Tag Archives: Pop Culture

December 11, 2025 · 10:10 am

Comics Grinder Best Comics Graphic Novels 2025

It’s that time again. This is Henry Chamberlain, your friend in comics, a longtime comics journalist, writer and comics creator. I sometimes take it for granted that you know who I am and what I do. I can take a lot for granted sometimes but, as 2025 has made it so clear, nothing can be taken for granted.

Each year is a little different. That said, excellent comics all share something in common: they are not to be ignored. Some make their way onto the scene with seeming ease and perhaps others need a boost to reach the coveted spotlight. I suppose anything worthwhile will find its way due to its intrinsic quality, one way or another. Yeah, sometimes a book won’t get the attention it deserves but time will tell. And some titles are actually the end result of many years of toiling, misfires and various versions that were tested along the way.

We began 2025 with a bang and that bang was the collected Tongues by Anders Nilsen. It is the summation of a lifetime in comics and the final word on what you can do with comics. Well, perhaps not the final word–but close. My review. My creator interview. I must add, this is one of my best interviews for a number of reasons: everything fell into place and I got to pose some questions that had not been asked before, a rare thing to achieve. It’s certainly worthy of being added to a future edition of the University Press of Mississippi’s Conversations with Comic Artists series. Just saying!

Oh, what a year it was. Makes me confident about the comics medium in more ways than you might imagine. Another masterwork for 2025 was Introverts Illustrated, by Scott Finch, a dazzling collection of stream-of-consciousness comics narrative. My review and creator interview here.

Talk about a true comics sensation! The graphic novel adaptation of Ethel Carnie Holdsworth’s This Slavery, by Scarlett & Sophie Rickard is the real deal! Paul Buhle’s review here.

Another amazing work by Joe Sacco in his grand comics journalism tradition. The Once and Future Riot is required reading you will love. My review. My interview.

It’s tricky to juggle genuine fine art work and work that specifically falls within the comics medium but Sue Coe is an exemplary example. You must read The Young Person’s Guide to American Fascism. Paul’s review here.

When We Were Trekkies is a fun look down memory lane inextricably linked to the phenomena that is Star Trek. Joe Sikoryak’s collected tales of fandom youth are sure to please. My review.

When you talk about giants in the comics industry, Peter Kuper is on anyone’s short list. Insectopolis has everything you want to know about insects in a most unexpected and delightful way. My review. My creator interview here.

Well, speaking of giants, it was a pleasure to dive into the collected Ginseng Roots: A Memoir, by none other than Craig Thompson. My review here. My interview here.

Well, 2025 is the year that keeps on giving. Add to your list of greats, Milk White Steed, by Michael D. Kennedy. As is the case with any give year, especially such a busy and notable one, I will forward along some titles into the new year so a full review is forthcoming.

The Poet and sampler books.

The world of comics is quite expansive to say the least. It can seem overwhelming at times. One good rule of thumb is to follow your instincts and simplify as you go. You may find yourself gravitating right back to a friend from childhood, the comic strip. One of the best around now is The Poet by Todd Webb. I had the pleasure of poring over the last two collected books. Check out this review and this interview. Once you read The Poet, you’ll be hooked.

And while we’re on the subject of comic strips, I would be remiss not to include Bob and Vicki Scott’s Molly and the Bear, a joy for any age. My review and creator interview.

Paul Karasik is a wonderfully talented artist, writer and editor. I know this book has been anticipated by so many and celebrated by so many. Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy is a treasure trove of comics and an exploration of the meaning of life. If this is new for you, rest assured, you will want to read my review and creator interview.

The last time that I saw Bill Griffith, I got to see him at his drawing table working on this very book, Photographic Memory: William Henry Jackson and the American West. I know this is great and you need to know about it. This book falls within the “late arrivals” section, any title launched late in the year. I am including it for 2025 with a full review forthcoming. I am putting up the “Gone Fishin'” sign for now.

If you want a look at what the future of comics is about, Josh Pettinger is an excellent example of a cartoonist from a new generation who has rolled up his sleeves and gotten to work. He’s been at it for some time and Tedward is a milestone. Paul’s review.

When you consider what makes any work of comics and illustration worthwhile, you must include: authenticity, imagination and integrity. That is what you find in Wally Mammoth: The Sled Race, written by Corey R. Tabor and illustrated by Dalton Webb. Not an easy thing to achieve. My review here.

A spooky and engaging work, Raised by Ghosts, by Briana Loewinsohn, is a gripping look back at a melancholic, yet highly creative, childhood. Paul’s review here.

Another engaging take on childhood and beyond comes from Desmond Reed’s The Horrors of Being Human, a notable work well worth seeking out. My review and creator interview here.

Lest we forget the work involved in creating a truly worthwhile comic, I turn your attention to Mary Shyne’s You and Me on Repeat, a highly inventive and dazzling graphic novel. If you love good storytelling, especially time travel, this is for you. My review here. My creator interview here.

We end the year with another big bang: Carol Tyler’s Ephemerata. When I hold up the key ingredients to great comics (authenticity, imagination and integrity), I mean it. I don’t know about you but why bother with anything less? Instead, seek out more, like Ephemerata! Paul’s review here.

