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 Oh, Crusher Creel, Crusher Creel. What's to be made of you? And no, that's not a joke, sort of. I find myself very fond of this perennial Marvel Comics villain-type, this bullet-headed goof known as The Absorbing Man. For those that don't know, and bless you, and why are you reading this blog, and anyway -- for those of you that don't know, this fellow is called The Absorbing Man because he can become what he touches, by absorbing (aha!) the object's properties and then transforming into said item. He likes to walk around as pictured above, sans shirt (aka, "The Haspiel", circa 1990's-2004 or so, I'd have to check on that with El Dino), prison-issue pants (or a disco slacks fail, not sure which), a pair of plain old shoes and...um...oh, yeah, a wrecking ball. Which is one of the reasons I gravitate towards this ruffian, because he carries a goddamned wrecking ball around with him. Mostly so's he can tap the wrecking ball and become a human wrecking ball, entirely made of steel. Or at least his epidermis is steel, I dunno what happens to sweetum's internals and guts and all that when he goes for the ball, or a brick, or a fluffy kitty. And I don't want to know, nobody should give a rat's ass about stuff like that, especially because if you make enough of a fanboy stink (insert joke here) some Marvel nitwit will write a story explaining it and that's a large part of what fucked superhero comics up in the first place. Anyway. I also like that he somehow manages to always find the same pair of pants when he breaks out of prison or recombines after yet another inglorious and idiotic defeat at the hands of (insert Marvel superhero or superhero team here). That's a real talent. That and liberating wrecking balls in whatever town you recombine your particulars in. Nice one, Crusher Creel, thumbs up. Don't know why you can't go to Sears and get a goddamned shirt, but I'm here to praise you man, not harp on you. So, yeah, Crusher Creel, aka, The Absorbing Man (I mention this again in honor of Jim Shooter's imbecilic script for the first Secret Wars series, which, iirc, contains the line, "I, Crusher Creel, The Absorbing Man --" as a means to introduce the villain to the teeming masses of fanboys and men who knew the character's goddamn height and weight because they bought the Marvel Universe Handbook issue which featured him. That would be the "A" issue, by the way, also featuring Arnim Zola, who I hope to blather about someday in my old age). Where was I? Right about...here. So, okay, I don't actually know this guy's origin, shame on me, I hear you saying. And I hang my head in shame, shame, shame, shame on me. Sorry to let you down here. Can't tell you who he first fought (Thor --? Millie the Model--? John Verpooten --?), what issue he first appeared in, if he has a name other than "Crusher", if he buys his pants in bulk and mails them to friends and family all over the country in case he has to recombine his particulars out of state, if his head always looked like that, if he had a toy wrecking ball as a child -- I don't know. I don't even know if he's a 60's villain or a 70's villain, but he always seemed to be around when I was a kid, and he was always one of the meaner bastards in the Marvel Universe. I mean, unhappy, bitter, angry, violent, in effect, the kind of guy who would call himself Crusher Creel and have a wrecking ball for a pal. I do recall he's been defeated in myriad gimmicky ways, tricked into touching cardboard and folded up (at least I hope he was folded up, I would have folded him up, it would have been funny if he was folded up and slid into a paper envelope and put away somewhere, the envelope marked "Contents - One (1) Absorbing Man. Warning -- Do Not Open. If Accidentally Opened, Do Not Let Him Absorb Anything! Handle With Paper Gloves Only!"), he accidentally touched glass and fell down and broke, he fell or jumped into water and was all watery and nobody knew what the hell to do and they weren't sure if he was dead or a watery Absorbing Man in the ocean and Hawkeye started wondering about whether or not The Absorbing Man's insides turned into steel when he touched his wrecking ball. I also can't remember exactly how his powers worked, could he avoid absorbing if he gave the situation a little thought, or was he a human paper towel that had to pick up whatever he touched? Seems that way from the earlier stories ("Crap! I momentarily forgot I was fighting The Avengers and picked my nose! Alack and alas, I am shapeless snot, to be picked up by SHIELD and dumped into a super-cylinder prison they had that just happened to be able to keep me in stasis so I don't touch anything." NOTE: This did not actually occur in a Marvel Comic, I was just wishing on a star that passed my window). Seems to me a stupid power, if you can't eat anything without physically turning into your McGriddle or whatever. If you put on gloves, then you're glove stuff. Huh. I could go back and read a bunch of Absorbing