Four Five Comics Links.

Comments Off | Posted: December 21st, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
  • The Official Something Awful Greg Land Swipe Repository is fascinating and provides you with all you need to finally say “No, that man is not a good artist” and have evidence to back that statement when fans of his mediocre, Photoshop-based claptrap insist that he’s a genius. At least Alex Ross makes his friends dress up in stupid costumes and takes his own photos, y’know?

  • Bahlactus asks What If…Superman were black? I’m too busy to construct an actual, viable scenario for what this would be like, but the phrase “President Edward Brooke” comes to mind. The sea change that society would go through would be massive – centuries of casual presumption of the inferiority of blacks among a healthy segment of the white populace would be obliterated. Go, read, comment.
  • I really hope you’ve read this already, but Metrokitty’s latest comic is the best thing I’ve seen from her. I adore her work and think the creator is one of the nicest people ever.
  • With a headline like “Falafel Man, here to save the day,” one might want to dismiss this article about a Kubert School graduate, but don’t. It’s pretty fascinating.
  • Go read Criminal #1 for free.

Thor’s Jukebox, #4 In A Series.

Comments Off | Posted: December 21st, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized


Related Links:
TheStolenMinks.com
The Stolen Minks @ MySpace

An exception that proves the rule.

Comments Off | Posted: December 20th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized

When you are dealing with a brainwashed Superman who is trapped in the belly of an all-consuming war machine from prehistory…

…it’s OK to call him by his first name to snap him out of the fugue state that prevents our Kryptonian pal from helping the rest of the JLA save mankind from imminent destruction.

Promotional: Nitroglycerin and Holiday Wishes!

Comments Off | Posted: December 20th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized

You get two set of holiday wishes written by me for the illustrious folks at BOOM! Studios, who occasionally give me a check that covers a portion of my mounting liquor bills. First, there’s the latest Nitroglycerin, which is available on the BOOM! Studios homepage below the fold as well as on Birdie’s WebComics Nation page, in a supersized format that lets you gaze at his mighty linework and despair that you shall never touch his Everest-like heights, pilgrim!

*cough*

Sorry, got a little Stan Lee in me. The second bit of comics comfort and joy from my pen and the art of someone much more talented than me is the BOOM! Studios holiday card, which was drawn by Joe (Hero Squared) Abraham. Between cowriting with Giffen on that What Were They Thinking?!? story and scripting for Abraham’s pencils, I think DeMatteis better look out.

A Handy Primer For Still-In-The-Wrapper Marvel Creators.

Comments Off | Posted: December 19th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized

Congratulations! You’re getting regular work from the house that Steve, Jack, and Stan built! It’s an accomplishment that should be celebrated. I’ve only got one thing to tell you: don’t fucking do this. OK?

Best of luck with your career!

Related Links:
A Handy Primer For My Fellow Neophyte Comics Creators

9 Questions That Rapidly Turn Into Bitching, But It Gets Better, Really.

Comments Off | Posted: December 19th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
  1. Couldn’t DC have avoided a lot of fuss and misery for creators if they’d just set Hawkworld in a nebulous “five years ago” setting instead of making it a “contemporary” title? Was there ever a reason given for this choice?

  2. Are we going to get second and third Omnibuses (Omnibii?) for Fantastic Four? If I could get the whole Kirby run like that, I’d be dead happy.
  3. Speaking of Kirby, is praying for a Devil Dinosaur Omnibus just a little bit wrong? Goddamn, I love that comic.
  4. Is there a song that rocks harder than “Planet of Sound” by the Pixies? That song is like a rock machine that rocks. I postulate there is not, but you are perfectly welcome to correct me.
  5. Why do some comics bloggers who have their own hosting service hotlink images? This really (perhaps irrationally) bothers me as (and yes, I did it at one point when I was averaging maybe 100-200 hits a day.) You’ve got greater control over layouts image sizing, etc when you house the images yourself. You also don’t have to worry about images disappearing or having a goatse appear in their place one day when anti-hotlinking measures are put in place. Hosting plans are cheap enough now to allow almost anyone to have a robust hosting on your own domain for about $10 a month.

    (For the record: BeaucoupKevin.com and WhiskeyAndFailure.com cost me a touch under $120 a year between the two of them – they’re both hosted on the same account. As a plug, I have to remind you that you can get $40 off a year’s service when you sign up with Dreamhost using the promo code BKEVIN01.)