Well, it’s been a banner year. I feel safe in saying that Comics Grinder has done it’s part, as it has all along. I’d even dare say that we at Comics Grinder have earned ourselves consideration of an Eisner award nomination! Ah, one can hope. We’ve certainly been a comics-related publication for quite some time with great distinction. It has been an exciting, eventful and humbling year. Onward to 2026 and beyond!

1 Comment

Filed under Comics

Tagged as , , , , ,

December 8, 2025 · 1:44 pm

Complete Works of Fletcher Hanks by Paul Karasik book review

The  Troubled World of Fletcher Hanks.

Turn Loose Our Death Rays and Kill Them All!: The Complete Works of Fletcher Hanks. Paul Karasik. Fantagraphics. 2025. 353pp. $44.99.

Review by Paul Buhle

By nature, comic art has been unpredictable, its deeper meanings as often elusive as banal, but above all vernacular. It gets no respect—a stand-up comic’s phrase now itself grown old—and needs none. At least until recent decades when the graphic novel began to replace the art book in the libraries of those (mostly younger) readers, the minority of them who still have growing libraries.

Glen David Gold, in his preface to the troubled mind of Fletcher Hanks, gives us a wonderful glimpse into his own discovery of the forgotten comic artist. He refers in passing to Henry Darger, whose work is the epitome of “outsider art” discovered in recent years and lifted up into museum displays.The reference is a good one even if Hanks was closer in, almost an accepted comic artist. The weirdness factor, however, points elsewhere.

Paul Karasik, a noted comic artist and commentator, fills in the picture with a short introduction. Hanks, born in 1887, son of a Methodist minister in Oxford, Maryland, joined a cartoonist school-by-mail in his teen years, the same school that enrolled E.C. Segar, Hank Ketcham and Chester Gould at different times. Hanks pretty soon married, had four children, and meanwhile indulged himself in heavy drinking and carousing, including violence against his own family. He disappeared with the family’s cash in 1930, pretty much to everyone’s satisfaction, resurfacing almost a decade later, several states away.

The new comic book industry was booming by 1939, with more room for unknowns, dubiously talented nonprofessionals, than likely at other times. It was also booming with superheroes and exotic adventures, outer space to jungle, airplane adventures to more bizarre and almost inexplicable genre. Hanks, drawing under several names (publishers imaginatively expanded their supposed list of artists in this way), could be identified as suited to violence, revenge, and such-like behavior that would have brought any consulting psychological to a ready conclusion. Hanks disappeared from the trade and from sight two years later. The introduction suggests that the overly-indulgent aunt of his early life was replaced by another indulgent lady in 1941, and he could go on being as dissolute as he chose…until his luck ran out.

There must be more to it. Perhaps because I was asked to write an introduction to the reprint edition of The Boy Commandos (first appearance, 1943), a comic with plenty of anti-fascist violence, I took pleasure in nearly all of it—as directed, by the ragtag ethnic bunch, toward the genuinely evil ones. Hanks, an adult in 1939, could already see in the newspapers and more graphically, in newsreels, the looming horror of war violence. Hanks’s heroes, in contrast to the courageous teens of Boy Commandos, looks pretty much the same, strip after strip, whether the theme is cosmic or human. Big muscles. Not a big talker. Not a lover, either, although the occasional beset female, human or otherwise, sometimes appeals to his good nature.

Karasik points to a certain parallel of Hanks’s work with Surrealism in 1939, very much part of the art world and even a popular culture world, thanks largely to Salvatore Dali. The role of the unconscious, introduced or dramatized in art, finds a ready home in these comics, barely below the surface. The surrealists seemed to know what they were doing, more or less, and how it fitted into the world of art. If in doubt, they had leader-savant Andre Breton to explain it to them.

Hanks, hacking out a living over the drawing board in the cramped quarters of a comic publishers’ office, had no theorist or savant to explain or to offer him inspiration. We can guess why he began drawing comics, as an extension of a youthful hobby, but no one knows why he stopped, let alone what was going through his mind as he plotted and drew his oeuvre. Found dead on a park bench in Manhattan, he reminds me of the uncle I never met, reportedly on or near skid row, Chicago, possibly passing in the same year, 1976.

What did he leave behind? We move quickly past a few pages of trial efforts made for the school, and onto a Joe Palooka knockoff, “Moe M. Down, ‘King of the Canvass Kissers,’”  a “brainless bone-buster” with a woman manager. Hanks quickly hit his stride with SciFi superheroes and stays there for most of his two year run.

Every story, almost every panel, looks like he could have used another round of training as an artist. The faces are wrong, if not terribly wrong. The backgrounds appear done in a hurry, without any artistic intention whatsoever. Violence is the key. Stardust, known as “The Super Wizard,” has almost unimaginable powers. He is, after all, “master of space and planetary forces,” whose “scientific use of rays” protect him from all kinds of assaults.

As the “most remarkable man that ever lived,” he can break up the conspiracies of mobsters and not only by them. A “Fifth Column” of traitors seek to destroy New York with their terrible techno-weapons. Strardust comes to the rescue, finally turning the leader into a harmless human rodent. The last panel nevertheless warns in the last panel,  “America…Beware of the Fifth Column.” Was Hanks sneaking into the German-American Bund meetings still drawing crowds in 1940?

But this is by no means Hanks’s finest superhero. Fantomah, “Mystery Woman of the Jungle” and “the most remarkable woman that ever lived,” spends her time defending the jungle population of tribespeople, and likewise the animals, against militarized white invaders. She has the power to evoke nature’s revenge, and she reminds me more than a little of Aquaman, perhaps my own favorite hero.

