Rolling Comic Books 2019

I Like Ty the Guy! On Instagram even!

Those reading who are less familiar with Templeton's work should check out his excellent (and not updated since harlan ellison died) comic journal blog:
https://tytempletonart.wordpress.com/

I had to Google 'Uatu' , handing in my M.M.M.S. membership card :-(

"I can't believe you're in a position where you can't name a Watcher!"
"Well, Uatu."
"No, I can name several!"

https://thenib.com/lighten-up-4f7f96ca8a7e

has anyone in the ol’ USA ever done a 2000ad/megazine paper subscription? cycled off of some other magazine subs and I am tempted to opt in for a year. how’s the shipping delay, condition of the comics when they arrive, etc?

I've been following a cartoonist named Jordan Jeffries who does one-panel movie scenes on Instagram. He's pretty good. I think this gave me the inspiration to read Julia Wertz's memoir Drinking at the Movies, which was... sigh.

As a human being, I have some respect for anyone who does a memoir and exposes their warts to the world, and there are several funny jokes in this, but Christ, the quality of artwork is just so bad. If I were a more positive person, I would use this book as an example to young students to scream "YOU SEE? Anyone can be a professional cartoonist. Absolutely anyone, if this is possible." Instead of being astounded that someone can accomplish this when I see hundreds more talented individuals desperately selling their wares at NY ComicCon every year for crumbs. Or hell, even at the indie festivals.

Julia Wertz is great!

Tbf she’s gotten much better w the art

yeah, wertz developed her art really really well and some of her earlier work does not reflect where she landed.

Got some cool back issues at the small local con we had here that my local shop hosted. Getting close on completing a couple of runs of stuff I have been working on for a few years. Got a good stack of various old Savage Sword of Conans for a buck or two each. Got a couple of old 70s Marvel monster reprints for a buck each too. First con I had been to for a few years. It was a pretty fun haul.

Wertz has always (Fart Party started fifteen years ago!) been a great writer-in-pictures, pacing her gags and effectively communicating her characters through very basic conventions. She also would have probably been both better and more successful if she had more range and depth to her drawing.

She obviously doesn't think so, though: even after getting into the New Yorker and then a big hardcover book deal based on her detailed, representational drawings of buildings, she's now doing her gag cartoons for TNY as straight-up stick figures drawn with a pen.

picardfacepalm.gif

I’ve been reading some of the current Sonic the Hedgehog IDW series with my son... it’s surprisingly dark for a kids’ book. The plot beats will be very familiar to anyone over the age of six (a ragtag band of heroes tries to save a populace from a spreading zombie infection; as the heroes themselves succumb and are transformed, one by one...) — but it’s done well, with solid dialogue and brisk plotting. The art is strong, too. There’s something compelling about these cute mutant-animal characters being placed in a straightforward action narrative, without irony or condescension. I guess there are whole genres like that, but I don’t usually encounter them.

I'd say that's most Sonic games since Adventure; I hate what they did with those but ymmv.

https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/russo-brothers-marvel-vs-dc-docuseries-quibi-1203402642/

RIP, Tom Spurgeon.

:-(

RIP

A great writer, a long-time force for good in comics, and a lovely person.

^^^

btw Jon I read your ^^^ last night, then went to bed and you turned up as a "character" in the comic I read

https://www.instagram.com/p/B40uSVDFAFO/

Spurgeon was a nice refreshing voice amid the rest.

Xpost sic was this a comic you read while dreaming or are you referring to the issue of Fatale where Tom H and I get iced?

gonna need an issue number here

was this a comic you read while dreaming or are you referring to the issue of Fatale where Tom H and I get iced?

neither! Rookie Moves by N0vember G4rcia


Spurgeon was a nice refreshing voice amid the rest.

gonna disagree with the implication I'm reading here: a major project of Tom's in his life and his work was to highlight and enhance the wide variety of interested, caring, and worthwhile voices that are talking about comics everywhere, all the time.

Perhaps I'm just remembering a specific time when I was mostly around Comics Journal associated circles but I got the impression that he was a lot mellower and less deep into feuds than everyone else. Not to say there weren't a lot of good people, because there was and that community was important to me but that's just how I remember his place in it.

