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22 April 2003
[comics] Suggested for Mature Retailers — yet another interview with Dave Sim — this time regarding Miracleman, Gaiman and McFarlane from 1995. ‘…basically asking Neil if, bearing the Spawn #10 metaphor in mind, it didn’t make more sense to let Miracleman out of his cage – instead of Neil spending umpty-ump million dollars and Todd spending umpty-ump million dollars to decide whose cage Miracleman is going to be in: Neil’s or Todd’s. So Neil says, “Well, the advantage of being in my cage…” and I interrupted him and said, “Neil, listen to yourself. There is no advantage to being in anyone’s cage.” And there was this dead air on the line. And I’m thinking to myself, This is nuts. I’m talking as if Miracleman is an actual person (laughs). And after a few seconds Neil laughed and said, “I hate it when you make sense.” (laughs) Which was a relief, because I thought what he was going to say way, “Dave. Listen to yourself. You’re talking about a super-hero as if he’s an actual person.” (laughs)’ [via ¡Journalista!]
18 April 2003
[comics] Charley’s War — really well done site covering the World War I comic from Pat Mills and Joe Colquhoun. Mills: ‘A letter (from memory) which said from a soldier to his young wife something like: “Bing! go a bullet – maybe get that man. And you just feel like you’re gonna get the dirt. But you know, dear, you mustn’t worry, because I’ll be all right etc.” The day such letters are respected alongside the university educated poets is the day our schools will be teaching the reality of war. I doubt it will happen. I’ve lived in an army town and the stories soldiers have told me of more modern conflicts suggests things have improved, of course, but still have much in common with Charley’s day. Charley is the ordinary, working class, illiterate but courageous soldier of his generation who was sacrificed by an odious class system.’
14 April 2003
[comics] Juicy, Gossipy SPACE Tidbits — interesting report and gossip about Cerebus from the SPACE comic con … ‘Gerhard almost quit [Cerebus]. He’s back but Dave needs to coach him (he used a baseball analogy: “How’s the arm? How’s the back? OK? Are you up for this? Do you want me to help with your parts?”) and occasionally covers for him. Ger tried to quit for good, but Dave “wouldn’t let him”. What are Gerhard’s “issues”? That’s a feminist thing to ask! They have always been Guys and business partners. They don’t try to get into each others heads.’ [via Cerebus Yahoo Group | Related (kinda): Sim Sketch of “Old Cerebus”]
[war] Drawing Fire — Steve Bell on why he’s not an “embedded cartoonist” … ‘I believe passionately in the idea of cartoon reportage, but not at my age, and certainly not in the present circumstances with the military breathing down my neck. Don’t get me wrong – I would love to hurl myself into foxholes and I really enjoyed the only time I’ve ever been paintballing. But I fear this would be paintballing with extreme prejudice – and just imagine the indignity of being at the beck and call of nuclear-powered wankers like Air Marshal Bertrand Bollocks or whatever his name is.’ [via Metafilter | ¡Journalista!]
11 April 2003
 [comics] A Chat With Dave Sim. Creator of Cerebus [ Part 1 | Part 2] — from Cerebus Fangirl … Dave Sim’s Life: ‘I work six days a week. I’m up at 6 a.m. and I’m usually at work by 7:30 a.m. I usually work until 6 p.m. I pray five times a day. I read the newspaper for two hours. I go to bed. Sunday, when I’m not sleeping I’m reading aloud from the Torah, the Gospels and the Koran, a big chunk of each. [laughs] The only “dirt” I could come up with is Friday night I go out to a bar which, apart from me, is exclusively inhabited by university students. I drink two, three or four beers and I look at dozens of amazingly, dazzlingly, astonishingly pretty young girls – each more amazing, dazzling and astonishing than the last – for all of whom I am completely and mercifully invisible. I look until I think my eyeballs will bleed. Around 1 a.m., when some of the amazingly, dazzlingly, astonishingly pretty young girls have had a little too much to drink and it becomes obvious that I’m becoming visible to some of them, I go home.’
10 April 2003
[war] New Get Your War On about the fall of Baghdad … ‘Ugh. I hate finding cluster bombs in my cake! They get stuck in my fillings.’
