Two really lovely interviews this week! First up is Lucy Knisley talking about her new work Displacement which is a travelogue about taking her two elderly grandparents on an old people cruise to the Caribbean. In particular, she writes about her relationship with her grandmother, who has memory impairment and doesn’t always recognize Knisley. As someone whose also dealing with the sometimes absurd, sometimes heartbreaking experience of a grandparent developing dementia, this is one of my 2015 must-read books. Her previous work Relish: My Life in the Kitchen was a great read, blending short autobio works and recipes to explore her recipe with food, and I think she’ll bring the same deft hand to Displacement.
On the business side of comics creation, creator Spike Trotman talks life as an independent cartoonist, Kickstarters, and how to make a living in comics. She’s the driving force between great anthologies like Smut Peddler and The Sleep of Reason, and her publishing company, Iron Circus, just had a successful Kickstarter for the print version of EK Weaver’s webcomic The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal. The business side of independent comics creation isn’t as widely talked about as it should be, and Trotman’s open approach to what works for her is always interesting to read. Her twitter is one of the favorite things to have in my feed.
Stephen Amell, a.k.a. Green Arrow on Arrow will be putting down the bow and picking up the hockey stick as Casey Jones in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sequel. My memory of Casey Jones is a little hazy, I have to admit–mostly I remember being a little scared of him as a kid because he wore a hockey mask just like Friday the 13th‘s Jason. But he was a good guy and fought with various sporting equipment instead of real weapons, I think? The whole sports shtick thing. At least Stephen Amell won’t be in that uncanny valley CGI, and I’m sure the movie will find ample opportunity to show off his impressive abs.
A few comic award nominations were announced this week: the Glyph Awards celebrating black creators and characters and the Doug Wright Awards honoring the best English-language Canadian comics. Looking over the nominee lists, I see some major gaps in my reading when it comes to black creators, so hopefully I’ll be getting on that and getting some reviews to you all soon!
Finally, here may be a new Daniel Clowes book coming out soon! Fantagraphics teased something new from the Ghostworld creator, but no word yet on a title or release date just yet. The last Clowes work came out in 2011, and if the number of pages in that promo image is anything to go off, this is going to be a solidly long work.