Thus not only the usual lions, tigers, etc, but “beasts unknown to white men” and looking amazingly like dinosaurs, also “respond to her wizardry.”  Sometimes, moments of rage against the wrongdoers. she changes the form of her face that most remarkably becomes a skull seeking revenge for martyred Africans. And then…she becomes a beautiful blonde again!

There’s more here,in Hanks’ own bestiary, including a few continuing odd characters like two-fisted Big Red Maclane of the northern woods. Without space adventures, the wild imagination of Hanks becomes pretty mundane. Mere comic book filler.

But let’s look at these comics in a somewhat different light: they seem to offer a subconscious art, art of a certain kind, with garish colors, violence, and patterns of a troubled artist at a most troubling moment in modern US history. Amidst a very mixed scene of different painting styles taking the stage or gallery in 1940— and against the background of the rising comic book—older artistic fashions began to fade. The severely representative, historical-minded public art of the New Deal is losing its lure. Perhaps it was too positive or just too literal to appeal any longer in the same way.

Famously, for those who followed contemporary major art trends, Jose Clemente Orozco, a representative of Mexican super-realism, offered up ”Dive Bomber and Tank,” in glaring colors. An emerging pattern of “Symbolic Realism” took on  scary psychological themes. The moment saw what would become Abstract Expressionism on the rise, alongside the gloomy realism of Edward Hopper and George Ault, among others. Would Hanks, working on his comics in New York, the center of art interest and publicity in the US, have been unmoved by these widely-publicized examples?

Perhaps, with Hanks, comic art is already pointing toward the slightly more sophisticated brutality of Crime Does Not Pay, the leading popular series during the decade just before censorship. Or perhaps toward its chief rival in those years, and perceived enemy of children’s minds: horror comics. Born under the shadow of Fascism’s menace, drawn by men whose families often enough faced the worst of the horrors ahead, comic art could not very well avoid a kind of psychic crisis invading popular art. Here we find Fletcher Hanks.

Paul Buhle

Leave a comment

Filed under Book Reviews, Comics

Tagged as , , , , , ,

November 23, 2025 · 3:38 pm

THE EPHEMERATA by Carol Tyler book review

Carol Tyler, The Ephemerata: Shaping the Exquisite Nature of Grief. Seattle: Fantagraphics, 2025. 232pp, $39.95.

Review by Paul Buhle

The joys of childhood, according to folklore, scholarship and wide personal experience, lead to sadness in old age. How could it be otherwise in a secular age? Carol Tyler is an artist of sadness, artistically calculated remorse, and a distinct curiosity about the whole train of human experience too often neglected in comic arts (because they are supposed to “entertain”).

Her early, spectacular work encompassed her pressing her father about the grumpiness and evasion that she figured out, probably by her teenhood, to be undiagnosed PTSD. Dad was one of the hundreds of thousands, at a modest estimate, who did not, could not speak about his experiences in the Second World War. To acknowledge let alone describe them, even to the most intimate of family members, would be to show weakness of character, or perhaps they would bring to the surface things that could easily become unbearable. You’ll Never Know, a trilogy of these stories, won her a much-deserved fame. She has added to it in various ways: teacher, stand-up comic, and scholar.

To this saga, we cannot fail to add another. A second volume of Tyler’s “grief series” will relate her life to that of her late husband, Justin Green, who as much as reinvented a key trope of modern literature for comics, and not just Underground Comix of lore. His one-shot Binky Brown Meets the Virgin Mary delved his own earlier life, the confused kid who became obsessed with religious imagery as he tried to navigate his own OCD.

Green’s totemic achievement encouraged other artists, most famously Art Spiegelman, toward a similar path about self and family. Robert Crumb was already there, but only in metaphors of various kinds (a little later, an identified Troubled Crumb becomes a live character as well). These were the Walking Wounded of comic art, and their success emboldened thousands of others, including Alison Bechdel (with Fun Home) to take a similar path. When Underground Comix could be seen properly as having added something decisive to comic art, Justin Green stood high, even if he could not continue comics, finding his modest role in sign-painting.

A lot closer to home, Carol Tyler dealt with Justin and their daughter, Justin’s abandonment of both of them for another woman (he came back after a few months, guilt-ridden the rest of his life), as she followed Justin in seeking self-discovery in comic art. She had the skill and personal intensity to develop, especially in themes particular to women artists and other women.

The Ephemerata is fascinating for so many reasons. What her earlier trilogy seemed to feature, dense black and white drawing, is not so much in these pages. It would take a finer eye than mine to suggest just what she has done with sometimes thin drawings, near full pages of hard-written prose, carefully chosen shading and sometimes spare but seemingly accurate portrayals of herself and family, including Justin.

Let me stick to the story, the best that I can. For her, life’s dearest discoveries seem first of all to be in the garden. Never formally trained as a gardener,  using whatever land happens to be available, she discovers her sometimes-fulfilled self but also Melancholy with a capital “M.” She eventually labels the branches of trees (p.18) with deaths of those she has known and loved, such as “Worn Out” or “Too Soon”  or “One I had to Put Down” (her dog).

