Other Comics News Parade-O-Links 03032013

(Image stolen from the Lattaland tumblr.)

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 03032013:

"And the strange thing about that, and the strange thing about the whole strip, is that it’s definitely true. It’s autobiographical, but it’s also fictional. But that means my actual real life is becoming fiction if I am saying lines for the idea of getting a response. So suddenly my strip is autobiographical, but my real life is fictional. [laughs] And then, towards the end, there’s this weird feedback loop too, because I’m putting it up online, and I’m putting it in the newspaper, and I hear responses back from people, and make adjustments to my life based on reader reaction. I mean, that is insane! So I began to feel like I was trapped in some sort of strange dimension where nothing was real. You know it’s like the philosophical question of are you a person, or are you butterfly dreaming they’re a person? Are you a brain locked in a box on some distant planet being fed stimuli?"  -James Kochalka.

Achewood Television Trailer One "Hello, world" from therussians on Vimeo.

• Let me just cut to the chase pals.  The most important thing you are going to get out of this week's Parade-O-Links is that I'm going to tell you to go read the 2nd installment of Tom Hart's book about his daughter, "RL Book 2".  You should also read "RL Book 1" if you have not already.  
• Apparently March 24th is going to be Mini-Comics day.  So, go make a minicomic.  What's stopping you?  (I prefer "minicomic" to "mini-comic".  The hyphen is against the minimalist nature of minicomics.  And also it is stupid.)
• AdHouse presents Jim Rugg's front runner for 2013 cover of the year. 
• Speaking of Jim Rugg, Faith Erin Hicks told him, Ed Piskor and Jason Lex something they did not know. 
• Josh Latta takes a look at that book about John K's Ren and Stimpy. 
• Here is a great story about trading rare records for some R. Crumb art. 
Black Pus - 1000 Years from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.
• Sad news from Josh Blair as he announces that Candy or Medicine will come to an end.  If you want to make the last issue, the deadline is April 15.
• Small Press Expo has moved its registration to March 17th.
• Fluke and Autoptic also had press releases which I shared here. 
• Okay, here is the thing about my twitter feed.  Or two things. 1) I follow back almost everyone that follows me.  I'm nice.  Most of the people that follow me are in or around comics in some way.  BUT, when you unfollow me, I unfollow you.  2) Most of what I post here in the Parade-O-Links is stuff I found on twitter.  As in, stuff the people I follow have posted on twitter.  As in stuff that was not posted by people that have unfollowed me.  (Because I wouldn't know because I'm not following them anymore.)  Just saying. 
• Okay 2, Marvel and your representatives that surf teh intronets-  I am the customer.  The customer does not give a single solitary sack of crap if you met your "metrics" or not.  In fact, the word "metrics" makes us HATE YOU.  Don't say that crap to your fans customers or in a forum where you should know your fans customers will pay attention to what you are saying.  Ever.  What we want is for you to give us easy access to books as good or better than your competitors at a price we can afford.  That is because we are customers.
Female Super Hero Fan Film from Jesse V. Johnson on Vimeo.

• Here is part three of that Marvelman history thing The Beat has been running.  
• Neil Cohn dissects Eddie Campbell's "rules" with some interesting info on how your eyeballs work.
• Hey look, it's Julie Doucet. 
• The Comics Reporter interviewed the great Richard Sala. (My daughter really wants a sequel to Cat Burglar Black.)
• Robert Newsome's latest talking and music thing has a fun interview with a guy from a possibly fictional place called "Britain".  I learned some neat things about "British" television and "sport".  (Also known as "sports".)
• Okay 3, I made a note to share with you some links to some things Sean T. Collins wrote about webcomics.  They were good things worth reading.  But now, all I can find when I search for it is a huge red cloud with the word "vorpalizer" in the middle of it.  Down below it are words that may be good but they are scrunched down there and it makes my head hurt.  So, ya know, I tried.  I tried. 
• Sean T. Collins also wrote a thing about the latest issue of Grant Morrison's Batman Incorporated.  I can read that because it is on Wired.  You can too.  I will add that Morrison's Batman got screwed at a lot of points along the way.  Probably not intentional screwing but just bad timing.  For one, right from the start he got screwed by coming starting hid run at a time when 100% of the hype was focused on the Frank Miller/ Jim Lee catastrophe All-Star Batman.  Then he had to carry DC comics on his back has he swam through the river of fire that was 52, Final Crisis and Flashpoint.  Then once he was finally doing his thing for real with Batman Inc. he got shut down by the New 52 and had to re-start the thing nine or ten months after the newness of the New 52 had worn off.  Being vastly successful is hard y'all. 
• But enough about Grant Morrison, let's talk about Grant Morrison...

