Comic Book Resources

What Are You Reading?

From Hell

Hey there, hi there, ho there, it's time once again for What Are You Reading. Our guest this week is blogger and Top Shelf pr guru Leigh Walton. Want to know what Leigh is reading this week? Of course you do! Click on the link to find out, then let us know what you're reading in the comments section.

Continue Reading »

Comics Cavalcade: Ayn Rand and Wonder Woman

Will Everyone Please Stop Freaking Out Over Ayn Rand by Peter Bagge

Continue Reading »

What Are You Reading?

Cat Burglar Black

Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading. Our guest this week is scholar and critic par excellance Craig Fischer, whose musings on comics can be regularly read on Thought Balloonists, the blog he shares with  Charles Hatfield.

To see what Craig and everyone else is currently reading, click on the link. And don't forget to let us know what you're reading this week as well.

Continue Reading »

Robot reviews: Another kids' comics round-up

Nancy Vol. 1

Nancy Vol. One
by John Stanley
Drawn and Quarterly, 128 pages, $24.95.

When faced with the challenge of adapting Ernie Bushmiller's classic comic strip to longer comic book format, John Stanley's response was simple and economical: Turn her into Little Lulu.

That's the only conclusion I can come to after reading this collection of stories in D&Q's ongoing "John Stanley Library" project. Nancy is pretty much Lulu with frizzier hair, Sluggo is a thinner and slightly more benign Tubby. There's even a snotty rich kid and bratty little boy similar to Wilbur and Alvin. Stanley even repeats one of his Tubby stories involving a burglar almost note for note.

That doesn't make Nancy a bad book by any stretch of the imagination. Mediocre Stanley is still miles above most people's best work. The best stories here though are the ones involving Oona Goosepimple, an odd, Wednesday Addams-type girl who supernatural antics cause no end of anxiety for poor Nancy. It's those stories where Stanley -- freed of the Bushmiller formula -- really gets inventive and inspired. If the ratio of Oona stories increases as the volumes do, then I'll keep buying these books as long as D&Q are able to get them out.

Reviews of Moomin, Amulet and more can be found after the jump ...

Continue Reading »

Straight for the art | Melvin Monster covers

Melvin Monster

Frustrated that Drawn and Quarterly's John Stanley Library of books doesn't include the covers to the original comic books? D&Q feels your pain (sort of) and has posted the covers to the stories from the forthcoming, second Melvin Monster book on their blog.

And if that's not enough to satisfy you, they've also got a swell Nancy story.

What Are You Reading?

Talking Lines

Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading, where we can't stop talking about the comics (and other things) we love. I'm pleased as punch to write that our guest this week is R. Sikoryak, whose wonderful book, Masterpiece Comics, is out right now from Drawn and Quarterly.

Click on the link below to find out what Mr. Sikoryak and the rest of the Robot 6 crew are reading this week. And don't forget to let us know what comics or books you're currently enjoying in the comments section.

Continue Reading »

What Are You Reading?

Brave and the Bold #27

Sunday's here and that means it's time once more for What Are You Reading. Our guest this week is the incredibly talented cartoonist Rick Geary. Geary has two books out this fall, his latest entry in his ongoing XXth Century Murder series, Famous Players, and a biography of Leon Trotsky that should be coming out from Hill and Wang any day now.

Look for an interview with Mr. Geary appearing on this blog in the coming weeks. For now though, let's just see what he's currently reading ...

Continue Reading »

What Are You Reading?

Love and Rockets New Stories #2

Welcome, welcome, welcome to another round of What Are You Reading. I am very pleased this week to say that our guest is Jeet Heer, the peerless critic and historian who, when not writing introductions for Little Orphan Annie or Krazy Kat collections, can be found at the Sans Everything or the Comics Comics blogs.

Jeet and the rest of the crew have been reading a lot this week and are eager to share, so get clicking on that link pardners.

Continue Reading »

What are you reading?

The Complete Peanuts: 1973-74

Welcome once again to What Are You Reading. Our guest this week is the esteemed critic and blogger Robert Clough. Rob is probably best known for his contributions to the seemingly now inert Sequart.com, though you can find most of his recent reviews on his blog, High-Low.

