SMITH magazine's Harvey Heads

Harvey Pekar, the irascible, inimitable observational writer whose slice-of-life series American Splendor has been a cornerstone of alternative comics for decades now, turned 70 yesterday. (That's right, he's only seemed like a lovably grumpy old man until now.) To celebrate Pekar's big Seven-Oh, SMITH Magazine--already the home of Harvey's current comics outlet, The Pekar Project--has commissioned over 90 artists and counting to draw Pekar portraits for its Harvey Heads gallery. Contributors so far include Jeff Smith, Jim Mahfood, Jeffrey Brown, Alison Bechdel, Renee French, Molly Crabapple, Bryan Talbot, Bob Sikoryak, Peter Kuper, Josh Neufeld, Joshua W. Cotter, The Quitter's Dean Haspiel, longtime American Splendor artist Gary Dumm and many, many, many more. Click the link and soak up the splendor.

Little Mouse Doll

As part of their ongoing promotion of Jeff Smith's first children's book, Little Mouse Gets Ready, publisher Toon Books has made an exclusive plush doll, created by dollmaker Sabrina Cho. It retails for $75 and comes with a certificate of authenticity and a copy of the book signed by Jeff Smith. Also: It's too cute for words.

Found via Comics Worth Reading

Little Mouse Gets Ready
by Jeff Smith
Toon Books, 32 pages, $12.95.

Children's comics don't get more basic than this. Little Mouse wants to go play in the barn with his brothers and sisters, but first he has to get dressed. He does so step by step showing readers important things like how to button your shirt (and illustrating a narrative sequence of events). Then there's a punchline and rimshot, the end.

Smith's art is lush and spry here. I especially liked Little Mouse's Warner Brothers-style reaction at the end. There's no denying it's a cute book, made by an extremely talented guy. But this is really a book for preschoolers and those just learning to read. If you know someone like that, then Little Mouse will make a great gift. But older Bone fan, even those still in elementary school, aren't going to get too much out of this, beyond a chuckle or two at the end.

Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute
Lunch Lady and the League of Librarians
by Jarrett J. Krosoczka
Knopf, 96 pages each, $5.99 each.

This is another superhero/super-spy parody, along the lines of Word Girl, but with a whole K-12 cafeteria theme. For example, our hero has a spatula that doubles as a helicopter blade, she throws chicken nugget bombs, she wields fish stick nunchucks, and so on and so forth.

Even by kid standards, it all feels a little shallow. The jokes basically stay on that lunch-derived level and never build on each other in a satisfying way. The characters are all rather generic and Krosoczka's art work is rather bare-bones as well. I think kids will like it — it's certainly not offensive or dull — but I don't think it's going to hang around in their imaginations the way good children's literature is supposed to. Even by second grade, they've seen this kind of thing before.

Knights of the Lunch Table: The Dragon Players
by Frank Cammuso
Scholastic, 128 pages, $9.99.

Combining King Arthur mythology with middle school angst is a recipe for disaster (witness, or better yet don't, Tokyopop's Avalon High) but Cammuso manages to make the whole enterprise work. Part of the reason is he isn't a slave to the source material but just takes what he needs and mushes it into a school setting until it fits. It doesn't hurt that he has a fun, rubbery, big-nose art style that plays up the comedy.

This time, Artie and his friends somewhat unwittingly enter into a robot joust contest, a feat which finds them double-dealing with basement-dwelling nerds, infiltrating junkyards and trying to avoid bullies and detention. There's no real surprises here, and the whole "don't cheat" moral comes out of a thousand ABC Afterschool specials, but Knights has nevertheless proven to be an engaging, witty series that's growing on me with every new volume.

from RASL #5

Cartoon Books has posted a preview of the next issue of Jeff Smith's RASL, where the main character has a blackout and things get a little weird. The comic is due July 15, and as previously noted, will be the first 24-page issue.

