§ Matt Madden reports on the eerie fate of Sof’ Boy!!

§ Len Wein reacts to his nomination for the Eisner Awards Hall of Fame:

What fascinates (and, I must admit, terrifies) me most about my nomination is that I’m nominated for the Hall of Fame, which either means that I’m being recognized for my considerable body of work over the years, or my career is officially over. I’m frankly not sure which.

By what may or may not be an odd coincidence, my 40th anniversary as a professional writer is this Friday, March 28th. Four decades ago on that date, I sold my first story to DC’s House of Mystery title, a still-(thankfully)-unpublished little opus called “The Final Day of Nicholas Toombs.”

§ Chris Butcher looks at Viz’s US edition of Umezu’s CAT-EYED BOY and interviews Viz VP of Publishing, Alvin Lu:

Looking at it from a North American publisher’s perspective, there are some problems. Having a naked little boy on a book cover doesn’t fly in North America, for the most part (even if he’s got creepy claw feet). The book also looks a little young… Though its original audience is likely that same “Shonen Sunday” crowd as Drifting Classroom, in North America these are quite clearly going to be intended for an adult audience that is equally as likely to appreciate these works as viscerally enjoy them. (Though I feel it’s important to note that these re-releases were probably intended for an adult audience in Japan, likely the same adults who bought the stories as children originally). I’d love to own these two book covers, and chances are I’ll just pick them up next time I’m in Japan, either that or a nice Umezu art book maybe? But on North American shelves, they’d be pretty unlikely at best.

§ Over on the Hero Initiative blog, Jim McLauchlin posts some of the logos for FOOG, TOO, a benefit for the ailing writer planned before Steve Gerber’s death.

§ Over-enthusiastic cineaste imagines how applying Frank MIller-esque 300-treatment would liven up other movie genres.

§ You don’t say dept via NPR: Three Writers Feel the Lure of Comics. You don’t say!

§ Peter Sanderson has been writing about KIRBY: KING OF COMICS since December. He took a break, but he’s at it again. We may kid Peter from time to time, but no one goes in-depth on a subject like he does, as in this passage which not analyses the Kirby book, but Glen David Gold’s REVIEW of the Kirby book:

In his review Gold refers to David Michaelis’s recent biography Schulz and Peanuts that portrayed cartoonist Charles M. Schulz as a deeply troubled man (see “Comics in Context” #204: “Was It a Dark and Stormy Life?”). “Evanier, in contrast, presents Kirby as a decent and generous soul with some understandable fits of frustration. . . .but a reader”–by which Gold really means a specific reader, himself–”hungers for something deeper to explain his violent and angry imagery.”

§ The New Yorker reports on the Friars Club party for Drew Friedman’s More Old Jewish Comedians, book.

Technorati Tags: Len Wein, Steve Gerber

§ “Manga, anime growing in southeast Kansas “ — The National Guard has been dispatched, but can they halt this growing threat?

§ In comics history this may well go down as “The Symposium Era”. Add the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books to the list of bookish confabs spotlighting GRAPHIC NOVELS.

For the first time, the Festival of Books will offer “The Comix Strip,” an entirely new comic book, graphic novel and Manga-devoted event area, offering attendees access to the genres’ exhibitors, retailers and newest issues. Mike Mignola, creator of the Hellboy comic series, and other comics luminaries are slated to participate in special panels, programming and autograph sessions.

§ Over at Comics Comics, the critics don’t mince their words, and that’s how we like it, but Dan Nadel, who also runs ultra-high art publisher PictureBox, shows he has some refreshingly catholic taste in a recent review column:

Punisher War Journal: Matt Fraction writes it and Howard Chaykin draws it. I have to say, I really like this title. Fraction is firmly in the Morrison/Milligan self aware tradition, but he has a sarcastic, easy style — somehow more casual than the the Brits. I like his work here, which so far concerns washed super villains going about their daily lives. Basically these are noir slice of life stories, like a riff on Eisner’s Spirit, where The Punisher only appears at the end to, well, make it a Punisher comic. Chaykin’s art is awfully fun. He’s never been the most subtle of artists, but he’s using photoshop is some very curious/possibly retarded ways and I like it. In any case, can you believe Howard Chaykin is drawing the Punisher? Remember American Flagg? Or Cody Starbuck?

Technorati Tags: JMS, Symposiums

(more…)

Many many things which we had stored up or emailed to us which we have been meaning to tell you about.

§ Douglas Wolk has a new link blog. We’re already stealing from it.

§ We were talking about con fatigue the other day and unbeknownst to us, Shaenon K. Garrity had already covered it

One big change, of course, was that I moved to the other side of the booth. Conventions aren’t quite the same when you’re selling. Some cartoonists—horrible, horrible cartoonists who should die in fires—thrive on convention sales, love interacting with their fans and recruiting new readers. I’m not one of them. When someone walks up and asks me why they should read my comic, I consider the question seriously, and usually I can’t come up with an answer that doesn’t involve a lot of stammering qualifiers. Also, working a booth, unless you’re one of those hateful popular cartoonists, usually includes long stretches of boredom, just standing at attention and staring into space. I’ve invented many games to pass the time. One is to scan the crowd for people who look like characters in my comics, in case I need to cast a movie on the fly. Another is to burst into silent tears.

(more…)

§ Mark Evanier ponders the moment everyone panel moderator must face: opening the floor to questions.

§ Dallas Middaugh follows up on Brian Wood’s comments on how to break into comics:

* Publish something, anything: “Just get something into print. Then you’re proven. The next editor you approach sees that someone has already banked on you,” Wood says. If no one will hire you, print up your own copies of a book to give away as samples. “Not only does your work look the best in a printed form, it shows you can follow through on a project.”

