Clark Burscough | October 4, 2024
Coming to the end of a very enjoyable themed week, here at TCJ, and I love a good themed week, although this week’s links, below, will be sticking to 2024’s general theme of increasingly gnomic applications of copyright law in the field of comics, which, if nothing else, is letting me put my law degree to use, and thus increasing the value-added proposition of the ol’ student debt I accrued in my twenties.
— Juan Rodríguez García (@_juanrg92) October 3, 2024
This week’s news.
• Starting the week in the heady world of trademark law, the US Patent and Trademark Office last week cancelled trademarks owned by Marvel Comics and DC for “Super Hero” and “Super Heroes” after a request to nullify the marks was filed by attorneys for British comics creator S.J. Richold, following a threat of legal action from the Distinguished Competition pertaining to Richold’s Superbabies project - the cancelled trademarks range from 1966 through to the present day, and more information on these, should it be desired, can be found here.
• Returning to a topic that had been relatively quiet in the last two years, the International Longshoremen's Association this week called a strike affecting 36 ports, the first major shutdown of its kind since the 1970s, following a breakdown of contract negotiations amid calls for pay increases and protections from job losses due to automation, before agreeing to suspend the strike on Thursday evening as negotiations resumed. US ports saw significant bottlenecks and delays to container offloading during 2020 and 2021, as landed containers were abandoned at the start of the pandemic, and COVID-related absences combined with record demands for imported consumer products to cause a spike in containers awaiting offloading, which was a major contributing factor to the shutdown of established comics distribution systems, leading many publishers to diversify their distro options over the last few years.
• In other collective bargaining news, the New Yorker's unionised employees have unanimously voted to authorise possible strike action, while negotiations on a new labor contract continue with Condé Nast (and this year's edition of the New Yorker Festival looms) - the union is looking to apply pressure to secure agreements to raise salary floors and increase wages, receive layoff protections, and soften restrictions on outside work.
• Brooklyn's Desert Island comic store this week announced that their lease has been sharked from under them, after a liquor store offered the landlord close to double the current rent - as it stands, the property will need to be vacated by the end of December.
• Elsewhere, following Hurricane Helene’s landfall in the US last week, the Book Industry Charitable Foundation has announced that Macmillan Publishers will be matching all gifts made to BINC, up to a total of $10,000, to benefit book and comic stores and their employees affected by the storms and flooding in Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee - donations to the foundation can be made here.
• In other funding news, Koyama Provides returned this week with a new round of grant awards, giving $1,500 each to Paterson Hodgson, April Malig, and Justin Hall - TCJ’s interview with Annie Koyama on the initiative can be read here.
• In memoriam, remembering those the world of comics has lost, and news was shared this week of the passing of Karl Mostert, artist on Batman: Legends of Gotham and Batman: Urban Legends amongst others, who has died at the age of 43.
The ever-popular Love and Rockets totes are back in stock and better than ever: the design now includes @BetomessGilbert's and @xaimeh's signatures! https://t.co/QhTFUPXw3z pic.twitter.com/5aD4llmxjs
— Fantagraphics (@fantagraphics) September 30, 2024
This week’s reviews
AIPT
• Kevin Clark reviews the compelling atmosphere of Brian Azzarello, Vanesa Del Rey, et al's The Creeping Below #1.
• Ronnie Gorham reviews the dystopian intrigue of Jordan Thomas, Daniel Gete, et al’s Skin Police #1.
• David Canham reviews the cinematic action of Zack Kaplan, Stephen Thompson, et al’s The Midnight: Shadows.
• Alex Schlesinger reviews the cultural variety of DC’s Joker: The World.
• Christopher Franey reviews the winning showcase of DC’s All In Special.
• Andrew Isidoro reviews the mixed scares of DC’s I Know What You Did Last Crisis.
• Collier Jennings reviews the big swings of Murewa Ayodele, Lucas Werneck, et al’s Storm #1.
• Ryan Sonneville reviews the rushed assemblage of Bryan Hill, Stefano Caselli, et al’s Ultimate Black Panther: Peace and War.
• David Brooke reviews the compelling twists of Paul Reiser, Leon Reiser, Adam F. Goldberg, Hans Rodionoff, Brian Volk-Weiss, Guiu Vilanova, et al’s Aliens: What If…?.
The Beat
• Jared Bird reviews the beautiful tragedy of Mike Mignola, Chris Roberson, Christopher Mitten, et al’s Panya – The Mummy’s Curse.
• Zack Quaintance reviews the brilliant return of Garth Ennis, Brian K. Vaughan, Keith Burns, Chris Burnham, et al’s Battle Action #1.
