* Another big few days on Robot 6:
* Bob Harras has been named Editor-in-Chief of DC Comics, a position he previously held at Marvel. Pretty sure that’s a first. I’m also pretty sure Harras is a well-liked figure–I know I like him–even outside the traditionally effusive “congratulations to the person who just got a job wherein they could hire me someday” phase of things, and that could be a piece of the puzzle here.
* Related: On the occasion of the death of WildStorm, my fellow R6ers and I run down six awesome WildStorm titles, or as I prefer to call the list after Matt Maxwell pointed it out, “Six awesome WildStorm titles that aren’t The Winter Men.”
* Behold: The oral history of the Coober Skeber Marvel Benefit Issue, aka ground zero for alternative/superhero comics mash-ups. Oh how I love Highwater Books, the Big Star of ’00s altcomix. Make sure to check out the comment thread at the actual Comics Comics post on the topic to watch history evolve before your very eyes thanks to corrections, de-corrections, and re-corrections by the participants.
* J.H. Williams III talks to Robot 6 guest-poster Chris Arrant about Batwoman and making the jump to “writer-artist” in mind of readers and editors. This struck me:
Arrant: DC has recently begun encouraging more artists to write, from you to David Finch, Tony Daniel and others. You mentioned some resistance from DC earlier about you writing more. Can you expound on that resistance and how it’s changed for you?
Williams: I think so, but it hasn’t been with any real sense of maliciousness — but rather not fully understanding your players. It simplifies things to classify people for one discipline: he’s a writer, she’s an artist, and so forth. When you get individuals who can do both, there’s a perception, real or imagined, that one of those skills will be lackluster due to time constraints or just being more talented in one area than another. I’m sure there’s some truth to that — we’ve all seen artists who begin writing their own stuff and it’s not as dynamic as it could be. But at the same time, I think the industry could benefit from publishers reaching out to artists and seeing what they’re truly capable of.
Question: Between Daniel, Finch, Williams, Darwyn Cooke, and Paul Pope, what is it about the Bat-characters that makes DC that much more likely to take a flyer on writer-artists? Other than Pope and Cooke’s non-Batman/Catwoman stuff I can’t even think of another one-creator run from the company in recent memory.
* Apropos of not very much, it occurred to me the other day just how many extremely lovely looking, well-drawn monthly comics came out last week. The debut installments of Steve Epting on Fantastic Four, Gabriel Hardman on Hulk, David Aja and Michael Lark and Stefano Gaudiano on Secret Avengers…the latest issues from Charlie Adlard on The Walking Dead, Francis Manapul on The Flash, David Lafuente on Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, Rafa Sandoval on Ultimate Comics Mystery…just a lot of fine-looking books.
* The New Zealand branch of Australia’s MEAA actor’s union is spearheading a movement by SAG, AFTRA and other unions against Peter Jackson’s Hobbit movies, based on what rules would apply for Kiwi actors on the production. I confess I’m having a hard time figuring out exactly what’s going on here, but that Hollywood Reporter link (via Topless Robot) seemed pretty thorough, and Kristin Thompson’s Frodo Franchise blog has been an absolute machine on the topic. It seems that arrayed against the unions are Jackson, the studios involved, various NZ film-industry groups, and the films’ casting directors, and that the films are basically being targeted mainly as a pretext for unionizing New Zealand’s film-acting biz, heretofore a non-union shop. Jackson’s painting it as an attempt by an “Aussie bully” to muscle in on the Kiwi film industry.
* Your must-read review of the day: Craig Fischer on Geoff Grogan’s Fandancer (which was excellent).
* Jordan Crane’s “Unraveling” continues unraveling at What Things Do. This installment’s a doozy, with several subjects dear to my black heart.
* Gabrielle Bell’s San Diego Comic Con Comicumentary continues as well. I don’t think this is her intention necessarily, but I can easily see this comic being the thing fans and creators of alt/art/lit/underground comics point to when they want to explain why they’re not going to San Diego anymore, so neatly does it nail what the experience is like for certain non-nerd comics people.
* Eventually we’re going to have to ask Jim Woodring to stop.
* On a somewhat lighter note, my pal Alex Kropinak (animator extraordinaire of Marvel Super Heroes What The–?! fame) draws Captain Caveman, who as it turns out is an absolutely fascinating character to draw for some reason.
* I’m absolutely in love with the luminous black lines of these Disney Donald Duck posters. (Via Tom Spurgeon.)
* Considering that I had approximately zero interest in the subject beforehand, I found Ben Morse and Kiel Phegley’s dialogue on Smallville on the occasion of the start of its tenth (!!!) and final season absolutely fascinating. Apparently the show has had three distinct “eras” and slowly replaced almost its entire supporting cast, and last night’s season premiere featured both Brandon Routh’s costume and freaking Darkseid. But more interesting to me, as these things tend to be, is just hearing two smart, self-aware guys discuss their specific fandom.
* Pitchfork’s Ryan Dombal interviews Trent Reznor and David Fincher about the former’s score for the latter’s The Social Network. I always find it entertaining how Reznor sort of recalibrates his caustic nature toward the funny end of the spectrum for interviews.
* Speaking of, I actually have a surprisingly spotty record of seeing Fincher’s films, but I still got a lot out of the intro to Aaron Cutler’s review of The Social Network for The House Next Door in terms of how it breaks down the way Fincher has grown to deflect or defray his characters’ central pursuits over the course of his career.
* Film critic Edward Copeland rounds up a variety of august personages, including the great Matthew Zoller Seitz and (quite awesomely) actress Anne Bobby of Nightbreed fame, to reminisce about The Rocky Horror Picture Show on the occasion of its 35th anniversary. Rocky is unfuckwithable ’round these parts, and not just because I met The Missus when we were the only people at a wedding reception who knew how to do the Time Warp. Richard O’Brien’s songs–especially “Over at the Frankenstein Place,” “The Time Warp,” “Sweet Transvestite,” and “Rose Tint My World”–are absolute monsters of glam, and the audience responses still crack me up, even context free. (Some favorites: “Where the women look like cupcakes and the men have bananas on their heads,” “Only…assholes…write on doors,” “And Betsy Ross used to sit at home and sew and sew and sew and sew…,” “What do you like on your corn flakes?”) Rocky Forever.
* Weezer is re-releasing Pinkerton with fully twenty-five bonus tracks. Fourteen years ago I’d have been pretty excited about this! Today I’m just sort of irritated with Rivers. Instead of releasing 25 tracks from the Pinkerton era and touring on the Pinkerton material, how ’bout just recording new stuff of Pinkerton quality?
* The great cartoonist Jason reviews John Hillcoat’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and the forgotten Sam Raimi/Coen Brothers joint Crimewave. It’s wonderful to write a sentence like that.
* Dash Shaw really loves Blind Date. This sort of thing makes me wanna get off my ass and do something with my Young and the Restless fandom.
* Woof.
* Real Life Horror: President Obama would like to summarily assassinate American citizen/douchebag Anwar Awlaki…just because, legally speaking. At least I know I’m free! And here’s your comics angle for this story: Awlaki is the fuck who issued the death threat against now-in-hiding cartoonist Molly Norris.
* Something about this silly story makes me so sad. I think it’s that for most of the people who will be involved, this is the most they want out of comics.
Jim Woodring must, like the hammers of Winchester House, never stop.
Heavy… black… and pendulous.