Some Journalista Links:

Black Artists Plot Diverse Themes for Graphic Novels
News & Notes, January 19, 2007 · More writers and artists are using graphic novels and comic art as a way to take on major issues. Some African-American artists are exploiting the medium to create books about black history, racism and to craft new stories about America's diverse culture.

Writing for Newsarama, Daniel Robert Epstein interviews Kevin Huizenga about his new collection of comics, Curses.

The Los Angeles Times‘ Nick Owchar reviews two cancer-themed books: Marisa Acocella Marchetto’s Cancer Vixen and Miriam Engelberg’s Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person.

Marc Singer examines Bryan Talbot’s modern science-fiction classic, The Adventures of Luther Arkwright

Over at The Pulse, Jennifer Contino talks to Jeffrey Brown about his new comic from Top Shelf, Feeble Attempts, which collects a variety of short strips from the last six years or so. (Jeffrey's going to be a guest at the Bristol Comic Expo in May 2007)

Writing for Pennsylvania’s Patriot News, Chris Mautner interviews Darwyn Cooke about his revival of Will Eisner’s classic comics series, The Spirit.

Paul Gravett recounts the self-destructive career of revered comic-book cartoonist Wally Wood.

Some Forbidden Planet Blog Links:

SFGate has an interesting article on the growing interest in classic material from both well-known and more obscure cartoonists, from almost obsessions by some spending thousands to track down strips, such as Joe Matt, talking to Ben Schwartz of the LA Times in a booth in a donut shop about collecting and clipping strips from Gasoline Alley for the Walt & Skeezix collections. The piece also takes in several other comics industry stalwarts and champions of good cartooning (classic and new) such as Fantagraphics‘ Kim Thompson (who acknowledges the help of fans in making classic volumes such as the wonderful Complete Peanuts possible) and Chris Oliveros of D&Q.

John Callahan - surely one of the few published quadriplegic cartoonists - is profiled by Michelle Theriault in the Statesman Journal, discussing how he went through both his disability, the physical limits it puts upon him and a battle with drink to find himself through art.

Guy Delisle has picked up more than a few reviews for his comics travelogues Shenzhen and Pyongyang, but this review from the Asia Times online is quite interesting since it is from a newspaper which covers the regions that Guy is actually describing and is familiar with the subject - glad to say they seem as impressed as most of the rest of us with his work.

At the end of last year, ScottishGames.biz/ bumped into Gordon Rennie, author and comics writer for 2000AD and Warhammer. Gordon recently took a step into the games world, thanks to his involvement in the script for Rebellion's Rogue Trooper, which was published last year, as well as couple of other projects which, being games, never actually happened in the way they were supposed to.

Gordon is an interesting guy, with a lot to say about the world of comics, the state of writing in the games industry and the general state of the 'arts' in Scotland.

Baz Renshaw's sketchpad