The Sunday Spotlight – The ‘You Aren’t Delicate Or Poetic’ Edition
by Richard Bruton
Welcome once more to the Sunday Spotlight, a quick zip around the comics news I spotted this week …
The Lakes International Comic Art Festival announces Belgian Comics Now – 2nd – 4th October, Kendal, UK …
Continuing the LICAF tradition of bringing now just the best UK and USA guests to the festival but the finest comic makers of Europe and afar. This year, they’re putting on an exhibition and welcoming guests as part of Belgium Comics Now. Five unique Beliguan voices — Leonie Bischoff, Nicolas Pitz, Joanna Lorho, Mobidic, and Nina Six, who also provides the poster art below, will beat LICAF in Kendall UK for 2nd – 4th October 2026. Details of it all at the LICAF website.
The 20th anniversary of Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s Phonogram celebrated…
Over on Kieron Gillen‘s newsletter, he writes a long thing on the 20th anniversary of his and Jamie McKelvie‘s exquisite Phonogram. It starts like this:
“It’s appropriate, as among the many things Rue Britannia was is the uncanny nature of the gap. The specifics of Rue Britannia are born of being old enough to experience your first nostalgia cycle. A decade passes, and you see things which you were there for be told in a way contrary to your experience. How that messes with your head – especially if you’re someone who no longer claims to care about those events and are also fiercely antagonistic to the concept of nostalgia anyway. Watched just before I had the idea, I suspect watching 24 Hour Party People was an influence: when the story moves between the Joy Division section of the story, and the Happy Mondays. Joy Division was myth for me — but Happy Monday was contemporary reportage. That. They say print the myth, and they don’t just mean ink. They mean hammering it into your mind.:
And then it continues, going deep into the creation of the thing, placing it in its time and encapsulating all that was so great about the comic. Personally, it was my first moment of seeing Gillen as a great writer and McKelvie as a great artist, as I just got Phonogram from the first moment, a comic that just talked to me, as it will to you. After all, although it’s anchored in a moment, it’s also got that quality that is timeless, of a moment we’ve all been through, albeit with added wizards.
Go sign up to Gillen’s newsletter here. And please, do yourself a favour and go and devour Phonogram, it’s just perfect comics.
More videos to watch — Joe Matt — the comic book legend everyone forgot …
Joe Matt died almost three years ago, a terrible loss to comics. His Peepshow, about to get The Complete treatment from Fantagraphics on 29th September, was a comic packed with comedy, as Matt took an unflinching look at himself and his own life, with nothing off limits. That compulsion to document and confess made things regularly uncomfortable, but always enthralling. The Complete Peepshow collects all 14 issues of his comic, as well as the posthumously published issue #15 concerning his move to Los Angeles chasing a possible HBO adaptation.
The 43 minute documentary below is full of comics friends and colleagues talking of Matt, his work, and their relationships, including Seth, Chester Brown, and Matt Wagner.
(Via LinkMachineGo)
How to Make Awesome Donut Comics — Neill Cameron’s superfan event — 24th October …
Another great UK comics maker now, Neill Cameron, he of the great Mega Robo Bros books (which you should have read and loved already given the praise I’ve heaped upon them). He’s got the upcoming releases of Donut Squad Book 3: Destiny of the Donuts (out 10 September) and the new version of How To Make Awesome Comics (out 8 October) and will be out on the road in the UK promoting them. One of the biggest of those will be his Superfan Event with Waterstones at London’s Conway Hall on Saturday 24 October. He promises loads of fun things happening, not the least of which is the exclusive signed poster (below) for everyone who comes along.
You can find all the details and buy tickets on the Waterstones website. And do subscribe to his newsletter here.
Fantagraphics EC Comics Library Artists Library on Humble Bundle…
Another rather tasty Humble Bundle for you now — Fantagraphics, currently celebrating 50 years of comics publishing, are offering you 40 classic books from their EC Comics reprint library for a minimum of $25. That includes art from Reed Crandall, Frank Frazetta, Al Williamson, Wallace Wood, Jack Kamen, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Davis, and many more.
As with all Humble Bundles, you know the drill by now: pay what you want above the minimum here of the $25 mark for the 40 books in PDF format. Plus, you can tailor your donation and control where the money goes between Humble Bundle, Fantagraphics and the chosen charity, the Freedom to Read Foundation.
All the details here — but be quick, this Humble Bundle ends on 4 September.
