Webcomics
Michael DeForge has launched a Patreon. For $3 a month you get 12 to 20 pages of original comics every thirty days, which seems like the best deal in comics.
I started to wonder what Ethan Riley has been up to, and after a quick google search i found that he had a few short comics on his site which i have not read. So heres a link to those.
A compilation of every Same Hat scan.
Subscription Drives
(Preamble: 2014 is almost over which means, as has now become a sacred event over the past two years in alt-comics, every small press publisher will begin opening subscriptions to their 2015 publishing slate. It makes sense to do this at the start of the year, it really does, but the drawback is that 15-20 different publishers are offering the same service at the same time and it begins to get overwhelming, at least for me. So the general idea behind this section is to keep a rolling list going to make things slightly organized.)
Youth In Decline (Ends 2/14/15)
Interviews
Experimental manga (and comics in general) heavyweight Seiichi Hayashi was interviewed at Varoom.I think this is the first interview i’ve ever seen with him. I guess that may be a pitfall with Holmberg dropping definitive histories to every book he translates in the leadup to their publication.
This is a bit old, (as in 6 months old) but Jog interviewed Jean Pierre Dionnet for TJC. Dionnet seems like a world class talker, but since i know so little about him this isn’t a problem.
In this excerpt he talks about finding Jack Kirby:
“And then I found an Iron Man begun by Gene Colon and finished by Jack Kirby. And I found the Thor story where he goes in the Inferno. I was hooked, because suddenly I realized that he [Kirby] was the master of that new form called comics. Not coming from a good copy of comic strips like some others, because of a bunch of EC reprints or whatever. It wasn’t something reminiscent of Alex Raymond. Al Williamson was very friendly. But with Kirby, I discovered a guy who, for me, opened the door and closed it. After, everything is postmodern, including Watchmen, which for me is the tomb of comics, built on the body of Ditko.”
Olivier Schrauwen interviewed at Pastebin. A short interview, but much better than i was expecting.
Bart Beaty talks about his book on Archie. As Beaty mentions early in the interview i’m glad he, and his publisher, moved away from the “greatest” hits aspect that most academic writing on comics tends to fall into. Maus and Fun Home are fine (or Fun Home is fine, i have issues with Maus) but when every book on comics revolve around them it seems a bit...reductive. I get that it’s a “new” field but imagine if every academic book on cinema was about Citizen Kane. It’d be laughable.
Essays/Reviews
Matt Seneca returns from his self inflicted retirement to review the presumptive book of the year Richard McGuire’s Here.
By way of thaleslira a link to a composite list of some of the articles written for the now defunct Comets Comets. The comment sections also seem to be intact which is really great.
Ryan Holmberg on Baby Boom at Comics Comics. This is really interesting in that Holberg discusses a fatigue with Yokoyama clean worlds and a wanting for him to evolve, which he seems glimmers of in Baby Boom. Based on his work published in the US after this article though it seems like it was just that, a glimmer and a hope.
Gabriel Winslow-Yost writes a pretty great essay on Tardi’s two books dealing with the First World War, It Was and War Of The Trenches and Goddamn! This War!. The hardest part with writing about those books is conveying Tardi’s anger with the forces that sent those young men to die needlessly, and also his sympathy for those sent.
Other
Mr. Oliver Ristau posted his top 20 comics list (top 5 with 15 honorable mentions). It’s in german, but you can give the list itself a glance since each title mentioned is in english. Plus if you’re feeling bold you run the article through google translate and get the gist of each piece.
Killer Mike and EL-P discuss the filmography of Steven Seagal. Blind devotion to action stars / films is something i can deeply relate too. Seriously talk to me about Roadhouse and Nic Cage with me sometime.
Four images of Ken Kagami SnooPee
Benjamin Urkowitz posted his best of list on his tumblr, which google docs doesn’t allow me to hyperlink to so heres that link in full: http://----comix.tumblr.com/post/104539620043/comics-2014-i-am-going-to-alter-what-you-are
Ryan Sands is selling a digital edition of Prison For Bitches, his and Michael DeForges (in their first collaboration) Lady Gaga fanzine for $1.50. I think this is a trial run to figure out price points on future digital editions of Youth In Decline work. That particular fanzine is interesting because its contributors list is pretty much a who’s-who’s of alt-comics today in one single place, five years ago.
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