Man comics, but I don't think I have any, other than the ones Dean Haspiel and I did a few years back, the ones that were released to the sound of chirping crickets. I put him in there because he's a crazy-ass character and has a neat visual. And he carries a wrecking ball. Day-am! There's another Marvel villain guy what carries a wrecking ball, a member of The Wrecking Crew, he's called Wrecking Ball or Power Ball or Something- Ball, I don't remember. The Wrecking Crew is a gang of bad guys run by a guy who would be a great partner for Creel -- he's called The Wrecker (Get it? The Wrecker? Wrecking Crew? Hey, it gets better, The Wrecking Crew all carry construction worker tools! It's really kinda cool and awesome if you think about it and then stop thinking about it). The Wrecker is another badass with a lousy attitude, an ugly face, a weird outfit, and an iconic weapon, in this case a Magic Crowbar (I say thee YES!). Anyway, these two Heroclix figures have a lot in common and should team up, if they haven't already. I trust someone will edumicate me on this crucial point of U.S. History (meaning, please feel free tom inform me of any past exploits these two fictitious characters may have had together, in a less tender and caring manner of speaking than most would use). I like the guys that carry an iconic, cool weapon, it's kind of like those martial arts flicks where there's a tournament and everyone brings their crazy cutlery. Scimitars, light-reflecting shield with razor edge, flying guillotine (HOLY YES!). I dig that a lot. Wrapping Up: I found this drawing while clearing up the office last night, and so here you go. The Absorbing Man. Another in a series of whatever this is a series of. I'd write more, and write more clearly, and perhaps tie everything into my opening sentence like a real writer of essays and crap does, but I'm late for dinner and this is stupid enough as it is. Good evening, True Believers, wherever you are. |
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You can see the cover and the first three pages of BofB #4 here on the Dark Horse Comics Website. In other "news" - I think I might be mouthing off with Dan Vado again for the entire hour on the SLG Radio Show this Thursday, I'll post about it later this week if it's definitely happening. It's been a lot of fun talking with Dan, or yelling at Dan, or whatever it is you want to call what I do (immature, misinformed outbursts --?) on the show these past few weeks. We're hoping to get some callers, even though most folks who listen in do so via the archives. Anyway, there's that. Otherwise...weird day. Got some pages approved by Bongo. Saw friends of ours on the cover of a new DVD release. Odd stuff on Twitter. Interesting project dangled before my eyes (and the eyes of others, but can't say who, what, where or how in the hell --?). And I received a surprise gift in the mail of some DVDs I wanted and could not afford. Overall a happening bunch of hours. Which means... Something bad is definitely going to happen. It must be some kind of a set-up. I smell a rat. Etc. |
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Beasts of Burden #3 is out in shops that ordered it, and is also available through online comic shops and those crazy bit torrent sites for you download thief-types out there. Anyway, here's what one person thought of the new issue. And what another person thought. My thanks to everyone who has given us some attention on-line, it's been really cool to see some folks really enjoying the series so far. It's been so long since I've worked on a continuing narrative with a regular cast of characters, I forgot what it's like to get feedback on this sort of material. It's been fun, I'm sorry we only have one more issue to go and haven't figured out if we're taking the series any farther. I hope so, and I think it'll happen, but I'm not counting on anything until I'm actually writing another issue. Comics doesn't have a great track record when it comes to new series. Speaking of the eventual trade, Jill Thompson just finished up a swell new painted cover for the Beasts of Burden book, which will collect the first four BofB short stories and the four-issue series. At least 147 pages of niceness. I'm assuming the series cover illustrations will be tossed in there, maybe some odds and ends as well from Jill's files. We haven't gotten that far in discussing any extras that may or may not be be included. Speaking of collections, the one-page Plastic Man strip Stephen DeStefano and I did as a back-up for Wednesday Comics (in case anyone missed a deadline) will be included in the Wednesday Comics hardcover, shipping in May. And speaking of Stephen, he's drawing a graphic novel that will be published by Fantagraphics, which is terrific news. Not enough DeStefano art out there in funnybooks since animation (rightfully) snapped him up. I did an interview for a Swedish website about Beasts. Give me a thousand years and I will conquer the world. By conquering the world I