• D. Morris reviews the flat satire of Blake Northcott, Anna Morozova, et al’s Barbarella #1.
• Beau Q. reviews the enjoyable experimentation of Marvel Comics’ Ghost Rider: Robbie Reyes Special #1.
• Samantha Puc reviews the delightful balance of Anne Camlin, Isadora Zeferino, et al’s Mismatched.
• Yazmin Garcia reviews the solid start of Nico Nicholson’s My Lovesick Life as a ‘90s Otaku, Volume 1, translated by Matt Treyvaud.
• Adam Wescott reviews the key ingredients of JUNS’ Guardians of the Lamb.
• Hilary Leung reviews the physical quality of namu and P’s adaptation of Suji Kim’s Under the Oak Tree; and the natural flow of Manta Comics’ adaptation of Jin Soye’s Finding Camellia.
Broken Frontier
• Andy Oliver reviews the whirlwind adventures of E. George Cowan and Ted Kearon’s Robot Archie and the Time Machine.
• Lydia Turner reviews the heart-wrenching tenderness of Sole Otero’s Mothballs, translated by Andrea Rosenberg.
Four Color Apocalypse
Ryan Carey reviews the uncompromising honesty of J. Webster Sharp’s The Scrapbook of Life and Death, and the standout design of Aaron Lange's Peppermint Werewolf: Murkstave.
From Cover to Cover
Scott Cederlund reviews the unique rhythms of Kevin Huizenga's Fielder #3.
House to Astonish
Paul O’Brien has capsule reviews of Marvel Comics’ X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #16, Uncanny X-Men #3, X-Force #3, Phoenix #3, NYX #3, and Wolverine: Revenge #2.
Kirkus Reviews
Have starred capsule reviews of the endearing hilarity of Gale Galligan’s Fresh Start, and the educating expansiveness of Don Brown’s Big Ideas That Changed the World: It’s About Time.
Library Journal
Tom Batten has starred capsule reviews of the profound shifts of David F Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson’s Big Jim and the White Boy, and the swashbuckling thrills of Massimo Mattioli’s Joe Galaxy Comics: Space Wonders & Horrors.
The Washington Post
Mark Dery reviews the virtuoso surreality of Charles Burns’ Final Cut.
Women Write About Comics
Kathryn Hemmann reviews the grounded fantasy of Geneva Bowers’ HoverGirls.
Calling all Exhibitors! We want to invite you to apply for our MICE Mini-Grants!
Each year the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo supports self-published comics by awarding MICE Mini-Grants to our exhibitors. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/kf5JuCiDB0
— Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo (@MassMICE) August 5, 2024
This week’s interviews.
TCJ
From 1972, as part of TCJ’s week-long celebration of what would have been the 100th birthday of Harvey Kurtzman, Patrick Rosenkranz presents an interview with Kurtzman on the 1954 Senate Comic Book Hearings and the establishment of the Comics Code Authority - “In the magazine distributing structure, much of what you print disintegrates in the process. Comics are notorious for that because distributors don’t like to handle comics because the percentage of profit is small. There’s only so much room in their trucks. If they have Superman for ten cents and Playboy for fifty cents, and they both occupy approximately the same amount of space, and if they make 25 cents on Playboy and four or five cents on Superman, who do you think they’re going to want to handle?”
AIPT
• Chris Hassan speaks with Alex Paknadel about Sentinels, the challenges of humanising the bad guys, and understanding trauma cycles.
• Chris Coplan talks to:
- Sabir Pirzada and Michael Walsh about The Sacred Damned and lessons learned from writing for television.
- Jordan Thomas about Skin Police and writing for artists.
- Mike Kennedy about Magnetic Press and a decade of publishing.
- Christopher Cantwell about Kid Maroon and the hardships faced by some of the titans of comics.
Animation Magazine
Ramin Zahed interviews Amit Tishler about Edenfrost, moving between the worlds of comics and animation, and advice on the realities of the entertainment industry.
The Beat
• Dean Simons speaks with Saurabh Bhatia about Comix.One, tech platforms for digital comics, crowdfunding issues for creators, and the considerations that go into bringing comics to a screen.
• Hilary Leung chats with Wendy Martin about Castle Swimmer, seeing infinite scroll comics in print, video game and anime influences, and the pressures of longform storytelling.
Forbes
• Josh Weiss talks to Adam Rose about Huge Detective, bedtime story origins, gumshoe and giant influences, and the joys of comics.
• Rob Salkowitz interviews Rebellion’s Jason Kingsley about the company’s cross-media work and creating your own licences, and David F. Walker about Big Jim and the White Boy and telling a bigger story than the source material.