Top of the head, if I try and think of writers that Tom brought into the Journal, it's mild-mannered Chris Mautner, Bart Beaty writing about untranslated European albums, Ray Mescallado getting a monthly superhero column, gentleman Gil Roth... (while the feud-free Spurge himself was adding a Melody-Maker-style two-page spread of opening snark to every issue, and writing things like Shit List! and The Butt-Eye Address by "David Peters")

Agree that he didn't hold or build personal feuds in public, but this was more a function of him seeing disagreement and argument as valuable in discussion of art and labour.

this gave me the inspiration to read Julia Wertz's memoir Drinking at the Movies, which was... sigh.

[...] there are several funny jokes in this, but Christ, the quality of artwork is just so bad.

I’ve never looked at old artwork and been like, this is fine. But luckily I’m also aware that it doesn’t actually matter at all. pic.twitter.com/TEQQTPuRsg

— Julia Wertz (@Julia_Wertz) November 15, 2019

that... is... some regression

You’re gonna plotz if you ever find out about James Thurber

TCJ's Spurgeon obit is up

how mad Dean must have been to work in the same office as a fat person 20 years ago

Borrowed/read the three deluxe Wayward collections. As they advertise, mix of Buffy & Scooby gang with Japanese (and later Irish) mythology / monsters. Took some angles I wasn't expecting, which was cool. Liked the artwork a lot.

Don't know if I'll listen to these episodes but I love this podcast
http://www.scottedelman.com/2019/07/19/mark-evanier/

http://www.scottedelman.com/2019/11/15/paul-kirchner/
http://www.scottedelman.com/2019/11/29/larry-lieber/

Had no idea Lieber was still around.

http://www.scottedelman.com/2019/07/05/lunch-in-l-a-with-comics-legend-gerry-conway-on-episode-99-of-eating-the-fantastic/
Forgotten this one.

I never really got grip on the X-Men so I found this article fun, surprised how many of the basic concepts were unfamiliar to me despite knowing who all the characters are.

https://www.tor.com/2019/12/11/the-future-of-days-past-10-things-disney-could-learn-from-claremonts-run-on-x-men/

I appreciate that she noted the importance of the colours. In my continual assessment of why the characters/worlds appealed, I now think that the colour combinations were often stronger than the other design elements of the costumes.

Still would like to see more discerning reinventions of the stories. Couldn't Claremont do his own X-Men retelling from the beginning?

From hearing some talk up supposedly great unofficial fanfiction, do any of you know of particularly good DC and Marvel stuff online?

twenty minutes about dazzler. i never knew JR JR was such a jersey guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvzCbPmj1AY

Video not available in UK? Sometimes it seems like there's no rhyme or reason to these youtube restrictions.

suprisingly deep coverage, good video!

i got a copy of Eleanor Davis' The Hard Tomorrow for the holidaze from my mom; it's breathtaking. What a talent.

SyFyWire have published a list of "the best indie comics of the decade" that consists of nine Image comics, one tumblr, one iOS app, and a DC book.

Finishing the last LOEG volume- the points being made are very much not new to those who follow Moore's work, but its stylistic playfulness still is enough to keep me gripped. That bing said, really can' be bothered with those 3D glasses for more than a couple of pages.

I loved the earlier volumes of LOEG but haven't yet got to this one. Partly because I don't give much of a shit about the comic characters he's making use of in the same way I do C19th literary characters. Is it still doing the "lots of unpleasant sex is really hilarious" thing?

It's still horny, yeah. All the other valid criticisms of the series also still apply (fucking Gollywog STILL IN IT ffs, I know Moore means well but god does he refuse to read a room). Did you read The Black Dossier? That's still my favourite, and probably the best summation of the serie's thematic concerns. This one has a lot of super hero stuff but also a lot of characters from spy stuff and weird animal characters that don't come from comics.

I think this is the only volume I haven't read. Black Dossier is great--my one claim to fame is getting a credit for explaining references in Jess Nevins's book of annotations.

controversial opinion: Moore does backmatter/prose breaks better than others and may be the best at it, but I keep getting more bored by these conceptual bits where he bounces between media and just wish he’d write a comic book

Just read the Fantagraphics-published BEST OF WITZEND, which collects some of the worst-written comics I've ever had the bad luck to come across. Luckily it was from the library.

Yeah, that was very much a regretful purchase.

Great art tho!

Oh aye, lovely to look at but it's a big bit of shelf (and cost) that could otherwise have been filled.