Kneel Before Zod — This Week’s Links

20 hours ago 6

A classic return-from-vacation edition of this week’s links, below, as covid riddles the household, and so a time-honoured tradition is entered into once more — reading about three pages of a comic, that’s been on the to-read pile for weeks, before your mind wanders, inexorably, and then you’re being gently shaken awake hours later by a loved one, a rivulet of drool dripping down your chin, as you blearily try to ascertain what year it is, before frowning, because, of course, the answer just had to be twenty twenty bloody five.

Terence Stamp RIP

— Jonathan Edwards (@jontofski.bsky.social) 2025-08-18T22:21:16.081Z

This week’s news.

• Back to the courtroom once more, as counsel for a group of 17 artists, including Becky Cloonan, Wes Craig, Pia Guerra, Valerio Schiti, and Jill Thompson, sent through notification of a lawsuit filed earlier this month against art dealer Paolo Belfiore and Cadence Comic Art, alleging misappropriation of funds and withholding unsold art - there was a mass exodus of artists from Cadence in February of last year, when (presumably) the above came to light, with no activity on Cadence’s social media since 2024.

• In other legal news, a further hearing on Diamond Comic Distributors’ plans to liquidate held stock to pay debts has been scheduled for the end of next month, after a lengthy hearing earlier this week, although ICv2’s Milton Griepp covers the looming possibility of administrative insolvency faced by the erstwhile distro monopoly, which may force a decision by default before this date.

• Elsewhere, The Beat covers the latest comics own goal, as Valiant Comics’ publisher Alien Books released a statement apologising for the appearance of transphobic dogwhistle dialogue in Bloodshot #1, along with comment from the book’s Argentinian writer Mauro Mantella, claiming this was down to “nuance being lost in translation,” in spite of Mantella’s work as, well, a translator - Mantella later deleted a social media account on X (née Twitter) after reposts of anti-lgbtq* rhetoric and conspiracy theories were found on its timeline, and posted another apology to Instagram.

• Comics prize news, as the National Cartoonists Society announced the winners of this year’s Reuben Awards, with Mark Parisi, creator of Off the Mark, named as this year’s Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.

• Elsewhere, the nominations for this year’s Mike Wieringo Comic Book Industry Awards were announced, with voting open to comics pros now, and winners to be announced at Baltimore Comic-Con on Saturday 18th October.

Seeking scientist volunteers for this fall! Want to practice science communication and help author a 🌟comic🌟 about your research? I need collaborators for the next cohort of SciComm & Comics art and design students. All countries and scientific fields eligible.

— Caroline Hu (@hudrewthis.bsky.social) 2025-08-20T20:45:54.417Z

This week’s reviews.

TCJ

• Brian Nicholson reviews the informative value of Jean-Marc Jancovici and Christophe Blain’s World Without End: An Illustrated Guide To The Climate Crisis — “The information presented demands a response, and presumes an invested audience. That the book was a bestseller in France speaks to both that country’s higher degree of comics literacy and healthier ecosystem for political discussion. Now it appears in America, the country which arguably needs the book more.”

• Kevin Brown reviews the exciting sketchiness of Katie Fricas’ Checked Out — “However, she has to learn about the power of stories before she can truly develop as an artist. The stories she’s received and, thus, the stories she tells matter in ways she hadn’t realized before. She needs a different perspective before she can write the story she needs to tell. It’s fitting that the change comes from the library. The title hints that Lou hasn’t been fully engaged until this point in her life.”

AIPT

• Christopher Franey reviews the clever construction of Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, et al’s Batman and Robin: Year One #10.

• Diane Darcy reviews the underwhelming reveal of Torunn Grønbekk, Danilo Beyruth, et al’s Catwoman #78.

• David Canham reviews the genre twists of Lukas Kummer’s Ionheart.

• Kevin Clark reviews the gritty focus of Stephanie Phillips, Paolo Villanelli, et al’s All-New Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider #1.

• Collier Jennings reviews the intriguing start of G. Willow Wilson, Gleb Melnikov, et al’s Black Cat #1.

• Jonathan Jones reviews the surprising feast of Jonathan Hickman, Esad Ribić, et al’s Aliens vs. Avengers.

• David Brooke reviews the refreshing rawness of Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzing, Adrian Bonilla, et al’s Star Trek: The Last Starship #1.

• Colin Moon reviews the bombastic delights of Tom Scioli’s Space Opera Xanadax: Across The Unknown Dimensions of the Galaxy.

• Jonathan Waugh reviews the balanced charms of Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse’s Resident Alien: The Book of Changes #1.

• Andrew Isidoro reviews the singular vision of Peter Laird and Jim Lawson’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Journeys #1.

• Nathan Simmons reviews the harrowing start of Rick Remender, Daniel Acuña, et al’s Escape #1.

• Ryan Sonneville reviews the compelling creativity of Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, Francesco Mortarino, et al's NYX: Mojo City.

The Beat

• Jared Bird reviews the haunting debut of Christian Ward, Tristan Jones, et al’s Event Horizon: Dark Descent #1.

