§ Chris Butcher finally gets around to the most perfect example of three-act structure in three panelsever accomplished, Evan Dorkin’s classic “The Moron Bomb.”

§ Chris Mautner interviews Eddie Campbell in advance of next week’s COMPLETE ALEC:

A: I don’t feel that I’m telling my ‘life story’ as though I have done something interesting that everybody ought to hear about. I’m using that material because it fits the things I want to say, the view of the world that I want to communicate. But yes it does hold the same attraction. I find it difficult now to invent fictional narrators to serve the same purpose. They sound too hollow and false to my inner ear. I tried it in The Fate of the Artist with the prose segments, supposedly narrated by a detective. I tried to write straightforward honest prose and found that I could only do it if there was a sense of it being a spoof from the start. In other words, the reader knows the thing is a hoax from page one.

§ Sean T. Collins continues to be the Kevin Sites of Con Wars, with in-depth reporting on the Battle at Kurtz Gulch and the WUMB Offensive.

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§ All the way back in September we interviewed Jeffrey Brown at his SPX panel, and he admitted one of his dreams was to write a story for Marvel Comics. Now he has a blog post called Childhood Dream: Check. And this is why.

§ PvP’s Scott Kurtz – who has not exactly kept his disdain for the Wizard family of products secret, is incensed by a form letter he receives, asking him to consider participating at a future Wizard show:

Your conventions are total horseshit, so it’s wise to stop branding them with the name Wizard. But no amount of polishing is going to make me want to attended any of the 5 turds your company is going to crap out in 2010, especially when you schedule them against other shows in some bullshit dick measuring contests that serves no other purpose but to fracture an already dying industry that I have nostalgic ties to.

Although his anger is righteous, Laura Hudson observes that she’s beginning to feel sorry for Wizard employees at this point:

Similarly, while Wizard has done some pretty unfortunate and tasteless things in the past, it’s a bit unfair to treat every single person who works for the magazine as though they were complicit with each and every one of those incidents, particularly when it comes to editorial and business decisions made way above their pay grade. Hell, there’s no way of knowing whether sales guy was even working for the mag during the Wieringo incident, or even if he knows who Wieringo is.

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§ Calvin Reid reports that Tor.com is acquiring graphic novels for online publication. First up, books by Dan Goldman and Jim Ottaviani.

The two works are The Imitation Game, a biography of mathematician Alan Turing by comics writer and science biographer Jim Ottaviani and artist Leland Purvis; and Red Light Properties by Dan Goldman, described as a “paranormal real estate tale” by literary agent Bob Mecoy of Creative Book Services, who represents all the creators and negotiated the deal on their behalf.

§ It looks like Sandy Bilus is the new Dick Hyacinth, as he plans to compile a Best Comics of 2009 Meta-List. Send him links to lists.

§ The FINAL final YALSA Best Graphic Novels for Teens nominations list has been posted.
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§ While we were poking around artist Tom Fowler’s website for Halloween, we found this cartoon which portrays writer Jeff Parker and nicely sums up some of the differing stresses of creating comics. As for why Parker is an alligator…you’ll just have to read the link.

§ Imagine one of the world’s greatest cities hosting a series of events starring the world’s greatest cartoonists, put together one one of the world’s greatest comics scholars. That’s London’s Comica. Paul Gravett has more.

Because too much is happening, comics are too vibrant to limit them to one festival a year, even one that’s grown from ten days to three weeks. With the year-round flexibility of Comica events, we can welcome major guests whenever they can make it to London, from Art Spiegelman and Marjane Satrapi to Alan Moore and Joe Sacco, only a few weeks ago, to a packed house, and Daniel Clowes lined up for next spring.

[snip]To treat comics as a totally valid contemporary artform, to show where the medium is heading right now locally and internationally, and how comics can interconnect with every other artform. In many ways, the aims, the mission, of Comica are in sync with what Peter Stanbury and I envisaged when we used to co-publish Escape Magazine back in the 1980s - to escape, to break out from narrow definitions and formulas, to liberate comics to be anything they want and everything they can be. That’s why we’ve put Spiegelman together with Philip Pullman, Posy Simmonds with Ian McEwan, Moore & Gebbie with Stewart Lee - or this year Logicomix author Apostolos Doxiadis with Marcus de Sautoy and Ben Templesmith with Philip Ridley. And Comica hosts the best, from whatever field of comics, from Japanese comics, with Junko Mizuno, to American superheroes, like Alex Maleev last year and Cameron Stewart this year - quality is there in every sector of this medium.

§ Jon Gutierrez explores the original Astro Boy story a tale of abandonment and abuse, themes which, unsurprisingly, the under-performing CGI remake did not grapple with.

§ Hero Complex reports on a current show comparing Indian myth to superheroes.

§ Jameson Steed at the Daily Titan captures industry thoughts on SDCC’s pricing and early Preview Night sellout.

§ Mania.com digs up more info on Fabio’s THOR

The most important thing to establish up front was that this was not a Marvel movie. Kersley had concocted the idea for the film with Fabio and animation writer Henry Gilroy (’Clone Wars’), and based their story on Norse myth. However, they clearly borrowed two elements from the Marvel version: Thor would share his Earthly existence with a human (in this case a young boy) and he would have long blond hair. Mythology mavens know that Thor is traditionally depicted with red hair.

Now with ketchup!

This report of D&Q at the Boston Book Festival has been up for a few days but it’s charming and includes a picture of two of our favorite comics folks, Peggy Burns and Sasha Watson, (above) so how can we not link to it?

§ Simon Jones has some tart words for Kodansha’s premiere in the US, notably Ghost in the Shell:

What’s the point of giving us a GitS that is nearly identical to the first edition released by Dark Horse so many moons ago? Why is it flipped, and missing pages (which Dark Horse restored in later editions)? I love the work Frederick Schodt and Toren Smith had done with GitS, but do you really think this is what the current market of manga readers expect from you? This would be the fourth copy I own of the first GitS (well, 5th since I accidentally purchased 2 copies of your edition.) Do you believe I bought this release because I just had to have GitS with a matte interior finish?

§ Speaking of Fred Schodt, here’s an interview with him at Anime News Network.
§ Geoff Boucher found a lot of nerd crossover at the U2 show at the Rose Bowl, which should come as no surprise, considering Bono and the Edge are big on Spider-Man:

It was time to head for our seats so I assumed the fanboy subplots were over but I was wrong. The startling set for the show, the cosmic claw, looks like something that Jack Kirby would have dreamed up. Bono mentioned Scarlett Johansson, star of “Iron Man 2″ and “The Spirit,” at one point but that was just a footnote. The great line came midway through the show (a show, by the way, that was absolutely astounding) when Bono began a tongue-in-cheek introduction of the band members. He described the Edge as a mad scientist and an alien visitor, whose mission has “gone where no other guitarist has gone before.” I wondered if, somewhere in the crowd of 97,000, Abrams fell out of his seat at that line. Bono added, “He’s Mr. Spock to us, he’s the Edge to you.”

§ An old issue of ALBEDO #2 featuring Usagi Yojimbo sells for a surprising amount on eBay much to Stan Sakai’s amazement.

