Archive for September, 2007
I’m a huge fan of Steven Grant’s weekly column, Permanent Damage. His insights into the comic book biz are sharp and spot on, and I enjoy reading his reviews, political commentary, and whatever else he feels like discussing each week.
And one of the fun things he does each week is the “Comics Cover Challenge”, wherein he posts seven seemingly random comic book covers with a secret common theme (a word, a design element, an artist, etc.) that you have to guess at. Well, after many attempts, I finally got one. From this week’s column:
“Congratulations to Dara Naraghi, who correctly identified last week’s Comics Cover Challenge theme as “The Seven Deadly Sins.” (To those who brought it up, the inclusion of a Captain Marvel cover was pretty much coincidental, and the character’s connection to the seven deadly sins didn’t occur to me until someone brought it up.) Often a bridesmaid in these challenges, first time “bride” Dara would like you to take a look at the website for his graphic novel LIFELIKE, coming soon from IDW Publishing. Well? What’s stopping you?”
Yeah, what’s stopping you? Behold the mighty marketing machine for Lifelike!
Seriously, your help in spreading the word is greatly appreciated. Please post the above link to your blog, website, mailing list, or just forward it to your friends and coworkers who might be interested in this type of book.
Alright now, punk, tell me again how mainstream comics are better than anything Gary Panter can poo out his butt. I dare you. Yeah, this picture’s from a Fantagraphics office outing. See what these crazy bastards are up to.
Ok, this one might be a bit more obscure…
(click image to afrosize)
(previous weeks: 9/12/2005, 9/19/2005, 9/26/2005, 10/3/2005, 10/10/2005, 10/17/2005, 10/24/2005, 10/31/2005, 11/1/2005, 11/2/2005, 11/3/2005, 11/4/2005, 11/5/2005, 11/6/2005, 11/7/2005, 11/14/2005, 11/21/2005, 11/28/2005, 12/5/2005, 12/12/2005, 12/19/2005, 12/26/2005, 1/2/2006, 1/9/2006, 1/16/2006, 1/23/2006, 1/30/2006, 2/06/2006, 2/13/2006, 2/20/2006, 2/27/2006, 3/6/2006, 3/13/2006, 3/20/2006, 3/27/2006, 4/3/2006, 4/4/2006, 4/5/2006, 4/6/2006, 4/7/2006, 4/8/2006, 4/9/2006, 4/10/2006, 4/17/2006, 4/23/2006, 5/1/2006, 5/8/2006, 5/15/2006, 5/22/2006, 5/29/2006, 6/5/2006, 6/12/2006, 6/19/2006, 6/26/2006, 7/3/2006, 7/10/2006, 7/17/2006, 7/24/2006, 7/31/2006, 8/7/2006, 8/13/2006, 8/21/2006, 8/28/2006, 9/4/2006, 9/11/2006, 9/18/2006, 9/25/2006, 10/2/2006, 10/9/2006, 10/16/2006, 10/23/2006, 10/30/2006, 11/6/2006, 11/13/2006, 11/20/2006, 11/27/2006, 12/4/2006, 12/11/2006, 12/18/2006, 12/25/2006, 1/1/2007, 1/8/2007, 1/15/2007, 1/22/2007, 1/29/2007, 2/5/2007, 2/12/2007, 2/19/2007, 2/26/2007, 3/5/2007, 3/12/2007, 3/19/2007, 3/26/2007, 4/2/2007, 4/5/2007, 4/9/2007, 4/16/2007, 4/23/2007, 4/30/2007, 5/7/2007, 5/14/2007, 5/21/2007, 5/28/2007, 6/4/2007, 6/11/2007, 6/18/2007, 6/25/2007, 7/2/2007, 7/9/2007, 7/16/2007, 7/23/2007, 7/30/2007, 8/6/2007, 8/13/2007, 8/20/2007, 8/27/2007, 9/3/2007, 9/10/2007)
In a rare instance of cross-promotion, PANEL and Bob Dylan have gotten together to pimp each other’s new projects.
Over at Dave’s Long Box, Dave has promulgated an equation to really rank 1980s TV shows. It determines if the shows from your childhood are really as awesome as you remember, or if your vision is clouded by nostalgia. He calls it Nostalgiametrics: The Science of Today for Yesterday’s Crap, and it’s pretty sweet.
