Kenny Evil

Pretty cool. I kind of like the Manga style digest size but these look like they'll be very pretty. Last American is being re-released digitally http://www.comicbookbin.com/The_Last_American_Is_Back.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter It's a series about a solider who was cryogenically frozen so that he could restore order to America after the Apocalypse only to find that there's no longer an America to restore order to. Forbidden Planet did a feature on it a while ago http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/2011/reprint-please-the-last-american/ This is easily worth $5 for those of you with devices capable of reading this.

Courtney Cox never starred in a terrible Adam Sandler movie (as opposed to the passable ones)

Good show guys. In answer to your question: Jennifer Aniston has a worse record than Courtney Cox.

For any fans of The Losers, Andy Diggle and Jock have just started a creator owned story in the judge Dredd Megazine #322 called Snapshot about a guy who finds a hitman's smartphone and sees some pictures he shouldn't have seen. It also comes with a reprint of Purgatory, a story by Mark Millar and Carlos Ezquerra which features some great art by Ezquerra and a story that... well, it's early Mark Millar sci fi, so you pretty much know what to expect. Also, 2000AD's releasing digital issues 48 hours after print editions http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=37792 Almost same day and date but not quite.

It's a tribute to the work of Jean Gerard aka JJ Grandville and they're great action stories, although there are some pun names that are simultaneously genius and awful (eg Raymond Leigh Otter and the French premier Jean Marie Lapin)

That's crazy. you're crazy. Stop being crazy. Seriously, you couldn't even handle Rupert the Bear or the Wind in the Willows. What about Count Duckula or Danger Mouse?

The next volume of Grandville entitled Bete Noir is going to be released in December. I'm quite excited for that as the last two were fantastic.

That is utterly shameful. Get onto Netflix and watch the first 8 seasons! NOW!

IDW has just got the license for Dredd in the US. http://comicbuzz.com/?p=38861

Preview picture of A Zaucer of Zilk by Brendan McCarthy and Al Ewing starting in this week's 2000AD. Quite looking forward to this.

I almost feel bad for laughing at the "bloated corpse of Britney Spears" line on the Rifftrax now. Almost.

Lisa from The Room did an AMA on Reddit http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/r49ak/iama_juliette_danielle_lisa_from_the_room/

Jim Shooter on the future of the comics business model in the digital age A lot of interesting stuff there. I quite like his point about pricing the digital stuff far lower than the print editions.

Okay, fair. I think I'm arguing against points that you're not actually making any way.

(just so you know, your last post appeared after I started writing mine) I agree that what happened to Siegel and Shuster was far, far worse than what happened to Moore and Gibbons. That doesn't excuse DC's treatment of Moore and Gibbons though and whilst it is easy to say now that he signed a contract therefore knew what he was getting into, we can be cynical about it because of the benefit of hindsight. If what Moore said about DC giving themselves his power of attorney in the contract is true (and I haven't seen anyone from DC dispute it yet) that is an incredible abuse of contract law. I would love to see that clause if there's any way to get that contract online. I don't think it's fair to excuse DC's bad behaviour in the 80s because their behaviour in the 30s was far more monstrous. Certainly Alan did well financially out of Watchmen, but I don't think that was his main concern.

Well given the even shabbier treatment of Siegel, Shuster, Kirby and more there's an argument to say that perhaps they shouldn't. It's a complicated problem, after all there were quite a lot of good Spider-man stories after Lee and Ditko left (as well as quite a lot of shit ones.) Superman, Batman and Spider-man et al have become a part of our cultural lexicon and deservedly so but you can't deny that there was some pretty horrible real history to go along with the great stories that we've gotten.

Agreed about Gibbons not getting the praise he deserves, but that was never due to Moore. He always went out of his way to say that it was his and Dave Gibbons' story and that it wouldn't have been possible with any other artist. I've had some more thoughts on Moore denigrating all of the creators working on these books. Okay, imagine there's a book that is widely acknowledged as pretty much the most intelligent use of the comic medium ever. It's also widely acknowledged that the creators of the book were screwed by a pretty dodgy deal and one of them has been so upset by this company that he's been incredibly vocal about the matter. So all this is a given and a book which was meant to be a big step in moving away from the work-for-hire model has been kept from its creators and probably won't go back to them in their lifetime. Now, given all this if the company decides that it's going to make more work based on this and they hire you to write or draw a part of it, wouldn't it be a pretty big insult to that writer, who has made his feeling on the matter very clear on several occasions, if you took that job? Is it not a tacit endorsement of the company's misdeeds? The more I think about Moore's position, the more I end up agreeing with him. His idea of the industry hiring fans as scabs is especially ringing true.

