21 April 2002
[comics] The 2001 Squiddies — comic awards from rec.arts.comic.* on Usenet. [Related: Postings on Usenet — PR and Results | Analysis of Results]
18 April 2002
[comics] Neilalien — comicblog concentrating on Marvel, the mainstream and Doc Strange … ‘Neilalien of course does not aspire to rise above the noise and crap. Not until he gets interviews with Brian Michael Bendis, anyway. He tries to keep things honest though! For example, he always discloses that he doesn’t own Marvel stock before criticizing President Jemas! ‘
12 April 2002
[comics] Comics Turn a New Page — BBC News looks at on-line comics and interviews Scott McCloud … ‘McCloud knows that he is known as something of a maverick. “Among my peers, I am known mainly as the kooky guy who talks about the internet a lot. I don’t mind being associated with my books about comics, especially Understanding Comics, which I still rather like.” There will be more comics about comics, he says, but not for a while yet.’
10 April 2002
[comics] Jonathan Ross interviews Alan Moore … [via Bugpowder]
‘ROSS: Let me tap back into some more Alan Moore mythology. Are you married? Or are you living with Melinda?
MOORE: I was married when I was about twenty, and me and me wife split up in about 1989. I met Melinda a year later. Me and Melinda don’t live together because she’s an artist and I’m a writer, both of which are far too mental. But we see each other a lot. I met up wth her mainly because I wanted to do an erotic, a pornographic comic book, and the idea of doing it with guys?
ROSS: Ha ha.’
8 April 2002
[comics] Long interview with Brian Michael Bendis [Part 1 | Part 2] … ‘I have always admired and respected the work of people who produced a lot of work like Jack Kirby and John Romita. I think that them producing a lot of work made the work a lot better. I think that when they were using all of their steam, it wasn?t the volume of the work that mattered it was the quality that mattered. I always aspired to be that kind of comic creator. On the same note, I don?t want to be ?Oh look he can write 50 titles?. I have no interest in being that guy. It?s just I can. So, I don?t drink and I don?t play video games, which is the more horrible thing to happen to mainstream comics ? the creation of Playstation. If they would take them away from comic creators you wouldn?t even hear about a late book.’ [Related: Jinxworld]
30 March 2002
[quote] Warren Ellis: ‘Do you know how creepy it is to think that at least eight people will be having sex tonight because of you?’ [from Bad Signal … Subcribe]
27 March 2002
[comics] Reno man threatens to blow up comics store … ‘He said he wanted to blow up the place or burn it down. If he couldn’t have his comic books, nobody could.’ [Related: Metafilter has some amusing comments … ‘What are mylar snugs? They sound like diapers? Waterproof underwear?’]
25 March 2002
[comics] Great gallery of images from Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz’s Elektra: Assassin …
‘The daughter of a Greek ambassador, Elektra is the beloved of Matt Murdock. When her father is murdered she becomes a ninja assassin, ultimately betraying those who trained her and turning to a life of senseless crime.’
‘The daughter of a Greek ambassador, Elektra is the beloved of Matt Murdock. When her father is murdered she becomes a ninja assassin, ultimately betraying those who trained her and turning to a life of senseless crime.’
24 March 2002
[comics] Ten Essential Comics — I’ve been playing around with amazon.co.uk’s new listmania feature … ‘Guys. Hey. Getting Any?’
20 March 2002
[comics] King David — DC Comics PR for Kyle Baker’s new graphic novel … ‘Hilarity of Biblical Proportions! Violence! Intrigue! Polygamy! Mass circumcision!’
19 March 2002
[comics] Thrown to the Wolves — a review of my comic du jour… 100 Bullets. ‘The basic story-line is simple, but as I’ve indicated not without its complications. A highly secretive group of vengeance-seekers, the Minutemen, are locked in battle with the Trust, the obligatory nasties. The Minutemen operate outside the law, specializing in setting up victims of criminal wrongdoing with hard evidence of who did them wrong, along with a tasty firearm and one hundred untraceable bullets. The victims get to decide whether and how they are going to use the information and weaponry the Minutemen have dropped in their laps. Those who succeed in blowing the bad guy(s) away might then be approached to see if they have what it takes to join the ranks of the secret revenge society.’ [Related: 100 Bullets on-line comic]
8 March 2002
[comics] Artbomb has a number of reviews of Eddie Campbell’s Bacchus along with some preview PDF comics…
‘The Cockscrew – A useful key to unlock the storehouse of wit, the treasury of laughter, the front door of fellowship and the gate of pleasant folly.’ — Bacchus quoting an unknown author.
