Comic Book Brain

Last Update: March 29, 2026


Yoshiharu Tsuge has diedThe Comics Journal

1937–2026 – a highly influential manga artist known for pioneering personal comic story telling using introspection and surreal elements.


Stars and Stripes newspaper ends Sunday special color comic strip sectionDaily Cartoonist


Is James Bond... a joke?UK Mail


The online digital comic wars

Story at Comics Beat


Interview with Apostolos DoxiadisLifo [Greek language]

Question: Your big successes were "Uncle Peter" and "Logicomix?"

Doxiadis: Commercially, if you mean, and internationally, etc., these were two works with the theme not so much of mathematics but of mathematicians as obsessive characters. This too began by chance. My good friend, the cartoonist Alekos Papadatos, asked me for an idea for a graphic novel that was "unusual," as he put it. I told him: the story of the attempt to base mathematics on strict logic. Since he is also crazy, he was enthusiastic...."

Spidey Friend Three Foot Tall

Three foot life size inflatable Spider-Man @ Walmart


Profile of cartoonist Rick FridayCreston News


Spider-Woman Omnibus coming13th Dimension


Spider-Man gets killed againMSN CBR


Penguin Random House completes addition of Boom! Studios into Random House after purchase in 2024 Publishers Weekly


"Comic sales explosion" at ImageBleedingcool


Roy Thomas to be at Lexington South Carolina Comic and Toy ConventionLexington Herald Leader


At the London Book Fair "...could comics serve as a savior of print for an audience seeking eyeball-grabbing visuals, as well as words?" Publishers Weekly



Roundup of comics news: DC K.O. trades, BOOM! Studios layoffs, Frank Miller and TMNTComicbook Club Live


How "live selling" boosts salesBusiness Insider


Brian K. Vaughan and DuneNewsweek MSN


Brian Doherty has died: wrote books on pop culture and underground comics comics and the Burning Man festival.NY Times

Mr. Doherty produced an eclectic body of work that had as a common thread his fascination with how bands of outsiders on the cultural and intellectual fringes infiltrate the mainstream. He was especially interested in movements with no central authority. Besides libertarianism, he wrote books about 1960s underground comics and the Burning Man hippie-art-tech festival in the Nevada desert..."


Chuck Dixon profileMSN Just the News


"Todd McFarlane changed comic book history with these comic book covers"Comicbook


Lego releases Tintin Destination Moon rocket ship modelGamespot

And Amazon is already selling it


Is there an end to the Absolute Comics story lines? Apparently nopeInde News


Remembering the "legend of Sam Kieth"Bleedingcool

Death of The Maxx creator Sam KiethMSN Variety

Born on January 11, 1963, Kieth began his career in comics at the age of 17, publishing his first work with Comico. He worked on numerous projects, including "Wolverine" in Marvel Comics Presents and "The Hulk." In 1993, he created a series exploring themes of identity and reality for Image Comics titled "The Maxx," which was later adapted into an animated series for MTV's "Liquid Television" and became globally recognized. Kieth's work on the series also led to a line of action figures produced by Todd McFarlane.



Frank Miller draws Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle's #300 coverGizmodo


"Incredible transformation" of She-Hulk - building a Jennifer Walters from scratch MSN Daily Motion Video


Titan Comics' June slate "lots of Conan" Bleedingcool


Marvel's May 2026 slate of booksBleedingcool


Gene Luen Yang and why "the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles matter again"

Story at Esquire Magazine


Tatjana Wood ObituaryThe Comics Journal

More about Tatjana Wood


The new Spider-Man trailer

No wonder he's depressed!


Digital comics platform GlobalComix gets new investment money while posting 20% month-to-month audience increasesForbes

Just when things seemed to be quieting down in the multibillion dollar digital comics space, GlobalComix today announced a series of big moves fueled by an infusion of $13 million in new capital..."


In the Facebook bio Backderf writes "...in Tatjana's time, floppy comics were printed on shitty newsprint. The printing was garbage. The color resolution was low..."

