Thursday, November 02, 2006

Scotto asks:

Which book (text, drawn, whatever) in the last five years has impressed you the most?

Oh, could you make this a bit harder? Wow. It's been a really good time for media that's extremely friendly to my tastes. I'm going to cheat and give you two books, ok? OK.

• Bareback by the Tomato collective of designers is stunning and wildly inspirational. One of the best side effects of being a fan of Underworld is getting these beautifully designed packages from them with work from Tomato. It's a bit like being a Pet Shop Boys nerd and getting the Mark Farrow dosage regularly.
  
• Locas by Jaime Hernandez. Yes, Gilbert's Palomar may be technically more proficient, but something about Jaime's art just speaks to me on a base level - it's so clean and beautiful. Seeing a decade and a half of burgeoning comics talent in a single volume is overwhelming.

Boba Ferret wonders:

Is the New X-Men Omnibus (out in Dec) totally awesome or kinda awesome?

It's only going to be kinda awesome, because you can get the three individual oversized hardcovers for around $20 each and not have to strain your back quite so much.

David Campbell in two parts:

How do people on the CSI shows get any work done in their underlit labs? I mean, seriously - how can you identify the type of fiber under a victim's fingernails when your lab is mood-lit by a couple of blue 40-watt bulbs and a lava lamp?

And who shows up at a grisly crime scene in a white silk pant suit?

It looks good. People in shoddily-written crime dramas from Bruckheimer. Next.

Julian does two as well:

How many?

There are four lights.

And another one: do you think this will turn out to be a better century than the previous?

I certainly hope so, but humanity is going to have to wake up to the damage they're doing. With increasing intolerence between people, casual environmental holocaust, the overfishing of the oceans, and our petrochemical consumption being as high as it is, it's going to be very difficult for people to make it to the end of the century without an eye-opening incident or complete sea change in the way people, especially in the west, consume and waste things.

Dave Lartigue:

Which two comics artists would you make fight each other in an arena for your amusement?

Johnny Ryan and Evan Dorkin. Oh, yes. That would be excellent.

Roel, tragically, wonders:

Why am I having problems getting a date? The dating scene really confuses the hell out of me. It's a little scary and fucked-up. How do you meet girls and ask them out without coming across as desperate and/or sketchy? It's something I've been struggling with.

I have no idea why you're having problems getting a date. You're one of the funniest, most charming people I know and any woman that went out on a date with you is guaranteed good conversation at the very least. I wonder if part of your problem is a lack of self-confidence. As to how you ask a girl out: get them drunk. Or have them be drunk when they've met you a few times before and finally get their number. That's what worked for me with Kristin.

I also wonder, after seeing how so many people act, if maybe you're too smart for most potential partners. It's not a guy thing and a girl thing - it's smart versus...not quite as smart.

Betsy, who I'm considering a restraining order against:

Will you hold these two wires while I attach the other ends to this high-voltage battery?

No. Don't you have some Pet Shop Boys slashfic to write?

Bully has two as well. He's greedy.

What did you wanna be when you grew up? And what do you daily that you never would have imagined yourself doing as an adult when you were a kid?

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a teacher. Finding out how little they're paid and the amount of crap they have to put up with put me off quite a bit by the middle of my freshman year on college. I admire the hell out of Joe Rice for doing what he does - the patience of a saint is what that man has, and his enthusiasm and love for the kids makes me sometimes reconsider that path.

The second one is pretty odd: taking the subway. It's just part of my routine now and when I was a kid, well, golly, that was for people in the big city! There's also that whole "internet," which I got my first glimpses of with GOPHER when I was 10 or 11.

Garth!

If you could own only one page of Jack Kirby original art, which page would it be and why?"

"Let me be Scott Free - and find myself!" Oh, man, I'd love that Mister Miracle page right there. That or the opening splash to Fantastic Four #51.

Benaaaaari, whoa-oh! Cantare, oh oh oh oh!

Did Jack Kirby ever draw Wolverine?

Part of me really wants to say "Yes," because I vaguely remember a sketch or something in an issue of The Jack Kirby Collector, but that may have been a hallucination of some kind.

It's 10:02 as I write this - any other questions before 11:59PM tonight are eligible for a chance at the prize, which is a free copy of Billy Hazelnuts by Tony Millionaire. (Yes, I have two and can give one away. Shut up.)