29 February 2004
[comics] The ROZZ-TOX Manifesto — created in 1980 by Gary Panter after conversations with Matt Groening … ‘Item 15 – Law: If you want better media, go make it. ‘
29 February 2004
[comics] The ROZZ-TOX Manifesto — created in 1980 by Gary Panter after conversations with Matt Groening … ‘Item 15 – Law: If you want better media, go make it. ‘
25 February 2004
[comics] The Dave Sim Experience — a Onion AV Club interviewer attempts to negotiate an inteview with Dave Sim … ‘I offered to fax him copies of the interviews I’ve done with Alan Moore and Scott McCloud, so he could see what kind of stuff we do. I mentioned that we look for people who have non-mainstream opinions. He said that Scott McCloud and Alan Moore ARE mainstream. I said that they’ve been embraced by the mainstream, but that they don’t necessarily express themselves in mainstream-friendly ways; for instance, Alan Moore claims that he worships a sock puppet. Dave said something about that depending on whether it’s a feminist issue. I asked how worshipping a sock puppet was a feminist issue. He said “Same pus, different zit.” I said “I’m not getting you.” He said “Yeah. I know.”‘
17 February 2004
[comics] Introducing a Cartoonist Named Crumb — profile of Sophie Crumb from the New York Times … ‘When first encountered at a Berkeley cafe, she sat hunched over a sketchbook intently inking a portrait of two chess players seated nearby. “If I don’t draw for more than a day or two I feel depressed and useless,” she explained. Ms. Crumb at work is reminiscent of several scenes in “Crumb,” Terry Zwigoff’s 1994 documentary about her father. The resemblance is only heightened by her surroundings, the remnants of the hippie subculture from which Mr. Natural, Fritz the Cat and the rest of her father’s most famous characters sprang.’ [via Boing Boing]
12 February 2004
[comics] 200 Words from Mark Millar — bite-size Q/A with Martin from the Copydesk setting the question … ‘Superman, for me, was the pinnacle of my ambition since the age of four of five and writing him was a nostalgic joy, but we’d be stunted as a creative community if we just followed our childhood ambitions. Even the guys who created Superman and Batman would just have written stories about Hercules and Sherlock Holmes if their ambitions had been limited by their ten year old day-dreams.’ [Related: 200 Words Archive, Mark Millar’s Official Site]
7 February 2004
[archive] Sidebar Blog Archive #5:
6 February 2004
[comics] A Short History of the Photocopying and Dissemination of My New Fighting Technique Is Unstoppable — David Rees describes the publishing and distributing history of MNFTIU. ‘…the book was being distributed via fax without my permission. This is called “file sharing.” I asked the guy if he thought his photocopy friend would make me some copies of the book at a reduced rate ? seeing as how he was already engaged in unauthorized fax piracy on the high seas of clip-art comics. He thought this was reasonable. I called the guy at the photocopy shop and we worked out an arrangement whereby I would stop by the shop on Friday afternoons with a 12-pack of beer. I would leave the beer on top of the counter and he would kick a box of books under the counter. I would lug the books (actually, collated pages) home on the subway and staple them in my living room. That is how I learned the ancient art of bookbinding.’
4 February 2004
[comics] I guess Frederick Wertham was right about Batman and Robin… [via ¡Journalista!]
‘Only someone ignorant of the fundamentals of psychiatry and the psychopathology of sex can fail to realize a subtle atmosphere of homoeroticism which pervades the adventure of the mature ‘Batman’ and his young friend ‘Robin.’ — Frederic Wertham, Seduction of the Innocent’ 3 February 2004
[blogs] You’re Fired! — the New York Post on Blog Privacy … ‘Dating can also become tricky terrain when one or both parties are blog-savvy. “The blogging community is terribly incestuous,” Lapatine admits. “If the relationship doesn’t go well, all your mutual friends will read about it. This,” he adds, “is how a friend of mine learned that he had halitosis and was a bad dancer.”‘ [via Anil’s Daily Links]
2 February 2004
[comics] NeilAlien’s Ask The Mysterious Orb — Ask the Orb a Yes/No Question and receive your answer … ‘Warning: The demons within the Mysterious Orb might shriek horribly.’
28 January 2004
26 January 2004
[tv] Garth Marenghi.com … ‘As many of my readership can attest, I invented the internet back in 1976 with my short story ‘Mindgrid’. Many of my predictions, alas, have since borne sorry fruit, and I, too, have spent many troubled hours distracted by erotica.’
