[morrison] Magic for Mutants — Grant Morrison’s column on his new website is well worth checking out… ‘Corporate entities are worth studying. They and other ghosts like them rule our world. So…figure out why the Coca-Cola spirit is stronger than the Doctor Pepper spirit (what great complex of ideas, longings and deficiencies has the Coke logo succeeded in condensing into two words, two colours, taking Orwell?s 1984 concept of Newspeak to its logical conclusion?) Watch their habits, track their movements over time, monitor their repeated behaviours and watch how they react to change and novelty. Learn how to imitate them, steal their successful strategies and use them as your own. Create your own brand, your own logo and see how quickly you can make it spread. Build your own god and set it loose.’

[comics] Eddie Campbell has published the first chapter of From Hell online. ‘Now, meself, I come from a working family. We vote Tory, always have done. The working class don’t WANT a revolution Mr. Lees: they just want more money.’ [via Lukelog]

[comics] Warren Ellis writes about his adventures at Garth Ennis’ Stag Weekend… ‘As indicated by other people in previous editions of this column: comics are a first love affair, the one that sinks its teeth into you and won’t let go, because of its freedoms and its glories. The sex is great, but everything else is shit. And I’m reminded of a quote from Neil Gaiman: “I stopped doing comics because I wanted it to continue being fun, I wanted to continue to love and care for comics, and I wanted to leave while I was still in love.”‘

[comics] Amazon.co.uk picks their ten best comics… It’s no surprise that Watchmen is Number 1: ‘Imagine a future where Nixon is still President, America won the Vietnam War, and the nuclear clock stands at five minutes to midnight.’

[comics] Media Nugget of the Day covers Watchmen. ‘In this bleak vision of America, the influence of costumed crime-fighters has kept Nixon in office, whipped Vietnam into shape easily, and brought the world to the brink of Armageddon. Writer Alan Moore began this novel as a reworking of the Charlton Comics heroes of his childhood, transformed it into an operatic dark-comedy of super-hero archetypes, and ended up with a chilling commentary on cold-war America.’ [Related Links: Alan Moore Fan Site]

[comics] Long, fascinating interview and profile of Warren Ellis from PopImage. ‘And yeah, I think I do suffer a backlash in terms of personal regard – it really doesn’t affect the sales, sales continue to go up, whatever I do, which if anything probably indicates that the comic fans who hate me the most are insincere swine and buy the shit anyway. [Laughs] I mean, it happens all the time. When I was back on HELLSTORM I’d get these letters from hillbilly Christians who live up in the mountains, they’d say “YOUR COMIC MAKES US HURL. WE BUY IT EVERY MONTH”. I’ve actually got that letter at home from these hillbilly Christians who were genuinely sickened by the work, and bought it every month to be sickened. And that’s the comics fan.’ [Related Links: warrenellis.com]

[comics] Peter Bagge in Suck: The Most Resented Woman In America. ‘I was barely even aware of Miss Hawaii (or Angela Perez Baraquio, to be exact) during the preliminaries, though she certainly made a good impression when it counted the most (“She turned her GLOW BUTTON up a notch,” our resident pageant/hair expert commented).’

[comics] The full script of Sam Hamm’s Watchmen movie adaptation is online. ‘EXT. LIBERTY ISLAND – THAT MOMENT – DAY — as a LUMINOUS BLUE-SKINNED GIANT, SIXTY FEET TALL, wades through the harbor and steps up onto the island. He stares in dismay at the demolished statue . . . like a modern-day Colossus of Rhodes wondering what the hell happened to his date. Meet the last — and most powerful — member of our happy band: DR. MANHATTAN. Down below, THE COMEDIAN and SILK SPECTRE — battered but intact — are crawling out of the wreckage. The COMEDIAN looks up at the huge blue figure looming over them, and shakes a gnat-sized fist. COMEDIAN: ASSHOLE! WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?!?’ [via Haddock]

