Kibbles ‘n’ Bits 2/6/18: Get your Hieronymous Bosch figures here!

§ I’m pretty sure you’ve all been asking yourself “Why aren’t there any action figures based on 15th century Dutch painter Hieronymous Bosch’s fantastically horrific Last Judgement triptych?”

Well, it turns out there are! Sort of. They are not action figures, per se, but rather collectible ceramic figures.

They are made by a company called Parastone, which makes all kinds of fine art based products. They have a full array of Bosch merch including vases and the like.

I know you are also asking now, “Do they have Bruegel?” and yes, they have Bruegel

The Bosch figures go for about $40-45 each – not that expensive but not as cheap as a Funko Pop either.

Why is there not a line of small plastic colelctible Bosch figures? There could be four or five series and they would look stylish on any desk! You could mix and match them with one of those Walking Dead not-Lego sets and have a hell of a diorama.

Also: if Bosch was around today he’d probably be doing SF/fantasy paperback covers, right?

§ Fantagraphics is having a Fantabucks sale for the next few days. $50 gets your $100 worth of great comics.

§ K. Thor Jensen looks at The History Of Computer Art In Comics and the names Mike Saenz and Pepe Moreno are invoked. You won’t believe how the earliest “Adventures in MacPaint” comics looked!

§ The BBC profiles 18 year old Instagram cartoonist Harry Hambley who has found a strong measure of success already.

His cartoon ketnipz – which features a “bean” character and his amusing musings on life – has 335,000 followers on Instagram and even features on tattoos by some of his fans. Just 18 months after the Cardiff teenager posted his first cartoon on social media, he has his own clothing range and has collaborated with Instagram Stories on a ketnipz “kindness sticker”.

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While some may be alarmed by this fast success and the youngster’s unsteady grip on craft, Hambley displays a perceptive teen’s understanding of the cycle of life, for a koan-like effect.

§ An interview with Ben Katchor, which is always kind of hard because Katchor talks like his comics, in long, discursive wide-angled shots. The opposite of Harry Hambley.

“To be a cartoonist now, in this world, with the costs it imposes on you? Well, it certainly isn’t easy, because this is as bad as I can recall things having been,” he says. “When I was developing my interest in cartoon art, I was enrolled in college studying painting and literature. But I loved this idea of the mass reproduction of artwork that could live on a rack near a candy stand, and I didn’t have nearly that same passion for the world of galleries and high modernist art. And fortunately, when I started working on these projects, the old New York City in which I lived was so astonishingly cheap. Rent, in my case, amounted to $200 a month, and if I sold a strip a week for somewhere between $25 and $100, I could squeeze by. This way of working was possible then.”

§ Here’s a look at the early history of women in underground comics:

But by the early 1970s, as the Women’s Liberation movement took hold across America, a group of female cartoonists in San Francisco decided they’d had enough. Facing sexism and a dearth of professional opportunities in their testosterone-saturated field, these women decided to create their own opportunities. They launched the first all-women underground comic books: raw, honest, raunchy, and very funny stories about, and by, women.

§ I never linked to this extensive Christopher Priest profile. It’s nice to see important figures like Priest getting this kind of “ink”.

But he wants to be clear on something: Even though he stopped pitching comics, he was still open to writing them. He was just peeved about what he would periodically be asked to write. “Every 18 months, I’d get a call from Marvel or DC and they’d say, ‘Hey. We’re bringing back All-Negro Comics and we want you to write it.’ ‘We want you to do Black Goliath.’ ‘We want you to do Black Lightning,’ ” he says. He did a five-issue Quantum and Woody revival at Acclaim’s successor company, Valiant, in 2014, but remained estranged from the Big Two.

§ They keep hinting that there will be a ‘The End of the F**king World’ Season 2 but why? HOW? No.

§ Comicbook.com looks at some Anime industry stats for 2017 that have been released:

If you read through the entire report, you will find that international licensing is growing a lot, and that is why the market’s broad sense is on the rise. In 2015, the market licensed shows to about 40 countries; Now, there is at least one title being licensed in almost every country. Streaming services like Crunchyroll and Netflix had a big hand in upping those numbers as anime has become more readily available to consumers. As for those foreign consumers, the report lists which countries are flying their otaku flags the most. China and Korea are the most prolific contractees while Taiwan, America, Australia, and Canada follow.

§ And here’s the companion piece, a look at how anime is popular in the Indian market:

The growth of Japanese anime in children’s television programming in India has been far more rapid and visible than other segments of television. It all started in 1990 when everyone grew up watching Rudyard Kipling’s original collection of series, The Jungle Book, which was a Japanese style animation series that couldn’t be missed on Sundays. Since then, there has been no turning back; the fascination for Japanese content in India has grown by leaps and bounds. It didn’t stop with Kipling’s Mowgli series, instead, there was another manga series called Avatar: The Last Airbender. Manga are hand-drawn by artists. Naruto, Naruto: Shippûden were among the known manga series that grabbed more traction from their fans.

§ There’s going to be a Comic-Con Night at PetCo Park for a Nationals/Padres game! Thankfully it takes place in May, not July – they once tried having Padre games during Comic-Con and it was a disaster. This sounds fun however.

Super Friar is taking over Petco Park on Comic-Con Day! Your theme game ticket includes a Comic-Con® Night hat and ticket to the Nationals vs. Padres game. Enjoy the game in your costume, pre-game costume contest in Park at the Park, photos with characters and themed in-game entertainment. Only the first 1,000 fans who purchase the dedicated Comic-Con® Night ticket package for May 9 will receive a hat.