Let’s look at this post as an object lesson in how steadily partaking of your little sister’s fridge full of Coors Light affects your blogging, shall we?
Does Milo mystify you? Does Fiore freak you out? Does Groth leave you gasping? Fear not! Take this quiz and find out if you live up to the stringent critical standards of the Comics Journal. Team Comics beware!
If you read all the links in this Eve Tushnet post in order, you get a pretty clear picture of why the American comics industry is in such a sorry state. It’s almost as if folks are deliberately trying to burn up any vestiges of consumer goodwill.
Dirk Deppey deflates my theory that Chris Ware is the Thin White Low-Self-Esteem-Having Duke of Comics. I don’t know what’s more depressing: the fact that the greatest cartoonist in the world thinks he’s for shit, or the fact that the greatest cartoonist in the world is only 35 freaking years old.
I know it’s about a week old, but this Newsarama story on the long, strange trip of Silver Surfer artist Milx is a real bring-down, since it means that the guy will pretty much never get work in the business again.
A tale of two visionaries: Terry Gilliam vs. George Lucas on evil in fantastic fiction, courtesy of Big Sunny D.
This is the kind of pragmatic criticism comics needs more of: the Comics Journal’s online criticism column, Dogsbody, offers practical advice to Expo, the ambassadorial anthology of America’s premiere altcomix convention, SPX. Personally, I enjoy the like-a-box-of-chocolates nature of this yearly collection, but the hit-or-miss quality of the material included therein means that I’m unlikely to ever buy myself a copy.
It’s been a banner week for NeilAlien. I can’t wait for these plotlines to progress, so that at long last I can truly see the ‘Alien in his element.
Like pouring Lemon juice on the papercut that is mainstream comics, folks.
I hate to call out Johnny Bacardi (and yet I’ll be doing it twice in this post alone!), but Sean Phillips in the pantheon? C’mon. He’s quite good at what he does, but what he does, at this point, isn’t much more or less than depicting tough guys killing each other pretty well. And he doesn’t do it with the arrogant style of a Quitely or the square-fisted exuberance of a JRJR or the OCD intricacy of a Geof Darrow or…well, my point is, we can enthuse all we want about really good mainstream comics, but we’re not doing anyone any favors if we start talking like solid entertainment is on the same level as great art. (This really isn’t to single out Sean Phillips, who I like quite a bit–it’s a reality check more than anything else.)
Silver Bullet Comics represents for Rubber Necker: here’s their interview with indie wunderkind Nick Bertozzi.
You know, the Comics Blogosphere really is an interesting place to be right now. I say this not just because it’s playing a big role in keeping me sane while the Missus is indisposed, but because it’s been regularly churning out interesting, ongoing conversations about comics lately. In the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen Eve Tushnet make the link between the stylistic spectacle of comics and opera; Jim Henley challenge other writers to comment on Neil Gaiman’s much-hyped return to comics, 1602; Alan David Doane single-handedly raise awareness of the work of cartoonist Paul Hornschemeier; Elayne Riggs break the story that CrossGen’s financial straits were leading it to stiff freelancers; and yours truly advance the theory that, to paraphrase Cabaret, tomorrow belongs to manga. All of the above stories generated a slew of blog entries, messboard posts, comment submissions, email messages, and so forth, all of which help make the blogosphere my favorite place to talk comics. (With the exception of a plus hotel room paid for by a certain major American clothing retailer, of course.)
Finally, c’mon, Johnny–you’re acting like you’ve never seen lousy pre-fab pop singers pretending to be lesbians on an MTV awards show before!