40th Anniversary Souvenir Book

The 2009 San Diego Comic-Con is less than a month away, with preview night kicking things off on Wednesday, July 22. If you are a publisher, creator, retailer or any other kind of exhibitor who would like to let folks know about any special plans you have for the show (panels, signing schedules, exclusives, debuts, etc.) drop me an email and I'll run it here.

Also, to the right is the 40th anniversary souvenir book cover, featuring art by the great Rick Geary. Comic-Con debuted it on their Twitter feed, where they've also been announcing panels and auctions for membership badges.

Publishers | Red 5 Comics will be at booth S-9 in the small press area, with the creators of We Kill Monsters, Neozoic, Atomic Robo and Afterburn available for signings.

Books | Scott Morse says he'll have about 100 copies of The Ancient Book of Sex and Science, which sold out before its release after being mentioned on BoingBoing. He's also taking orders for a signed and numbered edition, which he'll bring to the con if you order one.

Exclusives | Becky Cloonan will have a set of four silkscreen prints at the con, limited to 100 "signed, numbered, stamped and enveloped" copies.

I asked if she and the 5/Pixu crew had another book planned for this year, but she said they've all been so busy they haven't been able to do one. She also said she'll have a big announcement at the con, and she'll have a table with with Brian Wood, Cliff Chiang and Jill Thompson.

Mini-comics | According to Ben Towle, J Chris Campbell of Wide Awake Press is putting together a Michael Jackson memorial mini-comic to sell at the con, which will feature stories and pin-ups of the King of Pop.

Panels | The Crogan Adventures creator Chris Schweizer sent over a list of panels he'll be at this year, providing more pieces in the ever-growing Comic-Con schedule puzzle:

THURSDAY, JULY 23:
3:00-4:00 Oni Press: Panelmonium 2009-Often imitated but never duplicated, get up close and personal with trend setting indie comic powerhouse Oni Press. Join in the Q&A with your favorite Oni creators including Ross Campbell (Wet Moon), Jamie S. Rich (You Have Killed Me), Greg Rucka (Whiteout), Bryan Lee O'Malley (Scott Pilgrim), and Chris Schweizer (The Crogan Adventures). Get sneak peeks at upcoming Oni projects, news on Oni Press fan initiatives, free Oni comics, prizes and more! Guaranteed by Oni Press' totally biased employees to be "the most fun you'll ever have at a panel." Room 10

Crogan's Vengeance

SATURDAY, JULY 25:
5:00-6:00 Graphic Novels: Sense of History-There's a wonderful world of history awaiting you in numerous graphic novels available now. Whether it be real life stories adapting historical events to the comics form, or fiction taking place in a specific time, these practitioners of the historical graphic novel are all presenting work at the top of their form. Moderator Randy Duncan (co-chair of the Comics Arts Conference) talks to Comic-Con special guests Rick Geary (Treasury of XX Century Murder: Famous Players), David Petersen (Mouse Guard), and Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo), plus Jason Lutes (Berlin), Chris Schweizer (Crogan's Vengeance), and Eric Shanower (Age of Bronze), about their individual takes on history. Room 8

SUNDAY, JULY 26:
10:00-11:00 Kids' Graphic Novels- What's new and wonderful in the world of comics and graphic novels for kids in 2009? Moderator Robin Brenner, creator and editor-in-chief of NoFlyingNoTights.com highlights the works of panelists Lewis Trondheim (Tiny Tyrant), Gene Yang (American Born Chinese), Derek Kirk Kim (The Eternal Smile), Eric Wight (Frankie Pickle and The Closet of Doom), Chris Schweizer (Crogan's Vengeance), Jennifer Holm (Babymouse), and Jarrett J. Krosoczka (Lunch Lady), who all recommend other great titles. Room 3

2:00-3:00 Kids Write!-Kids, join creators Chris Giarrusso (G-Man), Chris Schweizer (Crogan's Vengeance), Eric Wight (Frankie Pickle), and Gene Yang (American Born Chinese) as they draw the story you tell! Moderated by Cory Casoni (Oni Press). Room 30CDE

Panels | Mark Evanier lists all the panels he'll be moderating at this year's con, including a spotlight on comics legend Gene Colan.

