Sorry about the lack of quotes last weekend, I was busy at Baltimore Comic-Con trying to get a lunch invitation from Dan DiDio . . . on with the quotes.
“Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s FANTASTIC FOUR #560 just continues their lackluster attempt at being imaginative without, you know, actually coming up with anything new. When The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine reads as if it’s stolen its plot from Heroes, which in itself stole its plot from “Days of Future Past,” then that’s not a good thing. It’s such a… dull book, now.”
- Graeme McMillan on the current level of excitement with Millar and Hitch’s Fantastic Four.
“I was a juvenile delinquent, basically.”
- Ed Brubaker providing a glimpse into his origin.
“They looked like manga-fans, they shopped through an entire area dedicated to teen graphic novels, and those two books were what caught their eye. We might never know if they liked them or not, but those books did attract the audience they were supposed to, even if in a direct market comic book store.”
- Christopher Butcher ending his must-read postmortem on Minx with a positive account of a recent Minx transaction.
“He killed a guy while he was dead, stuffed and mounted.”
- Mike Sterling speaking of Jonah Hex’s ability to kill while dead. Go to Sterling’s site for the visual details. God, I love absurd comic moments like that.
“The notorious graphic novelist from Trinity-Spadina remains the best-known of the Libertarian lot, of course, even if further discussion of Chester Brown’s candidacy in mainstream Canadian media hasn’t yet travelled farther than the weblog at Quill & Quire. There, news that Brown is working on a graphic novel about paying for sex at the same time he’s accepted a $16,000 Canada Council grant — through a program which, as a card-carrying Libertarian, he would rather not exist — met with some apparent weariness: ‘Is anyone else worried that the Tories are smelling blood in the water?’”
- Marc Weisblott observing the heightened level of coverage (mostly in the comics blogosphere) that Chester Brown’s candidacy has received.
“Even though his predilection for funny-animals and simple drawing style made his work seem to be the most childish of the lot (which is why I didn’t pay particular attention to him when I was an adolescent — dumb kid!), he had a dark wit that, years later, makes his work as fresh as ever even as his other cohorts look dated.”
- Kim Thompson paying tribute to Raymond Macherot’s work in the wake of his passing
“I was able to speak with Jimmy Palmiotti for a few minutes after he finished signing a man’s entire collection of the Marvel Knights Black Panther series, which Palmiotti had to examine to figure out what his role had been. (He edited them, apparently.)”
- Tucker Stone detailing that while he and I went to the same Baltimore con, we experienced it differently. This is not to say I disagree with Stone at all, but merely a recognition that I should have not started conversations with pros by exclaiming: “I love that enclosed walkway from the new Hilton to here!”
“I’d have to agree that a dedicated girl’s line for the direct market is a HUGE mistake. While there are good supportive DM stores for this venture, the DM as a whole is too small, too unfriendly to creators and titles of artists that don’t also work for the Big Two, to support a girl’s line–even a very good one.
But a girl’s line under the radar? Heh heh heh. It can be Done.”
- Lea Hernandez taking her wealth of industry knowledge and offering “a Plan for a Girl’s Comics Line based on Common Sense and Experience” (and other matters).
“There was a time when comics used to be relatively recession-proof, but then in those days, Marvel weren’t charging four dollars for an issue of a miniseries.”
- Paul O’Brien tossing out the economic r-word in the introductory section of his Marvel/August 2008 numbers crunch.
“Convene A Season of Summits On the Forthcoming Creators Healthcare And Retirement Crisis”
- Tom Spurgeon making a list of 24 things he’d decree “to make comics better”. While it’s near impossible to agree with him on all counts (nor is he asking us to), I admire it if for nothing else slot #5, which I quote.
