At this point, I’m pretty sure all of the Obama comics are part of a Republican plot to make everyone so sick of the president they won’t re-elect him in 2012: I mean, even his dog is going to be appearing in one of Marvel’s comics, Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers. USA Today had the scoop, and they have a nice little chat with writer Chris Eliopoulos. Well, it’s nice if you can stand all the puns and pet humor in it. Careful though, that link leads to a spoiler! Don’t read the article if you don’t want to know the location of the final infinity gem!
I think we should replace the word “graphic” with “comics” and have “comics novels” (and “comics short stories” and “comics serials” and “comics biographies” and so on): Shawn Huston has a pretty great piece about the names by which we call comics, prompted by the New York Times‘ decision to use the term “graphic books” in their sales tracking, a term I kinda freaked out about when I first heard it (Like it or not, the publishing world long ago settled on the term “graphic novel” for any bound comics work, and it’s gonna take a lot more than a decision from a few folks at the NYT to change that). Do take some time to check out Huston’s article. It’s well written, and wrestles with an issue no one’s been able to solve satisfactorily so far: Just what the heck do we call these things?
“Fan expectations high for the most famous queer character in mainstream comics”: More famous than Extrano and Northstar? Is it possible? Chaos McKenzie talks to writer Greg Rucka about his upcoming run on Detective Comics, which will be focusing on Batwoman. It’s a pretty thorough piece, starting with the original Batwoman in the 1950s, although it seems to skip over the weird, several-year delay between the new Batwoman’s debut in 52 and the start of this story arc. Why has it taken DC so long to exploit a potentially hot character the mainstream media was interested in? Because they wanted to make sure they got this comic book just right? That’s not exactly the company’s usual M.O., as the state of Bat-books for, oh, the last five years or so attests.
Trinity, one year later: Comics critic Don MacPherson takes a look at Kurt Busiek, Mark Bagley and company’s year-long weekly series as a whole, now that it’s finally wrapped up. Is MacPherson’s piece a good read? Um, I don’t really know, as I haven’t read it yet; I’m planning on doing my own Trinity debrief later in the week, and so have been avoiding other Trinity pieces. But I’m totally going to come back and read MacPherson’s afterward.
Wow, right through the goatee!: Chris Sims on Conan’s first night as the Tonight Show host.
The Penguin, dressed as a cowboy: Dr. K presents an old Batman mini-comic he got from a box of cereal, in which the arch-villain attempts to rob a rodeo, while accessorizes his Western duds with an umbrella and monocle. It is, as Dr. K notes, the perfect example of a Batman story. I particularly like this panel, in which the artists draw Penguin’s whole area. Denim doesn’t do Oswald Cobblepot any favors.
And speaking of The Penguin, Kevin Church has assembled a whole bunch of ’80s era Super Friends/Super Powers Team videos in one spot here; I always used to feel bad for The Penguin, because he was just some middle-aged fat guy with a helicopter umbrella going up against an army of superheroes, you know?
“…but what set her apart was her tendency for her face to transform into a hideous grinning skull”: Dave Campbell on the two weirdest characters that appear in Supermen!: The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes: 1939-1941, Fantomah and Stardust The Super-Wizard. Hmm, now what do those two have in common…
June 4th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
As loath as I am to admit this and help you drive traffic to my nemesis, that link to Campbell’s site is broken.
June 4th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Thanks; I fixed it. Campbell is lucky to have such a noble adversary.