  6. Also, would it hurt you people to properly resize images instead of just constraining them in HTML?
  7. I may not have much enthusiasm for the holiday season, but I surely wasn’t the only one who got a little misty at the end of “Bully’s Fantastic Christmas,” was I?
  8. Am I the only one impressed by Bendis’s candidness in his Write Now interview? I may not be happy about the direction he’s taking a lot of Marvel books, but I can respect him as a professional who turns his work in on time and manages to engage a sizable portion of his audience (which I am not part of) consistently. A bit:
    Fingeroth: What mistakes do you think you’ve avoided?

    Bendis: There’s a sense of entitlement that seems to come over people when they get a book that sells, whatever gets into the top ten for whatever generation. Once you have a top book, there seems to be a royal entitlement. And I do not have that in me. I just don’t have that in me at all. I get almost neurotic about people spending $2.99 on a book that I wrote, and I take it very seriously, and that never goes away at all. And I do see that that does get across to a lot of people, even people who beat the h*ll out of me online. No one says I’m lazy.

    Fingeroth: No one could ever accuse you of that.

    Bendis: So I take it very seriously, and I think people respond well to the fact that they know that I’m not using comics as a stepping stone, I don’t have an agenda other than to entertain and provoke and do something worth buying.

    Bendis also talks about fan entitlement and other interesting aspects of his job with a real frankness I found refreshing and surprisingly non-obnoxious. If you’re a writer or just a reader interested in the process and you’re not reading Write Now!, I recommend it highly.

  9. Pretend I’m Santa. What totally useless thing do you want for Christmas this year? I’m hoping for the Homicide box set, which I’ll probably buy for myself with the holiday/annual bonus I may or may not get. (There’s also a Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens I am lusty for, but it is expensive and I have to pay down credit card debt first.)

Attention Marvel Fans That Grew Up In The 80s.

Comments Off | Posted: December 19th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized

This is what Jim Shooter Marvel Comics1 really thought of you.


(Again, from What The–?! #4)

Now, discuss.

1Normally, I’m not one to let facts get in the way of a good old-fashioned pillorying, but as Jer notes in the comments, Shooter was booted from the company by the time this hit stands. (He left office in ’87, What The–?! came out in ’88.)

Pre-reviews: The Week of December 20, 2006.

Comments Off | Posted: December 18th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized

Thank God I have a light
week coming up, as it’s been sort
of brutal for the last month
or so for me.

Here’s Diamond’s list.
Mine is below.

Previews Publications

NOV060005 PREVIEWS ADULT VOL XVII #1 PI
NOV060001 PREVIEWS VOL XVII #1 PI
NOV060003 PREVIEWS VOL XVII CONSUMER ORDER FORM #1 PI

Already? Wow. Time flies.

Dark Horse

OCT060022 BAKERS MEET JINGLE BELLE (ONE SHOT) $2.99

I love Kyle Baker’s work, especially The Bakers, based on his own family. However, I really have gotten to hate Jingle Belle – it’s empty-headed and boring, something a comic about a cute girl elf should never be.

DC Comics

OCT060211 JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA HEREBY ELECTS TP $14.99

I’m not getting it, but I sort of like the idea of an X-Men volume that does the exact same thing, wherein we get to read “Welcome to [INSERT NAME OF TEAM], [INSERT NAME OF CHARACTER]! Hope you survive the experience!”

Marvel

OCT062204 CRIMINAL #3 (MR) $2.99

I’m moving this into the same column as 52 and 100 Bullets – I’m buying it until I say I’m not. Fantastic crime book.

OCT062165 NEW AVENGERS ILLUMINATI #1 (OF 5) $2.99

So, you know that stupid Avengers game I’ve posted about twice in the last week? This actually manages to outshine it for sheer gleeful idiocy. I’m sure there are people who will cheer when [HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILER]Reed Richards, Namor, Black Bolt, Professor X, and Doctor Strange murder the crew of a Skrull starship[END SPOILER], but it just plain pissed me off. Bad characterization, stupid premise, horrible comic. Shame about Cheung’s lovely art being used to service it. Maybe I’m being too conservative and resistant to change, but I am not interested in superhero comics that turn characters that normally act like, you know, heroes into cold-blooded killers.

Oops, I guess that spoiler just got spoiled.

Other Companies

OCT063400 ACTION PHILOSOPHERS VOL 2 GIANT SIZED THING TP $8.95

Get on the Action Philosphers train while it’s still in the station, people! You won’t be able to catch up once Hollywood decides that we really, really need a motion picture about Derrida and analytical deconstruction!

