We’re Eating Ice Cream — This Week’s Links

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Clark Burscough | February 20, 2026

Fully stumbling into true Bleak Midwinter behavior, as idle/clicker games have insidiously made a troubling return to daily life, inbetwixt compiling this week’s links, below, because, if science has taught us anything, when the world burns and ways of life are torn asunder, sometimes you just need to watch in a slack-jawed stupor as numbers go up, while everything else goes down.

Year of the Fire Horse

— Deb JJ Lee (@jdebbiel.bsky.social) 2026-02-16T14:56:41.276Z

This week’s reviews.

TCJ

• Brian Nicholson reviews the punk spirit of Mara Ramirez’s Flea — “We can see the size of the book, the scantness of the drawing, as intended to function within this context, prizing quiet communication in the smallest gestures, capturing them like someone speaking in whispers, to describe the obnoxiousness of the world’s shouting people, always talking over each other.”

• Richard Pound reviews the idiosyncratic delights of Carol Tyler’s The Ephemerata: Shaping the Exquisite Nature of Grief — “Where Soldier’s Heart was ordered and neat, like a well-tended military cemetery, The Ephemerata is wild and tangled like an ancient, overgrown graveyard, and weighted by a personal symbology so dense it would need a thesis to unravel. While this can make it a challenging read in places, it also infuses its pages with a rawness and urgency that feel absolutely right given the subject matter and allows Tyler to express the torrent of conflicting emotions that engulfed her in bereavement’s wake.”

AIPT

• Collier Jennings reviews the rapid-fire debut of Kyle Starks, Steve Pugh, et al’s End of Life #1.

• Chris Coplan reviews the thematic heft of Henry Barajas, Rachel Merrill, et al’s Death to Pachuco #5.

• Kevin Clark reviews the overstuffed action of Yifan Jiang, Paco Medina, et al’s Deadly Hands of K’un-Lun #1.

• David Brooke reviews the opening mystery of Chip Zdarsky, Luca Maresca, et al’s Wolverine: Weapons of Armageddon #1.

• Jonathan Jones reviews the enjoyable romp of Amy Chu, Andrea Di Vito, et al’s Emma Frost: The White Queen — All Hail the Queen.

• Rory Wilding reviews the strong start of Tohru Kuramori’s Centuria, Volume 1, translated by Jan Mitsuko Cash.

The Beat

• Zack Quaintance reviews the thoughtful premise of Ezra Claytan Daniels and Camilla Sucre’s Mama Came Callin’.

• Arpad Okay reviews the romantic tactics of inee’s Love Bullet, Volume 1, translated by Masaaki Fukushima.

• Joe Grunenwald reviews the entertaining villainy of Mark Waid, Marcus To, et al’s Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #48.

• Clyde Hall reviews the outrageous nostalgia of Fred Kennedy and James Edward Clark’s The Florida Hippopotamus Cocaine Massacre #1.

• Jordan Jennings reviews the perfect execution of Andrew MacLean, Alexis Ziritt, et al’s Death Fight Forever #1.

• Khalid Johnson reviews the charming fun of Roger Langridge’s The Muppets: Noir #1.

• Tim Rooney reviews the undermining familiarity of William Harms, JP Mavinga, et al’s White Sky #1.

• Kerry Vineberg reviews the shocking descent of Garth Ennis, Becky Cloonan, et al's The War.

Broken Frontier

Andy Oliver has reviews of:

• The DIY ethics of Ansis Puriņš’ Savage Beast.

• The creative celebration of Alexandra Gallant-Lee’s Brains.

• The regional authenticity of Thomas Armstrong and John Biggs’ The Closing Hour.

• The intricate compositions of Sanika Phawde’s Wedding Juice and Other Melodramas #2 & #3.

Comics Grinder

Henry Chamberlain reviews the droll delights of Bill Tuckey and Francisco de la Mora’s The Most Amazing Saturday Morning Rubbish Club.

House to Astonish

Paul O’Brien reviews the strong start of Alex Paknadel, Rogê Antônio, et al’s Cyclops #1.

School Library Journal

• Angie Jameson has a starred capsule review of the delightful humour of Kwame Alexander, Cassidy Dyce, and Rashad Doucet’s The Brainstormerz: Money Talks.

• Rachel Jussel has a starred capsule review of the poignant honesty of Sara Amini and Shadia Amini’s Mixed Feelings.

• Francisca Goldsmith has a starred capsule review of emotional insights of Mike Dawson’s The Hidden Dominion of Geordie James.

• Adam Fisher has a starred capsule review of fun vibes of Mirtes Santana and Guilherme Petreca’s Superpunk.

• Andrea Lipinski has starred capsule reviews of the sweet romance of Emily Thomas’ A Smile Like Yours, and the stunning visuals of Jennifer Lee and LeUyen Pham’s As I Dream of You.

