Other Comics News Parade-O-Links 05272012

(Image stolen from Ben Towle's G+ page.)

Just because file under other does not currently have a lot of time to talk about all the wonderful things that should be filed under other it does not mean that wonderful things are not happening.  Here are some things if found interesting in the world of minicomics, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics etc. during the week ending 05272012:

• I guess the biggest non Avengers related news in comics this week was that Marvel and DC decided that it was time to make some money off homosexuality.  All I have to say about that is that Life With Archie #16 was a very good comic.

• The great Ben Towle posted a little write-up on Dan Zettwoch's minicomic Tel-Tales on his G+ page.  Zettwoch makes some great looking books with very strong design.  Certainly worth a look if you have not read any of his stuff before.

• In other Ben Towle news, Alpha Books kicked off this week.  This is the third (I think) weekly alphabet art challenge series.  Basically, folks draw characters from books for each letter of the alphabet.  There is already a lot of great art to check it out so you should go do that.  Maybe you should join in.  No shame in being a few letters behind. 

• Eleanor Davis did this and it was pretty great.

• There were a couple of solid new-ish podcasts from new-ish podcasters.  Jim Rugg interviewed Rob Liefeld at Tell Me Something I Don't Know and it is fascinating.  Matt Seneca, Tucker Stone and McCulloch have a new podcast called Comic Books are Burning in Hell.  The first two episodes are a bit of a test flight as the guys figure the whole podcast thing out.  I'll warn ya, it's pretty brutal.  The audio is not great and they have no real format.  It's just three guys talking about comics they have read.  And it is not comics they all have read so that eliminates a lot of chances for real discussion.  But these cats are three of the better writers-about-comics in all of the introwebs.  They don't need a lot of format to keep my attention.  There is a lot of knowledge between those three brains and a lot of what they talk about are comics that I have not yet had a chance to read.  I could feel my known comics universe expanding as I listened.  But again, it is pretty brutal.  These guys are intensely opinionated and they all like to use a machine gun barrage of F bombs to illustrate their viewpoints.  Much of the discussion leans toward the negative so listening to it is a lot like putting your brain in an I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I contest with Albert Einstein and Don Rickles.  But my brains is pretty strong so I think I can handle it for an hour a week.  If these guys hold themselves to just 5% of the quality level they demand from the comics creators they talk about then I'm betting this will soon become one of the better comics podcasts. 

• In other Tucker Stone news-  dang, this thing looks like a lot of fun.  

• This is kind of old but cartoonist, animator and Curly Hair Pageant Grand Champion Brad McGinty has a bunch of cartoons up that I did not notice until this week.  The outer space one is very funny.  Oh, and a thing called McGintyfest is going to happen at HeroesCon? What?

• A new issue of the professional wrestling zine Atomic Elbow is available.  I just got mine in the mail and it looks pretty great.  It features a couple of illustrations from cartoonist Box Brown.  I have not read it yet but I cannot overstate how much I enjoyed the 1st issue.  I suggest you try to get both issues.  I spent most of the past decade intentionally ignoring professional wrestling so I'm only familiar with a small part of the subject matter but the writing is strong enough that I don't care. 

• Apparently Josh Latta's next Rashy Rabbit will be a 64 page color special.  Can't wait.
• Rob Ullman has new comic that he is "serializing on the ol' blog in advance of printing it up as a mini-comic". It looks really great. You can read the 1st installment here.

• Rob Clough continues to almost single-handedly carry the burden of minicomics criticism.  This week he also took a thorough look at the state of kids comics.  

And that's just a taste of some of the interesting things going out there in the wonderful world of comics and things.  (I sure used the word "lot" a lot in this piece.)  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.