mean I will do at least seven or eight more interviews for foreign websites. I might have some work for next year. Not a lot, but every little bit helps. I'm slightly optimistic about our prospects for 2010, but then again, I thought 2009 was the year things would turn around. Who knows. If I lived in the Los Angeles area I would have tried to sell some art to take the family to see the live Pee Wee Herman show. Sarah read me a really nifty interview that Gary Panter recently did with Paul Reubens, I'd link to it but I don't feel like looking for it. It turns out Panter was involved with designing the new stage show, which is pretty cool to hear. I will be one of a number of guests appearing at Comic Book Jones here on Staten Island during their second anniversary celebration. Other creators include Bryan Glass and Alex Robinson, please click on the link an scroll down a bit to see the flyer for the event, which takes place on December 17th. There will be a 25% off sale all day, and an after-party at a bar which serves them there alcoholic beverages. I really enjoyed Chris Wisnia's Doris Danger: Giant Monster Adventures, which SLG just released. Funny stuff. If you like the old Atlas-era giant monster books that Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Larry Lieber, Dick Ayers, Steve Ditko et al, did, you might dig this. Apparently this was a self-published project that SLG collected. It's presented as a series of reprinted 50's comics, with letters pages and editorial pages. The "old comics" are randomly run because they "couldn't find" all the old issues. The use of "quotes" around "certain phrases" will give you an "indication" of the approach to these "comics". Very tongue-in-cheek, loving but aware of the inherent silliness and stupidity of those old comics, the "stories" are more about the insane convolutions and cliches of those old tales than an attempt to tell a thorough, ongoing story. Although there is a narrative, which I won't even try to penetrate, about a girl reporter trying to prove that giant monsters exist, while a number of covert organizations and the U.S. government fight to dissuade her and the public from that belief. Or they want to kill giant monsters, or "liberate" them, or use them in their dopey plans. The lead character hardly matters, even the various goofy giant monsters with their jerky names and "abilities" or "attributes" don't figure into things as much as you'd expect (although some of the monsters are really funny, especially the one that keeps arguing with his attackers, refusing to "be quiet" or "stay still" or whatever they say he should do). Some of the monsters aren't monsters, they're robots, or projections, some of the robots are people, some of the people are robots, some of the people are french, or "midgets", most everyone is a double or triple-agent. It's nuts, and the deadpan idiocy builds really nicely and the book really grows on you as you go along (at least it "grew" on "me"), it reminded me in places of Michael Kupperman's genre-oriented strips, or perhaps Bob Burden's Mystery Men stories if memory serves on how he approached those comics. Layer upon layer of contrived nonsense builds to a point where the repetition and stilted dramatic dialogue itself becomes funny , certain shticks become more welcome and funny the more it gets piled on ("imho"). Ditto the anachronisms ("hippies" and out of place "hip talk"), running arguments between characters on monsters, truth, secrecy, Christian fellowship, personal choice, etc, the various secret organizations MO's, and a few characters who are obsessed with specific things like their missing legs, to the point where everything they say has to be put in terms of their obsessions ("missing legs", get me?). The art is more or less perfunctory, Kirby-inspired, and actually inked by Dick Ayers for several chapters. It does the job, and the author makes fun of his own art in the "letters pages" ("You suck! Buy a ruler!"). If you're looking for more polished art offerings, look no further than the various guest pin-ups sprinkled throughout the issue, done by folks like Dave Gibbons, Jaime Hernandez, Gilbert Hernandez, Mario Hernandez, John Severin, Russ Heath, Art Adams (an insanely detailed two-page dinosaur vs Kong-like ape spread), Ramona Fradon, Mike Allred and some folks whose names I'm forgetting because I don't have the book in front of me. I'm not a professional "comics reviewer", give me a "break" here, will you? Its a weird little comic that provides a lot more laughs than the average ode to silver age madness, and it's a measly $10. And you get pin-ups of monsters by cool people. When I was done I was willing to "read more". That means I "liked it". (By the way, if anyone from SLG is reading this, I think it would be a good idea to list the contributing pin-up artists on the website listing for the book -- it strikes me as a "good selling point"). Last night I couldn't sleep so I watched Phantasm on DVD, a copy of which I borrowed from friends