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
* Joe McCulloch on KRAMER ERGOT 9, which McCulloch claims is “shot through with continuing theme of illusion and mistake: perfect for an American election year” and goes on to say, “what is unique about the series is the restless sense of anxiety in its stories, as if the book is preparing for calamity.”
* Bill Boichel on Marc Bell’s STROPPY in which “Bell has employed his idiosyncratic arsenal of cartoon creations in the service of a cohesive long form narrative that opens with an incensed populist sentiment that ruthlessly ironizes the blatant inequities imposed by unbridled capitalism, ridiculing both those directing it and those in its thrall.”
* Andy Oliver writes about the second volume of RADIO ON, an annual music-themed anthology from England’s The Analogue Press.
* John Seven on Jon Allen’s OHIO IS FOR SALE which was a web comic and is now collected by Alternative Comics.
WHATNOT
* Check out this amazing illustrated interview that Madeline Keyes-Levine did with YUMI SAKUGAWA
*Sarah Horrocks talks about the films of ALAN CLARKE, of which she says “are resistance. Petty resistance, sure. But that’s all we have anymore. Disobedience of thought. Of art.” This leads her to talk about her own struggles with creating and her own frustrations therein.
* WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO RUN A SMALL PRESS COMICS EMPIRE? The answer comes in the form of a discussion with the publishers behind Breakdown Press, Retrofit Comics, and Koyama Press, and “profit” doesn’t seem to factor into it anywhere.
* JA Micheline continues to explore the concept of “criticism” in CRITICAL JAM #4: ON TRUE CRITICISM. If you’ve got a spare dollar or two a month to support her Patreon in order to keep this kind of writing going, do that.
*Whoah. Brian Hibbs has moved his excellent column, TILTING AT WINDMILLS, over to The Beat. Hibbs writes well about all the shit comics does to destroy itself at the retail level. This month he talks about Marvel Now.
* If you haven’t been keeping up with Mason Dickerson’s HALFTRACK over on Study Group, it’s time you rectified that oversight.
* There’s a new DAVID HINE AND SHAKY KANE one-shot on the horizon. Keep your eyes out for that in October.
* Whit Taylor’s FINDING YOUR ROOTS
* Liel Leibovitz’s THE CASE FOR POKEMON AT AUSCHWITZ
* CITIES NEED MORE PUBLIC TRANSIT, NOT MORE UBER AND SELF-DRIVING CARS
* THESE MAY BE THE MOST MAGNIFICENT PORTRAITS OF GOATS AND SHEEP YOU’LL EVER SEE