- Immortality Isn’t Forever — Review … Preview
- The Gods of Business — Review … Preview
- Doing the Islands With Bacchus — Review … Preview
‘The Cockscrew – A useful key to unlock the storehouse of wit, the treasury of laughter, the front door of fellowship and the gate of pleasant folly.’ — Bacchus quoting an unknown author.
7 March 2002
[comics] The Ultimate Writer — Sequential Tart interview with Mark Millar … How to “save” comics: ‘The formula is very simple and was utilized in microcosm in Marvel Knights; the best writer and the best artist you can find on a character and the audience will seek them out. This was then applied to the Marvel Universe itself and created the beginnings of the new boom we’re looking at. DC will hopefully follow the trend and add their considerable marketing and retail muscle to the boom. I don’t know if it’ll happen under the current administration, but history has a habit of sweeping aside anyone who’s standing still.’
6 March 2002
[comics] Judge Dredd in Links — the Guardian’s Net Notes celebrates 25 years of Judge Dredd … ‘Despite Dredd being the biggest draw for 2000AD, arguably the most media coverage the comic received did not have anything to do with him. It came in 1997 when it ran a satirical story called B.L.A.I.R 1, where the prime minister was turned into a bionic superhero.’ [Related: 2000AD Online, BBC News: Bambi overtaken by bionic Blair]
5 March 2002
[comics] Writer Cool with Unauthorized Use of Script in Cerebus — Dave Sim stirs up a controversy again (kinda… no misogyny or fistfights this time) … ‘When the Journal, disheartened, expressed the opinion to Sim that this seemed to be shaping up as one of the smaller Sim controversies, he responded, reassuringly, “When it comes to Dave Sim, there are no small controversies.”‘
1 March 2002
[comics] I invented Judge Dredd — BBC News interview with John Wagner … ‘This was back in the days of Dirty Harry, and with [Margaret] Thatcher on the rise there was a right-wing current in British politics which helped inspire Judge Dredd. He seemed to capture the mood of the age – he was a hero and a villain. That villainous aspect to Dredd’s character – and the Draconian laws of Mega-City One [the post-apocalyptic metropolis Dredd polices] – really caught the readers’ imagination. Occasionally we’d get letters from children who seemed to be agreeing with his hard-right stance, so we made the strip more political to bring out the fact that we didn’t agree with Dredd.’ [via Coffee Grounds]
[tv] Evan Dorkin Exposes Geek Chic for Cartoon Network — Dorkin talks about Welcome to Eltingville … ‘”Because of Dorkin’s antipathy towards the “Eltingville” quartet, he plans to retire the group from comics. “I always knew ‘Eltingville’ was something I was going to stop doing,” he says. “I hate these characters, to a small degree. I find them maddening to work on. I’m drawing these horrific, ugly characters acting in a really nasty way.”
28 February 2002
[comics] Get Your Wurtzel On — reworking of Get Your War On … ‘…when you get naked on your own book cover and yet nobody gives a shit, the world must seem pretty cold!’ [via RACM]
[comics] Suck has been dead for a while now but before it shutdown it published some illustrated articles from the cartoonist Peter Bagge …
‘”Just think!” I thought to myself, “I get to cover The Democratic Convention for Suck.com!” Yeah, me and about 50 million other journalists, but it still felt like a big deal to me at the time the prospect first came up. Plus there was a lot of buzz over the possibility of PROTESTERS getting out of hand like they did in Seattle during the WTO meetings. We’re talking RIOTS, folks! BIG ones!!! Who’d want to miss out on THAT action? Er, from a nice, SAFE DISTANCE, that is.’