on Halloween. God, I still love this dopey movie, it's creepy and crazy and doesn't make much sense. Especially when you factor in the three sequels, one of which I love (#2) and two of which were incredibly disappointing, disjointed and confusing to no good end, imho (Hint - #3 and #4). If I had the sequels I'd likely fire them up tonight and tomorrow night. Despite not liking the last two, and feeling, as a fanboy, that they throw tepid water all over franchise, I'm one of those folks who becomes fascinated with franchises, even though they pretty much all go to blazes and suck the life out of your enthusiasm for the original outings. Hell, I'm strangely intrigued by film series that started off with films I don't like at all (the convoluted and stupid Jason Voorhees saga of crap), or started off with films I liked that immediately went to hell with the first sequel (Halloween, although for some reason I'm kind of fond of the fourth movie, the one with the little girl), or started off with a film I really used to like but am now very cool towards (Nightmare on Elm Street). There's something about following the confusing trail of genre crap left by too many cooks working on concepts that aren't strong enough to warrant all the fuss...I just get sucked in by the possibilities, the missed possibilities, the WTF aspects, the garbage, the fan speculation the whole mess and magilla that comes with being a fan. I'm sure it harkens back to my childhood, following the serial adventures of various comic and book characters, moving through the various pleasures and disappointments of the ever-building story where nothing really ever changes despite the endless piling on of subsequent stories and the ever-expanded, distorted and cheapened "canon" (Let me not get started on Marvel Comics here...). I wouldn't be surprised if the old Universal monster franchise didn't help kick-start the interest, those are the earliest films I can think of where I was able to follow the stories and things continued, with, of course, diminishing returns. But when you're a fan, you often feel you'd rather have "some Michael Myers" than "no Michael Myers", although I've fallen into the latter camp when it comes to The Shape (of things that never stop coming). I'm not interested in everything out there that I once liked (I was done with Star Wars --oh, once beloved Star Wars -- when the tweaked originals came out, enough, oh god, enough. And I never did see the third Matrix movie, as the second one beat all interest out of me forever). But with some things, the fan brain kicks in, and I want "to know". I'm the kind of geek who finishes even bad books and movies, as if compelled to, to start what I finished, for good or bad. I rarely fought to fast-forward through a miserable film when we all used to get together at The lawgivers for junk movies, I argued to sit through even the dullest of them (but even I gave up on shit like The Mangler, one of those "why was this made/completed/edited" deals only the truly addled can stomach). Anyway, Phantasm. In a nutshell, what's interesting, or, depressing, about the series is that unlike most of these things, the creator of the franchise has been behind the steering wheel the entire time. And it still doesn't make sense, in fact, as it progresses it makes less sense than ever. Don Coscarelli has stated that the first film was a stand-alone, it was not designed as the first in the series. The second film, more or less, works like a better-funded remake of the first, a la Evil Dead 2. Then it gets cheap, crazy, and worst of all, dull and routine, with the third film. A few odd touches, but any film that falls back on the "thugs who die and come back as undead thugs" as a major plot point is a bit lost. It wastes a great mausoleum, iirc, and goes nowhere, lacking the solid black humor, creepiness and surreal nightmare moments of the first two. It's just not fun or inventive, and the world-building around the Tall Man and the spheres isn't enough of a hook. Except for idiots like me wondering what's going on, okay, yeah, but as a film, a slender hanger. The last film is a disaster, the main points of interest being outtakes from the first film presented as flashbacks, whether or not they make sense in the narrative. Anyway, I didn't mean to get on a Phantasm kick, but what the hell. The thing is, as lousy as I found the last two flicks, here I am, wondering and complaining about the series, because I was drawn in. I can't help but wonder about these sorts of thing,s not only, imo, what the hell happened to the storyline, but what the hell happened to the creative spark and energy in the filmmaker? Nobody should have a better handle on the franchise than Coscarelli, but he's left a legacy of head-scratching frustration for most viewers certainly for myself and my circle of friends who've seen the four films. Thinking about that sort of thing, "where did it all go wrong", always freaks me out, because in my small part of the entertainment industry, I'm