§ Denny O’Neil continues his common sense lesson plan in writing for comics:

This week, we’re lowering our foreheads and eschewing discussions of aesthetics and craft to blather a bit about selling the damn stuff. Sorry to disillusion he more tender-minded among you, but writing for a large audience–doing any creative thing for a large audience–is always going to be somewhat about money, and those who have it, and convincing them that you are The Man or The Woman. (Remember: while he was painting the big ceiling, Michelangelo had to deal with Pope Julius II, not his favorite person, who owned the ceiling and probably paid for the paints.)

§ In his always excellent weekly comics buying survey for Comics Alliance, Douglas Wolk alludes to the fact that AMBUSH BUG jumped from issue 5 to issue 7 because of internal content issues with #6. We hope someone has been keeping a diary about all this stuff, because it is going to make very amusing reading in about 15 years.

Brian Chippendale on MASTER OF KUNG FU is not only an awesome piece of writing but suggests something we never quite put together before, namely that MoKF is to The Prisoner as Monty Python is to the Beatles.

§ Robert Weil talks Crumb at Graphic Novel Reporter:

Was there any talk between you and Robert of how he would make the characters look?

No, you don’t do that to Robert Crumb. I know and he knows that among Orthodox Jews, you’re not allowed to depict God. In that way, it won’t appeal to—we’re not trying to appeal to an orthodox community. I think if you saw the view of the book in the Jewish publication Forward by Paul Buhle. Jews, by and large, are finding this an extraordinary work, which they’re responding to. I think this will have great interest among Jewish readers.

§ Chris Butcher mildly suggests that possessing some knowledge of business is a good idea before launching a business.

§ Dan Nadel mildly suggests that David Hajdu does not know much about R. Crumb.

§ Sean T. Collins posts a fine example of adulthood in action as Heroes Con & Supercon sort out a scheduling conflict with graciousness for the benefit of ALL. The piece also reveals the rather sad fact that the Charlotte Convention Center won’t hold dates for Heroes Con. COME ON, CHARLOTTE! Get with the program. Comics are as big a part of culture as low-riders!

§ This is from last week but it’s good. Brian Hibbs looks at Diamond, flaws and all, and sees the good and the bad. The whole piece is a must-read, but we’ll just pick out this element:

If one were to make a chart of market share since the exclusives era, one would see the four brokered publishers gaining a larger and larger percentage of the overall marketplace – it stood at about 87% for August 2009 shipping books (10 years ago that was only about 75%) – and I think that’s largely a function of the brokered publishers being absolutely ruthless in their line expansions. When the “front of the book” publishers start soaking up the purchasing dollars, that leaves less for everyone else – especially because the purchasing and discount terms are so lopsided. Books from the brokered publishers have retailer discount that are generally at least 5% higher, and can be as much as 15%. That’s a huge uphill battle for non-brokered publishers, and thus it is less surprising that so many have chosen to get out of the periodical business (despite the fact that this, too, causes their market share and awareness to drop)

§ Well it looks like Neal Adams is going to be the D.W. Griffith of motion comics!:

“This is the next step, because this is a new art form,” Neal adds. “It’s never existed before. What you have is comic books and animation. Animation is Bruce Timm interpreting everybody else’s work, and all very nice and semi-complimentary, and not exactly royalty-filled-with. It’s good, but it’s animation: 500 Czech artists tracing animation from some other artist. It’s fine, but it’s not the comic books. This is the comic books. This is taking the work of the artists and words of the writer, verbatim. The thing about Whedon is that [he] is used to doing copy, so he knows how many words need to be dealt with, and he does good personality stuff.

“So, you have vocalizing of the writer’s words, and the artwork being animated by the most modern technology available by computers. The technology, as little as a year ago, is half of what it is today. It’s moving very, very fast.

We liked it when it was just…comics.

§ Archie Comics is having a Halloween Costume Contest.

§ A memorial for Rich Hafstead, co-owner of Jim Hanley’s Universe will be held this Sunday.

§ A long article on the University of Oregon’s superhero exhibit.

§ Audio of Mark Millar at the Edinburgh Book Festival.

§ More on Frank Miller’s message board postings.

§ We don’t know what quote about his comics addiction by Art Brut frontman Eddie Argos is the most endearing, from this Onion AV Club interview, but EDGAR WRIGHT, ARE YOU LISTENING???

AVC: You got into Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series after your song “Fight!” was mentioned in Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Universe. Have you attempted to contact Edgar Wright to see if you can get an Art Brut song in his movie adaptation?

EA: Actually, I follow him on Twitter, and he was tweeting about Art Brut Vs. Satan, saying what a good album it was, so I sent him a message going, “Aw, dude, Spaced is amazing.” So we chatted a bit on Twitter, but it’d be a bit forward wouldn’t it—demanding to have our song in it? I think Bryan’s coming to see us when we play North Carolina. That’s what I love about Twitter—all these comic book writers I love, I’m now chatting with on the Internet.

Speaking of movies…

§ Rumors of Robert DeNiro and Jude Law in the THOR movie. Are these TRUE rumors or FAKE rumors? I don’t know, but I loved THE KING OF COMEDY, didn’t you??

§ Also, a rundown of The Current Status Of The Many ‘X-Men’ Related Film Projects at Geeks of Doom. Bottom line: Deadpool UP, Magneto solo film DOWN.

§ For those threatened by Crumb’s take on the Bible, Kristy Valenti recalls the good old days of Picture Stories from the Bible.

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§ One great cartoonist analyzes another, as Eddie Campbell looks at Rutu Modan’s EXIT WOUNDS…

In Exit Wounds Rutu Modan gives me something that’s getting harder to find in my ‘graphic novel’ reading. That is, she’s telling me something I don’t already know. It’s set in an actual place I’ve never been to, and the characters are involved in plausible actions that are outside of my experience. They are investigating whether the father of one of them has been the victim of a terrorist bombing, and whether he is the ‘John Doe’ in a hastily dug grave at the cemetery. While they’re there, an unrelated body is being exhumed with, much family ceremony further along the line, due to a similar discovery.

§ Mark Evanier has a thoughtful look at the evolving role of the comics artist, through the lens of the late George Tuska’s 60+year career:

Obviously, younger folks who write and draw comics have some of the same motives but it was different with guys of Jack’s (and George’s) era, men who’d grown up in the Depression and at a time when few imagined the stardom and rewards that would one day come with being a top comic book creator. One of the many ways it was different — and I’m going to leave Kirby aside here because he was always in his own special category — is that the George Tuskas of the world did their work with little to no clout, power or say-so in what they created or what happened to it.

Based on some of the stories we’ve heard over the last week or so, we’d suggest that not all artists have as much clout and say-so as they should, even these days, but it has improved a great deal since the sweatshop days, to be sure.

§ Dave Roman is giving away magazines.

§ J. Caleb Mozzocco dives into “the most popular superhero of the day” Deadpool, and we got exhausted just scrolling to the end of the post, so you can imagine how he feels.

§ Disturbing cartoon nudity. Warning: once seen, it cannot be unseen.

§ Ditto for what Chris Sims dubs The Worst Sex Scene in Comics. A remix above, but you’ll need to click the link for the original single.

