- Rob M. commented on Whit Taylor's cartoon about Rachel Doleful.
- In our Quick Hits this week, Scott C. covered Stumptown #6 and Harrow County #2 while Emilia P. looked at Robert Moses: The Master Builder of New York City.
- James K. looked at The Disciples #1.
- Rob M. reviewed Stray Volume 1.
- Scott C. reviewed 8House: Arclight #1 for Sound On Sight.
- Rob K. reviewed Blobby Boys 2 for The Comics Journal.
- At Comics Bulletin, James K. tweeted about a number of this week's new releases.
- And just go to The Last Askani to see the comics that Mark D. is reading and writing about the last two weeks.
** The Advocate has a great interview with Sophie Campbell about her comics Jem and the Holograms as well as Sophie's recent experience about coming out as a transgender woman.
But it was also super scary. I didn’t know how people would react, my family in particular of course, and I was worried about being fired from Jem because I was scared that IDW or Hasbro would feel like this wasn’t what they signed up for. [I worried] I [would] be committing career suicide both by throwing away the “brand” I’d built for myself and creating the possibility that I wouldn’t be able to get work anymore. I was scared of opening myself up to discrimination and transphobic trolls. It was nerve-racking — I felt sick to my stomach leading up to when I was planning to come out.I've never read many of Campbell's comics but the artwork in Jem looks like it's a lot of fun.
** This Chris Schweizer Guide to Spotting Tangents is your required reading for this week. (I just noticed that this was first posted in 2011 but it's still a lot of good information.)
A tangent is when two or more lines interact in a way that insinuates a relationship between them that the artist did not intend.
It can create confusion on the part of the audience as to what it is that they’re looking at. It can cause the spatial depth that one attempts to cultivate through the use of planes to become flattened. Most of all, it creates a decidedly unwelcome aesthetic response: tangents are just plain ugly.
There are a lot of different types of tangents, as least according to the way I define them. In order to make it easier on my students when giving critiques, I’ve categorized them and named them. This may have been done before, but I’ve not encountered it. My hope is that, by making this “spot-the-enemy” guide, fewer artists will fall into the tangent trap by knowing what to look for.
** At The Response, seven black cartoonists discuss race and their reaction to last week's killing in Charleston, SC.
Richie Pope: The Confederate flag is a tangible thing for “good guys” to rally against without really thinking about themselves. There’s not enough introspection about racism. It’s often a game of Find The Racist and if they can’t find the evil villain, then where is the racism? So I get why people want the flag taken down, but it’s not like it’s the life force of racism. Americans get a tiny tangible victory and then claim racism is over. Seeing small progresses of basic decency as the deathstroke against racism instead of being in spite of it. Like a whole group of Americans have been weight-training and the rest are like, “Damn, this five pounds sure is heavy, but I lifted it! Aren’t we both equally strong?”Richie Po: The Confederate flag is a tangible thing for “good guys” to rally against without really thinking about themselves. There’s not enough introspection about racism. It’s often a game of Find The Racist and if they can’t find the evil villain, then where is the racism? So I get why people want the flag taken down, but it’s not like it’s the life force of racism. Americans get a tiny tangible victory and then claim racism is over. Seeing small progresses of basic decency as the deathstroke against racism instead of being in spite of it. Like a whole group of Americans have been weight-training and the rest are like, “Damn, this five pounds sure is heavy, but I lifted it! Aren’t we both equally strong?”
** Image Comics is publicizing the return of Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie's Phonogram in August. If you're me, this is a good thing because Phonogram: The Singles Club is probably one of my favorite comics of this century. I wrote about it five (???) years ago and for two creators who would spend the next five years playing with format, the structure of The Singles Club still just resonates for me.
And this cover, riffing on Patrick Nagel? What's not to love here.
I'm now going to go an put on my vinyl copy of Rio and dream about 1983.
