Issue Description

The Comics Journal #287 is the latest volley in our war for the liberation of good comics! This issue, Greg Stump talks to Clumsy author Jeffrey Brown about his rise as an art-comics star, his working methods, his forays into superhero and giant-robot comics, and much more. Also, novelist and comics writer Greg Rucka discusses his breakout hit Whiteout, his prose thrillers, working for DC Comics on such titles as Gotham Central and 52, and more with interviewer Andrew Farago. (Farago also checks in with Whiteout artist Steve Lieber.)

Elsewhere in the issue: Our comics section features over 40 pages spotlighting the pre-Krazy Kat comic strips of George Herriman; Tom Crippen examines the life and legacy of longtime Superman editor Mort Weisinger; Tim O’Neil ponders DC Comics’ new online-comics initiative, Zudacomics; Rich Kreiner looks at Picturebox’s Comics Comics; plus news, reviews and much more! Of course we’ve posted excerpts to the TCJ website, in a blatant attempt to whet your appetite for more: Here are selections from the Jeffrey Brown and the Rucka and Lieberinterviews, and the first half of Tom Crippen’s Mort Weisinger essay.

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