Join us tonight for the seventeenth ReadComics podcast. We talked about the Emmys, Neil Patrick Harris and his boyfriend, Prism Comics, Fallcon, Gaylaxicon, Windy City Comic-con, Echo, Sword, Runaways, The Goon, Spider Man Reign, PS238, Secret Invasion, and Final Crisis. Of course there was other stuff in there. Enjoy.
Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #017 (30 MB, 66 minutes)
Today marks the anniversary of the last issue of DM of the Ring, a webcomic built from screenshots taken from the epic Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies. If you haven’t seen this, you really should check it out.
I heard a rumor last night that the same guy had started a new comic doing all the Star Wars movies, but I can’t seem to find it. I’ll post again if he gets back to me with the link.
I work with a bunch of computer geeks, and someone recently sent around the relatively new Sticks and Stones, which admittedly is pretty much an xkcd knockoff, (but I think there’s room for more in this genre, since I love it SO much).
Bonus link, there are a TON of people’s favorite programmer comics in this thread over at StackOverflow.com. That should keep me busy for a while.
UPDATE: Note that this is the 200th ReadComics.org post! W00-H00!
Some of you may remember that Jason and I attended a reading/presentation by David Hajdu last July at the Anderon Library on the west bank of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus. The event was to celebrate John Borger’s gift of almost 40,000 comic books to the Children’s Literature Research Collections department, a gift that was given a bit of press back when it happened.
David Hajdu’s presentation was interesting. He seemed a bit nervous that both Gordon Purcell and Dan Jurgens were in attendance. And while I really had attended the event just to see David Hajdu, I found myself more and more interested in comic book donation, and the implications it had for the University having, suddenly, at its disposal such a glut of comic books.
I had the good fortune, after the event, of finding out I have mutual friends in common with Marie J. Harvat, who is the Library Supervisor in charge of the Borger collection. I soon corresponded with her, and she was happy to answer the following questions I had about dealing with such a large collection, including the process of keeping track of the comics, and her knowledge of implications for the University.
1. Would you be willing to describe the method being used to catalog and keep track of the comic books in the collection? Was there existing database software used for this project, or was a custom database created? Are the comics being scanned with a barcode reader? How many
people are taking part in this endeavor?Marie: The Borger Collection came to us with a copy of Mr. Borger’s personal ComicBase database listing. The CLRC purchased a copy of this software to be able to manipulate the data. While there are some very nice features in ComicBase, its is not something that the Libraries are able to use for patron searching.
It was decided that we would use Encoded Archival Description (EAD), a form of XML, to list the comics in the collection. Rather than type all the information desired (title, illustrator, publisher, character appearances, etc), I have been able to export data from ComicBase into a tab delimited file and into Excel. The staff discussed which “fields” to include and I compared these to established EAD elements to create a template for XML coding. This drove the massaging of the Excel spreadsheet to facilitate using another software to convert from spreadsheet columns into a page of code, thereby eliminating the need to hand code all 36,000 comic issues!
At present, I am the lead staff person on this project. We have one temporary part time assistant who is inputting additional information into a spreadsheet and placing the comics into new acid free boxes (smaller than those donated by Mr. Borger as to be more manageable and fit on the storage shelves better. Each comic is going in an acid free mylar sleeve and has an acid free “tag” slipped in the bag as to indicate its Box #, Folder #, Title, Date, and Issue #. In time we will have a second assistant to help push the project along more rapidly.
2. What is the timeline for making the comic books available to the public?
Selected comics are already available to the public. If you visit:
http://special.lib.umn.edu/clrc/borger/, and click on the left hand “Finding Aid” the list of processed comics appears. This is being updated at least on a weekly basis, and you can probably quickly tell that I have not finished tweaking the display. This project has been a great way for me to learn XML and XSL — but as I’m teaching myself while working this, some things will be a little messy for a while in the name of getting the title and issue numbers for processed comics out to the public.We hope to have processing completed by the end of 2008.
