Highlighting some great small press comics criticism being published, as well as other random things that have caught my eye over the past week.



COMICS CRITICISM



* JA Micheline uses her interview with Tillie Walden as a springboard into a review of Walden’s new book, SPINNING, as well as a discussion of her work rituals and her interest in structure. It’s a short piece, but it stands as a testament to why JAM is one of the best critics in the business.



* Andy Oliver reviews Katie Skelly’s MY PRETTY VAMPIRE which “can be interpreted as both a story representing individual freedom and release and one with a far broader allegorical meaning in terms of social commentary.”



* Kim O’Connor explores PORTRAIT by Simon Hanselmann and writes, “The thing is, in a culture where everything is both universally known and impossibly obscure — as it is on the Internet, as it is in indie comics — a lot of stuff becomes plausibly deniable when your preferred mode of talking shit is encrypted.”



* Robert Kirby reviews Hannah K. Lee’s LANGUAGE BARRIER, writing “With her decoded, beautifully visualized language, Lee communicates a memorably funny, insightful and humane statement about the times in which we live and our often flailing efforts at connection.” Sounds like the perfect book for me.



* Henry Chamberlain takes a casual and breezy look at DARK SIDE OF THE MOON by Blutch, eventually calling it “an utterly mesmerizing work.”



* John Seven reviews Ulli Lust’s VOICES IN THE DARK, a book that is “Just straightforward with enough delicacy that it takes pity on the reader for having to endure what it is showing us.”





* Over on Comicon.com, I wrote two new reviews of books I picked up at SPX this year. First is STAGES OF ROT by Linnea Sterte. Next is BODY MAGIK by Scott Roberts.



WHATNOT



* Paul Lai interviews comics poet and editor of InkBrick, PAUL K. TUNIS about comics poetry. This is a pretty great conversation.



* Alex Dueben interviews ELI VALLEY about his book Diaspora Boy.



* Kat Overland writes about celebrating diversity and community in her look back at the 2017 IGNATZ AWARDS.



* Alex Hoffman takes a look back at his SPX 2017 experience with THE FAMILY YOU CHOOSE.





* Rob Clough shares his REFLECTIONS ON SPX 2017.



* Kyle Pinion shares his haul in his piece ALL THE WONDERFUL THINGS I BOUGHT AT SPX THIS YEAR.



* Heidi MacDonald shares her particular thoughts on SPX 2017 as well, calling it THE YEAR OF GETTING WOKE.



* Nick Hanover‘s DEVIN FARACI AND THE COST OF UNEARNED SECOND CHANCES is one of those incredibly well-written articles about a complex situation that boils it down in a way that leaves you with your blood boiling.



* The new SHORTBOX is available for order!



* Giles Scott‘s HIGH SCHOOL READING AS AN ACT OF MEANINGFUL AGGRESSION.