Random Comics News Story Round-Up

* did you see the 2008 Ignatz nominees that were released mid-afternoon yesterday?

* the comics business news and analysis site ICv2.com writes a bit more about Marvel's plan to do on-line titles featuring some of its more popular, film-friendly characters. It's one of those stories that could come and go without causing a ripple, but it's also something that if it hits or if it leads to an effort that hits could be important in terms of the move publishers will likely have to make in terms of on-line content over the next half-decade.

* go here for a longish essay by DD Guttenplan -- whom I think may have been Luke Cage's film-making buddy in the 1970s Hero For Hire series -- about the comics medium in general and the work of David Hajdu and Douglas Wolk on comics in particular. Guttenplan makes a funny joke about Wolk's apparent (to him) desire to be comics' Pauline Kael, although when people always look for precursors to today's critical writers about comics I always wonder if they pass over people like Carter Scholz, R. Fiore and Donald Phelps because of the relative obscurity of their platforms rather than the content and character of their writing. (thanks, James Langdell)

* especially as the book's been out for a while, I like the fact that a major mainstream-comics site will suddenly do an interview on something like Hope Larson's Chiggers. Too much comics coverage is focused on this week's new books. Chiggers was a book that I liked just fine but wasn't necessarily aimed at me that burrowed into my brain a bit more than I expected; more to the point, I bought a copy for a young person that really, really liked it, and that's not to be taken for granted. I think there have been about three or four random books for younger readers this year that are kind of interesting in the same way Chiggers is. Anyway, I guess the news here is that Larson's about 70 pages into her next project, which at this rate and a projected size of 240 pages might put it into the first half of 2010 or so.

* hey, this is nice. I think the thing a lot of people appreciate about Nickelodeon's comics efforts is that they don't automatically equate doing comics for kids with trendy approaches and styles as much as funny, effective ones.

* not comics: more Spider-Man movies. I would imagine that the problem with Spider-Man movies is that as the series of films progresses you have to build the second half of a character arc where the comics haven't because comics always need to retain that classic formula. So you have nothing to guide you and the audience conditioned to see the character as open-ended will resist whatever it is you do. Or maybe not. More likely it's just really hard to hit that sweet spot that gives you an entertaining, widely appealing Spider-Man movie rather than a tired, goofy one and that this becomes more difficult with every film.

* finally, the publisher and occasional cartoonist Chris Oliveros weighs in with a photo-driven post on Drawn and Quarterly's presence at the Brooklyn Book Festival and a visit to RO Blechman's studio. I think I would have been totally floored and freaked out by Moomin when I was a single-digit aged youngster, too.
 
posted 7:30 am PST | Permalink
 

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