Issue Description

Buckle up for a wild ride, as Bob Levin interviews underground-comix legend S. Clay Wilson and survives to tell the tale. This definitive profile covers Wilson’s career and artistic philosophies — but more to the point, it’s a conversation with S. Clay Motherfucking Wilson, which means that it’s anybody’s guess what he’ll say next. This is, as they say, one for the books.

Also in this issue: Box Office Poison author Alex Robinson talks comics with Tom Crippen; Noah Van Sciver presents a cartoon interview with The Poor Bastard creator Joe Matt; an extensive comics section featuring the Center for Cartoon studies’ 2008 graduating class; R.C. Harvey reports from the annual gathering of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists; Dan Vado remembers the beginning of California’s Alternative Press Expo; a preview of Yuichi Yokoyama’s forthcoming book Travel; and much, much more.

We’ve got our usual excerpts and teasers on the TCJ.com website, including bits from the S. Clay Wilson and Alex Robinson interviews, plus an excerpt from R.C. Harvey’s AAEC report.

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