January 2011
20 posts
4 tags
Shockrockets: We Have Ignition
Shockrockets: We Have Ignition HC
Writer - Kurt Busiek
Artist - Stuart Immonen
Publisher - IDW Publishing. $24.99 USD
Seeing this hardcover makes me feel, well, nostalgic. And it wasn’t so long ago. I started writing about comics about 2000, which is when this first came out. Kurt Busiek was riding high as a comics writer, going from strength to strength, from Marvels to his creator-owned...
2 tags
ADD Talks to Rob Vollmar About Inanna's Tears
Rob Vollmar is not just a former contributor to this site (and its progenitor, Comic Book Galaxy), he’s also been a great friend of mine for the past decade. But that’s not why I’m talking to him about his new project. I’m talking to him about Inanna’s Tears because he is the writer of Bluesman and The Castaways, two of the best graphic novels of the last 10 years....
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TWC News with ADD [012411]: Sausage is for...
* Over at Comics212, Christopher Butcher wonders if DC dropped the Comics Code to save a few pennies. I miss the days when Chris did one like this three or four times a week, but I’ll take what I can get. Related: At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson looks at the recent history of the Comics Code, now apparently dead in the water. * Wow, Cry for Justice sounds like an enormous...
1 tag
Russ Cochran Needs Your Help
Back in the 1980s when I was around 14 or 15, my mom bought me just about every one of the EC hardcover sets published by Russ Cochran, and they really opened my eyes to how good comics could be. The books themselves set the standard for how beautiful books could be when published by people who are committed to quality. Russ Cochran has earned my undying respect and gratitude for his...
2 tags
PR: The Next GREAT Franchise in Entertainment
Geo Brawn here…. Fresh off the presses of “Everdance; A Blood Story” I bring you my latest graphic novel, a follow-up to Everdance entitled, “Blood Rites: Next Gen.” For information on these graphic stories and other Geo Brawn creations, please visit my website: www.BrawnGraphix.com If you are interested in helping me bring my art and stories to life, please do...
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Depressing Note on Comics 2011
Sean T. Collins: “[The comics industry in 2011 revolves] around the equivalent of a really killer Entertainment Weekly panel at San Diego, basically: Bendis, Johns, Morrison, Kirkman, O’Malley, and to an extent Millar.” What’s depressing is that I would be very, very happy if three of the six people on that list never, ever wrote another comic book again. If half of Comics 2011...
1 tag
One Last Holiday Gift From The Comics Reporter
Click over to The Comics Reporter to see Tom’s link roundup of all his holiday interviews all in one place, and prepare to spend hours reading some of the best comics journalism on this, the comics internet. — Alan David Doane
6 tags
Infestation #1
Infestation #1 (of 2)
Writers - Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning
Penciler - David Messina
Inker - Gaetano Carlucci
Additional Art - Elena Casagrande, Claudia Balboni
Publisher - IDW Publishing $3.99 USD
Mama mia, that’s a lotta mediocre Italian artists. This is the first issue of IDW’s first big licensed crossover event, with two bookend issues and then two issues each focusing on...
1 tag
TWC News with ADD [011011]: "For Old Time's Sake,...
* Tom Spurgeon’s Holiday Interview Series kicks it up a notch with an informative chat with cartoonist Dan Clowes. * Mark Evanier reflects on Saturday’s terrorist attack in Arizona and notes that a liberal commentator has apologized for his strident rhetoric. I have a feeling a similar apology will not be forthcoming today when the Hate Radio gang (Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, etc.) take...
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The Last Comic Book
It is such a worn-out and much-mocked cliché of autobiographical comics for the cartoonist to declare his own self-loathing, that when Seth does so at the end of a heartbreaking and presumably true strip at the end of Palookaville #20, one has to assume he is both unaware of the frequent citing of such moments as trite and self-obsessed by critics of the genre, and more importantly, that he is...
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“Moore’s a rather squirrelly old man who worships a snake god.”
– Jason Aaron, a very insecure young writer, on Alan Moore, whose worst work is more of interest to me than everything Jason Aaron and his amazing friends have ever or will ever write. — Alan David Doane
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Marvel At Women
Putting the dis in distaff, Marvel unloads a misguided monument to mediocrity for that $125 you had no better use for. I see a lot of failed series and by-the-numbers miniseries here, but they seem to miss on some legitimately empowering stories like Kitty Pryde vs. The Brood or ’80s Ka-Zar/Shanna. With an Introduction providing context, even that ’70s story where the female Avengers...
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“The reason “comic” sites write more about superheroes is that those stories get...”
– Christopher Butcher, explaining why Comic Book Galaxy never made anybody rich.
4 tags
Toth and the Golden Age of Reprints
ADD and I are often pretty cranky about the state of comics today, and publishing practices and strategies, but I have to commend IDW Publishing on the upcoming three volume biography of master storyteller Alex Toth (Genius, Isolated; Genius, Illustrated and Genius, Animated). I haven’t seen anything but the covers and read the descriptions, but IDW’s Dean Mullaney has a good track...
2 tags
TWC News with ADD [010511]
* Jezebel.com asks “What do women want from comics?” I think they just want them not to suck, which the vast majority of Direct Market superhero comic book fans actually seem to prefer. * DC is finally collecting Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s Flex Mentallo, and in a deluxe hardcover, at that. Wonder what that will do to the market for back issues of this long-out-of-print...
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TWC News with ADD [010411]: Unslap My Face
* At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson has the news that DC is reinstating letters pages in their funnybooks. GOOD. Dropping this seemingly minor tradition in comics is one of the reasons for my own personal disconnect with much of what the industry has to offer, I think. I can’t provide a rational, scientific explanation for this, but I can tell you that reading just about any...
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CA and ADD on The State of Comics Right Now
That’s a really pretentious title for a little back-and-forth email chat about some comics stuff right now, but there you go. As far as DVD-type extras, it’s interesting to note that I was eating a snack of cheese and crackers with sharp cheddar as we were emailing each other, when Chris threw sharp cheddar into the discussion. Eerie! — Alan David Doane CA: Reading Robot...
2 tags
Fantagraphics To Launch Complete Barks Ducks...
In what is surely the first big comics news story of the year, and what might be the best one, too, Fantagraphics has announced that it is reprinting the complete Carl Barks Donald Duck comics in a twice-yearly hardcover format. Robot 6 has the news and an interview with Fantagraphics publisher Gary Groth (I spotted the news first at Sean T.’s joint). I’m not kidding when I say that,...
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TWC News with ADD [010211]: Lose The Fear of...
* Tom Spurgeon talks to writer-about-comics (and other things) David Brothers. And in “the best comics-related news I’ve heard all year” department, Spurge is also apparently planning to interview Dirk Deppey. * Continuing his personal history of his life in comics, Tony Isabella talks about being wooed simultaneously by Marvel and DC during the 1970s. * Steve Bissette and Dave...
2 tags
TWC News with ADD [010111]: How Binary You Look...
* Tom Spurgeon is continuing to add entries to his regional comics scene list, and if you’re in one of the communities listed (or in one that isn’t but know of multiple comics folk in your area), you should get in touch with Spurge and make sure you’re on the list. One of the things I really dig about being on this, the comics internet is the thrill of seeing my name on this...
