The Return of the Monthly Sales List, Remembering Bernie Mireault, and An Appearance by Alan Moore— Comic Bookmarks October 26, 2024
I was sick last week so didn’t get one of these out so there’s interesting reads from the last couple of weeks here to catch up.
Do not obey in advance. Lesson 1, first page, of my pamphlet "On Tyranny" https://t.co/C3857ouRzO pic.twitter.com/FWIDPecber
— Timothy Snyder (@TimothyDSnyder) October 25, 2024
Not comics but something to remember as we enter the last two weeks of the 2024 Presidential Election, particularly as major newspapers are refusing to endorse a candidate in this election.
Enough with the politics. Part of being sick recently was that I kind of lost the drive to work on a longer review. I’m about 700 words into a review of Taiyo Matsumoto’s Tokyo These Days but lost the thread of it thanks to a head cold. And when I was a bit better, I just didn’t feel like writing any long pieces. So, instead, I did a week of short reviews. These were all written on my phone with the guideline that they had to fit into one screen of the phone. The conceit was to have one or maybe two ideas that I really looked at. That didn’t leave a lot of room to dive into anything (something I’m kind of sorry for when it comes to the Monsterpiece Theater #1 review.) But these were meant to be quick, short, and more how I felt about the book and not dragged out or really planned. If I’ve been spamming your feed or email this week, I’m sorry for that. But I enjoyed doing these reviews and need to figure out some way to work them into the regular rotation.
Headlines
I’ve been looking at The Jam a lot since Mireault’s passing. He was always a cartoonist that I appreciated and wish had been able to do more. This piece by Zach Rabiroff offers a remembrance and history of Mireault that is insightful to the artist he was.
Alan Moore pops his head up. Not to say anything of if he’s right or wrong here, there’s a sense that he’s been saying some form of this for 40 years now. And maybe he has and fandom just hasn’t listened to him yet.
Business
I go back and forth on how much I think sales matter but usually land on the side of “it’s been 6-8 years since sales data has meant anything to the audience.” It used to be a barometer of what people were reading, that along with Twitter (and other social media) reflected general tastes. But since the mid-aughts, mostly since Marvel and DC really started flooding the market with books, that general audience has felt more fractured than ever so I’m not too sure what this will accomplish. Hopefully it has good information for specialty shop retailers.
Reviews & Features
It’s been a while since I checked out the first two Acme Novelty Date Books but this one sounds like it contains a lot of interesting little strips and stories in it.
There’s a new version of Origins of Marvel Comics out? This piece by Chris Schillig looks at how this updated edition tries to contextualize Stan Lee’s hucksterisms and misconceptions.
I still need to read Final Cut. It’s one of those books that I feel like the anticipation of it bigger than the actual act of reading it. While I expect it to be excellent, I also expect to be disappointed that I don’t have more new Charles Burns to read.
Add another one to the list of books to track down.
And I’ll let Logan have the last word on Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theater.