* A very happy 5th blogiversary to the best comics blogger, Tom Spurgeon!
* Because I’m a nincompoop, when I linked to SPX’s programming slate the other day I didn’t actually mention anyone who was on it. How about John Porcellino, Jeffrey Brown, Matt Furie, Lisa Hanawalt, Kate Beaton, Eleanor Davis, Hellen Jo, Matthew Thurber, and a metric ton more? Fantagraphics in particular is apparently out to just murder people: Its guests include Kevin Huizenga, Gahan Wilson, Hans Rickheit, and Al Columbia, while they’re debuting Ganges #3, Portable Grindhouse, The Squirrel Machine, Steve Ditko’s Strange Suspense, Al Columbia’s Pim & Francie, Mome Vol. 16, Jacques Tardi’s You Are Here…ye gods.
* Look, a new Marc Bell book! Supposedly there’s even comics in it!
* Here’s a tiny preview of the upcoming Clive Barker-cowritten 3-D comic Seduth. By the time you read this, I may have already interviewed Clive about it for an outlet to remain nameless. Elsewhere on the Clive tip, I missed his most recent interview with the keepers of his official website, in which he talks about a short story/novella collection and an erotic photography book I had no idea were even in the works.
* Jason Adams presents links to relevant news and views on a trio of films of potential interest to readers of this blog: the Aliens/28 Weeks Later-model-following sequel [REC]2, the David Lynch-produced, Werner Herzog-directed My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, and (get this) the remake of the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple by Hero and House of Flying Daggers director Zhang Yimou, Three Guns.
* Will I continue to link to all of Curt Purcell’s Blackest Night posts, like today’s review of issue #3? Signs point to yes!
* In both a post and the comment thread that follows, Joe “Jog” McCulloch says some provocative things about Frank Quitely’s work on Batman & Robin. I don’t agree with his conclusions–I’m not even sure I agree with his assertions; I don’t think I ever once read one of those issues and thought “man, Quitely’s action scenes are too slow and too tough to parse”–but I do take a perverse pleasure in iconoclasm. Of course, after Batman & Robin #4, Jog’s plea for people to quit acting like Quitely’s an impossible act to follow can only cause a single tear to slowly fall from one eye, like Frodo.
Here’s the thing: Morrison’s worked with worse artists on this run. Although I wouldn’t say Tony Daniel is one of them; and as with Daniel, Tan at least has been imposed on Morrison for a story arc about extreme ’90s-style anti-heroism, so his Image-derived style makes some sense. But Daniel, Andy Kubert, and the guy who drew the two Final Crisis tie-in issues didn’t make their debut on the book directly following one of the two or three best superhero artists working today. JRJR would have punked them out just as badly, and (this is the point) through no fault of their own.