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From the current Wired interview with Alan Moore, talking about his upcoming book on magic (written with Steve Moore, no relation):
We're hoping to have a fold-out kabbalah board game. The winner is basically the first one that reaches enlightenment, as long as they don't make a big thing of it.
...heheheheheheh
(The same interview also contains this rather quotable little nugget, concerning the circumstances that saw Moore finding himself working for DC comics again, about a decade after leaving the company and swearing never to return: When I returned to work for—well, I didn't return. I was kind of press-ganged. I had DC buying the company I had just signed contracts with, which is flattering in one way and very creepy in another. It's like being stalked by a very rich demented girlfriend who can just buy your entire street in order to be close to you.
...but the enlightenment thing just tickles me so much more)
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First of all, Alan David Doane has a really good, long piece about the best graphic novels coming up in 2009. I defy anyone who reads comics to read it and not come away with several things they absolutely HAVE to own.
Oh, and I contributed, by the way. Go, read.
The other link? Well, you all know I think Bunny is brilliant every day. But today's especially tickled me...
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I get a shout-out on the latest episode of Geek Syndicate. Okay, so it's basically just Dave Monteith saying my name (they don't know who I am or anything, and it's not as if they should either, let's be honest) but it still gave me a bit of a shock when I listened to it earlier.
If you're into comics podcasts, and don't listen to Geek Syndicate already, you really should give it a go, by the way. It's really good. I listen to a fucking ton of podcasts (generally as I'm walking to work) and I think GS is probably my favourite (I can never decide if I like Q! PAW better).
PSSST- Geek Syndicate also has an lj community.
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1: Bloody hell, I'm in today's bunny. And in some pretty good company, too.
(For those who don't know, there's been a meme going around webcomics lately where you have to include cameos by as many other webcartoonists as you can- believe it or not, I'm actually toying with taking part when WindBird comes back next week- and Lem, bless him, saw fit to include me of all people. Surprised the shit out of me)
2: Go and read this absolutely astoundingly brilliant minicomic about the first 44 presidents of the USA.
(with thanks to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) rae_beta )
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So...
That was pretty awesome.
We travelled up on the Friday night, and were at the con for opening on the Saturday. Weirdly, while we were waiting in the queue for pre-reg attendees, directly adjacent to us in the queue for buying tickets on the day was a gentleman I thought I recognised- and later on I found out that yes, I was right, it really WAS
bevismusson . I still wish I'd said hello.
Once we were in, we had a quick look around the two halls of tables, and I had a chance to gush at Paul Grist (as well as getting him to sign my Jack Staff books that I'd dragged all the way up norf for exactly that reason). The man's a genius, and I felt it was important to tell him so... he looked a little uncomfortable. I have that effect on my heroes. I'M NOT A STALKER, HONEST.
As we were milling about, I spotted Dave Monteith from the awesome Geek Syndicate podcast, and said hello, and told him that I was looking forward to their panel later. So that was ace.
We then ran back to the hotel to drop off the books (heavy!), and grab a quick cup of coffee before heading back in time to catch Paul Gravett's talk on incredibly strange comics, which was incredibly strange, as billed... and in the process, meet up with happymrlocust . After the talk, we adjourned to the pub, and while Amanda pooped out to have a little look around Brum, we chatted and plotted domination of the comics industry. Or something. I have to say it was absolutely fantastic to finally get to talk to him face to face, and I look forward to doing so again, hopefully soon.
Then it was back to the con for Geek Syndicate's thing, which was a lot of fun, and then The Kryptonite Factor (which was chaotic but very funny). And then it was to the pub and out for dinner withthe afore-mentioned mister Locust, and the spectacularly cool Tom Reynolds (buy his book!)and his brother Brett. Again, much fun. Tom managed to raise himself even further in my estimation by eating a dessert intended for two all by himself.
Lem had to run straight after dinner unfortunately, so he missed the end of the evening, and the inevitable descent into the discussion of FOIR (Foreign Object In Rectum) cases that we have encountered in the course of our working lives.
Sunday was also, cool- we turned up early-ish, in time for me to discover that in order to show my portforlio to Harry Markos (the head man at Markosia comics) I should have registered in advance... despite the fact that there was no mention on the Brumcon site that he was going to be portfolio reviews, and thus no way of knowing about it untill the day of the con. So that was a bit poo. But we turned it around later- but that was later...
We had pre-registered to attend Dave Gibbons's talk on his "Watching The Watchmen" book, which began at twelve thirty, so that was our next stop. Let's just say, I think I'm going to have to buy that book.