So true! There are so many people out there who want to just submit a story idea and see if we’ll take it. It’s like fishing by throwing worms in the water; you have to have a decent fishing pole to get any kind of response back.

§ Chris Butcher lays the smack down on PiQ the manga/anime magazine follow-up to NEWTYPE USA:

I think it’s important to point out that in the first issue of PiQ, the magazine calls its readership the following names: nerds, dorks, geeks, freaks, maniacs, and pervos.

They seem to mean these little bon mots with affection, but it does tell you quite clearly what the editorial staff thinks of its readership. Of course, the new magazine from ADV (nascent anime and manga publisher) is meant to replace Newtype USA, their former chronicle of otaku culture with a name and content licensed from the original Japanese Newtype magazine, and so some recognition that it is the hardcore fan who may be used to such derisive terms may simply be a way to ingratiate itself to the new readership. But it’s going to take a lot more than saying that we’re all nerds together and adopting the tagline “Entertainment for the rest of us” to convince me that they have anything to say, let alone that we’re all alike…

(more…)

§ Bookforum spotlights GRAPHIC NOVELS, the hottest thing going!
– Chris Ware on Rodolphe Topffer
– J. Hoberman on Kirby (Actualy link is wrong. Anyone got the correct one?)
–Nicole Rudick on Rocketship

§ Larry Young write to remind us it’s the 9th anniversary of the release ASTRONAUTS IN TROUBLE: LIVE FROM THE MOON #1, making it AIT/PlanetLar’s 9th birthday. Congrats, Larry and Mimi!

§ Dan Goldman goes to SXSWi , the interactive part of South by Southwest, the indie music fest .

§ Brian Wood goes to Splat! Graphic Novel Symposium

§ Toon Zone interview Steve Purcell.

§ Spot the cartooners in this wedding announcement

Megan Crane, a daughter of Anne G. Crane and Thomas R. Crane Jr. of Ridgewood, N.J., was married yesterday to Jeffrey Shane Johnson, a son of Karen Wood of Kihei, Hawaii, on the island of Maui. Daniel Panosian, who became a Universal Life minister for this event, officiated at the Laguna Cliffs Marriott Resort and Spa in Dana Point, Calif. Mr. Panosian’s wife, Elena, who also became a Universal Life minister, participated.

§ NPR talks about Catwoman. Listen in the link.

Catwoman ranks No. 51 on the 100 Greatest Villains of All Time list from Wizard Magazine. And no wonder: Her hisses — and purrs — have made her a symbol of feminine power.

§ Pilipino Komiksof the 20s by Fernando Amorsolo and Jorge Pineda. The above is by Pineda.

Technorati Tags: AIT/PlanetLar, Komiks, puppy

§ Anthem Magazine continues its interviews with great cartoonists with a Jamie Hernandez interview :

If you were of a different ethnic background, do you think your characters would be different as well?

I hope so. Not too many ethnic comics out there so I feel it’s my duty to handle my part of it.

How do you feel about the characters you’ve created? Is there anything you wish you had done differently with them?

I think I would have had some of them settle down and create families at an earlier stage in their lives. It sounds corny, but that’s what a lot of people do eventually, even the deranged ones.

§ On the Cerebus Yahoo Group it’s been announced that Dave Sim is canceling most of his upcoming convention appearances. He’ll still be appearing at the Motor City Con and Toronto Comicon, but NY Comic-Con and even future SPACE appearances are out. The reason is economic, Jeff Tundis reports:

It is primarily money related. It basically comes down to the fact that he doesn’t see any real way to recoup the money he’s spent on conventions, signings and promotions and still meet his obligations to Gerhard concerning the buyout.

Reviewage:
–Steve Haske at the Daily Vanguard looks at Taeko Saito’s GOLGO 13 which is wrapping up a 13-book run at VIZ:

– Jillian Steinhauer takes on Super Spy by Matt Kindt.

– Jog looks at Dash Shaw’s Body World.

§ The Toronto Xtra profiles cousins Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki and their new SKIM graphic novel:

The cousins’ first project together, Skim, began as a short comic for Kiss Machine Presents. As it was the first comic for both Jillian and Mariko, they drew on their other artistic experiences — with Jillian approaching it like “a massive illustration project” and Mariko writing it much like a play. In fact, in between the Kiss Machine Presents version and the full graphic novel, Mariko developed Skim as a play for Groundswell, Nightwood’s theatre festival. The new book shows this theatrical influence in its structure. It is made up of three parts, or acts, with Skim’s diary entries functioning as frames for individual scenes.

§ The Original Star Wars Trilogy in 3 shots. Sometimes it’s all so clear.

Technorati Tags: Dave Sim, Jaime Hernandez

• REMINDER: The deadline for submitting material to the Eisner Awards judges is this Friday, March 14. Submission information can be found here.

§ SAME HAT! SAME HAT! unearths a few pieces of D&Q news: Seiichi Hayashi’s Red Colored Elegy and Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s Goodbye will be out in July instead of April. And Adrian Tomine’s next comic will be a color story for KRAMER’S ERGOT.

§ Comics health issues:
— Alternative Comics’ Jeff Mason talks about his Crohn’s disease. He’s currently at home recuperating from surgery. Best wishes, Jeff!
— Toronto cartoonist Michael Cho is recuperating at home after a serious intestinal infection. Best wishes, Michael!
— Manga-ka Moyoco Anno has announced she will be stopping manga due to her health issues Anime News Network reports, but she does hope to return to drawing one day.

