Culture

The other day we were joking about 80s comics weirdos/iconoclasts/content creators like Bob Burden and Steve Lafler -- post-underground cartoonists who turned out sizable, notable bodies of work that appeared mostly in serial form, mostly based around very strong characters. It's a format that has all but vanished. But here's another near legendary practitioner of the same, Canadian legend David Boswell, creator of Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman. Boswell has just put all of Fleming's adventures online in a pay-what-you-wish format, which most people will take to be free, but be a good sport and drop a few bucks, won't you?

ATTN MARVEL!!! Can you please do these as an insert next year?

In the spirit of the season!

Throughout the month of February, the Ohio Art League is showcasing a comic art exhibition curated by Ken Eppstein, creator, publisher and chief muckity-muck of Nix Comics, a local comic book publisher. Not only has Eppstein put together a delightful display showing the process in which a comic has made, he’s also arranged for three presentations about the past, present and future of comics in Columbus.

In this week's PW Comics World, I interviewed Jeremy Short—creator of the study on comics comprehension referenced here—about that study and a general overview...

A must read and a must-read for masochists top our linkage today, both returning to topics that were much on the minds of anyone in comics about 30 years ago — oldies but goodies. First and most importantly, library professor Carol Tilley has been going through Dr. Fredric Wertham's notes and found out that he was, to use a technical term, full of hooey.

There's been controvery over the past few days following DC's decision to hire Orson Scott Card, a pioneer in contemporary homophobia, as one of...

Superman, co-created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, first appeared in Action Comics #1 in June 1938, published by Detective Comics Inc, a fore-runner of National Periodical Publications and DC Comics. Virtually overnight it became a huge seller, and is running to this day, with uninterrupted publication for well over seventy years. A vast amount has been written over the years on the history of Superman, and by people substantially more qualified than I, but one claim, that Superman was based on the character of Hugo Danner, from Philip Wylie’s novel Gladiator, (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1930), has some relevance to the larger story of Marvelman and, although I decided that it might be too far back to start this series of articles, if you’re interested in reading what I have to say about it, you should go read this article, and then meet us back here.

Over on his Tumblr blog, writer/artist/Backstreet Boys maven Bryan Lee O'Malley has explained that - due to a shoulder injury he suffered last year...

Indie and Disney master Don Rosa has posted online the final chapter of a bio intended for a collected edition of his works. after it was rejected by Disney. Rosa explains his decision to retire from drawing comics last year as the result of both the psychological effects years of working, his failing eyesight, and some ongoing difficulties with how Disney deals with it's comics licenses. It's an entertaining read -- especially for ow his early years intersected with those of his hero, Disney artist supreme Carl Barks, but it's also not hard to see why Disney may not have been thrilled to publish it.

A curious but interesting move today, as Marvel and Hyperion have just announced that they will be releasing a series of YA novels this...

I've been busy lately, sorting and boxing up well over a decade's worth of comics.  Having spent extended periods of time in 4 different...