Random Comics News Story Round-Up

* at first I was going to say I missed this interview with Tokyopop COO John Parker, but it turns out I didn't miss anything except for some general Fruits Basket figures -- the rest is pretty much generic corporate-speak.

* go, look: super-cute panel from a tribute to Herge and other great world cartoonists in one of the Fantastic Four titles. (via)

* the writer, editor and cartoonist Shaenon Garrity discusses five cartoonists who are also book illustrators of meaning to her. There are a couple of standard choices and a couple of surprises. All this talk of kids books recently makes me wish there had been more comics culture love for the re-issues of Jean-Jacques Sempe's cartoon collections and the same for his collaboration with Rene Goscinny, Le Petit Nicolas. I thought both projects were really nicely done but I can't remember a single person talking about them. (Heidi MacDonald sent in a link to this Peter Sanderson preview of the cartoon collections, which I apparently missed the first time around.)

* not comics: the cartoonist Colleen Doran opens the door on the seedier side of conventions through discussion of one con artist's schemes.

* the writer J. Caleb Mozzocco notes the wind-down of Marvel's Ultimate Universe effort, and points to The Ultimates Volume Three as perhaps the worst comic book ever. He starts reviewing individual issues with #1.

* one of the finest Direct Market retailers Joe Field brings up something in terms of the Wednesday Comics series that I hadn't thought of before: really old people like newspapers. That wasn't his point, probably.

* looking at Victor Cayro's work may remind you of a time when you first started picking up alternative and arts comics and they frequently frightened you as much as delighted you. I don't recall ever reading an interview with him before, but this is a good one if it's the first or 21st.

* let the world-without-borders marketing begin: Marvel's Strange Tales previewed with a look at Jason's Spider-Man story... on the Fantagraphics blog.

* the writer Vince Moore wonders why there aren't more effective black super-villains in North American mainstream comic books. That's a pretty good question. I can trace one of my most valued friendships directly to Moses Magnum, so it's something that should probably interest me as well. I was more of a Marvel kid, and the history of Marvel teaches us that nothing is beyond a revamp. So I guess all it would take is for some of the writers to want to work with some of those characters. Magnum is probably the heaviest hitter in terms of someone who could be looked at in a new light -- he wouldn't look ridiculous smacking the Avengers around for a couple of issues, so there's less work to do with him than, say, Daddy Longlegs. I have no idea what they've done with Erik Killmonger since Panther's Rage, but he gets mentioned as another possible candidate -- he'd be a great secondary big bad to Fu Manchu in a Shang-Chi revamp. This guy could probably be revamped if someone wanted to -- he's like the Bernie Casey of Marvel super-villains. And although he's past my time, isn't Apocalypse supposed to be black?

* wow, I know way too much about that stuff.

* finally, that may be the best comics-related art show poster I've ever seen.
 
posted 7:30 am PST | Permalink
 

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