§ Top link: Ali T. Kokmen captures a great moment of comics history.

§ Howard Stern loves Drew Friedman,,,and he’s right!

§ Warren Ellis shares sensible advice on tools for the writer:

Dropbox is your friend. 2GB of storage for free, a frankly superb little piece of software that syncs your stuff off into the cloud as easily and simply and clearly as possible. I know writers, artists and tv producers who swear by Dropbox, and so do I. I have Dropbox on both computers. If you have a smart phone of the iOS or Android type, you can also have an Dropbox instance on your phone, a fact that’s saved my arse more than once.

§ An AV Club piece on this week’s Austin Comic Con pays tribute to the transmedia appeal of the great Bill Sienkiewicz among others:

Secret identity: You know who else loves Sienkiewicz? Your favorite rappers. The line between hip-hop and geek culture has always been perilously thin, and Sienkiewicz has been tapped to create album covers for MCs including RZA (on RZA As Bobby Digital In Stereo), Kid Cudi (on Man On The Moon: The End of Day), and going back to the old school, for EPMD’s Business As Usual. He’s an unlikely hip-hop hero, but his album covers are inarguably great.


§ Another piece talking about this show spotlights Crow creator James O’Barr’s plans:

“Initially, when I did it 20 years ago, the violent scenes came really easy to me, and the romantic flashback sequences were the most difficult to do,” O’Barr told SciFiMafia.com. “I think part of that is because the event in my life that triggered the whole book (was) still really close to me, and I still hadn’t dealt with it at that point, and I was angry at the world. So, the violence came really easily, and I’m finding the exact opposite this time where I have to struggle to do the violent stuff, and the romantic sequences that I wasn’t capable of doing back then are coming really easily to me now. I guess I’ve dealt with my traumas. I’m endeavoring to be a happy man at this point.”


It is nice to see actual cartoonists written about in the run-up to a media show.

§ Speaking of Wizard, they have started an “official blog of Wizard Editorial” called PieMonkey, led by Casey Seijas and Mike Cotton.

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§ Also, remember how I was going on and on about Emily Flake the other day? Well, here’s an interview with her!

AVC: You artwork has an interesting sort of tone to it. The first time I saw it, it reminded me a lot of Margaret Kilgallen’s graffiti work, which was a mix of folk art and public murals. Where do your artistic influences come from?

EF: Ah! I love her work. Illustation-wise my three favorite people working right now are Graham Roumieu, Fernanda Cohen, and Edel Rodriguez, three totally different styles, all tremendous. My early cartoon influences—and I mean early, like age 5—were Edward Gorey and Gahan Wilson, but more importantly, Shary Flenniken. She wrote Trots And Bonnie, which ran in National Lampoon (a publication I had no business reading when I was 5, but there you are). She seeped so deep into my brain so early that I didn’t even realize ’til much later that I’ve ripped her off wholesale, in some ways. She also wrote the intro to the second Lulu collection—that was one of the highlights of my working life thus far.

§ Headline of the day: Jim Shooter goes home to Beaver County. There is really quite a bit going on in Beaver County.

§ The next Manga Moveable Feast will cover One Piece, which just sold over 2 million copies in 4 days.

§ Douglas Wolk and Graeme McMillan discuss Adele Blanc-Sec” and “Amazing Spider-Man, and BONUS — Kim Thompson shows up in the comments to discuss his translation techniques.