juggling concepts and ideas, and I am terrified of the idea of screwing them up, losing sight of my own ideas, getting old, soft, lazy or just plain sloppy. It makes me wonder, was George Romero always super-talented, or did he just know how to do a few thrilling, crazy zombie flicks before his abilities went south? What's the deal with John Carpenter, a once-reliable maker of fun, efficient and creepy movies (some of which I don't feel hold up anymore, like The Fog, much of Escape From NY, but whatever) -- but has cranked out some of the worst, creakiest and outright stupidest known quantity genre flicks in memory? Is anyone consistent, or do we all end up sucking? Does fame and money and laziness work it's way in? I dunno. Certainly Don Coscarelli isn't rich or famous by Hollywood standards. I guess I"m just fascinated by the contortions a franchise takes, even when they disappoint (which is what -- just about always?), it's a weird organism. Really, do any movie franchises stay strong? We all have our personal favorites, but if you can admit a lot of what you like isn't really "good" it becomes difficult to find any series of three or more films that seriously satisfy (I'm in the minority of my social group for enjoying the fourth Alien film, it doesn't do much for the franchise, but I like it as a junky ride. Despite what some folks say these days I'm not buying into Alien 3, which for all it's interesting ideas, is mainly a stalker/victim snorefest with an unsatisfying ending. And no, I will not forgive them jettisoning Newt, et al, especially the way they handled it. I tend to search an apartment I once saw a roach in better than they went over their escape vehicle, and Ripley should've known better after the first film. And the second. Sheesh! .Most folks dismiss the Night of the Living Dead remake, I think it's mostly super-solid. I like Texas Chainsaw 2, which is kind of lousy. I'm not entirely sold on Evil Dead 3 which some love. Return of he Living Dead 2 is a shitty remake and isn't a good movie, but for some reason I enjoyed it and don't have the knives out for it like die-hard fans of the superior in every way original, etc etc). I guess what I'm saying is I'm in the mood to bullshit about horror movies and crap. I should've just said that straight out and made this a separate post. Too lazy, too tired, too jaded. Remember when this blog was fun? Now it's just degenerated into stupid crap. I shouldn't have let other people take it over. I should have just stopped after the first post, it was all downhill from there. Maybe Rob Zombie can reboot my blog, make it absolutely horrendous, and successful. yeah, that's an idea... |
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Mentioned this in an earlier post, this is the Marvel villains piece I'm working on for a charity auction.  For laughs I went ahead and penciled as many characters as I could without using any reference, just relied on the addled old fan noggin to see how it went. Funny how close but how far you get resorting to memory, the basics usually fall into place, but the details and arrangement of same are almost never on the money. I got close to the target on a few like Doc Doom , Doc Octopus, The Sandman, and The Scorpion, I'll likely find mistakes on these but between the simplistic versions and the fact that the costume details change constantly in the old comics (and that the piece measures 9" by 6"), I'm leaving well enough alone. I screwed up Magneto several times already even though I know his outfit pretty well after doing a commission with him a few months back. I just haven't liked the way I've drawn him, he's been the big stumbling block so far for some reason. Can't recall much about a number of these goofs save some basic shapes and details, guessing heavily on Modok, The Leader, Loki, The Ringmaster, The Puppet Master and The Abomination, among others, I expect to be doing quite a bit of erasing on those when I break the old comics out. I'll need them for sure to finish up Klaw, Annihilus (barely sketched in), The Enchantress and the Executioner (ditto), etc. I'm drawing blanks on The Super Adaptoid (fitting), the Mandarin, Baron Mordo, they may not make it into the final piece. Ditto The Eel. I've failed at including The Plant Man and The Porcupine, and every time I tried to fit The Beetle in it didn't work, even though I can pretty much draw that idiot by heart. I put a HYDRA agent tin there but somehow another one slipped in and I didn't have room or time for that nonsense, so they're out. Would like to put The Destroyer in there, The Cobra, Attuma, Electro, Kraven, hell, a dozen or three other pen and ink childhood memories, but I'm almost out of space as it is. Anyway, I started hitting the comics a few weeks back and used them to fix the Rhino and Batroc (I used the cartoony Batroc I drew for the Captain America: Red, White and Blue strip because I knew where the book was, the Rhino ref came from the 70's Spider-man Marvel Treasury edition), but I haven't had a chance to do any work on the piece since then. Anyway, once I get everyone penciled I can ink it up and send it off for the auction, which I believe is slated for early 2010. |
