Random Comics News Story Round-Up

* I like about half of this statement from the First Amendment Center on the newspapers pulling Doonesbury last week. I don't think anyone on earth thinks the Chicago Tribune somehow doesn't have the right to pull material it wants to pull, and to bring it up lends a kind of false even-handedness to the situation it doesn't deserve. However, the statement does nail the Tribune's silly verification excuse for what it is, noting that it makes it sound like the paper vets all the other strips and other runs of Doonesbury, which can't be true.

* here's something nice: the FA site is going to start running a selection of reviews written by the late Martin Skidmore. I don't know a ton about Skidmore, and in fact think of him more for his late-'80s early-'90s editing gigs rather than as a reviewer, so I'm looking forward to this. The link takes you to a piece on Sinner. Speaking of Sinner, why can't we have all that stuff under one cover?

* there's probably a joke to be had that the projected onlooker to Marvel's story conference speaks in odd sentences that sound weird when you say them out loud. That joke would be mean, and I wouldn't approve.

* kids today, I tell you.

* Top Shelf's massive discount sale continues through this Friday. Such sales are a significant element within Top Shelf's overall business plan, and there's a ton of strong bargains in there. I mentioned last time how I might quick spend $80 bucks on deeply-discounted comics; I could just as quickly and happily spend $81 on these less drastically discounted books: From Hell, Alec: The Years Have Pants, Ax Vol. 1, Carnet de Voyage, The Ticking, Far Arden and League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century: 1910. That's six weeks worth of bedtime reading.

* I like to think of this taking place under a giant metal dome with people hanging from it, like in that third Mad Max movie.

* I think Frank Santoro would be the best teacher in the world.

* Matthew Badham sent along this link to a long post from D'Israeli about doing detail work in comics panel and the time commitment involved in choosing to do that with freelance work.

* Daniel Best profiles Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. Rich Baez profiles Glenn Dakin. RC Harvey profiles Max Eastman. Several creators toast Dylan Williams. Raymond Masters talks to Tony Bedard. Philippe Geluck pays homage to Jean-Paul Mougin.

* not comics: masturbation advice from Shungiku Uchida.

* hey, that fan-has-Superman-collection-stolen story took a positive turn.

* on the other hand, the last line in this story depresses me. The one thing that always gets me about the collectibles market is that it's kind of boldly not related to anything other than made-up speculation at this point. It's like we're all on a road trip with a crazy uncle that smells bad and keeps talking about Mamie Eisenhower. The way I first encountered that market -- and I know this makes me sound like Grandpa Simpson -- the comics that cost more were generally the comics that comics fans wanted to buy so they could read them. So when people started to snap up Uncanny X-Men around issue #125 or so, all of the sudden your copy of Uncanny X-Men #94 was worth $15. Somewhere between 1988 and 1995 the whole thing curdled, although even before that there were actual rare comics listed in the guides for cheap or not at all and pretty ordinary superhero comics at nearly every store marked up to more moderate prices -- comics that sat in most shops' longboxes like film at the bottom of a glass.

* my mom had to be convinced that the element under Garfield in last Friday's strip was his tail, not his penis. Seriously, it was like she had money on it.

* speaking of our beloved newspaper comics, Richard Thompson talks us through the end of Petey Otterloop's ill-fated cartooning run on Cul-De-Sac. He's a very sophisticated cartoonist, that kid.

* I would really like this not to be a story anymore, by which I mean I would like for this to be an unremarkable thing. In fact, I sort of assumed it was a little bit more common practice than a company doing a press release -- or however this story was instigated -- would indicate.

* not comics: the Tintin movie seems to have a lot to do to overcome the North American bias against that unpopular style of animation they're using and the film market's current close attention to immediate box office performance. I'm not sure I care if it's successful or not. No one's career is likely to be ruined if it's not and if it is, we may get more movies that look like that. I guess I just hope it's good enough I'll want to see it and that it will drive kids to those books -- or at least not get in between the kids and the books.

* finally, Electron Boy RIP.
 
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