Using the equation, I have determined that The Highwayman, which got a 10-episode run in 1987-1988, is the perfect 1980s TV show. If you don’t remember it, it starred Sam J. Jones (Flash Gordon) as a federal agent in the not-too-distant-future who drove a semi truck that turned into a helicopter. His sidekick: Jacko, the Australian guy from the Energizer commercials. Oy!
Dave’s rubrick tops out at 40 points, but Highwayman commands a whopping 44. Here’s the tale of the tape:
The Main Guy(s)
Doesn’t suck: +5 points (Incredible Hulk, Wild Wild West)
Hot cop: +3 points (Miami Vice)
Can fly helicopter/plane/spaceship: +2 points (Matt Houston, Airwolf)
Occasionally shirtless: +1 point (Wild Wild West, Starsky & Hutch)
Sidekick
Punching bag/goon: +2 points (The Fall Guy, Walker Texas Ranger)
Comic relief: +2 points (Riptide, Fantasy Island)
Theme Song
Spoken word intro: +3 points (A-Team, Charlie’s Angels)
Title of show mentioned in song: +2 points (BJ and the Bear, Love Boat)
The Cast
Hero + posse show: +3 points (Walker Texas Ranger, T.J. Hooker)
One attractive/one ugly buddy: -1 point (CHIPs)
Hot chick: +3 points (Dukes of Hazard, Buck Rogers)
Science guy/mechanic: +2 points (Street Hawk, Bionic Woman)
Pilot: +2 points (Magnum P.I., 240 Robert)
Transportation
Super boss vehicle: +5 points (Airwolf, Street Hawk)
Loaded with custom features: +2 points (Wild Wild West, Star Trek)
Vehicle has a name: +2 points (Battlestar Galactica, Hardcastle & McCormick)
Vehicle is frickin’ huge: +2 points (Love Boat, Supertrain)
Vehicle blows shit up: +3 points (Airwolf, Buck Rogers)
More than one vehicle: +1 point for each extra vehicle (Miami Vice, Riptide)
Bonus features
Two fights + one chase per episode: +3 points (T.J. Hooker, Hunter)
It could go even higher, except I don’t recall all the particulars. If there was a frustrated lieutenant, +2. If radioactive aliens who come back from the dead count as “fighting vampires,” then +2 more.
I cannot believe this isn’t out on DVD, and Moonstone has not picked up the rights.
Ok, this week’s “derby” design competition over at Shirt.Woot has a cool theme:
“Derby #8: Blank Is The New PirateWe’re tired of pirates. OK, we’ve had a laugh (or larrrrf) over Talk Like A Pirate Day (this Wednesday, Sept. 19), but how much more can we take before we walk our own plank? We need a new historical archetype to ironically adopt: Vikings, gauchos, centurions, samurai, Foreign Legionnaires, monks, Cossacks, something…your task this week, then, is to design a t-shirt for an archetype to replace the pirate.
Like we said, Derby #8 opens for submissions Friday at noon. See you then – and thanks for Derbying!”
Head on over there and enter your design.
I came across a really heartbreaking interview with Anders Nilsen today. Almost made me tear up at work. He talks about the death of his fiancee, who was the subject of The End #1, and Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow.
Today confirmed it, the I Keee You! anthology has cycled thru Diamond and is in shops today. Hopefully your store ordered it. I saw one remaining copy left by the Ogre front register. There might be more in the back. I Keee You! is a collection of overheard conversations either heard or drawn by an impressive collection of indie folk. Brian Ralph drew the cover. I’ve got a page of wrong in it.
Recently, there’s been a rash of pranks being played on folks at my work. Each time someone goes on vacation, our admin (with help from other coworkers) has decorated people’s cubes in interesting ways. So when I took a couple of days off a few weeks ago, it became my turn. I returned to this:
My entire office was covered with post-it noes. And I mean entire office. Walls, floor, behind the door, around the trash can, under my desk…
One of the side effects of this paper makeover is that my office is now extra bright from the overhead lights reflecting off the thousands of white post-it notes:
So if anyone needs any second-hand, slightly used post-its, let me know…
So, I did swing by that show the other day organized by Sunday Comix (http://www.comicspace.com/sunday_comix/). I love the fact that there’s enough talent in this area to support not one, but two comic book collectives.
