* I have a Twitter now. I’m @theseantcollins. I hope you like Primus lyrics, because that’s what you’re getting.

* As mentioned earlier, I’ve also created Fuck Yeah, T-Shirts, a new tumblelog dedicated to pictures of people wearing t-shirts I like. I’m pleased to welcome my friend and Twitter deity Ryan Penagos aboard as my partner in this venture. We’re off to a good start:

* Sean Nerd Crack Part 1: Tim O’Neil discusses the career of David Bowie in terms of Batman. This post is one Hellraiser reference away from making my face fall off.

* Sean Nerd Crack Part 2: Curt Purcell discusses torture porn, also in terms of Batman–Knightfall, to be specific. It was at this point that I wondered if I’d actually woken up this morning. Best of all, like Tim’s Bowie/Batman post, this is just the first in a series.

* Sean Nerd Crack Part 3: Taste the rainbow of San Diego Comic Con-exclusive Green Lantern action figures!

* Sean Nerd Crack Part 4: I can’t imagine actually spending my and my wife’s collective hard-earned money on a G.I. Joe: The Complete Series box set, but I sure can imagine staring at this picture of it for hours at a time. This is like the nerd answer to that Fort Thunder collection I linked to yesterday.

* Sean Nerd Crack Part 5: China Mieville defends J.R.R. Tolkien and holy shit this part reads like I wrote it myself seriously I raised my hands up and cheered:

In his abjuring of allegory, Tolkien refuses the notion that a work of fiction is, in some reductive way, primarily, solely, or really ‘about’ something else, narrowly and precisely. That the work of the reader is one of code-breaking, that if we find the right key we can perform a hermeneutic algorithm and ‘solve’ the book. Tolkien knows that that makes for both clumsy fiction and clunky code.

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES

And in his five-point defense of the entirety of Tolkien’s work, one entry is “The Watcher in the Water.” I mean, seriously, am I in some kind of psychogenic fugue? (Via The One Ring.)

* Back on the Batman beat, The Mindless Ones’ The Beast Must Die talks about Morrison & Quitely’s Batman & Robin #1 in terms of all the things that have defined his involvement with Batman over the years: the Adam West TV show and its theme song, Tim Burton’s first blockbuster Batman film and its t-shirts and Prince soundtrack and Danny Elfman score, Frank Miller’s ever-evolving Bat-mythology from The Dark Knight Returns to the years-ahead-of-its-time The Dark Knight Strikes Again to All Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder…it doesn’t quite track my own involvement with Batman in every particular (I didn’t read comics as a kid, I wasn’t into Batman before the movie), but it’s close enough to give me chills.

* There’s a really robust discussion of the role of the divine in Battlestar Galactica, and the role that role played in the reception of the series’ conclusion, going on in the comment thread downblog.

* Geoff Grogan announces he’s secured a grant to produce Look Out! Monsters #2! Though it probably won’t be called that. LO!M #1 was a terrific book.

* Elsewhere, and I missed this somehow when it went up back in March, Geoff pans BJ and Frank Santoro’s Cold Heat–a rare reaction indeed, and he pulls no punches.

* Speaking of the PictureBox gang and pulling no punches, I also somehow missed this comment-thread roundelay about artists/critics reviewing works with which their own work may compete, featuring such luminaries as Gary Groth (!), Dan Nadel, Tom Spurgeon, Tim Hodler, Jeet Heer, and Rob Clough. The nice thing about the debate is that there are plenty of clear examples and apples-to-apples comparisons cited for us to work with. Should Dan Nadel review Craig Yoe’s Boody Rogers anthology, given that Dan has himself anthologized Boody Rogers? Should Gary Groth review Denis Kitchen’s R. Crumb publications, given that Gary has himself published R. Crumb? Should Tom Spurgeon review Mark Evanier’s Jack Kirby book, given that Tom is himself working on a Jack Kirby project? Should Tom critique comics news blogs Bleeding Cool or Journalista, given that Tom is himself a publisher of a comics news blog?

I understand where Tom is coming from here–there’s something potentially icky about this idea. (Icky and yucky are perfectly acceptable words for grown-ups to use, Gary!) But the key there is “potentially.” As long as the context is proffered, who ultimately cares? I don’t see why the situations above, or comparable ones, rule out criticism in a way that being socially friendly with the creators or publishers involved doesn’t, or having worked with them or for them doesn’t, and on and on and on. Granted, I sort of have a dog in this race: In the past year, and in some cases on an ongoing basis, I have written for DC, Marvel, Wizard, Top Shelf, and Fantagraphics, as well as The Savage Critic(s), The Comics Reporter, and Comic Book Resources, not to mention The Onion and Maxim and wherever the hell else. I like to think that these facts shouldn’t preclude me from writing about the work produced by any of those outlets, as long as I’m up front about it, which, hey, look at that sidebar to your left. Then again I’m sure others totally disagree.

Moreover, I disagree with Tom insofar as I’m more interested in reading the criticism of a direct competitor, in some ways at least, than I am in reading the criticism of an uninvolved third party. Why wouldn’t I want to hear what new-media music pioneer Trent Reznor thinks about new-media music pioneer Radiohead’s new-media music pioneering? Or what Spirit comic-book guy Darwyn Cooke thinks about Spirit movie guy Frank Miller’s Spirit? Or what Boody Rogers expert Dan Nadel thinks about Boody Rogers expert Craig Yoe’s Boody Rogers anthology? Or what fantasy author China Mieville thinks about fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy? Or what comics reporter Tom Spurgeon thinks about other people’s comics reporting? And on and on and on. It’s the commonality of interest, experience, and expertise that makes these perspectives valuable. Even if said commonality may cut off avenues of exploration that a disinterested observer may have access to, it surely must open up some others that such an observer doesn’t. Sure, there’s potentially an element of armchair-quarterbacking at least and score-settling/sour grapes at worst, but honestly, isn’t that part of the fun? We can take what they’re saying with the requisite grains of salt, as we should when we read any piece of criticism.

