Go, Look: I Didn’t Call Your House


 
posted 9:30 am PST | Permalink
 

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Go, Look: Some Very Pretty Full-Color King Aroos


 
posted 8:30 am PST | Permalink
 

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Comics’ Giving Heart—Projects, People In Need Of Funding

* Sparkplug Books is going the crowdfunding route for its first slate of books following the 2011 passing of founder Dylan Williams. You can read and pledge here. The projects in question is a collection of Katie Skelly's Nurse Nurse; the ninth issue of the ongoing series Reich, by Elijah Brubaker; and a book called The Golem Of Gabirol by Olga Volozova. Those are all worthy projects, and I urge you to check out that fundraising campaign.

* as always, we look in on fundraising for projects from established industry veterans Jim Woodring, Batton Lash and Keith Knight. The Jim Woodring one seems to be moving along reasonably nicely given the time remaining, the Batton Lash is really close to seeing the finish line from where it stands right now (or at least is poised to make a major move in that direction in the next several days) and the Keith Knight is still a long way off.

* Koren Shadmi hit his targeted amount. So did Jonathan Rosenberg (that one ends a few hours after this will post). So did Ted May. There are always a ton of projects on there for you to check out, many of which could use a hand.

* finally, I believe this week would have seen the 65th birthday of the late writer about comics Don Markstein. His site Toonopedia has donation information and I have to believe that could come in handy to the family right now.
 
posted 8:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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Go, Look: A Bunch Of Steve Ditko Spider-Man Covers


 
posted 7:30 am PST | Permalink
 

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The Never-Ending, Four-Color Festival: Cons, Shows, Events



By Tom Spurgeon

* Sarah Boslaugh reports on a Tibet in Comics exhibit passing through St. Louis.

* I'm not sure that I've linked to the Stumptown poster yet. That's an image of it here.

* Fumetto starts Saturday; that's the big show in beautiful Lucerne, Switzerland, one that regularly attracts North American alt- and arts-comics talent and kind of an exemplar of the "not commerce but art shows all throughout the city" model of festival. It's one of a half-dozen shows I'm dying to do someday. All the shows look good but the one in the primary slot on the site is Yves Chaland.

* there's a good-sized show in Kansas City as well.

* Heroes Con continues to add folks.

* a lot of comics folks, particularly mainstream comic book creators with some sort of connection to the Pacific Northwest, are gearing up for next weekend's Emerald City Comicon, a show big enough to enter the collective consciousness with the other ten or so sizable shows and small press festivals out there.

* the debate over how much a commitment San Diego should make to its convention facilities in a way that best serves Comic-Con will continue for all time. I occasionally like to look on that as a story, but there's little dramatic tension there except the manufactured kind. San Diego will decide on what it feels is a proper level of investment into its convention center and more generally its downtown; Comic-Con will pick what they think is the best venue for its show. These are business decisions rather than ones driven by a moral consideration that indicates a best outcome, and they're decisions that have to be made. So while there are ramifications to these decisions I wonder sometimes if there's a lot to talk about -- especially now that we pretty much know the stakes and what many of the players generally want from that show.

* finally, I'm going to try to mention this elsewhere, but you only have until tomorrow to vote for the Eisner Hall Of Fame. All the nominees are worthy; due to the unique nature of his contribution and the fact I believe he'll be lost to an imminent flood of 1970s/1980s superstars due to hit the lists in the next couple of years, I hope you'll consider Bill Blackbeard.
 
posted 7:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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I Don’t Think I’m Familiar With Edmund Good


 
posted 6:30 am PST | Permalink
 

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Rizzoli Responds To Accusations Of Shoddiness On Corto Maltese

You can read the publisher's response to accusations of shoddiness on a new Corto Maltese book here; they sent a letter out that's gone around a bunch (I had it forwarded to me three times). The criticisms they're trying to deflect are best articulated here. The upshot of the explanation seems to be that the edition is based on a mid-1990s book that creator Hugo Pratt approved. That's a good thing to point out, I guess. That such changes would have been made against the creator's wishes otherwise would make this a bit more awful. As it is, the story is just as interesting in terms of what the market for archival reprints will accept and what it won't -- there's going to be significant pushback against lousy production, cropping and resizing in an era where other publishers are falling all over themselves to make the best-looking books they can, not just an acceptable version.