In a secular age, the older, religious-based consolations or rationalization of our Dear Dead have slipped away. No doubt, the collapse of American society, the glum prospects for global nature and so on, also pay their part. She does not seem to think that her remarkable work, bound to have lasting value, is any condolence, at least for herself. Ahead is Darkness,  labelled “Griefville.” For pages and pages she wanders in what she imagines to be Victoria Park in London, with the statue of the queen on hand, dominating the landscape as well as the age.

She comes curiously to that forgotten headpiece, the Bonnett, typically used (I did not know this) by women treating the Civil War wounded and when aiding the victims of the Flu in the late 1910s. She imagines herself entering a bonnet large enough to shelter her, today the size of a Manhattan (or Tokyo) apartment. Is it perhaps a womb regained?

Never mind. As she leaves to further explore the landscape, we realize that she is reenacting Dante’s famous traversing of the Underworld. These are not damned for their sins,  tormented by little devils, but the sufferers are also not to be consoled. By now, by p.63, we come to the main point of the book: the suffering of those who, so far, survive.

Tyler has an abundance of visual metaphors, invented expressions both verbal and visual, terrible moments (like “The Realm of Cessation,” reached at the point of death) and what, in her imagination, happens afterward.

I am going to come back, for a moment, to a 1950s, Middle American family discussion about Heaven. My father loved to sing in the choir, and my mother considered weekly church attendance to be mandatory. But they weren also modern Congregationalists, and she once quipped to me “You make your heaven or hell on earth.”  Forget about the Afterlife: it was all about kind metaphors that the minister offered, and the sense of community.

Carol Tyler is there and not there. She boldly rips off her clothes (pp.89-90) to help her cancer-ridden sister in the shower. A couple pages later, she is a college art teacher, a little later she is maneuvering her OCD husband to help a little with household chores, or she is treating a mother getting worse, or she is remembering when a stray dog suddenly appeared and became a beloved pet.

A mean-spirited family member, or a hard-nosed psychologist, might say that artist Tyler lets herself in for abuse, faithfully helping a father who is losing it but evidently saving his strength to lash out at her. Then again, she really does help her failing mother, eventually taking mostly upon herself the task of scattering the ashes. She recalls her mother’s hard-wrought accomplishments, managing the family plumbing business while raising the kids, including an autistic daughter.

This is not an unusual story for middle Americans in the middle twentieth century, but she tells it with great sympathy and real insight. And tells it over again, from different angles,about different moments in her mother’s life and especially the final phase.

The final chapter is really about herself and husband Justin (their daughter, leaving a troubled family, is long gone). His OCD seems to get worse and is mixed with paranoid delusions—I can remember his writing to me about the “conspiracy” around the 9/11 bombings—and then she leaves Justin for the next book.

She is herself alone, with worsening Tinnitus (join the club!), difficulty in sleeping,rare moments of joy or pleasant self-discovery. Trees give her solace. Her friends, also provide joy. Or her sisters, while they are still around. The conclusion is no conclusion. She needs another volume of ruminations.

Like any other reviewer who is also an admirer, I am happy that Tyler finds consolation in her art. I’d like to say that this Ohio story is about Midwestern suffering, Protestant or Catholic, large city, small town or suburb. We repress so much, it is  obviously in our nature to do so. We rarely grasp the politics and economics of our suffering as firmly rooted in class society and the particular deep illnesses in US society, rootless by nature and a lack of deep history. She has taken on, as an artist, a different set of particulars.

Paul Buhle

1 Comment

Filed under Comics, Graphic Novel Reviews, Paul Buhle

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

November 22, 2025 · 5:45 am

Wally Mammoth: The Sled Race by Corey R. Tabor & Dalton Webb

Wally Mammoth: The Sled Race. (w) Corey R. Tabor. (a) Dalton Webb. HarperCollins. 2025. 32pp. $10.39.

There’s a fanciful internal logic that kids and adults will love from the very first page onward in Wally Mammoth: The Sled Race. If this is in step with current kid favorite trends, that’s a bonus. I tune into its broader timeless appeal. My dear beloved friend, Dalton Webb, is the illustrator. He passed away only a week ago and he leaves behind many saddened souls who appreciate him and his amazing skill. This, no doubt, includes the book’s creator and writer, Corey R. Tabor, who dedicated the book: “To Dalton, for bringing Wally to life.”

If anyone could tap into the innocence and playful quality of a precocious little Wooly, or Wally, Mammoth, it would be Dalton Webb. In the many years I knew him, Dalton always had at least one, if not more, cat companions. He was utterly fascinated with crows. He may have been one in another life. Dalton loved any creature, big or small, that would fit into a magical realm. So, that sensibility of celebrating joyous mayhem at a rollicking tea party is at play here.

The story is elegantly simple. Wally and his two buddies sort of stumble into a sled race with a confused notion of what the heck they’re doing. And, like a classic tale by Dr. Seuss, they manage, if you read between the lines, to delve into philosophical questions: What is a competition? What does it mean to win–or to lose? And, yes, this is for young readers. But adults, especially parents, will love it too.

This is a gentle story about how it doesn’t matter if you win or lose but how you play the game. I know it’s a story that resonated with Dalton and it is how he lived his life. In the end, Dalton did indeed win the game of life. This delightful story brings that sentiment home in a light and engaging way sure to please the wee ones.

