Other Comics News Parade-O-Links 08262013

(Atari Force issue 2 from 1984.  Cover art by Jose Luis Garcia Lopez.  Image stolen from Comics Bronze Age.)

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 weeks ending 08262013:

"Despite this irrefutable evidence of longevity, I tend to think of DC as a young company.  The New DC is more than a slogan.  It describes a radical change in our company's operating philosophies and in the nature of our publishing ventures.  It started just two short years ago when DC Comics made a commitment to the creative community and the public that henceforth DC Comics wanted to publish comics that would make the creators proud and appeal to the readers."  Dick Giordano from his Meanwhile column in DC comic books showing a cover date of June '84.
   

• I guess it's been a few years since I've done one of these.  Where should I start...
• Let's star with me.  I've been having an original art sale. You are welcome to get on board with that.  The prices are super great and as of this moment I am still doing free shipping.  For pals that have already made purchases.  I hope to wrap up all of the commissioned/requested/bonus art this weekend and ship early next week.  Sorry it took so long.  I love you like cancer loves a prostate gland. 
• I went to RobCon.  That was cool.  I bought some Atari Force comics.  All that matters to me now is Atari Force. 
• Atari Force update:  I'm only about one issue short of the complete run.  Follow me on twitter for instant updates on my Atari Force collection.
• Batfleck happened. When I first heard the Batfleck news I wondered why Ben Affleck would wish all that fanboy hater bullshiz on himself.  And then I remembered that when someone asks you if you want to play Batman in a movie you say yes.  It's really the only option.  Buy sure, the "fans" freak out.  I'm a Star Wars nerd so it reminds me of the early days of teh intronets when "fans" lost their damned minds at the thought that Leonardo DiCaprio might play Anakin Skywalker.  Oh the horror of the thought that a talented actor that is the exact right height, build and look as the character be cast in the role.  DiCaprio turned out to be one of the most successful and praised actors of his generation.  I'm not saying Affleck is his generation's greatest actor or anything but I'm pretty sure a two time Oscar winner that is the exact right height, build and look as Bruce Wayne can put on a rubber suit and punch out another guy in a rubber suit.  It's gonna be okay. The "fans" have successfully cast about zero movies ever.  Leave this stuff to the professionals. 
• I'd like to take a moment to speak specifically to the youngs.  Pay attention to this Affleck thing because this is how it is going to be.  For the rest of your life, there is nothing my generation is not going to ruin for you.  Every single thing that means anything to you, we are going to destroy.  One day, you will thank us for it.
• Speaking of Batman, because that's all thousands of years of western civilization had prepared us to do;  I don't want to sound like some fuddy-duddy Silver Age apologist but I've noticed recently that a of people saying Batman should kill the Joker and that Superman should kill.  I hear people justify this by saying that it should be realistic and that they should have to make those tough moral decisions.  Now, maybe fictional guys in rubber suits should kill the bad guys but please don't call it realism.  I don't know about you, but the last moral decision I made didn't have anything to do with killing people. And I don't think many of us ever have to make the decision whether or not to kill. In fact, the more you think about it, unless you're in doing it in self defense or in the line of duty in you job in the police or military, killing is always illegal and immoral. Why would we want our superheroes to do that?  You want realism in your comics and entertainment?  Realism sucks.  Realism is a life where the hardest moral decision you make each day is what to have for lunch. 

(Brad McGinty drawn Regular Show page stolen from Comics Alliance.)

