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I got a response to my paper PREMIS Events Through an Event-Source Lens.
There are two strange choices made by this response. I’ll touch on the more personal one at the end, but first, what does the response say?
It’s not entirely clear.
If the response says that, “it is a choice to implement PREMIS?” And that “PREMIS can be implemented in different ways?” “and that it’s technology agnostic” Then yes, 100% that’s basically the driver for my original paper and once you read it holistically, instead of dissecting it and cherry-picking points, you will probably read it that way as well.
As I wrote in my first blog response to the publication of my paper in 2023, Tessella’s Rob Sharpe’s 2013 presentation was an important reference point for me and we’ll revisit it below, but Rob labors that PREMIS is technology agnostic and can be represented in other formats, and since 2013 I haven’t seen enough conversation or discussion about that, and I wanted to amplify that message by looking at PREMIS in an event-sourced model as an aggregation.
If there’s something more substantive in the PREMIS Editorial Committee’s (EC) response, then I feel it’s lost in its own stylistic choices (to focus on what I might have been saying rather than taking a show don’t tell approach to clarifying their more salient points.).
I wonder if it might have been handled differently? I am pretty easy to find these days, and so reaching out to clarify any of my thinking might have been one way; perhaps there was a way to collaborate on a response; perhaps most of of the EC’s concerns (if there are any) could have been handled with a joint editorial note in the original paper to clarify that my words are not an authoritative source on PREMIS, rather, PREMIS (events) were largely a vehicle to describe more the benefits of an event-sourced architecture and that you still need to consider and interpret the PREMIS documentation and guidance for yourself before implementing it in your own solutions.
Going a different direction
The essence of the original paper is this: (from my perspective) PREMIS is not a schema to be implemented in the back-end of any digital preservation system. Should it be still be deemed a relevant technology, it might be studied in your requirements analysis, and you would make sure that your own system is not lossless in any way as to effect PREMIS “conformance”, but you would not match your “schema” to PREMIS, you would ensure that you can output it, “present it” that is, it would become one representation of data that can be generated from your system out of many. One view, or as I clearly point out, an aggregation, in the case we have chosen an event-based architecture.
This is not at odds with the (so-called) corrections that have been provided to me in the Code4Lib journal article from the PREMIS EC.
That being said, a further thesis is that PREMIS events are often a lossy, stateful representation of data in a digital preservation system. PREMIS represents one-dimensional state (or slices of state) over a period of time. In the modern engineering world, we have at our disposal methods of capturing, greedily, all events in the life of a digital object and doing that will create a richer view of the life of that object, and, as a representation of that data, a richer PREMIS view of an object and its events over time if so desired.
The authors of the EC response labor heavily on their perception of a misunderstanding on my part about PREMIS and they can choose to do that but what may look like a misunderstanding of PREMIS is not a misunderstanding of technology:
Conformance, in general, is defined as:
> how well something, such as a product, service or a system, meets a specified standard
And the PREMIS EC have decided to attach levels to conformance (also graduated levels, and degrees) to “quantify(ing) the degree to which PREMIS has been implemented”, three of which are anchored in implementation, apparently, three distinct implementations.
- Mapping, indirect or otherwise,
- Export,
- Direct implementation,
I write:
PREMIS conformance should be separate from representation. If we acknowledge PREMIS is at least one important representation of preservation metadata, i.e. for its ability to act as an interface to those looking to interpret preservation metadata, then whether it exists logically on disk, or is generated through an event sourced projection, is irrelevant. How a representation complies with the PREMIS data model remains of greater importance, but this is measured from the same eventual view, whatever intermediate abstraction it sits within.
The PREMIS EC can choose to have three graduated levels of implementation to quantify degree of implementation. They can also make it clear level three (internal representation) is not necessarily the final goal, but it might benefit you; but If you’re not the PREMIS EC, don’t go near it, there’s no need.
I posit that conformance is only how well you can map to PREMIS or access something PREMIS-like that satisfies its data model. Your goal is to look at PREMIS as one interface you can potentially satisfy (you still need to describe objects uniquely; you need to describe agents engaging with them; rights need to sit somewhere), and once you can satisfy that interface you can access it in many different ways, and conformance should be measured against that, if PREMIS conformance is deemed valuable.
Put simply, conformance does not require levels. Levels may simply be the wrong word, these are just guides you might follow to demonstrate conformance (or ways that someone might audit a system to determine conformance).
The EC clipped this from one of the points they responded to:
Is level three (internal implementation) reasonable in today’s software development world, is it reasonable in today’s environmental climate?
Do we sacrifice the potential to store and access other different, richer, more-complex, (or less-complex), representations about other cross-sections of our data at the expense of putting PREMIS at the core of our digital preservation system? – No. We can make it an output of many, and use its schema and data dictionary to output it, but we don’t build around it, we essentially report around it.
They argue:
there are also benefits in choosing to take an internationally defined and agreed data model and use that as the basis of your system.
Well, if it’s internationally defined and agreed, let’s just do that! 🤷
The benefits of not implementing an external data model are broadly around increased control and flexibility, however the trade-off to consider is the likely loss of easy interoperability and exchange with other systems.
If you re-frame PREMIS as an interchange-format and you can prove that as useful, you absolutely have my buy-in and I will have designed you a system that doesn’t preclude a PREMIS-like output, i.e. a way of aggregating more detailed information in your system and outputting PREMIS as a representation (a format) for others to understand.
The resurgence of OAIS?
From the EC:
There are two responses to this, the first is to note that access has always been considered a part of Digital Preservation, to the point that one of the functional areas of the OAIS model is Access.
