The fabulous online comics community Scans Daily has been shut down, one assumes by its host LiveJournal. The reason, apparently, was copyright infringement — ie. posting scans whole issues or close to whole issues of new comics on the site. Seeing some of his work there got comics writer Peter David riled, and he informed…
I really should start paying more attention to online comics. Last fall I picked up the 2007 French book edition of Christopher Hittinger’s Jamestown because I found the drawings thrilling at first leaf-through. I’ve only now managed to read it, and I enjoyed it immensely. Turns out, of course, that it’s been available online since…
Winshluss’ Pinocchio was the big buzz book of the Angoulême festival this year and it came as little surprise that it ended up taking the Fauve d’Or award — the festival’s prize for comic of the year, and one of the greatest distinctions of its kind. It’s an impressive package — a large hardback book…
OK, so the prize for weirdest political moment this week goes to the tag team of Gordon Brown and David Cameron, disagreeing in public over the age of Titian when he died. In what in itself is a revealing moment of bizarre self-conception, Brown apparently compared himself to Titian last month, saying the master did…
So, I’ve finally made it home after a three-leg train journey from sunny southern France to an England blanketed in powdered snow and plagued by traffic delays. We were long gone when the prize winners and the Grand Prix were announced, but thanks to a friend on the spot, we learned that Blutch took the…
The sun came out today. Angoulême looks great, and this year’s festival is a great pre-spring distraction in this time of recession. The crowds are moderate today, making perambulation pleasant and breezy with sufficient bustle to make you buzz with excitement about comics and their culture. It’s not like everything’s great in French-language comics or…
La Maison close is Florent Ruppert and Jerome Mulot’s latest concept comic, and it’s about the most impressive cartoonist’s jam I have ever seen, at least in terms of inventiveness and resonant coherence. Also, it’s pretty hilarious at times. It’s made especially for the Angoulême festival and can be read on the festival site. It…
When I heard that archivist Philippe Goddin was writing a biography about Georges Remi, aka. Hergé, my first thought was: What can he possibly add to the story that has not already been covered in the previous biographies? Hergé is probably the most extensively covered comics artist, both in terms of scholarly and popular publications.…
I hear the argument that demanding of Israel a sense of proportion in its handling of the conflict with Hamas is unreasonable, in that war is always disproportional. It has been most succintly put by André Glucksman. There is truth to this, but that does not make the current invasion of Gaza — it’s a…
I never thought it would happen, but lately I’ve developed a certain appreciation for the widely-derided art and general sensibility of the Image artists. No, really. Yeah, Even Rob Liefeld… No shit. The eye-opener, so to speak, is a German graffiti artist, KACAO77, whose art book Universes was published earlier this year and has since…
In alternately, at times simultaneously, entertaining and disquieting ways Frank Miller has been losing it in slow motion over the last ten years or so. Despite its qualities, Sin City was one slow degeneration of the storytelling instincts of one of the truly great writers in mainstream comics of the last 25 years. An ongoing…
For lovers of Italian Renaissance art, this has been a pretty stellar year in terms of exhibitions. Amongst the major ones, the Rome/Berlin Sebastiano del Piombo show over the summer was an eye-opener, and this autumn’s double whammy of Andrea Mantegna in Paris and Giovanni Bellini in Rome offered strong contributions to this museum-goer’s sweet…
If anything, this has been a year of top name releases in mainstream hip hop, with one heavyweight after the other dropping marquee-style albums they all seem to hope will be game changers for them. Earlier in the year, we had Lil Wayne making his superstar status official (pity he hasn’t been up to much…
I know it’s been everywhere today, but I just can’t resist posting it. There’s something fitting to the fact that presumably one of the last memorable images of the lame duck president is him having a pair of shoes thrown at him in a small room. I mean, what could be more pathetic? Well, I…
Når tegneserierne i disse år også herhjemme så småt er ved at finde fodfæste på parnasset, skyldes det i ikke ringe grad den massive indflydelse, som japansk kultur i almindelighed : og japanske tegneserier og :film i særdeleshed : har haft på de seneste årtiers kulturelle output i Vesten. Mangaens egenartede æstetik og emblematiske dynamik…