animation « The Hooded Utilitarian

May 3, 2011
By Alex Buchet
Blog, Columns
10 comments

Strange Windows: Ha, ha, ha, Moooo…! (Ligne Claire 1)

Today I wish to spotlight perhaps the most successful –and charming– of French illustrators for children: Benjamin Rabier.

September 1, 2010
By Caro
Blog
16 comments

Doubly Good

There’s a moment in Lilli Carré’s minicomic “The Thing about Madeline” where you really get that you’re reading a real story and not another installment in the Saga of the Mundane. It’s a little later than the point where that story actually begins: not where Madeline meets her doppelganger/self for the first time – that’s [...]

Interview with Nina Paley, Part 1

Nina Paley on copyright and free culture.

February 17, 2010
By Caro
Blog
12 comments

Copyright Kills Culture: Lethem and Paley sing the blues

In 2007, Jonathan Lethem published an extended essay in Harper’s on the nature of creative inspiration and the ways in which all creativity draws on a cultural wellspring of ideas and representations. Called “The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism” it contains the following passage describing the “open source” culture behind the origins of the Muddy [...]

February 17, 2010
By Richard Cook
Blog
no comments

I Smash … Planet Hulk

Over the past couple months my comics reading has mostly consisted of manga with a handful of American titles that have nothing to do with superheroes. I stopped following mainstream superhero comics some time ago, on account of the bad art, endless crossovers, etc., etc. But there is a part of me (the foolish, masochistic [...]