Who had OAIS on their World Digital Preservation Day (WDPD) Bingo Card?
But also, no. This is a misleading read and deserves more context.
Access when it is considered part of digital preservation is when access is used as a measure of success of digital preservation (or indicator of the potential obsolescence of an object) – it is an intrinsic property of digital preservation.
But the access function in OAIS is not that. And even if you’re crafty, and build an access component to a system that provides a feedback loop to digital preservation functions, it’s not that part of OAIS.
Now, PREMIS does have some nice features that support access BUT we’re talking “events”, and information that supports digital preservation and even though there may be a way to encode events that provide a feedback loop to measure the success of preservation, e.g. {“event”: “access”, “detail”: “tried to open PSD in GIMP”, “outcome”: “FAIL”}, true access goes well beyond the scope of my article and the spirit in which it was written.
We need to evolve
The EC presents a somewhat dogmatic and institutionalised response. As a flaneur in the field, as someone who has worked implementing PREMIS in one of the most PREMIS heavy digital preservation systems out there, and involved too in efforts to minimise PREMIS verbosity, including my own event-like approaches I revisit Sharpe’s paper in 2022/2023. I do this asking, why don’t we talk about it more? Why do I see projects today still see XML as the end goal of PREMIS?
- https://github.com/bishbashbackup/premissh
- https://github.com/rochester-rcl/premis-generator (also JSON which is really nice!)
My view is that a 20 year old standard, a 2015 specification (last revision) and a 2016 reference implementation in an out of date technology (XML), and an very institutional PREMIS EC, with roots at the Library of Congress, all have influence, and some of the points I do see appearing from their response are being buried in their desire to hold onto authority.
The biggest point being buried, technological agnosticism, appears in the EC’s response to me five times, technology independent once, and in the official data dictionary once (unrelated), and it appears in the official 2015 conformance statement, zero (although you can bend the verbosity of the conformance statement into words that read like technologically agnostic. But make it explicit, don’t write it five times to me and not put it in the docs. Make new reference implementations, or borrow them from your implementers. Use plain-language, and just make it explicit.
Better still, let’s evolve the presentation of the PREMIS standard (away from separate PDFs), and use a modern documentation framework (e.g. Diataxis), and put it into public versioned source control, and give us a way that we can help write the documentation with you to make things like this clearer.
While the EC’s response to me labor on the idea I have missed the fact that PREMIS is technology agnostic I wrote the original paper to amplify previous conversations and keep them relevant because they were formative for me, and I hope that they will be formative for others.
I also wrote the original paper as more of a technology paper than a PREMIS paper (honouring PREMIS of course) but I make a very clear conclusion that is very much inclusive of PREMIS:
It is this paper’s assertion that we can store more, and “do more” by taking an event-sourced approach to storing events associated with the “objects” described in the PREMIS data dictionary.
I can nuance this further:
- Store events about your digital objects and try to make sure some of those events can be aligned with PREMIS,
- Store events because events happen on a continuum, don’t fall into the trap of storing state,
- Create representations of your data, PREMIS might be one, access reports and logs might be another, feature analyses might be another, don’t limit yourself to one schema, use many.
My paper is about trying to fit older trusted paradigms into modern development practices. It’s about moving away from dogmatic adherence to the past while honouring something that exists.
We can do PREMIS exactly the same as we do it now, as long as we don’t put it front and centre of our implementation.
How to respond to a “well-actually”?
Well-actually… https://www.recurse.com/social-rules#no-well-actuallys
There are some editorial quirks in my paper, the one I am most embarrassed by is when my writing conflated the data model with the events in the Library of Congress controlled vocabulary (what other controlled vocabularies have other folks been using in the last decade? Next PREMIS revision, please, put those listings in there or open the editorial process to modern practices). Conflating these two things in one paragraph should hardly be the thread that untangles the entire piece.
The PREMIS EC haven’t reached out to me before publication, or after, yet as I point out, they all know where to find me (I wasn’t able to make the PREMIS birds-of-a-feather at iPRES (probably a good thing while this seems to have been in the air) but I was at the conference). Their response though does something strange, directing their efforts at things I might not have understood, may seemingly be getting at; or pointing out what I am “really saying here”. It is a patronising approach. For the gaps they filled in on my behalf, I would happily have provided clarity, offering me the opportunity to respond in a less reactive way, or perhaps all of us a chance to collaborate.
Their response appeals to authority, and its two references are my article and the PREMIS data dictionary. I am sure there was a more neutral, reflective, and holistic way to approach this work by focusing on the entirety of the article and its spirit, and giving the benefit of the doubt to what is perceived as the author’s “mistakes” or “misreadings”. A show don’t tell approach might have helped, and would certainly be valuable, e.g. spending more time implementing examples that lent themselves to updating future revisions of the data dictionary and conformance statements.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Anyway folks. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Interpretation is tricky? I imagine that the PREMIS EC will find fault with the above text, but to try to avoid another article on the subject of my misinterpretation: The PREMIS EC aren’t foisting the standard on you and I most definitely am not. Read their docs if you do choose PREMIS. Technology changes and so do standards. I feel we have an obligation to modernise (and demonstrate modernisation) with those changes. I feel we have an obligation to question, and evaluate as time moves on; especially when technology is front and centre of how we support our archivists and librarians.
Hopefully people reading this can continue to read the original paper for what it is. There may be some potentially interesting ideas and conclusions that a pure PREMIS discussion distracts from, including what event-sourced data might mean for activating information supporting digital preservation.
Hopefully too, from this engagement, the PREMIS EC will take an opportunity to fold some of their own response into their own documentation and guidance.
