We knew it was only a matter of time until a book like this showed up on our shelves. To anyone interested in getting started in digging deeper into the amazing riches buried beneath the surface of the comics page, Heer and Worcester's A Comics Studies Reader is one of the best shovels money can buy.  Sure to become the default primary source text for many a Comics Studies 101 class -- as well as becoming the go to text for the comics unit in pop culture classes -- CSR is provides a number of different critical approaches to the subject, in the process providing its readers with some valuable interpretive tools.  Following the editors' introduction and Thierry Groensteen's overview essay, "Why Are Comics Still in Search of Cultural Legitimization?", the book is divided into four sections, each of which receives its own editorial intro: Historical Considerations; Craft, Art, Form; Culture, Narrative, Identity; Scrutiny and Evaluation.  While everyone will doubtless have their own ideas about what should constitute a volume such as this, and there are certainly writers whose work we were disappointed not to see included, second guessing is easy.  This is a fine survey of the burgeoning field of critical approaches to comics that serves its primary purpose quite well:  to stimulate the intellects of students and scholars of all stripes and hep the rest of the world to what we've known all along:  comics contain a motherlode of cultural treasures that will amply reward any and all who dedicate themselves to its study.

edited by Michel Choquette  Well, here's something you don't see everyday:  a comics anthology that has been completed but unable to find a publisher for nearly forty years, finally being published!  As readers of The Comics Journal #299 – the cover feature of which was an in-depth article on the history of this volume – already know, this volume had reached a legendary/mythical status.  Robert Greenfield's introduction squarely situates the work contained in this volume as a document of "The Sixties," While comics critic/historian Jeet Heer's foreword provides ample context and background for the comics work the book contains as well as a chronology of its epic 40-year journey from inception to publication.  We've barely dipped out toes in this majorly oversize – 11" x 17" – 216 page, full color hardcover volume containing 120 comic strips by 169 creators, so we're not going to say much about the contents at this time, but we will provide you with some of the contributors, and let you do the math:  Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, C.C. Beck, Wallace Wood, Harvey Kurtzman, Arnold Roth, Don Martin, Gahan Wilson, Bobby London, Trina Robbins, Vaughn Bodé, Steve Englehart, Archie Goodwin, Denny O'Neil, Ralph Reese, Alan Weiss, Herb Trimpe, Frank Zappa, Harlan Ellison, William S. Burroughs, Roy Thomas, Barry Smith (before he added Windsor) Guido Crepax, Ralph Steadman, Leo & Diane Dillon, Walter & Louise Simonson, Justin Green, Bill Griffith, Red Grooms, Russ Heath, Jay Kinney, Denis Kitchen, (a very young) Art Spiegelman, (also very young) Stan Mack, Ever Meulen,  Joost Swarte, Tom Wolfe,  Federico Fellini, and many, many more!  Also included is a "92-drawing take on Choquette's travels by Michael Fog" that parallels and brackets the comics the volumes contains.  Surprisingly (at least to us), the intent to create an interweaving bracketing tale was a component of the original volume's conception, and blank spaces were deliberately left in many of the pages at Choquette's instruction. 

NOW ON SPECIAL!

We knew it was only a matter of time until a book like this showed up on our shelves. To anyone interested in getting started in digging deeper into the amazing riches buried beneath the surface of the comics page, Heer and Worcester's A Comics Studies Reader is one of the best shovels money can buy.  Sure to become the default primary source text for many a Comics Studies 101 class -- as well as becoming the go to text for the comics unit in pop culture classes -- CSR is provides a number of different critical approaches to the subject, in the process providing its readers with some valuable interpretive tools.  Following the editors' introduction and Thierry Groensteen's overview essay, "Why Are Comics Still in Search of Cultural Legitimization?", the book is divided into four sections, each of which receives its own editorial intro: Historical Considerations; Craft, Art, Form; Culture, Narrative, Identity; Scrutiny and Evaluation.  While everyone will doubtless have their own ideas about what should constitute a volume such as this, and there are certainly writers whose work we were disappointed not to see included, second guessing is easy.  This is a fine survey of the burgeoning field of critical approaches to comics that serves its primary purpose quite well:  to stimulate the intellects of students and scholars of all stripes and hep the rest of the world to what we've known all along:  comics contain a motherlode of cultural treasures that will amply reward any and all who dedicate themselves to its study.

<<•>>  conducted, edited and compiled by Robin McConnell; introduction by Jeet Heer  <<•>>  Here we have an print edition collection of interviews culled from the unparalleled archives that Robin McConnell has amassed over the last five years of his Vancouver-based radio show.  McConnell has been universally praised as both a sensitive and responsive interviewer and as a knowledgeable and tasteful comics connoisseur.  The interview subjects included in this volume span a wide swath of the (North American) comics universe.  In addition, it is worth noting that Inkstuds not only includes many of our finest contemporary comics practitioners, but also important non-creator members of the comics community as well:  Kate Beaton, Gabrielle Bell, Marc Bell, Jonathan Bennett, Chester Brown, David Collier, Jordan Crane, Rebecca Dart, Kim Deitch, Mary Fleener, Sammy Harkham, Jeet Heer, Jaime Hernandez, Jeff Lemire, Jason Lutes, Billy Mavreas, Françoise Mouly, Dan Nadel, Marv Newland, Anders Nilsen, Joe Ollmann, Gary Panter, Joe Sacco, Seth, Tom Spurgeon, Ted Stearn, Barron Storey, Jillian Tamaki, and Carol Tyler.