3. I know some Comic Books are already available, what does a person need to do to have access to these comics?
We are suggesting that interested patrons consult the finding aid. Any item listed there is currently available to be read in our reading room — 6 issues may be had on the table at one time; patrons may only have a laptop and a few sheets of paper with a pencil on the table while comics are in use. At the librarian’s discretion (read: if I can make it happen), other titles might be available and users are encouraged to inquire at clrc@umn.edu if they would like to see something that isn’t yet processed. In general, we strongly suggest making an appointment in advance notice for use of the Borger Collection. Again email clrc@umn.edu. A picture ID will be requested upon registration with the collection (a simple form), so don’t forget a wallet!
4. Does the library have any plans for accepting additional comic book donations? What if another donor came forward?
J. Randolph Cox has been donating comic books for a couple of years and will continue to move his collection to the CLRC in smaller batches. These titles do not often overlap with those collected by Mr. Borger thus the collections shall compliment each other well. Collection decisions are made by the curator of the collection in consultation with other Libraries administration based on issues of condition, collection development policies, funds for processing, and space for storage, among other criteria and usually on a case by case basis.
5. Has there been academic interest in the using the collection? I’m especially curious about what departments are interested… cultural studies? english lit?
One of the U of MN philosophy instructors has been in touch with the CLRC about a freshman seminar he will be leading in the spring term. We will be more actively reaching out to other departments as more and more titles are processed and ready for use.
Special thanks to Marie for taking time out of her busy schedule to answer these questions.
Both Florence and I have iPhones, so it seems natural to want to view comics on them… however, Florence has said she doesn’t think it makes sense for anything other than strip comics, because the screen is too small. But a couple of applications are trying to get people to read comic books on the iPhone, and while I have yet to install the 2.0 upgrade that allows you to add 3rd party applications to your iPhone, (so I haven’t tried either of these out), I thought I’d mention them here anyway.
The first is perhaps the most interesting because there is quite some controversy. Infurious Comics has created an app for the iPhone that allows you to view their comic Murderdrome. They tried to have it added to the iPhone application store (app store), and were denied, because it’s not suitable for all audiences (via Hypergeek). Here’s the video of the comic in action:
But Infurious didn’t let the Apple’s denial (some are calling it censorship!) stop them. They were, after all, developing a comic book application. So now sometime soon they’re releasing a new comic called Eye Candy. You can watch one of the developers demo that comic on youtube or the Infurious Blog. They added some new features to the app itself, including the ability to color the comic pages. They’ve also said they have more comics in development. Oh, and Eye Candy is going to cost $.99 in the app store.
There is another comic book application on the iPhone called ClickWheel that’s trying to be more of a comic book platform rather than just single issue comics. Check out their online demo (which is pretty amusing, but took me a few minutes to realize you could click and drag the comic to get to the later panels). Or you can watch this (not so flattering) demo off youtube:
I’ll probably try both of these out at some point in the near future, and I’ll report back if I find anything else interesting about them.
Yesterday, while reading Neil Gaiman’s blog (which is often written in the 3rd person, and probably not by Neil himself), I stumbled onto several interesting links, not the least of which is this song/poem titled “I Google You“. Follow the link for both a youtube video of someone performing the song, and also (in the comments) Neil himself has posted the lyrics.
In case you were wondering where this image came from, Neil has a new book coming out soon called The Graveyard Book. It’s another full length young adult novel, and is about a boy who grows up in a cemetery, raised by ghosts. Click the title for a lengthier description.
Bonus links: Neil answers questions at the Mouse Circus FAQ. The latest issue of ImageTexT, (“a web journal dedicated to furthering comics scholarship in a variety of disciplines and theoretical perspectives”) features “The Comics Works of Neil Gaiman”, which basically means a bunch of scholarly essays about Gaiman’s comic books. I find this sort of academic BS hard to read, but maybe there’s some interesting stuff buried in there.