(Phew! Original link way back there somewhere via Chris Mautner.)

* David Lynch releasing a rock album recorded during the Fire Walk With Me soundtrack sessions? Sure, I’ll eat it.

* Here’s a 12-minute preview of Ron Moore’s new movie/series/whatever Fox wants it to be Virtuality. I haven’t watched it yet–I hope it’s good! (Via SciFi Wire.)

* Darkseid Minus New Gods. I threw my arms up and cheered for this, too. (Via Kevin Melrose.)

I have created a new Tumblr dedicated to pictures of people in T-shirts I like, titled Fuck Yeah, T-Shirts. I apologize for the “Fuck Yeah” meme component, but one must use the parlance of one’s times.

* What happens when a comics market designed to sell event comics fails to ship any event comics in the middle of a recession? That market tanks. Yikes. Congratulations to Top Shelf on bucking the trend with the new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, though.

* My old Wizard chum Jim Gibbons interviews Ed Brubaker about Captain America #600 and Reborn. One of the interesting things about the Death and Rebirth of Captain America is that, as opposed to most big mainstream-friendly comics events, they’ve taken place as part of a long, high-quality run by a genuinely gifted writer. Unfortunately, there’s really no way to get that across in mainstream coverage, or even in coverage of that mainstream coverage.

* Wow, look at all those Fort Thunder comics! (Via Tom Devlin.)

* Curt Purcell is prepping for a big torture-porn post by watching the Hostel and Saw movies. YES.

* I fully support the official release of a studio version of Antony & the Johnsons’ stunning cover of Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love.”

* A documentary about a vineyard operated by the lead singer of Tool, featuring Tim and Eric? Sure, I’ll eat it. There’s certainly a lot to enjoy in this trailer, including but not limited to the following: Maynard James Keenan apparently preparing to give Evan Handler a run for his money in the casting process for the Lifetime Original movie Not Like This: The Brian Michael Bendis Story; Maynard rocking the vintage mid-to-late-’90s altrock fashion staple “logo T-shirt over long-sleeved shirt”; Maynard moving to the future eastern shore of Arizona Bay.

* I reviewed Jordan Crane’s Uptight #3–it’s right under this post.

* That’s Sir Christopher Lee to you, pal.

* When AdHouse’s Chris Pitzer posts his favorite MoCCA finds, you should probably pay attention. (More attention than I managed to pay at MoCCA, where I never even remembered to say hello to Chris! Hello, Chris!)

* Lots of good news on the “I hope you fail in your goal of making a terrible movie” front: Platinum Dunes is having trouble getting anywhere with their remake of The Birds and has abandoned the idea of remaking Rosemary’s Baby, while Marc Forster, director of the upcoming World War Z adaptation, says the J. Michael Straczynski-penned screenplay needs a lot of work. Who could have guessed???? (Via Bloody Disgusting.)

* Torture Links of the Day: Iranian protestors are subject to some of the same torture techniques that the U.S. has used on its detainees. Speaking of, the latest versions of statements from such detainees as Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and Abu Zubaydah regarding their torture have been released, albeit in highly redacted form. And finally, everything old is new again: Der Spiegel has a fascinating, horrifying article on a new book about torture methods in ancient times. “They shove a living snake up your ass!” “Ah, no…but that’s very creative.” (Via CRwM.)

Uptight #3

Jordan Crane, writer/artist

Fantagraphics, May 2009

24 pages, including the covers which you should since they’re comics pages

$2.75

Buy it from Fantagraphics

Without Jordan Crane’s The Last Lonely Saturday and NON #5 I wouldn’t have this blog–heck, I wouldn’t have this life, that’s how much of an influence those first tastes of the big wide world of alternative comics had on me. So it’s difficult to be objective when reviewing Crane’s new stuff. Fortunately it’s very very good so that’s not much of an issue. The long-awaited third issue of Crane’s Eightball-style one-man anthology series comes to us with a different cover and contents than we were originally promised–instead of a severed head, we get the kind of ingenue who used to grace NON‘s covers, her soul nude (aren’t they all?) and torn between heaven and hell (aren’t they all?). Instead of another installment of Crane’s loooooooooong-gestating serialized graphic novel of marriage and miscarriage, Keeping Two, we have the debut chapter of a new story, Vicissitude, which itself marks the debut of a new art style for crane: less of an emphasis on delicate, feathery, perfect line, oceans of gray, pointier noses. The plot is a bitter little thing, steeped in infidelity, alcohol, career dissatisfaction, hints of class self-consciousness, and frustration with the path your life has taken–like a Pulp song, almost. The visual shift to the second feature, a direct moments-later sequel to The Clouds Above, couldn’t be more dramatic–the grays disappear, the line transforms, the detail increases tenfold, and blam, we’re in Sam ‘n’ Jack’s world of buoyant, byzantine adventure. Crane’s Sam and Jack stories unfold like the pipes and vents upon which this tale centers: they bend and twist and wind in comically baroque ways, yet Crane’s control of his visuals and the story’s tone are so self-assured that it all seems completely logical, like a mind consciously built it this way and if you have a little faith, it’ll work like it’s supposed to.

The great crime of Uptight is that it barely ever comes out, and given the hostile climate for alternative comic book series these days, I’m not convinced that’s going to improve anytime soon. Best we can do is read the heck out of these bargain-priced gems anytime we get our hot little hands on ’em.