9 April 2003
[comics] Snake Charmer 2 — second part of an Alan Moore interview from Ninth Art. Moore: ‘Apathy is the key to an awful lot of my behaviour. It’s the reason I’ve got this ridiculous beard and haircut. It’s just simple laziness. I can’t be bothered to shave every morning like ordinary people do. I can’t be bothered going to the barbers or places like that. I could be sitting here writing my silly-arse comic books or composing some new incomprehensible magical tract, which is much preferable to me.’
7 April 2003
[comics] Snake Charmer — first of a two part interview with Alan Moore. ‘…you find that places definitely do have their own unique essence, made up of their history all of the rumours and legends about them – all of the people who passed through there, leaving a kind of historical imprint. You’ve just got layers and layers of historical meaning and mythological meaning that somehow go together to make the place what it is.’ [thanks Zed]
2 April 2003
[comics] Grant Morrison: Ten Cats Mad — Jeremy Dennis on Grant Morrison at the ICA. ‘…let’s talk cats! Paul loves cats, Grant loves cats. Grant loves cats so much that he has four in house and six buried in the back garden. “Are you a dog person?” asks Paul. Grant stares at his shiny boots and looks slightly guilty. “I really like dogs,” he says, “But I like cats more. And dogs need so much looking after, so much attention. I think I’d just get really frustrated with a dog.” The guy three rows behind me who came in to listen to Grant talk about acid trips and alien abductions nearly explodes with frustration.’ [via kookymojo | Related: Jeremy Dennis’ Website]
[comics] A Self-Aware DC Universe — Rich Johnson update on Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. ‘…Morrison talked about the basics of life. How it arises from complex systems. And how so comics continuity has become so complex as to support sentience. Expressed his intent to create a comic so complex that it becomes a living self-aware being, as well as bringing that same aspect to the DC Universe, wanting to make the DC Universe realise that it’s alive. He didn’t appear to be joking.’
31 March 2003
[comics] Ebay Auction — Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland … I’m trying to prune back my comic collection a bit so expect a few auctions to show up here. This is an Alan Moore Batman comic from 1988… The Joker: ‘All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That’s how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.’
26 March 2003
[comics] Sex in New X-Men #118 — X-Fans get worked up over subliminal SEX in an issue of the New X-Men … ‘When the issue in question was released several months ago, it went by almost unnoticed, but there is a subliminal message inside. Sure, some readers noticed the word SEX being hidden in the background art here or there, but only after an article in Wizard the general audience took a closer look and in fact the secret message has been discovered 17 times — so far.’ [thanks John]
25 March 2003
[comics] Zenith Phase 3 Scorecard — amusing list of all the characters in Morrison and Yeowell’s corruption and destuction of a vast array of old British comic heroes … General Jumbo: ‘…this is General Jumbo. While we don’t see him properly until part 5 “Letter from the Underworld”, he is in this prologue – we see him dead, face down in the sea with his trousers round his ankles. Quite what Grant felt he did to deserve so ignominious a death I don’t know.’ [via Venusberg]
24 March 2003
[comics] Get Your War On — Part 22… 
19 March 2003
[war] Douglas Rushkoff has been talking to Grant Morrison about the war in Iraq … ‘[Morrison] says he’s decided not to think about the war and all this mess, at all. He’s calling it “what the adults do,” and making a strong case for the idea that “we told them this would happen,” and “they never listen to us, anyway.”‘
17 March 2003
[comics] The “Synchronicity” Triptych — Dave Sim reminisces about Bill Sienkiewicz … ‘…Bill walked up and asked if anyone wanted to see some pages from the new project which he was working on with Frank Miller. And, of course, we all said “sure”. What ensued was the most “jaw-dropping” moment I have ever experienced in getting an advance look at a project in my life (smoking dope in a hotel room at Mid-Ohio Con while Frank Miller acted out a lot of The Dark Knight Returns comes a close second, though). The project, of course, was Elektra Assassin and what Bill had were original pages from (I believe) the first two issues. No word balloons, but fully rendered colour. Fully rendered colour but rendered in every imaginable way. Crayon, acrylic, charcoal pencil, pencil crayon, crayon, oil pastel. And collage. This was years before Dave McKean would define the extremes of collage with his Sandman covers, but — before Bill did it — it was completely unthinkable in a comic-book. Unthinkable.’
