Mindless Ones

So we thought we’d try linkblogging… I have no idea how Graeme McMillan or Dirk Deppey did and do do this on a daily; this is about a week or so’s worth of what I remembered to put in here, seemed interesting at the time…

So there was a whole like ton of nerds (geeks? I can’t remember what the preferential term is) went to San Diego last weekend, or the weekend before even for the Comicon – nothing excited me terribly other than what follows:

First of all, while Comic Book Resources panel reports were – sincerely – the worst journalism I have ever encountered, I did enjoy for pretty much the first time ever some Comicbook TV on their Boat Show, hosted by Jonah Weiland. First of all, he had Method Man on the schooner sofa which is… look, it’s validation – I’ve waited years for one of the Wu to grasp the comics nettle proper, had my heart broke by Tony Starks pretty much disavowing. But the Mister Meth did it. Hott Nikkels is writing a comic, apparently – or, rather, Johnny Blaze is plotmastering one. But he’s legit, one of us(!) and it’s real this time, not like them Masta Killa gay rumours which came out post-stardom’s peak. (I had rather hoped they were true.)

The Cheese knows, in short.

Later, Grant Morrison occupied the seat kept warm by Johnny Dangerous’ bot; confirms my suspicions about having watched, and taken techniques best employed in, The Wire and talks about trying to spark a [special interest warning] ‘new age of comics’ with Final Crisis. Conspiracy fans should observe the best-costume-wearing Spider-Mannikin’s chest behind the Unknown Man, which looks uncannily like the Metron chest symbol currently proliferating through that series.

Late self-promo dept. – there was at least one Mindless beast roaming the halls of SDCC, at the blogging panel: David Brothers and Laura Hudson have Cloverfield-esque first-person perspective reports.

Lastly, and while it’ll break the Zomboy’s heart, I have to say I’m personally pretty delighted that i) there is a new Cloak & Dagger comic and ii) that Val d’Orazio is writing it because, I dunno, it proves something about the transsubstantive power of comics-blogging or something. She wrote some of the most affecting pieces about experiences with, in and around comics I’ve ever read, particularly a vaguely recollected here bit about the Rachel Summers’ Phoenix which just about had me springing a gasket, and I sincerely hope it translates into superfiction. The book looks like it might be a bit YA – you know, the audience that actually probably should read these things – for my taste but I’m definitely taking a plunge on it as a stance of something-or-other.

That’s about it from SDCC – oh, there’s a Watchmen film and I’d not normally be the one to say this but it is going to be shit, and you can put that in the bank. Have a 1988 Fantasy Advertiser interview with Moore and Gibbons, which does a lot in my eyes to redress the balance in the favour of the latter instead, for Tru Satisfaxiun. And, Moore-related, I guess Neil Gaiman is doing a similar, the title and format being heavily based upon ‘Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?’, post-Crisis capstone for the Bat. U don’ need links for that, as that’s basically everything there is to know about it. Andy Kubert drawings, okay.

More from David Brothers on race in the comics of Grant Morrison; I really want to reemphasise the Chris Randle piece he uses as a springboard for this – I kind of love this new phase of semi-autobio comics blogging, that the aforementioned Occasional Superheroine was my first exposure to, and plan on doing something similar, gargantuan and probably very late at some point. It’s important, to me, the creation of a bridge between your entertainments, the things you really take to heart, and your own life.

Anyway, the Randle piece is about as good a bit of blogging about comics as I’ve encountered in 2008, want to encourage him to do more really; possibly apart from Mory Buckman (also kind of autobio comics blogging) and Jog – of course, Jog, where would we be without him? He brings dignity to my hobbies – doing a two-fer on the rather special Jonathan Lethem/Farel Dalrymple Omega the Unknown.

ENDPIECE, best for last, most exciting news EVAR: Holy fuckin’ shit, a Ditranko ’09 Spidey/Strange mini.

Share on Facebook