Other Comics News Parade-O-Links 02032013

(Kickers Inc. #4 1986.  Image stolen from Comic Vine.)

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 02032013:

"I don’t know about you, but I’ve decided enough is enough. Everyone tells me social media has the potential for creating social change never seen before in human history. Okay, then I’d like to test it by seeing if social media can cut off the flow of money from DragonCon to accused child molester (and the convention’s co-owner) Ed Kramer, who has been using the 150K+ a year he receives each year from DragonCon to avoid trial and manipulate the justice system to allow him free reign to prey upon children, even while under supposed house arrest. All you have to do is publicly declare you will never attend DragonCon again as long as Edward Kramer profits from the convention."  -Nancy A. Collins. 

• Happy Superbowl Sunday everybody!  I hope that as we all pull our guts up to the Bonanza super bar of shiny new television commercials, with a small helping of football for desert, we will all remember the true spirit of Superbowl; smashing one another's heads in all for the love of points.  Points everybody!  Just like money but worthless!  Personally, I love the American tackle football.  Like the great Al Bundy, I served my country playing high school football.  I remember it well.  Mainly due to the concussions and a knee that alternates between discomfort and pain 24 hours a day.  Football!  But the Superbowl is most often the worst football game you will see in any given year.  This late in the season most of the best players can barley walk and the starters are determined by which guys are not seeing double at gametime.  So maybe the commercials really are the best part.  Personally, I'm hoping to see this commercial staring Francis.  From what I've heard, Volkswagen chose a lame commerical where a white actor dude speaks Rasta instead.  But maybe during the pre-game show or somewhere in the evening we'll get to see Francis and all our favorite YouTube stars on our big flat screen TVs because the last thing I want to see on my television is professional actors.   (Apparently, the Francis version aired during American Idol this week.  That ain't bad.  I reckon a few people still watch that show.)  Anyway... Go Steelers!
• And don't worry everybody.  Francis may be a celebrity now but he's still angry.  Never sell out Francis!

• People.  The great J. Chris Campbell, fourth sexist man in comics, has a new comic/art book he is ready to sell to you in paper and/or digital.  You need to go get that thing accomplished. 
• Grant Morrison had a birthday this week.  He's 53 now.  In Stan Lee years, that's 28.  Remember back when I was doing a series of articles re-examining Morrison's The Invisibles.  Well, I will get back to that.  As soon as possible.  Hang in there.  My life is a living hell challenging. 
• Fred Hembeck also had a birthday.  Dang I loves me some Fred Hembeck. 
• Ashley Holt, fourth best hair in comics, posted another one of his words and picture things that you enjoy so much as you read then hate him at the end for being more clever than you. 
• You had me at Dreadstar. 
• Remember when I mentioned that new Shonen Jump thing last week?  Well, Joe McCulloch has broken down the genetic code of every panel of the sucker.  (I told ya One-Punch man was the business.)

• So that Paperman cartoon there sure made a lot of people blow a load.  It's alright I guess. I wouldn't call it a "groundbreaking technique that seamlessly merges computer-generated and hand-drawn animation techniques" or anything.  Seamless is not a word I'd use.  Groundbreaking?  I mean, you people are aware of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli right?  Don't get me wrong.  The cartoon is nice.  I like the part where Aladdin sits down beside the kid with the balloon.  I just think some of us spend so much time watching movies with video game animation that we feel like we've seen the face of God when we see moving line art. 
• Alec Longstreth on not going to Angouleme. (I don't know how to do those triangle letter hat things.) 
• Bart Beaty on yes going to Angouleme.  (I can't even pronounce it.)
• Hey everybody, won't you just shut up and go read this interactive experimental flash comic thing Pat Lewis drew for Mark Waid's website.  Super cool. 
• Holy cheese biscuits.  Go look at what Brad McGinty drew. Brad done did it again! 
• How much of your life have you spent lying around wishing Morrissey would beat the crap out of Robert Smith?  All of it?  Well here ya go.  Courtesy of Josh Latta.  He lives to serve. 
• People.  Last week, professional wrestler and WWE Champ CM Punk was forced to hand over his belt to a B movie actor.  It sucked.  There was never a doubt in my mind that it would not happen, but it still sucked.

