Other Comics News Parade-O-Links 01112017

(Star Wars issue 106.  Cover by Cynthia Martin.  Image stolen from Rebel Scum. )

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 weeks ending 01/11/2017.

"Look, I don’t have time for this." - Steve Ditko.

• 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.  I've been away for a bit.  Well, I've been right here.  I've just been busy.  September through November is my busiest time of year at work.  Then after that holiday and family stuff took over.  Family first right?  But 2017 will be a big year for file under other.  2017 is an anniversary year so more on that down the road. 
• So, here we are.  My head and my heart are in knots.  I appologize in advance that this Parade-O-Links will be short on comics.  That's not comics' fault.  It's my fault.  I'm dealing with some things.  I'll get better.  For the 2nd time in the last five Presidential elections the person that received the largest amount of votes will not be our next President.  It happens.  Some people are concerned.  And with good reason.  Imagine the riots in the streets if two out of five Superbowl Championships were handed to the team with less points.  The last time this happened we invaded the wrong countries and went to war for fifteen years. So... good luck?  Look, our democracy failible.  Our democracy is fragile.  It's scary.  But one of the main reasons these United States have been safe from tyranny is that every four to eight years we have the peaceful removal and replacement of our top leader.  So whether your candidate won or lost, remember, this is temporary.  Maybe. 
• And by Maybe I mean please remember that Vladimir Putin circumvented Russia's constitution and appointed himself Prime Minister and then President after having exceeded Russia's term limits.  Again, democracy is fragile.
• Kompromat. 
• Don't take democracy for granted.  It can end.  Democracies end.  Some times by force and sometimes by will.  Sometimes they get pissed away.  

• Friends.  This isn't a political blog but I'm reporting to you live right now from the Unites States of America and this is just the world around us right now.  I know a lot of very smart people discourage artists, creative types and well, basically anyone that would like to attain employment at some point, to keep the political opinions off social media because it could be held against you and cost you gigs.  I get it. I get it.  But if we live in a country where you have to be afraid to speak your mind then we've already lost.  And personally, I don't want to work for or with people that don't respect my opinion. My mind, my glorious freaking mind, is exactly WHY you SHOULD want to work with me.  And if you're paying  me to shut up then you're wasting your money.  

 

• Guys.  I just need to take a moment to say that this webpage is doing some weird things with font that and alignment that are driving me crazy but I just don't have the patience to figure out right now.  Sorry.

• Enough about the future/end of the free world.  Let's talk about me. I recently drew a four page comic about "Handsome" Jimmy "The Boogie Woogie" Man Valiant and Magnet Man having a monster truck sumo battle for Brien Wayne Powell's Boogie Jam 4Ever. It's great.  You should buy seven copies.  Brien also has what has to be one of the longer running ongoing webcomics about Magnet Man and the Boogie Woogie Man's adventures over at Boogie Jam Online.  I've got some other wrasslin' comics in the works but they are top secret so you will have to wait to find out about them. (Or, ya know, just ask me.)
• Speaking of the word "handsome".  Does the way Taylor Swift pronounces "handsome" weird anyone else out?
• 2016 was a rough one for a lot of us.  It was a rough one for the world.  A lot of people have it worse than I do and I can be pretty miserable. There's a solid chance that tomorrow I'll wake up and my county's schools and hospitals will still be standing.  That's not true everywhere. So many have lost so much.  We focus on the death's of famous people because those folks are like our shared extended family.  There is a commonality there that we can empatize with.  I may know know you but if I know you loved David Bowie then I can understand how much it hurt a year ago when he left us.  You may not know me but if you loved Prince then I can tell you about how I bought my first guitar because of him when I was 15 and that I picked out a white one because of Purple Rain. Carrie Fisher meant so much to so many of us around the world.  She was the first girl I ever wanted to marry. She never stopped inspiring.  We need a million more of her.  Especially now. Comics also lost a lot of great ones. We will press on.  Forward.  Forward.  But don't forget. How could we?

• Those of you have been reading file under other for a while know that I usually end these posts with a video from our youtube pal Francis.  I hate to break internet kayfabe but Francis is just a character.  The man behind Francis is Steven Williams, also known as boogie2988.  I grew up in the same small town, watchin' cartoons and readin' comics at the same library.  He was a year behind me in school but I've know him since pre-school. He's a sweetheart and was always the funniest guy in the room. This past year he received one of the highest honors you can receive in video games without actually making them. I'm proud of ya' Boogie.  Ya done good.  Saint Paul High School represent!
• And now ladies and gentlemen...

THE BEST NEW semi-recent COMIC comics I READ THIS WEEK recently.

Disney Pirates of the Caribbean issues 1 and 2 by Chris Schweizer, Joe Flood and Marissa Louise.  Published by Joe Books LTD.  $2.99.

I didn't know much about this comic going into it beyond the fact that Chris Schweizer was writing it.  I missed the whole Pirates of the Caribbean movie phenomenon at the time the films came bout because my kids were not at the PG-13 age yet.  Those movies came out during a time when I pretyt much only saw talking animal movies.  But, I'm a sucker for any movie with a boat in it so I watched the 1st movie on Netflix recently after I bought these comics at my LCS but before I read them.  I liked the movie a lot.  It had boats in it. 