The next event was suppoesed to be a talk by Alan Martin and Rufus Dayglo on the subject of Tank Girl's twentieth anniversary... unfortunately, Alan Martin couldn't make it, so it was just Rufus- which logically shouldn't have worked since he had nothing to do with the creation of the character and has only been involved in making Tank Girl comics for a year. But I have to say, he really pulled the whole thing off very well. It ended up being a really enjoyable and informative talk.
After that, I went and had something to eat before heading back for one last round of the two halls. I took this opportunity to grab a quick chat with the afore mentioned Harry Markos at the Markosia table. he took a look at my pages, and was very complimentary, but sadly didn't feel there was palce for me at Markosia. He advised me to go and chat with some other peeps though, but I don't think I'll talk about that in public just yet. I may pop up a little friends-locked post later...
Anyway, after that we were done. We spent the rest of Sunday and most of Monday doing lovey dovey coupl-y things that I won't be blogging about here, since that's not con-related, is it?
The highlight of the con, for me (apart from, of course, meeting up with amazingly cool people), was probably getting to see some original Lazarrus Churchyard pages at D'Israeli's table, and chatting a bit about Timulo.
We both bought Genki Gear t-shirts, and I got myself a nice fat haul of books.
The only negative thing I can say about the weekend- a couple of indie comics people out there really need to learn how off-putting the hard sell is. Seriously, if you've called me over to your table to look at your comics, rather than waiting for me to show an interest, then you need to be prepared for the possibilty that I'm not going to buy one. And you especially should not get arsey when I say that no, i don't want to sign up to your mailing list. Talking of which, if you want people to sign up to a mailing list, shoving a clipboard under someone's nose and telling them to write their email address on it without telling them what it is is really not the way to go about it. Let's just say that there's an indie manga publisher who publish books that I probably would have been interested in, but will now be avoiding like the plague...
But all in all it was a great con.
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Meme the first, yanked from budgie_uk</lj> :
"List ten books you have which you think nobody else on your friends list might have."
Books I can see from where I'm sitting:
1) Groucho Marx - Memoirs Of A Mangy Lover
2) Elmore Leonard - Glitz
3) Michael Frayn - Spies
4) Selections From Pantera: Far Beyond Driven - Authentic Guitar Tab Edition
5) Robert Silverberg - Tom O'Bedlam
6) Kim Stanley Robinson - The Memory Of Whiteness
7) edited by Amabel Williams-Ellis and Mably Owen - Out Of This World 7
8) Tim Pilcher and Brad Brooks - the Essential Guide To World Comics
9) James Morton - Gangland
10) Larry Niven - World Of Ptavvs
Meme the second, stolen from gregusa</lj> :
post the 12 comics that have influenced you:
Well, it's a damn site more than twelve, but here's twelve that rank pretty high-
1) Watchmen. This one is so deeply entrenched that I can't help it. Look at the first few panels of Damnation and Windbird. It couldn't be more obvious, but both times I had no idea I was doing it at the time. It just felt natural.
2) Nemesis The Warlock.
3) The Dark Knight Returns. Panels panels panels lots of little panels oooh
4) Maus. The clearest storytelling there is.
5) Hellboy. My sense of page composition when I'm not using rigid grids is learnt pretty much directly from Mignola. I have to actively try not to make my panel layouts look like his.
6) Transmetropolitan. No surprise to anyone, I'm sure.
7) Calvin And Hobbes
8) Kane by Paul Grist
9) Judge Dredd. Between Brian Bolland, Carlos Ezquerra, Steve Dillon, Brendan McCarthy, and John Wagner's writing, you have a pretty huge selection of my influences all having contributed to the same body of work.
10) Bad Company book 1.
11) Krazy Kat. I love love LOVE Karzy Kat.
12) The Spirit.
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I'm really looking forward to the Birmingham con next month. You all know this already, since I can't shut up about it. But WOOHOO! Comic con!
I had some silly shenanigans getting Amanda's and my tickets, involving old email accounts and wandering paypal receipts, but I finally got our tickets all properly sorted earlier tonight. Which pleased me for an extra reason, as I'd been waiting to get that all sorted out before emailing the organisers to ask if they had a sexual harrassment policy in place for the show. So I did that just now.
I got a very nice response, within minutes- very surprising, actually, considering it's nearly three in the morning- which pleased me very much indeed. Want to know why?