Manga artist Moyoco Anno (Flowers and Bees, Happy Mania, Sugar Sugar Rune, Sakuran) announced in her Monday blog entry that she will be halting her manga work due to her health. That includes Hataraki Man (pictured at right) in Kodansha’s Morning magazine, but not her recent Ochibisan manga in the Asahi Shimbun paper. Anno apologized to her readers and said she thinks the current break will be a long one. She also said that she still wants to draw manga eventually and hopes her readers will follow her work when she returns.

§ Bookmark:Cartoonist Colin Panetta offers an exhaustive and exhausting account of his search for a printer for his upcoming 36-page comic:

I’ve been desperately trying to figure out how I’m going to print Dead Man Holiday, my first comic and self-published work. I wanted to follow in the footsteps of my heroes, who had all printed their books through offset printing. (Where plates are made of your comic pages, and then used to print your book on a monster printing press necessitating you to print thousands of books to make it financially viable.) I knew about Print On Demand services, but figured hey- if the content and format of my book are going to be hopelessly out of date (genre material/pamphlet… although, lately…), then the methods I print the book with might as well be too. (Don’t you hate it when hard choices seem so ridiculously obvious in retrospect?) I thought it would be useful to other first time self-publishers if I posted about my interactions with the offset printing industry, so that they don’t have to go through all the trouble that I did.

§ Second Daily Cross Hatch link of the day: Brian Heater visits the new comics shop Desert Island, located in hipster haven B-Burg:

While it’s not too difficult to image a time, in the near future, when Starbucks and American Apparels begin springing up around the corner, once inside, it’s hard to curse the new Desert Island comic shop as yet another harbinger of Williamsburg’s skyrocketing rent prices, with the front door flanked on opposing sides by a spinner rack chalk full of minis and magazine shelves lined with single back issues of books like Hate and Frank. It’s near impossible to find anything bad to say about an establishment so dedicated to the works of artists like Peter Bagge and Jim Woodring. On a less localized level, the store also serves as a signpost for another important and relatively recent phenomenon: the alternative comics shop, the second in this burrough after the equally sublime Rocketship, which opened its pod bay doors two summers ago, a few neighborhoods away, in the ritzy neighborhood of Cobble Hill.

§ Chris Butcher is on a tear this week, first with a calling-a-spade-a-spade . post

So yeah, most of the 3300 graphic novels released in 2007 sucked. Godwin’s Law Sturgeon’s Law is that 95% of everything is crap, and that’s about right in this case. Of course, the fact that there’s a “Godwin’s Law” “Sturgeon’s Law” at all should tell me that this is no surprise to any of you, but I just feel like someone had to come out and say it: There are a lot of awful, awful graphic novels coming out these days. Whoever’s guarding the gate, be it retailers, journalists, “journalists”, whatever, I beg you; be discerning in your praise, don’t pass along PR without having vetted the project yourself, stand behind your recommendations and, if you can’t, own up to your mistakes.

He followed it up with a post where is picked up the spade and did some digging to put his money where his mouth is:

That said, I just read the new Amazing Spider-Man, #552, and it’s awful. That’s no surprise, I read about 20 comics this week and half of them were pretty bad, but this one is written by Bob Gale, who wrote Back to the Future. Why is that important? Other than the failure of the writer on this one, there’s the failure of the editor as well for hiring him… This is the same Bob Gale who wrote Daredevil #19-25 (current series). A story-arc so mediocre that they didn’t even bother to collect it in trade paperback, and considering Marvel was collecting nearly everything at that point, including every Daredevil story, that’s saying a lot.

§ HARBINGER, a long ago title from the great Valiant Age of comics may get the movie treatment courtesy of director Brett Ratner. Ratner had fun with X-MEN 3, but now he wants his OWN comics movie franchise to get rolling. The deal was negotiated via the Valiant Entertainment Group, a privately financed company headed by CEO Jason Kothari and chief creative officer Dinesh Shamdasani, both of whom will be co-producers on the film. Apparently more Valiant comics and movie deals are on the way.

§ SLG head Dan Vado presents his March line-up in this slide-show webcast. The internet makes all things possible.

§ Marvel EIC Joe Quesada’s popular feature Cup O’ Joe in which he takes on fan questions will be returning as a regular feature at MySpace:

Every week, Quesada will tackle questions posed directly by True Believers on the world’s most popular social network in this brand new weekly feature on MySpace Comic Books. Like a might Marvel team-up, the online community known for connecting legions of fans with the most exciting creators, projects, and events in the industry comes together with the leading comics publisher to present your chance to get inside the mind of one of comics’ most popular personalities.

Cup o’ Joe was long a regular feature at Newsarama, but word on the street has it that Marvel and the comics news giant had a falling out over a broken embargo.

§ Via the Vanity Fair blog (!) comes a little piece of comics history we had just forgotten about. Radio host Joe Franklin’s appearance at last week’s MOREOLD JEWISH COMEDIANS event was a burying of the hatchet — and not in someone’s back:

That Franklin was in attendance at all, let alone getting laughs, was a big surprise to a number of people at the party, given that, in 1984, he sued Friedman for $40 million after the cartoonist published a hilarious comic strip called “The Incredible Shrinking Joe Franklin” in Heavy Metal magazine. The case was dismissed because the comic strip was an obvious parody, and almost 25 years later Franklin has apparently gotten over his anger. Friedman emailed me this morning to let me know that one of the highlights of his party was when Franklin walked up and embraced him.

Franklin was clearly an early adapter in the cartoon legal battle derby but it’s great to see old feuds left behind in the dustbin where they belong.