I loved both issues of this comic.  I think is really lovely from cover to cover. I don't know anything about the publisher Joe Books LTD or why they publish Disney comics instead of a comic book publisher Disney paid billions of dollars for but, the books are as good from cover to cover as anything on the stands and they cost a dollar or two less.  Consider me a fan.  

Schweizer's writing is as great as I expected it to be.  Each comic is a fully realized self contained speedy adventure with a full cast of individually motivated interesting characters.  The character's speech and motivations are consistent with the one film I saw.  The wit is very sharp.  Schweizer doesn't go too many panels without a punchline. 

I was a bit dissappointed to see that Schweizer was not also drawing this book but Joe Flood does a great job.  The design is solid and pleasantly consistent with the Disney Infinity video game style that I love so much.  The real challenge with this book is capturing Captain Jack's mannerism's Flood never drops character.  

The book looks great cover to cover.  Marissa Louise is credited with the colors on the first issue and I'm assuming Flood did the colors himself on the second.  I like the style of both.  My personal preference in colors is for them to be very flat. I don't like colorists that are into rendering. I like flat colors with a bit of that enhance the light and dark of the inks.  That's pretty much the style we see here.  The pallet is a bit brown for my personal tastes but it fits the story, time and location and is consistent with the movie I watched.  Interior and night time scenes are appropriately dark but the characters still pop.  

As I said before, I really don't know anything about Joe Books or these Disney comics yet (I'll look it up eventually) but if they put out 20 more issues of this with Schweizer as the writer I'll be sure to buy them and they'll probably be the first books I read from the ol' pull list any time they come out.  I couldn't find these on Comixology so if you're interested in them I suggest you ask your LCS to snag you some copies. 

• And finally... Hey guys, 2016 wasn't all bad.  Francis made a friend!

• 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.

Other Comics News Parade-O-Links 10062016

(Transmetropolitan issue 4.  Cover by Frank Quitely 1997.  Image stolen from Cover Browser. )

Here are some things I found interesting in the world of minicomics, comic books, graphic novels, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics, cartoons, digital comics, other, etc. during the week ending 0925201610062016.

"Sometimes the most handsome ones end up being Draculas." - Norm Macdonald.

• Hello sisters and brothers of teh intronets and welcome to another episode of your Other Comics News Parade-O-Links.  My name is Shannon and I'll be your host.  This is another late (or early depending on perspective and other nonsensical false realities) parade-o-links.  I can't blame it on anything cool like going to see Buddy Guy this time.  Mid September through mid November is the busiest time of the year for me at work and at home so... gotta put the paycheck and the kids first.  Also, today is my birthday so love me. 
• Hey!  It's October!  Happy Halloween month everybody!  I loves me some October.  As I said, it's a busy time for me but I've got a lot of neat stuff in the works that will roll out this month.  Keep file under other open on your computer or cell-pad-pod-phone and just keep hitting refresh constantly for the next 25 days.  
• Can we take a few moments to promote my friends?  Of course we can.  Have I ever told you guys about Brad McGinty and the fantastic t-shirts, patches, stickers and gum the produces for The Glorp Gum Company?  No?  Well let's correct that immediately.  Brad has a whole new line of Halloween related stuff you have to check out right now.  I've already gotten the Kong shirt and the Terror shirt. I wore the Terror shirt to the store yesterday and the Mayor stopped me in my tracks asked me for my t-shirt's autograph and gave me the key to the city. My kid already stole the new patches from me and sewed them on her jacket.  We are so ready for Halloween thanks to Glorp!
• Another person I know that does things you can exchange money for is Robert Newsome, EIC and publisher of The Atomic Elbow.  The Atomic Elbow has been my absolute favorite quarterly professional wrestling zine for years now.  I recommend you buy all the issues but especially want to point out the latest collection that is on sale now.  I got mine in the mail a short while ago and it's really great. Now, maybe you don't follow wrestling and you're thinking the book may not be for you.  Well, the neat thing about The Atomic Elbow is that most of the articles are not about current wrestling nonsense.  Most of the articles are about the writer's personal experiences and adventures in and around (and sometimes not even that close to) the world of wrestling and wrestling fandom.  It's a great zine with a lot of great writers.  Honestly, the subject matter is least important thing about it.  Oh, and sometimes it has comics. 

• Guys.  Look, things are weird for Superman but I wouldn't wish my problems on that poor sucker.  He couldn't handle what's going on inside my head for five minutes. 
• When I was a little kid I was super jealous of the kids in the UK that got to read WEEKLY Star Wars comics that I didn't know existed.  Weekly,  that's like, multiple times each month!
• Speaking of Star Wars, we're counting down the days to the new movie episode... Rouge One.  (I will not mention its subtitle because it is stupid and awful.) Apparently the toys for the new movie came out last week and a lot of my pals had a lot of fun hunting them but I wouldn't know anything about that because all any of the stores in my area had were dusty old Constable Zuvios. I'll just go ahead and get this off my chest right now;  I love Star Wars.  Go ahead Disney, make Star Wars movies.  Go crazy. I'll watch them.  That said, it is a terrible idea for them to break up the current episode 7 through 9 "saga" with this standalone movie.  The average movie goer just can't hold multiple sets of characters in their heads.  This is that Fantastic Beasts movie coming out sometime between Harry Potter 7 part 1 and Harry Potter 7 part 2.  During the first Star Wars trilogy, fans had six years to get invested in a set of characters.  Then we lived with those characters for decades.  Then we got the prequel characters, which were, with a few exceptions, some of the same characters we were already invested in.  We got invested in those characters for six years as well then they carried on in cartoons, comics and video games.  Then The Force Awakens comes and it's this new cast to get invested in.  And it was great.  The cast is great.  But now, one year later, whoops, whole new cast, whole new time period, whole new everything.  Here's the thing.  Every time I saw The Force Awakens there were multiple annoyingly audible people in the audience asking who Luke was supposed to be.  The people, the people are stupid.  I totally expect half the audience at Rogue One to spend the the whole movie annoyingly audibly asking why Rey is calling herself Jyn now and where are Poe and Finn.  I mean, hell, I wonder where Poe Dameron is in every movie I watch. 

