Why, hurrah! A new version of WordPress that makes things even more complicated, inconvenient, and counter-intuitive! I'm so happy.
Anyway, on with all the really important (read: inane) stuff from around the comics internet.
ITEM! (Remember those?) Bookseller.com reveals that Grant Morrison has authored a book-- with words!-- entitled Supergods: Our World in the Age of the Superhero, described as:
"...the definitive history of the superhero", from the invention of Superman in 1938, through to the movie versions of "Watchmen" and "Wolverine". ... Our world and the world of the superhero are going to be fed into the brilliant blender of Grant's brain, so expect philosophy, anthropology, Buddhism, mad Âscience, capes and punk rock."
Coming August 2010. I am excited.
ITEM! I really like the idea of somebody finally coming out with an "iTunes for comics," and Rantz Hoseley might be doing just that with Longbox Comics. This is really extraordinary news that makes me quite giddy, and not just because I would love to sell my own comics projects through such a system. If the interface doesn't suck, like so many digital-comics-reading interfaces, it will be a mighty thing indeed. I also like the idea that Longbox "will allow (again, at the publisher's discretion) ... a voucher for the trade paperback or hardcover collection of a series to which the user has subscribed in the digital format." It all sounds too good to be true; let's hope it isn't.
ITEM! Tucker Stone's got some fun reviews up at the Savage Critic, where he looks at 40 year old Crumb, 30 year old Ditko, 25 year old Willingham, and some other odds and ends, and you should go read it. Here, have this excerpt to convince you to click upon the above link and validate my existence:
Every story in here is about cocks, vaginas, semen, scabs, rape, incest, penetration, cunnilingus, homosexuality, heterosexuality, bestiality (with a happy little girl and her happy little cow), except for one, because it's a one-page Crumb-draws-black-people-as-monstrous-jungle-beasts story. So yeah, Zap # 4. This is 40 years old.
There. That oughta improve the Google stats.
PAD, UNPADDED: Peter David's retrospective tell-all interview at the CBR mothership is quite interesting. He's the man known for beloved runs that end in tears when editorial eventually drives him away-- seemingly every time. Sorry, Burgas, no questions about his punning. But there's Aquaman stuff thrown in there for me:
Number one, it’s a freaking harpoon. Can we get on the same page with that? It’s not a hook. It was never a hook. Second, uproar is good. Lack of complacency is good. The whole point of the harpoon was that it was a symbol of the two worlds that Aquaman strides. That’s he’s taking a harpoon, one of the main weapons used by surface men against aquatic life, and using it as a weapon against the surface men. Which is why the whole water hand thing never made sense to me.
HOLY SNEAK PEEK, BATMAN! DCU's Source blog has given us preview pages for both the upcoming Giffen/Clark Doom Patrol series as well as Peter Milligan's return to Batman in the pages of Batman Confidential. I'm excited for both!
SUPPOSEDLY, JMS is leaving Thor behind-- which we were all waiting for, considering he signed DC contracts and is working on movies and stuff. I'm supposedly hoping that Matt Fraction will supposedly take the supposed series over, because I'd supposedly really like to buy that comic. I will also accept Peter Milligan, supposedly, or even myself, if Marvel randomly-- and supposedly-- drops me a line and asks for my supposed pitch, which, supposedly, would be awesome and epic and stuff. So I hear.
ALRIGHT, so it's definite, not supposed, but I didn't want to delete the joke I'd ran into the ground above. It's nice to see a well-respected writer jumping ship from a book because he thinks a mega-crossover is going to kill his story; this won't make any sense to the beancounters, but it's refreshing pre-emptive honesty.
MY, WHAT A LOVELY PATE YOU HAVE. AND I ESPECIALLY LIKE YOUR LADYFRIEND'S AFRO. Mike Sterling, of Mike Sterling's Progressive Ruin, has given us all the reason we need to use the internet on weekends: Sluggo Saturday. That little bald, homeless Fonzie is the new epitome of cool.
THE A-Z OF AWESOMENESS by Neill Cameron is still going strong and rocking the casbah, so to speak. After all-- MODOK's always funny.
REMAKE/REMODEL is Hoku Tamanochi, the Ghost Exterminator! Fitting for the week the Ghostbusters Video Game came out, I suppose. I quite enjoyed ESCgoat, aka Tyler Ragan's, inspired rendering:
I also really dug kmcleod's:
SOMETHING CLEVER THAT RHYMES WITH EXTERMINATE: Cartoonist Darryl Cunningham has created a blog called Exdrawminate! that features nothing but pictures of Daleks, silly or otherwise. Yes, it's as awesome as it sounds. I await the Dalek Spa ("Exfoliate!"), Shaun of the Dalek ("Exacerbate!"), and, of course, Jon & Kate Plus Dalek ("Emasculate!").
QUESTION: Is Project Rooftop ever going to announce the winners of their Wolverine redesign contest?