They did a really good job with presentation. They had original artwork and prints hanging up around the walls, and a bunch of comics in a spinner rack. I got a good smattering of indie comics and a print by a John Miller.
I don’t know a lot about the group, but it includes Max Ink, Ray Tomczak, Molly Durst, and lots of other people. They meet once a month (on a Sunday, natch), compare art, and do jam pages.
They collected a bunch of jam pages into a minicomic, which they were thoughtfully giving away for free. Good stuff (although there were a surprising number of jokes about Max, suicide, or some combination.)
Respect, Sunday Comix. Respect.
Astonishing Tales featuring Deathlok
Here’s yet another example of Marvel aiming for a more sophisticated, adult audience fifteen years before Alan Moore accepted his Swamp Thing assignment: a comics-code approved series about a cybernetically animated cadaver fighting cannibals in the future dystopia of 1988. The issue pictured above was yet another of the first comics I ever laid eyes on, though I’m not sure how this one made it into the Bogart household. The concept for the series was way over my head at the time—my then-thirteen year old brother had an eye for some of the more bizarre comics on the spinner rack and he must have slipped this harmless funnybook past the parents.
Deathlok enjoyed a brief revival a few years back as yet another boring 90’s badass; typically, the original concept was more interesting. The character was entirely Rich Buckler’s baby, though he had some scripting assistance from Doug Moench. The premise is part Mad Max, part The Omega Man: A soldier killed in a war wakes up five years later to discover he’s been converted to a cybernetic killing machine, used to do the bidding of his former superiors. He escapes into the ruined world his former masters have created, sharing his consciousness with a nagging computer that acts as a schizophrenic second voice in his head. Deathlok’s brave new world is a slum populated by cannibals, as well as an underground resistance that embraces him as a messiah figure; with the back-from-the-dead Christ symbology built into his origin story, it’s an understandable assumption to make.
The series employs some Pulp Fiction-style time jumps in the narrative, so you needed to be a more sophisticated reader to follow the story. This was also probably the darkest, most violent series I encountered in the first two decades of my life. I’d suggest Rich Buckler even outdoes the Frank Miller Daredevil comics that came along a decade later for simple brutality. Here are a few scans from a number of issues ranging from #25-31:
Six years ago, 2,974 people died in the worst act of terrorism this country has seen. But 2,191 days later, the mastermind behind the attacks is still free, still taunting. Why? Because a handful of rich, middle-aged men from privileged backgrounds who basically stole the Presidency of the United States decided instead to have a little “adventure” in Iraq. So these hypocritical bastards – most of whom had used their money and family connections to get out of going to war themselves – flat out lied to Congress and the American people and invaded a country just so they could huddle up and wag their dicks to the world to show how macho they are.
Meanwhile, Bin laden is still free, the Taliban is re-forming in Afghanistan, that country’s opium fields are in overdrive, 3,700 US troops have died in Iraq since “mission accomplished”, and the number of Iraqi civilian deaths is in the hundreds of thousands.
I wish I was a religious person who believed in heaven and hell, because I could at least find solace in the fact that these arrogant, incompetent, hypocritical, opportunistic sons of bitches will one day die and take a much-deserved trip down to club hell for all eternity. But alas, I’m one of those non-believer secularists whose “agenda” is apparently ruining the family values of this country. So instead I’ll have to wait for the history books to show these loathsome f***ers for who they really were, and vilify them so that hopefully future generations won’t fall so easily for the next snakeoil salesman who comes around selling war.
Six years. Six years a sick man with a gimp kidney and possibly secondary osteoporosis and diabetes has eluded all US efforts to capture him by hiding in caves. Meanwhile, we’ve created a quagmire that will take decades and trillions of dollars to…what, fix? No, there’s probably no fixing Iraq at this point. But hey, it keeps the American public distracted and keeps them from asking the tough questions, so hey, I’m sure it’s been worth every penny and life lost to the administration.
After all, it’s neither their money nor the lives of their sons and daughters.
New pics from Jeff Soto’s show up at Jonathan Levine’s in NYC. I don’t even want to know how much each of these sold for. I really don’t know because all the paintings have sold thru. Beautiful, beautiful stuff. Juxtapoz has pics from opening night.