1 Comment

Filed under Children's Books, Comics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

November 10, 2025 · 2:30 pm

Dalton Webb (1972-2025) cartoonist and illustrator

Dalton Webb

It’s the hardest obit to ever write, that of someone you’ve known for more years than you care to count, a beloved kindred spirit, my friend in life and forever, Dalton Webb. There’s a whole other world out there beyond social media and the internet that we touch, feel and experience. Not so long ago, we used to be in that world so much more than we seem to be now. Go further back, and the world becomes more and more real. In our youth, or relative youth, Dalton and I navigated a more real world. Yeah, I think it’s safe to say that. I was the older guy, by a decade or so, but, whatever. Our paths crossed, and once they did, we became fast friends. Dalton, being younger, perhaps was more prone to want to be a part of whatever the next big thing was at the time. I guess that was mastering that new up-and-coming Adobe graphic design software. We met as students of an illustration class. This, of course, back then, was in-person. There wasn’t any other option back at the start of the 21st century. We were both coming from different backgrounds and circumstances but, at that time, we were both living life by the seat of our pants, hanging on by our fingernails, on budgets so tight it could make your head spin. We got to talking and then more talking. It turned out that we had a lot in common, like an interest in the metaphysical and supernatural. And we were both Texas boys who decided to seek our fame and fortune in what was still then the wild and untamed hipster universe of Seattle, circa 2000, still trembling over what grunge had wrought. I’d originally moved to Seattle back in 1993. Kurt Cobain was still among us. In those years, I’d already lived a lot of life, even leaving Seattle for Spokane for a while. Anyway, we got to chatting and discovered we both were grappling, in very different yet very similar ways, with finding success as artists, or, at the very least, making our lives more artful! We both loved art in all its many forms and we had a keen interest in the comics art form. Lucky for us, Seattle was, and still is, a hotbed of activity for all kinds of creative people: musicians and writers; painters and photographers; and, most definitely, cartoonists.

Wally Mammoth, written by Corey R. Tabor and illustrated by Dalton Webb

The history of comics in Seattle is a whole thing all to itself and I can tell you that Dalton and I found our way into the very thick of it all. We stood our ground, we were part of it all and we evolved. We both created zines, comics, illustrations and did our fair share of networking. Fast forward a couple of decades and we matured as serious contenders. More recently, in more receptive times for both of us, we each got picked up by publishers. Very different books and set of circumstances but we could both say that we’d arrived. I have had a very busy year and I think that partly explains why I’d been so out of the loop with Dalton lately. I am thrilled about the new book (written by Corey. R. Tabor, illustrated by Dalton Webb) that just came out, Wally Mammoth: The Sled Race, published by HarperCollins, and I will provide a full review soon. I knew Dalton for so many years that, when he grew his hair long again, it wasn’t a surprise to me, as it was to newer friends. I’d known him back when it would have been a surprise to suddenly see him with short hair. I knew all sorts of things about him, and he knew all sorts of things about me. The point is that we knew each other well beyond the surface level. Heck, we were roommates for a time. We witnessed countless triumphs and failures between the two of us. So, when I moved away from Seattle a few years ago, it was hard to say goodbye and face the inevitable drifting apart. When I got a phone call from a family friend letting me know that Dalton had passed away, it hit me like a mack truck. What?! Where was this coming from? The last I’d heard about Dalton was from an Instagram post announcing the Wally Mammoth book, part of a new series. I just assumed this was the beginning of some well-earned career milestones. If I kept up with Facebook, which I do not, I would have learned that Dalton had been facing health issues. Sadly, we live in a world where it is assumed that everyone is connected to Facebook. It has been baked-in and there’s no going back, unless we really want to. Well, like a number of people, I don’t subscribe to the Facebook hive mindset and so I guess I miss a few things, but I never imagined Dalton was in such a bad situation. I’m thinking this wasn’t news that he would have readily shared with anyone. But I can only speculate about this most recent period. And it hurts that I somehow fell out of the loop.

illustration by Dalton Webb

Dalton was no hack artist, and neither am I! That distinction goes to the heart of our bond. He truly loved the whole art of problem-solving, the entire process. Yes, amen to that. We were a few years apart in age but essentially coming at things from a Gen X ethos: keep it authentic and don’t take any guff from anyone. Now, Dalton had the gift of gab and he could shop talk with any and all industry folk. I can too but I really do best with intimate and real conversation. And I know Dalton preferred that too, that’s why we got along so well together. Dalton, at the end of the day, genuinely enjoyed talking and sharing. He adored vintage illustration techniques and would pore over a book about a legendary illustrator for hours and then, all inspired, proceed to draw for hours. He loved such illustrator-artists as Walt Kelly, Eric Carle, Carl Barks and Maurice Sendak. Dalton just needed some more time. He was well on his way.

Dalton at an art show we organized.

Dalton was a lot of things: down-to-earth, stubborn, competitive, whimsical, kind, gentle, mysterious, and, did I mention stubborn? Well, let’s see, here’s a story. We, now and then, would do a road trip out to take part in a comics festival with our latest works. There was the time we drove from Seattle to Vancouver, B.C. to take part in an indie comics gathering. We stayed for the after-show dinner with various cartoonists. It was getting late, and it would have been so easy to just stay the night at a hotel, but Dalton was determined to drive back the three hours to Seattle. Against my better judgement, I agreed and hopped into the driver’s seat of my car. We were making steady progress on I-5 when Dalton insisted he wanted to give me a break, let me sleep, as he drove the rest of the way. I didn’t feel especially drowsy but I relented. Once I was riding shotgun, I let myself relax and doze off. No sooner was I in a deep sleep than I was awoken by a police siren and flashing lights. It turned out that Dalton had gotten drowsy and was weaving along as he was driving. By some miracle, the police officer let us go with just a warning! Even when he wasn’t trying, Dalton seemed to always charm his way out of things. I know he’s laughing at this.