• Yeah, that last bullet point was hundreds of words to set up video of Kylo Ren saying "Outer Space!"
• Matt Furie talked about that time one of his characters was appropriated by some internet weirdos related to some political thing that is apparently going on in America now.  
• Tucker Stone is one of my favorite writers/podcasters about comics.  He went to SPX and wrote about some of the books he checked out. 
• Here is your most recent Marvel Universe scorecard.  Tune in next week for a completely different yet remarkably similar new status quo. 
• Lots of changes in the Marvel and DC "universes" while file under other was on "hiatus". I'll get too them soon and share some thoughts.  Short version is I really enjoy that new Superwoman comic.  Phil Jimenez is one of my faves. 
• Adventure Time is ending... two years from now.
• Not even linking to the Adventure Time story because, again, two years from now.
• I regret to announce that I'm retiring from comics 60 years from now.  Everybody get your tributes ready. 
• Another thing I'm not even going to link to is the notion that it took some of you buffoons out there 75 years to figure out an Amazon character might like ladies.  
• Hey.  Let's see what those crazy kids from The Dollar Bin have been up to.  It looks like they finally got around to posting their reports on this summer's HeroesCon.  Part 1.  Part 2.
• Apparently the new Luke Cage show on Netflix broke teh intronets or whatever.  I've been too busy to check it out but I look forward to it.  I thought Alias was uneven and a bit of a slog.  You really only needed to watch the episodes that had evil Doctor Who or Luke Cage on them.  I've been fond of Luke Cage ever since those 1984 Bill Sienkiewicz ads convinced me that I needed to pick up Power Man and Iron Fist. But even without Iron Fist, I'm going to watch that show anyway because it has one of the most attractive women in human history on it. 

• And now ladies and gentlemen...

THE BEST NEW semi-recent COMIC I READ THIS WEEK recently.

Midnight of the Soul issue 1 by Howard Chaykin with Jesus Aburtov and Ken Bruzenak.  Cover by Chaykin  Published by Image Comics.  $3.50

This book actually started a while ago while file under other was on "hiatus" but I wanted to talk about it and I'm way behind on my giant stack of "pull list" comics and haven't ready any of the real new books from the past few weeks so let's talk about Midnight of the Soul.  Guys, ya'll know Howard Chaykin is the best right?  I feel like maybe some of you don't know this.  Well, he is.  He's one of my all time favorites and luckily me for me he's been very proficient over the past few years.  You guys have read Black Kiss II and Satellite Sam right?  You guys do read adult comics right?  I mean, look, if you are a children, it's okay if maybe you didn't read Howard Chaykin's adult comics.  But, if you're an adult and you don't read Chaykin then... do you even comic bro?  

Midnight of the Soul is a gorgeous book.  Fantastic art and storytelling by Chaykin.  No one draws alcoholism and eyebrows better than Chaykin.  The colors by Jesus Aburtov are a bit more technically ambitious than I prefer but the pallet is just right.  The main thing for a colorist on a Chaykin book is to get the lipstick shimmer right and I think Aburtov nails it. 

The comic is about a former WWII soldier who helped liberate a concentration camp.  It's the 50s now and he's home trying and failing to make it as a writer.  His book is set in a world where Hitler won and no one is buying it.  Like most Chaykin comics, he finds out his lady is mixed up in some dirty sexy time business and it all goes to hell from there. Alcoholism, sex, infidelity, murder and Nazis.  Everything you'd want in a comic right?  If you like hard boiled fiction  you probably already bought these comics. If you don't then what's wrong with you?

• And finally... Francis has a special message for the Grim Reaper. 

• Remember pals, life is hard.  Read comics every day, chew Glorp every day and you'll keep on livin' until your dead. 

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.

Other Comics News Parade-O-Links 03282014

(Star Wars issue 103 published by Marvel in 1985.  Cover art by Cynthia Martin.  Stolen from ComicVine.)

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 01052014 01132014 01192014 01222014  03282014

"To hell with every greedhead operator who flocked here throughout history because you wanted what we had, but wanted us to go underground and get it for you.  To hell with you for offering above-average wages in a place filled with workers who’d never had a decent shot at employment or education, and then treating the people you found here like just another material resource—suitable for exploiting and using up, and discarding when they’d outlived their usefulness.  To hell with you for rigging the game so that those wages were paid in currency that was worthless everywhere but at the company store, so that all you did was let the workers hold it for a while, before they went into debt they couldn’t get out of."  -Eric Waggoner speaking on the situation in West Virginia and/or the situations the majority of Americans are living in right this second.

