How I Make Comics is basically about anything but how Kim Deitch makes comics!The book is made up of random, some loosely-connected, stories, with of course Waldo making his usual appearance, none of which were that interesting to read or gelled together into a memorable narrative, let alone explore Deitch’s creative process in any meaningful way.
It’s 1992 and an adolescent Riad Sattouf is living in West France with his French mother and two younger brothers. His parents’ marriage is over, though they haven’t divorced yet, and his Syrian father has done something despicable: kidnapped his baby brother Fadi and gone back to Syria with him!
Goblin Girl is Moa Romanova’s debut memoir comic about a time in her young life when she found herself involved with a famous TV person, several decades older than her, via Tinder, and struggling with her mental health (depression, anxiety).
Buff Soul is a memoir by Swedish cartoonist Moa Romanova when she joined her two pals Asa and Lina, who’re in a band called Shitkid, in America on tour. They’re young and feel invincible, and do the cliched things bands do on tour - drinking, drugging, sleeping around - all while the spectre of death hangs over them in the form of absent friends - and possibly soon-to-be-absent friends…?
Norwegian cartoonist Jason has made so many great comics I’ve enjoyed over the years that it’s an automatic must-read when I see a new book from him. Although, given the quality of his last couple of books and now this one, I’m starting to feel like his best work is behind him, unfortunately.
Goes Like This is a collection of short comics and art pieces from 2002 to 2022 by Jordan Crane. And, like a lot of collections like this, it’s a mixed bag of good and forgettable stuff.
Rufus Baxter is a never-was, pathetic moron of a failed rock star. Fed-up with scrounging a living on the music circuit for decades, his drug-addled brain somehow concocts a semi-coherent plan: he’s gonna road trip cross-country to the blighted town of Camden, New Jersey, to finally claim royalties on his ‘80s record, Funky Cool, from his scummy label, Bliggum Records, and retire in style. Will he get what he deserves - and what was the fate of his two bandmates all those years ago?
Joe Sacco published between a page and four pages at intervals from January to July 2024 on The Comics Journal website about his thoughts on the current Israel-Palestine conflict that kicked off on 7 October 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel. The pages amount to roughly the length of a single issue comic which is published by Fantagraphics this week (or you can read the instalments for free on the TCJ website).
It’s an eventful time in MS Harkness’ life: she’s graduating art school, she’s making comics, she’s having an affair with an MMA fighter, she’s doing a lil sex work on the side to fund it all, she’s studying to become a personal trainer, and her incarcerated molesting father is trying to make “amends”. Tense indeed.
Joe Matt died last year at the relatively young age of 60. Peepshow #15 is his last comic, published posthumously and completed with the help of his friend and fellow cartoonist Chester Brown, who inked the last four pages.
Murder, rape, necrophilia - all in a day’s work for Fatcop. But disaster strikes as Fatcop gets paired with a straight-shootin’ partner - however will he continue his heinous lifestyle? And what’s going on in the basement of Trader Joe’s!?
Aboard a prison spaceship, a prisoner is thrown into a pit (that’s basically a portal to another world) and must survive in a harsh landscape filled with killers. Insane amounts of gore and violence ensue!
Woohoo, new Charles Burns book! Oh… it’s just a series of covers. For comics that don’t exist. Hmm.
Teresa, an Italian girl in her early 20s, gets a job in Berlin as a scientific assistant to prepare an exhibit on King Tut’s treasure. There, she meets the bohemian Ruben and the two begin a whirlwind romance. Also, the story of Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb. And the two are connected… buh?
Carolanne and Lee fall in love. They get married, she gets pregnant, leaves her job, plays homemaker - everything’s going perfectly! But who’s that strange shadowy figure living in the nearby apartment that haunts Carolanne…
Dan Clowes is back with his first book in seven years: Monica - unfortunately though it’s even worse than Patience, so that makes it twelve years now since he put out a good comic (the last one being 2011’s The Death-Ray).
It’s worth mentioning right at the top that Gilbert Hernandez’s Proof That The Devil Loves You isn’t a totally new comic. The book collects stories that have appeared previously in Love and Rockets: New Stories, Volume 3 #4, #5 and #6, Blubber #1, and Love and Rockets: New Stories, Volume 4 #5. I think if I’d known this beforehand, I wouldn’t have bothered with this book so just a heads up to anyone considering splashing out on this one, especially Beto fans like me who have probably read the aforementioned L&R comics: there’s some new stuff but it’s mostly a clip show unfortunately.
The ever prolific Simon Hanselmann is back with a Megg and Mogg spinoff book featuring the outrageously depraved Werewolf Jones and his wretched offspring, Diesel and Jaxon, in Werewolf Jones & Sons Deluxe Summer Fun Annual.
Ross Thompson is a grifter from Chicago on the run after ripping off the mob of thousands of bucks. His escape lands him at The Cavalier Hotel in the small town of Big Spring in West Texas run by a former oil tycoon and his teenage son, Sam Hill. Sam’s busy, if mundane, life is about to become much more dramatic…
In Invisible Wounds: Graphic Journalism, cartoonist Jess Ruliffson transcribes/illustrates the real-life stories of 12 US military veterans and their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, their time in the military, the effect on their lives, for better or worse (mostly the latter), and the transition from military to civilian life.