Grasshopper by Dalton Webb

Well, as I was saying earlier, Dalton, the younger one of us, was a bit more eager to keep up with the latest trends. I did what suited me but was content to, more or less, miss the boat on some things, like Facebook, which, I love to point out, was originally intended as a way for fraternities to organize keggers. It wasn’t meant to be taken seriously as part of someone’s day-to-day activity but that is what it has become because we just don’t live as much of our lives in the real world as we once did. Anyway, when I got that phone call from a family friend letting me know that Dalton had died, I wasn’t struck with a need to post about it anywhere, let alone Facebook. You know why? Well, I just got a special phone call intended for certain people, right? In the real world, you readily appreciate the chaos and pain in a time of grief. What you do is let family lead the way and just wait. But, once news got out about Dalton’s death, it managed to make its way into the Facebook ecosystem. And, you know, worst things have happened. Dalton loved Facebook and, I imagine, he probably could get a chuckle out of the buzz of activity about him. But, he’s on a higher plane of existence now. And he most likely would get a chuckle over how utterly irrelevant so many things really are. Facebook is what it is. Maybe I’m supposed to embrace it more in the future–or maybe not. Dalton, I’m sure, is laughing his ass off that I’m freaking out over Facebook in the first place and he’d be right. He was, and remains, right about so many things.

8 Comments

Filed under Comics, Illustration

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

November 2, 2025 · 5:30 am

TALES OF PARANOIA by R. Crumb comics review

Tales of Paranoia. R. Crumb. Fantagraphics. 2025. 36pp. $5.99.

A lot of the public has caught up with cartoonist-provocateur R. Crumb. More people than ever are ready to do some of their own provoking. But don’t count the master out. Fantagraphics is releasing, Tales of Paranoia, Crumb’s first new comic book in 23 years. A show featuring original pages from the book is on view (and for sale) at David Zwirner gallery in Los Angeles thru December 20, 2025. The leading cartoonist of the Sixties underground, one of the greatest ever, Crumb’s influence cannot be overstated. Whenever you see the work of a comics artist that features an alter ego stand-in for the creator, commenting and complaining about life’s foibles, you can thank R. Crumb. He single-handedly invented the one-person comics anthology with the launch of Zap Comix in 1967, a progenitor to the whole “autobio comics” genre that was to evolve into the “alternative comics” scene into the 21st century. Following the Crumb tradition of a Larry David-like anti-hero are countless cartoonists, including such notables as Julie Doucet, Gabrielle Bell, Julia Wertz and Noah Van Sciver. With this in mind, it is no small feat to have R. Crumb yet again hold his own—and at the age of 81!

Page from R. Crumb, I’m Afraid, 2025
© Robert Crumb, 2025
Courtesy the artist, Paul Morris, and David Zwirner

Everything you could expect in a R. Crumb comic book can be found in this new book. I have read Tales of Paranoia a number of times and I am thoroughly impressed with how well it all holds together, one story blending into the next, not an easy thing to do well with a collection of short works. I’m delighted right away to see that distinctive, and consistent, lively drawing line. Crumb is a sui generis cartoonist: a one-of-a-kind artist who is highly accessible; sort of inviting other cartoonists to join in but most likely leaving them creating lesser replicas of his work. For the reader, Crumb is casually inviting you into his world: creating an illusion that you have entered an inner sanctum, whether it is the human condition, the national psyche or what may or may not be his own mind.

Reading every crumb of Crumb.

It is important to process every crumb of Crumb. He has written and rewritten, formatted and reformatted, to the point that he’s amassed layers of meaning, leaving room for argument and counterargument and further interpretation. Like any artist, he has absorbed the current zeitgeist and reflects it back to the reader. This leaves me wondering about his current batch of rants and riffs, as much expressions of his beliefs as a satire of how we collectively express ourselves: begin with the outrage and go from there, just like one podcaster emulates another podcaster, ad infinitum. Or, if you wish to take a longer view, it’s all about finding a way to tell the most compelling story, going back to the first stories ever told.

Crumb’s hobby horse of choice in this book is the potentially nefarious background attached to the Covid-19 vaccine and the cottage industry that has grown around it. This is not the only subject that Crumb sinks his teeth into but it is definitely at the top and provides a structure for further “ranting.” As any good storyteller knows, it’s all in the pacing. Like a good conversationalist, Crumb eases into this or that fact, gently but firmly citing his sources. Crumb makes his case for Big Pharma’s track record of corruption and encourages the reader to do their own research. Crumb finds nuggets of wisdom from a wide range of books and publications that he dutifully cites. He also includes such controversial figures as Joe Rogan and RFK Jr. which gives me pause. That said, Crumb insists you don’t have to like or agree with them but be open to what is coming from their corners. I conclude, if it is information resonating with the public, then it takes on a value, at the very least, for doing that.