"Re Sexual harassment: Our policy is simply one of zero tolerance. We do not allow or encourage any kind of harassment or anti social behaviour at the show. We have a professional security team employed all weekend to ensure the safety of all of our visitors, exhibitors and guests. Anyone who feels they are being treated disrespectfully by another attendee can make a complaint about that person to either security or front desk. Any person found to be conducting themselves inappropriately will be asked to leave the show. If they do not comply with our request the police may be called."
Very nice. See how easy that is, San Diego?
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In other news, yes, I have decided to make WindBird twice a week. So page 9 will be up tomorrow- well, thursday- oh wait, that is tomorrow- unless you're in America, in which case it isn't- but I'll probably post it early anyway so you'll still get it tomorrow- MY HEAD HURTS NOW
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So, I've been thinking a little bit about comics and feminism today. I had cause, just now, to go back over my posts with the "feminism" tag,and it brought home how little I've been blogging about these issues lately. Now, admittedly, this is partly down to a lack of blogging in general on my part in the last few months. And it also has a lot to do with the fact that by the time I get around to touching my keyboard, Karen Healey or Rachel Edidin or Ragnell -or all three- will have already said what I think far more eloquently than I ever could. But there's a third reason, too:
Is it just me, or are Marvel and DC doing a lot less stupid shit these days? Mary Marvel expressing her new found evilness by displaying her breasts notwithstanding, obviously. I just get the feeling that the "big two" have started being a bit more cautious about the messages and imagery they put out there. I should mention that I stopped reading Newsarama a while ago, so I may be missing stuff- but it does seem like things have imporoved a bit.
Which doesn't mean everything is hunky dory now, of course. But still, it's positive.
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Talking of people expressing my views more eloquently than I can, Warren Ellis and Garnt Morrison have both already said what I think about the recent Robert Kirkman brouhaha. In a nutshell: yes, of course the big names in comics should be putting out creator owned work; that's why they already are. kirkman's idea that they should switch to doing creator owned work exclusively is naive and ridiculous, and isn't going to happen. Although he does make the rather excellent point that Marvel and DC should be directing their main focus on kids- which I wholeheartedly agree with. I've thought for a while now that Batman Strikes! ought to be called Batman, and Batman ought to be called Dark Knight or something. Superhero fiction's most natural audience is children- look at the success of the rather brilliant Ben 10- and it makes absolutely no sense for the two biggest fishes in that particular pool to be primarily targeting men in their thrities.
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Virgin Comics' collapse is saddening. I really wanted them to succeed, although I didn't exactly help. I bought the first three issues of Dan Dare and that's it. But apart from the horribly misjudged Jenna Jameson book (which my local shop was practically paying people to take away for a while there)they had been showing more than a little commitment to the idea of producing high quality comics. they were employing some incredibly talented people, and seemed to be exploring some interesting genre ideas. So it's a shame. It does rather appear that they completely failed to research the market properly though, since it seems as though they put most of their eggs in the DM basket, which was bound to result in those eggs being smashed to pieces. They'd have been far better off focusing primarily on book shops, and parhaps going after the manga audience into the bargain. As it is, there's just no way your average Avengers fan was going to pick up a book about Ramayan, no matter how beautiful the art was. No Wolverine, no sale.
Like I say, saddening.
I've really enjoyed reading Dirk Deppey and Brian Hibbs' back and forth on the subject though, if only to see Hibbs once again failing to understand that criticising the direct market is not the same as insulting his mother.
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That's it for now...
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So, I've decided I'm going to try and get some work drawing comics at the Birmingham comic con. I know, me and a thousand others. But I have to try, so I'll be putting together some art samples to take.
Now, I know from experience that appeals for advice on this blog rarely elicit a response, but I'll give it a go again anyway... especially as I know there are a few comics proffessionals on my friends list.
So, open question- any advice?
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Paul J Holden is a fantastic cartoonist from Belfast, and he's just announced a project that is likely to change comics forever. It's easier to show you than explain it:
It's called Murderdrome, and it's a comic made specifically for the iphone and ipod touch.
I'm not saying things'll change overnight, but this is already really exciting. I follow quite a few comics people on twitter, and there's been a lot of chatter about this... expect to hear more soon from your favourite comics news sources.
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While I'm posting youtube videos, here's a couple of songs by Adam and Joe- proposed themetunes for the new Bond film:
(I owe thanks to stacebobfor these... for those who don't know, she's the co-host of Comic Racks, a comic book podcast, and they played one of these on their latest episode. I'm a big Adam and Joe fan, and I had to share...
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