• Clyde Hall reviews the vivid crispness of Rick Remender, Daniel Acuña, et al’s Escape #1.

• Jordan Jennings reviews the spectacular visuals of James Stokoe’s Godzilla 70th Anniversary Foil Classics: Godzilla In Hell #1.

• Tim Rooney reviews the refreshing idiosyncrasy of Peter Laird, Jim Lawson, et al’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Journeys #1.

• Joe Grunenwald reviews the compelling execution of Saladin Ahmed, Clayton Henry, et al’s Justice League Red #1.

• Zack Quaintance reviews the punchy ambition of Jesse Lonergan’s Drome.

• Ollie Kaplan reviews the nontraditional style of Miki Yamamoto's A Smart and Courageous Child.

• Hayame Kawachi reviews the enjoyable chaos of Mitsuya Otosu’s My Death Flags Show No Sign of Ending, Volume 1.

• Steve Baxi reviews the mixed success of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ The Knives.

Broken Frontier

• Edward Picot reviews the environmental themes of G. Willow Wilson, M.K. Perker, et al’s The Stoneshore Register.

• Lindsay Pereira reviews the wide-ranging wit of Tom Gauld’s Physics for Cats.

Comics Grinder

Henry Chamberlain reviews the distinctive approaches of Partisans: A Graphic History of Anti-Fascist Resistance, edited by Raymond Tyler and Paul Buhle.

Four Color Apocalypse

Ryan Carey reviews the pure magic of Dan Hill’s The Fifty Flip Experiment #34.

House to Astonish

Paul O’Brien has capsule reviews of Marvel Comics’ Astonishing X-Men Infinity Comic #32, X-Men #20, Laura Kinney: Wolverine #9, Magik #8, Giant-Size X-Men #2, and Spider-Man & Wolverine #4.

Kirkus Reviews

Have starred capsule reviews of:

• The imaginative aesthetic of Tommi Parrish’s The Past is a Grotesque Animal.

• The satisfying adventure of Mika Song’s Night Chef: An Epic Tale of Friendship With a Side of Deliciousness.

The Michigan Daily

Camille Nagy reviews the cheapened experience of Stephanie Williams and Sas Milledge’s adaptation of Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Boys: The Graphic Novel.

Publisher’s Weekly

Have capsule reviews of:

• The searing satisfaction of Lee Lai’s Cannon.

• The audacious apocalypse of Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon’s Spectators.

• The edifying biography of Darryl Cunningham’s Elon Musk: American Oligarch.

• The rousing history of Laurent Hopman and Renaud Roche’s Lucas Wars, translated by Jeremy Melloul.

Solrad

Tom Shapira reviews the overwhelming prose of J.M. DeMatteis and Jon J Bluth’s Moonshadow.

Yatta-tachi

Aj Mack reviews the emotional resonance of Kusahara Umi’s Mothers, translated by Jocelyne Allen.

— Katherine Lam (@katherinelam.bsky.social) 2025-08-19T01:32:02.109Z

This week’s interviews.

TCJ

Christina Lee interviews Andrew Alexander and Alex Laird about CRAM Books and Frog Farm, being the grown up of the group, and the enduring challenges of running a small press — “I think that’s also why there's more artists who are self-publishing or publishing like us is because there are less business-minded people who are choosing to publish because it's a bad business decision right now. Like, I think it maybe seemed like it was a better idea, let's say in like, 2014 when, like, “Adventure Time” was booming. Like, oh, maybe I can get a TV show deal out of finding the next hot IP in comics. So there was a business decision on that, and now, like, that's all gone. And so it's just the artist’s love of the game.”

AIPT

• Collier Jennings speaks with Robert Kirkman and David Finch about Skinbreaker, building on the initial idea for the story, and Bernie Wrightson appreciation.

• Chris Coplan talks to Lukas Kummer about Ionheart and the German comics scene, and to Matthew Arnold about Outer Lands and reactions to modernity.

• Chris Hassan interviews Simone Di Meo about X-Men of Apocalypse and artistic evolutions, and Tini Howard about Marian Heretic and tabletop roleplaying.

• David Brooke talks to Clay Mann about Absolute Batman #11 and pushing the envelope, and to Jason Fabok about Rook and science fiction influences.

The Asahi Shimbun

Sei Iwanami speaks with Tetsuya Chiba about Shiden Kai no Taka, the realities of war, historical research, and childhood memories.

The Beat

• Ollie Kaplan talks to Caleb Goellner about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles x Naruto and cross-franchise licensing deals, and Ethan LeBlanc about reformatting comics for vertical scroll and respecting the wishes of the original creators.

• Deanna Destito interviews James Tynion IV about The Department of Truth, hitting big storytelling beats, and crafting jumping-on points.

Fanbase Press

Babra Dillon speaks with Elijah Joseph about Print Is Not Dead!, selecting artists for the anthology, and crowdfunding rewards.

Forbes

Josh Weiss talks to Joey Lawrence, Matthew Lawrence, Andrew Lawrence, and Ben Berkowitz about The Lawrence Brothers: Detective Agency and publishing via crowdfunding.

