Other Comics News Parade-O-Links 08192012

(Cover from a great big treasury sized giant Joe Kubert Tarzan comic that I read at the beach last year and loved about as much as my little black heart can love.  Image stolen from Treasury Comics.)

Here are some things I found interesting in the world of minicomics, comic books, graphic novels, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics, cartoons, digital comics, other, etc. during the week ending 08192012:

"It was a way to make some money, that’s all: pure and simple. Nobody considered it an art form. Nobody was proud of being a comic-book artist. Matter of fact, it was a couple of steps below digging ditches. Syndication was recognized success. If you could get to do a syndicated strip, my God, that was the answer. But comic books were considered for many, many years to be a shameful occupation. Most of the guys in the business, if you asked them what they did, would never admit that they were comic-book artists."  Joe Kubert, 1994.

(Joe Kubert Tarzan 211 cover stolen from PencilInk.

• The great Joe Kubert passed away earlier this week.  He was a titan.  His comics had the ability to transport me to a world of adventure like few others.  Those Tarzan comics, man oh man, they were something.  There is almost no kind of horrible that a Joe Kubert Tarzan comic could not take me away from for just a few minutes.  If comics ever got any better than that I just could not bare to look at them.  He was one of my favorites and his influence on most of my other favorites cannot be overstated.  You could spend days and days reading through all the great articles and image posts that have gone up in his honor this week.  The Comics Reporter has your essential "collective memory" here.   The Comics Journal has a 1994 interview with Kubert from their archives.  It is essential reading.   JL Roberson has a post that covers most of my feelings on Kubert and includes a couple of great videos. 
• Benjamin Marra told us something we did not know. 
• Go look at all of this fantastic random art and comics from Rich Tommaso. 
• Panel Patter is getting pumped up for SPX.  This week he has a spotlight on Rich Barrett and his graphic novel/webcomic series Nathan Sorry.  I've talked about it a bit before but Nathan Sorry is one of the better comics you can read on the web so you probably want to check it out.   
• The Out Housers shined the indie spotlight on RM Rhodes and his purple suits. 
• Hey kids.  Let's take a moment for some link poetry.  Shall we?  Yes, let's do that!

Pussy Riot chained

Phoenix galaxy go boom

All coincidence?

Poetry F yeah!

(The above image of Bill and Ted being excellent was found at picktainment while doing a Google image search for the Phoenix galaxy.  Because teh intronets.)

• Richard Thompson is stepping away from Cul De Sac.  Good luck sir. 
• Stealing this from The Comics Reporter.  But dang, don't those David Lasky Norah Barnacle pages look great?
• Matt Fraction has a tumblr for huge scans of random Fantastic Four stuff.  I love it. 
• Jill Thompson sho can draw. 
• I don't even throw away Burger King receipts. 
• Wonder Woman 1.  Shark 0. 
• Somebody loan (give) me forty bucks so I can buy my kids a Super Best Friends t-shirt.
• Hey look.  It's time for a semi-annual article on Ike Perlmutter that does not say anything new because no one knows anything new because Ike Perlmutter is a super villain who may or may not exist.  The one thing we know for sure is that if he does exist, he has great hair. 

(Mock ROM cover stolen from Blog For ROM Fans Who Aren't Dicks.)

• When I was a kid a comic book company called Marvel turned 25 years old. (Although it was really older, they just started counting with Fantastic Four #1 because why not right?)  To celebrate, they put all these borders on all the covers that had all the popular characters.  When I was a kid I thought it was really neat-o.  ROM, possibly the pinnacle of human achievement, was canceled before those anniversary covers happened but here is a mock up of what might have been.  It is a damn shame that Marvel company went under before they ever hit their 50th anniversary.  It would have been neat to have seen how they might have celebrated it.  Would have been a lot of fun to see Spider-Man have a 50th anniversary too.  Oh, you say Marvel is still around?  And they did hit 50?  They just totally forgot (or chose not) to celebrate it.  Well dang.  I'd bet if a fine company like Disney had an anniversary they would have celebrated it. 
• The Ignatz Award nominees have been announced.  I wish I could say something about the merits of the selected works but I have not read many of them.  Comics are very expensive.  Good luck nominated people.  You can't all win but you can't all lose either! 
• Jack Kirby's grand daughter Jillian Kirby would like you to join her in supporting the Hero Initiative next week on August 28th which would have been The King's 95th birthday. 
• There is a Kickstarter for a set of post cards printing some of the great Animal Alphabet art.  I has met it's goal but you can still try to get in on getting some great looking art. 
• Manga and Kickstarter are burning in hell.  (Tucker Stone's rant about why he does not read Gantz anymore is shoot Ramen out your nose and embarrass yourself at work funny.)
• So apparently the people behind Free Comic Book Day have been doing it all wrong.  You are supposed to charge $100,000 for your free comic.  (Please, please, stop the ride.  Let me off.)
• And finally... PIGGOATBANANAMANTIS!

And that's just a taste of some of the interesting things going out there in the wonderful world of comics and things. I can't keep up with it all but I do keep up with a lot of it on twitter and I try to re-tweet the good stuff. You should probably follow me there. If you did something to make comics better this week then high-five!

Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith

p.s. Say you want a leader but you can't seem to make up your mind. I think you'd better close it and let me guide you to my twitter feed.

p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.

p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.

p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.