What’s going on in the Comic Book World? Life can be pretty busy, so we highlight recent news and articles that may catch your interest in our fourth edition of Comic Book News.
This month sees the release of Crumb: A Cartoonist’s Life, a biography by Dan Nadel, a curator and writer specializing in comics and art who “shares how this complicated artist survived childhood abuse, fame in his twenties, more fame, and came out the other side intact.”
If you are not familiar with Robert Crumb, here is a short introduction by publisher Scribner: “Robert Crumb is often credited with single-handedly transforming the comics medium into a place for adult expression, in the process pioneering the underground comic book industry, and transforming the vernacular language of 20th-century America into an instantly recognizable and popular aesthetic, as iconic as Walt Disney or Charles Schulz.”
Chris Vognar at the Los Angeles Times wrote about the book:
Generously illustrated with work from throughout Crumb’s career, “Crumb” is an artist biography that astutely connects the work to the life story without forcing or simplifying anything. It works as cultural history and criticism; you won’t find a sharper analysis of the underground comix movement. Nadel honors the complexity of his subject, even, perhaps particularly, when it gets ugly.
As well as Marc Weingarten at The Boston Globe:
Nadel’s gripping and essential book makes good on this claim; his biography is the story of how one highly flawed and preternaturally gifted man augured a revolution in comic book storytelling with his discomfiting, sexually frank, intensely personal oeuvre.
And to conclude, Publisher’s Weekly talked with Nadel about the book:
The nice and extremely gratifying thing about working on this book is that my appreciation of his work just grew and grew and grew. I never got sick of it. That was one reason I didn’t want it to end. Not that I have to stop looking at the work now, but I found it so profoundly rich.
- Skybound’s Transformers Compendium Set Kickstarter raised over $2 million in the first two days. It was funded in 2 minutes. There are still 25 days before the end.
- Alien Books To Publish Zorro Comics Through IDW Publishing.
- Hellboy creator Mike Mignola is returning in Summer 2025, teaming up with artist Giuseppe Manunta for a brand new Hellboy one-shot.
- While the Vertigo imprint was recently relaunched, D. Emerson Eddy on Comics Beat highlights Hex Wives which part of Vertigo’s excellent last wave, a fun spin on the Stepford Wives formula, with witches and an organization of men keeping them prisoner.
- “The Comic-Book Artist Who Mastered Space and Time“. Art Spiegelman on Jules Feiffer, who died in January, taught him.
- Marvel’s ‘Immortal Thor’ ending in July with issue #25. It will set the stage for Ewing’s new take on the God of Thunder launching later this year.
- Diamond’s asset sale to Alliance has collapsed into chaos. Diamond Comic Distributors asked the court to ignore Alliance’s winning bid in favor of the back-up, leading to a new lawsuit on behalf of Alliance Entertainment.
- The Wonder Woman of DC Comics: In 1976, Jenette Kahn became the first female head of DC Comics and now the subject of a 10-minute audio episode of Witness History.
- Before the Superman movie, which will be released in July 2025, learn more about Maxwell Lord, Master Manipulator on Comic Book Treasury!