A brief programming note: Blogging will be very light until I finish reading A Dance with Dragons. I will not be using Twitter at all during this time, and will likely stay away from Tumblr and the bulk of the Internet as well. Thank you for your patience, and I’ll see you on the other side.

Helena Christine Collins came home from the hospital today, at the tender age of negative two weeks old. She’s not much of a co-blogger, as it turns out, so blogging will be sporadic and light for a while. Thank you for your patience.

I’m not sure if I’ll be able to write weekly “Game of Thrones thoughts” posts, but if I do, they will appear on my SPOILER-FILLED blog for people who’ve read all four volumes in A Song of Ice and Fire so far, All Leather Must Be Boiled. I’ll link to each post from here, but please, do not click through unless you’ve read all four books so far.

If I end up partcipating in a less spoilery discussion of the show somewhere, I guess I’ll link to that, too.

Over the past few days I’ve noticed that attempting to load this site was absolutely CRUSHING whatever browser and connection I used to do so. I’m not sure why — I suspect that a single video or image was the culprit, but I couldn’t figure out which it might be — so I placed the bulk of some of my longer recent Carnivals and music posts behind “read the rest of this entry” cuts. I really hate doing so, because I love scrolling down the front page and seeing 40 million images fly past, but needs must. Please let me know if you’re still having any trouble viewing the site.

Apparently a good way to while away the hours while your baby is in the NICU is to start yet another blog, so do check out ALL LEATHER MUST BE BOILED, my new site dedicated to George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, strictly for people who’ve read all four books. SPOILER ALERT, in other words. I think the best way to describe it is a “noteblog” — I’m just jotting down a few quick thoughts about the series and the show here and there as they occur to me. If you’ve read the whole series so far, I hope you enjoy it.

Page ten of Destructor’s “Prison Break” has been posted.

Meanwhile, though Destructor updates will proceed apace and Comics Time posts will go up as planned for a few days, please expect additional posting, tweeting, emailing, tumbling and so forth to be sporadic for a while due to circumstances beyond my control. Thank you for patience.

I wonder if Nick Gazin and Vice stopped tagging their comics-related posts with “comics” so that the comics-only Vice RSS feed I made wouldn’t work anymore.

I’ve begun the tedious yet strangely satisfying process of updating the links to my Comics Time comics reviews in the sidebar to your right. The past several months’ worth of links have been added, and I’ve started changing the links for some of the older revies to direct you to my current site instead of the old one. Eventually I’ll do this for my movie, TV, music, and book reviews, as well as interviews with me and by me, my little best-of selection, and so forth; for now, old versions of all those links may be found on the Links page. Thank you for your patience, and I hope you find it useful.

The decision of Long Island’s weather to reenact “Immigrant Song” and “No Quarter” the other night cut off my Internet, phone, and television service from 8:50pm Sunday night until about five minutes ago. I’m sorry if I’ve failed to respond to you in a timely fashion due to this outage. I hope to catch up with everything soon.

* I’m proud to present Superheroes Lose, a new tumblr in which I’ll be posting comic covers and promotional art featuring superheroes losing. In part I’m doing this because I think these things are unintentionally hilarious; in part I’m doing it because I have some half-baked ideas on what these things meeeeeeeean, and having a lot of them in one place may help me shake those ideas loose.

* That being said, I’m quite excited about the image above even aside from its Superheroes Loseworthiness, because I think it means that the Hulk — the plain old Bruce Banner green Hulk — will be involved in a major, Avengers-driven (was that redundant?) Marvel event for the first time in the modern event-comic era. (World War Hulk doesn’t count — that was really a Hulk comic blown up big, and the event angle came from fighting the Illuminati, not the Avengers, Marvel’s modern flagship team.)

* Here’s a heck of a find: a live-action short-film adaptation of Charles Burns’s Black Hole by director Rupert Sanders. As best I can tell it’s sort of smushing several scenes from different points in the book into one long thing, so it’s not necessarily the most accurate adaptation (especially if you have Keith’s first encounter with Eliza memorized panel by panel), but it’s fine work regardless, atmospheric in a way these things usually aren’t and true to the spirit of the thing. (Via Jason Adams.)

* Johnny Ryan (!!!) interviewed Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore about The Walking Dead for Vice, with suitably juicy results. (Via Kevin Melrose.)

* Tom Kaczynski’s Uncivilized Books imprint is now a going concern, with comics by Tom, Gabrielle Bell, and Jon Lewis. Check it out.

* Tom Spurgeon reviews Two Eyes of the Beautiful II by the very talented Ryan Cecil Smith of Closed Caption Comics fame.

* Ta-Nehisi Coates on the appeal of superheroes — and supervillains — to marginalized groups beyond traditional geeks.

* I’m linking to ComixTalk’s 2010 digital/webcomics roundtable — featuring such august personages as Heidi MacDonald, Brian Heater, Brigid Alverson, Gary Tyrrell, Lauren Davis, and Larry Cruz — because it features my chum Rick Marshall of MTV Splash Page saying very, very complimentary things about Destructor, but even beyond that it’s stuffed with links to comics that come recommended by the participants and as such strikes me as a great way to launch a lazy pre-holiday weekend afternoon’s reading in a couple of days.

