SPORTS IS HELL on ComicBook.com
ComicBook.com selects the new releases they are most excited about and Ben Passmore’s pigskin parable Sports Is Hell makes the list.
“Ben Passmore’s Sports is Hell is a raw political fable that uses a sports night riot to express disillusion with the calculated human sacrifices made in the interest of political gain.” — Jamie Lovett, ComicBook.com, 11 February 2020
Read the whole list here!
CONSTANTLY is One of Seventeen Comics to Watch Out For
CBC Books selects the seventeen Canadian comics to watch out for this Spring and Constantly makes the list!
Constantly explores the debilitating impact of anxiety on the every day, examining how it stretches and paralyzes daily tasks and decisions.” — CBC Books,
Read the entire list here!
STUNT Reviewed by Solrad
Solrad reviews Michael DeForge’s “intimate and revealing” Stunt.
“Stunt will feel confusing and mysterious like much of the rest of his work. But never has DeForge’s work felt so honest or so connected. Never has it been so heartbreaking.” — Alex Hoffman, Solrad
Read the full review here!
BRADLEY OF HIM Reviewed
The Comics Journal has delightfully insightful and sprawling interview with Connor Willumsen about his equally sprawling and mutable Bradley of Him.
“Positioning the actor/director/entertainment figure Bradley Cooper as its central figure, Bradley of Him explores a web of shared narratives—awards-season validation,vision quests, career arcs, and mentor-student dynamics among others—which celebrities, more visibly than most of us, struggle to move through. This same pervasive tangle—we’ll call it culture—is just one of the book’s many subjects, and does something wild to us all.” — George Elkind, The Comics Journal
Read the full and fascinating review here!
BRADLEY OF HIM and SPORTS IS HELL Reviewed!
The Comics Journal reviews Connor Willumsen’s Bradley of Him, which they declare “manifestly the work of a genius”.
“Bradley of Him, unlike a crushing majority of its medium, takes as its subject matter the kind of stuff we’re constantly inured to treat with import. Celebrities, extreme athletic feats, big-budget entertainment products, and ostentatious leisure combine into a book that manages a legitimate dialogue with the world around it, attempting and succeeding at something most comics abdicate completely.” — Matt Seneca, The Comics Journal
Read the whole insightful review here!
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Broken Frontier reviews Ben Passmore’s gridiron graphic novel Sports Is Hell.
“Amid the story’s chaos and the exhausting noise of politics today, Sports Is Hell provides an unexpected clarity on the complex schisms of modern American culture while serving up a ton of laughs.” — Moe Abbas, Broken Frontier
Read the entire review right here!
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Wisconsin Public Radio reviews Ben Passmore’s “fable of societal breakdown” Sports Is Hell.
“This tale is a myth without a moral — which makes it a dead-on parody of the good-and-evil, triumph-and-tragedy narratives fostered by organized sports.” — Etelka Lehoczky, Wisconsin Public Radio
Check out the full review here!
Ben Passmore Interviewed by Newsarama
Newsarama interviews Ben Passmore about his new book Sports Is Hell which “mixes sports riots with anarchist political philosophies and the problematic connection that sports have with capitalism.” Read the whole revealing interview here!
We’re in the News!
Library Journal has a starred review of Ben Passmore’s timely and trenchant Sports Is Hell.
“A lacerating, darkly hilarious howl against racism, sports fandom, and tribalism in general by an artist with a distinct and necessary vision.” — Thomas L. Batten, Library Journal
Read the whole review here!
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The Comics Journal has an analysis of Connor Willumsen’s “bravura” Bradley of Him.
“There is an audacity at work, earned by Willumsen’s drawing skill, that is spent on undermining traditional expectations of narrative or what it makes sense to make a comic about.” — Brian Nicholson, The Comics Journal
Read the whole piece here!
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Broken Frontier reviews GG’s quiet, but powerful Constantly.
“In Constantly, Canadian artist GG brings craft and insight to an intimate vignette of depression and anxiety.” — Tom Murphy, Broken Frontier
Read the entire review here!
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On High-Low Rob Clough extends his top twenty comics of the decade to seventy-five and includes the Koyama Press publications Julia Wertz’s The Infinite Wait and Other Stories, Sophia Foster-Dimino’s Sex Fantasy and Daryl Seitchik’s Exits. Check out the entire list right here!
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Multiversity reviews Ben Passmore’s Sports Is Hell.
“[E]very moment in Sports Is Hell is a loaded metaphor for race relations in America, and they’re all laid out easily and deeply.” — Justin McGuire, Multiversity
Read the full review here!
CONSTANTLY One of 13 Graphic Novels Feminists Should Read in 2020
Bitch Media selects thirteen graphic novels feminists should read in 2020 and GG’s “very poetic, and very visual” Constantly makes the cut!
“This is a very quiet book, and one you’ll remember.” — Rachel Charlene Lewis, Bitch Media
Check out the other twelve picks here!
Koyama Press Recent Publicity Parade!
Paste has rounded up the 100 best horror comics of all time and Jesse Jacobs’ squirming Safari Honeymoon makes the collection of creepy comics!
“Worms, infections and tongue-replacing parasites abound in this graphic novel-and, once you’ve read it, in your subconscious as well.” — Tobias Carroll, Paste
Check out the entire haunted hundo here!
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Sequential continues to present best of the decade lists and this time it is Candida Rifkind’s turn to pick the best Canuck comics of the tens and GG’s I’m Not Here makes the list!
“GG has a signature style utterly unique, at least in Canadian indie comics: highly cinematic and influenced by graphic design’s attention to the placement of shapes and use of negative space and shadows within each frame, such that the images become at once minimal and hyper-realistic.” — Candida Rifkind, Sequential
Check out the entire list here!
Daily Grindhouse Reviews CONSTANTLY
Daily Grindhouse reviews GG’s Constantly hailing it as “officially the first great comic bearing a 2020 copyright date”.
“GG’s been carving out her own artistic space for so long now, and doing the kind of comics no one else can even conceive of, much less execute, that she’s achieved something not even every cartoonist bothers to aspire to, namely: mastery of form, function, and concept.” — Ryan Carey, Daily Grindhouse
The whole review can be read right here!