Some readers will no doubt try and place into a nerd court framework, where "we can't dictate to the creator and the estate what's acceptable" or whatever. That's sort of beside the point because no one's really doing that. Barring brutal malfeasance, no one's suggesting that the publisher be censured or punched in the ghoulies for making what some feel is a lousy-looking book. Certain fans are just not going to want that book, particularly when they hear about the choices made. While I think this one is going to be a slam dunk "yuck" from a lot of readers, there are editions and projects out there with finer distinctions to be debated, and I think a discussion of those kinds of issues will be a part of such projects' public acceptance through the remainder of this generation of such projects.
 
posted 6:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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Wanted: More Comics About Violent Psychotics Named “Butt”


Imagine a character actually named "Butt Riley." Now imagine how awesome a comic would have to be to surpass the awesomeness of that name. This is that comic.
 
posted 5:30 am PST | Permalink
 

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If I Were In Dekalb, I’d Go To This


 
posted 4:30 am PST | Permalink
 

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Three Comics Characters And Their Creators



* The character Ryuk was created by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata.

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* The character Kevin Matchstick was created by Matt Wagner.

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* The character Prince Valiant was created by Hal Foster.

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This month I'm making an effort to more consistently present comics characters in relation to the men and women that created them. As a daily reminder, I'm going to post a visual of three different characters and as best as I can provide a link to each character's original creator or creators. If I screw something up, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

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posted 3:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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Random Comics News Story Round-Up

* go here for a great post from Bryan Lee O'Malley on how to break into comics. Or, basically, how that's not really what happens. Dean Haspiel speaks to something that happens a bit later in the creative lifetime -- when you realize that it may not be worth it waiting on the gatekeepers to notice you. (both links via just about everybody)

* this tribute to Bill Dubay contains many, many, vintage fanzine pages. I love looking at that stuff. (via)

* David Brothers on Twin Spica. Rob Clough on some mini-comics. Philip Shropshire on RASL #13. Greg McElhatton on Luther and Batman #7. Sean Gaffney on Kodoku no Gourmet Vol. 1. Grant Goggans on Anya's Ghost. Brian Chippendale on... well, it's Brian Chippendale. Todd Klein on Aquaman #6 and Superman #6.

* Rob Tornoe on self-syndication.

* J. Caleb Mozzocco stops by the funnybook shop. Dan Nadel goes to the gallery.

* like some sort of demented comics saga, the story of Stan Lee Media keeps on keeping on. Basically, they lost another court case but claim that this ruling really leads to success with a different track of litigation. At heart of all of this still seems to be the assignment of rights to the media company and what these rights included according to later agreements between Lee and Marvel when they finally settled their differences.

* Marvel will ship their highly-touted Avengers Vs. X-Men early, leading Graeme McMillan to wonder after leaks and early sales.

* Gary Panter (!!) talks to Bill Griffith. Alex Dueben talks to Denys Cowan. Karl Keily talks to Leah Moore and John Reppion. Shaun Manning talks to Mike Costa. Gilbert Short talks to Marc Silvestri.

* some Korean cartoonists have day jobs, too.

* am I the only one that reads Food Or Comics? and comes up with meal alternatives to every selection of books?

* and here's a foundational Wonder Woman suggestion. I can never tell if Wonder Woman is broken or if she of all the superhero icons just feels the broken parts of the infrastructure more than any other character.

* I did not know there was something called The Drawn Word.

* I'm thinking crazy is probably going to be the order of the day for the guy that dresses like a bat and beats people up as his primary vocation.

* finally, Warren Ellis asks a bunch of people if the fine art of magazine making is screwed. All of my lottery-winning dreams involve paper.
 
posted 2:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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