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THE BLOG AT THE CROSSROADS
Best Comics of 2019: An International Perspective Part 2
Posted: February 22, 2020
Let’s continue exploring the planet in search of the most exciting, interesting comics published last year. Here are more reports from my International Correspondents and Connoisseurs. We kick of Part 2 with Adrian Kinnaird’s choices from New Zealand - read about there here…
Best Comics of 2019: An International Perspective Part 1
Posted: February 10, 2020
It’s that time again to invite my International Correspondents, expert connoisseurs across the planet to recommend to you their favourite comics and graphic novels created and (in most cases) also published in each country they know well during last year. Read all about them here…
Top 36 Graphic Novels, Comics & Manga: April 2020
Posted: February 5, 2020
Autobiographical comics can take us to exceptional places, physical and mental, which we might never experience ourselves. Drawn by the hand and the heart, these singular, first-person intimacies allow us to see and feel the world through different eyes. Mongrel, the outstanding and pertinent debut of British Muslim author Sayra Begum, takes us behind closed doors and deep into the spiritual turmoil dividing a family. Read more about this and other great upcoming comics here…
Tobias Tak: In Tribute
Posted: January 12, 2020
The doubly gifted Dutch artist Tobias Tak expressed himself through dance and art, the two combining in his comics as a perfect partnership of motion and rhythm. We sadly lost Tobias on Tuesday January 7th 2020. In tribute I have posted his ArtReview 2-page Lorca comic from 2017, alongside an expanded version of the article I wrote to introduce it. This Wednesday January 15th there will be a leave-taking ceremony for him in Amsterdam. Read about Tobias Tak here…
Top 23 Graphic Novels, Comics & Manga: March 2020
Posted: December 29, 2019
Now it’s not every month of the year that you get the first major graphic novel from British cartoonist extraordinaire Steven Appleby about a superhero who gets his powers from putting on women’s clothing. You can read more about this and my other PG Tips here…
Top 25 Graphic Novels, Comics & Manga: February 2020
Posted: November 25, 2019
The saying goes that there are two ‘mountains of manga’: Tezuka Osamu and Tsuge Yoshiharu. Unlike Tezuka, so little of Tsuge-sensei‘s oeuvre has appeared in any translation, so it’s a milestone that his masterpiece is finally released this month. And my other highlight from Japan is Asano Inio’s brooding reflections as he takes a break from his ongoing Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction. Read about these and my other PG Tips for February 2020 here…
Top 15 Graphic Novels, Comics & Manga: January 2020
Posted: November 4, 2019
Time to look ahead with ‘2020 vision’ to the Brave New Year fast approaching us and pick out next January’s most intriguing and promising new releases. We kick off with a suitably multi-coloured, multi-faceted graphic biography of the legendary David Bowie, illustrated with Pop Art panache by Michael and Laura Allred. Read more about all fifteen of my recommendations here…
Top 20 Graphic Novels, Comics & Manga: December 2019
Posted: October 6, 2019
This has been quite a year for comics and now it comes to a close with my final select selection of panelological pleasures for your consideration. How better to understand the human experience of momentous history than through those who lived through it? And those who go on to create graphic memoirs about it? Like Mawil who conveys his boyhood in Communist East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Or the late Frank ‘Big Black’ Smith who recounted the Attica Prison uprising of 1971 to writer Jared Reinmuth, who has now adapted this into comics form. Read more about these and my other twenty recommendations for December 2019 here…
Top 20 Graphic Novels, Comics & Manga: November 2019
Posted: September 9, 2019
There are lots of highly anticipated graphic novels coming up this autumn, but for me this all-new, 192-page collection of mirth and meditations by 85-year-old RaymondBriggs may be the most significant. Also new from the UK is Sarah Lippett’s second graphic novel, again a deeply personal, revelatory memoir. Read about these and more of my recommendations here…
Top 35 Graphic Novels, Comics & Manga: October 2019
Posted: August 12, 2019
Families matter, despite, or because of what they do to us. And family matters continue to provide some of the most affecting subject matter of graphic novels on the autobiography spectrum. Take a look at my 35 PG Tips for new titles coming into print from October 2019 - enjoy!
