It’s been out for a while, but I still wanted to mention that the new issue of the recently revamped, book-format Comics Journal (#302) is a real treat, what with Gary Groth’s marathon-length interview with the late Maurice Sendak, a roundtable on kids comics featuring Art Spiegelman, Jeet Heer, Paul Levitz, and Paul Karasik, plus Tim Kreider on Chester Brown, Donald Phelps on Percy Crosby, Bob Levin on the ‘Keep on Truckin’ lawsuit, Tom Crippen on Mort Weisinger (again!), and much more.
A major attraction for yours truly. however, is Kim Thompson’s career-spanning interview with Jacques Tardi. An eye-opener on several levels, even for people familiar with his work, not least for the background it provides on his recent, major work of family history, Moi, René Tardi, prisonnier de guerre au Stalag IIB (which I wrote about in Danish here). I also have an essay in there, on Tardi’s classic Leo Malet adaptation 120, Rue de la Gare (1988), which may be of interest not only to Tardi afficionados, but also people interested in the issues of auteur comics touched upon in my recent essay at Hooded Utilitarian and the discussion it spurred.
Here’s publisher Fantagraphics’ preview: