The TradeWaiters

This week Jam, Jeff, and JD read "The Jellyfish" by Boum. This BD fresh out of Montreal publisher Pow Pow follows Odette, a character whose vision is being increasingly obscured by a swarm of jellyfish. It’s a story with a lot of depth and heart, and some great cartooning. We’ll talk about the book, and about the bridge Pow Pow seems to be working to build between the Francophone and Anglo comics scenes.

Music by Sleuth.

Our next episode will be on "Thunderbolts Epic Collection: Justice, Like Lightning" by Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley

For this week’s episode we read "My Aunt Is a Monster" by Reimena Yee, whose unique and thoughtful approach to cartooning gave us lots to talk about, from panel transitions to world-building to colouring. This is a unique book and a welcome addition to the YA graphic novel canon.

Music by Sleuth.

Our next episode will be on "The Jellyfish" by Boum

Join Jam, Jeff, and JD for another episode of the TradeWaiters. This time we read "Roaming" by Canadian paragons of cartooning Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki. It’s a story of three young women visiting New York and discovering themselves, and in true Tamaki fashion, pushes the medium of comics to its limits. We’ll discuss our own adventures, the genre of comics that I GUESS we’re officially calling “mumble-core” now, and also the “Darryl Ayo method” of how the comics industry should work.

Music by Sleuth.

Our next episode will be on "My Aunt Is a Monster" by Reimena Yee

For today’s episode we look at the winners of the Cartoonist Co-op 2024 Mini-Comic Awards: "Fancies" by Alex Cara, "Marrow A.K.A. Rodney’s Law" by Sloane Hong, "Crossed Signals" by Narrenstrich, "Bottom’s Up!" by Barbara Benas, and "The Bird Daughters" by Madeline McGrane. We’ll talk about the unique magic of minicomics, turning dreams into comics, and how to choose which bird hybrid assassins you want as your overlords.

Music by Sleuth.

Our next episode will be on "Roaming" by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki

The TradeWaiters are back and ready to join the Nancy Renaissance! We read the first print collection of "Nancy" by Olivia Jaimes, and weigh in on the new artist who has taken over an ancient but venerated comic strip. Spoiler: Olivia Jaimes is lit, and you’re wrong if you think otherwise. We discuss the fraught circumstances of rebooting legacy newspaper comics, and have a lot to say about what makes "Nancy" #relatable.

Music by Sleuth

After much delay, we can finally bring you episode 101 of the TradeWaiters. This time we’re putting ourselves on the spot, and talking about our hopes and fears for the present and future state of comics. This is a continuation of our discussion from last episode on Scott McCloud’s "Reinventing Comics," and we are once again joined by Kathleen Gros. Our topics of discussion will include AI comics, fragmentation and discoverability, Webtoon convergence, the YA and New Adult audience, creators’ rights, libraries, bespoke comics, and experimentation. The future of comics, like its past, promises to have its highs and its lows.

Music by Sleuth.

It’s episode 100! Special guest Kathleen Gros rejoins the TradeWaiters to help us celebrate our anniversary, and we read Scott McCloud’s "Reinventing Comics." This book made bold predictions of what the future of comics could be. More than twenty years later, we revisit Scott’s ideas to see where they’ve been prescient, where they’ve changed the landscape of comics, and where they’ve proven incomplete. We’ll talk about creators’ rights, the birth and death of the independent webcomic, the return of the middlemen, and whether or not we can declare the Great American (and Great Canadian) Graphic Novel.

Music by Sleuth.

Our next episode will be continue the discussion on the future of comics!

For this episode our intrepid TradeWaiters read "Dragman" by Steven Appleby. This hefty graphic novel cloaks a story about gender identity, predatory capitalism, and being true to yourself in a brightly-coloured superhero costume and sends it out to patrol the streets of London. Join us and listen in as we go TRANSatlantic.

Music by Sleuth

Our next book will be "Reinventing Comics" by Scott McCloud.

Today the Tradewaiters got lost in a fantasy manga with the first two volumes of "Witch Hat Atelier" by Kamome Shirahama. We’ll break down what’s great about this comic, a few things that are maybe not as great, but mostly have a good time reading a book about kids who learn magic, and the magic makes sense.

Music by Sleuth.

Our next book will be "Dragman" by Steven Appleby.

For this episode we read the first two volumes of "Barefoot Gen," Keiji Nakazawa's semi-autobiographical account of surviving the bombing of Hiroshima when he was six years old. "Barefoot Gen" is the best book about the worst thing. Be prepared for it to be super traumatic, but no other book is doing what this one does.

Music by Sleuth

For a complete change of pace, our next book will be the first two volumes of "Witch Hat Atelier" by Kamome Shirahama.