Comics Journal Magazine

The Comics Journal, commonly referred to as TCJ, is a U.S. magazine that covers news and critique related to comic books, comic strips, and graphic novels. It is recognized for its in-depth interviews with comic artists, insightful editorials, and sharp reviews of mainstream comic products. The magazine advocates for comics as a legitimate art form deserving of greater cultural appreciation, suggesting that they should be assessed with more rigorous critical standards.

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#213905

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#95953

Arts and Entertainment/Animation and Comics

#792

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SlĂˇine: The Definitive Edition, Volume 1

2 weeks ago | tcj.com | Tom Shapira

In ye olden times, on a social media platform that now only exists as a maggot-infested zombie, I asked my fellows: "Who was the best artist on popular British fantasy strip Sláine?" The answers divided the audience into two groups. The first, comprised of longtime fans of the veteran anthology 2000 AD, gave a myriad number of responses from the black and white period: Massimo Belardinelli, Glenn Fabry, Mick McMahon. The second group, those who were not "Squaxx dek Thargo" chose Simon Bisley.
Kate Beaton - The Comics Journal

2 weeks ago | tcj.com | Sarah Glidden |Chris Mautner |Eleanor Davis |Rob Clough
"My old therapist was worried about me publishing this book"

3 weeks ago | tcj.com | John Kelly

Some say that revenge is a dish best served cold; Precious Rubbish, Kayla E.'s first collection of comics, is revenge served with word balloons and drawings. And puzzles. And paper dolls. This is a book that, at first glance, looks-you know-like a lot of fun!It's not. Despite its bright colors and generous use of classic children's activity book chestnuts to tell its story, Precious Rubbish is an autobiographical graphic novel about pain, trauma, child abuse and incest. Rough stuff.
An Empty Room: The Existential Perils of Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy (The Graphic Adaptation)

1 month ago | tcj.com | Greg Hunter

An old cliche cautions against judging a book by its cover; then again, a good detective studies every clue. And a reader inspecting Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy: The Graphic Adaptation should consider the hints its jacket-a collaboration between the adaptation's overseer Paul Karasik and book-design luminary Chip Kidd-offers about the book. Each of the adaptation's cartoonists contributes a horizontal bar, forming a single figure out of the trilogy's three protagonists.
An interview with Julia Gfrörer: 'I don't think that I could make like a nice book if I wanted to'

1 month ago | tcj.com | Matthew Perpetua

Julia Gfrörer has built an acclaimed body of work over the past decade and a half with a steady stream of self-published mini-comics and zines, as well as three graphic novels - Black Is the Color , Laid Waste , and Vision - that have been published by Fantagraphics. Gfrörer's stories frequently explore transgressive sexuality, horror, the occult, and religion throughout history, and are meticulously illustrated with her distinctively sharp and severe linework.
Maria Bamford and Scott Marvel Cassidy on 5 senior dogs in heaven, 6 gallons of ice cream in the trash, and their graphic memoir, Hogbook and Lazer Eyes - The Comics Journal

1 month ago | tcj.com | Nicole J. Georges

Hogbook and Laser Eyes (Fantagraphics, 2024) is a love story. An ever-shifting and expanding family of rescue pug narrators describe the romantic adventure of their humans meeting and joining in wedded, mentally ill, comedy-loving, dog-rescuing matrimony. Co-authored by comedian Maria Bamford and painter Scott Cassidy (who drew the book), it's for everyone who knows what their dog's speaking voice would be.
Night Drive - The Comics Journal

1 month ago | tcj.com | Greg Hunter

Richard Sala was comics' most reliable artist of criminal masterminds and colorful lowlifes; of mystical mediums and femme fatales. Informed by surrealism and monster movies, his work landed somewhere between the garage-camp of the Cramps and the more sober otherworld-building of Thomas Ligotti. Sala brought an ironic touch to pulp iconography without ever condescending to it.
Donald Duck: Vacation Parade

1 month ago | tcj.com | Tom Shapira

Donald Duck: Vacation Parade belongs to a genre that I like to call "nothing more, nothing less." It gives you a promise early on: Donald Duck will go on a vacation and will suffer mischief in an entertaining manner, and for the rest of the story it tries and keep the promise. Simple? Yes, in theory at least. But consider: How many would-be humor comics actually made you laugh? How many action comics genuinely made you feel tension? How many adventure comics actually made you excited?
RIP Mark Zingarelli, 1952-2025

1 month ago | tcj.com | John Kelly

A memory of Mark that comes to mind is a fairly recent though trivial one, but it kinda captures "him." A little background: Most of us who were Seattleites at any given time-homegrown like myself or one-time transplants like Mark-have a deep affection and an affinity for Seattle's beloved, fast-food restaurant chain, "Dick's Drive In." An unapologetically stuck-in-time holdover from the late-1950s.
I'm Doing the Work I Need to Do to Live With Myself: Joe Sacco on Democracy, Genocide, and Drawing the Truth

1 month ago | tcj.com | Zach Rabiroff

If an artist can be measured in part by their capacity to look truth squarely in the eye without flinching, let it be said that Joe Sacco is an artist. For more than three decades, Sacco has been perhaps the most prominent and influential cartoonist-journalist in comics. His Palestine, published in 1993, was a probing and ambivalent first-hand report on a people and place trapped in a cycle of war and repression.