Issue Description

Marvel Monsters and Monkey Kings make mayhem in The Comics Journal #284! Gary Groth interviews cartoonist Roger Langridge, creator of a rogue's gallery of characters such as Fred the Clown, Art d'Ecco and Knuckles the Malevolent Nun. The New Zealand native will also talk about his collaborative work, such as his recent turn as the artist for Marvel's Fin Fang Foom — and, as an added bonus, we present the complete twenty-page strip "Mugwhump's Big Night," with guest appearances by both Fred and Knuckles. Also interviewed is Xeric-winner Gene Yang, whose young-adult graphic novel, American Born Chinese, was recently nominated for a National Book Award. From the turn of the 19th century, Frederick Burr Opper's comic strip Happy Hooligan — one of the inspirations for Chaplin's Little Tramp — is examined, complete with approximately 30 Sunday strips reproduced in full color. Plus, John A. Lent on the modern Asian comics industry, R.C. Harvey on Yoshihiro Tatsumi and Hokusai, Donald Phelps on K. Thor Jensen's Red Eye, Black Eye, and much more.

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