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27 February 2001
[comics] Another long, fascinating Alan Moore interview this time from 1998 which was published in the Idler… ‘I can’t conceive of vapour culture. I might not survive it. But that is where we are heading. I don’t know quite what I mean by my own metaphor, but I have feeling, it may bring in an even greater, faster space of fluid transmission, where no structures, as we used to understand structure, will sustain itself – we will have to come up with new notions of structure where things can change by the moment. I’m talking about physical structures, political structures, I can’t see coherent political structures in the traditional sense lasting beyond the next twenty years, I don’t think that would be possible.’ [via BugPowder]
26 February 2001
[comics] Slashdot looks at webcomics… lots of interesting links and commentary… From a posting: ‘This all holds fairly well with the subversive traditions of the comic. The web is reinforing those traditions and bringing them to the fore more than they were. This is a golden age for comics – they are being reborn.’
24 February 2001
[weblogs] New comics related weblog — GLITTERDAMMERUNG! from Chris at Not Enough of Me… ‘I buy comics for “It.” It is that feeling you get when you discover a really good comic, when you discover something so stunning that you can hardly believe that it’s just ink on paper. No other medium can give me that exact feeling, that “warm, fuzzy glow.” They can create other special feelings within me, but nothing quite like the one that I get from comics – that’s utterly unique. And that is why I buy comics, and that is why I’m doing this blog.’
21 February 2001
[cannibal comics] In the real world Hannibal does comics… *sigh*… Japan’s own “Cannibal” tries his hand at comics ‘Among the contents of Sagawa’s book is a passage that translates, “When I picked up her flesh in my fingers, it was the consistency of ‘toro’ (the fatty underbelly of the tuna, considered the prime cut). Caucasians are tasty indeed.”‘ [via Plastic]
[comics] Following up from the profile yesterday… Salon has an interview with Los Bros Hernandez… ‘We want comic books to reach a new audience, to keep getting better and better, to get more perspective, and when we are old men, we want to see new, young comic artists whose work is taken as seriously as any novel. We hope to see that in our lifetime. On the other hand, the comic books are in their own neat, kitschy, junky world that is unique to comics. We like that too. We like that it’s outlaw. You can’t repair comics, you can’t hang them in a museum and say, ‘This belongs next to the Mona Lisa.’ It’s the whole squirrelly factor, like early punk: There is the sense that this is bad, and we want it to be bad.
20 February 2001
[comics] Salon provides a nice overview of The Hernandez Brothers’ Love and Rockets… ‘When people talk about the Hernandez brothers, they mention how much their work is like that of Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez in comic book form, and how, in the early ’80s, they virtually invented the alternative graphic novel as a pleasure for art kids and “mature” readers who would never, ever have picked up a comic book. They mention how they chronicled Latino culture, from the barrio to below the border; and punk rock culture, and women’s wrestling long before these things became part of mainstream American culture.’ [ Related Links: Love and Rockets at Fantagraphics]
18 February 2001
[comics] Now this is bonkers… Bill Sienkiewicz did storyboards for a Thomas the Tank Engine film… [ Related Links: More of his work — Comics, Books and Magazines, Film and TV. At amazon.com – Elektra: Assassin.]
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17 February 2001
 [comics] Diamond Previews interviews Dave Sim just before the final story arc of Cerebus debuts… ‘I’m very aware that I could still end up in jail — I’m pretty sure that Cerebus #186 qualifies under Canada’s “hate literature” laws. “Directed against an identifiable societal group” — in this case feminists. I’m sure it qualifies enough to get an indictment returned against me. Or I could end up dead, but that’s been part of the deal all along. One of the first things I expressed to God in my mind. “You know where I’m going with this. If at any time you find it necessary to hit me with the bus (laughter) everyone keeps talking about, believe me, I’ll understand completely.” Of course, it could be much worse than that. I could have to live to the age of ninety in a progressively more feminist world. To me, that makes any bus look like very small potatoes. “No! Please! The bus! The bus!”‘
16 February 2001
[morrison] Fantastic interview and in-depth profile of Grant Morrison at PopImage… also includes my index of Morrison’s work. :) ‘Just take a look at MARVEL BOY. I never have to SAY anything, I never have to SHOW anything particularly offensive and yet… the whole book reeks of barely-repressed sodomitic, incestuous lustings. I believe there are many and varied ways to inject a bracing dose of steaming eroticism into a given comic book.’
