Shannon Smith
Writer, artist, illustrator, cartoonist, comics maker, comics critic, musician, et cetera, et cetera... Hire me via email. Visit my store for life changing products. And this is my homepage.
Posts
May 24, 11:14 PM
Just look at this horror show. No doubt it kills me in my sleep. http://bit.ly/10Sy6TB
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May 24, 11:14 PM
Now these jerks wanna watch Doctor Who. I’ll never get a damned thing done now. Shoulda left them in the box. http://bit.ly/13RcDQ1
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May 24, 09:59 PM
Free from your plastic prison at last. http://bit.ly/16fxYGy
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May 24, 08:14 PM
I guess I’ll go ahead and open these jerks and let my kids play with them. http://bit.ly/16fp1x3
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May 24, 01:14 PM
Star Wars patch from the early 80s. Pretty sure George Lucas mailed it himself. http://bit.ly/14Ipm7b
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May 23, 11:14 PM
Gandhi was the best Doctor Who companion. http://bit.ly/18abJBB
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May 23, 09:59 PM
Welcome to the team Buddy. http://bit.ly/11ehBkD
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May 23, 12:29 AM
Dun duh dun duh, dun duh duhh…. http://bit.ly/14Tlwrl
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May 20, 10:59 PM
May 19, 07:14 PM
Jedi Cinderella. http://bit.ly/12N81bf
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May 19, 03:59 PM
Your Other Comics News Parade-O-Links for May 19, 2013.
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May 18, 09:59 PM
I bought a Superman t-shirt because I’m an adult and this is how adults dress now. http://bit.ly/14D3Z6z
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May 18, 08:59 PM
Dancin’ boots. http://bit.ly/12kWL5u
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May 15, 07:00 PM
Acrylic painting I did of Transformers 1 when I was 12. http://bit.ly/12vUmXo
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May 11, 06:59 PM
Some dry land fish my dad stole from Bigfoot today. http://bit.ly/13Ozjzx
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May 08, 09:59 PM
May 08, 09:14 PM
Yes. I folded those towels specifically for you to sit on. http://bit.ly/ZIZ3tJ
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May 08, 07:14 AM
Showdown in hat town. (Don’t tell them they’ve lost their guns.) http://bit.ly/10G1aND
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May 07, 02:59 PM
you die so god bless you
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May 05, 01:18 PM
Readin’ some Archie. http://bit.ly/10AkXy9
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May 04, 07:14 PM
And some dollar comics just because. http://bit.ly/12CErDU
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May 04, 07:14 PM
The FCBD haul. 40 or so comics free! http://bit.ly/15gM8GG
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May 04, 01:29 PM
May 01, 11:59 AM
I think that, after about 10 years, this pair is finally broken in. http://bit.ly/ZzRTuY
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Posts
August 18, 10:15 AM
This is a comics adaptation of the Wallace Stevens poem The Sense of the Sleight of Hand Man. Art by Shannon Smith. Created as part of the Wallace Stevens Roundtable at The Hooded Utilitarian.
June 16, 11:03 AM
Hey there real people. You can follow Pete Spiedermon on twitter. Go do that thing! This comic and other fantastical comics can be purchased on paper, the medium of the future! Buy seven copies!
May 13, 02:03 PM
I created this comic for the My Name is Jonah film FCBD tie in. The comic will make a lot more sense if you watch this video.
July 22, 02:12 PM
This comic strip was created for a Narrative Corpse project. Narrative Corpse is a jam comic where each cartoonist works only off the very last panel of the previous artist. All I had to work off was a panel featuring the guy with the long curly things in his head and a snake in his mouth. So, naturally, I made a comic about Jimi Hendrix coming to teach him the gospel of funk and love. The title is stolen from the Hendrix song The Stars That Play with Laughing Sam's Dice. Which, I think is one of the greatest psychedelic songs ever recorded. Almost all of the words spoken by the Hendrix angel in this comic are taken from Hendrix song lyrics. Which songs? Pull out your Hendrix collection and figure it out true believer!
June 29, 04:08 PM
June 28, 10:16 PM
June 26, 08:10 AM
June 25, 12:32 PM
Posts
May 19, 03:04 AM
(Iron Man #49 cover by Gil Kane. Stolen from Cover Browser.)
Here are some things I found interesting in the world of minicomics, comic books, graphic novels, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics, cartoons, digital comics, other, etc. wrestling during the week weeks ending 05052013 05122013 05192013:
"No one will ever have your life, so tell me what it feels like." -Grant Morrison.
- Hello brothers and sisters. Thanks for dropping by. This is going to be a long weird rambling Parade-O-Links. I write these things here and there during fleeting moments of free time then try to edit them together over the weekends. My past few weekends have been busy. One of my kids had pneumonia. I was busy with work and got stuck working extra hours. You know. Regular life stuff. It happens. So, this Parade-O-Links is a combination of what should have been three separate posts. Some of this news is old news but, in a way, these posts act as an archive or diary of my comics life so I'm leaving the old stuff in. Thanks in advance for reading what may be a mess. They can't all be winners.
(Left to right: Brian Marcus, Supergirl and Jeremy Massie. Image stolen from Cavalier Comics facebook page.)
- This month started off with another Free Comic Book Day. I've come to think of FCBD as a holiday. Maybe the best holiday. Unlike other holidays, FCBD does not cost me hundreds of dollars. I get to take my kids out for a free stack of comic books paid for by the fine comic book retailers of America. Thanks comic books shops! Thanks to Cavalier Comics of Wise VA specifically. Usually, I will try to hit more than one comic shop on FCBD but this year my kids were sick so we kept things simple. The crowd at Cavalier seemed to be pretty strong. Maybe the most crowded I've seen it on a FCBD. More ladies and children than I had noticed before. My kids and I got everything we wanted from the FCBD selection and picked up a few other comics and toys. It was a very good Saturday morning. On the drive to and from the shop, we listened to a mix CD I made of James Kochalka's kid friendly songs. (Or, basically the James Kochalka songs that don't have curse words in them. Neigh Neigh and Woo Woo is one of my kids' all time favorite songs.) I think their were around 50 comics this time. My kids and I picked up around 40. I've only had time to read a few of them. Maybe I'll find the time to talk about those comics soon. My mom read the Walking Dead comic and liked it.
- The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival is over. This is most likely because I can't stand the word "Graphics" and I put a curse on it when I was a boy. Sorry. (It makes me think of skin graphs. Shiver.)
- AOL, a company that once made money by mailing people "free" compact discs... apparently still exists. But worst of all they murdered the entire staff of Comics Alliance. (We've not seen the bodies, but trust me, they are dead.) And it was the worst kind of murder. Death by brand management. In an exclusive Wall Street Journal interview, top AOL
assassin"brand manager" Susan Lyne paused from chewing on the flesh of Chris Sims long enough to swear that she would personally murder every comics blogger in North America by the end of the fiscal year. This my friends is what your death will look like. The last thing you will ever see.
- Iron Man 3 came out a while back. I guess it's a big deal and all. Jim Rugg drew an Iron Man thing here. I still have not seen it but I can already tell you that what I like most about it is that it does not have a subtitle and that the words "rise of" and/or "rises" are not in the title. Iron Man was pretty much my favorite thing on Earth (other than Star Wars) when I was 13. I sure knew a lot about how to make a billion dollars in the international box office when I was thirteen. In fact, I look at the whole pop culture world right now this instant and it looks exactly like the posters on my bedroom wall when I was thirteen. However, my tastes in movies and music started to get a bit weird when I turned 17 so get ready for some crazy stuff in 2017 ya'lls.
(The greatest drawing of all time.)
- Dean Trippe recently drew the greatest drawing of all time. Wil Wheaton mentioned it here. I don't know if you can see this or not because maybe facebook hates you but here is a process video thing of the greatest drawing of all time.
- Mike Dawson drew the 100% true history of Wham!
- Tom Spurgeon went to Stumptown and wrote 100,000 words about it.
- Doctor Venom and Cobra Commander had this crap figured out 30 years ago.
- There is an increasing amount of good indie and alternative stuff on Comixology. Maybe you should look into finally getting one of those computers.
- This Infinite Corpse thing is looking good. Some of my fave comics peeps are already in there.
- Unless you’re Scott Kurtz. Seriously. Fuck that guy.
- Paul Pope draws books.
- Ed Kramer, still creepy, still gross. If you see me at a con someday, buy me a drink and ask me about Dragon Con.
- We are all going to die.
- I'm sad to see that Demon Knights is coming to a close. I like that comic for several reasons. It has Jack Kirby's The Demon it. It's not a super hero book but it is a team book. And mostly because Robert Venditti writes good comics. The book has been getting better and better. Bummer.
- Pfft. That's how I make sandwiches.
- Writing about super hero comics is easier. You don't have to explain what they look like. They look like super hero comics.
- Writing about this sort of thing takes a bit more work. Because, well Jesus, just look at it.
- Real text message from my future ex-wife on the occasion of our fifteenth wedding anniversary this past Friday. "Thanks asshole. I don't want to hear from u or see u today. Got it?! GOOD!"
- Go look at these rad robot benches J. Chris Campbell made.
- Diane Nelson now has a new guy to whom she must explain just what the F exactly she had to do with Harry Potter.
- DC
ComicsEntertainment thanked Grant Morrison for carrying them around on his back for the past 20 years by making some cookies with comics are painted on them. - Chester Brown had a birthday recently. Chester Brown is the best.
- I don't know. It's hard to say really. But in the whole of this life I've loved maybe two women. I married one of them. And the other, I never even held her hand.
- Ya know Ike, if only you could get rid of all the actors. Animation! You could pay to have someone draw the characters in! That's genius. Oh, if only you had access to to a movie studio THAT WAS MUTHERDUCKING BUILT ON ANIMATION!
- Adams only seems to have once really gone soft-porn.
- The great Howard Chaykin on the great Carmine Infantino.
- I think one thing the older generations had over us was the ability to unashamedly hate someone. We really need to work on that. We can all do better. Each of you, I'm calling you out, all of you, you need an enemy. Focus! What can you do today to make an enemy? Maybe you have to turn heel. Maybe you need to slap some random Eisner nominee in the mouth at your next con. Seriously people. When was the last time you saw someone freak out and flip a table in artists alley. We can do better.
- I am done with you and I feel awful.
- Remember last year when I told you that history would mark those Kevin Keller comics as the most important comics of 2011? I continue to be right. Same as always.
- Maybe you should go to Spartansburg and check out Ashley Holt's
hairart. - New hockey comics from Rob Ullman.
- Hateball tour 1993 Athens GA USA.
- If you are into manga then I guess you already know about this.
- Speaking of manga. Sports Illustrated continues to be the leading source of comics journalism in all the world.
- Okay, listen: I agree with the words up above that happened to make sense, but -
- Jon. Fucking. Hamm. Is. Not. A. Nerd.
- "This wasn't a fight between Star Wars fans and Doctor Who fans with lightsabers and sonic screwdrivers drawn,"
- I'm now going to type some words that may or may not make sense and may or may not be part of a cosmic spell to make the Earth's core rotate in the opposite direction every third Tuesday- Derek Ballard is going to be drawing a Shia Labeouf written comic. (Derek Ballard is the real deal ya'll. This comic will be great.)
- Ballard also wrote about every comic he read in April.
- Hayhurst had been patrolling nightly for about a year before his mother saw him on TV and found out about her son’s alter ego. He said she was “a bit shocked” but accepted his nighttime gig.
- I got your voice repeating endlessly.
- Could you guide me in?
- Could you smother me?
- That time Batman stopped murder with pants.
- But still I'd leap in front of a flying bullet for you!
- I only got my name I only got my situation.
- I just need my number and location.
- Never ever listen to the fans. Only listen to the customers.
- And maybe your mother.
- But that's it.
- Generation X is sick of your bullshit.
- Please send him an email.
- If you live long enough you'll see all the tyrants sainted. No one gets to sound clever by agreeing with history.
- When you walk in the room everything disappears.
- When you walk in the room it's a terrible mess.
- And finally...Peter was such a loving dog.
Oh, and one more last thing! Did you know you can leave comments on these posts here at file under other? It's true! And, I'll probably respond. Twitter and facebook killed the message boards but that's no reason why you can't argue with me, praise me or leave me recipes. It's your intronet. Have fun!
And that's just a taste of some of the interesting things going out there in the wonderful world of comics and things. I can't keep up with it all but I do keep up with a lot of it on twitter and I try to re-tweet the good stuff. You should probably follow me there. If you did something to make comics better this week then high-five!
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
April 28, 12:00 AM
(Crazy Cartoon Nutsy Squirrel cover stolen from DC Comics.)
Here are some things I found interesting in the world of minicomics, comic books, graphic novels, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics, cartoons, digital comics, other, etc. during the week ending 04282013:
"There's no easy way to say this, Shannon. You're a crazy cartoon squirrel. You always have been. It's time you knew the truth." -Robert Newsome.
(This is a Star Wars piece by Jack Kirby. It is amazing. I don't know where it came from or why it exists.)
(They read the comments.)
"There's no easy way to say this, Shannon. You're a crazy cartoon squirrel. You always have been. It's time you knew the truth." -Robert Newsome.
- In his occasional Comics Group Think series, Tom Spurgeon asked "In What Ways Does The Culture Of Comics Have An Impact On How Business Is Done?" I answered. As did several smarty pants people. It is worth a read. Bob Temuka's response got me to thinking that, on the bright side, at least it is now easier for we the
fanscustomers to call out the companies when their practices are not so great. If twitter had been around when Jack Kirby was trying to get his pages back from Marvel I think he would have had them in a couple of weeks. Maybe a couple of days. And that in turn would have actually improved the relationship between Marvel and Kirby. And maybe Kirby would have done more work for them. More money for Kirby, more profit for the company and more comics for thefanscustomers. So, maybe if you do the right thing you win. And maybe if you screw over everyone you lose. But what do I know? I had a banana and a pack of "Toast Chee" crackers for lunch. Food for people so broke they can't even afford their fake cheese flavored food stuffs to have an S and an E on the end. - Oh, and here is the smoking gun.
- This article (which I also saw first at The Comics Reporter) about the shuttering of Graphic Smash got me thinking about the early 2000s when there was so much discussion and worrying on the message boards (message boards are how you complained about how you were wronged by entertainment products before twitter and facebook) about the best platform/model for webcomics. And I'm not just thinking about Joey Manley and his subscription based sites. (Shaenon Garrity talks about her experience with that here and it is a must read if you want to walk down webcomics memory lane.) Thank God for people like Manley that said, hey, maybe we should try to figure out a way to get paid. But I'm thinking more about the different webcomics community platforms that came and went. There were so many different platforms that people invested so much time and money into. "This will be the MySpace for Comics!" "This will be the facebook for Comics!" And we were all so frantic to get on board. Oh the horror of all the stalls being filled in the new digital shopping mall before we got ours. I'm sure I created a login for every upstart webcomics platform between 1998 and.... yesterday.
(This is a Star Wars piece by Jack Kirby. It is amazing. I don't know where it came from or why it exists.)
- I did a really crazy thing this week. I invested a lot of money into file under other. I've invested a lot of time into this site over the years but not a lot of money. But I felt the need. I felt I had to take action. News came that the film rights to Daredevil had reverted to Marvel and I felt like it was my duty as a citizen of teh intronets to get to the bottom of what actor should play Matt "Daredevil" Murdoch in the next Marvel movie. So, I took a very large business loan and I hired the very best market research group that money can buy to present to you, dear readers, exactly who should play Daredevil. The results are surprising. I hope you appreciate the financial sacrifice my family and I have had to make to bring you this important information.
- W. Maxwell Prince talks to The Beat about Comixology's Submit program. There is an increasing amount of neat stuff on there.
- Tom Spurgeon wrote 100,000 words on MoCCA and SPACE and most all of them are interesting.
- Valerie Gallaher made some predictions on the future of comics. I'm doubtful of some of them but terrified of most.
- Sometimes I forget to mention it but comic books do continue to burn in hell.
- Drunk Iron Man will always be my favorite Doctor Who.
- Martin Pasko's favorite Doctor Who will always be Superman.
- Todd Klein's favorite Superman will always be Joe Shuster.
- Remember how Time Warner and DC
ComicsEntertainment didn't acknowledge the 75th anniversary of Superman at all? Well, Wired threw together a brief history of the feller. - People. Have we ever really taken a moment to think about how bizarre it is that not only is there an ongoing TV show adaption of an ongoing comic book but there is a live talk show that comes on after that show where they sit around and talk about that show. Is Walking Dead the most successful comics-to-television project ever? I don't think the '66 to '68 Batman show had a Mike Douglas hosted talk show on after ever episode. (Oh, man that would have been great. Just imagine the cigarettes.) Mad Men has won twelve thousand Emmy Awards and it does not have a post show talk show. I guess my point is this; Dang, The Walking Dead is a big deal.
- You guys are keeping up with the ongoing oral history of Marvelman/Miracleman right?
- Kids like all kinds of things.
- Here is a look at an early Carmine Infantino Charlie Chan comic. I don't know anything about Charlie Chan but the character was apparently a big deal. Decades of movies, TV shows, books and comics. Crazy.
- And some Infantino Flash covers.
- Whenever I have a major life decision to make, like where do I want to live, I turn to Peter Porker The Spectacular Spider-Ham.
- Never read the comments.
(They read the comments.)
- That new Nobrow anthology looks pretty good.
- Jack Kirby made 200,000 comics. On a single random Tuesday in 1962. And he took that afternoon off to stand in his front yard looking awesome.
- Gabby Schulz has posted a few new comics recently. Great stuff.
- Patrick Dean has a new comic for sale in his store. "The Grizzly". I'm excited.
- Rob Clough covered Jon Lewis' True Swamp.
- Rob McMonigal looks at Sara Lindo's Super Lobotomy.
- Daryl Ayo talks about that new Mark Millar thing, Jupiter's
ChildrenLegacy. I read it too. It was, something. Maybe I'll get around to typing up some thoughts on it. - Indie wrestling fan, writer, promoter and publicist (and possibly other things) Michael "LLakor" Ryan passed away. I did know know him or even really know who he was but I had read some of his things. Here is a great piece he wrote about El Generico. Seriously, go read that. It's like a real super hero origin. And here is a nice thing El Generico wrote about LLakor. You can read the same writers on the internet for years and never even think to pay attention to their names. Pay attention to the guys/gals you like. And maybe let them know. One day they will be gone. So will you.
- And finally...I threw the fireball in Ronnie Garvin's face in Charlotte in February of 1987. Now actually, we just did it because I was going on my honeymoon so that way I could get suspended for a couple of weeks.
And that's just a taste of some of the interesting things going out there in the wonderful world of comics and things. I can't keep up with it all but I do keep up with a lot of it on twitter and I try to re-tweet the good stuff. You should probably follow me there. If you did something to make comics better this week then high-five!
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
Oh wait. What? Francis? Oh alright.
Oh wait. What? Francis? Oh alright.
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
April 25, 12:00 AM
It was announced/mentioned this week that yes, the film rights to Daredevil have returned to Marvel. Therefore it's time to get serious about some link baiting fan speculation on who should be the next Daredevil actor. My cat Our crack team of pop culture experts has but together the following list so that you don't have to.
Pros: Is a talented actor with red hair and looks exactly like Matt Murdoch.
Cons: Already played Captain America in Band of Brothers.
Likelihood: 4%
Pros: Has red hair.
Cons: Not a lot of it.
Likelihood: 17%
Likelihood: 17%
Pros: Has red hair. Has is own super hero like race car driver fire suits and helmets. Once won a race in a car with Batman painted on the hood.
Cons: Hollywood could not afford him.
Likelihood: 8%
Likelihood: 8%
Pros: Has red hair.
Cons: Sheamus sucks.
Likelihood: 48%
Likelihood: 48%
Pros: Has red hair. Is Christina Hendricks.
Cons: Not a man.
Likelihood: 73%
Likelihood: 73%
Pros: Has red hair. Probably has Kung Fu Grip.
Cons: I don't think he is an American.
Likelihood: 2%
Likelihood: 2%
Pros: Irish.
Cons: Not Catholic.
Likelihood: 26%
Likelihood: 26%
Pros: Has red hair. Has superpowers far beyond Daredevil's wildest dreams.
Cons: Apparently no long exists thanks to Vince McMahon.
Likelihood: 4%
Likelihood: 4%
2. Patrick Dean
Pros: Once dyed his hair red.
Cons: None.
Likelihood: 100%
Likelihood: 100%
Pros: Best actor on the planet.
Cons: Does not have red hair.
Likelihood: 0%
Likelihood: 0%
So there you have it. Do you have thoughts and ideas and opinions? Well, they are wrong. But, you can still share them on the new official file under other message board. Tell us what you think!
(And by us I mean me and imaginary government internet police that monitor this site.)
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
April 22, 11:05 AM
(Superman #423 cover by Curt Swan stolen from wikipedia.)
Here are some things I found interesting in the world of minicomics, comic books, graphic novels, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics, cartoons, digital comics, other, etc. during the week ending 0422013:
"One of the interesting things about the development of the Internet as a tool to have conversations is that the possibility of something taking place is often seen as the same thing as something that actually takes place. It's mistaking the abstraction of an argument as a direct correlative event to something in the real world. If we can argue something is possible, that's all we need to do: a potential bias = a bias, a potential construction by which something might happen = it could have happened and might as well have. It's very multiverse friendly. We should probably stop." -Tom Spurgeon.
Here are some things I found interesting in the world of minicomics, comic books, graphic novels, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics, cartoons, digital comics, other, etc. during the week ending 0422013:
"One of the interesting things about the development of the Internet as a tool to have conversations is that the possibility of something taking place is often seen as the same thing as something that actually takes place. It's mistaking the abstraction of an argument as a direct correlative event to something in the real world. If we can argue something is possible, that's all we need to do: a potential bias = a bias, a potential construction by which something might happen = it could have happened and might as well have. It's very multiverse friendly. We should probably stop." -Tom Spurgeon.
- Hello brothers and sisters. Welcome to another
latespecial weekday edition of the Parade-O-Links. I sort of talked around this last week but I'm still trying to find the best way to do this thing. Ideally, a new installment would be up every Sunday morning but my weekends have been booked solid lately. I'm still not sold on the idea of this being a weekday thing but maybe it will have to be. Look, there is almost no stability in my life right now so I'd better not make any promises. Things will happen when they happen. Hang in there. - Last week, April 18th to be exact, marked the 75th anniversary of the debut of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's Superman and Lois Lane characters and arguably the birth of the comics industry in the USA, one of the main brands upon which the company currently called Time Warner Inc. would be built and decades of profits in toys, clothes, cartoons, theme park rides, TV shows and movies. In light of all that success I was curious to see how the owner of Superman would acknowledge this historic day. They didn't. DC Comics, DC Entertainment and Time Warner Inc. made absolutely no mention of the event. At least not on any of their websites. And, curiously, it was one of the few weeks of the year where there was not any new Superman comics. You could say that what Time Warner did to Superman last week was the opposite of celebrating his creation. I was disappointed. Superman is kind of a big deal and you only get one 75th anniversary. Actually, most things never get a 75th anniversary. Just think of the magnitude of the idea of Superman. How many ideas do you have in your life? How many good ideas? How many of those ideas to you act on? How many of them actually happen? How many of them succeed? How many of them are remembered or make any impact at all? Just in entertainment alone think of all the ideas that have come and gone in the last 75 years. All the comic books, comic strips, radio shows, TV shows, movies, toys, games, electronics, appliances, automobiles, fashion trends, food brands, retail chains, governments, countries... everything. Just think of everything that has come and gone. And there is still Superman. One of the most successful ideas of all time. And how did we treat the guys that gave birth to it?
- Superman's "birthday" was celebrated though. At least in Cleveland. And here is an older article about the house where it all happened. Comics Alliance posted some nice Superman art.
- Mark Waid and other folks talked on twitter about favorite Superman moments.
- Kurt Busiek says that Superman should be in the public domain. I agree.
- Steve Bissette gives and example of how trying to do the right thing is actually a thing that is possible and has been done in the past and surprisingly did not bring DC or Marvel to their knees.
- Whenever people that actually make money in comics talk about money it is either super encouraging or absolutely soul crushing. Never in between.
- The creepy adventures of creepy DragonCon founder creepy Ed Kramer continue to be creepy.
- Amazon is making it easier for the indie creator to get her/his work on the Kindle.
- Here is a look at some of Carmine Infantino's early Timely work.
- I'm excited about this news of new Alternative Comics works by some of my favorite creators.
- Here is a look at the cover from Patrick Dean's next comic. Dean all but has this season's Minicomic MVP wrapped up. Let's hope he stays injury free through the playoffs.
- Adam Casey exhibited some music themed art.
- You can't tie down a banjo man.
- "i wrote ithat movie a while back. hard to remember what its about."
- Haters just be jealous of Santoro's hair.
- It's always a good time to check in on what Eleanor Davis has been drawing.
- Ben Towle's Oyster War at io9.
- Jim Starlin interviewed at CBR.
- The 30th episode of Robert Newsome's talking and music thing.
- And finally... contrary to belief, Colt Cobana didn't create Five Dollar Wrestling. I know you all think because he has a "podcast" coming from "live from the studio"... apartment!
And that's just a taste of some of the interesting things going out there in the wonderful world of comics and things. I can't keep up with it all but I do keep up with a lot of it on twitter and I try to re-tweet the good stuff. You should probably follow me there. If you did something to make comics better this week then high-five!
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
April 17, 01:11 AM
(One of my all time favorite covers by the late great Carmine Infantino. Notice that you have your "Frazetta Pyramid" but the pyramid is turned on its side. Which, I think says a lot about Infantino's style. Super master level skills with everything tilted and skewed beyond expectations. Just right outside the comfort zone. Full of energy and a subtle edginess. Image stolen from bipcomics.)
Here are some things I found interesting in the world of minicomics, comic books, graphic novels, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics, cartoons, digital comics, other, etc. during the week ending 0417013:
"No more hurting people." -Martin Richard.
- Hello brothers and sisters. It has been a while since the last Parade-O-Links. I've been making my little list throughout the days and working on the column but I've just not been able to get the thing together. I'd love to have a new Parade-O-Links up for you every Sunday morning but, my life has been challenging lately. Times is hard. A lot of awful things have happened. We mourn for those we've lost. We pray for those that have had tragedy forced upon them. And, it's sadder each time. You don't really get used to it. It just piles on. Maybe the weight of it makes you stronger and maybe you can carry the burden but the weight is there. Heavier and heavier. But we press on. Ya know, I'm a guy, staying up past midnight writing about a hobby I can not afford to have. But here we are. We press on. I'm reminded of a gym teacher I had at Saint Paul Elementary School. His name was Tom Payne. He was a character. I remember one day, I think it was sixth grade gym class, he stood up and he said, "Kids. Do you want to know what the meaning of life is? All through your life you are going to hear people talk about it. What does it all mean? Why are we here? What is the meaning of life?" He turns around and he grabs a piece of chalk. He writes on the chalkboard. Real big. He writes to huge words. "HAVE FUN."
- And I don't even know what that means. I think it's gotta be more than that. But it's not a bad start. Times is hard brothers and sisters. But we press on. If for no other reason that somewhere down the road we'll share some laughs. And to those that try to keep us down...you've got to live with me breathin' baby.
- The great Carmine Infantino passed away earlier this month on April 4th at the age of 87. He was a lot of things in his career. Inker, penciler, designer, art director, editor and publisher. But to me, he was the guy that drew the coolest looking, most exciting Star Wars comics. And to me, when I was a kid, that meant that he had the most important job on Earth. I met him, gosh, close to 10 years ago now, and he seemed to be a sweet man. I had him sign some Star Wars comics and he had a story about each issue. He remembered drawing them, and remembered conversations with Lucasfilm about what could and could not be in them. He seemed to really enjoy the issues that took place on the water planet. They were pre-Empire Strikes Back and were a huge contrast to the desert and sterile space station locations of the first Star Wars film. (Years later we would see a Star Wars water planet and sea dragon type creatures in Attack of the Clones but it was nowhere near as cool as what Infantino did.) That work was a good example of what Infantino was in comics. He took what you gave him, The Flash, Batman, Star Wars etc., and pushed it a bit further. Turned it on its side. Skewed the perspective so that it felt like you were falling into the image. His drawings were like a broken mirror. It felt like if you held the paper the wrong way it would cut you. And those lips he drew on the female characters, you knew if they kissed you it would be fatal. He didn't draw the stuff "on model". He drew it better than model.
- Mark Waid spoke about Infantino here.
- Neal Adams spoke about Infantino here.
- The Comics Journal remembered Infantino here.
- The Gary Groth TCJ interview with Infantino here. With an additional piece here.
- The "collective memory" at The Comics Reporter.
- Roger Ebert also passed away since last we met here on the Parade-O-Links. When I was a kid, Sneak Previews and At the Movies were a big deal. Most of us just called them "Siskel and Ebert". Other than stuff like Starlog and the TV commercials, Siskel and Ebert was about the only place you could get a look at new movies. The main thing I took from Ebert as a critic and a writer was his enthusiasm. A lot of critical writers hide their enthusiasm if they have any of all. Never be ashamed of what you like. That is just stupid. The notion that you will get closer to the objective truth by denying your personal truth is just idiotic. And always want the things you like to try and be better.
- All I knew about Margaret Thatcher I learned from comics and rock music. The lady was ahead of her time. And by that I mean she should be on Fox News right now.
- Another non-comics obituary I'd like to point to is that of Mrs. Ann Gregory. She and her family bought the town newspaper from my family when I was just a baby. She would be a great friend to my family and a positive presence in my life. Saint Paul, Virginia is a very small town but reading her obituary I'm struck by how much she accomplished and how many people she reached through her work. Sometimes, here in these hills, here in this valley, you feel like you can't reach beyond the hills to the rest of the world, but she did. Her life was full of honors and titles but none of them were achieved out of ambition. All she accomplished was out of a commitment to the service of others. She was a very impressive person and will be missed.
