Random Comics News Story Round-Up

* Indy Comics News wants your site-appropriate press releases.

* veteran comics artist Rod Whigham will take over from Frank McLaughlin as full-time artist on Gil Thorp, Tribune Media Services has announced. McLaughlin had drawn the high school sports strip since 2001. Frank Bolle will draw transitional strips for remaining writer Neal Rubin until Whigham officially begins his run. Gil Thorp is an interesting strip for its small but fanatical fan base, many of whom know the work backwards and forwards in a way that shames other comic strip fans. Most criticism by those fans, to my memory, has focused on the writing and overall feel of the strip, so it should be interesting to see how they react to Whigham's work.

* in what will surely be one of today's most widely-traveled links, you can read or listen to (in part) Michael Chabon discuss the superhero costume.

* there is apparently a new Lilli Carre comic called Hums Like A Bee serialized in the magazine Paper & Carriage.

* Robin Bougie sarcastically thanks Canadian Customs for all the great work on deciding what can be banned from importation.

* the writer and retailer Chris Butcher talks about Neil Gaiman responding to a criticism of his releasing work for free. The value of free is on a lot of people's minds right now, and when it's the author doing it as opposed to some fans doing it for them I can't use my regular objection that no artist's right and obligation to decide the path of their project should be usurped in such a fashion, no matter the intent. I do suspect that a lot of the boost that comes from offering something for free right now depends on stuff not being offered for free right now, which makes me wonder about the cost of such offers on the overall fabric long-term.

* Meta-List Red Vs. Meta-List Blue: Dick Hyacinth divides his Best of 2007 meta-list into lists from general interest and comics-focused sources, comparing the results of what charts for whom.

* T. Campbell suggests a number of articles about webcomics that could be written right now.

* Johanna Draper Carlson kicks off an extended conversation -- in the comments thread, mostly -- about what a reviewer might be able to expect when their words are used for a blurb on a book. David Welsh chimes in from his own site. I think I agree with the general consensus is that you can and should expect nothing. I don't track blurbs (my turgid prose, small audience and frequently hesitant opinions don't exactly make me a go-to source for quality pull quotes, so I can't imagine I'm missing a whole lot) and now that my father's gone no one does it for me. It's an interesting set of questions, though. I'm grateful when a publisher contacts me about a blurb just so I can make sure it's properly credited. It would break my heart a little bit to see something Bart Beaty said get credited as a publication quote rather than Bart getting specific credit.

* the comics business news and analysis site ICv2.com has announced some of their plans for the conference on graphic novels they run the Thursday before the New York Comic-Con this April. I'll be there in the audience making frowny faces.

* one thing that's a positive about so much of comics autobiography being so self-deprecating if not outright self-lacerating is that at least no one's out there faking the amount of peeing into jars they've done.

* my brother writes in: "Amazon.com needs to work on its comics referral process. After purchasing The Complete Persepolis and the special edition of Palestine, my next e-mail from Amazon recommended Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 19: Death of a Goblin, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, Vampire Hunter: The First Death, The Manga Bible, Jumper: Jumpscars, and Garfield: Large & In Charge. The latest from Garfield would certainly appeal to those who are interested in Iran and the Middle East crisis, right?"

* I liked this short piece by Noah Berlatsky comparing Watchmen and V For Vendetta because instead of simply looking at the surface sophistication of each project, as is usually the case with articles like these, Berlatsky's judgment depends on a wider authorial strategy employed by Moore.

* last year's Eisner judges reunite for a look at 2007's best books.

* finally, click through the image below for a funny Richard Thompson cartoon about the anxiety caused by the decline of print.


 
posted 8:30 am PST | Permalink
 

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