Thu Aug 23, 2007 — by Andrew Wheeler

COMICS LINKS: Definitely Not Kansas

Comics links for the new millennium

Comics Links
Variety reports that Todd McFarlane’s toy-based re-imagining of The Wizard of Oz is being developed as a movie. (See all the toys here; everyone else went with Dorothy as the obvious illo, but I thought his vision of Toto was just as bad, but even weirder.)

Mark Evanier writes about Robert Kanigher and his Metal Men.

Nick Bertozzi has posted the proposal he and James Sturm put together in 2003 for a graphic novel adaptation of a screenplay called The Black Diamond Detective Agency. (The owners of the property ended up giving it to Eddie Campbell to turn into a GN, which came out earlier this year.)

Jayme Lynn Blaschke visits Metropolis, Illinois, and takes pictures of all of the Superman stuff there.

Comics Should Be Good casts their usual beady eye on DC’s November covers.

Occasional Superheroine believes everything is wrong with DC Comics, and explains their problems in great detail.

The Elmira Star-Gazette is happy to see the new comic based on a video game, Halo: Uprising.

Dick May or May Not Read Your Blog begins an odd, quixotic series on the career of Rob Liefeld with a long post about his work on Hawk & Dove.
 
Comics Reviews 
Wizard reviews Mike Allred’s Madman, Vol. 1 and Marvel’s X-23: Target X.

Comics Reporter reviews a mini-comic called Click by Sara Ryan.

Jog of The Savage Critics looks at Bill Jemas’s reign at Marvel, the “progressive” era, Igor Kordey, and, finally, the first eight issues of Soldier X.

SF/Fantasy Links
John Klima presents the first installment of a proposed series of posts about how to start a ‘zine. (Oddly, it doesn’t begin “discover you have a pile of money that you don’t know what to do with. Briefly consider setting fire to it, but decide to work harder to destroy it.”)

Science Fiction Awards Watch hopes to demystify all of the different awards processes in the field, get more people to participate where eligible, and generally increase the tone and usefulness of award-centric discussions. A possibly impossible task, but good luck to them.

Reviews of SF/Fantasy
The Book Swede really liked The Mark of Ran by Paul Kearney.

The Fantasy Review looks at Nathalie Mallet’s The Princes in the Golden Cage.

The Agony Column drives in Red Spikes (by Margo Lanagan).

Fantasy Book Critic reviews artist Mark J. Ferrari’s first novel The Book of Joby.

Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review covers David Anthony Durham’s Acacia.

OF Blog of the Fallen reviews the inaugural Best American Fantasy anthology, edited by Jeff and Ann VanderMeer.

SciFi Weekly reviews The Queen of Candescence, the second book of Karl Schroeder’s “Virga” series.

Stainless Steel Droppings reviews Baltimore, an illustrated novel by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden.

Book Fetish reviews Kat Richardson’s first two novels: Greywalker and Poltergeist.

T3A Space reviews Gardner Dozois’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction, 24th Annual Collection.

Jo Walton just re-read John Brunner’s classic (and Hugo-winning) 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar.

Interviews with various people
OF Blog of the Fallen talks with Karin Lowachee, the first winner of the Warner Aspect First Novel contest in 2002 for her novel Warchild (and author of several books since then).

SciFi Wire interviews Diana L. Paxson about her new novel, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Ravens of Avalon, the newest prequel to Bradley’s classic The Mists of Avalon.

The New York Times profiles Ray Bradbury, who turns 87 this week. [via Locus Online]

Wizard talks to Zack Snyder about his preparations for the Watchmen movie.

Oddities
Twenty-five percent of Americans didn’t read even one book last year. And those who did read, only read seven books on average. The posssible good news: they don't seem to have asked about comics!

LEGO Aliens en espanol. [via SF Signal]

Alex Remington of the Huffington Post apparently thinks that trade paperbacks were invented in the last ten years, and has never heard of the collapse of the mass-market paperback distribution market. Consequently, he complains about the wrong thing for a long time.

Scott Westerfeld has created some T-shirts based on his novel Extras.

Every item on eBay has a story…but very few are as entertaining as “Lot of Pokemon Cards That My Kids Tried to Sneak by Me.” [via James Nicoll]

Movie/TV News
The Albuquerque Tribune reports that Frank Miller’s film Will Eisner’s The Spirit will be the first feature film to be shot at their local studios. No word as to whether Miller has added a lot of whores, Spartans, or uncomfortable homoeroticism, though.

Comics2Film talked to Dominic Sena and Greg Rucka about the movie adaptation of Rucka and Steve Leiber’s graphic novel Whiteout.

Free Stuff
On The New Yorker’s Vulture blog this week: “The Workman,” an eight-page comics short story from Image’s 24Seven anthology. [via Newsarama]

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