JUL063141 TERRBLE THOMPSON GN $18.95

This collects a far-too-short-lived strip by Academy Award-winning animator Gene Dietch and it’s fantastic. There’s so much joy in each strip and the art is packed with great design.

SEP062969 VAULT OF MICHAEL ALLRED #3 (OF 4) $6.99

I am buying this so I never need to make a Mike Allred scrapbook.

AUG063132 WARHAMMER 40K #1 $2.99

The enthusiasm for this around the BOOM! booth at SDCC was palpable. Ross Richie really, really loves this property and I’m about 99% sure it’s going to be a great read for fans, especially with the talent on board.

No, I am not paid to say that.

Random, Ill-Formed Comic Thoughts Machine Go!

Comments Off | Posted: December 18th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
  • My theory on the whole Archie changing-its-art-style kerfuffle: it’s New Coke all over again. They’ll do a few stories in this new style, get a lot of coverage, and then announce they’re bringing back the classic style to applause and accolades. I also wonder at how the “realistic” style would work in the digest form that currently allows them to mix and match stories from the last five decades with very little discrepancy, but Sims, being the sort of guy that reads Sabrina, says that particular title regularly uses a title page to say a witch sent her back to the 8th grade or something. So, that’s probably what they’ll do if it continues, which I don’t think will happen.

  • One of the reasons I really liked Cooke’s take on The Spirit seems to be something that some people have picked up on, taking it as a negative: he doesn’t ape Eisner at all. He takes this character, this perfectly formed sliver of creation, and puts it in his world. I find that a lot more invigorating than doing a “Gus Van Sant remakes Psycho” sort of approach.
  • I actually saw a “Comics Are Still For Kids!” headline the other day, but completely forgot to bookmark the article. I am kicking myself rather hard for that. However, here’s a “we need to fill column inches” article about a young comics creator in Nebraska.
  • Speaking of my leaky memory, I’ve not seen any discussion about the new comics-based Wiki that cropped up. No, I’m not contributing to it, but I’m sure somebody out there has the time…
  • I don’t know how to take the last paragraph in this slightly-bizarre, poorly written review1 of New York Press review of the first season Justice League Unlimited on DVD.
    It’s said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and the future of this comics-based world stands on a knife’s edge. References are made to an alternate reality, where Superman kills Lex Luthor and the newly anointed “Justice Lords” set themselves up as godlike rulers of humanity. As the episodes progress, this alternate reality begins to look more like an inescapable destiny. One that many a comic geek would like to call home.

    I’ve yet to meet these fascist comic nerds, but with the conservative streak that some display, maybe the desire to be crushed under Superman’s boot is out there.

1Seriously, there’s some editing needed on this bad boy. Check out the first sentence: Essentially a continuation of “Justice League,” “Justice League: Unlimited” is a continuation of the earlier series that features DC Comics’ premier super-squad but with some important differences like a wider range of characters and a subtle format change that encourages increased continuity and mostly does away with the two-part episode configuration that characterized the earlier seasons.

I walk the warrior’s way, the assassin’s way, the curds and way!

Comments Off | Posted: December 18th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized


Click to read “Lone Wolvie & Chris,”
one of my favorite comic stories ever,
from What The–?! #4

Genius Covers Sunday: It’s smarter reading than the Maxim that I get stuck with.

Comments Off | Posted: December 17th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized

I’m sorry.

Comments Off | Posted: December 16th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized

Tangentially related to something Birdie and I are working on…

(Yes, I should be writing right now. Shush.)

Additional Stupid Observations About That Crappy Avengers Game.

Comments Off | Posted: December 16th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized




Kirby Saturday: I’ve hit the dimensional barrier!

Comments Off | Posted: December 16th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized


From Fantastic Four #61 • Inks by Joe Sinnott.

You’ve Never Seen Or Read Anything Like It!

Comments Off | Posted: December 15th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized

Review: The Spirit #1.

Comments Off | Posted: December 14th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized

Four words: it’s really fuckin’ excellent.

I take back my reservations.

He re-imagined Eisner’s creation without damaging the goods at all. There’s comedy, suspense, an awesomely-named hot chick, and casually excellent visual storytelling.

He even made Ebony work. He. Made. Ebony. Work. That’s like making Amos and Andy work, people.

You win, Cooke. You win.

Again.

(I’m on cold medicine today, so I can barely knock together these words, but consider this one recommended highly. It’s about a dozen times better than Batman/Spirit for the simple reason I was actually interested in the story.)

