Other Comics News Parade-O-Links 07222012

(Image of the Dark Knight stolen from Ron Marz's twitter feed.)

Special note from the editor (Me):  Human beings were murdered and wounded at a movie theater in Colorado this week.  That is awful.  There is no punchline.  I'm truly saddened and angry about it.  I pray for the families and the community but also I pray we could stop hurting each other.  I pray we don't get used to it and accept it as just a part of this modern life.  I write these weekly link parade posts over the course of the week and then edit them on the weekend for you to read on Sunday or Monday.  The things I put in here earlier in the week are not as funny or interesting as they were before the murders.  It all seems petty at the moment.  But, we press on. 

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 07222012:

• So there is a new Batpants movie.  I don't get paid until this coming Friday so if everyone could just not talk about it until after the weekend of July 27th that would be great.  Thanks!

(Bane Capital stolen from Comics Alliance.)

• Oh dear lord my beloved readers.  How is it possible that Rush Limbaugh has more money than we do?  How can this be!
• Speaking of Batpants, Matt Seneca talks about Josh Simmons amazing Batman comic from a few years ago. 
• I wrote reviews of The Walking Dead, Earth 2, Adventure Time and Marceline and The Scream Queens.  
• Jim Rugg of the Tell Me Something I Don't Know Podcast interviewed the great Mike Mignola (of Rocket Raccoon fame... and Hellboy) at HeroesCon.  I enjoyed it quite a bit.
• Frank Santoro has another New Talent Showcase up with help from Matt Seneca and Ariel LeBeau. 
• Those happy young fellers over at Comic Books Are Burning in Hell talked about a whole mess of happy doings and goings on. 

(Kochalka and Thompson stolen from Kochalka's tumblr.)

• Comic-Con continued to dominate a lot of the news this week.  Above is a pretty great pic of Eisner award winners James Kochalka and Craig Thompson.  Most of the best bits of Comic-Con coverage have been collected by Eisner award winner Tom Spurgeon here. 
• Speaking of Kochalka.  Sweet blob love.
• Comics Alliance is happy to provide you with this week's heart warming.  Foot massages cost extra. 
• Congratulations to Rich Tommaso on the successful Kickstarting of The Cavalier Mr. Tompson.  Rich is not only one of my favorite cartoonists but also one of my favorite people.  I'm excited about more and more people getting to see his stuff in print. 
• I'm also excited to see Box Brown's Andre the Giant book get picked up by First Second. 
• Rob Clough talked about Benjamin Marra. 

(Chris Ware SPX poster art stolen from the SPX tumblr.)

• As the roar of Comic-Con coverage begins to quite down the Small Press Expo is heating up.  The special guests list covers several of the greatest living north American cartoonists.  Maybe you want to come to my house, pick me up and drive me to that show. 
• Sean T. Collins has written at length about Love and Rockets.  If someone could come over, mow my yard, feed my kids and put up the dishes so that I could read it all that would be super. 
• I took my kids to Rob-Con and had a really good time.  More about that later. 
• Tom Spurgeon posted a list of bullet points about his health related challenges over the past year (or really, the past many years).  I've lived with a lot of those same challenges in my family.  They can be hard to talk about and harder to articulate in a way that is useful.  But Tom is the best so he lays it all out in a matter-of-fact way that I think anyone could learn something from.  If you only read one link I post this week it should be this one.  I am personally grateful that Tom's health has improved.  I wish him continued good health for more years than any of us deserve.  For the past several years The Comics Reporter has been for me what my dad's morning newspapers have been for him.  I honestly don't know how I could get though that first cup of coffee without it. 

(The great Gene Colan stolen from The Invincible Gene Colan Blog.)

• I've been thinking about Gene Colan a lot this week.  Gene Colan passed away a year ago on June 23.  I don't think I ever met him but I still miss him like crazy.  I have a note he wrote to his fans pinned up on my desk.  It reads, "Do what you love- do it every day.  Put all that you have into it- and all good and great things will follow.  I love you all, Gene Colan."  I fail to live up to that note every day.  But, I read it every day and it helps me try a little harder. 
• And finally, forgotten documentary footage has been discovered from San Diego Comic-Con 1975:

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.