22 January 2004
[comics] Cerebus #300 — various comics creators and insiders on the last issue of Cerebus (due in March). Gerhard comments: ‘When somebody asked me what it was like working with Dave, I would half-jokingly respond, “What do you think it’s like working with a manic-depressive, paranoid schizophrenic, hypochondriac, misogynist with delusions of grandeur and a messiah complex?” He seemed to hate himself and yet he thought that he was above all others. On the other hand, Dave can be the most caring, compassionate, unselfish, equitable, honour and duty-bound, thoughtful, reasoned, humorous and generous person you could hope to meet…’ [via the Cerebus Yahoo Group]
21 January 2004
[comics] Sinister Ducks – March of the Sinister Ducks (MP3 File Download) — a song by Alan Moore and his band The Sinister Ducks from 1983 … ‘What are they doing at night in the park? Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack! Think of them waddling about in the dark. Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack! Sneering and whispering and stealing your cars, Reading pornography, smoking cigars. Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!’ [via Scaryduck and Neil Gaiman]
20 January 2004
[comics] Cerebus #300, okay Dave, now what? — another article about Dave Sim and the conclusion of Cerebus … ‘Sim finished working on the final story pages of #300 the week before Christmas and, in keeping with his avowed commitment to rationality über alles, betrayed no hint of nostalgia — or even anticipation — as the finish line drew near. Asked whether his last few pages had presented any special challenges, he said, “The process remains the same. My approach to page 17 of issue 300 isn’t any different than my approach would have been to, say, page 14 of issue 220.” Shortly after completing the last page, he was hardly reveling in the accomplishment, admitting that his state of mind was “more relief and gratitude that God allowed me to finish than satisfaction, per se.”‘ [posted on the Cerebus Yahoo Group]
19 January 2004
[comics] ScaryDuck remembers the early years of 2000AD … ‘The first issue grabbed you by the balls and wouldn’t let go. The Russians (“Volgans”) invaded Britan, time-travelling cowboys harvesting flesh-eating dinosaurs, a rollerball clone, a six-million dollar man clone and …err… Dan Dare, an ill-advised revival of the Eagle character. But the real meat didn’t turn up until the following week – another 8p gave you another free gift and the first appearance of Judge Dredd. Make no bones about it, Dredd was a fascist…’
18 January 2004
[comics] Chronicling The Revolutionary — interview with Chester Brown about Louis Riel – includes update about Joe Matt …
‘NRAMA: Did Joe Matt move back to Canada? 15 January 2004
[comics] Jim Lee interviews Howard Chaykin … ‘Writing episodic TV is a constant series of negotiations between the writing staff and the line producer’s crew. When I’m doing comics, the old cliché is true – I’m the whole show-writing, acting, directing-and it’s a perfect place for a control freak like me.’
10 January 2004
[comics] Morphing into New Forms. Devouring Young Adults! — article about Graphic Novels in book stores. Mark Farce (comic shop owner): ‘I believe I will outlive the comic book medium. My die-hard customers will just keep getting older and older. I don’t see young kids coming into stores to buy comics. I think the trades have re-tapped into the 25 to 30 year olds who were into comics, got married, sold their comics and are now wandering back in. But when we get young customers in with say a gift certificate they won at a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament, the last thing they’re interested in is comic books.’ [via ¡Journalista!]
9 January 2004
[comics] Waiting for Tommy Interview with Warren Ellis … ‘Right now, it feels like 2004 will be my last very active year in American comics. This isn’t a big splashy f*ckyouall I’m-retiring I-won’t-play-Bond-again you-won’t-have-Dick-Nixon-to-kick-around-any-more kind of thing. I’m not flopping on the ground in weeping martyrdom or anything. I just think maybe I’ve taken this gig as far as I can go.’
6 January 2004
[comics] Alan Moore vs. Grant T. Morrison … ‘An Epic Bare-Knuckle Brawl Between Two Mega-Legends’ [via plasticbag.org]
27 December 2003
[comics] The 10 Best Comic Book Footballers — My #1 would be Billy’s Boots… ‘Billy Dane was the sort of 12-year-old always picked last at break time. Essentially, he was crap at football. Then he found a pair of boots that had belonged to 1920s striker Dead Shot Keen in his gran’s attic and everything changed. The boots miraculously transformed Billy, who first appeared in Scorcher, into a goalscoring automaton. “Is this me or Dead Shot Keen?” he would muse before blasting the ball into the net.’
