(Transmetropolitan issue 4. Cover by Frank Quitely 1997. Image stolen from Cover Browser.)
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 0925201610062016.
"Sometimes the most handsome ones end up being Draculas." - Norm Macdonald.
Hello sisters and brothers of teh intronets and welcome to another episode of your Other Comics News Parade-O-Links. My name is Shannon and I'll be your host. This is another late (or early depending on perspective and other nonsensical false realities) parade-o-links. I can't blame it on anything cool like going to see Buddy Guy this time. Mid September through mid November is the busiest time of the year for me at work and at home so... gotta put the paycheck and the kids first. Also, today is my birthday so love me.
Hey! It's October! Happy Halloween month everybody! I loves me some October. As I said, it's a busy time for me but I've got a lot of neat stuff in the works that will roll out this month. Keep file under other open on your computer or cell-pad-pod-phone and just keep hitting refresh constantly for the next 25 days.
Can we take a few moments to promote my friends? Of course we can. Have I ever told you guys about Brad McGinty and the fantastic t-shirts, patches, stickers and gum the produces for The Glorp Gum Company? No? Well let's correct that immediately. Brad has a whole new line of Halloween related stuff you have to check out right now. I've already gotten the Kong shirt and the Terror shirt. I wore the Terror shirt to the store yesterday and the Mayor stopped me in my tracks asked me for my t-shirt's autograph and gave me the key to the city. My kid already stole the new patches from me and sewed them on her jacket. We are so ready for Halloween thanks to Glorp!
Another person I know that does things you can exchange money for is Robert Newsome, EIC and publisher of The Atomic Elbow. The Atomic Elbow has been my absolute favorite quarterly professional wrestling zine for years now. I recommend you buy all the issues but especially want to point out the latest collection that is on sale now. I got mine in the mail a short while ago and it's really great. Now, maybe you don't follow wrestling and you're thinking the book may not be for you. Well, the neat thing about The Atomic Elbow is that most of the articles are not about current wrestling nonsense. Most of the articles are about the writer's personal experiences and adventures in and around (and sometimes not even that close to) the world of wrestling and wrestling fandom. It's a great zine with a lot of great writers. Honestly, the subject matter is least important thing about it. Oh, and sometimes it has comics.
Guys. Look, things are weird for Superman but I wouldn't wish my problems on that poor sucker. He couldn't handle what's going on inside my head for five minutes.
When I was a little kid I was super jealous of the kids in the UK that got to read WEEKLY Star Wars comics that I didn't know existed. Weekly, that's like, multiple times each month!
Speaking of Star Wars, we're counting down the days to the new movie episode... Rouge One. (I will not mention its subtitle because it is stupid and awful.) Apparently the toys for the new movie came out last week and a lot of my pals had a lot of fun hunting them but I wouldn't know anything about that because all any of the stores in my area had were dusty old Constable Zuvios. I'll just go ahead and get this off my chest right now; I love Star Wars. Go ahead Disney, make Star Wars movies. Go crazy. I'll watch them. That said, it is a terrible idea for them to break up the current episode 7 through 9 "saga" with this standalone movie. The average movie goer just can't hold multiple sets of characters in their heads. This is that Fantastic Beasts movie coming out sometime between Harry Potter 7 part 1 and Harry Potter 7 part 2. During the first Star Wars trilogy, fans had six years to get invested in a set of characters. Then we lived with those characters for decades. Then we got the prequel characters, which were, with a few exceptions, some of the same characters we were already invested in. We got invested in those characters for six years as well then they carried on in cartoons, comics and video games. Then The Force Awakens comes and it's this new cast to get invested in. And it was great. The cast is great. But now, one year later, whoops, whole new cast, whole new time period, whole new everything. Here's the thing. Every time I saw The Force Awakens there were multiple annoyingly audible people in the audience asking who Luke was supposed to be. The people, the people are stupid. I totally expect half the audience at Rogue One to spend the the whole movie annoyingly audibly asking why Rey is calling herself Jyn now and where are Poe and Finn. I mean, hell, I wonder where Poe Dameron is in every movie I watch.
Yeah, that last bullet point was hundreds of words to set up video of Kylo Ren saying "Outer Space!"
Matt Furie talked about that time one of his characters was appropriated by some internet weirdos related to some political thing that is apparently going on in America now.
Here is your most recent Marvel Universe scorecard. Tune in next week for a completely different yet remarkably similar new status quo.