- There she is… The Most Resented Woman in America — Bagge visits Miss America 2000.
- I [Heart] the Blob — Bagge on Paul Allen’s Experience Music Project
- Indy 2000 [Part 1] [Part 2] — visiting the Indianapolis 500.
- Blah Blah Blah — Bagge at the 2000 Democratic National Convention.
‘”Just think!” I thought to myself, “I get to cover The Democratic Convention for Suck.com!” Yeah, me and about 50 million other journalists, but it still felt like a big deal to me at the time the prospect first came up. Plus there was a lot of buzz over the possibility of PROTESTERS getting out of hand like they did in Seattle during the WTO meetings. We’re talking RIOTS, folks! BIG ones!!! Who’d want to miss out on THAT action? Er, from a nice, SAFE DISTANCE, that is.’
27 February 2002
[comics] Some important comic-related research — Two Playboy Playmates that Chester Brown mentions in his autobiographical comic The Playboy [Links below not safe for work] …
‘So — What are you feeling? Disgust with yourself for having bought such a publication. The typical self loathing you always feel after masturbating. Annoyance that you didn’t check out the skin colour of the playmate before buying the magazine. That last one leading to more feelings of self loathing — this is the first time in your life that you’ve had to face the fact that at some level you’re a racist. If only you’d never bought the damn thing, eh?’ — Chester Brown.
‘So — What are you feeling? Disgust with yourself for having bought such a publication. The typical self loathing you always feel after masturbating. Annoyance that you didn’t check out the skin colour of the playmate before buying the magazine. That last one leading to more feelings of self loathing — this is the first time in your life that you’ve had to face the fact that at some level you’re a racist. If only you’d never bought the damn thing, eh?’ — Chester Brown.
26 February 2002
[cartoon] Steve Bell on Stephen Byers and the Spin Row … ‘Fuck, Minister.’
25 February 2002
[comics] Professor X And Marvel Boy — gossip about Grant Morrison ghost writing Authority #28 for Mark Millar … ‘recently things have not gone too well for the “we’re not a couple” couple. They haven’t spoken for almost a year now and there seems to be a rift based around Grant Morrison ghost writing the original script for Authority #28 as a favour when Mark Millar was being treated for suspected cancer early last summer. ‘ [via Neilalien]
22 February 2002
[comics] Get Your Voltr On … ‘What the fuck is Voltron talking about? Is this some religious thing? Am I fucking being baptized by Voltron?’ [via Lukelog]
20 February 2002
[comics] The Unh! Project … ‘A collection of guttural moans from comics’ [via RACM]
19 February 2002
[comics] Do Not Underestimate the Power of the Dark Side — Sequential Tart interview with Gary Groth … ‘I’m a romantic and a cynic and, in fact, I don’t think you can be one without being the other: a romantic because you want the world to change for the better and a cynic because you know it won’t.’ [Related: The Comic Journal Website]
18 February 2002
[comics] Charles Shultz Speaks! — MP3 downloads of an interview between Gary Groth and the creator of Peanuts … ‘Schulz discusses, among other things, the relationship between gag cartooning and strip cartooning, the blurring of fantasy and reality in Peanuts, Al Capp, Umberto Eco, and how Schulz brought existential despair to the funny pages of the 1950s.’ [via Bugpowder]
14 February 2002
[comics] Batman Valentines Day Card from The Cap’n’s Unfortunate Valentine’s Cards … ‘I fight a war that can never be won. I strive toward a goal that can never be reached. I am haunted. I am relentless. I am tortured. Won’t you be my valentine? ‘
13 February 2002
[comics] The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick — comic strip by Robert Crumb … ‘It is an interesting graphic interpretation of a series of events which happened to Dick in March of 1974. He spent the remaining years of his life trying to figure out what happened in those fateful months. You will find all 8 pages of this story here.’ [via Bitstream]
12 February 2002
8 February 2002
7 February 2002
[comics] What’s Your Comic Book Ideology? Mine Were: ‘#1 Dave Sim. #2 Steven Grant. # 3 Warren Ellis. # 4 Gary Groth. # 5 Scott McCloud. # 6 Neil Gaiman. # 7 Stan Lee. # 8 Grant Morrison. # 9 Kevin Smith. # 10 Joe Quesada/Bill Jemas.’ [via WEF]
4 February 2002