15 February 2001
[more tintin] David’s Favourite Captain Haddock Curses — ‘Fancy-dress fascist! Ostrogoth! Duck-billed platypus! Phylloxera! Logarithm! Jellied-eel! Macrocephalic baboon!’ [via Vavatch Orbital]
[comics] Hergé is spinning in his grave… Tintin in Thailand. ‘In another scene that is likely to anger fans of the comic strip, Tintin is pictured in a gay escort bar called “Sexy Boy”, where he is propositioned by two male Thai hosts. The album also contains graphic scenes of sodomy involving Snowy and Tintin’s Chinese friend Chang.’ [Related Links: Official Tintin site, BBC News Report]
14 February 2001
[comics] Now this is what I call content… the New Yorker has put online it’s archive of cartoons… I’ve searched for the artist Kalo in the database and come up with… nothing. :(
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13 February 2001
[morrison] Here is a transcript of Grant Morrison’s DisInfo TV episode… ‘…Coca-Cola is a sigil, the McDonalds ‘M’ is a sigil, these people are basically turning the world in to themselves using sigils. And if we don’t reverse that process and turn the world in to us using sigils, we’re going to be living in fucking McDonalds! Magic is accessible to everyone, the means of altering reality is accessible to everyone, and when everyone starts doing it we’re going to see our desire manifest on a gigantic scale. Everyone’s desire. What happens when everyone’s desire becomes manifest?’ [via Ms Woo]
12 February 2001
[comics] Interesting page about an unpublished Vertigo comic from Grant Morrison, Pete Milligan and Jamie Hewlett — Bizarre Boys. ‘BIZARRE BOYS, VERTIGO VOICES’ most irreverent title, is a story within a story within a story. It’s about some fictional characters called the Bizarre Boys, and about the writers who write them, and about the writers who are writing about the writers… There are two voices telling the tale of BIZARRE BOYS, and they don’t agree with each other at all. BIZARRE BOYS is a comic about a comic and about the process of putting together a comic. It’s a sparkling tapestry of post-modernism and a fast- moving breathless chase across time and space.’ [via the Warren Ellis Forum]
11 February 2001
[comics] Brief reviews of London Comic Shops… the top three are the best shops in London… Gosh: ‘Fight through the superheroes on the ground floor and head for the stairs at the back of the shop. The lead to a basement full of alternative & independent stuff. Usually a couple of shelves of self-published bits.’
6 February 2001
[morrison] Grant Morrison updates his website and has published good news for sad, lonely, fanboys everywhere: ‘”Sex is out of the question for me” admits once-promising Olympian John with a chuckle. “When you add my spinal injuries and other morbid disabilities to the obesity I’ve suffered since the accident well, you have the chemical combination for loneliness right there in the palm of your hand. That’s mostly why I started putting aside my spare time for poring over lists and charts and I can assure fans that 2001 will be be a hard and horny one for comics enthusiasts worldwide.”‘
5 February 2001
[comics] Long, fascinating behind the scenes expose of the formation of Image comics in the early 90’s from The Comics Journal. ‘The story he wants to tell is, in the final analysis, not the Story of Comics but the Story of Todd McFarlane. “The comic-book world could blow up tomorrow,” he told the Journal. “I’m taken care of. The guy you got to worry about the least is Todd McFarlane. I’m bulletproof. I will make no apologies for anything Image has done. I left Marvel to be free. Eight years later, is Todd free? You’re fucking right he is. I can’t even envision the day when I would go back to the plantation and do Spider-Man or Heroes Reborn. I’m free, goddamn it! I’ve got everything I want!”‘
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4 February 2001
[comics] Nice Evan Dorkin fan page with lots of scans of his work from Dork!
