The Sunday Spotlight: Saying Farewell To 2023 And Hello To 2024

It’s the end of the year show, where we all look back on 2023 and think to ourselves, “Bloody hell, that went fast,” and then pour ourselves another drink. Yep, line ’em up, mines a gin & tonic, and welcome, one last time for 2023… it’s The Sunday Spotlight…

 

Maurice Vellekoop’s I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together…

I’ve loved Maurice Vellkoop’s glorious visuals ever since seeing his work in Drawn & Quarterly magazine and his collection Vellevision back in 1997. After so many years, it’s a wonderful thing to see a new graphic memoir from him – I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together. Out from Pantheon Books in February 2024, it’s 496 pages of hardcover beauty that Pantheon are pushing hard as being in the spirit of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer.

Neil Gaiman has this to say about it:

“Maurice Vellekoop’s beautiful graphic memoir feels painfully honest. It’s about art and life and families and belief, about who we are and what forms us, the magic and the hurt, and it evokes times that are well-lost while reminding us of the battles still being fought every day. Most of all, I think, it’s about love.”

It sounds enthralling, and I just know it’s going to look absolutely beautiful, just as everything Vellkoop always does.

 

It’s 2023 and comics are dying… nope.

Anyone interested in comics retail and comics as a business (and frankly anyone with more than a passing interest in the medium itself) should know the name of Brian Hibbs, owner of Comix Experience in California. And naturally, his ‘Tilting At Windmills’ series at The Comics Beat is essential reading.

This month we have We’re One Success Away From Saving Comics and Brian takes a look at the idea of this being the death knell of comics – by which Brian means periodical comics sold in comic shops, not graphic novels. And, as normal, there’s plenty of good sense being said.

 

Colleen Doran and Alan Moore’s Big Nemo…

Colleen Doran posts up on her Facebook that her collaboration for the Electriccomics project from 2015 – My one and only gig with the amazing Alan Moore, Big Nemo a visit to the world of Winsor McCay, an animated webcomic:

Hard to read, the original format no longer exists, but I hope you enjoy it!

Reed Richards is useless…

Yep, from TV Tropes.:

“The observation that in some genres, characters can have fantastic technology far beyond our own, yet this technology only gets used to solve equally fantastic problems. A person who controls weather will never make it rain in drought-stricken areas, or stop the rain during terrible flooding, or stop a heatwave. A person who can control water will never douse bush fires or burning buildings, or get a job at a power station. And a supergenius (such as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic of the Fantastic Four) can save the life of starving demi-god beings like Galactus, but will never take a weekend to duplicate and market Doctor Doom’s burn-victim cure device or release his inventions that could solve a variety of real-world problems (and earn their creator millions of dollars). All potential solutions to real-life problems will only be done in novel (fictional) situations — useless.”

(Of course, the same applies to the Musks and Bexos’ of this world. There’s no reason why they couldn’t stop sitting atop a Smaug or Scrooge McDuck level of wealth and just start spending it to make the world a better place.)

‘

 

 

Finally, a Happy New Year to one and all with Philip Bond’s Wired World…

Yep, it’s that time of year, where we look back and look forward, perhaps with sadness, perhaps with joy, most likely a mix of the two. So, here’s to all those we lost this year, here’s to the joy brought into the world however that happened, and may your 2024 be better, happier, friendlier, and just more wonderful all round.

As for the greatest New Year’s comic, well that’s an easy one, it’s Philip Bond‘s Wired World from Deadline #15, cover dated February 1990. So, as a New Year’s present to you all, here it is.

So, we start, as many good New Year’s Eves do, with a party and where Pippa and Liz find themselves at a minute to midnight on New Year’s Eve…

Much drinking ensues, of course, although their pal Montana can’t quite keep up with the girls completely. Anyway, after a lot of partying, Pip has an idea about getting a bit more spiritual…

 

Pip’s after a mystical experience, the sort best found whilst watching the sun come up over a nearby hillside. Problem is, this is the inner city and the highest point they have is the top of the local multi-storey car park. Well, fair enough, that will have to do…

Oh, it’s just fabulous. Bond using Wired World’s party times to pivot to something absolutely beautiful. The partying goes somewhere far more magical, and get to experience one of those very special moments, the sort of moments that you look back on in the years to come and think how perfect things were at the time.

‘Out with the old and in with the new’
‘I’ll drink to that.’
‘Knowing where and when you are is really where (and when) it’s at.’

So Happy New Year from all of us here at Comicon. We shall raise a glass with you and wish you all a better year ahead!