#imprinted-image — Public Fediverse posts

Imprinted Image: I’m Talking New Archie at 9 PM CST

Comics Link Roundup September 6

This last Wednesday, a new era for Archie began. For the first time Archie Comics has licensed their mainline comics to a third party, in this case ONI, who has had a lot of success revitalizing the EC HORROR line. ONI has announced three series thus far, ARCHIE, SABRINA, and ARCHIE IN HELL. I might talk about the latter two when they release, but tonight at 9 PM CST I’m talking ARCHIE # 1, which I believe is only the third ARCHIE # 1 ever published, on my YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/live/1bW4fJJ2Bv4?si=akI1HJn9rawKjJ5a

Without spoiling too much (watch the video live or on replay!), I was a bit mixed on this endeavor. There are some things that really work for me (Fábio Moon’s art), some things that I think could be interesting (the decision to tell multiple short stories instead of one 22 page story), and some things I really felt were lacking (No “high concept” or premise to distinguish this from traditional Archie comics). All that, some history, and a page-by-page look at the new story tonight on my YouTube at 9 PM CST.

Anyways.

Welcome to Imprinted Image, my 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.

I made a comic! It’s a two-page mini-zine, and you can read it for free here. 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.

I also have a behind the scenes video previewing the physical mini-comic, as well as some behind-the-scenes information on my inspiration.

https://youtu.be/C1938iMGzOc

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.

Comics 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.

I decided to create a YouTube documenting my reading journey!

These past weeks, I read the first volume of the NIKOPOL TRILOGY by Enki Bilal and AYA, a comic about Côte d’Ivoire written by Marguerite Abouet and drawn by Clément Oubrerie.

https://youtu.be/p1d3LnBAzjs?si=YRCZKbfbkIzgoyj6

https://youtu.be/F-SkdSoZN7w?si=kPiUsrsZCsKQTgai

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 creator Ed Brubaker is being sued for allegedly abusive behavior on the set of the CRIMINAL TV show. This is a developing story and I’m sure, given the legal claims and their public nature, we will be hearing more on this.

It’s not just me! Frank Miller thinks comics are colored with too much saturation. This is especially true for his comics, and indeed many older comics drawn on pen and paper.

I’ve long wondered why Marvel doesn’t publish some of the cool projects that use their characters, like Alex Ross’s MARVEL DIMENSIONS or John Byrne’s X-MEN ELSEWHEN. Apparently, they can’t figure out a way to make it make financial sense.

The Beat has a list of crowdfunded comics projects you may want to back.

Humble Bundle has a 2020s Image Comics megabundle, a collection of Dynamite mini-series, and some of Fantagraphics’ Disney Masers collections.

Other News Roundups:

Comics Beat’s biweekly Digest: 8/25. 8/28. 9/1. 9/4.
The Comics Journal’s This Week’s Links: 8/28. 9/4.
SKTCHD’s Comics Disassembled: 8/28.

Writing:

SKTCHD posted a look at how retailers are expecting Marvel’s Midnight line to perform and an interview with new French publisher ASTROLABE that is bringing American creators to the continent.

Shelfdust published a look at POLICE COMICS # 1, the first appearance of Plastic Man, and continued their SPAWN restrospective with Issue # 18.

Tegan O’Neil, over at The Comics Journal, has some thoughts on the new Vertigo relaunch.

Comics Grinder has a two–part History of Fantagraphics in honor of the publisher’s 50th anniversary.

My favorite video and podcasts:

Podcasts:

OFF PANEL had on retailer Shannon Live to talk comic book shops and Jack Mulqueen to talk his new comic PROJECT PERSEUS.

LET’S TALK COMICS had on Eliot Rahal and Mattia Monaco to talk CRIMES AGAINST NATURE, and Gary Frank to talk GEIGER.

MY MARVELOUS YEAR posted 2015 pt. 2, talking Sam Wilson Captain America, Spider-Gwen, and Howard the Duck, as well as 2015 variant C, talking LANTERNS and X-MEN ’97 season 2.

Youtubes:

COMICTROPES posted a video on the evolution of JOJO’S BIZARRE ADVENTURE on an artistic level and one of the soundtrack for THE CROW.

SKTCHD posted the

On his second channel, MATTTTTTTT published a short interview with Alex Ross.

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Divining Comics is brought to you by generous support from the “Best Friends of Divining Comics,” Alex Seubert and Dustin Commet.

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.

Imprinted Image: Is Marvel’s “Midnight” Line Making Plans Before It Turns Into a Pumpkin?

Comics Link Roundup August 23

As I was assembling this newsletter, a news item crossed my feed. Marvel is already in discussions for more “Midnight” series beyond the initial three, even before they launch. For those of you that don’t know, Midnight is a new Marvel publishing initiative seemingly designed to capture some of the hype around DC’s Absolute universe. Midnight takes some of the core Marvel characters and reimagines them in a more horror context (The X-Men are half vampires and half vampire hunters, Spider-Man is a body horror experiment gone wrong, and the Fantastic Four are…seemingly also a body horror experiment gone wrong.) Initially planned for each to debut a month apart, Marvel then changed their plans to have all three debut on October 7 at midnight, just in time for Halloween. Not only that, but there would be no other Marvel comics published that day.

Marvel seems to need this to work. For the first time in decades, Marvel is consistenly underselling DC. Although their new Editor in Chief Stephen Wacker most likely inherited this plan from the previous admin, I have to assume he was involved in some of these new changes, like the Midnght release date and the new variant cover program Marvel is launching alongside the universe. Hickman is bringing back data pages for Midnight. While I’m sure the primary Marvel universe is still hoping for success following their summer Armageddon event, Midnight is their moonshot to building off of the now-ended Ultimate 2niverse and reclaiming their momentum as a publisher.

Here’s the problem: I don’t know if the midnight books are going to be any good. Don’t get me wrong; I am excited for Jonathan Hickman to write more X-Men comics, even in an alternate universe. I am but mortal. I think Phillip Kennedy Johnson’s Spider-Man’s take could be interesting, like SPIDER-MAN 2099 but less cyberpunk and more THE FLY. Benjamin Percy’s Fantastic Four…sure, maybe that take could be interesting too. But there are a number of things that have me unsure of just how this will play out.

