History

From the comments of our "Saving Comics" post, Tim Stoltzfus went back to this Milennium Eve 1999 post by Warren Ellis that had the same message, and a call to arms on other matters:

Joe Field, inventor of Free Comic Book Day and owner of Flying Colors in Concord, has passed along a video called WonderCon 1988 Review, created as a promo tool to get more exhibitors and publishers to attend the '89 show -- then called the Wonderful World of Comics Convention. With next week's show being the 25th anniversary of the Bay Area confab, he's been posting several historical videos to his YouTube account, and this one will blow your mind with its vivid depiction of the primitive conditions our comics forefathers labored under. In addition to a younger version of Joe himself playing Anderson Cooper, you see younger Stan Lee, young Fabian Nicieza, young Tom De Falco, and several other young un's in local TV coverage of the 1987 event. Several interesting factoids emerge from the coverage.

MK Reed (Americus) writes to alert us to her new webcomic About A Bull which adapts the Tain Bo Cuailnge -- a colorful section of Irish legend revolving around Queen Maeve and her jealousy over the majesty of someone else's bull. Hijinks, battles and feats of amazing derring-do ensue.

2003 wasn't so very long ago but in many ways it was a completely different age for comics. Nü Marvel was all the rage as comics were climbing out of the sales tailspin of the late '90s, and Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada reigned supreme at Marvel. Jemas in particular went off on some strange tangents. The Ultimate line may have been his signature achievement, but there were lots that aren't remembered so fondly, or at all, like Marvell -- a sort of satire of superheroes written by Jemas himself -- and Trouble -- a photo-covered "Gossip Girl" wanna-be that featured teenaged, randy versions of Aunt May and Uncle Ben. Hardly typical Marvel fare.

This Vanity Fairinterview with Stan Lee is FULL of awesomeness, and shows that Lee can still turn a quip like a young man of 70. But the bit that is getting the most excitement this day is the part where Stan answers the question he dodged in MALLRATS all those years ago -- the one about whether the Thing's junk was made of orange rock. Only they didn't call it junk back then--they called it a dork!

Although comics are such a cool, welcoming place that sometimes it seems no one ever goes away, that isn't true. People drop in and out all the time. Two recent blog posts rack down some of the most missed MIAs. At Comics Comics, the indie side of things gets covered with Frank Santoro and friends recalling Guang Yap, (above) Joel Orff, Jeff Nicholson among others. The long comments thread brings u many other memories and ideas of Things That Are Best Left Forgotten:

They just don't make 'em like they used to. UPDATE WITH DANZIG!!!

Via PR, this week marks the opening of the "Will Eisner’s New York: From The Spirit to the Modern Graphic Novel" show at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in NYC; in conjunction with this show of Eisner art, the museum will present a concurrent "In the Spirit of Will Eisner" show with Eisner-influenced pieces by many luminaries.

Following the shock at his death, a well-justfied outpouring a remembrances of Dwayne McDuffie flowed out yesterday. A few words kept appearing over and over: respect and honesty. In a business where pettiness and jealousy are motivations far more than we'd like to admit, McDuffie seemed to rise above all that.

The history of pop art in one lesson.

As tweeted by Dave Gibbons, Pat Curley recounts the very beginnings of comics fandom -- a historic confluence of Julius Schwartz, Jerry Bails and Roy Thomas -- and shows that even then the feedback loops of fandom and editorial were closely aligned:

Hard to believe it's been a decade since this, one of the very earliest of internerd memes. Someone set us up the bomb. Then this was piquant and fresh. Now it's Tosh.0. Luckily the internet is being used for more useful things, like toppling dictators. UPDATE: As pointed out in the comments, the original flash was made by BadCRC of Tribalwar.com.