I Went to SPX 2016 and Loved It

I had a terrific time at the 2016 Small Press Expo (SPX), as I do every year. It’s the nation’s premier independent comic arts festival, and everyone knows that everyone there has at least one thing in common: a love of the medium. For a factual overview of the show, please see my SPX coverage at ICv2....

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Good Art and an Imaginative Story — With Balloons!

I love comics for a whole bunch of reasons, but one of them is seeing creative visions I never would have dreamed of. Take, for example, “Till Her Final Breath”, written by Greg van Eekhout and drawn by Sarah Winifred Searle. It’s about a super-skilled balloon animal competition. What a great idea for...

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Award-Winning Writer Announced for Supergirl Miniseries

As reported at the Hollywood Reporter, DC will launch a Supergirl miniseries at the end of December that takes a different approach to the hero. Supergirl: Being Super will be written by Mariko Tamaki, best-known for the Ignatz- and Eisner-winning This One Summer, which was illustrated by her cousin...

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Win an Original Comic Strip

In order to increase subscriptions for Ali’s House, creators Marguerite Dabaie and Tom Hart are holding a raffle. Ali’s House is syndicated at gocomics.com. To enter to win one of three Ali’s House original strips, do the following before October 1: Create a free account at gocomics.com. Subscribe to...

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Winners of the 2016 Ignatz Awards

The winners of the 2016 Ignatz Awards were announced tonight at the Small Press Expo (SPX) in Bethesda, Maryland. The Ignatz is a festival prize, with winners determined by voting by those who actually attended the show today. I previously posted the nominee list; here are the winners, as introduced...

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Bread & Butter #1

In Bread & Butter #1, Liz Mayorga uses familiar elements — the dreams and struggles of a young artist working a restaurant service job — to comment on the lure of a place. She creates an engrossing portrait of today’s urban culture through the semi-autobiographical character of Liana, who went to...

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Doctor Who: The Third Doctor #1

Out this Wednesday is the newest in the ever-expanding Titan Comics Doctor Who line. Doctor Who: The Third Doctor features the likeness of Jon Pertwee, who played the Doctor between 1970 and 1974. Paul Cornell, who’s written Doctor Who novels and actual TV show episodes, knows his stuff. This five-issue...

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Ares & Aphrodite

Ares & Aphrodite is the graphic novel equivalent of a beach read, a romance set in Hollywood with plenty of spicy tricks and sparkly back-and-forth dialogue. If this was a movie — and sometimes it reads as though it wants to be — it’d be a classic romantic comedy. Will Ares is a successful divorce...

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Master Keaton Volume 7

As a mature series, Master Keaton has settled into a groove that I find more enjoyable than I thought I would. That makes sense, since this volume seven is just past the halfway point of the eventual 12-volume Viz English run. (Assuming I’ve counted correctly. The Japanese series ran 18 books of 8 chapters...

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DC Super Hero Girls: Finals Crisis

I’m glad to see that, in all the material they’ve brought out to sell under the DC Super Heroes Girls brand, that they remembered to make a comic. This original graphic novel (written by Shea Fontana, art by Yancey Labat) is actually thicker (128 pages), glossier (with colorful, shiny paper), and slightly...

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The Flash: The Complete Second Season

The Flash is, by my definition, the most successful superhero show currently airing. It captures the teamwork, the struggle, the adventure, the responsibility, and sometimes even the fun of having powers. (Although they still need to figure out just what to do with Iris West.) The second season of the...

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Giant Days #18

Out this coming Wednesday is the latest issue of Giant Days, the college series by John Allison (writing) and Max Sarin (art). It’s the end of the first year of school, and as storylines wrap up, the girls are facing the prospect of change. There’s a scandal with someone selling papers to students and...

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Ghastly Tales

Out next Wednesday is a digital one-shot anthology collecting three spooky tales written by Marguerite Bennett (Bombshells) and atmospherically illustrated by Varga Tomi. The high point of Ghastly Tales is the first story, “Koi”. Set in ancient Japan, it’s about love gone wrong and revenge with a twist....

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