The first comes from a comparison to Absolute. One of the defining traits of the Absolute Universe, and one of the reasons for its success in my opinion, is the use of top-tier artists. Absolute has many killer writers, to be sure. But when you think of ABSOLUTE BATMAN, you think of Nick Dragotta’s ridiculous proportions and manga-influenced panelings. Similarly, ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN wouldn’t be the same without Hayden Sherman’s intricate panelings and ABSOLUTE MARTIAN MANHUNTER needs Javier Rodriguez’s trippy pop art to work the way it does. These were all exciting choices that both built anticipation before release and delivered on their promise.

I’m not saying that the artists announced for Midnight are not good at their jobs. I’m simply saying that I’ve never really heard of them. They aren’t artists just about to tip into superstardom, other than maybe Kev Walker. Compare even to the Ultimate 2niverse that had Marco Chechetto and Peach Momoko on art duties and you can see what I mean.

Secondarily, I think the “horror” tint has the potential to silo Midnight. Instead of doing what Absolute did, re-examining what made various characters interesting and rebuilding them from the ground up, Midnight feels distinctly alt-universe. This feels more akin to SPIDER-MAN NOIR than Absolute or either of the prior Ultimate lines. It feels like something that has a built-in expiration date of 2 years and not something that can take over the industry.

All that to say, this is a lot of caterwauling before any of the issues come out. I will be checking out all three when they come out, thought I don’t think I’ll be hitting up any midnight releases. I have a normal job to be awake for. Marvel can quell all of my doubts by putting out quality comics. Here’s hoping that’s what they do.

Anyways.

Welcome to Imprinted Image, my 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.

I made a comic! It’s a two-page mini-zine, and you can read it for free here. 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.

I also have a behind the scenes video previewing the physical mini-comic, as well as some behind-the-scenes information on my inspiration.

https://youtu.be/C1938iMGzOc

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.

Comics 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.

I decided to create a YouTube documenting my reading journey!

This last week, I read THE INCAL by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius for a wide-ranging conversation with my pal Josh about science fiction, magic, and the next phase of human consciousness.

https://youtu.be/tQVJBQXm3AU?si=Sk8D-ryuRaOT1pUw

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:

HarperCollins, making manga moves
One of the “Big Five” publishers, HarperCollins has purchased the French manga publisher KAZÉ and will transition it to being an imprint that publishes manga, manwha, manhua, and more in the European and US markets. Will manga ever hit a ceiling in the US markets? Not yet, it seems.

Have you heard of “Lettrism” before?
The Comics Journal has a cool writeup of an installation at the Center for Book Arts in Manhattan called “Rewriting the World: Isidore Isou and the Lettrist Book.” Lettrism was an avant-garde French poetic movement that used something akin to what we would today call comics to create a “hypergraphic” novel. I love looking at comics that aren’t comics.

Diamond Bankruptcy Saga Update
There are two pieces of news with the fallout of Diamond declaring bankruptcy almost two years ago now. First, over 1300 creditors are receiving mailouts explaining how they can reclaim some of the consigned inventory that the new owners of Diamond tried to sell. Second, Diamond and Alliance, who sued Diamond over alleged fraud during their attempted purchase, agreed to extend the timeline for their suit because of the lengthy discovery process. The bureaucracy of the law moves slowly.

Crowdfunding
The Comics Beat has a roundup of crowdfunded comics projects you may want to back.

Other News Roundups:

Comics Beat’s biweekly Digest: 8/18. 8/21.
The Comics Journal’s This Week’s Links: 8/21.

Writing:

SKTCHD posted a conversation with critic Oliver Sava on the comic GIGS by Mark Mosedale and Si Smith.

My favorite video and podcasts:

Podcasts:

OFF PANEL had on Terry Moore to discuss his past work on STRANGERS IN PARADISE being omnibized and his future kickstarter called PANDORA’S BOX.

LET’S TALK COMICS had on Darcy Van Poelgeest and Ian Bertram to discuss their upcoming comic THE KARMAN BLADE, as well as Che Greyson to talk EXQUISITE CORPSES: THE FOX MASK KILLER.

MY MARVELOUS YEAR posted 2015 pt. 1: Angela, Ants, & Squirrel Girl. Their sister podcast, EXTRA ISSUES, posted their episode on THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SCROOGE MCDUCK to the public feed and part 2 of their HELLBOY series behind the 6-month patreon delay paywall.

Youtubes:

COMICTROPES posted a fascinating video on the theft of Marvel original art from Kirby, Ditko, and their peers. Seriously, pieces that together would be worth collective millions and perhaps tens of millions today just so happened to go “missing” from the Marvel archives before later being sold.

SKTCHD posted the August installment of his Chip Chat series, where he talks with Chip Zdarsky once a month every month of 2026.

On his second channel, MATTTTTTTT published a look at an old Iron Man / Doctor Doom crossover comic and a review of ULTIMATE MANGA TECHNIQUES, a book by Kazuhiko Torishima, the editor of DRAGON BALL and one-time Editor in Chief of Shonen Jump Magazine.

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Divining Comics is brought to you by generous support from the “Best Friends of Divining Comics,” Alex Seubert and Dustin Commet.

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.

Imprinted Image: I am Not Excited for Marvel x Star Wars

Comics Link Roundup August 16

Last week, the crossover to end all crossovers was announced. Marvel will be putting out comics where their superheroes will meet the characters of Star Wars, all of which are of course owned by Disney. The series will be written by Kevin Smith and drawn by David Marquez. The five-issue minseries will be titled “Hope Assembles.”

I am not very excited about this, to put it bluntly. Let me start by putting aside my feelings for the series itself and talk about what I think this means big picture. While I’m sure there were tons of negotiations to make this happen, a Marvel x Star Wars crossover could have happened at any time since Disney purchased the two media empires. There is a reason it is only happening now, and the reason is simple: both Marvel and Star Wars are in their flop eras. Now, I’m not even talking the MCU, which has had some recent success with the most recent Spider-Man and will probably succeed again with the next Avengers. I’m talking Marvel comics, which have been consistently outsold by DC for the first time in literal decades. Star Wars has had some TV shows that were loved, but not widely viewed, and some TV shows that were viewed, but with mixed reception. Their first movie since episode IX, THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU, was a major flop on both levels. This crossover deal is a “break in case of emergencies” scenario.