• My good friend Paul McDonald wrote a book about Star Wars.  You can pre-order it now. 
• Okay James.  It's been over a month now.  You can start posting your strip again.  We get it.  Hah hah.  Good one. Now, get back to the comic strip please. 
• Look, I'm as sad about Young Justice being canceled as anyone but Teen Titans Go is gonna be a lot of fun. 
• How Bill Mantlo created the 80s. 
• People, people, people!  Eric Canete posted some new commissioned art this week. 
• Gabby Schulz drew some cute wittle cuddly wuddlies.  And then he went to the hospital. 

(I think it's A-Okay to laugh at Macaulay Culkin and his pals because I'm positive they are laughing at all of us.)

• We just want to tell you that all men are garbage. 
• Shaenon Garrity on some solid webcomics. 
• Tom Spurgeon on some digital comics news. 
• Panel Patter on the Mini-Comic Of The Month Club.  
• Hourly Comics Day happened again and The Beat rounded up a bunch of them.  Eleanor Davis did it and posted it here. 
• Every year when the color of the year is announced I change my blog colors to match it just to see if anyone notices.  They never, ever notice.  I don't think I'll do it this year because I don't really like that color. 
• No talks about Josh Simmons.
• So yeah.  Your comics collection can still totally land you in jail in America. (Maybe don't name your files "incest comics".)

THE BEST SINGLE NEW PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK

(Image stolen from DC database.)
...is on hiatus because I did not read any new comics this week.  The comics shop nearest video came store that happens to sell comics is on the other side of a snow and ice storm from my house.  The weather is so bad that I could have gone to watch live professional wrestling Saturday and did not.  Ice people.  Ice.  My feet are cold.  I did read a 100 or so pages of volume one of the DC Showcase Presents The Brave and the Bold though.  And it is great.  These comics are written by Bob Haney and he is crazy.  Crazy!  This is a book that features Metamorpho and the Bat-Hulk and neither of those are the strangest things in it.  Get this.  There is a story in here where Batman has emotions about a woman.  A woman people!  Crazy man.  Crazy.
But hey.  Just because I did not make it to a comics shop and I don't have any plastic money for Comixology at the moment does not mean we can't talk about a new comic.  Here, go read this.  Dave Cooper everybody.  Actually, I think that comic is from last year sometime but who cares?  I promise you it's better than anything you could have found in a comic shop this (or almost any) week.

• And finally... My favorite Superbowl was the one where The Incredible Hulk murdered the Chicago Bears.

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.

Other Comics News Parade-O-Links 08192012

(Cover from a great big treasury sized giant Joe Kubert Tarzan comic that I read at the beach last year and loved about as much as my little black heart can love.  Image stolen from Treasury Comics.)

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 08192012:

"It was a way to make some money, that’s all: pure and simple. Nobody considered it an art form. Nobody was proud of being a comic-book artist. Matter of fact, it was a couple of steps below digging ditches. Syndication was recognized success. If you could get to do a syndicated strip, my God, that was the answer. But comic books were considered for many, many years to be a shameful occupation. Most of the guys in the business, if you asked them what they did, would never admit that they were comic-book artists."  Joe Kubert, 1994.

(Joe Kubert Tarzan 211 cover stolen from PencilInk.

• The great Joe Kubert passed away earlier this week.  He was a titan.  His comics had the ability to transport me to a world of adventure like few others.  Those Tarzan comics, man oh man, they were something.  There is almost no kind of horrible that a Joe Kubert Tarzan comic could not take me away from for just a few minutes.  If comics ever got any better than that I just could not bare to look at them.  He was one of my favorites and his influence on most of my other favorites cannot be overstated.  You could spend days and days reading through all the great articles and image posts that have gone up in his honor this week.  The Comics Reporter has your essential "collective memory" here.   The Comics Journal has a 1994 interview with Kubert from their archives.  It is essential reading.   JL Roberson has a post that covers most of my feelings on Kubert and includes a couple of great videos. 
• Benjamin Marra told us something we did not know. 
• Go look at all of this fantastic random art and comics from Rich Tommaso. 
• Panel Patter is getting pumped up for SPX.  This week he has a spotlight on Rich Barrett and his graphic novel/webcomic series Nathan Sorry.  I've talked about it a bit before but Nathan Sorry is one of the better comics you can read on the web so you probably want to check it out.   
• The Out Housers shined the indie spotlight on RM Rhodes and his purple suits. 
• Hey kids.  Let's take a moment for some link poetry.  Shall we?  Yes, let's do that!

