Mineshaft #43, $15. Edited by Everett Rand and Gioia Palmieri. Digest size, 60 pages, black and white with color cover.
Mineshaft Magazine occupies a particular place in the comics world. It remains one of the few (if only?) publications that features new work every issue by Robert Crumb, as well as contributions by many of his contemporaries ( Bill Griffith and Mary Fleener pop up regularly)---what's more, alongside Crumb we are treated to a younger generation that are, in a hard to define way, part of this tradition: Christoph Mueller, Aaron Lange, Nina Bunjevac and many more are regulars. The contemporary artists don't share the exact same sensibility as Crumb or to their own peers, but Mineshaft articulates a particular legacy of thought. That legacy rarely gets its artistic due in scholarly articles, but Mineshaft does it justice and makes it organic. Every issue of this magazine is loaded with comics, articles, sketchbook drawings and MORE. Every issue is essential.