[comics] Warren Ellis talks about the early years of 2000AD. ‘I started reading it when it began, just about a week after my ninth birthday, in 1977. Available in every newsagent’s in the country. The cover and back cover were colour. So was the centrespread. The rest of it was black-and-white, all inky on pulp paper. Your hands used to get sooty if you re-read it too much. The ink was so badly fixed that you could lift entire images off the page with Blu-Tack. There’d be five stories in each issue. JUDGE DREDD was in there every week, of course – it got the colour centrespread as well as the three or four pages that followed. At least three of the four other stories would be episodes from serials. Usually, one of the stories was a “Future Shock”, or one of its variants like “Time Twisters” – a self-contained science fiction short, usually with a hard twist in the tail.’ [Related Links: 2000AD Links Project]

[comics] In the DC Universe Election 2000 has been decided… Lex Luthor Wins! ‘Bruce Wayne, CEO of Wayne Enterprises, went on record saying: “I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him; there’s something rotten in Denmark.” Wayne would not elaborate on Luthor’s alleged involvement in Scandinavian domestic affairs, and refused requests for further comment.’ [via Ghost in the Machine]

[comics] Bugpower provides a link to a fantastic in-depth interview with Alan Moore. ‘Like, I’d have sworn that my interest in Jack the Ripper started in 1988 but then when my mum died and we went through her house, we found a big suitcase in which there was a load of old books and comics and things that I’d had when I was a kid, including two or three centrefolds from The Sunday Mirror, which were dealing with Jack the Ripper and I’d obviously clipped them for some reason. I didn’t remember doing it but obviously I’d had an interest in Jack the Ripper from the age of about twelve or thirteen. So I guess that these kind of themes, these ideas, they probably run all the way through our lives like a kind of developing music, that the basic kind of chord patterns are there right from the beginning, probably, but they just become more elaborate, or more penetrating or more deeper.’

[comics] One of my favourite, underachieving [he should do more!] comic artists: Philip Bond — This is Planet Bond. Check out the revamped Betty and Veronica or a sketch of Mick Jagger’s hand[?].

[comics] The greatest ever comic scandal: Photographic proof that Grant Morrison is Alan Moore! [Related Links: grant-morrison.com, TimeMachineGo]

[distractions] Fantastic Amateur Secret Radio Decoder Outfit [Shockwave] — designed by Chris Ware… [Related Links: Decoder Home Page]

[comics] Warren Ellis talks about children and comics… ‘This has all been kickstarted by a conversation on my message forum. An intelligent and kind woman gave out comics as treats to little Hallowe’en trick-or-treaters. (Our street was full of children drenched in burning lighter fluid and someone yelling “Trick, you little fucks! Trick, I say!” Sounded like me, but I’m sure it wasn’t.) (This is something many of the Forum members did, by the way.) (Gave away free comics, not squirted children with lighter fluid and chucked lit matches at them.)’ [Related Links: Warren’s Message Forum]

[comics] Luke follows up on Eddie Campbell’s struggles with Australian customs and apparently gets an email from the great man himself for the trouble… ‘I find it laughable and more than a little worrying that I can go down to my video store and rent Slumber Party Massacre II: The Driller Killer with no worries at all, but an intelligent, well-researched work rooted in history is banned. Something’s wrong here, and it doesn’t bode well for the future of censorship in Australia.’

[comics] Warren Ellis reports that Australian Customs haved banned the import of From Hell. ‘Where does this leave Eddie? Attempting to use due process to convince Australian Customs – and, presumably, the OFLC — to unban one of the most acclaimed works in the medium, translated into six languages (Eddie mentioned this, and got the response “I don’t care what goes on in the rest of the world, this is Australia.”). Will they be reasonable? Evidently one Michael Dean, writer for The Comics Journal, has already been on the phone to Australian Customs. I’ll give Eddie Campbell the last word. “The Customs Chappie said that if Mr Dean quoted him in print that I would find no good will there from here on.”‘ [Related Links: TCJ on the story, Eddie Campbell Comics, Alan Moore Fan Site]

[comics] BBC News covers 30 years of Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury. ‘The Bush family has been among Trudeau’s hardest critics. George Bush senior said he was “a little elitist who is spoiled, derisive, ugly and nasty”. George W Bush has not been any more complimentary. But to Trudeau, abuse just adds to the fun. “This is what I live for,” he said. “The Bushes think it’s personal, when in fact, for me, it’s never personal. At the risk of sounding like Sonny Corleone, whacking people like them is my job.”‘ [Related Links: Duke 2000]