3 February 2001
[comics] Another of those Previews Guides to the comics coming out in April 2001 this time from popImage. What I’ll be purchasing… Ministry Of Space #1 and the following collections: Jar of Fools, Soundtracks by Jessica Abel, and the complete edition of Box Office Poison.
1 February 2001
[comics] SFX Magazine interviews Warren Ellis — Part One, Part Two. ‘…Marvels trying to make a bit of money, bless ’em. They’re in business and that’s what they are there for, but no-one really needs a Ghost Rider film. It’s not important. Its not going to be a life changing event for anyone and its not going to a life changing event for comics. You are not going to come out of Blade or the X-Men and say “Bugger me, I’ve got to get the Yellow Pages and find a comic shop and buy loads of comics, because this was really good”. It’s more “That was alright, now down the pub.”‘
31 January 2001
[comics] Dan from Venusberg on the Superfriends… ‘Now, I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen Superfriends, but it has filtered so deep into my geek consciousness that I sincerely believe that I remember whole episodes. Most peculiar.’ I’ve never seen it either but I know exactly what he means… [has it ever been broadcast in the UK?]
30 January 2001
[comics] Warren Ellis’ Guide To Previews (for comics published in April 2001) — I can’t help but admire Ellis’ efforts to warp the purchasing tastes of his army of fans… ‘What follows are my personal recommendations from this month’s PREVIEWS. I’ll give you a write-up on it, the page number it’s on, and its order code. Talk to your retailer and find out what they need from you to place a pre-order — or, hell, just print this thing off. But, you know, once the order’s in, consider the money spent. You’ve entered into a contract with your shop. When the comic comes in, you buy it. That’s how it works. Onward, my winged monkeys… ‘ [ Related Links: Previews Picks — Another Excellent Previews Guide, Warren Ellis Website]
29 January 2001
[big numbers] Alan Moore: ‘…with the world political situation as it is at the moment the political radical is put in a difficult position because, hum, how do you rebel against chaos? You know, much as political conspiracy theorists would like to think otherwise, the brutal truth of the thing is nobody’s in control, this is a runaway train. Nobody’s in control, there’s not some big conspiracy in control, whether it’s Jewish bankers or nazis or CIA spooks, the simple truth is that the world is a complex storm of mathematics, basically… Very complicated mathematics that is beyond human comprehension.’
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26 January 2001
[movies] Ghost World movie site launches… ‘Fuck you bitch… THIS IS MY HAPPENING AND IT FREAKS ME OUT!!’ [via the Warren Ellis Forum]
25 January 2001
[comics] Gone and Forgotten — One of the best comic fan sites I’ve seen in ages — dedicated to finding the worst, most inane, stupidest comic books out there… for example, Hansi: The Girl Who Loved the Swastika. ‘Hansi ends up as some kind of Gestapo Candy Striper, taunting injured German soldiers. “I lost MY ideals when I lost my eyes on the Russian front.” says one poor kid. “We are nothing,” snaps back Hansi, cheerfully, “The Reich is everything!” Anyway, eventually Germany falls (my favorite line in the whole book “Germany surrendered! The dream ended! The nightmare began!” Unless you were a Jew, Communist, gypsy, homosexual or dissident, in which case, the nightmare had ended – the authors of this book, I can’t believe ’em)…’ [via Zenith from the Barbelith Collective]
24 January 2001
[comics] Warren Ellis is up to something at OrderingComics.com… ‘If you want to make comics better, then you need to ensure the good stuff survives, as a foundation for what is to come. It starts here – with you.’
