* The nominees for the Doug Wright Awards, comics’ classiest award slate, have been announced. A strong selection of respectable choices, but no so strong that you won’t want to pick winners. And only three categories! A marvelous way to run a railroad.
* The Sopranos vs. The Wire, officiated by Matt Zoller Seitz. ‘Nuff said.
* Somehow it’d escaped my notice that the makers of The Art of Daniel Clowes have a Dan Clowes blog stuffed with rarely-seen Clowes goodies. Fixed! My eye naturally gravitated to this selection of Eightball t-shirts and this unpublished comic starring Vida from Eightball #22/Ice Haven. (Via Tom Spurgeon.)
* My collaborator Matt Rota has an art show opening up in the Last Rites Gallery Manhattan in a few weeks. It’ll be pretty.
* Benjamin Marra’s got a show coming up, too. It probably won’t be pretty, strictly speaking.
* Some strikingly cartooned Michael McMillan art in this brief profile by Dan Nadel.
* I often think to myself “Self, you should post more art by COOP.” Done and done.
* Renee French is a national treasure.
* Jillian Tamaki made a lovely-looking SuperMutant Magic Academy minicomic, but it’s all gone.
* Stunning use of flat color by Tom Scioli in American Barbarian, about which he is interviewed extensively by Tom Spurgeon at the link.
* Ryan Cecil Smith draws Nat King Cole.
* Michael DeForge is in an anthology with Kramers Ergot 8 space-age standout Robert Beatty called Rat Hex. I mean, Michael DeForge being in anthology isn’t the surprising part, he’s in every anthology (except that Kramers), him being together with Beatty’s a two great tastes deal is all.
* Ross Campbell draws Leonardo. It’s weird to say “gorgeous” about a drawing of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, but there you have it.
* Fortunately, the Happiness Comix tumblr appears to have exaggerated rumors of its own demise, but it’s mainly posting a smattering of art from the unrelated Dimensions anthology. I am not complaining. (Below: Hiromi Ueyoshi, Tim Beckhardt, Tom Toye, Lincoln Bostian, Bethany Price.)
* Fanmaking Moebius art selections from Monster Brains and Same Hat.
* “If you ever see a one-armed bunny, you’ll know it used to be an evil wizard.”
* Jason Adams loved The Hunger Games, which overcame his initial casting skepticism, as it appears to have done with virtually every human being. I’m gonna make an effort to see this one in the theater.
* Deadwood creator David Milch said he knew the show was ending when he wrote the finale for Season Three, which most people have long believed to have been a wholly inadvertent series finale regardless of how thematically appropriate a capstone to the whole show it would have been. I feel like this is something he might have let us know earlier!
* You can get loads more Game of Thrones stuff at the gettin’ place, including four excellent new preview/trailer/featurette things and George R.R. Martin reading a new preview chapter from The Winds of Winter.
* The Press Play blog did a series of video tributes to Mad Men in anticipation of the season premiere; the one below is my favorite.
Tags: A Song of Ice and Fire, books, Carnival of souls, comics, fantasy, Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin, links, movies, music, TV