Lots of changes in the Marvel and DC "universes" while file under other was on "hiatus". I'll get too them soon and share some thoughts. Short version is I really enjoy that new Superwoman comic. Phil Jimenez is one of my faves.
Adventure Time is ending... two years from now.
Not even linking to the Adventure Time story because, again, two years from now.
I regret to announce that I'm retiring from comics 60 years from now. Everybody get your tributes ready.
Another thing I'm not even going to link to is the notion that it took some of you buffoons out there 75 years to figure out an Amazon character might like ladies.
Hey. Let's see what those crazy kids from The Dollar Bin have been up to. It looks like they finally got around to posting their reports on this summer's HeroesCon. Part 1. Part 2.
Apparently the new Luke Cage show on Netflix broke teh intronets or whatever. I've been too busy to check it out but I look forward to it. I thought Alias was uneven and a bit of a slog. You really only needed to watch the episodes that had evil Doctor Who or Luke Cage on them. I've been fond of Luke Cage ever since those 1984 Bill Sienkiewicz ads convinced me that I needed to pick up Power Man and Iron Fist. But even without Iron Fist, I'm going to watch that show anyway because it has one of the most attractive women in human history on it.
And now ladies and gentlemen...
THE BEST NEW semi-recent COMIC I READ THIS WEEK recently.
Midnight of the Soulissue 1 by Howard Chaykin with Jesus Aburtov and Ken Bruzenak. Cover by Chaykin Published by Image Comics. $3.50
This book actually started a while ago while file under other was on "hiatus" but I wanted to talk about it and I'm way behind on my giant stack of "pull list" comics and haven't ready any of the real new books from the past few weeks so let's talk about Midnight of the Soul. Guys, ya'll know Howard Chaykin is the best right? I feel like maybe some of you don't know this. Well, he is. He's one of my all time favorites and luckily me for me he's been very proficient over the past few years. You guys have read Black Kiss IIand Satellite Sam right? You guys do read adult comics right? I mean, look, if you are a children, it's okay if maybe you didn't read Howard Chaykin's adult comics. But, if you're an adult and you don't read Chaykin then... do you even comic bro?
Midnight of the Soul is a gorgeous book. Fantastic art and storytelling by Chaykin. No one draws alcoholism and eyebrows better than Chaykin. The colors by Jesus Aburtov are a bit more technically ambitious than I prefer but the pallet is just right. The main thing for a colorist on a Chaykin book is to get the lipstick shimmer right and I think Aburtov nails it.
The comic is about a former WWII soldier who helped liberate a concentration camp. It's the 50s now and he's home trying and failing to make it as a writer. His book is set in a world where Hitler won and no one is buying it. Like most Chaykin comics, he finds out his lady is mixed up in some dirty sexy time business and it all goes to hell from there. Alcoholism, sex, infidelity, murder and Nazis. Everything you'd want in a comic right? If you like hard boiled fiction you probably already bought these comics. If you don't then what's wrong with you?
And finally... Francis has a special message for the Grim Reaper.
Remember pals, life is hard. Read comics every day, chew Glorp every day and you'll keep on livin' until your dead.
(Marvel Premier Featuring issue 45 from 1978. Cover art by George Perez and Bob McLeod. Image stolen from SellMyComics.)
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 month years ending 04042014 09042016 "Hear me, arisen Tyrk! In the name of my comrades Sashiel and Barq, I swear vengeance from this moment on... The Man-Wolf is out for your stinking blood!" - Col. John Jameson, The Man-Wolf.
Hello sisters and brothers of teh intronets and welcome to another episode of your Other Comics News Parade-O-Links. My name is Shannon and I'll be your host. This is the first Parade-O-Links in quite some time. I know most of you are thinking, "Where has the Parade-O-Links been during this darkest time of my life when I had nothing to live for and teh intronets completely let me down and all my favorite comics were canceled and the antidepressants had bad side effects and my favorite sports teams lost and all of my pets pooped in places I didn't want to clean? Where was the Parade-O-Links when the world stopped turning?!?" Look, friends, pals, I'd love to tell you everything that has happened since the last Parade-O-Links but quite frankly Frank Quitely, I don't remember.
So, let's start fresh. I feel like I have solid memories of life on Earth going back at least to June of 2016 so we'll star there. Fair enough? Good. I'm glad we agree. I appreciate your respect and understanding. And, might I add, you look great today. Fantastic choice of footwear. I'm digging it. Magnificent. I've always said that only the sexiest of the sexiest people read the Parade-O-Links and it's as true today as it was a few seconds ago when I made it up.
(The Jack Tales wall based on Charles Vess art at Southwest Virginia Community College.)
