THE COMICS JOURNAL
At last -- the first of The Comics Journal’s semi-annual print edition is out, only 8 months late. In announcing this new species, the publisher also said that each print issue would be an individual, stand-alone book, designed to reflect its content. This one looks a good deal like a door-stop: at 624 virtually ad-free 7x8.5-inch pages with splashes and pages of color here and there, the Journal is an inch and three-quarters thick. So what does that design tell us about the content? All participants are door-stoppers?
Nearly a third of the book is devoted to an interview of R. Crumb about his Genesis Illustrated and a roundtable discussion of it with Rick Marschall, Donald Phelps, Robert Stanley Martin, Jeet Heer, Tim Hodler, Alexander Theroux and Kenneth R. Smith. Three “sketchbooks” feature the work of Jim Woodring, Tim Hensley, and Stephen Dixon.
Warren Bernard takes a long look at the almost forgotten editorial cartoon great John T. McCutcheon and his work, Tim Krieder looks at Dave Sim’s Cerebus, Joe Sacco is interviewed about Footnotes in Gaza, Marc Sobel reviews the decade in comics, R. Fiore returns to take up the matter of racism in comics, I offer a comic strip that Gus Arriola conceived near the end of the run of Gordo but never got published (until now), and the whole of the first Gerald McBoing Boing comic book appears—written by Dr. Seuss, drawn in what came to be known as the UPA style. And more.
Certainly worth the book-like price, $30, at classy comic book stores everywhere—soon; and at fantagraphicsbooks.com.
He is a good friend that speaks well of us behind our backs.
Posted by: Pandora Jewelry | March 31, 2012 at 01:42 PM