Exclusives | The Comic-Con official website posted a whole bunch of exclusives that'll debut at the show, including Avatar comics, Dark Avengers minimates, a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man bank, signed and numbered copies of The Hunter by Darwyn Cooke and more. Hasbro has a cool Invaders action figure boxed set (right) and a black-and-white Captain America that look like they're worth checking out. I also like the Peanuts shirts and the Astronaut Snoopy figurine.

Movies | Footage from Matthew Vaughn’s big screen adaptation of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.'s Kick-Ass will debut at the con.

Television | The Sci Fi Channel has announced their line-up of panels, which will include one devoted to Caprica and Battlestar Galactica: The Plan. They'll also be showing episodes of Warehouse 13 and Eureka.

Merchandise | Cartoon Books has three new Bone shirts that they'll be selling at Comic-Con. Or you can buy them now online.

Movies | Speaking of Bone, there will be a screening of The Cartoonist, the documentary about Jeff Smith, on Friday at the con.

Movies | King of the Hill and Office Space creator Mike Judge will show footage from his next movie, Extract, on July 25 at the con.

Movies | Comic-Con has released the schedule for their International Independent Film Festival, which will run all four days of the con. You can find it here.

At the moment, most of the comics available for the iPod are print comics that have been adapted to the new format, which has its advantages and disadvantages. Overall, it’s a different type of reading experience, and with the right comic and good formatting, it can be as good as or even better than reading the print version.

The chief difference is that almost all comics are viewed one panel at a time, which means the reader gets in closer to the art and experiences it as a series of single panels that scroll by horizontally. (Here's a handy demo from Uclick.) Obviously, a comic that was originally drawn as self-contained panels will do better on the iPod than one that relies on splash pages and interplay between panels. Consistency is also important: With its fixed height and width, the iPod screen can’t accommodate a wide horizontal or tall vertical panel very well. Those panels have to be shrunk down, which can be distracting. One quickly becomes accustomed to the figures and text being a certain size, so when they suddenly get smaller, it interrupts the smooth reading experience.

One thing that doesn’t seem to have been standardized yet is whether the comic is viewed vertically or horizontally. Of the apps I looked at, the ones from Uclick were all intended to be viewed with the iPod held in the vertical position; rotating it didn’t make the art any bigger. The iVerse apps I checked all displayed the comic in the horizontal mode only, which made for a bigger, more readable panel. The one outlier is Yoshitoshi ABe, who managed to fit an entire page of Pochiyama onto the iPod screen in the vertical mode. This worked surprisingly well and allowed for the interplay between panels that was missing from all the other comics.

Generally, graphic novels with a panel-by-panel storytelling style and straightforward art fared the best on the small screen. Jeff Smith’s Bone, for instance, works pretty well, because the story is told in small, fairly simple panels. I went back and looked at the print version when I was done, and I saw a few places where I had lost a bit of context, but overall, the story was easy to follow and looked good on the small screen.

Ninjatown, based on the Nintendo DS game, was even better. The simple shapes and bright colors of this comic really lend themselves to the iPod. The creators tell their story in a series of single panels and the movement in each panel is easy to follow—there is detail, but no clutter, although variations in panel shape made for some distracting zooming in and out.

One comic that I actually liked better on the iPod was Archie: Freshman Year. The panels fit the horizontal format nicely, with little wasted space and easily readable word balloons. The most heinous misstep was chopping the opening splash page in two (and beheading Veronica) to fit it onto the small screen. The other splash pages were divided up more gracefully, though, and I noticed the designers took the trouble to remove the edges of word balloons that would have impinged on the sides of the panel. What’s more, this is a dialogue-heavy comic and the pages of the print version seem crowded; the iPod version has more breathing room and is actually easier to read.