THE BEST SINGLE NEW PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK

(Image stolen from Newsarama.)
...was either going to be Uncanny X-Men #2 or Batman Incorporated #8 because they were the only new comics I read this week.  Uncanny X-Men was good.  I'm enjoying these Bendis X-Men comics a lot and thanks to those digital codes that come with them, my daughter is enjoying them on her iPod touch thing.  Those Bendis X-Men comics seem to come out like, every day so it has already been an impressive run.  The best X-Men comics I've read since Grant Morrison's New X-Men.  But this issue of Uncanny was just talking so we will go with Batman Inc. #8 by Grant Morrison, Chris Burnham, Jason Masters, Nathan Fairbairn and several other people as the best comic of the week.
Also, because it was the best comic of the week.
Chris Burnham gives us 22 pages of super cool post Moebius/Quitely/McCarthy super hero punch up with the flying and the zooming and the whoosh and the crash and the bizzap and the boom and even some bam sok whap.  Burnham keeps enough detail in each panel to make it feel like the characters are real enough to bleed but his anatomy looks like it was taken from action figures so his fight scenes always have poses just a few lines away from being comical.  Right on the edge where I like it. There will come a day when you can't buy a monthly Batman comic drawn by Chris Burnham and that will be unfortunate.
And while Jason Master's line is not as funky and cool as Burnham's he does a good job keeping the storytelling style in place during in his fill in pages.
The story is a continuation of the war between Batman and Talia al Ghul that Morrison has been building for about six years now.  There have been some bumps in the road.  Some major distractions.  Batman died.  The whole DC Universe died.  The New 52 happened.  Batman Inc. was on hiatus for about nine months and then before it could build it's momentum up, issue #3 was delayed by the horrible shooting in Aurora, Colorado.  But by issue five or six, things were falling back in place and it has become clear to me, that Batman Inc. is the best comic DC is publishing.  Scott Snyder's Batman got to hold that title for a year or so and it will probably retake it when Morrison is gone but right now, at this moment, this is as good as DC gets at making comic books.
Morrison and crew give us so many great moments in this comic.  This comic is Robin/Damian Wayne's comic book and everyone else is just supporting cast.  We get Damian flying in bat Iron Man armor.  We get Damian taking out little kids because he's a little kid and he can do what Dick and Gordon can't.  We get Damian schooling the other Robins on how what is really at stake with this villain because only he understands this villain.  Because she's his mom.  And, we get little kid Damian fighting a giant grown up cloned version of himself.  Most of which takes place in one amazing 20 panel page.

SPOILERS!

Duh.

And he dies.

C'mon people.  If you had been reading the comic you knew he was going to die.  And if you were not reading the comic then, bug off, why would you possibly care?  And yeah, it is lame that DC chose a publicity stunt over letting the timing of the death be a surprise but, welcome to mass entertainment.  It sucks okay.  Of course it sucks.   It sucks that something that was building for six years became a press release.  It sucks that a character that does the one thing mainstream comic book characters never do, grow, will be remembered as that day everyone went on twitter rants against DC.  Yeah.  It sucks.
But it does not change a single line or single word on the page in what is a perfectly good Batman comic book full of running and jumping and punching and fighting.
The kid was always going to die.  For a lot of reasons.  For one, it's Grant Morrison's character.  Sure, other writers gave Batman his son but Morrison made this character.  And dealing with this character has been much of what Morrison's Batman has been about.  And like Aztek, Morrison was never going to leave this character for other writers to screw up.  And Batman just can't have a son forever because the reader always wants the story where the next generation takes over.  And Batman is never going to let the next generation take over.  He's Batman.  Or as Morrison himself explained, "what son could ever hope to replace a father like Batman, who never dies?"
So as far as comics deaths go, I feel this is a good one.  The PR cheapened it but it's a good death.  It does suck because Damian was a lot of fun, but it's a good death.
And it does raise some interesting questions.  This comic specifically is full of images of a child being beaten and eventually killed.  It also shows a child beating up children.  It is harsh.  Super hero comics have always had that weird history of children in violence.  Children reading about children in violence.  But the world is violent.  Super hero comics are still mostly unrealistic adults fighting unrealistic adults.  In weird costumes.  In the real world, children shoot and kill children on the streets of Chicago.  Children are forced to fight as soldiers in Africa.  Hundreds of thousands of children are fighting as soldiers right now.  This is who we are as a race right now in the year 2013 on planet Earth.  As parents, the human race has failed.  We are the bad parents fighting each other and forcing our children to fight and die in our battles.  Batman's failure here is our failure.  Batman's whole life is about stopping crime but he just can't stop punching people.  And Batman tries desperately to keep his son from the violence but the son was born into this violence.  Batman's violence.  Our violence.  The children suffer for the parent's sins.  It's sad and it's harsh but that's who we are and that's who Batman is.
I'll miss Damian.  He had a pet cow and liked to play with his pet kitty cat.  He was alright. 