To see what Rob and the rest of us are reading, just click on the link below ...

Continue Reading »

What Are You Reading?

The Harvey Girls

Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading. We had a bit of a scare this week at WAYR Central, as our planned special guest fell through at the last minute due to a lack of proper communication on my part and a sudden illness on his. Quickly becoming panic-striken, I turned to the person I always turn to in such matters -- my wife, Evelyn, who handed me a paper bag to breathe into and said she'd fill in this one time as long as I promised never to ask her to do something like this again.

So without further ado, let me present our very special all-nepotism edition of WAYR! Click on the link to find out what delightful comics we're currently reading ...

Continue Reading »

Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: HarperCollins fall catalog

History of the Modern World Part II

One of the joys of doing this semi-regular feature, scouring through catalogs, is every so often you come across a real jewel, or at least something that makes you sit up and take notice. For example, looking through HarperCollins's fall/winter line-up I discovered some rather interesting titles and one real notable graphic novel amidst the plethora of manga spin-offs. To wit:

Continue Reading »

Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: A publishing news round-up

The Art of Steve Ditko

• Can nothing stop Craig Yoe? The Modern Arf, Boody and Secret Identity editor and author is apparently getting  his own imprint, entitled YOE! Books, and courtesy of IDW. The first book released will be the hardcover Art of Steve Ditko.

• Same Hat blogger Ryan Sands reveals that he and Evan Hayden will be adapting Suehiro Maruo's The Strange Tale of Panorama Island for Last Gasp. The manga won the New Artist Prize at the Annual Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize earlier this year. Sands and Hayden previously translated Tokyo Zombie for the company. Island will be released in spring 2010. You can read Ryan's description of the book here.

• Heidi MacDonald notes that up and coming cartoonist Alexa Kitchen, daughter of publisher and cartoonist Denis Kitchen, will have a book out from Hyperion this fall entitled Grown-Ups Are Dumb! (No Offense).

• Del Rey has picked up the rights to two Kodansha manga series: Samurai Deeper Kyo and Wild@Heart. Tokyopop originally published the first 34 volumes of the former series. Del Rey will release an omnibus edition of volumes 35 and 36 in December. Wild@Heart will be released in January.

• Editor and British comics devotee Steve Holland has set up his own publishing imprint, Bear Alley Books, which will reprint ...wait for it ... classic British comics.

• Brooklyn artist Jason Fraspin is working on a comic about WWII pilot Ben Steeple and has a preview over at his blog.

Robot reviews: Melvin Monster and Moomin

Melvin Monster

Melvin Monster Vol. 1 (John Stanley Library)
by John Stanley
Drawn and Quarterly, 184 pages, $19.95.

Melvin Monster is a bonafide hoot; the kind of comic that, though intended for kids, can be enjoyed thoroughly by adults without an ounce of embarrassment or awkwardness. This is the rare book that actually lives up to its "all ages" description.

What's interesting for me is just how frenzied and manic these stories are, especially compared to the comics Stanley is better known for, mainly the Little Lulu series. While those classic tales are equally funny, they have a bit more of a structured feel to them. An equal amount of time is spent in the set-up as it is in the delivery of the gag.

Continue Reading »

Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: Abrams fall catalog

Toon Treasury of Classic Children's Comics

The art book publisher Abrams came out of the gate running this year with their new Comicarts imprint, which featured titles like Craig Yoe's discovery of naughty Joe Schuster art, Secret Identity. What delights will the offer for the second half of the year? How about a new book by Alan Moore? Yes, it's true; click on the link to find out more.

Continue Reading »

Everyone's A Critic: A round-up of comic book reviews and thinkpieces

The Photographer

* JR Minkel thinks that Alan Moore is a misogynist. And then he doesn't.

* Writing for the New York Times, Chris Hedges is effusive about The Photographer:

The power of “The Photographer” is that it bridges this silence. There is no fighting in this book. No great warriors are exalted. The story is about those who live on the fringes of war and care for its human detritus. By the end of the book the image or picture of a weapon is distasteful. And if you can achieve this, you have gone a long way to imparting the truth about warfare.

* The Forbidden Planet Blog calls the latest comics adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray "an excellent read."

Continue Reading »