I don't want to directly rebut Backderf's statements, afterall its just a lead up to praising Tatjana Wood's work, which is quite worthy of praise.

Comic Book Coloring

Rather, I want to address the corollary: how the distance of time, along with a misplaced self-assurance born of 21st-century printing and digital technologies (and perhaps the spirit of the age itself), leads many people to spurn the look of old newsprint comic books. But how many 21st-century “recolored” reprints of those books are actually inferior to the original “shitty” newsprint versions? Too many.

More about Comic Book Coloring on Newsprint


Richard Fairgray profileCBC.CA


Using comic books in nursing educationBC Campus


ADVERTISEMENT: You will see Amazon links on this web site because I am an Amazon affiliate. If you buy something rom them they might throw me a few coins and then I'll buy a comic book.

Graphic designer Orijit Sen and the comic book world of reading in IndiaMSN The Print

Sen reflected on comic subcultures in the 1990s, sharing personal anecdotes from his own journey as a comic creator....."


Superman #75 "Death of Superman" original art coming up to auctionFreep

Comics Connect Auction schedule


Examinging the IDW profit margins "...the decrease in royalty expenses, and decrease in creative costs as a percentage of revenue..."Bleedingcool


Okay, so what character is Scarlett Johansson playing in the Batman II movie?MSN Bam Pop


Autumn books list from Titan ComicsComicsbeat


Spider-Man: Brand New Day to get five-weekend theatrical window in 2026Comicbookmovie


Over million views of video of child in India discovering father's old comics collection in trunkTimeslife


North Yorkshire with a lifelong passion for comic books is set to sell his collection - anticipating a return of more than £62k.Yorkshire Live


The four bids for replacing the Angoulême Comic Art Festival in 2027Bleedin' Cool


Sale of British comics collection returned a huge six-figure sumMSN UK Chronicle

...over 40,000 comics, 20,000 pieces of original artwork, nearly 900 bound publisher volumes and a vast amount of memorabilia..."


Tatjana Wood ObitNY Times

Anyone who laid eyes on a DC Comics cover from 1973 to 1983 was likely seeing an example of Ms. Wood’s work. She colored nearly every cover for the company, whether the image was for a horror title, a war comic or a superhero adventure. She also provided color guides for the engravers to follow on interior pages. In the days before computer-assisted production, that involved a painstaking process of creating hand-applied dyes and indicating color combinations — denoting the percentage of cyan, magenta or yellow to be used..."

...Karen Berger, who edited Swamp Thing, wrote in an email about Ms. Wood: "Her magnificent and evocative palette was a perfect fit — she was an integral part of the magic of that groundbreaking series. She loved coloring ‘Shvampy,’ as she called him in her thick, gravelly German accent."

The Times profile/obit of Tatjana Wood is a great overview, with several large examples of her work and a couple of photos of her, along with quotations from various comics folks who knew her. She had a truly long career in comic books, and if you'd paid much attention to the industry, hers was a name that came up again and again across the decades.

More about Tatjana Wood


TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman discusses comic books using martial artsMSN UPI News

Eastman, 63, described how he studied [Bruce] Lee and other martial artists' fights to learn "the logic of how to stage a fight scene." The comics were first published in 1984, let to an animated series and then the first 1990 movie. "Watching those early martial arts film, certainly the Bruce Lee films which were so inspiring, but the martial arts film, to me I really embraced the idea," Eastman said. "A hit creates this, a punch creates that and a kick creates that..."


Mike Mignola at the London Book Fair

Story at Bleedingcool


University Archives website auction includes rare comic books among 445 lots to be soldFree P

Lot 163 is the vintage issue of DC Comics’ Superman No. 12 (September-October 1941), encapsulated and graded by CGC with a Universal Grade 6.5. Estimate: $1,500-$2,400. This is one of over 25 lots in the March sale featuring Golden Age comic superheroes such a Batman, Green Lantern, The Flash, Aquaman and others, offered singularly as well as in dealer’s lots..."