• And finally...  She don't leave the house is what I'm tryin' to say.

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 12232012

(EC Johnny Craig parody cover by the great Ben Towle stolen from the great Ben Towle.)

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 12232012:

"I know I was initially extremely perplexed by the entire endeavor, and then pretty quickly disappointed to see that they were doing this dramatic once-in-a-lifetime move, this unique opportunity to refurbish their whole line and orient it towards appealing to new readers and, rather than seeking out kids, or female readers, or casual readers, or the manga or YA audiences or even just people who grew out of the sorts of '90s-era Marvel/Image comics DC ended up publishing, they had instead set their sites on people who played the Batman: Arkham Ayslum videogames. 

And that's a big, lucrative market; maybe big enough to make the pursuit of it ultimately worthwhile. But it still perplexes me that rather than trying for a transmedia approach, trying to align their comics line with the many successful cartoons they've had on Cartoon Network and, before that, Fox in the last, God, 20 years or so now, from Batman: The Animated Series to Justice League and Teen Titans to Young Justice and The Brave and The Bold and those cute little shorts they're doing now, they instead leaned hard towards the sort of aesthetic and storytelling of those Arkham videogames, the upcoming Justice League-by-way-of Mortal Kombat game Injustice, and, to a certain, lesser, extent, Smallville. 

The "New 52" basically just makes me sad and exhausted at this point."  - J. Caleb Mozzocco.

• Jumpin' Jimminy Christmas Balls everybody.  It's almost that time.  Santa is on his way.  Unless you were bad.  Remember what uncle Buckaroo says boys and girls, "don't be mean".
• To kick this sucker into the holiday spirit I recommend you go to my pal Robert Newome's internet word posting location and download the Christmas song collections he made for you.  Not just one, but two!  Fifty fantastic songs  to get your Christmas party started. 
• And speaking of my pal Robert Newome, he done ready edited up and printed a new issue of his The Atomic Elbow wrestling zine for you to read and cherish.  This issue, number four for the fans of counting things, contains an interview with one of my favorite comics artists/cartoonists/writers/illustrators and wrestling gear designers Jill Thompson.  And some thing from Comics Alliance's Chris Sims.  And comics!  And other things.  Other things people!

(Image of a small boy choking a professional wrestler to death stolen from xpxi.com.)

• Here is a great article about one of my fave wrasslers, Danile Bryan, visiting a young boy who is battling cancer.  Watch the video too.  It's pretty great. I'm gonna use the word great a lot today.
• Since it is "the holidays", North America's greatest comics blogger Tom Spurgeon has started his series of holiday interviews.  He's up to number 6 as I type this.  I've read every word of the first 5 and they were great.  You really need to do yourself a favor and read them.  Even if you are not familiar with any of the subjects, Mr. Spurgeon, does a great job of getting at the unique perspectives that make each of his subjects interesting and each of the interviews relative to the year in comics that is coming to a close.  The Spurge gots big brains y'alls. Go read that stuff.  Now, the Spurge can't be bothered with silly intronet devices like labels and tags so I don't have one specific link to give you that will allow you to read just the interviews.  I suggest you just go to The Comics Reporter and use that little wheel thing in the middle of your mouse to scroll down until you see them all.  Easy as fruit cake. 

