However you feel about Team Comix, I think you can agree that it’s a concept that brings out people’s, er, passionate sides. NeilAlien has a go at the anti-TC brigade; Dirk Deppey responds with a dollop of snark. Dirk, I think it’s a little unwise for a Fanta/TCJ employee to get into a “who fired the first shot?” contest with Chris Staros & Top Shelf, but you do have a point in this case.
Meanwhile, at the TCJ messboard, yours truly and former Comics Journal editor Tom Spurgeon go at it over the role the Team Comix mentality played (if it indeed played one at all) in the respective pleas for help made by the financially beleaguered indie comics companies Top Shelf, Drawn & Quarterly, and Fantagraphics. There’s also some interesting chit-chat about the role of critics in there, too.
Also on the TCJ board, Shawn “Silverthorn” Fumo weighs in on European comics, aka bandes-desinees, and argues that everything that might make BD popular here in the states (idiomatically it’s much closer to American comics than manga is; it’s almost solely concentrated in genres that make for very popular airport reading in America, like crime, mysteries, thrillers, horror, fantasy, erotica, even sports–the recipe for industry success according to Fantagraphics founder Kim Thompson) is offset by the simple fact that it doesn’t have the same thriving underground support in this country that paved the way for manga’s big success in the last couple years. Good point, as they tend to be when they’re made by Shawn Fumo. Shawn, why don’t you have a blog? I won’t beg, if that’s what you’re waiting for–it’s unsightly…
Though I’m guessing I’m not the only one with misgivings as to Joe Quesada’s ability to accurately portray the lives of club kids and gutterpunks, this new NYX series sounds and (thanks to Josh Middleton’s sensually clear line) looks lovely. Also in the plus column: you’re far less likely to read things like “I really couldn’t give a fuck whether or not you buy this book because I get $5000 for a painting and my girlfriend blows me all the time” than you would if this book had gone through with its original artist, David Choe, still attached.
At long last, Bill Sherman has reviewed Battle Royale, and it was good. (The review and the book both.) Here’s food for thought, though: how is Keith Giffen’s translation-cum-adaptation really affecting the dialogue? I’ve read several interviews in which Giffen proudly claims to have jazzed things up a bit for the English audience, which may not amount to much more than inserting standard-issue “mature readers” comics dialogue cliches. Anyone got a good take on how he’s been doing so far?
Johnny Bacardi hated Velvet Goldmine. I know this news isn’t comics related, but it does make me wonder whether Johnny’s from Bizarro World.
This is pretty cool. Just wish it came in red.
Courtesy of the above-linked Big Sunny D post comes this spoiler-filled run-down of the last year or two of Grant Morrison’s New X-Men, as seen through the prism of the most recent issue. You know–the issue that Alan David Doane ruined for everyone who reads his weblog.
Franklin Harris has been righteously pissed at the recording industry and its supporters lately, as should we all. Start there and scroll down.
Finally, Dirk, any time a person’s position on what the Direct Market should be doing is concluded with an explanation as to why it doesn’t make sense to him to buy novels, I think we can just stick that one in the cylindrical file, don’t you?