Auction web site


Someone has a gigantic Deadpool collection in South AfricaGuinness World Records


Stephen R. Bissette named "Vermont Cartoonist Laureate"Sevendays VT


Spidey Jumbo

It's $1


Status of the $47 million in consigned goods that Diamond Distributors still holds

Story at Bleedingcool

The Trustee has signaled that he intends to use remaining estate assets on litigation and attorney's fees rather than paying creditors..."


Smithsonian Museum adds Action Comics No. 1 and Captain America Comics No. 1 to "permanent home at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History"Smithsonian


UK Lakes International Comic Arts Festival 2026 "featuring the Maestro Bill Sienkiewicz"LICAF


Absolute Batman is essential!Comicbook


Classic Iron Man is back and it's perfect!Comicbook


Klaus Janson profileNY Times

For Janson, 74, the show represents how far the appreciation for comic art has come. "Sequential narrative deserves recognition," he said in an interview. "That’s part of my motivation for doing this exhibition and I hope that people walk away from the exhibit with a growing appreciation of what comics can do."


Collection going to auction with books from 6-decadesUK Yorkshire Post

However, after moving house and deciding he needed to refine his collection, father-of-two Mr Kitching has finally decided to sell most of his collection. Divided into 340 separate lots, the collection of more than 6,000 comics spans back to the early 1960s and includes rare first appearance issues for Iron Man, X-Men and the Fantastic Four..."

Ewbank Auctions


Changes at Dark Horse

Changing of the guard: Mike Richardson no longer at Dark HorseComicsbeat

Although seeing the head of a company depart after an acquisition is not a surprise, Richardson’s exit is still a shock because he is one of the foundational publishers of the modern comics era. Everything Dark Horse has done – and it is a LOT – are a reflection of Richardson’s vision and management. Just a few of them: Dark Horse supported some of the most important creator-owned titles – including Hellboy and Sin City, and recently the Black Hammer universe. Dark Horse also got into publishing manga way before any MOST other American publishers..."

Back in the 1980s, Mike Richardson, Chris Warner, Mark Verheiden (along with others) came out with a number of books under the Dark Horse label, coinciding with the “black-and-white explosion” of comics titles, when printing costs and distribution had simplified and fans were launching little companies one after another and getting them into shops.

Titles like Fish Police were popular at the time, and some very big winners moved beyond black-and-white printing, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The black-and-white boom eventually imploded, and shops were left with stacks of poorly drawn, mostly amateur looking books. But for a while, anyone with a good idea and some drawing and writing chops had a shortened pathway to getting noticed.

Dark Horse had all of those cards in their hands and played them well. Chris Warner by that time was a veteran Marvel artist, and Verheiden would soon be on his way to becoming a veteran comics writer and later a producer in Hollywood. Mike Richardson did something at that time, when Dark Horse was starting out, that all comic companies now do almost by reflex: pursue alternative media pathways for their comic properties into the broader non-comics market—by which we mean Hollywood. That transition happened quickly with The Mask movie, which Verheiden wrote and which was based on a Dark Horse title created by Richardson.

Mike Richardson "out" at Dark HorseHollywood Reporter

Note: for an interesting antecedent to The Mask, consider this 1973 Batman story from Detective Comics 437 featuring a "death mask" that brings out psychotic activity from anyone wearing it.


The "death throes" of the Diamond Distributors implosionThe Comics Journal


Behind the scenes of over-sized Artist Edition books with Scott DunbierThe Comics Journal

The plan was to sell them direct to consumers because they're expensive, but they're also expensive to print. Eventually, with the help of Cliff Biggers, who runs some shops called Dr. No’s (and the former publisher of Comic Shop News) we came up with the idea of giving a courtesy discount to retailers. Not the full discount, but still a discount, because his argument was that retailers would want to buy these books for themselves. It was a much bigger success than we had thought. I think if we didn't make the initial announcement that it wouldn't be available through comic shops, there wouldn't have been the attention that was paid to it. And so because of that, the first Artist’s Edition, Dave Stevens’ The Rocketeer, was really, for an Artist's Edition, a resounding success. It went into a couple of printings. The second book was the first Marvel book we did, which was Walter Simonson's The Mighty Thor..."


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