Issue Description

This issue, TCJ editor Gary Groth interviews one of the giants of the comics industry, Batman co-creator Jerry Robinson. Robinson's career spans the history of the medium, from the early days of comic books to the glory days of newspaper strips, all the way to the present day. Along the way, Robinson reveals the darker side of the comic-book industry's sleazy past and offers a unique, well-travelled view of where it's gone since, in a no-holds-barred conversation you won't want to miss! Also, Tom Spurgeon talks to Renee French, author of Marbles in My Underpants and The Soap Lady, whose unsettling style and absorbing storytelling talents have made her a cult figure in the comics medium. Rich Kreiner offers a detailed examination of the work of Marvel Comics' most popular writer, Brian Michael Bendis. This issue's comics section spotlights a long selection of rare, pre-Popeye Thimble Theater dailies by Elsie Segar! Plus: all the news, criticism and commentary you've come to expect from the art form's most authoritative magazine, The Comics Journal!

The Comics Journal (1976)

Publisher

Fantagraphics

Volume Description

The Comics Journal is a magazine that covers the comics medium from an arts-first perspective, and one of the nation's most respected single-arts magazines, providing its readers with an eclectic mix of industry news, commentary, professional interviews, classic comics sections and reviews of current work on a regular basis. Due to its reputation as the American magazine with an interest in comics as an art form, the Journal has subscribers worldwide, and in this country serves as an important window into the world of comics for several general arts and news magazines.

Despite a contentious relationship with the rest of the North American comics industry, due in no small part to its investigative news stories and uncompromising review section, the Journal has won several industry awards, most notably the Utne Reader, Eisner and Harvey trophies.

In October 2009, we announced the next phase of the evolution of The Comics Journal, beginning in 2010 as a uniquely sized and formatted, evocatively visual and tactile semi-annual event, with expanded content at The Comics Journal website TCJ.com.

A comics magazine, which originally began as the New Nostalgia Journal, started in 1976 by Gary Groth and Mike Catron after the Nostalgia Journal (which ran 26 issues) lost their battle against the competing adzine, The Buyer's Guide. Gary and Mike, both in their twenties, had no plan, but somehow convinced the maker of the Nostalgia Journal to give them the paper.

As Gary Groth recalls:

I can’t remember how we talked them into this, but I suspect they were on their last legs and decided to hell with it, let’s give it to these two kids. Shortly thereafter, a box arrived in the mail with some back issues, a list of advertisers and a mailing list, and we were the proud new owners of Journal.

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Status: Not in Collection