Other Comics News Parade-O-Links 03072021

 

(Amazing Spider-Man Annual #14. August 31, 1982. Cover by John Romita Jr. with John Romita Sr.)

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 03072021.

• Hello sisters, brothers and others and welcome to another episode of your Other Comics News Parade-O-Links.  My name is Shano and I'll be your host.  How are you doing?  How was your week?  I'm okay.  I have a headache but it's not raining so I won't complain. I'm in a state of spring fever anticipation.  The sun is out.  The sky is blue.  The mud is starting to dry.  I'm anxious for it to be spring but it is still cold AF and we all know that it's not safe to do things when it is cold. Your limbs could snap off.  But it should get warm and maybe we'll get a vaccine and maybe we'll get that stimulus and then, who knows, comics con season is right around the corner right?  Everything will get back to normal right?
• Wrong.  Better luck next year Comic-Con. 
• WandaVision ended the way all MCU movies end, with digital cartoon versions of the characters flying around shooting energy beams at each other.  It was fine.  Eh, better than fine. It was emotional.  I think that's the strength of TV.  Your talented actors get several weeks to engage the audience and make the audience care about them so when you finally get to the digital cartoon battle at the end the stakes are higher.  This is certainly the most emotionally invested I've been invested in live action Marvel since Howard the Duck and Tim Robbins got on that ultralight aircraft. I thought the series was great with fantastic performances by Olsen, Bettany, Hahn and Pariss. Unlike movies, TV shows work, often in spite of their writing, on the strength of their cast and this show worked.  I'm sad it's over.  Also, I'm a little surprised it's over.  I was surprised to see it promoted as the series finale and not just the end of Season 1.  I guess these MCU Disney+ shows are all just miniseries? That's a bit disappointing.  I'd honestly prefer if they stayed with this format even if they never made another movie. Some folks were even more disappointed with the finale. While the series as a whole exceeded expectations the finale could not live up to promises real and imagined.  Marvel will get a pass on those imagined expectations.  Going in, I expected that maybe this series would be the backdoor to the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the multiverse or any number of possibilities.  Marvel didn't owe us any of that specifically. But there were promises the show made that it either didn't stick the landing on or just totally forgot to make the attempt.  You can't bring in an actor from a film franchise you purchased and not understand that your audience will expect a payoff.  You can't tease a Luke Skywalker level cameo and it just be one of your lead actors in different makeup.  Well, you can.  And they did.  But don't be coy when your audience is upset about it.  You've got 82 years of Marvel comics history to pull from so don't let lack of ideas be your downfall.  Teasing us has been a profitable business model for 13 years but the audience is eventually going to call your bluff. 
• I think the one thing we can all agree on is that it was a catastrophic misstep not to end the series with the white "Vision Quest" Vision strutting down a city street to the sound of Queen's "One Vision". 

• I also watched this week's episodes of the DC shows, Superman & Lois and The Flash.  I thought Supes and Lois was slow and boring.  The Flash was more interesting but tedious.  The simple truth of television is that the show works or doesn't work depending on if the audience connects with the cast.  That's really it.  The Flash's cast has proven it can return viewers despite comically bad writing.  Can Supes & Lois overcome it's writing?  Probably not for me.  I've got episodes of The Savage Dragon to watch on Peacock. 
• A lot of this week's "comics discourse" was centered around NFT and CryptoArt.  I'll post a link explaining it clearly as soon as a find one.  As it relates to comics, the question is, how bad is this going to exploit and screw the comics artist and which comics artists can be the first in line to be exploited and screwed.  Same as always. Rinse repeat. I don't understand it but it reminds me of one Saturday afternoon at a comic book convention in the late 90s.  I was a dealer at the time. I remember standing up and looking at where all the business in the room was happening.  I looked at where cash was changing hands. At that moment it was trading cards.  There was a moment where comics trading cards were very hot.  And it in that moment it hit me right between then eyes.  Comics were over.  At least as they had existing.  We had people in a room full of comics, ignoring the comics and handing over cash for a piece of cardboard that delivered a tiny glimpse of the comic.  We had put the delivery mechanism over the art.  The 90s comics boom ended.  We've never gotten back what we lost.  Will NFT destroy.... the internet?  Capitalism?  We can only hope!  Will it help destroy the environment?  Yeah, probably. 
• Some cartoonists dream of getting rich, others just want the literal torture to stop. 