20 December 2003
[film] Doom With A View — interview with Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner. ‘…despite being here (or not) to promote a movie devoted to his life, Pekar is hardly your average breathless self-publicist. Neither, although his comics have brought him a certain degree of wide-eyed adulation, is he any kind of superhero. What he is is a famously crabby retired hospital file clerk, a 64-year-old underground icon whose ongoing autobiography in the pages of his (until recently) self-published comic has now been transformed into a movie, also called American Splendor’ [Related: American Splendor Official Site]
17 December 2003
[comics] Eddie Campbell & The Dark Knight — preview of Campbell’s Batman comic. ‘…what’s the story about? Well, as mentioned earlier, it is an Elseworlds, so expect something… different. “Batman is visiting London on business in 1939,” Campbell began. “So World War 2 is just a few months away and people are getting jumpy. A Nazi plot seems to be revealed but it’s very much more complicated than that. There is a secret society of men who wear animal masks, a murder that connects with a series of old churches, and a lunatic abroad in the streets. It’s got some of the ingredients of From Hell, as you can see, and at the same time it’s all within the normal jurisdiction of the Batman.” The book is currently scheduled for an early July release…’te>
16 December 2003
[comics] Undertow — Warren Ellis’ take on letting fiction escape into reality … ‘Everything we know about Jack The Ripper outside of the forensic documentation of those five murders is fiction. Even the name is a fabrication. The Jack The Ripper letters, in the most optimistic reading, constitute the actual killer creating a fictional framework for himself. And Jack operated in a landscape already primed for his presence by dramatisation. Robert Louis Stevenson’s THE STRANGE CASE OF DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE presented a monster whose identity was unknown to the public, turning the streets of 1880s London into a killing zone. A monster, it transpires in the story, from the educated classes — as Jack, with his apparently trained eye for vivisection, almost certainly was. For all we know of Jack The Ripper, he could have been Mr Hyde, released from fiction into Whitechapel.’ [via Barbelith]
12 December 2003
[comics] We Read Comics Blogs So You Don’t Have To! — a summary of what is happening in the Comics Blogosphere … ‘Does anyone really buy those stupid “sexy vampire” comics?’ [via Neilalien]
8 December 2003
[comics] Little things we like: American Splendor — mini review of Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor … ‘Now is the time to check out Harvey Pekar’s brilliant autobiographical comic, just before the film version makes a national hero out of him. Pekar is a downbeat hospital file clerk from Cleveland who writes about the mundanities of his daily routine, from spending empty weekends in front of the television to the dangers of getting stuck behind old Jewish ladies at supermarket checkouts, and it makes for compelling reading.’ [Related: American Splendor Movie Trailer]
5 December 2003
[comics] The Golden Age: Uncensored — ‘Scientologists are fucking weird…’ [via Pete’s Link Farm]
[link to image] 1 December 2003
[comics] Totally Grant Morrison — another long interview with GM … ‘Most people are secretly fond of the idea of comics, given half a chance. They just need an excuse to admit it. As for mainstream attention, Kristan and I went to the League premiere in Leicester Square and couldn’t help but notice that every page three boy band big brother celebrity in London was suddenly proclaiming a lifelong, undying love of comics …. Strangely enough, they couldn’t actually remember anything other than the Beano and Spider-Man when faced with questions. Progress?’
28 November 2003
25 November 2003
[comics] Deadlock — amusing online comic from Other People’s Stories. ‘…My solution was brilliant in its passive agressive deviousness! I was asking Lisa out on a date without actually going through the humiliation of asking her out on a date!’ [via IllNation]
24 November 2003
[comics] The Graphic Novel Silver Anniversary — Time Magazine on 25 years of Graphic Novels. ‘…Eisner had to come up with his own, spontaneous sleight-of-hand marketing. “[The phrase] ‘graphic novel’ was kind of accidental,” Eisner said. While pitching the book to an important trade-book editor in New York, says Eisner, “a little voice inside me said, ‘Hey stupid, don’t tell him it’s a comic or he’ll hang up on you.’ So I said, ‘It’s a graphic novel.'” Though that particular editor wasn’t swayed by the semantics, dismissing the book as “comics,” a small publisher eventually took the project and put the phrase “A Graphic Novel” prominently on the jacket, thereby cementing the term permanently into the lexicon.’ [thanks Kabir]
18 November 2003
[comics] Alan Moore is 50. Happy Birthday… and enjoy your retirement!
