I ranted a bit today. Maybe it was something I ate, I dunno. Anyway, there’s very little in terms of bad feelings about comics that new issues of Morrison’s New X-Men and Bendis’s Daredevil can’t cure. And with said issues tucked neatly into little mylar sleeves and resting comfortably on the back of my bed, atop several collections of Love & Rockets and various Ultimate titles, it’s once more into the funnybook breach for me!
It would appear that with Dirk Deppey gone, Tim O’Neil and Kevin Melrose are the linkblogs to watch. Consider that an official endorsement, just like the one Al Gore gave to Howard Dean! No, wait. Not like that one. Anyway, Tim points out this important Arkansas anti-censorship decision, and Kevin guides us to writer Robert Kirkman’s thoughts on rising from the ashes of Epic.
The third member of the linkblog triumvirate, Graeme McMillan, may well be in a snarkier mood than I was today. His running chronicle of the fans’ reaction to the big leaks coming out of Marvel over the past couple of days is priceless. Click on the above link and start scrolling up.
But wait, there’s more! David Fiore, the comicsphere’s preeminent thinkblogger, is doing the linkblogging bit as well! And doing it quite well, actually, pointing to a lovely tribute to Dirk Deppey’s late Journalista blog by Steven Wintle, among other things. (David’s linkblogging entry also has the bonus feature of taking a few well-deserved potshots at Rolling Stone‘s appallingly facile and glib “critic,” Rob Sheffield. However, it loses points for referring to Courtney love without using the phrase “talentless starfucker.” You win some, you lose some, David!)
At last, the dark underbelly of Reed Richards will be exposed! Which is hard to do, because he can, like, stretch it away from you, so it’s tough to lift his shirt up.
J.W. Hastings finishes his long-delayed Moore vs. Miller critical grudge match by comparing the ABC line and Watchmen to Dark Knights 1&2, and believe me, the resulting fireworks were worth the wait. There are so many good quotes that if I were to start posting them I’d end up reprinting the whole damn piece. J.W.’s not going to settle this issue for anyone except himself–this is just one of those questions people will always be asking, akin to “Jaime or Beto?” or “Lennon/McCartney or Jagger/Richards?”–but for one side, at least, he nails it all down. If you like either creator you owe it to yourself to read this.
J.W. (aka the Forager) also puts together a solid syllabus for a course on “Comic Book Politics.” (For the impetus behind this, click here.) Seems to me that you’ve got a couple of options here: You can go with comics that specifically and primarily tackle political crises–by your Spiegelmans and Satrapis and Saccos–or you can emphasize books that use comic-book conventions (primarily of the superhero type) as fuel for satire or cautionary tale–your Moores and Millers and Morrisons. A blend is probably your best bet, and that’s what J.W. comes up with. I’d take his class.
Dave Intermittent submits his two cents about the Brian Hibbs manga/bookstores column which I wrote about the other day. Dave, too, is skeptical of Hibbs’s analysis; he points out that Hibbs uses static information to assess a dynamic entity. Go take a look.
(I’d also like to take this opportunity to point out that a few errors in my piece on Hibbs’s article have been brought to my attention. For example, there are Pantheon-published books in the Bookscan list on which he based his argument–beats me how I missed ’em. Also, it was weak on my part to accuse Brian of superherocentricity, as visitors to his store could likely tell you. In my defense, I’ll say I did it because he started talking about the impact of seriality on sales, and all of a sudden visions of David Fiore began dancing in my head, and superheroes were all I could think about.)
Shawn Fumo points out that manga is now successful enough in bookstores to warrant endcaps (those displays at the end of the shelf that really stand out). Anecdotally, I’ll back this up–in fact, the Waldenbooks in the local mall has their manga endcap on display right at the entrance to the mall, next to the “bestsellers 20% off” one. Could the rumors be true? Is manga selling well in bookstores? (Link courtesy of the suddenly less intermittent Dave Intermittent, who also questions the oft-heard rumor that George Clooney scrapped a Nick Fury movie deal because he was offended by Garth Ennis’s comic-book version of same. You know those Hollywood types–so controversy-averse!)
Last and most definitely not least, Jim Henley writes up a plethora of recent comics releases. Among the books up for review are Farel Dalrymple’s gorgeous and weird Pop Gun War, blogosphere favorite Sleeper, and the frustratingly frustrating Morales & Bachalo Captain America. Cap is a character that continues to vex both Jim and myself–we’re convinced that great things can be done with him, but we’re just not sure how. (For my money, Millar’s Cap is your best bet these days–no, scratch that: Bendis’s version of Millar’s Cap, as appearing now in Ultimate Six, is your best bet, since Bendis lacks Millar’s desire to giggle to his friends, “See, what I did there is I made Captain America an asshole!” Of course, asshole is in the eye of the beholder, as is kickassitude, which I feel the Ultimate Captain America has in spades.) The interesting thing, though, is that while Jim, a dovish libertarian, and I, a bleeding-heart interventionist, are not nuts about the book, J.W. Hastings, who quite comfortably identifies himself as a conservative (I think), really likes the Morales Cap run so far. (Morales lost me in the second issue, when the boilerplate soldiers started talking, as well as when Captain America, who I might remind you is a human weapon who walks around wearing the American flag, expressed reticence about intimidating the enemy.) Diversity of opinion, folks. Ain’t America grand?