I have a piece in the new issue of Maxim (the one with Olivia Wilde on the cover) about Final Crisis, featuring some quotes from Grant Morrison. Needless to say, getting Grant Morrison and Final Crisis into Maxim is one of my crowning achievements–though you should see the book I got into the next issue…

* Now it can be told: My pal Kiel Phegley will be co-hosting the weekly Joe Quesada interview series Cup o’ Joe with Jonah Weiland at Comic Book Resources from now on. I understand what the function of these kinds of Head Honcho Spotlight series is, but even still, Kiel’s a bright guy and I expect the intelligence and directness of the questions lobbed Joe Q.’s way to be considerable.

* Evan Dorkin points out some weirdness about MoCCA’s table-reservation process for 2010: Even though they haven’t announced a date for the show yet, you’re still not guaranteed a refund if you have to cancel your reservation. What the blood clot? (Via Tom Spurgeon.)

* The film adaptation of Clive Barker’s Book of Blood comes out on DVD on September 29th. I don’t know why I follow these things so closely when I still haven’t even fucking seen The Midnight Meat Train, but there you have it. (Via Shock Till You Drop.)

* I love this review of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York by Katherine Follett.

* Josh Simmons will draw your portrait! A bargain at any price.

Okay, fine, “churlish” is a funny word. But if you take another look at my post both before and I dropped the c-bomb, you’ll see that your beef with the Armory’s appearance was the only place where I disagreed with what you were saying about MoCCA. Heck, in the immediately preceding sentence I talked about how useful your post in shutting down some silly defenses of the show’s lousy aspects this year, and how you’d pointed out problems I’d lazily taken for granted for so long that I’d never even bothered talking about them. Armory aesthetics aside, I’m on board with all your complaints about this year’s show, as I said in my original post-show post and have now said repeatedly. In calling you a “professional parade rainer” I just meant that you seem like a bit of a grump, which is fine–I didn’t mean to imply that this parade didn’t need a thorough raining-on, because it did.

Tussen Vier Muren/Between Four Walls (La Stanza/The Room)

Lorenzo Mattotti, writer/artist

Oog & Blik, 2003

176 pages

$16 (€12)

Buy it from Forbidden Planet

What a lovely book. Consisting solely of 86 portraits (well, almost 86–we’ll get to that later) of recumbent couples (at least I think it’s couples, plural–we’ll get to that later too), this reproduction of a Mattotti sketchbook is a master class in how a few sketchy lines on paper can suggest a world of emotion and intimacy. The curve of two bodies on a bed (or at one point, memorably, on a beach); the differences between the ways eyes and mouths look when people are talking, making love, or simply luxuriating in one another’s company; playful POV shifts that transfer us from a voyeuristic fly-on-the-wall to a you-are-there observer under the covers at the foot of the bed; the placement of legs, arms, and hands on another person and what that immediately communicates about this relationship and this moment–Mattotti nails it all, with figurework that suggests calligraphy as much as portraiture. Perhaps I’m more conscious of cost with books that I actually plunked down cash for at MoCCA as opposed to bought with a credit card or received for free, but Tussen Vier Muren was my final purchase at this year’s show, from the Bries table, and I remember wavering: “$16 for a wordless little sketchbook by an artist whose work I’ve appreciated in theory but rarely in practice before today?” Golly am I glad I took the plunge. This is one of my favorite comics in quite some time, and a more romantic comic I think I’d be hard pressed to name.

Ah, but is it comics? I don’t go in much for that kind of debate, most of the time–seems to me that if something has given you enough cause to wonder if it’s comics, it probably is. But the issue is pertinent here, if only to help us understand what we’re looking at from page to page. Comics generally implies sequentiality, which itself frequently means a progression of sorts. So are these sketches meant to be “read,” in order, like a story? There are context clues for and against. If so, certain aspects of the book take on a whole new meaning. The book opens with a series of sketches that are both the roughest/loosest and most evidently erotic/sexual in the whole book–a thick, almost oily pencil line, one that slowly gives way to tighter, finer whorls and cross-hatching as the images lose their overt nudity and sexuality. Meanwhile, the male in these early drawings has a full head of hair, which soon disappears. So perhaps we’re meant to see these initial drawings as a portrait of a young couple in the full heat of infatuation; after a time, their need to prove their attraction to and affection for each other to the viewer diminishes as such things evolve into the shorthand language of a mature relationship. But what are we to make, then, of the drawings that crop up near the book’s midpoint, and again briefly toward the end, where the male figure/character at least appears to be a totally different person? Is the woman cheating? Are they playing the field, taking a break, seeing other people? Or are these sketches just inserted at random, devoid of any kind of narrative implications? Depending on where you fall on that question, the book’s final two images, which I won’t spoil for you, may take on entirely different, and potentially devastating, meanings. It’s all pretty rich for a silent sketchbook, and it will be enough to keep me coming back to this little thing for a long time.

* My pal TJ Dietsch has conducted an absolutely fascinating interview with Harold Ramis about Ghostbusters. It’s for ToyFare so he leads with a bunch of questions about the toys and video games, but stick with it for gems like this:

Have you seen any of the guys recently?

I talk to Dan a little bit, I’m in touch with Ernie, and Bill I have virtually no contact with. I just keep track of him through his brothers, who I’m still friends with, and other people. You know, he’s a mystery man.

