In the past I’ve tried to say, ‘Look, we are all crappy superheroes,’ because personal computers and mobile phone devices are things that only Bat Man and Mr Fantastic would have owned back in the sixties. We’ve all got this immense power and we’re still sat at home watching pornography and buying scratch cards. We’re rubbish, even though we are as gods.
THE ONLY POSSIBLE “UP SIDE” TO THIS MISERABLE HEAT AND HUMIDITY IS THAT SOMEWHERE IN THIS TOWN, SPIDER-MAN IS DRENCHED IN HIS PERVERT SUIT.Mon Jun 28 16:05:08 via webJ Jonah Jameson JJONAHJAMESON
[comics] Vinnie Colletta’s Exit ‘Conversation’ … a fascinating (and raw) interview with Vinnie Colletta apparently days after Jim Shooter was fired from Marvel in 1987. ‘… and I read the beeper and it said, “I’ve been fired”. Jesus Christ! He usually calls me on the beeper because he gets me anywhere I am. He calls me on the beeper and says, “I’ve been fired,” I nearly had a heart attack and I called him straight back. The only thing I can do to stand by him is give him sound advice because sometimes when you’re in the middle you don’t see the truth, you know?’
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6 July 2010
[comics] Marvel Editors…you are the droppings of the creative world … the text of a letter that Vinnie Colletta wrote to Marvel’s editorial staff after editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter was fired in 1987 … ‘Displaying more class and poise in defeat than all of you did in victory… Jesus had one Judas… Jim had many, those that speared him and worse, those that watched…’
[tags: Comics][permalink][Comments Off on Philip Bond’s Wonder Woman Costume Redesign]
30 June 2010
[moore] The Infinite Monkey Cage Podcast … a BBC science podcast with Alan Moore, Jonathan Ross, Brian Cox, Robin Ince and Brian Greene discussing science fiction (available till next Monday).
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[comics] Metafilter Discuss The Best Batman Comics … a mixed bag of fun links to various Batman panels and comics … ‘PLEASE! Can anyone find for me the Superfriends clip where Batman is guarding Fort Knox and he gets tricked into drinking drugged chicken soup by a mad scientist posing as a street vendor and Batman actually asks if the soup is fresh before buying it? Please? Anyone? I SWEAR I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP!’ [link]
[comics] Dan Clowes new comic Wilson reviewed … ‘Bereaved and bereft, a middle-aged divorcee sits at the edge of a children’s playpark and indulges in regrets over the family he might have had. But within moments he interrupts his reverie to call out: “Hey! Can you get that brat to shut up for two fucking seconds!?” Welcome to the world of Wilson, self-declared “people person”, misanthrope, gasbag, egomaniac and dog lover. Daniel Clowes has created a monster, but a monster who refreshes our empathy for humans in all their unloveliness.’
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22 June 2010
[comics] The 18 Best Batman Panels Ever … a list of some great Batman moments from Chris Sims …‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned from two and a half decades reading Batman comics, it’s that that dude straight up loves to punch people.’
[comics] Four Color Process … lovely on-going collection of abstract(ish) images from comics books …
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9 June 2010
[comics] “Because These Are The Things That Will Save You” – Psychiatric Tales … Richard Bruton reviews Darryl Cunningham’s Psychiatric Tales: ‘…where Psychiatric Tales excels, where it becomes so much more engaging and emotive is when Cunningham breaks away from his documentary style and uses his experiences to bring us closer to the people behind his tales. Then the tone changes and the dispassionate observer/reporter becomes a caring, emotional fellow sufferer. It’s this humanising of the subject – transforming these patients into real people that elevate the book into something truly special.’ [Elsewhere: Darryl Cunningham Investigates]
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5 June 2010
[comics] The Periodic Table Of Super-Powers … a powerful new way of listing super-hero powers, abilities and origins … ‘With this table, you can easily represent your favorite super-heroes’ power-sets in simple, not-at-all-far-too-complex-to-be-useful formulas! For instance: Superman comes out as: OAFSISpVxVhSn.’
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[tags: Comics][permalink][Comments Off on Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Marvel Universe]
1 June 2010
[comics] I have read the worst comic I have ever read … Brian Hibbs On Justice League: The Rise Of Arsenal #3 … ‘Page 9: Since he can’t fuck, he decides to go beat up guys. “I need a release.” and “For me, they serve their purpose” he thinks, as he sticks knives in faceless people’s arms. Page 10: full-page splash of Roy standing over a bunch of unconscious guys. “Much better” says the caption as Roy makes an O-face.
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28 May 2010
[comics] Cartoonist Daniel Clowes celebrates Oakland with “Wilson” … an interview promoting his latest comic book … ‘Clowes, an illustrator for the “New Yorker,” is traditional in other ways, too. At a time when print is down and young cartoonists are turning to the Web, Clowes still draws everything by hand – “I’ll never type in a url to look at comics,” he says…’
[tags: Comics, Health][permalink][Comments Off on The Facts In The Case Of Dr. Andrew Wakefield]
13 May 2010
[comics] Christ, It Works for Everything … ‘It was recently theorized that all New Yorker cartoons could be captioned
with “Christ, what an asshole” without compromising their comedic value. I discovered this is true of virtually all comics, old and new…’
[comics] Chris Ware’s Rejected Fortune Cover … ‘He accepted the job because it would be like doing the 1929 issue of the magazine, and he filled the image with tons of satirical imagery, like the U.S. Treasuring being raided by Wall Street, China dumping money into the ocean, homes being flooded, homes being foreclosed, and CEOs dancing a jig while society devolves into chaos.’