• Comics Alliance has a preview of the next issue of Regular Show.  I mention this for a couple of reasons.  For one, I really like Regular Show and the first two comics were good.  But mostly I mention this because my pal Brad McGinty has a story in issue 3 and it looks amazing.  Brad McGinty is one of the best drawers of comics that there is but holy snot y'all just look at those colors.  I truly believe that Brad McGinty is the future of comics.  In that future, the main thing I hope people start stealing from Brad is his coloring style.  It is the correct way to color comics.  Now, you may have thought that there are all kinds of different ways to color comics.  Nope, you are wrong.  Just one.  When you color comics, it is supposed to look like this. 
• Also on Comics Alliance, Chris Sims talked to some of the creators behind the greatest TV show that has ever been made. 
• Lucy Knisley posted this nice comic.  She's a bit to McCloudy for my tastes but the sentiment is lovely. 
• Chris Schweizer explained how to make minicomics and it was rad. 
• Secret Acres explains Autoptic to the youngs.
• Ya know, I hate the youngs.  Seriously. F all you guys.  Listing things is the worst.  This blog you are reading now with everything in a list and bullet points.  It is the worst.  We used to have these things called paragraphs and they were great.  It's all your fault the youngs.  I hate you.  Come at me.  Seriously, I will fight you all at once and kill you all.  What you don't know about my generation, "Gen X", is that every one of us, every single ehFing one of us, got together at a cough syrup fueled rave orgy during the 90s and every damned one of us are totally riddled with a disease that we are all immune to but will kill you dead just by being on the internet at the same time as us.  Seriously.  We will kill all of you.
• Soon.
• Get well, be well and stay well Mike Grell. 
• Have you been sitting around thinking, oh man, oh man, if only, if only there was one more place I could post my drawings and art?  Boom hears you.  Boom loves you.  Boom wants you. 
• "He had this idea that the world would be better if men would just submit to women's complete instruction. But he took it all the way – not just submit to instruction but get collars on, and get down on all fours, and just admit that's where you belong, guys." 
• Tom Scioli writes about Silver Surfer and I wish that everyone that writes about comics would read the piece so that they would experience the exact way that Shannon Smith prefers people write about comics. 
• It's also okay for you to write about comics the way Joe McCulloch writes about them here in this piece about Jae Lee. 
• Jeff Trexler works through the larger legal ramifications that could be at stake in Kirby vs. Marvel.
• There should be a Kirby vs. Marvel comic book.  K vs M!   Hundreds of pages of Jack Kirby punching out Marvel executives and lackeys  working his way through all the appeals court judges and eventually slapping the entire Supreme Court in the face with the constitution.  
• Speaking of the King, this Jack Kirby birthday celebration comic looks like it's gonna be really nice. 
• Have I told you about Patrick Dean's comic The Grizzly that you can go read over on Study Group?  Damn, I probably should have told you about Patrick Dean's comic The Grizzly that you can go read over on Study Group. 
• Some cartoonists make dick and fart jokes.  Others go to Gitmo. 
• Do you like comics?  Do you like small things that fit in your shirt pocket?  Here ya go. 
• Let's all go over to Frank Santoro's house and read his minicomics. 
• If someone wants to buy all these Steve Lafler comics and mail them to me free of charge that would be super okay with me.
• If you kids don't stop being bullies I'm going to punch your faces in.  Now get back in the trashcan!
• But hey look, we've got a new Doctor Who coming that I think all the fans will agree on and be totally happy with.
• A magazine that existed just because Mark Millar wanted to make people think they were seeing the word "cunt" on a magazine cover failed to find an audience.  What a surprise. 
• Tom Spurgeon had some thoughts on Before Watchmen.  My local comic book shop video game store that sells comics has multiple copies of what I believe is the complete run of those Before Watchmen monthlies mixed in with boxes of comics they sell at 75% off.  A few feet away they have all those new hardcover collection things selling for, what, twenty or thirty dollars each.  I don't know what that means.  Here is what I think Before Watchmen means; DC won, we all lost.  As always, DC gives the customer want they want the customer to have, not what the customer wants and for some reason the customer keeps buying it. 
• Marvel on the other hand, gives you what you want over and over and over and over until you never want it again.  (But the customer still buys it.)
• But that's okay as long as what they give us is Howard the Duck in a video game. 
• Howard also got his name dropped in that Disney/Marvel crossover cartoon thing. 
• I've looked at the map and, even though I live in the south, I'm pretty sure I can live the rest of my life without ever stepping foot in or driving through South Carolina again.  
• And finally...  Francis has had enough of your superhero movie bullshit. 

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.
p.p.p.p.p.s.  Yeah, I do Instagram too now.  I guess it's a law or something.

RobCon 2013 Bristol, TN USA

Back in the long ago way backy time of July 27, 2013 I went to RobCon in Bristol, TN.  RobCon is a small but growing comics show consisting mostly of mainstream comics dealers and fans.  The show used to take place in a mall but moved to Viking Hall last year and the floor has been packed with comics and nerd culture enthusiasts both years.  Viking Hall is just up the road from Bristol Motor Speedway for those of you that are not me and don't know everything that is in my brains.  I live in the south western tip of Virginia so RobCon is about an hour drive from my house.  It is the closest show to me and the Robert that makes up the "Rob" part of RobCon is the shop owner of the very first comics shop I ever went to.   I asked Robert if I could set up at the show about a week before the show and he was nice enough to squeeze me in.  I did not end up setting up on the main floor of the show.  I ended up near the exit door.  I had a lot of foot traffic but not a lot of sales.  Most of the attendees were their for mainstream comics, cosplay or they are just there out of curiosity so they probably didn't have a lot of experience dealing with something like... this.  