Mike has selected the book for the next ReadComics.org Comic Book Book Club! We’re going to read Phantom Jack: The Collected Edition. This can be found on Amazon for cheap, and you can read a bit about the series on the Phantom Jack page at wikipedia. There is more art on the mini-series homepage.
We plan to meet at Marty & Florence’s place, around 7pm on Tuesday, September 23rd 30th. That only gives you two three weeks to read the entire TPB!
UPDATE: The date didn’t work for Florence, so we’re pushing back a week to the last day of September, Tuesday the 30th.
Florence was a fan of Babylon 5 and had also read other comics by J. Michael Straczynski, so when she saw this TPB at Wizard World she decided to pick it up. Little did we know that Mike had most of the rest of the series collected from the original run sitting in a long box at home.
From the big pile of things we bought in Chicago this summer, this was very near the top for Florence, and from exactly page 14, she knew she had to read the rest of the series. Essentially, this first TPB is about the origins of 113 people known as “The Specials”, who were all in utero in the same region in the US when a meteorite flew overhead and gave them the potential for superpowers. Because of some plausible paranoia by the U.S. government, these kids are eventually all rounded up and raised together under close supervision. Page 14 depicts 5 of the main characters in three stages of their lives: ages 6, 16, and 30+. Seeing this transition, along with the knowledge that Straczynski tends to plan for the long haul with his stories, promised to be a satisfying read.
I’ve only just finished this first TPB, (containing Issues #1-8) but Florence is about to read the final Issue of the series, #24. Coming at it from the beginning as I am, I think there is definitely a lot to find compelling about the series, but that it’s not all that original, from a superhero graphic novel kind of perspective. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by stuff like New Universal and the Authority/Planetary universe (where a bunch of powerful folks were born in 1900). Florence tells me the Authority parallels do continue, but that it still feels like its own story to her.
Rising Stars is really about how The Specials’ powers and their upbringing and social roles amongst each other really combine to form the path they choose in life. Neither Florence nor I found the government’s imagined reaction to these superpowers to be terribly far fetched, and by the end of this first TPB, things are set into motion that really liven up the playing field. Florence warns that there is a very wordy setup for the next arc, but if I can get past that, things will start moving fast again. (There were a few pages in the middle of this TPB too, that were mostly words, and felt a bit out of place in this otherwise standard comic book.)
From Florence’s perspective, nearing the end of the series, she says there are definitely distinct arcs within the larger story, and that it feels like it is going to come to a definitive end. When we looked it up, there was evidence of splinter arcs (not written by Straczynski, and thus less compelling to Florence). She really likes the character-driven nature of the comic, and is looking forward to the closure, allowed by the arrival of the second to last issue in our mailbox today. We already had the last issue sitting on the shelf, and Florence is going to go read it now.
Listen to us!
The sixteen-thousandth ReadComics.org podcast was recorded by Jason, Florence, Marty and Susie (via Skype). Marty bored everyone by talking about monetizing websites, but there is actual discussion of comic books… after Jason, Susie and Florence bore Marty by talking about which male character was the hottest in the “buffyverse” (and whether Andrew is/was gay). Other topics included Drawing Words & Writing Pictures, Superman and Brainiac in the latest Action Comics, James Marsters in Torchwood, Sky Doll, Wonder Woman, Runaways, Animal Man, Final Crisis, 52, Lobo and Wolverine.
Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #016 (30 MB, 64 minutes)
I fully admit that it just hadn’t occurred to me until today to google for webcomics and board games together. (Two of my favorite things.) Here are a couple of the ones that I’ve stumbled onto so far. I’ll probably list any others that I find in the comments. (You can feel free to do the same!)
It all started today when I stumbled onto this comic called Ko Fight Club. There’s lots of other topics, but the author Russ Williams created a nice archive page with just the go comics on it. Unfortunately, the last entry is from Oct. 15, 2002.
Making Life hasn’t been updated since Feb. 2006, but it’s worth a read, even if there are only 14 comics up there.
