Tag: Matt Bors

Sunday Comics | Nightwing’s Butt takes center stage on DC Go

Plus: Crucial Comix, Poetry Comics Month and more!

Here’s a round up of some of the most interesting comics we’ve seen online recently. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below.

In the lead-up to the New York Comic Con, DC announced DC Go, their Webtoon-esque scrolling comics addition to their DC Universe Infinite digital comics. They’ve now posted four chapters of their original comics featuring Harley Quinn, Raven and Nightwing’s butt, as well as several “vertically reformatted” DC and MAD Magazine classics, including Batman: Hush, All-Star Superman and the Court of Owls storyline that kicked off Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s New 52 Batman.

And what’s great is, everything they’ve posted so far is available for free.

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Smash Pages Q&A | Matt Bors + Ben Clarkson on ‘Justice Warriors: Vote Harder’

The creators of the dystopian satire sequel graphic novel talk about their secret origins, being ‘plagiarized’ by real-world events, meatball riots, buddy-cop bro-mances and more.

I’m not sure if Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson could have asked for better timing for their new graphic novel, Justice Warriors: Vote Harder, which arrives in stores today.

Now, obviously, it is election season here in the U.S., and their sequel to the first Justice Warriors miniseries is focused on an election in the fictional city of Bubble City — so that tracks. But when the project was announced by Ahoy Comics, they had no idea that it would arrive the day after the second presidential debate or that said debate would feature different candidates than the first debate.

If you read the first Justice Warriors miniseries, you know that the story drew heavily from the headlines, twisting our reality into a dystopian satire series that poked fun at capitalism and law enforcement in a future of severe inequality — and one populated by mutants. This time around our two protagonists, Swamp Cop and Schitt, get pulled into the chaos of the first Bubble City elections that have happened in, like, forever.

I spoke with Bors and Clarkson about the new graphic novel, their work process, why they went with an OGN instead of another miniseries and more. I thank them both for their time — or at least the concept of their time.

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‘Justice Warriors’ returns this fall as an original graphic novel

‘Justice Warriors: Vote Harder’ takes aim at politics and elections.

Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson’s Justice Warriors will return from Ahoy Comics this fall as a full-length graphic novel, titled Justice Warriors: Vote Harder.

A dystopian satire series that pokes fun at capitalism and law enforcement in a future of severe inequality, the first Justice Warriors miniseries was released in 2022 and collected in 2023. This new graphic novel takes aim at politics and elections, which no doubt makes it the perfect companion to what’s happening in America this year.

“Bubble City is having its first ever mayoral election and mutant cops Swamp and Schitt are pulled in to special duty to protect the vote from the people,” Bors said in his newsletter. “Ben Clarkson and I have been hard at work, along with our colorist Felipe Sobreiro, to top our first volume of the series and bring you an election year satire for the ages.”

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‘Toxic Avenger’ returns to comics courtesy of Matt Bors + Fred Harper

Ahoy Comics takes us back to Tromaville this fall.

The Toxic Avenger, the star of the 1984 Troma movie of the same name, will return to comics this fall in a new series by Matt Bors (The Nib, Justice Warriors) and Fred Harper (Snelson).

Ahoy Comics will publish the series, which Bors says will combine elements of the original films — it had several sequels — and the Toxic Crusaders cartoon. The original film was about a New Jersey teenager named Melvin who fell into a vat of toxic waste while fleeing bullies and became the Toxic Avenger.

“The Toxic Avenger is first and foremost an environmental satire, one about a small town and its unremarkable people trapped and transformed by circumstances they don’t control,” Bors said. “The story Fred Harper and I are telling is about people frustrated by authorities telling them not to worry about their life, that things are fine, even as their dog mutates in front of their eyes. And at its core it is about a powerless boy, Melvin, who finds out he can be incredibly strong, hideously mutated, well-admired, and incredibly heroic… but still ultimately powerless over human behavior.”

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Sunday Comics | Read The Nib magazine for free (while you can)

Also check out recent webcomics by Meredith McClaren, Simon Roy, Mad Rupert, Cat Farris and Mike Russell.

Here’s a round-up of some of the best webcomics we’ve seen online recently — and news about them as well. If we missed something cool or you have your own recommendation, let us know in the comments below.

As editor and publisher Matt Bors announced back in May, the award-winning nonfiction webcomics site The Nib will stop publishing new comics at the end of the month. Bors is hoping to keep an archive of the site up and running, so he’s currently taking donations to help make that happen.

He has also made all the back issues of The Nib magazine available to read for free:

The Nib is wrapping up ten years of publishing and closing down at the end of August. But before we go, we are making all 15 issues of our Eisner and Ignatz award-winning magazine available for anyone to download for free. That’s more than 1,600 pages of comics, including our out of print Secrets, Nature, Food, and Color issues.

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The Nib will shut down after August

Editor Matt Bors announced the decision today, noting ‘The math isn’t working anymore.’

The Nib, the award-winning, critically acclaimed and much-needed political comics website and publisher, will shut down at the end of the summer.

Editor and publisher Matt Bors announced the decision on the site, noting the decision was “incredibly hard,” but “the math isn’t working anymore.”