- Congratulations to this year's Eisner Award nominees. I've been paying attention to the Eisner's for a decade or more and this might be the first time where I have a work or a creator that I'm excited about in every category. It's kind of like, dang, they nominated my twitter feed. Are the Eisners getting more savvy in their awareness of indie comics and webcomics or is everything mainstream now?
- The winner of comics kerfuffle of the month went to the "Saga saga". First teh intronets thought Apple was banning things because they hate teh gays. Then teh intronets decided maybe Apple did not hate teh gays but only hated boners. Then the CBLDF reminded us that boners are totes legal. But some retailers said, I don't care, I ain't selling boners. Then Comixology came out and said my bad bro, my bad. So now you can read all the boners you want. I guess. Which is kind of where we were before it all started but now a lot more people know about that Saga comic. But it still kinda sucked. Teh intronets everybody! Seriously though, Tom Spurgeon summed up the more important parts of the story here. One of the best things about this issue was that Spurgeon got to talk about boners in, I think, three separate blog posts. So, that was a good week for me in my comics internet reading. "Mostly, though, anyone that interprets the clumsy negotiation of a potentially troubling content policy by a corporate entity as some sort of failure to make sure that the PR image of involved business is treated with some perceived level of demanded respect is a scary person. Fuck that. Question everything. Tiny boners 4-ever." Tiny boners 4-ever indeed.
- Boners.
- In other news, just last week, I became the owner of a cell pad pod phone for the first time ever. That's right. I have a "smartphone". Mine is an android phone and the Comixology app was the first app I installed. So no Apple store for me. All the boners I want!
- Boners.
- Speaking of
bonersComixology, remember that whole deal where Comixology and Marvel tried to give away over 700 comics to way over 700 people and it all blew up? Well, just like they promised, they delivered this week. I got the comics I wanted easy as pie. Like, ridiculously easy. Like, faster than I could eat my dinner. I did not chose to own all of the comics but I got a lot. A lot people. And I'm loving it. So, boners or no boners, high five Comixology.
(Doctor Who reads comics. Of course. Image stolen from Bleeding Cool.)
- The Fluke Mini-Comics and Zine fest took place back on April 6th in Athens, Georgia USA. Sadly, I missed it. I was going to go but things occured. So, I did what any hard working comics blogger would do and I called up the most dangerous man in the world, Henry Eudy on my email phone. (Which does not exist.) Our conversation went like this:
from the desk of file under other, April 3, 2013:
Dearest Bro Duder,
Are you still going to Fluke? I unfortunately cannot go. Again. Due to the horrors of going through a separation/divorce and needing to use my spare time knocking over convenience stores to pay for my kid's braces.
If you are going, would you be interested in writing another con report for file under other for absolutely no reward whatsoever?
If so, please send the following fax to Dave Sim:
"Dear Mr. Sim,
No one has a fax machine anymore therefore you have received this via magic and you are either a wizard, elf or troll. Please forward this fax to Shannon Smith via your magic ways so that he will know whether or not Henry Eudy can write a con report.
Sincerely,
Gloria Steinem"
from the desk of Agent Henry Eudy, April 3, 2013:
I received the following reply by way of it being taped to the topside of a badger that somehow appeared in my living room:
"Dearest sirs,
I can't be bothered to give a damn about your completely insignificant con report. Frankly, if yours truly and my amazingly underrated and misunderstood tracings of women from Vogue aren't the main attraction at a convention, then why bother anyway? It's all too insipid. Probably a woman is behind this. What kind of name is Shannon anyway? Humph. Anyhow, I got tracings to do and rants to write. You two pansies figure this our your own selves."
Graciously yours,
David Albert Sim"
Weird, huh? Plus I think it was all written with old cigarette butts. Anyhow, I am planning on making FLUKE although I already know I'll have to bail out a few hours early to get back home for an prior engagement. Still, I should be able to experience enough for a solid con report. Sorry I won't be seeing you there. Good luck with those robberies and such.
---- H.
Sadly, Agent Eudy's mission was to be aborted due to life events happening. Like they do. But all hope was not lost.
from the desk of Agent Henry Eudy. April 5, 2013:
Hold the phone! I did have an idea for a perfectly good con reporter. I believe all around good guy and fancy beard grower Adam Casey will be at FLUKE. Might make a pretty good Henry H. Eudy replacement, if you ask me.
And so it would come to pass that Adam Casey and his beard would journey to Fluke and record the important details of this most important event. And now, dear reader, you can read the whole thing here.
(Glorp mania takes over Fluke. Image stolen from Shawn Daughhetee's facebook.)
- Here is a comic about how it is apparently hard to openly like things if you are a girl. Honestly, this notion has never made any sense to me. I just don't get being insecure about the things you like. And I also just don't get that there have apparently been generations of girls around this world afraid to openly like video games. I guess everyone's perception is different but I thought pretty much every girl on post-industrial electricity having Earth since the Atari 2600 played video games. My high school girlfriend and her little sister both beat my ass at Super Mario Bros y'all. For those of you that do not live in my reality, I offer you both condolences and congratulations depending on which you would prefer.
- There have been several of transgendered comics characters before. You people are aware that things happened prior to six months ago right? But, either way, high five transgendered folks!
- Do you need things rated on a points scale before you buy them? Or, do you need to look at a points scale after the fact to validate your purchase and in turn your overall value as a human being on planet Earth? Well, congratulations.
- Robert Venditti and Van Jensen talk about Green Lantern. (Hey guys, don't forget you promised to have Tomar-Re in every panel. Thanks! Chicken Fish Head Guy forever!)
- Ben Towle of Oyster War and many other things was interviewed at Comics Coast to Coast.
- Jill Thompson on creating the t-shirt art for WWE's CM Punk.
- Another installment of Pádraig Ó Méalóid's Marvelman history is up.
- Finally a jihad we can all get exited about.
- Above is a picture of the world's happiest illustrator Ashley Holt with his head on a stuffed version of The Demon. I think Ashley had a birthday since our last Parade-O-Links. That's as good a reason as any to post this picture. (But I was going to post it anyway. I think Josh Latta made it.) I believe Robert Newsome also had a birthday since our last P-O-L. And according to the facebook, April 16 was Brad McGinty's birthday. Happy birthday y'all buncha geezers.
- Josh Latta: Social Media Queen.
- I've never been to MoCCA but I liked this piece Darryl Ayo Brathwaite wrote about it.
- How about instead of step 5 we just slash your tires and burn your house to the ground you ignorant douche face?
- BREAKING: Producers of the upcoming film adaptation of Dave Sim's Last Girlfriend have announced that the role of the fax machine will be played by Bradley Cooper.
- Here's a tip for all you young copywriters: stop sucking so hard.
- Tom Spurgeon does some very interesting talking about comics at Deconstructing Comics.
- A while back, Tucker Stone (still not dead) talked about Thanos and Judge Dredd and other things. That Thanos comic sure looks weird. Speaking of Thanos, one day earlier this month I was driving down the road listening to a sports talk radio station and I heard a radio commercial for Marvel's Thanos Rising. That happened. I swear to you that I was not under the influence. Speaking of Judge Dredd, I watched that Dredd movie. I liked it a lot. Liked the look of it. Loved the sound design. I could listen to motors and gadgets for hours.
- And finally...Iron Man's a drunk ya know.
And that's just a taste of some of the interesting things going out there in the wonderful world of comics and things. I can't keep up with it all but I do keep up with a lot of it on twitter and I try to re-tweet the good stuff. You should probably follow me there. If you did something to make comics better this week then high-five!
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
April 15, 12:36 PM
The FLUKE That Was.
Adam Casey here, reporting on behalf of file under other. I can say that I had the best comics (mini or otherwise) in all of FLUKE and that I’m the bestest ever.
Wait. Shannon, I have to write more than that? And be truthful? FINE. Put down the crowbar, I’ll type it out for real.
Yeesh….
Okay, ya’ll, so let’s set the scene: The place? The 40 Watt in Athens, GA. The day? Saturday, April 6th. The purpose? FLUKE.
From this reporter’s perspective, attendance at FLUKE this year was on par with previous years, both in terms of exhibitors and attendees. The lay out was modified slightly from previous years with lack of “end caps” on the rows which anyone who has had to sit in the corner of (i.e. me) can tell you, it ain’t the best seating arrangement to be had.
This year featured an appearance by Chris Schweizer who always had a gaggle of people around his table. I mean ALWAYS. There were less people lined up to kiss the new Pope’s ring on Easter than there were waiting to bask in Schweizer’s awesomeness.
Also present was Rich Tommaso, signing his stellar output of work. Seriously, the guy is a siiiiick cartoonist. That’s right, five “i”s. Deal with it.
Representing the ATL Mafia was Jackie Lewis, Cara McGee, and Catie Donnelly. I might be missing other Atlanta residents, but being from North Carolina, all Georgians look alike. (Sorry. Not Sorry.)
Some people that I know are from Georgia are the organizers of FLUKE, Patrick Dean and Robert Newsome. They are fine and dandy gents (but not dandies. Don’t call Robert that. I learned the hard way.) who put on a stellar show. Robert seemed to be the enforcer, running around making things happen. Tables need adjusting? He’s your guy. Oh, we need more chairs? Robert already has them in his hands. Want to see somebody burn his mouth on some fries from Clocked? Watch Robert eat!
Another Georgian was my tablemate, Jordan Mooney. While not a Georgia native, he now calls Savannah home where he makes the best coffee in Savannah, and maybe all of Georgia at Foxy Loxy. This was Jordan’s first time exhibiting, but you may have traded with him at past shows for his mini-comic The A-to-Z Guide To Dispatching Your Enemies.
Joey Weiser was there with his new slick Mermin color graphic novel from Oni Press along with the Spongebob Comics he has contributed to.
Former Georgian(?)… Indianan? Indian? DAVID YODER, STOP BEING A NOMAD! Anyways, David Yoder was there. His stuff is always a hoot and a half.
South Carolina had representatives in the form of J. Chris Campbell, who was exhibiting with his neat stencil prints, and non-exhibitors Adam and Shawn Daughhetee who graciously gave up their table so Rich Tommaso could sign books. They’re good people.
Indiana native Kyle Starks was at FLUKE with his wrasslin’ graphic novel The Legend of Ricky Thunder. You might have seen this up on Kickstarter, and if you threw money his way, you’ve done so wisely. It’s a sharp book so be on the look out for it.
I’m not certain if he had a table, but Scott Stripling was walking around trading his mini-comics Shock ‘N’ Awww…(about the seedy back stage initiation of Roddy Piper into the wrestling community [and it involves Ric Flair, so I can’t be certain if this did happen, which it may have, but you’re better off not Googling the contents if you get this mini.]) and an untitled one that channels Jack Kirby by way of Brendan McCarthy.
For this reporter, the best deal to be had was the mini-comics from Nora and Price Colussy-Esties, titled We’re Spies?! and Diary Of A Werewolf respectively. At 50 cents a piece, they were a bargain, and they were awesome. We’re Spies?! is more of a chapbook (with two parts completed) whereas Diary is more of an illustrated story and it ends on a cliffhanger. UGH. It’d be okay with me if Price stayed home from school for a day or two so part two can go ahead and be unleashed. I’ll write him a doctor’s note.
Speaking of value, one person had a sign saying that you could pay less with BitCoin. I guess they’re from the Star Trek future or something, in which case, please don’t mess up the time stream. KTHXBI.
All in all, a great show, awesome venue, and neat books down every row. If you’re within driving distance of Athens (and not there for the UGA football game which made parking and eating at area restaurants AWFUL), then I recommend blocking out some time for FLUKE.
Now, shout outs:
And that’s the way it is.
Adam Casey's resume includes being a previous Punt, Pass, and Kick champion of Johnston County, North Carolina, playing with a bunch of vacuum cleaners with the screenwriter of "Pacific Rim", and watching all 7 seasons of The West Wing in one month. He doodles at adamcasey.com and retweets your rebloggings of repins on Twitter at @adamccasey.Thanks Adam!
For other Flukings about teh intronets, you may want to check out the following links:
Fluke site.
Fluke interviews at The Dollar Bin podcast.
Comics Alliance's Chris Sims on some of the book he picked up.
Box Brown's Fluke poster.
March 31, 08:37 PM
Here are some things I found interesting in the world of minicomics, comic books, graphic novels, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics, cartoons, digital comics, other, etc. during the week ending 03312013:
"'Why don't you write comics anymore?' I get asked this a lot, so much so that it made sense to me to post something about it. At some point I was no longer a writer. I had, somehow, become a black writer. This perplexed me, considering that, back in the halcyon 80’s, where Marvel was a hotbed of scathing, litigiously un-PC sexism and racism (reference: Rescue Me's potty-mouthed fire house), I was never seen as a 'black writer.' I competed with everybody else, with guys who had much more experience than I, and did the grunt work and odd jobs just like anybody else. Nobody at DC hired me to reboot Green Lantern in Emerald Dawn because I was a black guy, and Fabian Nicieza seemed to not notice or care about my skin color when he approached me to dream up a Power Man/Iron Fist-esque buddy book for his startup imprint Acclaim. Pre-Milestone, the subject just didn't come up. Which isn't to suggest racism did not exist, it surely did, but that, for the most part, my race had nothing to do with the assignments given me (or not as the case may be). Somewhere along the way, Marvel became much more PC and I became inexplicably much blacker." -Christopher Priest stolen from VR Gallaher.
- Happy belated Easter Brothers and sisters. And to those of you that don't celebrate Easter, Happy Easter! This Parade-O-Links is firing up the floats a bit late. I had family stuff that was more important than talking about the return of a character most famous for having the panties "accidentally" left off her action figure.
- Speaking of panties.
- Ooh. That was a bad one. Cheap. Sorry ladies.
- Dudes. It is not okay to disrespect the ladies. Or, ya know, people. Don't disrespect people. And the irony here is that the absolute last thing in the world those jerks want if for the ladies to stop dressing up as their favorite characters.
- Rob over at Panel Patter voices some concerns that I myself share about the seemingly imminent demise of the RSS feeds. I think I talked about it before but, dang y'all RSS readers are where it's at! You get to read what you like without ads or without being on Facebook. That IS as good as teh internet is ever going to get. This is Tesla sitting there saying 'chords are for bitches y'all, I can just shoot power through the air' and everyone saying, 'nah we'll stick with chords'. (Ads are the chords in my half-assed metaphor. My point is, ads are the worst. This blog has ads on them because I'm saving up for a pack of gum but if you read this in a RSS reader you would be free of the ads.) I'm not sure what individual websites like this one you are reading can do going forward to build an audience in the Facebook and Google only web 3.0 but, for me personally, as a reader of teh intronets, I plan to cling to RSS readers like Charlton Heston's cold dead hands. Just this morning I finally go tall my subscriptions imported into The Old Reader and I like it a lot. I think I'm going to like it a whole lot more than Google Reader. So, not all is lost. And for you comics creators thinking why the capitol F do I care how Shannon reads teh intronets- I'm reading your webcomics through my RSS reader or I'm not reading them at all. Ain't nobody got time for bookmarks.
- Oh, and Rob also talked about Oily Comics.
- So...cartoonist, animator and hair model Brad McGinty bought the world famous Glorp Gum company. Glorp Gum was okay but it was the free t-shirts that kept us coming back for more. I grew up in the Appalachia mountains so most of the folks around here were poor. I remember most of the little league and t-ball teams just had Glorp t-shirts instead of uniforms. And we loved it! Those t-shirts were great! I'm super excited about this thing because some of the new Glorp t-shirts look a lot like they were created by Brad McGinty himself. And they look fantastic. You can get your free t-shirt with purchase of gum here.
- I have really enjoyed Pádraig Ó Méalóid's history of Marvelman over at The Beat. He is up to part 8.
- Marvel's WCE wrasslin' comics y'all.
- Drew Weing has a tumblr where he posts drawings of Dungeons and Dragons characters. This is what teh intronets are for.
- Eleanor Davis in Lone Wolf.
- I'm very sad to hear Bruce Timm stepping away from Warner Bros DC comics based animation. A lot of the positives that exist in all of DC's products (TV, comics, toys, lunch boxes, clothing etc.) of the past 20 years are a result of or at least inspired by ideas Bruce Timm put in motion. There is just no way to overstate the impact his character design style has had on, oh just about everything you see with your eyes in comics, toys and animation post 1992. I've voiced some, uh, uneasiness, with the Warner Premier direct to video style currently used in the DC cartoons. I feel the tone of those movies comes from a very cynical place. It is also disheartening to hear that these shows are canceled not because quality or even ratings but because of toy sales. Maybe Timm is getting out while the getting is good. Or maybe he just found something better to do. If we get something where he is more hands on in the look and tone of the project then maybe this ain't bad news.
- Speaking of DC and Warner Bros cartoons, Warner has rolled out a lot of great cartoons to Netflix this weekend. My kids have already been watching a lot of Batman: The Brave and the Bold and Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated. The Justice League stuff is in there now, Adventure Time, Regular Show, Chowder... I could go on and on.
- My favorite Batman anything of all the Batman everything is Batman: The Brave and the Bold but that Adam West Batman was pretty great too. Hotdog phone everybody.
- Some people got worked up about "the M word" in Uncanny Avengers issue 5. I read the 1st issue of that comic and did not like it so, I'm not reading issue 5. This concludes my review of Uncanny Avengers issue 5. For a more thorough analysis, I refer you now to The Comix Cube.
- You keep posting pics of Girlscouts making comics and I'll keep linking them.
- R. Crumb sho does like them reckerds.
- If you are in Winston-Salem NC tomorrow, please go run your fingers through Adam Casey's beard for me.
- Josh Latta played Expert of Nothing.
- And Josh Latta played a bible salesman in Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People”. I bet if that Latta guy made some comics they would be swell.
- Jim Rugg everywhere. In the future there will only be Jim Rugg comics.
- Dustin Harbin makes it and then tells everybody about it.
- Plaid Stallions on growing up Who.
- A sample of Jim Steranko's Outland.
- Pop Matters on Grant Morrison's recent work at DC.
- And The Beat takes a look at Morrison's Action Comics run.
- Tucker Stone is not dead.
- People. Megan Draper is so pretty.
- Robert Newsome of the Second Period Industries Talking and Music Podcast talked to Batmanologist Chris Sims about everything that matters. He also played some music. He also is one of the guys behind...
- Fluke is next Saturday! Or this coming Saturday. Saturday week? It's on April 6th y'all. Athens GA. It's probably going to be the best day of your life if you go. Here is a list of talented people that will be there.
- I don't talk enough about webcomics so here is Fleen which talks about webcomics the exact right amount.
- Patrick Dean is drawing some new comics. Suicide postponed!
- Congrats to Pat Lewis and all the other fine Reuben nominees.
- And finally... Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot.
And that's just a taste of some of the interesting things going out there in the wonderful world of comics and things. I can't keep up with it all but I do keep up with a lot of it on twitter and I try to re-tweet the good stuff. You should probably follow me there. If you did something to make comics better this week then high-five!
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
March 24, 12:51 AM
Here are some things I found interesting in the world of minicomics, comic books, graphic novels, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics, cartoons, digital comics, other, etc. during the week ending 0342013:
"Take a lesson from Watchmen and come up with new characters for that stuff. And then go back to Superman and Batman and put the same kind of love and effort and craft and intelligence you’ve been putting into all those rape scenes and body mutilations into something kids can read, and adults can also be proud to read because of all the love and effort and craft and intelligence you’ve put into it, and make those the “real” versions." -Roger Langridge.
"Take a lesson from Watchmen and come up with new characters for that stuff. And then go back to Superman and Batman and put the same kind of love and effort and craft and intelligence you’ve been putting into all those rape scenes and body mutilations into something kids can read, and adults can also be proud to read because of all the love and effort and craft and intelligence you’ve put into it, and make those the “real” versions." -Roger Langridge.
- My uncle, Eugene Stewart Jr., passed away this week while on vacation in Mexico. He was a good uncle. A good man. I think everyone that knew him considered him a friend. He had been a lot of things to a lot of different people. Paper boy, delivery boy, small business owner, banker, mayor, golf buddy, poker buddy, son, brother, father and grandfather. His nicknames were Bud and Buddy and he was a good buddy to a lot of people. He took my cousins and I to movies, putt putt, go karts, amusement parks and golfing. He was very sharp and very funny. He loved to laugh. He was one of the only adults that I knew growing up that listened to rock n' roll. He showed me how to play a Van Halen song when I got my first guitar. When I wrecked my car last year, he showed up on the scene out of nowhere, made sure I was okay and did all the talking when the sheriff's deputy showed up. Of course the deputy knew him. Everyone knew him. I was lucky to know him and have him for an uncle.
Eugene Stewart Jr. probably getting ready to help out at the family paper. Several years ago. Saint Paul, VA.
- Remember last week when I told you that SPX would sell out instantly? Well, I was sort of right. It would have but it exploderated first. I did not try to register because I"m broke but I watched it through twitter like a blacked out sporting event. SPX handled the ordeal with a lot of class. Because of course they did. And for the record, I come down firmly against curation. Let some other show be TCAF south. Let SPX be SPX. (Well, maybe give former Ignatz winners an early shot at a table.)
- We are all very old. I think I had less than ten of those comics when they came out but I think I've read all of them by now.
- Those Al Plastino Peanuts comics that might have been.
- And more on that from Ben Towle.
- Twist the knife. Keep twisting and twisting and twisting and maybe one day you'll forget that there was once a soul where that black thing lives now.
- I'm ready to be the next former writer of a very important DC comic. Call me.
- Rob Ullman sticks it to the man.
- That time Superman punched his pregnant wife into outer space.
- There is a new The Atomic Elbow on sale. The first four were great so this one is probably a winner.
- Grant Morrison on ending his run on Action Comics. I read it. I liked it a lot. Looking forward to re-reading the whole run as soon as I can find the time.
- If you want to get all the books with drawings of penises in them out of the school libraries then you're going to have to take away the notebooks of every 10 to 18 year old boy in America.
- One of the standard comment responses you will see whenever someone talks about giving Steve Ditko what is owed to him for Spider-Man is that Ditko would not want the money anyway. Can I just say, that assumption is based on the myth of Steve Ditko. We don't know the reality. And it's not our call to make. It's not the point anyway. The point is that Marvel/Disney should do the right thing. Not the legal thing. The right thing. Do it. They could stack up the money in a big pile like in The Dark Knight and let Ditko come in and burn it all for all I care. Just do the right thing.
- George Lucas on Al Williamson.
- In one shot of that new Teen Titans Go promo, the girls are wearing bathrobes, Beast Boy is in his underwear and Robin is naked with some mud or something covering his naughty parts. What is going on in Titans Tower?
- Thanks to Ben Towle, Adam Daughhetee and everyone else that posted, tweeted, etcetered about fuo and the Parade-O-Links last week. This week's installment is minimal at best but I'm sure you all will understand that there are times you have to step away and put family first.
- And finally...we don't pay attention to any of her bullshit rules now.
And that's just a taste of some of the interesting things going out there in the wonderful world of comics and things. I can't keep up with it all but I do keep up with a lot of it on twitter and I try to re-tweet the good stuff. You should probably follow me there. If you did something to make comics better this week then high-five!
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
March 17, 11:15 AM
(Conan #15 cover corrected and improved by juvenile delinquent Patrick Dean. Stolen without permission from the Bizzaro-Wuxtry facebook page.)
Here are some things I found interesting in the world of minicomics, comic books, graphic novels, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics, cartoons, digital comics, other, etc. during the week ending 03172013:
"Curation just isn't in our DNA. How are the kids gonna learn, man? You can't shut em out." -Whoever pilots the SPX twitter account.
(The best magazine cover ever stolen from Plaid Stallions.)
"Curation just isn't in our DNA. How are the kids gonna learn, man? You can't shut em out." -Whoever pilots the SPX twitter account.
- Happy belated Birthday to my daughter Kassidy Smith. She turned 11 last Sunday which was why I was too busy to ever post last week's Parade-O-Links. She did the drawing above. Yesterday (actually last Saturday when I started putting this post together) she worked on painting a huge Adventure Time tree house she built and she created a custom case for her iPod touch using multicolored duct tape. Yes, multicolored duct tape is a thing that exists.
- So, who wants some free comics? Apparently everyone! So, Marvel and Comixology got together to try and give way over 700 free digital comics to anyone that was paying attention. I'm a big advocate for Comixology. At least since my daughter got the Comixology app on her iPod touch. So I think it was a great move for both Comixology and Marvel. Of course it was going to crash. I got in for a few minutes and you could add about 25 comics to your cart at the same time. I'm sure there were people trying to checkout with hundreds of items in their cart at once. Crash is the only way that ends. The great and powerful Jog talked about the whole deal here and wrote about some other digital offerings. I've checked out Panel Nine a few times but never pulled the trigger on any of it. I'm cheap and busy. I mainly buy and/or redeem digital comics that I can share with my daughter. I don't think the Panel Nine stuff falls in that category. Maybe one day when I grow up and get my own cell pad pod phone I might give it a spin.
- And speaking of Comixology- this Submit self publishing deal through their site could be a big deal. I've already added Too Much Coffee Man and Nathan Sorry to "My Comics". I'm excited about it. Lots of potential there for the self publisher. I don't know if it's going to create any self publishing break out starts but you gotta be in the game to win and this is a nice start.
- And speaking of digital digitalings- Codes man codes. Bluray codes, comics, codes... I live for the codes! Seriously. If you don't want your codes, don't sell them, email them to me! To pull up my comics and movies on whatever device is closest to me is great for me. My life is a train wreck but it is awesome to be able to watch and read wherever my post crash cadaver lands.
- But ya know, paper is still pretty great too. Oh if only there were a way to read paper comic books for free.
- I'd like to take a moment to beg you to do things. Do you like file under other? Do you like the Other Comics News Parade-O-Links? I sure do. And I'd like to keep them going. But dang, the way my life is right now, I probably have less than four hours a week not consumed by my job and parenting duties. (And I'm gonna spend one of those watching Justified.) So, it would mean a lot to me to feel like there was a point in spending that time writing about other people's comic books. Especially when the only thing in life that holds any real interest for me other than my kids is the dream of making my own comics. So, hey, um maybe share this website on twitter, or the facebook, or G+, or the tumblr, or the reddit or maybe even the next time you come in contact with one of the flesh humans you might use your talking parts to share the news. I know it sounds pathetic and desperate to ask you to do this but, trust me, I don't know anything about "driving traffic" or "building an audience" or any of that crap. Maybe you do. Maybe you can help.
(The best magazine cover ever stolen from Plaid Stallions.)
- If by some miracle I get this posted on time and if by some miracle you got out of bed and read this on Sunday morning... you might still have a shot at getting a table at SPX. Online registration starts at noon. I suspect all the tables will be gone by, oh say... noon. So, good luck. If it is not yet noon when you are reading this, here is the registration walk through. I believe that this will be the registration link. But don't take my word for it. You should have probably already been following SPX on the twudder. It's a great show and I hope to go. I can't afford the table at the moment. One of the kids needs braces so I guess I'll pay for that instead. But I do hope to make the show so good luck getting a table and make sure to bring some cool stuff for me to look at.
(People. I really love this drawing of Speedball by Daniel Spottswood. This is not a news link or anything. I just really like it.)
- The cast and crew of file under other wish Kim Thompson all the best. We met him at SPX once and he was swell. Plus, he herded all the cats at the Comics Journal message board for years. I appreciated that. Oh, and comics. Comics are good too. We need Kim Thompson. Get better real soon.
- A lot of thoughts were thunked, discussions were discussed and blogs were blogged after the great comics creator Jerry Ordway posted some thoughts on how hard it is to get work in comics at his age. Which is just stupid, because there are probably less than three comics published by DC right now that would not be instantly 200% better if Ordway were either the artist or the writer on the book. The Challengers of the Unknown comics Ordway did last year were, in my opinion, the best looking comics the New 52 has produced so far. With the exception of Capullo's Batman, I think they may be the only comics in the new 52 where the characters have had the same faces in panel five as they did in panel 3 on any given page.
- Mark Evanier also had some thoughts on the issue.
- And Tom Bondurant said some smart things.
- And Gerry Conway, he thinks things too.
- Look, there were a ton of links to the Ordway thing. I'm late on this but let me just say Ordway is great and literally, no crap, I have and I will buy whatever you the comics publisher people of the world hire him to draw. Love his stuff. I'm not going to hunt the link but some editor said something to the effect that they could not imagine Ordway drawing all those lines on Superman's current
garbage sackcostume. There is so much about that statement that is infuriating to me. For one, if the job is to draw stupid lines on a costume then Jerry Ordway will draw the lines and make them look great because the man is going to deliver. Secondly, that's your freaking problem for giving Superman a crap Jim Lee costume. Thirdly, that's just your lack of imagination and CAPITOL F YOU IDIOT you are mentally disabled. If you can't imagine a guy that has delivered at the highest level for 30 years delivering one more time then what the FFFF is wrong with your thinking box and how the FFFF are you in your job? So your customers are going to lose out on great work because of your lack of imagination? - F!
- Tumblr is the enemy and must be destroyed at all costs. (But in the meantime, please follow my tumblr.)
- Kickstarter will save us all. (Except that it probably won't.)
- Those Bill Sienkiewcz New Mutant comics were amazing looking. I had not idea what to make of them when I was a kid but I've been trying to get as many of them as I can find when I dig through the dollar boxes at shops and cons.
- Here is a great story about a 60s commercial artist getting hired to do 60s commercial art in the year 2013.
- Hey. If you ever get to make a movie about a huge group of characters, all of which were created by one man... please, please, remember to invite that guy to the premier of the movie.
- Just above these words is a convention sketch I did of Jimmy "The Boogie Woogie Man" Valiant riding a shark in outer space. I always wonder what happens with those con sketches. Well, this one inspired a story in an ongoing webcomic.
- That Superman lawsuit that was totally over? Maybe it's not over.
- So, like Commissioner Gordon is going to have a cell phone? Alfred rants about Downton Abbey?
- I'm typing this while listening to this.
- Hey, it's Crogan Adventures comics you can read with your ears!
