horror of Chris Condon, Shawn Kuruneru, et al’s The Goddamn Tragedy #1.

• Christopher Franey reviews the outstanding start of Al Letson, Edwin Galmon, Valentine De Landro, et al’s Mr. Terrific: Year One #1.

• Landon Kuhlmann reviews the unique visuals of Peach Momoko’s Ultimate X-Men: Children of the Atom.

• Marvel Maximus reviews the mystical qualities of Richard Sala’s Night Drive.

• David Brooke reviews the potent mix of Atsushi Kaneko’s Search and Destroy, Volume 2, translated by Ben Applegate.

The Beat

• Jordan Jennings reviews the masterful execution of Chris Condon, Shawn Kuruneru, et al’s The Goddamn Tragedy #1; and the aimless challenges of Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, Adam Kubert, et al’s Giant-Size X-Men (2025) #1.

• Joe Grunenwald reviews the fantastic beginning of Al Letson, Edwin Galmon, Valentine De Landro, et al’s Mr. Terrific: Year One #1.

• Avery Kaplan reviews the enjoyable violence of Ryan North, Derek Charm, et al’s Star Trek – Lore War: Shaxs’ Worst Day.

• Tim Rooney reviews the visceral effectiveness of Peter Milligan, Val Rodrigues, et al’s The Pale Knight #1.

• Zack Quaintance reviews the delightful sensibility of Quino’s Mafalda, Book One, translated by Frank Wynne; and the unsettling elements of Ethan Sacks, K.S. Bruce, Brian DeCubellis, Fico Ossio, et al’s Dark Honor #1.

• Kristina Elyse Butke reviews the bittersweet treat of Yuu Minaduki’s The Little Bird Sleeps by the Sea, translated by Christine Dashiell.

• Kathryn Hemmann reviews the impressive contrasts of Antoine Revoy's The Harrowing Game.

• Ollie Kaplan reviews the balanced realism of Noah Schiatti's Ambiguous Blu.

Broken Frontier

• Lydia Turner reviews the eccentric mix of Jordan Crane’s Goes Like This.

• Andy Oliver reviews the effective summary of Simon Elliott’s Kusama: Polka Dot Queen.

From Cover to Cover

Scott Cederlund reviews the mirrored approach of Deniz Camp, Eric Zawadzki, et al's Assorted Crisis Events #3.

The Guardian

James Smart reviews the gathered threads of Alison Bechdel’s Spent.

House to Astonish

Paul O’Brien has capsule reviews of Marvel Comics’ Astonishing X-Men Infinity Comic #22, Exceptional X-Men #9, Weapon X-Men #4, and Spider-Man & Wolverine #1.

Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society

• Paul Young reviews the explanatory power of Dale Jacobs’ On Comics and Grief.

• Kerry Soper reviews the interpretational innovation of Michelle Ann Abate’s Blockheads, Beagles, and Sweet Babboos.

• Fi Stewart-Taylor reviews the valuable analysis of Jeff Karnicky’s The New Nancy: Flexible and Relatable Daily Comics in the Twenty-First Century.

Kirkus Reviews

Have a starred capsule review of the haunting humour of Ben Passmore’s Black Arms to Hold You Up: A History of Black Resistance.

Solrad

Elias Rosner reviews the sharp timing of Imai Arata’s Flashpoint, translated by Ryan Holmberg.

The Washington Post

Jacob Brogan reviews the charming flow of Alison Bechdel’s Spent.

Le Trésor de la Comète Rouge

— TheFrenchPhenom (@thefrenchphenom.bsky.social) 2025-05-19T14:55:12.765Z

This week’s interviews.

TCJ

• Excerpted from The Comics Journal #311, Austin English interviews Jeffrey Lewis about the thinking behind initiating comics projects, and kaleidoscoping topics together — “The element of surprise is an important element. I mean, why should you do without the element of surprise in your arsenal? I like that I’m able to operate basically completely uncommercially because nobody cares about my comics or about comics in general for the most part.”

• Matt Perpetua interviews Julia Gfrörer about World Within the World, early creativity, zine evangelism, and curation chronology — “A lot of people who don't read comics don't quite recognize this, that reading a comic is different from reading a picture book. There's not like a description of a thing and then a picture of a thing. You have to read the pictures in a series and you need to see each of them in order in the same way that you need to see each word in a sentence in order in order to follow along and glean a meaning from it. And the process of creating that visual sentence, I think that's a type of writing.”

AIPT

David Brooke speaks with Ingrid Ochoa about The Kiss Bet, the messy nature of teen romance, and character growth.

The Beat

• Ollie Kaplan talks to Brian DeCubellis and Ethan Sacks about Dark Honor and working with Syzygy Publishing, and Richard Ivan Jobs about In The Land of the Lacanddón: A Graphic History of Adventure and Imperialism and the common appearance of imperial themes in popular culture.

