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.
