It’s another week of comics news, and mercifully, it was slightly less painful than the last one. Let’s dig into all that, though, as I write about ten things I liked or didn’t like from the week of comics in another edition of Comics Disassembled.

1. Ngozi Ukazu, Up Next

Ngozi Ukazu was one of my Creators of 2024 for a reason: Everything she does is tremendous. The cartoonist has an impeccable resume with her long-running webcomic Check, Please! and last year’s deadly duo of Bunt! Striking Out on Financial Aid and Barda, and she’s back at it with a new graphic novel she’s writing and drawing that’s coming…shockingly soon! The arc of release in book market comics is often a long one, but this comic arrives September of this year.

It’s called Flip, and it’s a story about — as Ukazu put it on Bluesky — “Chi-Chi Ekeh, a first generation Nigerian scholarship student in her senior year of high school. After asking the most popular guy at school to the senior dance—the unexpected happens when they switch bodies….” I’m in, both because I love body-swap stories and because it’s the cartoonist doing what she does. It helps tremendously that Ukazu called this “my most heartfelt, introspective, and autobiographical project to date,” which makes it even more eagerly anticipated by yours truly. Ukazu’s gifted at a lot of things — her comics are hilarious in a way comics rarely are, she’s a gifted writer of dialogue, and her cartooning is exceptional — but one of the things I appreciate the most is how she’s able to take us inside characters and make us understand them. Now, it isn’t typically so literal as characters going in each other’s bodies via body swap, but that makes it all the more appealing.

You can learn more about the graphic novel on this page filled with information, pull quotes, and interiors from Flip, and you can either pre-order it or find a place to do so here. I know I will be doing just that, because I can’t wait to read this book.

2. Bruno Batista, On the Way Out

Let’s pour one out for one of the realest ones you can find in comics, as Bruno Batista of Dublin’s renowned comic shop Big Bang Comics shared this week that he’ll be leaving the store at the end of January. This might not seem like a big deal to you, as people probably stop working at comic shops every single day. It happens! But here’s where I disagree: It is a big deal.

I will readily admit that I’m biased, though. I talk to Batista more than anyone else in comics. It’s pretty much a daily occurrence, and it’s often less about comics and more about what I’m eating and/or him trying to convince me (unsuccessfully) to play Balatro. But it’s a big deal both because he’s incredible at his job and because few people realize that Batista has been the voice of the Big Bang Comics social media accounts for a long time. Not exclusively. Others have jumped in throughout. But quite often it’s Batista, doing his thing.

And with Big Bang being one of the accounts that people listen to the most — and for good reason, as they share a lot of insight and wisdom into the direct market space that we sorely need — that’s a big deal, even if he does occasionally slip into anti-Gambit propaganda. Batista’s voice is one of honesty and passion alike, and he never seemed to take a dark path or a cheerful tone without reason. That was refreshing in a space where there’s constant doom and gloom or salesmanship, and it’s a big part of the reason people around the world, from Alaska to Australia, know Big Bang Comics.

Now I’m starting to sound like Batista’s died or something. He hasn’t. He’s fine. He’s just moving to County Sligo, where the comic shops are few but the landscapes appear to be much prettier. I’ll still talk to him about food and Balatro in the future. Not much will change for me. But even though Big Bang is still in the more than capable hands of John Hendrick and the rest of its staff and it assuredly has a bright future ahead of it, I for one will miss Batista’s perspective.

We need more people like him in comics, not fewer. Happy trails, Bruno!