Pussy Riot chained

Phoenix galaxy go boom

All coincidence?

Poetry F yeah!

(The above image of Bill and Ted being excellent was found at picktainment while doing a Google image search for the Phoenix galaxy.  Because teh intronets.)

• Richard Thompson is stepping away from Cul De Sac.  Good luck sir. 
• Stealing this from The Comics Reporter.  But dang, don't those David Lasky Norah Barnacle pages look great?
• Matt Fraction has a tumblr for huge scans of random Fantastic Four stuff.  I love it. 
• Jill Thompson sho can draw. 
• I don't even throw away Burger King receipts. 
• Wonder Woman 1.  Shark 0. 
• Somebody loan (give) me forty bucks so I can buy my kids a Super Best Friends t-shirt.
• Hey look.  It's time for a semi-annual article on Ike Perlmutter that does not say anything new because no one knows anything new because Ike Perlmutter is a super villain who may or may not exist.  The one thing we know for sure is that if he does exist, he has great hair. 

(Mock ROM cover stolen from Blog For ROM Fans Who Aren't Dicks.)

• When I was a kid a comic book company called Marvel turned 25 years old. (Although it was really older, they just started counting with Fantastic Four #1 because why not right?)  To celebrate, they put all these borders on all the covers that had all the popular characters.  When I was a kid I thought it was really neat-o.  ROM, possibly the pinnacle of human achievement, was canceled before those anniversary covers happened but here is a mock up of what might have been.  It is a damn shame that Marvel company went under before they ever hit their 50th anniversary.  It would have been neat to have seen how they might have celebrated it.  Would have been a lot of fun to see Spider-Man have a 50th anniversary too.  Oh, you say Marvel is still around?  And they did hit 50?  They just totally forgot (or chose not) to celebrate it.  Well dang.  I'd bet if a fine company like Disney had an anniversary they would have celebrated it. 
• The Ignatz Award nominees have been announced.  I wish I could say something about the merits of the selected works but I have not read many of them.  Comics are very expensive.  Good luck nominated people.  You can't all win but you can't all lose either! 
• Jack Kirby's grand daughter Jillian Kirby would like you to join her in supporting the Hero Initiative next week on August 28th which would have been The King's 95th birthday. 
• There is a Kickstarter for a set of post cards printing some of the great Animal Alphabet art.  I has met it's goal but you can still try to get in on getting some great looking art. 
• Manga and Kickstarter are burning in hell.  (Tucker Stone's rant about why he does not read Gantz anymore is shoot Ramen out your nose and embarrass yourself at work funny.)
• So apparently the people behind Free Comic Book Day have been doing it all wrong.  You are supposed to charge $100,000 for your free comic.  (Please, please, stop the ride.  Let me off.)
• And finally... PIGGOATBANANAMANTIS!

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.

Other Comics News Parade-O-Links 06032012

(Image stolen from Wide Awake Press.)

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 I found interesting in the world of minicomics, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics etc. during the week ending 06032012:

