September 22, 2009
Random Comics News Story Round-Up

* congratulations to
Comics Comics' Tim Hodler and cartoonist Lauren Weinstein
on the birth of their baby girl.
* I really love when Daryl Cagle
talks about re-using certain motifs, as it's not only interesting but I think this confessional tone gives him the moral force to kick anyone who stole one of the cartoons right in the nads!

* here's the kind of nonsense that's filling my head recently. The reason Norman Osborn doesn't 100 percent work as a villain in the wider Marvel Universe is that a key and yet frequently under-appreciated aspect of the seminal Spider-Man comics revolves around the fact that Peter Parker frequently encounters adults. The vast majority of these adults are disappointments. Some are outright dicks. The Green Goblin is the ultimate dickish, disappointing adult, and thus Spider-Man's arch-villain (or shares that honor with JJJ, if you're inclined to read the comics that way). Here's the thing: Norman Osborn popping into his Green Goblin costume is the key to his particular brand of dickishness. It's like somebody's dad showing up at the end of the beach movie to drag race against the new kid in town, or popping up in a football huddle so that he can tackle the struggling but ready to win quarterback. It's a dick move, a total invasion into Peter Parker's world by someone who should know better. But when Norman comes up against other costumed villains as he does in this new Marvel stuff, he's an adult wearing an adult costume (that Iron Man thing) fighting other adults: a dick, but not a special one tied into some characters overarching theme. He's Jasper Sitwell on a bad day.
* see? I'm obviously going crazy.
* Dan Shahin
interviewed Dan Vado on his radio show. In other news, Dan Shahin has a radio show.
* the esteemed comics scholar Rusty Witek
expands on Charles Hatfield's essay on the need for an academic appreciation of comics.
* if
this somehow means we get to see Jughead courtside at a Lakers game and Reggie Mantle acting pissed off outside of a club on
TMZ, it will all be worth it.
* finally, some not comics: it's hard not to read Roger Ebert's
long discussion of the destruction of the once-thriving indie film market and see some parallels to comics, particularly in its author musing after the financial returns from alternative distribution and the fact that what's operating to destroy this system comes down to conscious choice as much as the application of any market pressures.
posted 7:30 am PST |
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