Commute
0Erin Williams, Commute: An Illustrated Memoir of Female Shame (Abrams, 2019). $24.99, h.c.
Grip
0Lale Westvind, Grip (Perfectly Acceptable Press, 2020). $30. Lale Westvind’s Grip is a celebration of the power of the hand. Recently compiled into a single, offset printed volume from a previous two part risograph publication, Westvind’s wordless whirlwind of a comic celebrates work-power in a manner that circumvents or counteracts many of the negatives associated with labor. The […]
Far Sector
0N.K. Jemisin and Jamal Campbell, Far Sector #1-6 (DC Comics; 2020) N.K. Jemisin and Jamal Campell’s Far Sector is a relevant, rich, and beautiful comic about Green Lantern Sojourner “Jo” Mullein, a black, queer, ex-cop from Earth, who has been assigned to a sector of space so far out it has no number. The set piece to […]
2019 Faves
0In our third annual survey of Inks editors, advisory board, contributors, Comics Studies Society board members, and Extra Inks folks we ended up once again with an incredibly rich and diverse list of over 100 titles we all loved this year. This year in addition to listing some of the titles that received the most votes, we will […]
The Comics of Rutu Modan
0Kevin Haworth, The Comics of Rutu Modan: War, Love, and Secrets (University of Missippi Press, 2019). $30 pb. Kevin Haworth’s The Comics of Rutu Modan begins with a chronology. Moreover, that chronology begins in 1882, which Haworth tells us is the “First Aliyah (immigration to the land of Israel) begins. An estimated 25,000-35,000 Jews immigrate to Palestine, […]
What If… Comics Began in the 16th Century?
4With this installment Extra Inks launches what we hope will be a recurring feature, tentative manifestos designed not to be definitive but to question some of our assumptions as a field in order to generate ongoing discussion. Send on suggestions for future “What Ifs?” to extra-inks@comicssociety.org The definitions that have shaped comics studies emphasize formal […]
Revision and the Superhero Genre
0David Hyman, Revision and the Superhero Genre. Palgrave, 2017. At a cultural moment when television and film have not only embraced the superhero genre but, in particular, its multiplicity of universes, timelines, and realities (e.g. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the CW’s “Elsewhere” event), David Hyman’s Revision and the Superhero Genre feels particularly relevant. In this book from Palgrave Studies in Comics […]
A Look Back at 2018
0I told The Comics Journal that my top dozen of 2018 were: The Prince and the Dressmaker, Jen Wang (First Second). The Dragon Slayer, Jaime Hernandez (TOON Books). On a Sunbeam, Tillie Walden (First Second). Flocks, L. Nichols (Secret Acres). From Lone Mountain, John Porcellino (Drawn and Quarterly). Love & Rockets #4-6, Los Bros Hernandez (Fantagraphics). Frontier #17, […]
Canadian Alternative
0Dominick Grace and Eric Hoffman, eds., The Canadian Alternative: Cartoonists, Comics, and Graphic Novels (University Press of Mississippi, 2018). 304 pp, $65. While published by an American publisher, this book is quite Canadian in character, not making grand claims, but instead going with the diplomatic, “kinder, gentler” image of the Canadian alternative in comics. The Canadian […]
2018 Faves
2In our second annual survey, our voting panel grew substantially: Inks editors, advisory board, contributors, Comics Studies Society board members, and Extra Inks folks. I assumed with this many people voting, we would end up with some clear winners—instead once again we ended up with well over 100 titles we all loved this year. As with last […]
DAYGLOAYHOLE
1Influences on Ben Passmore’s Daygloayhole #1 By now, you’ve read and loved Your Black Friend (2016), Ben Passmore’s minicomic about the anger African-Americans feel when white people exhibit unconscious and insensitive racism. Perhaps you read it in the recent collection Your Black Friend and Other Strangers (Silver Sprocket, 2018), where the minicomic joins other Passmore strips, including several (“Letter from […]
SHIT IS REAL
0Aisha Franz, Shit is Real (Drawn & Quarterly, 2018), $24.95, pb. This book continues and expands upon many of the themes Franz explored in her previous work, Alien (published in English as Earthling), here focusing her exploration of loneliness and the alienation of modern life through the eyes of Selma, a young adult adrift in a vaguely […]