• Jason Horn has launched a new Patreon for his space comic "Settle" and it look super rad.  I'm in.
• Jason has also been posting some neat DC comics house ads on the twudder so give him a follow if you know what's good. 
• File under Wrestling:  This is not comics or zines but it stuff you can read with your eyeballs.  I probably read more wrestling than I watch. Remember in The Lost Boys when Grandpa Barnard Hughes explained that he didn't need to watch TV because he had the TV guide.  I'm kind of the same way with television wrestling.  I'll skip the shows then read about them the following day to see if anything interesting happened and then I'll check out those specific matches or segments on YouTube or the streamings.  Colette Arrand has been responsible for most of the best wrestling writing online in recent years and now Arrand is the editor over at fanbyte so "business is picking up".
• I'm sure you guys are smart and follow Patrick Dean right?  He's getting better and better at drawing with his eyeballs. It's only a matter of time before he can shoot art directly from his mind into our minds. 
• In other comics/zines/Fluke organizers dudes from Georgia news, Robert Newsome broke his arm. Look how happy it made him.  Maybe we should all break our arms.  I'm sure he'll be fine but that's no reason not to go buy some of his quality zines. 
• Let's check in on our Carolina Man abroad and see how well Germany is adapting to Ashley Holt. 
• More Dorkin is more good. 
• I too am a sucker for a wacky cover and a Dave Letterman cameo. 

NEW COMICS I READ THIS WEEK

I still haven't made it to the comic shop but I'm working my way through a two foot high stack of books, comics and zines I've bought online during the plague. This week I read "The Burning Hotels" a memoir by Thomas Lampton from Birdcage Bottom Books. This auto-bio comic shows the cartoonist dealing with a lot of stuff.  On the surface it's about returning home and taking a closer look at your roots but it's also about divorce, autism, North Carolina, Appalachia, being a cartoonist, making the book itself and dealing with all of that during this very real and current pandemic.  It feels very of the moment and reads as if Lampton first considered each word as it was put on the page.  There is some neat drawing but I would say that Lampton's strength is in iconography.  This characters work as symbols more than drawings.  The art is working as a part of the writing though and that's the goal.  Or at least it should be the goal.  The result is more design heavy than drawing heavy.  There are art comics that are expression heavy and there are art comics that are design and function heavy.  This book is that latter.  My only complaint with the book is that Lampton changes font sizes from panel to panel. I'm sure it was a matter of presenting each panel at its best ratio to work with the rest of the page but I'm loosing my eyesight so I had to work at some of the panels.  

OLD COMICS I READ THIS WEEK

I think I'm through with my Vision and Scarlett Witch run for now.  I finished the original two miniseries and the related West Coast Avengers stuff.  Not great comics but weird enough to finish.  I might go back to the "Vision Quest" story next (John Byrne's white Vision) but I'm going to take a break from the Wandaverse and finish up some other things.  I'm still on my orange, brown and green hero books Doom Patrol and Suicide Squad.  I've also been re-visiting Jim "the most successful creative mind in Hollywood history" Starlin's Dreadstar. I was a big fan of the ongoing Epic comic when I was a kid but I've started at the beginning before the beginning and the beginning before that, "The Metamorphosis Odyssey" and Marvel Graphic Novel #3.  Those comics look very different than the ongoing Epic series.  For one thing, they are mostly painted.  Even when they are black and white.  It's simply the difference between late 70s early 80s adult comics magazines and 80s monthly direct market baxter paper comics.  Great stuff if you are into hardcore sci-fi fantasy. This stuff has been collected a few times.  If you want to star with the earliest stuff then the Dynamite collection "The Beginning" has that covered. 

• And finally, Francis is sick of carrying your ass. 

Remember pals, life is hard.  Never stop running unless it's to pick up a friend.  Read comics and chew Glorp gum every day and you'll keep on livin' until you're dead. 

Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith

p.s. I write comics.  Do you make comics?  Maybe you should hire me to write comics. 
p.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.p.s.  Yeah, I do Instagram too.  Maybe if 100,000 of you follow me there I'll be as famous as the average Cambodian teenager with a milk ring collection. 

Other Comics News Parade-O-Links 01292017

(American Flagg! #10 1983.  Cover by Howard Chaykin.  Stolen from My Comic Shop.)

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 01292017.

"And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave." - President Ronald Reagan