Moving on to the comic itself, I struggle to imagine something less exciting. Perhaps the only way is if they had a more boring artist, as Marquez has drawn some series I actually like. But what person that isn’t a male born between 1965 and 1980 is excited for a Kevin Smith written comic in the year of our lord 2026? I think the last thing people genuinely enjoyed of this was RED STATE, and since then people only enjoyed TUSK on an ironic level (and because horror movie fans have some of the worst taste of any genre fans). The cover itself is bland and uninspiring. Figures look “on model” in the most generic way.

I’d love to be wrong about this. Marvel has done some crossovers recently that really worked. ALIENS VS AVENGERS was legitimately incredible, with writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Esad Ribic delivering something that takes the best of both franchises and applies them through their specific interests. But the real cynical thing is that this Marvel x Star Wars will sell regardless of how good or bad it is. That’s what makes me cynical.

Oh, and I’m calling my shot now: there will be a reference to the CLERKS joke about the “innocent” workers on the Death Star. Perhaps Deadpool will get caught in the explosion and say “I was just a janitor!”

Anyways.

Welcome to Imprinted Image, my 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.

I made a comic! It’s a two-page mini-zine, and you can read it for free here. 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.

I also have a behind the scenes video previewing the physical mini-comic, as well as some behind-the-scenes information on my inspiration.

https://youtu.be/C1938iMGzOc

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.

Comics 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.

I decided to create a YouTube documenting my reading journey!

The past few weeks, I read MONKEY MEAT with my friend Josiah W. Sutton of the FRUITLESS podcast. It’s one of my favorite videos I’ve made thus far, and probably my best.

https://youtu.be/J0AqaFdrYzg?si=y4UxSJx27fsyqpjY

I also read a volume of LUCKY LUKE, the classic Franco-Belgian comic about a cowboy in the United States west.

https://youtu.be/1ckzxBo-Y78?si=jWcPWcfczXdbpsFd

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:

DC takes video revealing AI concept art for SUPERGIRL down
In a behind the scenes video on their official YouTube, DC accidentally revealed that they used AI to generate concept art for Jason Momoa’s Lobo design. After people pointed this out, DC took the video down.

The State of Digital Comics
Publisher’s Weekly had an article about the current state, or lack thereof, of digital comics. As the Beat points out, most publishers report digital comics sales plateauing at 5-10% of their print sales.

Diamond Bankruptcy, seeing some resolution
After a lengthy bankrupcy, it wseems that Diamond will have to pay back some of the publishers for the books they held in consignment. Heidi MacDonald of the Beat has some analysis of what happened and what is next, as does Rich Johnston of Bleeding Cool.

Archie Legal Woes
One of the 50% owners of Archie Comics, John Goldwater, is in some legal trouble. The Beat has the full writeup, but long story short, he made a deal with a venture capitalist company that may become an albatross on his neck. Worst case scenario is he loses half of his share, which would go to the VCs he owes.

A Former Publisher accused of financial misconduct
Adam Fortier, who worked as a publisher for Boom!, has been accused of unsound business practices and unmet financial obligations.

Other News Roundups:

Comics Beat’s biweekly Digest: 8/4. 8/7. 8/11. 8/14.
SKTCHD’s Comics Disassembled: 8/7. 8/14.
The Comics Journal’s This Week’s Links: 8/7. 8/14.

Writing:

SKTCHD posted an analysis of if the trend towards miniseries as opposed to ongoing comic series has ended and an interview with artist Matias Bergara discussing his latest series A MISCHIEF OF MAGPIES.

Shelfust continued their “Year of the Villain” series with an essay on SCOTT PILGRIM’s Gideon Graves and their “Spawn De Replay” sereies looking at issue # 17.

My favorite video and podcasts:

Podcasts:

OFF PANEL had on Joshua Williamson and Kelly Sue Deconnick to talk why they love comics and Christian Ward to discuss his upcoming series THE PATRON and THE FOREVER HOME.

MY MARVELOUS YEAR posted 2015 Variant B, discussing SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY.

Youtubes:

COMICTROPES posted a look at how an independent furry comic helped creatre the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and another Weirdest Golden Age Heroes video.

MATTTT published a documentary on the artist Joe Matt, the creator of the comic PEEPSHOW. On his second channel MATTTTTTTT he published quicker takes on Steve Ditko’s run on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, the Marvel / Star Wars crossover comic, and his favorite graphic novels of the year so far.

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Divining Comics is brought to you by generous support from the “Best Friends of Divining Comics,” Alex Seubert and Dustin Commet.

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.

Imprinted Image: Marvel’s New Editor In Chief

Comics Link Roundup August 2

A few week’s ago, Marvel dropped bombshell news. Technically, it was two announcements. They were moving their offices from New York City to Burbank, California, and they hired Stephen Wacker as the new Editor-in-Chief. Now that the immediate shock has worn off, let’s dig in to the news a little bit, starting with the former.

Stephen Wacker seems to be a great choice for EiC. The previous head, C.B. Cebulski, was dogged by his controversial usage of an Asian pen name and persona in the early 2000s and by a line of comics that needed a shot in the arm. With the advent of DC’s Absolute line and their All-In initiative, Marvel has consistently fallen behind DC in sales for multiple months for the first time in decades, if ever. The good Marvel comics felt like islands in the morass of mere “content.” Something new has been needed for a few years now.

Enter Wacker. Aside from the reaction to his promotion being near-universal acclaim from the creators that have worked with him, there are several signs of positivity. First and foremost is his record as editor. In the 2010s, Marvel took a number of big risks on new characters, specific visions, and interesting creators that felt outside of the typical Marvel fare. If you ask someone today what some of the best Marvel comics since the year 2000 are, you’ll hear titles like HAWKEYE (Fraction/Aja), CAPTAIN MARVEL (Deconnick/Soy/Andrade/Lopez), MS. MARVEL (Wilson/Alphona), and DAREDEVIL (Waid/Samnee), all of which were edited by Stephen Wacker. He took chances approving unique stories and was rewarded with commercially and critically sucessful comics. Wacker also edited comics with insane turnarounds that required complicated managing, like 52 and the Brand New Day era of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN.