Thanks for reading.
PREMIS conformance statement (2015): https://www.loc.gov/standards/premis/premis-conformance-20150429.pdf
PREMIS data dictionary (Version 3.0 (2015)): https://www.loc.gov/standards/premis/v3/premis-3-0-final.pdf
https://exponentialdecay.co.uk/blog/dont-implement-premis-represent-it/
#Code #Coding #Data #digipres #DigitalPreservation #PREMIS #WDPD #WorldDigitalPreservationDay
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Two amazing talks at the #Diversity #Equity #Inclusion session at #RIPE88 , by Nataša Mojsilović : #intentional communities & Rob Lister : #neurodiversity : video recordings & slides already available: https://ripe88.ripe.net/programme/meeting-plan/diversity-equity-inclusion/
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142 - Marvel Age #102 - 5/21/1991
Previewing X-Force #1, two weeks before the issue dropped. I think I could string up Cable's shoulder pad upside down like a hammock & nap in it.
Cover by Rob Liefeld. Interiors by various.
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142 - Marvel Age #102 - 5/21/1991
Previewing X-Force #1, two weeks before the issue dropped. I think I could string up Cable's shoulder pad upside down like a hammock & nap in it.
Cover by Rob Liefeld. Interiors by various.
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142 - Marvel Age #102 - 5/21/1991
Previewing X-Force #1, two weeks before the issue dropped. I think I could string up Cable's shoulder pad upside down like a hammock & nap in it.
Cover by Rob Liefeld. Interiors by various.
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#FAA Scraps Civil and Criminal #Penalties for Flying #Drones Near #ICE Vehicles
source: 404media.co/faa-scraps-civil-a…
without paywal: archive.is/20260418171445/404m…Earlier this month, #Minnesota journalist Rob Levine sued the FAA over the #TFR. In a motion filed earlier this week, Levine’s lawyers argued that the FAA had violated his rights and should rescind the #restrictions. Core to their argument was the unmarked vehicles which they said created a “flotilla of invisible, moving bubbles,” according to court documents. “Under any standard, the TFR’s chilling sweep violates the #FirstAmendment as applied to the Petitioner’s use of drones in #photojournalism.”
#journalism #press #freedom #law #court #police #migration #immigration #protest #resistance #government #politics #justice #usa #news #photo #drone #warning #trump #whitehouse #humanrights #crime #doj
RE: 404media.co/.ghost/activitypub… -
#FAA Scraps Civil and Criminal #Penalties for Flying #Drones Near #ICE Vehicles
source: 404media.co/faa-scraps-civil-a…
without paywal: archive.is/20260418171445/404m…Earlier this month, #Minnesota journalist Rob Levine sued the FAA over the #TFR. In a motion filed earlier this week, Levine’s lawyers argued that the FAA had violated his rights and should rescind the #restrictions. Core to their argument was the unmarked vehicles which they said created a “flotilla of invisible, moving bubbles,” according to court documents. “Under any standard, the TFR’s chilling sweep violates the #FirstAmendment as applied to the Petitioner’s use of drones in #photojournalism.”
#journalism #press #freedom #law #court #police #migration #immigration #protest #resistance #government #politics #justice #usa #news #photo #drone #warning #trump #whitehouse #humanrights #crime #doj
RE: 404media.co/.ghost/activitypub… -
#FAA Scraps Civil and Criminal #Penalties for Flying #Drones Near #ICE Vehicles
source: 404media.co/faa-scraps-civil-a…
without paywal: archive.is/20260418171445/404m…Earlier this month, #Minnesota journalist Rob Levine sued the FAA over the #TFR. In a motion filed earlier this week, Levine’s lawyers argued that the FAA had violated his rights and should rescind the #restrictions. Core to their argument was the unmarked vehicles which they said created a “flotilla of invisible, moving bubbles,” according to court documents. “Under any standard, the TFR’s chilling sweep violates the #FirstAmendment as applied to the Petitioner’s use of drones in #photojournalism.”
#journalism #press #freedom #law #court #police #migration #immigration #protest #resistance #government #politics #justice #usa #news #photo #drone #warning #trump #whitehouse #humanrights #crime #doj
RE: 404media.co/.ghost/activitypub… -
I made a comic!
Imprinted Image: Comics Link Roundup April 17
You read that right, folks. I made a comic! It’s a two-page mini-zine, and you can read it for free below this text. But! If you would like a cool print version mailed you, there are two ways you can do that. Either support me on Patreon to get this and any future physical media I do, or buy it on Ko-fi for as low as $ 1.
And I also have a behind the scenes video previewing the physical mini-comic, as well as some behind-the-scenes information on my inspiration.
All that aside, let’s get on with the usual fare. The links in this are only up to date from last Friday, April 10. The links for this week will be included in a newsletter next week.
Welcome to Imprinted Image, my semi-weekly comics newsletter. If this is your first time, welcome! This is the best way to keep up with my comics blog. After links to my most recent writing, I’ll provide a roundup of comics industry links. This can be news, media, criticism, or anything that I personally found interesting.
Please don’t forget about the resources tab on this website. It’s a collection of reading guides, tutorials, and free legal resources like public domain image archives. I want this to be as useful as possible, so if you have any additions please send them my way.
Divining Comics is sponsored by readers like you
I have a Patreon! For as little as $3 a month, you can keep the lights on at this blog and get your name at the bottom of every article. At higher tiers, you can vote in monthly Patreon polls and more! Anything you can offer means the world to me, and I cherish all my supporters.