• 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.  Happy Chinese New Year.  To quote the last prophet of the 90s Keanu Reeves, "whoa".  What a week huh?  Just a week ago when we last spoke we had just seen the inauguration of a new President in these United States and inspiring marches all around the world.  Since then,  every day has been a series of events that were never supposed to be possible. There are millions of Americans and millions and millions around the world right now who are scared.  Their lives are uncertain.  Their future is uncertain.  I have my own fears of course.  Everything is fragile. A politician or an executive I've never met could end my livelihood with the stroke of a pen.  But I'm a white man in America so my fears are those of inconvenience and folly compared to those of different birth country, skin tone or religion.  I don't know much about anything but here is what I know about Muslims. Here is what I know about refugees.  For about four years my next door neighbors were a Muslim family.  They were refugees from Bosnia. If you walked by their house you wouldn't have known they were Muslim.  The father was an auto mechanic.  You'd see him outside working on cars or playing with his kids.  I thought he was Italian at first.  The mother was a brunette.  She was quite but polite and generous.  Most of my interaction was with the kids.  They were always outside playing and my daughter played with them all the time.  The kids had blond hair and blue eyes.  They could have passed for my kid's siblings. They had a trampoline and my daughter would want to bounce with them every day. If you were around enough you'd begin to notice the accent and that the parents spoke to the children in Bosnian.  You'd hear the kids playing games counting in Bosnian.  You'd notice that they had a pit for roasting lamb.  If you were around long enough to notice the lamb pit you'd probably be invited over to enjoy the feast.  They were generous beyond measure.   If they were eating popsicles you had a popsicle.  If the father and his cousins were drinking beer you had a beer.  The father fixed my car for free multiple times.  He loaned me tools.  He loaned me his lawnmower.  They were as good neighbors as I've ever know.  One time we were over for dinner at their house.  I think it was a holiday for them.  They had a lot of family over.  But, then again, it was like that every Sunday there.  They served lamb, beers and strong Turkish coffee.  They had a huge gold embossed painting of Mecca on the wall in the dining room.  I asked the father if he had ever been there.  He laughed.  He said that no, he had never been because he could not give up his beer.  This was a man, an auto mechanic who worked hard for his family.  He loved God and he loved beer.  What's more American than that?  Picture him in your mind.  Out in his yard after a long day of work at the garage working on another car either for extra money or as a favor to a friend.  He's got his blue mechanic's shirt on. It's untucked and his belly shows a little.  The kids are playing in the back yard.  The mother comes out onto the front porch to call them all in for super.  There he is drinking his beer and taking care of his family.  The American Dream.  And he was a Muslim refugee.  

• Look, I'm super liberal but the New York Times and the UN can stick it up their asses.  Will out of touch adults always make bad decisions that belittle and alienate the people they need most and should serve most?  Probably.
• "We are all going to die" or "save us Doctor Manhattan".
• Hold freedom close. 

• Chris Schweizer talked about storytelling with Jerzy Drozd. 
• Also, Schweizer has a Patreon now. 
• Wrestling zine heavyweight champ Robert Newsome of The Atomic Elbow has a piece on Paste about the new DDT Universe streaming service. 
• Speaking of Robert Newsome, Athen Georgia's finest minicomics and zine fest had its registration yesterday and sold out fast.  So, I mean, I guess this news post is worthless to all you longstapler jockeys that might want a table but there's no reason every dang one of us can't go to Fluke on April 29th and have a fine time. 
• The Dollar Bin podcast is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.   This week's podcast features America's most hugable cartoonist J. Chris Campbell interviewing Adam.  The whole world is upside down I tell's ya. 
• The bad news is that the Steelers are out of the playoffs.  The good news is that world champ sports cartoonist Rob Ullman will be starting a regular gig with DK Pittsburgh Sports. 
• I haven't watched that new Archie TV yet show but Abbey Coleslaw did and that's good enough for me. 
• And finally, Francis has a problem with taking the easy way out...

• Remember pals, life is hard.  Never stop running unless it's to pick up a friend.  Read comics and chew Glorp every day and you'll keep on livin' until you're dead. 

Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith

p.s. I write comics.  Do you make comics?  Maybe you should hire me to write comics. 
p.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.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
p.p.p.p.p.p.s.  Yeah, I do Instagram too.  I guess it's a law or something.

I drove 628 miles round trip to buy your minicomic: The 2014 fuo Fluke report.

This is Fluke. (Image stolen from Fluke.) 

(EDITOR'S NOTE:  I started writing this soon after Fluke but then I got busy with work that pays me money.  Sorry.  As much as I'd love to spend all day creating "content" for you to share with your mom on Facebook, I gotta get paid. The kids gotta have their My Little Ponies.)

FLUKE, APRIL 19th 2014. ATHENS GA, USA.

Fluke is a mini-comics and zine festival that takes place in Athens GA USA every spring.  I love it.  I think this is year twelve of the show.  I think I've been to maybe seven of them?  I like it so much that when I don't go I have Henry Eudy drop in by parachute to write a report about it for file under other.  (Or maybe he drives there?  I forget logistics.)  The point that I am trying to make with this opening paragraph is that Fluke is great.  I love it.  You love it.  We love it. 

I love Fluke so much that I requested to have off from work the Friday before the show months in advance so that I could drive down before the show and enjoy Athens.  This request was denied.  So, I had to leave after work and drive in the rain all Friday night showing up in town sometime in the Saturday AM.  Same as always.

The way you (and by you, I mean I) get to Athens GA from southwest VA is to drive to Kingsport, TN then get on Interstate 26 and take it through the Carolinas then on into Georgia.  I'd like to take a moment to talk with you about the abomination that is Interstate 26.  