Steven Heller speaks with Ralph Steadman and Sadie Williams about the ‘Ralph Steadman: And Another Thing’ exhibition and artistic influences.
— 川原瑞丸 (Mizmaru Kawahara) (@Mizmaru) October 3, 2024
This week’s features and longreads.
• Here at TCJ, Paul Karasik writes in appreciation of Harvey Kurtzman’s Hey Look! strips, and presents a selection of favourite pages from its publication history - “In the years from 1946 through 1949, Kurtzman drew about one Hey Look! a week. Importantly, he did so with almost no editorial interference. Stan Lee, the Atlas/Marvel editor, saw them as inconsequential page mulch and gave Kurtzman free rein.”
• Also for TCJ, Frank M. Young writes in praise of Harvey Kurtzman’s EC science fiction stories - “We celebrate Harvey Kurtzman’s satirical wit, social commentary and informed skepticism — the elements that make his Mad comic-book series a great body of work. These comics had a major impact on American life and continue to inspire cartoonists, filmmakers and authors. Beside his best efforts for Mad (“Starchie,” “Mickey Rodent,” “Book! Movie!”) the early science fiction material might seem quaint, but it is fascinating to see this future icon of satire work hard to fit in with the dramatic goals of the serious EC titles and, story by story, bend their framework to best suit his inimitable vision of the world.”
• Continuing TCJ’s weeklong celebration of Harvey Kurtzman’s centenary, Anya Davidson examines Kurtzman’s place in the development of the field of comics journalism - “Comics Journalism sprang from New Journalism, a term coined in a 1972 Esquire essay by one of its luminaries, Tom Wolfe. A response to the upheaval of the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War, New Journalism arose in direct opposition to “tradition-based corporate news organizations, the government, industry” and featured a more personal, artful, literary approach to non-fiction writing.”
• Shelfdust’s retrospective of Matt Fraction and Steve Lieber’s Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen continues, as Kate O’Donoghue examines the fourth issue of the series, and the language used as one Lois Lane plays the straight man role.
• For AIPT, Crooker writes on the evolution of the character of Cassandra Cain (aka Batgirl), and the changing ways in which writers portray Cain’s communication with other characters.
• From the world of open-access academia, editors Jessica Bauwens-Sugimoto, Felix Giesa, and Christina Meyer present the first volume of Comics|Histories, with a selection of papers and essays on Punch, comic reproductions, war in comics, and the canonisation and digitisation of comics.
• For the International Journal of Media, Culture, and Literature, Antonio Paoliello-palermo writes on Ruan Guang-min’s adaptation of Lōa Hô’s The Steelyard, and the changes that such adaptations make to stories.
• Mike Peterson rounds up the week’s editorial beat, over at The Daily Cartoonist, as Israel’s escalating conflicts in the Middle East stole a modicum of coverage from the continuing/ neverending presidential campaign trail.
my first 16 recordings on the Merlin app 𓅪 pic.twitter.com/ZfCG1IPKt7
— eli spencer ✺✵ (@goyagoat) October 3, 2024
This week’s audio/visual delights.
• Ben Katchor hosted the two most-recent meetings of the New York Comics & Picture-Story Symposium, as the event celebrated its 400th edition, with Damian Mandzunowski and Lena Henningsen examining Chinese comics and caricature (aka lianhuanhua and manhua respectively) and their evolution through recent eras, and Ole Frahm interrogating thinking on the language and perfomativity of signs in comics
• Catching up with the return of Mangasplaining, as Deb Aoki, David Brothers, Christopher Butcher, and Chip Zdarsky reconvene to shift to a prose footing, discussing Frederik Schodt’s seminal Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics, and looking at what we talk about when we talk about the history of Japanese comics in the North American market.
• Brian Hibbs welcomed Ram V and Filipe Andrade to Comix Experience’s Graphic Novel Club to discuss Rare Flavours, crafting the substance of a story from its premise, and writing to complement the way an artist draws a page.
• David Harper was joined by Jacoby Salcedo and Julio Anta for this week’s edition of Off Panel, as they spoke about This Land is Our Land: A Blue Beetle Story, the realities of publishing graphic novels in 2024, and lessons learned from making the book.
• Calvin Reid, Heidi MacDonald, and Kate Fitzsimons took a look at this autumnal season of comics shows, for Publisher’s Weekly’s More to Come, as reports were filed from SPX and Baltimore, and previews given for New York Comic Con and the closing out of Brooklyn Book Festival.
— Nathan Bulmer (@natemorebikes) October 1, 2024
No more links, because this weekend I must finish Yakuza: Zero before the series’ television adaptation drops later this month.
— Haus of Decline (@hausofdecline) October 2, 2024
English (US) · 