Devin’s Comics NEWS Digest - February 7, 2025

Whooo boy. . .

Hello, everyone! This is the Comics 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

Where to begin? This year is off to one hell of a start and there’s no easy way to discuss some of it. I see people complaining about comics spaces that focus too much on “politics” or lament that there is a self-serious tone on this platform, but there are people suffering and anxious out there. Also, Art isn’t created in a vacuum, and that’s something I’ve tried to highlight with these digests. I hope my readers appreciate these things. Anyway, that’s enough of a preamble, let’s get to the news.

My heart goes out to those who suffered through the wildfires in the Los Angeles area. Many people lost their homes, their belongings, and their lives, including several creators and retailers in the comics community. The Comic Book Couples Counseling Podcast provided a good list of resources on their Patreon page (scroll to the bottom), including the World Central Kitchen, the California Community Foundation, and the GoFundMe pages of several creators.

Tini Howard

also provided a link to Letters from Altadena: Wildfire Relief in a recent edition of her newsletter,

The Scorpio Room

. She’s also running this GoFundMe campaign for writer Vita Ayala. Please help however you can. If you know of any verified ways to help, provide links in the comments.

Allegations against writer Neil Gaiman first surfaced back in July, but new reporting at Vulture has provided greater depth and horrifying details. (I’ve been told certain elements of the story regarding the Church of Scientology have been removed from the article, so here’s an archived link.) Either way, please take the content warnings seriously. This is a long and difficult read, and if you are in any way triggered by descriptions of abuse, I strongly advise skipping it. Since its publication, the woman at the center of that article has filed a lawsuit against him and his wife at the time, musician Amanda Palmer, for human trafficking.

Predictably, Neil Gaiman has denied the allegations. Several adaptations of his work are now on hold or in limbo and Dark Horse has canceled the comics adaptation of his book Anansi Boys. Kris Simon had a clear and cogent take on the whole situation over at her

Editor Girl’s Substack

that I recommend reading.

In more atrocious news, Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Darrin Bell was arrested on charges of possession of child pornography and possession of images of child pornography created using generative AI. The latter charge became a law this year in California.

The Angoulême International Comics Festival wrapped up earlier this week, but not without some controversy; specifically, the participation of cartoonist Bastien Vivès, who appeared at this year’s festival for signings of his latest work, but was disinvited in 2022 and is currently under investigation for his work promoting pedophilia and incest.

Another awful development in comics is that Diamond Comic Distributors has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Instead of being the collapse of a monopoly and cause for celebration, this leaves a lot of indie publishers vulnerable. Black Panel Press is owed tens of thousands of dollars, and another publisher announced that they may cease operations entirely.

One of the most troubling parts of this whole story for me is that Diamond’s biggest unsecured creditor is also its biggest competitor, Penguin Random House. Diamond is now looking to sell the business by April 1 to avoid layoffs and the closure of their Hunt Valley headquarters. We’ll see how this all shakes out in the coming months.

As if all that wasn’t bad enough for comics, publisher IDW reported a loss for the fourth quarter and all of 2024. Penguin Random House is their distributor and told IDW to “prepare for losses” if they couldn’t collect from Diamond.

In sad news for comics criticism and commentary, the website Women Write About Comics (WWAC) announced that they are temporarily shutting down. They’ve been in operation for ten years and have provided a lot of fun and insight. I hope this hiatus is short.

In book ban news, the Trump administration wasted no time in having the Department of Education dismiss complaints about book bans and eliminating the position of Book Ban Coordinator at the Office of Civil Rights. They try to frame it as a “parents’ rights” issue, but I hope we all know that’s a smokescreen meant to impose the will of some parents on everyone. You can read the Authors Against Book Bans statement about it here. As an aside, here’s A Practical Guide to Resisting Censorship. Might need to print that out.

In hopeful news, the U.S. Copyright Office issued new guidelines that art generated using only generative AI cannot be copyrighted, regardless of how curated the prompt. That “only” does a lot of heavy lifting, and the Copyright Office did leave the door open for copyrighting the prompts themselves or revisiting the issue if genAI makes any significant advances. This is far from the final word on this matter.

I’ll be honest, I’m sometimes skeptical when I get comics news from a financial publication. Something about it leans too heavily on one side of the “art v. commerce” scales and makes me think the comics being discussed are only being taken seriously as IP or investments. But after the slog I’ve just treated you to, let’s simply enjoy Mattel and TOKYOPOP creating manga together. Specifically, Barbie and Hot Wheels “manga-style” graphic novels. Sure, why not?

