Phoebe Gloeckner is blogging!

Actually, expect some big Phoebe Gloeckner-related developments on my blog by Monday…

I sat there and watched the news in disbelief last night.

Disbelief that these fucking idiots got so upset about this.

Let me see if I can explain the source of my disconnect with the outrage here:

HE’S THE CROCODILE HUNTER.

The baby was never at risk. You know why? BECAUSE HE WAS BEING HELD BY HIS FATHER, THE CROCOFUCKINGDILE HUNTER.

Why do we need to even discuss this any further? I mean, if I saw someone holding their kid while feeding a crocodile, you know what I’d say? “Who does he think he is? The Crocodile Hunter?” And when I see the Crocodile Hunter holding his kid while feeding a crocodile, I say “Yep.”

People are trying to compare this to the Michael Jackson balcony-dangling incident. But Michael Jackson’s sobriquet is “The King of Pop,” not “The Balcony Hunter.” If he’d spent his entire life hunting balconies, then I wouldn’t have complained about his baby-dangling incident, either.

People. Get a hold of yourselves.

HE’S THE CROCODILE HUNTER.

Please excuse our appearance–the front page of ADDTF operates by date, not number, so since I went so long without posting over the holidays, it’s gotten pretty sparse. I’ll make up for it soon, I promise. (Now comes the part where I try to balance blogging, fiction writing, and job hunting. Oh yeah, and watching The Return of the King a few more times. Should be a pip.) In the meantime, why not check out the archives, over there on your left?

Also, here are a couple of highly enjoyable year-in-comics recaps from two of my comics blogfathers, NeilAlien, Strange-blogger Supreme and the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Bill Sherman. Jim “Not Hanley, nor his Universe” Henley also gets in on the act, somewhat irreverently; Franklin Harris puts in a mixed-media effort in his print column “Pulp Culture,” also known as “I can’t believe a newspaper prints a column this cool.” And a tip of the hat to Alan David Doane for pointing me in the direction of this smart wrap-up by Shawn Hoke (permalink pending). In addition, Alan reports on the best comics-related news of 2004. Trust me–you might as well just declare that particular contest over right now.

And if you missed it, here’s my Best-Of for the year. Read it again, for the first time!

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I don’t have the patience to do a proper Best Of 2003 so I’m just going to list some comics and if you want a more in-depth kinda deal maybe I’ll link to some other people who’ve done that sort of thing

Which is a roundabout way of saying “Here’s my Top 25 Comics Released in 2003 That I Read.”

1. Epileptic Volume 1, by David B.

2. Shrimpy & Paul and Friends, by Marc Bell

3. Ultimate Spider-Man, by Brian Bendis & Mark Bagley

4. Alias, by Brian Bendis & Michael Gaydos

5. Ultimate Six, by Brian Bendis & Trevor Hairsine

6. Daredevil, by Brian Bendis & Alex Maleev

7. Powers, by Brian Bendis & Michael Oeming

8. Rubber Necker, by Nick Bertozzi

9. Teratoid Heights, by Mat Brinkman

10. Unlikely, by Jeffrey Brown

11. Black Hole, by Charles Burns

12. Ripple, by Dave Cooper

13. Squadron Supreme, by Mark Gruenwald & various artists

14. Kramers Ergot 4, by Sammy Harkham et al.

15. Palomar, by Gilbert Hernandez

16. The Ultimates, by Mark Millar & Brian Hitch

17. The Dark Knight Strikes Again, by Frank Miller & Lynn Varley

18. New X-Men, by Grant Morrison & various artists

19. The Filth, by Grant Morrison & Chris Weston

20. 100%, by Paul Pope

21. Supreme Power, by J. Michael Straczynski & Gary Frank

22. Blankets, by Craig Thompson

23. The Acme Novelty Date Book, by Chris Ware

24. Quimby the Mouse, by Chris Ware

25. The Frank Book, by Jim Woodring

For whatever reason, these were the books that got me really excited about comics this year. They were the pamphlets I could hardly wait to read, the graphic novels that floored me with the depth of their invention and enthusiasm, the hidden treasures from years past or countries abroad or scenes undiscovered. As you can see, if a meteor were to strike Fantagraphics headquarters tomorrow while Brian Michael Bendis was visiting for some reason (maybe to use the bathroom?), I’d have a lot fewer comics to read.

