This feature was originally posted at Your Chicken Enemy. Go there for more great small press comics coverage.
Highlighting some great small press comics criticism being published, as well as other random things that have caught my eye over the past week.
COMICS CRITICISM
* Keith Silva writes extensively on Richie Pope’s THAT BOX WE SIT ON which “testifies to imagination and improvisation, while physically the characters never leave this one spot they move through time and space, six panels at a time. These six panels in particular read as a metaphor for the act of creation and creativity, specifically creating comics or maybe even commenting on comics.” Silva also chose this book as one of the BOOKS WE LIKED 2018.
* Alex Hoffman on COYOTE DOGGIRLby Lisa Hanawalt which “is melodramatic and silly, but keeps at its heart a feminist critique of the Western genre. As a first graphic novel, it plays to Hanawalt’s strengths, while still branching out into new territory.” Hoffman also reviews FOLLOW ME IN by Katriona Chapman, as part of the ENEMIES OF THE STATE project.
* Jake Murel reviews GIRL TOWN by Carolyn Novak.
* Andy Oliver on the anthology from Fantagraphics, NOW #5, which “impresses with its kaleidoscopic comics craft.”
* John Seven reviews THE SEA by Danish cartoonist Rikke Villadsen, writing “But if the sea is about anything, it’s about rebirth, and Villadsen delivers a small story of intimate proportions about the burdens people carry, the ones they inflict upon themselves, and the breaks in that pain that can happen, but often through struggle.”
* While I’m no fan of Cape Comics, what I AM a fan of is when Chase Magnett rips a hole in a shitty Cape Comic — this time he does so about HEROES IN CRISIS #5.
* Also on this Heroes in Crisis mess, Kat Overland writes this amazing piece for The MNT called HOW HEROES IN CRISIS DEPICTS TREATMENT OF PTSD.
WHATNOT
* Youth in Decline has announced its lineup for its FRONTIER 2019 SUBSCRIPTION. If you’re unfamiliar with the Frontier series, it “is a quarterly art and comics monograph series, with each issue shining a spotlight on the work of a single artist.” Ryan Sands and the rest of his team are constantly putting out amazing books and pushing the envelope of the possibilities of “comics”, so if you have the wherewithal and the interest, check out what’s upcoming from them.
* A new Seo Kim comic is up on Vice calledDOGGY.
* Glynnis Fawkes has a comic on Spiralbound called AUGUST GARDEN.
* Nathan Chazan interviews cartoonist and critic SARAH HORROCKS.
* If you missed it, you should probably read Claire Napier‘s great piece for Woman Write About Comics called DO I HATE THE NINE-PANEL GRID OR DO I JUST RESENT WATCHMEN.
* Sarah Miller has a piece on Popula called DO THINGS MATTER?
* Joseph Nechvatal on a new book by Donald Shambroom called DUCHAMP’S LAST DAY.
* A new poem by Margaret Crocker called MY JOINTS HURT AND OTHER FASCINATING TOPICS OF CONVERSATION.
* Ryan Carey takes the time to point you towards some Small Press Comics Criticism sites that are currently on PATREON (including YCE. Thanks, Ryan!). Check it out.
* THIS.
* Finally, one of the best people in the world of Small Press Comics, Kim Jooha, could use a LITTLE HELP. Please consider helping.