* Today’s Strange Tales spotlight Q&A is with Junko Mizuno.
* Discovery of the day (via Tom Spurgeon): Next Issue!, a new blog by Look Out!! Monsters author Geoff Grogan and Blurred Visions editor Kevin Mutch. As you might expect if you’ve read Grogan’s posts elsewhere, they come out swinging against the Kramers Ergot/PictureBox circle of artcomix makers and writers, though that doesn’t stop guys like Frank Santoro from contributing thoughtful comments. Thus far I recommend Mutch’s post on the “Stupidist” school of comic art and Geoff Grogan’s thoughts on Santoro’s “The Bridge Is Over” essay and the lack of anxiety of influence. Josiah Leighton, if you’re reading this blog, please click.
* Heidi MacDonald interviews the great Eric Reynolds about the state of Fantagraphics for Publishers Weekly. I think this exchange was much-needed:
PWCW: Who are some of the young cartoonists whose work you are most excited about?
ER: What is young? Unsurprisingly, many of my answers would be people from Mome. But that’s the great thing about comics unlike other art forms, you don’t need to be “young” to establish yourself if you have something to say.
(Via Kevin Melrose.)
* You’ve heard this everywhere now, but I’m linking to it anyway because just yesterday I was thinking how potentially wonderful this exact thing could be: AMC is making a tv series out of Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard’s riveting zombie-survival horror comic The Walking Dead, with The Mist‘s Frank Darabont attached to write and direct the pilot.
* Speaking of stuff I was thinking about very recently, I’ve loved carnivorous plants ever since I first learned of their existence. Something about them is just so wrong–don’t plants know how the food chain is supposed to work? So I was delighted to hear of the discovery of a new species of giant pitcher plant that can eat rats atop a mountain in the Philippines. The same expedition spotted another species of pitcher plant that has been thought extinct for decades, and a brand new species of sundew, another variety of meat-eating plant. Poison Ivy, call your horticulturist. (Via Loren Coleman.)
* Jog reviews Johnny Ryan’s very good, very weird action comic Prison Pit.
* If you’re on the fence about picking up Mat Brinkman’s Multiforce, perhaps this gallery at Monster Brains will push you off?
* Jim Woodring’s Weathercraft has blown Fantagraphics’ collective mind, apparently.
* I enjoyed this detailed article about Shudder to Think frontman Craig Wedren and his long relationship (through childhood friendship, college, and even marriage) with The State and its members. He and David Wain have been friends since they were four! Also, “X-French Tee Shirt” continues to be an astonishing song.
* Dick Smith was a talented dude.
* Ummm…