Another hopeful sign is his experience working with the TV and Film side of Marvel. As I’ll talk more about in a bit, there seems to be more integration between the MCU and Marvel comics coming down the pipeline. I’m generally not a fan of this. The best case scenario is changes in tone and small details to align comic characters to their newly-popular screen counterparts, like happened when Tony Stark became snarkier and grew Robert Downey Junior’s facial hair, or when Star-Lord became snarkier and his hair color changed to match Chris Pratt’s. A bigger problem is when more major changes are made to the character, like Kamala Khan being killed and resurrected as a mutant, getting light beam powers when G. Willow Wilson explicitly gave her a more body-based powerset to buck the trend of most women superheroes. At its worst, comic and broader media integration led to Marvel comics underserving the X-Men and even not publishing Fantastic Four comics because the film rights were owned by a different company.

As a publisher, the first job of Marvel comics should be to make good comics. Aligning characters with their televisual counterparts serves a short-term goal at the expense of long-term health. Wacker, as someone who has worked both sides and seems to have maintained his editorial skill, seems uniquely suited to navigate this challenge. Perhaps this is me being hopeful. But I can’t think of many other people in comics with the resume to balance the interests of both the MCU and comics sides of things

The reason I suspect there will be a push to integrate these two interests is the second piece of news I mentioned, the move to Burbank. Aside from any corporate synergy, there is a very obvious drawback to such a move. It is a way to cut staff without engaging in layoffs. Even if everyone currently working at Marvel in NYC was offered their same job in LA, a number of them would not want to uproot their families for a cross-country relocation. Some of these people, like editor Will Moss, have been delivering consistently good work for a decade or more at this point. This is sad enough, and my heart goes out to the workers needing to make tough decisions. In addition to brain drain, the move itself also could create a blip in quality. Even in our largely digital age, where hybrid or work from home arrangements have been possible for years now, this will disrupt Marvel’s output for a bit. The comics might suffer for a period, even with the best of intentions and planning.

All this to say, there is much to be excited about in the future of Marvel comics and also much still up in the air. Comics are a land of contrasts and Merriam-Webster defines “hack” as “Stephen ending his thoughts like this because he can’t think of anything better.”

Anyways.

Welcome to Imprinted Image, my 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.

I made a comic! It’s a two-page mini-zine, and you can read it for free here. 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.

I also have a behind the scenes video previewing the physical mini-comic, as well as some behind-the-scenes information on my inspiration.

https://youtu.be/C1938iMGzOc

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.

Comics 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.

I decided to create a YouTube documenting my reading journey!

The past few weeks, I read THE SMURFS, ASTERIX AND OBELIX, and BLAKE AND MORTIMER. I need to move on from older French comics soon or I’ll go mad.

https://youtu.be/IPGUeJCd3pc?si=6wdjVkjqim_3kog-

https://youtu.be/fPjAyWKugTg?si=G-773P4p4x6BoyWc

https://youtu.be/pFtuXFTVTqE?si=4FdYw4J3kZmpuqGe

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:

The Eisner Awards!
This year’s winners of the Eisner Awards, one of comics’ most prestigious awards, were announced at San Diego Comic Con. There are a lot of good books this year, and not as many controversial picks as there were some previous years. There was one issue, however. The award winners were posted a couple of days early. They didn’t leak. The Eisner website posted the official list early on accident.

Trouble Continue for Silver Sprocket
Financially, publisher Silver Sprocket has been in a rough state for a while now. They put out a number of unique and interesting comics, but they recently had to close down their San Francisco storefront. Now, creators are alleging (again, for the record) that they are having issues getting paid, among other mistreatments. Unfortunately, this seems to be a pervasive problem with smaller publishers. You tend to get a lot more editorial freedom, but they are often just as bad if not worse than some of the bigger publishers because their margins are tighter.

Dark Horse Workers Union alleging shenanigans
After a rough few years post-financial buyout, the workers at Dark Horse (ie, not the contracted creators but the editors and other hourly or salaried employees) decided to unionize. Now, they allege, Dark Horse is trying to weaken the union by making senior editors into managers. Because of the potential for a conflict of interest, managers aren’t allowed to join unions. The Dark Horse Workers Union claims that these senior editors weren’t managers before, but the new owners are trying to change their roles into managerial ones so that they can no long be a part of the union.

Other News Roundups:

Comics Beat’s biweekly Digest: 7/14. 7/17. 7/21. 7/23. 7/28. 7/31.
SKTCHD’s Comics Disassembled: 7/17. 7/31.
The Comics Journal’s This Week’s Links: 7/17. 7/24. 7/31.

Writing:

Comic Book Herald posted his favorite graphic novels of July and a list of the 35 Most Popular Comics of the 2020s.

SKTCHD posted another piece on the incredible sucess comic book shops have had last year and this one and a recap of his time at San Diego Comic Con, including his look into the early posting of the Eisner results.

The Beat, with article writer Mark Tweedale and comic creators Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormstrom, published a reading order for the BLACK HAMMER universe.

Shelfust published the latest editions of their SPAWN retrospective (issue 15 and 16) a reflection on ALL-STAR SUPERMAN # 6 (by David Brothers!), WAYNE FAMILY ADVENTURES # 7, a “celebration of that random crystal Green Lantern that always shows up”

My favorite video and podcasts:

Podcasts:

OFF PANEL had on Frank Miller to discuss his new autobiography PUSH THE WALL: MY LIFE, WRITING, DRAWING, AND THE ART OF STORYTELLING, journalist Heidi MacDonald on San Diego Comic Con (and live reacting to the Marvel EiC and relocation news), and Andy Kubert talking about TERMINAL, his new mega-series with Robert Kirkman, Joe Casey, David Finch, and Artur Adams.

MY MARVELOUS YEAR posted 2014 pt. 2 covering the Spider-Verse event and 2015 variant cover A covering Marvel news and the MCU.

Youtubes:

COMICTROPES posted videos on Alfred, Batman’s butler, the RENT-A-GIRLFRIEND manga, and a ranking of Marvel’s Editors-in-Chief.

SKTCHD published their seventh conversation this year with Chip Zdarsky.

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Divining Comics is brought to you by generous support from the “Best Friends of Divining Comics,” Alex Seubert and Dustin Commet.

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.

Imprinted Image: I’m Going Live Today at 2 Central

Comics Link Roundup July 12

Last week I asked and you answered. I now have more than 50 subscribers on YouTube, the requirement before you can go live. So, to celebrate, I’m doing a livestream today at 2 PM Central time. You can watch by clicking the video embedded below.

https://www.youtube.com/live/hKSD-jnWpaY?si=e1gSFJH0izDeoM0p

Anyways.