Another go comic called Stones is written/drawn by Andreas Fecke (in dutch?). Apparently there also used to be another go webcomic called Almost Sente, but the site is down.
Chess comics seemed harder to find for some reason, but I did find this one called The Chess Comic that is all about teaching chess to beginners. Pretty cool idea, really. And it’s being actively updated!
Google has announced they are launching themselves into the web browser development business this week with an open source browser they call Google Chrome.
The funny (and relevant) thing about this is that they’ve created a comic book that explains why and what they’re doing, drawn by none other than Scott McCloud.
It reads like a textbook, or maybe like a complex user manual, but the illustrations are clear and overall it does a good job of explaining some difficult ideas and concepts. It feelt a bit simplistic to me, but I’m a web developer, and these concepts are part of my job. I’m probably not the target audience. Also, I sort of wished there were links at various parts of the comic. I’d have liked to read more about some of the things they’re claiming this browser will do for us. But probably those links aren’t public yet anyway. The beta (for windows first) is supposed to be released sometime today.
UPDATE: Scott McCloud has a page on his website about this project. (Via Blogoscoped, where you can view some additional screenshots of Google Chrome in action.)
Narcopolis was absolutely phenomenal.
This four-part miniseries was essentially about a future in which one city, (or citystate, we don’t really know how big it is), has colonized the world. This is meant in the historical “exploiting the indigenous cultures” sort of way, except that, as far as we can tell, the entire rest of the world is part of the exploited culture. But all we really see of it are a few African tribes getting blown to smithereens, so I guess that part isn’t especially explicit.
Anyway, you don’t really know whether the main character, named Gray Neighbor, is a freedom fighter, or just one lucky bastard who manages to escape the fascist state a few times, and ends up ultimately in training for the police force.
The first thing that really stood out for me about Narcopolis was the dialog. Anyone who has read George Orwell’s 1984 will probably be reminded of newspeak. As with reading 1984 for the first time, I felt the language really set the book apart from standard fiction (in this case comic book fiction), and really just sounded and felt totally different from what I’d consider to be every day conversational English. You could also tell that writer Jamie Delano really put a lot of thought and effort into the dialog, mostly because it never felt forced or unrealistic.
The parallels to 1984 don’t stop at the dialogue. There are all kinds of elements of the police state at play here, but I don’t want to say too much about plot, because the sense of discovery is part of the attraction of this comic, or it was for me anyway.
The art in Narcopolis is also pretty spectacular. Jeremy Rock appears to have a pretty publishing limited history, (especially when compared to Jamie Delano), but he more than holds his own by giving us a vivid glimpse into this distopia. I should probably mention that there is quite a bit of nudity in this comic, and it’s not for children both visually and thematically.
In short, Narcopolis absolutely blew me away. I am so far behind in reading stuff that the first three issues of this had sat unread on my shelves until this week when issue #4 came out and I resolved to read them all forthwith. Mostly I just wanted to make sure I’d read them before any more issues came out and I would then have had to decide whether to buy another issue of something I hadn’t yet read. Turns out, issue #4 was actually the last in the series, so I needn’t have worried. But I’m glad I did, because it gave me the push I needed to finally read these, and damn was it worth it!
ReadComics.org co-conspirator and friend Stephanie invited me to the Comic Books Application on Facebook a few weeks ago now, and I’ve been playing with it a little bit each week. It’s an interesting way to keep track of your pull list, and to browse comics that were released the past (or current) week. It’s also set up to keep track of your collection if you use it that way, and allow for easy discussion of individual comic book issues, which each have their own page, and generally browse comics by creator, series, or publisher. (Doubtless there are more ways to browse the issues as well.)
I posted a few weeks ago in the forums, and the developer Chris has been really responsive and helpful. He even added some of the features I was asking for, which goes quite a ways toward convincing me that this thing is going to be around and maintained into the future.
You can add the Comic Book application to your facebook profile to show your friends what you’re reading, or just to check out all the cool features I’ve listed above.