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Hey, folks. In a nutshell, SLG Publishing is having an across-the-line, no coupon necessary, 40% off everything sale for the next week or so. A tough economy and some financial curve balls have made the sale necessary in an attempt to put some coins in the coffer, wind in the sails, eggs in the basket, etc, etc, whatever the hell. SLG, as most of you know, has more or less been my publishing home for the past 20 years or so, so I'm of course hoping for the best for them during these times of hardship. And I can certainly empathize, as this has been a rotten month in a tough year for the House of Fun, which is why we've been selling off parts of our collection on e-bay and making art available that I had not ever intended on selling. Anyway, you do what you can, you do what you have to. This is a crazy business to be in even during the best of times for those of us who aren't sitting at the adults table and don't have a trust fund. Sometimes there's little you can do but keep working and hold your breath until the floodwater recedes. The SLG site can be accessed by clicking here. The search for my comic book crap is here. You can find comics by Andi Watson, Jhonen Vasquez, Faith Erin Hicks, Gene Yang, Dave Roman, James Turner, Scott Saavedra, Phil Elliot and Glenn Dakin, Derf, Serena Valentino and many others, the various Disney books SLG did, and all sorts of merch and stuff you might have been promising to get around to or were previously unaware of and might want to give the once-over twice at 40% off. There's also stuff from other publishers which I assume is included in the sale. I do know that the ten-years too late Milk and Cheese vinyl toys make good holiday gifts, they also make for something to blow up with M-80's in the backyard. Ah, me. Speaking of SLG, I will be joining Dan for the full hour of this week's SLG Radio show, the rant-fest begins at Thursday at 5 pm EST. Maybe we'll end up spending the entire time talking about lousy times in funnybook land, or working as a scientific guinea pig for cash, or selling blood or hair, or whatever the hell. Please consider calling in if you have a question or a topic or anything to say. No bill collectors, please. Thank you. |
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My computer's been on the blink for a while, so I've been using Sarah;s, which has led to a pile of post-it notes and scribbled-on scraps of paper gathering on my desk. A lot of these were reminders to post this or that on the blog, which, I obviously didn't do. Sarah spent many hours yesterday trying to revive my ailing machine, which is more or less now acting responsibly. We'll see how long that lasts. In the meantime, I'm gonna play catch-up with a few random mentions of this, that and the other: - The House of Fun Art For Sale list was updated after we got home from the Baltimore Convention, I just never told anybody because I'm such a savvy business person. We got hit with some unforeseen expenses (inc. a hefty car repair bill, ouch) so I'm offering up some new pieces, a few of them relatively big ticket items, a few of them relatively affordable -- pages from Milk and Cheese pages, Bizarro Comics/Bizarro World, Hellboy: Weird Tales, as well as a few pin-ups, odds and ends and the cover to Dork #6, which was The Eltingville Club issue (a note to the reader/customer who purchased the back cover to #6 and the Eltingville t-shirt some months back - I have lost your contact info, which is why I did not write you about the front cover. If you're reading this, please get in touch with me, because I feel badly that I screwed that up. My apologies!). Also, we've lowered the prices on a number of older pieces on the list. Several pages have already sold since we added the new artwork, as a few regular customers contacted us, but the list has been updated to reflect those purchases. If time allows we'll be adding more stuff before the holidays and we'll likely put some more layouts and small pieces up on e-Bay as well. - I am going to be appearing weekly on the SLG Radio show every Thursday, or at least every Thursday SLG head honcho Dan Vado puts a show together. My segment will be taking place in the last fifteen or twenty minutes of the show. We'll talk about comics, I guess. We'll see. So far I've mostly yammered about nothing in particular while Dan tries to get a word in edgewise. It's a live call-in show, so folks can participate if they want. Previous broadcasts are archived on the blog radio site and upcoming guests are announced on the page as well, so check it out. - Speaking of radio, I don't remember if I posted about Jill Thompson and I having been guests on Robin McConnell's Inkstuds radio program recently. You can listen to the episode here. Inkstuds is a great comic book