I once read a book about traveling through Mongolia and post Soviet Russia and how terrible the roads were.  As in there were not any roads.  I'm assuming it was a lot like Interstate 26.  Calling Interstate 26 an "interstate" is the most flattering lie I could direct at Interstate 26.  Interstate 26 is a nightmare.  It is driving for three hours on road so bumpy that you have to keep telling yourself over and over that you do not have a flat tire.  Yet.  How do people in North Carolina live like this?  If you drive that road more than once a week I assure you that you are living with a constant concussion and you are most likely brain damaged right now.  Brain damage being the only thing I can imagine that has prevented every single citizen of North Carolina from marching on their state capital and demanding that Interstate 26 be improved and/or just murdering everyone in the building. 

Sections of I-26 have sings that read "Future".  They have said this for years and years.  The future is never going to come to North Carolina.  I guess the future can't happen everywhere.

Eventually, I made it to Interstate 85 and headed on into Georgia.  Touching tires to asphalt on I-85 after hours on I-26 is like arriving at Disney World after a days long journey.  I can only imagine what it must feel like for pilgrims to arrive at Mecca but I'm guessing the elation is much like that moment when you realize that all of I-26 is behind you. 

This concludes the Interstate Highway System review portion of the report. 

Around 12:20 or 1:30 AM (some time with a 30 in it) I finally arrived that the home of cartoonist extraordinaire and Fluke organizer Patrick Dean.  Patrick had graciously offered me couch space to I took him up on it as I am cheap and don't like sleeping outside. I presented my host with a collection of Werewolf by Night comics as is the custom.  Patrick gave me the tour of his lovely home.  He has some very impressive original art but I mainly looked at his kids' toys. We then talked about Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko for a while.  Again, as is the custom.

The next morning everyone got up and I met Patrick's wife and kids.  Patrick's son showed me his toys.  We had a nice breakfast and then it was time to get out there and make Fluke happen.  Patrick lives a few minutes outside of Athens and I enjoyed the drive into town.  The non-Atlanta parts of Georgia are very pretty.  Trees, ponds, ducks, covered bridges, Waffle Houses with giant bulldogs painted on the side... it's nice.

We went to Kroger and picked up a giant cake for the show.  As is the custom.

This is 40 Watt Club around 9 AM before the Fluking starts.

We got to the 40 Watt Club around 9 AM and met up with Fluke organizer, writer, editor, publisher, retired pod-caster and all round swell fellow Robert Newsome.  This is a good two hours before the show starts but there were already a few exhibitors waiting to get into the show.  Which is odd, because Fluke adopted a pre-show registration process last year so these guys knew they had a table.  But, who am I to question their enthusiasm?   I drove six hours in the rain.

At 9 AM on a Saturday, 40 Watt Club is an empty place.  It was strange to be in a bar in the AM and not be intoxicated.  I pressed on. Robert and Patrick's friends showed up to help set up for the show.  They included Joey Weiser, Michele Chidester, Drew Weing, David Mack and maybe some other people I apologize for forgetting.  In my mind, I call this group of people Athens Force and when I think the words "Athens Force" I see it in my mind in the font from the cover logo of  Atari Force.  They showed up to help load in the tables but the tables were not there yet.  Drama!
Not really.  The tables showed up a little while after 9:30.  We probably had them set up and ready for Fluking by 10.

Somewhere previously in that last paragraph, I should have mentioned that while we waited for the tables two fun things happened.  1) Patrick Dean went to Waffle House to get a knife to cut the Fluke Cake but he also bought and ate a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit because he felt it was the polite thing to do.
2)  Robert Newsome played with the Fluke megaphone.  Fluke has a megaphone.

This is Michele Chidester using sorceress powers to make a cake appear. (She did not really use sorceress powers to make it appear.  Patrick Dean bought it from a grocery store bakery. I saw it happen.  Both Michele and Patrick may have sorcery based powers but I'm pretty sure the cake was just eggs, flour, sugar and whatever else goes into cakes.  What does go into cakes?  I honestly have no idea.  (It's probably sorcery.)

This is the stage of 40 Watt Club.  Famous people have performed music on that stage.  I have never seen that happen.  I have seen people buy, trade and read minicomics and zines in a rock club though.

This is Robert Newsome harassing complete strangers with a Megaphone.  (He totally knows who those people are but the thought of him harassing strangers is funnier.)

 It was my understanding that the Earth revolves around the sun so the appearance of sunshine moving is just an illusion.  But, since these guys have an exact street address of where the sunshine has moved, I may be wrong.

Tables hungry for Fluking.

The line was backed up all the way to where the sunshine had moved.