Support Divining Comics on PatreonComics Challenge YouTube
I designed and am participating in a comics challenge this year, alongside some friends in the My Marvelous Year community. I have picked 52 comics from 52 categories, shown below. I’d love for you to participate and comment along as you are reading! Note that on this list, categories that match with episodes from the Extra Issues podcast.
Comic Challenge Extra Issues Edition 2026DownloadI decided to create a YouTube documenting my reading journey! MAGAZINE MARCH has almost concluded. Last week I published a video on WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP from Japan and Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba’s UMBRELLA ACADEMY.
I’ve also been doing little shorts where I poorly read a scene I liked from these comics. I guess shortform video gets juiced in the algorithm because they have been blowing up. You can check out the playlist of them here.
It would mean the world to me if, in addition to watching this video, you subscribed to my channel and gave the video a like. No one knows exactly how the black box of social media algorithms work, but I do know that if you interact with the video in different ways, YouTube might show it to more people who would be interested. The other easy way you can help is by sharing this video with a comic fan in your life!
Link Roundup
News:
Comics, Making Real News
The Hollywood Reporter had a piece on the Rise of the Superstar Artists. They compare it directly to the ’90s, when a number of artists like Todd MacFarlane, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, and more could seemingly do no wrong sales-wise, which lead to the creation of Image Comics. The Beat has some thoughts as to what this all could portend.The Diamond Bankruptcy Saga Continues
The court has denied publishers the motion to recover the books that Diamond held on consignment.Indie Comics Library
New archive just dropped. This one is a searchable archive of independent comic creators, with a focus on Black creators.A Heist
Over 100 pieces of original art were stolen from the house of Mark Evanier. If you see any of these pieces showing up on the art market, report it to the proper authorities.Do You Like Discourse?
It was a slow news week, so discourse it is. The Beat has the writeup, because of course they do. Rob Liefeld seemingly dissed the Bendis and Bagley ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, calling it a new coat of paint over the Lee / Ditko era, and Alan Moore says that comics are no longer for the working class, but for the middle class, to their detriment. I disagree with MacDonalds’ assessment that Moore isn’t responding to the comics market as it exists. Sure, over the past 9 months, DC and other companies have started putting out cheap collections of their back issues, Marvel and DC have digital subscriptions, and libraries are free. But new comics are $5 a month for 20 pages of material. It has almost never been a worse economic proposition to buy a comic magazine than right now.Writing:
SKTCHD wrote a breakdown of what happens when a comic becomes a speculator hit from the perspective of the creators and an analysis of which comic book characters would survive and thrive on THE PITT. They also published an interview with Eric Harburn of TinyOnion and one with Hunter Gorinson of ONI Press.
Shelfdust continued their Year of Evil looking at The Black Hand‘s first appearance. They also published an essay on the manga SMOKING IN THE SUPERMARKET WITH YOU.
Comic Book Herald published Dave’s Favorite Graphic Novels of March 2026, as well as reading orders for DC’s Absolute Universe and Marvel’s summer event ARMAGEDDON, both of which will be updated as the comics actually come out.
Several sites have roundups of crowdfunded comics projects you may be interested in backing! The Beat (Twice). Graphic Policy (Twice) (Thrice!)(Okay, are they doing this every day?)(Yeah, seems pretty often).
Humble Bundle has a few packs of digital comics you can buy for cheap: All of THE BOYS. Classic Valiant.
Other News Roundups:
SKTCHD’s Comics Disassembled: 3/27. 4/10.
Comics Beat’s biweekly Digest: 3/31. 4/3. 4/7. 4/10.
The Comics Journal’s weekly links to New, Reviews, and Interviews: 4/3. 4/10.Very Limited Data Bestseller Lists from the past few weeks:
Weekly Top 400 Bestseller List from Prana / Comic Shop Assistant: 3/27. 4/3. 4/10.
Weekly Bestseller List from Bleeding Cool / ComicHub: 3/29. 4/4.Weekly “Hottest Comics” from Bleeding Cool / Covrprice: 3/31. 4/7.
Most Anticipated Comics from Bleeding Cool / League of Comic Geeks: 3/31. 4/5.
Top March Comics from ICv2 / ComicHub: Top 20 Graphic Novels. Top 50 Comics.The Beat reports that Circana Bookscan data shows that Graphic Novel sales to bookstores were up 28.5% in Q1 of 2026.
My favorite video and podcasts:
Podcasts:
OFF PANEL had on Faith Erin Hicks to talk about her graphic novel INBETWEENS and Tiffany Babb to discuss her Kickstarter for a comics criticism zine.
LET’S TALK COMICS had on Matthew Rosenberg to chat about taking over SPAWN and his original comic IF DESTRUCTION BE OUR LOT.
MY MARVELOUS YEAR posted 2014 pt. 2 covering Jason Aaron’s continuing Thor era and the ORIGINAL SIN comic and event, as well as 2014 Variant B talking the first few episodes of DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN season 2.
YouTube:
MATTTT (that’s Matt with 4 Ts) has a video on MOOMIN. He also has a new channel, MATTTTTTTT (Matt with 8 Ts) where he posts more casual videos, like
COMICTROPES had a video thinking through if it was a mistake to tell Wolverine’s origin story.
COMICBOOK COUPLE’S COUNSELING continued season 2 of their miniseries “The Stacks,” where they have industry people select comics to talk about from the shelves of Third Eye Comics, like the Criterion Closet, with Christian Ward all the way in the UK.
SKTCHD published a video asking Matthew Rosenberg, Pornsak Pichetshote, and Gregg Katzman what their Four Favorite comics are.
