Join us this Thursday, 17 November from 5pm, at Din Nye Ven, Skt. Pedersstræde 34, Copenhagen, for the sneak release of KOLOR KLIMAX, the new Nordic comics anthology helmed by the Finnish Comics Society, edited by yours truly and set for American release in March from Fantagraphics Books. The release will see the participation of…
The week in review. Another fine week. Spent a few days in London for work and had the chance to see a number of the exhibitions on display there. I will return to the landmark Leonardo show at the National Gallery presently and hopefully also to the eye-opening Degas show at the Royal Academy, and…
Yesterday saw the passing of golden age hip hop MC Heavy D, “The Overweight Lover,” at the too-early age of 44. Best know to the world at large as the man who spat the nimble rap verse on Michael Jackson’s “Jam” (1992), he was an important figure in 80 and early 90s hip hop whose…
I’ve spent some of the summer interviewing a number of the central figures in and around seminal French comics publisher L’Association (publishers of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis and many other quality books) about the crisis they’ve been through over the last year or so. An interpersonal crisis that eventually led to a strike amongst the employees…
The Tintin movie makes good on the promise of not disgracing its august comics source. Spielberg is a pro and he delivers what he does best — a sense of adventure and possibility and a sufficiently sensitive approach to his film technology that his characters come alive despite the mo-cap plastic feel. The rewrite of…
The Week in Review What a week. Starting with Fantask’s fortieth anniversary celebration last weekend and ending with my participation at NNCORE’s foundational meeting with a short Berlin jaunt to see the astonishing Renaissance portraits and Hokusai shows there. I hope to return a bit to the portraits (though I can’t promise anything), but just…
These last three days saw the foundational meeting of the Nordic Comics Research Network (NNCORE) at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. Initiated by lecturer at the Department of History, Culture and Society Anne Magnussen, and funded by a grant from the Danish Research Council, the network seeks to develop relations between comics scholars…
In 1984, when she was 17, Ulli Schneider went to Italy on a lark. She returned to Austria two months later, a changed woman. The following year she had a child and went on with life. She attended art school in Vienna, became an illustrator and produced several children’s books, eventually assuming her mother’s maiden…
That’s my man Lars in 1991 and this past Saturday, respectively. The fortieth anniversary of Fantask was a trip down memory lane for us kids, plus a milestone in Danish comics-, SF-, and gaming culture. Frederik Høyer-Christensen documented some of the day and you can see the results in his flickr stream (including a tour…
Today the Copenhagen comics-, SF- and games store Fantask celebrates its fortieth anniversary. It is the oldest continually existing store of its kind in the world and an institution in Danish Danish comics, SF, and geek culture. An operation built from the ground up by its founders Søren Pedersen and Rolf Bülow (pictured) as well…
Autobiography has been such a defining direction in comics’ new wave of the last 20 years, its innovation so consistent, that it is mystifying still to hear repeated the cliché that most of these new ‘indy’ comics proffer little more than solipsistic tales of melancholy and masturbation. If one considers the work, it is hard…
The Week in Review (a.k.a. the feature formerly known as Picks of the Week). Over at Hooded Utilitarian this week, there’s been an interesting discussion of Orientalism in comics, prompted by the publication of Craig Thompson’s mammoth graphic novel Habibi. It’s an interesting issue and one that warrants attention like Nadim Damluji gave it here,…
Anders Nilsen – The Metabunker Interview An in-depth interview with one of our premier young comics artists. In four parts: 1, 2, 3, 4.
Just got word from Paul Gravett that his massive 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die is out in the UK, with the American edition to be released on 25 October and other national editions to follow. Many will be familiar with this popular series covering everything from books to wine. The remarkable thing…
The Graphic Novel Tradition? Does it make sense to rehabilitate the term ‘graphic novel’? Bonus discussion here.