Adult comics with full-page layouts present more of a challenge, because designers have to chop the page up the way a widescreen movie is reformatted to fit on a TV screen, panning and shifting the center to capture as much of the action as possible. The iVerse Smashout adaptation of The Man Called A-X is a good example of a comic that doesn’t work well on the small screen. The original story is told in large, often full-page panels, and the designers had to shoehorn it onto the iPod by showing pieces of a scene, then pulling back and showing a longer view, often with illegible text. In addition, because the art often breaks the edges of the panels, the designer often had to leave in a bit of another panel in order to display a complete image.

Yoshitoshi ABe can put full pages of Pochiyama onto the iPod because his pages aren’t terribly complex—five or six panels per page—and his art is crisp and clean, so it comes across very well even when shrunk down to iPod size. What doesn’t work as well is the text, which is typeset very clumsily within the word balloons. (Also, either the translation or the writing is bad—it’s hard to say which—either way, the comic is well-nigh incomprehensible, although lovely to look at.)

All this formatting tsouris will eventually go away once people start designing comics specifically for the iPod platform. The screen is a decent size for reading individual panels, the colors are nice and bright, and options such as scrolling, animation, and sound could enhance the comics if used judiciously. Hopefully, artists will start to think of exploiting it as a medium in its own right, but in the meantime, it's a decent substitute for bulky books for those of us who never want to be caught without something to read.

Update: Corrected the publisher of The Man Called A-X.

Madman Vol. 1

Welcome to another fun-filled episode of What Are You Reading?, where the Robot 6 team talks about comics, graphic novels and whatever else we've read recently. I'm filling in for Chris Mautner, who is out of town this weekend.

Today's special guest is Scott Wegener, artist on Atomic Robo, which is published by Red 5 Comics, and Killer of Demons, published by Image.

To see what Scott and the rest of us have been reading, click on through, then tell us what you've been reading in the comments section.

Strongman

Michael May: I'm reading Strongman from SLG. It's Luchador Noir. LuchaNoir? I'm loving the grittiness of it. It's about a former luchador who's asked to stop a ring of organ-peddlers who may or may not be selling body parts to cannibals. I say "may not be" because the main character's sanity isn't exactly assured. How much of this is just in his head? I'm looking forward to finding out.

I feel like I'd enjoy more of the luchador genre in general if I gave it a chance. I can easily embrace the sillier aspects of it, but it's off-putting to me that people in the stories always seem to take the luchadors so seriously. We're asked to believe that the ridiculous masks are badges of honor that command respect. Strongman plays around with that idea and I appreciate that about it. I'll probably do a longer review for Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs when I'm done so I can think it through some more.

Matt Maxwell

Omega the Unknown
Jonathan Lethem and Farel Dalrymple
Something of a frustrating read. Mr. Lethem wanted to play with many of the elements of the bronze-age superhero (crazy costumes, alien robots, freaky bad guys, freakier "good" guys, life or death combat), but it came across as very emotionally flat. It doesn't help that the main character is basically a high-functioning Ausperger's case, but even the humans around him are simply flatly weird or flatly nerdy or flatly streetwise. There's plenty of WTF moments (as there were in what I read of the original), but they didn't come together in a satisfying manner for me. Gary Panter's sequence about halfway through, however, is sublimely raw and flipped-out, cutting loose in a way that the rest of the series never even came close to.

EC Crime Suspense Stories
Feldstein, Craig, Kurtzman, Wood and others
There was a time that I was stupid and dismissed Harvey Kurtzman's work, probably on the basis of MAD, as "kinda funny, but not really substantial." I was stupid then. S T U P I D. Recent reading of some archival volumes including The Mammoth Book of Crime Comics opened my eyes to this material in a way that made me realize that yes, I'd been stupid. This volume, which I'm barely halfway through, is a pure revelation of the lean (yet at times gloriously excessive) storytelling style at play in EC's absurdly rich back catalog. Kurtzman's style only looks crude, much like I'd once dismissed Jack Kirby's work on the same basis, but I'd misapprehended strength for crudeness. The stories themselves aren't always great, but the ones that are remind you how much you can really do in seven pages if you want to.

Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor
Gang Leader for a Day
Sudhir Venkatesh
No, you haven't mis-clicked somehow. I started reading the first of these for research, and found it interesting, but very slow going. Pretty dry, pretty formal, very much an academic document. The second of these, however, is utterly compelling reading, a great piece of ethnography from the projects of Chicago and in the life of the Black Kings street gang. It's research, but it reads like a great story. Also recommended on this tip is Freakonomics, where I'd read a very short excerpt of Dr. Venkatesh's work, as well as a bunch of really interesting and counter-intuitive glimpses into modern economics (really, it's more interesting than that.)

Oh, and something like 70 art samples that I'm going through for the third Strangeways book. There's a lot of surprisingly good work coming into my mailbox, stuff that's cutting into my reading time for sure, but business before pleasure, right?

Ace-Face: The Mod with the Metal Arms

JK Parkin: AdHouse recently published a collection of stories by Mike Dawson called Ace-Face: The Mod with the Metal Arms. The book includes several short stories about the title character, who was born with no arms, so his uncle created robotic ones for him. The stories focus on his life before he became a superhero, when he was the weird kid with metal arms, as well as after his career has ended and he's teaching college. It also includes two Jack and Max strips, about two brothers who constantly squabble about everything. One can teleport, and the other has telekinesis, so when they squabble, humorous destruction ensues.

I'd recommend the book based on those strips alone, but the ones that I really fell in love with feature Ace-Face's son, Stuart. Unlike the rest of the stories, they don't include anything remotely out of the ordinary -- they're slice-of-life pieces about a guy and his wife dealing with noisy neighbors. They hit particularly close to home for me because I dealt with this exact same situation last Friday night, and the dialogue between Stuart and his wife almost mirrored my own discussions with my wife. In fact, I read it to my wife a couple of nights ago, and she couldn't stop laughing ... hopefully we didn't wake anyone up.

Also this week I received an advance copy of Richard Stark's Parker: The Hunter, the new hardcover by Darwyn Cooke that IDW will release in July. I haven't started reading it yet, but I did want to say that from a design and packaging standpoint, this thing is beautiful. I look forward to reading it this week.

Tom Bondurant: I've been re-reading Fantastic Four from the beginning, partly in order to justify owing all those Marvel Masterworks, and so far I'm through issue #20 (which introduced the Molecule Man). This time around, when I read the Rama-Tut story, I had flashbacks to Avengers Forever; and when I read the Mad Thinker story, I felt better knowing Awesome Andy eventually found a better gig. However, what stood out the most were the digressions. The story would be chugging along nicely, and then it'd stop for the better part of a page while the FF would go off on a Kirby-depicted tangent. "Imagine if X happened! I'd have to do Y! Johnny, you'd be powerless against Z! Ben, not even your strength could stop it/him/them!" Makes me wonder if the Family Guy writers have read these issues.

Batman In Barcelona: Dragon's Knight

As for more recent comics, I did like Batman In Barcelona, written by Mark Waid and drawn by Diego Olmos. Essentially, it's a well-done Batman adventure, set in Spain with a little St. George & The Dragon overlay, but hey -- I like well-done Batman adventures. (I especially like the conceit of the Barcelona Batcave.) Waid's terse dialogue is well-suited to the lead character, and he even makes Killer Croc fairly interesting. My only complaint is the ironic use of Bruce's friend to nudge him to do something meaningful with his life. The art is quite good. Olmos' work strikes me as a cross between Phil Hester and Luca Rossi, and thus it too works well for a Batman adventure. Colorist Marta Martinez sets the appropriate moods, from sunny Spanish mornings to a washed-out, rainswept Arkham Asylum. It all comes together nicely on the first page, as the Wayne jet creates a bat-shaped shadow over Barcelona.

