April 30, 2018 Johanna HarperCollins 2 comments

Positively Izzy

Positively Izzy is the sequel to Invisible Emmie by Terri Libenson. Both combine illustrated diary-style storytelling with comic format inserts to contrast visually how kids feel about themselves and how others may see them. Brianna (whom we met in the first book as Emmie’s best friend) is feeling constrained by being known as a brain. Izzy is full of imagination, creating her own stories, but she has trouble paying attention in school. Izzy gets the diary format, Brianna the comics. […]

April 30, 2018 Johanna Comic News One comment

TCAF 2018 Programming Now Available

The programming is now available for the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) 2018. They’ve put it into Guidebook, which is either an app or a website. If you log in, you can flag events and create your own schedule, complete with reminders as well as a to-do list, which I used to note which artists I want to try and meet. When it comes to panels, I hope you’ll consider attending the following, which I will be moderating: Spotlight: Hartley […]

April 29, 2018 Johanna TV News Leave a comment

Dear White People Returns May 4

Dear White People, the Netflix show based on the 2014 movie, drops all ten episodes of season two on May 4. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing review episodes, and I couldn’t stop watching this fascinating and addictive show, binging all the episodes today. Justin Simien wrote and directed the movie, and he is executive producer, director, writer and co-showrunner on this as well with Yvette Lee Bowser. As in the first season, most of the episodes center on one […]

April 29, 2018 Johanna Manga News Leave a comment

Kodansha Announces Five Digital-First Manga Series Debuts for May

Kodansha aims to put out a “more diverse and robust library of manga officially than what’s available in print” by releasing a number of series digitally. They call them “digital-first” because the most successful ones may come to print release later. For the month of May, they’ll be putting out these five new series, one per week on Tuesdays. I find it interesting that they also include the Japanese title in their press releases, which suggests they’re building on awareness […]

April 28, 2018 Johanna Oni Press / Lion Forge 2 comments

Archival Quality

This impressive debut graphic novel uses a ghost story to explore questions of medical ethics and mental health. I found myself eager to follow along with Celeste as she struggles to understand the situation she’s in in Archival Quality, written by Ivy Noelle Weir and illustrated by Steenz. Celeste’s depression and anxiety kept her from graduating college and just lost her a job she really liked. Her only option seems to be an archivist job at a creepy local museum […]

April 28, 2018 Johanna Other Publishers 2 comments

Anxiety Is Really Strange

As part of a graphic series on self-care and mind/body understanding, Steve Haines (a chiropractor who teaches Trauma Releasing Exercises) writes and Sophie Standing illustrates Anxiety Is Really Strange. (They have also done Trauma Is Really Strange and Pain Is Really Strange, while Forgiveness Is Really Strange is written by Masi Noor and Marina Cantacuzino.) It wasn’t what I expected. It’s a 32-page comic on heavy paper that reads like an illustrated essay, with related quotes as footnotes on almost […]

April 25, 2018 Johanna Comic News Leave a comment

Previews’ Digital Comic Shop Catalog Is Here — For $4

As I mentioned in my most recent Previews roundup, the comic shop ordering catalog has gone digital for consumers. (The fact that the business owner uses the same catalog as the end customer is a long-standing structural problem that goes along with the blurry line between fan and professional in the comic industry.) If you visit www.previewsworld.com/digital, you will find that it costs $3.99 a month to be able to shop, and Diamond Distributors (the owner of Previews) has typoed […]

April 25, 2018 Johanna Art One comment

Celebrate the Avengers Movie by Dressing Your Tech Gear

I wasn’t previously familiar with Skinit, but now I’m amazed that they put out so many different cases and vinyl decal skins and designs for so many types of devices: smartphones, gaming devices, tablets, laptops, headphones, and more. They have official licenses from DC, NFL, MLB, NBA, Hello Kitty, Disney, and Marvel, including for the new movie Avengers: Infinity War. That’s why they got in touch with me, because they have a whole line of Avengers designs. They sent me […]

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