We have gone from a tradition of “serious people” in high office and places of authority (John Kerry, Robert Reich, Hillary Clinton) to this current Trumpian transgressive period of unqualified “unserious people” in places of power (Kash Patel, Kristi Noem, RFK Jr.). Midway through the book, the comic “Deep State Woman,” points out that even a “highly qualified” person isn’t always your best bet. Here, Crumb can ease up on his “paranoid” character and simply focus on presenting a compelling portrait of a dangerous career bureaucrat.

With a nod to the mind-boggling complexity of all the world’s machinations, Crumb, more than once, looks upward and pleads for some words of encouragement from a higher power. Crumb depicts himself asking for some clarification from God and receiving the bare minimum for his efforts. All we can do is try. It’s nice to see that Crumb hasn’t given up.

2 Comments

Filed under Comics, Comics Reviews, R. Crumb

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

October 20, 2025 · 2:03 pm

Kindness, Not Kings

The NO KINGS protest demonstrates People Power works. Freedom of expression is powerful. You don’t have to agree with everything but the voices from a turnout of 7 million, the biggest one-day demonstration in fifty years can’t be dismissed. And so it goes. This is a process. The American experiment is a process.
.
.

In case you wonder what the protesting is all about: Here is an excerpt from The Intercept 10/19/2025 Jessica Washington

Politics Reporter

.

.
.

For the last month, the Trump administration has kept Chicago under siege. Customs and Border Protection agents arrested a 15-year-old U.S. citizen earlier this week after unleashing tear gas into a crowded residential neighborhood. Earlier in October, masked federal agents raided a five-story apartment building in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Chicago and zip-tied naked children as they dragged their parents away.

.

.

The Trump administration claims that Chicago is unsafe and needs order, despite the fact that the city experienced its lowest homicide rate in 60 years this summer. But instead of investing in underfunded schools or attempting to eradicate poverty, which have been shown to increase public safety, the administration is pouring millions into the militarization of American cities and fighting a court battle to federalize the National Guard in Chicago.

#comics #comicsart #drawing #politicalcartoons #news #nokings @resist.riseup.movement

Leave a comment

Filed under Henry Chamberlain, Political Cartoons

Tagged as , , , , , ,

October 12, 2025 · 1:35 pm

Maria La Divina by Jerome Charyn book review

Maria La Divina. Jerome Charyn. Bellevue Literary Press. 2025. 

Maria Callas (1923-1977), the celebrated opera singer, has gotten on more people’s radars with Angelina Jolie’s portrayal in Maria, on Netflix. Add to your appreciation of Maria Callas with the new novel by Jerome Charyn. Callas had the look, the poise, and, most assuredly, the voice. While keeping to her opera sphere of influence, she was certainly heard beyond it. Novelist Jerome Charyn, known for his in-depth explorations of notable figures, including Emily Dickinson and Abraham Lincoln, delivers a rags-to-riches tale of Callas at the level befitting such a towering diva.

Maria Callas is this novel’s clay, which Charyn molds into this beautiful melancholic character: perpetually hungry for cheese and chocolate; perpetually starving for love; blessed with extraordinary raw talent; burdened with poor eyesight and awkwardness. Callas came from humble origins. So humble that a Dickensian treatment, at least in part, is apropos to tell her story. Once she found her voice, she began to soar, even while still a teenager, at the height of World War II, living in occupied Greece, and fearing for her life. But Callas, at her core, isn’t especially fearful in this novel. She is gifted with an out-sized operatic singing voice that preoccupies her every waking moment. Displaced as she is growing up, her neurotic stage mother moving her and her sister from New York to Greece, she gains much solace from the companionship of three canaries, particularly her prized Stephanakos. Her lovers fated to doom. Callas, truly a tragic figure.

Maria Callas, portrait by Cecil Beaton, 1956.

Charyn, a masterful writer by any measure, is a delight to read. He sets in motion a narrative that you do not want to put down. His prose has a distinctive poetic magic to it, a relentless drive that charms and intrigues the reader. He will highlight certain aspects, features, quirks, of a character and return to them: Maria’s devouring, like a wolf, cheese and chocolate; Maria’s aspirations to master the art of “bel canto,” an impossible goal for any singer; Maria’s myopia, leaving her to memorize every inch of the stage since she won’t easily see it when she performs. Charyn, the writer and artist, diligently researches his subject to the point where he has a palette to dive into, like a painter, that sets him free to express the essence, meaning and purpose of a character, a story.

Maria Callas was to know world-wide fame but happiness was to allude her. In many ways, she was trapped: another VIP among other VIPs. It is in this bittersweet world of privilege and deprivation that Maria navigated. In such a world, she could be both miserable and mesmerized. In such a world she could find herself on the yacht of one of the richest men in the world, Aristole Onasis, circa 1959, the start of an extended love affair with Onasis. Here is just a brief excerpt as Charyn, amid all the glamour and pomp, has Callas, in an unhappy marriage with her manager, return to the simple pleasures of her canaries while speaking with Winston Chruchill:

“Madame Meneghini,” Sir Winston said, “you keep staring at poor Toby. Does my bird delight you?”

A shiver ran through Maria. Somehow this pompous bird reminded her of Stephanakos, her lost canary, and how much she missed singing duets with that bright yellow wonder of a male soprano.

“Forgive me, Sir Winston. I did not mean to stare. But I must kiss your hand.” And she did. His hand felt rough against her lips.

“That’s cheeky,” said Sir Winston’s bodyguard from Scotland Yard.