Welcome to Imprinted Image, my 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.

I made a comic! It’s a two-page mini-zine, and you can read it for free here. 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.

I also have a behind the scenes video previewing the physical mini-comic, as well as some behind-the-scenes information on my inspiration.

https://youtu.be/C1938iMGzOc

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.

Comics 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.

I decided to create a YouTube documenting my reading journey!

This week, I read the incredible LIFE AND TIMES OF SCROOGE MCDUCK. Who knew that Disney tie-in comics could look so good?

https://youtu.be/XmH4DUhoxps?si=nWj_TY4tXOYoV_Xw

Next week, in honor of Bastille Day, French month begins with THE SMURFS

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:

Variant Covers are continuing to be hot, but not without controversy. Due to claims by fans that comic shops are creating artificial scarcity with their custom variant cover drop schedules, DC comics has made a list of rules for their variant covers to prevent price gouging, and violators can be banned from purchasing DC comics going forward.

There’s a new sales record for a piece of original comic art. No, it isn’t from Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Jerry Siegel or Bob Kane. It’s a piece by Don Heck, one of the first page drawings of Iron Man.

The digital comics market is still in flux. Image takes their titles away from GlobalComix, meaning the only way to buy them now is on the Kindle, Apple, or Google Book store, or if you have access to the SweetShop beta, the only comics-focused reader with Image titles.

Comix Wellspsring, a print service popular with independent comics, is suspending operations. This is after they recently announced a deal with GlobalComix to bring their digital first comics to print.

Comic Book Yeti has a list of crowdfunding projects you may way to back

Buy a bundle of digital comics for cheap over on Humble Bundle. They have a bunch of Sonic the Hedgehog comics.

Other News Roundups:

Comics Beat’s biweekly Digest: 7/7. 7/10.
SKTCHD’s Comics Disassembled: 7/10.
The Comics Journal’s This Week’s Links: 7/10.

Stats:

PranaDM’s Top 400 Comics sold: 7/10.
Bleeding Cool’s Top Weekly Bestseller List: 7/11.
Bleeding Cool’s Most Anticipated Comics: 7/5. 7/11.
Bleeding Cool’s Hottest Comics: 7/7.
ICv2 Top Graphic Novels – Superhero, Author, and Manga:
Image Top 10 Comics: June 2026.

Writing:

Comic Book Herald published a TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: THE LAST RONIN reading order.

SKTCHD posted a retrospective on Nick Dragotta‘s career and how he became one of the hottest artists of the moment.

Shelfust has an article on ultraviolence in SIEGE # 2.

The Comics Journal posted a career retrospective on Gerry Conway and a reconsideration of Jim Shooter‘s legacy.

My favorite video and podcasts:

Podcasts:

OFF PANEL had on Ed Brubaker to talk the CRIMINAL TV show and his upcoming UNFINISHED TALES and Iman Vellani to talk her debut comic writing in CHACHU.

LET’S TALK COMICS also interviewed Iman Vellani about CHACHU.

MY MARVELOUS YEAR posted 2014 Variant Cover F, talking X-MEN ’97 season 2. Their sister podcast, EXTRA ISSUES, published part 6 of their Osamu Tezuka series, talking PHOENIX and LETTERS TO ADOLPH. On patreon, you can get early access to their first episode on HELLBOY.

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Divining Comics is brought to you by generous support from the “Best Friends of Divining Comics,” Alex Seubert and Dustin Commet.

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.

Imprinted Image: Two Subscribers Away

Comics Link Roundup July 5

As of writing this, I am sitting at 48 subscribers on YouTube. When I hit 50, I am able to livestream. That sounds like a lot of fun and I am looking forward to trying that out. Even if you don’t want to watch any of my videos, it would be a huge kindness if you went and subscribed to my channel.

Anyways.

Welcome to Imprinted Image, my 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.

I made a comic! It’s a two-page mini-zine, and you can read it for free here. 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.

I also have a behind the scenes video previewing the physical mini-comic, as well as some behind-the-scenes information on my inspiration.

https://youtu.be/C1938iMGzOc

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.

Comics 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.

I decided to create a YouTube documenting my reading journey!

My Adventure Comics June continued with CORTO MALTESE, a comic I absolutely loved. You can tell why it is one of your favorite creator’s favorite comics. Fantagraphics will publish new color editions later this year.

https://youtu.be/v6MClz7Yt-s?si=MmSq31rSmQqeW-fl

Next week, I’m covering THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SCROOGE MCDUCK.

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:

The biggest controversy in comics was about Tillie Walden’s new book CHARITY & SILVIA. Professor Rachel Cleves claims that Walden’s book is an unauthorized adaptation of her non-fiction, researched biography of the same name. Walden and her publisher maintain that Cleves book was one source among many. You can read all of their statements and a full rundown of the claims here.

Some of the big drama on comics social media this week was John Romita Jr.’s cover for AMAZING SPIDER-MAN # 1000. Some thought it wasn’t very exciting, others loved it, and still others (probably the camp closest to where I fall) think it was merely inked and colored in a way not suited to JRJR’s style.

I haven’t really dived in to the new digital comics landscape myself (I don’t read digitally as much anymore), but there are still moves being made. As the post-Comixology landscape continues to evolve, do any of you use new services like Sweet Shop, Neon Ichiban, or GlobalComix? What are your thoughts?

Stephanie Williams was the first black woman ever nominated for Best Writer at the Eisners. Some of the bigger comics news sites didn’t catch this. The Beat has an opinion piece arguing why this oversight is a big deal and the ways to stop something like it from happening going forward.

The Diamond Bankruptcy Saga continues at a slow pace. The publishers who claim ownership over the items Diamond held under consignment, the Alliance suit claiming Diamond didn’t negotiate in good faith, and the SparklePop suit claiming Alliance poached talent are all hitting deadlines in the next few months.

The Beat has a roundup of crowdfunding projects you may want to back.

Buy a bundle of digital comics for cheap over on Humble Bundle. They have Supergirl comics

Other News Roundups:

Comics Beat’s biweekly Digest: 6/23. 6/26. 6/30. 7/3.
SKTCHD’s Comics Disassembled: 6/26. 7/3.
The Comics Journal’s This Week’s Links: 6/26. 7/3.