And I’m not sure I knew this about the original premise for the first film:

…the script was pretty much unmakeable the way Dan conceived it. The Marshmallow Man, which is the large-scale effect that really pays off the whole movie, happened around page 50 in Dan’s original script, and things got bigger after that. So, not only was it impractical as a production, it sort of took it too far from the world of the mundane, which is where the comic edge was really vivid. Ivan and I had a similar thought independently. We thought the origin story would be really interesting, how the Ghostbusters came to be Ghostbusters, who were these guys, how did this happen, whereas Dan’s original script surpassed all that. He projected into a time in the future when ghost occurrences were common, when Ghostbusters were around pretty much like Orkin exterminators, that there were a bunch of teams around, and that the Ghostbusters in Dan’s script were just one of many teams of ghost exterminators in New York.

Sounds like a sequel waiting to happen, no?

* Speaking of juicy interviews, Chris Mautner speaks with PictureBox honcho Dan Nadel about adopting a pledge/preorder/subscription model for some of his books, the all-adventure-stories Art Out of Time 2, and more.

* The staff of Clive Barker’s official website Revelations has seen a 144-minute workprint of Nightbreed! And they say there’s even more footage out there. Pray to Eris that the Director’s Cut of this film happens. (Via Dread Central.)

* The trailer for Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island has been making the rounds, and taking the horror sites by storm–if I had a nickel for every big gorehound site that said something to the effect of “I wasn’t sure whether or not to cover this movie until I saw this trailer” I’d have, I dunno, fifteen cents. Is it Marty’s Shining, or a second Cape Fear? Either way I’m sound as a pound.

* Battlestar Galactica‘s Ronald D. Moore has been speaking with SciFi Wire. First he sounds off on a variety of issues: fan reaction to the BSG finale (for the record: maybe the best series finale I’ve ever seen), the Caprica pilot’s DVD release (I still haven’t seen it!) and the current status of the series, and the revelation that they’ve brought in another writer to work on the prequel to The Thing he was writing the screenplay for. And here he is on the prospects for Virtuality, his new Fox movie/pilot, depending on whether you’re talking to Fox or to him.

* Torture Link of the Day: Andrew Sullivan traces the history of the word “torture” in The New York Times, noting how the paper once didn’t hesitate to refer to the techniques the Bush administration adopted as torture when done by other regimes, but switched to Newspeak when American torture enthusiasts began insisting these techniques weren’t torture.

* Now this is what I’m talking about: I Knew It Was You, a short documentary about the late great actor John Cazale, the man with the single greatest resume in the history of filmmaking.

* Drawn & Quarterly’s Jessica Campbell’s MoCCA photo parade includes a photo of yours truly with my David Bowie sketchbook in action, but I am not reposting it here because on this blog, at least, I can maintain control of my image and edit out unflattering views. (All that hair is already gone, by the way. Thanks, Armory–lesson learned!)

Time for the MoCCA 2009 edition of Sean’s David Bowie Sketchbook! Let’s get right into it:

Gabrielle Bell: Gabrielle took more time on her sketch than any other artist I’ve gotten a sketch from, I think. Time well spent. A young Mod Bowie, taking tea.

Ron Rege Jr.: A favorite of mine since my earliest days as a grown-up comics reader, Ron debated whether or not to use the photoref I had–he figured he could pull it off with the Ziggy mullet alone. He ultimately used the photo reference, but gave it a very mullet-centric spin. Ron also has the benefit of being a genuine rock star, which adds verisimilitude.

Nora Krug: I think Nora Krug had the shortest span of time of any artist in the book between my first becoming aware of her work and getting a sketch from her–a timespan of approximately one minute.

David Mack: David Mack based his sketch on one of Bowie’s painted self-portriats, but added the disembodied aspect and the flames. He’s alight with the flame of rock and roll, I think.

Kate Beaton: With her rich history of drawing dandies, I knew Kate Beaton would kill on this.

Tom Gauld: Hailing from the UK, Tom Gauld was a guy I was lucky to get, a real coup. Note the reappearance of the everpopular eyepatch.

Cliff Chiang: Cliff knew exactly what era of Bowie he wanted to draw. I think the vampire idea was given to him by an onlooker we were chatting with, though I forget how “vampire” came up in conversation. Either way, damn. Cliff is one of the most talented artists in mainstream comics right now–I’m really glad I nabbed him.

Randall Munroe: When I approached xkcd artist Randall Munroe for a sketch, I debated whether or not to hand him my photo reference books. I ultimately did, not wanting to be insulting. He looked at me and said, after a pregnant pause, “Nnnnnnnnaaaaaaaah, I don’t need photo reference. Good artists need photo reference, not me.” Note the Labyrinth reference and the clever solution to the problem of how to depict tight pants when you draw stick figures.

Hans Rickheit: Hans Rickheit is the guy I always name when asked for a cartoonist who deserves more attention than he gets. I can’t wait for his Fantagraphics book The Squirrel Machine to put him on more people’s radar. In the meantime he gave me this richly detailed rendition of Bowie in full “man’s dress” regalia–enacting one of my favorite idiomatic expressions (“you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a [noun] in here”) to boot.

Dave Kiersh: Dave K. is one of my big personal favorite cartoonists–I’ve loved his stuff ever since coming across it in Jordan Crane’s NON #5, one of the first big alternative comics I came across–and after an abortive attempt to get a sketch from him while he was waiting for his ride home on Saturday night, he hollered at me as I passed his table on Sunday and delivered this Mod-era rendition. Dave is a poet of teenage-dom, so teen Bowie is a delightful choice for him.

Lisa Hannawalt: Lisa was actually working at the Buenaventura booth when I asked her to do a sketch for me, so she ended up doing it while standing up and taking people’s money. She is not the first person of roughly my generation to draw a Bowie sketch emphasizing his Labyrinth-era bulge, and she will no doubt not be the last.

Seth: Was there any doubt which era Bowie Seth would pick? This is one of those sketches that makes people say “Whoa” in a hushed voice.