§ Ben Towle argues what many felt about the STITCHES National Book Award nomination — it’s nice that such a fine book was recognized, but putting an adult memoir in the kids section just because it’s a graphic novel, isn’t all that progressive and reveals a gap in the Comics Revolution:

My point is straightforward: until there’s a sizable adult readership for comics/graphic novels which do not derive their appeal from a factual/memoir-based connection to their narratives, comics cannot be said to have truly “arrived” as an art form. Yes there are a number of GNs that have sold well in the mass market, but the vast majority of them rely on the novelty of some kind of appeal to events or circumstances beyond simply a well-crafted narrative to do so: the author’s tragic childhood (Stitches, Fun Home, Blankets), the author’s personal involvement in political strife and/or war (MAUS, Palestine, Persepolis), the author’s tragedy in adulthood (Cancer Vixen, various other cancer-related books), etc. (And of course, there are things like Watchmen that “regular people” will buy when movies are made of them.) Where is the readership, though, for general fiction GNs? Beyond comics folk, I’d say it’s in the realm of very small to non-existent.

§C2E@, the Chicago convention planned for next April, will include a Comic Studies Conference, and is looking for proposals:

If you’re a librarian, professor, teacher, or scholarly fan, the Comics Studies Conference wants to hear from you. The CSC invites proposals for scholarly presentations, book talks, slide talks, roundtables, professional-focus panels, workshops and other panels centered on sequential art and comics in any form (graphic novels, comic strips, comic books, manga, web comics, etc.), comics-centric works, or adaptations of comics materials, genres, or figures into other media for its first annual meeting, held in conjunction with C2E2.

§ A few more details on that Bradleys cartoon pilot, which Peter Bagge we co-write.

§ Benjamin Marra is a cartoonist who’s been getting a lot of attention in certain circles, and after you read this interview, you may see why:

Har. I dig your sarcasm. I do include fans of indie, autobio comics as fans or potential fans of Night Business. But I hope that they’ll read it and never admit to anyone or themselves that it secretly touches them in a place they love and yearn to be touched. Yes, I am making a statement to indie comic fans. My statement is indie comics don’t always have to be indulgent, pitying, self-analyses of despair, sadness and self-importance. There’s a broader spectrum of emotions and story ideas out there I’m trying to explore in comics, like, lust, rage, revenge, violence, street justice, drug abuse, nudity and sexiness. The sum of which is Exploitation. To be clear, I don’t think that all indie comics are as I’ve described. It’s the indie comic stereotype – that is well anchored in reality – that Night Business is a reaction to.

So much good stuff all around!

§ Brian Heater continues his interview run with Ken Dahl:

It had to be educational at some point, because it’s a 208 page book about this character basically obsessing over his cold sores. It’s simultaneously the least important subject ever and also one that infects and affects so many people. Also, there’s this huge stigma about it. It puts 70-80-percent of adults in this weird space where they can’t talk about it, and they have to feel really bad about it. But it’s also such a non-issue. I couldn’t explain how awful this was without actually putting down the facts about herpes, as we know them. It’s surprising.

and Guy DeLisle:

Well, no, not really, because they are following me a lot. Even in France, as of today, Shenzhen—which is my first comic—is selling more nowadays than when it was first released, because it was released in a period of time when comics and graphic novels weren’t so well known, and the distributor wasn’t as big. Now things have changed a lot. it’s quite funny. Now people have read The Burma Chronicles and they go back and for all these reasons, it’s selling better than it did before. Slowly but surely.

§ Chris Mautner catches up with the terrifically awesome Rick Geary, whose nonfiction GNs about crimes famed and obscure aren’t just rote retellings, but thorough investigations, including his next one, which deals with the Axe-man of New Orleans:

He operated in New Orleans in the 1918-19 period and used an ax to break into people’s houses and chopped them up. It put the city into a panic for a while. And then he just vanished. There aren’t any major theories about who it was or what happened to him. It’s a real foggy mystery, but there are a lot of juicy details. I had to use newspaper archives to ferret out the details, because no one’s done a book about this particular killer.

At the moment I’m doing research for the book after that which will be the Sacco and Venzetti case.

During the interview, Geary mentions that the market for his Hill & Wang graphic bios has gone soft: “They’re holding off. We shall see.”

§ Continuing an excellent run at Robot 6, Tim O’Sheainterviews Nevin Martell, whose new book investigates the mystery of Calvin & Hobbes creator Bill Watterson .

O’Shea: What was some of the hardest aspects of his career for you to research?

Martell: Honestly — and I don’t say this lightly — a lot of this book was difficult to research. Watterson left a very limited public record of his work and his life, so I had to do a lot of good old fashioned detective work to discover his life and find the people he met and worked with along the way. That being said, that journey was incredibly rewarding and I don’t regret any of the many hours I spent on the phone, on the internet, talking with people or traveling to collections and libraries.

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§ Mash-up of the week: Emo superstar Pete Wentz of the band Fall Out Boy interviews comics superstar Chris Ware in a delightful deserted factory near downtown LA for a surprisingly relaxed series of videos. Bonus: they’re subtitled in German!

§ ICv2 rounds up last month’s BookScan charrts, and finds Graphic Novels Down 15% in Q3, citing last year’s WATCHMEN boom as being at least partly responsible for the dip; the report also mentions that graphic novels for kids, tweens and teens are doing well this year. A companion piece reports that Robert Crumb’s GENESIS did well in sales, breaking up the usual Naruto/Moore/Gaiman/Kirkman bloc.

§ Speaking of the charts, J. Caleb Mozzocco ponders this month’s sales charts.

§ Just because it was mostly a love-in doesn’t mean people can’t ask questions — in fact they SHOULD. The Daily Cross Hatch published an open letter by cartoonist Susie Cagle, who, in an honest and straightforward way asks some very direct questions about SPX:

Presuming conservatively that maybe two-thirds of the 170 tables sold at the early bird rate of $300, and the rest at the late rate of $370, that’s upwards of $55,000 right there. Plus 1772 paid admissions–maybe half of those were $15 weekend passes, and half day passes? Another $22,000+. Add in some minor poster sales and we’re talking a grand total of somewhere around let’s say $80K. I can’t imagine the Marriott is charging upwards of three-quarters of that for the use of one large and two small meeting rooms for daytime hours on a weekend, plus the hall, cash bar and bartenders for the Ignatzes. And if they are, well, you might want to reconsider this plan.

and this year’s SPX director Karon Flage shows up to honestly and straightforwardly answer some of these questions:

While I am not going to discuss exact numbers the show is considerably more expensive to run than your expectations. Everything you see at the show must be sourced – the ballroom and meeting room space, tables and table drapes, chairs, wastebaskets, microphones, laptops and projectors plus paying for the labor to set up and tear down ballroom and meeting rooms. It is comparable to hosting a wedding for over 1000 guests. SPX is volunteer run – no one on staff from the board members to the show volunteers receives payment for working on the show. We do of course get in free to the show so volunteering is one way an attendee can save money on the admittance charge.

§ The Art Patient blog is this week’s commentator to ask “how many times must we see superhero A die?

§ Brian Chippendale talks about Bryan Hitch. Yeah, you heard us.

§ Comic Book Heroes big with tween girls. A perfectly TRUE headline, but you must read the article to find out the surprise twist!