• Maybe, possibly, apparently, Marvel will take back the Star Wars comics line.  What's funny is that Marvel originally got the Star Wars rights for free.  Absolutely free!  This time it only cost them 4 billion give or take. (Yeah, I know, not really, but still.)  Anywho, really the only goal I have in my pathetic life is to write a Star Wars comic so, hey Marvel, you lookin' good!  Won't you shoot me an email baby?
• It's not too late to make your Maakies Christmas ornaments. 
• That time Spider-Man took out the President. 
• BPRD is burning in hell.  (Seneca's Grant Morrison impersonation is not that great.  The secret to a good Morrison impersonation is that every sentence has to sound like a question.)

• Alan Moore talked up some words at The Guardian. 
• Jeremy Massie draws Ray Bradbury. 
• One of the great things to do this time of year is go to Lattaland and check out all the great Avatards the great Josh Latta has posted recently.  Great!
• Batman gets a lot of ouchies. 
• Kate Beaton gave us a new authentic re-telling of the Cinderella story. 
• Eleanor Davis gave us a lovely story of an absolutely gross inside out nekid fox. 

(American Elf strip stolen from American Elf.)

• People I've been wanting to talk for a while about James Kochalka ending his American Elf strip.  The short version of the story is that I am sad that is happening.  It's been a part of my daily routine for years.  But I'm just being selfish.  I wish him the best.  Here is an interview about it at Seven Days.  And here is another at Robot 6. 
• Hey look, it's a new Not My Small Diary. 
• The world did not end.  Unless it did.
• A bunch of people re-imagined a Sonic Youth album cover and Henry Eudy's Love and Rockets version was the best.  (And also, in my notes to remember that for this blog post, all I wrote was "sonic rockets" and it worked like a charm.  Good job brains!)
• The great and terrible cosmic Mickey God. 

THE BEST NEW SINGLE PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK

...was Patrick Dean's Big Deal Comics & Stories Issue #12 "A Weekend at the Atwood".  And it's one of the best new print comics I've read all year.  For one thing, Patrick Dean drew it and he is just the best people.  Love every single panel.  For another thing, Patrick Dean wrote it and he is just the best people.  Love every single line.  This comic is about a ghost convention at an abandoned motel.  It turns out that ghosts really need a break from living people getting all up in their business all the time so they like to party it up in abandoned places from time to time to get away from it all.  One of the things I love about Dean's comics is the huge casts and all the distinct dialog we get from each character.  And hearing all these ghosts vent about their causes of death and the tedium of their hauntings is hilarious. "AVENGE ME! AVENGE ME! AVENGE ME! But does anyone ever avenge me?  Nope."  There are also some great gags about ghosts messing with "ghost hunters" and tapping out a morse code saying "Kiss my balls".  Good stuff.  And yeah it's all about ghosts and dead people issues so it's kind of morbid but it's fun.  Ghosts is people too ya know. 

I also read Dean's Big Deal Comics and Stories #11 "Sometimes I Think About You at Night" this week and it was just as good or better than #12.  I gave the advantage to #12 because it was newer, longer and a bit funnier but #11 might be the best Patrick Dean comic I've read.  Maybe.  I'd have to go back and re-read the whole bunch to make sure.  But it is great.  It shows another ensemble cast dealing with the anxiety of sleeping alone at night after having a relationship fall apart.  Heavy stuff but still, hilarious.  This is a comic where a giant wears the roof of a grain silo as a hat.  It does not get much better than that.  My suggestion is that you go to Dean's store and buy all his comics.  It will be the smartest thing you do this or next year.  Oh, and one more thing you should do is go "like" the Big Deal Comics facebook page.  Dean has been posting lots of great strips and stuff there. 

• And finally...Merry Christmas everybody!  Even if you don't celebrate Christmas I still wish you all the best.  Love and food and warmth and all that good stuff we all deserve.  Thanks for dropping by.

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 12092012

(Best comic cover ever?  Image stolen from Diversions of the Groovy Kind.)

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 12092012:

"AMC made a serious play for DMZ but DC Comics is not interested in seeing a DMZ TV show, it seems, as this was just one of many great opportunities they shut the door on. It makes no sense for me or my agent, or anyone else, to invest time in trying to adapt my Vertigo work. It’s just not going to be allowed. It’s tough for me to accept that, but I have, and that’s the biggest reason The Massive is not a Vertigo book. It’s a real shame, because something like that can really change a creator’s life, and that of his or her family’s." -Brian Wood.