Geoff Grogan: Geoff, who came out of nowhere with one of my favorite comics of 2008, Look Out!! Monsters, really took his time with this sucker, and produced one of the few Bowie sketches I’ve gotten that emphasize David’s androgyny. I’m really fond of it.

Scott Campbell: Scott C. did that terrific "Building with the Bowies" drawing that went around the Internet a few weeks ago, so when I found out from my pal Rickey Purdin that he was at the show I got psyched to get a sketch from him–and when Scott found out from Rickey that I was at the show, he got psyched to give me one. Unfortunately this happened as I was on my way out the door on Saturday evening. But I ended up returning on Sunday and tracked him down toot sweet. Then, like a jerk, I rushed him so that I could get on line for David Mazzucchelli (who, it turns out, wasn’t doing sketches). He did a terrific job anyway.

BONUS SKETCH FROM NEW YORK COMIC CON 2009!

Ross Campbell: I originally used this sketch as my debut post over at Savage Critic(s), but of course I want to show it off over here too. I was very, very excited to get a Bowie sketch from Ross at NYCC, but not having anticipated the demand for sketching, he didn’t bring a pencil. I loaned him my pen, and he was concerned about not being able to make a mistake, but drew this anyway. This was done entirely without photo reference, which amazes me–he NAILED that Labyrinth hairstyle. As you can see, he wasn’t happy with the hand, but he’s being entirely too hard on himself.

* Tom Spurgeon’s latest post on MoCCA points out the dysfunctional aspect of comics culture whereby complaining about anything is seen as meritless whining that spoils everyone’s good time rather than an attempt to redress legitimate problems instead of simply saying “thank you sir, may I have another.” He also reprints a lulzy thank-you letter from MoCCA that seems to indicate that the organization doesn’t grok the seriousness of the problems with this year’s show even at this comparatively late date. Or maybe they just didn’t feel like the thank-you note was the appropriate place to address those problems, I dunno. It’s not a good look given the climate, I can tell you that.

* Jog has posted a nice long comics-centric MoCCA recap, if you’re looking for something on the upside.

* This may be the most insulting thing anyone has ever said about the work of Brian K. Vaughan:

[Shia] LaBeouf tells Wizard magazine that [BKV’s Y: The Last Man protagonist] Yorick is too similar to his “Transformers” role of Sam Witwicky.

“You take Sam and you put a monkey on his shoulder,” said LaBeouf of Yorick’s sidekick Ampersand. “I don’t know if it’s that big a differential. It seems like he’s the ordinary guy in an extraordinary situation again.”

This guy really is as big of a tool as he seems, huh? (Via Jason Adams.)

* These days it seems like if I wrote up every terrifying shooting by some thug with a deranged political agenda I’d be blogging about nothing else, but there’s something uniquely horrifying about a World War II veteran turned raving anti-Semite, Holocaust denier, and old-school Illuminati conspiracy theorizer murdering people at the Holocaust Museum.

* Torture Link of the Day: London cops are under investigation for waterboarding suspects in a marijuana case. Torturing people over pot. Western values!

* But you know what, let’s end on an up note with a gratuitous picture of young Patti Smith. Homina homina. Mapplethorpe wasn’t tough to look at either if that’s what you’re into. (Via Elvis Depressley.)

The Gigantic Robot

Tom Gauld, writer/artist

Buenaventura Press, June 2009

32 pages, hardcover/cardstock

$16.95

I bet you’ll be able to buy it from Buenaventura at some point

I bet you’ll be able to buy it from Amazon.com at some point, too

At first blush there’s a disconnect between The Gigantic Robot‘s content and its price point. I’m pretty sure that when I bought it at MoCCA, I was charged $20–which, hey, it’s a big hardcover book by Tom Gauld, a bargain at any price! As it turns out, however, it’s more a short story than a book, and the emphasis is on “short.” You get a splash-page single image on the right-hand page of each spread, and a brief (no more than seven words at any point) explanatory caption on the left-hand page. Gauld’s three-pager in Kramers Ergot 7 was heftier.

But look, essentially you’re paying for this like you would for a piece of original art, or at least that’s how I look at it. You’re not going to have many opportunities to buy a board book from a Kramers alum, right? And everything that Gauld’s work usually has to recommend it is present here in spades. The beautiful, densely shaded, cold black-and-white linework suggests Edward Gorey as replaced by a robot, while the story is Gauld’s purest distillation yet of his “Ozymandias”-like juxtaposition of immense man-made structures with the fleeting futility of human ambition. As always it’s reinforced by his unique character design, all massive torso with spindly legs and microcephalic heads, emphasizing raw size over any kind of reliable utility. You may quibble with this little parable’s punchline–having just read Ian Kershaw’s 1,000-page biography of Hitler, the post-war activities of the scientists who worked on the Reich’s “wonder weapons” are fresh in my mind, so the notion that a war machine with the potential for serious megadeaths would be allowed to lie fallow rings false to me. But the moral of the story is sound, and the pleasure of once again watching Gauld’s tiny lines coalesce into these massive monuments to hubris is undeniable.

* The Comics Blogosphere in two sentences:

The writer J. Caleb Mozzocco notes the wind-down of Marvel’s Ultimate Universe effort, and points to The Ultimates Volume Three as perhaps the worst comic book ever. He starts reviewing individual issues with #1.

* Corporate superhero comics in one sentence:

This summer Marvel Comics is in the process of ending their Ultimate line of comics, with the intention of relaunching the line as Ultimate Comics.