§ Don MacPherson explains how Rich Koslowski won a copyright infringement case:

When it comes to stories about comic-book copyright infringement, one usually imagines Marvel Entertainment or DC Comics cracking down on unauthorized use of iconic super-hero characters. But in a Toronto court recently, an independent comics creator and self-publisher took on another small businessman. The 3 Geeks creator Rich Koslowski has won a summary-judgment motion in Canadian federal court, upholding his 3 Geeks copyright. The case arises from an Ontario computer-consultation business and its use of a 3 Geeks image, created by Koslowski, promotional materials.

§ It’s that time of year! And Comics Alliance is there with 5 Comic Book Halloween Costumes That Won’t Objectify Women (And 5 That Will Objectify Men!) . Warning: Anyone attempting a Namor really need ot know what they are doing or else mass death could ensue.

§ Speaking of Namor, here’s Ming Doyle’s Namor triptych, with frame. (via Twitter.)

§ Part 2 of Denny O’Neil’s writing column at Bleeding Cool is up and this time, it’s a recommended reading list.

§ DC’s senior story editor, Ian Sattler, is learning how to blog and he’s quickly discovered what we learned long ago — when you’re vamping for time, pictures of beverages work just fine.

Hello from…well I’m actually not sure where I am right now. Somewhere deep in the Valley in LA at a coffee shop. I’ve driven so much in the last 24 hours that I can’t believe that it’s all been in only one state. Everything is crusing along though and it’s great to hear how into the DCU everybody is right now. That includes the person I’m sitting with as I type this. They are a writer that has never done anything for the DCU, but that is gonna change in 2010. Wanna try and guess? Well here is a hint: This is a picture of their iced tea. Pretty amazing hint, huh? Ok gotta run, but talk to you tomorrow!

§ As many are saying, lesbian kissing is another term for shark jumping and the just released image of good girl Claire and bad girl Gretchen about to enjoy a tumultuous melding of lips from Heroes shows.

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We’ve had some computer woes which slowed the flow here, so this is an extra huge catchup K’n'B installment:

§ The final part of an interview with Naoki Urasawa!

Q: It’s true that the face of your Astro Boy seems to have a sadness about it. It’s raining in the first scene he appears in…

U: I think that first scene is somewhat symbolic. But still, even I don’t know what’s behind that sad mood. I talk to my assistants a lot about it, wondering “Why is it so sad every time this character shows up?” You know that song from the Beach Boy’s album Pet Sounds called “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times”? I think I can describe the mood as being something like that. That song sort of alludes to the album “Smile”, which was supposed to be the follow-up to Pet Sound but was never released. Maybe it’s that sadness of something destined never to be born that I hits me every time I draw Astro Boy. It’s like Astro Boy had to bear the contrasting feelings hope and despair for the 50 years it took to pass it’s own birth year…

§ Following the official announcement of Kodansha’s entry into the U.S., and the interview with Yoshio Irie, American commentators are weighing the odds, including Simon Jones who’s a bit dubious on how the Japanese-style business model will fly in the US:

… everything in the interview paints an initial approach typical of large, old Japanese companies… patient, if not dawdling and overly conservative (the lone US operative, Tomoko Suga, seems like a sniper on a scouting mission.)  Looking at the format of Kodansha’s first two releases (oversized, $24.99 MSRP), one gets the impression that they’re not quite ready to compete on the same playing field just yet.  Their symbiotic relationship with Random House certainly complicates things further.  But given all the changes in the book market, a rather timid launch might not be a bad idea after all.  If anything, it’ll make that $2 million start-up fund last longer.

§ Johanna Draper Carlson runs her full length interview with Erika Moen

Why am I so open about it? I think those subjects are funny, and I feed on the validation that comes from complete strangers telling me that they relate to my strips. Most of my close friends I’ve met are because of my comics. Shit, I met my husband because first he was a fan of my comics.

Also, I might be kinda an exhibitionist. Maybe.

§ Audio of writers Neil Gaiman, Denise Mina and Ian Rankin at the Edinburgh Book Festival

§ Cartoonist Abby Denson recounts The Case of the Stolen Dolltopias! — her box of comp copies of her new book DOLLTOPIA was stolen from in front of her apartment. Although her story has a surprise twist ending, it’s a sobering reminder of tough times everywhere.

§ An interview with the Long Beach Comic-Con’s Director Martha Donato following the successful inaugural show. Donato gives an idea of how to put boots to the ground to get feet in the door:

The hard part is getting people to walk through the door. I can get the guest and exhibitors, but I can’t call up 10,000 people in Los Angeles and say ‘hey, would you like to come to a Long Beach show.’ So that’s when I hired a local marketing person and we started with comic shops, Pulp Fiction, Amazing Comics, Golden Apple, we went in and asked if we could hang some posters. ‘We have some post cards, will you hand them out, you wanna sell some tickets for us.’ We ended up with 13 local retailers selling tickets and that is how we started to build the interest. I called all my friends at DC and Marvel and Top Cow and Aspen and Boom! (Studios) and IDW (Publishing) and called everybody, and it just started to happen through word of mouth. And let’s not discount the Internet: Facebook and a MySpace page and Twittering, and took out some ads on (the comic-focused websites) CBR (Comic Book Resources) and Newsarama. We went to San Diego (to the Comic-Con) and handed out flyers. They were gracious enough to let us put our flyers on the freebie table.

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§ Johnny Bacardi pens an elegy to the way ahead of its time THRILLER by Robert Loren Fleming and Trevor von Eeden. . A panel floats above.

§ Although everyone is tired of SPX reports, this one seems to have drawn out lots of larger picture thinking, or at least it did on Comics Comics. Frank Santoro:

What am I saying? I’m saying that the lesson of the “small press” is that one can hone one’s personal voice within a support group of like-minded folks without making fatal concessions to the larger marketplace. And in these days of 500-page graphic novel debuts, it’s an important lesson. I could go on and on, but I think it would be like preaching to the choir.

§ ALSO, Dash Shaw points out that alt.comix is just as often interested in adventure as introspection:

But I fear that the panel was interpreted as a statement that “alternative” cartoonists having affection for “mainstream” comics is noteworthy or unusual or “new” somehow. It’s not. “Alternative” cartoonists bemoaning the abundance of boring, mundane mostly-autobio work is a false feeling to me. There are a lot of autobio “real life” stories, but they’ve always been dwarfed by the pseudo-“mainstream” genre work, even outside of Marvel and DC. Look at Oni Press and Slave Labor Graphics and Antarctic Press and Caliber Comics and Tundra and on and on. Look at the Hernandez Brothers. Look at the wave of alternative comics in the nineties… Zot (which somehow looks both really dated and also pre-Tezuka reprint boom ahead-of-its-time,) Bone, Kabuki (don’t forget that Scarab spin-off series!), Madman, THB (fucking Escapo! still lookin good a decade later,) etc.

Keep your eye on the comment thread on this one!

§ It was a busy weekend in the blogosphere. Several writers at the Savage Critic observed Read Comics All Day day, and Abhay read DAR: A SUPER GIRLY ETC., the spunky slice-of-life comic about spunk and anal sex, among other things.

The good episodes of DAR are about sex. Moen employs the same circular-headed cartoon characters with dot eyes, the same cute-driven style that Jeff Brown or Dave Heatley use— all of them softening their sex comics with a certain amount of adorable. Which sounds like a good idea, unless you start dwelling on Stephen Jay Gould too much.