UPDATE: I’ve just created a page for ReadComics.org on Facebook. Stop on by and become a fan, why don’t you?
Today Florence, Jason and Marty talked a whole lot about Robert Kirkman’s video editorial about how to save comics. We also talked about Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, Avatar and self-published comics. Other mentions included Runaways, Xmen, Archie, Power Pack, Richie Rich, Marvel Adventures, Hack Slash, Ex Machina, Brian K. Vaughn, Narcopolis, Jamie Delano, Ultimate universe, Michael Straczynski, Book of Lost Souls, Rising Stars, Little Brother and Cory Doctorow.
Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #015 (28.5 MB, 62 minutes)
The first issue of the next Northlanders arc came out today, and I decided not to get it.
As those of you who have been paying attention will already know, we chose Northlanders for our very first Comic Book Book Club. This was several months ago now, and just after the sixth issue of Northlanders had been released. I had somehow neglected to add Northlanders to our pull list, so it wasn’t until today that I finally had issues #7 and #8 to finish up the story.
Read on for a spoiler-filled analysis of the series so far, and especially the last two issues of the first story arc. (more…)
Unfortunately, I have to say, the jury is still out on Casey Blue for me.
Issue #4 came out last week, and before last night I had basically been collecting these without reading them. I liked the art, and had been hooked by the first couple of pages of the first issue (labeled “Now”) where it’s revealed that Casey is watching her own funeral. Then we jump presumably before the funeral (for a single page labeled “Then”), and then jump again to the main story line where Casey is a normal high school girl who plays volleyball. (This story line is labeled “In-Between”.)
Interesting enough premise, but in four issues, we have yet to return to that “present day” when Casey watches her funeral. We’ve figured out a bunch about who she is and why she’s a violent killer, although most of that is hearsay from a woman who tells her to “trust her instincts”. Let it suffice to say that we still really don’t know what’s going on.
At first after reading them, I was happy with these purchases, but in retrospect, while I was totally engrossed, not enough is actually happening, and I think my satisfaction with Issue #5 may determine whether I drop the series from my pull list.
Another conversational podcast with Susie, Florence, Marty and Jason. We talk about the recent announcement that there will be a Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story (via Neil Gaiman’s blog), various superhero movies, Batman in about a million forms, Fear Agent, Walking Dead, Persepolis and Embroideries (by Marjane Satrapi), Ex Machina, women comic book artists, Fan Fiction, Animal Man, Bratgirl, Batdude and Throbbin’ (and other superhero porn), Top 10: Beyond he Farthest Precinct, Ultimate Comics, Ultimatum, Ultimate Origins, Ultimate Galactus, Gay Comic Geek, The Clockwork Game, a bevy of game-related webcomics: The Order of the Stick; Penny Arcade; PVP, Control Alt Delete; Dork Tower; Full Frontal Nerdery, Deisel Sweeties, Rising Stars, Strangers in Paradise, Echo, Terry Moore, Spider Man loves Mary Jane, Dark Horse Presents, and comic book reviews in general.
Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #014 (36 MB, 78 minutes)
Fear Agent is awesome.
Peppered with quotes from Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain), the second and third trade paperbacks in the Fear Agent series collect issues #5-10 and #12-15 respectively. (Although originally, 12-15 were known as Fear Agent: The Last Goodbye #1-4.)
Do you remember when I got all whiny about the first trade, and how it ended in a cliffhanger? Well, volume #2, My War ends with another doozey. And guess what? Volume 3 is one long flashback! I don’t know when I’ll be getting Volume #4 from the library (since it came out relatively recently, there are a few people in line in front of me). Interestingly, Volume #4 doesn’t even collect Issue #11, which technically came before all the issues in Volume #3. According to Wikipedia, Issue #11 and #16 appear in an (unnumbered) trade paperback called simply Tales of the Fear Agent. While I’m waiting for Volume #4, I’m going to see if the library has that one. (Confused yet? I certainly was.)
