* Grant Morrison announces a new Vertigo series called Warcop, concerning a super-soldier and his hip teenage friend in the post-9/11 world and borrowing its title from a rejected Morrison/Madonna movie idea. How about them apples.
* Frank Miller reacts, pricelessly, to the All Star Batman & Robin c-bomb scandal:
I have no idea how this awful thing happened. It’s just one of those terrible and glorious things that happen time to time in publishing.
Italics Frank’s, apparently. You can practically hear the sneer! (Via everyone)
* Jon Favreau discusses the potential presence of War Machine, the Mandarin, Matt Fraction, and IMAX 3-D technology in Iron Man 2. Wouldn’t it be great if he made another really good Iron Man movie?
* I may not know toys, but I know what I like, and I totally disagree with Topless Robot’s Rob Bricken regarding the superiority of the redesigned Masters of the Universe toys to the originals–a hot topic given plans to release a line of new, more articulated figures based on the original look of He-Man and friends. It just seems like a case of surface “coolness” interfering with the simple purity of streamlined ridiculousness, and it reminds me of when grown-up fanboys take beloved childhood comics characters and try to make them seem more grown-up and mature and grim and such. It’s He-Man–isn’t raw nostalgia the whole point?
* Noel Troll’s friend Pumpskin creeps me out.
* Dan Nadel is a cat who just don’t give a fuck and that comes through entertainingly in this interview about his new Rory Hayes collection Where Demented Wented. (Via Tim Hodler.)
* I greatly enjoy Jon Hastings posts about works we both enjoy, and his recent-vintage reviews of Jason’s You Can’t Get There From Here and the Wachowski Bros.’ Speed Racer are cases in point. Money quotes from each:
Is there something about comics as a medium that encourages so many stories about loneliness and the (often futile) search for companionship? Is it something about cartoonists that they’re drawn to tell these kinds of stories? Is there some kind of Harold Bloomian agonistic anxiety of influence working on them so that they’re driven to revise and elaborate on Krazy Kat?
and
If the guiding principle of, say, Sin City is “use CGI to bring Frank Miller’s comics to ‘life'”, the guiding principle of Speed Racer is “use CGI to bring a world of computer-generated images to life”.
* Abhay Khosla hated Secret Invasion #6 nearly as much as he loves the sound of his own voice! I dunno, he’s probably a wonderful guy, and I don’t disagree with him here or on many other things, but whoo, it’s grating, I’m not the only one, right?
* David Bordwell waxes titular.
* The haunted house ride from Coney Island’s Astroland is up for sale. It really is over.
I’m not the only one, and I’m quite aware of the…distinctive voice…I use online.
You are not the only one. Abhay fought the good fight against Kurtz (even if he ultimately overstepped), but otherwise… no thank you.
No, you’re not the only one. His actual insights are much better than his trips out into the ozone.
The initial TPB of Elektra Assassin (wow, that comic has not aged well) has a dedication from Miller: “To Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, who saved us the trouble.”
The writing in Elektra may not have aged that well (though I don’t know about even that for sure since I haven’t actually read it in a while), but the art is still as stunning as ever. Let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater just because Miller’s a loon these days.
After reading the first three issues of All-Star Batman & Robin, I wish they’d blacked out all the words.
C’mon, Jim, Dick Grayson’s parents were shot in the head in full view of hundreds of people! Of course it was an accident!
Ed: I ain’t saying it’s not worth reading. But its cold war satire is dated.
The above really ought to say “You’re not the only one.”
Narcissistic posting FTW.
ELEKTRA read pretty well the last time I looked it over, probably should give it another look sometime.
I feel so much less alone now.
I like All Star Bats AND i like Elektra Assassin!