[comics] Moore’s murderer — yet another profile / interview of Alan Moore … ‘Magic is now at the centre of his life, he admits, but he knows where all this can lead. He has heard of David Icke, and he’s aware that he’s already off most people’s scale when it comes to sanity. “I’m not a millionaire but I’m very comfortable doing what I do, and I’m more productive now than I was in my mid-20s. It’s all down to functionality eventually. If you’re functional it doesn’t matter if you’re mad.”‘ [via Robot Wisdom]
1 February 2002
[comics] Classic banned Judge Dredd strips — the Burger Wars and Jolly Green Giant stories from the Cursed Earth Saga… ‘Don’t worry, Folks. Everythin’ in MacDonalds is Disposable — includin’ th’ staff.’ [via The Haddock Directory]
29 January 2002
[wtf?!] The Heroes in Spandex Gallery! … ‘Everybody likes to dress up in costume, especially if there’s lots of spandex and superheroes involved! This is the place to show the world your new outfit! ‘ [via Metafilter]
28 January 2002
[film] Jack the Rip-Off — Iain Sinclair looks at the From Hell movie … ‘What Moore proposes, and what the film necessarily refutes, is the belief that the past is unknowable. ‘In all our efforts to describe the past, to list the simple facts of history,’ he wrote in his introduction to the From Hell scripts, ‘we are involved in fiction.’ There can be no anachronisms when time is a plural concept. Nobody knows, or will ever know, or should know, who Jack the Ripper was. Jack is. Sustained and incubated by tour guides, crocodiles of sombre or giggling pilgrims processing around the locations where the bodies were found, the Ripper lives on. An invisible earner. A waxwork vampire.’
26 January 2002
[comics] Newsarama talks to Alan Moore about Marvel Comics, ABC and Watchmen 2. On Watchmen 2: ‘That wouldn’t be interesting at all. It would be really fucking boring. I’ve got no interest in re-creating the 1980s. […] With all respect to the fan audience, I’m sure that Charles Dickens never got people writing, asking when he was going to do A Tale of Three Cities. That’s not how I work. It may be how the industry works, but I’m not really interested in revisiting things that are fifteen years old.’
25 January 2002
[comics] Interview with Dan Clowes … On Young Dan Pussey the “nerdish cartoonist superstar”: ‘I was telling my publisher that I wanted to take that book out of print because it?s so mild compared to the reality of the situation. At the time I did it was supposed to be a caricature of the business. Now there are so many more stories that are so much worse that I hear on a daily basis about the comic book business. It just seems pointless to have that book in print.’ [Related: Clowes Bio, link via the WEF]
24 January 2002
[comics] Lego Spider Jerusalem … ‘Being a Lego bastard WORKS’ [via WEF]
23 January 2002
[comics] Yet another long interview with Alan Moore covering pretty much all aspects of his career …. On writing From Hell: ‘Ten years wading through the material, the literature, not just Jack the Ripper but all of these fuckers. All these miserable little apologies for human beings. They’re not supermen. They’re not supermen at all. They’re not Hannibal Lecter. You know, they’re Peter Sutcliffe, they’re a bloke with a dodgy perm. And some horrible screw-up in his relationship with his mother or something. They’re little blokes.’ [via Ink Stains]
22 January 2002
[comics] Larry Young looks at how many comic book publishers feel about internet users … ‘Many comic book publishers hold you in disdain. It’s true. Secretly (because, really, how would it look if this got out?), many of the folks who toil daily to bring you your comic books really could not care less about what you think. And by “you” I don’t mean the “audience,” because entertainers need an audience to entertain. Almost by definition. If you’re producing something for public consumption, chances are you wouldn’t mind hearing some applause now and then. No, by “you,” I mean “Internet users.”‘ [via Neilalien]
19 January 2002
[comics] John Buscema Obit from The Independent … ‘His professional career was launched in April 1948 at Timely Comics, later better known as Marvel Comics, home of Spider-Man. Hired as an artist at a salary of $75 a week by the editor Stan Lee, he joined a small army of artists and writers churning out a stream of five-to-eight-page stories. In 1950 disaster struck: a forgotten storage cupboard disgorged a mountain of unpublished stories and artwork in the Timely offices, whereupon the entire artistic staff was sacked. Over the next eight years, as a freelance comic artist, Buscema was to turn his drawing hand to stories in every genre (except, ironically, superheroes) for a legion of comics publishers.’
