Random Comics News Story Round-Up

* Andrea Tsurumi talks to Tom Motley. Chris Arrant talks to Michel Fiffe.

* not comics: there are some lessons about digital archiving in general that can be drawn from this passionate essay about the state of modern academic publishing.

* this Chris Sims essay on DC's Harley Quinn character had a few interesting notions in it. The thing that made me perk up was his discussion of a recent plot point where the character murders a bunch of children followed by Sims noting that a couple of months later the company releases a comic book starring the character that is supposed to focus on her wacky, endearing, anti-hero, Tank Girl-lite side. A lot of big companies do this kind of shift with characters -- soap opera has its share of rapists-turned-romancers -- but the suddenness of it here is fairly alarming in terms of something that's been on my mind over the last two and a half years with DC Comics, the idea of their company-wide reboot as a facilitator for character/property development. It's really interesting for a company to insist on thematic and plotline continuity and resulting sameness but not extend that rigor to its characters within that overall framework.

* Brian Hibbs reminds that Free Comic Book Day as it's developed in some places -- a fan's expectation of getting every possible free comic from their local retailer -- is hardly free.

* not comics: I don't really follow movies very closely, but as Milton Griepp asserts here the when of movies coming out likely does tend change the relative profile of the companies involved; he's also right to note that Guardians Of The Galaxy is a potentially crucial film for Marvel and thus the blockbuster film industry of the next half-decade. I imagine most people are pretty aware of that, actually, but it's not something I think about.

* I don't know if this is publicly available, but Derf posted a mid-1980s photo of a Cleveland comic shop on his Facebook account; it made me smile.

* Kelly Thompson on EGOs #1. Sean Gaffney on Excel Saga Vol. 27. Matt Derman on some more comic books from 1987. J. Caleb Mozzocco on Wolverine And The X-Men Vol. 1. Jeffrey O. Gustafson on the new Marvel Knights books. Henry Chamberlain on Stars-N-You #1. Johanna Draper Carlson on Arisa Vol. 12. Richard Bruton on Psircus #2.

* finally, Fellini writes Moebius.
 
posted 3:05 pm PST | Permalink
 

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