And from there he’s off to the races with neoteny, infantilism, and cupcakes.

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§ We’re totally not into reading Twitter all day and reposting what comics pros say, but we liked this from Brian Bendis:

A couple of people on the plane reading comics!! They’re not just for kids any more!

§ Speaking of Twitter, Glen Weldon at NPR investigates the phenomenon of HOBODARKSEID and his epic pronouncements:

SO BE IT– THE CRADLE OF DARKSEID’S EMPIRE SHALL BE THIS DUMPSTER BEHIND BABY GAP. TREMBLE BEFORE ME!

and also reveals HOBODARKSEID’s real identity, and though it won’t be a shocker, it does kinda end one kind of fun, so proceed with caution.

§ Twitter trio: Tweeting for Harvey Pekar is no laughing matter for our SPX travel buddie Jeff Newelt.

§ Dennis O’Neil is explaining how to write comics at Bleeding Cool, and it’s worth a visit:

Sorry. Writing is self-taught. You acquire the skill by applying the seat of your pants to a flat object and moving a stylus across paper or tapping a keyboard, and you continue to do that until someone begins paying you to do it, and then you spend the rest of your life teaching yourself how to do what you’re doing. It is often a lonely life–you can get help before and after, but not during–and if the notion of closing a door behind you and manipulating verbal and visual language for many hours every week is abhorrent to you, then perhaps you would be happy applying your skill and intelligence and enthusiasm elsewhere.

§ Kevin Melrose wraps up everything you need to know about Stephen Colbert’s Spider-Pope .

§ Jonah Weiland remembers Marvel Mania Hollywood and thumbs through an old menu. (Marvel Mania was a superhero themed restaurant at the uNiversal City Walk that didn’t last too long. Bonus Fun Fact: We ate there ONCE with one of the people we link to below. WHO WHO WHO?

§ MORE ADORABLE/ENDEARING/INSIGHTFUL SPX wrap-ups.

Dylan Meconis’ marvelously illustrated account.

Marion Vitus with PICTURES.

Dave Roman includes VALUABLE PERSPECTIVE.

Rob Clough has a great report that touches on many of the themes we picked up on, and offers this on the new graduates:

* The influence of formal comics education. Schools like SCAD (Savannah College of Art & Design), MCAD (Minneapolis College of Art & Design), SVA (School of Visual Arts) and especially CCS (Center for Cartoon Studies) are producing wave after wave of young, enthusiastic cartoonists. CCS-related cartoonists had a dozen or more tables, with nearly three dozen students or alums in attendance. In talking to a number of CCS folks, I was struck not only by how many alums stick around White River Junction after graduation, but by how totally sold out to comics they are. A culture has been created that not only provides support and encouragement but also demands a strong work ethic and a commitment to constantly growing.

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§ Vice Magazine does Where The Wild Things Are, and a modern legend is born. Above, Ben Jones. (Link Via STC.)

§ Rick Marshall gets Robert Kirkman to spill a bit on Frank Darabont’s planned WALKING DEAD TV series. :

MTV: How much will you be involved in shaping the series on AMC?

KIRKMAN: I’m going to be an executive producer on the show, so I’ll have my hands all over the thing. But it’s important to me that I’m only involved in the show as much my comic book career will allow. I’m excited that there is a television show, and I’m excited that Darabont is involved—and one of the big reasons for that is that I trust him. I don’t need to look over his shoulder.

Frank understands the material 100 percent. It’s always been shocking to me, doing Hollywood meetings over the years, just how easy it is for someone to come in to the meeting and say something like, “We want the zombies to have super powers.” Knowing that, I’m really excited about it, because from my discussions with Frank, he likes the right things about “Walking Dead.”

§ Robert Langdon Variety discovers that a sinister secret cabal is controlling what we watch and talk about in a searing expose they call “Internet influences film audiences”.

§ Brigid Alverson rounds up NYAF reports and news, including the absence of Yen Press — they were at a sales conference.

§ Retailer Steve Bennett faces The World That’s Coming Is Coming For You:

Oh, I can definitely see comic books being published in print form fifty years from now, in the same way pulp magazines are still being published, facsimile reprints and pastiches with print runs in the hundreds sold to a small but devoted fan base. And frankly the prospect doesn’t horrify me the way it probably should, maybe because it seems like somebody has been predicting the imminent demise of comic books since 1974. As a comic book guy of a certain age I’ve had plenty of time to prepare.

§ Is this is what’s meant by “Critical discourse”? Rich Johnston compares Mickey Mouse and Herogasm and find intertwined themes and allusions.

Possibly in deference to its review stablemate, Herogasm is a much more subdued than in previous episodes. There are no sex scenes at all, let alone orgies. This is a pause, possibly waiting for something to explode in the next issue. Mickey & Friends also has no sex scenes, though Donald does jump into Goofy’s pocket briefly in quite a suggestive fashion. There are C-bombs in both issues however, though in Mickey & Friends, that C stands for crystal. And what a lot of fuss this missing crystal causes!

§ This one is a few days old but it is worth repeating. Blogger Okazu finds that The New York Times does not treat manga seriously, or at least not as seriously as they treat such things as Iran’s growing nuclear capabilities, real estate prices in Turtle Bay, and one couple’s battle to find a greener way to wash baby bottles:

This first one is for an American GN:

WALKING DEAD, VOL. 1, by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore. (Image Comics, $14.99.) The gripping story of the human survivors in a world overrun by zombies continues.

This one is for a manga:

YOTSUBA&!, VOL. 6, by Kiyohiko Azuma. (Yen Press, $10.99.) This series follows Yotsuba, a young girl learning about the world. In this chapter, she recycles, gets a bike and discovers sticky notes. Really.

Yotsuba&! has won awards around the world, and is a truly delightful book about a quirky kid and her worldview. Walking Dead is the millionth book about zombies. Really.

We’d like to endorse this notion. The NYT’s manga descriptions seem particularly glib and condescending. It’s not like there aren’t plenty of smart people who read manga — perhaps one of them should be employed for the task. God knows there are lots of unemployed journos out there!

§ Chris Butcher reminds is that it’s the last day to pre-order Key Moments from the History of Comics at Comics212.

§ SPX! People won’t shut up about it! Good quotes in the jump.
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§ Oh Shaenon, why can’t I be you? The Patrick Swayze Manga Recommendation Guide.

§ Robot 6 calls this post “The comic Chris Ware doesn’t want you to see“, and it is pretty hard to improve upon that description. What is the secret of…FLOYD FARLAND???

§ Geoff Boucher looks at Jack Kirby, the abandoned hero of Marvel’s grand Hollywood adventure:

The satisfaction was fleeting. The artist may be reverently referred to as “King” Kirby by the pop scholars and younger artists who celebrate his genre-defining work but Kirby is, in some ways, an overlooked figure in the broader view of American culture. He didn’t live to see his creations fly across the movie screen over the last decade and his four children made nothing from those lucrative films, although they are now pursuing legal action to claim some of the future Hollywood wealth. “There is,” daughter Lisa Kirby says, “a bittersweet legacy to my father’s work.”

§ Jog looks at Krusty’s Ergot.