• My kitty cat Choo Choo died a while back but this is the first time I've posted since then.  I still miss her.  She was the best cat.  She loved me like crazy.  She talked to me and played games with me.  She would play hide and seek with me.  Death is stupid.  One day, probably after I die (I will never die) I will murder Death.  I will murder Death dead and no one will shed a tear for that jerk.  
• I started this post months ago then things happened.  Look, I know you don't wanna know my bizness so I won't go into it.  I'll just say that almost everyone in my family has been hospitalized since Thanksgiving of last year.  So, I've been busy.  It has sucked.  Feel sorry for me.  Thanks.  Whatever.  Most of this post was written in the way back times so it will be old news to you. Also, whatever.  Look, I don't know why I didn't hit the "publish" button on this sometime back in January.  I just didn't.  Sorry.  Whatever.  Hang in there and maybe I'll get back to regular updates with more recent news.  Maybe.  Whatever. 
• Hi frequent readers.  Some of you may have noticed that I often (almost always) post videos with no explanation.  Some times that is because there is no explanation.  They are just dumb videos I liked.  Other times, they are there for a very specific reason but I want you to guess what it is.  Like, it's this game you and I are playing but only I know we are playing the game.  That way, I always win.  Sorry.  But today I want to post a video and tell you exactly why I posted it.  Below is a video from Blake Werts where he talks about minicomics.  It is great for a lot of reasons.  Werts is charming and has that cool accent.  Also, it's about minicomics and I love minicomics.  Blake shows off a bunch of physical copies of some fascinating rare comics.  (As well as some that are not rare but just too expensive for me.)  He does a very good job of making sure the viewer gets a chance to see these comics and put faces with names.  But what I like most about the video is that he is not talking to you and I the comics reader.  As someone who normally makes videos about records, he is talking to an audience that does not necessarily know anything about minicomics.  I feel like we need more of that.  We get too insular and sometimes forget how to talk to people that don't already speak the language of comics.
• And here is a follow up if you enjoyed that one. 
• Speaking of minicomics... yes, put a price on the dang things!
• Did I tell you guys about this big anthology of minicomics that I'm in that is on sell at Amazon?  Well, I am.  Go buy it.  I bought it.  I like it. It's very nice. 
• Hey guys, it's time to go register for the Fluke Minicomics and Zine Festival in Athens, GA USA.
• Oh man, sorry pals.  Fluke registration filled up in just a few hours.  Dang, I probably should have mentioned that in the bullet point up above these words.  I might be a jerk. Hey, don't cry.  They have a waiting list. I personally DID register for Fluke.  I hope to make it.  I missed the past two years.  It's going to be tight to fit that trip in since it is the day before Easter but I'm working on an elaborate plot to make my children believe that the Easter bunny has been kidnapped by Robert Newsome and the only way I can set things right is to go to Fluke.  Again, I might be a jerk. 
• Robert Newsome has a new issue of The Atomic Elbow out. 
• Josh Latta did some talking words on The Busy Creator Podcast.
• Finally a New Yorker cartoon that made a lick of sense to me.  
• Patrick Dean is the best.  Go read these comics.  Also get super excited about the privilege you will have of buying Patrick Dean comics from Recoil. Also, you can be Ant-Man.  Always be Ant-Man. 
• Brad McGinty has a bunch of super rad new shirts and stuff.  I just got a shirt and those patches.  You seriously will not believe how awesome those patches look until you hold them in your hands and look at them with your eyeballs. 
• My pal Jeremy Massie now has two issues of his All My Ghosts comic up on comixology.  You should buy and read it.  
• In a move that was surprising only in that it took this long to announce, Disney has finally made it official that they will move the Star Wars license from Dark Horse Comics to Marvel in 2015.  A date that is not all coincidental as the first Disney Star Wars movie is scheduled for 2015.  I have mixed feelings about this.  I'm a big Star Wars fan and in my own personal connection to Star Wars the Marvel Star Wars comics from 1977 to 1986 are second only to the films themselves.  Marvel did a great job with those comics but they were made years ago when Marvel was an entirely different company and there is no reason to expect that any of the people that made those great comics will be involved with the new Marvel Star Wars comics.  There is also the fact that Dark Horse has done a good job with the line as well.  And that is where one of my main concerns lies.  I would hope that talents like John Ostrander and Jan Duursema, for example,  would be welcome in Marvel's Star Wars line.  That is Marvel's loss if they are not.  And the fans' loss too I guess. 