Next year I'll get my act together earlier and get down on the main sales floor.  

I did have a lot of fun though.  I mean, I was in a civic center filled with comics.  Hard not to have fun in that kind of situation.

But enough about me.  Let's talk about the pictures I took.

It was rainy the morning of the show but there was still a line outside waiting to get in.  The enthusiasm for this show is a big deal for the area.  The area has never had a big comic show.  RobCon had been in the mall for years but the move to a civic center seems to have brought a lot more interest.

There were kitty cats inside.  I wonder how many copies of their minicomic they sold.

Here are the first attendees coming through the door.  The fellow on the left in the blue shirt is Robert "RobCon" Pilk himself.

Here are some people setting up.  I probably should have put this pic before the pic of the people coming in.  Well, you get what you pay for blog readers.

Here is a picture of a Viking that is hanging in Viking Hall.  In Viking Hall there are only Vikings.  If you go there, you are a Viking.  This is true.  Also, the wikipeida entry for Viking Hall is super lame.  It says that people protested White Zombie.  That is totally wrong.  It was Megadeth.  I was there.  The protesters were mad at Megadeth for worshiping Satan or whatever but the protesters were super dumb because Dave Mustaine is a total Jesus freak and told the audience that "there is power in the blood of Jesus Christ".  I remember that very clearly.  I mean, how could you forget a guy like Dave Mustaine saying a thing like that?  Stone Temple Pilots were the opener.  Stone Temple Pilots were awful.  Gah.  Blech.  This was early in STP's run and the bass player was standing on the drum riser facing the drummer yelling the parts at the drummer who apparently did not know the songs.  And "Weiland" was yelling through a megaphone.  Awful. 

(Stone Temple Pilots got better later.  That album they made where Buffy was in the video, that was pretty good.)

Here is a dude with a big sword.  Cosplay everybody!

The power went out but it was all good because everyone has a cell pad pod phone now.   When the world ends, we will all be able to keep shopping for a good 30 minutes or more.

Here is another pic from early in the day.  I think people are still setting up in this one.  I did not really get a good pic of the crowd.  Maybe I'm not that great at blogging.  Maybe I should consider crochet.

Here are some cute kids being cute.

Here is the greatest cosplay person that has ever cosplayed.

My kids were vampires.  Draculaura and Marceline.

They had so many people in the costume contest that they had to break them up by ages and genres.  My eleven year old was grouped in with the 12 and under group.  She a was a good head taller than all the other kids her age.  She is tall.

Here is a picture of people watching the costume contest.

If you have an event on the eastern side of North America and said event contains a face painting booth then my daughter will find you and give you my money.

My eldest has become an expert comics shopper.  She has a perfect memory of the issues she is missing and hunts for good deals on them.  At this show she was looking for New Teen Titans and Who's Who in the DC Universe.  She found a bunch.

I also made her pose with a copy of the Quack Fu issue of Howard the Duck.  We did not buy it because it was expensive but I took the picture so that one day she could show her kids the time she was in the presence of one of the greatest works of American art.

My youngest bought a Monster High doll and a minicomic from some jerk.

I drew paintings.

And I painted drawings.

I drank Mtn Dew.

I bought this Worlds Finest comic.  I'm positive it contains everything that we will see in that upcoming Batman Superman movie.

I also bought some Atari Force comics.  I picked up a random Atari Force comic at some point in the past year.  Probably at RobCon.  I recently got around to reading it and the Jose Luis Garcia Lopez art blew my mind.  My main goal for this year's RobCon was to get a bunch of Atari Force comics.  I got these for 50 cents each.  I won.

Here is a rad Catwoman toy and some comics that my daughter bought.  She's really good at spending money.

We all had a great time.  I got to see some cool comics folk like Mathew Smith and Rico Renzi.  Even my mom was there and she had fun too.  I look forward to next year.  Maybe you should go.  Just let me know if you want to sleep in my carport.  I'll let you buy me breakfast.

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.
p.p.p.p.p.s.  Yeah, I do Instagram too now.  I guess it's a law or something.