Last thoughts on the San Diego Comic-Con:
Adventures in SciFi Publishing has some Comic-Con pictures.
Fantasy Book Critic has a wrap-up of Comic-Con, with some pictures and thoughts, and yet more links.
The Bat Segundo show flutters back for a second podcast about this year’s Alternative Press Expo.
Ned Beauman is now blogging about comics for the Guardian, but he thinks it’s hard out there for a non-misogynist.
Sequential Tart reviews a couple of Minxes.
Joe Matt is a lazy, pornography-obsessed cartoonist whose main (or possibly only) subject is his own miserable life. If you’ve heard of Matt’s work before, you’re probably wondering why I’m restating the obvious. If you’ve never heard of Matt before, you’re probably wondering how much of a career one can get out of that – well, it’s not a deep well, but he’s been at it for nearly twenty years.
Spent collects four issues of Matt’s comic Peepshow; it’s essentially a sequel to his first full-length graphic novel, The Poor Bastard. Poor Bastard was mostly about his rocky relationship with his girlfriend Trish in the early ‘90s, and Spent’s four issues take place in 1994, 1996, 1998, and 2002, respectively. (And the really sad and pathetic thing is that Matt’s depicted life didn’t change in the slightest between ’94 and ’02; these issues read almost as if they’re four successive days.) Matt is seen either in company with his two cartoonist friends, Seth and Chester Brown, or (generally alone) in his room, obsessing about himself and talking to the reader.
Now, what I say from here on applies to the “Joe Matt” who is the main character of Spent; it may or may not precisely describe the real-world Joe Matt, though, to all appearances, he does document his life quite honestly. (And a tip of the hat to my fellow comics reviewer Jeff VanderMeer, with whom I spent several enjoyable months last year debating such things as how much of the “Bret Easton Ellis” in Lunar Park can be mapped onto the man of the same name who wrote that novel.)
Brave souls still reporting from Comic-Con:
The New York Times gazes down its nose at Comic-Con, and says tsk-tsk quietly under its breath.
Comic Book Bin lists nine new projects announced by Minx at Comic-Con, including a sequel to Clubbing and work from Brian Wood, Alisa Kwitney, and Steve Rolston.
Comic Book Resources, similarly, has a story about Oni Press’s upcoming projects.
The Beat liveblogged the Eisner Awards ceremony…the first three or four hours of it, anyway.
Greg Hatcher of Comics Should Be Good traveled cross country instead of going to Comic-Con — and found comics along the way.
It’s been twenty years since Geary’s original A Treasury of Victorian Murder was published – and who would have thought, then, that a slim book of arch graphic short stories about little-known murders in Victorian England would be the beginning of the comics Geary would spend most of the decades to come creating? The first of the smaller-format, single-case volumes, Jack the Ripper, followed in 1995, with a new book every other year through 2005’s The Murder of Abraham Lincoln. Then 2006 saw The Case of Madeleine Smith, and this year yet another new Geary murder case.
Except for the first volume, each “Treasury of Victorian Murder” is a small book – about 5½ “ x 8¼” with roughly eighty pages of comics – about a particular, somewhat famous murder case from 19th century England or the USA. He’s covered the deaths of two Presidents – Lincoln and Garfield – and the cases "H.H. Holmes," Lizzie Borden, and Jack the Ripper. The remaining two books – about Mary Rogers and Madeleine Smith – are about famous sensational cases, crimes of passion.
The Bender “family” – there’s some doubt as to whether they were actually related, as they claimed to be – of Labette County, Kansas are not quite as famous as most of those cases (though I hadn’t heard of Madeleine Smith before, either). But they were certainly actively murderous and impressively mysterious, so their story gives Geary quite a bit to dig into. The Benders arrived in that raw, rural area of Kansas in 1870, very soon after the Civil War and not much longer after Kansas became a state in 1861. They set up a single-room (divided by a hanging canvas) inn and grocery on the major trail through the area, and settled into the community – considered eccentric, certainly, but basically accepted.
The Seattle Times reviews Jasper Fforde’s “Thursday Next” series.
Slate looks at Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
The Agony Column reviews Alan Campbell’s Lye Street, a novella-as-a-book prequel to Scar Night.
Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist reviews Jeff Somers’s The Electric Church.
Blogcritics has what I think is their sixth review for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Honestly, I can’t keep track any more.
Book Fetish reviews a three-author linked erotic romance anthology called Hell on Heels. (Oh my God, the Twayne Triplets are back…and this time they’re porn!)
Bookgasm reviews Warren Hammond’s KOP.
Bookgasm also reviews A Dog About Town, a murder mystery told from the POV of a thinking dog, which is fantasy enough for my book.
The Henry Herald of Georgia reviews Kull: Exile of Atlantis by Robert E. Howard.
American Chronicle reviews Harry Potter and the…Half-Blood Prince. (ha HA! Fooled you!)
The Washington Post profiles Hate! cartoonist Peter Bagge, focusing on his current work for the magazine Reason.
Comic Book Resources infiltrated a Comic-Con panel with Matt Wagner talking about 25 years of Grendel – and they report back what they learned.
Wizard interviews Mouse Guard creator David Petersen.
Heidi MacDonald video-interviews Scott McCloud, creator of Making Comics (and, of course, Zot!).
The Orange County Register talks to Kevin J. Anderson about Slan Hunter, the novel he completed from A.E. Van Vogt’s outline and incomplete draft.
Forbes quotes from a USA Today interview with J.K. Rowling, in which she mentions that she’s already working on two non-fantasy projects – one for children and one for adults.
Times Online looks back at the British ‘80s craze for Fighting Fantasy.
The Millions has a looooong post (no, really, it’s long) about Harry Potter from a children’s librarian’s perspective.
Queen guitarist Brian May has gone back to school — to finish his doctorate in astrophysics. That’s a smart move – you always want to have a day-job to fall back on, if the music thing doesn’t work out.
John Scalzi has discovered a typewriter that sends e-mail.
Lou Anders explains patiently that SF is not dead. (Me, I’d have just pointed out that anyone who goes to a Nebula Awards Weekend in New York City – horribly expensive New York City, not to mention nightlife-dead Way the Hell Downtown NYC – and expects the demographic not to be “middle-aged to old” is deluding himself about the interests and finances of young SF-reading people.)
And you’ve heard about NASA’s drunk astronauts by now, yes?
People reporting from Comic-Con:
Everyone’s reporting on DC’s new license to publish comics based on the TV show Heroes; the longest piece I’ve seen so far is from The Beat. (What does it all mean? Don’t ask me…I’m just Link-Boy.)
New York Magazine has a sixteen-page excerpt from the beginning of Osamu Tezuka’s Apollo’s Song. (And let’s not forget the ComicMix review of Apollo’s Song.)
All the ‘60s Batman sound effects you could ever want. [via When Gravity Fails]
NPR has a story about this year’s Eisner judges and their decision process.
The Beat reports that Mark Waid has been named Editor-in-Chief of Boom! Studios.
The Beat also explains the whole Dark Horse-MySpace thing – which I think means that they’re totally BFFs.
USA Today stalks the elusive Fanboy.
Locus Online lists new paperback editions of SF/Fantasy books that they saw in June.
Matthew Cheney thinks about the latest eruption of the what-is-SF-and-what-isn’t discussion.
A highly scientific investigation into the age-old struggle between pirates and ninjas. [via Chris Roberson]
tSF Diplomat thinks hard about online book reviewing and book-blogging.
Biology in Science Fiction rounds up recent interesting news stories about bioscience.
Mundane SF hates astrophysics.
Comic Book Resources talks to Timothy Truman and new artist Tomas Giorello about the new direction, and new series, for Dark Horse’s Conan comics.
Comic Book Resources also chatted with the creative team of the new Booster Gold series.
Even if you’re not at Comic-Con, you can see it via the official flickr set.
Mike Sterling’s Progressive Ruin pokes through the new Previews catalog for monthly signs of impending Armageddon.
Comics Reporter reviews The Architect by Mike Baron and Andie Tong.
Chris’s Invincible Super-Blog has some fun with a 1969 Batgirl story.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
Stephen Colbert, we have your writer for “The Chronicles of Amber”!
January 20, 2023
The Law Is A Ass #460: Those “For Life” Sentences Are Nonsense
February 24, 2022
