A Designer’s List of Favorites If your strongest attraction to comics is for the most visually exceptional ones, then there’s a chance that you just might be me. And if you also find yourself reflecting on the most memorable and engaging graphic narratives you’ve encountered this year, then you – a.k.a. I – also might feel compelled to share your findings with printmag.com readers. So let’s get started then, with three outstanding biography comics. icon artist: Elsa Charretie

By: Michael Dooley Never mind that comics were exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum in 1951, then at the Whitney in 1983 and MOMA in 1990. That’s all so 20th century. Finally, comics have arrived at the city’s coolest venue of all: the New York Transit Museum in downtown Brooklyn! Amelia Opdyke Jones: Quarantine the Gumbug!, 1948, and Keep Your Feet Off The Seat!, 1949. New York Transit Museum, William J. Jones Collection. Gift of William J. Jones and Margaritta J. Friday In

Cartoonist Will Eisner was such a life force that it’s difficult to believe that he’s not with us to celebrate his 100th birthday on March 6th. For seven decades, he was vitally instrumental in creating and shaping the comic book form, in elevating the quality of its writing and art, in revealing and expanding its graphic potential, in popularizing its respectability on a global scale, and in educating and inspiring generations of aspiring comics artists. And yet he died in e

Art Spiegelman and other comics artists have illustrated biographies of cartoonists, but always as short one-shot strips. Now, not one but two entire books of this kind have just been released. Together they offer 100 visual takes on significant, and even revolutionary, pioneers in the field. One is an anthology edited by designer/art director Monte Beauchamp, with whom I Blab!-bed in an Imprint feature a while back. The second is by famed comics illustrator Drew Friedman, wh

Peter Kuper’s seen it all. And he wants us to see it, too. So he draws it for us. His visits to Latin America, the Middle East, and beyond have been providing him with perspective and inspiration for World War 3 Illustrated – America’s longest-running radical comic book anthology, since 1980. His various comics autobiographies include ComicsTrips: A Journal of Travels Through Africa and Southeast Asia. And his graphic novel adaptions of classic literature by authors such as F

While strolling through a used-books store in Los Angeles over 20 years ago, I spied the dust-jacketed binding of a book with a familiar illustration style. Much to my delight, I’d found a little-known 1929 first edition volume published by the Hearst Company concerning Prohibition—and primarily illustrated by the brilliant comic-strip artist and animation pioneer Winsor McCay, with some additional pieces by the well-known Hearst cartoonist Frederick “F.” Opper. Titled Temper

E.G.Lutz from “Motion Picture News” October 2, 1920 When the word “Disney” is mentioned, it’s almost impossible to separate it from the craft of motion picture cartoons. Whether it’s used to describe a multinational entertainment corporation, or it alludes to Walt Disney the man, it’s easily synonymus with the technique of film animation. This was obviously not always the case. In 1920, animated cartoons were well known and part of a growing and thriving movie industry, but t