• Who knew that when comics finally got its own mainstream celebrity comedy slow motion trainwreck it would be Shia LaBeouf?  (UPDATE:  Not really an update.  When I started this post Shia was still new news.  Old news now.  But one of the things interesting to me about the whole deal is that Shia is a guy that makes comics.  His biggest moment in the public eye however is playing a character that was created by Marvel Comics.  Spike/Buster Witwicky was created by Marvel for the comics and the TV cartoon.  Not by Michael Bay, Hasbro or any of the companies Hasbro bought the Transformers toys from.  But despite the fact that Marvel created most all of the characters of any value in the Transformers franchise, they don't get a penny for anything from those movies.  They don't get a penny for the Witwicky characters they created.  But Shia does.  So yeah, Shia LaBeouf, bane of the comics world, probably has made and will make more money off those characters Marvel created than anyone at Marvel ever did or ever will.  Shia is currently worth about $25 million.  But hey, at least we got that week or two where people in comics got to feel superior to the millionaire.  Comics everybody.)
• Hey guys, guys, guys.  Do you like looking at things that are funny and great?  Well Patrick Dean has a new tumblr where he gives you illustrated cosplay ideas. 
• Also, that wrasslin' book Patrick Dean did the cover for is out. 
• Matt Fraction wrote about alcoholism and drug addiction.
  Julia Wertz also talked about (and drew about) her issues and other things at Narratively.  And, there is going to be a Fart Party Omnibus. 
• The Doctor Who comics are moving from IDW to Titan.  I'm kinda bummed about that. I thought the IDW Doctor Who books were pretty good.  I don't know that I've ever held a Titan comic in my hands. 
• Yeah, sure, give Bill Finger a Google doodle.  Also, go read that Ty Templeton comic.
• I'd like to take second to point you in the direction of the Punching the Clock webcomic.  Mainly to point out that Jeff Manley is back on the comic after being away due to some family health issues.  I like Manley's style, he's a sweetheart of a guy and he works really hard at comics, family, life etc.  Good to see him back at it. 
• I wish all history could be delivered in a one panel Rob Ullman cartoons. 
• I feel your pain Mike.  But on the bright side, at least it's not Jessie.
• "I have learned never to engage with people I don’t already know, as you will likely be wasting hours of your time arguing with some political zealot."  Um, well, good luck avoiding the human race.  I mean, I guess it gives you more time to draw and color insane looking comics so... 
• “...the business in the direct market [the comics shop market] is a much stronger model and try as we might, we have not been able to make the comics newsstand model work for years, I don’t think anyone has.”
• That new Miracleman comic costs way too much and I'm super, super, extremely pissed that it did not come with the digital code at that price but... it's always good to hear that people are going to get paid.   
• Must have Howard Chaykin blanket now!
• I really like this Ryan Andrews comic that The Comics Reporter pointed out earlier this week.  Reminds me of Josh Simmons and Gabby Schulz.  
• This is a world where people cheer when someone gets health insurance. 
• Never stop turning the knife.  Never let them catch their breath.  Never stop kicking them until they stop trying to get up. 
• We are all going to die.
• Also dead, the internet. 
• Some good advice on 2000AD's submissions page.  "THE FIRST PERSON TO SPEAK SHOULD ALWAYS BE ON THE LEFT."
• I want to marry the Baxter Building. 
• Can't we just let this be the next Fantastic Four movie?
• One man's space garbage is another man's gold. 
• Here is a neat look at Kirby's 2001. 
• Retrofit has posted its lineup for its next subscription run.  Remind me try to get on board that as soon as I get paid.  (Especially since it was my new year's resolution.)  Rob at Panel Patter talked about Retrofit's digital expansion. (UPDATE:  I did subscribe.)
• I wanted to share a link to the interview Chris Sims had with Mark Waid but that giant transitioning link box thing at the top of Comics Alliance's webpage made me so angry I just gave up on finding the link.  The future is stupid. 
• I enjoyed this Paul Pope interview at TCJ.  I'm a big Paul Pope fan but I have not yet read Battling Boy.  I keep bidding on it on eBay and losing. Comics are very expensive. 
• So, that Alan Moore interview.  First of all, it is not an interview.  It is an essay.  Or, several essays.  And I think I'm done with Alan Moore's essays.  Alan Moore is a great comics writer.  Is, as in still IS a great comics writer.  As in, despite often acting like he is retired from comics, he is still writing new contemporary genre comics.  And he is still very good at it.  But I'm through with the essays.  Let me know when someone draws them as comics. 
• There was that day my pal Robert Venditti was mentioned in the USA Today for being a part of the new team on The Flash.  No big deal. 
• Comics art from the collection of HeroesCon founder Shelton Drumm is on exhibit about 45 minutes from my house.  I need to go to that!
• I'm excited that the powers that be have finally decided to take our money for a home video version of the Batman TV show.  I'm also excited that I can already watch the show every Saturday night at 7 PM on MeTV. 
• Listen, we're all *possibly* Frank Sinatra's son.
• And finally... I don't wanna live in a world without Nintendo.