Stats:

PranaDM’s Top 400 Comics sold: 6/26. 7/3.
Bleeding Cool’s Top Weekly Bestseller List: 6/27. 7/4.
Bleeding Cool’s Most Anticipated Comics: 6/29.
Bleeding Cool’s Hottest Comics: 6/23. 6/30.
ICv2 Top Graphic Novels – Superhero, Author, and Manga: Spring 2026.

ABSOLUTE BATMAN issues are getting sold for absurd prices on eBay.

Writing:

Comic Book Herald published his favorite graphic novels of June 2026.

SKTCHD posted a “Double Take” with Oliver Sava on the new Zander Cannon book SLEEP.

Shelfust has an article on THE ULTIMATES # 21 as a work of popcorn resistance. They also continue their Year of Evil looking at Scarlet Witch’s first appearance in X-MEN # 4. Finally, their issue by issue coverage of SPAWN hits # 14.

How To Love Comics posted a BLACK HAMMER reading order.

The Comics Journal posted a career retrospective on the life of Mark Gruenwald.

My favorite video and podcasts:

Podcasts:

OFF PANEL had on Matt Kindt to discuss his new MIND MGMT spinoff NEW AND IMPROVED and Omar Valdivieso to talk about the omnibus industrial complex.

LET’S TALK COMICS interviewed Trish Forster about her career and time on FERAL and STRAY DOGS.

MY MARVELOUS YEAR posted 2014 pt. 9, talking SECRET AVENGERS, LOKI: AGENT OF ASGARD, and CAPTAIN AMERICA, and 2014 pt. 10, talking UNCANNY AVENGERS and the AXIS event.

YouTube:

SKTCHD chatted with Chip Zdarsky for part 6 of their year-long conversation on how Chip’s year is going.

MATTTT published a documentary on Ed Brubaker and his frustrations with his time at Marvel comics.

COMIC TROPES posted a video on David Mazzucchelli’s defining Batman art in YEAR ONE, a video on comic book creators who made incredibly popular characters but went broke because of the deals Marvel, DC, and others offer, and a video on shark comics.

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 Matt Fraction.

• WordPress
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• Instagram

Divining Comics is brought to you by generous support from the “Best Friends of Divining Comics,” Alex Seubert and Dustin Commet.

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.

Imprinted Image: I Hate Blind Bags. Why Can’t I Buy ROM # 1?

Comics Link Roundup June 21

A couple of Wednesdays ago, Robert Kirkman and Skybound did what he likes to do most and surprised people. In the “blind bags” (imagine opening a trading card pack but with comics) for M.A.S.K. # 1, among variant covers and early copies of issue # 2, you could end up with a copy of ROM # 1, the surprise return of Rom, Space Knight. He’s another toy that was a fixture of 1980s Marvel comics before they lost the license and will now be a character in the growing Energon universe. That all sounds pretty cool, right?

WRONG. For one, ROM is not cool and I am being punished for liking such a dorky character. But two, and more importantly, right now the only way to get a copy of that issue is to gamble and hope the 1 in 6 chance goes your way (at $5 a pop) or spend upwards of $50 on a secondary market like eBay. I am hopeful that at some point the issue will be reprinted. But right now, it is absurd to me that there is a new comic that I would like to spend money to purchase and I cannot.

To me, this is potentially a worrying direction for the blind bag trend to head. I don’t understand the appeal of variant covers or of opening a random treat packet, but it mostly didn’t affect me. I’m primarily a reader, though I do in a certain sense collect comics too. As long as I could read the comics, I don’t see the problem with blind bags for the people hoping to get a cool variant cover. They are free to waste their money. But my alarm bells start going off when you disadvantage the reader in favor of the collector.

Comics have always been a mass medium. From their origins in newspapers to their adoption into pulp magazines, comics have thrived by being cheap, accessible, and prevalent. Collectors items are precisely the opposite. They need a tighter, artificial scarcity in order to drive up the price. They use gambling mechanics to get repeat buyers. This dialectic has been a tension within American comics since the ’90s, ebbing and flowing. I worry that continuing to lean into collectability will further silo comics into a niche for well-off hobbyists and away from the broad appeal they once had (that I hope they return to).

Anyways.

Welcome to Imprinted Image, my 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.

I made a comic! It’s a two-page mini-zine, and you can read it for free here. 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.

I also have a behind the scenes video previewing the physical mini-comic, as well as some behind-the-scenes information on my inspiration.

https://youtu.be/C1938iMGzOc

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.

Comics 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.

I decided to create a YouTube documenting my reading journey!

Manga “May” ended with the first volume of BUDDHA, a biography by the god of Manga, Tezuka Osamu. Then, I start a month of Adventure Comics by looking at one of the OG adventure comics, TINTIN.

https://youtu.be/sRrtOanM_tg?si=CBIl_R6D5QA-wbyd

https://youtu.be/b_8B2wBDnNs?si=_5zgR-sZjoLXav-P

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:

This is just strange: USA Today is launching a digital service that includes a bunch of digital Marvel comics, including an exclusive Spider-Man digital comic written by Al Ewing and drawn by Todd Nauck.

Good news rarely makes the news, and that is apparent in many of this week’s headlines. Dark Horse is laying off staff, despite recognizing the new employee union.

Bad news Archie fans: after the publisher took out some loans and made deals with other production companies, the lender is taking them to court. Potentially at stake is a controlling stake in the company.

Heavy Metal Magazine is also going through some changes in an attempt to maintain profitability. The storied magazine returned only a year or two ago and is already having to cut back some.

Marvel Comics has allegedly not paid inker Jonathan Glapion for work he has already rendered.

The co-creator of Judge Dredd, John Wagner, has been appointed a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by King Charles III.

The Comics Journal has a full biography of Marjane Satrapi, the recently deceased cartoonist behind PERSEPOLIS.

The Beat has a roundup of crowdfunding projects you may want to back.

Other News Roundups:

Comics Beat’s biweekly Digest: 6/5. 6/9. 6/12. 6/16. 6/19.
SKTCHD’s Comics Disassembled: 6/12. 6/19.
The Comics Journal’s This Week’s Links: 6/5. 6/12. 6/19.

