Rolling Comic Books 2024

We're close enough, and it gives me an excuse to post my what-did-I-read list.

* means a highlight

Uncle Scrooge's Money Rocket, Luciano Bottaro
Detention #2, Tim Hensley
Catwoman: Lonely City, Cliff Chiang *
Olympia, Vivés/Ruppert + Mulut
All Your Racial Problems Will Soon End, Charles Johnson *
Marvel Knights: Maddrox, Peter David, Pablo Raymond, et al
Complete Aztec Ace, Doug Moench, Dan Day, et al *
Zombie Coffee, Régis Loisel
Absolute Sandman, Vol.2, Neil Gaiman et al *
Best Of 2000AD, Vol.2-3 *
The Night Eaters, Marjorie Liu, Sana Tekeda
A Very British Affair: The Best Of UK Romance Comics
Chainsaw Man, Vol.6-11, Tatsuki Fujimoto
Orochi, Vol.3-4, Kazou Umezz *
Brink, Vol.3-5, Dan Abnett, Culrad *
Drifting Classroom, Vol.2, Kazou Umezz *
Krazy Kay 1931-1932, George Herriman (reread)
Earthman, Robert Nunn
Public Domain, Chip Zdarsky
Judge Dredd: Complete Case Files, Vol.2-3, Pat Mills et al *
Bomba, Osamu Tezuka *
The Many Deaths Of Laila Starr, Ram V, Filipe Furtado et al
Danger & Other Unknown Risks, Ryan North, Erica Henderson
Cukoo, Joe Sparrow
Little Lulu, Vol.2, John Stanley *
Golden Rage, Chrissy Williams, Lauren Knight et al
Blood Of The Virgin, Sammy Harkham *
Nonnoba, Shigeru Mizuki
The Agency, Katie Skelly *
Batman: Failsafe, Chip Zdarsky, Jorge Jimenez, et al
Nancy Wins At Friendship, Olivia Jaimes
Orphan & The Five Beasts, James Stokoe
Moon River, Fabcaro
Congro Congro Comix *
Night Fever, Ed Brubaker, Sean Philips
Enlightened Transexual Comix, Sam Szabo *
Lance Stanton: Wayward Warrior, James Naughton, Dave Bamford
Social Fiction, Chantal Montepellier
The Cat Eyed Boy, Vol.1, Kazou Umezz
Africani, Anani, Mensah
Imboa - Le Roi Et I Fare, Didier-Mada
Un Eternité À Tangeri, Faustin Titi, Eyoum Nsangé
Do A Powerbomb, Daniel Warren Johnson
Rogue Trooper: Tales Of Nu Earth, Gerry Finlay-Day et al
Roaming, Mariko & Jillian Tamaki
La Mort de Spirou, Guerrive, Abitan, Schwartz *

I hadn't heard of that British romance collection!

It's kind of a chore to get through (obv the material wasn't meant to be read in large chunks), but lovingly presented and a lot of the art is topnotch. Plus you get to see teen culture evolve (in the early stories guys are taking girls to jazz clubs, by the end they're listening to Radio Luxembourg).

I've got loads of comics I just look at but don't read. This would probably be the same.

https://www.tcj.com/the-best-of-2023-as-decreed-by-our-contributors/

this is gonna be bad for my wallet. had no idea juni ba has a new one and the Deena Mohamed sounds amazing.

Catching up on recent volumes of Chainsaw Man: as always, impressed by Fujimoto's gift for comedy and for heartbreaking teenage angst while getting somewhat frustrated with the clunky world building (all the demons vs fiends vs humans stuff). The fights are simultaneously highly impressive and very confusing to look at.

I find the clunkiness to be a key part of CM's charm, tbh! But yeah, the worldbuilding AND fight visuals can be equally bewildering

https://blog.fantagraphics.com/fuck-you-im-with-fantagraphics-new-merch/

I'll wait for the "eat hot shit, I read Drawn & Quarterly" undies.