[comics] Quimby 2000 Vs. Lex 2000

[quelle surprise!] This internet thing might just have a future… Grant Morrison has launched his own website. ‘Whatever you do, make sure you go right to the top, because you sure as hell can’t piss upwards on people.’ [via Barbelith Underground]

[comics] Mars Import provides a list of Eddie Campbell’s view of the best graphic novels. [Out of the list there’s one I would highly recommend — Gemma Bovery by Posy Simmonds — to just about anybody. If you like intelligent, well written, adult fiction — it’s for you. It has pictures as well! What more could you want?]

[comics] First panel from Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell’s new Zenith — done as Ali G… [via Barbelith Underground]

[comics] Warren Ellis predicts the imminent death of Marvel Comics… ‘Marvel Enterprises doesn’t exist on the money it makes out of comics. It exists on a raft of junk bonds valued at $250 million, lashed together by Morgan Stanley. Oh, and by the way: Morgan Stanley stocks just fell around twenty percent.’

[columns] New Kevin Smith column regarding the development on his new movie… ‘Last week, my life became a thrill-a-minute joy ride through the glamorous and exciting world of making motion pictures, and I figure that’d probably be more interesting to share with you guys and gals than a weekly dissertation on what comics I like and why, or who I think is fucking up the comics industry, or whether Hal or Kyle is the one, true Green Lantern. We pretty much all know the answers to those questions (Green Arrow because I’m writing it, anyone who’s thinks the kids will ever come back to this medium, and Hal Jordan), so there’s little point in talking about it.’ [via Sourground]

[comics] Psycomic’s 100 Hot Comics… Plenty I agree with. Plenty, I don’t.

[comics] cnn.com covers Chris Ware and his new book — Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth… ‘Ware was 29 years old, and more than halfway through the writing of the book, when he first met his own father. Their meeting, too, was tentative and awkward — and tinged with anger. “I was probably a little hostile,” said Ware. “There were so many regrets …” His father died a short time later. “I added it all up once — the few meetings we had, the few times we talked on the phone,” said Ware. “In total, I knew my father for just about five hours.”‘

[comics] The Twilight Gallery — Alan Moore’s epic Twilight of the Superheroes is brought to life as various comics artists take a passage from the proposal and sketch it out… John Totleben: ‘Y’know, when I started doing [the Doll Man sketch] I realized that what Alan was probably after was something like The Fly (the one with Jeff Goldblum). Around the time the Twilight proposal was being conceived, I had a conversation with Alan about that movie. He liked it quite a bit, but was especially amused by the part where Brundlefly was interviewing himself and talking about how he’d like to become an insect-politician. Somehow, I think that must have worked its way into his design for the Doll Man character, either intentionally or subconciously. I just played off of that’ [Related Link: Earlier Post On LMG]

[comics] The Onion AV Club interviews Will Eisner. Eisner on the origin of the term “graphic novel”: ‘Yes, that’s a true story. I was sitting there on the telephone talking to this guy, and I said, “I have this new thing for you, something very new.” And he said, “What is it?” And I looked at it and realized that if I said, “A comic book,” he would hang up. He was a very busy guy, and this was a top-level publishing house. So I called it a graphic novel, and he said, “Oh, that’s interesting. Bring it up!” I brought it to him. He looked at it, looked at me over his granny glasses, and said, “You know, it’s still a comic. We can’t publish that kind of stuff.”‘

[jack chick] This Was Your Life! Vs. This Is Your Death. [Related Links: Chick Publications, Jack T. Chick Parody Archive]

[random link dump] These links have been sitting around waiting for something to tag them to which never came along: Old Salon interview with Jay McInerney, Slashdot review of Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Comics worth Reading and finally, Alan Moore — famous vegetarian!

[hey kids! comics!] A while ago Luke from LukeLog asked me to suggest some comics he might like…. Here’s my suggestions and I would imagine they are suitable for any “comics newbie”: From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, Ghost World by Daniel Clowes, Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Why I Hate Saturn by Kyle Baker, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller. General suggestions: anything by Peter Bagge, anything by Alan Moore, anything by Frank Miller, anything by Grant Morrison.