At 10 AMish, exhibitors were allowed into the show to set up.  This is great because a lot of the exhibitors are my long time pals.  It only takes a few minutes to set up so that leaves some time to socialize.  As soon as Henry Eudy came through the door I flagged him down and asked if he wanted to share a table with me.  This is because I love him.
He said yes.
We used his cool Halloween skull tablecloth to cover our table.  It looked nice.

This is my table setup.  Kinda orange. 

After the tables were set up, the knife was acquired and Patrick ate his biscuit, the non-exhibitor patron type people were welcomed in at 11 AM and Fluke was on.

Also at 11 AM, 40 Watt Club's bar opened.  I believe I was the first customer.  I ordered Jim Beam with Ginger Ale.  Five bucks and a tip.  It was good. 

This is me making a face at Henry Eudy. (Image stolen from Henry Eudy.)

This is Henry Eudy (the world's most dangerous man) making a face at me.

 Robert Newsome.  The longest reigning The Atomic Elbow Professional Wrestling Zine World Heavyweight Champ of the modern era.

This is Robert Newsome yelling at my shoes with a megaphone.  (He is not really yelling at my shoes but, again, made up stuff is funnier.)  (Image stolen from Fluke.) 

Now there are people in Fluke doing Fluke things.  I see Rich Tommaso, J. Chris Campbell and Jason Horn.  We are doing Fluke y'all!   (Image stolen from Fluke.) 

This is Adam Daughhetee doing Adam Daughhetee things.  (Image stolen from Fluke.) 
Adam and Shawn Daughhetee had the new Dollar Bin comics zine thing and it looked great.  It contains an Adam Rose pin-up by me.  You should track them down and buy 12 copies. 

That is Eleanor Davis on the right being tall and awesome. (Image stolen from Fluke.) 

Yes, David Mack and Joey Weiser would like some cake. (Image stolen from Fluke.) 

Fluke does not have an awards show or panels.  Fluke has cake.  I think we started eating the cake around noon.  

It was probably also around noon that Patrick's wife showed up with more biscuits from Waffle House.  Patrick ate them.

Henry Eudy's cake kind of fell apart.  He cried for a while and then murdered all of us.  (No, he did not murder us.  But again, made up stuff is funny and murder is hilarious.)  (Image stolen from Fluke.) 

That is Adam Casey doing Adam Casey things. (Image stolen from Fluke.) 

 This is people Fluking.

The show had a good crowd.  All of the tables were sold out in one day of registration so we knew the room would be full.  I think the walk up non-cartoonist attendance was steady.  Not the most shoppers I've seen at Fluke but it was a rainy day and the day before Easter.  I didn't sell as much as I have in the past but a lot of the business you do at a show like this is with other cartoonists and I did not have anything new on my table that the folks that I already knew had not already picked up.  I was also out of what have been my two best selling comics so I guess I need to re-print those and finish some new stuff right now.

 Here is a picture I took from one of Henry Eudy's sketchbooks.  I think it is great.

Henry Eudy seemed to do very well.  Henry's table is a good example of my multiple price points philosophy in action.  Henry had small prints and comics in an affordable price range.  And his stuff looks great.  His bigger prints with their bold colors seemed to bring folks over and the smaller stuff gave them something to walk away with.

I didn't ask anyone about sales or numbers but Rich Tommaso seemed to be very busy.  He had a solid variety of Recoil books on his table.  The all look great.  Picking up some stuff from Rich was one of the main things on my to-do list.  So I did.

Other things on my to-do list included getting whatever Drew Weing and Eleanor Davis had to offer and getting anything that Patrick Dead had that I was missing from my collection.  I did those things and it was good.

I really was not focused on selling. I was mainly there to talk to my comics friends and see what was new.  I talked to J. Chris Campbell about Brad McGitny.  I talked to Rich Tommaso about Patrick Dean.  I talked to Drew Weing about Margo Maloo.  I talked to Robert Newsome about Jimmy Valiant.  I talked to a lot of people about wrestling.  A lot of people talked to me about how rad my Brad McGinty t-shirt was.  I regretted not talking as much as I wanted to to many other people.  (Sorry bros.  Get at me at HeroesCon.)

 This is Patrick Dean announcing that Fluke has cake for people to eat.  I really should have put this picture up above the pictures of people eating the cake but get your own blog and don't tell me what to do. Maybe try tumblr.  All the kids love tumblr.

Here are more Fluke people.  I'm pretty sure I've known everyone in this picture for about a decade but I don't know any of their names.  (I know some of their names but, again, comedy.)

Here is another picture that looks almost the same as the other pictures I took from behind my table.  Walking around and taking pictures honestly never occurred to me.  Professional photo journalists just stand in one spot and wait for something exciting to happen right?  Well, that's what I did.