10 March 2003
[comics] “A Healing Innoculation of Grime” — Newsarama interviews Grant Morrison about the final issues of The Filth … ‘The real weird thing about this series is the amount of people who think they don’t get it when they clearly do. What’s that all about? I must admit it’s quite baffling to me – I’ve read reviews saying things like ‘Yes, it’s Art but why should we care?’ and ‘why should I care about an old guy and his cat?’ …and my only answer is ‘why should you care about a fictional character who dresses up like a bat or a man who grows to giant size and abuses his wife?’ Why should anyone care about any story and yet people clearly do, because fiction helps to illuminate life. Personally, I believe that if you can feel sympathy for a ridiculous superhero and not for an ordinary, lonely man tending a sick animal then there’s something desperately wrong with your emotions and your priorities.’ [Related: Crack!Comicks | via Barbelith]
28 February 2003
[comics] Vertigo X Interview with Grant Morrison [ Part 1 | Part 2] … On Reality TV in Scotland: ‘We have McBachelor, where a kilted throwback from the Isle of Eigg wrestles goats to the turf and slaughters kestrels with his fists in an attempt to impress single career women from the mainland.’ [via Barbelith]
27 February 2003
[comics] Why Team Comics is Still a Bad Idea — Tom Spurgeon dismisses grassroots/fan-based attempts to revive the comic-book industry … ‘Team Comics switches between two basic modes of entreaty: duty, by suggesting someone who really loves comics would do his best by them; and self-esteem, where one is flattered into believing he has the power to create a world in which his choice of entertainment reflects favorably upon him. The first asks for a cynic’s acceptance of standard business practices, while the second requires an optimist’s imagination to see the current day’s output as the medium in full flower. Stan Lee seized on both ideas to galvanize hardcore fans behind Marvel’s efforts in the 1960s. Today’s Team Comics booster resembles a Marvel Maniac with a slightly broader reading palette and industry-wide ambition.’ [via Neilalien]
20 February 2003
[comics] Grant Morrison at the ICA on 28th March:
15 February 2003
[film] Green Party — Entertainment Weekly asks: “Is the Hulk ready for his close-up?” …’the real test of the movie Hulk will come not in the scenes of him smashing tanks, but in his quieter interactions with flesh-and-blood characters. ”In the commercial, we don’t get a sense of whether the Hulk will emote at all,” Knowles says. Given the past work of director Lee (”Sense and Sensibility,” ”Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”), some sensitive Hulk moments seem inevitable, and such scenes could show up when a full-length trailer hits theaters Feb. 14 with prints of ”Daredevil.” But even without them, one expert already sees the beast’s softer side. Says Ferrigno: ”I think he’s cute.”’ [Related: Hulk Trailer]
[comics] Seth Returns to Palookaville — update on the cartoonist Seth … ‘Outside of his work, Seth is probably best known for his appearances in Joe Matt’s Peepshow comic, where the conversations between those two and Yummy Fur’s Chester Brown has become part of comic book legend. Do the three still hang out? “Sure. But last night the three of us had our farewell dinner for Joe Matt. He’s leaving Toronto for good.” What, can this trio really be broken up forever? “It’s going to be odd. But Chester and I were friends before Joe showed up.”‘
10 February 2003
[comics] Chaykin’s Mighty Love — Newsarama interview with Howard Chaykin … On his new comic: ‘The germ of this came from my wife — who asked me why there weren’t anymore love comics. I explained that all comics are love comics, because they’re all soap opera. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear, so she pushed and badgered me, and ultimately what emerged was the title, Mighty Love — the idea of doing a screwball romantic comedy with people wearing masks. The natural source of that would be The Shop Around the Corner, You’ve Got Mail, and all those stories of mistaken identities.’
7 February 2003
[comics] Matt’s World — Newsarama interviews Joe Matt. ‘The last few girlfriends I’ve had including my current one have all read my comics. They were all fans. It definitely helps. If they can read all that and still want to go out with me the worst is over.’
4 February 2003
[comics] The Muslim World — a great map/cartoon from Derf. [via Bugpowder]
3 February 2003
[comics] Eddie Campbell has announced he has stopped self-publishing for “the foreseeable future”. Some good news: ‘For the rest of the year I’ll be working on a one-off Batman book, writing and painting. (I seem to have got into this gig by a series of peculiar accidents). In a way it could be viewed as a development of my interview with old Batman artist Lew Sayre Schwartz in Egomania #1. I’ll also be revisiting From Hell territory since the book is set in London in 1939 and involves a complicated mystery and a very eccentric secret society.’ [via ¡Journalista!]