Stats:

PranaDM’s Top 400 Comics sold: 5/26 – 6/1. 6/2 – 6/8 and all of May. 6/9 – 6/15.
Bleeding Cool’s Top Weekly Bestseller List: 6/6. 6/14. 6/20.
Bleeding Cool’s Most Anticipated Comics: 6/7. 6/16. 6/21.
Bleeding Cool’s Hottest Comics: 6/9. 6/16.
ICv2’s Top 50 Comics: May 2026.
ICv2’s Top 20 Bookstore Graphic Novels: May 2026 pt 1 and pt 2.

Scott Snyder says ABSOLUTE BATMAN # 20 sold over half a million copies.

SHE-SPAWN was the highest ordered Image comic title of May, and the link has the whole top 10.

Writing:

Comic Book Herald published a ’60s X-Men reading order.

SKTCHD posted an interview with cartoonist Lee Lai, author of STONE FRUIT and Eisner nominee and an interview with Leef Smith, owner of Mission: Comics and Art store in San Francisco. They also wrote about the balance between collectors and readers of comics

Shelfust has an article on SUPERGIRL # 285, the issue where she went public as a superhero. They also published a piece on SINK # 1, which has scared the article writer into never visiting Scotland.

ICv2 shares a retailer’s numbers on just how big of a business variant covers are.

My favorite video and podcasts:

Podcasts:

OFF PANEL had on Rob Guillory to discuss his new comic with his CHEW collaborator Jon Layman, GHOST BRAWLER and Che Grayson to talk about CATWOMAN # 1.

LET’S TALK COMICS had on Liam Sharp to talk STARHENGE and Seth Damoose to talk BADROCK.

MY MARVELOUS YEAR posted 2014 pt. 8, talking ROCKET RACCOON, ELECTRA, and DEATH OF WOLVERINE, and 2014 Variant E, discussing the SPIDER-NOIR TV show. Their sister podcast Extra Issues published pt. 5 of their Osamu Tezuka series, covering BLACK JACK and, for the patreon, an episode on CALVIN AND HOBBES.

YouTube:

SKTCHD chatted with Steve Morris, owner of Shelfdust and marketer for 2000 AD.

COMIC TROPES posted a video reflecting on his career thus far and a retrospective on the career of Norm Breyfogle.

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 Andy MacDonald.

• WordPress
• Facebook
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• Instagram

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.

Imprinted Image: Pondering the Finitude of Space

Comics Link Roundup June 5

We bought a zoo (house).

My wife and I have spent the past couple weeks bringing boxes and bags to our new place. We’re all done, but it is still a mess. Of course, one of the most annoying things to move, as any bibliophile or comic reader can tell you, is books. They’re heavy, they take up a lot of space, and how often do you actually re-read most of them?

It is time for my semi-annual freakout over physical media. I much prefer the experience of reading a physical book, watching a disk, and listening to vinyl than their digital counterparts. But I can’t deny that the value proposition doesn’t always make sense. In addition to the cost, incorporating the space they take up means, at a certain point, I’m engaging in commodity fetishism.

I don’t wish to be morbid, but I can’t help but think about what will happen when I die. I’ll have so much junk that people will need to get rid of. I know in some Nordic countries, it is customary for the elderly to start handing off their clutter so that their mourning children don’t have to. And if I would get rid of something then, why wouldn’t I get rid of it now?

Perhaps it is just time for me to weed out my collection. Maybe I should have done that before I moved. Anyways.

Welcome to Imprinted Image, my 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.

I made a comic! It’s a two-page mini-zine, and you can read it for free here. 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.

I also have a behind the scenes video previewing the physical mini-comic, as well as some behind-the-scenes information on my inspiration.

https://youtu.be/C1938iMGzOc

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.

Comics 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.

I decided to create a YouTube documenting my reading journey!

I didn’t newsletter in all of May, so I have a number of videos to show. On the other hand, moving made me fall a bit behind.

https://youtu.be/RKxEd9AwSpc

https://youtu.be/oLINLFSWcYc

https://youtu.be/rVjMJZCMCeM

https://youtu.be/y1_ZvkWikQ8

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:

Marjane Satrapie passes at 56
The cartoonist behind Persepolis died last week. Her husband had passed last year and her family stated that she died of grief as a result.

Dark Horse Workers, Unionizing
The back of house workers at Dark Horse have unionized. That link, from The Comics Journal, has a great recap of the problems Dark Horse has had since they were bought out by private equity. Later on in the week, Dark Horse voluntarily recognized the union, a good outcome for the workers.

Most Expensive Comic?
There is a $17,500 edition of THE KILLING JOKE collected edition. I don’t know why. But if you want to see it, you can go San Diego Comic Con and check it out for yourself.

Crowdfunding
ComicsBeat has a list of crowdfunding projects you may want to back.

Humble Bundle
Check out this colleciton of Ablaze manga available for cheap on Humble Bundle.

Writing:

Comic Book Herald published his favorite graphic novels of May 2026.

SKTCHD has an in-depth look at IDW’s upcoming HELLO KITTY comics.

Shelfust continues their year of evil looking at Joe Chill, the murderer of Martha and Thomas Wayne.

On Solrad, Mina Ruyle talks about the issue of identity at the heart of Paul Aster’s CITY OF GLASS and its comic adaptation by David Mazzucchelli.

Other News Roundups:

Comics Beat’s biweekly Digest: 6/2.

My favorite video and podcasts:

Podcasts:

OFF PANEL had on James Stokoe to talk about his upcoming sequel to ORPHAN AND THE FIVE BEASTS.

MY MARVELOUS YEAR posted 2014 pt. 7 talking Silver Surfer, Inhuman, and Ghost Rider.

YouTube:

SKTCHD asks Mark Waid about the moment he knew some of his most classic comics would be successful.

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 Pornsak Pichetshote.

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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.

Imprinted Image: Comics Link Roundup April 24

Why aren’t there more fan comics?

John Byrne, the artist behind some of the most classic X-Men stories like the Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past, has X-Men fan-fiction. Quite literally, he drew something like 30 issues of comics for his website under the premise “what if I never left the franchise?” Incredibly, Marvel is actually collecting and publishing this material! Beyond the Byrne of it all, however, this does make me wonder: why aren’t there more fan-fiction comics?

