Devin’s Comics NEWS Digest - April 12, 2024
I thought adding the publication date would help
Hello, everyone! Welcome back to the NEWS digest, an aggregation of all the top comics and comics-related stories that caught my attention that I thought you might enjoy reading. I post these two weeks after every regular newsletter.
NEWS
I’ll start with something relatively lighthearted, a story about the United States government trying to use comics to combat disinformation, which in itself isn’t a bad thing. Until you get a load of the results, which I can only describe as having big “Pokémon GO to the Polls” energy.
The week of April 7 to 13 is National Library Week, and the American Library Association released its list of the 10 Most Challenged Books of 2023. I’m proud to say we’ve already read the number one book on the list and now I have ideas on what we can read in the future.
We learned a little more about what to expect from the Big Two for Pride Month. DC Comics will be offering a special tribute issue honoring Rachel Pollack, who died last year. This is overdue and perfectly timed, and I’m looking forward to picking this up myself! Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum (and I mean that in more ways than one), we’ve got Marvel’s frankly boneheaded decision to have “Pride Allies” variant covers. Because the way you honor members of the LGBTQ+ community is by centering their straight friends.
Valiant Entertainment posted and quickly deleted a job post for a “generative AI video artist.” I hope everyone who thought this was a good idea pays attention to the results. This wasn’t the only story like it to emerge this month, but it was the one that died pretty quickly. May the rest of them follow suit.
In funnier news, Marvel editor Tom Brevoort shared a 1978 article titled “How to Start a Comic Book Empire” from Free Enterprise magazine on his blog. Written by Don Rico, it’s a six-page feature that’s equal parts laughable and infuriating. It involves Captain Free Enterprise showing a would-be “entrepreneur” how to become rich publishing comics. I can’t help but wonder if every publishing executive working today read it back in the day and took it to heart. I also wonder if
could create a crossover with Invisible-Hand-of-the-Free-Market Man.Webtoon made the news again, and not for anything good, thanks to a Reddit post criticizing their creator contracts as “unethical.” Comics Beat did an in-depth report about the claims, which included such giant red flags as Webtoon being able to buy 100% of a creator’s intellectual property, owning the print publishing rights, and owning all merchandising rights.
Crowdfunding platform Zoop has launched a new initiative for itself raising equity capital via the Republic platform. Basically, instead of contributing to an individual campaign, you can invest in Zoop itself.
In other initiative news, indie publishers Band of Bards and Dauntless Stories have joined together to form a publishing cooperative. As a fan of labor rights and creator ownership, I’m excited for this venture. If you’re looking for more information on what distinguishes a co-op from other types of corporations and how it works exactly, check out this episode of Keeping It Geekly in which leaders from both parties spell it out pretty well.
In that vein, I’d like to share this SOLRAD piece by Shea Hennum from back in February, “A Speculative Account of a Possible Future of Comics.” It might appear a bit self-indulgent to some readers, but I assure you that it’s well worth the read.
Awards
Raina Telgemeier will receive the Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers’ Literature in May from the Tulsa City-County Library. Considering how libraries and comics for young readers are under attack, I found this downright heartwarming.
The Sequential Magazine Award Winners for 2023 were announced. Sponsored by a Canadian comic shop and organized by Sequential Magazine, this award has been recognizing local indie Canadian comics since 2017. I love local indie comics, and I’ll definitely be checking these out.
Obituaries
Earlier this week, the sad news broke that Trina Robbins died at age 85. Her contributions as a creator and a historian are impossible to quantify. I had the privilege of hearing her speak on more than one occasion, and her love of comics was unmatched. A champion for women in comics, she will be dearly missed.
Artist M.D. Bright passed away on March 27 at age 68. Along with an incredibly strong body of work, he also co-created Icon and Rocket, one of the greatest superhero comics in the history of the medium, for DC’s Milestone imprint.
Scottish cartoonist John G. Miller passed away in January. Italian comics creator Alfredo Castelli died in February. Both were largely known in their home countries but had strong, distinct styles that were highly influential.
Finally, cartoonist Ed Piskor died by suicide on April 1. This came after accusations of grooming and sexual misconduct from multiple women led to several professional setbacks for him. I’m only going to link to this Comics Beat story about that because they had the decency to not publish the names of these women, who have been through enough. This is a complicated, ugly, and unfortunate story that understandably elicits a lot of strong emotions from people. Multiple things can be true at the same time, and I wish I had the time or talent to write about this with the gravity and nuance it requires.
If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, there is help available. If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse or harassment, there is help available.
That’s all for this month. Please keep the comments civil. Feel free to subscribe if you haven’t already. The Comics Book Club will be meeting again on April 17 to discuss The Incal, and you can expect another one of these in early May. Thanks again for everything.