I would like to end this section with some good news, so I’m happy to share that Mad Cave Studios announced a couple of promotions and new leadership hires, including Maya Lopez, who I met last year at C2E2, as Senior Marketing Manager. Congratulations, Maya!! This is well deserved.

Last month, I shared the story of Kenyan cartoonist Kibet Bull, who was believed to have been kidnapped because of his artwork criticizing the government. I’m happy to share that he has been released, along with four other victims, and reunited with his family. Many people remain missing and many questions remain unanswered.

Interviews & Criticism

I’ve shared a few resources on lettering and articles about the working conditions in manga here before, and Gizmodo had an excellent group interview about what it’s like to work as a letterer in manga right now with some of the top professionals in the field. They also published a companion piece talking to manga translators, which was very illuminating.

While on the subject of translation, the academic journal Translation Matters had this article comparing European and Brazilian Portuguese onomatopoeia in their respective manga translations. I know that’s an incredibly niche subject, but that’s part of why I found it fascinating.

Speaking of manga, David Harper at SKTCHD shared a personal look at how he started reading it last year. I wish more comics people would follow his example.

There’s always speculation about “the next big thing” in comics, and I’ve seen a few people wondering what genre will dominate the artform next. We’re in a golden era of horror comics, and it looks like steampunk is about to enjoy some time in the sun. Here’s a rundown of the past year from The Steampunk Explorer, including a look at Last Ride of the 4 Horsemen from writer

Kevin LaPorte

.

In a special feature for SOLRAD, Samuel Edme wrote about attending comic events as a neurodivergent person.

Gina Gagliano over at The Comics Journal provided an in-depth look at how proposed tariffs could impact comics publishers. (I’m putting this here because the main news section was depressing enough and I’m counting it more as analysis, since these stupid tariffs are still sort of up in the air at time of writing.) More than one third of comics are printed in two of the biggest countries being threatened with tariffs, China and Canada.

As a fun aside, SKTCHD also had this look at the history of Marvel Universe trading cards. I’ll admit I was a big collector of these back in the day, and they remain a huge touchstone for superhero fans of my generation.

Scott Cederlund at From Cover to Cover wrote this piece about Paul Chadwick’s Concrete as a type of inversion of superhero comics. Concrete was one of the first indie comics I ever read and I wish more people knew about it.

There were two surveys of political cartoonists recently. Fast Company interviewed Barry Blitt, Jack Ohman, and Jen Sorensen, the second of whom provided the bleak pull quote for the title: “I won the Pulitzer Prize and I’m busking on a corner.” He also was interviewed by The Comics Journal along with several others about the current state of political cartooning.

Rounding out this section are two excellent reviews over at SOLRAD of a couple comics from two of the best indie publishers. First, Tony Wei Ling writes about When to Pick a Pomegranate by Yasmeen Abedifard (Silver Sprocket). Second, Elias Rosner reviews The Last Delivery by Evan Dahm (Iron Circus Comics).

Awards

For anyone interested in comics criticism, Tiffany Babb is offering mini grants of $250. Applications are open until February 28 and can be filled out here.

For manga creators, Pixiv and Clip Studio Paint are accepting submissions for the Global Comic Awards 2025 until March 31.

Circling back to France, Anouk Ricard won the Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. However, Marjane Satrapi refused the country’s highest honor, the Legion d’Honneur, because of “a hypocritical attitude towards Iran” from the French government.

The Asian Pacific American Awards for Literature were announced last month, and included a few comics among the nominees and winners, including Advocate by Eddie Ahn for Best Adult Nonfiction Honor, Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham for Young Adult Honor, and Children’s Winner Continental Drifter by Kathy MacLeod.

The 18th Japan International Manga Award was given out by Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Entries came from 95 countries, including seven that were submitting for the first time. Also in its 18th year, the Manga Taisho Awards announced their nominations.

Obituaries

Last month, I linked to this interview of Jules Feiffer on the event of his 95th birthday. Sadly, he passed away less than a month later from congestive heart failure. He was one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century and his work will be studied for many centuries to come.

Longtime ICv2 contributor Steve Bennett died late last year “between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.” He wrote the column “Confessions of a Comic Book Guy” for nearly twenty years and was known as “a kind and thoughtful person.”

Finally, comics retailer Mike Ferrero of Fat Jack’s Comicrypt in New Jersey passed away last month.

That’s all for this month. Did I miss anything? Comment below if I have. Feel free to subscribe if you haven’t already. The Comics Book Club will be meeting again on February 19 to discuss My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book Two. Thanks again for everything.