Sunday News Desk- July 29th, 2018

Panel

from Hip Hop Family Tree V1 by Ed Piskor

Have you ever had a moment while reading a comic that you knew you were reading something new and exciting?  For me, it was reading this panel in Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree, where he merged the form of comics with music when I knew Piskor was going to do great things in this series.

Previously on Panel Patter

Cover of the Next Week


Nick Derrington has been doing some great covers for Tom King and Mitch Gerards' Mister Miracle and here's the latest from the 9th issue.  It's one of the few drawings of Darkseid where I can remember him looking like the stony malevolent force that he's supposed to be.

Darkseid is.

This and That


*** Titan Comics to Reissue 'The Prisoner' Sequel, 'Shattered Visage' (Hollywood Reporter)-- Catching up on some last SDCC news, Graeme McMillan at HR has the announcement that Titan will be reprinting Dean Motter and Mark Askwith's The Prisoner story, originally published at DC back in the last 1980s.  This was a very trippy book that featured a labyrinth-like story but lovely coloring by David Hornung and Richmond Lewis.  I wonder if Titan will have any better luck finding an audience for this story than DC did.

In a statement supporting the re-release, Motter said, “When I was approached to do a series based on The Prisoner, I leapt at the chance. It was one of my favorite TV shows when it first aired… My thinking turned to doing it as a post-modernist fable — one that took place in the current era, but that would reopen the questions from the original saga. However, doing the research was going to take more resources than I had — so I drafted my friend and colleague, Mark Askwith, to help me with that aspect of the project. It became a collaboration almost instantly. I am honoured to see it re-presented as part of Titan's ongoing celebration of The Prisoner's ongoing 50th anniversary.”
*** On The Eisner Awards (High-Low)-- A 2017 Eisner judge, Rob Clough has a few words on this year's winners but really gets into the process of the Eisner Hall of Fame process.

Here's the other reason: once the nominees are chosen, it's up to the comics industry to vote on them. That means anyone who has been published as a writer, artist, editor, letterer at any level, as well as retailers. This may be stating the obvious, but there won't be greater diversity in the Eisner award votes without greater representation in comics itself. It is very clear that this year was an example of just that kind of diversity starting to assert itself in a public way. There are a lot of reasons why the creator pool is becoming more diverse, including but not limited to more and a greater variety of comics being available to the public now than at any other time in history; the internet wiping out gatekeeping, both in terms of consumption and creation; and the proliferation of comics schools.


*** A Trip to the Museum With Cartoonist John Porcellino (Medium) If you haven't yet, go immediately and read Gabrielle Bell's comic about visiting the Philadelphia Museum of Art With John Porcellino.  It makes Porcellino into one of the great folk stories of the alt-comics scene and shows Bell's perfect ability to capture a moment in her work.


***A comic, up for the Booker prize? About time too (The Guardian)-- Claire Napier covers the nomination of Nick Drnaso's great comic Sabrina for a Man Booker prize.
When these books are suddenly celebrated beyond comics-reader circles, we fans sometimes forget to appreciate each book for its own sake. Some will jump at the chance to prove that comics can be “serious literature”, and use this longlisting as proof, unwittingly implying that every other comic is lesser. Some will turn up their noses at any books that look like the type of comic that would be acknowledged as the worthy kind. It’s hard to stay focused on what we enjoy about the comics form when one book, hewing close to one stylistic ideal, ends up being seen as representing an entire form.


*** Switching Gears: Annie Koyama Will Shutter Press in 2021 to Focus on Patronage (The Comics Journal)-- This one hits us kind of hard here at Panel Patter because we love so many of her books but Annie Koyama announces via TCJ that she'll be shutting down her publishing house in a couple of years.  But it's kind of exciting to think about what she can help accomplish as she moves her efforts from publishing to patronage. Koyama has always had a fantastic eye for art that deserves an audience so it's great news to know that she'll still have a hand in that.

“I am choosing the artists because I like their work,” Koyama said. “I feel that they deserve a higher profile. I know that they can’t do it on their own. What I am most interested in is taking people who are known for one discipline and for example, helping them to try another discipline. For example, people who are good at drawing already but really want to work on a little stop motion animation. Or they want to go off and learn to play the trumpet, try sculpture, learn printmaking or start community art related initiatives.”

 *** REP. JOHN LEWIS' RUN Release Pushed Back a Full Year (Newsarama)-- Chris Arrant tracks down information the delay of John Lewis' Run, his followup to March, which was supposed to be out in just a couple of months and is now pushed back to August 2019.
"Run, like March, requires tremendous attention to detail. Afua and Abrams editorial have been working from the completed manuscript since December 2017 and they need a little more time," Aydin told Newsarama. "The release date will be August 2019. We're pushing it that far so that Congressman Lewis and I have time during the August recess to be able to travel and do signings."
*** The New Mainstream (Fleen)-- Gary Tyrell, at his webcomics site Fleen, recaps an SDCC panel and relates how publishers like First Second and webcomics are carving out a new comics mainstream audience.
At the same time there’s an element not in the diagram, but which Siegel made sure to discuss: webcomics is what indies and zines used to be — a proving ground and place to develop your talent, and spans all the time frames from the birth of the Graphic Novel to today. Take a look at the milestones section above, and realize that pretty much all of those creators came up through webcomics.

Your Moment of... ?



Can I be a curmudgeon for a moment here?  No, it's not.  This has been a decent summer for comics but is it really any better than 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and on and on?  Can any summer that has given us the ultimately mediocre Bendis Superman comics be that good  And do we really measure what's a good summer and what isn't anymore?  The tweet that Bendis is retweeting from a comic shop covers this week's release of Action Comics, Doomsday Clock, Infinity Wars and Justice League Dark, all comics that are destined to be ultimately forgotten among the garbage heaps of over production from all of these comic publishers.  Don't mistake quantity for quality.

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