17 January 2002
[comics] Vertigo PR on Morrison’s ‘The Filth’ … ‘[The Filth is a] twisted super-thriller in which Morrison takes the reader on a psychedelic roller coaster ride through a maelstrom of extra-dimensional espionage, disease pathology, sex and violence, prosthetically-equipped dolphins, indolent nano-technology, co-opted reality and the notion of identity itself. Loaded with febrile imagery and Byzantine plot twists, The Filth is a mind-wrenching journey where nothing is exactly what it seems.’ [via Newsarama]
16 January 2002
[comics] DC Comics have put Batman: The 10-Cent Adventure online … ‘The 10-CENT ADVENTURE follows a night in the life of Batman, a night that ends with terrible finality. When Batman responds to a series of crimes, little does he know that a crime is occurring in the one place in the world he considers safe.’
15 January 2002
[comics] Warren Ellis’ Artbomb Launches… From the FAQ: ‘ARTBOMB is about broadening the appeal of diverse comic books and graphic novels. We hope to demonstrate that comics can offer an entertainment value that many people currently enjoy in film or television or prose. This a storytelling medium that has a lot of dynamic voices with mainstream and adult appeal. It’s our mission to help promote their works to new audiences.’ [Related: WEF, Ellis Website]
14 January 2002
[comics] Love That Hate — interview with Peter Bagge. ‘The odd thing is this: Buddy is always a reflection of where I was ten years ago. And for some reason that went over really well when `Buddy’ was in his early 20’s, but as `he’ gets older comic readers become more resistant to him or bored of him, which poses a lot of questions, such as: 1 Do my readers-or comix readers in general-simply move away from comix as they get older? and 2 Do people simply not want to read about the adventures and concerns of an older and more mature character?’ [Related: Girl Talk with Lisa and Valerie]
10 January 2002
[comics] Marvel’s ‘Nuff Said … and the script for Grant Morrison’s New X-Men #121. ‘Frame 4. Jean has been swept into the ultimate original memory – Xavier’s DNA recall. Surprised, she’s diving down towards us through a 3-D explosion of swimming seed as it heads for destiny. The sperm in foreground have intricate delicate glass heads filled with coils of information. Jean looks like she’s diving with some exotic species of incredible luminous deep-sea jellyfish.’
8 January 2002
[comics] Q & A with Grant Morrison from the Spinner Rack … ‘Q: What would you like to see happen in comics in the next 12 months? A: I’d like to see Alan Moore get his kit off for the front cover of the ‘Ain Soph’ issue of Promethea. Him and J.H. Williams could symbolise the journey of consciousness into the realm of naked apprehension and do a knowing homage to John and Yoko’s Two Virgins album cover at the same time. It would look really good. And who here hasn’t lain awake wondering what the award-winning creator of Watchmen’s tadger looks like?’
6 January 2002
[comics] Who Watches Dave Gibbons? — interview from Sequential Tart … On Working with Alan Moore on an ABC project:‘I can’t tell you much right now, although we have had extensive creative discussions about it. It’s not Watchmen 2, but I think we’ve identified what we do best together and I think those who enjoyed Watchmen will enjoy it.’
5 January 2002
[comics] The Rational Shaman — great interview with Alan Moore concentrating on magic and comics … ‘After Watchmen, I felt that I was perhaps coming to a limit as to what I could further understand about writing rationally. If I was going to go any further into writing, I had to take a step beyond the rational. Magic was the only area that offered floorboards after that step. And it also seemed to offer a new way of looking at things, a new set of tools to continue.’ [via I Love Everything]