* I think Heidi MacDonald’s MoCCA wrap-up is particularly worth reading after Kiel Phegley’s report for CBR. Heidi’s welcome point is that the show had serious problems that need serious fixes. However, dig the quotes that Kiel collects from MoCCA museum director Karl Erickson on the show’s inability to open on time on Saturday:

“It was one of those crisis of being much more successful than we anticipated…A lot more exhibitors had shipped their books to us so it took a lot longer to load up the truck. And in a New York summer, there were all sorts of street festivals on our planned route here, so those two things combined [caused the delay].”

…and on the oppressive heat in the venue:

“We’re sorry about the heat as this happens in the city in the summer with thousands of people in one room.”

They seem to treat obvious facts of life for the show (it’s popular and it takes place in the summer in New York) as excuses for this year’s screw-ups rather than easily anticipatable and surmountable factors that should never have been allowed to become screw-ups in the first place. Now, these quotes were taken from day-of on-the-floor interviews as far as I know, so maybe MoCCA officials hadn’t gotten a sense of the big picture yet. And my guess is that after arguably the first bad post-show buzz MoCCA has ever experienced (because seriously, this show is usually MAGIC), Erickson and the other honchos will take a much closer look at things. But for now those quotes, and a similar vibe Heidi says she detected, don’t exactly inspire confidence.

* Tim O’Neil expands upon his previously stated fondness for the Star Wars prequels. You know, the more I think about this the more torn I feel. I don’t hate the movies at all, I enjoyed them all a lot (particularly Revenge of the Sith), I think they all have moments of great visual poetry and usually in that “spectacular representation of emotion” way I love so much, yet they seem to obviously lack a certain spark that the first three movies had no matter how much you can pick apart elements of the prequels for praise. I can say they’ve never made me regret getting that Rebel Alliance insignia tattoo back in ’97, though.

* Torture Links of the Day: The Lieberman-Graham legislation to permanently suppress the release of more detainee photos has been squashed, so Lieberman and Graham are threatening to shut down the Senate until it’s un-squashed. I guess that in much the same way as sex is something so dirty and sinful you should only do it with someone you love, “enhanced interrogation techniques” are so legal and effective and in tune with America’s values that we should never allow any evidence of them to see the light of day?

Jason’s Spider-Man story from Marvel’s Strange Tales MAX exclusively previewed…at the Fantagraphics blog.

* Now is the time where everyone links to everyone else’s MoCCA wrap-up reports.

* Tom Spurgeon compiles the most pertinent info and opinion, good bad and ugly, coupling it with a reminder that despite the good, the bad was probably actually bad and don’t let’s deny it. He notes something I’d meant to mention myself: there were actually empty tables this year, which seemed weird.

* On that point, he links to a comment from professional parade-rainer Evan Dorkin, who provides a useful rejoinder to the people who were saying “it wasn’t that hot in there” (I promise you, it was that hot in there) and makes mention of some perpetual problems I’d just taken for granted: how badly the festival is promoted on MoCCA’s website and how inaccurate and out-of-date the exhibitor list ended up being. (For example, if I had a nickel for everyone who came up to me desperately searching for Kate Beaton, I’d have two bits easy.) On the other hand I think it’s pretty churlish to compare the Armory to some personality-free high-school gymnasium.

* While we’re mining for comment-thread gold, here at ADDTF Cheese Hasselberger of House of Twelve notes that the early-bird price for a table at next year’s MoCCA will be a whopping $400; he can only speculate how much more exorbitant the full price will be. I can’t imagine how that doesn’t price most of the minicomics makers and self-publishers right out of the show, no? Couple that with all the administrative snafus and the potentially kiln-like venue and folks could stay away in droves, seriously. And that would be really sad because MoCCA done right instills confidence in comics as an art form like no other show.

* I enjoyed Heidi Mac’s Saturday-night report, which contained the interesting factoid that the more flush shows and events at the Armory rent ACs. I really can’t get over how MoCCA could book a venue with no air conditioning after several brutally hot years at the old location, including the immediately preceding year.

* I also liked Brian Heater’s extremely comprehensive report, maybe the most professional picture of the show this year.

* My report’s here, if you missed it. I want to state again for the record how much I prefer the “everything in one big room” model to the “everything in a labyrinthine combination of rooms” model.

* Of course, if you prefer your MoCCA reports to contain drawings of the Golden Age Nite Owl from Watchmen by Seth, look no further than Rickey Purdin’s!

* Speaking of, Tom Spurgeon interviews Seth. Douglas Wolk flagged a passage of great interest to me:

I’m a guy who has a fake name. I used to have long silver peroxide hair. I used to walk around in a judge’s robe and welders goggles. I now walk around in a gabardine overcoat and a fedora. I named my house. Clearly I am interested in persona and self-mythologizing.

I’ve never quite figured out how to square that aspect of Seth’s gestalt with his old-timey aesthetic, which seems to be as much about authenticity as anything else. Watching him draw live and in person was sort of revelatory–his line “makes sense” to me now in ways it didn’t before–so I’m going to try to delve into his work a bit more and see what I can come up with.

* Torture Links of the Day: American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee have been “convicted” of “spying” in a North Korean “court,” meaning they could be subjected to the very torture techniques American interrogators cribbed from NoKo and ChiCom torturers via our military’s SERE training. Elsewhere, ABC News interviews Lakhdar Boumediene, the Red Crescent worker captured, tortured, and held without charge by America for nearly eight years for the crime of…absolutely nothing. (Via Glenn Greenwald, who provides context in terms of how the fact that Guantanamo is full of innocent men like Boumediene is nearly always elided by both sides of the debate over detainee policy.)

* A Heavy Metal remake with segments directed by James Cameron, David Fincher, Gore Verbinski, Zack Snyder, and Jack Black & the guy who did Kung Fu Panda? As announced by Kevin Eastman to FilmSchoolRejects.com? Yeah, color me skeptical. (Via Topless Robot.)

