The Comic Journal #263 - Mobile Edition

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The Comic Journal #263
By LJ Douresseau
March 14, 2005 - 15:14

Fantagraphics Books
Penciller(s): Sean Phillips
Cover Artist(s): Sean Phillips
200 pp., color and B&W, $9.95

THE COMICS JOURNAL #263 – MAG

If the “new and improved” The Comics Journal is not good enough for people who stopped reading the magazine when it more or less stopped fixating on so-called mainstream comics or is not good enough for people who never read it because it didn’t fixate on so-called mainstream comics like Wizard or the Comics Buyers Guide did (and still do), then TCJ will never be good enough for them. TCJ #263 is, after all, a nice example of the new TCJ – covering a mixture of news about lots of comics.

The cover feature is an extensive interview with noir and crime comics writer Ed Brubaker by Gary Groth and Tom Spurgeon. The best part of the interview is when Brubaker bristles and defends working in mainstream comics, i.e. DC and Marvel. The interview is lavishly illustrated with panels and art (some in color) from Brubaker’s comics, including a few panels drawn by Brubaker, and there’s a one-page bibliography of the interview subject.

Also: seven essays examine CEREBUS, specifically Dave Sim and his controversial views on women. TCJ has also started including a comics “insert.” This issue, editor Dirk Deppey introduces readers to George Carlson with a 32-page Carlson comic section, which includes five Carlson stories taken from three issues of 1940’s children’s anthology comic, Jingle Jangle Funnies.

Michael Dean covers the battle for the rights to Superman and Superboy between DC and the heirs of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, and the settlement of Brian Hibbs’ class action lawsuit against Marvel Comics. This just scratches the surface of the goodness within TCJ #263. A