Devin’s Comics NEWS Digest - May 10, 2024

Number Four, for those keeping track

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

We’ll start with the biggest (and probably longest) news: an analysis of the 2023 BookScan numbers, breaking down comics sales in North America for the entire year. It’s a lot to take in, but the editor thankfully includes bullet points if you don’t feel like reading so many numbered columns. Personally, my big takeaway is how Scholastic and graphic novels continue dominating the market.

In related news, Forbes looked at how the New York City Public Schools’ Civics for All Comics Group has outsold Big Two books to quietly become one of the largest comics publishers in America. They appear to focus on subject matter that would make them the target of bans in other states, so good for them.

In international, comics-adjacent news, it looks like a North Korean animation company did some work for the adaptations of Invincible and Iyanu: Child of Wonder. I feel like there’s a lot more nuance that could be gleaned from this story than “Oh no, the Communists drew our superheroes!”, including the punishing expectations of Amazon specifically and the animation industry generally, how sanctions can hurt civilians, and the unforeseen long-term effects of outsourcing and globalization.

In other international news, Iranian cartoonist Atena Farghadani was arrested by intelligence agents from the Revolutionary Guard for attempting to post a cartoon near the presidential palace. This is a chilling story, and at the time of writing she still hasn’t been released.

Last month, Abrams ComicArts launched a new manga imprint, Kana. Anything that allows for more translations to get into the hands of discerning readers is okay by me.

The sad death of manga creator Akira Toriyama prompted one business publication to look at the vast difference between the circumstances that led to his unprecedented success and the impossibility of replicating it for many manga creators working today.

In labor news, this article in The Nation called attention to many of the systemic issues facing freelancers and raised awareness for the Freelancer Solidarity Challenge. I know some people reading this are freelance creators, and a lot of you probably know others who are. Please forward this information and encourage them to take advantage of this opportunity for transparency.

To bring this back to comics, the Cartoonist Cooperative published the results of their 2023 Comics Worker Survey, which had more than 100 respondents from the United States who shared information on topics like page rates, advances, and hours worked. I can’t stress enough how important this kind of solidarity is for creatives, especially when their talents and work are seen as commodities to be exploited by people who couldn’t care less about art.

Criticism & Interviews

I’m a huge fan of Emil Ferris and My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book One is largely responsible for the Comics Book Club. The Library Journal printed an interview with her that is full of kindness and sheds some light on Book Two.

The Defector published this really insightful look at Magneto, Marvel’s “most famous Jewish character,” that includes the entire history of the character and incorporates current events. It tangentially reminded me of this brilliant piece by Ritesh Babu about the limitations of the creative teams who have depicted the X-Men over the decades and their role as the Marvel universe’s oppressed minority population.

Here’s a fun article from SOLRAD in which writer Desmond Reed looks at some of the mini comics in his collection. I love mini comics!

Awards

Speaking of mini comics, the Cartoonist Cooperative (the same group that provided the Worker Survey above) held the 2024 Minicomic Awards (don’t yell at me about the spacing inconsistency, I’m following the formatting of the awards themselves and feel bad enough as it is). Winners were announced in five categories. I love the range of styles on display!

More recently, the H.E.R.O.I.C. Awards were held at C2E2 and presented by printing service Comix Wellspring to honor indie comics. I didn’t end up making it to the ceremony, so I was glad that it was recorded. (Fair warning, though: That video doesn’t start until about 32 minutes in.)

Emily Carroll’s A Guest in the House won in the Graphic Novel/Comics category at the 44th Annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about this book, so we should probably look into it for 2025.

The Graphic Medicine International Collective announced the 2024 shortlists for their awards. The winners will be announced in Athlone, Ireland on July 18. I’d never heard of this organization before and all of the comics listed here are new to me. They all sound incredible, and I hope to look into them more in the future.

Obituaries

Finally, and sadly, political cartoonist Don Wright passed away at 90 years old. As noted above, political cartoons are as vital now as they’ve ever been. Reading through his obituary, it could be hard to believe that some of the work sampled is from more than three decades ago instead of three days. Wright won the Pulitzer Prize twice and drew around 11,000 cartoons. He will be missed.

That’s all for this month. Feel free to subscribe if you haven’t already. The Comics Book Club will be meeting again on May 15 to discuss Superman Smashes the Klan, and you can expect another one of these in early June. Thanks again for everything.