I thought the first installment of "Easy Kill," Unknown Soldier's latest arc (written by Joshua Dysart, drawn by Alberto Ponticelli), was very involving. It presents Moses, the title character, with the opportunity to turn global public opinion against his enemies, the L.R.A. Moses doesn't know, though, that the actress/activist he'll have to kill has just arranged to have his wife speak at his memorial service. It sounds very soap-operatic, but it's fairly compelling thanks to the work Dysart and Ponticelli have put into these characters.

Finally, inspired by a comment on the latest Grumpy Old Fan, I'm re-reading DC Challenge and will be discussing it in a future column. So far the miniseries itself is a mess, but the underlying mechanics are pretty intriguing.

Children of the Sea

Brigid Alverson: I really enjoyed the first two chapters of Children of the Sea, which Viz is publishing online as part of its new Ikki magazine. The art is absolutely gorgeous. The color sequences have a watercolor-like feel, and even in the black and white sequences, Daisuke Igarashi has a real way of bringing you into the scene and making you feel like you’re there, in a seaside village on a summer day. He really creates a sense of place. The story is just starting to unfold, but it obviously has a strong internal logic and I want to know more. This is manga for grownups, and it’s very well done.

In the print realm, I picked up volumes 2 and 3 of Pluto last week, and I’m re-reading volume 1 so I can review all three at once. I love Naoki Urasawa’s books because they set up great characters and promise lots of juicy revelations, although they don’t always deliver on the latter. And I love his art as well—it’s simple but very expressive.

And I just got a review copy of Eric Wight’s Frankie Pickle and the Closet of Doom. This is a very cute hybrid between a chapter book and a comic, with a strong Calvin and Hobbes vibe. Frankie is a junior Walter Mitty; the real-life parts of the book are in prose, and whenever Frankie’s imagination takes over the story shifts to a comic. Wight handles the transitions nicely, and his art is very clean and readable with a bit of a retro style.

Kevin Melrose: I'm a little embarrassed that after I talked up the art of Vasilis Lolos and his guest shot on Vertigo's Northlanders, I somehow forgot to mention Issue 17 in this week's "Can't Wait for Wednesday." It's a shame, really, as it's a wonderful story that showcases the talents of Lolos, series writer/creator Brian Wood and colorist Dave McCaig, as well as the strengths of the series.

Northlanders #17

Titled "The Viking Art of Single Combat," the standalone tale centers on two champions who battle on a barren beach for the honors of their respective lords, players in a generations-old feud.

Readers have no previous connection with the combatants -- Snorri the Black and Egil the Sledge-Hammer -- something that makes a 22-page fight scene a risky proposition; we're not invested in who wins and who loses. However, Wood uses the concept as an opportunity to educate us about single combat, from the rules of the ritual to the composition and weight of the Viking weapons to less tangible elements, like morality and pride. That, too, can be a bit dicey, as the approach easily can read as if the writer is emptying his notebook, trying to impress us with the amount of research he's done. Wood handles it with great skill, though, using an unnamed narrator to paint a vivid, and savage, portrait of life in this corner of the Viking world.

(I hadn't realized until I was skimming back over the issue just now that while Wood doesn't skimp on details about weapons or combat etiquette, he's purposely vague when it comes to setting: "Northern Europe," "Circa A.D. 790-1100." The lords for whom the warriors fight don't even receive proper names; instead, they're referred to as "the lord to the East" and "the lord to the West." It's an interesting contrast.)

Lolos, with his confident lines and cartoonish-yet-grotesque figures, is perfect for this story. His lone warriors are haggard and fearsome, visibly delighting in the battle yet occasionally wide-eyed in terror. We see the flying sweat and saliva, the shattering teeth and the spray of blood (though not as much of the latter as you might expect). When the Northlanders swing their sword and ax, it's with bold, dark strokes that fill the panels with energy, sometimes breaking violently from the borders. Lolos employs his inks to quieter effect in his landscapes, using splotchy lines to hint at clouds, fog, waves and even crows. They combine to create a sense of desolation.

