* I don’t have any idea why, but apparently I never linked to my friend Kiel Phegley’s epic interview with Art Spiegelman. Done and done. Say what you will about Spiegelman’s blend of self-effacement and ego–saying nobody wanted what he was doing in Breakdowns with one breath, taking credit for Chris Ware, Richard Maguire, Alan Moore, and Scott McCloud with the next–but I just plain found it refreshing to hear a titan of comics say things like “I didn’t know much about manga at the time [I did Maus].” It happens! And this quote is a killer:
My experience with therapy is that it’s more like vomiting stuff up, finding things and just throwing them out. The process of making a work is like if you ran a movie of someone vomiting in reverse, you take the chunks and internalize them.
And so is this, holy moses is it ever:
My friend Tom DeHaven put it well. He’s a writer who did a novel called The Funny Papers – the Wizard audience might’ve seen his Superman novel. At some point he said, “Well, a writer is someone who enjoys having written,” and that seemed about right to me.
* And here’s Kiel’s interview with Guy Davis, really one of the great action-adventure cartoonists working today.
* There’s been a positive development in that weird Let the Right One In subtitle fiasco I linked to yesterday: Responding to fan outcry, the studio will be releasing an alternate version of the DVD with the theatrical subtitles intact; it will be labeled as such in the packaging’s fine print. However, they insist they will not accept exchanges, which ought to go over great. I expect they’ll be changing their tune, but for now, this will make it difficult for me to ask for this DVD for my birthday. (Via Dread Central.)
* The Vassar-centric cartoonist Anne Cleveland has died at the age of 92. This is sad, but in that bittersweet way that anyone who lives to such a ripe old age makes you feel, and also it gives me the excuse to post some lovely looking art by Cleveland and her collaborator Jean Anderson. (Art via Shaenon Garrity via Heidi MacDonald.)
* A new Runaways creative team of Kathryn Immonen and Sara Pichelli has been announced. I think one issue of Joss Whedon was enough to boot me off non-Brian K. Vaughan Runaways for good, but dang, Pichelli’s not going to make that an easy decision to maintain. (Art via Johnny Bacardi.)
* I’m starting to think Tim O’Neil’s promise to review Kingdom Come is an elaborate hoax, like Joaquin Phoenix’s hip-hop career. But this latest installment actually comes pretty close, discussing among other things the character of Magog, his design, and his modus operandi versus that of other traditional and ’90s-era heroes and anti-heroes. Tim’s post also raises one of the classic corporate-superhero questions–“Why doesn’t Batman or some Gotham cop kill the Joker?”–that lead to the “logical conclusions” superhero-comic subgenre we were discussing yesterday. Speaking of, Curt Purcell continues to question the utility of that label in the comments.
* Wow, seeing a couple of Complete Vintage Star Wars Action Figure sets up for sale makes me more tempted to blow thousands of dollars on toys than I’ve ever been in my life.
* Eric Reynolds Shelf Porn = MY GOD IT’S FULL OF STARS
That art from Cleveland reminds me of Jordan Crane a lot. Gotta try and find that book she did.
And was there supposed to be a link in the toy post?
At the risk of seeming petulant, I will say that I don’t understand why everyone is saying I haven’t been reviewing Kingdom Come yet when all I’ve been doing is reviewing Kingdom Come for, like, three blog posts now… my review is almost done!