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§ Nice art: IDW is reprinting Prison Ship, by Bruce Jones and Esteban Maroto, a space opera originally published in the 80s. Maroto’s obsession with drwaing sexy women in the middle of an adventure story is a habit that seems out of place now, but he sure could draw.
§ Photo of the day 1, via Dan Slott’s Instagram.
§ Photo of the day 2: In our Newsletter, which you can subscribe to here, I also reprint photos from my vast archives, but here’s one from just YESTERDAY, when Comix Experience’s Brian Hibbs and I went to visit the brand new JHU Comics, and Hibbs hobnobbed with co-owned Nick Purpura.
§ If you’ve ever hung out with me in person, you know that I LOVE JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR. The Tim Rice/Andrew Lloyd Webber musical is a testament to musical pastiche, the sudden knowledge that rock and roll could take over Broadway, and just the right amount of kitsch. Even an agnostic liek me can get behind it’s questions over the nature of spiritual leadership. And the score, by a 22-year-old Webber, includes heavy metal, funk, jazz, and 12 tone dissonance. I don’t have much to add to the joyous kudos to Sunday’s live version that aired on NBC, except it was awesome. People were so passionate an din the moment that their voices cracked. They left it all on stage, just like you should, and the last few minutes – with Victor Brandon Dixon’s showstopping “Superstar” and the haunting cruciform final shot – was TV at its finest. Watching talented people sing and dance and do what they love is so inspiring.
But you know during curtain calls, Dixon did the Wakanda Salute, and that somehow made it even better.
§ Asher Elbein has contributed another examination of #Comicsgate: #Comicsgate: How an Anti-Diversity Harassment Campaign in Comics Got Ugly—and Profitable. This is a strong, necessary folllow-up to Buzzfeed’s story a few weeks ago and goes into a lot more detail on how Comicsgate has a special troll gun pointed at trans comics creators, and with multiple examples of the kind of harassment being spewed.
Both Meyer’s YouTube and Twitter accounts rapidly became a repository for a constant stream of personal attacks and dog-whistles for his followers. He has publically labeled Ta-Nehisi Coates a “race hustler” and repeatedly mocked DC writer Magdalene Visaggio as a “man in a wig,” claiming that she is violent and mentally ill. He fixates on the the physical appearance of female creators he dislikes and retweeted memes mocking certain creators as “autistic retards,” along with images of himself slapping them.
While there’s some fear that naming these groups gives them more power, I think it’s important to document this, and Elbein did everyone a service by getting some of the main players to go on the record. IN a tweet he noted that he had worked on this story for three months. That’s why people need to get paid for journalism, folks.
§ What is this, some kind of flow chart for chemical osmosis? No, it’s the entry diagram for this weekend’s C2E2 con in Chicago. As you can see, the press is herded along with fans and pros, while exhibitors and medical personnel get a “fast lane.” What alarms me about this diagram is that it doesn’t really give any scale. It could be an extra mile to walk or an extra 200 feet. At McCormick Place, you can wander for days and never see daylight. I’ve packed four days worth of emergency supplies for just that reason.
That link also includes some programming highlights – an evening with Henry Rollins! Does that have anything to do with comics? I’m not sure, but Rollins is a great speaker.
§ Hyperallergic reviews Herman by Trade the debut from Chris W. Kim.
There’s something magically unique about a graphic novel that integrates the aesthetics of the story its about to tell long before the reader even reaches the beginnings of a plot line. Herman by Trade, Toronto-based artist Chris W. Kim’s first graphic novel, reads just like a storyboard for a film from its very first panel — perfectly fitting for a tale of a humble street cleaner caught up in the frustrating process of open auditions for a movie.
§ I was busy all weekend with David Bowei and the Mets so I missed all the ApirlFools Day stuff and DC’s annoucnement that all their characters would get trunks. Obviously, morale is very high at DC right now.
§ Finally: Welcome to the Graphic Fiction Appreciation Society!!!