§ Johanna looks at Voices of Love, a “passionate” josei titles from Luv Luv Press, an imprint of Aurora Publishing

This volume contains five love stories that don’t shy away from nudity and sex scenes. (That explains the Mature 18+ rating.) When I first read them, I thought, “This is just what I’ve been looking for: yaoi, only girl/boy.” Then I realized just what that said about how my brain has been warped by manga expectations. These stories are yaoi-like in that the boys are slender and attractive, but they’re more like Harlequin romance novels in their wish fulfillment of finding rescuing love.

Related: an overview of the josei (manga for older women) market.

§ Beth Davies-Stofka interviews Craig Yoeon his Clean Cartoonists’ Dirty Drawings book :

Well, these nudes were certainly a fun rebellious release for the ink-slingers but, sure, many cartoonists got involved in other “after hours” subjects. For instance Chuck Jones (who’s in the book), visited my home when he did art for my book The Art of Barbie. He was surprised and delighted that I pulled out old copies of a square dancing magazine that he did wonderful illustrations for. He and his first wife were really into square dancing and I’m sure he did the illustrations more for love than money. Though isn’t dancing a vertical expression of a horizontal desire?

§ ‘Doonesbury’ is taking a 12-week break :

“It has been 16 years since Garry Trudeau took an extended leave from ‘Doonesbury,’” said Universal President Lee Salem in a statement. “He has requested another break — well-deserved in my mind — to work on other projects, travel, and regenerate a few creative cells.”

§ This story on Buffy’s new bedmate from an irish gossip rag has the title no one else dared use.

§ Marvel Studios has named former Sony Pictures executive Geoffrey Ammer as president of worldwide marketing.

§ Roling Stone liked the Brub’s Captain America

§ Veteran Wizard watchers will find a line or two amusing in this profile of ROBOT CHICKEN creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich

“It’s all the jokes you talk about with your friends,” Senreich confirms. “We have a group of people with the same sensibility who sit around the table talking about what we think is funny.” They have a team of 80, scripting, sculpting and minutely manipulating, filming and adapting 120 new toys a week for the rigorous demands of stop-motion animation. After 62 12-minute episodes, they’re preparing to write season four. “It’s light-hearted,” says Green, “but every joke is made with love. There is a degree of reverence (for the characters). There’s never anything mean-spirited, it’s just sort of silly. I think that’s our success: not being mean.”

§ Congrats to the awesome Brigid Alverson on MangaBlog’s third anniversary.

§ Alert Michael Chabon! This pizza delivery outfit dresses up as superheroes:

Each new employee develops an alter ego - there’s Captain Awesome, Captain Organic, Flying Squirrel, General Statement, Italian Scallion, Merman, Pink Thunder, and Weather Man - and then designs a costume that Bonahoom has custom-made by a local seamstress.

Thanks to Beat Spy “Trinity” for the link.

§ Chris Mautner interviews Alison Bechdel:

It’s a little disturbing to be institutionalized. But of course I’m immensely grateful for it. I think of people being forced to read my work and I don’t like that. I just got an email from a kid — I have to read this to you: “I just read Fun Home in an English class Intro to the graphic novel. Initially I thought it would be an angry story about the struggles that a homosexual American faces, but I’ve got to say that I was wrong and I really enjoyed it.” That’s pretty touching, but I do feel that it’s getting shoved down some people’s throats. That’s a little disturbing.

§ You will feel you were at S.P.A.C.E. after you read huck Moore’s report at Comic Related. [h/t Blog@]

§ The comics loving New York Times gets even more comics-crazy with a piece on the new issue of BUFFY, which would have a been a VERY SPECIAL EPISODE if it had been on TV.

§ ICV2 begins a run down on the comics and-or licensing themed movies opening this summer.

§ This Chris Butcher post looks at the economics of giving things away for free on the net .It also includes anecdotes from Neil Gaiman that back up the fact that indie book store owners are often as “eccentric” as comics shop owners.

§ Ongoing message board discussion of how to spruce up Zuda, DC’s webcomics site.

§ John Jakala touches on still-visceral objections to comics in the classroom via comments on a newspaper story:

What I found really interesting, though, was how the vitriol against using comics in the classroom erupted right away in the comments. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but after reading so many articles about schools and libraries using comics in their curricula, I thought the idea that comics could be a useful educational tool was more or less accepted now. Judging by the comments, however, there are still many people out there who view comics as subliterate trash. Here are some of my favorite comments:

§ Eric Adams‘ SPACE report. Joanna Estep’s

§ Rod Whigham takes over art on the Gil Thorp comics strip on April 7.

§ We missed this but Rich dragged it up yesterday: apparently Wizard has deleted most of its online archives. This seems kind of weird…you online get traffic with content, but we don’t know much about the web, really. Anyway, this caused some chagrin over at Comics Should Be Good! too:

I get that it is easier to revamp online sites if you can just do a wipe on the archives, but really, isn’t that just absolutely absurd for them to do? Wipe the archives to, what, save some time/money?

Ridiculous.

§ MEANWHILE, another post at that same blog, looks back at an issue of Wizard from October 1992Ah what a world it was 90s Nostalgia! We are so ready.

§ David Mamet’s cartooning career?

§ Hollywood needs muscle men, and they’re turning to the WWE to find them:

With Hollywood gearing up to launch “Thor,” and reboot “Conan the Barbarian” and “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” as potential new franchises, the big question is, who do producers cast?