§ Marc-Oliver continues his look at Steve Gerber and makes us think that OMEGA THE UNKNOWN was WATCHMEN before WATCHMEN was WATCHMEN.

§ Movie stuff! Steven Zeitchik points out that animated movies make lots of money these days and suggests it may have some consequences:

§ Remember when? Marc Sobel looks back at the 1999 SPX anthology and wonders where rea they now?

1. The Jay and Silent Bob cover by Matt Wagner is a reminder of just how big a deal Kevin Smith once was to comics fans, and how much that has changed in the subsequent decade. I don’t think most comics fans have had any real kind of emotional investment in Smith’s movies since Chasing Amy, and Smith’s few forays into writing comics have either been mired by ridiculous delays or simply underwhelming stories.

§ An oldie but a goodie we came across during surfing: 22 unflattering moments from autobiographical comics

§ Robert Venditti, creator of THE SURROGATES, has a blog! Here, he shares some concept art for his next project, THE HOMELAND DIRECTIVE, with art by Mike Huddleston.

§ Scott McCloud has a little bit more on the influence of the silent GI JOE issue, with some interesting comments that cast more light on the impact of this issue. We’ve often heard it said how important the G.I. JOE comic was to readers of its generation in helping them see comics as a storytelling medium. Are there other comics of the ’80s and ’90s that had a similar impact?

§ Even before our post yesterday on Amazon’s odd author policies, David Welsh was looking at current practices for credits, especially where the author is the selling point.
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§ Shaenon K. Garrity does what they said couldn’t be done and offers A Crash Course in Boys’ Love , with a historical context.

In America, “yaoi” has become a catchall term for any manga or anime that includes suggestive situations between male characters, including mainstream shojo (girls’) manga that would not be classified as yaoi in Japan. In Japan, the general term for this type of manga is “boys’ love,” often abbreviated as BL. The term shonen-ai, literally “boy love,” is also used, but today often refers to older titles, especially early BL manga set in private boys’ schools. In American fandom, “yaoi,” “BL,” and “shonen-ai” tend to be used interchangably. The characters themselves are called bishonen, “beautiful boys.”

§ Jog investigates an early and unsuccessful attempt at bringing manga to the US.

§ Marc-Oliver Frisch continues his look at comics of olden days with Steve Gerber’s great “Headmen Saga” from THE DEFENDERS.

The creators confront their readers with the uncomfortable truth that sometimes there is no solution, and violence only serves to exacerbate the problem. What’s left for the characters—and the audience—to do with the situation is to live with the consequences and, hopefully, learn from it so it won’t happen again. It took decades for this kind of self-reflection to become more common in a genre that’s still largely based on men in tights trying to resolve conflicts by beating each other up at sight—and even when this reflective aspect is present, even today, it’s rarely as well-executed.

§ Joss Whedon talks about Dollhouse and up-and-coming director John Cassaday.

I have the same feeling about Cassaday; he’s a storyteller. I gave him shorter scripts than any other artist I’ve worked with because he has an extraordinary visual sense and it very much matches my own. Now directing is such alchemy, it’s so easy to fail. And I’ve seen people who are great at their jobs because everybody has a go. Editors, DPs, actors, craft services guy, everybody wants to try it out but it is such a diffuse but necessary set of skills that you never know which one this person might lack. It’s a risk that in the old days I never would have taken, I was too busy going “I’m hanging on for dear life.” With Cassaday, I know he can tell a story, I know him as a person, his sensibility, the way he is with other people and I just feel that this step is logical for him, it’s something he’s been pursuing for a while.

§ Alex Hoffman at the Transmission X blog wonders if webcomics should really be thought of as separate from the rest of the industry vis–à–vis the segregated nominations for the Joe Shuster Awards:

Could it be that the lack of webcomic nominations for Best Artist, Best Writer, Best Cartoonist or Best Colorist are due to their method of publication? Isn’t it possible that somehow, somewhere, people are writing on the internet just as well as others are writing for print? It’s too early to be pointing fingers or yelling about prejudice, but this division of suitability seems somewhat arbitrary and unfair. But how do we know this to be the case? Maybe webcomics are considered, but none have been good enough to merit a nomination. Well, this year’s nominations prove that isn’t so: Nominations for Best Artist list all credited work for the past year, for instance: “Steve McNiven – Amazing Spider-Man #546-548, Wolverine #66-70 (Marvel Comics)”. Yet, for Karl Kerschl, only his print work is mentioned.

§ Fashion corner: D~LuxeList spotlights Barbie-themed accessories from Jonathan Adler and Christian Louboutin

OUCH.

§ Quotable Interview with Alan Moore #147 in a series is up at Mania, and whle the most quoted part has been where he marvels that Blackest Night is mining a story he wrote over 20 eras ago, we’ll quote this part:

AM: Yes, it has. And, can I just say I’m sorry? That was never my intention for every book to be like that. The reason I wanted to do them like that was because nothing else was like that. I wanted to do something that was different. If I were, god forbid, still doing superhero comics today, just like my ABC work from a couple of years ago, they’d be very very different from the Watchmen or Marvelman template. They’d be much more about having fun—whether that be intellectual fun or just plain fun—much more about that than doing any revisions. I think, ultimately, that approach that I brought in—taking previously existing characters and reinterpreting them—has probably led to very grim and very un-enjoyable comic books. I didn’t want everyone else to copy what we were doing. And especially, if they were going to, I’d have preferred it if they’d copied the freshness and originality of the ideas—and, if they had managed to express a bit of the joy that we expressed, even in Watchmen, in Marvelman, and Swamp Thing.

Yes, there were some very grim passages in all those books, but there were also passages of great joy. And, it seemed to me that people basically took from it what they were able to take from it—mostly a slightly depressing atmosphere and the idea that everybody had to be a grim, ruthless psychopath. Even characters like Stanley and His Monster—should they be reinvented as grim, brooding psychopaths? That completely robbed comics of a lot of the charm that, for me at least, they once had. Again, it was never intended as a blanket approach for all comic books. It was just an experiment that I was trying, and it worked better in some cases than it did in others. Yeah, Marvelman and Watchmen—those are pretty good books. On the other hand, where I was doing the same things in The Killing Joke, it was entirely inappropriate.

§ Speaking of joy, Richard Bruton reviews The Toon Treasury Of Classic Children’s Comics, which is a marvelous feast for any comics lover, but he reports, that it impressed the most important audience of all, at least in his household:

And when it does fall into the little hands it’s intended for it is a wonderful thing to behold: I left it on the coffee table last weekend and come back half an hour later to find Molly lying on the floor face buried in the adventures of Scrooge McDuck and absolutely engrossed. After that she went on to discover Sugar & Spike, Little Lulu, Pogo and countless other wonders. They may be old, but these are classics for a reason and the joy they bring is a delightful thing to witness.

§ Opposite direction: 10 of the worst manga of all times.

§ Speaking of Alan Moore, ADD wonders…

How great would it be if someone at the new, post-Levitz DC started asking why Alan Moore won’t work for them anymore? How much greater would it be if the company actually made it right with the man? The only ones that would benefit from such a scenario, of course, would be Moore, DC, and us, the readers. In other words, everybody. These corporations have an obligation to look inside themselves at the harm they have done, to their industry, to the artform, and to their own bottom line.

§ What is PIctureBox doing at SPX? Find out the exciting answer right here!

