One reason why I love comics is that I occasionally run into a creator producing art that would only work as comics. I prefer not to use reductive terms like “pure cartooning”, but I have a great appreciation for many artists who...
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It is interesting to consider what Annie Goetzinger, “la grande dame de la bande dessinée”, chose as the last two projects of her life. After many years serving as the illustrator for most of her projects, she wrote and drew her last...
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Something I’ve noticed as a recent trend in comics is a style that somewhat trades in primitivism or outsider art on the surface, but in reality is a sophisticated integration of word and text. The plastic qualities of text are not...
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Eleanor Davis’ first book was Stinky, which was released in 2008 by Toon Books. It won a number of awards and deservedly so, because it’s brilliant on any number of levels. What’s interesting about her kids’ and YA books...
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Writing a children’s book that both children and adults can enjoy is a tricky proposition. Aim too far over a kid’s head to reach an adult, and you risk alienating the target audience. (And at $12.95 a pop, this is an expensive risk...
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If Chris Ware were to do a book aimed at preteens, it might look a little like The Secret Science Alliance. As a long-time fan of Eleanor Davis (I still vividly remember the micro-mini-comics vending machine she brought to SPX), I was stunned to...
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It’s important to note that Eleanor Davis’ hilarious and mind-bending new book Why Art? was originally a presentation for ICON: The Illustration Conference 9. The first half of the book is a send-up of didactic lectures about the...
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I consider Eleanor Davis to be one of the five best cartoonists working today. I’m going to take a look at some of her older, shorter work here and also contribute new reviews of more recent comics. Libby’s Dad. This 2016 Retrofit...
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Mimi Pond’s follow-up to her 2014 book Over Easy, The Customer Is Always Wrong, takes the best parts of the first book and amplifies them. The story of Pond’s stand-in character Madge, an inspiring artist working as a waitress at the...
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Reading Mimi Pond’s book Over Easy (Drawn & Quarterly), one gets the sense that this is a book that had to be written. As a professional writer and cartoonist for over thirty years (The Simpsons, Pee Wee’s Playhouse and Designing...
Read moreRob Clough wrote a wonderful review of the final Reich issue over at High-Low: “Reich was a fantastic series about the ways in which ego and personality conflict with seeking the truth, and how those conflicts affect those around us.”...
Read moreRob Clough gave a nice little write-up of Asher Craw’s Hungry Summer for The Comics Journal. Clough says: “Craw updates the myth of Baba Yaga and puts it in a feminist, modern context without removing an ounce of...
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