* Finally, the new, needlessly-well-animated-by-Alex-Kropinak episode of Marvel Superheroes: What The–?! is up! I LOL’d, and not even at one of the gags I wrote.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 3: Century #1: 1910

Alan Moore, writer

Kevin O’Neill, artist

Top Shelf/Knockabout, May 2009

80 pages

$7.95

Buy it from Top Shelf

Buy it from Amazon.com

Vastly more straightforward–and more like previous League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volumes–than its predecessor Black Dossier, Century: 1910 is a funny, creepy, nasty piece of work that encapsulates and articulates many of Alan Moore’s most heartfelt themes as explicitly and entertainingly as any book he’s ever done. (And he’s usually pretty explicit about that sort of thing, so that’s really saying something!)

Taking the rejiggering of the League’s line-up that occurred during the centuries-long sweep of Black Dossier‘s meta-story as read, 1910 joins Mina Murray, the rejuvenated Allan Quartermain, and their new teammates–the immortal gender-bender Orlando (currently male and generally going by Lando, making me want to say “Hello, what have we here?”), the gentleman thief Raffles, and the psychic detective Carnacki–as they attempt to thwart…something. They’re not quite clear on what it is, and base their investigation on little more than Carnacki’s ominous visionary nightmares. It could have something to do with the female heir to Captain Nemo, or with Jack the Ripper/Mack the Knife, or with a cult run by the sinister magus Oliver Haddo–they just know it’s gonna be bloody. Given Moore’s frequent depiction of the early 20th Century as the birthing of the proverbial rough beast, you can be pretty sure it’s gonna be bloody too.

What’s neat about this issue is that it’s what we in the blog business refer to as a done-in-one; I assume all of the Century books will interlock to tell one long story, and indeed there are plenty of plot threads to pick up down the line, but this tells a pretty satisfying story all on its own. In a way, the set-up, or I suppose the execution, reminded me a bit of the aspect of Warren Ellis’s early Planetary issues that I liked, or of the ending to Watchmen: the League doesn’t figure out what’s going on until it’s all over but the shooting. Moore obviously doesn’t care much for heroism, and the League’s never really “saved the day” in the traditional sense, but here they almost may as well have not shown up. Meanwhile (here’s the explicit part) Moore uses one of his simplest plotlines in ages to establish a direct link between violent misogynist sexuality and the unbridled bloodlust that ended up consuming the entire world not once but twice in the ensuing decades. Vengeance is sweet for the character involved, and you can’t help but get a kick out of it alongside her, but it’s also pretty fucked up, and if anything the League (the male ones, at least–Mina manages herself okay) just make it worse.

Insofar as the climactic bloodbath is representative of the century to follow, this can be seen as pessimism or resignation–but we’ve read Black Dossier and seen Moore’s efforts to establish the League’s true “heroic” legacy as one of imagination and a way of life freed from the dour, anti-life conservatism of their military minders. The question, I suppose, is whether that hedonistic heroism will win out, or if it will only succeed by carving out a space for itself in the Blazing World beyond and allowing our world to head right down the terlet. I mean, I know how it worked out in reality, I’m just curious as to how Moore will slice it in this alternate one.

If that all sounds like really grim reading, I suppose it is, but like I said, it’s also quite a funny book. The constant foreshadowing of the final massacre is so ominous it actually makes you chuckle from time to time the way a scary movie would–not from comic relief, but just because on some level you know what’s coming and it’s kind of amusing how ugly you already know it’s going to get. On the League end of things, the ongoing “are they or aren’t they” business about the Mina/Quartermain/Orlando menage is a hoot, especially the almost Scott Pilgrim-y way it finally comes out into the open, with some angry words that leave half the group wondering what the hell just happened. Kevin O’Neill, whose work simply looks like nothing else on the racks, gets to cut loose with a dock’s worth of leering scoundrels and ne’er do wells, and later with their comeuppance. Moore even injects some meta right into the mainline, with a cameo character who correctly identifies everyone and everything in the book’s world as fictional–he refers to Haddo, an Aleister Crowley manqué, as “Crowley manqué,” and works in a reference to Harry Potter’s Platform 9 3/4 as the launching pad for “the Franchise Express.” The book ends with a visual gag that’s like a shot from The Birds as covered by Troma. I’ll admit to skipping the prose supplement as always (tl;dr), but for pete’s sake one of the characters in it captured Fletcher Hanks’s Stardust the Super-Wizard! The whole comic is entertaining as all get-out, and even if you suspect that things are ultimately going to end very badly for our heroes, or with them washing their hands of our sordid world and fucking each other in Never-Never Land for all eternity, you’ll want to stick around to see how they get there.

Bitching first:

* Why on earth would the MoCCA organizers book a venue with not just inadequate air conditioning, but no air conditioning? The number-one complaint (certainly my number-one complaint) about the old venue was that it was too hot, until they added the seventh floor, at which point the number-one complaint became how long the elevator took to get you up to the seventh floor, which was too hot. So they go through the trouble of moving the festival to a building with no air conditioning in New York City in June? So weird. It was seriously beastly in there, and I spoke with one big exhibitor who thought reports and/or experience of the heat on Saturday kept Sunday customers away. And as The Missus just put it to me, it could easily have been 100 degrees instead of 80 degrees this weekend, which would have made it probably literally unbearable for many potential customers. Why pay money to come and be uncomfortable when you can shop online? The word of mouth is going to be murder on this issue, so I really hope MoCCA does something different next year.