21 January 2001
[comics] i bought a lot of comics published by Eclipse in the Eighties… So i was wondering… whatever happened to Eclipse publisher Cat Yronwode? [i’ve noticed Cat’s page on Thai Penis Amulets. Fascinating… i think i’ll be needing four or five of them. :) ‘The Thai name for a penis amulet is palad khik, which means “honorable surrogate penis.” These small charms, averaging less than 2′ in length, are worn by boys and men on a waist-string under the clothes, off-center from the real penis, in the hope that they will attract and absorb any magical injury directed toward the generative organs. It is not uncommon for a man to wear several palad khiks at one time, one to increase gambling luck, for instance, another to attract women, and a third for invulnerability from bullets and knives.’]
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13 January 2001
[comics] Just what you least expect… Ang Lee to direct The Hulk? ‘The story concerns research scientist Bruce Banner, who, after being caught in a nuclear explosion, finds that, when under stress, he transforms into the Hulk, a green-skinned personification of his repressed rage possessing superhuman strength. Banner is pursued by the military for a crime he did not commit. Lee’s version of the film, to be set in Berkeley, will be a big-budgeted, f/x-driven tentpole feature for Universal in 2003. No cast has been attached, nor a start date set.’
11 January 2001
[comics] Piercing — a fine and slightly disturbing online comic about a nipple, a ring and a bit of string… as Pete at BugPowder points out the art is reminiscent of Kyle Baker’s. Well worth the download…
6 January 2001
[comics] Grant Morrison’s website updates…. Morrison on Lennon (in the Digital Ink section): ‘I was in a band at the time Lennon died and we were all huge Beatles fans (to annoy our raincoat-wearing Joy Division-loving peer-group we had the moptop haircuts, the Chelsea boots, the tight trousers, the psychedelic shirts, the guitars etc – see picture) so I was fairly down when my fave moptop was plugged by a madman but…when all was said and done, I’d been raised a punk on ‘Clockwork Orange’ and David Sherwin so when we went onstage with the band that night we began our set by yelling “THIS ONE’S FOR THE LATE GREAT JOHN LENNON! UP HIS FUCKING ARSE!!!!”. Big? No. Clever? No. Pure Pop Genius? I think so.’
3 January 2001
[comics] The Mirror of Love — A complete Alan Moore script. He does panel descriptions in caps?! ‘PAGE 1, (PANEL) 1. OKAY, THIS STRIP HAS FIVE PANELS IN EXACTLY THE SAME LAYOUT UPON EACH PAGE: THERE ARE FOUR HORIZONTAL PANELS DOWN THE LEFT HAND SIDE OF EACH PAGE AND A TALL VERTICAL ONE DOWN THE RIGHT. SINCE I’VE HAD TO FIT THE ENTIRE OF KNOWN GAY HISTORY FROM PREHISTORIC TIMES ONWARDS INTO EIGHT PAGES, THERE ARE ABOUT TWO HUNDRED AND TEN WORDS ON EACH PAGE AND SOME RATHER LARGE CAPTIONS. SINCE THERE ARE NO BALLOONS I FIGURE YOU’LL BE ABLE TO LAY OUT THE PANELS TO ACCOMODATE THESE. THE HORIZONTAL PANELS ALL RECOUNT SCENES AND EVENTS FROM GAY HISTORY, WHILE THE VERTICAL PANELS ARE DIFFERENT.’
