This is an instructional video on graph coloring, which you may better know as the four-color map problem. (That says that you can color any map with four colors without areas of the same color touching.) It’s the technique of figuring out how many different colors you need to cover a graph (a collection of dots and lines) without any of the dots with the same color being connected. After an explanation of how Sudoku is a transformation of 9-coloring […]

Aftershock Comics has a new title coming out April 5 called Eleanor & the Egret. It’s written (and lettered) by John Layman (Chew, Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen) and illustrated by Sam Kieth (The Maxx), and it’s about an art thief accompanied by a giant bird. Here’s the description: A slightly surreal tale of an art thief and her sidekick, a talking egret who gets just a bit bigger after each successful caper, as they embark on a escalating series of […]

Sarah Winifred Searle has a simplified, comfortable art style that belies the honesty she’s willing to express in her work. You may have seen her art illustrating Ruined in the Fresh Romance anthology, and she has an original graphic novel coming from Iron Circus next year. In the meantime, though, she’s recently published two striking works online. At the Nib, “The Price of Acceptance” tackles the topics of struggling with dangerous ways to lose weight in order to feel accepted. […]

The insightful and fearless Keith Knight has published an essay comic called “Here’s one Obama accomplishment nobody can take away”. It ranges widely yet concisely over the recent past, with the key central point being that it matters to have had a black man serve as President of the United States. No matter what you say is possible, seeing it actually happen is important. Which is why I can’t wait to see the first female President, and the first Asian […]

I really liked this comic by Shannon Wright and Sarah Mirk, “Eight Ways To Resist Donald Trump“. It’s timely, full of useful information, and approachable. One could consider it simply an illustrated list, instead of a comic, but the images add so much emotional affect to the items. I particularly could see a full story behind the second image (shown here), with a young woman explaining something meaningful to older relatives (I assume). Plus, the hand-style lettering makes it more […]

Marvel sent out this teaser for an upcoming Secret Empire project on Friday. The email I got didn’t identify the artist; Alexander Jones says it’s John Cassaday. I know they’re just promoting some new team or crossover event starring big characters — from left to right, it’s Old Man Logan (formerly Wolverine, until Marvel decided they didn’t like any movies they didn’t make), Black Panther, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Spider-Man, Rocket Raccoon, Black Bolt, Black Widow, and Deadpool, all of […]

Lars Martinson has finally finished his Tonoharu trilogy. (I reviewed the first volume when it came out in 2008.) All told, it took him 13 years to make the three books, and he’s now put out a video discussing that process and some of the lessons he’s learned. It’s great seeing an artist do a post-mortem of a significant project, particularly since his key lesson is realizing that time is a limited resource, so you need to keep that in […]

I used to be a huge fan of the Legion of Super-Heroes, the future teen team that was first published in 1958. When I got back into comics in the 90s, I collected all the issues… which was a lot of fun, since they ran in different titles over the decades. Heck, eventually, I even collected the editor. (After meeting at a comic convention, reader, I married him 17 years ago.) When KC Carlson left the book after issue #100 […]