“Shut up,” Sir Winston said, his eyes half closed, “and let the opera singer explain herself. I’m sure she had an excellent reason, Sergeant Marley.”

“You see,” Maria said, “I was in Athens during the civil war, when you arrived in your armored car. It ignited the population.”

The old man with the babyish bald head was suddenly alert. “I remember that afternoon, indeed. I couldn’t afford to have Greece fall to the Reds. All of Europe would have fallen.”

Sir Winston’s head began to droop. His bodyguards transferred him to the outsize wheelchair, trundled him as far as they could, then cradled him in their arms and carried him to Aristotle’s lavish suite on the bridge deck.

Maria La Divina by Jerome Charyn is available now. I highly recommend that you seek out this engaging tale of bittersweet existence, the story of Maria Callas, La Divina, considered the greatest diva that ever lived.

Leave a comment

Filed under Book Reviews, Jerome Charyn

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

October 10, 2025 · 5:30 pm

Macabre Valley #1 by Zack Quaintance comics review

Macabre Valley #1. w. Zack Quaintance. a. Anna Readman. 30pp. Comics Bookcase.

Macabre Valley #1 is a 30-page horror comic by writer Zack Quaintance (Death of Comics Bookcase), artist Anna Readman(2000AD, Peachfuzz), colorist Brad Simpson (Local Man, Coffin Bound), Eisner-nominated letterer Becca Carey (Absolute Wonder Woman, Exquisite Corpses), and designer Jared K. Fletcher (Paper Girls).

This is one of those comic books that will speak to anyone looking for a blast of good authentic fun. You know, the good stuff. Comics and horror go hand in hand and Macabre Valley does not miss a beat. There’s a cool story behind this comic which I’ll get to in a moment. For now, just think werewolves done right. I see that the Kickstarter campaign (thru 10/15) attached to this comic has done very well. Let’s take a closer look.

Welcome to McCobb, Texas, “home of the Macabre Valley.” If that sounds ominous, that’s because it is. Okay, so the cool thing to know about this comic is that its writer, Zack Quaintance, has tapped into his own experience as a young intrepid reporter and built upon that to structure his own horror story. This is a shaggy dog story, complete with gumshoe tropes and offbeat humor, reminiscent of classic EC Comics.

This is the story of the gruesome murder of a border patrol agent out in the middle of the desolate badlands of South Texas. A young reporter happens upon the scene and is abruptly brushed away by local police who plead with him to just let this one go. Of course, that’s the last thing that our hero is going to do. So, now the chase is on to solve the mystery of a savagely murdered border patrol agent. The trail leads the reporter to a maverick pastor with a soft spot for rehabilitating stray dogs. That’s all well and good until that night he confronts something less dog-like and more monster-like.

This quirky story, its whole premise, reminds me of the cult classic TV show from the 1970s, Kolchak: The Night Stalker. In that series, Kolchak is a gumshoe reporter, played by character actor Darren McGavin. Each week, by incredible luck (good or bad?) Kolchak confronts a supernatural creature: of course, he “stalks” the creature; goes all-out Columbo (another ’70s TV classic) on the monster until he cracks the case. So it goes with this highly entertaining comic book.

I got to read a shorter version of this story which was part of Zack’s comic book anthology, Death of Comics Bookcase. You can read my review of it here. This 30-page full-bodied version allows for a richer experience and far more breathing room for the talents of the whole creative team, named at the start of this review. You get all sorts of opportunities for expansion like the beautiful greeting card two-page spread. Zack gets to play with various narrative nuances, including some strategic humor inserted at just the right time to pause before consuming more grindhouse gore. One thing to remember about Zack Quaintance is that he’s someone who really cares about the details. He demonstrates that with all of his work, notably his own review of comics which, these days, you can find over at Comics Beat. So, you can rely upon his being a perfectionist when it comes to delivering the goods here with this exceptional horror comic book.

Lastly, keep in mind that this comic book is the result of a Kickstarter campaign so refer to the campaign for details. That said, this comic book will be embarking upon a journey akin to a salmon run where it will endure a challenging journey on its way to spawn for future glory. So, keeps an eye out. Follow this comic book’s journey in all the usual places, including Zack’s hub, Comics Bookcase.

Leave a comment

Filed under Comics, Comics Reviews

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

October 9, 2025 · 5:15 pm

R. Crumb: Tales of Paranoia at David Zwirner, L.A.

Page from R. Crumb, I’m Afraid, 2025
© Robert Crumb, 2025
Courtesy the artist, Paul Morris, and David Zwirner

A new collection of work by the legendary underground cartoonist R. Crumb will be on display at the David Zwirner gallery in Los Angeles. Entitled, Tales of Paranoia, the original works on paper and prints highlight one man’s obsessions. Moreover, this is another fascinating output by Crumb. This new show is Crumb’s first extensive solo show in two decades. Many of the works in this show were made for the artist’s forthcoming book, Tales of Paranoia. This will be Crumb’s first new comic book in twenty-three years and will be published in November, 2025 by Fantagraphics. The work was made in the wake of the 2022 passing of Crumb’s wife and longtime artistic partner, Aline Kominsky-Crumb.

The show is on view from October 10—December 20, 2025. David Zwirner gallery in Los Angeles is located at 616 N Western Avenue.

Leave a comment

Filed under Comics, R. Crumb

Tagged as , , , , , ,