2 July 2004
[comics] Women in Refrigerators — a list of female characters in comics who have been “killed, raped, depowered, crippled, turned evil, maimed, tortured, contracted a disease or had other life-derailing tragedies befall her.”
25 June 2004
18 June 2004
[comics] A Farewell to Aardvarks — another summing up of Cerebus … “If Dave Sim recorded an album, it would be called Genius, Asshole or Madman.” [via Meowwcat’s Cerebus Links]
9 June 2004
[comics] 5 Questions for… Seth — the writer/artist is interviewed by Alan David Doane at Newsarama … ‘If you were to take the first part of Clyde Fans and change the electric fan, like all references to electric fans, to comic books, it would kind of explain who the character of Abraham is, because being a cartoonist in the 20th century has that same kind of feeling of, say, being an electric fan salesman, it’s a kind of an antiquated occupation that’s sort of fallen by the wayside as technological progress has moved us into such totally different media. In many ways, like working as a cartoonist, just drawing little things on pieces of paper seems like such an old fashioned method compared to all of the technological computer science that has come along.’
28 May 2004
[iraq] Doonesbury at War — the Guardian takes a look at Doonesbury’s coverage of the War in Iraq along with a brief profile of Garry Trudeau. ‘…the syndication arrangement under which Trudeau operates gives him almost unprecedented reach and influence. With little or no editorial control, he talks to millions of readers worldwide. And even though Bush and Donald Rumsfeld profess not to read the newspapers, even they must be wary of the potential influence of such an untrammelled mind.’
25 May 2004
21 May 2004
[comics] New Age of Morrison — another interview with Grant Morrison… ‘The real problem is this: in spite of all our attempts to insist that one exists, there is actually NO mass market for traditional superhero comic books – why would there be? It’s such an esoteric and old-fashioned branch of popular culture and seems to have more in common with collecting stamps or 60s retro kitsch. You can imagine Bryan Hitch drawing Steve Buscemi playing the sort of guy most people think is into these kinds of comics. After all the recent superhero movies and cartoons, at a time when Robin and Beast Boy and Spider-Man have their faces all over buses, comics sales have not improved significantly at all – it’s never going to happen unless we change the pricing, the format, the content and many other things about traditional U.S. superhero books. Kids like manga because manga comes across as modern and cool and exotic; I fear that trying to make Golden and Silver Age superhero characters appeal to a young audience is like trying to sell wax cylinder recordings of Al Jolson to consumers who listen to Outkast MP3s. As I say, comics could use some new ideas, new characters and competitive formats but change comes slowly.’
19 May 2004
[comics] Keith Giffen: “Comics need to be four-colour crack.” [via Warren Ellis]
17 May 2004
[comics] Chaykin On New Flagg For American Flagg Collection — interview with Howard Chaykin on the new reprint of American Flagg … ‘Though it’s been discussed before, it still should be touched on again — though few realized it in the early ’80s, reading American Flagg! was the comic book equivalent of reading H.G. Wells or Jules Verne in the 19th century. With a helluva lot more sex and violence, though. Case in point – commonplace elements in Flagg!: reality television, CGI actors (synthesbians), the collapse of the USSR with resultant Islamic militant groups controlling large portions of the former country, mass epidemics, German reunification, radical militant groups using children as soldiers, and the fractionalization of America into more and more factions.’
14 May 2004
[comics] The Problem with Superman — Time Magazine looks at Superman … ‘He’s a metaphor for America, but an outdated, obsolete America: invulnerable to attack, always on the side of right, always ready to save the rest of the world from its villainy whether or not it wants to be saved.’ [via Neilalien]
11 May 2004
[comics] Four Page Preview of Seaguy — from Grant Morrison and Cameron Stewart … ‘Set in a world where all the major battles have been won, Seaguy is a wistful, would-be hero who, with his pal Chubby Da Choona, embarks on a fantastical, picaresque voyage through a post-Utopian world filled with bizarre adventure and terrible sacrifice.’ [via Barbelith]
10 May 2004
[comics] Grant Morrison Talks Seaguy — Newsarama interview with GM regarding Seaguy … ‘My work’s always been sweet and gentle – it’s about animals and losers and hapless dreamers. I dedicated twenty years of my life to the welfare of six abandoned cats and I give my money to numerous charities and causes. I’m from Glasgow; land of the sentimental hardman. I can nurture to Olympic standard.’