What the hell, I’ll plug my YouTube again. Watch me talk about WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP and UMBRELLA ACADEMY.
Divining Comics is brought to you by generous support from the “Best Friends of Divining Comics,” Alex Seubert.
Divining Comics is also brought to you by the support of the “Friends of Divining Comics,” Comic Book Herald.
If you would like to add your name to the list of friends, best friends, or best friends forever, support this work for less than the cost of one cup of coffee a month at patreon.com/diviningcomics. You can also leave a one-time tip/buy my zines at ko-fi.com/spikestonehand. Follow me on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky and share my posts there.
#art #books #ComicBooks #comics #criticism #dcComics #fiction #graphicNovels #ImprintedImage #links #marvel #marvelComics #reviews #Writing -
I made a comic!
Imprinted Image: Comics Link Roundup April 17
You read that right, folks. I made a comic! It’s a two-page mini-zine, and you can read it for free below this text. But! If you would like a cool print version mailed you, there are two ways you can do that. Either support me on Patreon to get this and any future physical media I do, or buy it on Ko-fi for as low as $ 1.
And I also have a behind the scenes video previewing the physical mini-comic, as well as some behind-the-scenes information on my inspiration.
All that aside, let’s get on with the usual fare. The links in this are only up to date from last Friday, April 10. The links for this week will be included in a newsletter next week.
Welcome to Imprinted Image, my semi-weekly comics newsletter. If this is your first time, welcome! This is the best way to keep up with my comics blog. After links to my most recent writing, I’ll provide a roundup of comics industry links. This can be news, media, criticism, or anything that I personally found interesting.
Please don’t forget about the resources tab on this website. It’s a collection of reading guides, tutorials, and free legal resources like public domain image archives. I want this to be as useful as possible, so if you have any additions please send them my way.
Divining Comics is sponsored by readers like you
I have a Patreon! For as little as $3 a month, you can keep the lights on at this blog and get your name at the bottom of every article. At higher tiers, you can vote in monthly Patreon polls and more! Anything you can offer means the world to me, and I cherish all my supporters.
Support Divining Comics on PatreonComics Challenge YouTube
I designed and am participating in a comics challenge this year, alongside some friends in the My Marvelous Year community. I have picked 52 comics from 52 categories, shown below. I’d love for you to participate and comment along as you are reading! Note that on this list, categories that match with episodes from the Extra Issues podcast.
Comic Challenge Extra Issues Edition 2026DownloadI decided to create a YouTube documenting my reading journey! MAGAZINE MARCH has almost concluded. Last week I published a video on WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP from Japan and Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba’s UMBRELLA ACADEMY.
I’ve also been doing little shorts where I poorly read a scene I liked from these comics. I guess shortform video gets juiced in the algorithm because they have been blowing up. You can check out the playlist of them here.
It would mean the world to me if, in addition to watching this video, you subscribed to my channel and gave the video a like. No one knows exactly how the black box of social media algorithms work, but I do know that if you interact with the video in different ways, YouTube might show it to more people who would be interested. The other easy way you can help is by sharing this video with a comic fan in your life!
Link Roundup
News:
Comics, Making Real News
The Hollywood Reporter had a piece on the Rise of the Superstar Artists. They compare it directly to the ’90s, when a number of artists like Todd MacFarlane, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, and more could seemingly do no wrong sales-wise, which lead to the creation of Image Comics. The Beat has some thoughts as to what this all could portend.The Diamond Bankruptcy Saga Continues
The court has denied publishers the motion to recover the books that Diamond held on consignment.Indie Comics Library
New archive just dropped. This one is a searchable archive of independent comic creators, with a focus on Black creators.A Heist
Over 100 pieces of original art were stolen from the house of Mark Evanier. If you see any of these pieces showing up on the art market, report it to the proper authorities.Do You Like Discourse?
It was a slow news week, so discourse it is. The Beat has the writeup, because of course they do. Rob Liefeld seemingly dissed the Bendis and Bagley ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, calling it a new coat of paint over the Lee / Ditko era, and Alan Moore says that comics are no longer for the working class, but for the middle class, to their detriment. I disagree with MacDonalds’ assessment that Moore isn’t responding to the comics market as it exists. Sure, over the past 9 months, DC and other companies have started putting out cheap collections of their back issues, Marvel and DC have digital subscriptions, and libraries are free. But new comics are $5 a month for 20 pages of material. It has almost never been a worse economic proposition to buy a comic magazine than right now.Writing:
SKTCHD wrote a breakdown of what happens when a comic becomes a speculator hit from the perspective of the creators and an analysis of which comic book characters would survive and thrive on THE PITT. They also published an interview with Eric Harburn of TinyOnion and one with Hunter Gorinson of ONI Press.
Shelfdust continued their Year of Evil looking at The Black Hand‘s first appearance. They also published an essay on the manga SMOKING IN THE SUPERMARKET WITH YOU.
Comic Book Herald published Dave’s Favorite Graphic Novels of March 2026, as well as reading orders for DC’s Absolute Universe and Marvel’s summer event ARMAGEDDON, both of which will be updated as the comics actually come out.
Several sites have roundups of crowdfunded comics projects you may be interested in backing! The Beat (Twice). Graphic Policy (Twice) (Thrice!)(Okay, are they doing this every day?)(Yeah, seems pretty often).
Humble Bundle has a few packs of digital comics you can buy for cheap: All of THE BOYS. Classic Valiant.
Other News Roundups:
SKTCHD’s Comics Disassembled: 3/27. 4/10.
Comics Beat’s biweekly Digest: 3/31. 4/3. 4/7. 4/10.