* Meanwhile Saturday morning was a big mess. It’s not just that MoCCA brought over a bunch of publishers’ books too late and had to postpone opening by an hour, leaving people on line in the hot sun (I had to wait on the line and I got there at 12:15!), it’s also that communication about this was so poor that people on the line barely had any idea why it was opening late, and I spoke with at least one exhibitor who didn’t even know the opening was delayed in the first place–he just thought it was really slow for that first hour! Then it screwed up all the panel times and the signage was inadequate about that. So yeah, overall, not a good year for MoCCA as an organization.

* That said, in theory I like the new place. It was a nice walk over from Penn Station, it’s still in a weird old building rather than a bland convention center or hotel, and having everything in one room improved navigability in much the same way that SPX’s similar move did.

* All the big publishers I spoke with said that sales on Saturday were phenomenal. Webcomics Row was always absurdly crowded too, and lines for guys like Adrian Tomine and David Mazzucchelli and the Humbug legends were of rock-star length. (Randall Munroe of xkcd fame didn’t have a line per se–he was simply constantly mobbed.)

* For the little guys, minicomics folks, self-publishers, that sort of thing, though, the folks I talked to said it was just alright. I think when you had big expensive books like You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation, Tales Designed to Thrizzle, Asterios Polyp, George Sprott and so on debuting, that’s where people’s money went and there was less to spread around.

* My spending was a little different than normal this year: I kind of knew going in I’d be buying a lot of things, and I pretty much walked right in and tracked all that stuff down immediately. The Hanks and Kupperman books from Fantagraphics, Mat Brinkman’s Multiforce and the new Frank Santoro/Lane Milburn Cold Heat Special from Picturebox, Tom Gauld’s The Gigantic Robot from Buenaventura, etc. This was probably stupid because I then had to lug those mothers around all day yesterday, but I wasn’t going to risk not getting them.

* On the other hand, there were a lot of books I was pleasantly surprised to see. Kaz Strzepek’s Mourning Star Vol. 2 from Bodega, Chrome Fetus #7 from Hans Rickheit, a bunch of new minis from Partyka, a five, five dollar, five dollar hardcover of abstract comics from Henrik Rehr called Reykjavik…plenty of happy discoveries along those lines.

* The European contingents could really eat your wallet right up, and there were more of them this year than ever before. Between Nora Krug’s cool-looking suite of Red Riding Hood Redux books and a thick black book of Lorenzo Mattotti sketches of couples in bed, for instance, I plunked down a lot of cash at the Bries table. I think the international flavor helps set MoCCA apart from the other indie/alt/small-press shows.

* Overall I spent more money here than I had at any MoCCA since that insane year when Blankets, Kramers Ergot 4, and The Frank Book debuted. Got more Bowie sketches than ever before, too, I think–more on those to come, of course!

* Somewhere there exists a photograph, taken by Tim Hodler, of me, Jog, and NeilAlien.

* MoCCA is always a highlight of my comics year, probably THE highlight of my comics year. I love it. Make sure to come next year!

* If you’re looking for me at MoCCA tomorrow, I will be wearing a red Partyka t-shirt and sporting longish hair that sorta curls outward on the sides like Pippi Longstocking. I’m also a bit on the beardy side at the moment, unless I get fed up and shave tomorrow morning.

* Of all today’s MoCCA previews and guides, I like Chris Mautner’s the best since it’s the most squarely focused on “books to buy/people to see.” The Panelists show at Giant Robot Saturday night also looks like it could be pretty sweet.

* I’m really glad Marvel has finally announced its long-gestating altcomix superhero series Strange Tales MAX. You’ll be seeing a lot more from me on that particular project.

* Hey, artist Sean Gordon Murphy’s art for the upcoming Grant Morrison Vertigo comic Joe the Barbarian. Looks like a Morrisonian take on Toyland is afoot.

* Tom Spurgeon reviews Gilbert Hernandez’s Luba. ‘Nuff said.

* Edward James Olmos reminds us that Battlestar Galactica: The Plan is on its way in September. I kind of always thought it was weird that they’d release a two-hour movie after the series finale, doubly so after how final that finale ended up feeling.

* Matt Maxwell notes that Agents of Atlas sales increased for the series’ third issue according to Paul O’Brien’s Marvel month-to-month sales analysis for April. A welcome development following the cancellation of Captain Britain and MI-13.

* Tim O’Neil passionately defends the Star Wars prequels. There are a couple of great (though probably not likely to be Lucas-approved) bits in there if you’re like me and walked out of those movies thinking “I was supposed to hate these?”

* CRwM reviews the Battle Royale franchise’s every iteration, pretty much. I still have the complete set of the Tokyopop/Keith Giffen adaptation of the manga sitting around at least 50% unread. I’m gonna sit down and plow through them at some point–I remember them being enjoyable trash, Giffen’s tics notwithstanding. As for CRwM’s take on it, how’s this for a chilling aside in the post-Handley era?

In fact, there are several scenes that, given current US laws concerning the illegality of even drawn representations of explicit underage sex, make the book too questionable to risk owning, in my opinion.

* Torture Link of the Day: Looks like liberal House Democrats are blocking the passage of the Graham-Lieberman-sponsored, Obama-supported bill to permanently block the release of any more detainee-abuse photos.

* When I worked at Wizard there were entire areas of the office’s physical plant dedicated to nothing but the bizarre ephemera accumulated by the various magazines from their, uh, readers, I guess is the word? This bizarre letter was definitely a highlight.

This is my favorite live recording of any song, ever. As you’d expect, Bootsy Collins kills it on the bass, particularly toward the end, but the real star here is his brother Catfish and his astonishing guitar solo. I don’t want to oversell it, so just listen, and get back to me after the moment horns kick back in after the solo.