“This was an incredibly hard decision to make and there’s no one factor involved,” Bors said. “Rather it involves, well, everything. The rising costs of paper and postage, the changing landscape of social media, subscription exhaustion, inflation, and the simple difficulty of keeping a small independent publishing project alive with relatively few resources—though we did a lot with them. The math isn’t working anymore.”

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Sunday Comics | Afghanistan, masks and killer bees

Check out recent comics by Jay Hosler, Alex de Campi, Christine Larsen, MariNaomi, B.J. Mendelson and more.

Here’s a round up of some of the best comics we’ve seen online recently. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below or on social media.

As the United States ends its occupation of Afghanistan, political cartoonist and The Nib founder Matt Bors looks back at the comics he created as a result of a trip he took to the country in 2010:

In August of 2010 I embarked on a month long trip through Afghanistan with fellow cartoonists Ted Rall and Steven Cloud. We traveled unembedded throughout the North of the country and in the capital of Kabul. It was the ninth year of the war and, at the time, the height of the Taliban insurgency and US troop presence.

The goal of the trip was to hear from Afghans directly, see the occupation for ourselves, and share those experience—through writing, comics, and photography. I captured a lot in sketchbooks and filed a series of comics through my syndicate where papers normally ran my political cartoons. The following comics are a series of vignettes on Afghanistan and represent some my earliest attempts at more realistic nonfiction comics. These originally ran online at Cartoon Movement, but appear to be lost to web decay, so I wanted to publish them again here—for posterity and for any insight they still hold.

You can see his comics here.

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Matt Bors retires his weekly political comic strip; will still run ‘The Nib’

Bors will turn his attention to creating fiction comics and longer-form nonfiction comics.

After almost two decades, cartoonist and The Nib founder Matt Bors has announced he’s retiring from his weekly political comic. His comic on background checks that ran at the end of March will be his last regular political cartoon.

He plans to continue running The Nib, the award-winning webcomics site that features political and nonfiction comics on a daily basis by a variety of artists. He also said he plans to do more nonfiction comics, including comic interviews, for the site. And he’s preparing pitches for fiction comics as well.

“So I will be staying busy, as always,” he said in his announcement post. “Something had to give in my life to make room for other things and, frankly, it was an easy decision. I’ve drawn political cartoons every week since I was 19 and feel like I have said everything I can say, often a few times over. I know this may be disappointing to longtime readers, but my creative desires pull me in another direction, one where I hope to create more work on par with what I’ve done in this field. I also owe it to both The Nib’s readers and creators to keep the publication going as long as possible.”

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Mail Call | Dark Horse to bring several comiXology Originals titles to print

A round-up of news from DC, Marvel, Titan Comics, IDW and more.

Mail Call is a roundup of the announcements we’ve received from comics publishers in our mailboxes recently. Hit the links for more information.

ComiXology announced this week that they’ve struck a deal with Dark Horse to bring several of their comiXology Originals digital titles to print, starting with four titles next spring: Afterlift, Breaklands, Youth and The Black Ghost.

“We were always hopeful comiXology Originals books would get into readers’ hands via comics retailers and book stores, and Dark Horse is a terrific collaborator to work with to do so, with an unmatched history of supporting creator-owned projects alongside unmatched distribution expertise. This deal fortifies the ability for these stories to reach customers like never before,” said David Steinberger, comiXology co-founder and CEO. “We’re thrilled to be working with Dark Horse.”

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Sunday Comics | Protests, Eisner winners and more

Check out recent comics on the web by Erica Eng, Ben Passmore, Paul Guinan and more.

Here’s a round up of some of the best comics we’ve seen online recently. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below.

How do you dress for a protest, and what should you bring? Ben Passmore shares some tips in this piece for the New York Times’ “Diary Project.”

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Sunday Comics | Bite-sized science comics from TinyView

Check out recent comics from Andrew Neal, Gabrielle Bell, Gary Moloney and more.

Here’s a round up of some of the best comics we’ve seen online recently. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below.

So have you checked out TinyView yet? TinyView is a “platform for bite-sized comics,” offering up content you can scroll through easily on your phone. It was founded/created by the father-and-son team of Rishi and Raj Lalwani, and so far it has offered up nonfiction content — including biographies of scientists, Malachi Ray Rempen’s travel comic and political cartoons by The Nib’s Matt Bors. There’s even a comic about the creation of the app.

Some of the content is free, while some is behind a paywall. Visit their website to learn more.

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Comics Lowdown: Can Disney stop cops from using the Punisher symbol?

Plus: News on Al Jaffe, Uncivilized Books, awards and more.

With police brutality once again in the public eye, many fans on social media have called out Disney/Marvel to put their litigious muscles to work and prevent cops from using the Punisher logo — a popular emblem with some members of law enforcement, despite the fact that Frank Castle is a criminal and a killer.

First, you can find some history of both the character and its popularity with police here. That piece’s writer, Brian Cronin, is not only a contributor to CBR, but also a lawyer, and he offers his thoughts on why he doesn’t think Disney would have much success in an article titled “There’s Not Much Marvel Can Do About Cops Using Punisher’s Logo.” Cronin writes:

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