‘Sat in a sandwich bar in Westminster I meet the sharp south-London wideboy occultist that I’d created some years previously for a U.S. comic book. He looks at me. He nods, and smiles, and walks away. Years later, in another place, he steps out from the dark and speaks to me. He whispers: I’ll tell you the ultimate secret of Magic. Any cunt can do it.’ [link] 17 November 2003
[comics] Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex — Larry Niven wonders about Superman’s Sex Life … ‘Ejaculation of semen is entirely involuntary in the human male, and in all other forms of terrestrial life. It would be unreasonable to assume otherwise for a kryptonian. But with kryptonian muscles behind it, Kal-El’s semen would emerge with the muzzle velocity of a machine gun bullet. (*One can imagine that the Kent home in Smallville was riddled with holes during Superboy’s puberty. And why did Lana Lang never notice that?*)’ [via Many Comic Blogs]
16 November 2003
[comics] After the 30-year Struggle, a Heroic Victory — interview with Paul Levitz, president of DC Comics … ‘It is easy to imagine the small-framed Levitz feeling like an outsider when editing a comic fanzine while he was growing up in Brooklyn. Not any more. “Popular culture has shifted,” he says. “It’s not just the function of the comic book movie per se. Look at everything from Men in Black to Lord of the Rings. This is the kind of material that as young men my friends and I loved, and we were rather at the edge of things. That material is now squarely in the centre.” DC sits in the shadow of the sleek, modern towers that will serve as the new head office of parent company Time Warner, an appropriate position for a business described by investment bank Thomas Weisel as a “hidden asset” buried within the Warner Brothers division…’
12 November 2003
[comics] Brought To Book — interview with Posy Simmonds … ‘Not only is she the author and illustrator of five successful children’s books, but this feeling of being treated as a sub-species is also the lot of the cartoonist. ‘People often ask, “Who thinks of your ideas for you?” When you reply that you think of your own, they sometimes say, “Do you do the drawings as well?”‘ She relates this in a deadpan tone, but behind it you can see amusement rather than irritation.’
11 November 2003
[comics] Howard Chaykin on American Flagg: ‘Twenty years ago I did a comic book about a twenty-first century America with endless reality shows based on public humiliation; a federal government secretly selling off pieces of the United States; and a citizenry so drugged out on media they colluded in their own betrayal. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
7 November 2003
[comics] The Saga of the Earth Pig — summary of Dave Sim’s Cerebus … [via ¡Journalista!]
‘Cerebus is unique among other comics for its length of story, depth of character, breadth of detail, and evolution over time. It exists in 4 dimensions. The series focuses on Cerebus, a 3-foot tall aardvark man, who lives in a pre-industrial medieval fantasy world. As the story progresses, Cerebus finds himself involved with people and events that change history. He becomes a politician, pope, houseguest, bartender, and prophet, in that order. He finds and loses love. He speaks with beings of great power and knowledge, including his creator, Dave Sim. And yet, he still cannot find happiness in day-to-day life. Cerebus has done it all, been everywhere, and seen everybody. And he still fucks up.’ 5 November 2003
[comics] The Books of Heaven, the Comics of Hell: The Graphic Novel in America — Stuart Moore on Graphic Novels … ‘It’s easy to see why writers champion the graphic novel. It’s very liberating to be able to craft a lengthy narrative and let the tension points fall where they may, instead of having to break the flow every 22 pages. But there are two reasons why the graphic novel format hasn’t taken over, despite some pretty zealous proponents. The first drawback is visibility. This is more of a problem for the artist than for the writer, because generally speaking, comics take a lot longer to draw than they take to write. That means that, for some artists, doing a stand-alone graphic novel can take them out of the marketplace entirely for six months to a year. […] The other problem is stickier: economics…’
3 November 2003
[comics] The Superhero as House Guest — a profile of Alex Ross who is living the fanboy dream [thanks Kabir] …
‘To see the really cool stuff, you have to sneak into the room above the garage, which Mr. Ross calls “my fortress of solitude of collectibles.” Two lifelike figures — a 6-foot-3 Superman and a 6-foot-2 Batman sculptured in wax, resin and fiberglass by a British artist, Mike Hill — dominate the room. Action figures including one-of-a-kind pieces bought on eBay and cheap mass-produced fast-food favors are arranged museum-style in vitrines on every wall. A small jointed wooden Superman from 1939, bought for a song at a toy show, has its own shelf.’ 27 October 2003
[comics] Operation: Get Your War On — interview with David Rees (creator of GYWO) … ‘At that time my web host said I owed them tons of money, and I was considering abandoning my site. I had to go out of town and, hoping not to think about that situation or the strip, my girlfriend called me and said, “I know you don’t want to hear about this, but the Village Voice is trying to get a hold of you; they want to run your strip.” Then my friend, who was monitoring the website hits, told me that the site was getting five million a week. It got really crazy.’ [thanks Stuart]
24 October 2003
[comics] Philip Pullman interviews Art Spiegelman at the ICA on the 4th. November …. ‘Best known for the Holocaust narrative, Maus, Spiegelman is also co-founder and editor of the avant-garde comics magazine, RAW, and edits Little Lit, a series of comics anthologies for children. He is currently working on an opera, Drawn to Death about the history of comics, and has recently published a series In the Shadow of No Towers in several papers and magazines.’