The Comics Journal’s weekly links to New, Reviews, and Interviews: 4/3. 4/10.Very Limited Data Bestseller Lists from the past few weeks:
Weekly Top 400 Bestseller List from Prana / Comic Shop Assistant: 3/27. 4/3. 4/10.
Weekly Bestseller List from Bleeding Cool / ComicHub: 3/29. 4/4.Weekly “Hottest Comics” from Bleeding Cool / Covrprice: 3/31. 4/7.
Most Anticipated Comics from Bleeding Cool / League of Comic Geeks: 3/31. 4/5.
Top March Comics from ICv2 / ComicHub: Top 20 Graphic Novels. Top 50 Comics.The Beat reports that Circana Bookscan data shows that Graphic Novel sales to bookstores were up 28.5% in Q1 of 2026.
My favorite video and podcasts:
Podcasts:
OFF PANEL had on Faith Erin Hicks to talk about her graphic novel INBETWEENS and Tiffany Babb to discuss her Kickstarter for a comics criticism zine.
LET’S TALK COMICS had on Matthew Rosenberg to chat about taking over SPAWN and his original comic IF DESTRUCTION BE OUR LOT.
MY MARVELOUS YEAR posted 2014 pt. 2 covering Jason Aaron’s continuing Thor era and the ORIGINAL SIN comic and event, as well as 2014 Variant B talking the first few episodes of DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN season 2.
YouTube:
MATTTT (that’s Matt with 4 Ts) has a video on MOOMIN. He also has a new channel, MATTTTTTTT (Matt with 8 Ts) where he posts more casual videos, like
COMICTROPES had a video thinking through if it was a mistake to tell Wolverine’s origin story.
COMICBOOK COUPLE’S COUNSELING continued season 2 of their miniseries “The Stacks,” where they have industry people select comics to talk about from the shelves of Third Eye Comics, like the Criterion Closet, with Christian Ward all the way in the UK.
SKTCHD published a video asking Matthew Rosenberg, Pornsak Pichetshote, and Gregg Katzman what their Four Favorite comics are.
What the hell, I’ll plug my YouTube again. Watch me talk about WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP and UMBRELLA ACADEMY.
Divining Comics is brought to you by generous support from the “Best Friends of Divining Comics,” Alex Seubert.
Divining Comics is also brought to you by the support of the “Friends of Divining Comics,” Comic Book Herald.
If you would like to add your name to the list of friends, best friends, or best friends forever, support this work for less than the cost of one cup of coffee a month at patreon.com/diviningcomics. You can also leave a one-time tip/buy my zines at ko-fi.com/spikestonehand. Follow me on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky and share my posts there.
#art #books #ComicBooks #comics #criticism #dcComics #fiction #graphicNovels #ImprintedImage #links #marvel #marvelComics #reviews #Writing -
I made a comic!
Imprinted Image: Comics Link Roundup April 17
You read that right, folks. I made a comic! It’s a two-page mini-zine, and you can read it for free below this text. But! If you would like a cool print version mailed you, there are two ways you can do that. Either support me on Patreon to get this and any future physical media I do, or buy it on Ko-fi for as low as $ 1.
And I also have a behind the scenes video previewing the physical mini-comic, as well as some behind-the-scenes information on my inspiration.
All that aside, let’s get on with the usual fare. The links in this are only up to date from last Friday, April 10. The links for this week will be included in a newsletter next week.
Welcome to Imprinted Image, my semi-weekly comics newsletter. If this is your first time, welcome! This is the best way to keep up with my comics blog. After links to my most recent writing, I’ll provide a roundup of comics industry links. This can be news, media, criticism, or anything that I personally found interesting.
Please don’t forget about the resources tab on this website. It’s a collection of reading guides, tutorials, and free legal resources like public domain image archives. I want this to be as useful as possible, so if you have any additions please send them my way.
Divining Comics is sponsored by readers like you
I have a Patreon! For as little as $3 a month, you can keep the lights on at this blog and get your name at the bottom of every article. At higher tiers, you can vote in monthly Patreon polls and more! Anything you can offer means the world to me, and I cherish all my supporters.
Support Divining Comics on PatreonComics Challenge YouTube
I designed and am participating in a comics challenge this year, alongside some friends in the My Marvelous Year community. I have picked 52 comics from 52 categories, shown below. I’d love for you to participate and comment along as you are reading! Note that on this list, categories that match with episodes from the Extra Issues podcast.
Comic Challenge Extra Issues Edition 2026DownloadI decided to create a YouTube documenting my reading journey! MAGAZINE MARCH has almost concluded. Last week I published a video on WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP from Japan and Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba’s UMBRELLA ACADEMY.
I’ve also been doing little shorts where I poorly read a scene I liked from these comics. I guess shortform video gets juiced in the algorithm because they have been blowing up. You can check out the playlist of them here.
It would mean the world to me if, in addition to watching this video, you subscribed to my channel and gave the video a like. No one knows exactly how the black box of social media algorithms work, but I do know that if you interact with the video in different ways, YouTube might show it to more people who would be interested. The other easy way you can help is by sharing this video with a comic fan in your life!
Link Roundup
News:
Comics, Making Real News
The Hollywood Reporter had a piece on the Rise of the Superstar Artists. They compare it directly to the ’90s, when a number of artists like Todd MacFarlane, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, and more could seemingly do no wrong sales-wise, which lead to the creation of Image Comics. The Beat has some thoughts as to what this all could portend.The Diamond Bankruptcy Saga Continues
The court has denied publishers the motion to recover the books that Diamond held on consignment.Indie Comics Library
New archive just dropped. This one is a searchable archive of independent comic creators, with a focus on Black creators.A Heist
Over 100 pieces of original art were stolen from the house of Mark Evanier. If you see any of these pieces showing up on the art market, report it to the proper authorities.Do You Like Discourse?