At some point in the epic adventure that is my life, the powers that be in acedemia decided that I am not only a genius and that I smell great but that I am also a comics scholar. I was approached by the Appalachian Heritage Writers Symposium to present a workshop on writing for comics and graphic novels. I turned that opportunity yes and put together a powerpoint presentation focused on the differences between writing for prose and writing for comics.
Most of the writers at the symposium were pretty up on their plain old writin' words kinda' writin' but they needed to know how to write so that an artist could actually do something with it. A drawing is a hell of a thing to have to write. I bestowed upon them this great knowledge along with a little minicomic full of blank panels so that they could practice writing using thumbnails. I look forward to taking a sip of my cocktail and giving a knowing nod when they all thank me during their eventual Eisner acceptance speeches. I taught for two hours and met a lot of great folks. Sharyn McCrumb was they keynote speaker. I was able to attend her workshop and picked up a lot of neat ideas. Southwest Virginia Community College hosted the event and they have a lot of Charles Vess art on display including a huge brick sculpture based on his design. (I took some more photos of it that you can find on my instagram.) Also, we had lunch. It was a great experience and I'm grateful for the opportunity.
Did you guys know that not only am I a comics scholar but I am also a professional comic book writer? This is a true and well established fact. Human beings have paid me to deliver to them words which have then been printed in comic books. Perhaps you've read some of the comics? Perhaps you are a fan? And who isn't? But how hardcore are you? Do you have my earliest work? Did you know that I did some work for the Glorp Gum Company back in the 90s? Hah! You didn't know that did you Mr. Fancypants? It's true. Way back in 1991 the Glorp Gum Company hired me to do some scripting on a new comic book they had in the works. I remember it like yesterday. I was sitting there in my dorm room, freshman year, smelling like teen spirit, listening to my favorite Bronze Vestal Virgin cassette tape ("Double Dead Again 2: Tokyo One Night Only") when the RA came a knockin' on my door to let me know that I had a phone call. I figured it was the usual, some band wanting me to replace their guitar player or whatever, but when I answered the phone it was none other than comics legend John Sourcup. (RIP) I thought the guy was already dead but here he is on the phone offering me a job. Turns out he had read some of my Megaforce fan fiction in Slasher magazine and I thought I was just the guy to help him out with some last minute scripting on the revival of Glorp's comics line. I worked out some dialog for a little eight page skateboarding story called "Safety First Skater Later" that was printed up in the back of Glorp Comics and Stories. Now, most of you are probably familiar with the story of how Glorp debuted the comic at a big skateboarding event and about how all those people and vee jays died. I don't really want to get into all of that. I don't really like to talk about it. I was a big fan of a lot of the pro skaters that died that day... Anyway, as I'm sure you all know from the various TV documentaries, all of the comics were destroyed in the fire. Or so we thought! Friends, life is strange. Years ago, there I am writing for the Glorp Gum Company and then one day, decades later, my pal Brad McGintybuys the Glorp Gum Company! Can you believe that expletive? Sure enough, my friend and yours, Brad McGinty buys the Glorp Gum Company and what does he find when he's digging through the vaults? You guessed it, the only remaining copy of Glorp Comics and Stories on the planet. But wait, it gets better. My man, Brad McGinty, recently fired up the Glorp presses, pulled the lever down from the t-shirt setting to the comic book setting and knocked out a fat stack of Glorp comics that you my friend can pay for and read with your own damned eyeballs. It's a damned hot boiled miracle. I've got to pause for a moment and just let it roll over me...
Whew. I'm back. Ain't that somethin'?
Friends, this is real talk right now. This is serious business. You, and not the collective internet you, but YOU, you right there, with your elbows and other unique characteristics, you can click this link right now and buy Glorp comics. And not just Glorp Comics and Stories! No! Other comics as well! McGinty and fine people of the Glorp Gum Factory have printed up long lost copies of the legendary Moss Rot and Twin Cities Freakout. These are two of the craziest comics I've ever witnessed. Did you even ever imagine you'd have a chance to buy these legendary comics!? On newsprint!?! McGinty printed them on newsprint! Do you guys understand the gravity of the opportunity that Brad McGinty is giving you here? These comics will dunk your donut! You can buy Glorp Comics, Moss Rot and Twin Cities Freakout all for one low price! Or, for multiple individual low prices but that would be kinda stupid.
McGinty done did it again.
Santa Claus is crying himself to sleep wishing he could do for the children what McGinty has done for all of mankind.