resource, Robin's interviewed a terrific array cartoonists over the course of its 4-yr run (Happy Anniversary, btw). - Speaking of interviews, here's one Jill and I did with Crimespree Magazine regarding Beasts of Burden. - Speaking of Beasts of Burden, here's a preview of the first three pages of the upcoming third issue, which is an Orphan solo adventure. While the orders for the series have been less than stellar, the response has been extremely gratifying, and it doesn't look like retailers are getting stuck with too many copies dying on their racks. We've also received some very nice comments about the series from creators like Neil Gaiman, Dave Gibbons, Len Wein, James Robinson and Eric Powell (all on Twitter), which has been cool as all hell to see, I must admit. #3 ships on the 25th, and hopefully will be a fun sort of palate cleanser after the downbeat second issue. At least that was the plan. - Geek Alert: Universal Monster movie fans take note - I accidentally stumbled across a reference to The Universal Cult Horror Collection, a set of five lesser-known weirdies including Murders In The Zoo, The Mad Ghoul and Rondo Hatton as The Creeper in House of Horrors. The set is only being sold through TCM.com (and one other online source, but the price is the same, iirc), it's part of a deal TCM made with Universal to release some films on demand, and hopes are high that perhaps this could lead to getting Island of Lost Souls out on DVD. The films can be bought separately, as well. I haven't seen any of these, I'm sure they're nutty jerk-fests, but I love this stuff. Now, if I could only afford them... -I've got something like seven new Fun Strips done or almost done. I've gridded up a batch of strips and pages to work on whenever the ink's drying on another job, so who knows, I may have some Dork-type comics to show you folks sooner or later. Still trying to get more done on that Milk and Cheese strip I started and posted a bit from a little while back, but it's slow going. - I'm also working on a pin-up for a charity auction that has been fun, little cartoony versions of as many old Marvel Comics villains as I can remember the details for. It's a small piece but I'm trying to get as many figures in as possible, I think I have thirty or so right now. I'm trying to see how many characters I can draw more or less by memory, and then I'll get the reference out and see what I screwed up, and complete the details on the characters I don't know well. Some characters I can't even lay a single line down for, so they'll need reference. In my head I can see The Mandarin and Klaw, but on paper...nada (besides the sonic weapon -- weird!). But it looks like 80% of these bums are still floating around in my memory banks while I forget my social security number and my own phone numbers. Maybe I'll scan it as it stands and post an in-progress image. Or maybe not. - If the November issue of Nickelodeon was the swan song for the magazine, I'm depressed. If December turns out to be the final issue, still depressed. We had a gag panel in the November Nick...what a bummer to see it end. And just when Emily started reading it, of course. - I've been reading a lot of Spider pulps, my first Avenger pulp, old horror short story collections, some Fritz Leiber SF short stories, some Robert Bloch, some recent young adult fantasy series (The Magic Thief and The Last Apprentice), some David Goodis crime novels, some lesser-known (to me, at least) Black Lizard crime reprints (The Vengeance Man, You Play the Red and the Black Comes Up), some Jim Thompson, and some Blackjack manga. Nothing heavy, nothing too depressing. The Lawgiver is planning a house move, and is culling his library, so I've been hauling bags of old paperbacks over here to digest and then donate. I'm keeping the Spider paperbacks, though. It's been a lot of fun, and a lot of it is research for projects, so it's sort of work, as well. Some days I just want to stay in bed and read until I fall back asleep, like when I was a kid on a rainy day. - I'm doing a lot of stuff for Bongo right now, and for the foreseeable future --, and it's time I got back to that. Latersville, all. |
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Apparently the first volume in the IDW King Aroo reprint project has been solicited in this months Previews eyesore -- this is a series I'm really looking forward to as I find Jack Kent's strip delightful (there's a word I rarely type) and an example of great pure cartooning chops. And my daughter might enjoy it, as well. Maybe. I'm basing this on the character designs, all the cute creatures running around in the strip, and the gentle nature and humor of the strip. And the puns, she's getting into corny old gags in the way most of us did when we were little. I never know what comics she's going to respond to, to be honest. For a long while she wouldn't read anything with people in it, Dennis the Menace was out for that reason. Now she has taken the Toon Treasury away from me and has gone through