30 January 2003
[comics] Interview with Grant Morrison by Rich Johnson. GM on the WACKYJAC photos: ‘…think of it as a kind of Victoria’s Secret that should have been KEPT and perhaps the images won’t hurt so badly. Now if I hadn’t been flaccid, it would have been illegal, so be glad I spared humanity.’ [via Barbelith]
29 January 2003
[comics] When Grant Morrison had hair… (click image to enlarge) …  ‘It was great […] I got to do the Flash. The real Flash, not this abomination that’s running around today. One of the most exciting moments of my entire life, believe it or not, was writing the sequence where Barry Allen presses his ring and the costume leaps out. When I wrote that I was sitting there all charged up with adrenalin. I suppose that just shows how sheltered a life I’ve led.’
26 January 2003
[comics] New X-Men #136 — a great thread on Grant Morrison‘s latest issue of X-Men over at the comics forum on Barbelith … ‘There were worrying things about Xorn even in his stand-alone issue, and I remember this being discussed – “If I could save every life, I would” – but you can’t. And how do you deal with that realisation – how do you handle death? Morrison did actually say in an interview early on that NXM would be about death, and he wasn’t kidding. Xorn’s already got so depressed he nearly destroyed the world once – what if the senselessness of it all pushes him that close as well?’
22 January 2003
[comics] Fans Howl in Protest as Judge Decides X-Men Aren’t Human — the X-Men are apparently “nonhuman creatures” according to a Judge in New York … ‘To Brian Wilkinson, editor of the online site X-Fan (x-mencomics.com/xfan/), Marvel’s argument is appalling. The X-Men — mere creatures? “This is almost unthinkable,” he says. “Marvel’s super heroes are supposed to be as human as you or I. They live in New York. They have families and go to work. And now they’re no longer human?”‘ [via Pete and Pelvey]
20 January 2003
[comics] The Accidental Artist — interview with David Rees the creator of Get Your War On. ‘…despite rumors of hate mail, Rees says the response to the strip has been almost unanimously encouraging. “The positive outnumbers the negative 30-to-1,” he said. No one has made the slightest move to shut him down. “This is an awesome country!” he exclaimed. It’s hard to be sure whether he means it. On the other hand, it’s possible that Capitol Hill has just not yet noticed Rees. “It takes like 400 years for culture to get there,” he observed.’ [via Sore Eyes]
16 January 2003
[comics] Warren Ellis reviews Get Your War On. [Buy GYWO: UK | US] …  ‘This book, collecting the majority of the strips so far, is an amazing artifact; not only is it one of the few successful transferences of web material into print, but it clearly shows the guy growing into the work and, in a few short months, sees him go from clunky-but-funny into someone totally in control of his materials and timing.’
14 January 2003
[comics] Begging the Question — interview with Bob Fingerman the creator of White Like She and Minimum Wage … ‘NRAMA: So that’s the key to success?
BF: [laughs] Keys to happy living. Don’t draw comics, don’t write about comics, marry well.’
10 January 2003
[comics] Author Praised for Comic-Book on Palestine Tragedy — more on Joe Sacco and his comic Palestine … ‘Drawing on first-hand experiences, extensive research and more than 100 interviews with Palestinians and Jews, Sacco has gained access to unusually intimate testimony, giving space to details and perspectives normally excluded by mainstream media coverage. “I came from the standpoint of ‘Palestinian equals terrorist’,” Mr Sacco wrote. “That’s what’s filtered down in the course of watching the regular network news.” He makes no pretence of the observer’s invisibility and depicts his own initial disbelief of reported detentions and torture. Nor does he shy away from revealing his own ambiguities as a visiting Western journalist.’ [via Egon]
9 January 2003
[comics] Two Samples [ #1] [#2] from Joe Sacco’s Palestine comic. ”It’s good for the comic. It’s good for the comic. It’s good for the comic.’ [via Robot Wisdom]
8 January 2003
[comics] Eyewitness in Gaza — Observer review of Joe Sacco‘s Palestine … ‘Approaching such daunting topics with a disreputable and supposedly juvenile medium may seem futile, even absurd, yet Sacco’s greatest achievement is to have so poignantly depicted contradiction, oppression and horror in a form that manages to be both disarming and disquieting.’ [Buy Palestine: UK | US]
6 January 2003
[comics] Who Cares? — Jack Chick on 9/11 … [via Metafilter]  ‘Bob, now I know that Allah doesn’t really love me or even care about any Muslim. But Jesus, the Son of God, does. That’s why I must chose Jesus.’