Just let it roll over ya.
Another thing I did this summer was take the kids to America's most beloved comic book convention, HeroesCon. I've been going to HeroesCon fairly consistently since about 2004 but this was the first time I went as a regular old customer and not as an Indie Island guest or Artist Alley exhibitor. I just went for good ol' fun and boy oh boy was some good ol' fun had. The show has become enormous but, to its credit, it remains a comics show. Sure, like every other show, it has become infected by the prints epidemic but at least most of the prints at HeroesCon are comics related and on Indie Island the prints are actual original creations and not just sexy Harley Quinn. It's a still a show where you can shop for comics of pretty much any kind. The kind I shop for are the kind that cost 25 cents or less. I bought about as many comics as a grocery store bag could hold for $11. And boy do they smell terrible. Sweet, sweet, mildew how I love you. Pretty sure most of the comics I picked up had bong water spilled on them at least once. Glorious! I love it.
The only new books I picked up were on Indie Island. Rich Tommaso was there with the first issue of She Wolf. I've been a huge fan of Rich's stuff forever and this might be his best work yet. I love this comic. I got the new Atomic Elbow, the latest J. Chris Campbell mini, all of the Glorp comics (have I mentioned the Glorp comics?) and an original Blue Snaggletooth drawing by Patrick Dean. And that's pretty much it. There were a lot of folks there I would have liked to have talked to and picked up their latest stuff but they had solid lines or crowds around them and I ran out of time. And that's cool. I'll pick up their stuff online or at the next show. I'm happy to see their audiences growing. I was just on the convention floor on Saturday and honestly it was a bit overwhelming for me as a customer. There was just so much to look at. My usual con strategy is to walk the floor once before I spend money but by the time I walked HeroesCon I was ready to lie down. My kids picked up some cool stuff. My nine year old got a hand made sword because why not. My fourteen year old picked up some Gravity Falls stuff and some rad buttons and stickers. Thankfully, comics is currently in a place where there are some fantastic female creators working on books accessible to teens and some of my daughter's favorite lady creators were at the show. I think it's the first show where my daughter had specific artists she wanted to seek out. She left the show inspired and literally knocked out a new minicomic in the month following. (More on that in a future post.)
We also checked out the art auction. I was a bit underwhelmed by the art on display. Most of it appeared to be work done on the floor that day as opposed to some of the bigger more ambitious works I've seen there in the past. That said, Jared Cullum's giant Fantastic Four at HeroesCon painting was amazing and as good as anything I've ever seen at the show. It went for around $7,000 bucks if I remember correctly. A lot of my pals are friends with Jared so there were a lot of proud beaming faces in the Westin lobby and bar that Saturday night.
Speaking of which, the main attraction of HeroesCon for me is getting to hang out with all my pals.
It was super great to see my former Atlanta bro doggers Brad McGinty and Josh Latta (and Erin of course, Hi Erin!). Brad helped me with my first minicomic in 2002 and I've been sharing table space and hotel rooms with Brad and Josh for years now. We all lived in the Atlanta area back in those days but have since all moved to different states so Heroes Con is about the only time we end up under the same roof now.
Also super great to see all my other pals that I see slightly more frequently, Patrick Dean, Robert Newsome, Rich Tommaso, J. Chris Campbell, Duane Ballenger, Rob Ullman, Adam and Shawn Daughhetee, all the Dollar Bin bros, Heather and Seth Peagler and all the HeroesCon staff, my man Jeremy Massie (who I live about 30 minutes from but see at comics shows more than I do in the wild), Matt Smith, all the folks I'm too lazy to list, all the folks I saw but didn't get to speak to but just waved and said "hey man!" to... everyone. Everyone that has every lived. I was super happy to see them and/or missed them terribly.
I was a guest a RobCon at Viking Hall in Bristol TN, this summer. The show was nice and packed with vendors and cosplayers but suffered some for being scheduled on the same weekend as neighboring Abingdon, VA's big summer festival. I did well enough. Sold original art and comics and my daughter Kassidy sold some art and her new minicomic Idea Box. I'll talk about Idea Box more on file under other once we print up more copies.
Because I'm a super successful and popular comics creator in high demand, I had another apperance on the same weekend as RobCon. I was a guest at Saint Paul, VA's Friends of the Library Cooks and Books event. This is an annual fundraiser where area authors and area cooks are set up outside to sell books, eat food and drink wine and beer. It's pretty great. The music was mostly Huey Lewis and the News so that's a major win for any getogether. I did well and the library picked up some of our comics for their shelves.
