COMICS JOURNAL #303

The most award-winning, internationally acclaimed comics and graphic novel magazine in the medium's history returns to print! The Comics Journal, which is renowned for its in-depth interviews, comics criticism, and thought-provoking editorials, features Gary Groth in frank and often hilarious discussion with the satirist and children's book author Tomi Ungerer. Ungerer talks about the entire trajectory of his life and career: growing up in France during the Nazi occupation, creating controversial work, being blacklisted as a children's book author due to a backlash against his erotica. This issue, the first in its new twice-a-year format, covers the "new mainstream" in American comics - how the marketplace and overall perception of the medium has drastically shifted since the "graphic novel boom" of the early 2000s and massive hits like Persepolis, Fun Home, and Smile. It also includes sketchbook pages from French-born cartoonist Antoine Cossé, an introduction to homoerotic gag cartoons out of the U.S. Navy, Your Black Friend cartoonist Ben Passmore's examination of the role art and comics have in gentrification, a reconsideration of the comics canon by Eisner Award-winner Dr. Sheena C. Howard, and more.

DISNEY MASTERS HC #6

CARPI SCROOGE GOLDEN RIVER

(W) Giovan Carpi (A) Guido Martina (CA) Giovan Carpi

High up the Duck Family Tree lurks King Dondorado, ancient ruler of a pre-Columbian South American empire. Now Scrooge McDuck wants to find Dondorado's treasure! But the King's ghost demands his vast wealth go only to the pure of heart. Is that why Scrooge and Donald are bringing Huey, Dewey, and Louie along? How many ways can this go wrong? Beyond "King of the Golden River," this first-ever English language anthology includes "Me, Myself-and Why?" - in which Scrooge adopts two aliases to confuse the taxman - only to develop an actual split personality! Plus: the Wild West saga of "Mickey the Kid and Six-Shot Goofy!"

EC JACK KAMEN AL FELDSTEIN MARTIAN MONSTER HC

(W) Jack Kamen

Sci-fi classics from an EC Comics great! In Jack Kamen's first stories for Weird Science and Weird Fantasy, he and writer Al Feldstein explore the unexpected twists and turns that arise from the unintended consequences of new inventions such as matter transmitters, molecular duplicators, shrinking rays, time machines, and too-perfect robots. Well-known for his sure hand and slick line and his chic depictions of 1950s-style glamour, Kamen delights in bringing Feldstein's wicked scripts to graphic life-but there's surprisingly sharp social and political commentary as well, with stories that foreshadow the threat of climate change and the perils of artificial intelligence. From the creation of a miniature civilization to femmes fatale from the future to the precise prediction of the sun going nova, you'll find this collection of sci-fi shockers to be some weird science, indeed!

ETERNAUT HC (CURR PTG)

(W) Francisco Solano Lopez (A) Francisco Solano Lopez (CA) Francisco Solano Lopez

A seminal, Latin American sci-fi classic - back in print! Fantagraphics is proud to publish, for the first time in English, a graphic novel so powerful its main character's image (much like Che Guevara's) has become a potent symbol of the endless struggle against oppression; "Juan Salvo" appears on walls and in subways throughout Latin America to this day. This seminal Argentinian science fiction graphic novel was originally released as a serial from 1957-59. Juan Salvo, its inimitable protagonist, along with his friend Professor Favalli and the tenacious metalworker Franco, face what appears to be a nuclear accident, but quickly turns out to be something much bigger than they imagined. Cold War tensions, aliens of all sizes, space-and time travel-this one has it all. The Eternaut is also thinly disguised political allegory: its writer, He´ctor Germa´n Oesterheld (HGO), because he was involved in groups who protested the military dictatorship, was "disappeared" and presumed dead in 1977. Classical artist Francisco Solano Lo´pez (who had to flee Argentina for Spain) illustrated the book in a gritty, realistic style. This collaboration between two of the biggest names in Latin American comics is still powerful: the story of Juan Salvo, fighting to save Argentina and the world, lives on in sequels, retellings, and adaptations.

