The comic blogosphere seems to grow larger every day and just like comics, sometimes it’s pretty easy to get a little lost. “Meanwhile …” will act as your map, pointing out what interesting discussions are happening out there while you’re reading Blog@Newsarama.
Big and very cool changes are afoot here at Meanwhile (more on that next week), but not much is going on around the blogosphere. It seems everyone is reading some book that came out this week.
Bad Librarianship points us in the direction of lovely Ashley Wood Tank Girl previews.
Friday Night Fights is still around in case you didn’t know.
Heroes’ Hayden “The Cheerleader” Panettiere seems to be pretty fun.
Îles du Désappointement is all worn out on this new age of comics.
Journalista’s Dirk Deppey has a term for the era of comics roughly kicked off by Identity Crisis leading to Infinite Crisis and Civil War and still running relatively healthy today. He dubs this trend “superhero decadence,” possibly maybe as a nod to Joanna Russ’ Wearing Out of Genre Materials. (If you can get on a university or library connection, the full article is located here.)
Russ’ concern was with the future of the science fiction genre, but she looked across other genres to find similar patterns and ominous warning signs.
It’s not all doom and gloom though.
It’s easy to get down on modern comics. The cheap stunts, the degradation of heroic icons, the endless cross-overs – it all adds up to a massive headache for anyone craving old-school fun and excitement.
But, every so often, there’s a week like this …
Poor Chris Weston. He just can’t catch a break lately.
Spurgeon interviews Adrian Tomine.
Chris Sim’s continues his Annotated Anita Blake series of posts.
Now that the Harry Potter books have come to their inevitable conclusion, an entire legion of readers is no doubt searching for the next great piece of contemporary fantasy literature to fill the nagging void in their lives. And odds are, it’s probably not going to be the comic book adaptation of Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter.
When should I sell my 80′s Toys?
Happy Belated Birthday to Heidi Meeley and Happy Blogoversary to Lady That’s My Skull.
The Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency Committee approves of DC Comics, then National Comics.
Suicide Squad Week has begun. Knowing Dave it’ll last a month.
Dick no longer hates your blog, Dick May or May Not Read Your Blog, but he may be reading some early image comics soon. Why torture yourself like that?
The Magic 8 Ball answers questions about the Skrull Invasion.
Me: I just realised I asked that one already. Um, let’s call that a test. And you passed, magic eight ball. Proud of yourself?
8: Reply Hazy Try Again
Me: Smug bastard. Are all of the X-Men Skrulls? (No way in hell I’m doing all of them one by one.)
8: Most Likely
An Alan Moore and Art Adams Godzilla Song? I’m sold.
What’s to become of the No Longer Countdown blog?
During the few days since my last proper post (hello everyone in the universe! My name’s Andrew and I like comics but I get grumpy when they’re bad) I’ve been thinking about what form this blog should take . I don’t want to lose the DC-Centric tone, as that would mean getting rid of this URL and also because I genuinely like a lot of what DC are putting out. However, I want to have some flexibility, too – often there’s just more to say about a comic like Action Philosophers or a magazine like Following Cerebus (the latest issue of which I will definitely review when it finally gets to my comic shop) than there is about Action Comics or whatever.
I’ve also figured that most weeks I can update this two or three times, so here’s the plan. Every week I’ll try to do three posts. The first will be a quickie-review one, covering everything I buy that week. The second will be a DC Universe roundup, looking at the DCU titles I bought, plus any ‘news’ to do with the DCU, Countdown, etc that I’ve picked up elsewhere, and my thoughts as to where it’s all going. The third will be a longish essay type post on something I consider worth writing a lot about (this week I’m considering writing something about Morrison, but everyone seems to write about him all the time). With a bit of luck this format will allow me to get some interesting posts done.
The Hurting reads and recaps 90′s Punisher comics so we don’t have to. That’s sacrifice.
And that’s it till next week when everyone will be talking about San Diego and what happened in that book they’ve been reading.
May 19th, 2011 at 3:30 am
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