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 03222015

(Star Wars issue 103 published by Marvel in 1985.  Cover art by Cynthia Martin.  Stolen from ComicVine.)

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 weeks month months year ending 03282014

"To hell with every greedhead operator who flocked here throughout history because you wanted what we had, but wanted us to go underground and get it for you.  To hell with you for offering above-average wages in a place filled with workers who’d never had a decent shot at employment or education, and then treating the people you found here like just another material resource—suitable for exploiting and using up, and discarding when they’d outlived their usefulness.  To hell with you for rigging the game so that those wages were paid in currency that was worthless everywhere but at the company store, so that all you did was let the workers hold it for a while, before they went into debt they couldn’t get out of."  -Eric Waggoner speaking on the situation in West Virginia and/or the situations the majority of Americans are living in right this second.

• Hello brothers and sisters of teh intronets and welcome back to Your Other Comics News Parade-O-Links.  My name is Shannon Smith and I'll be your host as we get through this thing called life, electric word life and that means forever and that's a mighty long time but I'm here to tell you, there's something else... comics.
• "Dear Ms. Smith,  When will the Parade-O-Links return?  I miss it so much.  Since you stopped posting it, I've given up on comics and become a highly successful business person.  Ted Cruz wont' stop asking me for money.  It's a living hell.  Come back. Where are you?  I'll hang up and listen."  First things first, I'm not a lady.  Second things second, WHERE ARE YOU?  Next question.
• Hoo boy.  So, lots of people had beef with a variant cover for a Batgirl comic book having a drawing of the Joker doing Joker things to Batgirl. There are a lot of different points of interest in this story.  I thought it was really cool for the creative team (including the artist that drew the thing) to come out and say we don't think this one works for our book and would like it pulled.  I also thought it was cool for DC to say, well, okay.  That's just basic politeness and professionalism and points out the fact that maybe we would not have as many of these issues if the creative teams driving a book would have more input on the cover options than some marketing bro that picks out what cover theme DC will use to flood the shops with that month.  But I'm no the target audience for this stuff.  Variants don't mean anything to me.  Actually I'll say they are a pain in the ass because they make it a lot harder for me to remember if I already bought that comic or not.  More often than not, when faced with that confusion I buy zero comic. As far as the cover itself;  well, it's a horror cover.  It think it would have been fine on the Snyder/Cappulo Batman comic because that comics is absolutely a horror comic and the Joker absolutely does that kind of stuff to people in that comic.  Worse actually.  Batgirl, on the other hand is not a horror comic.  As best I can tell, it is a comic about college aged kids and their cell phones.  (Yes, I actually read it.) I can't really speak to the gender driven discussions that the cover triggered.  I'm a dude.  I've seen people say the cover is everything from the glorification of violence against women to a straight up rape fantasy.  I look at it and I see the Joker with a hostage and he is putting his red smile on the hostage.  Like the Joker does.  Like the Joker has done.  Like the Joker will do again.  I don't see blood.  There isn't any red on the Joker's hands or clothes.  My first thought was that it was paint because Joker has been painting smiles on hostages faces for a while, with, you know, paint.  He also did that in a wildly successful movie.  Another thought was that it might be lipstick because... the Joker is a clown standing right beside the hostage with red lipstick on his face.  I've talked to folks about this and they say it is blood because it looks like blood.  Well, okay.  I've also heard that it is blood because it is the Killing Joke Joker and that Joker was bloody.  Sure.  But I don't look at that and see rape.  And part of that is I just don't see the Joker as a sexual being. Look, it's a scary cover.  The Joker in his most recent film appearance and the past... decades of comics is a horror monster.  But that's the thing about art, the viewer does not have to justify their interpretation.  And that's the thing about capitalism, the customer gets to say I don't want that thing.  
• Fans cry and complain and occasionally get their way then the other fans cry and complain that those fans took away what they wanted because everything seems to be a zero sum game and we are all insane ridiculous babies.  Fans get crapped on.  Don't be a fan.  Be a customer.  The customer is always right. 
• And finally... I don't wanna live in a world without Nintendo.

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 05282013

(The Bill Sienkiewicz drawn cover of Marvel Comics Return of the Jedi #1 from 1983.  Image stolen from Marvel Comics of the 1980s.)

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 05282013:

 "I accept it, but I don’t like it." -Lawrence Kasdan.

