Space capsule diving chamber: TCJ comics of 2024
Annual colossal round up of the year’s comics at The Comics Journal from a horde of contributors with a handful named by me somewhere in the middle.
The art and gigantism and fever and fervour and stage-dialogue theatricality and general static electricity of Ronin Rising by Frank Miller and Philip Tan printed at coffee-table size meant the book practically gave off smoke when you opened it. Howard Chaykin did another Time2 story just in time to meet Megalopolis head on. Tradd Moore did a comic promoting a whisky that comes in a miniature space capsule diving chamber and costs a handy £20,000.
Pointing out that few of these alluded to, much less saved, any bombed children or lowered any sea levels or had a bearing on any election is hardly worth doing. 2000AD, another publication on my list, says it’s an active political instrument rather than just another liberal entertainment and the only appropriate response to that now is Well Go On Then. But go on and do what? Marvel's Immortal Thor comic of all places did a wacky satire of capitalism for a couple of months and made Thor shill for AI in a CEO's fever dream, the kind of thing writer Al Ewing has done at various points in various places for years. But you question The Walt Disney Company’s commitment to the message.
For a more authentic howl you had to look elsewhere. At Dominique Grange and Jacques Tardi doing Paris May 1968, say.