§ The very smart G. Willow Wilson discusses Islam and comics at Broken Frontier:

There’s a general belief that you can’t stop controversy from springing up around Muslims, yet I couldn’t start one. I was pretty excited about this—it hinted at something I’ve believed for a long time, namely, that there is more room for art among the orthodox than is commonly thought.

The success of THE 99 in the Arab world—a theme park is in the works—was the first encouraging sign that the relationship between Muslims and comics were thawing. Though billed as a comic attenuated to orthodox Islamic beliefs, THE 99 actually goes places I wouldn’t dare: it ascribes the qualities of God to human heroes.

§ R. Sikoryak profiled in the NY Daily News — once that would have been a headline, now it’s just a nice story!

Sikoryak combines iconic American comics with complimentary literary classics, creating a new identity for both works that is entertaining and thought-provoking. His comics are an example of how much the genre has grown up, and how far it’s come as a serious form of art.

§ Another nice profile, this one of Robert Venditti, which is timely ‘cuz THE SURROGATES is opening this weekend!

§ Morning must-read: Over the weekend, Maltdown Comics in LA had a huge manga sale — 2000 titles on sale at $1 each — and Deb Aoki asks owner Gaston Dominguez-Letelier about the state of manga in his shop. The overage is the result of unwise buying early on, he says; manga still sells, but it’s purchased more sensibly:

Gaston Dominguez-Letelier: That time (when we order any and all manga) has passed for us. We are left with 2,000 over-stocked books and we learned a lesson. We’ve since curbed our appetite for taking risks on unproven titles and are just stocking the greatest hits now.

Nowadays for us, it’s all about getting books that appeal to the more sophisticated readers out there and figuring out how best to cater to them.

§ Did you know that when you buy a copy of the new xkcd collection, you help build a library in Laos? That is a good deed. (Via Scott McCloud)

& And speaking of Scott McCloud, Shaenon K. Garrity writes of a recent encounter with him:

Every time I see McCloud, he’s got a new theory. I suspect this would be the case if I saw McCloud every twenty minutes. He just dropped by the Cartoon Art Museum to peruse the Monsters of Webcomics show, and at one point he leaned over and asked me, “Are you familiar with something called the ‘silent issue’ of the G.I. Joe comic?”

Did he mean “Silent Interlude,” issue #21, starring Snake-Eyes? I was familiar. Oh yes.

“I’ve come to realize,” he said, “that comic was a kind of watershed moment for cartoonists of your generation. Everyone remembers it. All these things came out of it. It was like 9/11.”

The payoff to this column is terrific. And worth pondering.

§ Comics professional goes to comics shop; finds little to buy.

§ The venerable comic strip Hi and Lois recently referenced webcomics and the monetization thereof via merchandising in a vaguely humorous fashion, leading to cries from many corners that the strip was attempting to be hip and cutting edge.

§ When being a pack-rat pays off: More of Scott Edelman’s stupendously fascinating collection of memos.

§ John Hodgman spotted the reclusive Brian K. Vaughan at the Emmys!

§ When we read something like this piece by Vaneta Rogers we totally feel like a freak

The anthropologist, who is a long-time comic book fan but recently got involved in “Harry Potter” and “Twilight” fandom, made the comparison of a boy who studies the back of a football player’s rookie card while his sister couldn’t care less about those statistics, instead focusing on how seeing a touchdown made her feel. She said the same can be said about how most men and women communicate about properties like Pokemon or the X-Men.

because growing up, we TOTALLY read the stats on the backs of baseball cards, and studied ERAs and batting averages and so on.

Actually that whole piece is a little annoying because it supposes that women fans are something new. Woman have ALWAYS been big, big fans of all sorts of things, with clubs and membership cards and everything. It just seems that women’s interests and “fan” interests are increasingly overlapping. And why should that ever be a bad thing?

§ Sorta related, Laura Hudson discovers that Marvel Divas isn’t as girl unfriendly as it seemed.

§ Two reports on this weekend’s BangPop show in Bangor, ME. This one focuses on a guy who dressed as a Transformer.

“I’ll take you all on,” Ray Maddocks, 39, of Morrill said as he struggled Saturday in the bulky homemade costume to make his way into the second annual BangPop Comic Book and Pop Culture Convention.

Maddocks and his friend Elmer Nickerson, 38, of Searsport dug out the costumes they made seven or eight years ago for Halloween to show off at the event, which is designed to bring a slice of big-time comic culture displayed at events such as the Comic-Con International in San Diego to the Queen City.

This one provides a nice overview. One story says that 300 people attended on Saturday, which sounds quite petite, but there’s a lot of enthusiasm captured in both pieces.

§ Speaking of enthusiasm, two brothers find happiness opening a comics shop in Joplin, MO:

“It’s a little bit nerve-racking, but it’s the greatest thing we could ever do,” Nathan said. “We’re working harder than we ever have before, and there’s a lot more overhead now. But we’re having more fun than we ever had.”

§ Marc-Oliver Frisch reviews MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #18 which introduced the Guardians of the Galaxy. I had no idea Arnold Drake created these guys, along with Gene Colan, but I would so buy a cover that looked like that right this minute.

The highlight of the piece, in lieu of an engaging plot or compelling characters, is the plainly fantastic artwork by Gene Colan, who’s doing some incredibly dynamic and flashy page layouts and figures here. Neal Adams’ work around the same time immediately comes to mind as a point of comparison, but to be fair, I couldn’t tell you which of the two gentlemen got there first. The way Mr. Colan composes his pages and stages the action looks expressive, refreshingly creative and exciting all the way through, without making any sacrifices towards clarity. You can tell that the artist had the time of his life drawing this, and even forty years later, I can’t think of many of his colleagues who are able to produce equally dynamic visuals while still guiding you through the story as sure-footedly as Mr. Colan is doing here.

§ A brief interview with strip cartoonist Berkeley Breathed doesn’t mince words on the future:

This is a sad topic but I’m going to be blunt. Newspapers have about five years left. Young readers of the newspaper comics simply don’t exist anymore in numbers that count. Those eyeballs are elsewhere and will not come back. Online comics are terrific. But they will never have 1% of the readership any major comic had 20 years ago, by the nature of the technology. They’re different beasts now. No, after having 70 million daily readers in 1985, getting 3000 a day online isn’t terribly energizing at this stage. I’m happy to go to the storytelling potential of film and books now. My heart was always there anyway, to be honest.

§ Folks have been linking a bit to this weekend’s debut of the new HBO series Bored to Death since it is created by the comics friendly author Jonathan Ames, and one of the main characters is a cartoonist. David Press rounds up all you need to know on that score. And once you’re all informed, go to Amazon and watch the first episode FREE and clear. Early reviews are positive.

§ Gary Groth (Happy Birthday, old man) suggests why you might wish to financially aid comics retailing pioneer Bob Beerbohm.

§ Eddie Argos is back with an overview of HELLBLAZER.