- Check out this super great poster Jost Latta done arted up. You can buy one or twelve. Josh as been knocking out some very impressive Avatards lately as well. You should check 'em out.
- This is a bit old now but that Gary Groth interview Tom Spurgeon did was very good.
- CGR talked to Ann Nocenti and Louise Simonson because it was women's day or month or something. I like comics by both of those ladies a whole lot. Women? I guess they are pretty okay.
- Jamie Hernandez talked to Hazlitt.
- This George Lucas art museum thing looks like it could be spectacular. Ziah Grace at Comics Alliance wrote about it here. From what I've heard about Lucas's comics collection, if he put just part of that in there it would be maybe the best comics museum in the US. Maybe? I hope it happens.
- New comics from Gabby Schulz boys and girls! Here he returns to the credit union. And here are some comics about the boys in blue. That Schulz, he sure loves the police. Oh no terrorism indeed.
- This Kickstarter for some Steve Ditko comics already met its goal but you can still get in on some good stuff.
- March MODOK madness!
- I'm pretty sure everything in my brains already came from comic books.
- That Michael Deforge cover is neat-o mosquito.
- There is still a little time to get in on Retrofit Comics subscription deal. If I had any money at all I would. Maybe I'll see some blood this week.
- I'm very angry about the cancellation of Green Lantern and Young Justice. I have a lot of cartoon based anger these days. Why does a TV show have to sell toys? See, that's not how TV works- You make good TV that people like then you make your money by selling advertisements. Gumball toys sold = zero. Level Up toys sold = zero. Incredible Crew toys sold = zero. Total Drama Island toys sold = zero. Johnny Test toys sold = zero. And, now is as good as time to point out that Annoying Orange is the worst thing that has ever happened.
- I've got a lot of Star Wars based cartoon anger too.
- Look I've got two kids. I watch a lot of Disney television. Let me make this perfectly clear to you. This is an indisputable fact. Disney hates cartoons. Don't expect Disney to give you MORE Marvel or Star Wars on TV. Before being bought by Disney, Marvel had 5 cartoons on the air or in the works. Right now they have one with two more on the way. Before being bought by Disney, there was one, very, very, very good Star Wars cartoon on TV with another on the way. Now there are zero. People, have you seen that Jessie TV show? Disney TV shows are awful! What did you expect?
- I'm also angry about Google Reader going away. At least 70% of this post came from my Google Reader feed. If RSS really does die then I guess I'll have to start blogging about facebook advertisements.
- Not even going to talk about Sullivan's Sluggers.
(Maybe the coolest Spider-Man I've ever seen. And I've looked at Spider-Man every day for over three decades. Drawn by Rafael Grampá. Stolen from Dean Trippe.)
- Them Star Wars movies were a-okay.
- Back when the kid writing the comics was younger than the heroes' sidekicks.
- My God it's full of Kirby.
- Astro City is making a return. That is a series I never got into while it was actually happening but later read a bunch of the trade paperbacks thanks to the local library. Good stuff.
- Hopefully never.
- This Vertigo timeline was very surprising for me. During the time when The Sandman was a phenomenon it seemed like the run lasted forever. Or at least a decade. But I guess it was only really three years.
- Ya know. The more I think about it, Jack Kirby might be the only person in the past 70 years of US comics that never read a single word Stan Lee wrote.
- POW... SUPERHERO FAN!
- Shut up and stop everything. Sal Buscema drew new ROM.
- Men, if you’re feeling a bit queasy at the idea of so many beloved characters suffering rape – if you’re feeling creeped out by someone enthusiastically arguing in favour of them being raped because it’s too bad if it upsets you, it’s realistic… Well, hi. Welcome to the world of women.
- And finally... Vatican the Gathering? Vatican 360?
Oh, and one more last thing! Did you know you can leave comments on these posts here at file under other? It's true! And, I'll probably respond. Twitter and facebook killed the message boards but that's no reason why you can't argue with me, praise me or leave me recipes. It's your intronet. Have fun!
And that's just a taste of some of the interesting things going out there in the wonderful world of comics and things. I can't keep up with it all but I do keep up with a lot of it on twitter and I try to re-tweet the good stuff. You should probably follow me there. If you did something to make comics better this week then high-five!
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
March 03, 12:19 AM
Here are some things I found interesting in the world of minicomics, comic books, graphic novels, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics, cartoons, digital comics, other, etc. during the week ending 03032013:
"And the strange thing about that, and the strange thing about the whole strip, is that it’s definitely true. It’s autobiographical, but it’s also fictional. But that means my actual real life is becoming fiction if I am saying lines for the idea of getting a response. So suddenly my strip is autobiographical, but my real life is fictional. [laughs] And then, towards the end, there’s this weird feedback loop too, because I’m putting it up online, and I’m putting it in the newspaper, and I hear responses back from people, and make adjustments to my life based on reader reaction. I mean, that is insane! So I began to feel like I was trapped in some sort of strange dimension where nothing was real. You know it’s like the philosophical question of are you a person, or are you butterfly dreaming they’re a person? Are you a brain locked in a box on some distant planet being fed stimuli?" -James Kochalka.
"And the strange thing about that, and the strange thing about the whole strip, is that it’s definitely true. It’s autobiographical, but it’s also fictional. But that means my actual real life is becoming fiction if I am saying lines for the idea of getting a response. So suddenly my strip is autobiographical, but my real life is fictional. [laughs] And then, towards the end, there’s this weird feedback loop too, because I’m putting it up online, and I’m putting it in the newspaper, and I hear responses back from people, and make adjustments to my life based on reader reaction. I mean, that is insane! So I began to feel like I was trapped in some sort of strange dimension where nothing was real. You know it’s like the philosophical question of are you a person, or are you butterfly dreaming they’re a person? Are you a brain locked in a box on some distant planet being fed stimuli?" -James Kochalka.
- Let me just cut to the chase pals. The most important thing you are going to get out of this week's Parade-O-Links is that I'm going to tell you to go read the 2nd installment of Tom Hart's book about his daughter, "RL Book 2". You should also read "RL Book 1" if you have not already.
- Apparently March 24th is going to be Mini-Comics day. So, go make a minicomic. What's stopping you? (I prefer "minicomic" to "mini-comic". The hyphen is against the minimalist nature of minicomics. And also it is stupid.)
- AdHouse presents Jim Rugg's front runner for 2013 cover of the year.
- Speaking of Jim Rugg, Faith Erin Hicks told him, Ed Piskor and Jason Lex something they did not know.
- Josh Latta takes a look at that book about John K's Ren and Stimpy.
- Here is a great story about trading rare records for some R. Crumb art.
- Sad news from Josh Blair as he announces that Candy or Medicine will come to an end. If you want to make the last issue, the deadline is April 15.
- Small Press Expo has moved its registration to March 17th.
- Fluke and Autoptic also had press releases which I shared here.
- Okay, here is the thing about my twitter feed. Or two things. 1) I follow back almost everyone that follows me. I'm nice. Most of the people that follow me are in or around comics in some way. BUT, when you unfollow me, I unfollow you. 2) Most of what I post here in the Parade-O-Links is stuff I found on twitter. As in, stuff the people I follow have posted on twitter. As in stuff that was not posted by people that have unfollowed me. (Because I wouldn't know because I'm not following them anymore.) Just saying.
- Okay 2, Marvel and your representatives that surf teh intronets- I am the customer. The customer does not give a single solitary sack of crap if you met your "metrics" or not. In fact, the word "metrics" makes us HATE YOU. Don't say that crap to your
fanscustomers or in a forum where you should know yourfanscustomers will pay attention to what you are saying. Ever. What we want is for you to give us easy access to books as good or better than your competitors at a price we can afford. That is because we are customers.
- Here is part three of that Marvelman history thing The Beat has been running.
- Neil Cohn dissects Eddie Campbell's "rules" with some interesting info on how your eyeballs work.
- Hey look, it's Julie Doucet.
- The Comics Reporter interviewed the great Richard Sala. (My daughter really wants a sequel to Cat Burglar Black.)
- Robert Newsome's latest talking and music thing has a fun interview with a guy from a possibly fictional place called "Britain". I learned some neat things about "British" television and "sport". (Also known as "sports".)
- Okay 3, I made a note to share with you some links to some things Sean T. Collins wrote about webcomics. They were good things worth reading. But now, all I can find when I search for it is a huge red cloud with the word "vorpalizer" in the middle of it. Down below it are words that may be good but they are scrunched down there and it makes my head hurt. So, ya know, I tried. I tried.
- Sean T. Collins also wrote a thing about the latest issue of Grant Morrison's Batman Incorporated. I can read that because it is on Wired. You can too. I will add that Morrison's Batman got screwed at a lot of points along the way. Probably not intentional screwing but just bad timing. For one, right from the start he got screwed by coming starting hid run at a time when 100% of the hype was focused on the Frank Miller/ Jim Lee
catastropheAll-Star Batman. Then he had to carry DC comics on his back has he swam through the river of fire that was 52, Final Crisis and Flashpoint. Then once he was finally doing his thing for real with Batman Inc. he got shut down by the New 52 and had to re-start the thing nine or ten months after the newness of the New 52 had worn off. Being vastly successful is hard y'all. - But enough about Grant Morrison, let's talk about Grant Morrison...
THE BEST SINGLE NEW PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK
(Image stolen from Newsarama.)
...was either going to be Uncanny X-Men #2 or Batman Incorporated #8 because they were the only new comics I read this week. Uncanny X-Men was good. I'm enjoying these Bendis X-Men comics a lot and thanks to those digital codes that come with them, my daughter is enjoying them on her iPod touch thing. Those Bendis X-Men comics seem to come out like, every day so it has already been an impressive run. The best X-Men comics I've read since Grant Morrison's New X-Men. But this issue of Uncanny was just talking so we will go with Batman Inc. #8 by Grant Morrison, Chris Burnham, Jason Masters, Nathan Fairbairn and several other people as the best comic of the week.
Also, because it was the best comic of the week.
Chris Burnham gives us 22 pages of super cool post Moebius/Quitely/McCarthy super hero punch up with the flying and the zooming and the whoosh and the crash and the bizzap and the boom and even some bam sok whap. Burnham keeps enough detail in each panel to make it feel like the characters are real enough to bleed but his anatomy looks like it was taken from action figures so his fight scenes always have poses just a few lines away from being comical. Right on the edge where I like it. There will come a day when you can't buy a monthly Batman comic drawn by Chris Burnham and that will be unfortunate.
And while Jason Master's line is not as funky and cool as Burnham's he does a good job keeping the storytelling style in place during in his fill in pages.
The story is a continuation of the war between Batman and Talia al Ghul that Morrison has been building for about six years now. There have been some bumps in the road. Some major distractions. Batman died. The whole DC Universe died. The New 52 happened. Batman Inc. was on hiatus for about nine months and then before it could build it's momentum up, issue #3 was delayed by the horrible shooting in Aurora, Colorado. But by issue five or six, things were falling back in place and it has become clear to me, that Batman Inc. is the best comic DC is publishing. Scott Snyder's Batman got to hold that title for a year or so and it will probably retake it when Morrison is gone but right now, at this moment, this is as good as DC gets at making comic books.
Morrison and crew give us so many great moments in this comic. This comic is Robin/Damian Wayne's comic book and everyone else is just supporting cast. We get Damian flying in bat Iron Man armor. We get Damian taking out little kids because he's a little kid and he can do what Dick and Gordon can't. We get Damian schooling the other Robins on how what is really at stake with this villain because only he understands this villain. Because she's his mom. And, we get little kid Damian fighting a giant grown up cloned version of himself. Most of which takes place in one amazing 20 panel page.
SPOILERS!
Duh.
And he dies.
C'mon people. If you had been reading the comic you knew he was going to die. And if you were not reading the comic then, bug off, why would you possibly care? And yeah, it is lame that DC chose a publicity stunt over letting the timing of the death be a surprise but, welcome to mass entertainment. It sucks okay. Of course it sucks. It sucks that something that was building for six years became a press release. It sucks that a character that does the one thing mainstream comic book characters never do, grow, will be remembered as that day everyone went on twitter rants against DC. Yeah. It sucks.
But it does not change a single line or single word on the page in what is a perfectly good Batman comic book full of running and jumping and punching and fighting.
The kid was always going to die. For a lot of reasons. For one, it's Grant Morrison's character. Sure, other writers gave Batman his son but Morrison made this character. And dealing with this character has been much of what Morrison's Batman has been about. And like Aztek, Morrison was never going to leave this character for other writers to screw up. And Batman just can't have a son forever because the reader always wants the story where the next generation takes over. And Batman is never going to let the next generation take over. He's Batman. Or as Morrison himself explained, "what son could ever hope to replace a father like Batman, who never dies?"
So as far as comics deaths go, I feel this is a good one. The PR cheapened it but it's a good death. It does suck because Damian was a lot of fun, but it's a good death.
And it does raise some interesting questions. This comic specifically is full of images of a child being beaten and eventually killed. It also shows a child beating up children. It is harsh. Super hero comics have always had that weird history of children in violence. Children reading about children in violence. But the world is violent. Super hero comics are still mostly unrealistic adults fighting unrealistic adults. In weird costumes. In the real world, children shoot and kill children on the streets of Chicago. Children are forced to fight as soldiers in Africa. Hundreds of thousands of children are fighting as soldiers right now. This is who we are as a race right now in the year 2013 on planet Earth. As parents, the human race has failed. We are the bad parents fighting each other and forcing our children to fight and die in our battles. Batman's failure here is our failure. Batman's whole life is about stopping crime but he just can't stop punching people. And Batman tries desperately to keep his son from the violence but the son was born into this violence. Batman's violence. Our violence. The children suffer for the parent's sins. It's sad and it's harsh but that's who we are and that's who Batman is.
I'll miss Damian. He had a pet cow and liked to play with his pet kitty cat. He was alright.
(Image stolen from Newsarama.)
...was either going to be Uncanny X-Men #2 or Batman Incorporated #8 because they were the only new comics I read this week. Uncanny X-Men was good. I'm enjoying these Bendis X-Men comics a lot and thanks to those digital codes that come with them, my daughter is enjoying them on her iPod touch thing. Those Bendis X-Men comics seem to come out like, every day so it has already been an impressive run. The best X-Men comics I've read since Grant Morrison's New X-Men. But this issue of Uncanny was just talking so we will go with Batman Inc. #8 by Grant Morrison, Chris Burnham, Jason Masters, Nathan Fairbairn and several other people as the best comic of the week.
Also, because it was the best comic of the week.
Chris Burnham gives us 22 pages of super cool post Moebius/Quitely/McCarthy super hero punch up with the flying and the zooming and the whoosh and the crash and the bizzap and the boom and even some bam sok whap. Burnham keeps enough detail in each panel to make it feel like the characters are real enough to bleed but his anatomy looks like it was taken from action figures so his fight scenes always have poses just a few lines away from being comical. Right on the edge where I like it. There will come a day when you can't buy a monthly Batman comic drawn by Chris Burnham and that will be unfortunate.
And while Jason Master's line is not as funky and cool as Burnham's he does a good job keeping the storytelling style in place during in his fill in pages.
The story is a continuation of the war between Batman and Talia al Ghul that Morrison has been building for about six years now. There have been some bumps in the road. Some major distractions. Batman died. The whole DC Universe died. The New 52 happened. Batman Inc. was on hiatus for about nine months and then before it could build it's momentum up, issue #3 was delayed by the horrible shooting in Aurora, Colorado. But by issue five or six, things were falling back in place and it has become clear to me, that Batman Inc. is the best comic DC is publishing. Scott Snyder's Batman got to hold that title for a year or so and it will probably retake it when Morrison is gone but right now, at this moment, this is as good as DC gets at making comic books.
Morrison and crew give us so many great moments in this comic. This comic is Robin/Damian Wayne's comic book and everyone else is just supporting cast. We get Damian flying in bat Iron Man armor. We get Damian taking out little kids because he's a little kid and he can do what Dick and Gordon can't. We get Damian schooling the other Robins on how what is really at stake with this villain because only he understands this villain. Because she's his mom. And, we get little kid Damian fighting a giant grown up cloned version of himself. Most of which takes place in one amazing 20 panel page.
SPOILERS!
Duh.
And he dies.
C'mon people. If you had been reading the comic you knew he was going to die. And if you were not reading the comic then, bug off, why would you possibly care? And yeah, it is lame that DC chose a publicity stunt over letting the timing of the death be a surprise but, welcome to mass entertainment. It sucks okay. Of course it sucks. It sucks that something that was building for six years became a press release. It sucks that a character that does the one thing mainstream comic book characters never do, grow, will be remembered as that day everyone went on twitter rants against DC. Yeah. It sucks.
But it does not change a single line or single word on the page in what is a perfectly good Batman comic book full of running and jumping and punching and fighting.
The kid was always going to die. For a lot of reasons. For one, it's Grant Morrison's character. Sure, other writers gave Batman his son but Morrison made this character. And dealing with this character has been much of what Morrison's Batman has been about. And like Aztek, Morrison was never going to leave this character for other writers to screw up. And Batman just can't have a son forever because the reader always wants the story where the next generation takes over. And Batman is never going to let the next generation take over. He's Batman. Or as Morrison himself explained, "what son could ever hope to replace a father like Batman, who never dies?"
So as far as comics deaths go, I feel this is a good one. The PR cheapened it but it's a good death. It does suck because Damian was a lot of fun, but it's a good death.
And it does raise some interesting questions. This comic specifically is full of images of a child being beaten and eventually killed. It also shows a child beating up children. It is harsh. Super hero comics have always had that weird history of children in violence. Children reading about children in violence. But the world is violent. Super hero comics are still mostly unrealistic adults fighting unrealistic adults. In weird costumes. In the real world, children shoot and kill children on the streets of Chicago. Children are forced to fight as soldiers in Africa. Hundreds of thousands of children are fighting as soldiers right now. This is who we are as a race right now in the year 2013 on planet Earth. As parents, the human race has failed. We are the bad parents fighting each other and forcing our children to fight and die in our battles. Batman's failure here is our failure. Batman's whole life is about stopping crime but he just can't stop punching people. And Batman tries desperately to keep his son from the violence but the son was born into this violence. Batman's violence. Our violence. The children suffer for the parent's sins. It's sad and it's harsh but that's who we are and that's who Batman is.
I'll miss Damian. He had a pet cow and liked to play with his pet kitty cat. He was alright.
- And finally... She don't leave the house is what I'm tryin' to say.
And that's just a taste of some of the interesting things going out there in the wonderful world of comics and things. I can't keep up with it all but I do keep up with a lot of it on twitter and I try to re-tweet the good stuff. You should probably follow me there. If you did something to make comics better this week then high-five!
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
February 26, 10:04 AM
(This image is not from a comics festival. I googled "flea market" and it came up. I thought it was funny. This is because I am dumb.)
Hey kids, let's look at some news on some minicomic, small press, zine, independent, artsy fartsy swap meet festivals.
(Also not a pic from a comic show.)
The fine folks at the Fluke Mini-Comics Festival in Athens, GA have a press release. Here it is:
12th ANNUAL FLUKE MINI-COMICS FESTIVAL – APRIL 6th, 2013
This year’s FLUKE Mini-Comics Festival, sponsored by Bizarro Wuxtry, The Crogan Adventures, Anthony Fisher, Flagpole Magazine, Inch-High Button Guy, Sequential Artists Workshop, and Top Shelf Productions will take place on Saturday, April 6th at The 40 Watt Club, 285 West Washington Street, Athens GA from 11:00 AM until 6 PM. Admission for the public is $2.00 per person.
EVENT SPECS
Exhibitor table spaces for FLUKE 2013 are now sold out. It is possible that a very small number of additional exhibition spaces will be made available. Those wishing to obtain one of these potential spaces should watch for an announcement on FLUKE’s website.
FLUKE’S SPONSORS
With gratitude, we acknowledge our sponsors.
Bizarro Wuxtry (http://www.wuxtryrecords.com/bizarro.html)
Athens’ downtown comics shop boasts a staggering array of alternative comics and zines, as well as a friendly and extremely knowledgeable staff. There are also lots of toys, models, cards, clothes and vintage delights to enjoy as well. Peter Bagge once featured the store in an issue of “HATE,” and has referred to it as “the funkiest business establishment I have ever seen.”
The Crogan Adventures (http://croganadventures.blogspot.com/)
The Crogan Adventures is a historical fiction graphic novel series by cartoonist Chris Schweizer featuring the exploits of the fictitious Crogan family throughout the last three hundred years, whether its members be pirates, foreign legionnaires, or soldiers in the American Revolution. The Crogan Adventures is published by Oni Press.
Anthony J. Fisher, Freelance Artist, Inc.
Anthony Fisher is the owner and creative director of Anthony J. Fisher Freelance Artist Inc., which has served various national, Fortune 500 and international companies. He specializes in brand and logo design, print promotional material, package design, photography, illustration, cartooning and Web design.
Flagpole Magazine (www.flagpole.com)
Athens’ alternative weekly is a much loved and used source of information on local music, film, art, food and politics, all delivered with a real sense of ownership and advocacy for our fair city.
Inch-High Button Guy (http://www.facebook.com/InchHighButtonGuy)
Inch-High Button Guy produces the finest original designs in buttons for any occasion, available in a variety of sizes and styles. The buttons are available at Bizarro Wuxtry and at special events.
The Sequential Artists Workshop (http://sequentialartistsworkshop.org)
The Sequential Artists Workshop (SAW) is a non-profit organization based in Gainesville, Florida dedicated to the prosperity and promotion of comic art and artists, offering instruction in comic art, graphic novels and visual storytelling. SAW’s mission is to nurture and educate tomorrow’s generation of visual storytellers, to support creative investigation, exploration and excellence in cartooning and comic art, and to promote literacy in sequential and comic art in today’s culture.
Top Shelf Productions (www.topshelfcomix.com)
Since 1997, Top Shelf Productions has produced a wide range of handsomely designed craft comics. Based in Marietta, Ga. with offices across the country, their catalog includes work by Craig Thompson, Andy Runton, James Kochalka, Bob Callahan and Spain – plus many more.
FLUKE’s STATEMENT OF PURPOSE / MISSION
FLUKE is a mini-comic festival that has been organized by Athens-area comic artists, underground publishers and their enthusiasts since 2002. Conceived as a venue for the discussion and exchange of timely ideas related to mini-comics, ‘zines, and other independent publications, FLUKE is not a large comic convention or merchandising-saturated extravaganza. This isn't to say we don't like our share of stuff—'cause we do. However, we have kept the organization of the event as simple as possible to ensure that it remains focused on work and ideas rather than merchandising.
Hoo boy. That sure was a press release wasn't it? I think I saw somewhere, probably twitter, (of course it was twitter) that them Fluke boys plan to release an exhibitor list sometime soon as well. You should probably just book mark the Fluke website and hit refresh on it about every 15 minutes between now and April 6th. I should be on that exhibitor list. I plan to make the show. I mean, I could get drone attack killed on the way to McDonalds this afternoon but I plan to go. I reserved a table, requested off from work and made an appointment to sell blood for gas money so it should work out. (Unless I get droned. Don't get droned.)
(Probably not a pic from a comics show. Well, maybe.)
Them northern folks that are putting on that Autoptic show in Minneapolis, MN also have a press release. It goes something like this.
Autoptic Applications are now open!
That's right, you can now apply to be an exhibitor at our inaugural Autoptic event, this August in Minneapolis, MN. Since this is our first year and because we want to make sure that we have exhibitors we're all excited about, this year we will be jurying the applications. Applications are open to any and all artists, so please don't hesitate to apply. Once the open application period ends March 31st, the Autoptic organizers will vote on all applicants and send out notifications in late April.
Head over to our application page and apply today! All applicants who apply by March 31st will be notified of the status of their application by April 15th. If you have any questions about the application or curation process, feel free to contact us at info@autoptic.org
Thanks a ton and see you in August!
I know that Jamie Hernandez guy is scheduled to be at Autoptic so that's pretty rad. I had a dream last night that I was at some huge comic-shop-going-out-of-business and/or comic-blogger-planning-their-suicide-and-clearing-out-their-garage sale and I bought a long box full of Love and Rockets comics for about $10. That's about as good as my dreams get.
(I have no idea what that is.)
Well, I hope to see you at a SmallPressIndieMinicomicZine Festival sometime soon. Unless the drones get you first.
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
p.s. Say you want a leader but you can't seem to make up your mind. I think you'd better close it and let me guide you to my twitter feed.p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
February 24, 01:38 PM
Here are some things I found interesting in the world of minicomics, comic books, graphic novels, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics, cartoons, digital comics, other, etc. during the week ending 02242013:
"Now I guess you’re all wondering where I fit into this; please allow me to explain. For an awful long time I’ve been worrying about Billy Batson. Billy, as you know is a grand boy, and I feel he is not being given a break. In other words, a chance to grow up. I went along to old Shazam and told him my worries, and between us we’ve decided to give Billy the chance to settle down. In order that this might be achieved, I shall soon be returning my powers to old Shazam and changing into the character of Billy Batson for the last time. This will give this grand lad a chance to develop into the type of citizen that I know you’ll grow into.
Naturally we couldn’t leave the door of the world wide open for evil – hence Marvelman of whom I feel you’re just busting to know more. What could be better than to ask him to say a few words to you. It’s all yours, Marvelman:" -Captain Marvel.
- The Daytona 500 takes place this afternoon (if you are reading this on Sunday 2/24/2013). Danica Patrick will start in the pole position as the 1st woman ever to do so in an NASCAR race. My prediction is that the winner will be the 1st car to cross the finish line.
- My pal Robert Venditti has been named as Geoff Johns' successor as writer on Green Lantern. That's a big gig and I think Rob will be a perfect fit. He talks about it here. I'm a big fan of all of Rob's comics and X-O Manowar is easily one of the top 5 ongoing super sci/fi punch up comics of the past year. Rob is a talented writer but, more importantly, he works hard at it and delivers. It seems like it was just yesterday that he was announced on X-O, then came Demon Knights and now Green Lantern. By this time next year, Superman will be writing comics about Robert Venditti.
- But don't take my word for it. Let's take a look at what the real WWE Champion CM Punk is reading.
- The X-Men are pretty intense, y'all.
- I loved all the X-Ladies and Claremont told some great stories. And they hold up. My daughter is super into all that old junk.
- Check out this great Rob Ullman hockey comic at Yahoo Sports.
- Wow. Look at this huge Judge Dredd index. I'm a novice when it comes to Dredd. I've never had much access to those comics but the FCBD editions of 2000AD and the new IDW series have me right on the brink of conversion.
- Yeah. That James Jean kid? He draws real good.
- This John Porcellino post about moving really hit me in the feelings box.
- Tom Spurgeon of The Comics Reporter has started a tumblr. I'll make sure to have him added to the prayer list on my church's bulletin.
- That Ant-Man switch plate might be the first thing I've ever seen on Etsy that seemed worth the price. (Of course with the exception of all your wonderful comics you sensitive cartoonist cry babies.)
- This article about an indie wrestler is not at all comics but it does depict a lot of the horrors one sees in the freelance life, the artist life and, at this point, just trying to make a living in the United States today.
- No.
- Big scans of Kirby's crazy Argo art.
- Speaking of Argo. I guess the Oscars are happening sometime? I don't know anything about any of those movies. Whenever their comics adaptions make it to the dollar boxes at the next comic shop I go to, I'll let you know what I think.
- "Also anyone out there who feels they may have screwed me or stolen from me in the past (a very small subset, but still...) this is an excellent time to get your conscience completely cleared at a steep discount. 25 cents on the dollar. These prices will not last!"
- That Autoptic show in Minneapolis in August is going to have Jamie Hernandez. That's something.
- You can submit your comics to SPX's tumblr if that's the kind of thing you think you'd like to do.
- Tom Spurgeon wrote a thing about a Justice League book that costs $24.99.
- I enjoyed this look back at the Death of Superman for a couple of reasons. For one thing, I'm not yet burnt out on 90s nostalgia. For another, it gives me a good excuse to link to these words I wrote about Batman getting his purple bathrobe stolen.
- And by "good excuse" I just mean that it made my brains think of a thing and then I did that thing.
- That time I followed Victor Cayro on the facebook.
- This Patrick Dean comic perfectly sums up my Valentines Day. (Only I'm not named Tom and I did not wake up with a lady beside me on February 14th.)
- And also, Patrick Dean is ready to sell you some fantastic things.
- I wonder if he kept his shirt on?
- Alphabots y'all. Alphabots.
- That Neal Adams kid is very interesting.
- This series on Marvelman at the beat is a great read.
- "It’s like Grandfather’s axe — a new handle and a new blade, it might be a new axe, but it still belongs to grandpa." -Gerry Conway
- Dave Sim talks about Dave Sim as only Dave Sim can.
- I wouldn't call these "rules". More like tastes and preferences. But yeah, most modern lettering and balloon placement is awful.
- 1.2 million years watching porn.
- Retrofit is currently taking subscriptions.
- Jeremy Massie's All My Ghosts is coming to print soon. That's a nice cover.
- Look. A man that has most likely sexually assaulted young boys owns 34% of DragonCon and if you put money into DragonCon you are putting money into that man's hands and the hands of his lawyers. Sure, DragonCon can issue a release blaming it all on the system and say that they can't do anything but the fact remains- Your money is going to Ed Kramer. I'm not placing judgement. Do what you want. Just know what you are doing. The DragonCon board is in a tough spot for sure. I just know that you, the customer, the patron etc., get to decide where you spend your money.
- That crazy CF comic on The New York Times site.
- You could write for Rob Liefled.
THE BEST SINGLE NEW newish PRINT COMIC I READ THIS last WEEK
(Image stolen from Sequential Smart.)