• Return of the Jedi came out 30 years ago this past Memorial day weekend.  It was a big deal.  I was nine when it came out and it was one of the first movies where I was fully engaged as a fan and a consumer.  Probably the first film I remember in my life where there was a tangible nerd culture waiting for the thing.  Or at least one that I was old enough to perceive.  Sure, I saw Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back in the theater and bought the toys and beach towels but, Jedi was different.  By 1983 I was a big boy.  I'd been reading the Marvel Star Wars comics for a few years.  There was a Lucasfilm Fan Club and I was in it.  I had the behind the scenes info.  I had the news letter!  I had the fan club patches and posters that said "Revenge of the Jedi".  All most other people had were the TV commercials in that pre-internet world.  It was the first movie I ever had "spoiled".  I saw the photo picture book weeks before so I know all about what would happen with Yoda.  I remember the first time I saw Luke's green lightsaber like it happened five minutes ago.  My brains were blown.  I've seen the movie at least a half million times since then.  I like it.  It is a move with a space ship battle and guys fight each other with laser swords.  That is as good as movies get.  I honestly have very little use for movies without space ships and laser swords.  Blah blah blah, talking words and feelings.  Pfft.  Jedi, for me is also the end of an era of film making.  The last great monster movie with stop motion animation.  The last great effects movie with models and practical effects. In a lot of ways, Return of the Jedi was the last PG action movie.  There were a lot of kid's fantasy films in the 80s.  Most of which got greenlit because of Star Wars success.  But those movies were usually safe, puppet driven pieces for little kids.  I loved those movies too but they were never Star Wars.  Star Wars was space cowboys that shot the bad guys with guns and slashed them with swords.  And Jedi was the last of those movies that a kid could go to.  After that everything was real bullets and blood and guts.  And sex!  And curse words!  The aliens got nasty and became horror monsters after that.  Once PG-13 was out of the box there was no looking back.  And all the movies today are still stuck in that same formula that took over after Star Wars went away.  They are all either Aliens or Terminator 2.  Even Harry Potter and Revenge of the Sith were PG-13.  All that changes now is that they look more and more like video games.  I'll stick with my puppets and model kits.
• Oh, and in the spirit of pretending this thing is a link blog and not just my diary, there is a new making of book about Return of the Jedi. 
• Here is a really neat piece about the formative days and earliest appearances of what would become Lois Lane. 
• I've had recurring dreams since I was a boy where I would be digging through an attic or closet and find things like Action Comics No. 1.  It seems I should have been tearing holes in the walls. 
• The Beat spent 24 hours looking at webcomics.  I don't have 24 hours to look at webcomics but if I ever do then now I know where to start. 
• TCAF was a big happy wonderful thing that happened.  I can't even afford to think about it. If I start thinking about airfare and hotel prices my checking account automatically kicks in with the overdraft fees.  But other people went and took pictures. 
• Speaking of things I can't afford to think about, Tom Spurgeon has this list of 483,396 things you need to know to get ready for SDCC.
• Those Freakwave comics are a lot of fun.  Sure the art and writing are mad but what gets me about them is the color.  Just look at those colors. 
• Dan Zettwoch made a crazy skull rocket. 
• Geoff Johns got a big send off for leaving Green Lantern.  He's not going anywhere though.  His desk is probably exactly where it was on the day before that comic came out.  On the other hand, all James Robinson, the man that wrote all of Geoff Johns best comics, got was a bit of time to take his dog for a walk.  All jokes aside, I cannot overstate how important James Robinson has been to DC comics over the past 20 years.  For me personally, I never would have picked up a DC Comic book post 1989 if not for James Robinson, Mark Waid and Grant Morrison.  Those guys, along with Neil Gaiman on The Sandman, picked that company up and carried it on their backs out of the 90s and into the new millennium.  The "DC Universe" as it has existed for the past decade and all of the good bits that still exist now came out of Morrison and Waid's resurrection of the Justice League and Robinson's resurrection of, well JSA and all the other characters. And don't even get me started on how great Starman was. 
• I don't know if I mentioned this before or not but back around the same time Susan Lyne murdered the entire staff of Comics Alliance and all of their neighbors, Valerie Gallaher left her editorial position with MTV Geek.   I don't know if that is good for her or bad for her but it's good for me because it seems to have resulted in Gallaher writing a lot more for her own blog.  I like her writing a lot.  (Not just because she said some nice things about my comics once.)  She brings a lot to the table.  She's worked in and around comics from almost every angle.  She's worked in shops, been a comics editor, a comics writer, a writer about comics and an editor of a site that writes about comics (and other nerdy junk).  I like that she's not afraid to attack things from multiple angles and play devil's advocate.  I read a LOT of teh comics intronets.  Most writers, I don't even remember their names.  She's one of the good ones.  Here is a good read from her about her Cloak and Dagger comic that was not to be. 
• And yeah I just tried to trick you into reading some positive words about my comics.  Look, if you come over to my house after school and eat my pop tarts you just have to accept that I'm going to make you play by my rules when we play Transformers versus G.I. Joe. (I'm the Transformers.  Transformers win.) 

• Erik Larsen has been writing, drawing, inking, coloring, lettering, folding, stapling and mailing a new issue of Savage Dragon every day of the year for 150 years.  Give or take. 
• Here's the thing.  Throw your Apple device in the river and go get you an android powered cell pad pod phone.  Then you can look at all the cartoon titties and vajayjays you want. 
• Speaking of titties.  Stan Lee is talking to Janette Kahn's boobs isn't he.  He is!  He can't take his eyes off them.  Janette Kahn was great in that first Swamp Thing movie. 
• Cartoonist Rich Barrett has a new column at Mental Floss where he'll be going over some of the stand out comics from each week along with some news highlights. 
• Yahoo bought a popular internet port site tumblr.  This may or may not destroy comics.  Same as everything else I guess.  In brighter news, “At the height of its power, the photography company Kodak employed more than 140,000 people and was worth $28 billion. They even invented the first digital camera. But today Kodak is bankrupt, and the new face of digital photography has become Instagram. When Instagram was sold to Facebook for a billion dollars in 2012, it employed only 13 people."  Oh wait, that's awful.  Oh well, we can't all have free internet porn and jobs too.  Don't be so greedy. 
• So before Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer starts going house to house and murdering anyone with more than one week's worth of Sunday funnies, go read this great comic by Boulet about New York. If it's the last comic you ever read then you and comics did okay for each other. 

• The best cartoon based on a Marvel comic property that has ever existed was Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes.  But it is gone.  And now there is a new Avengers cartoon.  But you would probably not know much about that since Disney buried it on Sunday morning on Disney XD.  Sunday morning is not for watching cartoons.  Sunday morning is for sleeping late, watching reruns of Lost in Space on the super station and going to church.  Clearly, Disney hates Jesus.  Or Marvel.  Possibly both. (My daughter stayed home from church to watch the new Avengers cartoon because we are occasionally heathens.  I usually will let my kids skip out on things for important TV shows because I never forgave my mother for making me miss part of the the Star Wars episode of The Muppet Show to go to the grocery store.  My daughter said the new cartoon was boring.  Lots of talking.  Nowhere near as good as Earth's Mightiest Heroes.  But, we all knew that without even watching it didn't we.  I think the important lesson here is that no one should ever make television without first consulting me or my family.)
• Seriously, I continue to be confounded by Disney's absolute lack of interest in using those Marvel characters they paid 4 billion dollars for on TV.  Yeah, I know about that Joss Whedon show and there is Ultimate Spider-Man, The Avengers and the new Hulk cartoon in the works.  But when Disney bought Marvel, Marvel already had 5, capitol F FIVE cartoons on the air or soon to premier.  That's not even counting those crazy anime cartoons.  Disney cancelled all that stuff and replaced them with inferior shows.  But worst of all they bury the Marvel shows in bad time slots on Disney XD.  Let me just explain to anyone out there that does not have children... Disney XD is horrible.  Every show on there is awful.  Every show on there will make you flop on the floor like a fish while you try to decide whether to claw your eyes out or to claw the screen off your TV.  AWE.  FULL.  No one alive does not hate all those shows.  They are bad.  Any show from Marvel's history of TV cartoons shown at any time would be the best show on Disney XD's schedule.  Spider-Woman is better than that garbage.  My theory is that there is still a lot of animosity toward Marvel from existing Disney execs.  Sure, we'll pay for you to have two or three cartoons.  That don't mean anyone is ever going to see them. 
• Awful.
• (p.s.  How is there not an X-Men cartoon on TV now.  That Wolverine and the X-Men show was really good.  Is this just to spite Fox?)  Awful.
• Who owns Marvelman, or who doesn't own Marvelman. 
• Bigger on the inside.  (I read that comic.  I liked it a lot.  Fun!)
• Eric Canete is the best y'alls.  Check out these Teen Titans storyboards he did. 
• We're all train wrecks and I love you all. 
• Drawn is shutting down.  This gave a lot of people the sads.  It also made people say oh dang it all to hell blogging is dead social media killed us all there is no hope find a bridge and jump off.  Whatever. 
• And finally... I guess I'm just not their target demographic. 

