I was sorry to hear that Comic Foundry, “the best comic magazine being published” (to quote myself), will stop publishing after issue 5. Editor-in-Chief Tim Leong posted today I’m sorry to admit that I’ve reached the unfortunate point where my career no longer allows enough time to do the magazine. “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well,” my high school journalism teacher used to say. In this case, I’d rather cease publication than put out issues we don’t have […]

Kyle Baker’s How to Draw Stupid and Other Essentials of Cartooning is, as you might gather from the title, not your typical instruction book. Many how-to manuals inadvertently reveal more about the writer and their philosophy of life than intended. This one puts that material front and center. It’s not really a book about drawing, but about being a cartoonist, with all that entails. And the advice itself is simple, beginning with the very basic. If you want to be […]

Review by KC Carlson In his Forward, DC President and Publisher Paul Levitz states that there really isn’t a “DC Vault”. I, politely, beg to differ. While there may be no DC Vault like Scrooge McDuck’s legendary vault, or the original Fortress of Solitude with its vault-like door and giant key, there is a real DC Vault — and I worked there for about 8 years. It’s the DC office itself, currently in midtown Manhattan, filled with creative, intelligent, and […]

Comic Foundry issue 4 was due out on Wednesday, but it’s unfortunately been delayed a week (until October 15), which means I’ve been giving a reprieve and can barely squeak out my comments on the previous issue. I still haven’t finished reading the whole thing — there’s a lot of interesting, varied content here — but I’m confident that this is still accurate: it’s the best comic magazine being published. After a rough start, issue #2 made some important improvements, […]

I’m covering here reference works, not how-to books, of which there are more than enough. I’ve previously reviewed two how-to books: Manga Secrets is straight-forward and includes the basics, while Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga is satiric. You’ll learn from it, but you’ll learn more what NOT to do. And you’ll laugh while doing it. Anyway, on to the books about manga. Manga! Manga! Frederik L. Schodt provided the first and still one of the best English-language books covering […]

The Great Women Superheroes Kitchen Sink Press, 1996 The Great Women Superheroes is pretty much what it sounds like. Trina Robbins’ author’s note provides some useful clarification: This book is called The Great Women Superheroes, rather than An Encyclopedia of Women Superheroes, so that I could include only those whom I felt to be the best, the worst, the silliest, or the most interesting. … I had to define superheroines as those comic book heroines who fit in at least […]