...was Batman 17 by Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo and a bunch of other people. I'm still behind on my comics due to a whole bunch of boring reasons but we'll talk about Batman today and hopefully catch up on some other things between now and next Sunday. I had written previously about how I was disappointed in this Death of the Family storyline. That was mainly in relation to the previous Snyder/Capullo Batman comics from 2011 and 2012 which I thought were as good or better than anything in super hero comics. My main beef with Death in the Family has been the pacing. That it did not feel big enough and things seemed rushed. This is a horror story and there has not been a lot of time to scream. Of course, this story is bigger than just the Batman comic. It is a crossover event. I however have read only the Batman comics. And I won't apologize for that. As the customer, it is not my burden to read the other comics and figure it all out. Maybe there would have been more weight to Death of the Family for me if I had read all of the other Bat family member's adventures but I just could not afford to do that. But let's just forget about all that altogether and look at this one singe comic, Batman 17.
It is a very good Batman versus Joker comic book. Maybe one of the best. But I don't know, I've not read them all. The real guts of this comic is mostly talking and it is the culmination of the 73 year long philosophical argument between Batman and the Joker over what they mean to each other and what they would be without each other. Two insane guys saying 'yeah but at least I'm not as crazy as you' for 73 years. And it's great. I think Snyder and Capullo are pushing this thing just a bit further than it's been pushed before. I think they may have pushed it as far as it can go. This comic is the natural evolution of this story into a horror comic. But it can't go all the way off the deep end because it is still a Batman comic. Greg Capullo's art is gross and freaky and horrific but it is still stylized and Batman still has that larger than life chin because it is still a Batman comic. Snyder's writing pushes the characters right to the edge but not over because it is still a Batman comic. It points out the limitations of what you can do with a seven decade old children's character that dresses up as a bat and fights crime. But for at least a few panels, I thought they might just cross the line.
SPOILERS
To push the Joker beyond where he's been before, to make him "real" whatever that means, the threat has to be "real". Or at least movie "real". Hannibal Lecter "real". Or Gwyneth Paltrow's head in a box "real". So the whole gimmick of this thing has been about faces. Faces representing masks. Snyder's Joker has litterally taken off his mask by removing his face then putting it back on. It's gross but it makes the point that the mask or secret identity never mattered. The lesson is that the Joker IS the Joker and the point of this whole campaign of horror is to teach Batman that Batman IS Batman and his desire to maintain some hind of human normalcy by working with the Bat family will either bring him down or bring them death. Maybe both. So, for the big climactic issue of this thing we have Batman tied to a chair at the head of a dinner table with all the Bat family in attendance. But all of their faces are bandaged. And before each of them is a big covered platter. What is on those platters?! What's in the box?! Well, obviously, it is their faces. Obviously, the Joker has carved off the faces of Robin, Batgirl, Batman's son, Nightwing and that other guy no one cares about.
And for a panel or two I thought they might let Snyder go there. I thought they might just do it.
But, this is a Batman comic. Of course their faces have not been removed. It was just a sick Joker joke. Batman gets out of it and the Batman family will carry one. But the horror of the thing does have weight. We see relationships changed. We see the Bat family rethinking whether or not they want to hang out with Batman anymore. We see characters in a different place than they were when the story started and that is about as "real" as we can ask a Batman comic to be.
But what if he had cut their faces off? What if the crossed that line into adult comics. Into Marshall Law or Judge Dredd? I think you could pull it off. Bruce Wayne's top doctors sew the faces on, plastic surgery etc. and the status quo could be resumed. But it would be hard to deal with. Something like that and you are damaged goods mentally in a way that future writers would have to deal with for years. It's like the death of Jason Todd. It was super gross that they let fans kill a character but the real problem with Jason Todd's death is that every writer after it happened that wanted to use the Joker had to deal with it. Again and again and again. For 25 freaking years. The Joker was no longer the Joker. The Joker was the guy that killed Jason Todd. And that's why I think it was best for Snyder and Capullo to not to cross that line. But for a few panels, they had me.
- And finally... Yes, that's right I'm judging you. Look at me. Me. I'm judging you.
And that's just a taste of some of the interesting things going out there in the wonderful world of comics and things. I can't keep up with it all but I do keep up with a lot of it on twitter and I try to re-tweet the good stuff. You should probably follow me there. If you did something to make comics better this week then high-five!
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
February 14, 12:00 AM
Here are some things I found interesting in the world of minicomics, comic books, graphic novels, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics, cartoons, digital comics, other, etc. during the week ending 02142013:
"Case in point: the legal language on both sides re an ongoing relationship after the settlement is signed. The gist: the Siegels won’t say anything bad about DC. The Siegels agree to make public appearances at DC’s behest, where they will then praise DC. They won’t make any other public appearances or say anything about Superman or the case without DC’s written consent. If they want to publish a biography, Time Warner gets first dibs so it can control whatever goes in print. If anyone asks the Siegels about Superman or the case, they will refer the questioner to DC. When Superman goes into the public domain, they are the only people in the world who can’t do anything with the character. You want to understand how Joanne Siegel could turn away millions of dollars? That’s it, right there." -Jeff Trexler on the sad end to the legal fight for Superman.
THE BEST SINGLE NEW PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK
(Image stolen from Comics Alliance.)
...was My Little Pony Friendship is Magic #3 by Katie Cook, Andy Price, Heather Breckel and several other people. Published by IDW. I'm still catching up on my comics reading after multiple snow storms kept me from the comics shop. I've torn through a good pile of comics in the past week and I enjoyed this one as much or more than any of them. IDW make really solid comics. Almost too good. The paper is way too good. The art and writing are better than they need to be. All they had to do to get me to buy two copies of this thing for my daughters was put My Little Pony on the cover. Thankfully it is actually a comic I can read and enjoy. There is a lot to chew on in this thing. The story is dense. The layouts are dense and have a gag in every panel. All those characters crammed into an actual plot and Katie Cook pulls it off. This is a comic where the ponies are off on a quest to save something or other from scary black ponies and the Pinkie Pie pony just happens to be carrying around costumes of herself and the other ponies. Pinkie Pie dressed up in a giant Pinkie Pie costume is funny people. And Andy Price is nailing this stuff. Every panel crammed full of laughs. Imagine if licensed kid's comics from your youth were good. This is that comic.
"Case in point: the legal language on both sides re an ongoing relationship after the settlement is signed. The gist: the Siegels won’t say anything bad about DC. The Siegels agree to make public appearances at DC’s behest, where they will then praise DC. They won’t make any other public appearances or say anything about Superman or the case without DC’s written consent. If they want to publish a biography, Time Warner gets first dibs so it can control whatever goes in print. If anyone asks the Siegels about Superman or the case, they will refer the questioner to DC. When Superman goes into the public domain, they are the only people in the world who can’t do anything with the character. You want to understand how Joanne Siegel could turn away millions of dollars? That’s it, right there." -Jeff Trexler on the sad end to the legal fight for Superman.
- Happy Valentines Day brothers and sisters that care about that kind of thing. I hope your day gives you everything you want but only 15% more than you deserve. (Don't be greedy.) It is still Ash Wednesday as I'm typing this. I loves me some Jesus. I'm going to try to give up french fries and negativity for Lent. The french fries are because I need to lose some weight. The negativity is because I need to lose some negativity. I'll still be honest. If something is garbage, I'm gonna tell you it's garbage. Facts is facts y'all. But I'm going to try to be more upbeat about the potential of things. And this going to be very hard without my french fries. I loves me some french fries people. The fries are going to be harder to give up than the negativity.
- Loyal devoted readers of the Other Comics News Parade-O-Links may have noticed that today is not Sunday and that I never posted a new Parade-O-Links this past Sunday. Sorry. I just couldn't do it. I tried. Most of this Parade-O-Links was compiled and/or written before last Sunday but I did not get the the post up. Time was not on my side. The Rolling Stones are liars. But, that's okay because that was the past and it is gone and now is the now and because the now is after the past, the now gets to includes some other interesting things that happened after the past. Let's get to those things. Shall we y'all?
- So. Positivity right? What happened in comics last week? Oh yeah, Time Warner/DC Comics stuck it to the Siegles and the Shusters again. And again. Well, there goes my whole giving up negativity for Lent thing. Dang you to heck comics!
- But hey, don't let the fact that wife of Superman's creator went to the grave living under the threats of an army of lawyers funded by a bazillion dollar international corporation ruin your Valentine's Day. I mean, they still make Superman comics after all. Heck, Grant Morrison (the best Superman writer since Alan Moore ended Superman in 1986) still writes Superman comics. Oh wait, he's not gonna do that anymore. He talked to CBR a bit about the whys and hows of his departure. "I think the best thing that it's done ultimately is to get rid of that weird emo Superman that was around for a long time. He was constantly fighting against using his powers and was kind of angst-driven. There are so many great characters in comics that are angst-driven that we don't need Superman to be one was well." Indeed. Die emo Superman die. And hey, don't get down about Grant Morrison not writing Superman. Time Warner's
DC Comics"content creators" can always hire some guy that is actively trying to deny gay and lesbian Americans the same rights other human Americans have. Yeah, that's gonna work out great right? (Dear DC, I'm ready to be the next replacement writer on your online comic, print comic, whatever. Holla at me y'all.) - And speaking of creators leaving. How about that Don Rosa exit letter? "Why I Quit." Hoo boy, a laugh riot that one.
- Look, let's take a deep breath and think about Don Rosa, Jerry Siegle and Joe Shuster. Let's think about what kind of "lessons learned" we can take away from this. Here's what I get out of it. Let's say you want to be a world famous American comic book creator or cartoonist. If you live in the United States of America and you have talents, skills or, worst of all, ideas, you need to take all of that and put it in a box. Now, find a cave. You need to go to the deepest darkest part of that cave and dig a hole. Somewhere between three and six feet deep depending on the density of the ground. Put that box in that hole and cover it up. Now, leave the cave. Go find a nice park. Maybe it has some pigeons or ducks you can feed. Sit down on a bench. Now, here is the tough part, but remember, you said you wanted to be a world famous American comic book creator or cartoonist. Now, I want you take a pen, pencil or knife and jab yourself in the eyes. I know that is a major commitment to the dream but you want the glory right? Now, live the rest of your life broke and blind on that park bench. Congratulations, you are a world famous American comic book creator or cartoonist! Enjoy the pigeons and ducks.
- Dang. This sucker went south quick didn't it. Hang in there brothers and sisters. We can turn this ship around. You know what I like to do when I need to bask in the radiance of happiness and joy? I like to go to Lattaland. Surely, Josh Latta will have some nice things for us to look at. That guy loves him some Valentine's Day cards.
- Oh, and speaking of Valentine's Day cards. If you need to take care of some last minute bidness then look no farther than J. Chris Campbell's free Valentine Card you can print out. Unless of course you don't have a printer. In that case, sorry, there's always Saint Patrick's Day.
- And speaking of love and stuff, Robert Newsome's most recent music and talking thing was full of all the best (and/or worst) love songs ever. I'm listening to it right now.
- Oh, and another thing that makes me happy when I'm thinking about sad things like dead/blind/broke creators (and/or how my wife kicked me out of the house and Valentine's is gonna suck) ... is monsters. Wouldja just look at Patrick Dean draw them monsters!
- We all love Sergio Aragones. Except for jerks.
- And we love Girl Scouts making comics!
- He was born nasty.
- Jog talked about why he is Jog and what makes him Jog and what makes Jog him.
- People! Would you just look at that H. G. Peter Wonder Woman art! The best I tells ya.
- Okay, I don't even have an opinion on this Eddie Campbell piece but it's a good read. I mean, go read it for sure but if you end up wasting a couple of days of your life writing an internet blog post rebuttal to the thing or lose your job because you spent a whole week arguing in comments threads, don't blame me. Comics is dangerous y'all.
- In a shocking turn of events it has been revealed that Fredric Wertham was not just a jerk bag but he was also a lying jerk bag.
- Hey kids, The Ink Panthers are back!
- And Comic Books continue to Burn In Hell.
- Gary Groth tells us something we did not know.
- Jill Thompson on a wrasslin' podcast. And speaking of Jill Thompson and wrasslin', she has an interview in the most recent issue of The Atomic Elbow. You should buy that.
- "For your info.. she jumped on his shoulders/ blocked bullets and broke his neck… and yes his tongue slobbered on her XXXXX. That’s ANT bro. Are you serious? In the following panel.. where she is running…Ant don’t run bra."
- Again, dear
DC Comicscontent creators, I am also ready to write Green Lantern for you. I go hard son. Get at your boy. - I never get tired of happy Bill Mantlo pictures.
- Did I mention Gabby Schulz's hourly comic thing in my last Parade-O-Links? Well, here it is again anyway because it is great.
- The anniversary of the great Jack Kirby leaving this Earth was last week. You should seriously go look at all these great posts about his animation career.
- Don Heck yeah!
- My Delores is still around. I see her in Food City from time to time but I'm afraid to make eye contact. Her husband weights 300 pounds.
- Since it's Valentine's Day, let's see what Chris Sims has to say about love. He's an expert on love right? Or maybe it's comics.
(Image stolen from Comics Alliance.)
...was My Little Pony Friendship is Magic #3 by Katie Cook, Andy Price, Heather Breckel and several other people. Published by IDW. I'm still catching up on my comics reading after multiple snow storms kept me from the comics shop. I've torn through a good pile of comics in the past week and I enjoyed this one as much or more than any of them. IDW make really solid comics. Almost too good. The paper is way too good. The art and writing are better than they need to be. All they had to do to get me to buy two copies of this thing for my daughters was put My Little Pony on the cover. Thankfully it is actually a comic I can read and enjoy. There is a lot to chew on in this thing. The story is dense. The layouts are dense and have a gag in every panel. All those characters crammed into an actual plot and Katie Cook pulls it off. This is a comic where the ponies are off on a quest to save something or other from scary black ponies and the Pinkie Pie pony just happens to be carrying around costumes of herself and the other ponies. Pinkie Pie dressed up in a giant Pinkie Pie costume is funny people. And Andy Price is nailing this stuff. Every panel crammed full of laughs. Imagine if licensed kid's comics from your youth were good. This is that comic.
- And finally... I'm Black Canary you're Green Arrow. When I hop on my bike it means let's go.
And that's just a taste of some of the interesting things going out there in the wonderful world of comics and things. I can't keep up with it all but I do keep up with a lot of it on twitter and I try to re-tweet the good stuff. You should probably follow me there. If you did something to make comics better this week then high-five!
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
p.s. Say you want a leader but you can't seem to make up your mind. I think you'd better close it and let me guide you to my twitter feed.
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
February 10, 12:00 AM
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
February 03, 08:48 AM
Here are some things I found interesting in the world of minicomics, comic books, graphic novels, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics, cartoons, digital comics, other, etc. during the week ending 02032013:
"I don’t know about you, but I’ve decided enough is enough. Everyone tells me social media has the potential for creating social change never seen before in human history. Okay, then I’d like to test it by seeing if social media can cut off the flow of money from DragonCon to accused child molester (and the convention’s co-owner) Ed Kramer, who has been using the 150K+ a year he receives each year from DragonCon to avoid trial and manipulate the justice system to allow him free reign to prey upon children, even while under supposed house arrest. All you have to do is publicly declare you will never attend DragonCon again as long as Edward Kramer profits from the convention." -Nancy A. Collins.
(Image stolen from DC database.)
...is on hiatus because I did not read any new comics this week. Thecomics shop nearest video came store that happens to sell comics is on the other side of a snow and ice storm from my house. The weather is so bad that I could have gone to watch live professional wrestling Saturday and did not. Ice people. Ice. My feet are cold. I did read a 100 or so pages of volume one of the DC Showcase Presents The Brave and the Bold though. And it is great. These comics are written by Bob Haney and he is crazy. Crazy! This is a book that features Metamorpho and the Bat-Hulk and neither of those are the strangest things in it. Get this. There is a story in here where Batman has emotions about a woman. A woman people! Crazy man. Crazy.
But hey. Just because I did not make it to a comics shop and I don't have any plastic money for Comixology at the moment does not mean we can't talk about a new comic. Here, go read this. Dave Cooper everybody. Actually, I think that comic is from last year sometime but who cares? I promise you it's better than anything you could have found in a comic shop this (or almost any) week.
"I don’t know about you, but I’ve decided enough is enough. Everyone tells me social media has the potential for creating social change never seen before in human history. Okay, then I’d like to test it by seeing if social media can cut off the flow of money from DragonCon to accused child molester (and the convention’s co-owner) Ed Kramer, who has been using the 150K+ a year he receives each year from DragonCon to avoid trial and manipulate the justice system to allow him free reign to prey upon children, even while under supposed house arrest. All you have to do is publicly declare you will never attend DragonCon again as long as Edward Kramer profits from the convention." -Nancy A. Collins.
- Happy Superbowl Sunday everybody! I hope that as we all pull our guts up to the Bonanza super bar of shiny new television commercials, with a small helping of football for desert, we will all remember the true spirit of Superbowl; smashing one another's heads in all for the love of points. Points everybody! Just like money but worthless! Personally, I love the American tackle football. Like the great Al Bundy, I served my country playing high school football. I remember it well. Mainly due to the concussions and a knee that alternates between discomfort and pain 24 hours a day. Football! But the Superbowl is most often the worst football game you will see in any given year. This late in the season most of the best players can barley walk and the starters are determined by which guys are not seeing double at gametime. So maybe the commercials really are the best part. Personally, I'm hoping to see this commercial staring Francis. From what I've heard, Volkswagen chose a lame commerical where a white actor dude speaks Rasta instead. But maybe during the pre-game show or somewhere in the evening we'll get to see Francis and all our favorite YouTube stars on our big flat screen TVs because the last thing I want to see on my television is professional actors. (Apparently, the Francis version aired during American Idol this week. That ain't bad. I reckon a few people still watch that show.) Anyway... Go Steelers!
- And don't worry everybody. Francis may be a celebrity now but he's still angry. Never sell out Francis!
- People. The great J. Chris Campbell, fourth sexist man in comics, has a new comic/art book he is ready to sell to you in paper and/or digital. You need to go get that thing accomplished.
- Grant Morrison had a birthday this week. He's 53 now. In Stan Lee years, that's 28. Remember back when I was doing a series of articles re-examining Morrison's The Invisibles. Well, I will get back to that. As soon as possible. Hang in there. My life is
a living hellchallenging. - Fred Hembeck also had a birthday. Dang I loves me some Fred Hembeck.
- Ashley Holt, fourth best hair in comics, posted another one of his words and picture things that you enjoy so much as you read then hate him at the end for being more clever than you.
- You had me at Dreadstar.
- Remember when I mentioned that new Shonen Jump thing last week? Well, Joe McCulloch has broken down the genetic code of every panel of the sucker. (I told ya One-Punch man was the business.)
- So that Paperman cartoon there sure made a lot of people blow a load. It's alright I guess. I wouldn't call it a "groundbreaking technique that seamlessly merges computer-generated and hand-drawn animation techniques" or anything. Seamless is not a word I'd use. Groundbreaking? I mean, you people are aware of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli right? Don't get me wrong. The cartoon is nice. I like the part where Aladdin sits down beside the kid with the balloon. I just think some of us spend so much time watching movies with video game animation that we feel like we've seen the face of God when we see moving line art.
- Alec Longstreth on not going to Angouleme. (I don't know how to do those triangle letter hat things.)
- Bart Beaty on yes going to Angouleme. (I can't even pronounce it.)
- Hey everybody, won't you just shut up and go read this interactive experimental flash comic thing Pat Lewis drew for Mark Waid's website. Super cool.
- Holy cheese biscuits. Go look at what Brad McGinty drew. Brad done did it again!
- How much of your life have you spent lying around wishing Morrissey would beat the crap out of Robert Smith? All of it? Well here ya go. Courtesy of Josh Latta. He lives to serve.
- People. Last week, professional wrestler and WWE Champ CM Punk was forced to hand over his belt to a B movie actor. It sucked. There was never a doubt in my mind that it would not happen, but it still sucked.
- My good friend Paul McDonald wrote a book about Star Wars. You can pre-order it now.
- Okay James. It's been over a month now. You can start posting your strip again. We get it. Hah hah. Good one. Now, get back to the comic strip please.
- Look, I'm as sad about Young Justice being canceled as anyone but Teen Titans Go is gonna be a lot of fun.
- How Bill Mantlo created the 80s.
- People, people, people! Eric Canete posted some new commissioned art this week.
- Gabby Schulz drew some cute wittle cuddly wuddlies. And then he went to the hospital.
(I think it's A-Okay to laugh at Macaulay Culkin and his pals because I'm positive they are laughing at all of us.)
- We just want to tell you that all men are garbage.
- Shaenon Garrity on some solid webcomics.
- Tom Spurgeon on some digital comics news.
- Panel Patter on the Mini-Comic Of The Month Club.
- Hourly Comics Day happened again and The Beat rounded up a bunch of them. Eleanor Davis did it and posted it here.
- Every year when the color of the year is announced I change my blog colors to match it just to see if anyone notices. They never, ever notice. I don't think I'll do it this year because I don't really like that color.
- No talks about Josh Simmons.
- So yeah. Your comics collection can still totally land you in jail in America. (Maybe don't name your files "incest comics".)
(Image stolen from DC database.)
...is on hiatus because I did not read any new comics this week. The
But hey. Just because I did not make it to a comics shop and I don't have any plastic money for Comixology at the moment does not mean we can't talk about a new comic. Here, go read this. Dave Cooper everybody. Actually, I think that comic is from last year sometime but who cares? I promise you it's better than anything you could have found in a comic shop this (or almost any) week.
- And finally... My favorite Superbowl was the one where The Incredible Hulk murdered the Chicago Bears.
Oh, and one more last thing! Did you know you can leave comments on these posts here at file under other? It's true! And, I'll probably respond. Twitter and facebook killed the message boards but that's no reason why you can't argue with me, praise me or leave me recipes. It's your intronet. Have fun!
And that's just a taste of some of the interesting things going out there in the wonderful world of comics and things. I can't keep up with it all but I do keep up with a lot of it on twitter and I try to re-tweet the good stuff. You should probably follow me there. If you did something to make comics better this week then high-five!
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
p.s. Say you want a leader but you can't seem to make up your mind. I think you'd better close it and let me guide you to my twitter feed.
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
January 27, 09:54 AM
(The Avengers #89 cover by Sal Buscema who celebrated a birthday this week. Image stolen from Steve Does Comics.)
Here are some things I found interesting in the world of minicomics, comic books, graphic novels, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics, cartoons, digital comics, other, etc. during the week ending 01272013:
"Your archaic view of creatives is part of what keeps jobs of this industry undervalued. Congratulations, you’ve officially locked out a great percentage of talented, friendly, hard working creatives who would originally have had great interest in attending your convention." - Jordie Bellaire.
(Image stolen from... I don't know where actually. Forwarded to me by a friend at work. Hi Keenan.)
THE BEST SINGLE NEW PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK
"Your archaic view of creatives is part of what keeps jobs of this industry undervalued. Congratulations, you’ve officially locked out a great percentage of talented, friendly, hard working creatives who would originally have had great interest in attending your convention." - Jordie Bellaire.
- Jeezziz people. So much bitchin' and moanin' and crying this week. The twitter blew up with "should I quit the comics?" Why don't the comics love me? Why won't the comics buy me a sub sandwich and rub my feet? Why do the comics love other people so much and not return my emails? Boo the ducking who. Here's the thing about making comics. It's just making comics. Get some paper and a pencil and go crazy. Stop when you don't feel like doing it anymore. Then maybe later, start making them again. Or not. There are all kinds of things that people that don't make comics do that seem to be totally rewarding. I mean, some people can watch the crap out of some TV. I hear about people getting famous for watching TV every day. Or maybe you could play video games. That would be super rewarding right? Maybe join a guild or something. And when you walk the street, people will step back and say, "There goes a video game player. That person is contributing to society!" Or maybe movies might be your thing? You could pay your money and be a part of the magic. Become a fan of a franchise. Argue on twitter with lesser movie watchers about how stupid their opinions are. Or maybe sports is where it's at. I hear that if your favorite team wins the Super Bowl you you get to feel good about yourself for a solid 18 hours. I mean why make art at all? Why make anything? Why do anything? Why express yourself in any way? What's the point? Why create a tangible thing that could be enjoyed by tens of peoples? Just sit down, shut up, plug into your cell pad pod phone and die. Or not. It's just comics. You don't kneed anyone to justify it. Do you think the average grandma gives a singe solitary F if someone thinks she should stop working on puzzles or knitting? Do you think my dad gives a single solitary F if someone thinks he's not getting as many turkeys as he used to when he goes hunting? You know when you stop a thing? When you don't feel like doing that thing any more. And then, maybe later, you might feel like doing it again. And that's okay too. Artists don't retire. They just die. There ain't no rules to this thing and the seat belts are just for show. Anyone that thinks there are rules in art is a coward. It's just comics. It doesn't owe you anything. The guy that created Spider-Man lives out of a freaking hotel room. And he still makes comics. It's just comics.
- My dear faithful loyal can't-live-without-it readers will have by now noticed that I frequently post videos featuring Francis and Boogie2998. What you may not know is that both of those guys are one guy named Steven Williams. I grew up with Steven. His mom ran the head start. We were on the drama team together in high school. He graduated the year after me. He's super smart. Super funny. But most of all he's a really good guy. So, I'm super excited that he is featured in Volkswagon's new commercial that will hopefully be shown during the Super Bowl. I think that before this, the closest anyone from my town ever came to fame was the time the Daily Show showed up to make fun of the next town over for selling their Christmas lights. I don't know how these things work but the video below is a "pre-release" video. Whatever that means. But, do me a favor, watch it and hit the "like" button about thirty times. Thanks.
- I'm writing this while listening to this so any thing that does not make sense should be blamed on Robert Newsome.
- Apparently, one day this week was open mouth kiss a colorist day or something.
- Speaking of color, Jim Rugg stumbled upon the amazing discovery that comics colored on a lighted screen and presented on a lighted screen are brighter than those on paper.
- Look. You have probably already don this, but if not, just go read that Rob Liefled script. Trust me. Abbey Coleslaw did a pretty good parody of it, but honestly, the real thing is funnier.
- Here are some freaking staggering photos of early 1900s Paris. Now I get why Paris was such a big deal.
- "Abbey Coleslaw" is cheap and I'm bigger than that. Usually. Just wanted to see if anyone was paying attention.
- RIP Skummie.
- There is going to be another movie about Steve Ditko's Doctor Strange. What? You want a link for that? Google people. Google.
- Shonen Jump relaunched their website and, I guess, the way I understand it, maybe, it is that it now has the comics in English on the same day they come out in Japan? Or something that means a lot to people that read Shonen Jump. Anyway, I can't keep up with it but, I did go through the sampler and it was a lot of fun. That One-Punch Man is genius. Oh, and in Japan, they only have 48 weeks in a year. Which is terrifying. (And probably not true. Joey Weiser totally explained it to me but pretending that there are only 48 weeks in Japan is way funnier. For me. I'm laughing for you. I carry a heavy load.)
- Speaking of manga, the Comics Reporter leads me to believe that this will be something.
- So, you can read most of Kyle Baker's creator owned comics online. Right now.
- Josh Simmons has a tumblr. Not safe for
workanywhere. - Oh, and Patrick Dean has one too. It's just the best.
- People. You can read Howard the Duck newspaper strips online. Until you can't anymore.
- Well, I guess the cat's out of the bag. I'm not dating Danica Patrick. This guy, was probably a sophomore in high school when Danica was posing for FHM. Oh man I bet his friends hate his guts.
- Have I ever talked to you people about Star Wars? I like Star Wars. They are my favorite wars. My pal Paul McDonald likes Star Wars a lot. So much, he wrote a book about it. He recently wrote about the passing of his mother as, literally, only he could.
- Oh, and again with the Star Wars. J.J. Abrams? Well, alright.
- "The only good news is, out of it all, ya beat the hospital. Lets see ‘em collect your bills now!"
- "But, to repeat, I STILL don't know how long the book is. No idea. Conservative guess, it could be another 200 pages -- maybe 300."
- Comics blogging up-and-comer Gary Groth talks about EC Comics.
- Jog talks about Howard Chaykin's Black Kiss 2 as all good comics types should. (I'm ashamed to say that I have not read it yet. Other than some online previews I've never laid eyes on the thing. It's not exactly filling up the racks of rural American comic shops and Wal-Mart was fresh out. My plan was to try and pick up a bunch of them during the coming con season but I'll probably break down and get it off eBay when I get my tax return. I dream big.)
- Ed Kramer. DragonCon. And really bad lousy journalism. Sigh. I just can't. I just can't even get into this story or the pathetic "journalism" exhibited by the many comics websites that have covered it, but, let me just say this- you can totally hit up wikipedia and check the bare minimum facts of your story before you hit the "publish" button. Hell, maybe even read some of the articles from your own website or newspaper first. Seriously people... THE MAN STILL OWNS 34 #[](%ING PERCENT OF DRAGONCON! HE IS PROFITING OFF TEENAGERS DRESSING UP AS FIONA AND CAKE AND WALKING IN THEIR PARADE! Gah.
- Last weekend the HeroesCon folks threw a minicon in Charlotte. And from the look of these photos, it was great.
- The Dollar Bin wants you to vote for things.
- I like Microcosm Publishing. Let's take a look at their catalog.
- Ya know, those Barbie comics were pretty good. For, ya know, comics about a doll. I see them in the dollar bins from time to time and get them for my girls. The like 'em and wish there were more of 'em.
- Chris Sims says that The Batman ain't down with the guns. But don't take Chris Sims word for it, let Chris Sims tell you about it.
(Image stolen from... I don't know where actually. Forwarded to me by a friend at work. Hi Keenan.)
THE BEST SINGLE NEW PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK
(Image stolen from Comic Vine.)
