ICYMI -- Small Press Comics Criticism and Whatnot for 1/2/17 to 1/8/17

Highlighting some great small press comics criticism being published, as well as other random things that have caught my eye over the past week.

COMICS CRITICISM

* Nick Hanover on Pete Toms' DAD'S WEEKEND in which "he constantly juggles so much information visually and textually you get wrapped up in the dangerous beauty of it and embrace the anxiety it instills."

* Rob Clough reviews a whole SLEW OF MINI-COMICS in a manner that makes you want him to be reviewing all the comics. 

* If you've avoided Year-End-Best-Of Lists because you feel that you are morally superior to such things or you're just a smug fuck, put aside your notions of being notable and note this gathering of lists: THE BEST COMICS OF 2016 (of particular poignancy are the snappy picks of Tucker Stone).

* Given the breadth of success and achievement of the last two groups, Broken Frontier's SIX SMALL PRESS CREATORS TO WATCH IN 2017 is a list to which you should probably pay attention. Andy Oliver has picked an amazingly diverse group of cartoonists this year, and I, for one, am putting all of them on my radar as well.

* Andy Oliver also says a final goodbye to 2016 by clearly explaining why he chose these TEN UK SMALL PRESS COMICS YOU NEED TO OWN.

* Megan Purdy reviews FRONTIER #14: REBECCA SUGAR which is a book "looking back on how her own childhood and adolescent obsessions shaped her artistic and personal trajectory, no matter how embarrassing some of them may seem."

* Robert Boyd reviews IMPATIENCE AND LAPSOS by 26-year-old Mexican cartoonist Ines Estrada 

* Finally, if you have not been reading J.A. Micheline's thoughts on Criticism, you need to be doing that (seriously). In PSALM FOR THE NEWLY ANOINTED, JAM beautifully articulates one of the many problems with modern critical writing and offers an almost Nietzschean solution which provides an empowering way out for those of us engaged in writing it. It's one of her best pieces yet.

WHATNOT

* Alex Dueben interviews LUKE HEALY about his book How To Survive in The North and Artic Expeditions in general.

* MARINAOMI is on Episode 199 of the RiYL Podcast. Trigger Warning: Lots of Trump talk.

* Edie Nugent talks to So What? Press' DAVE KELLY. 

* Keith Knight's YOUR RIGHTS WHEN SHOT WHILE BLACK. 

* Ijeoma Oluo's THANK GOD FOR IDENTITY POLITICS.