The dude on the left is me and the dude on the right is my pal writer and former co-worker Todd O'Brien.  The last time I saw him was a previous Fluke show about 5 years ago.  He grew a beard.  And a hat.  Maybe he bought the hat.  I didn't ask.  Look, if anyone can grow a hat, it's that guy.

After Fluke we all went to the Bizzaro-Wuxtry comics shop.  As is the custom.  It is great.  You should go there.  They have at least one of everything.  Also, Devlin, the gentleman that runs the shop, bought copies of Fluke peoples' minicomic and zines to sell in the shop.  Go there now.  I several different minicomics on sell there right now.  Right now!

This is Robert Newsome playing with a Hulk toy at Bizzaro-Wuxtry.  I thought about cropping out that bending over dude's back but whatever.  When I put this picture on my facebook page it wanted me to "tag" all of those masks because it thought they were all real peoples' faces.  Ha hah hah!  The joke is on you Zuckerberg!  You may be worth a billion dollars but that website you "invented" that is just MySpace with the customization features turned off does not know the difference between a Sylvester the Cat mask and a human being!

We eventually left Bizzaro and headed out looking for some dinner.  I was super hungry having eaten only breakfast, cake and some tic-tacs.  Patrick was starving having only eaten at least breakfast, cake and three bacon egg and cheese biscuits.  Robert, Patrick, my pall Todd and I ended up at Yummy Pho where we found Rich Tommaso, his girlfriend and another fellow to whom I apologize for not remembering his name.  I ordered grilled pork.  It was great.  Robert and Patrick ordered these huge bowls of crazy Vietnamese noodles.  These bowls were the size of bowls you would use if you were going to make a large quantity of food that would then be served in several smaller bowls to several people.  They ate it all and did not die.  I was impressed.

Yummy Pho was very good and very affordable.  I recommend it.  I wish I was there eating right now. (Even though Robert Newsome thinks that adults should not say the word "yummy".  I kinda agree with him.  Maybe mothers can say the word yummy to their own children but a grown man should probably never say it unless talking specifically about a Vietnamese restaurant with the word "yummy" in its name or Chester Brown comics.)

This is a picture of the stuff I got at Fluke.  Actually, I got other things but those were for my kids and they took those things before I took this picture. 

After dinner and a stop in a record store (it was record store day) it was time to say my sad farewells and head back to Virginia.  Huge enormous thank-yous to Patrick Dean and his family for having me.  Thanks to Robert and everyone else for hanging out and having a swell time.  I miss you all already.  Let's do it again. 

Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith

p.s. Say you want a leader but you can't seem to make up your mind. I think you'd better close it and let me guide you to my twitter feed.
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
p.p.p.p.p.s.  Yeah, I do Instagram too now.  I guess it's a law or something.

Other Comics News Parade-O-Links 12212013

(Masters of the Universe No. 46 (UK) .  Stolen from James Eatock.)

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 12212013:

"Cartoon Network gravy train is a bit closer to those little handcarts where you pump the handle up and down and roll down the track behind the gravy train. It's a cool replacement for a lame dayjob, but from what I've been told the pay's about the same. All things considered, I'd rather be back in the David Heatley days than wait for Adventure Time/Regular Show/Steven Universe to save us all." -Sean T. Collins.

• Merry Christmas everybody.  And if you don't celebrate Christmas then, Merry Christmas!  And I don't mean that to be antagonistic or as a way to try and convert you to my religion.  I mean it exactly for what it is.  A greeting in the tradition of the customs in which I was raised and live.  It means that I wish you and yours good health, good fortune, merriment and joy this season.  If you or anyone from any culture, language or faith would greet me with well wishes in your own custom I would accept it graciously and appreciate your kind thoughts.  Respecting the customs of another human being does not mean that you embrace those customs or that you have been submissive to them.  I just means that for about a half a second, you mustered up the human strength to be polite to someone that was trying to be polite to you.  It's pretty easy.  Shalom.  Merry Christmas. 
• Robert Newsome over at Second Period Industries has prepared some Christmas music for you to download and enjoy.  Also, he let The Robot host his most recent podcast and it is a little bit scary. 
• It is the holidays so that means the Holiday Spurge is rolling out his holiday interview series faster than I can read them.  So far I have very much enjoyed the Paul Pope and Sean Collins/Joe Mculloch interviews. 
• I don't know that I've ever read an Ed Luce comic but the stuff in this Rob Clough piece looks interesting. 
• Chip Zdarsky has a hilarious hobby and this Sex Criminals cover is magical. 
• Frank Santoro put together a list of best of lists from 2006 to 2012 because that is the kind of thing Frank Santoro does. 
• Sparkplug could use your patronage. 
• It is ridiculous how good Boulet is. 
• The great Sam Henderson talked to CBR. 
• This week, a great many comics folk learned how to spell LaBeouf. I think the guy stealing from a Picturebox about page is twice as strange as him stealing from a comic to make a movie.  We give people Academy Awards for stealing from a comic to make a movie.  (Seriously people, Diablo Cody straight up used the Dan Clowes/Terry Zwigoff screenplay from Ghost World to write Juno and they gave her a freaking Oscar!  Of course Shia LaBeouf would steal.  The Academy practically commands you to!  Jeez-Its people.)
• This is literally the first best of list I've read this year where I thought, yeah, some of that stuff is pretty good. 
• Fluke really is awesome and it will also be on April 19th at the 40 Watt next year. 
• I hope someone is keeping score.  I'm starting to lose track. 
• I'm hopeful that all of Pussy Riot will be freed and will be able to live normal quality lives. But the only way I'll watch the Olympics is if Pussy Riot plays the opening ceremonies.  (After which, I will immediately stop watching the Olympics.)
• And finally..."ones for guns, I know at one, and the other's for whenever you're shootin' off your guns you can say whatever you want". 

Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith

p.s. Say you want a leader but you can't seem to make up your mind. I think you'd better close it and let me guide you to my twitter feed.
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
p.p.p.p.p.s.  Yeah, I do Instagram too now.  I guess it's a law or something.

Other Comics News Parade-O-Links 01202013

(Image of a historically and scientifically correct flying gorilla stolen from The Golden Age.)

Here are some things I found interesting in the world of minicomics, comic books, graphic novels, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics, cartoons, digital comics, other, etc. during the week ending 01202013:

“I had no idea the world really looked like this, with such infinite clarity. It looks like a modernist photo or a hyperreal film, everything in focus everywhere. Everyone kept saying ‘oh, do you see the leaves now?’ but the first thing I saw was not the leaves but the people. People, individuated, each with brilliant faces and expressions at gaits, the sun streaming down upon them. I couldn’t help but smile. It’s much harder being a misanthrope when you can see people’s faces.”   -Aaron Swartz

(Just like Bachman-Turner Overdrive.)

• The Fluke minicomics and zine fest in Athens GA is one of my favorite shows.  Earlier this week they had registration for the first 60 tables and they all sold out in one day.  Not bad.  But don't fret none G.  They held back a few tables and have a waiting list so you should probably look into that right now.  The show is April 6th.  You are going to have so much fun buying me a beer.  I can't wait!
• People.  Paul Pope's Battling Boy looks great.  I'ma gonna need one of those. In related news, EW still exists. 
• Rob Clough talks to Charles Forsman about the Oily and the subscription model publishing. 
• And because he is Rob Clough he also reviewed a bunch of minicomics. 
• Kate Beaton explains what all the youngs need to know about going to art school and or teaching themselves art.  The most important take away to remember is that yes, young impressionable artist, yes you should totally steal a copy of Photoshop. 
• Annie Koyama at Meanwhile.
• Warren Ellis says don't worry, everything is fine.  Trust him.  He has an accent. 

• Paul Gravett read some interesting comics last year. 
• How to help Peter David get back to Peter Daviding. 
• The Comics Reporter did another digital/web/non-paper comic round up. 
• Sigh. 
• One of the benefits of being late with this week's Parade-O-Links is that I can squeeze in a link to The Comics Reporter's Five For Firday post.  It's my favorite game show. 
• I like Ann Nocenti and I like Katana a lot more than is rational so I'm gonna want this comic but then my local comic shop (which is really a video game store) is not going to have it and then I'll be sad but then latter I'll probably buy it at Cavalier Comics over in Wise, VA  or maybe at a comic book convention or maybe on eBay.  (Katana talks to her sword people.  She talks to a sword.  Shhh... she thinks her husband is in it.  Katana is is teh cray cray.)
• The thing that most makes me furious about this Platinum nonsense is that I've been calling Steven Spielberg for 20 years and not one meeting.  Not one damned meeting Steven! 
• Hang in there true believer. 
• Are you people watching the best show on TV?  Are you watching Boyd Crowder Junkie Exploder Justified?  You should.  My man Walton Goggins is the business y'all. 
• The Christopher Reeve version is the correct version. 
• Obviously. 
• This Joe Kubert comics explains every detail of how comics are were made. It's all in the high-powered arc lights.
• Chris Sims talks about Batman and guns and guns and Batman.   

• This super pretentious sounding Autoptic show in Minneapolis sounds like it will certainly be a thing that happens in August.  I think every town in the United States should have its own indie comics and zine festival once year.  At each show, one creator will be selected through a series of vicious and violent challenges.  Then, at the end of the festival season, all of the selected creators will be dropped on an island and forced to fight to the death.  This will not be televised.  The sole surviving creator will draw a minicomic of the event and send one copy back to mankind by bottle.  
• Awww Lil Bub wolled awound on duh cowmics and wuz so cute with its willte curly tongue and its wittle kitty face. 
• Robert Newsome's talking and music thing was good this week.  Liked that song about monkey Godzooky or whatever it was.  And also, he talked about wrestling again. 