...was X-O Manowar #9 by Robert Venditti, Trevor Hairsine, Brian Reber and a bunch of other people. This comic, like the previous eight issues and most of the Valiant books I've seen so far is quality from cover to cover. Great cover art, nice book design, bold logos that jump out from the comic racks, nice production, nice editorial material, nice house ads, high quality art, colors, letters and writing. A very good comic. I love the X-O Manowar series and how Venditti has handled it as a sci-fi and historical mash up rather than a super hero book. I'm a sucker for sci-fi and when you hand your space Visigoth a crazy energy sword thing it is going to be hard to lose me. And while Venditti could probably just tell the artist to draw 20 odd pages of swords and explosions and space smashing and I would probably be okay, the story is really moving and the characters/entities involved are making some unexpected choices along the way to keep it interesting. Is that what good drama is? Maybe? I was just an English minor so they never showed me the full back of tricks. This particular issue may the best yet. (Although those first four were really strong.) After I put this issue down I felt like it had been non-stop action. X-O faces off against some bad alien dudes in some similar armor so the stakes seemed higher. But when I flip back through it I realize that this thing covers a lot of ground. There is a lot of dialog and exposition moving the story from one phase into what will be the next story arc but it did not feel like set up. It just felt, like, um, you know, entertaiment. And nerds, you know what I mean right? You know how comics publishers will set up their big story arcs for months with hype and ads but feed you garbage filler in in the issues leading up to it? No filler her. And that's a big part of what I have liked about all of Venditti's work so far is that almost every panel moves the story. And this artist, Trevor Hairsine, he's pretty good too. I like his work here a lot. He's got some Neal Adams moments in there that are very cool. Right up there with Cary Nord. And that is another great thing about these books. Even though there have been three artists in just 9 issues the art has been consistent. Not saying the guys all draw the same but saying the quality, tone and overall look of the book has been consistent. And when you consider, that DC can't even get one artist to complete one full issue of a lot of their books, I really appreciate that consistency. Editorial at Valiant apparently knows what they are doing.
...was X-O Manowar #9 by Robert Venditti, Trevor Hairsine, Brian Reber and a bunch of other people. This comic, like the previous eight issues and most of the Valiant books I've seen so far is quality from cover to cover. Great cover art, nice book design, bold logos that jump out from the comic racks, nice production, nice editorial material, nice house ads, high quality art, colors, letters and writing. A very good comic. I love the X-O Manowar series and how Venditti has handled it as a sci-fi and historical mash up rather than a super hero book. I'm a sucker for sci-fi and when you hand your space Visigoth a crazy energy sword thing it is going to be hard to lose me. And while Venditti could probably just tell the artist to draw 20 odd pages of swords and explosions and space smashing and I would probably be okay, the story is really moving and the characters/entities involved are making some unexpected choices along the way to keep it interesting. Is that what good drama is? Maybe? I was just an English minor so they never showed me the full back of tricks. This particular issue may the best yet. (Although those first four were really strong.) After I put this issue down I felt like it had been non-stop action. X-O faces off against some bad alien dudes in some similar armor so the stakes seemed higher. But when I flip back through it I realize that this thing covers a lot of ground. There is a lot of dialog and exposition moving the story from one phase into what will be the next story arc but it did not feel like set up. It just felt, like, um, you know, entertaiment. And nerds, you know what I mean right? You know how comics publishers will set up their big story arcs for months with hype and ads but feed you garbage filler in in the issues leading up to it? No filler her. And that's a big part of what I have liked about all of Venditti's work so far is that almost every panel moves the story. And this artist, Trevor Hairsine, he's pretty good too. I like his work here a lot. He's got some Neal Adams moments in there that are very cool. Right up there with Cary Nord. And that is another great thing about these books. Even though there have been three artists in just 9 issues the art has been consistent. Not saying the guys all draw the same but saying the quality, tone and overall look of the book has been consistent. And when you consider, that DC can't even get one artist to complete one full issue of a lot of their books, I really appreciate that consistency. Editorial at Valiant apparently knows what they are doing.
- And finally... a good crowd has gathered to wish our superhero well.
And that's just a taste of some of the interesting things going out there in the wonderful world of comics and things. I can't keep up with it all but I do keep up with a lot of it on twitter and I try to re-tweet the good stuff. You should probably follow me there. If you did something to make comics better this week then high-five!
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
p.s. Say you want a leader but you can't seem to make up your mind. I think you'd better close it and let me guide you to my twitter feed.
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
January 20, 02:41 PM
Here are some things I found interesting in the world of minicomics, comic books, graphic novels, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics, cartoons, digital comics, other, etc. during the week ending 01202013:
“I had no idea the world really looked like this, with such infinite clarity. It looks like a modernist photo or a hyperreal film, everything in focus everywhere. Everyone kept saying ‘oh, do you see the leaves now?’ but the first thing I saw was not the leaves but the people. People, individuated, each with brilliant faces and expressions at gaits, the sun streaming down upon them. I couldn’t help but smile. It’s much harder being a misanthrope when you can see people’s faces.” -Aaron Swartz
(Just like Bachman-Turner Overdrive.)
“I had no idea the world really looked like this, with such infinite clarity. It looks like a modernist photo or a hyperreal film, everything in focus everywhere. Everyone kept saying ‘oh, do you see the leaves now?’ but the first thing I saw was not the leaves but the people. People, individuated, each with brilliant faces and expressions at gaits, the sun streaming down upon them. I couldn’t help but smile. It’s much harder being a misanthrope when you can see people’s faces.” -Aaron Swartz
(Just like Bachman-Turner Overdrive.)
- The Fluke minicomics and zine fest in Athens GA is one of my favorite shows. Earlier this week they had registration for the first 60 tables and they all sold out in one day. Not bad. But don't fret none G. They held back a few tables and have a waiting list so you should probably look into that right now. The show is April 6th. You are going to have so much fun buying me a beer. I can't wait!
- People. Paul Pope's Battling Boy looks great. I'ma gonna need one of those. In related news, EW still exists.
- Rob Clough talks to Charles Forsman about the Oily and the subscription model publishing.
- And because he is Rob Clough he also reviewed a bunch of minicomics.
- Kate Beaton explains what all the youngs need to know about going to art school and or teaching themselves art. The most important take away to remember is that yes, young impressionable artist, yes you should totally steal a copy of Photoshop.
- Annie Koyama at Meanwhile.
- Warren Ellis says don't worry, everything is fine. Trust him. He has an accent.
- Paul Gravett read some interesting comics last year.
- How to help Peter David get back to Peter Daviding.
- The Comics Reporter did another digital/web/non-paper comic round up.
- Sigh.
- One of the benefits of being late with this week's Parade-O-Links is that I can squeeze in a link to The Comics Reporter's Five For Firday post. It's my favorite game show.
- I like Ann Nocenti and I like Katana a lot more than is rational so I'm gonna want this comic but then my local comic shop (which is really a video game store) is not going to have it and then I'll be sad but then latter I'll probably buy it at Cavalier Comics over in Wise, VA or maybe at a comic book convention or maybe on eBay. (Katana talks to her sword people. She talks to a sword. Shhh... she thinks her husband is in it. Katana is is teh cray cray.)
- The thing that most makes me furious about this Platinum nonsense is that I've been calling Steven Spielberg for 20 years and not one meeting. Not one damned meeting Steven!
- Hang in there true believer.
- Are you people watching the best show on TV? Are you watching
Boyd Crowder Junkie ExploderJustified? You should. My man Walton Goggins is the business y'all. - The Christopher Reeve version is the correct version.
- Obviously.
- This Joe Kubert comics explains every detail of how comics
arewere made. It's all in the high-powered arc lights. - Chris Sims talks about Batman and guns and guns and Batman.
- This super pretentious sounding Autoptic show in Minneapolis sounds like it will certainly be a thing that happens in August. I think every town in the United States should have its own indie comics and zine festival once year. At each show, one creator will be selected through a series of vicious and violent challenges. Then, at the end of the festival season, all of the selected creators will be dropped on an island and forced to fight to the death. This will not be televised. The sole surviving creator will draw a minicomic of the event and send one copy back to mankind by bottle.
- Awww Lil Bub wolled awound on duh cowmics and wuz so cute with its willte curly tongue and its wittle kitty face.
- Robert Newsome's talking and music thing was good this week. Liked that song about monkey Godzooky or whatever it was. And also, he talked about wrestling again.
- Heavy Metal, Gasoline Alley and other things are burning in hell. I have not listened to this one yet but I'm gonna assume the boys use the F word a lot.
- I just pray this thing sells well enough that Boom will do a follow up where Finn and Jake from Adventure Time read Dave Sim's faxes as printed out of BMO's butt. (Dave Sim is so the Ice King.)
- So the way I make this Parade-O-Links each week is that I have this online checklist creator thing to make a list, and I just paste in interesting things I see all week. And this week, I pasted in bunch of stuff about Robert Venditti. The comics people, they like to talk to Robert Venditti. I like talking to him too. He's swell and good at the thinking and talking. Comics Vine talked to him about X-O Manowar. Then they talked to him some more about Demon Knights. Then io9 talked to him some more about Demon Knights.
...was a lot of trouble to figure out. We had a big snow storm this week that kept me from the local comic shop (which is actually a video game store and which is actually not local to the town where I live but is in the town where I work). I finally made it to the shop on Saturday but did not see a lot of interesting books. My pal Robert Venditti's first issue of Demon Knights came out this week. I wanted that comic. I read a bit of the Cornell run and thought it was okay, I like the Demon and I like all of Venditti's comics so I had the shop order me a copy and add it to my "list" as soon as it was announced. But, like clockwork, the shop did not get Demon Knights 16. They are not so great at getting the comics I want. They still have not gotten any copies of Superior Spider-Man. Not one single time have they had X-O Manowar on the week it came out. (Which is the only reason it has not been my BEST NEW SINGLE PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK so far.) Oh well, the rural life is hard. So the comics I got were bATMan #16 and All-New X-Men #6.
Batman was okay. Just okay. Snyder and Capullo are very good at making Batman comics but I'm disappointed with this "Death of the Family" story. It's just not for me. It's gross. It's disgusting. It is horror and it feels more like Snyder doing his impersonation of a horror movie than it does something fresh or imaginative. Snyder's big long Owl story was more of a mystery thriller and I thought he nailed it. He understood all the beats and the pacing. The pacing feels really rushed in this Joker thing. It's like he's using Grant Morrison hyper speed style. It works for Morrison because Morrison is telling Silver Age madness. It does not work for horror. This issue is mostly a house of death traps comic where Batman goes through his rogues gallery like going through bosses at the end of video game levels. Which is exactly what Grant Morrison did better just recently in Batman Inc. There is no time for anything to resonate in this. Beating Clayface should be bigger. Beating Mr. Freeze should be bigger. Seeing your main foes and the Joker arranged as a royal court at the end should be bigger. It's too many oh my god moments without any time for the audience to say oh my god. It's not scary if the audience does not have time to scream.
All-New X-Men was very good. The best of the series so far. All of the set up was ironed out in issues 1 through 5 so now we get to see Bendis do what he does best. Write people talking on and on and on. And it's great. That is what the X-Men do between funerals. This issue has two things going on. Kitty Pryde teaching Jean Grey how to be Jean Grey and Wolverine trying to teach Cyclops not to be Cyclops. And no sight of a villain until you hit the last page. A very good X-Men comic but I'm not going to give it my BEST designation.
Nope, THE BEST NEW SINGLE PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK was my daughter's delivered by mail subscription copy of Life With Archie #26. Written by Paul Kupperberg with art by Fernando Ruiz, Pat Kennedy and Tim Kennedy. There is so much to love about this comic. For one thing, it cost $3.99 (less by subscription) and has two full length comics in it. That is the same price as bATMan and All-New X-Men. Plus it is a very comfortable magazine size. And I love the cheap paper. It smells great. Hate that glossy crap. For those that have not read Life With Archie, it is an elseworlds kind of thing where Archie has two possible futures. In one, he marries Veronica and in the other he marries Betty. The two comics are surprisingly different and together they provide a lot of soap opera story lines. In just this issue Kevin Keller (the much hyped gay war vet character) is running for Senate, Kevin's husband is going through physical therapy after getting shot, Veronica is starting her own business, Archie is starting work as a record exec, Moose is dealing with drama in his job as Mayor and Reggie and Betty are having problems with their reality show. And that is just in the Veronica half of the book! I've said this before but I love it when things happen in a comic book. Kupperberg is moving a huge cast trough two comics at the same time. I'm impressed.
Batman was okay. Just okay. Snyder and Capullo are very good at making Batman comics but I'm disappointed with this "Death of the Family" story. It's just not for me. It's gross. It's disgusting. It is horror and it feels more like Snyder doing his impersonation of a horror movie than it does something fresh or imaginative. Snyder's big long Owl story was more of a mystery thriller and I thought he nailed it. He understood all the beats and the pacing. The pacing feels really rushed in this Joker thing. It's like he's using Grant Morrison hyper speed style. It works for Morrison because Morrison is telling Silver Age madness. It does not work for horror. This issue is mostly a house of death traps comic where Batman goes through his rogues gallery like going through bosses at the end of video game levels. Which is exactly what Grant Morrison did better just recently in Batman Inc. There is no time for anything to resonate in this. Beating Clayface should be bigger. Beating Mr. Freeze should be bigger. Seeing your main foes and the Joker arranged as a royal court at the end should be bigger. It's too many oh my god moments without any time for the audience to say oh my god. It's not scary if the audience does not have time to scream.
All-New X-Men was very good. The best of the series so far. All of the set up was ironed out in issues 1 through 5 so now we get to see Bendis do what he does best. Write people talking on and on and on. And it's great. That is what the X-Men do between funerals. This issue has two things going on. Kitty Pryde teaching Jean Grey how to be Jean Grey and Wolverine trying to teach Cyclops not to be Cyclops. And no sight of a villain until you hit the last page. A very good X-Men comic but I'm not going to give it my BEST designation.
Nope, THE BEST NEW SINGLE PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK was my daughter's delivered by mail subscription copy of Life With Archie #26. Written by Paul Kupperberg with art by Fernando Ruiz, Pat Kennedy and Tim Kennedy. There is so much to love about this comic. For one thing, it cost $3.99 (less by subscription) and has two full length comics in it. That is the same price as bATMan and All-New X-Men. Plus it is a very comfortable magazine size. And I love the cheap paper. It smells great. Hate that glossy crap. For those that have not read Life With Archie, it is an elseworlds kind of thing where Archie has two possible futures. In one, he marries Veronica and in the other he marries Betty. The two comics are surprisingly different and together they provide a lot of soap opera story lines. In just this issue Kevin Keller (the much hyped gay war vet character) is running for Senate, Kevin's husband is going through physical therapy after getting shot, Veronica is starting her own business, Archie is starting work as a record exec, Moose is dealing with drama in his job as Mayor and Reggie and Betty are having problems with their reality show. And that is just in the Veronica half of the book! I've said this before but I love it when things happen in a comic book. Kupperberg is moving a huge cast trough two comics at the same time. I'm impressed.
- And finally... if Boogie can do it, you can do it.
Oh, and one more last thing! Did you know you can leave comments on these posts here at file under other? It's true! And, I'll probably respond. Twitter and facebook killed the message boards but that's no reason why you can't argue with me, praise me or leave me recipes. It's your intronet. Have fun!
And that's just a taste of some of the interesting things going out there in the wonderful world of comics and things. I can't keep up with it all but I do keep up with a lot of it on twitter and I try to re-tweet the good stuff. You should probably follow me there. If you did something to make comics better this week then high-five!
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
p.s. Say you want a leader but you can't seem to make up your mind. I think you'd better close it and let me guide you to my twitter feed.
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
January 20, 01:21 AM
January 13, 12:00 AM
(Image of a John Romita drawn Marvel Presents cover stolen from The Comics Reporter.)
Here are some things I found interesting in the world of minicomics, comic books, graphic novels, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics, cartoons, digital comics, other, etc. during the week ending 01132013:
"Warner Communications bought National Periodicals about six years ago, and all of the lawsuits between Siegel and Shuster and National predated us by about 20 years. However, putting legalities aside, the simple fact remains that Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel created a very popular comics character, they may have created a whole comics industry by doing so, and Warner or National has a moral obligation to take care of two destitute creators of what became an industry." -Former Warner executive Jay Emmett as reported by Steve Gerber in 1975.
"Warner Communications bought National Periodicals about six years ago, and all of the lawsuits between Siegel and Shuster and National predated us by about 20 years. However, putting legalities aside, the simple fact remains that Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel created a very popular comics character, they may have created a whole comics industry by doing so, and Warner or National has a moral obligation to take care of two destitute creators of what became an industry." -Former Warner executive Jay Emmett as reported by Steve Gerber in 1975.
- The Siegel family, heirs of Superman's co-creator Jerry Siegel, lost a major court battle to Time Warner. At least since 2008, Time Warner has used the ongoing legal battle as an excuse to not give Superman's creators much of anything. I'm trying to look on the bright side and say, well at least, this should expedite Time Warner paying what they owed before that 2008 ruling. It is honestly over my head. I just want Time Warner to do the right thing. Not the legal thing. The right thing. Tom Spurgeon has some thoughts here. Jeff Trexler explains it all here.
- The Beat linked to this fascinating article which includes the late Steve Gerber's article on National/DC/Warner's sordid history of treatment of Superman's creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
- Looking at artists work areas never gets old. Especially when the photo set includes Jack Kirby's desk.
- Speaking of Kirby, and we always will, here are some unpublished Devil Dinosaur pages with the added bonus of taking a look at what it might have looked like if Stan Lee had put some words on those pages Kirby wrote and drew.
- Are you a hot young artist/writer ready to take over the world as a freelancer? Well, don't read this article by John Ostrander. I had the honor of giving Ostrander a ride to the airport once. Such a nice and selfless guy sitting there listening to my nonsense. Of course, he may very well have been afraid for his life since I was focused more on asking him questions than I was on the Atlanta traffic. But, forget how nice Ostrander is. Ostrander is good. Ostrander's comics are very good. Forget Grimjack and all of his DC and Marvel work and just his work on Star Wars alone will eclipse most writers' careers. Do you think you are a better writer than John Ostrander? You are wrong. Do you think you are smarter, more talented, or that you will play the game better than Ostrander? You are wrong. Does Shannon Smith own action figures of characters you created? You are not better than John Ostrander so that article should be a wake up call. Comics is hard y'all.
- Jim Shooter reconsidered at the Hooded Utilitarian. 1978 to 1987. Dang, I gave that guy a lot of my lunch money.
- I posted file under other's (you know, me) "best of" comics list... for 2011.
- Josh Latta interviewed at 9 Sense. (At around the 50 minute mark.)
- Congratulations to Eleanor Davis on winning a medal from The Society of Illustrators. I'm going to assume that the winner was selected while the society sat around a table that looked just like this.
- Oh and here is another good comic Davis recently posted on her tumblr.
- I liked this Matt Seneca moving gif comic thing.
- Hey! Everybody! Richard Sala drew the Doom Patrol!
- The UK version of the Marvel Star Wars comics series was apparently an amazing weekly sci-fi fantasy anthology thing including Guardians of the Galaxy and other junk. I think I need to have those.
- The Comics Reporter continued the holiday interview series this week. I particularly enjoyed this interview with Mark Waid. It got me thinking about the 90s. Without looking through wikepedia or my long boxes, when I think of the 90s, there were really only four writers of super hero comics where you bought the comic for the writer; Grant Morrison, James Robinson, Kurt Buseik and Mark Waid. Maybe Matt Wagner too but I never thought of his stuff as super hero comics. (Even when it clearly was.)
- Bully went down in the vault to dig up some historical records explaining the details of The Beast's time travel plan in today's All-New X-Men.
- CBR has a good interview with Jon Lewis about True Swamp, the 90s and other things I like.
- Goodbye Comics Buyers Guide. Sad times.
- There is a new Gabby Schulz comic up. I'm beginning to suspect that Schulz may not be happy about a few things.
- Patrick Dean also has some new comics up.
- People. El Generico has signed with the WWE. Now, if you don't care about wrestling then this news will mean nothing to you. But, I don't care who you are. Do yourself a favor and witness the No Hands Space Flying Tigersault!
- So, at some point this week a popular TV show (aren't they all, they're on TV right?) that I don't care about did a thing making fun of a situation that does not actually exist. I'm not linking to it.
- Some comics I've never read are burning in hell.
- I'm listening to Robert Newsome's talking and music podcast as I type this. So far, mostly black/death/whatever-they-call-it metal this go round... but wait, then there's a Morrisey song. Teh intronets is like a box of chocolates.
- Speaking of Robert Newsome, I got my copy of The Atomic Elbow Issue No. 4 in the mail this week and it is great. For you comic book types there is an interview with Jill Thompson, an article by Chris Sims and there are comics in it. Comics fans like comics right?
- And speaking of wrestling, back in The Atomic Elbow Issue No. 3 I had an article in there about the time I went to meet Jimmy "The Boogie Woogie Man" Valiant and see some wrestling. I have now posted that article, along with some photos, on my personal blog-a-thing.
- In other news about me, the new season of Justified started this week. I was pretty happy about that. I can see some Boyd Crowder fan art in my future. Oh, and also, on Thursday night, my dad got me an Italian sub sandwich from this place called Giovanni's in Saint Paul, VA. It was real good.
THE BEST SINGLE NEW PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK
(Image stolen from Marvel.)
...was a digital comic I read on Comixology. Maybe I need to re-think the title of this feature. I went to my LCS (local comic shop that is actually a video game store) on Wednesday thinking I would buy Superior Spider-Man because, ya know, I had asked them to get me a copy and because it's kind of a big deal but, nope, they did not have any copies. So then I cried and flopped around in the parking lot like that fish at the end of that Faith No More video. Later, I was at home reading teh intronet because my life is a joke and I saw Rob from Panel Patter talking on the twitter about how he was reading Superior Spider-Man on Comixology. Therefore, I had no choice but to go read it on Comixology myself. How could I not?!? Self control? Pfftt!
And... SPOILERS it was very good. I really like this Ryan Stegman guy. His action scenes are equal parts Greg Capullo and Joe Kubert which is fine by me. And the talking scenes, especially the dinner scene with MJ, are pure Howard Chaykin. I mean, look at Mary Jane's dress. The only place women dress like that is in a Howard Chaykin comic book. And all things being equal, I would honestly prefer if most comics artists were just lifting from Chaykin all the time. Slott's writing is near perfect for a Spider-Man comic. Doc Ock as Spider-Man is just as funny as I thought it would be. The comic is kinda PG-13. A few more drops of blood and one more boob shot than I would prefer in a comic I'd like to be able share with my kid. But, we can't have it all can we? You can't have the joy of Howard Chaykin dresses and the joy of sharing a comic with your child. The big reveal at the end is exactly what I thought it would be and I think it will be straight up neat-o to see how it plays out.
- And finally...you all loved to cheer for your superheroes.
Oh, and one more last thing! Did you know you can leave comments on these posts here at file under other? It's true! And, I'll probably respond. Twitter and facebook killed the message boards but that's no reason why you can't argue with me, praise me or leave me recipes. It's your intronet. Have fun!
And that's just a taste of some of the interesting things going out there in the wonderful world of comics and things. I can't keep up with it all but I do keep up with a lot of it on twitter and I try to re-tweet the good stuff. You should probably follow me there. If you did something to make comics better this week then high-five!
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
p.s. Say you want a leader but you can't seem to make up your mind. I think you'd better close it and let me guide you to my twitter feed.
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
January 08, 04:23 PM
(Image stolen from Gabby Schulz.)
Hi friends. Real talk time. As you may have noticed, it is now the year 2013. In the way back time of late 2011 and early 2012 I decided to post a series of eleven comics I liked from 2011. I failed. Now, I know you did not come here to read my excuses so I'll just be brief and say that 2012 was an awful year for me. Some major life disrupting things happened which easily could have made me walk away from file under other and comics in general. But, so far, I have stuck it out and clung to comics by my pinkie nails. But I just could never get my 2011 series of posts together. Largely because those awful things that happened have physically put me in a different location from where many of those 2011 comics are. Not way far or anything. I could go dig them up. But my available time to reflect on those books just never matched up with my physical proximity to them. Excuses, excuses.
Hi friends. Real talk time. As you may have noticed, it is now the year 2013. In the way back time of late 2011 and early 2012 I decided to post a series of eleven comics I liked from 2011. I failed. Now, I know you did not come here to read my excuses so I'll just be brief and say that 2012 was an awful year for me. Some major life disrupting things happened which easily could have made me walk away from file under other and comics in general. But, so far, I have stuck it out and clung to comics by my pinkie nails. But I just could never get my 2011 series of posts together. Largely because those awful things that happened have physically put me in a different location from where many of those 2011 comics are. Not way far or anything. I could go dig them up. But my available time to reflect on those books just never matched up with my physical proximity to them. Excuses, excuses.
All that said, in the way back time of late 2011 and early 2012 I did pick out 11 comics that I liked and wanted to talk about. But at this point, in the year 2013, I admit defeat and give up on my idea of long focused individual posts and now give you a list. And I kinda hate lists. But here we are.
These comics are presented in no particular order. I don't really think the idea of "best" has a lot of place in art. It's not a sport. We don't have points or a playoff system. It's all relative to the individual's tastes. And also relative to the fact that comics are very expensive and there are certainly a lot of works out there that won't be on this list just because I never got to read them.
First off, let's start with links to the five comics I did manage to talk about:
And now, comics 6 through 11:
By Robert Ullman and Jeffrey Brown.
I picked this up from Ullman at SPX in 2011 and I've kept it close at hand since then and re-read it several times. First of all it is a WAP book and therefore looks great and is perfectly produced. Great design. Quality cover and paper stock. Quality colors on the cover and end papers. Exactly what I want and enjoy in a minicomic. I've read minicomics long enough that I am no longer impressed by crazy screen print, crazy cut, silk screen wacky covers. I like them to be tight and solid. I like them to be exactly like this.
I also like for my minicomics to have guys like Rob Ullman and Jeffrey Brown in them. Two very different creators. Very different in the way they draw and tell stories but it works well together creating nice tone shifts that break up the book in a positive way. I'm only a casual hockey fan but each story works as its own thing and had me hungry for more.
The webcomics of Rich Tommaso. Sam Hill, Dry Country, Vikings End and more.
Back in 2009 ish Rich Tommaso started what he called a "one-man publishing house". Basically, he started posting a lot of comics online and they were/are great. In 2010 (I think) he started what would become the 2012 Sam Hill book. That comic continued into 2011 which was when I actually read most of it. In 2011 he also started Dry Country. (And a bunch of other things if I remember correctly. Vikings End etc.) The point is, Rich was really killing it with the webcomics in 2011. More than I could keep up with and all of it exceptional. Unfortunately, the nature of webcomics today is that they move around and get collected in different ways. Well, unfortunate only in that it makes it harder for me to find old links. Rich's website has changed from Web of Comics to Recoil. Dry Country is currently over at Study Group. Sam Hill can be purchased as a real hold it in your hands paper book over at Fantagraphics.
Animal Man by Jeff Lemire, Travel Foreman and several other people.
I talked about the 1st issue 2011's New 52 Animal Man at length here. I liked it well enough but Travel Foreman really blew me away in the following issues. Easily some of the most exciting art I saw in 2011. But sadly, Foreman did not keep up the pace and fill in artists came in during 2012. The art remained strong but was inconsistent and lacked that magic of those first few Foreman issues. Now the comic is mired in a crossover. But for a few months, it was really something.
Not My Small Diary #16 edited by Delaine Green and featuring dozens of indie comics and zine wonders.
Not My Small Diary is an ongoing themed diary anthology. This sixteenth volume is made up of two thick minicomics filled with transportation themed stories. Comics and stuff by Donna Barr, Robyn Jordan, Dave Kiersh, John Porcellino, Liz Prince, Noah Van Sciver, Julia Wertz and many more. I like diary comics but I think I like them best in Not My Small Diary. All those little bits from all those different voices. Seeing the world through so many different eyes, pens and brushes all in one place. More than worth the cover price.
Paying For It by Chester Brown.
Chester Brown is one of my favorite cartoonists and his previous full length book, Louis Riel, is my favorite book so I had a lot of anticipation built up for Paying For It. A lot of people did. There was a lot of controversy about Paying For Its subject matter and how Chester Brown handled it (and how he had a clear and heavy handed agenda) but it never bothered me. To me, the book is a comedy about a man who has Blake Edwards movie awkwardness every time he tries to interact with living humans. It's a drawn anthropology journal about having sex presented by a cartoon version of a man that does not seem like he'd be all that good at shaking hands. (He rides a bicycle to go find prostitutes! That is funny people.) I thought it was riveting, fascinating and all those other words critics use for "I liked it lots". I particularly liked Brown's interactions with Seth, Joe Matt and Sook-Yin Lee. At the 2011 SPX I had the pleasure of meeting Chester Brown and he was one of the nicest people I've ever met. And totally capable of shaking hands.
Sick. A webcomic by Gabby Schulz.
No other comic in 2011 was affective to me as Gabby Schulz's Sick. The thing is brutal. Almost every panel is a body blow and some of them rattled my jaw. The story is about the horrors being sick without insurance in the good ol' US of A. I actually have health insurance but my family has experienced a lot of illness over the past 5 or so years and I've spent way too many awful nights in hospitals. Even with insurance, it is terrible. Sick captures all of the worst thoughts and fears of sitting in the hospital or lying in bed thinking that death would be better than what the next few minutes will hold. And as brutal as the comic is, it is also enjoyable. I know that sounds odd. But Schulz is a very funny cartoonist. He is attacking these horrors with scorn and cynicism but there is a layer of humor on most of it. He is pointing out the absurdity of it. Routine matter of fact things we have to go through in the US just to
I would tell you to check it out for yourself but Sick is not currently online. (It kinda is but not officially.) The comic was successful enough that Schulz ended up with bandwidth issues and had to take it down. But the good news is, at least as I understand it from reading one of his blog comments, that he is working on a print version. Whenever that happens, it will be essential reading.
Well, that's 2011 for ya. Sorry it took so long. I'll try to get to 2012 sometime before we all die.
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
p.s. Say you want a leader but you can't seem to make up your mind. I think you'd better close it and let me guide you to my twitter feed.
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
January 06, 12:00 AM
(Chris Ware covering The New Yorker stolen from the The New Yorker.)