It was a slow news week, so discourse it is. The Beat has the writeup, because of course they do. Rob Liefeld seemingly dissed the Bendis and Bagley ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, calling it a new coat of paint over the Lee / Ditko era, and Alan Moore says that comics are no longer for the working class, but for the middle class, to their detriment. I disagree with MacDonalds’ assessment that Moore isn’t responding to the comics market as it exists. Sure, over the past 9 months, DC and other companies have started putting out cheap collections of their back issues, Marvel and DC have digital subscriptions, and libraries are free. But new comics are $5 a month for 20 pages of material. It has almost never been a worse economic proposition to buy a comic magazine than right now.Writing:
SKTCHD wrote a breakdown of what happens when a comic becomes a speculator hit from the perspective of the creators and an analysis of which comic book characters would survive and thrive on THE PITT. They also published an interview with Eric Harburn of TinyOnion and one with Hunter Gorinson of ONI Press.
Shelfdust continued their Year of Evil looking at The Black Hand‘s first appearance. They also published an essay on the manga SMOKING IN THE SUPERMARKET WITH YOU.
Comic Book Herald published Dave’s Favorite Graphic Novels of March 2026, as well as reading orders for DC’s Absolute Universe and Marvel’s summer event ARMAGEDDON, both of which will be updated as the comics actually come out.
Several sites have roundups of crowdfunded comics projects you may be interested in backing! The Beat (Twice). Graphic Policy (Twice) (Thrice!)(Okay, are they doing this every day?)(Yeah, seems pretty often).
Humble Bundle has a few packs of digital comics you can buy for cheap: All of THE BOYS. Classic Valiant.
Other News Roundups:
SKTCHD’s Comics Disassembled: 3/27. 4/10.
Comics Beat’s biweekly Digest: 3/31. 4/3. 4/7. 4/10.
The Comics Journal’s weekly links to New, Reviews, and Interviews: 4/3. 4/10.Very Limited Data Bestseller Lists from the past few weeks:
Weekly Top 400 Bestseller List from Prana / Comic Shop Assistant: 3/27. 4/3. 4/10.
Weekly Bestseller List from Bleeding Cool / ComicHub: 3/29. 4/4.Weekly “Hottest Comics” from Bleeding Cool / Covrprice: 3/31. 4/7.
Most Anticipated Comics from Bleeding Cool / League of Comic Geeks: 3/31. 4/5.
Top March Comics from ICv2 / ComicHub: Top 20 Graphic Novels. Top 50 Comics.The Beat reports that Circana Bookscan data shows that Graphic Novel sales to bookstores were up 28.5% in Q1 of 2026.
My favorite video and podcasts:
Podcasts:
OFF PANEL had on Faith Erin Hicks to talk about her graphic novel INBETWEENS and Tiffany Babb to discuss her Kickstarter for a comics criticism zine.
LET’S TALK COMICS had on Matthew Rosenberg to chat about taking over SPAWN and his original comic IF DESTRUCTION BE OUR LOT.
MY MARVELOUS YEAR posted 2014 pt. 2 covering Jason Aaron’s continuing Thor era and the ORIGINAL SIN comic and event, as well as 2014 Variant B talking the first few episodes of DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN season 2.
YouTube:
MATTTT (that’s Matt with 4 Ts) has a video on MOOMIN. He also has a new channel, MATTTTTTTT (Matt with 8 Ts) where he posts more casual videos, like
COMICTROPES had a video thinking through if it was a mistake to tell Wolverine’s origin story.
COMICBOOK COUPLE’S COUNSELING continued season 2 of their miniseries “The Stacks,” where they have industry people select comics to talk about from the shelves of Third Eye Comics, like the Criterion Closet, with Christian Ward all the way in the UK.
SKTCHD published a video asking Matthew Rosenberg, Pornsak Pichetshote, and Gregg Katzman what their Four Favorite comics are.
What the hell, I’ll plug my YouTube again. Watch me talk about WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP and UMBRELLA ACADEMY.
Divining Comics is brought to you by generous support from the “Best Friends of Divining Comics,” Alex Seubert.
Divining Comics is also brought to you by the support of the “Friends of Divining Comics,” Comic Book Herald.
If you would like to add your name to the list of friends, best friends, or best friends forever, support this work for less than the cost of one cup of coffee a month at patreon.com/diviningcomics. You can also leave a one-time tip/buy my zines at ko-fi.com/spikestonehand. Follow me on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky and share my posts there.
#ImprintedImage #art #comics #books #ComicBooks #Writing #marvel #marvelComics #fiction #criticism #graphicNovels #links #dcComics #reviews -
089 - X-Force: Shatterstar #2 - 3/30/2005
I saw it, so now you have to.
Cover by Rob Liefeld. Interiors by Liefeld, Brandon Thomas & Marat Mychaels.
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023 - X-Factor #52 - 1/23/1990
Back in the heady days of the early 90s speculator bubble, this was a "wall" issue just on the back of the Liefeld cover. It was...a time.
Cover by Rob Liefeld. Interiors by Louise Simonson & Terry Shoemaker.
-
023 - X-Factor #52 - 1/23/1990
Back in the heady days of the early 90s speculator bubble, this was a "wall" issue just on the back of the Liefeld cover. It was...a time.
Cover by Rob Liefeld. Interiors by Louise Simonson & Terry Shoemaker.