He IS a victim. He didn't always hold the position he does now. it was developed as a response to DC's shabby treatment and then further musings on how the industry treated creators before him, in particular Jack Kirby. The points he made about the industry firing writers and artists who even talked about unionising were entirely right. The way that the Watchmen deal was supposed to work was that the rights were eventually supposed to go back to Moore and Gibbons. The creator owned aspect of it was part of the marketing. The grain of sand that started this bitterness pearl was DC selling the badges and trying to get away with not paying Moore and Gibbons for it by classifying them as "promotional material". I agree that ragging on the creators involved when he admits he's not familiar with their work was a shitty thing to do, but he was being hyperbolic and venemous about this project and everyone involved because of all the shit that's gone along with Watchmen since its publication. I'd imagine he'd feel a lot happier about other people working with these characters if a) DC had stuck to the spirit of the contract when Watchmen did become such a success [i venture that they'd still be reprinting it with his approval if they had] and b) said creator had actually generated the story idea and approached him or DC with it rather than DC deciding that they're going to "exploit their property" and hire in writers and artists to shore up the number of things you can stick the word "watchmen" on. These books seem like they're going to be the equivalent of straight-to-DVD sequels, I really like a lot of the talent involved with these books, in particular I don't think anyone inks Andy Kubert's work as well as Joe Kubert and I really liked the issues of Darwyn Cooke's The Spirit that I read, but I just can't get excited about anything they're doing here. I also feel really badly for Dave Gibbons as he doesn't seem to be coming out of this very well. I'm sure that DC probably did see Dave as someone who could be a peacemaker and it's fairly upsetting that Moore's ended their friendship over it. I really quite like Dave as he's always come off as a nice guy and he's provided a few webinars about Manga Studio that have been very useful. I wouldn't put it past DC to have offered Steve Moore the Watchmen novelisation as a way to lay some groundwork to try and repair their relationship with Alan. Alan Moore may come across as "repugnant", "a raging dickweed", arrogant and disrespectful, but it only ever comes across like that when he's talking about this subject. On his current projects he always comes across as fairly jovial, quite pleasant and usually his speech is brimming with self deprecating humour. For instance here's a story about his upcoming book Jerusalem (http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/features/renowned-writer-alan-moore-pens-huge-book-based-in-historic-area-of-northampton-1-3617029). If you haven't watched it yet, I'd highly recommend "The Mindscape of Alan Moore" which is basically an hour and a half of him giving his thoughts on literature, culture and society. If I'm coming across like a massive fanboy, it's because I am. There's a sizeable portion of my library which is filled with Alan Moore books and I can't give DC any slack on this one because it seems like they've never appeared to have any remorse over killing the golden goose on this one.

KW, did you actually read the interview? He actually covered all of your points there and he wasn't quite as hypocritical as you claim he was. In particular, he understood fully that he was getting the characters from other creators and that they would probably pass to other creators once he was done with them whereas he did Watchmen with the understanding that he and Dave Gibbons would end up owning it in the same way that any author ends up owning their book. If what he says about a clause that gives DC power of attorney over his end of the contract is true, that is a shocking abuse of contract law. At times he may sound like a paranoid fantasist, but really, why did DC want Wildstorm? Would it have been anywhere near as valuable to them if it was just Jim Lee, Gen13 and StormWatch? Honestly, I think a more salient quote from the interview is this: ‎"Yeah, I know that people think I've been terribly mean to the poor little American comics industry. It's so unfair when you think about it, isn't it, that you've got a barely-educated fuck from the English midlands picking upon this huge multinational corporation. You know, I ought to be ashamed of myself." I massively disagree with his position that nothing of value has come out of the comics industry in 25 years as we've had Criminal, Preacher, Sandman and 100 Bullets which have been fantastic series that will still be remembered decades from now. I do think it's unfair to say there's no talent in the industry whilst admitting that you've not read mainstream comics in a while. Still, like I said, his stance on this is actually a lot more consistent and sensible than a lot of people give him credit for. if he comes off like a curmudgeon, it's because DC seem to have gone out of their way to piss him off to the point of contacting him about Watchmen even when he's made it abundantly clear that he wants nothing more to do with it or with them. He actually sounds a lot more positive when he's talking about his current projects, for instance here's an interview about his upcoming book Jerusalem.(www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/features/renowned-writer-alan-moore-pens-huge-book-based-in-historic-area-of-northampton-1-3617029) This book will be so esoteric, that I'm sure only a hundred people will buy it and thirty people will read it but he does sound incredibly enthused about it. I think the final thing that's worth saying about this for my post would be this quote by Alan's daughter Leah Moore:

Oof, apparently we all missed the Hulk's 50th birthday last week. Poor Hulk

Anyone here not despairing for humanity enough yet? Well, here you go.

I can't make it to C2E2 what with my being in England but that stuff sounds delicious. Also, if you can get bombay mix, that and M&Ms make an excellent snack. Good show guys. Haven't seen these Buffy episodes since they first aired, so this is providing some nostalgia for me.

Yep. Their two parter on Jack & Jill was astounding.

A blog I love visiting on a weekly basis is the 2000AD covers blog Usually the week's cover artist provides a short spiel on their approach and ideas. D'Israeli did a great one a while ago which also served as a primer for using Manga Studio.