§ I got a bath bomb for Christmas and wondered if I should take one of those fancy baths with wine and candles and a book. This idea has never appealed to me since the candles will fall into the water and go out, the book will get all wet, and you’ll get drunk, hit your head, and drown in the bath. I wondered if there were instructions for how to do it, and sure enough there’s a WikiHow on how to relax in the tub that includes this very sobering advice.
A lot of these WikiHows are basically comics, maybe not in the McCloudian sense. I hope some artists are making money doing these illos!
§ Nice Art: Tillie Walden has a poster shop.
§ As predicted, Tony Isabella, known perhaps best for creating Black Lightning, is getting some press ahead of the show’s debut next week. IN fact the local paper named him one ff their Most Interesting People 2018: Tony Isabella
Origin Story: By the time Isabella could read, the Cleveland native was devouring the vibrant illustrations and out-of-this-world characters in comic books. “I always loved comic books, and much to the despair of my parents, I wasn’t likely to grow out of them.”
I know you’re not supposed to run photos, but this glam shot of Tony somehow warmed my heart.
§ Chris Ware is still doing interviews about his immense Monogram. Here’s a local report and his working habits:
On average, how many hours a day do you spend drawing?
I first have to work my way through everything I can think of to avoid sitting down to draw (like doing laundry, answering emails, wandering around and looking out of every window in the house) and once I manage to get through all that I have to overcome the self-doubts and anxieties of actually sitting there and drawing. Once I get past that, I‘ll work for anywhere between five to 10 hours, depending on urgency, interest, and deadline, and whether or not I can actually continue to avoid the ever-present distractions of a 24-hour electronic through-line to the secrets, desires, and diversions of humanity (aka the Internet). Consequently, I usually turn off my computer.
§ Boom! has been taking their rasslin’ comics pretty seriously. They have a Royal Rumble special out this month, with a story co-written by the phenomenal AJ Styles along with Headlocked’s Michael Kingston (who is relaly the king of all wrestling comics.) Styles blabbed about it with CB.com, and his answers are pretty awesome:
“It’s blurring that what’s real and what isn’t,” Styles said. “What really happened? Also, making it very entertaining at the same time. That was hard for me because how do you come up with a story. I mean there are stories that are presented to me and I’m able to act those out or do whatever I need to do with those to make it entertaining but to write it down, that’s difficult for me. When it comes to punctuations and whatever, and how do you, that’s not my style. Listen, like I said before, I’m a redneck and if you want to go drive a car through mud or something like that, I could do that, but writing a story and making it entertaining is very difficult for me, but I had help and that made it easy.”
Speaking of this Royal Rumble, Ashly Nagrant has a panel by panel review of it at Women Write About Comics, of all places. Every panel I see of this books makes me desire it more.
§ Spunky Albuquerque Comic Con is sticking with its name!
Each year since 2011, fans of comic books and cartoons have shown up to the Albuquerque Convention Center to celebrate together. Despite a federal ruling that “Comic-Con” belongs to San Diego, organizers in the Duke City say they’re pretty sure it’s cool to keep using it. “It’s our eighth year now. Every year we get bigger and bigger,” said Albuquerque Comic Con organizer and promoter Jim Burleson. “This year, we have Chandler Riggs from the Walking Dead.” Burleson’s event draws big-time actors and major vendors to the 505. Thousands are expected to descend on Albuquerque Comic Con this year. “Comic convention — it’s abbreviated ‘convention,'” Burleson said.
§ On the third year anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo murders, the magazine is still struggling with the after effects:
The staff of Charlie Hebdo have not spoken openly about this until now, as everything about the production of the paper is kept secret, including its location in Paris. But on the third anniversary of the terror attack that killed 12 people, the magazine director and cartoonist Laurent Sourisseau, known as Riss, writes about the financial and emotional cost of producing a weekly publication in drastic conditions. The cover, designed by Riss, wraps the issue front to back with a heavily armored door. The headline reads: “Three years in a tin can.” A man on the front opens the hatch — presumably angrily responding to a door-to-door salesman selling calendars — and says “The Daesh [ISIS] calendar? We already gave at the office.”
§ Here’s another comics-to-TV I forgot about: Snowpiercer is getting a series at TNT.
The series is based on the Bong Joon Ho’s 2013 film of the same name and stars Jennifer Connelly, Daveed Diggs, Mickey Sumner, Susan Park, Benjamin Haigh, Sasha Frolova, Katie McGuinness, Alison Wright, Annalise Basso, Sam Otto, Roberto Urbina, Sheila Vand, and Lena Hall.
“I’m a personal fan of Bong Joon Ho’s epic film, and jumped at the chance to honor his original vision, yet expand upon the world and characters with a diverse, award-winning cast,” said Sarah Aubrey, executive vice president of original programming for TNT. “Science fiction is the perfect genre to examine issues of race, class, gender and natural resources with thought-provoking and exciting storytelling. Snowpiercer will explore those relevant issues while embarking on a wild, action-filled ride.”
The movie, based on the graphic novel by Jacques Lob, Benjamin Legrand and Jean-Marc Rochette. It’s about a giant doomtrain city with haves and have nots and rebellions and that should make for some must see TV!
Best Wikihow? Either “How To Vomit From A Moving Car” or “How To Have A Bowel Movement Away From Home”.
It was Cleveland Magazine that named me one of its most interesting people of 2018. Which is kind of a big deal around here or, in other words, not the sort of thing that happens to me. Amusingly, the photographer took about four dozen shots of me and then asked me to strike a superhero pose. I told Sainted Wife Barb that would be the one used and she didn’t believe me. But I know how media works.
That WikiHow image is probably just a stock image (or some random one from Google Images) run through a filter or two on some digital painting program. I bet someone in India made a couple quarters for that on Fiverr, as part of a “Create Ten Images for $5” listing…
Wait, that’s probably overspending. I bet the Fiverr listing was to create 30 images for $5.
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