4 January 2003
[comics] Scarlet Traces: Digital Artwork Step By Step — Comic artist D’israeli’s guide to creating comic art digitally … ‘I miss the smell of ink and the feel of my fifty-year-old drawing pens against smooth drawing paper, but I don’t miss smearing ink across the page by accident or correcting with process white or trying to erase the pencil on a finished page and constantly finding you’ve missed a bit. Because I trained as a designer, I don’t value original artwork; to me it’s just a stage on the way to the finished product. On the whole, working without originals is a great relief. And I just love the Undo function.’ [via Bugpowder]
1 January 2003
[web] The Peanuts Arcana Tarot Deck … ‘Featuring Good Ol’ Charlie Brown’  The Hierophant: ‘…often represents learning with experts or knowledgeable teachers. This card also stands for institutions and their values. The Hierophant is a symbol of the need to conform to rules or fixed situations. His appearance in a reading can show that you are struggling with a force that is not innovative, free-spirited or individual. Groups can be enriching or stifling, depending on circumstances. Sometimes we need to follow a program or embrace tradition, other times, we need to trust ourselves.
29 December 2002
[comics] Ennis’ War Stories — Newsarama interview with Garth Ennis. ‘…what’s most fascinating is the psychology and the behavior of people at the sharp end — the kind of stories that come out of people at this extreme edge of human existence, one that we don’t even have to imagine, as we do with fantasy or science fiction, or even in some crime drama. We don’t have to imagine this, because it was real. In the case of the Second World War, it was the most crucial event in the history of the 20th Century. It defined the rest of the century — it’s real, it actually happened. The drama that comes out of that is more gripping than almost anything else that we take drama from.’
27 December 2002
[comics] Heroes and Villains — Edward Said reviews Palestine by Joe Sacco … [via Bugpowder] ‘…comics provided one with a directness of approach (the attractively overstated combination of pictures and words) that seemed unassailably true on the one hand and marvellously close, impinging, familiar on the other. In ways that I still find fascinating to decode, comics in their relentless foregrounding – far more, say, than film cartoons or funnies (neither of which mattered much to me) seemed to say what couldn’t otherwise be said, or wasn’t permitted to be said or imagined, defying the ordinary processes of thought, which are policed, shaped and reshaped by all sorts of pedagogical as well as ideological pressures. I knew nothing of this then, but I felt that comics freed me to think and imagine and see differently.’
23 December 2002
[comics] Time’s rates the Best Comics of 2002 … ‘Eightball #22. This single, self-contained issue of his regular series Eightball finds inspiration in the style of filmmaker Robert Altman. Its 29 shorts range in length from a single strip to several pages; each one works alone as well as with the others, weaving multiple characters and multiple stories into one cohesive whole.’
22 December 2002
[comics] Comic book feedback: Letters lose to the Web — the death of the letters page in US comic books … ‘DC Comics recently announced the end of its letters-to-the-editor pages in all of its titles, more or less admitting that no one was really taking the time to write and mail letters to superheroes anymore. DC’s decision to kill off letters — and with Marvel Comics inclined to do the same — is a surrender to the far superior powers of the Internet. Fans haven’t complained about the loss; they’re too busy flaming each other on comic book Web sites.’ [via Boing Boing]
19 December 2002
[xmas] Cut-Up Christmas Card — nice flash distraction from Steve Bell.
16 December 2002
[comics] Warren Ellis interviews Justine Shaw the creator of Nowhere Girl … ‘I think with comics, using pictures as well as words, you can do things you can’t do as well in books or maybe even films, you can get out ideas that are “between the lines”, that is, you never state something out loud, but give the reader a sense of that thing, let them make their own thing out of it. I really do comics because I am a fanatical anal-retentive control freak, and a comic allows me to do literally all aspects of the production work without having to depend on someone else for any of it.’
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