Other Comics News Parade-O-Links 12022012

(Spain Rodriguez poster art stolen from Larry Rippee and Molly Rea Art.)

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 12022012:

“It seems to refer to the core of the American vision or the democratic vision, that there’s an aspect of yourself that you owe to your society in terms of omission and commission, but there’s an aspect of your life that you don’t owe to anybody. This is something that there’s a constant fight over. In terms of underground comix they certainly broke through that fifties fantasy that conservatives are so dedicated to maintaining, despite that fact that it was a fantasy in the fifties, and now it’s an absurd charade. Comic books are really something that are part of some core of this country. And that’s the struggle.  Liberty and justice for all should mean you can say what you want. Unless you can show some tangible harm I’m doing to somebody, fuck off. That’s the battle line I want to be on. I intend to remain here until they carry me away on my back. If it doesn’t sound too grandiose, I think the undergrounds were really a continuation of the American Revolution. Hell, it sounds too grandiose, but so what?”  -Spain Rodriguez. 

(Image stolen from The Comics Reporter.)

• Comics titan Manuel "Spain" Rodriguez passed away.  Here is a nice piece about him from The Comics Journal.  Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter has a thorough index here.  Danny Hellman posted some great Screw covers here. 
• Grant Morrison versus Alan Moore as annotated by Grant Morrison.  It is amazing how much easier Google search makes a feud.  Honestly, I love a good rivalry.  The nastier the better.  I don't have to choose sides.  I'm happy to enjoy the spectacle.  I think that comes from having grown up watching professional wrestling.  There is always a rivalry in wrestling and it is (almost) always fake so I've been conditioned to sit back and enjoy without ever worrying about who is telling the truth.  I will say this though.  I became aware of Moore, Morrison, Peter Milligan, Neil Gaiman  and all those UK guys around the same time.  If anything, Moore was the last of them that I ever read.  Other than maybe some Superman comics, the first time I read Moore and was aware of him being a big deal was probably those Spawn comics he did.  But it was weird, how anytime you read an interview with any of the UK guys in the early 90s the interviewer would ask them about Alan Moore and Watchmen.  As if all the UK guys just HAD to be influenced by him.  And for the most part they would all be nice.  "Oh, yeah Alan's great, Watchmen is great, but um, I've been writing comics in the UK for a decade or so..."  It reminds me of Pete Townshend being asked over and over about The Beatles.  At some point you've had enough and you say the biggest pop group on Earth are "flippin' lousy". 

(Image stolen from Joe Hunter.)

• Speaking of Grant Morrison... the Supercontext marches on. 
• But enough with the antagonism.  Here are girl scouts making comics. 
• And smoochies!
• "But all superheroes catch people at some point in time. Otherwise they're not as super as they think they are."
• Rich Barrett on digital comics. 

• Last week I did not get to check out Robert Newsome's podcast until after my Parade-O-Links when up but here it is/was.  And here is this week's tunes. 
• Jason Horn on his Nijasaur app. 
• World class cartoonist and man on the street Rich Tommaso takes over Fox 5 News.
• "Drop your punchline Joker!"

• Tom Spurgeon puts on his digital comics hat.  Cyber Spurge!
• Speaking of digital comics, my pal Jeremy Massie is through the first chapter of his webcomic, All My Ghosts.  It's great!  And it was his birthday this week so happy birthday pal. 
• The Punisher and other nasty comics dudes are burning in hell.  
• Julia Wertz talks to the LA Times. 
• Jimi Hendrix would have been 70 this week.  Here is a comic I made about that time he took some punk dude to Electric Ladyland. 
• Charles Schulz, the most important human the United States has ever produced, would have been 90 this week. 
• For absolutely no reason at all other than that I spend a good amount of time thinking about The Great Kabuki- "Get your Asian in the ring!"

• One of my favorite Brad McGinty pieces is/was the November cover of Big Issue.  King Kong y'all!  Life is weird people and sometimes it just all seems to come from or be going to the same place.  In issue 2 of my favorite comic, The Invisibles, the main character is selling Big Issue.  I read that before I ever became pals with Brad McGinty.  Years latter, I'm sitting in front of a computer monitor talking about Brad being on the cover while I'm wearing a Brad McGinty t-shirt.  I don't know what any of that means. 
• Here is a neat post on movie ads in comics.  When I read old comics, the movie ads are great for helping me place the comic into the context of its time. 
• The Ink Panters Banthas make a sneak return to talk Star Wars 
• Another critics round table at Inkstuds.  And in putting this together I notice that a show with Box Brown just went up. 
• Dustin Harbin did a neat illo for Charlotte Mag.  And this Miles Davis print might be my favorite Dharbin piece yet.  

THE BEST NEW PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK

(Image stolen from Comics Alliance.)
...was Adventure Time no. 10 by Ryan North, Shelli Paroline, Braden Lamb, Jon M. Gibson, Jim Rugg and some other people.  And really, it was no contest.  I read some other new comics that were okay.  The new Grant Morrison Batman Inc. was about as good as a Batman comic book can possibly be.  The new Bendis All-New X-Men was pretty good but the colors are just terrible.  The new Superman was okay but just two issues in they already have the new team bogged down in a crossover.  But Adventure Time was the best.   The main story is a choose your own adventure thing that was a lot of fun and full of great jokes.  I read it three times to try different options.  My daughter read it four times.  But the main attraction in this comic as far as I'm concerned was the back up story which Jim Rugg drew in ball point pen on notebook paper.  It is fantastic.  And I can see this thing really inspiring a lot of kids to make comics.  Not that it looks like the kind of thing anyone could do.  Quite the contrary.  Rugg's art is outstanding.  I think it will inspire kids because they can see the tools right there on the page.  They can look at it and think, hey, I've got ball point pens, I've got paper, I could do that.  This one could be a game changer for crafty young Adventure Time kids out there.  Comics Alliance has a preview that shows a good bit of Rugg's ball point magic. 

• And finally... song of the year.

Oh, and one more last thing!  Did you know you can leave comments on these posts here at file under other?  It's true!  And, I'll probably respond.  Twitter and facebook killed the message boards but that's no reason why you can't argue with me, praise me or leave me recipes.  It's your intronet.  Have fun!

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.