So, at this point in the post I've typed about a half million words about myself and my friends. It's fine. But maybe you want news? Maybe you want the hard hitting critical analysis of the state of the comics industry at this exact moment? Maybe I'll do that next week. This post was essentially a housekeeping post, we'll get back to the real nitty gritty soon. But before I do I do have to acknowledge the redcent birthdays of comics titans Jack Kirby and Gene Colan. August 26th was also the birthdy of my father David Smith. He would have been 67. He's with me ever day.
And finally... Let's check in on our old pal Francis. Gotta catch 'em all Francis.
Remember pals, life is hard. Read comics every day, chew Glorp every day and you'll keep on livin' until your dead.
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.
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 03312013:
"'Why don't you write comics anymore?' I get asked this a lot, so much so that it made sense to me to post something about it. At some point I was no longer a writer. I had, somehow, become a black writer. This perplexed me, considering that, back in the halcyon 80’s, where Marvel was a hotbed of scathing, litigiously un-PC sexism and racism (reference: Rescue Me's potty-mouthed fire house), I was never seen as a 'black writer.' I competed with everybody else, with guys who had much more experience than I, and did the grunt work and odd jobs just like anybody else. Nobody at DC hired me to reboot Green Lantern in Emerald Dawn because I was a black guy, and Fabian Nicieza seemed to not notice or care about my skin color when he approached me to dream up a Power Man/Iron Fist-esque buddy book for his startup imprint Acclaim. Pre-Milestone, the subject just didn't come up. Which isn't to suggest racism did not exist, it surely did, but that, for the most part, my race had nothing to do with the assignments given me (or not as the case may be). Somewhere along the way, Marvel became much more PC and I became inexplicably much blacker." -Christopher Priest stolen from VR Gallaher.
Dudes. It is not okay to disrespect the ladies. Or, ya know, people. Don't disrespect people. And the irony here is that the absolute last thing in the world those jerks want if for the ladies to stop dressing up as their favorite characters.
Rob over at Panel Patter voices some concerns that I myself share about the seemingly imminent demise of the RSS feeds. I think I talked about it before but, dang y'all RSS readers are where it's at! You get to read what you like without ads or without being on Facebook. That IS as good as teh internet is ever going to get. This is Tesla sitting there saying 'chords are for bitches y'all, I can just shoot power through the air' and everyone saying, 'nah we'll stick with chords'. (Ads are the chords in my half-assed metaphor. My point is, ads are the worst. This blog has ads on them because I'm saving up for a pack of gum but if you read this in a RSS reader you would be free of the ads.) I'm not sure what individual websites like this one you are reading can do going forward to build an audience in the Facebook and Google only web 3.0 but, for me personally, as a reader of teh intronets, I plan to cling to RSS readers like Charlton Heston's cold dead hands. Just this morning I finally go tall my subscriptions imported into The Old Reader and I like it a lot. I think I'm going to like it a whole lot more than Google Reader. So, not all is lost. And for you comics creators thinking why the capitol F do I care how Shannon reads teh intronets- I'm reading your webcomics through my RSS reader or I'm not reading them at all. Ain't nobody got time for bookmarks.
I'm very sad to hear Bruce Timm stepping away from Warner Bros DC comics based animation. A lot of the positives that exist in all of DC's products (TV, comics, toys, lunch boxes, clothing etc.) of the past 20 years are a result of or at least inspired by ideas Bruce Timm put in motion. There is just no way to overstate the impact his character design style has had on, oh just about everything you see with your eyes in comics, toys and animation post 1992. I've voiced some, uh, uneasiness, with the Warner Premier direct to video style currently used in the DC cartoons. I feel the tone of those movies comes from a very cynical place. It is also disheartening to hear that these shows are canceled not because quality or even ratings but because of toy sales. Maybe Timm is getting out while the getting is good. Or maybe he just found something better to do. If we get something where he is more hands on in the look and tone of the project then maybe this ain't bad news.
Speaking of DC and Warner Bros cartoons, Warner has rolled out a lot of great cartoons to Netflix this weekend. My kids have already been watching a lot of Batman: The Brave and the Bold and Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated. The Justice League stuff is in there now, Adventure Time, Regular Show, Chowder... I could go on and on.
Some people got worked up about "the M word" in Uncanny Avengers issue 5. I read the 1st issue of that comic and did not like it so, I'm not reading issue 5. This concludes my review of Uncanny Avengers issue 5. For a more thorough analysis, I refer you now to The Comix Cube.
And finally... Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot.
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.