• "Ultimately it shows the retail community that, all of their pretty words to the contrary, DC Entertainment really doesn't care about any of our businesses. DC Comics, under Paul Levitz, always and unflinchingly had our backs, but that left us 38 months ago when Paul was removed from the company.  In that time, DCE has abandoned most of the policies that made it a great publisher in the first place -- walking away from creators (like Alan Moore's wishes on "Before Watchmen"), from imprints (the slow Warner's strangulation of Vertigo appears to have finally chased out Karen Berger), and now from the Direct Market."  Brian Hibbs on the past few weeks of Time Warner/DCs jerk bag shenanigans.
• Speaking of Karen Berger skipping out on jerk town. 
• So maybe we should all just support indie comics instead.  Right?

• So let's just get into it right?  Let's just lay out some stuff I think maybe you should support.  Consider this a Christmas shopping guide thing or whatever.  Here we go:
• Eleanor Davis has  a new comic.  I ain't even read it and I know it's great. 
• So does Sally Bloodbath.  Just look at that man.  Looks great right?
• Erich Orchard is always ready to draw the crap out of some stuff you need the crap drawn out of. 
• Here's a kickstarter from a friend of a friend.  The people, they love the kickstarter right?
• If you won't help SAW then who will you help?  Jerks?  You like helping Jerks?  WTF?
• And just look at all these great comics Patrick Dean has for sell.  If I had any money at all I'd send him some.
• And just look at this.  Surely you have an uncle, father or grandfather that could use some Rob Ullman drawn good girl art to keep them from just ending it all.  If I had that Dejah Thoris drawing hanging on my wall I'd make sure to never die. 
• And look at this bat poo crazy thing Josh Simmons drew.  How many mainstream comic artists are as brain smashingly terrifying as Josh Simmons?  None of them.  And you can buy his stuff. 
• And if you and yours don't have Josh Latta drawn Avatards by now then there is a solid chance that ever being cool just ain't in your cards. 
• And look at this mind exploderating t-shirt, sticker and other stuff deal brodogger Brad McGinty has.  The only way that deal could be more intense is if Brad came to your house and strangled you to death with the t-shirt.  (Federal Trade Commission frowns on that.)  And don't you even dare show up at your relatives Christmas dinner if you don't have some McGinty holiday cards for them.
• And I do things to ya know.  My kids like to eat too!  Cat food ain't cheap y'all!
• The point is, there are plenty of ways for you to get rid of that awful poisonous money that haunts your waking life that do not involve giving it to Time Warner and Disney.  There is plenty of good stuff out there folks.  Do you have teh intronets?  Check into it.  (Says the guy who later in this post is going to talk about  6 "big two" mainstream comic books he bought.)

• Dang.  Batman used to just kill people.  Made for shorter stories. 
• The horror. 
• Pal Robert Venditti talks about taking over Constantine.  One day he will write every comic and my "pull list" is going to be very expensive. 
• A very metal and electronica edition of Robert Newsome's podcast. 
• Apparently, Charles Schulz was a human being and capable of being attracted to attractive women.  (I suspected as much.)
• Gary Panter is burning in hell. 
• The Beat went a podcastin'. 
• The hipster dad went to the Jack Davis exhibit.  You should too. 

• James Kochalka talked about Super F*ckers and stuff with Chris Sims.  Kochalka's American Elf strip has been hinting that he might quit soon.  I'll be very sad about that.  Oh also, I listened to Kochalka's new album and liked it a lot. 
• Rob Clough talks about Julia Wertz new book.  I really wanna buy that thing.  I also really want a  haircut and some shoes where the soles are not falling off. 
• Forbidden Planet talks about Rich Tommaso's new book.  I really want to buy that one to.  There was a time when I think I owned all of Tommaso's stuff but he got very proficient in the past few years and I got very broke. 
• Aline Crumb at ICv2. 
• Ya know what?  I'm not even gonna link to that awful comic and its unfunny rape joke that people have been talking about.  Nope. 
• This will end in tears.  And blood. 
• Matt Fraction on John Lennon. 
• Hey kids!  Let's go shopping with Mario Hernandez.  "They stick a lot old stuff in between the new stuff so I always look for the brown spines."

BEST NEW PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK

(Image stolen from iFanboy.)