1 January 2001
[comics] Roger Sabin reviews some of the best graphic novels of last year… Talking about Joe Sacco: ‘For example, he is unafraid to put himself at the centre of the story, thus challenging our notions of objectivity. Sometimes, he admits, this could be too much: “I wanted out, out of there… I wanted to put a million miles between me and Bosnia, between me and those horrible disgusting people and their fucking wars and pathetic prospects…”‘
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31 December 2000
[warren ellis] The Sermon On The Mount — Warren Ellis’ final column for Comic Book Resources. ‘And you know what? Eventually, one day, when you come to your local comics store, regular as clockwork on delivery day, to pick up your pile of cheap superhero comics that you really don’t read any more anyway, that really don’t change anything, that only ever get good for a little while and never ever end? You’ll come in alone.’ [ Related Links: Tom Coates thoughts on the Column]
29 December 2000
[comics] Warren Ellis on Stan Lee: ‘That man wanted himself completely identified with Marvel and completely beloved, and did everything short of breaking into peoples’ houses and fucking them in the night to do it. To be honest, I’m sure he considered it and was talked out of it by nervous assistants. “By the hoary hosts of Hoggoth! I’ll do it! I shall dramatically decant myself into the beds of my best beloved brethren, the Mighty Marvel Mavens nationwide, and bring them all to outstandingly overwhelming orgasms with the purposefully pulsating penetrations of my — “‘
28 December 2000
[comics] The Slush Factory has a interesting interview with Evan Dorkin… ‘This entire industry is made up of fans… very few people come into comics form outside of comics. We get the best creators, retailers, marketers, and salesmen that the comics fan base can provide. That’s limiting a lot of people. Graphic designers, we are getting some of the best people… sometimes we get some terrific people. Most of the time we get “I was always a fan, I always wanted to have my own store. I was always a fan, I always wanted to have my own comic.”‘
27 December 2000
[comics] Kathleen reads Watchmen for the first time… ‘On Christmas Day 2000 I finally read Watchmen for the first time. I tried to stretch out the book over several days but I found I couldn’t put it down for more than an hour at a time. I became anxious and snappy whenever anybody interrupted me from my reading for matters as inconsequential as eating. That’s because ten years late I have learned what everyone else in the world already knew: Watchmen is fucking good.’ I was lucky (old) enough to pick up the original issues. There was the longest delay between issue 11 and 12. Waiting for that last issue almost killed me…
24 December 2000
[comics] Okay… a last couple of comic links before Christmas… Go check out Dylan Horrocks website, read Understanding Hicksville, a review of his best comic and then buy a copy at Amazon…. ‘The story, with its layers of flashbacks, and jaunts into comic strips within the comic strip, defies synopsis. It is organized along the lines of a Gothic tale, following a fanboy comics journalist and his discovery of an isolated rural town, the Hicksville of the title, that is protecting a secret. As we meet the town’s various denizens, Hicksville grows into a comment on art and people that exist in the margins of history.’
23 December 2000
[comics] Suffering Sappho! Salon looks at Wonder Woman and her new artist/writer Phil Jiminez…. ‘Sitting in the catbird seat of the comic-book world, Jimenez remains refreshingly guileless. At a midtown Manhattan signing in late November, he warmly greeted scores of fans who could be slammed for forgetting to get a life. Better-known artists, he said, too often exhibit an unwarranted haughtiness toward fans. “The strange thing about my industry is how so many people are unpleasant,” he lamented. “We’re comic-book people; we’re not that important.”‘
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22 December 2000
[comics] Fandom.com looks back at Grant Morrison’s Animal Man…. ‘Safe to say, it was a Morrison story, so there was tragedy – brutal tragedy that came as a total shock. But there were also revelations about the universe, theoretical physics, cosmology, suffering, redemption, discovery, and, of course, a touch of peyote. For readers who`d been with the series since it`s beginning, the beginning of Morrison`s final run was incredibly cohesive. Mirror Master`s attack back in issue #8 was of key importance to what Animal Man was about to go through. His revenge was swift and horrible, and at the same time, satisfying, but hollow, leaving Animal Man saying to Mirror Master at the end of issue #21, “I can fix it. I can fix it all. I`ve had an idea. A time machine. All I need is a time machine. I can fix everything.”‘ [ Related Links: grant-morrison.com, TimeMachineGo]
20 December 2000
[linkmachinego] Where LinkMachineGo and TimeMachineGo come from… The Invisibles by Grant Morrison. ‘…Mason receives a fax from one of his researchers in San Francisco reading ‘Time Machine Go.’ This interests Robin. Once in SF, Jack and Fanny are sent on a mission to collect the Hand of Glory. They meet the mysterious Pierrot and Columbine in a nightclub, whilst King Mob meets his ex Jacqui for a massage and an argument about his motives and his actions. At the offices Mason’s researcher Takashi explains that his breakthrough is to think of time as a single place, if you build a machine that can go ‘up’ above time, it can then choose its own re-entry point.’ [ Related Links: grant-morrison.com, Barbelith – from Tom Coates.]