• Heavy Metal, Gasoline Alley and other things are burning in hell.  I have not listened to this one yet but I'm gonna assume the boys use the F word a lot. 
• I just pray this thing sells well enough that Boom will do a follow up where Finn and Jake from Adventure Time read Dave Sim's faxes as printed out of BMO's butt.  (Dave Sim is so the Ice King.)
• So the way I make this Parade-O-Links each week is that I have this online checklist creator thing to make a list, and I just paste in interesting things I see all week.  And this week, I pasted in bunch of stuff about Robert Venditti.  The comics people, they like to talk to Robert Venditti.  I like talking to him too.  He's swell and good at the thinking and talking.  Comics Vine talked to him about X-O Manowar.  Then they talked to him some more about Demon Knights.  Then io9 talked to him some more about Demon Knights.

THE BEST SINGLE NEW PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK

(Image stolen from Archonia.)

...was a lot of trouble to figure out.  We had a big snow storm this week that kept me from the local comic shop (which is actually a video game store and which is actually not local to the town where I live but is in the town where I work).  I finally made it to the shop on Saturday but did not see a lot of interesting books.  My pal Robert Venditti's first issue of Demon Knights came out this week.  I wanted that comic.  I read a bit of the Cornell run and thought it was okay, I like the Demon and I like all of Venditti's comics so I had the shop order me a copy and add it to my "list" as soon as it was announced.  But, like clockwork, the shop did not get Demon Knights 16.  They are not so great at getting the comics I want. They still have not gotten any copies of Superior Spider-Man.  Not one single time have they had X-O Manowar on the week it came out.  (Which is the only reason it has not been my BEST NEW SINGLE PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK so far.)  Oh well, the rural life is hard.  So the comics I got were bATMan #16 and All-New X-Men #6.
Batman was okay.  Just okay.  Snyder and Capullo are very good at making Batman comics but I'm disappointed with this "Death of the Family" story. It's just not for me.  It's gross.  It's disgusting.  It is horror and it feels more like Snyder doing his impersonation of a horror movie than it does something fresh or imaginative.  Snyder's big long Owl story was more of a mystery thriller and I thought he nailed it.  He understood all the beats and the pacing.  The pacing feels really rushed in this Joker thing.  It's like he's using Grant Morrison hyper speed style.  It works for Morrison because Morrison is telling Silver Age madness.  It does not work for horror.  This issue is mostly a house of death traps comic where Batman goes through his rogues gallery like going through bosses at the end of video game levels.  Which is exactly what Grant Morrison did better just recently in Batman Inc.  There is no time for anything to resonate in this.  Beating Clayface should be bigger.  Beating Mr. Freeze should be bigger.  Seeing your main foes and the Joker arranged as a royal court at the end should be bigger.  It's too many oh my god moments without any time for the audience to say oh my god.  It's not scary if the audience does not have time to scream.
All-New X-Men was very good.  The best of the series so far.  All of the set up was ironed out in issues 1 through 5 so now we get to see Bendis do what he does best.  Write people talking on and on and on.  And it's great.  That is what the X-Men do between funerals. This issue has two things going on.  Kitty Pryde teaching Jean Grey how to be Jean Grey and Wolverine trying to teach Cyclops not to be Cyclops.  And no sight of a villain until you hit the last page.  A very good X-Men comic but I'm not going to give it my BEST designation.
Nope, THE BEST NEW SINGLE PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK was my daughter's delivered by mail subscription copy of Life With Archie #26.  Written by Paul Kupperberg with art by Fernando Ruiz, Pat Kennedy and Tim Kennedy.  There is so much to love about this comic.  For one thing, it cost $3.99 (less by subscription) and has two full length comics in it.  That is the same price as bATMan and All-New X-Men.  Plus it is a very comfortable magazine size.  And I love the cheap paper.  It smells great.  Hate that glossy crap.  For those that have not read Life With Archie, it is an elseworlds kind of thing where Archie has two possible futures.  In one, he marries Veronica and in the other he marries Betty.  The two comics are surprisingly different and together they provide a lot of soap opera story lines.  In just this issue Kevin Keller (the much hyped gay war vet character) is running for Senate, Kevin's husband is going through physical therapy after getting shot, Veronica is starting her own business, Archie is starting work as a record exec,  Moose is dealing with drama in his job as Mayor and  Reggie and Betty are having problems with their reality show.  And that is just in the Veronica half of the book!  I've said this before but I love it when things happen in a comic book.  Kupperberg is moving a huge cast trough two comics at the same time.  I'm impressed. 

• And finally... if Boogie can do it, you can do it. 

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.