Here are some things I found interesting in the world of minicomics, comic books, graphic novels, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics, cartoons, digital comics, other, etc. during the week ending 01062013:
"This has been a struggle in comics. You deal with a lot of different egos, not only egos but failings of human character and behavior. It's a real struggle to uplift. The people that I try to uplift... I'm not some kind of cop, or a superhero, trying to make people better. I care about people, I care about my community, I care about comics way too much to focus only on myself. We live in this curious time right now, we have the DIY tools to only care about yourself, to only pimp yourself, to only hype yourself and your work. I spend an inordinate amount of time hyping other people, basically curating a life of my influences, the things that I like." -Dean Haspiel.
- Happy new year brothers and sisters! Here is hoping this year is better for all of us than we deserve.
- "Best of" time of year is upon us people. Here are the "best new single print comics" that I read each week in 2012 (when I remembered to). I'm still finishing up my best of 2011 list but I hope to get one up for 2012 soon.
- Tucker Stone named 19 best comics of 2012.
- Rob at Panel Patter listed some best minicomics.
- Forces of Geek had Josh Latta list off some stuff in their run down.
- Ben Towle posted a solid three pages of goodness from 2012.
- Patrick Dean was a part of Robot 6's year end thing and showed off a page in progress from his next comic. Also, Patrick Dean used to draw this own t-shirts.
- The Beat has its annual year end survey up.
- Tom Spurgeon
atis The Comics Reporter and he posted 50 positives for 2012. Tom has also been increasingly hilarious on twitter lately- "putting final touches on Sunday's feature "11,427 comics negatives for 2012" Make sure you also scroll through The Comics Reporter site to read all of the holiday interviews. That Haspiel interview was something.
- For several hours on Friday of this week, Rob Ullman was the most famous cartoonist in the United States. For those of you that don't follow sports and are too lazy to click that link, the short version of the story is that multiple sports and news websites picked up on New York Jets' head coach Rex Ryan showing off a tattoo of his wife wearing his quarterback's jersey. Then, some
upaid intern that knows how to use google image searchjournalist figured out that the tattoo looks a lot like Rob Ullman's good girl sports babe art. I do follow sports and when I first saw the headline on ESPN I just knew the tattoo would look like Rob's work without even clicking the link. You can get your own drawings ofRex Ryan'syour wife wearing your favorite sports jersey here.
(Image stolen from Rob Ullman.)
- Some lucky kids got to go check out some Jack Davis art at the Georgia Museum of Art.
- Congratulations George Lucas. You sell off Star Wars, give the money to charity then get engaged to a lovely lady 20 years younger than you and filthy rich. You have won.
- Cavemen were super into animation. Personally, I think it is more likely that they were just drawing a full and literal impression of what the creatures did. Kind of like that thing Grant Morrison talks about how if you did all the same drugs he did you could see your whole past trailing behind you all the way back to the big bang. Or something.
- Every once in a while we have to remember to go see what Jeff Bridges has been drawing about lately.
- Robert Newsome's talking and music podcast went up a day late this week and in the 24 hours or so that I had to wait I almost ended it all thinking it would never happen. Now I know how your dog feels every time you leave the house. But high five Robert because it was literally the only weekly podcast I listen to that managed to go up this week. Sad week for ears.
(Here is a pic of Brad McGinty and Josh Latta just because I love those jerks. Stolen from Josh Latta's facebook.)
- Rob Clough talked about Ed Piskor's Wizzywig.
- Pals Matt Smith and Jeremy Massie have a new book in the Diamond catalog. I ordered a copy. It was probably the first time I've looked through the Diamond catalog in over six years. Their book is in the As of the indie section. In that same section, I noticed there were some older Rich Tommaso books listed. Miriam and 8 1/2 Ghosts. I highly recommend those.
- Peter David had a stroke over the holidays. Here is how you can help him out. I met him once and he was very nice. Nicer than he needed to have been while signing my stack of comics. I like his comics plenty.
- Chris Schweizer on leaving SCAD Atlanta to focus on making more comics and forming a studio. Also, go check out Chris' blog and look at those drawings of Stan Sakai and Jeff Smith.
- I'm not going to loan out my f#(%ing Playstation to Tom, He's a dick.
THE BEST SINGLE NEW PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK...
(Image stolen from ComicVine.)
...was not Avenging Spider-Man #15.1. That comic is just re-cap and filler behind a cover that hopes to cash in on The Amazing Spider-Man #700 hype. Nothing in it moves the story or the character and it is really weird that the 1st in continuity appearance of the new Superior Spider-Man would happen in a tossed off point one comic. It also was not Superman #15. What a stinking mess. I really was liking the Scott Lobdell and Kenneth Rocafort team on Superman but now they are stuck in a damned crossover. Which sums up where the New 52 is in the early stages of its second year- death by editorial mandate. The best comic I read this week could have been Batman Incorporated #6. Another good Batman comic from Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham but the story does not move very far. Batman fights his way through a Game of Death building while exposition is shouted at him through and intercom or something. Good comic but no, I'll give the edge this week to All-New X-Men #5 by Brian Michael Bendis, Stuart Immonen and a whole bunch of other people. This comic has been a lot of fun so far. Everything I want in an X-Men comic. Most of the characters I'd want and all the X-Men drama an X-Men comic needs. Bendis is perfect for this people. Dialog on top of dialog is what he is and that is what the X-Men have been since Claremont's best days. Duh. Of course he would nail this. And Immonen is doing some really great work. So good that you can actually figure out what is going through the 100 shades of brown the colorist is covering all the art with. And the amazing thing is that this comic has a story. Original X-Men in the current X-Men world is such a simple and obvious idea that it is great. But forget all that, the reason that this comic is the single new print comic that I read this week is because, finally, finally, Kitty Pryde gets her moment. SPOILER Kitty Pryde being the mentor to the original X-Men in the current X-Men world is a great comics idea. And I'm telling you people, Kitty Pryde is the most important X-Man of them all. Seriously. I will fight you.
- And finally...he got that ass whippin' straight out of Burke county.
Oh, and one more last thing! Did you know you can leave comments on these posts here at file under other? It's true! And, I'll probably respond. Twitter and facebook killed the message boards but that's no reason why you can't argue with me, praise me or leave me recipes. It's your intronet. Have fun!
And that's just a taste of some of the interesting things going out there in the wonderful world of comics and things. I can't keep up with it all but I do keep up with a lot of it on twitter and I try to re-tweet the good stuff. You should probably follow me there. If you did something to make comics better this week then high-five!
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
p.s. Say you want a leader but you can't seem to make up your mind. I think you'd better close it and let me guide you to my twitter feed.
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
December 31, 12:00 AM
Hi pals. This is NOT a "best of" list for 2012 or anything like that. I may do that later. This is just a collection of all the comics that I named as my "BEST SINGLE NEW PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK" in my Other Comics News Parade-O-Links columns during 2012. I did not start the Parade-O-Links until May and did not start with the BEST NEW PRINT reviews until sometime later. Also, I did not necessarily post them every week because maybe I forgot. The only criteria taken into account for eligibility in my weekly post was that I had read it in that week. For, the most part they were new or new-ish. For the most part the were single issue pamphlet print comics bought in a direct market comic book shop. Sometimes they were not. I think they were always comics. Here are the links to each review:
Marceline and the Scream Queens #6
Patrick Dean's Big Deal Comics & Stories Issue #12 "A Weekend at the Atwood"
The Amazing Spider-Man #700
Patrick Dean's Big Deal Comics & Stories Issue #12 "A Weekend at the Atwood"
The Amazing Spider-Man #700
Hmm. So yeah. Pretty random but that has more to do with my reading habits than it does the quality of the books that came out in 2012. Not a lot of Marvel in there. I did read plenty of new Marvel comics but I'll just say that, in general, the colors in any average 2012 Marvel comic were just so awful, terrible, horrific and bad that it is hard for me to put any of them beside the word "best". I only managed 12 this year because the Parade-O-Links has been a work in progress. Maybe I'll get closer to a "best" review in 2013. Hope to see you there.
Your best pal ever,
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
p.s. Say you want a leader but you can't seem to make up your mind. I think you'd better close it and let me guide you to my twitter feed.
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
December 30, 12:33 AM
Here are some things I found interesting in the world of minicomics, comic books, graphic novels, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics, cartoons, digital comics, other, etc. during the week ending 12302012:
“Spider-Man is such a whiny loser.” - Stephanie Meyer.
- This week was Stan Lee's 90th birthday. I guess that's as good a week as any to kill (sort of but not really) the most popular character he ever co-created.
- It was also Chris Ware's birthday this week and he is now half as old as Stan Lee.
- Today (December 30th) is my daughter Alana Grace Smith's birthday. World's greatest 6 year old.
- Valerie Gallaher on why imaginary deaths carry so much weight.
- Death in comics is not that big of a deal. Grant Morrison was killed by a werewolf and he is A-Okay now.
- Bald F#(%ing Eagles.
- For no reason at all, I'd like to take a moment to say that Jim Starlin's comics are fantastic.
- I always marvel at pictures of Brain Chippendale's studio.
- RIP Werewolf Jones.
- Robert Newsome has made it though Christmas alive and brought us another music and talking podcast thing.
- Just one more day of American Elf. (Unless Kochalka decides to do more. Because, ya know, it's creator owned and everything and he could just wake up tomorrow and draw some more. And that would be fine.)
- Bully's next 365 day feature will be coloring books. That should be fun.
- Look people, I already talked about this last week but I'm going to go ahead and
recommendcommand you to buy Patrick Dean's most recent comics because he is already working on new stuff and I don't want you to get behind. - Here's another reminder to go to The Comics Reporter and scroll through to read all of Tom Spurgeon's great Holiday Interviews. This week was another solid bunch and I see one with Rob Clough is up now. I'll read it as soon as I finish typing this.
- I had not looked at Sophie Crumb's sketchbook in a while. Let's do that.
- Be careful who sees your doodles.
- Stuff I got for Christmas: A Doctor Who t-shirt. DC Showcase Presents The Brave and the Bold volume one in a package labeled "from Bat-Mite". (I bought that one for myself, used off eBay for a few dollars. I'm Bat-Mite.) Some clothes. Some money. My kids got a lot of fun things including Legos and video games and the new Batman Lego video game. I've had fun but I'm very tired with my daughter's birthday left to go before the new year.
THE BEST SINGLE NEW PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK
...was Amazing Spider-Man #700 by Dan Slott, Humberto Ramos, J.M. DeMatteis, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Jen Van Meter, Stephanie Buscema and several thousand other people. Published by Marvel Comics and sold for the retail price of $7.99. This comic wins my weekly "The Best Single Print Comic I Read This Week" honor by virtue of being a solid hour or so of entertainment and for being the only comic that came out this week. Let's talk about what exactly this comic book is as the product that exists in my hands at this moment. Well, not THIS moment. I have to set it down to type but, ya know. Having folded and stapled as many comics as I have, I can guess the page count of a book just by holding it. This sucker is 27 sheets of paper. Folded in half and stapled that is 108 pages of comics. 52 of those pages are the main story by Dan Slott and Humberto Ramos. Which, in this day and age would be considered and epic freaking graphic novel if you took out the staples and gave it a perfect bound spine. 16 of those pages are a back up story by J.M. DeMatteis and Giuseppe Camuncoli. 8 of those pages are a back up story by Jen Van Meter and Stephanie Buscema. The rest is your cover, back pages, ads, a gallery of the variant covers, a copy of the Spider-Man-day proclamation by the Mayor of New York, a gallery of the covers from all 700 issues of The Amazing Spider-Man and a very long letters column featuring some responses from Spider-Man co-creator Stan "The Man" Lee.
The comic has been received with mixed opinions.
So yeah, this is an eight dollar comic and that is just and insane and absurd thing for a stack of paper to be. But, I bought it. I had read Amazing Spider-Man 699 and thought the thing was great comics. And I loves me some Spider-Man. I consider Spider-Man to be one of my only true friends. There is not a point of my life in which I can remember not being aware of and a fan of Spider-Man. He's just always been there for me. Thanks Spidey! So yeah, I paid eight dollars for a comic book.
In defense of that madness, it does contain 76 pages of comics. So, that's what? Three comics worth of comics? Which would cost between nine and twelve dollars normally. I spend around ten bucks on comics in a normal week. This week I bought this one eight dollar thing and probably got more out of it than my normal ten bucks so, I'm okay with this thing. No apologies.
And it feels nice pals. I loves me a thick comic. Like the big thick annuals Marvel and DC put out when I was a kid or the 80 Page Giants. This sucker feels good. I've said time and time again over the past ten years or so, don't give me five Spider-Man comics a month. Give me one big thick one. This comic hints at how right I am and how great that would be. And now that I think about it, if Marvel could give me this much content for eight bucks every month I'd subscribe or put it on my pull list no questions asked.
Okay, so what happens in this comic and is it any good? So the hype on this thing is that... SPOILERS ... Peter Parker dies. Except he totally does not die at all. He's totally not dead and I don't mean zombie. The new Spider-Man is just the old Spider-Man with some Doctor Octopus personality added into the mix. So, he's jerk Spider-Man. Peter Parker's body. Peter Parker's powers. Peter Parker's life. Peter Parker's memories. And most importantly, Peter Parker's morals. That's about 95% Peter Parker. The real question in all of this is just what part of Peter Parker is dead? And I think that could be a fun thing for Dan Slott to explore in the upcoming Superior Spider-Man. I mean, I would. This is science fiction folks. This is a story where the hero and the villain swap bodies and or brains. This is pure silver age comics hijinks and I enjoy it. High five Dan Slott. Good idea. But again, now that you killed half of the swap duo before the standard sci-fi swap-back resolution, where did that part of the character go and what was it? His soul? Is Peter in Heaven? Does Heaven let you in if your body is totally still in better than human shape and still full of your personality?
And just a few issues into this brain swap, Peter Parker's morals and values have already taken over Doc Ock's own to the point that the villain is now committed to being a hero and carrying on Spider-Man's legacy. If Peter Parker's brain waves can flip the switch on Doc Ock in just three issues, by what issue do they just go ahead and push him out altogether? At what issue does he just become 100% Peter Parker? I'm guessing that issue will be a comic titled The Amazing Spider-Man #1.
All the fuss about this comic has been about the death of Peter Parker. Partially because that is the gimmick that Marvel has hyped. But I read this thing and what I see is the death of Doctor Octopus and Peter Parker carrying on with a minor jerk infection.
But enough speculation, back to the comic as it actually exists. It's good. Dan Slott and Humberto Ramos do a good job with this thing. It feels a bit rushed and the intensity feels turned up to eleven but they are hitting all right notes. All the right guest appearances are crammed in. All the right homages to Ditko and Romita are in there. Peter gets to have a near-death Heaven scene where all the people he thought he failed tell him he done good. Slott knows what he's doing for sure. This is a good Spider-Man comic. And I mean that as more than a good comic with Spider-Man in it. I mean that it does all the things that make Spider-Man comics good and unique to Marvel and to comics.
And I like Ramos here too. He's not one of my favorite Spider-Man artists but I like the way he draws Spidey's eyes and he draws the suit in action very well. And I gotta say, that the three page sequence where Doc Ock is projecting himself into Peter Parker's memories and we see little boy Doc Ock's head on young Peter Parker's body complete with his Moe Howard hair and goggles it is effective, hilarious and adorable. One of my favorite things in comics of 2012. High five Humberto. If Superior Spider-Man were Spider-Man's body with Doc Ock Moe Howard hair for a head I would buy two copies of every issue.
The coloring on this comic did not make me furious and that's about as nice a thing as I can say about the coloring in a Marvel comic.
So I enjoyed this big eight dollar thing. Here are some more random thoughts about it in no particular order:
The comic has been received with mixed opinions.
So yeah, this is an eight dollar comic and that is just and insane and absurd thing for a stack of paper to be. But, I bought it. I had read Amazing Spider-Man 699 and thought the thing was great comics. And I loves me some Spider-Man. I consider Spider-Man to be one of my only true friends. There is not a point of my life in which I can remember not being aware of and a fan of Spider-Man. He's just always been there for me. Thanks Spidey! So yeah, I paid eight dollars for a comic book.
In defense of that madness, it does contain 76 pages of comics. So, that's what? Three comics worth of comics? Which would cost between nine and twelve dollars normally. I spend around ten bucks on comics in a normal week. This week I bought this one eight dollar thing and probably got more out of it than my normal ten bucks so, I'm okay with this thing. No apologies.
And it feels nice pals. I loves me a thick comic. Like the big thick annuals Marvel and DC put out when I was a kid or the 80 Page Giants. This sucker feels good. I've said time and time again over the past ten years or so, don't give me five Spider-Man comics a month. Give me one big thick one. This comic hints at how right I am and how great that would be. And now that I think about it, if Marvel could give me this much content for eight bucks every month I'd subscribe or put it on my pull list no questions asked.
Okay, so what happens in this comic and is it any good? So the hype on this thing is that... SPOILERS ... Peter Parker dies. Except he totally does not die at all. He's totally not dead and I don't mean zombie. The new Spider-Man is just the old Spider-Man with some Doctor Octopus personality added into the mix. So, he's jerk Spider-Man. Peter Parker's body. Peter Parker's powers. Peter Parker's life. Peter Parker's memories. And most importantly, Peter Parker's morals. That's about 95% Peter Parker. The real question in all of this is just what part of Peter Parker is dead? And I think that could be a fun thing for Dan Slott to explore in the upcoming Superior Spider-Man. I mean, I would. This is science fiction folks. This is a story where the hero and the villain swap bodies and or brains. This is pure silver age comics hijinks and I enjoy it. High five Dan Slott. Good idea. But again, now that you killed half of the swap duo before the standard sci-fi swap-back resolution, where did that part of the character go and what was it? His soul? Is Peter in Heaven? Does Heaven let you in if your body is totally still in better than human shape and still full of your personality?
And just a few issues into this brain swap, Peter Parker's morals and values have already taken over Doc Ock's own to the point that the villain is now committed to being a hero and carrying on Spider-Man's legacy. If Peter Parker's brain waves can flip the switch on Doc Ock in just three issues, by what issue do they just go ahead and push him out altogether? At what issue does he just become 100% Peter Parker? I'm guessing that issue will be a comic titled The Amazing Spider-Man #1.
All the fuss about this comic has been about the death of Peter Parker. Partially because that is the gimmick that Marvel has hyped. But I read this thing and what I see is the death of Doctor Octopus and Peter Parker carrying on with a minor jerk infection.
But enough speculation, back to the comic as it actually exists. It's good. Dan Slott and Humberto Ramos do a good job with this thing. It feels a bit rushed and the intensity feels turned up to eleven but they are hitting all right notes. All the right guest appearances are crammed in. All the right homages to Ditko and Romita are in there. Peter gets to have a near-death Heaven scene where all the people he thought he failed tell him he done good. Slott knows what he's doing for sure. This is a good Spider-Man comic. And I mean that as more than a good comic with Spider-Man in it. I mean that it does all the things that make Spider-Man comics good and unique to Marvel and to comics.
And I like Ramos here too. He's not one of my favorite Spider-Man artists but I like the way he draws Spidey's eyes and he draws the suit in action very well. And I gotta say, that the three page sequence where Doc Ock is projecting himself into Peter Parker's memories and we see little boy Doc Ock's head on young Peter Parker's body complete with his Moe Howard hair and goggles it is effective, hilarious and adorable. One of my favorite things in comics of 2012. High five Humberto. If Superior Spider-Man were Spider-Man's body with Doc Ock Moe Howard hair for a head I would buy two copies of every issue.
The coloring on this comic did not make me furious and that's about as nice a thing as I can say about the coloring in a Marvel comic.
So I enjoyed this big eight dollar thing. Here are some more random thoughts about it in no particular order:
-This is a great jumping off point. I hate to admit that I kind of like canceled comics. It gives me an end to work toward as a reader and as a buyer of $1 comics at comic shops and conventions. I like the idea of having a whole run of a thing to read through. Not that I'll manage all 700 issues but, in theory. So yeah, canceling comics is the absolute BEST way to make a reader stop reading a comic.
-I like periodicals and I really hate to see a periodical canceled/re-named/re-numbered just as a gimmick. And, forget Dan Slott, forget the story, from a publishing stand point, this is a sales gimmick. I just think there should be more pride in that legacy. I mean, The Amazing Spider-Man as a periodical outlasted Life Magazine for F's sake. Gone for a gimmick.
-And theoretically, a new #1 is a good way to get new readers but, would a kid that likes the Spider-Man of the movies, cartoons, toys, video games, t-shirts, lunch boxes, beach towels, etc. want to read a comic about Doc Ock driving Spider-Man's body? That remains to be seen. And don't give me a single drop of that 'kids don't read comics anyway' bullshit. Kids absolutely read comics.
-Was December 26 a very dumb day to release this book? Who goes to a comic shop to spend money on the day AFTER Christmas? Well, other than me? I guess it's good for Marvel in that they get the guaranteed best seller of the end of the year and maybe good for the retailers because it gives people a reason to come in the shop on a normally dead day. I just think it would have been a bigger deal on, oh, say any other Wednesday of the year.
-The J.M. DeMatteis back up story was weird to me. Well executed but weird. Are those characters from the Spider-Man comics? Was I supposed to know who those guys were and who those Squadron Supreme like dudes were. I'm confused. Please explain it to me.
-Loved the Jen Van Meter written and Stephanie Buscema drawn back-up. Mainly for Buscema. She's great people. If your comic has a Stephanie Buscema drawn back-up story in it, I will probably buy your comic.
-The cover gallery thing was kind of neat. I would need a magnifying glass to really appreciate all 700 covers but it is neat to scan through and see the progression of the comic. I was really shocked to look at it and realize how quickly the Todd McFarlane era started after J.M. DeMatteis's great Kraven story. In my mind I thought those were years apart but it was only three months. Also, the covers got really awful starting with Civil War. Ugh.
-Speaking of covers. I got the standard cover pictured above. I dig it. I've spent a fair amount of time looking through all the little pictures to see who everyone is. I don't see Howard the Duck in there and that kind of bums me out for some reason. The black suit and or Venom get a lot of attention on the cover taking up all of the black in the the outline of Spidey's eye. Is the black costume and Venom that big a deal to people? Really? I mean, I bought those first black costume and Venom comics right off the spinner rack and I thought they were cool as a kid but in the grand scheme of things, the symbiote costume is like any random Fantastic Four subplot and Venom is a villain with just nothing going on character wise. Nothing at all. I guess it makes sense design wise for the cover though.
-I enjoyed the letters pages. I have no problem with Stan Lee showing up to do his Stan Lee impersonation. I thought some of the comments from previous Spider-Man contributors and industry folks were neat. I was disappointed in editor Stephen Wacker's comments though. His stuff reads as dashed off and uninterested. Not really up to the weight of the moment at all. Drink some coffee bro. You worked hard on the book. Don't sabotage the thing for yourself.
-There has been some talk about IF Doc Ock has sex with Mary Jane WILL it be rape? Jeezis Christmas people. They had one single smooch in this comic. One G movie level smooch. And Doc Ock seems to now be governed by Peter Parker's moral code so, I just don't see him raping people. I mean, how much in-panel sex did Peter Parker ever have? He's not Matt Murdock. Really people? Can we hold off on freaking out about a thing until it actually happens? (But yeah, if he and MJ get down with her thinking that he is 100% Peter Parker that will be some gross ehSS right there. But doesn't that sort of thing happen in at least one new Hollywood movie every Friday? I don't know. I don't watch movies. Not that rape is ever okay. Not even totally fictional impossible to happen mind swap science fiction rape. Just say no to rape fiction people.)
-And one last thing about the cancellation of Amazing Spider-Man and the launch of a new title. This is a gimmick. There is no denying it. But I'm okay with it. For one, Spider-Man comics will continue and Peter Parker will be Spider-Man for as long as there is money in the Spider-Man business. But I'm also okay with it because I feel like Marvel uses gimmicks in an appropriate way for a publisher of comic books to use gimmicks. Their gimmicks exist to hype and promote their story ideas. This cancellation and this "death" and all the hype around it serve as a way to promote and bring readers to the end of a story that Dan Slott had been working on for 100 issues give or take. I feel that the Marvel guys come up with the story first then work on the gimmick to promote it. Which, is why Marvel, despite their horrific coloring and ridiculous prices, makes better comics than DC. DC puts the gimmick first and the comics are just an afterthought. Who writes them, who draws them, and where the story goes does not matter. The product has to match the marketing. Advantage Marvel.
-I like periodicals and I really hate to see a periodical canceled/re-named/re-numbered just as a gimmick. And, forget Dan Slott, forget the story, from a publishing stand point, this is a sales gimmick. I just think there should be more pride in that legacy. I mean, The Amazing Spider-Man as a periodical outlasted Life Magazine for F's sake. Gone for a gimmick.
-And theoretically, a new #1 is a good way to get new readers but, would a kid that likes the Spider-Man of the movies, cartoons, toys, video games, t-shirts, lunch boxes, beach towels, etc. want to read a comic about Doc Ock driving Spider-Man's body? That remains to be seen. And don't give me a single drop of that 'kids don't read comics anyway' bullshit. Kids absolutely read comics.
-Was December 26 a very dumb day to release this book? Who goes to a comic shop to spend money on the day AFTER Christmas? Well, other than me? I guess it's good for Marvel in that they get the guaranteed best seller of the end of the year and maybe good for the retailers because it gives people a reason to come in the shop on a normally dead day. I just think it would have been a bigger deal on, oh, say any other Wednesday of the year.
-The J.M. DeMatteis back up story was weird to me. Well executed but weird. Are those characters from the Spider-Man comics? Was I supposed to know who those guys were and who those Squadron Supreme like dudes were. I'm confused. Please explain it to me.
-Loved the Jen Van Meter written and Stephanie Buscema drawn back-up. Mainly for Buscema. She's great people. If your comic has a Stephanie Buscema drawn back-up story in it, I will probably buy your comic.
-The cover gallery thing was kind of neat. I would need a magnifying glass to really appreciate all 700 covers but it is neat to scan through and see the progression of the comic. I was really shocked to look at it and realize how quickly the Todd McFarlane era started after J.M. DeMatteis's great Kraven story. In my mind I thought those were years apart but it was only three months. Also, the covers got really awful starting with Civil War. Ugh.
-Speaking of covers. I got the standard cover pictured above. I dig it. I've spent a fair amount of time looking through all the little pictures to see who everyone is. I don't see Howard the Duck in there and that kind of bums me out for some reason. The black suit and or Venom get a lot of attention on the cover taking up all of the black in the the outline of Spidey's eye. Is the black costume and Venom that big a deal to people? Really? I mean, I bought those first black costume and Venom comics right off the spinner rack and I thought they were cool as a kid but in the grand scheme of things, the symbiote costume is like any random Fantastic Four subplot and Venom is a villain with just nothing going on character wise. Nothing at all. I guess it makes sense design wise for the cover though.
-I enjoyed the letters pages. I have no problem with Stan Lee showing up to do his Stan Lee impersonation. I thought some of the comments from previous Spider-Man contributors and industry folks were neat. I was disappointed in editor Stephen Wacker's comments though. His stuff reads as dashed off and uninterested. Not really up to the weight of the moment at all. Drink some coffee bro. You worked hard on the book. Don't sabotage the thing for yourself.
-There has been some talk about IF Doc Ock has sex with Mary Jane WILL it be rape? Jeezis Christmas people. They had one single smooch in this comic. One G movie level smooch. And Doc Ock seems to now be governed by Peter Parker's moral code so, I just don't see him raping people. I mean, how much in-panel sex did Peter Parker ever have? He's not Matt Murdock. Really people? Can we hold off on freaking out about a thing until it actually happens? (But yeah, if he and MJ get down with her thinking that he is 100% Peter Parker that will be some gross ehSS right there. But doesn't that sort of thing happen in at least one new Hollywood movie every Friday? I don't know. I don't watch movies. Not that rape is ever okay. Not even totally fictional impossible to happen mind swap science fiction rape. Just say no to rape fiction people.)
-And one last thing about the cancellation of Amazing Spider-Man and the launch of a new title. This is a gimmick. There is no denying it. But I'm okay with it. For one, Spider-Man comics will continue and Peter Parker will be Spider-Man for as long as there is money in the Spider-Man business. But I'm also okay with it because I feel like Marvel uses gimmicks in an appropriate way for a publisher of comic books to use gimmicks. Their gimmicks exist to hype and promote their story ideas. This cancellation and this "death" and all the hype around it serve as a way to promote and bring readers to the end of a story that Dan Slott had been working on for 100 issues give or take. I feel that the Marvel guys come up with the story first then work on the gimmick to promote it. Which, is why Marvel, despite their horrific coloring and ridiculous prices, makes better comics than DC. DC puts the gimmick first and the comics are just an afterthought. Who writes them, who draws them, and where the story goes does not matter. The product has to match the marketing. Advantage Marvel.
- My new years resolution is to get paid to write comics or to write about comics. Do you know how I can make that happen? Because honestly, I don't have a clue. But I'd like to give it a try. Let me know if you know how. I've been writing about comics for over ten years now. What you've seen of my writing has been dashed off. It has been writing done on lunch breaks, on conference calls and way past bed time. I've turned down a lot of opportunities over the past 5 or so years because I did not have the time but I'm ready to make the time. I can do more. Much more. I have near infinite ideas but I can't take the time away from my kids and my day job to make them happen. Unless! Unless, there was some money involved. So, what I'm saying is, are you a comics website, magazine, publisher, etceraer? I am ready for you to pay me to write great things for you.
- And finally... Happy New Year! May your new year be filled with good fortune, good health, love and much synth trumpet.
Oh, and one more last thing! Did you know you can leave comments on these posts here at file under other? It's true! And, I'll probably respond. Twitter and facebook killed the message boards but that's no reason why you can't argue with me, praise me or leave me recipes. It's your intronet. Have fun!
And that's just a taste of some of the interesting things going out there in the wonderful world of comics and things. I can't keep up with it all but I do keep up with a lot of it on twitter and I try to re-tweet the good stuff. You should probably follow me there. If you did something to make comics better this week then high-five!
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
p.s. Say you want a leader but you can't seem to make up your mind. I think you'd better close it and let me guide you to my twitter feed.