[comics] Maggots, Scum, Filth and Turds. Warren Ellis takes a few well aimed pot-shots at the sad and pathetic world of comic price speculation… ‘Speculation on comics prices is shit. Let me say that again for the hard of thinking. Speculation on comics prices is shit. It is for the emotionally and ethically retarded. It is a game for human filth. Rabid speculation led directly to the state of the comics market today. I’m amazed that anyone needs reminding of this. Specifically WIZARD Magazine, which was around to report on it all. And now WIZARD Magazine is promoting speculation once again, jabbering about “portfolios” of collectible comics, its founder Gareb Shamus frothing at the mouth on live TV in his comparisons of comics to stocks and outrageously unsupportable claims of the probable financial returns of comics speculation.’

[comics] Alan Moore and Dave Sim discuss Life, Magic, Religion, Comics and pretty much everything in between… [Click the four links for different parts of the conversation] ‘As so, too, From Hell: the Whitechapel murders took place over a finite period of time and claimed a finite number of victims. Looked at in terms of the area of information covered, this appears at first glance to be a containable task with clearly defined limits. The problem is all in the surface detail. As more detail becomes apparent with closer and closer examination, so too does the “surface” of the narrative become more crinkly, prickly, and fractal. The perimeter of the story starts to extend towards infinity.’ [Related Link: The Alan Moore Magic Site]

[comics] Fantagraphics presents a Ghost World Gallery. ‘Fuck you bitch… THIS IS MY HAPPENING AND IT FREAKS ME OUT!!’ [Related Links: Dan Clowes]

[comics] Warren Ellis interviews Mark Waid. “Look, I’ve said this before: you can make fun of my less-than-lofty goals all you like, but from the time I was 17, writing Superman – or, more accurately, being able to give back to someone who, fictional or not, quite literally saved my suicidal young life – was all I ever really wanted to do. I had no grand aspirations to transform the medium. I was perfectly happy being a journeyman. But the day I was told that I would never, ever, ever be allowed to fulfill that dream – well, that’s when I finally came to my senses and stopped trying to do what a 17 year old wanted to do. Now at least I’m on a road.”

[comics] Comic Book Geek Purity Test. I got: “You answered “yes” to 103 of 300 questions, making you 65.7% comic pure (34.3% comic corrupt).” [via Threadnaught]

[comics] Eddie’s Campbell’s new website looks good… The Eddie’s Shout section asks: Who Drew Batman? ‘I recently pulled out those 1966, thirty-year-old yellowed paperbacks. There are two panels approximately to a page, some enlarged, some reduced, some chopped up like the cat’s dinner. I’ve been photocopying them and reassembling them back into their original comic book page format so that I may examine the layout styles more thoroughly. Some of the photocopying is made difficult by the fact that many pages have been coloured in with wax crayons. Who coloured Batman? I confess; it was me.’

[grant morrison] Interesting transcript of Grant Morrison’s chat on the BBC’s Edfest website. ‘Jinx: Will Zenith be returning to 2000AD? Grant Morrison: Yes shortly and in a fairly bizarre story It starts off with Britney Spears being raped by a robot’ [Related links: plasticbag.org covers the Flex Mentallo / Charles Atlas WWF Smackdown]

[comics] What has Evan Dorkin been up to recently? ‘The main project I’m working on is an Eltingville Club animated pilot for the Cartoon Network. The series bible (written by myself and Sarah Dyer) and pilot script (written by myself, story-edited by Sarah) have both been approved, and right now Stephen DeStefano is working on the storyboards. I’ve designed all the characters and as a producer on the pilot I have say on all aspects of production.’

[comics] BBC News takes a look at Ralph Steadman and his most recent work for children. ‘Steadman says his latest work has the same “wayward spirit” as Fear and Loathing – despite being aimed at a very different audience. “Little.com is different because I’m not so malevolent in it,” he adds. “A children’s book is small world that is large enough for a child’s mind at bed-time.”‘ [Related Link: ralphsteadman.com]

[comics] Dylan Horrocks Sketchbook — a couple of intriguing pages covering his latest work — the 1000 page Atlas.