Yatta-tachi

• Borealis Capps reviews the promising fantasy of Suzu Omi’s The Girl Past the Filters, Volume 1, translated by Ben Trethaway.

• Anne Estrada reviews the disjointed confusion of Sakae Kusama’s Wandervogel, Volume 1, translated by C².

• Kai reviews the standard meet-cute of Tomato Machida's Destiny Paradise Night, translated by Massiel Gutierrez.

I'm so excited to announce the recipients of this year's Comics Criticism Mini Grant. Congrats to Chad Nevett, Steve Baxi, Emmy Waldman, and Samantha Puc for their amazing work in comics criticism this [email protected]@[email protected]@theverbalthing.com

— Tiffany Babb 🔜 ComicsPRO (@explodingarrow.bsky.social) 2026-02-17T18:34:51.375Z

This week’s interviews.

TCJ

• Sally Madden presents conversation between Whit Taylor and Mattie Lubchansky about The Greater Good and Simplicity, human bodies and the microbiome, seasonal produce, and the current state of Everything — “[Whit Taylor:]There's no way that those formative experiences don't affect the way you view the world, you know? And I think that led me to majoring in anthropology and getting interested in cultural anthropology. That has definitely affected how I approach a lot of my comics. It's just a scary time to be in a marginalized group right now. It always has been, but like especially right now. It's scary.”

• Originally conducted in 2012, Robin McConnell and Colin Upton interview Leo Burdack about Gearfoot Wrecks, childhood drawing and reading, and unusual page layouts — “I ended up illustrating industrial arts textbooks. Doing training programs for workers. I did a bibliography of pipeline construction socio-economic impact assessments. Fossil fuels are obsolete.”

AIPT

• Chris Hassan speaks with Ashley Allen about Moonstar, finding character voices, superhero backstories, X-men team leaders.

• Chris Coplan talks to:

Andrew MacLean about Death Fight Forever and the primary goal of storytelling in comics.
William Harms and Jean-Paul Mavinga about White Sky and their collaborative processes.
Joseph Illidge about The Dakota Incident and Milestone Comics history.

The Beat

• Avery Kaplan and Ollie Kaplan interview Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing about Star Trek: The Last Starship, Federation captain archetypes, and diplomatic conference staging.

• Diego Higuera talks to Trevor Fernandes-Lenkiewicz about Heavy, the emotional rawness of the comic, and horror manga inspirations.

Fanbase Press

Barbra Dillon speaks with:

Lisa Diedrich and Briana Martino about Keywords/Keyimages in Graphic Medicine and the developing field of graphic medicine in general.
James Aquilone about Weird Tales and anthology curation considerations.
Slavik IA and Jack Kasprzak about The Daily Mobster and the illustration project from which the book grew.
Chad Anderson and Remi Burke about Gay Mormon Dad and shared creative processes.

GraphicMemoir

Jonathan Sandler interviews Barbara Yelin about Irmina and Emmie Arbel: The Colour of Memory, the concept of wegshauen (looking away), and contrasting storytelling and documenting.

Publisher’s Weekly

• Cheryl Klein speaks with Archie Bongiovanni about Leo Rising, paying homage to the weirdness of Alaska, online communities, showcasing queer life, and embracing cringe.

• DW McKinney talks to Ezra Claytan Daniels about Mama Came Callin’, the book’s Floridian roots, the history of Gator Man, and the book’s limited colour palette.

• TreVaughn Malik Carter-Roach interviews Angélique Roché about First Freedom: The Story of Opal Lee and Juneteenth, the importance of telling Opal Lee’s story, and reminding readers how the past shapes the present.

• John Maher and Tobias Carroll speak with Eric Drooker about Naked City, moving away from wordless storytelling, and the influence of Charlie Chaplin on mixing comedy and tragedy.

Solrad

Amy Zhou talks to Eddie Ahn about Advocate, working as Executive Director of the environmental justice organization Brightline Defense, and taking inspiration from Art Spiegelman for upcoming work.

Good news: Jaime Hernandez (Life Drawing) and Carol Tyler (The Ephemerata) are finalists for the LA Times Book Prize for Graphic Novels/Comics--the awards ceremony is 4/17 and tickets are available now! https://ow.ly/Y3Vs50YhPFA

— Fantagraphics (@fantagraphics.bsky.social) 2026-02-18T20:24:21.589739249Z

This week’s features and longreads.