• Dean Simons speaks with Richard Starkings about Elephantmen and Hip Flask, working with José Ladrönn and Moritat, and the satisfaction of endings.

• Jared Bird talks to Greg Rucka and Michael Lark about Lazarus: Fallen, bringing the series to an end, character progressions, and proud moments.

Boston.com

Annie Jonas interviews Zach Clemente, Erin McGrath, and Cagen Luse about Boston’s thriving comic book scene.

Daily Dead

• Jonathan James speaks with Denis Kitchen about the upcoming documentary Oddly Compelling, and fighting censorship of comics in the US.

• Derek Anderson talks to Chris Condon about The Goddamn Tragedy, starting with the title, and the joys of creative collaboration.

Smash Pages

JK Parkin speaks with Peter Kuper and Allison Conway about Insectopolis and A Pillbug Story, the allure of insects, and entomology via comics.

— Michael DeForge (@michaeldeforge.bsky.social) 2025-05-23T18:48:24.707Z

This week’s features and longreads.

• Here at TCJ, Greg Hunter lays out the case for the prosecution against Paul Karasik, Lorenzo Mattotti, and David Mazzucchelli's adaptation of Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy, searching for clues as to the purpose (and direction) of this conversion-to-comics — “The adaptation has a rhythm different from most comics, due to its illustrated-prose pages — except when it is comics, or when it is mostly prose. The result is disjointed in the immersion it offers a reader. And a reader, distracted, may start pondering material explanations for this (contractual terms, production-cycle efficiencies, etc.), because there’s no clear aesthetic one.”

• For Print, Steven Heller looks back on underground publications of the '60s and '70s, with brief histories (and cover examples) of International Times, Oz, and Muther Grumble.

• Over at AIPT, Chris Coplan writes on the shifting satire of comics in the internet age, and how changes in the sociopolitical landscape are quickly responded to in an art form that allows for immediacy.

• For Comics Grinder, Paul Buhle presents an essay on the (increasingly) vast scope of comics scholarship, offering thoughts on a selection of titles from the established corpus.

• Maya Pontone checks the timetable of The Subway Sun for Hyperallergic, looking back on cartoonists Fred Cooper and Amelia Opdyke Jones’ art direction on the publication, as Manhattan’s Poster House plays host to the From the Bronx to the Battery: The Subway Sun exhibition.

• Over at Shelfdust, Steve Morris hits play on a fresh Spawn de Replay, this edition tracing the permeable canonical divides of early Image titles, as Todd McFarlane’s Spawn #13 briefly opens the door to guests from the Youngblood house across the way.

• Four Color Apocalypse’s Ryan Carey has a selection of capsule comic reviews for May, focused on the output of publishing house Frog Farm this month, presenting thoughts on Alex Swift’s The Connoisseurs, Alexander Laird’s Shnork, Nell McKeon’s FK 10,000,000, and Jas Hice’s Szarlotka.

• The Mindless Ones beam another missive directly to the shared dreamspace of humanity, as this week’s broadcast contains connections between Philip Larkin and Batman, alongside thoughts on other acts of creativity.

• From the world of open-access academia, 2025 brings with it an edition of Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society that doesn’t require an institution account to read, with articles on memes as comics, graphic medicine, Black comics studies, and comics teaching and research.

• In Lighting Design + Application, Craig Causer writes on the National Taiwan Museum of Comics, the site’s previous incarnation as the Taichung Prison before its recent revitalisation, and the natural and synthetic lighting utilised for the location’s new creative focus.

• Paul O’Brien’s census of the ne’er-do-wells of Daredevil continues for House to Astonish, as the curse of nominative determinism rears its head once more, this week knocking upon the door of one Eric Slaughter.

• Mike Peterson rounds up the week’s editorial beat, over at The Daily Cartoonist, as we close out May with yet more drawings of President Donald Trump.

In line for the Kazuo Umezz memorial event in Kichijoji and the line snakes around the block. I got here at 6:30, lets see how long it’ll take to get in.

— Deb Aoki (@debaoki.bsky.social) 2025-05-28T09:36:37.889Z

This week’s audio/visual delights

A selection of broadcasts from across the airwaves, as the world's most weekly podcast, Comic Books Are Burning in Hell, returned for a [haha it me/I'm In This Photo and I Don't Like It] discussion of what drives a being's continued seeking out and collecting of comic books from across the spectrum of quality; David Harper’s Off Panel headed into the back half of its first millennium with discussions on their love of the comics medium with Kazu Kibuishi, Ryan North, and Lucy Knisley; Calvin Reid, Heidi MacDonald and Kate Fitzsimons covered the end of Diamond’s bankruptcy road and a new turn of for Aftershock’s on Publisher’s Weekly’s More to Come; NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe spoke with Michael Dean about Lost Marvels: Tower of Shadows for Book of the Day; and CBS’ Faith Salie spoke with Amanda Gormley and Caitlin McGurk about Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins: The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund and its subject’s life and work.