Here’s a brilliant free read: How to Study Comics & Graphic Novels: A Graphic Introduction to Comics Studies by Enrique del Rey Cabero, Michael Goodrum, and José Morlesín Mellado, available online at Issuu (found via Ben Towle). It’s put out by the Oxford Comics Network, part of TORCH, The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities. And it’s wonderful, a comic that’s chock-full of information on how to read comics. It covers terminology (comic or graphic novel?), specialized terms (panel, gutter, […]

Out January 26 is Patience & Esther: An Edwardian Romance, an adults-only graphic novel by S.W. Searle that’s absolutely adorable. I know, weird adjective for explicit erotica, but nevertheless… it’s the story of Patience, a servant girl finding love and herself in Edwardian England. Her partner, Esther, introduces her to pleasure and progressivism, as they encounter suffragettes and changing times.

Melanie Gillman has been talking about foraging, finding wild foods, on their Twitter recently. Now, they’ve assembled 18 pages of advice on one particular natural food source, acorns, into a pay-what-you-want PDF comic. Eating Acorns: A Foraging Guide is available via Gumroad. Even if you would never eat something you picked off the ground, it’s a fascinating source of information. In addition to a handful of recipes for acorn flour, Gillman has a wonderful, poetic section on why they forage […]

I try not to cross the streams too often here, because y’all presumably come to find out about comics (and related movies and books), not my weird continuing obsession with Sherlock, but there is an ongoing fan comic on Tumblr that makes me extraordinarily happy whenever I see it. As created by Kitten-Kin, it started with the idea that Sherlock (as seen on TV, with the black coat and blue scarf) is actually a shape-shifting alien, as shown here. Of […]

I greatly appreciate the author of the Cells at Work! manga, Akane Shimizu, putting together this image, shared by Kodansha Comics. It makes sense, given the subject of the comic, and it’s a timely reminder.

At TCAF one year, I think it was, I picked up this adorable small art book from the artist who goes by Question No. 6. (You may know her from her variant covers for the Sherlock and Doctor Who comics.) The Exhibition of Girls’ Excuses is a series of retro-styled pinups, thankfully labeled in English, about annoyances women face. Here are a few I particularly liked: And this one seems particularly timely: I wish I could tell you where to […]

No, that’s not the title Dustin Harbin gave his comic, published by the New York Times last August; he (or they) called it “The Shame of Crowdfunding Health Care”. But it’s the same thing, really. This is a late mention — although you can still donate to the GoFundMe for his medical costs — but I want to capture it for posterity. In short, Harbin had a bicycle crash and landed on his face, which required significant repair work to […]

Melanie Gillman has posted a short, informative comic essay on horror for kids, or as they put it, “why some kids like to read books that scare them, and why you should let them.” I don’t enjoy the genre myself, but their essay gave me plenty to think about and let me better understand what some get from that kind of entertainment. Some great panel image choices, too.