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
December 23, 11:49 AM
(EC Johnny Craig parody cover by the great Ben Towle stolen from the great Ben Towle.)
Here are some things I found interesting in the world of minicomics, comic books, graphic novels, small press, self publishing, zines, webcomics, cartoons, digital comics, other, etc. during the week ending 12232012:
"I know I was initially extremely perplexed by the entire endeavor, and then pretty quickly disappointed to see that they were doing this dramatic once-in-a-lifetime move, this unique opportunity to refurbish their whole line and orient it towards appealing to new readers and, rather than seeking out kids, or female readers, or casual readers, or the manga or YA audiences or even just people who grew out of the sorts of '90s-era Marvel/Image comics DC ended up publishing, they had instead set their sites on people who played the Batman: Arkham Ayslum videogames.
And that's a big, lucrative market; maybe big enough to make the pursuit of it ultimately worthwhile. But it still perplexes me that rather than trying for a transmedia approach, trying to align their comics line with the many successful cartoons they've had on Cartoon Network and, before that, Fox in the last, God, 20 years or so now, from Batman: The Animated Series to Justice League and Teen Titans to Young Justice and The Brave and The Bold and those cute little shorts they're doing now, they instead leaned hard towards the sort of aesthetic and storytelling of those Arkham videogames, the upcoming Justice League-by-way-of Mortal Kombat game Injustice, and, to a certain, lesser, extent, Smallville.
The "New 52" basically just makes me sad and exhausted at this point." - J. Caleb Mozzocco.
- Jumpin' Jimminy Christmas Balls everybody. It's almost that time. Santa is on his way. Unless you were bad. Remember what uncle Buckaroo says boys and girls, "don't be mean".
- To kick this sucker into the holiday spirit I recommend you go to my pal Robert Newome's internet word posting location and download the Christmas song collections he made for you. Not just one, but two! Fifty fantastic songs to get your Christmas party started.
- And speaking of my pal Robert Newome, he done ready edited up and printed a new issue of his The Atomic Elbow wrestling zine for you to read and cherish. This issue, number four for the fans of counting things, contains an interview with one of my favorite comics artists/cartoonists/writers/illustrators and wrestling gear designers Jill Thompson. And some thing from Comics Alliance's Chris Sims. And comics! And other things. Other things people!
(Image of a small boy choking a professional wrestler to death stolen from xpxi.com.)
- Here is a great article about one of my fave wrasslers, Danile Bryan, visiting a young boy who is battling cancer. Watch the video too. It's pretty great. I'm gonna use the word great a lot today.
- Since it is "the holidays", North America's greatest comics blogger Tom Spurgeon has started his series of holiday interviews. He's up to number 6 as I type this. I've read every word of the first 5 and they were great. You really need to do yourself a favor and read them. Even if you are not familiar with any of the subjects, Mr. Spurgeon, does a great job of getting at the unique perspectives that make each of his subjects interesting and each of the interviews relative to the year in comics that is coming to a close. The Spurge gots big brains y'alls. Go read that stuff. Now, the Spurge can't be bothered with silly intronet devices like labels and tags so I don't have one specific link to give you that will allow you to read just the interviews. I suggest you just go to The Comics Reporter and use that little wheel thing in the middle of your mouse to scroll down until you see them all. Easy as fruit cake.
- Maybe, possibly, apparently, Marvel will take back the Star Wars comics line. What's funny is that Marvel originally got the Star Wars rights for free. Absolutely free! This time it only cost them 4 billion give or take. (Yeah, I know, not really, but still.) Anywho, really the only goal I have in my pathetic life is to write a Star Wars comic so, hey Marvel, you lookin' good! Won't you shoot me an email baby?
- It's not too late to make your Maakies Christmas ornaments.
- That time Spider-Man took out the President.
- BPRD is burning in hell. (Seneca's Grant Morrison impersonation is not that great. The secret to a good Morrison impersonation is that every sentence has to sound like a question.)
- Alan Moore talked up some words at The Guardian.
- Jeremy Massie draws Ray Bradbury.
- One of the great things to do this time of year is go to Lattaland and check out all the great Avatards the great Josh Latta has posted recently. Great!
- Batman gets a lot of ouchies.
- Kate Beaton gave us a new authentic re-telling of the Cinderella story.
- Eleanor Davis gave us a lovely story of an absolutely gross inside out nekid fox.
(American Elf strip stolen from American Elf.)
- People I've been wanting to talk for a while about James Kochalka ending his American Elf strip. The short version of the story is that I am sad that is happening. It's been a part of my daily routine for years. But I'm just being selfish. I wish him the best. Here is an interview about it at Seven Days. And here is another at Robot 6.
- Hey look, it's a new Not My Small Diary.
- The world did not end. Unless it did.
- A bunch of people re-imagined a Sonic Youth album cover and Henry Eudy's Love and Rockets version was the best. (And also, in my notes to remember that for this blog post, all I wrote was "sonic rockets" and it worked like a charm. Good job brains!)
- The great and terrible cosmic Mickey God.
THE BEST NEW SINGLE PRINT COMIC I READ THIS WEEK
...was Patrick Dean's Big Deal Comics & Stories Issue #12 "A Weekend at the Atwood". And it's one of the best new print comics I've read all year. For one thing, Patrick Dean drew it and he is just the best people. Love every single panel. For another thing, Patrick Dean wrote it and he is just the best people. Love every single line. This comic is about a ghost convention at an abandoned motel. It turns out that ghosts really need a break from living people getting all up in their business all the time so they like to party it up in abandoned places from time to time to get away from it all. One of the things I love about Dean's comics is the huge casts and all the distinct dialog we get from each character. And hearing all these ghosts vent about their causes of death and the tedium of their hauntings is hilarious. "AVENGE ME! AVENGE ME! AVENGE ME! But does anyone ever avenge me? Nope." There are also some great gags about ghosts messing with "ghost hunters" and tapping out a morse code saying "Kiss my balls". Good stuff. And yeah it's all about ghosts and dead people issues so it's kind of morbid but it's fun. Ghosts is people too ya know.
I also read Dean's Big Deal Comics and Stories #11 "Sometimes I Think About You at Night" this week and it was just as good or better than #12. I gave the advantage to #12 because it was newer, longer and a bit funnier but #11 might be the best Patrick Dean comic I've read. Maybe. I'd have to go back and re-read the whole bunch to make sure. But it is great. It shows another ensemble cast dealing with the anxiety of sleeping alone at night after having a relationship fall apart. Heavy stuff but still, hilarious. This is a comic where a giant wears the roof of a grain silo as a hat. It does not get much better than that. My suggestion is that you go to Dean's store and buy all his comics. It will be the smartest thing you do this or next year. Oh, and one more thing you should do is go "like" the Big Deal Comics facebook page. Dean has been posting lots of great strips and stuff there.
- And finally...Merry Christmas everybody! Even if you don't celebrate Christmas I still wish you all the best. Love and food and warmth and all that good stuff we all deserve. Thanks for dropping by.
Oh, and one more last thing! Did you know you can leave comments on these posts here at file under other? It's true! And, I'll probably respond. Twitter and facebook killed the message boards but that's no reason why you can't argue with me, praise me or leave me recipes. It's your intronet. Have fun!
And that's just a taste of some of the interesting things going out there in the wonderful world of comics and things. I can't keep up with it all but I do keep up with a lot of it on twitter and I try to re-tweet the good stuff. You should probably follow me there. If you did something to make comics better this week then high-five!
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
p.s. Say you want a leader but you can't seem to make up your mind. I think you'd better close it and let me guide you to my twitter feed.
p.p.s. Let's pretend we went to high school together on facebook.
p.p.p.s. Google + is another place you can read the same thing I posted here.
p.p.p.p.s. I'll tumblr for ya.
December 22, 12:00 AM
(Images stolen from Pah, Funnybook Babylon and A Moment of Morrison.)
"IT ALL TURNS OUT IN THE END"
"Things are catching fire now. Osiris has left the building. The Cross is deserted. No Bosses except Level Bosses. Get out of my room, Dad! Horus is here; in the form of two uncanny, indestructible 12-year-old twins from Burma. In the forms of the Anti-Capitalist riots in London and Seattle. In the form of Keanu in The Matrix. In the form of Edger kids rejecting the drugs of the Spectacle, spoiling for a fight. My generation called these highly-charged solar winds "punk" the last time they rode in on the 22-year sunspot cycle. This is a good time for change and novelty.
I've shown you mine. Now show me yours.
I anticipate fireworks."
Grant in excelis.
Glasgow, Aquarius 2000.
Posts
May 24, 11:14 PM
Just look at this horror show. No doubt it kills me in my sleep. http://bit.ly/10Sy6TB
via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/51273972394
May 24, 11:14 PM
Now these jerks wanna watch Doctor Who. I’ll never get a damned thing done now. Shoulda left them in the box. http://bit.ly/13RcDQ1
via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/51273511910
May 24, 09:59 PM
Free from your plastic prison at last. http://bit.ly/16fxYGy
via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/51269048454
May 24, 08:14 PM
I guess I’ll go ahead and open these jerks and let my kids play with them. http://bit.ly/16fp1x3
via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/51261973913
May 24, 01:14 PM
Star Wars patch from the early 80s. Pretty sure George Lucas mailed it himself. http://bit.ly/14Ipm7b
via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/51234089507
May 23, 11:14 PM
Gandhi was the best Doctor Who companion. http://bit.ly/18abJBB
via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/51199116857
May 23, 09:59 PM
Welcome to the team Buddy. http://bit.ly/11ehBkD
via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/51193142850
May 23, 12:29 AM
Dun duh dun duh, dun duh duhh…. http://bit.ly/14Tlwrl
via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/51126258816
May 20, 10:59 PM
May 19, 07:14 PM
Jedi Cinderella. http://bit.ly/12N81bf
via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/50859635999
May 19, 03:59 PM
Your Other Comics News Parade-O-Links for May 19, 2013.
via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/50845212810
May 18, 09:59 PM
I bought a Superman t-shirt because I’m an adult and this is how adults dress now. http://bit.ly/14D3Z6z
via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/50776882327
May 18, 08:59 PM
Dancin’ boots. http://bit.ly/12kWL5u
via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/50773151525
May 15, 07:00 PM
Acrylic painting I did of Transformers 1 when I was 12. http://bit.ly/12vUmXo
via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/50530349358
May 11, 06:59 PM
Some dry land fish my dad stole from Bigfoot today. http://bit.ly/13Ozjzx
via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/50202739507
May 08, 09:59 PM
May 08, 09:14 PM
Yes. I folded those towels specifically for you to sit on. http://bit.ly/ZIZ3tJ
via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/49975839572
May 08, 07:14 AM
Showdown in hat town. (Don’t tell them they’ve lost their guns.) http://bit.ly/10G1aND
via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/49926855099
May 07, 02:59 PM
you die so god bless you
via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/49869593221
May 05, 01:18 PM
Readin’ some Archie. http://bit.ly/10AkXy9
via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/49697747553
May 04, 07:14 PM
And some dollar comics just because. http://bit.ly/12CErDU
via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/49629578156
May 04, 07:14 PM
The FCBD haul. 40 or so comics free! http://bit.ly/15gM8GG
via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/49629574720
May 04, 01:29 PM
May 01, 11:59 AM
I think that, after about 10 years, this pair is finally broken in. http://bit.ly/ZzRTuY
via Tumblr http://globalcozykamikaze.tumblr.com/post/49364488334
Posts
February 23, 08:56 PM
August 23, 03:00 AM
August 21, 03:00 PM
August 21, 02:35 PM
June 18, 01:44 PM
December 29, 02:00 PM
December 29, 01:55 PM
October 20, 11:05 AM
Drawn by Alana Smith age 2 October 2009.
My daughter Alana will be three in a few months. She has been drawing as long as I can remember but she has just recently started to try and draw faces. She drew the above image and informed me that it was Spongebob Squarepants.
This is some other dude she drew. Humpty Dumpty? Kids draw the darnedest things.
My daughter Alana will be three in a few months. She has been drawing as long as I can remember but she has just recently started to try and draw faces. She drew the above image and informed me that it was Spongebob Squarepants.
This is some other dude she drew. Humpty Dumpty? Kids draw the darnedest things.
October 19, 02:01 PM
Drawn October 2009 by Kassidy Smith.
Kassidy is a big fan of the girls from the old 80's comics Batman and the Outsiders. She picked out a few of these old comics from the dollar boxes at our closest comic book shop.
June 15, 04:12 PM
Old school Wonder Woman, new school Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl.
Supergirl.
Dazzler.
Princess Star Girl. (A Kassidy creation.)
Cat Girl. (A Kassidy creation.)
Ring Girl. (A Kassidy creation.)
Wolverine.
Raven.
Flower Girl. (A Kassidy creation.)
I think this one is Kassidy as a Jedi.
Wonder Woman and a distressed sun.
Sue Storm/Invisible Girl. (a.k.a. Sue Richards/Invisible Woman.)
Kassidy invented a girl Green Lantern.
(Funny aside. It does not make any sense to Kassidy why the Green Lantern is called Green Lantern when his power comes from his ring. I'm like, "Well, he has to charge his ring in a green lantern". This explanation just gets a blank stare. I'm with her. It's pretty freaking dumb that he's named after the thing that powers the ring and not the ring itself. We don't call cars "combustion engines". We call them cars. Comics!?!)
Most of these were drawn back in March around Kassidy's 7th birthday. She is still on a pretty big super hero kick. Right now she is into the Huntress and all things X-Men.
Posts
May 20, 12:42 AM
Adam and Shawn of The Dollar Bin say nice things about Shannon Smith and his comics in their review podcast of Fluke 2011. Toward the end of the podcast Shawn gives a very nice review of Brush & Pen.
April 12, 03:01 PM
Ah, can you smell the comics in the air? That's right true believers, it's convention season again. Shannon Smith and the File Under Other Experience are packing up the tour bus and getting ready to bring the finest in hand crafted comics to a town near you.
The first stop will be on April 23rd in Athens GA for the Fluke Mini-Comics and Zine Festival. This is Fluke's 10th anniversary. A lot of my most favorite people will be there. You should too.
The next stop on the non-denominational mystery tour will be on Indie Island at HeroesCon in Charlotte NC June 3rd, 4th and 5th. HeroesCon has it all. Legends, current fan favorites, indie stars, mainstream stars, dealers, t-shirts, nerd/hipster paraphernalia and me. It's the second happiest place on Earth.
The last stop scheduled on the tour (so far) is the Small Press Expo in Bethesda MD September 10 and 11. I've been wanting to go to SPX for about eight years and this year I'm finally going to pull it off. The tables were booked up right after they were announced but I got to work early this year and landed a spot before they were gone. This will be a new deal for me so I'm super excited.
Isn't that exciting!!!!!!!
I plan on having new comics for sale at each stop. I'm working on a lot of different things but I'm going to break some of it up into little mincomics for Fluke and Heroes and then finally release everything in my nice thick "complete" collection at SPX. (Maybe a sneak peak by Heroes if you say your prayers at night.) And I'll be glad to sketch for you and all that fun stuff. I'm there for you folks. I'm there for you.
And for comics creators that would like to see their stuff reviewed at file under other (and/or some other places I may be reviewing stuff) there is no better way than to get me your comics than handing them to me at a show. I'm way super very much behind on reviews but I seem to get to the stuff in my convention round up posts faster.
So yeah, you should totally come and see me at all of those shows. I'll update more what I'll be bringing to each show as we closer to the dates.
See ya there suckers!
Your best pal ever,
Shannon Smith
September 22, 03:30 PM
Earlier this year Shannon Smith published, edited and contributed comics to the sixteenth edition of the Shiot Crock anthology. You can find out more about the book here. You can purchase the book here. What follows is a sampling of comments from other contributors regarding Shannon's work on the book.
Barry Rodges: The Last Days of Analog: I’ve always liked your stories, and the art is real and simple. By that I mean, you don’t seem to be trying to make your work seem showy or pretentious. It seems like you just sit down and start drawing and this is the final product. I like that. That being said, it seems like the first page of this strip was done at a different time than the rest of it. With the addition of backgrounds in all the panels, this page seems more complete than the pages that follow. The first page reminds me of the straight-forward comics of Joe Chiapetta. The rest of it gives me a kind of “web comic” feel. Not, bad, just not measuring up to the first page.
The Nouveau Poore: Funny. Being from the south, I always find southern accents written out both hilarious and peculiar. And there ain’t much better than the panel with the cat pulling the guy in the wheelbarrow while smoking a pipe.
That Jimmy Hendrix Biblical Thing: Nice art. I wish all your stuff had this much care put into it. So you don’t draw perfect? So what? I like the effort put into this. The different “camera” angles, the layout of the panels, all nice stuff.
The Nouveau Poore: Funny. Being from the south, I always find southern accents written out both hilarious and peculiar. And there ain’t much better than the panel with the cat pulling the guy in the wheelbarrow while smoking a pipe.
That Jimmy Hendrix Biblical Thing: Nice art. I wish all your stuff had this much care put into it. So you don’t draw perfect? So what? I like the effort put into this. The different “camera” angles, the layout of the panels, all nice stuff.
Sean Robinson: Of all your stories, I liked the Last Days of Analog best, both visually and story-wise. I especially like the horse-hustler and the impossibility in beating him- I certainly had friends that were unstoppable in any competition when there was something for them to gain. It's also the story of yours that relies the most on gray tones instead of cross hatching, and that serves your very loose figure drawings better than the cross hatching, IMHO.
Mark Campos: There are those Spaghetti Junktion Kids again. Good to have this story in good repro. The other two pieces are fine and funny, I like that O-possum.
John Platt: Holy crap, I love that last line. Delightfully weird.
Lupi: Last Days of Analog - great story. I think the best thing about the artwork here is the swoopy poses. It reminds me of those old cartoons where the animators used a lot of curvy lines and creative movements to tell stories.
Nouveau Poore - The kid in the barrel made me LOL, especially the very last line.
Hendrix - Obviously a lot of work went into this one. I like attention to form and texture. Nice work.
June 24, 01:53 PM
Poopsheet Foundation
Review by R. Krauss
If you read Shannon Smith's small press comic reviews on his blog File Under Other, it isn't long before you're struck with the notion he must be a pretty nice guy. The image is only reinforced through his latest mini comic.
Review by R. Krauss
If you read Shannon Smith's small press comic reviews on his blog File Under Other, it isn't long before you're struck with the notion he must be a pretty nice guy. The image is only reinforced through his latest mini comic.
The book is a collection of several different projects, so while there's no overall theme, the pieces still work together and provide a varied reading experience.
Laughing Sam's Dice is Smith's contribution to a chain story created for Narrative Corpse #2. It's only a segment, but it's fun to watch as Jimi Hendrix guides the unnamed main character (Laughing Sam perhaps?) through Electric Lady Land.
In a World of Savages presents a few pages of auto-bio comic strips in which Smith highlights real or imagined slices of life.
Smith turned Superbowl Sunday into Hourly Comic Day on February 1st cranking out over a dozen comics and gags to celebrate his team's participation and eventual win that day.
Inspired by the drawings fans can pick up from cartoonists at conventions, Smith created Mailcon, a project that extends the concept—without the convention. Just send him a drawing request along with an SASE and he'll send you a drawing. Distraction concludes with a nice sampling of drawings from Mailcon.
The cartooning in Distraction ranges from sketchy (Hourly Comic Day) to polished (Mailcon). Either way, they're full of energy and humor. I enjoyed Smith's writing too. His stories and gags are playful and warm-hearted with an occasional sarcastic aside.
Shannon Smith is Addicted to Distraction is 40 b&w pages, plus color cover. 7" x 8.5", handmade with saddle-stitch binding. It's available for $4 from his website (along with Mailcon directions). Mature readers.
June 03, 10:10 AM
High-Low
ADDICTED TO DISTRACTION, by Shannon Smith. The best word to describe this mini is "pleasant". Smith is an amiable fellow with a loving family who enjoys relating anecdotes about his life and the world of comics. The "In A World of Savages" strips are my favorite in the book, as Smith employs a pleasingly shabby line to relate stories about his daughter, his obsession with the Comics Journal, and his status as a cartoonist vs being a musician. The bulk of the issue is devoted to his Super Bowl Sunday drawing experiment, where he drew a page once an hour describing his day. His line here is extremely crude for obvious reasons, but his gentle, self-effacing humor shines through on every page. Smith works the angle of being a laid-back, toy-loving guy in a house filled with women & girls quite nicely, especially in the way he lets his children dictate the pace and nature of their play. A different strip where a character encounters a lyrics-spouting Jimi Hendrix felt more like an exercise than a real story, and his more heavily-labored art doesn't add much clarity. On the other hand, the pages of illustrations in the back were often funny (Lucy Van Pelt haranguing Judge Dredd?) and weirdly enthusiastic (like several pages hyping up Virginia Tech in the ACC football championships). All told, this wasn't an earth-shattering collection of stories, but it was one without any pretenses of such.
June 24, 02:08 PM
Shannon Smith is Addicted to Distraction
Generally speaking I’m against throwing your own name in your comic title, but if you’re going to go all the way like Shannon did and also picture yourself bursting through the cover, I say more power to the man. This is a collection of odds and ends, so naturally some pieces are going to better than others. Things start off slow with a baffling story of a man who runs into an all-powerful Jimmy Hendrix and gets taken to heaven with a bunch of naked ladies who preach nothing but love. Oddly, the guy can’t wait to get out of there, but seems to have gotten something from the whole experience. Then there a few one page autobio pieces, at least a couple of which I’ve already seen in his other minis, but the piece sampled below was new to me and nicely reflects the struggle to ever find a copy of The Comic’s Journal. The heart of the book is up next, and 24 hour comics folk take note: Shannon has blasted you all out of the water. He decided to do a one page comic every hour of Super Bowl Sunday, starting at 8am and ending around midnight. It’s especially impressive because the guy is a Steeler’s fan and he still took time out of the day to make a comic. Granted, the art is about as simple as you can get, and I got a lot more out of reading this hourly strip that I just about ever have by reading most daily diary comics. The hourly format really gave him time to dig into the small details. There’s waking up, dealing with a nagging headache, cleaning up cat puke, picking up toys for his kids, making unhealthy food for the big day, playing with toys with his kids, and finally watching the game. If that sounds like too much detail for you, you’re clearly not a fan of autobio. You can’t get much more “day in the life” than this. Finally there’s a pile of sketches in the back of the comic, mostly stuff he’s sent to people who’ve mailed in over the years. I particularly enjoyed Ant Man fighting an ant over a twinkie, but maybe Wonder Woman using her lasso the make the Invisible confess her true love would be more your thing. It’s a pretty nice pile of comic any way you look at it, and well worth checking out. It’s $4, and if that’s too rich for your blood at the moment there are always all the cheap, cheap minis listed below this to convince you. $4
Shannon Smith is Addicted to Distraciton #1 can be purchased here.
June 24, 02:08 PM
Optical Sloth
"I’m going to need to develop a new format specifically for Shannon’s books. A cover sample and one sample from inside the comic is fine for most things, but when the comic is only four pages long it almost feels like stealing. This is the story of an opossum who was born with eyes and ears of different sizes. Naturally, this causes resentment and anger in the locals, who immediately try to kill the poor thing. This leads to an elaborate revenge plan from the opossum, and yes this is a lot to pack into such a tiny comic, especially when you consider that the cover is one of the four pages. Shannon also manages to find the time to make fun of Republicans (or morons of all stripes, it depends on your perspective) and make a moral point or two. Good clean fun, probably not more than $.50, and, for whatever it’s worth, it’s a 12 hour comic."
A-Symmetrical O-Possum can be purchased here.
"I’m going to need to develop a new format specifically for Shannon’s books. A cover sample and one sample from inside the comic is fine for most things, but when the comic is only four pages long it almost feels like stealing. This is the story of an opossum who was born with eyes and ears of different sizes. Naturally, this causes resentment and anger in the locals, who immediately try to kill the poor thing. This leads to an elaborate revenge plan from the opossum, and yes this is a lot to pack into such a tiny comic, especially when you consider that the cover is one of the four pages. Shannon also manages to find the time to make fun of Republicans (or morons of all stripes, it depends on your perspective) and make a moral point or two. Good clean fun, probably not more than $.50, and, for whatever it’s worth, it’s a 12 hour comic."
A-Symmetrical O-Possum can be purchased here.
June 24, 02:06 PM
A re-formated version of Shannon's minicomic Small Bible is featured in the latest Shiot Crock. Small Bible can be purchased here.
Here is a look at what some of the other Shiot Crock contributors had to say about Shannon's comic.
"Good stuff all around. Pages 4 and 5 are top-notch. Well drawn, well lettered, well composed, and interesting to look at. Excellent." -eric
"Great stuff. Your art is the best I’ve seen from you. This seems to be a project you care a lot about. As a Christian, I’m glad to see you taking the Bible and it’s message seriously and do it some justice. I enjoy your lack of cynicism." -Barry Rodges
"I read it all. Promised Mom I’d go to church this week ---- Done! Thought you did a great job capturing the time period in your art. Lots of detail. Did you draw these for anything in particular? Weren’t you afraid the Crock would explode into flames with this inside?" -Karen Lucas
"I like the use of tones, etc. That flying faceless character is very evocative." -David Robertson
"I've looked it over, brilliant drawings and compositions, but I'm suspending reading the thing until I can get a bible and cross reference these stories." - M. Campos
"The art is the best S.S. I've ever seen. Those cute little family comics never prepared me for this." -Klopner
June 24, 02:06 PM
I have two pages in the latest Candy or Medicine on sale now. You can buy it over at the Candy or Medicine site. I've got my copy already and it is a great little mini for just one buck. Go buy it now. It's cheap!
July 14, 09:37 AM
Valerie D'Orazio has posted some nice comments about my minicomics. Valerie said, "What I think is so important about books like yours is that they *are* real. They come from a real place. And as such, they have more of the ability to touch other people's lives than a whole stack of the latest offerings from the Diamond catalog." You can read the rest of the note at Occasional Superheroine. Thanks Val!
Here is the complete letter:
Hi Shannon,
Thanks so much for dropping me this note; your words are encouraging, and give me a lot to think about.
I wanted to also apologize for taking so long to sit down an read your mini-comics until now. I appreciated very much the fact that you took the time to send them to me. To be frank, the last several months -- oh heck, I would say ever since MoCCA Art Fest in the Spring -- have been really really crazy for me. I put too much on my plate, and I also was developing concerns and questions regarding my blog and my role in comics.
I had seen hostility to my blog radically increase -- though I still had a lot of readers and fans. But the hostility got to the point where I was receiving not only death threats but had people I hardly knew obsessively follow my blog and tear it apart on a regular basis on other forums. It got really tired, and took up too much of my time. Coupled with that was an increasing pressure to be more mainstream, to "network," to angle myself in a certain way. Marvel never asked me to do that, for which I am grateful. But the pressure was there from certain places, including simply myself.
And I just burned out from all of it.
I believe life is short -- even if you are relatively long-lived, life is still short. All we really have is our integrity, and our ability to touch other people's lives for the better. We touch other people's lives by being true. We can never touch lives by being fake, or using false sentiment. The problem I have with some mainstream comics is that the writers are either just mechanically providing want the readers want (or editorial dictate demands), or they are so overworked that even with the very best of intentions, some of their books by necessity get phoned in. What gets produced are books that don't make people think, that simply retread the same tropes over and over again.
What I think is so important about books like yours is that they *are* real. They come from a real place. And as such, they have more of the ability to touch other people's lives than a whole stack of the latest offerings from the Diamond catalog.
To an extent, I think the comic companies realize this whole thing about *realness*. They want to achieve again that rawness that Frank Miller had on Daredevil and Alan Moore had on Watchmen. But look what happened to these two artists, after 25+ years in this industry. They both ended up hating passionately mainstream comics. One continued to take their paychecks and piss all over their properties in spite, and one retreated in disgust. I think both endings are sad. I don't think they were necessary, but I understand where they came from.
It's only realness that will redeem and prolong this industry. Yes, the backlist provided by Miller and Moore is lucrative. But what are the new classics -- you know, *real* classics, not the "instant" classics that are proclaimed from comic book covers. "The Dark Knight," to an extent, was *real*. But the inevitable clones of "Dark Knight," both in the movies and on the comic stands, will probably not be. Will we see the stands clogged with this sort of stuff? Will this be another situation like in the 1990s, where there was so much prefab soulless stuff?
That's why it's important that you continue to create your comics. Not just for your own satisfaction and well-being, but because without that spark that comic creators like you provide -- hundreds of you, from your homes, from the hearth of your own deepest creative intentions -- this industry would become inbred, banal, and ultimately irrelevant.
Again, thanks so much for reading the blog, and for sending me the mini-comics. I read all of them during lunch, and enjoyed them very much
Best,
Val
Here is the complete letter:
Hi Shannon,
Thanks so much for dropping me this note; your words are encouraging, and give me a lot to think about.
I wanted to also apologize for taking so long to sit down an read your mini-comics until now. I appreciated very much the fact that you took the time to send them to me. To be frank, the last several months -- oh heck, I would say ever since MoCCA Art Fest in the Spring -- have been really really crazy for me. I put too much on my plate, and I also was developing concerns and questions regarding my blog and my role in comics.
I had seen hostility to my blog radically increase -- though I still had a lot of readers and fans. But the hostility got to the point where I was receiving not only death threats but had people I hardly knew obsessively follow my blog and tear it apart on a regular basis on other forums. It got really tired, and took up too much of my time. Coupled with that was an increasing pressure to be more mainstream, to "network," to angle myself in a certain way. Marvel never asked me to do that, for which I am grateful. But the pressure was there from certain places, including simply myself.
And I just burned out from all of it.
I believe life is short -- even if you are relatively long-lived, life is still short. All we really have is our integrity, and our ability to touch other people's lives for the better. We touch other people's lives by being true. We can never touch lives by being fake, or using false sentiment. The problem I have with some mainstream comics is that the writers are either just mechanically providing want the readers want (or editorial dictate demands), or they are so overworked that even with the very best of intentions, some of their books by necessity get phoned in. What gets produced are books that don't make people think, that simply retread the same tropes over and over again.
