Week In Comics Journalism

Gaiman accusations, Ukazu’s next book, manga announcements, French rights to Dan Clowes, and more — Comic Bookmarks 7/7/2024

Solanin by Inio Asano

It’s July. That means all the sites start running SDCC announcements- who’s going to be there, what big signings they’ll be having, and what “major” releases they’ll be hawking. Let’s see if we can survive this month together, shall we?

This week on the site, I spent some time thinking about Richard Corben’s Hellboy stories.

Headlines

We can't ignore this one as Gaiman doesn't deny the relationships but denies the allegations of abuse. I’ve been having discussions with some friends- the usual can we still like the art even if we don’t like the artist— and I think this one is harder so far (which maybe explains some of the lack of coverage on comic sites but that could also be due to the fact that these podcasts dropped just in time for a major American holiday and elections in England) because his audience believed that his art was a reflection of him and now this makes us go back and rethink the artwork. Do these accusations now change that artwork?

And as of now, these are just accusations. It sounds like New Zealand police have an investigation open but the podcast that released news has a questionable reputation (Boris Johnson’s sister?) and I haven’t seen any other source do anything but report on the allegations from the podcast itself.

Above is a link to a 2023 book by Claire Dededer that explores how we engage with art by problematic people.

MariNaomi organized a protest against censorship at a local library and writes about her experience doing it.

She also has good news about this protest on her Instagram post about this article. (See her first comment for the good news after you read her article.)

I was actually hoping for a Barda trilogy, with Ukazu's second book being more about Barda's time on Apokalips after Scott Free escaped but I'll take an Orion book from here.

Comic Sites on Comic Sites

Congrats, Grant!

Manga

Oh, new Tsutomu Nihei. Over at Anime News Network, they’ve got a number of the publishing announcements that are coming out of this week’s Anime Expo 2024.

Business

Use the built-in translator function of your browser and check out this interesting French article about the trickiness of foreign rights. There's some reading between the lines to figure out who may have been involved here

Why does Jim Lee charge $20k for original 11x17's? Because people are taking smaller pieces by him and selling them on eBay for much more.

Crazy how the machinations of capitalism has us thinking that the last person who should be paid for their art are the artists themselves. pic.twitter.com/Oa0tTLYAlr
— Joe Scott (@JoeXScott) June 29, 2024

This feels like people who can't afford a Jim Lee commission complaining that they can't afford a Jim Lee commission. Last week there was a whole hubbub raised about how much I costs to get a Jim Lee drawing but obviously there are people who have that kind of money around. It's just not you or me and that's alright.

The Funny Pages

This is what it means to be alive.

New short comic, drawn by @mopedcow (one of the greats) and written by me. It’s called “Diaphanoids.”

(Free to read here, hi-res version and additional process .pdf available on Gumroad.) pic.twitter.com/eJ3C2HzU9N
— Hagai Palevsky (he/him) (@DialHForHagai) July 2, 2024

Interviews

Shin Yu Pai and Justin Rueff talk about their poetry comics. It's a fascinating discussion about how Rueff takes Pai's poetry and turns it into comics.