Read more Simone and Ajax Christmas adventures:
2000
2003
2005
2007
and A Christmas Calamity!
Oh, and don’t forget the ongoing Adventures of Simone and Ajax all here on ComicMix.
(And no, we’re not running a GrimJack installment today– for some reason, we just didn’t think that the Grinner looks good in a Santa suit. But we do have a Munden’s Bar story with the birthday boy, if you’d like.)
‘Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house
Deadlines were mounting, so I emailed Herr Claus
The scripts were all posted on the Internet with care
In hopes that the editing elves would soon be there
The artists were nestled, all snug in their beds,
While visions of royalty checks danced in their heads.
We continue our ongoing campaign for those of you who only look at RSS feeds to actually read some comics.
Read more Simone and Ajax Christmas adventures:
And we have more to come before the big day!
Oh, and don’t forget the ongoing Adventures of Simone and Ajax all here on ComicMix. (more…)
Over a month ago, I was assigned to find out each presidential candidate’s favorite super-hero or heroine. It seemed like it would be a fun assignment, a chance to find a bit of insight into how pop culture affects politics and vice versa.
Alas, only Ron Paul felt self-confident enough to answer our question. I was impressed that not only did Dr. Paul know one super-hero from another, but he also knew one creator from another, specifically citing Paul Pope’s version of Batman.
Why didn’t the other candidates respond? John Tebbel thinks it’s because the race is so close that no one wants to risk saying something stupid that will alienate a segment of voters needed to gain percentages in the early primaries and caucuses. Can the Marvel vs. DC split be so wide? Do indy fans resent superhero fans this much? I don’t think so.
Or maybe the question is considered too goofy for a future President of the most powerful country in the world. However, in the last few days, I’ve heard how the candidates like their coffee and what their least favorite food is.
I’ve had to conclude that these candidates simply don’t read comics, or graphic novels, or the funny pages. Therefore, in the Spirit of the Season, I’ve decided to recommend the following:
Mike Huckabee: This Baptist minister turned Governor of Arkansas seems like a personable guy. His story about losing 100 pounds is inspirational, and he seems, in interviews, to be a friendly sort. However, as he’s climbed in the polls, he’s become disturbingly more evangelical about the role of religion in public life, especially the federal government. It would do him good to read Garth Ennis’ and Steve Dillon’s Preacher: Gone to Texas.
The combination of my temporary unemployment and inclement weather has enabled me to catch up on my DC comp box reading, so I can finally pick up where I left off a few weeks back. Mind you, I was looking at October books at the time and since then the November box came in. Still, a couple of the same caveats apply as last time — I haven’t seen the comics from the last few weeks, which gives me a bit of a headache when Robin gets his Suicide Squad advance comps and the issue in question (#4, in stores now) cross-references an important plot point in a Checkmate issue I’ve yet to see. So a lot of these observations will be about the issue prior to the one most comic fans have already seen, but in most cases the artists are the same.
Also, as before, I won’t cover every artist who did a good or serviceable job, just the ones I considered my very favorites of this most recent batch. Any omissions are not to be taken as an assumption that I didn’t like other stuff. And yes, I’m still talking more about how the art affected me viscerally than using technical vocabulary, which makes these more overviews than reviews per se. I miss full-on reviewing, but I just don’t seem to have the time any more.
While I stopped at the letter "F" last time, I wanted to mention a couple books which hadn’t come out at the time. Onward, then:
The first thing I should mention is that, although this book is credited to Jeff Smith, it doesn’t seem to have been written by him. I think the text in it – aside from a stilted introduction by Lucy Shelton Caswell, curator of the Ohio State Cartoon Research Library – was actually written by the editor, Diana Schutz, but the book itself doesn’t actually say. The text talks about Smith in the third person, and doesn’t show any strong connection to his personal thoughts, so it certainly looks like it was written by someone else.
But no one reads a book like this for the text: the pictures are the main draw, and this is full of pictures. Over two hundred large, well-designed and cleanly printed pages showcase lots of Smith’s Bone art, from early sketches to final color work. The text tends to be descriptive – dating particular pieces, or explaining where in the process they were created – rather than more discursive.
The Art of Bone begins with a 1970ish comic from a very young Smith, in which a very Carl Barks-ian Fone and Phoney Bone have an adventure trying to retrieve a lost gem. (This is clearly juvenilia, but has some cute touches, such as a “title wave” which is not a misspelling.) There are a few other bits from the prehistory of Bone as well, such as a few strips from the Thorn comic Smith drew for Ohio State’s Lantern daily paper. (I’d love to see a full collection of these; the art is clearly professional quality, and the fact that he re-used a lot of the plot in Bone proper is no longer a big problem, since Bone is complete.)
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
When Donner is Blitzened, who can you get to save Christmas?
Bitter? Not at all…