23 October 2003
[comics] ‘I Do Comics, Not Graphic Novels’ — interview / profile of Joe Sacco … ‘Sacco uses cartooning to report on some of the big issues of our time but his particular gift is that he is never pompous or polemical. He can illustrate the hooded interrogation of a Palestinian from East Jerusalem or a throat-slitting slaughter in Bosnia, both events recounted to him in detail, but can also add his own wry thoughts about the loveliness of young Israeli women or the consistency of Palestinian tea. In reality, he is both more dashing and more relaxed than the often anguished character in the strips, and it is not difficult to see how he manages to persuade people to open up to him.’
22 October 2003
[comics] Behind The Masks — Philip Pullman on Art Spiegelman’s Maus [Buy: UK | US]…
‘Maus does have a profound and unfailing “strangeness”, to use Bloom’s term. Part of this is due to the depiction of Jews as mice, Germans as cats, Poles as pigs, and so forth. This is what jolts most people who come to it for the first time, and still jolts me after several readings. It is such a risky artistic strategy, because it implies a form of essentialism that many readers will find suspect. Cats kill mice because they are cats, and that’s what cats do. But is it in the nature of Germans, as Germans, to kill Jews? 18 October 2003
[comics] The Ten Geekiest Hobbies — from Seanbaby. Thankfully, blogging is not in the Top 10 but – OMG! – consider the Perfect Storm combination of comics and blogging! … Comics: ‘Damage to Sex Life: 68.7%. When you’re finished showing someone your chart of all the ways Magneto’s hat in X-Men 2 was incorrect, it’s going to be a long, uphill battle to then have sex with them. And to make matters worse, the faulty shape of the dong port in the movie’s version of Magneto’s hat will make having sex with it even harder.’ [via MemeMachineGo]
17 October 2003
[comics] Heroes of the Blues — a set of trading cards from R. Crumb … ‘Here are his portraits of the many extraordinary country blues artists whose work can be heard primarily on the Yazoo label. Based on photographs, they originally appeared in 1980 as a set of trading cards.’
15 October 2003
[comics] Captain America Wins Superhero Networking Crown — Spanish scientists have looked at the interconnection and social networks of the fictional Marvel Universe … ‘The researchers used the shape of the network to deduce the best connected character of the Marvel Universe – the Kevin Bacon of superheroes, if you will. Aptly enough, it is Captain America, a veteran of the 1940s Timely Comics era.’ [via overstated.net]
14 October 2003
[comics] It Came From The Quarter Bin: The Question #1 — Newsarama looks back at Denny O’Neil and Denys Cowan’s late-80’s revamp of The Question … ‘I found this first issue with a few dozen of the Question’s comics for a quarter a piece. Yes, I bought nearly the whole Question run for a mere bag of quarters. Sacrilege? Quite possibly, but as its always fun to take advantage of those who know not what is in their quarter bins, buying this issue (along with any other Question comics) you come across is nothing short of a phenomenal buy.’ [via Neilalien]
13 October 2003
[POW! ZAP!] Car Owners’ Hero Dresses for the Job — a real-life UK Super-Hero – Angle-Grinder Man – makes the the New York Times … ‘After the interview was over, Angle-Grinder Man strode into the street in full regalia, wheeling the suitcase full of civilian clothes he planned to wear on the train home later. Watching his gold cape glitter and swirl heroically in the afternoon light, Judith Smith, a sales clerk who said she had been following Angle-Grinder Man’s exploits on his Web site, pronounced herself a big fan. “I think he’s extraordinarily attractive,” Ms. Smith said. “Especially the golden knickers.”‘ [thanks Kabir]
[comics] Brian Bolland cover for the latest Animal Man Reprint Graphic Novel … [via plasticbag.org]
‘I’ve seen more death and pain than you could ever dream of. Fifty thousand years of it. Dying on sharpened stakes, on torture racks and fires. Cut to bits by English bullets and American bullets and Nazi bullets. Life goes on! “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” It’ll only happen when people stop being afraid. Your family’s gone. You can’t help them by dying inside. Life needs you to go on fighting and not sit back while they build more bombs and bulldoze more trees. Either you’re on the side of Life or you’re on the side of Death. Which is it going to be?’ |