[comics] The Unpublished Moore … a comprehensive list of the the Alan Moore’s whims, unfinished scripts and lost work … ‘Cerebus #301 Status: Unpublished. I believe a full script exists for this one (which involved Cerebus being summoned during a seance in the modern day), but it was intended to be a Moore/Bisette/Veitch project, and is unlikely to appear now due to ill-will among the creators.’
[comics] Watching the Watchman – St Albans comics legend Dave Gibbons interviewed … ‘I bumped into a friend of mine called Mick McMahon, who lived in Colney Heath, at the station at St Albans and he had this artwork under his arm. It turned out to be the first Judge Dredd job, and he said it was this new comic being done at IPC called 2000AD…’
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13 April 2010
[comics] Alan Moore – The Spanish Impersonation … ‘When I was young I travelled to Andorra and bought a radio cassette player. However, I usually travel to fourth dimension.’
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8 April 2010
[comics] Brendan McCarthy discusses Spiderman: Fever … ‘When you write and draw it yourself, you can keep changing or finessing right up to the last moment. You can radically alter what you’ve written or drawn. You can spontaneously do what the moment dictates. It’s exciting and I really like it, but it’s a very intense way of working. Finding the story and making sure it doesn’t follow obvious routes was the challenge. All writers know about that glorious moment when the characters start to ‘talk back’ to you. That’s the point when you absolutely know what they would or wouldn’t say or do.’
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14 March 2010
[comics] Wally Wood Should Have Beaten Them All … overview of the comics career of artist Wally Wood … ‘Wood was a tremendously ambitious journeyman. He had a genius and a love for a medium that, until recently, ground down its abundant geniuses, celebrating creation while pointedly not rewarding the creator.’
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He was the existential loner outcast from society who sought solace by riding the waves (the Silver Surfer). He was the military industrial complex (Nick Fury). He was the hippies who rejected the Cold War consensus, and wanted to create their own counterculture (the Forever People). He was the artist who tried to escape his degrading background (Mister Miracle). He was feminism (Big Barda). He was Nixon and the religious right (Darkseid and Glorious Godfrey).
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[tags: Batman, Comics, Funny][permalink][Comments Off on “Max, what do you want for dinner?” “JUSTICE!”]
8 March 2010
[comics] Wilson … Tom Spurgeon produces the first review of Wilson – Dan Clowes latest comic … ‘It’s Clowes being Clowes, and Wilson all by itself makes 2010 a pretty good year for comics no matter what happens from here on out.’
[comics] The 6 Most Realistic Moments In “Kick-Ass” … ‘Completing the Hit Girl Realisim Trifecta, there’s the scene where she–again, a tiny child–accurately shoots a pistol in each hand, scoring headshots on a roomful of bad guys. Issues of recoil are, of course, negated by the littlegirlium factor…’
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25 February 2010
[comics] Happy 10th Blogiversary Neilalien! … as far as I know Neilalien’s blog and Doctor Strange / Steve Ditko fan site was the first comic blog. Amazingly, after ten years he still seems to handroll his own blog pages, which proves he’s either old school or an alien – I can’t make up my mind which… Congratulations Neil!
[comics] Jack Kirby’s Visual Interpretations of God … ‘I always found it interesting that of the very few pieces of his own work that Jack Kirby displayed in his home, three of them were his visual interpretations of God.’
[comics] Kevin O’Neill Interviewed at the Comics Journal … Huge interview by Douglas Wolk covering O’Neill’s 40 year career in comics. ‘What Robocop did by beating Judge Dredd to the screen was it stole the best of Judge Dredd, and when they made the Dredd movie, they were then worried about being compared with Robocop! So they took out all the black humor and all the satire, and their emasculated movie was almost a Judge Dredd movie, but not quite. Robocop was a more energetic movie. We did hear there were piles of 2000 ADs in the production offices. That does kind of show, doesn’t it?’ [via Metafilter]
[comics] Paradax: the TV show … according to internet rumours Brendan McCarthy is in Hollywood pitching Paradax as a animated TV Show … ‘Bad Boy Superhero: Smallville meets Entourage’
Grant Morrison on Brave and the Bold #102: One of my all-time favourite Batman panels was written by Haney and drawn by Jim Aparo and shows Batman strolling down the sunlit streets of Gotham, checking out the mini-skirted girls and accompanied by the line to end all lines: ‘Yes, Batman digs this day!’
‘…where Psychiatric Tales excels, where it becomes so much more engaging and emotive is when Cunningham breaks away from his documentary style and uses his experiences to bring us closer to the people behind his tales. Then the tone changes and the dispassionate observer/reporter becomes a caring, emotional fellow sufferer. It’s this humanising of the subject – transforming these patients into real people that elevate the book into something truly special.’ [Elsewhere: 
