The Sunday Spotlight: The ‘We’re On The Wrong Side Of Every War!’ Edition

So, 2026, how’s it going for you so far? Nope? Yes, me too. So, just for a little while, kick back on this Sunday and just take your mind off everything with a little slice of the comics news that I noticed this week… it’s time for the Sunday Spotlight…

‘BOOKS ARE GOING TO TAKE A LOT LONGER TO GET TO LIBRARIES’ – MORE BAD NEWS…

Gina Gagliano over at the Comics Journal has an in-depth look at one of the losses to comics recently, as distribution company Baker & Taylor closes.

Baker & Taylor is, according to its website, ‘the largest supplier of library content, software and services to public and academic libraries in the U.S.’ They’ve long supported graphic novels, and their loss means, as Gagliano makes plain, a real loss to comics.

Here’s Gagliano quoting Tucker Stone, exec director of communications and marketing at Fantagraphics:

‘Baker & Taylor had done genuine, targeted outreach to some comic book stores in the early to mid 2000s, making it easier for them to keep up with the onslaught of popular graphic novel series from that time period, to stay competitive when a manga series took off, or when a kids graphic novel took off and that category exploded.’

It’s something few are reporting, but it’s a huge deal. Graphic novels in libraries have helped fuel the rise of the graphic novel, helping all ages discover the medium. Baker & Taylor going to the wall means that it gets a lot more difficult.

TCJ INTERVIEWS BOOKS WITH PICTURES KATIE PRYDE ABOUT THE WORLD OF COMICS RETAIL…

Something else from The Comics Journal, that I missed telling you about in the Christmas break, where Zach Rabiroff interviews the Books With Pictures store’s Katie Pryde. It covers the origins of the Portland store, the day-to-day difficulties of comics retail amongst the shifting sands of the current distributor problems, and a hell of a lot more.

Me, I love reading retail analysis stuff. I spent way too long working in a comic shop and getting way too involved in what makes comic shops work (and not work) not to. So this is manna from heaven for me. Frankly, it should be for you as well. After all, this medium we love might not disappear if the comic shops all go belly up, but the medium would sure be a damn sight worse off if they did.

As for what Katie says in the piece, it’s revealing and fascinating, and, best of all, it makes me want to shop in her store if ever I’m out that way.

Here’s a little of what Katie has to say:

‘I really just buy comics for everyone. This is a place where whatever you look like, you should be able to come in and find at least a couple of books that are a mirror to you. Of course, we shouldn’t only read books that are a mirror to us. We should read books that stretch us, that give us different perspectives that do all of those things. But we should all do that. You shouldn’t only have to do that if you don’t look like that white dude.’

BROKEN FRONTIER’S 10 UK SMALL PRESS COMICS YOU NEED TO OWN…

My own hatred of the term ‘small press’ aside (I think it limits the phenomenal potential and excellence of the work), the always excellent Broken Frontier have a great list of 10 UK comics that you should be reading. Broken Frontier, if you didn’t know, works tirelessly to promote the UK scene, which is a scene that’s thriving right now, producing so many great comics.

Seriously, if you’re looking for the future of comics, there’s a fair number of creators on this list who should rightly be shaping that future.

TOM EWING’S DISCOURSE 2000 CONTINUES…

Tom Ewing is a great writer, and right now he’s continuing with his look back at the earlier days of 2000 AD in Discourse 2000. It’s a year-by-year, story-by-story blog about 2000 AD. It’s great writing, and covers the subjects with a fresh eye. Absolutely recommended reading.

Here’s a little from his latest, covering the Cursed Earth saga:

‘Future lawman Judge Dredd is sent on a mercy mission across a radioactive wasteland to bring a vaccine to a plague-hit city.

‘Judge Dredd advances a year at a time, unusual for a comic strip, and not made entirely explicit until later. Its New Year is ours. And so, as the strip’s continuity began in 2099, what we’re seeing in 1978 is the dawn of the 22nd Century. Dredd spends New Years Eve on the Moon, dealing with an office worker turned ‘futsie’, future shock victim. People are partying – people will always party – but the new century is not a cause for great optimism. As readers of Judge Dredd were about to learn, humanity didn’t make a brilliant job of the previous one.

‘The Cursed Earth, a 25-part epic which sees Dredd struggling through a radioactive wilderness to save Mega-City Two from a zombie plague, is at once one of the most straightforward and one of the strangest Judge Dredd stories. Straightforward because its throughline – will Dredd deliver the antidote in time? – is extremely simple, and gives Dredd the opportunity to act almost entirely as an action hero, away from his duties in Mega-City One. Strange, because this isn’t a tone readers now expect from Dredd, and because the story is extremely loose and episodic, lead writer Pat Mills enjoying the chance to cut loose and plot a story on the fly, outdoing himself week on week with bizarre threats on this travelogue across a twisted America.’

CELEBRATING OVER 50 YEARS OF COMICS FANDOM IN THE UK AND IRELAND – FANSCENE…

David Hathaway Price’s Fanscene project is a thing I’ve covered already here a few years back now. But screw it, always good to take a look at the great work Price is doing by scanning and uploading so many examples of the long-lost print UK fanzines. Go look at the website, go read the articles Price has rescued from obscurity, and then go take a look at the Facebook page, where the focus is a little wider, giving us looks into all things UK comics of the past.

TWO SIGNINGS AT GOSH TO BEAT THE JANUARY BLUES – ASTRID GOLDSMITH & CHARLIE ADLARD…

Gosh Comics in London always host great events, and they’re kicking off the year with a double header. First, there’s Astrid Goldsmith, winner of the 2021 Observer/Jonathan Cape Graphic Short Story Prize, with her debut graphic novel, The Crystal Vase, coming out from Cape. She’s appearing at Gosh on 15th January from 7pm.

Then, a week and a bit later, Charlie Adlard is there to sign copies of his finally translated Altamont, written by Herik Hanna, published by Image Comics in 2024 – signing on 24th January 2026.

Both are well worth taking a trip for if you’re in the area.

DARRYL CUNNINGHAM HAS SOMETHING VERY GOOD COMING FROM AVERY HILL…

Darryl Cunningham, creator of so many great books you should have been reading, including his latest, Elon Musk: American Oligarch, has both a new website and news of his next project. For many, accustomed to Cunningham as a comics biographer and creator of non-fiction comics may come as a surprise, but Cunningham has been writing both non-fiction and fiction for a long, long time. So, John Of The Night, coming this year from Avery Hill. It looks really, really good. Of course it does. Everything Darryl does is well worth a look.