...was as hard one to chose but I'll go ahead and go with Action Comics #14 by Grant Morrison, Brad Walker, Rags Morales, Sholly Fisch, Chris Sprouse and a whole bunch of other people.  All-New X-Men #3 was solid but I hate Marvel's colors so very very much.  Avengers #1 was awful.  Just awful.  Green Arrow #15 was okay.  Animal Man #15 was solid but I'm way past ready for this whole B list super hero crossover thing to be over with.  I even picked up Arrow #1 which is a tie-in with a TV show I have not even seen.  What?  I like Mike Grell.  Deal with it.  But yeah, Action Comics was better than all of those.  So, throughout this whole Grant Morrison Action Comics thing, the art has been a mess.  It has ranged from wretched to wonderful.  This issue is in between.  Over a year into this thing Morales and Walker have finally gotten close to settling on one face for Superman.  Close.  Not there.  Close.  And the story is all over the place.  And the stories in these things have been all over the place all along.  Grant Morrison non-linear storytelling gone off the rails.  Or, maybe not so much.  Maybe it has all been a part of Morrison's master plan.  Or maybe, he decided that since he's leaving the book he'd better figure out a way for the thing to make sense before he leaves.  And, that way is the 5th dimension.  See, the bad guy, who has been the secret bad guy since issue #1 (and who is totally not  Mxyzptlk) has been attacking Superman throughout multiple times and space.  Which, has been confusing.  But it has allowed Morrison to tell a much wider ranger of Superman stories than he normally could have in 15 issues.  It's like having 30 or so random stories from the Silver Age thrown together in no particular order.  And when your multiple art teams can't even make the character's faces look the same from one panel to the next, it can be a challenge getting the reader to go along on that roller coaster ride.   It's been an insane mess but I like it and now, without a safety net, Morrison is trying to bring it all together.  In this issue in particular we get a lot of neat things.  We get to see Harry Potter Clark Kent and Hermione Lana Lang go to the prom. We get Superman in a crazy Days of Future Past world.  We get Superman have a nice long heart to heart with Space Aunt May.  And best of all (and this is why this is the best new print comic I read this week) we get the secret origin of Mister Mxyzptlk.  And in the back up story we get another solid Sholly Fisch re-telling of that same Mxyzptlk story all over again but with better art.  Sholly Fisch is solid folks.  Have I told you about The All-New Batman The Brave and The Bold.  And Chris Sprouse does a nice job as well.  And... the colorists get to use more than just brown and grey which makes this better than every comic Marvel has published since, what, Civil War?

• And finally... Francis walks us through the new You Tube changes.  Apparently, You Tube would prefer if we never watched videos on You Tube again.

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 12022012

(Spain Rodriguez poster art stolen from Larry Rippee and Molly Rea Art.)

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 12022012:

“It seems to refer to the core of the American vision or the democratic vision, that there’s an aspect of yourself that you owe to your society in terms of omission and commission, but there’s an aspect of your life that you don’t owe to anybody. This is something that there’s a constant fight over. In terms of underground comix they certainly broke through that fifties fantasy that conservatives are so dedicated to maintaining, despite that fact that it was a fantasy in the fifties, and now it’s an absurd charade. Comic books are really something that are part of some core of this country. And that’s the struggle.  Liberty and justice for all should mean you can say what you want. Unless you can show some tangible harm I’m doing to somebody, fuck off. That’s the battle line I want to be on. I intend to remain here until they carry me away on my back. If it doesn’t sound too grandiose, I think the undergrounds were really a continuation of the American Revolution. Hell, it sounds too grandiose, but so what?”  -Spain Rodriguez. 

(Image stolen from The Comics Reporter.)

