Good morning! It’s my last week of the Fall quarter at school, so I’m taking a break from finals to give you the NEWS!
First, as you may have heard me opine on Twitter, Wendy Browne had her last day as our Publisher over the weekend. She’s loved, and she will be sorely missed. Hopefully, we’ll still see her around from time to time as she writes us some Eisner-worthy pieces and more than a few incredible interviews with comics professionals, but either way, she’s been an incredibly consistent and positive presence for WWAC for ages now, and we hope she gets some well-deserved rest after stepping down!
In her place, I’m pleased to announce Kate Tanski will be stepping up to the Publisher role! You’ll all remember Kate as a part of the Previously team here, as well as an editor of the Comics Academe series, but she’s done some interviews, too. She’s got some big shoes to fill, but she’s more than up to the task (which is good because my feet are way bigger and I could never wear Wendy’s shoes). We’ll have some more details on that transition soon, so keep an eye out.
Y’all remember Frank Miller? He’s currently in the process of adapting Hugo Pratt’s Corto Maltese books into a mini-series. Pratt, who passed in 1995, was apparently a fan of Miller’s (and likewise), and so it will be interesting to see how Miller’s pen takes to adapting his work—The Spirit was not an especially well-loved adaptation, after all.
If you’ve got the capacity for giving, Peter David is crowdfunding for medical expenses due to a combination of kidney failure, strokes, and a recent heart attack. I have some very strong opinions about his work, but that doesn’t change the fact that he guided Incredible Hulk for Marvel for about twelve entire years, which honestly should be enough for Disney to be covering all of these costs themselves, even not accounting for the fact that another character he created is going to be voiced by Oscar Isaac for Across the Spider-Verse, aka the sequel to one of the most successful superhero films of all time. Alas, capitalism.
The comics community said goodbye to Aline Kominsky-Crumb this past week as well. If you’re a more casual comics fan, that name might tip you off that she was indeed married to Robert Crumb, but Kominsky-Crumb was a legendary underground comix figure in her own right, being a part of Trina Robbins’ Wimmin’s Comix as well as an architect of the Twisted Sisters comics anthology that later spun out of it. Kominsky-Crumb also penned her own graphic memoir in 2007, called Need More Love. She’s survived by her husband Robert and their daughter Sophie.
In happier news, the selection of top books for the 2023 Angoulême International Comics Festival is out! If you’re like me, this is basically another new checklist of books to read, because some great comics end up getting featured at Angoulême.
Also in good news, NPR has published their Book Concierge for 2022! Since 2013, NPR has been publishing the list as an indexable, searchable database. It’s an incredible tool, and since the new list is out, we’ve helpfully filtered down to 2022’s comics in the link, just for you.
That’s all I got, time to write about philosophy! Wish me luck.