• National Mini-Comics day was a thing that happened last week. I did not have time to even think about it but Steve Willis did and he put together a really nice series of posts about it. And here is a video where Willis shows three kids how to make a minicomic. Thank God for people that do these kinds of things.
• (I write the word minicomic as "minicomic" by the way. I think most people write it as "mini-comic". I ain't got no time to hit no hyphen key.)
• I think that around the same time I was typing up last week's update, Brad McGinty was posting pictures of his amazing new Xenomorph t-shirts and some bonus prints he made up. Check out those amazing sketches at the bottom of that t-shirt post. Somebody loan me $25. (I will never pay you back.)
• Drop everything and go look at this mind blowing Adventure Time poster Dave Cooper did for HeroesCon!
• Pick up that stuff you just dropped then smash it on the floor as hard as you can because Wide Awake Press has re-launched its website with a new focus on webcomics.  I really can't overstate how excited I am to have new webecomics from Pat Lewis, Rob Ullman, Ben Towle, Josh Latta, Jason Horn and Brad McGinty under one banner.  And I'm gonna hope we will see some new J. Chris Campbell stuff as well.  (Don't make me beg J. Chris.)
• Zak Sally has a good idea for one small gesture Marvel/Disney could make on behalf of the man that made billions of dollars for them.  Specifically:  "I think Marvel comics should pay for the Jack Kirby Museum. they should fund the thing in its entirety, right now– and not a temporary, pop-up (which would still be awesome), but a permanent, brick and mortar space. what is that– 10, 20 million bucks to do it right? that’s a drop in the bucket. and all profit from the museum in perpetuity could go to the Kirby estate."    I agree.  That would be a start. 

• That stuff you did not know you were curious about because you never heard of it but if you had heard of it you would be curious about it?  Yeah, Rob Clough reads that stuff. 
• There was a lot of talk about that article in the Wall Street Journal but I did not read it and I am not going to read it and I am not going to link to it because the Wall Street Journal can suck expletive in hell and Rupert Murdoch is an evil piece of crap.  I've heard that the article makes some interesting points.  One of them being that Michael Straczynski is a terrible writer.  I support that 100%.  Straczynski has written most of the worst comics I've ever had the misfortune of reading.  But that still won't make me give The Wall Street Journal a click through. 
• J.T. Yost of  Birdcage Bottom Books is publishing a food themed anthology called Digestate.  The BBB books I've seen in the past have been really solid and this one features a who's who of my favorite cartoonists (Kochalka, Darryl Ayo, Box Brown, Sam Henderson, Alex Robinson, Ben Snakepit etc. etc.)  There is a Kickstarter in progress.  
• I don't understand half of whatever the Don Heck Matt Seneca is talking about but good god man look at those colors!  I'm not saying that all comics need to look like that but I think a lot more of them should. 
• Oh, and that Rob Clough fellow?  He does not just read crazy American comics you've never heard of, he also reads crazy international comics you've never heard of. 
• Remember when I told you that Comic Books Are Burning In Hell would probably get better?  It did!   They cleaned up the audio, added a theme song and the overall tone of the thing feels a lot more relaxed and engaging.  Solid. 
• Super fast micro comic review:  Adventure Time issue #4 is very very good. 
• Oh hey look, there is Rashy Rabbit on Amazon. 
• Pretty much every day since Al Gore flipped the on switch to teh intronets people have wondered about the future of digital comics and how they should look, feel and taste.  People continued to talk about it this week.  I did too.  As a creator, I work mostly in a square(ish) shape.  I can easily format squares to fit laptops, cell pad pod phones and even print. (What the F is print!?)  As a reader, I don't like clicking.  I like to scroll and I think scrolling reads the best.  Here, for example is the very best comic on the web.  See, scrolling works fine.  And we can all argue about the future until the future gets here but I recently realized we will never catch the future.  The future has a head start.  So, the one thing I would suggest everyone think about is this- just do what works best for the comic.  Do what works best for the story.  You really don't have to worry all that much about the reader or the device they are going to read it on.  The readers and the devices are much more adaptable than we have been giving them credit for.  You won't catch the preferred format because it will always change.  It is futile.  The second we all get the magical multi-platform user friendly do anything Netflix for comics then Apple will tell us the future of cell pad pod phones is oval.  I guess, what I'm trying to say is.  Give up.  Just give up and make your little comics how you like 'em. 

This week was one of the worst of my life.  I've been employed in one way or another almost every single second of my life since I was 17 and I put Friday up there in my top three worst days on the job ever.  The lesson here is that hard work will always always be punished.  I think it was the worst week of a lot of people's lives.  Maybe next week will be better and I'll post more stuff.  Maybe.  I could make a joke about bath salt zombies but instead, here is a picture of Luke Skywalker trying to stick is tongue in his sister's ear. 

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.