What I think is so important about books like yours is that they *are* real. They come from a real place. And as such, they have more of the ability to touch other people's lives than a whole stack of the latest offerings from the Diamond catalog.
To an extent, I think the comic companies realize this whole thing about *realness*. They want to achieve again that rawness that Frank Miller had on Daredevil and Alan Moore had on Watchmen. But look what happened to these two artists, after 25+ years in this industry. They both ended up hating passionately mainstream comics. One continued to take their paychecks and piss all over their properties in spite, and one retreated in disgust. I think both endings are sad. I don't think they were necessary, but I understand where they came from.
It's only realness that will redeem and prolong this industry. Yes, the backlist provided by Miller and Moore is lucrative. But what are the new classics -- you know, *real* classics, not the "instant" classics that are proclaimed from comic book covers. "The Dark Knight," to an extent, was *real*. But the inevitable clones of "Dark Knight," both in the movies and on the comic stands, will probably not be. Will we see the stands clogged with this sort of stuff? Will this be another situation like in the 1990s, where there was so much prefab soulless stuff?
That's why it's important that you continue to create your comics. Not just for your own satisfaction and well-being, but because without that spark that comic creators like you provide -- hundreds of you, from your homes, from the hearth of your own deepest creative intentions -- this industry would become inbred, banal, and ultimately irrelevant.
Again, thanks so much for reading the blog, and for sending me the mini-comics. I read all of them during lunch, and enjoyed them very much
Best,
Val
June 24, 02:05 PM
I did a creator meet and greet at Cavalier Comics on July 19th and the fine chaps from ARC TV interviewed me. Apparently this interview will be shown using an ancient technological device known as a "television". Rumor has it, that if you live in southwestern Virgina and have one of these "televisions", you will be able to tune it to "channel 16" (What is a "channel"? Beats me. Google it.) and see me in all my nerdtacular glory. That's right folks! ARC TV, channel 16, Wed. 7/30 at 2:30 and 8:30 PM and Thurs. 7/31 at 10:30 PM. I have not seen it but if I remember correctly, they asked me some questions about comics or something. Tune in kids!
June 24, 02:04 PM
June 24, 02:04 PM
From the Heroes blog.
Also new to the Indie Island list is mini-comicker and blogger Shannon Smith. While he might not be an editor at a big-time New York magazine, he's no less loved--Shannon has been a big supporter (and attendee!) of HeroesCon for years, and we're super-jazzed to be welcoming him to his first HeroesCon as a guest! Besides reviewing comics under his many blogs, including File Under Other, Shannon is also the man behind mini-comics including Small Bible, Brush & Pen, and Phillip Henry!
Shannon Smith will be a guest on Indie Island at HeroesCon June 20-22.
Also new to the Indie Island list is mini-comicker and blogger Shannon Smith. While he might not be an editor at a big-time New York magazine, he's no less loved--Shannon has been a big supporter (and attendee!) of HeroesCon for years, and we're super-jazzed to be welcoming him to his first HeroesCon as a guest! Besides reviewing comics under his many blogs, including File Under Other, Shannon is also the man behind mini-comics including Small Bible, Brush & Pen, and Phillip Henry!
Shannon Smith will be a guest on Indie Island at HeroesCon June 20-22.
June 24, 02:03 PM
By Rob Clough at Sequart:
This is a clever mini that's about points of view and description. Taking key portions of the Old Testament, Smith quotes extensively from Stephen's Defense in the Book of Acts, then quotes the original scripture, then provides an illustration--all in just 9 pages. It's a clever comic that's both a straightforward depiction of an event, and a commentary as an interpretation of an interpretation of an event that may or may not have happened--but has enormous importance. Joann Sfar's Rabbi character in THE RABBI'S CAT described Judaism as different from Western (Hegelian) thought, which is thesis, antithesis, synthesis. The history of Jewish thought, he explained, is thesis, antithesis, antithesis, antithesis, and so on. This mini is another step in the argument, providing a visual interpretation of the events that is action-oriented on nearly every page. An angel dramatically swoops in to prevent Abraham from sacrificing Isaac; Moses gets a magic glowing staff from god that cures snake bites; various epic battles are fought. Smith gets across the quite visceral experience of reading the Old Testament, a tact that is quite different from the purposes of either Stephen or the original Torah. It's quite a clever little project.
Small Bible is on sale here.
This is a clever mini that's about points of view and description. Taking key portions of the Old Testament, Smith quotes extensively from Stephen's Defense in the Book of Acts, then quotes the original scripture, then provides an illustration--all in just 9 pages. It's a clever comic that's both a straightforward depiction of an event, and a commentary as an interpretation of an interpretation of an event that may or may not have happened--but has enormous importance. Joann Sfar's Rabbi character in THE RABBI'S CAT described Judaism as different from Western (Hegelian) thought, which is thesis, antithesis, synthesis. The history of Jewish thought, he explained, is thesis, antithesis, antithesis, antithesis, and so on. This mini is another step in the argument, providing a visual interpretation of the events that is action-oriented on nearly every page. An angel dramatically swoops in to prevent Abraham from sacrificing Isaac; Moses gets a magic glowing staff from god that cures snake bites; various epic battles are fought. Smith gets across the quite visceral experience of reading the Old Testament, a tact that is quite different from the purposes of either Stephen or the original Torah. It's quite a clever little project.
Small Bible is on sale here.
June 24, 02:03 PM
By Whitey at Optical Sloth:
Who needs to read all 920 clunky pages of the Old Testament when you could just go and read 9 pages of highly condensed mini comic? As someone who had the bright idea to read the Bible over the last summer I really wasn't sure what to expect here, but Shannon does manage to nail the high points. A brief synopsis of the relevant passage, a quote and an image later and you get the idea of things. Best of all there's no axe to grind here, no moral viewpoint he's pushing, just good old Bible stories. Bits in here include Joseph (you know, the guy with the technicolor dreamcoat), Moses trying to convince people of his veracity, and God being a general dick to his followers who doubted even a little bit, which seemed to happen a lot back then. Oh, and there's also the bit about the ass, but I don't want to spoil it. It's a fun comic for everybody, nothing to offend the overly religious types and it's pretty informative for the rest of us pagans.
Small Bible on sale here.
Who needs to read all 920 clunky pages of the Old Testament when you could just go and read 9 pages of highly condensed mini comic? As someone who had the bright idea to read the Bible over the last summer I really wasn't sure what to expect here, but Shannon does manage to nail the high points. A brief synopsis of the relevant passage, a quote and an image later and you get the idea of things. Best of all there's no axe to grind here, no moral viewpoint he's pushing, just good old Bible stories. Bits in here include Joseph (you know, the guy with the technicolor dreamcoat), Moses trying to convince people of his veracity, and God being a general dick to his followers who doubted even a little bit, which seemed to happen a lot back then. Oh, and there's also the bit about the ass, but I don't want to spoil it. It's a fun comic for everybody, nothing to offend the overly religious types and it's pretty informative for the rest of us pagans.
Small Bible on sale here.
June 24, 02:03 PM
The Small Press Leauge.
Member Profile: Shannon Smith
January 12, 2008
You can find Shannon Smith at shannonsmith.net, where you’ll find links to his artwork, minicomics, web comics and his minicomics review site, File Under “Other”. A collection of his minicomics, Sleepwalker, is due out this Spring.
What attracts you to comics as an art form? I love the purity and freedom of it. Comics can be as beautiful or wretched as any other visual art, but its ability to communicate is stronger than any form of expression I can think of. One might argue that film can do more than comics, but one person can’t just sit down and make a movie in an afternoon. I can write, draw, print and distribute a comic in a day. From the reader’s point of view, comics are also much more personal than other mediums. The reader controls the pace and time. It’s up to the reader to decide what is going on between panels. The creator can try to force their intention on the reader, but each reader will read each comic in their own way. It is much more interpretive in that way than a film can be. Comics are also closer to how our minds work. The way we perceive the world is all relative to our mind’s warehouse of memories. We remember things in random, loosely connected images. Just like comics.
What is appealing/satisfying to you about self-publishing? Once again I’ll say freedom. Also the immediacy of if. I don’t need an editor or publisher to make a comic. I can just make it. These are exciting times to make comics. With web comics and online print-on-demand companies, the only obstacle I see as a creator trying to reach an audience is my own lack of time and skill. Even just making mini-comics, I can distribute them through the web and small conventions. I also meet a lot of nice people along the way. Plus, I just like making them. I like the printing and folding and stapling, etc. Making books is fun.
How would you define success as an artist, and have you achieved it? I look at each project as its own entity. My idea of success for each project is simply that the finished project that the reader holds in their hands (or reads online) is true to the original spark of inspiration. If I’ve brought the thing to life successfully, then I’m happy with it. I’ve achieved that a few times. My mini Brush and Pen came out exactly as I imagined it. Some of my three paged foldys have come out as planned. As far as success as an artist? Like a career or something? Just to have the time, tools and skills to tell the stories I want to tell and an audience to enjoy them. I guess most folks would say that to make any kind of living at it would be great. That would be nice.
What artists have inspired you the most? As a guitarist, it’s easy to see my influences as the people I sat down and learned to imitate. As a cartoonist, I would have to go all the way back to being a kid copying coloring books, Sunday funnies, and the Marvel, DC and Charlton comics of the 70’s and 80’s. I could name a hundred names from those days and they would probably be the same guys most people my age would name. The Chaykin and Infantino Star Wars comics were a big influence on me. When I was a kid, I had this one cartooning book that must have been printed in the 40’s or 50’s, because it had all these caricature instructions on how to draw people like Eisenhower and Roosevelt and the old Hollywood Stars. I probably don’t draw much differently today than I did when I was imitating that book. Since I started making comics again as an adult, I’ve been inspired by folks like R. Crumb, Julie Doucet, Paul Pope, David Mack, Gilbert Hernandez, Harvey Pekar, Chester Brown, David B., Daniel Clowes and Chris Ware… I could go on and on. The usual suspects. I came upon alternative comics pretty late in the game, so I’m still consuming the stuff as fast as I can. Just everything I guess. Whenever I’m stumped or need a spark, I often go back to my box of Archie comics and look to Dan DeCarlo for inspiration. At lot of my inspiration to make comics — or at least to make better comics — comes from reading stuff from people I know, like Brad McGinty and Josh Latta.
What artists do you most see being “the next big thing?” Speaking of… Brad McGinty and Josh Latta. Both are super smart and talented and just plain make good comics. Both are probably just one nice fat collection of comics away from getting a lot of notice and respect. Same with J. Chris Campbell. Josh Simmons is one of comics’ best kept secrets. His mini comic Jessica Farm is one of the best minis I’ve ever read. I saw that Fantagraphics will be publishing it this year. Drew Weing, Eleanor Davis, Patrick Dean… lots of great folks making comics in the south. I could go on and on.
What do you see as the most common theme in your work? My work so far has been pretty minimal. I have three or four longer projects I’ve been working on for years that have some strong themes, but as far as the comics I’ve actually finished and printed — it’s kind of all over the place. I wouldn’t call it a theme, but I’m very interested in the idea that almost everyone is an emotional mess when you get right down to it. I guess I’m interested in weirdos. They seem to be interested in me. I also find stereotypes and clichés interesting. At lot of my dialog is 100% cliché but people really do talk that way. I find it fascinating how people are completely comfortable falling into the mold of a stereotype and speaking in the same clichés they hear from their friends or on TV. I find it hilarious. We are all silly little animals with the same silly little animal problems. I’m fascinated by the economy and effectiveness of old TV sitcoms. Again, not a theme but I like playing with that formula.
What project(s) are you working on currently that we can expect to see next? I have a full-time job, I’m a full-time daddy and husband, and at the moment I’m a full time college student. I’m working on collecting all my mini comics into one book by the spring. It will be called Sleepwalker. I’m about a third of the way through with a mini comic called The Lucas Code. It is written by my friend Paul McDonald. It’s part satire and part philosophy primer disguised as a Star Wars/DiVinci Code parody. I’ve been working on a series of small three-paged foldy comics, and I’ll continue to do that as long as I have ideas for them. I also have a web comic I’m working on called The Next War but I won’t start posting until I have several months of strips in the bank. Maybe in the spring. Behind the scenes, in top secret, I’m doing my real work on some longer more ambitions graphic novels. Everything else up to this point has just been practice. I doubt any of the three projects see print before 2009, but I hope to start posting some art soon. Like pre-production teaser stills. The book I will most likely finish first is called It’s Never Easy But Sometimes It’s Hard. It’s about a vegetarian lion who wants to be a farmer but has to go to war against a Wolf Dragon, or… It’s about an alcoholic surgeon who wants to write children’s books but has to go to war against boogeymen and demons, or… It’s about a girl who wants to have a tea party but has to go to war…
Member Profile: Shannon Smith
January 12, 2008
You can find Shannon Smith at shannonsmith.net, where you’ll find links to his artwork, minicomics, web comics and his minicomics review site, File Under “Other”. A collection of his minicomics, Sleepwalker, is due out this Spring.
What attracts you to comics as an art form? I love the purity and freedom of it. Comics can be as beautiful or wretched as any other visual art, but its ability to communicate is stronger than any form of expression I can think of. One might argue that film can do more than comics, but one person can’t just sit down and make a movie in an afternoon. I can write, draw, print and distribute a comic in a day. From the reader’s point of view, comics are also much more personal than other mediums. The reader controls the pace and time. It’s up to the reader to decide what is going on between panels. The creator can try to force their intention on the reader, but each reader will read each comic in their own way. It is much more interpretive in that way than a film can be. Comics are also closer to how our minds work. The way we perceive the world is all relative to our mind’s warehouse of memories. We remember things in random, loosely connected images. Just like comics.
What is appealing/satisfying to you about self-publishing? Once again I’ll say freedom. Also the immediacy of if. I don’t need an editor or publisher to make a comic. I can just make it. These are exciting times to make comics. With web comics and online print-on-demand companies, the only obstacle I see as a creator trying to reach an audience is my own lack of time and skill. Even just making mini-comics, I can distribute them through the web and small conventions. I also meet a lot of nice people along the way. Plus, I just like making them. I like the printing and folding and stapling, etc. Making books is fun.
How would you define success as an artist, and have you achieved it? I look at each project as its own entity. My idea of success for each project is simply that the finished project that the reader holds in their hands (or reads online) is true to the original spark of inspiration. If I’ve brought the thing to life successfully, then I’m happy with it. I’ve achieved that a few times. My mini Brush and Pen came out exactly as I imagined it. Some of my three paged foldys have come out as planned. As far as success as an artist? Like a career or something? Just to have the time, tools and skills to tell the stories I want to tell and an audience to enjoy them. I guess most folks would say that to make any kind of living at it would be great. That would be nice.
What artists have inspired you the most? As a guitarist, it’s easy to see my influences as the people I sat down and learned to imitate. As a cartoonist, I would have to go all the way back to being a kid copying coloring books, Sunday funnies, and the Marvel, DC and Charlton comics of the 70’s and 80’s. I could name a hundred names from those days and they would probably be the same guys most people my age would name. The Chaykin and Infantino Star Wars comics were a big influence on me. When I was a kid, I had this one cartooning book that must have been printed in the 40’s or 50’s, because it had all these caricature instructions on how to draw people like Eisenhower and Roosevelt and the old Hollywood Stars. I probably don’t draw much differently today than I did when I was imitating that book. Since I started making comics again as an adult, I’ve been inspired by folks like R. Crumb, Julie Doucet, Paul Pope, David Mack, Gilbert Hernandez, Harvey Pekar, Chester Brown, David B., Daniel Clowes and Chris Ware… I could go on and on. The usual suspects. I came upon alternative comics pretty late in the game, so I’m still consuming the stuff as fast as I can. Just everything I guess. Whenever I’m stumped or need a spark, I often go back to my box of Archie comics and look to Dan DeCarlo for inspiration. At lot of my inspiration to make comics — or at least to make better comics — comes from reading stuff from people I know, like Brad McGinty and Josh Latta.
What artists do you most see being “the next big thing?” Speaking of… Brad McGinty and Josh Latta. Both are super smart and talented and just plain make good comics. Both are probably just one nice fat collection of comics away from getting a lot of notice and respect. Same with J. Chris Campbell. Josh Simmons is one of comics’ best kept secrets. His mini comic Jessica Farm is one of the best minis I’ve ever read. I saw that Fantagraphics will be publishing it this year. Drew Weing, Eleanor Davis, Patrick Dean… lots of great folks making comics in the south. I could go on and on.
What do you see as the most common theme in your work? My work so far has been pretty minimal. I have three or four longer projects I’ve been working on for years that have some strong themes, but as far as the comics I’ve actually finished and printed — it’s kind of all over the place. I wouldn’t call it a theme, but I’m very interested in the idea that almost everyone is an emotional mess when you get right down to it. I guess I’m interested in weirdos. They seem to be interested in me. I also find stereotypes and clichés interesting. At lot of my dialog is 100% cliché but people really do talk that way. I find it fascinating how people are completely comfortable falling into the mold of a stereotype and speaking in the same clichés they hear from their friends or on TV. I find it hilarious. We are all silly little animals with the same silly little animal problems. I’m fascinated by the economy and effectiveness of old TV sitcoms. Again, not a theme but I like playing with that formula.
What project(s) are you working on currently that we can expect to see next? I have a full-time job, I’m a full-time daddy and husband, and at the moment I’m a full time college student. I’m working on collecting all my mini comics into one book by the spring. It will be called Sleepwalker. I’m about a third of the way through with a mini comic called The Lucas Code. It is written by my friend Paul McDonald. It’s part satire and part philosophy primer disguised as a Star Wars/DiVinci Code parody. I’ve been working on a series of small three-paged foldy comics, and I’ll continue to do that as long as I have ideas for them. I also have a web comic I’m working on called The Next War but I won’t start posting until I have several months of strips in the bank. Maybe in the spring. Behind the scenes, in top secret, I’m doing my real work on some longer more ambitions graphic novels. Everything else up to this point has just been practice. I doubt any of the three projects see print before 2009, but I hope to start posting some art soon. Like pre-production teaser stills. The book I will most likely finish first is called It’s Never Easy But Sometimes It’s Hard. It’s about a vegetarian lion who wants to be a farmer but has to go to war against a Wolf Dragon, or… It’s about an alcoholic surgeon who wants to write children’s books but has to go to war against boogeymen and demons, or… It’s about a girl who wants to have a tea party but has to go to war…
June 24, 02:06 PM
From the Shiot Crock 12 Version 2 Review Thread: My submission was A-Symmetrical O-Possum.
"My favorite. I love how you cram in as much pop culture/comics references as you can. This is just plain fun. Acme Novelty Soduko. Brilliant. What do you ink with? I’d try something else, and slow down. Reading this, I get the feeling that you are so into drawing and writing this that you let small things like the art go to the wayside. This is good, but it could be great!"
"My favorite. I love how you cram in as much pop culture/comics references as you can. This is just plain fun. Acme Novelty Soduko. Brilliant. What do you ink with? I’d try something else, and slow down. Reading this, I get the feeling that you are so into drawing and writing this that you let small things like the art go to the wayside. This is good, but it could be great!"
June 24, 02:07 PM
Here are some comments on my three pages in Shiot Crock 13 from the reveiw thread.
"I can relate --Nice pages, Shannon. "
"So YOU killed rock-n-rol! These strips are great. I think the only stuff I've seen from you is your Crock 11 submission, and this is very different. I'd like to see them in color. And I have to be somewhat of a hypocrite here. I know in Hunter's review, I said I didn't like auto bio, but I have to admit that if it is kept in this short and sweet format, I could grow to like it. It's funny you reference Kochalka's work in the last one. I hate auto bio, but I buy everything he does. I really love his art style, but in his diary strips, it is the format that keeps me interested. These strips are like them in the fact that they know where to start, and where to end. They are perfectly paced and funny. Good job. "
"Nice Shannon, again another great indy set. I especially like Daddy Don't Know Nothin'. I think it would be a very nice regular strip, in print or on the web."
"No comments other than I liked this material plenty. "
"I can relate --Nice pages, Shannon. "
"So YOU killed rock-n-rol! These strips are great. I think the only stuff I've seen from you is your Crock 11 submission, and this is very different. I'd like to see them in color. And I have to be somewhat of a hypocrite here. I know in Hunter's review, I said I didn't like auto bio, but I have to admit that if it is kept in this short and sweet format, I could grow to like it. It's funny you reference Kochalka's work in the last one. I hate auto bio, but I buy everything he does. I really love his art style, but in his diary strips, it is the format that keeps me interested. These strips are like them in the fact that they know where to start, and where to end. They are perfectly paced and funny. Good job. "
"Nice Shannon, again another great indy set. I especially like Daddy Don't Know Nothin'. I think it would be a very nice regular strip, in print or on the web."
"No comments other than I liked this material plenty. "
June 24, 02:07 PM
Here are some comments from the review thread for the Shiot Crock 12 project. My submission was A-Symmetrical O-Possum.
"Fantastic. Don't write off the low quality production as being related to the story. Funny, inane, semi-relevant. "
"This was thought provoking. That fact that it’s a 12-hour comic made it fun on its own, but add to it the edginess – socially unacceptable, politically incorrect and (usually) nonovert (okay that’s not a word, but that’s what I’m sticking with) ways of getting even….funny as shit…but sad. Got ya goin’ – made ya pissed. Whatever. I liked it. Funny as shit…now I’m just being redundant. "
"Retarded, but funny."
"Quite awesome."
"Fantastic. Don't write off the low quality production as being related to the story. Funny, inane, semi-relevant. "
"This was thought provoking. That fact that it’s a 12-hour comic made it fun on its own, but add to it the edginess – socially unacceptable, politically incorrect and (usually) nonovert (okay that’s not a word, but that’s what I’m sticking with) ways of getting even….funny as shit…but sad. Got ya goin’ – made ya pissed. Whatever. I liked it. Funny as shit…now I’m just being redundant. "
"Retarded, but funny."
"Quite awesome."
June 24, 02:00 PM
Optical Sloth
Reviewed by Whitey
Phillip Henry Foldy #1 (a.k.a. 25 cent Funny)
It's the origin story of Phillip! Oops, looks like I read the two shorties (this one is 4 pages as well) out of order. This is the story of how exactly Phillip came to leave Shannon's school in the third grade and, oddly enough, this one also deals a bit with boobs. It also makes me wonder a whole bunch about who Phillip grew up to be, assuming, as always, that he's a real person and not just a construct for the story. Either way, he's a great character. This goes into (brief) detail about Phillip going cuckoo bananas to try to fit in, or possibly just to get by. We learn that Phillip was a Wonder Woman fanatic, and there's no way in the world I'm ruining the punchline to this one. Again, what's not to like about a funny 25 cent comic?
Reviewed by Whitey
Phillip Henry Foldy #1 (a.k.a. 25 cent Funny)
It's the origin story of Phillip! Oops, looks like I read the two shorties (this one is 4 pages as well) out of order. This is the story of how exactly Phillip came to leave Shannon's school in the third grade and, oddly enough, this one also deals a bit with boobs. It also makes me wonder a whole bunch about who Phillip grew up to be, assuming, as always, that he's a real person and not just a construct for the story. Either way, he's a great character. This goes into (brief) detail about Phillip going cuckoo bananas to try to fit in, or possibly just to get by. We learn that Phillip was a Wonder Woman fanatic, and there's no way in the world I'm ruining the punchline to this one. Again, what's not to like about a funny 25 cent comic?
June 24, 02:00 PM
Sequart
Reviewed by Rob Clough
There's a bunch of micro-minis in this batch, with several 4-page minis detailing a wild schoolboy from Smith's childhood and a vengeful possum. One of them was a 12-hour comic and they all have a tossed-off, disposable feel to them. A more substantive entry is BRUSH AND PEN, a stylish mini that pins its effectiveness on how Smith portrays its characters. The main character is an anthropomorphic pen named Clicky and it concerns his travails with his wife, a beautiful but "high-maintenance" brush. The story leads up to the two of them having the writing implement version of having sex: dipping into an inkwell and drawing on fresh sheets of paper. There's a great panel where Brush dips her head into the ink and flings her head back, ink spraying everywhere. It's a genuinely sensuous image that leads to a clever sequence where the two characters express their passion on the page, with the accumulated ink leading to a blackout (quite literally). Smith's playful figures remind me a bit of Steve Lafler's work. This mini had modest ambitions but fulfilled them admirably, and I'm curious to see what else Smith can do.
Reviewed by Rob Clough
There's a bunch of micro-minis in this batch, with several 4-page minis detailing a wild schoolboy from Smith's childhood and a vengeful possum. One of them was a 12-hour comic and they all have a tossed-off, disposable feel to them. A more substantive entry is BRUSH AND PEN, a stylish mini that pins its effectiveness on how Smith portrays its characters. The main character is an anthropomorphic pen named Clicky and it concerns his travails with his wife, a beautiful but "high-maintenance" brush. The story leads up to the two of them having the writing implement version of having sex: dipping into an inkwell and drawing on fresh sheets of paper. There's a great panel where Brush dips her head into the ink and flings her head back, ink spraying everywhere. It's a genuinely sensuous image that leads to a clever sequence where the two characters express their passion on the page, with the accumulated ink leading to a blackout (quite literally). Smith's playful figures remind me a bit of Steve Lafler's work. This mini had modest ambitions but fulfilled them admirably, and I'm curious to see what else Smith can do.
June 24, 01:59 PM
Comicreaders
Reviewed by Chad Boudreau
Shannon Smith sent us two four-page shorteys featuring a kid named Philip. He's one of those odd kids from the elementary schoolyard. You know the kind of kid I'm talking about. Every school has at least one or two. The paste eater, the kid who likes to be naked, the kid who had to wear a helmet to school, you know, the real oddest duck in the pond. That's the kind of kid Phillip was. He liked to staple his own fingers, he liked lewd limericks, he liked to sneak into the girls' bathroom, and he loved Linda Carter / Wonder Woman. It was the latter, Shannon Smith reminisces in this biographical tale, which caused Philip to latch his little 6th grader hands on to the bosom of his black haired, curvaceous teacher.
These two little mini comics are plainly drawn and heavy in text, but enjoyable nonetheless, if only for the fact it will turn your mind to memories of the strange kids that populated your own schoolyard.
Reviewed by Chad Boudreau
Shannon Smith sent us two four-page shorteys featuring a kid named Philip. He's one of those odd kids from the elementary schoolyard. You know the kind of kid I'm talking about. Every school has at least one or two. The paste eater, the kid who likes to be naked, the kid who had to wear a helmet to school, you know, the real oddest duck in the pond. That's the kind of kid Phillip was. He liked to staple his own fingers, he liked lewd limericks, he liked to sneak into the girls' bathroom, and he loved Linda Carter / Wonder Woman. It was the latter, Shannon Smith reminisces in this biographical tale, which caused Philip to latch his little 6th grader hands on to the bosom of his black haired, curvaceous teacher.
These two little mini comics are plainly drawn and heavy in text, but enjoyable nonetheless, if only for the fact it will turn your mind to memories of the strange kids that populated your own schoolyard.
June 24, 01:59 PM
Breakdowns.
Reviewed by Christopher Allen.
Brush and Pen by Shannon Smith is a minicomic about Click the Ballpoint Pen and his wife, an unnamed brush. We see Clicky bemoan his short life, financial pressures and other woes to his philandering buddy Q, the Quill Pen. He gets home and the wife gives him a hard time, taking out her cabin fever on him. Smith has a very modest story to tell here, but it is a story, and though he doesn’t do a very good job of making this world seem real (pens work as they work for us in our world, but somehow they also live in a city, have homes, bills, etc., his dialogue is pretty amusing once the double-entendres start coming—something I can appreciate. This leads logically, yet still surprisingly, to a classy but impassioned love scene for the couple. It’s silly but romantic and bound to make you smile. One problem, though—drawing Pen in pen and Brush with brush is a good idea on, um, paper, but it unfortunately makes Pen look thin and flat as a character.
Reviewed by Christopher Allen.
Brush and Pen by Shannon Smith is a minicomic about Click the Ballpoint Pen and his wife, an unnamed brush. We see Clicky bemoan his short life, financial pressures and other woes to his philandering buddy Q, the Quill Pen. He gets home and the wife gives him a hard time, taking out her cabin fever on him. Smith has a very modest story to tell here, but it is a story, and though he doesn’t do a very good job of making this world seem real (pens work as they work for us in our world, but somehow they also live in a city, have homes, bills, etc., his dialogue is pretty amusing once the double-entendres start coming—something I can appreciate. This leads logically, yet still surprisingly, to a classy but impassioned love scene for the couple. It’s silly but romantic and bound to make you smile. One problem, though—drawing Pen in pen and Brush with brush is a good idea on, um, paper, but it unfortunately makes Pen look thin and flat as a character.
June 24, 01:58 PM
Optical Sloth
Reviewed by Whitey.
Now come on, isn't that just about the best cover you've ever seen? It's even better once you read the story and it's really not even meant to be salacious. OK, it's meant to be slightly salacious, granted. But this is the story of a boy named Phillip, who gets in trouble in third grade and doesn't come back to the school of the narrator (presumably Shannon) until sixth grade. At that time this perennial troublemaker hasn't had much of a change of heart of his previous and now he's dealing with the onset of puberty. I don' want to give the whole thing away, as this is only a 4 page shortie (and you're already seeing half of it in samples) but it's funny and only a quarter, so who can beat that?
Reviewed by Whitey.
Now come on, isn't that just about the best cover you've ever seen? It's even better once you read the story and it's really not even meant to be salacious. OK, it's meant to be slightly salacious, granted. But this is the story of a boy named Phillip, who gets in trouble in third grade and doesn't come back to the school of the narrator (presumably Shannon) until sixth grade. At that time this perennial troublemaker hasn't had much of a change of heart of his previous and now he's dealing with the onset of puberty. I don' want to give the whole thing away, as this is only a 4 page shortie (and you're already seeing half of it in samples) but it's funny and only a quarter, so who can beat that?
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