* Craig Thompson says “Habibi production is stuck in limbo.” In a good way, I hope?

* Mike Mignola tells CBR some more about his forthcoming Hellboy plans, including collabos with Kevin Nowlan, Richard Corben, and his own bad self. I especially enjoy the news that he may start treating Hellboy like an altcomic in terms of numbering; rather than label things “issue #2 of 6” or whatever, he’ll just start from #1, and they’ll come out when they come out, and the stories will finish when they finish. Hell yeah.

* Murderers’ Row: Sammy Harkham, Gabrielle Bell, Anders Nilsen, Kevin Huizenga.

* Tucker Stone has his “WE are the walking dead!” moment. This is a great column on some of the year’s worst comics, worth both reading and just scanning through the horrifyingly awful panels Tucker picked out to illustrate. And seriously, stop buying terrible comics. (I do straight-up enjoy those last two images, though.) Moreover, right near the top of the piece Tucker rattles off a rock-solid best of 2010 list that covers superhero comics, alternative comics, and “fusion comics” alike. (Via Kevin Melrose.)

* Hey, Closed Caption Comics’ Ryan Cecil Smith has his own blog! (Via Tom Spurgeon.)

* This episode of a geek podcast named Bear Swarm! leaves no doubt that it is an episode of a geek podcast with a name like Bear Swarm!, if you know what I mean, but it also features a lengthy, geekish interview with George R.R. Martin about the Song of Ice and Fire novels, so I do recommend listening to that part.

* Eve Tushnet on Eyes Wide Shut and the pleasure of finding pleasure in occasionally less-than-pleasurable art:

I don’t think I’ve been nearly attentive enough about restraining this tendency in myself: the tendency to summarize, to grade. To say, “This movie was fantastic in ways x, y, and z, but ultimately failed/succeeded because q.”

It’s that “ultimately” which I need to work harder to avoid. Art is not an exam! You don’t pass or fail.

* Mark Bagley is returning to Ultimate Spider-Man, one of my favorite superhero titles for years and years on end now. I think it’s safe to say that his work for DC showed that Ultimate Spider-Man is where he belongs, although let’s be honest, David LaFuente creams anyone else who ever drew that book.

* In further news related to the good Brian Bendis comics, They’re making a TV show out of Alias. I’m not confident it’ll be any good, based simply on the track record of adaptations of any and all genre comics. It occurred to me yesterday that I could list all such adaptations I consider to be genuinely creatively successful on one hand and still have fingers to spare.

* Pure Sean crack: Ta-Nehisi Coates slags superhero movies for their smallness, praises The Lord of the Rings for its bigness. I’m telling you, I remember so vividly the 20-minute sneak-preview I was able to attend after the Cannes Film Festival, when they were screening the Mines of Moria sequence for critics. I went with a skeptical friend, and we left astonished. The instant Legolas fired that arrow and we traveled with it as it traversed that vast chasm and hit that orc, who then plummeted into the abyss, I realized: They’ve gotten the scale right, for the very first time in the history of fantasy cinema.

* Speaking of Coates, I understand why American fiction writers used to be so smitten with the idea of ex-Confederate soldiers righting the wrongs inflicted on them and theirs by Union thugs. I don’t understand why they’d still be smitten with it today. Or maybe I do, sad to say.

* Finally, a little Real Life Horror (and let’s face it, for the next two years that could be the name of any given Congressional Beat column) for your weekend: My congressman, the odious, racist (and not incidentally IRA-supporting) Peter King, will be heading up a McCarthyite committee to “investigate” American Muslims come the next Congress. Fuck this asshole, fuck anyone who thinks this is a good idea, fuck this failed-state country of ours, hallelujah, holy shit, where’s the Tylenol.

Tags: A Song of Ice and Fire, books, Carnival of souls, comics, fantasy, Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin, links, movies, real life, TV

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