The best kinds of cliffhanger don’t actually leave the hero hanging on a cliff. They actually change the tone of the story you’ve been reading. It’s more like you realize that the protagonist has been hanging from a cliff for a while, and he (or she) just didn’t know it. This was the kind of cliffhanger that Volume #2 ended with. Volume #1 was more of the hanging on a cliff kind.
Although the artist is different in Vol. 2 than in Volumes 1 and 3, Jerome Opeña does a great job of picking up where Tony Moore left off, and the style is so true to the way Moore started it that I honestly didn’t even notice.
Fear Agent continues to make us love and hate the main character (Heath Huston) in equal parts. He makes incredibly stupid mistakes, and thinks a bit too much of himself (and only himself) for my tastes. He’s also completely a hick, and mostly dumb as a pile of rocks. Still, it’s all quite fun watching his life (and planet!) fall apart around him. And you get to blame it on aliens!
I’m happy to report that, in spite of yet more “want to read more” type frustration, there is continued happiness and enjoyment. (The Clemens quotes also kick the series up a notch in my book.) I’ll report back when I’ve read the rest of the series.
Addicted to War: Why the US Can’t Kick Militarism, is available now in its entirety online, is a history and criticism of US militarism and military policy.
Apparently this is being used in some schools as a history textbook, and I can attest (from what I’ve read–so far just the first 10 pages out of 77) that this includes a ton of interesting quotes, citations, and even some photographs, in amongst the illustrations. I used to have a copy of The Cartoon Guide to Physics laying about somewhere, and I guess I’m reminded of that because this is also non-fiction and written in a similar matter-of-fact style.
It looks like author/illustrator Joel Andreas has only really ever written political comics. I think it might be interesting to write a “long-form comic books and politics” blog post sometime, but I am not particularly qualified.
Having the book online is really just a self-professed ploy to get you to purchase a physical copy, so if you really like it, go ahead and buy a copy or fifty. (They sell boxes of 56 for $175.) I found out about it from True Majority, where you can buy a single copy for $8.
This fan film is not for the weak of stomach.
Originally found by Rurik on Bam! Kapow!, where you can find some other fan films. (Not as many, of course, as you can find on youtube, where there are literally hundreds.)
I think I’d seen one or two of the individual Repo issues on the shelf, but hadn’t collected them, and I really knew absolutely nothing about the series before I read this trade paperback yesterday. I wasn’t disappointed, but neither was I blown away.
First of all, I thought the art here was absolutely great. It’s pretty standard comic book art, drawn in a very clear and unambiguous style. The artist is Rob G, who has collaborated with writer Rick Spears on at least one or two other projects previously.
Of course it was the themes that drew me in, a near-ish future where clones are fighting for their civil rights, and hover-cars are the norm. There was an evil seeming rich guy growing a clone of himself so he can have a heart transplant. The clone is “liberated” from the hospital, and he puts a bounty out on it such that every “Repo man” in town is after the thing.
As the comic progressed, I felt like things got less and less interesting. They really didn’t “take a stand” on any of the issues that were introduced earlier in the comic. (Racism, civil rights, etc.) In fact, by the end of the story, nobody really has any moral legs to stand on, and the clones who are fighting for their freedom are pretty much written off as dumb, or anyway not strong enough to survive. (The book is pretty violent, and the end turns into an intentionally comical bloodbath.) In fact, if the book had any message at all, it was survival of the fittest. That and maybe “laws are meant to be broken”.
Again, this was definitely a fun read. Expect your suspension of disbelief to be in high gear, and don’t expect anything too enlightened, and you should enjoy it just fine.
What’s up with all the animated comics these days? I watched the first episode of The Watchmen on iTunes, and then a week or two ago I noticed this (available for free) in the Playstation Store on my PS3. So far I’ve downloaded the first four, but only watched the first three.
Dead Space is a video game that’s going to come out later this year, but to market it, they’ve gotten Ben Templesmith and Anthony Johnston to do a comic book prequel. Sounds like it’ll be a six-issue run. Art by Templesmith, who did Fell and 30 Days of Night, among other pretty things.