Corny

Guys the “reissue of a t-shirt from eleven years ago” thread is over there

not my fault you didn't alert us 11 years ago

Fwiw, they sent me an email blast titled "F*** You, I'm with Fantagraphics: new merch!", with all the content seen in that blog entry, so it's not like they're treating it as old news...

It was created for the ass-saving kickstarter after Kim Thompson’s death, as one of the lowest tiers available (admittedly above “$1: Gary will add you to his prayers”), so less ‘corny’ than ‘a cheerful way to show support to a struggling org & bereaved staff, and pay tribute to a man who dedicated his entire life to supporting and advancing artists’ imo but anyone’s mmv

(I can’t speak to or endorse any 2024 promo copy, on this or any other topic, put out by any social media millennials who demonstrably don’t know what they’re writing about)

Second volume of the Fanta Silly Symphonies reprint is overall perhaps not worth it, but there's some great Donald Duck content - including one strip where he kills Goofy and one where he gets conned into becoming a carnival geek.

Recent reads:

River's Edge, Kyoko Okazaki - 90's manga about high school kids bullying each other, emotionally abusing each other, checking out a dead body. grim, powerful stuff.

Mobilis, Jun Ba - Easily the most underrated artist in the game? This is deluxe size and totally gorgeous. The story is ok.

Picked up a volume of Lapin, the L'Association periodical, from 1999. Starts with a long comic about living in Serbia under sanctions; another one I really dug was the story of three drunks under a bridge recounting their life stories. Checked on the authors - the drunks story is by François Ayroles, who it turns out has a successful graphic novel out now that I also bought without noticing the name. Aleksandar Zograf, who did the one about sanctions, has a very geocities looking website, but the latest update is from 2021.

Yeah, River's Edge was grim. If you like that I'd recommend Helter Skelter by the same author, though that's more about the modeling industry than high school angst, it's got a similar tone.

I just read both A Guest in the House by Emily Carroll and Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohammed - a little late on these, saw these in some year end lists, both pretty excellent IMO

I assume River’s Edge is based on the 1986 film of the same name?

nah no relation

Huh, weird… the plot sounds similar

Will check out Helter Skelter at some point for sure but think I'll need awhile before I'm ready for that flavour again. The Thick Lines podcast are huge fans.

xposts

I knew a Warhammer player who lived in Serbia under sanctions - to get new 40K figurines, they made moulds of the existing figures, then used melted down money to fill the moulds, because cash was completely useless

wow that's amazing

the comic's take on sanctions is kinda predictable but worth being reminded of anyway - immense misery for the population, growing sense of jingoism/isolation as a result, those in good with the govt get to live the high life regardless

uh waht

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9yAeYzuwtI

I am baffled by "kayfabe." I know it's meaning in wrestling, but when it pops up now it seems divorced from that and I don't understand.

I find those guys creepy but some of their vids are okay in a skim-through-while-procrastinating-from-something-more-important kind of way.

I just finished Infinity 8 based on an ILC recommendation (thanks!), really glad I read it despite some yeeshy Gallic sexism and not loving the ending. Still: very good!

tbc my surprise and reason for posting that video is the title's use of an expression that I thought was exclusive to ilx

Watched the Dave Stevens documentary Drawn To Perfection (on amazon prime of course), I've never loved his stuff that much but have some admiration. There's a ton of artists interviewed and I think it does a pretty good job. It's nice how much Stevens looked after Bettie Page when he found her, made sure she was getting money from products based on her image and often drove her around to do shopping for her for years.

nice list here
https://letterboxd.com/jasikedevicius/list/documentaries-about-comics-cartoonists/

for ppl who don’t read the L&R thread: eight hours left on the annual half-price-voucher sale at fantagraphical books incorporated

This whole story is sad and tragic. Hoping it wasn't real because it's April 1, but looks like it's being reported at multiple outlets.
https://comicbook.com/comics/news/ed-piskor-hip-hop-family-tree-and-x-men-grand-design-artist-reportedly-passes-away-at-age-41/

It's been confirmed by family members.

His (public on FB) suicide letter is pretty vile stuff, just a really dark affair all around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8A3tzAGW8M