6 May 2004
[comics] Wonder Con’s Vertigo Panel — including some details about Morrison & Quitely’s We3. ‘…it’s a view of The Incredible Journey as only Grant Morrison could imagine it – three ultimate cyborg assassins: a dog named Bandit, a cat named Tinker, and a rabbit named Pirate, armed with missiles, poison gas, state-of-the-art computer technology, rapid fire chain guns and unbreakable exo-skeletons.’
29 April 2004
[comics] My Marvel Years — Jonathan Lethem on growing up in the 1970’s with Marvel Comics and Jack Kirby … ‘Kirby hadn’t been inactive in the interlude between his classic 1960s work for Marvel and his mid-1970s return. He’d been in exile at DC, Marvel’s older, more august and squarer rival. In his DC work and the return to Marvel, where he unveiled two new venues, The Eternals and 2001, Kirby gradually turned into an autistic primitivist genius, disdained as incompetent by much of his audience, but revered by a cult of aficionados in the manner of an ‘outsider artist’. As his work spun off into abstraction, his human bodies becoming more and more machine-like, his machines more and more molecular and atomic (when they didn’t resemble vast sculptures of mouse-gnawed cheese), Kirby became great/awful, a kind of disastrous genius uncontainable in the form he himself had innovated. It’s as though Picasso had, after 1950, become Adolf Adolf Wölfli, or John Ford had ended up as John Cassavetes. Or if Robert Crumb had turned into his obsessive mad-genius brother, Charles Crumb.’ [via Pete Ashton]
27 April 2004
[comics] Wedding Bells for Morrison? — according to Barbelith Grant Morrison and Kristan are getting married. Congratulations! ‘They’re the John and Yoko of comics!!’
25 April 2004
[comics] Dave Sim, The Onion, and Jeopardy — behind-the-scenes at Dave Sim’s Onion Inteview … Who is Dave Sim?: ‘Having had — for 26 years and three months — virtually unlimited space in the back of his comic book to write 100,000 and 200,000-word serialized essays on what he considered the most pressing subjects of the day — some examples being “how feminism usurped the Civil Rights movement from black men” in “Tangent,” “How the Western democracies became so feminized that they failed to support the United States in the war on terrorism” in “Why Canada Slept,” and “Why he chose a combination of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as his personal system of belief” in “Islam, My Islam,” this controversial self-published comic-book artist — who is now being asked by many media outlets (whose formats don’t allow any article longer than 4,000 words) to explain his life and work over the last quarter century in postage-stamp-sized spaces — recently published the 300th issue of his groundbreaking alternative series which began in December of 1977.’ [Related: Earlier Post]
23 April 2004
[comics] B.D. loses his leg in Doonesbury …
» Doonesbury the soap opera (scroll down for article): ‘A four-box daily comic strip it may be, but Doonesbury is also a soap, probably the only one in the world to blend current affairs with a regular cast of characters, ageing, marrying, splitting up, starting dotcoms, doing performance art, having kids, running for office, fighting in America’s wars, going to prison and occasionally dying. For afficionados of Doonesbury, the sight of that bandaged stump on a stretcher and that never-before-seen hair was powerful and affecting.’
22 April 2004
[comics] Mini Gerhard Interview — Dave Sim’s collaborator on Cerebus is occasionally posting to the Cerebus Yahoo Group. ‘…it occurred to me that maybe the pressure of doing a monthly comic all by himself caused Dave’s personality to split and he invented this background artist personality to help him cope with the enormity of it all and that his psychosis was so deep that I think that I actually exist and that I’m going to just *poit* out of existence as soon as I finish drawing issue 300. Fortunately I’m still here. I think.’ [via Meowwcat’s Cerebus Links]
18 April 2004
[comics] Readers Of The Last Aardvark — the Village Voice looks back on 300 issues of Cerebus … ‘Despite Sim’s anti-feminist crusade, Cerebus stands on its own as a ferocious critique of power. Sim believes that freedom is an absolute, and to this end he has self-published Cerebus, advocated for artists’ rights, and bucked intellectual-property laws wherever possible (after his and Gerhard’s deaths, Cerebus will become public domain). In an era when selling out is considered synonymous with success, Sim’s resistance is bracing.’