The animated version of the comic is just okay. I think I’d probably like it more if I were reading the comic rather than hearing it spoken. That having been said, the voice acting isn’t terrible, and it certainly could have been worse. I think one of the things I imagine being hard to do about any animated version of a comic book is the pacing. I would assume that’s why it feels like we’re always looking at the same image for far too long with the animation basically having to be on the screen as long as it takes to “say” the printed words.
Anyway, I might want to try and track down this comic, because I do really like Ben Templesmith’s artwork. You can read an interview with Ben Templesmith about Dead Space over at Newsarama.
This podcast “issue” was recorded at our second ever ReadComics Book Club, where we talked extensively about Omega the Unknown, both the recently finished series, and also the “Classic” series from 1976. There are tons of spoilers, as we discuss plot points and compare and contrast the two series. Our regular podcasters Florence, Martin, Jason and Mike were all present, along with two new voices, Derik and Dave.
Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #013 (28.4 MB, 62 minutes)
I loved this issue for a lot of different reasons.
But an Einstein quote printed in the inside of the front cover has been making me think about it for days:
“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” –Albert Einstein
The first time I was reminded of it, I was totally confused. I’m in the process of reading the novel Iron Sunrise, by Charles Stross, and all of a sudden the quote is utterly relevant, and I start paging through the book looking for it. I didn’t remember at first that it had been from this entirely unrelated source.
Then later I was thinking about the first Fear Agent TPB that got me all in such a tizzy last week, (I do, finally, have TPB 2 & 3 waiting for me to read them) and I realized the quote is relevant there also, although it’s a bit more of a stretch. Maybe this is just the month for time travel and death in hard science fiction for me. But surprising that it would come from Echo, which, as far as I can tell, has nothing to do with time travel (thus far) whatsoever!
Other reasons that I loved this issue: The pacing has really picked up. Things are happening fast. Also, the characters! Such interesting and varied characters have appeared that I immediately want to know their backgrounds and stories. Almost badly enough to permit time taken away from the incredibly fascinating story that is unfolding. In general, this issue is more of the same, and by that I mean REALLY REALLY GOOD. I know I tried to read Strangers in Paradise at some point long, long ago. That was well before I’d read many comics, and I just didn’t get into it. Echo is so good that it makes me want to try again.
Someone calling himself Vic DiGital said it took him about a day to create this awesome mashup. (Link via my new favorite blog, Topless Robot.)
After reading this book, I’ve decided that I love Ellen Forney.
This collection of her short and endearing comics is both clever and just incredibly fun. About the first fourth of the book is dedicated to her “How To” series, in which she “sets to comic” someone (presumably an expert) giving advice about something. Some notable examples are how to become a call girl, how to avoid getting caught while smoking pot, and how to twirl your pasties (in alternating directions, even). The rest of the comics are split up into rather arbitrary sections called “More Short Comics”, ’92-’94, and Collaborations. Everything in the book is good, but in very different ways. It felt to me like the main thread holding the entire work together is Ellen Forney’s finely crafted sense of humor.
I’ve been meaning to write this review for weeks now, which is really more a reflection of how good the book was to me than anything else. I wanted to make sure I did it some kind of justice. But I’m sort of just giving up trying to live up to the book with my review. That way lies madness. I’ll admit though, that I wasn’t really all that excited to read the book at first. I probably wouldn’t have even bothered if not for having seen some of the naked girls over Florence’s shoulder while she was reading. Well, that and the provocative subtitle. And while yes, there is some nudity featured here, this really wasn’t the lesbian erotica that I expected. At least, not most of it.
Ellen Forney and I Love Led-Zeppelin are both mentioned by name in the first chapter of Reading Comics, by Douglas Wolk as an example of why right now is really the golden age of comic books (rather than the 1940s and early 1950s). I agree with his assessment. This comic book, and others like it, are proud testaments to the greatness that a single comic book creator can produce in this era. There are many reasons to read this book, (for one thing you might learn something), but deciding you want to see why Douglas Wolk thinks this is the golden age of comics isn’t a bad one to start with.