A Brief Overview Of A Very Stupid Video Game: Captain America and the Avengers – it’s still better than Civil War.

Comments Off | Posted: December 13th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized


The premise of the game is simple: the Red Skull
wants to fuck some shit up. He’s like that.


So he calls up his boys and he’s like
“Dollah dollah bills, y’all! /
Cash rulen der evereyzing arount mein!”1


Sadly for them, he ends up being more B.I.G than
Wu-Tang, and they walk into his giant hypnotizin’
machines like the chumps they are.


Really, why fight good guys yourself when you
can send uh…the Living Laser in a really
ugly costume in your stead?

Man, fair consideration to Frazer Irving for that
particular redesign.


Like, who else was going to do this? The name of the
game is Captain America And The Avengers.
It’s not like Spider-Man or Wolverine or Luke Cage or…

…damn you, Bendis!


Not only do you, the player, get to be the cool
Freaky Ghost version of The Vision, there’s posters
of the Avengers lining the streets, almost as
if people were operating under the assumption there
was going to be a parade instead of an outbreak of
heinous villainy. Or maybe the Avengers have taken
over and it’s now a Stalinist state.

Somewhere, Joe Quesada is taking notes, I just know it.


That Tony Stark, he used to be such a polite young man.


I could make two jokes here. One involves Mexican
food from the future. The other is a really unpleasant
Fleshlight-related zinger that will make everyone
very uncomfortable with the Iron Man character
for quite some time.


Christ, Red Skull. Ease up on the ‘roids. Your
neck is thicker than most redwoods I’ve seen.


Hawkeye: fires arrows.
The Juggernaut: is unstoppable, bitch.
Advantage: Juggernaut.


1The C.R.E.A.M joke is courtesy of Chris Sims.

We’re l-i-n-k-i-n-g. We’re linking.

Comments Off | Posted: December 13th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
  • Fellow BOOM! Studios writer and extremely nice guy Michael Alan Nelson gets interviewed by Shaun Manning for Newsarama about his forthcoming Call Of Cthulhu series.

  • Speaking of BOOM!, here’s a straggling review of What Were They Thinking?!?: Monster Mash Up:
    Casey and Church in particular make the best use of the “inherited” artwork and visual ques, seizing every opportunity they can to milk the camp factor and stack the volume with as many double entendres as humanly (or inhumanly for that matter) possible. Just consider the titles of some of these vignettes. “Barry’s Secret Shame.” “Hairy Grrls.” “Manlust: An Outer Space Adventure Beyond Your Wildest Imagination.” Need I say more?

    That’s rather nice, isn’t it?

  • I actually had this Peanuts book, Security Is An Eye Patch, when I was a wee brat. It was given to me by my second grade teacher, Ms. Anderson, who encouraged me to read more than anyone else shy of my mom. Ethan Persoff’s whole site is a treasure trove for people that like this sort of thing.
  • I can’t help thinking that Wonder Woman looks like a RealDoll in this Comics Cavalcade cover from 1945.
  • I’m on Comicspace now, but you probably figured that out yourself. Aren’t you a bright one? No, I’m not sure what it’s good for yet, but I appreciate the effort.
  • If I loved my pal Aaron more, I’d get him this piece of Predator-themed art by Sam Hiti for Christmas.
  • Here’s a 1983 test by Disney to see if they could integrate CG and drawn animation using Where The Wild Things Are, which they had the rights to for a time.
  • Ohmygosh.se presents a lot of interesting MP3s from various electronic labels. This entry features an Underworld live set from the 2003 Sonar festival.
  • All of the ads from a 1963 issue of Playboy
  • FHM, the magazine that began redefining the “lowest” in “lowest common denominator,” (a standard that Maxim previously held claim to) has shuffled off this mortal coil.
  • Quote of the day, from Chuck Palahniuk:
    “When I started writing, I said my goal was to bring people back to reading, people who had given up on reading. So I wrote for people who didn’t read at that point. Today, you have to write books that can compete against video games and music videos and professional wrestling and all the other things people can do with their time. And those people want plot. People don’t want stasis and description. They want the plot to move, they want lots of verbs. You know, verbs on top of verbs.”

Promotional: Nitroglycerin

Comments Off | Posted: December 13th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized


To: The Audience
From: Kevin Church & Benjamin Birdie
RE: Nitroglycerin

The latest strip is now available in two formats:

This reference material may be of assistance.

Rex Mason, Relentless Shill

Comments Off | Posted: December 13th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized

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