My friend Keith TOTP, who I live with, has a huge suitcase full of comics which he keeps in our front room. Whenever I have a long tour or flight, I raid it. I thought I’d pretty much finished all of the comics in it. Delving through it this time though, I found a huge pile of Hellblazer books. I didn’t know much about Hellblazer so I took all of them and read them over the course of my many flights to Chicago. They were all pretty ace. I read most of Garth Ennis’ run on my first flight, and then on my next I read all of Mike Carey’s run. On my third, I read Andy Diggle’s and Denise Mina’s. You don’t need me to tell you that it’s ace. Hellblazer is Vertigo’s longest running title, and I’m clearly coming to it really late. I’m just setting the scene to let you know that I am a relatively new fan of Constantine in case I put a foot wrong with what I’m about to write.

§ Dash Shaw went to Brazil.

§ Bleeding Cool has a bit more on The Return of Ross Rojek. Many old-timers will recall Rojek as the one time force behind Another Universe, as well as an early proponent of getting graphic novels into record stores; unfortunately both efforts ended up being tainted by the whiff that they were naught but rip-off schemes. AU went under owing publishers and customers a lot of money. Rojek’s next effort was an even more blatant investment scheme that tried to get people to invest in nonexistent software. That effort got him sent up the river for four years.

Rojek writes to Rich Johnston that his time in jail helped him find a new path, to running a book review newspaper.

When I got out of prison, I started working for a friend who was interested in publishing my book review idea. I had been thinking about what to do with my life after I got out of prison, and I’d always been interested in published, so I began looking into it while in prison. I also went back to school while at one institution, and did some book reviews for the school paper, which helped take me down this path.

I had been the librarian at two different prison camps, and in trying to find enough new books to keep me busy I ended up reading a number of different book reviews and review sections. From there I started drafting my “dream” book review that would be helpful to me in my situation.

He also states that all the monies owed from back in the day are lost in the mists of time and various bankruptcies–probably true enough.

* Yesterday, it was Art Brut at DC. Today it’s Slate at Marvel.

* We have definitely not been linking to enough of the fine interviews that Brian Heater has been conducting at Daily Cross Hatch. In a world where most interviews are naught but PR, Heater is getting people to actually talk about things. Case in point, a multi-part interview with rising star Hans Rickheit, whose THE SQUIRREL MACHINE is one of the oddest books of the year. In Part Two, we begin to see why:

How do you draw inspiration from keeping a scrapbook of medical images?

Oh, I mostly keep the scrapbook as a way to kick my brain into gear. I look at things and draw connections between random images and words and they suggest ideas that I wouldn’t be able to come up with on my own. I was working on some comics jams with friends and we were fascinated by the idea that a third mind was sort of composing the story as a result. It was nothing either of us would have composed on our own. Nor would we have necessarily wanted to.

Another recent interviewee is Jason Lutes, whose inspiration for BERLIN was not what you think:

In the two years that you spent research the book, were you ever afraid that it just wouldn’t come together for you?

No. there was certainly the possibility that I wouldn’t be interested in the subject, but I think because I had the initial intuitive impulse, I just sort of trusted that there was something there for me, and I discovered that, as I read stuff, whatever my unconscious interests were, would just sort of bubble to the surface through what I consumed. And then, just looking at those books of photographs, I’d see really interesting looking people, and those people would become a character in the story.

Here’s an index of all DCH interviews.

* Sean T. Collins reviews NIGHT BUSINESS, and it is not what you think.

* What is Fantagraphics doing at SPX 2009? Click for the answers!

* What is Sparkplug doing at SPX 2009? We think you can figure out how to find the answer.

* The Two Bens — McCool and Templesmith — talk CHOKER at Newsarama.

* ADD catches up with his former Comic Book Galaxy contributor, now IDW e-i-c, Chris Ryall.

* Michael May looks at Anne Freaks, Volume 2, one of those very good manga that was published by a now nonexistent company, in this case, ADV, so….hold on to those back issues!

* Colleen Doran points to the return of Ross Rojek , whose interesting past includes a four-year stint in jail. But in the spirit of second acts, Rojek seems to have found happiness publishing a book review section.

* J. Caleb Mozzocco continues his “calling a spade a spade” tour, by pointing out that Philip Tan is not as sympatico with Grant Morrison as Frank Quitely was.

I was expecting the drop in quality though, and I’m glad to report that it’s not that bad. It’s not good work, it’s certainly the worst work on any of the comics I’ve read this week (and you’d think one of DC’s best-selling comics penned by one of the company’s best-selling writers would have better art than Brave and The Bold, wouldn’t you?), but it’s not it usually didn’t take too long to figure out what was supposed to be happening in the panels, and the mis en scene wasn’t as messy as it was during Tony Daniel’s partner ship with Morrison (although as with those issue, I found myself in a constant state of reimagining each panel the way it might look if it were drawn better).

§ Kristy Valenti on Dario Argento’s horror comics anthology. Argento is the Italian maker of some extremely violent horror films, so we’re guessing this anthology did not really resemble Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery.

§ The folks at The Hooded Utilitarian cast an impartial eye on The Sandman. Ng Suat Tong:

The most surprising thing about my current reappraisal of The Sandman is how little my impression of these initials issues has changed. I’ve been impressed by the extensive planning involved from the very first issues, now confirmed by a review of Gaiman’s initial Sandman proposal at the back of The Absolute Sandman Vol. 1. He has a good feel for the material and has the right ear for the kind of dialogue required by his characters. These comics are clearly the receptacle into which Gaiman poured a multitude of his ideas. His script for the aforementioned Shakespearean story is precise and well planned, meeting its equal in his collaborator, Charles Vess.

Noah Berlatsky

Aside from the inconsistencies in the art, though, the real problem is that my former enthusiasm for Gaiman’s writing has dimmed a lot. I can still appreciate his cleverness and the care of construction…but after a while, both of those virtues are pushed so enthusiastically and unilaterally that they start to feel oppressive. After a while you start to almost want to plead — please, somebody, anybody, could you just once say something that doesn’t come back a panel, or a page, or several issues down the road with an ironically profound or profoundly ironic twist? Could we have a story end without a smug little O’Henry meets dumbed-down Borges twist? Could everybody just for a fucking second stop talking?

Also: Vom Marlowe and Tom Crippen.

§ Pitchfork presents a video of Art Brut’s Trip Around DC Comics, a tour which greatly excited frontman Eddie Argos:

I dont actually remember saying any of that. I remember giving a guided tour ending in The Bat cave. There really is a Bat cave at DC Comics and a Bat signal. It is someones job everyday to come into work and turn on that Bat signal. Thats when I really started rocking out. I just couldn’t help myself.

§ Speaking of Argos, we just found this old link to his review of SCOTT PILGRIM.

§ It’s time for Nick Bertozzi to get the Graphic NYC treatment

“Jason was originally going to draw Houdini until he realized how many crowd scenes he’d drawn in his layouts. So the publisher called me and said: ‘Nick, we want to pay you X amount of dollars to draw this from Jason’s layouts.’ I said ‘You’re going to pay me that much to learn at the knee of one of the greatest American cartoonists, and it’s going to be edited by my favorite American cartoonist, James Sturm? No problem, sign me up.’ Maybe I should have thought twice before signing since I had to draw so many crowds of people wearing bowler hats.”

§ When her identity is revealed to anyone who has studied her work, the usual comment is “Impossible. A girl couldn’t draw, convincingly, about boys and dogs.”

§ Brian K. Vaughan talks about the last six issues of EX MACHINA and hints at his new comics project.