The Hamilton Spectator

Raymond Beauchemin interviews Kevin Mutch about The Moon Prince, Winnipeg origins, and eschewing the racist and colonialist tropes of 20th-century genre fiction.

ICv2

Brigid Alverson talks to Oni Press' Hunter Gorinson about the publisher's shift towards horror, and the aspects of genre storytelling that the editorial team are looking for.

Smash Pages

JK Parkin speaks with Mike Del Mundo about The Marvel Art of Mike Del Mundo, career turning points, trusting your gut, and Three World/Three Moons.

The Blessing—🖼️ Printswww.inprnt.com/gallery/helv...🃏 The Wormsong Oracle Deckhelveticablanc.bigcartel.com

— Helvetica Blanc (@helveticablanc.bsky.social) 2025-08-18T16:33:17.756Z

This week’s features and longreads.

• Here at TCJ, Alex Dueben writes in remembrance of underground comix artist Nancy Burton (aka Hurricane Nancy), who passed away in July of this year at the age of 84 — “'I don’t know if you’ve ever committed acts for which there was no justification and no forgiveness. As well as fear of doing irrational actions in future intimate contacts,' Nancy said. 'I could only see doing art in association with my doing destructive things.' In the 1970s, Nancy went to rehab. Afterwards she became a counselor and for decades was a respected member of her church and community. She fielded calls from people to the very end of her life.”

• Also for TCJ, RJ Casey ushers in more Arrivals and Departures, with August’s edition reintroducing a quickfire round of reviews on recent reads for the feature’s second birthday, including Josh Pettinger’s Pleasure Beach #1, Margaret Ashford-Trotter’s New Dark Tales #1, Al Lasser’s Schlapz #3, Claire Inaba’s Captain George Morose, and Cyril Vilks Christine — “Christine is about trying to find isolation and tranquility inside the capitalist, carceral state the world is in right now. But rather than weep in despair, Vilks’s comics make me want to greet a sunrise.”

• More for TCJ, as Hank Kennedy writes on the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Japan and the response of comic books to this act and the nascent nuclear age — “After the Soviets developed their own atomic bomb in 1949, and even more so after the Korean War began, comic messages like these dropped away. In the nation’s editorial pages, the cartoonist Herblock halted drawing cartoons on the menace of the atomic bomb for fear his work would be “mixed up with a carefully twisted viewpoint” expressed by “Communists [who] were plugging their” own opposition to U.S. policy.”

• Finally for TCJ this week, our stalwart editors present an excerpt of Chris Harnan’s Big Pool from publisher Breakdown Press — “Big Pool by Chris Harnan is an expansive, symphonic work in pictures. Reading Big Pool is a vision assault. Overwhelming and essential. Like drinking from a fire hose. From primordial soup to Mount Olympus. Or cradle to grave. Or five minutes lost online. Big Pool is a journey that will blast you into the other side and leave you wondering what you used to think pictures were all about anyway?”

• A mere 12 years after the last run of substantive posts on the site, Ryan Sands’ SAME HAT returns with some more Early Manga Days, with posts from the last month and change on Raw #7 and Saitō Takao’s Golgo 13.

• For Shelfdust, Holly Raymond continues a series of essays on the Marvel Comics character of Arnie Roth and the publisher’s history with depictions of queer characters, this installment focusing on Anthony Oliviera and Carola Borelli’s Marvel Voices: Avengers Academy #22 and its reflections of stories that came before it.

• This week’s Mindless Ones transmission contains writing on, amongst others, renditions of Superman, and more on Morrison et al’s Doom Patrol.

• From the world of open-access academia, in SHS Web of Conferences, Yining Chen writes on Zhang Guangyu's Xi You Man Ji (Journey to the West) in the context of the history and evolution of Chinese satirical cartoons, and cultural exchanges between China and the West.

• Mike Peterson rounds up the week’s editorial beat, over at The Daily Cartoonist, as Russian influence on the U.S. and federal influence on Washington D.C. (and museums) were on the tips of most pens.

Pile and Ren

— Michael DeForge (@michaeldeforge.bsky.social) 2025-08-19T00:27:48.350Z

This week’s audio/visual delights.

A selection of broadcasts from across the internet, as Austin English hosted Phoebe Gloeckner’s headlining of the new season of meetings from the New York Comics and Picture Story Symposium, NHK World Japan presented a new (officially) translated episode of Urasawa Naoki’s Manben as Morohoshi Daijiro (with homemade shirt and face mask) spoke about the creative process while working on Morohoshi Daijirō Gekijō, Gil Roth Welcomed Dan Goldman to The Virtual Memories Show to speak about Red Light Properties: Unfinished Business and working across different media, Paul O’Brien and Al Kennedy opened the doors to House to Astonish once more with some recent news/reviews from the direct market, Publisher’s Weekly’s More to Come spoke with Fantagraphics’ Eric Reynolds and Kickstarter’s Sam Kusek at SDCC and covered recent comics news, and Off Panel’s David Harper interviewed Mariko Tamaki about This Place Kills Me and the role of an editor and Nicole Goux also about This Place Kills Me and life on the convention circuit.