[grant morrison] A scan of an early Grant Morrison comic strip — Gideon Stargrave. Originally published in 1978 in a comic called Near Myths. “Are you Gideon Stargrave?” “As often as possible, but you know how it is these days.” [Related Link: TimeMachineGo]

[jesus wants me for a sunbeam] Which of your favourite celebrities is an atheist or agnostic? Find out at the The Celebrity Atheist List. Garth Ennis: ‘I’m an atheist, really. But everyone seems to think I’m some terrible lapsed Catholic who suffered the worst of a Catholic upbringing and had the crap kicked out of him by nuns and monks. In actual fact, I’m not Catholic, and I never had any kind of direct religious upbringing at all, although I was exposed to the inevitable religious influence that growing up in Ireland will give you.’

[comics] Nice on-line comic — Bobbins. [Links: Start of the Strip, Amusing – A Tribute to Stanley Kubrick :) ]

[comic] Transmetropolitan — website covering the comic of the same name…. ‘Transmetropolitan follows Spider as he harasses people with the ugly, painful truth until they are practically driven insane, fill their pants up with defication wrought of abject terror, or simply kick his ass. Then he writes articles about them.’ [Related Link: Warren Ellis]

[comics] OPi8 interviews Brian Michael Bendis. ‘It’s so funny because you never see people at movie theatres go: Well, I won’t go see a Warner Brothers movie. I won’t be seen in a New Line movie. Only in comics does this happen and I am challenging some of my readers to get over their snobby selves, as far as that goes. Because I am not a genre snob. People are sometimes surprised that I love Spider-Man. I don’t mention it or it doesn’t appear that I would, but I adore him! I love the Spider-Man of yesteryear and that’s what they’ve asked me to write. There is no genre or style of comic that I won’t read. I only want my good comics. If anyone’s kicking ass on a comic, no matter that it is about, I’ll buy it!’

[[comics] Fandom reports that there is no sign of any detente between Alan Moore and DC Comics in the light of a 15th Anniversary edition of Watchmen. ‘”Regarding the Watchmen products, any renewed relationship with DC is not anything that people should be placing any hope in at all,” Moore told Newsarama. “I can tell you that right now, I’m having nothing to do with the Watchmen project – I completely disown it. I’m not at all interested if there are any more toys or anything at all comes out, and I shall not be cooperating with the project in any way.’

[comics] Excellent interview with Authority writer Mark Millar. ‘…I thought Grant was a bit mad. He was going through his ‘Bizarro persona’ at the time. Did you ever hear about that? As a shamanic exercise, he purposely said the precise opposite of everything he meant for six entire months and broke his vocabulary down into “Me am not want drink of Vodka”, etc. It was very, very fucking scary, and his girlfriend of some years had a breakdown during the course of the exercise. He was a good sort, though, and we hit it off almost immediately thanks to my sterling knowledge of Silver Age DCs.‘

[comics] Dylan Horrocks the creator of Hicksville sent an email to the Comix Mailing list recently detailing what he’s currently working on. ‘[..] the monthly should be pretty unmistakably me: I’ve been bamboozling mainstream comics press interviewers by describing it (pretty flippantly) as a cross between Tolkien, William Gibson and Jean Baudrillard. ;-) Anyway, enough about that – lest you fear I’m ‘lost to the dark side’ (as Heidi likes to wryly put it), I’m also hard at work on the first issue of ATLAS, my new series from Drawn & Quarterly.’ [Related Links: Drawn & Quarterly, Comix Mailing List, Review of Hicksville]

[comics] Interesting usenet interview with Dave Sim the creator of Cerebus from 1992. ‘Nothing frustrates me more than the twentieth century adherence to the notion that you can find out what ‘actually happened’ and that it is necessary for fiction to set out a linear, quantitative and absolute reality for the readers consumption and assurance. I think EVERYTHING is like the Kennedy assassination(s); riddled with inconsistencies, false trails, overlapping stories and considerations; distortions wrapped inside fabrications and coated with lies. The sooner we get over the idea that reality isn’t like this, the sooner we’ll be able to put together a world that fits our circumstances as they are; not as they never were and will never be. I’m not holding my breath.’