The wiry or geeky stars of “The Matrix,” “Spider-Man,” “Transformers” or upcoming “Wanted” just won’t be able to pull off playing a muscled-up Norse god who wields a massive hammer. No, not even Shia LaBeouf.

And that has the biz quickly realizing it’s short on uber-buff action stars, with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone out of contention, and even Dwayne Johnson dropping “The Rock” alter ego as he slims down and turns his attention to comedies.

Have they never heard of Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds? What is the problem?

§ Tom Spurgeon looks back at 25 big stories of 2007

§ David Paggi and Kiel Phegley how have a blog called Indie Jones at the Wizard Website.

§ Brian Hibbs wanders around his store for 31 days and along the way hopes to list “31 classic graphic novels.” First up: Alan Moore’s SWAMP THING.

§ Another Zuda profile! This one spotlights Jeremy Love of Bayou fame:

“I was just trying to come up with a story that compelled me, that I always wanted to read,” Love says. “I’ve always found something haunting about the South. Every time I’d go back and visit, it just seemed like there was something underneath the surface that was intangible. I really wanted to explore that and give the South and American culture a fantasy epic similar to ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings.’ I wanted to give us something that tapped into our folklore.”

§ We all know WIMPY KID is one of the biggest things in children’s publishing nowadays, but few actually think of it as a straight comics — it’s an illustrated novel. However, as this profile of creator Jeff Kinney explains, he did start out as a cartoonist:

The Wimpy Kid series culminates Kinney’s years of fascination for the comic strip artform, beginning as a youngster, when he marveled at how cartoonists such as Gary Larson (The Far Side) and Matt Groening ( The Simpsons, Life in Hell) could make newsprint come to life with animated characters and humorous word balloons. When he was in college, Kinney published a cartoon featuring a wisecracking college freshman named Igdoof. It became a must-read on campus and made many of Kinney’s colleagues believe that he was destined for a future in comic strips.

§ Jog wonders about SKYDOLL and the lack of manga on Dirk’s meta-list.

§ Manga museums now a popular destination for foreign tourists in Japan:

Foreign visitors have always flocked to old tourist spots in Japan, such as Kyoto, the Sapporo Snow Festival, hot-springs baths and Mount Fuji. But these days, they’re also checking out new offbeat ways to experience Japan, such as ninja classes, a geeky pop culture in Tokyo’s Akihabara gadget district and animation museums displaying manga, or Japanese-style cartoons. And they’re coming in record numbers — many of them from elsewhere in Asia. Last year, an all-time high 8.34 million foreign tourists visited Japan, up 14 percent from the previous year.

§ George Gene Gustines reveiws INCOGNEGRO in the NY Times

§ Is Djimon Hounsou going to play the Black Panther? At a junket he says he signed for a dream comics character but doesn’t say who. Publicity ploy or…

§ Is Cleveland Brown set to be the star of a FAMILY GUY spin-off?

§ Mr. Skin interviews Joe Matt

Do you have any groupies that want to have sex with you just to see how you’ll draw them in a comic?

Whenever I deal with fans some other part of me turns off. I just go into this mode where I’m trying to be gregarious and friendly. I’m very uncomfortable with the whole interaction between men and women. I really feel that if there’s anyone out there for me it’s going to be really hard to find her. I have my eyes open, but I don’t have any hope. The last girl I pursued was an autobiographical cartoonist. I thought she’d be perfect. She does exactly what I do. I thought it’d work out because we both have a shared occupation. It was disastrous. I made assumptions she’d be just like me and she wasn’t. I’ll probably write about that in my next book.

Matt has his own thoughts on the interview here.

Technorati Tags: Jeremy Love, Joe Matt, Jeremy Love, Wimpy Kid

§ Johnny Bacardi presents an entire Warren story by Archie Goodwin and Steve Ditko.

§ We had previously blanked on this fine report by Mike Cavallaro on life at the Deep Six Studio:

The studio makes falling off somewhat difficult. Checking your email is likely to produce a sarcastic, “how’s that page comin’?” from across the room. Obsessively over-noodling will cause a roomful of verbal whips to crack. For as much goofing around that goes on there, you’re still more likely to get work done than you are to doze off (Dean’s music insures against the latter, anyway).

§ Tim Broderick tries to categorize comics in a more useful way than the whole indie/mainstream/superhero thing we’ve been going on about for days.

Here’s what I mean. You, as a comics creator, are an independent agent. You need to approach all this as a business and you need to protect your own interests. You also need to figure out who your market is and the best way to get your work in front of those people.

Unless you choose the self-publishing route, that means you need a business partner in the form of a publisher of some sort. Forget superhero and art comics - I wish we would just get rid of those terms all together. Here’s the terms I use, and they’re not a label for me or my work. They describe who I might do business with

§ We spaced on the fact that David Welsh has moved his Flipped column on manga to The Comics Reporter.

§ Our big-ass Dave Sim post drew many responses across the ‘net, of which perhaps the best were Leigh Walton, Tom Spurgeon and Valerie D’
Orazio. Val’s was actually a response here on the post, but we wanted to draw attention to it. Actually, thanks to everyone for the almost uniformly high-level discussion that took place here.

§ Matt High runs down the Post-Modern Garfield, including Garfield without Garfield, which results in the dark night of the soul kind of stuff you see above.

§ Val runs down the ever-diminishing chances of ever seeing a Batwoman comic.

§ T Campbell is interviewed at COMIXTALK

§ Jog and Leigh Walton talk about Sam & Max: Surfin’ the Highway.

§ Matthias Wivel has the “Hitler cartoons” which were recently “discovered”.

And if you believe that, I have this nice bridge to sell you.

