Man, “Comix and match.” Remember those?
I’m extremely proud to announce that I’ve reviewed Paul Hornschemeier’s Mother, Come Home, Craig Thompson’s Blankets, and Mat Brinkman’s Teratoid Heights for the Comics Journal’s 2003 Year in Review issue, which should be coming out any day now. (That’s right–for those of you keeping score, I went from letterhack to paid writer in one issue! So much for the theory that the Journal is an uncritical self-promotional propaganda organ….) The latter two reviews are up on the Journal’s website–click here and scroll down, and while you’re at it, read reviews of other great books like Marc Bell’s Shrimpy & Paul and Friends, Jeffrey Brown’s Unlikely and Chris Onstad’s latest Achewood collection. Besides being a great buy for its year-end best-of recaps and its extensive look at some of the best young cartoonists in the business, this ish is chock full of blogospheric representation–myself, Bill Sherman, Alan David Doane, Tim O’Neil, and of course Dirk Deppey all have a hand in it. Neat!
Next, I don’t know why I didn’t link to this sooner, but the Missus has a worldwide exclusive original Jeffrey Brown comic strip up on her blog. Seriously! You’ll enjoy it, though I’m still unsure as to whether or not I should enjoy it. (And oh yeah, that black-and-white portrait of her at the top of her sidebar (scroll up) is by Craig Thompson. All the fly altcartoonists are on her jammy, I tell you.)
Back to the TCJ beat, if Mike Dean’s Manga Doomsday Theory is correct, you probably better ignore this Tokyopop job listing…
Franklin Harris wonders why I think putting de-costumed characters like the X-Men back into spandex is pandering to the fanboys, but throwing all of Marvel’s big characters onto the Avengers roster isn’t. There are a bunch of reasons, but the main one is that the latter involves the combination of a bunch of genuinely real-world-popular and (if done properly) interesting characters on a book written by one of the best writers in the industry (see also Grant Morrison’s JLA), while the former is merely the bizarre fetishization of laundry.
The indomitable NeilAlien (no blogging hiatus-taker he!) reminds me that two really interesting comics columns were recently updated: Chris Allen’s Breakdowns features reviews of a bunch of things worth reviewing (The Complete Peanuts, Mother Come Home, Wizard Edge, Be a Man, Alan Moore’s intriguing but ultimately lame Supreme books (which Chris likes)), and relays the hilarious information that Marvel used to have the Punisher use rubber bullets! Meanwhile, Steven Grant’s Permanent Damage takes an interesting look at the life of a freelance writer, and examines Marvel’s new ICON line from that perspective as well, offering up a useful corrective to the current chorus of “sellouts!” echoing through fandom these days.
Speaking of good columns, I missed this when it first appeared, but Shawn Hoke (who apparently really likes my blog! (hat tip: John Jakala)) recently reviewed Ron Rege Jr.’s astounding graphic novel Skibber-Bee-Bye. This is another one of those books that I guarantee you you’ve never read anything like. Please go find it and buy it and read it.
Is the Ninth Art message board even more of a pretentious, let’s-hear-ourselves-talk, brook-no-dissent embarrassment than the Comics Journal messageboard? Dave Fiore reports, U-Decide!
Larry Young (April 14th entry) has noticed that even as many bloggers review the comp comics he’s sent out, many bloggers are also crapping out. Larry, it’s my new day job that’s to blame for my relatively scant blogging of late, I promise. But everyone else is totally your fault. Rimshot!
A quick note on Bendis & Bagley’s The Pulse, the first two issues of which I finally picked up today: I don’t remember who it was, but I remember someone complaining about how lame it was that a book that, essentially, used to be Alias is now doing goofy stories about the Green Goblin, and you know what? This was an un-goofy story about the Green Goblin. Bendis played him (his alter ego Norman Osborn, I mean) like an older, more secure version of American Psycho‘s Patrick Bateman. I loved it, and for the first time I could understand why anyone would want to keep the character alive after his “death” during the whole Gwen Stacy situation.
Finally, everyone’s going to go see Phoebe Gloeckner at NYU’s Zine Fest on Friday evening, right?