While Lolos is audacious, colorist McCaig is subdued, using a palette dominated by blues, grays and browns to lend bleakness to an already somber tale. Red doesn't make a noticeable appearance until the final pages, and then with great impact.

It all combines to make what may be the high point for a solid series. I just wish I'd remembered to write about it earlier in the week.

Tim O'Shea: The comics I enjoy reading are more highly valued when I appreciate a moment in a comic. For example, in the latest issue of Incredible Hercules, it was on the opening page, when Athena says to Hercules and Amadeus (who are preparing to go to battle in Hades...through an entrance in a casino...): "The toxins of the Jersey Shore are the strongest potions that I can find to burn away your sins before entering the afterlife." Added bonus, look for an unexpected cameo by Jack of Hearts (and many other dead Marvel characters).

The Last Days of Animal Man

When I was a kid, some of the comics I enjoyed reading were written by Gerry Conway. He left comics to write for television in the early 1990s. And for me, his experience writing episodic television informs his writing--in a good way--as he has returned to comics with the six-issue miniseries, The Last Days of Animal Man. Conway makes good use of Ellen Baker, Buddy's wife, in this story. Ellen and Buddy are still happily married (in this "not-too-distant future" story), and yet they disagree as any couple does. And it's the way Conway structures a disagreement they have that won me over. There are no over the top histrionics, each character just knows how to push certain buttons with their spouse. Here's hoping this series has more family moments like this...along with the expected plot-driving action scenes.

A moment that distracted and annoyed me in a comic this week? And I write this as a lifelong liberal. When writer Joe Kelly had Wolverine fist bump Spider-Man in issue 595 (in a discussion about Norman Osborn), after saying "Patience wins every time...hell, it took eight years t'get the last guy out of office." I understand that many of the event comics at Marvel have been veiled political commentary on some level--fine. But this shot at former President Bush (five months after he was voted out of office) was trite--not a whimsical bit of dialogue--and in fact only served to take me out of the story for a minute--clouding my enjoyment as I read the rest of the issue. Steve Wacker is one of the stronger editors at Marvel, but he did a disservice to the story by not removing or otherwise revising this moment. And am I the only person that, while acknowledging that fist bumps may be sweeping the nation at present, visually finds them unintentionally funny when drawn in comics? In the fist bump's defense, high fives look equally lame in comics.

Paul Dini wrote this week's Brave & Bold Cartoon Network episode (Legends of the Dark Mite!) in which Batman unwillingly teams up with Bat Mite. He provides a great view of myriad DC villains in service of the overall tale. The best part, however, is when Bat Mite conjures up a comic convention to gauge fanboy reaction to a fight the Batman
wages in the episode. On another level, the scene serves as a response to critics of the new Batman show (in comparison to Dini and company's previous shows). I swear in the comic book convention scene, Bruce Timm has a cameo as Joker, but I could be wrong. Stay tuned until the end of the episode for a throwaway tribute to the old Warner Brothers
cartoons.

Scott Wegener: I've had the great pleasure this week of finally reading Madman Vol.1. Thank you Image Comics for collecting this impossible to find series into a fat stack of attractive TPBs. I know, it's borderline criminal that I'm just getting to it now. This book has been on my “I should check that out list” since I was in high school. But I could never find #1, and my one attempt to jump blindly into the book a few years ago was frustrating. It was only Mike's appearance at the most recent Boston ComiCon with his wife and colorist Laura that finally got me off my butt and seriously hunting for some issues. I'd already seen enough of Allred's work to know I loved his style, but it was just embarrassing to have never really read the books.

Anyway -HOLY MOLY what a fantastic book! Obviously, a lot of people already know that. What can I say, I'm always late to the party.

It's all about Frank and the people who orbits around him. Madman enjoys a good strong cast of central characters who drive a lighthearted story that doesn't seem to be in any particular hurry to get anywhere. Toss in aliens, monsters, and any sort of random strangeness that you may care to imagine, and you've got yourself a whimsical and charming book that is a rare shot of FUN in the arm of a comic industry that really takes itself too damn seriously most days of the week.