• Comics titan Manuel "Spain" Rodriguez passed away.  Here is a nice piece about him from The Comics Journal.  Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter has a thorough index here.  Danny Hellman posted some great Screw covers here. 
• Grant Morrison versus Alan Moore as annotated by Grant Morrison.  It is amazing how much easier Google search makes a feud.  Honestly, I love a good rivalry.  The nastier the better.  I don't have to choose sides.  I'm happy to enjoy the spectacle.  I think that comes from having grown up watching professional wrestling.  There is always a rivalry in wrestling and it is (almost) always fake so I've been conditioned to sit back and enjoy without ever worrying about who is telling the truth.  I will say this though.  I became aware of Moore, Morrison, Peter Milligan, Neil Gaiman  and all those UK guys around the same time.  If anything, Moore was the last of them that I ever read.  Other than maybe some Superman comics, the first time I read Moore and was aware of him being a big deal was probably those Spawn comics he did.  But it was weird, how anytime you read an interview with any of the UK guys in the early 90s the interviewer would ask them about Alan Moore and Watchmen.  As if all the UK guys just HAD to be influenced by him.  And for the most part they would all be nice.  "Oh, yeah Alan's great, Watchmen is great, but um, I've been writing comics in the UK for a decade or so..."  It reminds me of Pete Townshend being asked over and over about The Beatles.  At some point you've had enough and you say the biggest pop group on Earth are "flippin' lousy". 

(Image stolen from Joe Hunter.)

• Speaking of Grant Morrison... the Supercontext marches on. 
• But enough with the antagonism.  Here are girl scouts making comics. 
• And smoochies!
• "But all superheroes catch people at some point in time. Otherwise they're not as super as they think they are."
• Rich Barrett on digital comics. 

• Last week I did not get to check out Robert Newsome's podcast until after my Parade-O-Links when up but here it is/was.  And here is this week's tunes. 
• Jason Horn on his Nijasaur app. 
• World class cartoonist and man on the street Rich Tommaso takes over Fox 5 News.
• "Drop your punchline Joker!"

• Tom Spurgeon puts on his digital comics hat.  Cyber Spurge!
• Speaking of digital comics, my pal Jeremy Massie is through the first chapter of his webcomic, All My Ghosts.  It's great!  And it was his birthday this week so happy birthday pal. 
• The Punisher and other nasty comics dudes are burning in hell.  
• Julia Wertz talks to the LA Times. 
• Jimi Hendrix would have been 70 this week.  Here is a comic I made about that time he took some punk dude to Electric Ladyland. 
• Charles Schulz, the most important human the United States has ever produced, would have been 90 this week. 
• For absolutely no reason at all other than that I spend a good amount of time thinking about The Great Kabuki- "Get your Asian in the ring!"

• One of my favorite Brad McGinty pieces is/was the November cover of Big Issue.  King Kong y'all!  Life is weird people and sometimes it just all seems to come from or be going to the same place.  In issue 2 of my favorite comic, The Invisibles, the main character is selling Big Issue.  I read that before I ever became pals with Brad McGinty.  Years latter, I'm sitting in front of a computer monitor talking about Brad being on the cover while I'm wearing a Brad McGinty t-shirt.  I don't know what any of that means. 
• Here is a neat post on movie ads in comics.  When I read old comics, the movie ads are great for helping me place the comic into the context of its time. 
• The Ink Panters Banthas make a sneak return to talk Star Wars 
• Another critics round table at Inkstuds.  And in putting this together I notice that a show with Box Brown just went up. 
• Dustin Harbin did a neat illo for Charlotte Mag.  And this Miles Davis print might be my favorite Dharbin piece yet.  

THE BEST NEW PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK

(Image stolen from Comics Alliance.)
...was Adventure Time no. 10 by Ryan North, Shelli Paroline, Braden Lamb, Jon M. Gibson, Jim Rugg and some other people.  And really, it was no contest.  I read some other new comics that were okay.  The new Grant Morrison Batman Inc. was about as good as a Batman comic book can possibly be.  The new Bendis All-New X-Men was pretty good but the colors are just terrible.  The new Superman was okay but just two issues in they already have the new team bogged down in a crossover.  But Adventure Time was the best.   The main story is a choose your own adventure thing that was a lot of fun and full of great jokes.  I read it three times to try different options.  My daughter read it four times.  But the main attraction in this comic as far as I'm concerned was the back up story which Jim Rugg drew in ball point pen on notebook paper.  It is fantastic.  And I can see this thing really inspiring a lot of kids to make comics.  Not that it looks like the kind of thing anyone could do.  Quite the contrary.  Rugg's art is outstanding.  I think it will inspire kids because they can see the tools right there on the page.  They can look at it and think, hey, I've got ball point pens, I've got paper, I could do that.  This one could be a game changer for crafty young Adventure Time kids out there.  Comics Alliance has a preview that shows a good bit of Rugg's ball point magic. 

• And finally... song of the year.

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.