§ Quote of the Day: Ivy McCloud:

Scott and Winter watched The Fifth Element tonight, but I opted out, and wound up spending a chunk of time helping Sky dye her hair green again. I don’t know why she trusts me. I hope it looks good come the morning.

§ Christopher Priest returns with a prose back up in Boom’s GUNPLAY.

§ The Foo Fighters are suing Marvel, because Marvel used two of their songs in promos for the upcoming animated Wolverine and X-Men series without permission. That is a big no-no.

§ The Wall Street Journal reviews and excerpts Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front, the bio of the famed editorial cartoonist whose WWII cartoons captured the life of the common soldier.

§ Ben Katchor has written another musical

§ Vanity Fair hosts a cartoon by Peter Bagge and Dana Gould spotlighting the Oscars.

The above video features the kind of music Chris Ware like to work to, and some of Ware’s art.

Catch-up from all over :

§ “recently released, incredibly popular and critically acclaimed” — yep it’s the weekly Adrian Tomine interview!

“He’ll be presenting a slide show that confronts his critics who accused him of ‘hiding’ his racial identity behind his glasses.” Huh?

“Ha ha! It’s because for a long time when I used to draw autobiographical stories and I used to draw myself as a character, I’d draw myself with glasses that were just sort of opaque, empty and white”, he says. “There was a lot of silly conjecture that I was maybe trying to disguise my own features. So in the slide show I go through a history of that in cartooning, going all the way back to Robert Crumb and even Charles Schultz - when he drew this character Marcie she just had these opaque little round glasses. That’s just a starting point.”

§ Dick Hyacinth branches into interviews with Mark Andrew Smith and Paul Maybury of Aqua Leung:

MARK: I think readers will be taken by Aqua Leung and it’s got a wide range of emotion, moods, and tones throughout the work. It’s definitely an action adventure comic in every sense of the word. But also there’s a lot of our own personalities and humor that you can usually expect from us throughout the story. I think it’s okay to just do full on action and let loose. The style and the material is also something that’s very attractive. So I think it will defy all reader expectations in many ways but then satisfy them in many other ways.

§ Van Jensen yaks with Tony Millionaire at CBR:

What are some of your favorite strips collected in “The Maakies with the Wrinkled Knees?”

Where is that damn book? The thing that’s been happening lately… when I first started doing this shit, I was doing really depressing, nihilistic [things]– drinking just for killing yourself. Since my life’s gotten to be kind of deader, I’ve got a nice house with a garden, so my mind’s not as focused on blowing my brains out. It’s focused more on absurd humor. I sometimes feel that I’m losing it, that I’m not putting enough effort into it, but then I look back and say, wow, I’m improving. The more you do it… after a certain time, it starts to deteriorate. I’m always waiting for that to happen. You have to keep your eye on your work. I see plenty of cartoonists who peak and then got lazy and started drifting off.

§ The Daily Cross Hatch’s Brian Heater talks accidents wih Julia Wertz:

You got hit by a car? You weren’t lying in the street, were you?

No. I got knocked off the bike, but I didn’t get hurt. I just realized that if I’m going to be losing my health insurance in five months, it isn’t worth the five dollars an hour.

As someone who does autobiographical strips, are you thinking about how you might spin this into a book?

I don’t know. Everyone keeps saying, “It’s good material, right?” As if I’m going to stick with a shitty job because it’s good material. It’s not good material.

§ Kristy Valenti wraps up her profile of indie distrbutor/publisher Randy Chang of Bodega

The majority of Bodega’s comics sales “come directly through our website to individual customers, and through our sales guy Tony Shenton who puts us into the super-hip indie-friendly comics shops. Stores can get our books through Diamond as well. We do pretty well through Amazon, too, but that’s more sporadic. We do well enough at the shows.” However, Chang is sympathetic to ComicsPRO’s recent missive chastising publishers for debuting books at conventions.

§ Speaking of part 2, Tom got all cranky and came down on interviews and pieces that run in more than one part..

There’s really no excuse in this day and age not to run entire articles at once unless the article itself truly demands multiple parts, like Chris Butcher’s recent Japan travelogue. I’m convinced that in 90 percent of all cases, it’s stat pumping. Anyone that’s loading this site and its graphics can load an entire article from you.

Apparently Tom’s readers have been complaining about this in droves. We’ve always suspected The Beat has less fussy readers than Comics Reporter’s, but come on now, not everyone has a camel-sized attention span.

§ Finally, Andy Khouri at CBR talks to Boom! Studios’ Chip Mosher about their very controversial North Wind MySpace promotion. According to Mosher, despite some retailers crying foul and pledging never to order a Boom Studios comics again, the unthinkable happened, and orders went up for issue #4:

“We did see a bump [in sales for ‘North Wind’ #4],” Chip Mosher told CBR News. “But let me put this in perspective for you. We usually see a dip of 10% or more between issues #3 and #4 for any of our series. That said, we saw nearly a 20% increase in orders between issue #3 and #4 of ‘North Wind.’ An increase like this has never happened in the history of our company. Never. Bottom line - we are talking about a total 30% increase over the norm.”

As some comics readers may know, orders for issue #4 of a new title are generally submitted by direct market retailers a short time after issue #1 of said series goes on sale. As such, “North Wind” #2 and #3 were ordered before the MySpace promotion was announced and before issue #1 was delivered to stores. The 30% increase reflects the initial orders for “North Wind” #4, not readjustments.

§ The Eagle Awards Nominations are online, although a technical glitch means that your vote may not be counted. Welcome, Florida!

