History

New comics company alert! This is one that has been brewing for a while and you will not believe where it's coming from. The New York Review of Book, a publication that usually has the word "august" appended to it, is launching a line of graphic novels, with new editions of classic works by Mark Beyer, Blutch, Glen Baxter and more. The new imprint is in the tradition of their NYRB Classics line of prose reprints (And also a little reminiscent of Dover's recent efforts along those lines.)

Reid Fleming and David Boswell are two of the great legendary figures of the 80s black and white comics boom – Canadian born cartoonist Boswell created an enduring character in the irascible delivery man Reid Fleming whose bellicose shouts — "I thought I told you to shut up!" — and hostile approach to dairy deposits made him an angry everyman hero. The character became incredibly popular during its '80s run, and a big studio movie was contemplated, with Boswell writing the script, until the project reached a film exec who didn't get the unique, absurd humor of the comic. The rest, as they say, is a cartoonist's life.

While it has a prominent location on 77th Street facing Central Park West, the New-York Historical Society is one of the overlooked gems among...

At the recently concluded Small Press Expo in Bethesda a very cool thing happened. A bunch of awards were presented to several talented, unique cartoonists who are turning out though provoking, beautifully crafted work, influential work. The winners were all popular and well deserved. And they all happened to be women. It was a thing, for sure, and much talked about. What struck me, first off, was just how strong the work was–Sophie Goldstein's multi leveled future history of a world where having a baby became a rebellious act, Emily Carroll's mastery of horror and structure, Eleanor Davis's powerful examination of self-sabotaging quests for self-esteem in many settings. The other thing that struck me was the contrast with the other conversations I was having at the show. Talking with people I used to work with in the "mainstream" comics industry about the long lists of men who would never have given Goldstein, Carroll or Davis a shot at telling their stories. Because they are women, and those people didn't think women could make good comics.

The famous murals at New York's Palm restaurant appear to be gone.

Peter Bagge is prolific and hilarious, a very good combination in a cartoonist. He's been running short one page historical comic strips in recent issues of Dark Horse Presents and his own series Apocalypse Nerd, and these will be collected in the one shot Founding Fathers Funnies. Bagge is all over the humor of the great people who founded our great nation, and i'm sure it goes beyond cherry trees, kites and wooden false teeth.

This weekend's new superhero movie is Fantastic Four, not to be confused with Fantastic Four or Fantastic Four Or even The Fantastic Four The 1978 cartoon version...

On April 12, 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gargarin became the first human being to achieve Earth orbit, effectively winning the space race. At NASA,...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpVEbuuhLxc In his latest weekly video, Cerebus creator Dave Sim reveals that an anonymous donor has agreed to leave a bequest of $500,000 to The...

Just in case you missed my explanation of how manga helped pave the way for a more diverse comics industry, here's a video of me and then-Marvel editor Bobbie Chase in 1996 trying to explain why women might want to read comics. It's from a TV show called The Anti Gravity Room, which was shown on the SfiCi Channel as it was then known, which was a US version of Canada's Prisoners of Gravity. Both shows covered the whole "comics, nerd world" with taped interviews and comics-friendly segments that seem commonplace now, but were unique at the time. I think I co-hosted an episode or two, and I can't wait until those tapes surface.

Want to know what comic-cons are really about? Get these books. In my previous post I talked about the importance of community -- it is...

In honor of the Beat's 11th anniversary ehre are two epic photos from recent social media. In the first, Congressman John Lewis presents signed...