What I Picked Up at the Local Comic Shop Yesterday
The latest issue (def: 9. Med - a) a discharge of blood, pus, etc) of Diamond Previews, the end-all, be-all catalogue and face of all things Direct Market and a blight upon the eyes and senses. This has to be the quickest dump time I've ever experienced between opening the phonebook of the damned and tossing it bodily into the recycling. DC product on both the front and back covers this time around thanks to a Spawn/Batman crossover. Todd McFarlane's back, folks, everyone line up to reward him for his antics with some top of the chart numbers and hoarding, thank you very much brain trust of comics. It seemed like there were more statues and superhero busts offered than comics, and there were way too many comics, to boot. My favorite eye-rolling bit of horsehockey was a very serious and solemn bit of DC comics solicitation copy about how readers have been wondering what has happened to Krypto the super-dog now that Superboy is dead which made me laugh out loud on the can. With a straight fucking face some adult with working mental and motor skills wrote this and another approved it and someone went off and actually made this comic? I love crap like Krypto, but c'mon, humorless modern superhero comics has to justify a super dog with some melodramatic hooha. Sure, I haven't read it, yes, you're right, I haven't read the sad, touching story of superdog's reaction to his super owener's super-creepy life and death. And anything can make for a good story, sure, I've written my own dog stories, people had good things to say about We3, blah blah blah. But they didn't have the weight of forty years of silly-ass continuity and fan raving crushing down on them. And they didn't have silly-ass solicitation copy that made it sound like a very special episode of Different Strokes. Holy goodnight. No thanks. Not until the Legion of Super Pets comes back en masse to fight a giant robot or something. With no blood or computer airburshing, to boot. Raise high the Showcase reprints, to the ovens with For the Love of Krypto.

Lots of Manga in Previews this time around, I mean, extra lots, only who in the DM is ordering it? The same folks ordering small press books in any sizeable numbers.

My local shop does, thankfully, although none for me this week, thanks. I do want to check out the Floating Classroom and the new DHC versions of the Tomie material by Junji Ito, but instead this week I picked up a copy of Cartoon Modern from Chronicle Books, a fairly hefty and well-illustrated look at 50's animation style and design. Film, commercials, industrial shorts, etc. Pretty nice stuff, a style I wouldn't mind emulating more in my work if I knew what the hell I was doing. You get your Richard WIlliams, Mary Blair, Tom Oreb, Hawley Pratt, John Hubley, and a host of others you may or may not know of. I'm aware only of the surface of these sorts of things,which I guess is sad because I sort of work in animation myself at times. Sort of. But that's why I picked up this swellegant book. I don't have time to run through the myriad modern design/animation websites that Drawn is always plugging so nicely, I just need the damned info sitting before me in my lap or on my desk for the most part. Well, here's some damned info for those of you who enjoy this sort of thing.

Also got the latest issue of Super 7 magazine () -- which has become a bit moribund and formulaic in its seeimg coverage of the same eight or so toy designers and outfits. How many times can I read about Balzacc and Cocobat and Pushead already, enough. The magazine ships infrequently enough that the same ten people have more toy lines out with each new release. Jeez. Either get some new friends to write about or admit the designer toy industry has been around long enough to be doing the same old same old already. Here's some new Qee bears. Check. Here's some new clear variants of stuff you've already seen that you can't afford. Check. San Diego exclusive variants. Right. Pictures of us looking fly and flashing (hopefully ironic) gang signs at conventions. Whatever. Hey, look, another Baseman or Fairy or Biskup or Horvath thing. Yep. Hey, I admire a lot of the work done by folks like Biskup and Horvath and all, but come on, cast your nets a little wider. Or go back to the way the magazine was initially set up, which was more fun and less full of itself. I'm really finding Super 7 less interesting and relevant with the past two or three issues and I hope that trend reverses itself because I tend to really enjoy the magazine.

And yeah, my local comic shop carries Chronicle books on animation design and esoteric stuff like Super 7. They carry comic books, too. So be jealous.

Anyway, that's that, something to post while twiddling my thumbs waiting for Dork #11 to show up. Actually, I've been working on what I hope is the last stretch on the Tyrone bible, and finishing up a DVD cover I have left sitting on my desk for far too long. Which means I get to listen to some old radio this week while drawing piles of severed punk rock kid heads. After which I have a few "side gigs" as I tend to call them to put on the lift and tinker with, anthology strips and a comic cover. I'm hoping by the end of October I have all my current commitments sewed up for good or bad, and then...then...jeez. I dunno. Read more Walt and Skleezix, I hope. I'm one year in. It's just so damned sweet.

Latersville.