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‘I realized how hilarious it is to do a gorgeous, realistic picture of a...
Jennifer Hayden admits that she came to comics late in life. Much of that story can be found in her graphic memoir The Story of My Tits, which was much more than a cancer memoir. It was a story of her...
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More Weight: A Salem Story
Salem is America, and America is Salem. In this small Massachusetts town, originally populated by some of the most severe Puritans of the foundational era of this country, began the infamous witch...
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‘I became much happier and healthier when I started telling stories’: A talk...
Jeff Lemire first gained notice for highly personal stories about life in rural Canada, most notably the Essex County trilogy (Top Shelf, 2008 - 2009, collected in 2011). Since then he has released a...
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‘It was just this continuous churn of shaping’: Jon Allen lowers himself into...
Jon Allen’s comics are pleasing to look at, easy to read, and are accessible to even the most comics-illiterate of readers. As a result, due to the sort of inverted logic that the comics world...
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In Perpetuity
Peter and Maria Hoey are a brother and sister creative team with a striking design ethos. Their latest book, In Perpetuity is beautifully laid out. For example, the book takes place in two different...
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Charles Schulz’s Funny Things: An interview with Francesco Matteuzzi and Luca...
In 2023, a comics biography of Charles Schulz was published by Top Shelf, written and drawn by two Italian comic book artists: writer Francesco Matteuzzi and artist Luca Debus. The book was published...
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The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic: Incantations of the present day
Published by Top Shelf & Knockabout, 352 pages, $49.99. Please note that all spellings of specialized terms below are used as they appear in the work under review. When I was 19 I could predict the...
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Ashes
When popular Spanish cartoonist Álvaro Ortiz’s debut graphic novel, Ashes, arrived in English at the beginning of 2023, it was clear to me the book was destined to be featured on many best-of lists....
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Mary Tyler MooreHawk
And so I have just read a book called Mary Tyler MooreHawk by the cartoonist Dave Baker—with photography by David Catalano and "design, layout, photo manipulation and additional photography" by Mike...
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The Second Fake Death of Eddie Campbell (coupled with) The Fate of the Artist
I consider myself to be a reasonable person. In hindsight, reasonable people can chuckle at the boob shouting “Judas!” at Bob Dylan from the cheap seats at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall on 17 May 1966....
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Dispatches from Comics Camp – A Report from SPX 2022
This past weekend, the Small Press Expo was held in person for the first time since 2019, reconvening in its usual home at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center. I attended the...
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The Nate Powell Interview
Nate Powell, Save it for Later, cover Leaning back in his drawing chair, stroking his nearby napping cat, Nate Powell settles in for the longest interview of his career. Part punk rocker, part Southern...
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Under-Earth
We start by seeing the sky becoming eclipsed by a closing metal door that becomes increasingly distant until it can’t be seen. From thereon in, Under-Earth is a story of continuing descents, first into...
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The Book Tour
Andi Watson’s The Book Tour is the first book for adults that the prolific cartoonist has both written and drawn himself in almost 20 years, and during its creation Watson’s ever-evolving art-style was...
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Nocturne: The Walled City Trilogy (Book Two)
Confusion can serve a variety of aesthetic purposes. In cyberpunk, disorientation, dislocation, and neologisms propel the reader into a future of indescribable alienation. High modernist...
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They Called Us Enemy
Ideally, George Takei’s They Called Us Enemy should just be an interesting, compelling memoir detailing a dark, shameful chapter in American history, drawing readers to itself through its narrator and...
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The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Tempest
a work of explication in five acts I. It’s After The End Of The World, Don’t You Know That Yet? To say Sun Ra once said “It’s after the end of the world, don’t you know that yet?” would be a...
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Girl Town
Carolyn Nowak has previously won Ignatzes for Promising New Talent (“Radishes,” 2016) and Outstanding Story (“Diana’s Electric Tongue,” 2017). These categories are apt summaries of her latest book Girl...
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Gumballs
Gumballs embodies a different sensibility than most autobiographical comics, and not just because it comes from a trans author. Erin Nations started out by making webcomics, and brings that in-and-out...
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“The Only Thing That Matters is the Work on the Page”: An Interview with...
In his comics he’s delved into such weighty topics as death, family, marriage, parenting, success, failure, the creative process, and the pleasures of drinking wine. What other major, essential topics...
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