Other Comics News Parade-O-Links 01062013

(Chris Ware covering The New Yorker stolen from the The New Yorker.)

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 01062013:

 "This has been a struggle in comics. You deal with a lot of different egos, not only egos but failings of human character and behavior. It's a real struggle to uplift. The people that I try to uplift... I'm not some kind of cop, or a superhero, trying to make people better. I care about people, I care about my community, I care about comics way too much to focus only on myself. We live in this curious time right now, we have the DIY tools to only care about yourself, to only pimp yourself, to only hype yourself and your work. I spend an inordinate amount of time hyping other people, basically curating a life of my influences, the things that I like."  -Dean Haspiel.

• Happy new year brothers and sisters!  Here is hoping this year is better for all of us than we deserve.
• "Best of" time of year is upon us people.  Here are the "best new single print comics" that I read each week in 2012 (when I remembered to).  I'm still finishing up my best of 2011 list but I hope to get one up for 2012 soon.  
• Tucker Stone named 19 best comics of 2012.  
• Rob at Panel Patter listed some best minicomics.  
• Forces of Geek had Josh Latta list off some stuff in their run down.  
• Ben Towle posted a solid three pages of goodness from 2012.  
• Patrick Dean was a part of Robot 6's year end thing and showed off a page in progress from his next comic.  Also, Patrick Dean used to draw this own t-shirts. 
• The Beat has its annual year end survey up. 
• Tom Spurgeon at  is The Comics Reporter and he posted 50 positives for 2012.  Tom has also been increasingly hilarious on twitter lately-  "putting final touches on Sunday's feature "11,427 comics negatives for 2012"  Make sure you also scroll through The Comics Reporter site to read all of the holiday interviews.  That Haspiel interview was something. 

• For several hours on Friday of this week, Rob Ullman was the most famous cartoonist in the United States.  For those of you that don't follow sports and are too lazy to click that link, the short version of the story is that multiple sports and news websites picked up on New York Jets' head coach Rex Ryan showing off a tattoo of his wife wearing his quarterback's jersey.  Then, some upaid intern that knows how to use google image search journalist figured out that the tattoo looks a lot like Rob Ullman's good girl sports babe art.  I do follow sports and when I first saw the headline on ESPN I just knew the tattoo would look like Rob's work without even clicking the link.  You can get your own drawings of Rex Ryan's your wife wearing your favorite sports jersey here. 

(Image stolen from Rob Ullman.)

• Some lucky kids got to go check out some Jack Davis art at the Georgia Museum of Art.
• Congratulations George Lucas.  You sell off Star Wars, give the money to charity then get engaged to a  lovely lady 20 years younger than you and filthy rich.  You have won. 
• Cavemen were super into animation.   Personally, I think it is more likely that they were just drawing a full and literal impression of what the creatures did.  Kind of like that thing Grant Morrison talks about how if you did all the same drugs he did you could see your whole past trailing behind you all the way back to the big bang.  Or something. 
• Every once in a while we have to remember to go see what Jeff Bridges has been drawing about lately. 
• Robert Newsome's talking and music podcast went up a day late this week and in the 24 hours or so that I had to wait I almost ended it all thinking it would never happen.  Now I know how your dog feels every time you leave the house.  But high five Robert because it was literally the only weekly podcast I listen to that managed to go up this week.  Sad week for ears.

(Here is a pic of Brad McGinty and Josh Latta just because I love those jerks.  Stolen from Josh Latta's facebook.)

• Rob Clough talked about Ed Piskor's Wizzywig. 
• Pals Matt Smith and Jeremy Massie have a new book in the Diamond catalog.  I ordered a copy.  It was probably the first time I've looked through the Diamond catalog in over six years.  Their book is in the As of the indie section.  In that same section, I noticed there were some older Rich Tommaso books listed.  Miriam and 8 1/2 Ghosts.  I highly recommend those. 
• Peter David had a stroke over the holidays.  Here is how you can help him out.  I met him once and he was very nice.  Nicer than he needed to have been while signing my stack of comics.  I like his comics plenty. 
• Chris Schweizer on leaving SCAD Atlanta to focus on making more comics and forming a studio.  Also, go check out Chris' blog and look at those drawings of Stan Sakai and Jeff Smith. 
• I'm not going to loan out my f#(%ing Playstation to Tom,  He's a dick. 

THE BEST SINGLE NEW PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK...

(Image stolen from ComicVine.)

...was not Avenging Spider-Man #15.1.  That comic is just re-cap and filler behind a cover that hopes to cash in on The Amazing Spider-Man #700 hype.  Nothing in it moves the story or the character and it is really weird that the 1st in continuity appearance of the new Superior Spider-Man would happen in a tossed off point one comic.  It also was not Superman #15.  What a stinking mess.  I really was liking the Scott Lobdell and Kenneth Rocafort team on Superman but now they are stuck in a damned crossover.  Which sums up where the New 52 is in the early stages of its second year- death by editorial mandate.  The best comic I read this week could have been Batman Incorporated #6.  Another good Batman comic from Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham but the story does not move very far.  Batman fights his way through a Game of Death building while exposition is shouted at him through and intercom or something.  Good comic but no, I'll give the edge this week to All-New X-Men #5 by Brian Michael Bendis, Stuart Immonen and a whole bunch of other people.  This comic has been a lot of fun so far.  Everything I want in an X-Men comic.  Most of the characters I'd want and all the X-Men drama an X-Men comic needs.  Bendis is perfect for this people.  Dialog on top of dialog is what he is and that is what the X-Men have been since Claremont's best days.  Duh.  Of course he would nail this.  And Immonen is doing some really great work.  So good that you can actually figure out what is going through the 100 shades of brown the colorist is covering all the art with.   And the amazing thing is that this comic has a story.  Original X-Men in the current X-Men world is such a simple and obvious idea that it is great.  But forget all that, the reason that this comic is the single new print comic that I read this week is because, finally, finally, Kitty Pryde gets her moment.  SPOILER  Kitty Pryde being the mentor to the original X-Men in the current X-Men world is a great comics idea.  And I'm telling you people, Kitty Pryde is the most important X-Man of them all.  Seriously.  I will fight you. 

• And finally...he got that ass whippin' straight out of Burke county. 

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.