§ The Daily Cross Hatch is one year old. Belated congrats to Brian Heater and his whole great staff.

§ Steve Bissette has posted the Dave McKean cover to Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman a book on you-know-who by Bissette, Chris Golden and Hank Wagner.

§ While we were out of town, the Staying in San Diego blog addressed what went wrong on Hoteloween :

We should point out that Travel Planners made significant upgrades and improvements to their system after 2007, both online and in their phone system. Comic-Con thought that the upgrade would be sufficient. Clearly, this was not the case.

Travel Planners told us that in the first five seconds of the site going live on Wednesday, they experienced three times the number of people requesting rooms as they had last year.

Also in the first five seconds, the site had the same number of people requesting a room as there were rooms available. So, while we were prepared for more people, we were not prepared for three times as many people and were certainly not prepared for as many people to call/log on as there were rooms available.

Also, for you numbers junkies here’s the skinny:

There are only 9,800 rooms within a 1.5 mile radius of the San Diego Convention Center and Comic-Con is only allocated 6,100 rooms in our block, mainly in this radius.

Emphasis added.

§ io9 asks Is Sky Doll Too Hot For America? Apparently the French BD approach to the story of a doll designed to serve the “state’s needs” is just as sexy as you’d imagine a French comic about a pleasure bot to be. What will Marvel do?

§ Peter David has started a crusade to make sure New York gets its due in international Monopoly sets:

While attending Toyfair, I found out that Hasbro is putting together an international version of Monopoly, and instead of street names on the board, there will be city names. The color coding remains the same: The most valuable real estate will be on blue spots, for instance (normally occupied by Broadway and Park Place), and then green, yellow and so on. There is currently a vote going on that is open to anyone in the world with a computer, and you can vote once a day for up to ten cities. The top vote getters will be on Broadway and Park Place, and the rest will be apportioned to the remainder of the real estate.

Now how, you may ask, is the United States faring in this international voting? The answer: Miserably.

The leading vote getter is thus far Istanbul, apparently because Turkey has a well-regulated internet militia armed and ready to win all internet polls.

§ Those who were around in comics in the 80s will recognize a familiar name from this story of online suicide cults.

§ Cult movie fans will enjoy this interview with Alex Cox about the now-a-graphic-novel sequel to ‘Repo Man, above.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What was the genesis of Waldo’s Hawaiian Holiday?
ALEX COX: In ‘94-’95, I wrote it as a film script and gave it to Peter McCarthy, who was one of the original producers of Repo Man. And he showed it to Jonathan Wacks, who was the other original producer, and they said, ‘’Let’s take it to [ex-Monkee and Repo Man executive producer] Michael Nesmith and have him present it to Universal officially.'’ We all came down for the meeting at Universal, and the executive that we had been delegated to meet was, like, 21 years old and had never seen the original Repo Man. [Laughs] And so it was an absurd meeting of these four old men and this sprightly individual who just didn’t know what we were doing in his office. Nothing came of it. Then we thought, Well, we’ll try to make it independently. So Peter really did try and raise the money in the independent sphere by attaching cast and that kind of thing.

§ Mark Evanier gets his first copy of his Kirby book:

Anyway, the book finally exists and I’ll play humble here and not tell you how proud I am of it. I wish I’d had more pages because Jack is such a vast and important subject, and I know I’ve already angered a few folks by telling them that their favorite Kirby creation got either short shrift or no shrift at all. A much longer, detailed biography of the man will follow in a couple of years and will probably err in the other direction, telling you more than you want to know.

§ Time’s Lev Grossman discovers TRIPWIRE magazine:

I recently got sent an issue of the magazine Tripwire, a British comics magazine I had not actually ever heard of. It’s deeply nerdy. Above every article the byline reads “words:” and then the author’s name, as if it were a comic and there were things other than words in the actual article. That’s quality nerdiness.

§ At Publishers Weekly, Calvin Reid covers religious publisher Thomas Nelcon’s plans to out out 20 graphic novels over the next two years:

Thomas Nelson is making a serious commitment to the graphic novel category with plans to publish adaptations of the prose novels of bestselling author Ted Dekker as well as a variety of manga-styled series aimed at teens, especially girls. While some of these graphic novels reflect the publisher’s religious mission, most of the new works do not have overt religious content and are aimed at the growing secular book market for graphic novels.

§ In oddball news, an opera based on David Cronenberg’s film THE FLY is underway:

Coming to the L.A. Opera this fall: “The Fly,” an opera with music by Howard Shore, libretto by David Henry Hwang, design by Dante Ferretti, conducted by Placido Domingo and directed by David Cronenberg.

Technorati Tags: David Cronenberg, puppy, puppy, puppy, Thomas Nelson

§ Laurel Maury reviewed the final issue of Y THE LAST MAN for the Los Angeles Times. It’s the first time the paper has ever reviewed a single issue of a comic.

§ Mat Johnson and his INCOGNEGRO graphic novel are the subjects of a nice wire story:

But the roots of “Incognegro” also lie in Johnson’s own childhood. Johnson, who is of Irish and black descent, grew up in a predominately black neighborhood in Philadelphia at the height of the black power movement. As a black boy who looked white, he and his cousin would fantasize about going undercover, or “incognegro,” as race spies in a war against white supremacy.

The plot of “Incognegro” came together with the birth of Johnson’s twins two years ago - one with pale skin and red hair, the other with darker skin and black Afro hair.

“Then I just got the idea for dealing with two twins, who in part because of their appearance have led dramatically different lives,” Johnson said. “And that’s when it just started building from there.”