11 December 2000
[online comics] Been meaning to blog the for ages… an excellent online comic called True Artist Tales. Here’s two favourite strips of mine Good Grief and The Not-So-Secret Life of Plants.
8 December 2000
[comics] It seems that Kevin Smith does not read many Warren Ellis comics…. ‘I just hope that the comics field never loses its luster for me the same way it seems to have for Ellis. If I ever wind up a githeaded pillock who takes shots at a newcomer who’s sold tens of thousands of more comics than I did their first time up at bat, someone please pull a mylar bag (and board) over my head and cut off my air supply. Life’s too short to keep score like that.’
7 December 2000
[comics] Great interview with Evan Dorkin in Psycomic. On Worlds Funniest: ‘I think a lot of these guys who know the DC stuff just have a fondness for these old comics. We aren’t trying to do anything Earth-shattering here. This isn’t the Dark Knight of humor books. It’s just a goofy, satirical, jerky funny book about how dumb comics are. And how great and loveable they can be at the same time. It’s a very sweet book even though we kill billions of people over and over again.’
6 December 2000
 [comics] Excellent interview with Dan Clowes in Salon. The humdrum life of a cartoonist: ‘Clowes and his wife, Erika, whom he met on a small-scale California signing tour in 1992 (“I had just gone through a depressing separation from my first wife, and was trying to escape from the grim horribleness of Chicago; a beautiful young woman in Berkeley asked me to sign her underwear, and the rest is history”), will soon vacate the house for a larger one not far away.’ [ Related Links: Buy Ghost World. You won’t regret it. Via Robot Wisdom]
3 December 2000
[comics] Jon Katz reviews Unbreakable. A film which improbably casts Samuel L. Jackson as a comic book collector…. ‘The Superhero stories are among the great and most enduring American myths, an often unacknowledged part of this country’s original and unique folklore. One of the distinctive traits of the Superhero genre in comics is the ambivalence of many of the characters. Heroes (Batman, Spiderman, the literal Superheroes themselves) are often innocents. They are ambivalent, reluctant. They are far from indestructible, in fact they are all oddly vulnerable. They never asked for their gifts or reveled in their powers.’ [ Related Links: Unbreakable Trailer, Unbreakable at IMDB]
2 December 2000
[comics] suck.com talks about ‘the long fruitful death’ of comics…. ‘Why comic books? And why now? Fifty years since their brief flirtation with becoming a widely-read mass medium, seven years into a sales decline that changed comics’ status from a profitable but secondary magazine market to an absolutely marginal feeder industry for television and film, what is so seductive about the comic book that it continues to intrigue so many serious-minded adults and aesthetes?’ [via Barbelith Underground]
1 December 2000
[comics] Warren Ellis releases PR for his latest comic:. ‘MINISTRY OF SPACE is an English science-fictional idyll: a fantasia on the notion of a British space programme that outraced the rest of the world, as found in such as Dan Dare. Now that Britannia rules the waves of space, a utopian green-field England plies ships to the Moon, to Venus, to Victoria Station in low Earth orbit. This is the Ministry that sent a colonisation flotilla to Mars in 1963. The Ministry that destroyed a city and ran an exploration program unseen in human history. A Golden Age – and what it cost.’
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