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 04222013

(Superman #423 cover by Curt Swan stolen from wikipedia.)

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 0422013:

"One of the interesting things about the development of the Internet as a tool to have conversations is that the possibility of something taking place is often seen as the same thing as something that actually takes place. It's mistaking the abstraction of an argument as a direct correlative event to something in the real world. If we can argue something is possible, that's all we need to do: a potential bias = a bias, a potential construction by which something might happen = it could have happened and might as well have. It's very multiverse friendly. We should probably stop."  -Tom Spurgeon.

• Hello brothers and sisters.  Welcome to another late special weekday edition of the Parade-O-Links.  I sort of talked around this last week but I'm still trying to find the best way to do this thing.  Ideally, a new installment would be up every Sunday morning but my weekends have been booked solid lately.  I'm still not sold on the idea of this being a weekday thing but maybe it will have to be.  Look, there is almost no stability in my life right now so I'd better not make any promises.  Things will happen when they happen.  Hang in there. 
• Last week, April 18th to be exact, marked the 75th anniversary of the debut of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's Superman and Lois Lane characters and arguably the birth of the comics industry in the USA, one of the main brands upon which the company currently called Time Warner Inc. would be built and decades of profits in toys, clothes, cartoons, theme park rides, TV shows and movies.  In light of all that success I was curious to see how the owner of Superman would acknowledge this historic day.  They didn't.  DC Comics, DC Entertainment and Time Warner Inc. made absolutely no mention of the event.  At least not on any of their websites.  And, curiously, it was one of the few weeks of the year where there was not any new Superman comics.  You could say that what Time Warner did to Superman last week was the opposite of celebrating his creation.   I was disappointed.  Superman is kind of a big deal and you only get one 75th anniversary.  Actually, most things never get a 75th anniversary.  Just think of the magnitude of the idea of Superman.  How many ideas do you have in your life?  How many good ideas?  How many of those ideas to you act on?  How many of them actually happen?  How many of them succeed?  How many of them are remembered or make any impact at all?  Just in entertainment alone think of all the ideas that have come and gone in the last 75 years.  All the comic books, comic strips, radio shows, TV shows, movies, toys, games, electronics, appliances, automobiles, fashion trends, food brands, retail chains, governments, countries... everything.  Just think of everything that has come and gone.  And there is still Superman.  One of the most successful ideas of all time.  And how did we treat the guys that gave birth to it?
• Superman's "birthday" was celebrated though.  At least in Cleveland.  And here is an older article about the house where it all happened.  Comics Alliance posted some nice Superman art.  
• Mark Waid and other folks talked on twitter about favorite Superman moments.
• Kurt Busiek says that Superman should be in the public domain.  I agree.
• Steve Bissette gives and example of how trying to do the right thing is actually a thing that is possible and has been done in the past and surprisingly did not bring DC or Marvel to their knees.
• Whenever people that actually make money in comics talk about money it is either super encouraging or absolutely soul crushing.  Never in between. 
• The creepy adventures of creepy DragonCon founder creepy Ed Kramer continue to be creepy. 
• Amazon is making it easier for the indie creator to get her/his work on the Kindle. 
• Here is a look at some of Carmine Infantino's early Timely work. 
• I'm excited about this news of new Alternative Comics works by some of my favorite creators. 
• Here is a look at the cover from Patrick Dean's next comic.  Dean all but has this season's Minicomic MVP wrapped up.  Let's hope he stays injury free through the playoffs. 
• Adam Casey exhibited some music themed art. 
• You can't tie down a banjo man. 
• "i wrote ithat movie a while back. hard to remember what its about."
• Haters just be jealous of Santoro's hair. 
• It's always a good time to check in on what Eleanor Davis has been drawing. 
• Ben Towle's Oyster War at io9.
• Jim Starlin interviewed at CBR. 
• The 30th episode of Robert Newsome's talking and music thing. 
• And finally... contrary to belief, Colt Cobana didn't create Five Dollar Wrestling.  I know you all think because he has a "podcast" coming from "live from the studio"... apartment!

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.