it multiple times, without missing funny animals, kids, gag pages, even the Briefer Frankenstein pages, which I thought might turn her off. Then again, she read print-outs of the first issue of Beasts of Burden #1 in black and white, while we weren't around, and startled us at the dinner table one night by quoting the "eat 'em up frog" (as she put it) demon (she also calls it the "eat everything frog"). She quoted the frog in a funny kid monster voice, and it was very funny, but Sarah gave me the "I thought we agreed not to leave those pages lying around" look. And we did agree not to let her see the pages because some of them are kind of nasty, and as it turned out, Emily was bothered by some of the events in the first issue, and told me I wrote it "wrong", because the deaths of two animals in it upset her. We have since never admitted the existence of Beasts #2, for reasons some of you might understand after reading that issue. She knows #3 exists because she's seen pages on the computer, it's the "Orphan goes looking for his girlfriend" story (as she puts it), and while there are some gory bits, it's an adventure and not a downbeat, depressing bit of work. There's no way she's seeing #4, because there's some horror stuff in there that I don't think she'd like. She's also been "stealing" my copy of the first Cul De Sac collection lately, and she seems to like it, although she doesn't get a lot of the strips. But she keeps reading it. Kills me to watch her reading comics. You see, there's this kid in my house, right, and she's little and cute and she's ours and she's reading some of them there funnybooks. Who'd have thunk it? Not me. Anyway, off tangent, what else is new. Didn't expect to be posting, but I'm taking a break in-between working on some strip layouts and so there you go and here I go and who knows where it goes. But speaking of the Dick Briefer Frankenstein comics, I read that Fantagraphics has announced a new slate of books, including a reprinting of this material. To which I say sweet, because along with oddballness like Herbie Popnecker and a few other projects, this is a cult series that many folks have wanted to see back in print. Hopefully enough folks out there are interested in order to make it viable for the long haul. Who knows. And it gets better, or worse, if you consider your wallet and shelf space, because FBI's also doing collections of lesser-known 50's horror comics, an Alex Toth collection of his Standard Comics work, a pre-Plastic Man Jack Cole collection, a book on EC cartoonists' work at other companies, and a Basil Wolverton book. So, you folks who are into these sorts of things better start taking a few bills outta your mom's bag or your dad's wallet each and every week because this is gonna be an assault on the cents-less. So many good books, and I'm not half-wise to everything IDW is announcing (I did read about a Polly and Her Pals oversize Sundays collection, apparently a $75 "Champagne Edition" -- hell, I like bells and whistles and all, but give me a decent Budweiser Edition, fer chrissakes!), or Dark Horse, or whoever else is helping grow the pile. Hell, Captain Easy still hasn't debuted, supposedly Walt and Skeezix is getting back on track, the John Stanley library is up and running, more Harvey stuff, more DHC Little Lulu, I mean, holy goodnight! You can't sell a comic book outside of Marvel and DC that isn't Buffy or whatever-related (I oughta know, after seeing the numbers on beasts #1), and they're not even selling a ton of the aforementioned, but somehow scores of classic comic collections are making their way into the world. Not that I'm complaining. It's just so unprecedented and unforeseen; going back a few years, that it's hard to imagine it isn't a geekanerd fever dream. Anyway, I just hope 2010 isn't the dam bursting on the reprint trend and we're not hitting the motherlode overload anytime soon, because at some point this has to start choking shelves and bringing consumers to their financial knees, but while the gettin's good, this is a goddamned Golden Age of great comic gatherings, guys and gals. This is history in the re-packaging, and bears attention. Or maybe it's a sinister alliance with Ikea to sell even more Billy bookcases. So, anybody looking forward to any of this stuff? Anything you've heard about that is of interest? How about them Yankees? No, no Yankees, I don't really care, in fact I really don't care, anti-care, could care less. No Yankees, no NYC mayoral race, no creepy rich people sports of any kind. Just funnybooks, today. Glorious, ridiculous funnybooks. Them I understand. |
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So, basically, things have been pretty tense here recently. And now, thankfully, they're not as tense. Talk to you folks soon. |
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Haven't done one of these in a long time, dunno if there's any interest out there, but...any questions? Now's the time. |
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