* Matthew Perpetua doesn’t like the gratuitous use of rap patois in hip-hop reviews, and the inconsistent application of stage names depending on the genre being talked about. I think in both cases this stuff is mostly showoffy; it’s interesting to see the differing directions that takes depending on whether or not hip-hop’s in the spotlight.

* Congratulations to The Country Club for mashing up Super Mario Bros. and Grand Theft Auto juuuuuuuuust about perfectly. I laughed out loud on the train at the ending. (Via Topless Robot.)

* Presume not to instruct Curt Purcell on matters pertaining to the Groovy Age of Horror when recommending Scissor Sisters videos, for he is subtle and quick to post far, far more pertinent giallo videos. Here endeth the lesson. Seriously, music people who read this blog, if you enjoyed the video for “Invisible Light,” you must click that link and watch Curt’s videos. Nude for Satan, ladies and gentlemen. (But aren’t we always?)

* Slowly George R.R. Martin turned, step by step, inch by inch…

* With Boardwalk Empire‘s season finale approaching, HBO is unleashing the kraken with regards to publicity for its next big thing, Game of Thrones. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, the network released hi-res versions of all the photos from last week’s Entertainment Weekly spread on the show…

* a preview of a 15-minute making-of featurette they’ll be unveiling prior to the Boardwalk Empire finale next Sunday…

* and a new minute-long teaser.

And frankly? It all looks wonderful. In particular, starting that trailer with that particular scene appears to indicate that they know what the books are about, not just what they’re about, if you follow me. As always, they’re just trailers and promo stills and therefore completely unreliable, but. But but but! (Links via Winter Is Coming and Westeros, as usual.)

* Meanwhile, I plan on finding it really weird to watch mainstream pop-culture sites cover the show–even though I myself only discovered the series this year and am far from a GoT OG.

* The enormously engrossing, uncomfortably disconcerting online first-person horror film/ARG Marble Hornets has returned after a seven-month absence for its second season. When I say “uncomfortably disconcerting” I’m really not kidding. Even though I’ve just about exhausted all the information, commentary, and parody available on the project, I still find myself freaking out a little bit when I have to go out in the dark to take out the trash. They’ve hit on a really powerful set of images and techniques. If you’ve got about a movie’s length of time to kill, start here; the latest “entry” is embedded below.

* Two of my favorite webcomics had real doozies for their most recent installments: Jesse Moynihan’s Forming and Brian Chippendale’s Puke Force. Bookmark them!

* It’s official: The Hobbit movies will be filmed in 3D. Peter Jackson seems like a filmmaker who was made to make 3D movies. Certainly more so than James Cameron!

* Wow, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark had a rough opening night. Like, rough enough that I wonder if someone–the creators, the performers, the audience, the newspapers, Bono, someone–was just joking. Bitter experience and Avatar have taught me that I have no clue whether or not something will be a for-the-ages flop/demonstration of classical hubris; that said, the story of this show has been completely mesmerizing, and not for the reasons one imagines Julie Taymor, Bono, the Edge, and Sony or Marvel or whoever want it to be. On a qualitative level, my appreciation for Taymor’s glam weirdness is offset by my disgust with the leaden pretension of the U2 music I’ve heard from the show, so I don’t know how to feel about it in that regard either.

* Chris Mautner’s Comics College column tackles Hergé. Since all of his Tintin work is in the same format and working basically the same genre and tone, he’s one of the great “where to begin?” artists in comics. Well, here’s where to begin!

* Sean P. Belcher was a good deal more sympathetic to last night’s episode of The Walking Dead than I was. Basically we agree about its strengths, but differ in the weight we place on its weaknesses.

* Spurge is right: This Deborah Vankin profile of Joyce Farmer’s new memoir Special Exits makes the book look and sound great. I won’t spoil the really revealing quotes from and about R. Crumb, either.

* Trouble with Comics had a bit of an RSS spasm over the weekend, but it brought Christopher Allen’s thoughtful critique of Jack Kirby’s OMAC to my attention, so I’m glad it happened.

* Hawt stuff from Brandon Graham. (Via Agent M.)

* Very much looking forward to Ryan Cecil Smith’s Two Eyes of the Beautiful II, on sale at the BCGF this weekend.

* I’m digging what I’m seeing from Alex Wiley’s Hugger-Mugger Comicx. I like the cute-brut linework and citrusy colors.

* Wow, 102 pages of unpublished comics from James Stokoe!

* Real Life Horror: Every time I think about it, I am freshly amazed that Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are still at large nine years after the 9/11 attacks they orchestrated. (And that we’ll probably never be able to try and convict Khalid Sheikh Mohammed because the Bush Administration tortured him, but that’s a different matter.) The AP has a fascinating, if somewhat depressing, report on the lucky breaks that have kept al-Zawahiri out of American clutches and/or crosshairs. Here’s hoping that once all the money we save by freezing federal employees’ salaries singlehandedly ends the recession and persuades Republicans to put aside their differences and become good-faith allies of the President, there’ll be enough left over help catch this murderous fuck.

