MadInkBeard | Derik A Badman

Apollo and Lewis Trondheim. Bourbon Island 1730. First Second, 2008. 288 p., $17.95. ISBN: 9781596432581. I’ve felt hit or miss with First Second’s releases to this point. But they’ve got two great releases this season, one of them is Alan’s War (which I’ve had since July and haven’t managed to write about yet) and the [...]

I first heard about the Spanish cartoonist Calpurnio from a discussion by Thierry Groensteen in his La Bande Dessinée: mode d’emploi (more on that in the future). Calpurnio uses stick figures and minimalist backgrounds, a very clean and iconic style. Unfortunately, his work is in Spanish so I can only vaguely make out the text [...]

I spoke in Second Life at Met@Morph, the first annual Web Comics Comic-Con and Conference, on Friday October 3rd (today). My presentation was called “Freedom within Boundaries: the Theory and Practice of Constraint in Comics.” I only had 20 minutes so it’s a fairly shallow look at the topic. You can see the slides here [...]

A look at two comics from Electrocomics.

The Adventures of Tintin (vol. 1): In the Land of the Soviets by Hergé (1930). Translated by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael Turner. Little Brown, 2007. 144p., $10.99. The Adventures of Tintin (vol. 24): Tintin and Alph-Art by Hergé (1986). Translated by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael Turner. Little Brown, 2007. 62p., $10.99. In honor of the [...]

Blue Pills: A Positive Love Story by Frederik Peeters (2001). Translated by Anjali Singh. Houghton Mifflin, 2008. 192p, $18.95. The comics that get the most attention in the wider press seem to be those with the most socio-political relevance, those that deal with certain “issues” (think Maus, think Persepolis). Houghton Mifflin’s hit from 2006, Fun [...]

Yukiko’s Spinach by Frederic Boilet (2001). Fanfare/Ponent Mon, 2006. $18.99. The opening scene in Frederic Boilet’s nouvelle manga Yukiko’s Spinach consists of seven pages, each divided into three vertical panels. They show bright lights, buildings, and gaudy signs but not people. The lights are blurry white circles. In one sequence at the end, a hotel [...]

My Boy (Mon Fiston) by Olivier Schrauwen. Bries, 2006. Following last week’s review of The Hero’s Life and Death Triumphant, I’ll take a look at a second book from the Belgian publisher Bries, this time translated into English. My Boy is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is in black and white borderless panels, [...]

The Hero’s Life and Death Triumphant / Vie et Mort du Héros Triomphante by Frédéric Coché. Fremok/Bries, 2005. 136p. (Text in French and English) I read most comics with some kind of context. Often I know the artist’s work or the publisher has a familiar style. Sometimes just the cover or the blurb on the [...]

Tom McCarthy in his Tintin and the Secret of Literature refers to this panel from Hergé’s The Castafiore Emerald, and I just had to share it. Just another one of those simple but brilliant panels by Hergé.

Tintin and the Secret of Literature by Tom McCarthy. Granta, 2006. 14.99 pounds (UK only as far as I can tell) A rare book about Tintin in English, Tom McCarthy’s Tintin and the Secret of Literature so far is a UK only publication (you can order it from Granta’s website though), a 200 page hardcover [...]

Since this is Tintin week, I thought I’d share a few panels from a fantastic sequence in Hergé’s The Castafiore Emerald. Calculus, the hard of hearing inventor, has created a color television (seemingly unconcerned that such an item was already invented at the time as one of his friends points out). Hergé’s love of abstract [...]

Les Bijoux Ravis by Benoit Peeters. Bruxelles: Magic Strip, 1984. (Out of Print and quite rare) I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the more I read Tintin, the more I appreciate it. In a similar way to Peanuts, what at first appears rather slight, takes on greater significance through repetition and careful [...]

CHRZ by Stefan J.H. Van Dinther. Belgium: Bries, 2005. 64p. 18 Euros (I paid $19 at MOCCA). I’ve read Van Dinther’s album CHRZ a few times now and I can’t tell you what it’s all about. That I keep rereading it despite my confusion is a testament to the visual invention and graphic force of [...]

Mister I by Lewis Trondheim. Bries, 2005. 32 p. (NBM has an edition forthcoming.) I picked up Mister I from the Bries table at MOCCA. Trondheim here offers a variation on his book of variations, Mister O (my review). Mister I looks like a pickle with arms, legs, and a face. He is hungry, and [...]

Le Combat Ordinaire 3: Ce qui est precieux by Manu Larcenet. Dargaud, 2006. 64 p., full color. (Available for 21.95$C from Fichtre.) When I first read the translation of Manu Larcenet’s Le Combat Ordinaire in the form of NBM’s Ordinary Victories (my review), I had no idea that the story continued past the two volumes [...]