Issue Description

Boasting a new format and design, The Comics Journal #288 has arrived to enlighten, entertain and irritate comics connoisseurs in all the ways you’ve come to know and love, bringing you comics, commentary and of course the judgement of experts! Check it out:

Interviews with some of the year’s most interesting cartoonists, including Exit Wounds author Rutu Modan, I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets: The Comics of Fletcher Hanks editor Paul Karasik, Alice in Sunderland author Bryan Talbot, The Salon creator Nick Bertozzi, Stop Forgetting to Remember cartoonist Peter Kuper, and Percy Gloom author Cathy MalkasianPicks for the best comics of the past year by Tony Millionaire, Dan Nadel, Paul Gravett, Paul Karasik, Kristy Valenti, R.C. Harvey, Noah Berlatsky and a host of other critics and cartoonistsIn this issue’s comics section, a complete serial from June Tarpé Mills’ classic WWII-era adventure strip, Miss Fury (whose glamorous, panther-skin-suited star was the first super heroine created by a female cartoonist), plus an appreciation of its creator by cartoonist and historian Trina RobbinsReviews of Winsor McCay’s Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, Jason Shiga’s Bookhunter, the final issue of Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise, and many other notable recent comics and graphic novelsTom Crippen’s look at the life and career of Marvel Comics architect Stan LeeR.C. Harvey on edgy content (or the lack thereof) in today’s newspaper strips

As always, we’ve got excerpts from the new issue on the TCJ website, including extracts of Joe Sacco’s interview with Rutu Modan and Michael Dean’s conversation with Paul Karasik, as well as the introduction and index to our big year-in-review section.

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.

Please first Sign In before leaving a review.

Status: Not in Collection