FISTFUL OF DRAWINGS SC

(W) Joe Ciardiello (A) Joe Ciardiello (CA) Joe Ciardiello

In this gorgeous graphic memoir, Joe Ciardiello weaves together his Italian family history and the mythology of the American West while paying homage to the classic Westerns of the '50s and '60s. Ciardiello's sinuous ink line and vivid watercolors illuminate the oversized characters that dominated the cinematic American West-featuring John Ford, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Claudia Cardinale, Sophia Loren, and many more. A paean to Hollywood, a love letter to the Western, and a tribute to its Italian influences.

HOBO MOM HC

(W) Charles Forsman

Hobo Mom was collaborated on and drawn simultaneously by two cartoonists across the Atlantic: Charles Forsman, author of The End of the Fxxxing World (now a hit Netflix series), and Max de Radiguès, winner of a prestigious prize at the Angoulême International Festival of Comics for his 2018 graphic novel Bastard. Both of their clean line styles fit together perfectly to tell a sober and intimate story about an emotionally damaged family and the price of freedom. Tom lives a simple life as a single father of pre-teen daughter Sissy, but their estranged wife and mother has chosen a much different path. Natasha hops trains and has become a vagrant since leaving her family a few years earlier. After a dangerous encounter riding the rails, Natasha chooses to show up on the doorstep of the family she abandoned and finds an upset husband, although still deeply in love, and a little girl yearning for a mother. Can someone who covets independence settle down? Forsman and de Radiguès's Hobo Mom explores the ideas of being trapped in domesticity and whether one deserves happiness, even at the cost of others.

MORT GERBERG ON SCENE SC

(W) Mort Gerberg (A) Mort Gerberg (CA) Mort Gerberg

Mort Gerberg broke into print with irreverent drawings in The Realist in the early '60s, whose social-justice-minded-and bitingly funny-cartoons have since appeared in all major magazines, including The New Yorker, Playboy, and the Saturday Evening Post. As a reporter, he's sketched historic scenes like the fiery Women's Marches of the '60s and the infamous '68 Democratic National Convention. Above all, Mort Gerberg is a keen political and social observer, whose curiosity, compassion, and razor-sharp wit has informed his work for over 50 years. Fantagraphics Underground is proud to present this handsome career retrospective of Gerberg's magazine cartoons, sketchbook drawings, and on-the-scene reportage sketches.

SCAR SC

(W) Andrea Ferraris (A) Andrea Ferraris (CA) Andrea Ferraris

In the summer of 2017, cartoonist Andrea Ferraris and director Renato Chiocca traveled to southern Arizona to witness the tense situation along the US-Mexico border firsthand. Drawing from frank interviews with volunteers at local humanitarian organizations and treks through the Sonoran Desert to save migrants in distress, Ferraris and Chiocca present a compassionate account of how the border wall has changed the lives of those on both sides.

STARSEEDS HC #2

(W) Charles Glaubitz (A) Charles Glaubitz (CA) Charles Glaubitz

Jack Kirby meets Ram Dass in this epic comics mythology. Multimedia artist Charles Glaubitz delivers the sequel to 2017's acclaimed Starseeds, a work of pictorial, illustrative, and cosmological components, while combining elements of myth, religion, and spirituality with comics, hermetic ideas, alchemy and science. After receiving the message in the water infused with the crystal sigil, Renato shares what has been prophesied. Indigo is infected by a black darkness that will soon overtake his soul. The Illuminatis regroup and set forth a new plan. We are introduced to new characters, such as "The Rainbow Twins." The prophecy of the seven Starseeds comes to pass and a new being is created that will face off with the coming Black Darkness of the Lizard King. Renato recounts the story of the Big Bang and the birth of the four cosmic god forces that govern and shape our universe. Starseeds is an epic journey, by turns fantastical, mythological, and visually arresting.