Summer will kill me but Spring is Here
Welcome to Imprinted Image, my newsletter. If this is your first time here, thank you for joining me. On most Mondays I break down how comics work in a way that gives insight to seasoned wizards and new comics apprentices alike. I call this Divining Comics, because it’s an attempt to understand the magic behind things. Wednesdays are new comic days, and I’ll tell you about some of the new books to hit the stands at your local comic shop. This is the Marvelous Market.
But today is Friday, and this is where I, Spike Stonehand, take off the mask and resume life as mild mannered Stephen. Easter happened since I last wrote one of these blogs, unless of course you are Orthodox and use the old Julian calendar. In Houston, this early spring month is the only tolerable time in the city of Houston. In fact, I might go as far as saying it’s beautiful outside. I’ve been trying to walk around the neighborhood when I can, and there are plenty of TexMex restaurants less than 10 minutes of leg stretching away. I need to watch out because this many flour tortillas will add up quickly. Regardless, if you are in a place where the weather is nice, I can’t recommend enough to just walk around the area you live. Chips, guacamole, and margaritas are simply a bonus.
This week, I published an article about the recently departed Akira Toriyama. He was legendary in many ways, but one thing he was known for was his mastery of both a simplified chibi style and incredibly detailed backgrounds and machines. I wrote about his use of simplicity and detail, looking at Sand Land 1. You should check it out!
Self-Promotion
My third Zine is up! You can download a digital version FOR FREE. This includes both a readable and printable pdf, so you can print copies yourself and share with all of your friends. If you’d rather, I’ll print copies for you and send them to the continental US for $5! Buying these zines is the best way to express your love for my writing. You can also buy copies of Divining Comics # 1 print and digital and Divining Comics # 2 print and digital. That’s over 75 pages of original comics criticism in neat packages that you can share with your friends
Even if you don’t want a zine, consider giving me a donation in order to help keep this site going. I do this as a labor of love, but it would be nice to not have to worry about website fees or even to subsidize some of my comicbook reading.
While you are at it, you should follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and now Bluesky. As I mentioned before, sharing the things I write is a great benefit to me, even if you don’t actually read it yourself. You can share my posts without being aware of what they actually say. I won’t know the difference, but I’ll owe you a debt of gratitude anyway.
Movie and Comic Diary
The aforementioned move and unpacking has set back my movie watching and comic reading. Follow me on Letterboxd to guilt me into continuing to document the movies I see.
I’ve seen Grand Budapest many times now. Until Asteroid City, it was comfortably my number 1 or 2 Wes Anderson film. It’s always been clearly about the loss of a certain old world beauty and honor after the rise of fascism. This viewing, I noticed in particular the repeated beat of M. Gustave sharing kindness to someone that he isn’t expected to, and this recipient saving him when it seems like he’s in an inescapable bind. Whether it’s grieving children, elderly women, or scary criminals, Gustave’s kindness is part and parcel with the lost beauty of the titular hotel.
A first watch for me was Portrait of a Lady on Fire. This is the old kind of romance film that doesn’t exist much anymore, spiced up with its almost total female and sapphic perspective. Both of these movies feature important paintings made within the movie, interestingly enough. Learning the history behind a portrait, even a false one like in this movie, makes much of the otherwise standard and boring paintings quite fascinating.
Alongside the My Marvelous Year podcast, I have been reading Invincible. I am totally new to the comic, though I did watch the first season of the show. Their most recent episode of this Convincible sub-series covered volumes 11, 12, and 13, this time featuring the Comic Book Couples Counseling podcast. I’m actually a whole episode behind now, but I’ll catch up.
This might be my least favorite batch thus far. As was mentioned on the podcast, perhaps this is affected by reading this in a large chunk, instead of month to month. That would affect my largest issue, which is that it feels kind of relentless. Disaster to disaster, crisis to crisis, there isn’t much tension left in this series. They almost start to approach something interesting with Invincible’s growing comfort with intense violence and even murder. Perhaps this will continue to blossom in the next arc, which seems to involve Invincible going to war. Regardless, when I read in the backmatter that Kirkman wanted said war to begin at issue 50 makes a lot of the tiredness I feel reading this make sense.
A Port of Links
There has been a lot of hard comics news these past couple of weeks, so let me start with something positive. It seems like every DIY comics creator launched a kickstarter. I backed Death of Comics Bookcase, West Not South (from a fellow Houstonian!), and Tales From Exit 56. If that isn’t enough, here is a writeup on some other crowdfunding campaigns going on currently.
Ed Piskor died by apparent suicide after being accused of sending inappropriate messages to a 17 year old, among other things. His life was written up in a few places.
Mark Bright, legendary artist behind Icon, Rocket, and Quantum and Woody, passed away on the same day.
Finally, legendary feminist comic artist and historian Trina Robbins passed away. Many payed tribute to her work.
There were a lot of behind-the-scenes shakeups. Most notably, many people were fired or quit IDW, including Scott Dunbier, creator of the “Artist’s Edition” format. He is going to start his own publishing company. At the same time, Image Comics brought in a new VP and ONI Press hired and promoted several people.
Webtoon draws controversy for its allegedly exploitative contracts. Artists claim that Webtoon holds the print publishing rights and the merchandising rights for totally original creations, as well as being the agent for any deals made.
Joe Sacco, creator behind the graphic novel journalism Palestine, has a new installment in his webcomic on the War on Gaza. This is perhaps his best one yet. You can read past installments here.
Off Panel had on Rebecca Taylor, head of the Inklore imprint at Penguin Random House, and Murewa Ayodele and Dotun Akande, comic creators from Nigeria, discuss their comic Akogun.
YouTuber matttt has a new video on the life of Argentine comic creator Héctor Germán Oesterheld, who was killed during the dirty war for his political comics.
Question of the Week
What state do you live in and what is your favorite season? I have a feeling that those who live in the northwest like fall more than I would, in a place with minimal leaf color change and too-hot nights.
If you haven’t already, consider supporting this work at ko-fi.com/spikestonehand. There, you can leave a tip or buy Zine versions of these articles. Doing this helps keep the website going. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky.
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