§ We don’t recall seeing secretary-turned-stripper-turned-screenwriting sensation Diablo Cody being signed up to write comics books yet but it would seem to be inevitable.

“I was reared on Marvel comics, so I’ve always been obsessed with writing a comicbook movie with a decidedly girlie bent. I would have to develop some chops at writing action sequences, but it would be a passion project.”

Then there’s the horror movie she wants to direct, having already written one set to go before the cameras after the strike. But when it comes to horror, “I’ve got a few more in me,” she says.

§ Image gallery for the Y: The Last Party auction. Left, Cameron Stewart.

§ San Diego’s David Glanzer talks to ICv2 about WonderCon, and San Diego.

§ Josh Neufeld promotes AD on the Huffington Post

§ Colleen Doran recalls the ups and downs of the Self-publishing era:

Contrast the solitary, long hours we spent drawing comics in our homes and studios with the swarms of attention and loud parties of the convention scene - I’m surprised we didn’t all end up in the loony bin. We lived like rock stars on the road, and then went back home and, in my case, slept in my only real piece of furniture - a chair. People assumed we were all filthy rich, and while there was money coming in, it went out just as fast, reinvested into new books, inventory, and promotion.

§ A new comics shop is to open in hipster heaven Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

§ Junior comics editor is born.

§ Editors will queue up to work on this book:

Jaime King says she’s a little obsessed with comic books. The 28-year-old actress, who starred in the 2005 film version of the graphic novel “Sin City,” says she’s writing one with Kimberly Cox, girlfriend of “Sin City” writer Frank Miller. “It’s a take on various fairy tales,” said King, who attended the Badgley Mischka and Monique Lhuillier shows at New York Fashion Week. When she was growing up in Omaha, Neb., King said, she could often be found in the library poring over comics — “Calvin and Hobbes” was a particular favorite. “I just find it such a great medium because you can take a character and then spin it off into its own series or whatever. And it helps that my husband is completely obsessed with them,” she said, referring to “Fanboys” director Kyle Newman.

§ Neil Gaiman’s fashion sense analyzed in watch magazine.

§ Headline of the day: Corrections officer also a cartoonist

§ Paul Gravett’s Angoulême photos. [Via Forbidden Planet]

§ Tom Brevoort presents the Golden Loeb Award winners.

§ Dutch comics coloring analysed (Thanks JP!)

§ The First Second Spring 08 catalog is up. Left, DRAWING WORDS & WRITING PICTURES Making Comics: Manga, Graphic Novels, and Beyond by JESSICA ABEL & MATT MADDEN.

§ Librarian/conference-goer Karen Green discovers that the American Philological Association has discovered the graphic novels:

At the APA, I discovered that one of the things people are working on is comics. There was an entire panel devoted to comics, and the response to the organizers’ call for papers was so overwhelming that they’re planning a book. George Kovacs of the University of Toronto and Professor C.W. “Toph” Marshall of the University of British Columbia collaborated on this panel with the APA Outreach Committee, whose goal is to bring in attendees from outside the classicists’ world. Marshall, himself one of the panelists, is a scholar of ancient Greek performance and stagecraft, who studies how an audience approaches a text.

§ Likewise, English Language Notes, a literary journal is looking for entries for a graphic novel issue.

The comic book pamphlet developed as an independent literary form in the 1930s and early 1940s and has become a favorite of adolescent readers and cult devotees ever since. Recently, it has entered into a process of transformation, moving from a species of pulp fiction on the margins of children’s literature to a subsection of mainstream writing, one the late Will Eisner famously termed the graphic novel. This transformation has been noted in such literary venues as the New York Times and the New Yorker, as well as in an increasing number of university classrooms and bookstore aisles. Nevertheless, criticism on the graphic novel remains insular and diffuse. The interpretive response to the graphic novel remains to be written.

§ Comic book lawsuit primer.

§ Another short stint on a comic as Sean McKeever leaves BIRDS OF PREY.

§ The Onion presents a surprisingly wide list of 20 pop-cultural obsessions even geekier than Monty Python. Stalwarts such as Rocky Horror and Star Trek are joined by fantasy sports leagues!

§ In Germany, a comic by Dutch cartoonist Eric Heuvel will be distributed to school kids to teach them about the Holocaust.

§ Maggie Thompson remembers Gus Arriola with a bibliography.

§ Anthony Lappe teases a SHOOTING WAR tv show?

§ Just what the world needs, a Venom movie.

§ Newly declassified papers show that in the twilight of his term, Winston Churchill’s government fretted about the dangers of horror comics. How close did we come to Winston Wertham?

§ Y assault continues unabated: CBR visits Pia Guerra’s studio. Zack Smith interviews Guerra. BKV in WSJ.. LA City Beat has a story on the Y The Last Party benefit for the CBLDF. Whew.

§ In other major media comics news, the AP story on the New Cap hits everywhere.

§ Neil Kleid points out that this year’s New York Comic-COn takes place over Passover, and he isn’t happy. [Thanks, Lea.]

§ The PLAIN Janes by Castellucci and Rugg has won a spot on the 2008 Amelia Bloomer List of recommended feminist books for young readers.

§ David Chelsea writes to alert us that his 9th 24 Hour Comic has been posted online:

l have finally stuck a toe into the 21st Century by posting a comic online myself….There are still a few glitches- l think the slideshow plays backwards- but if all works well I may post some other unpublished comics to the site. If anyone’s counting, this is my ninth 24 Hour Comic- a World Record until someone tells me different.

§ A note in the Steve Rude newsletter reveals that Nexus 100 has been delayed yet again by a printers error, although it should be only an extra week.