All to often we hear about great Indie books that we just need to check out, yet a lot of the time we never get around to it. I'm sorry that it took me this long to discover the many charms of Madman -though it's nice to know there are a pile of TPBs waiting for me to read now. If there's a book that you've been meaning to pick up but haven't, take my advice. Do it right now.

Captain Raptor and the Space Pirates

Captain Raptor and the Space Pirates, by Kevin O'Malley and Patrick O'Brien, isn't a comic, but it is so weird that I can't not talk about it. I bought both Captain Raptor books for my eight-year-old daughter, and she loves them. Imagine the high adventure of Buck Rogers, (the original Buck, not that disco nightmare from the 70's), and combine it with the art of Dinotopia. I'm not going to explain why I love this book. I'm just going to say; Dinosaurs, spacesuits, rocket ships, head lasers, space pirates, and people with names like “Professor Angleopterous” and “Sergeant Brickthorous.”

I think you get the idea.

I discovered this book on DailyScan while following a Google Alert link for my own book. Sites like DailyScan that illegally post portions of books, comics, etc. to the web should be given medals. Because they don't do it out of malice, but out of love. They do it to raise awareness of the things which they love and want to share with the world. What they showed me inspired me to go out and purchase the entire book, and it's companion book as well. Well done, you interweb rebels. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before some corporate jackass who can't see that you're making money for him has your site shut down.

RASL #4. This book is a such a departure from Smith's work on Bone and just as engrossing and entertaining. Jeff Smith's art is always a treat to lay your eyeballs on, and I am really enjoying the more adult story he's presenting here. My only complain is how fantastically slow Smith is.

RASL #4

I stopped collecting Bone around issues #24, took a 10-year break from comics, and when I came back it still wasn't done! RASL seems to be moving at a similarly glacial pace on the production side of things. Yet I already hear talk of a hardcover edition collecting the first three issues. Seriously? WTF is that all about? How about you collect yourself in front of a pile of bristol board and make more comics, Mr. Smith?! I'm begging you. RASL is a fantastic book, and I demand more!

The Apples. I discovered this Funk-Turntablist jam band while listening to the “Quiet! Panelologists Working!” Podcast. “Consisting of nine members (including two DJs!), the band are a mixing pot of funk, hip hop, big band jazz, rock and turntablism – all delivered in their energetic and off-kilter style. “ That's what the official blurb says anyway. All I know is that it had me shuckin' and jivin' at my drafting table, which is not at all conducive to producing good comic book art, but sure is a hell of a good time.

RASL #5

Earlier this week Jesse Reese at the Are You A Serious Comic Book Reader? blog noted that the biggest drawback of Jeff Smith's RASL was the relaxed publishing schedule.

"The biggest problem with RASL is its slow production schedule," Reese wrote. "A general problem with serialized comics, especially when a creator has a larger picture in mind, is focusing obsessively on what is the equivalent to a single chapter in a book. RASL suffers intensely from this reading experience."

(I should note that the rest of the review, which focused on the story itself, was very positive and is definitely worth your time if you're interested in learning more about the book).

Apparently Jeff Smith has heard Reese and other readers who have had similar concerns, so he's moving the book to a new schedule. Starting with issue five, the book will be fewer pages -- 24 versus 32 -- and in the fall Smith will publish it bimonthly.

"When I came up with this format, I thought the extra pages would make up for a slower release schedule, but the demand for more issues gets louder every time a new chapter comes out," he writes on his blog. "I think everyone I heard from liked the extra pages, but they’d rather have less time between issues."

He also notes that he has a "secret project" he'll be working on in the late summer timeframe, which is why the bimonthly schedule won't kick in until October. He also notes that this means he'll publish more issues of the book, as he still plans for it to be about "350 pages or so." Click on over to read his full post and to see some work-in-progress blueline images.

from RASL #4

Some things are well worth the wait. Jeff Smith shares a few pages from the fourth issue of his latest series, RASL. The book is due in shops a week from today.