–Marvel.com offers profiles on the members of ClanDestine, who return to comics next month. It’s a good refresher if you haven’t read about’em in awhile.
–JK’s random question of the day: Vertigo put out a mini-series called Finals back in 1999. At the time, I was going through a “Should I buy the mini-series or wait for the trade?” internal debate that I flip-flopped on every week. The week that issue #1 came out, I was waiting for the trade, so I didn’t buy it. And of course, I’m still waiting for that collection …
I’m not sure why I started thinking about the book again, but I thought I might pop over to eBay to see if I can find the complete set for a decent price. But before I did, I thought I’d see if anyone had read it and if it’s worth checking out.
–On his Whitechapel message board, Warren Ellis has been asking independent comic creators to show their work. And they do.
–Thought One More Day was bad? Take this trip down memory lane.
–Toon Books publisher Francoise Mouly talks to NPR about the education potential of comics (scroll down).
–The revamped Fantagraphics Web site is now up. It looks nifty. In honor of the occasion, they’re offering free standard shipping for the rest of the month.
–Todd Klein takes a look at Wonder Woman’s logos from the Golden Age in part one of a series.
Compiled by Chris Mautner and JK Parkin.
Finals was good, and yeah, it’s too bad about the lack of trade.
Which may have been due more to the time it came out, since it was right around Columbine and everybody was pulling stuff willy-nilly. At least that’s what I think I heard. Or it could have been a low sales thing.
Comment by MattR — January 16, 2008 @ 9:31 am
Finals is pretty damn good, which makes Pfeifer’s pissing away his talent on stuff like H-E-R-O and Aquaman all the more depressing.
Comment by CloverCoyle — January 16, 2008 @ 10:30 am
I really admired Finals when it came out, but I haven’t read it since, though I’ve thought of it on occasion, when the topic of comedies in comics comes up. In my knitting circle.
There’s a lot of comedy and a variety of comedy in comics, if you include webstrips. But if you don’t include webstrips… well. There are so few of the kind of comedy I most admire which is … R-rated comedy that’s at least somewhat rooted in observation of life and observation of experience.
Teenagers from Mars has some serious moves, and Kyle Baker is god; I think very highly of Peter Bagge’s Hate. I don’t know where I’d rank Finals in the category; obviously, it’s hardly Best of Show, but tough field; still: I remember feeling like it was at least aiming at being something I enjoy, and I remember being happy with it for that reason at least.
You know: the joke-types were mostly lightly absurd black humor. There was a *heavy* Dr. Strangelove influence, if I remember right (which is fine by me; oh boy, I just think the world of Strangelove).
I remember feeling it started out better than it ended, but… you know: 3 or 4-issue miniseries. When don’t you feel that way about a 3-or-4 issue miniseries?
I like dumb comedies too; I f-ing love Hot Rod, say. The blacker, straighter comedies don’t score the same kind of laughs a good dumb one will. It’s a different kind of laugh. So: if you’re looking for heavier duty variety of ha-ha– it’s not that. From what I vaguely, barely remember.
I was reading it in college or just barely out of college; I think it’d be a very different read for me now. Anyways: Jill Thompson art. I like her art; her stuff was fun on that book, at least.
Yeah… Finals….
Comment by Abhay — January 16, 2008 @ 6:33 pm