History

Today is Veteran's Day and About Comics publisher Nat Gertler wrote to let us know about a book he just put out that's pretty appropriate to preview: Vic the Vet, a once popular strip about...

Welcome back to Unassuming Barber Shop, a semi-regular column here at The Beat that examines--and sometimes flat-out speculates-- on the possible historical origins of fictional comics characters. When Doctor Strange debuted in July 1963's Strange Tales #110, readers met...

San Francisco's Cartoon Art Museum has found a new home after closing down last September sue to rising rents in its SoMa home. The new location, 781 Beach Street is near such attractions as Aquatic Park,...

Here's a very worthy Kickstarter that's just a tiny bit shy of being funded with a few days to go that's a daughter's tribute to her father and her people. A Minyan Yidn is a project...

  The NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium is a weekly series of lectures organized by the great Ben Katchor covering a vast range of topics on comics history and craft. Next week they'll have three events instead...

Jack T. Chick, whose religious tract comics inspired revulsion and mirth– along with some faith, I'm sure -- passed away over the wekeend at age 92, as his company FB page revealed: Many might have...

Monsters Unleashed is Marvel's first big event of 2017, with the Avengers, the Champions, the Guardians of the Galaxy, the X-Men, the Inhumans and the rest going up against hordes of giant monsters. You'll need little more than that to sell you on the idea, but it's written by Cullen Bunn with art by Steve McNiven, Leinil Yu, Adam Kubert, Greg Land and Salvador Larocca.

Speaking of politics, one of the strangest stories this year has been the appropriation of Pepe the Frog as a symbol for white supremacist hate groups. Pepe was created by artist Matt Furie as...

Why did the early Batman villain The Monk disappear from his rogue's gallery?

Over the weekend at SPX I had the extreme pleasure of interviewing Trina Robbins and meeting Rebecca Wilson, one of the original contributors to Wimmens Comix, the groundbreaking underground anthology from the 70s. Tomorrow,...

At the end of the month, the thriving scene of artists studios centered in the Gowanus part of Brooklyn will be no more. As reported last year (but not imediately connected to the comics world) a massive collection of old warehouses that have been turned into artists studios, in the classic NYC sense, are now being turned into...well condos, probably. The area is located near the toxic Gowanus Canal and not considered safe for habitation but that won't stop anyone. Maybe a bank or a organic dog treat store or a prozen yogurt shop will open up.

Oh yeah, speaking of zines (look it up kids) something called The Poopsheet Foundation is now online, and it's one of those 90s things that was what passed for social media back in the...