-
023 - X-Factor #52 - 1/23/1990
Back in the heady days of the early 90s speculator bubble, this was a "wall" issue just on the back of the Liefeld cover. It was...a time.
Cover by Rob Liefeld. Interiors by Louise Simonson & Terry Shoemaker.
-
009 - New Mutants #87 - 1/9/1990
Rusty and Skids quit the New Mutants!
And, uh, a certain time-traveling, gun-toting cyborg makes his debut.
Cover by Rob Liefeld. Interiors by Louise Simonson & Liefeld.
#XmenADay #XMen #XFactor40 #NewMutants #Rictor #BoomBoom #Wolfsbane
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009 - New Mutants #87 - 1/9/1990
Rusty and Skids quit the New Mutants!
And, uh, a certain time-traveling, gun-toting cyborg makes his debut.
Cover by Rob Liefeld. Interiors by Louise Simonson & Liefeld.
#XmenADay #XMen #XFactor40 #NewMutants #Rictor #BoomBoom #Wolfsbane
-
009 - New Mutants #87 - 1/9/1990
Rusty and Skids quit the New Mutants!
And, uh, a certain time-traveling, gun-toting cyborg makes his debut.
Cover by Rob Liefeld. Interiors by Louise Simonson & Liefeld.
#XmenADay #XMen #XFactor40 #NewMutants #Rictor #BoomBoom #Wolfsbane
-
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📣 Dems have overperformed an avg of 13 pts across 60 Special Elections so far! There's ~30 MORE coming up! ✅ TODAY: FL HD-90: Rob Long FL SD-11: Ash Marwah GA HD-23: Scott Sanders GA HD-121: Eric Gisler IA HD-07: Rachel Burns #Blue25 secure.actblue.com/donate/speci...
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📣 Dems have overperformed an avg of 13 pts across 60 Special Elections so far! There's ~30 MORE coming up! ✅ TODAY: FL HD-90: Rob Long FL SD-11: Ash Marwah GA HD-23: Scott Sanders GA HD-121: Eric Gisler IA HD-07: Rachel Burns #Blue25 secure.actblue.com/donate/speci...
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📣 Dems have overperformed an avg of 13 pts across 60 Special Elections so far! There's ~30 MORE coming up! ✅ TODAY: FL HD-90: Rob Long FL SD-11: Ash Marwah GA HD-23: Scott Sanders GA HD-121: Eric Gisler IA HD-07: Rachel Burns #Blue25 secure.actblue.com/donate/speci...
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📣 Dems have overperformed an avg of 13 pts across 60 Special Elections so far! There's ~30 MORE coming up! ✅ TODAY: FL HD-90: Rob Long FL SD-11: Ash Marwah GA HD-23: Scott Sanders GA HD-121: Eric Gisler IA HD-07: Rachel Burns #Blue25 secure.actblue.com/donate/speci...
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📣 Dems have overperformed an avg of 13 pts across 60 Special Elections so far! There's ~30 MORE coming up! ✅ TUESDAY: FL HD-90: Rob Long FL SD-11: Ash Marwah GA HD-23: Scott Sanders GA HD-121: Eric Gisler IA HD-07: Rachel Burns #Blue25 secure.actblue.com/donate/speci...
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📣 Dems have overperformed an avg of 13 pts across 60 Special Elections so far! There's ~30 MORE coming up! ✅ TUESDAY: FL HD-90: Rob Long FL SD-11: Ash Marwah GA HD-23: Scott Sanders GA HD-121: Eric Gisler IA HD-07: Rachel Burns #Blue25 secure.actblue.com/donate/speci...
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📣 Dems have overperformed an avg of 13 pts across 60 Special Elections so far! There's ~30 MORE coming up! 12/09: FL HD-90: Rob Long 12/09: FL SD-11: Ash Marwah 12/09: GA HD-23: Scott Sanders 12/09: GA HD-121: Eric Gisler 12/09: IA HD-07: Rachel Burns #Blue25 secure.actblue.com/donate/speci...
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📣 Dems have overperformed an avg of 13 pts across 60 Special Elections so far! There's ~30 MORE coming up! 12/09: FL HD-90: Rob Long 12/09: FL SD-11: Ash Marwah 12/09: GA HD-23: Scott Sanders 12/09: GA HD-121: Eric Gisler 12/09: IA HD-07: Rachel Burns #Blue25 secure.actblue.com/donate/speci...
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📣 Dems have overperformed an avg of 13 pts across 60 Special Elections so far! There's ~30 MORE coming up! 12/09: FL HD-90: Rob Long 12/09: FL SD-11: Ash Marwah 12/09: GA HD-23: Scott Sanders 12/09: GA HD-121: Eric Gisler 12/09: IA HD-07: Rachel Burns #Blue25 secure.actblue.com/donate/speci...
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📣 Dems have overperformed an avg of 13 pts across 60 Special Elections so far! There's ~30 MORE coming up! 12/09: FL HD-90: Rob Long 12/09: FL SD-11: Ash Marwah 12/09: GA HD-23: Scott Sanders 12/09: GA HD-121: Eric Gisler 12/09: IA HD-07: Rachel Burns #Blue25 secure.actblue.com/donate/speci...
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📣 Dems have overperformed an avg of 13 pts across 60 Special Elections so far! There's ~30 MORE coming up! 12/09: FL HD-90: Rob Long 12/09: FL SD-11: Ash Marwah 12/09: GA HD-23: Scott Sanders 12/09: GA HD-121: Eric Gisler 12/09: IA HD-07: Rachel Burns #Blue25 secure.actblue.com/donate/speci...
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