It’s not like you need more reasons to love Ellen Forney, but she also has a pretty sweet blog, where she posts used to post her “Lustlab Ad of the Week” comics. These are were little comic renditions of personals ads printed in The Stranger (a Seattle newspaper). She’s only just announced that the series was cut. They were (at least some of them) also collected into a book called Lust last fall. Newsarama has an interview with Forney about the collection.
I have finally finished reading Space Circus, written by Mark Evanier and drawn by Sergio Aragonés. I’ve been writing this post for almost as long as I’ve been reading it. (Like a week or so.) Unfortunately, the comic was just okay. The art was (mostly) fantastic, and there were fun little things to look at in the background of the panels on almost every page. (My biggest qualm with the art, and this is pretty nitpicking, was that Aragonés, like most artists, has no idea how to draw people juggling. Generally the objects either just get scattered in the air above someone’s head, or they get drawn in a giant circle or arc from one hand to the other. I’m a juggler, so this bothers me.) Anyway the story was pretty mundane, in spite of its rich and enjoyable premise: basically about a boy who accidentally stumbles onto the Space Circus space ship while they’re making repairs on earth after having been set upon by space pirates, and the hilarity that ensues. Except, unfortunately, there is less hilarity than expected, or desired.
But I did manage to enjoy this anyway, and along the way I wracked my brain for additional references to circuses in space. (I did some web searching too.) More space circuses after the jump. (more…)
I realized this morning, while catching up on the latest xkcd, that we don’t have any xkcd entries on ReadComics.org yet.
Simply put, xkcd is the best webcomic for internet-related “geek” humor out there.
I remember the first time I read the “sandwich” comic (you won’t get it if you don’t know what “sudo” means), I had to explain it to florence because I thought it was so funny. Of course, Florence, not knowing what sudo meant until I explained it to her, did not really think it was all that funny. Reading through some of the archives with her, she did admit she liked some of the others. I believe that may have actually been my first exposure to xkcd. It’s possible I’d seen some of the others in email forwards or other contexts.
XKCD is written and drawn (mostly with stick figures) by Randall Munroe, who was a physics major and worked for NASA before he started writing xkcd full time. Here is a relatively interesting interview with Munroe posted on Wikinews.
My friend doc pop (aka Doctor Popular, aka Drown Radio) drew this awesome cross between Dr. Horrible and Dr. Who. I hope he doesn’t mind that I post it here. I just had to share.
“ARRRRRRRGGGH!” That’s the sound that I make when I finish a comic that is really, really good, and yet ends in a cliffhanger. Also, it is the sound of kittens dying, and angels losing their wings.
I ask myself: Isn’t this why you prefer to read trade paperbacks? So that you have a complete story at the end? And then the frustration rises, and I cry a bit, then I make the sound again, “BLARRRRGGGGGGH!” (This time with more of a blubbery noise, because of the crying.)
Fear Agent is awesome. That is why it is so hard to hate it. Or perhaps, like a good relationship turned sour, that is why it is so easy to hate it. Someone yoda-like once said “Fear leads to hate. Hate leads to anger. Anger leads to suffering.” That person was probably talking about the end of the first Fear Agent TPB.
OK. Perhaps I should get to what I liked about the comic — Nay! — what I so LOVED about the comic! Namely, it was the subject matter. There are space ships. And space stations. And planets with fallen civilizations. In general, this is pulpy science fiction at its best, in comic book form. Lets take our protagonist, Heath, for example. He’s an Alien Exterminator / ex-space-military, with his own space ship, who also has a drinking problem. Oh yeah, and he kicks all kinds of ass. And by this I mean alien ass, robot ass, and any combination thereof. Oh yes, it’s awesome.
I just hope the library has the next TPB tomorrow morning when I go there. Because I’d hate to have to make that noise again.
