Adaptations can be a difficult to wrangle under the best of circumstances, attempting to reframe and reshape a complete work so that it can fit into another medium. Adapting a much-beloved and acclaimed story adds another layer of complexity, and adapting something that’s already been adapted is even more difficult.…
In pop culture terms, 80 years is a long time. On the internet, pop culture moments can last for just days before they’re already over, gone in the constant stream of new content and distractions. But Batman has endured for 80 years, and last week Detective Comics #1000 (DC) marked the celebration of that anniversary.…
A Fire Story (Abrams ComicArts) is a perfect storm of a book, an individual graphic memoir that tells the larger story of a community, a comic that is the result of both long years of work and a viral internet sensation, a literal perfect storm of weather and human behavior that resulted in one of the most devastating…
Graphic memoirs by female creators are becoming a genre unto themselves, separate from the rest of the medium by sheer quantity and popularity. From Raina Telgemeier’s Smile, Sisters, and the forthcoming Guts to Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and Are You My Mother? to Thi Bui’s The Best We Could Do, many critically…
C. Spike Trotman should already be a familiar name to fans of independent comics. Trotman runs what has become the Midwest’s largest comics publisher, Iron Circus Comics. After years of wildly successful Kickstarter campaigns she became part of the Creators For Creators grant, and she managed to sign a distribution…
Biographies are a difficult genre to tackle gracefully, and graphic biographies especially so. Unlike fiction and even autobiographies, biographies require a deeply intimate understanding of the subject but also a rigorously sourced and researched understanding of history. David F. Walker has shown in works like Shaft …
Netflix had a surprise success with The End Of The Fucking World, the adaptation of Charles Forsman’s graphic novel of the same name made in partnership with U.K.’s Channel 4. Late in 2018 came the announcement that Netflix will adapt another Forsman graphic novel, 2017’s I Am Not Okay With This (Fantagraphics). It …
The gulf between manga and Western comics seems to shrink in fits and starts as some genres and titles become popular with American readers. There’s a particular gap between slice-of-life manga and American readers (though young women especially have been steady consumers of these stories). Manga provides for readers…
Berlin (Drawn & Quarterly) is an imposing book. It’s nearly two inches thick and the size of a hefty textbook, the kind that takes effort to read. The title aptly indicates exactly what the book is about: though there are more than a dozen characters that flow through the story, Berlin itself is the star of the show,…
In time for the holidays and the prospect of facing your own family drama comes Motherlands (Vertigo), a comic centering on fraught familial relationships, to put it mildly. The story revolves around Tabitha Tubach, a “retriever” licensed to pursue criminals across multiple universes, and she does so without the…
The biggest initial draw of Bitter Root #1 (Image) is the creative team. David F. Walker and Sanford Greene worked together on the much-loved and far too short-lived Power Man and Iron Fist book for just 15 issues, and the announcement of Bitter Root at last year’s Image Expo was met with a lot of enthusiasm from…
As awareness of comic books and graphic novels continue to grow among mainstream audiences, one of the biggest challenges creators face is choosing the right projects and topics to tackle in their medium. There are stories that are ill-suited to the format, and it’s always disappointing to encounter one. Che: A…
The Black Panther film came out just eight months ago, injecting the Marvel Cinematic Universe with fresh life and building on the success of Thor: Ragnarok to invigorate an increasingly overburdened franchise. And while Ta-Nehisi Coates has been guiding T’Challa though far more than the originally planned miniseries,…
If you’re unfamiliar with the name Tillie Walden because you stick to the cape-and-cowl side of the comic shop, you’re missing out on one of the most increasingly popular and well-regarded names in the comics industry. Now just 22 years old, Walden was one of the youngest-ever Eisner winners when she earned the…
What sets Woman World (Drawn & Quarterly) apart from the wealth of other webcomics that have begun to get print publishing deals isn’t an artistic quality or subject matter. Originally shared with readers via Instagram, the majority of Woman World’s story can be told in single pages, three to nine panels each. The…
The benefit of large comics publishers offering smaller imprints is that it provides a built-in space for titles that differ in some way from the main lineup. They’re often experimental or off-brand, highly creative, and deeply personal. For years, fans have been bemoaning Vertigo’s slow starvation under DC’s…
Comixology, one of the easiest platforms on which to buy and store comics, has expanded into creating original content. Much like parent company Amazon’s tactics when it comes to original video content, Comixology originals span a variety of different genres and formats and promise more to come.
Just a few short months after their previous project together came to a close, Matt Kindt and Tyler Jenkins return with a new story. At first glance, Black Badge #1 (Boom! Studios) has more in common with Lumberjanes than Grass Kings, opening with a handful of boys traveling together as part of a scouting group.…
There’s no shortage of comics addressing the state of the world, either confronting the political climate directly or with a bit more subtlety. The New World #1 (Image) is only one such vision, set in a middle future just a couple decades out that echoes the present. After nuclear blasts wiped out significant parts of…