* This is one of those days when I want to link to everything that Ta-Nehisi Coates writes. Money quotes:

I’d love to see someone make the argument that private sector managerial experience entitles you to run the NYPD.

—on incoming NYC schools chancellor Cathleen Black

What scares me is how this sort of crime-fighting, post-9/11, basically justifies itself. So we’re at war with terror. A war means we need to find and isolate the bad guys. So we send agents provocateurs to areas where bad guys might frequent and, essentially, employ a version of buy-bust theory to smoke them out.Then we announce their neutralization via arrest, thus proving that….we’re at war with terror. Rinse. Repeat.[…]Indeed, I suspect one could declare war against racism and just as easily employ provocateurs to cyclically “prove” the problem of violent white supremacists.

—on the FBI sting of would-be Christmas tree bomber Mohamed Osman Mohamud.

* Rest in peace, Irvin Kershner and Leslie Nielsen. The Empire Strikes Back and The Naked Gun are two of the movies I’ve absorbed completely enough to have a hard time imagining how I would think and speak about certain things without an array of quotes from them at my disposal.

* Finally, as I mentioned earlier, DestructorComics.com is up and running. Matt Wiegle and I will be updating it on Mondays and Thursdays. I can’t wait to share these stories with you!

* Oh boy, my first Carnival here at the new digs!

* So yeah, welcome to seantcollins.com. This has been a long time coming, as anyone who’s ever had to suffer through me trying to tell them the url for my old blog can no doubt attest. Thanks once again to Ken Bromberg for helping to move everything off of the old site, to the All Too Flat team of Ken, Ben, and Ton for hosting me for over seven years even though their own interests led them elsewhere, and especially to Jason Ervin for designing and building this wonderful new site. It’s still a work in progress in some respects, of course, especially given the plans I have for it–and my laptop’s meltdown last week didn’t help either–but I think it will only get better and more useful. Thank you for being here!

* Josh Cotter needs your help. Please consider buying something to keep this enormously talented cartoonist and his family afloat after they were afflicted by a fire.

* Recently on Robot 6, a bunch of cool comics links:

* Emily Carroll’s “His Face All Red”, a quiet knockout of a horror comic;

* Gabrielle Bell’s “Voyeurs”, which I can relate to a bit more than I should perhaps admit;

* Gabby Schulz’s “How Every Single Discussion About Sexism and Woman-Type Stuff on the Internet (and Real Life) Has Ever Happened and Will Ever Happen, Always, Forever, Until the Earth Finally Falls into the Sun. (Or Until the Patriarchy Is Dismantled.)”, which is sort of the “Calgon, take me away” moment for any of us who endured the horrible Kate Beaton debate last week;

* and, I’m quite pleased to say, me and Isaac Moylan’s “I Remember When the Monster Started Coming for the Cars.”

* Meanwhile, you can check out all of our Robot 666 Halloween horror posts here.

* ZOMG Benjamin Marra draws Brian DePalma’s Body Double! Lots of drawings at the link. Please do yourself the favor of watching that film if you haven’t. Spectacularly bizarre, and perfect for Marra.

* Now here’s an odd, unexpected, potentially positive development: sales for the lowest selling books in Diamond’s monthly Top 300 comics sales charts have increased over their historical norm. Does this mean that at least some of the people who stopped buying the big books when the events ended and the prices went up started buying other stuff? Or does it just mean that the big publishers’ product glut has pushed smaller publishers even further down the trough?

* Frank Santoro talks about a variety of recent releases, including books by Seth, Frazer Irving, Darwyn Cooke, Charles Burns, Aidan Koch, and John Romita Jr. Man, I could not disagree more with Frank’s contention that Irving doesn’t do clarity of action.

* DC’s Source blog has posted a pair of cool process-related, art-heavy posts drawn from the back matter of the deluxe Batman & Robin Vol. 2: Batman vs. Robin hardcover.

* I still haven’t had the chance to watch The Walking Dead, so I’ll spare you my thoughts on other people’s thoughts on something I haven’t seen myself. (The poor guy I blew up at on Twitter over Glee‘s bowdlerized Rocky Horror episode last week should’ve been so lucky!) In the meantime I can link you to some things that friends of mine are saying: Rob Bricken (who hasn’t read the comic) was quite impressed, Curt Purcell and TJ Dietsch (who have) were not.

* Ta-Nehisi Coates was in very good form today.

* Real Life Horror: A good sign that a whistleblower is doing something right is that various keyboard tough guys want him murdered.

* Finally, at some point I’m going to go back and read all the way through 31 Days of Knife, Sean P. Belcher’s woefully under-linked-to-by-me October slasher-blogging marathon. For now, his concluding essay about the subgenre is a good place to start.