The Comics Journal #263

If you're serious about your comic reading--and if you're reading this site I hope that you are--you should do yourself a favor: find and pick up the Oct./Nov. Comics Journal, #263. In it you'll find a forty-page interview with comic (and other media) writer Ed Brubaker. He's an alternative cartoonist who has come to work in mainstream comics. More specifically, he's responsible for the most recent Catwoman series, a Homicide-like book set in Gotham City called Gotham Central, and he's currently working on The Authority and Captain America. This isn't just a "who're your influences" kind of interview, although there is some discussion of that. Started by one journalist and picked up five years later by another, the questions are sharp and Brubaker is no schlep in his answers.

More importantly, however, are the seven essays just after the interview about the end of Cerebus. The discussions in the first two primarily focus on Cerebus' creator Dave Sim, an unapologetic misogynist and anti-Marxist/feminist/homosexualist who increasingly spurned his fans and inserted his offensive (to most people) viewpoints into his book. They examine if and how one can separate Sim's political and/or moral stances from his work and to what extent. It's really fascinating and thought-provoking stuff.

Some other recommended reading for those serious about comics as a legitimate art form or medium:

Understanding Comics & Reinventing Comics, Scott McCloud

Graphic Storytelling & Visual Narrative and Comics and Sequential Art, Will Eisner

In addition, I'd like to welcome ESkalac to the Comic Reviews team.

D

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