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A look at Banned Comic Books, Award Season Never Ends, Kieron Gillen Speaks, Reviews, and More — Comic Bookmarks September 29, 2024

A look at Banned Comic Books, Award Season Never Ends, Kieron Gillen Speaks, Reviews, and More — Comic Bookmarks September 29, 2024
Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, still one of the best books about identify of recent memories.

I've had a review I've been wrestling with all week so nothing new from this site but that doesn't mean that there wasn't all kinds of good, interesting, and thoughtful things happening this past week. Hopefully I’ll get this review done this week and be able to be a small part of the discourse next week.

Headlines

The state of comics and censorship during Banned Books Week - The Comics Journal
There’s been a troubling rise in challenged and banned books in recent years- why are comics being targeted?
The Comics JournalGina Gagliano

Gina Gagliano dives into what book banning means to comics in 2024.

Harvey Awards Reveal 2024 Nominees
Harvey Awards

Award season never ends– it just jumps from comicon to comicon.

Comic Sites on Comic Sites

Off Panel #466: The 2024 Superhero State of the Union with Oliver Sava - SKTCHD
It’s time, folks! Comics critic Oliver Sava returns to the show for the seventh annual Superhero State of the Union! Sava joins for a discussion about his return to The AV Club, why we read superhero comics, leaning towards art, superhero comics outside the Big Two, following creators, art and arcs, where DC is right … Continued
SKTCHDThe

David Harper talks with the A.V. Club's Oliver Sava about superhero comics, which annually is a fun podcast to listen to but it opens with an interesting question– why in 2024 are you still reading superhero comics?

The comics industry wants to read sites like BC rather than actual journalism, so this is how things ended up here

— Steve Morris (@stevewmorris.bsky.social) September 19, 2024 at 9:16 AM

He's not lying.

Interviews

Ooooooh Atomics!: Kieron Gillen on the Past, Present, and Future of The Power Fantasy - SKTCHD
Kieron Gillen is always building. Building on his ideas. Building on his previous work. Building on what his collaborators bring to the table. You name it. And The Power Fantasy — his new Image Comics series with artist Caspar Wijngaard, letterer Clayton Cowles, and designer Rian Hughes — might be the biggest thing he’s built … Continued
SKTCHDkevin2

Thankfully, David Harper has made this piece open to non-subscribers of his site. And whenever I read a Kieron Gillen interview it's like listening to a podcast because I can hear his voice even as I read his words.

Interview: Deb Aoki and the American Manga Awards | Yatta-Tachi
Yatta-Tachi spoke to Deb Aoki, who oversaw the Planning Committee of the American Manga Awards, about the industry’s first big night.
Yatta-Tachiwendeego

Great interview with Deb Aoki about what it tbook to launch the American Manga Awards.

The graphic novel adaptation of post-apocalyptic classic The Road is one of the most frightening and beautiful comics you will read this year
Interview | Artist and writer Manu Larcenet on adapting Cormac McCarthy’s famous novel
GamesRadar+Will Salmon

The art samples used in this interview are so evocative and make you feel the weightiness of this story.

Reviews & Features

mini-kus #112: Gina Wynbrandt’s You’re The Center Of Attention
As I’ve said before, when it comes to humor, punching up can feel pretentious, punching down is unseemly, but punching yourself is always fu…
Rob Clough

"Comedy of self-humiliation." Such a simple concept for Clough to articulate but it speaks so much to Gina Wynbrandt's comics.

Okazu » The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t A Guy At All, Volume 1

Erika Friedman talks about this book as being "gentle and kind-hearted" and those are the kind of books I'm trying to look for right now.

Search and Destroy, Volume 1: A cyberpunk cover of a manga classic
If you’re going to update a story by a master of the form, making it cool and exciting is the way to go.
Warren Peace - Reviewing Comics, Film, TV, and More!Matthew Brady

Matt Brady talks about how Search and Destroy is a cover version of Osamu Tezuka's Dororo, which is a line of thought that I avoided because I haven't read Dororo yet (even though a huge copy of it is sitting on my kitchen table right now.)

If you're willing to go to the social-platform-formerly-known-as-Twitter, this is a good thread on the idea of low-stake moments in comics. Comrade Bullksi refers to it as "cozycore" but I've seen it also called "hangout comics" recently.

Thomas Girtin: The Forgotten Painter - The Comics Journal
In lesser hands, Oscar Zárate’s graphic work would be nothing more than a biography about a contemporary of William Turner, whom, as the subtitle implies, most people have not heard about. Such a work would be useful, of course, if it pointed people to Girtin’s work, and his reputation during his life, possibly even resurrecting... Read more »
The Comics JournalKevin Brown

The structure of this biography sounds fascinating.

Kommix - Charles Burns Asks Us to Consider 80 Comics Covers that Never Were in this Haunting Fantagraphics Release – Broken Frontier
Charles Burns invites us to consider 80 comics covers that never were in the pages of ‘Kommix’ from Fantagraphics Books.
Broken FrontierAndy Oliver

I haven't had a chance to write about it but Charles Burns' Kommix is an engrossing book, particularly if you miss the thrill that a good cover can give you. This collection of covers for books that never existed triggers your own imagination as you try to figure out just what the actual comic books behind these covers would have been like.

A nice, if brief, rundown on what MAD magazine has meant over the years.

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