Again, this is just a list of great comics I actually read this year, which may explain the absence of several fan favorites (Louis Riel, The Fixer, Sleeper, Catwoman, Wanted). I decided to arbitrarily stop at Number 25, so my apologies to Ultimate X-Men, Arrowsmith, The Iron Wagon, Forlorn Funnies, Chrome Fetus, AEIOU, Maybe We Could Just Lie Here Holding Each Other Naked And Not Have Sex, Incredible Hulk, and so forth, some of which didn’t make the cut, others of which I just forgot until I’d already written out the list and don’t feel much like tinkering with it.

Other fine, more in-depth Best-Ofs are being brought to you by Johnny Bacardi, Jim Henley, Andrew Arnold, Chris Allen, Alan David Doane, Alan David Doane, and (you guessed it) Alan David Doane. Ninth Art has a bunch of year-end goodies, including Paul O’Brien’s Year In Review, a sort of group anti-hug in the form of the 2003 Brickbat Awards parts one and two, and (not a year-end thing per se, but as this is the year I joined the comics blogosphere in earnest, it’s useful to have a lexicon on hand) Andrew Wheeler’s comics dictionary.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Year, Happy Festivus, and happy reading!

This neat interview with comics journalist Joe Sacco over at the L.A. Weekly has been linked to by various and sundry people, and it’s definitely worth a read. Sacco’s an artist of extraordinary talent and power, and there are passages in both his major journalistic works, Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde, among the most memorable and moving in recent comics history. However, I continue to find his coverage of the battle between Israelis and Palestinians myopically one-sided.

I do agree with Sacco in that the Israeli settlements are a needless, pointless provocation that ought to be stopped right away. There’s simply no sense in hanging the fate of your entire country out to dry, and enabling your enemies to score innumerable propaganda points, on behalf of the group of Israelis who are least interested in secular democracy in the first place.

But Sacco has explicitly drawn the conclusion that the settlements, and the occupation generally, are the be-all end-all of the conflict, which is ludicrous. The fact must be faced that Palestinian civil society is in total nihilistic free fall. It’s often referred to as a death cult, and with good reason: take a look, just by way of a for instance, at this assortment of sermons from various imams, all Palestinian Authority employees. This kind of thinking–and the actions that flow from them, specifically trotting children around in mock suicide-bomber vests and sending teenagers into pizzerias in real ones–is not going to stopped with a two-state solution, or increased negotiations, or anything like that. Dead Jews are the one and only goal, and even if Israel were to be completely wiped off the map, the jihad would go global in a heartbeat. This mindset, murderous to the point of cultural suicide, is far and away the preeminent obstacle to a peaceful settlement in the region right now.

I’m interested to see how Sacco addresses the Islamic death-cult mentality that has so overwhelmed Palestinian society since the start of the intifada in his new book on the region, but if his description of the issues at hand in the above interview is any indication, it will still tell only half the story.

(One of the unfortunate aspects of this situation is that, for me at least, it calls into question the accuracy of his reporting on the Balkan wars. And what with Serbian and Croatian nationalism on the comeback trail, we need journalists we can count on over there.)

Never mind the naysayers, and don’t believe the anti-hype: Bill Sherman lays out many of the reasons Craig Thompson’s Blankets is, in fact, one of the best comics of the year.

At least a half dozen people have written in to say that I may have been a little too hard on Boondocks creator Aaron McGruder in my post the other day. His strip’s “Jacob the Jeweler” reference, which I took to be a thinly veiled Jewish-interloper gag, actualditily refers to a real-life Jeweler to the Hip-Hop Stars. Apparently the guy was mentioned by a lot of mc’s this past year. The gist, as my Trusty Correspondents see it, is that McGruder is mocking not the intrusion of Jewishness into an African-American tradition, but the ominpresence of over-the-top materialism in said tradition. In that sense it’s of a piece with the rim shop and liquor ads McGruder lampoons as well. My bad for not catching the reference–I don’t get any music channels on TV, and I stay about as far away from the bling-bling rappers as physics allows.

About the argument itself: I buy it. A little bit. But here’s the thing: If you look at the wording of the cartoon, Jacob the Jeweler is referred to, clearly with sarcastic intent, as “a proud African-American tradition.” In other words, it’s ethnicity being contrasted, not excess versus genuine holiday spirit or whatever else.

Clearly he’s targeting the meaningless glorification of status symbols, which is admirable, but to me, at least, it appears that he’s targeting more than that.

(I promise I won’t be courting controversy by picking at political cartoonists all the time. I’ll be talking about manga and Brian Bendis again in no time, I swear.)