• Here at TCJ, Hagai Palevsky presents photographs from the Mercer Gallery’s current exhibition, Vision and Labour: Making Comics — The Art of Avery Hill, which runs through April 26th 2026 — “For some years now, Avery Hill Publishing has been arguably the foremost publisher in the British small-press comics scene. In no small part, this is owing to the publisher’s implicit mission statement, hewing closer, in UK terms, to the mainstream appeal and approachability of SelfMadeHero than to the more holistically-outré vision of the ‘alternative’ offered by, say, Breakdown Press. This is not at all meant as a slight — the publisher has platformed a fair few cartoonists I enjoy a great deal, including its two most significant ‘stars,’ Tillie Walden and Zoe Thorogood.”

• Also for TCJ, Tom Shapira examines Fantagraphics’ archival collection of retro Marvel Comics fare, Lost Marvels No. 3: Savage Tales of the 1980s, and the surprisingly chaste nature of the comics to be found within — “This isn’t to say Savage Tales is a "conservative" book in the modern-day political sense, the frothing-at-the-mouth-America-first sense. Rather, it is conservative in the Teddy Roosevelt sense. The stories [Chuck] Dixon writes here are all cowboy clichés about the one brave man against the system, and it doesn’t really matter what the system represents.”

• More for TCJ, as RJ Casey ushers February’s Arrivals and Departures past The Horror, with thoughts on Abby Kacen’s Mild Pain #5, Ted May’s Brownfield Action Family #1, and Robyn Smith’s Roast or Fry? — “Wipe down your kitchen from floor to ceiling. See it sparkle. Then take a shit smack-dab into your sink. That’s kind of how it feels to write comics criticism right now, amidst a daily deluge of state-sponsored snuff films and a very literal, very local terror campaign in our streets. Welcome back to “Arrivals and Departures.””

• Checking back in with the Domino Books’ blog, as this week’s entry sees Austin English share thoughts on Zoe Thorogood’s It’s Lonely at the Center of the Earth and interrogating the limitations inherent to that book’s messaging on mental health, its cartooning strengths aside.

• For the Los Angeles Review of Books, Melissa Chan writes on Dave Maass and Patrick Lay’s Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis, the book’s intersection with the opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis, and explores how the graphic novel came to be.

• For Aftermath, Isaiah Colbert looks back on Akira Hiramoto’s horror manga Me and the Devil Blues, the series’ inspiration from the life of Robert Johnson and Delta blues music, and its departure from Hiramoto’s usual fare.

• Over at Shelfdust, Angel Ortiz Jr. unpacks the character history of Marvel Comics’ White Tiger, charting the various family members who have taken up the mantle over the decades, and exploring the Puerto Rican culture that Daniel Jose Older, Cynthia Pelayo, Bruno Abdias, and Moises Hildalgo’s White Tiger: Reborn touches on.

• Another week, another dollar, another Mindless Ones newsletter, this edition featuring Superman’s thoughts on the tobacco industry, and deportation themes in Mobile Suit Gundam.

• Paul O’Brien’s survey of the villains of Daredevil continues, for House to Astonish, as the linear passage of time brings us, inexorably, to ‘Born Again’ and Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli’s bringing into the world of Francis “Frank” Simpson, aka Nuke.

• Mike Peterson rounds up the week’s editorial beat, over at The Daily Cartoonist, as time is a flat circle, looping back around to attempted distractions from continuing Epstein Files fallout, voter disenfranchisement plans, and wilful ignorance of the ongoing climate crisis and economic realities, ad nauseam.

The cover for this year’s Anniversary Issue is “Split Screen,” by Barry Blitt. See what’s inside: newyorkermag.visitlink.me/2LMTVb

— The New Yorker (@newyorker.com) 2026-02-09T16:30:24.534005Z

This week’s audio/visual delights.

• Catching up with some recent comics-related viewing/listening, as the New York Comics & Picture-Story Symposium began its winter slate of programming with Ben Katchor hosting talks from Tommi Parrish on staying in love with making art and Beatrice Radden Keefe on historical illustrations of Greek and Roman comedies, and Lilli Carré hosted a talk from curator Caitlin McGurk on highlights from the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum’s collection.

• A selection of career spanning spotlights, as 2000 AD’s MOLCH-R sat down with John Wagner for the opening episodes of a multi-part interview on Judge Dredd and more than half a century of writing comics; and Cartoon Crossroads Columbus shared some spotlight events from last year’s festival, as Michael Cavender interviewed Tony Moore about a career in comics making and an enduring love of horror, and Rob Lee spoke with cartoonist Lonnie Millsap about crafting jokes and the art of cartooning.

• From the podcast realms, Off Panel’s David Harper had recent discussions with James Tynion IV on Exquisite Corpses and full dance cards, Tony Fleecs about Feral and Stray Dogs and DC projects, and Charlie Adlard about Altamont and life after The Walking Dead; and Comics Grinder’s Henry Chamberlain spoke with Nathan Gelgud about Reel Politik and making creative works accessible.