15 April 2004
1 April 2004
[comics] Yet Another Dave Sim interview from the Onion AV Club … ‘It was pure guesswork on my part back in 1979 as to whether I would have the stamina to write, pencil, ink, letter, tone, and fill the back of a monthly comic book for 26 years. In retrospect, I should’ve said 250 issues. Finishing the book, the last four years, what had previously been an interesting job that left me a certain amount of spare time for other things had become a 15-hour-a-day, six-day-a-week, Herculean task. At the age of 23, I actually thought I would be fine into my 50s doing a monthly comic book, but that I would let myself slack off by ending it at the age of 47. It’s a young man’s game.’ [thanks Kabir]
26 March 2004
[comics] List of “Holy —, Batman!” uttered by Robin — from the Batman TV Series … ‘Holy Astringent pomite fruit!’ [via Neilalien]
25 March 2004
[comics] 5 Questions for Peter Bagge — another Q&A from ADD … ‘I’m pleased to see that comics are making inroads in books stores via the graphic novel route, I’m very upset at the shrinking demand for the traditional comic book format, which is by far my favorite medium to work in.’
22 March 2004
[comics] Alan Moore’s memorial for Julie Schwartz: ‘And now we hear that Julie has been… discontinued? Cancelled? But they said the same about Green Lantern and the Flash back in the early ‘fifties, so we can’t be certain. This is comics. There’ll be some way around it, be some parallel world Earth-Four Julie, born thirty years later to account for problems in the continuity, and decked out in a jazzier, more streamlined outfit.’ [via Neilalien]
18 March 2004
[comics] The Reluctant Hero — another interview with Alan Moore … ‘Put together by Paul Gravett, an internationally renowned expert on comic-book art (he also curated last year’s Comica festival at the ICA), the exhibition features a mass of original, rare or never-seen-before art created for Alan Moore works over the last 25 years, as well as previewing The Mindscape of Alan Moore, an 80-minute documentary on the writer. “It’s an enormous honour,” Moore says of the show. “Even if it makes me feel like I’m almost dead.”‘
14 March 2004
[comics] John Byrne on Grant Morrison and Alan Moore: ‘I get no sense from [Grant] Morrison’s work that he has any “love for the genre”. I get the same vibe I get from [Alan] Moore — a cold and calculated mixing of ingredients the writer knows the fans like, but to which the writer himself has no eviceral connection. Nostalgia without being nostalgic, as I have dubbed it.’ [via ADD]
12 March 2004
[comics] 5 Questions for Alan Moore — another Q&A from ADD Blog… Moore on Writing Voice Of the Fire: ‘As it happened, quite eerily, there were a number of events that more than satisfied the various things that I needed to finish the novel satisfyingly, you know, things like severed heads and big black dogs, often in conjunction with each other. So, it was very eerie at times, not just surprising, but incredibly eerie. There are moments during a writer’s life, especially if he or she is dealing with something very close to home, if it’s getting a bit self-referential, that sometimes the borderlines between fiction and your actual reality can get dangerously blurred and, yeah, that happened more than once during the course of Voice Of The Fire.’
9 March 2004
[comics] Illustrating the Imagination — Apple profiles Dave McKean. On Superheroes: ‘The problem with the “Supermans” and “Batmans” is that they really work best when they’re very, very simple and when they’re done by people who loved them as kids and want to recreate that naiveté. But I don’t have those feelings for them at all. I had a go at doing something different with Batman but as soon as you start trying to give these characters any kind of complexity or come at them from any other angle, their foundations are so weak that they all kind of collapse. It’s a really horrible calamity of form and content.’ [via blackbeltjones]
4 March 2004
[quote] Grant Morrison, Animal Man: ‘What’ll it be next? Choice extracts from the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations? Trotting out the Nietzsche and the Shelley to dignify some old costumed claptrap? Probably.’
3 March 2004
[comics] 5 Questions for Dave Sim — Q&A from ADD Blog… ‘The prime creative engine — at least until I discovered God — was the awareness that anything less than actually finishing the 300 issues would make the book a failure. Literally, “300 or Bust.”‘
2 March 2004
[comics] Comics Weblog Updates — which comics weblogs have updated recently. [via Neilalien]
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:
- Kill It And Grill It … ‘Ted Nugent likes to say, ‘You can’t grill it until you kill it.’
- Get Your Blog On … [via Haddock]
- Doomworld … ‘The definitive source for Doom news, information and development’
- Pagan Hierarchy … who looks down on who…
- 50 Essential Books … annoying book lists.
- TiVo Cute Pet … Comic Strip about TiVo’s from Jeremy Dennis.
- Captain Haddock’s Curses … ‘Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles!’
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’
‘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?
CB: Nope he’s in Los Angeles right now. He’s in negotiations with HBO to make Peepshow into a television series and it looks like it might happen. I’m not sure if a deal has actually been signed but if it hasn’t then its close. At least they’ll make a pilot.
NRAMA: Who will play you?
CB: I don’t know. Maybe I’m not even in the pilot.’
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.’