My favorite minicomics and webcomics of 2008.

(From Anders Loves Maria.)
It's that time of year when bloggy people start trotting out their "best of" lists. As I've said before, I don't think the word "best" has any place in art criticism but I do have favorites so I'll share some of them with you. I always resist the idea of doing this kind of thing before the year is actually over but I'll go ahead and do it now in the hopes that some of you might buy some some of the minicomics I'll mention.

The only form of entertainment I am at all qualified to comment on is minicomics. I've read a lot of minicomics in 2008.

My absolute favorite minicomic of 2008? The one that stands above the rest for me is Josh Latta's Rashy Rabbit #4. Yeah, this may all sound biased because Josh is my pal but it is the comic I read and re-read the most in 2008. I think the drawing, the inking, tones, cover, writing, story, characters, jokes etc. are all just about seamless. I can't think of a more consistent minicomic from cover to cover. You can read my review of it here and you can read the thing yourself here but more importantly you should go buy a copy here. If you can think of a better minicomic from 2008 then by all means, email me and I'll email you back my address and you can send me a free copy of that awesome book.

There were a lot of other great books I have to mention. 2008 delivered a lot of strong anthology books. I think Candy or Medicine is important because of the wide range of creators in each issue but also because Josh Blair is doing just a good job keeping the thing on schedule and getting it into people's hands. Mallard out of the UK is important for similar reasons. The Good Minnesotan books are amazing looking. Vol. 3 is more of a graphic novel format (I'll review it soon) but 1 and 2 are two of the "best" designed minicomics I saw all year. Especially 2. Shitbeams on the Loose is another anthology with brilliant design but it's format is more graphic novel than traditional minicomic. Good content too. All that said, my favorite anthology of the year is Not My Small Diary 14. It is a great looking two volume set but it's the creators that make it my favorite. Alec Longstreth, John Porcellino and many more awesome talents in one package. I think I said in my review that it is probably the best dollar for dollar comics investment you can make. And, you can make that investment here. You won't regret it.

I saw some good sketchbook minis in 2008. I think my favorite might be J. Chris Campbell's 26 Robots. Just a perfect little robot book. Full color. Full of robots. Good fun. Brad McGinty's Bird Doggin' is right up there with it just with less robots and more girls. It's a great little pin up book with some nice color pages. Rob Ullman's latest Atom Bomb Bikini would probably be on the list too but I managed to leave HeroesCon without a copy. From what I saw at the show it is a good looking pin up book.

I was really impressed by work I saw from Ed Moorman and Sarah Olesky in various books and anthologies this year. I really liked Jeremy Massie's The Deadbeat minis and look forward to the graphic novel next year. Jeff Zwirek's Burning Building Comix are great looking and a lot of fun to lay out and assemble like Leggos. (Review coming soon Jeff.)

I also read a pretty good amount of webcomics. American Elf continues to be a favorite even after having read ten years worth of the things. I think it's getting better and better. Maybe it's because Kochalka is going through this fatherhood thing with two kids about he same age as mine but I think it is neat to watch it grow. American Elf has been around so long now that it is easy to take for granted. It is a part of my morning Internet log-on just like checking my email or looking at CNN.com but still it is a favorite. I'm a big fan of Rene Engstrom's Anders Loves Maria. I dislike that "best" word but it's the "best" ongoing fiction/drama/comedy/romance webcomic that I'm aware of. The drawing is great, the characters are great and the story really moves from page to page. Engstrom covers a lot of narrative and emotional space in a page of comics. Engstrom's scanner apparently died at some point this year but even with the pages being posted via digital camera it still looks good. It's the only ongoing web comic I can think of where I really care about finding out what happens next.

It feels more like a print comic on the web than a true webcomic but I really enjoyed Robert Tinnell and Bo Hampton's Demons of Sherwood at ComicMix. A Robin Hood horror story done in the Toth style? I'm sold. Brad McGinty's Paper Pusher and Dustin Harbin's comics at THE DHARBLOG are new and don't have a lot of pages up yet but seem to be on track to make my 2009 favorites list.

I could go on and on and there is a lot of great stuff I've left out but everything can't be my favorite. I also have a large amount of minicomics I have yet to review at file under other. Those books will be eligible for next year's list (since the eligibility judge is me).

Looking forward to 2009 with no idea what to expect.

Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith