In what is a rather depressing turn of events, news came earlier today that cartoonist Guillermo Torres and writer Manuel Fontdevila have been fined €2.500 each for their cartoon, on the cover of satirical weekly El Jueves, back in July, of the Spanish Crown Prince and his wife in doggy-style position. “Insulting the Crown” is…
Inspired by this blog post, courtesy Con C de Arte, exemplifying Andy Kubert’s consistently unimaginative and chronically lazy approach to grounding his work in any kind of believable reality, I thought I’d supply my own example, from Batman #665, written by Grant Morrison. Just as is the case with his depiction, in Batman #658, of…
By Morten Søndergård [To mark what would have been Jack Kirby’s 90th birthday yesterday, we re-present this piece on the first Spider-Man stories, written for Rackham back in 2002 by Danish Marvel editor, translator, retailer and all-round specialist Morten Søndergård. Enjoy!] Who drew the original Spider-Man? There is of course only one answer, right? Steve…
Tom Spurgeon has responded to my rodomontade on the Yellow Kid from yesterday. He writes: “I’m not all that convinced by Wivel’s restatement, and I find a lot of his rhetoric slippery. For one, I very obviously didn’t show in my original argument that Gary Groth is ignorant of 19th Century comics-making in favor of…
Jack Kirby (1917-1994) would have been 90 today. Tom Spurgeon has laid out the smorgasboard. To us, his face has long been on Mars. Splash from “The Face on Mars”, Race for the Moon #2, Harvey Publications 1958. By Jack Kirby and Reed Crandall. Cribbed from the Kirby Museum.
Yesterday, Tom Spurgeon commented briefly on the statement in the opening paragraph of my review of David Kunzle’s Töpffer monograph that the latter “deserves a large part of the credit for debunking the myth of the Yellow Kid as the point of origin, and bringing the history of modern comics before Hogan’s Alley to light…
David Kunzle deserves a large part of the credit for debunking the myth of the Yellow Kid as the point of origin, and bringing the history of modern comics before Hogan’s Alley to light in a fledgling academic field, dominated for years by collective denial. A substantial part of that effort has been the reintroduction…
To mark the recent release of David Kunzle’s long-awaited collection of Swiss comics pioneer Rodolphe Töpffer’s comics work, as well as his monograph on Töpffer the cartoonist (read our review here), the Metabunker hereby presents the following introduction to the comics of Töpffer. It should be noted that the text is a slightly edited version…
Via Dirk, my attention was called to this analysis of the page pictured at left, from Darwyn Cooke’s characteristically bland revival of The Spirit, issue 5. Now, I guess the criticism of the plot problems in the story is valid enough, although this is a broad, archetypical comic book story, not a realistic one. Cooke’s…
Since my recent trip to Berlin mostly consisted of looking at drawings and prints in the Kupferstichkabinett, I unfortunately didn’t get much time to take in the city this time around. I however did make it to Neurotitan in Haus Schwarzenberg, nested in the alt. culture oasis of Hackescher Höfe in Berlin Mitte. Haus Schwarzenberg…
This is some sad news to come home to. Comics artist Mike Weiringo died of a heart attack Sunday. He brought a nice and friendly attitude and a sleek energy to American mainstream comics art. The fun of children’s comics wedded to the coolness of those for adolescents, and a joy to behold. Rest in…
Just got back and have a million things I wanna do here, so what better than to comment on the recently released documents of the settlement between writer Harlan Ellison and publisher Fantagraphics? (the document is available here) Well, I guess there’s lots, but here we go. While it is obviously the most practicable reason…
As a long-time reader and fan of Bart Beaty’s Comics Journal column, “Euro-Comics for Beginners”, today continued as “Conversational Euro-Comics” at Tom Spurgeon’s Comics Reporter, I have been looking forward to Beaty’s book on the new wave of European comics since I first heard he was working on it, several years ago. Now it is…
Endnu et public service announcement til særligt vore norske læsere. I denne uges udgave af Morgenbladet, har undertegnede anmeldt en håndfuld norske serier fra det forgangne år. Det drejer sig som Jasons Jeg drepte Hitler, Lene Asks Hitler, Jesus og Farfar, Bendik von Kaltenborns Seks sultne menn, Manuele Fiors Ikaros (hvorfra billedet til venstre er…
Today, there’s a great and lenghty interview with leading Euro-comics critic Bart Beaty, conducted by Comics Reporter’s awesome OMAC Tom Spurgeon. The interview deals with Bart the Man (there’s even a photo showing parts of Bart’s huge library of comics) but also with topics from his recent book Unpopular Culture: Transforming the European Comic Book…