In Japan, for example, there is a thriving scene of doujinshi, self-published print works that often use copy-written characters. Many amateur mangaka get their start in this scene, and even professionals participate to avoid the strictures of formal publishing. The market for such works in the US is paltry, comparatively. Artists like Jeremy Hyler have done Batman fan-comics that they sell on their websites, but there aren’t major conventions like there are in Japan. Perhaps it is the difference in copyright culture in America.

I think there is something to the difference in scenes. In the US, the underground comix scene is, painting with a broad brush, positioned against the superhero comics industry. The people who go to zine fests and other self-published conventions in the US usually aren’t the same people who want to draw Spider-Man. Similarly, while you do see some “derivative” work in the webcomics space, it usually isn’t trying to do the same thing as “mainstream” comics. They’ll use superheroes, but for gag pages. Occasionally you’ll see a slice-of-life fan-fiction comic. I’m not as well-versed in this scene, but I could imagine that there is more of a priority placed on original characters and content in the US webcomic space.

Finally, drawing is incredibly time intensive. Compare it to the amount of time it takes to write fan-fiction and you could see why artists might not want to spend their limited free time on works that they don’t feel passionate about. Additionally, drawing arguably takes more time to get good at than writing. Certainly it is more readily apparent when it is “bad.” Ease of entry is one of the drivers for sharing fan-fiction, and even a small difference in difficulty could lead to a massive difference in amount shared online.

What are your thoughts? Am I even correct that there aren’t many fan-fiction comics akin to Japanese doujinshi, or have I not looked in the right spaces? Let me know in the comments!

Last week, I made a comic! It’s a two-page mini-zine, and you can read it for free here. 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.

I also have a behind the scenes video previewing the physical mini-comic, as well as some behind-the-scenes information on my inspiration.

https://youtu.be/C1938iMGzOc

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.

Comics 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.

I decided to create a YouTube documenting my reading journey! MAGAZINE MARCH has almost concluded. Recently I published videos on SIN CITY and JACK KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD, the latter of which was done in conversation with Matt Bernico of the Magnificast Podcast. Pre-order his book!

https://youtu.be/Rvi1bzgWPGU

https://youtu.be/prUm5nPHhdQ

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:

Disney Layoffs
Disney fired a massive number of their workers. This includes a number of people at Marvel comics, like former Head of Sales David Gabriel and 3 comics editors.

Awards
Several comics won the LA Times Book Prize, including LIFE DRAWING by Jaime Hernandez and ANGELICA by Trung Le Nguyen.

Jeopardy
Comics writer Tini Howard was on Jeopardy!

Comics, Adapted (Into New Comics)
SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN is coming to Webtoon. A number of Western, print-original comics are getting adapted into infinite-scroll digital comics. This is an interesting trend worth keeping an eye on.

Social Media Sucks
Syundei, the creator of a popular manga, GO FOR IT NAKAMURA!, was bullied off of Twitter.

Writing:

SKTCHD interviewed Rafael Albequerque on his design work for ABSOLUTE GREEN ARROW and Ram V. on the new series he is writing, DECIDIUM.

Shelfdust published a David Brothers piece looking at GINGER, a pay-what-you-want comic by Victor Santos available on Panel Syndicate, Brian K. Vaughan, Marcos Martin, and Muntsa Vicente’s website to publish digital-first comics. They also published a piece on the history of Batman’s wealth, noting the times when it started to become a problem for the narrative.

Anime Herald published an article examining an interesting question: why aren’t there more anime and manga about marijuana?

Comic Book Herald updated his Best Superhero Comics of All Time list with his favorite superhero comics of 2026.

Humble Bundle has a few packs of digital comics you can buy for cheap: Complete Terry Moore. Kana-Manga Mini Bundle.
Similar site Digifile has a huge collection of pre-Absolute Image comics from Absolute creators.

Other News Roundups:

SKTCHD’s Comics Disassembled: 4/17.
Comics Beat’s biweekly Digest: 4/14. 4/17. 4/21.
The Comics Journal’s weekly links to New, Reviews, and Interviews: 4/17. 4/24.

Very Limited Data Bestseller Lists from the past few weeks:

Weekly Top 400 Bestseller List from Prana / Comic Shop Assistant: 4/17.
Weekly Bestseller List from Bleeding Cool / ComicHub: 4/11. 4/19.

Weekly “Hottest Comics” from Bleeding Cool / Covrprice: 4/14. 4/21.
Most Anticipated Comics from Bleeding Cool / League of Comic Geeks: 4/13. 4/19.
Top March Comics from ICv2 / Circana Bookscan: Author, Manga, and Superhero Graphic Novels. Adults Graphic Novels.

BEN TEN # 1 sold 82,000 copies to comic shops. An enterprising data nerd could take that data, combine it will the charts that map sales as a percentage of the top seller, and calculate actual market size.

Image puts out their Top 10 selling comics for March.

Popverse gets in to just how many units are being sold of each issue of ABSOLUTE BATMAN. Spoiler alert – it’s more than each issue of the New 52 BATMAN was selling.

DC expands its market share over Marvel in 2026 Q1.

My favorite video and podcasts:

Podcasts:

OFF PANEL had on Julia Wertz to discuss BURY ME ALREADY and Pornsak Pichetshote about ABSOLUTE GREEN ARROW.

LET’S TALK COMICS had on Charlie Adlard to talk OF THE EARTH.

MY MARVELOUS YEAR posted 2014 pt. 3 covering DEADPOOL, DR. STRANGE, and THE ILLUMINATI, and 2014 pt. 4, talking DAREDEVIL and the debut of MS. MARVEL. Their sister podcast EXTRA ISSUES posted to the public feed Osamu Tezuka pt 4: AYOKO and BUDDHA and to the early access Patreon feed a smattering of Don Rosa SCROOGE issues.

YouTube:

MATTTT (that’s Matt with 4 Ts) has a new channel, MATTTTTTTT (Matt with 8 Ts) where he posts more casual videos, like a critique of the “Blind Bag” trend, a look at John Byrne’s ELSEWHEN X-Men fan comics, and his 14 favorite Graphic Novels of 2025.

COMICTROPES had a video on Spider-Man’s marriage.

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 Tony Fleecs (writer of STRAY DOGS and FERAL), and Curt Pires (writer of LOST FANTASY and FIREBORN)

SKTCHD published a video conversation with Chip Zdarsky.

What the hell, I’ll plug my YouTube again. Watch me talk about SIN CITY and JACK KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD.

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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.