Meanwhile...

The comic blogosphere seems to grow larger every day and just like comics, sometimes it's pretty easy to get a little lost. "Meanwhile..." will act as your map pointing out what interesting discussions are happening out there while you’re reading the Great Curve.

Welcome back to another edition of "Meanwhile..." If you've been reading the blog you should have noticed we had a nice little surprise happen last week. We were linked to by MSNBC's Clicked, a column about blogs in general. Welcome to all the new readers and thanks to Will for sending a few people our way. I hope you're enjoying everything we have to offer at The Great Curve. Now on with the links for this week.

---------------

Scipio continues celebrating Black History Month with more DC Character Profiles. You can read all about Northwind, Dr. Midnight, Chunk, Dale Gunn, Bumblebee, and Mal Duncan.

---------------

Warren Ellis got a little surprise as Joss Whedon decided to have a little fun and start an argument over John Cassaday among other things over at Ellis' blog. It's nice when creators can have a little fun without getting all snippy isn't it?

---------------

Brian Cronin continues what happens to be one of my favorite recurring themes at Comics Should be Good, Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed. This time he delves into history to find out if Electronic ankle bracelet monitors were created based on a Spider-Man comic strip, Frank Miller coined the term "The Dark Knight", and Green Lantern lost the cover of his own comic book to his dog.

---------------

Beaucoupkevin, (he insists on being called that) shows an alternate take on the movie X-Men 3, as well as taking a look at the Image Solicits in the this month's Previews. He brings the funny. If you don't think so he may sic Otter Prime and his Awesome Stick on you.

---------------

The talented Ian Brill reviews three of DC's recent collections focusing on the stories leading up to Infinite Crisis.

"Villains United and Rann-Thanagar War are part of the same project but are very different. One exemplifies the best of modern superhero comics while the other just gives readers the worst."

---------------

Our very own Chris Arrant discusses the recent influx of $1.99 comics over at Newsarama. I really hope $1.99 comics like Fell become a trend. I'd love to see cheaper comics with more behind the scenes and related material published in the back.

---------------

Mag, the other half of the Comic Treadmill team, is giving away issues 1-5 of Back Issue Magazine. Jump on over to the Treadmill to find out how to enter, better hurry though, they'll be gone on the 28th.

---------------

Remember Chris at comics.212.net, well...he's moving, but don't worry it's not far. He'll be at comics212.net. See? He got rid of the dot.

---------------

Tom Bondurant of Comics Ate My Brain, (also a fellow Curver) like most comic bloggers, has superheroes on the brain. This time it's a little different though, he's discussing superheroes on TV and who might be missing a show out of DC's big guns. I'd love to see a Martian Manhunter show like he talks about. Speaking of love, while your there check out his Top Five Most Memorable Comics Couples. No Peter and Gwen or Peter and Mary Jane, Tom?

---------------

If you read Jim Roeg's post I pointed to last week you may have seen him link to the blog, A Trout In The Milk. Well now it's my turn. There's a lot of interesting reads including Tell Don't Show and Supervillain Logic. I particularly like this part;

"Oh, the things they could do with his powers! Oh, how cool they would make him! But they forgot that Electro doesn't need to be "cool." He's Electro, for God's sake! The man can shoot lightning bolts out of his hands! No, no, they argued, he could be a guy in a silver jumpsuit of some kind, and he could learn how to use his electrical powers to transfer money between different bank accounts, Spider-Man would never even see this guy, he'd be in Barbados before you could say...um..."

---------------

Tim O'Neil posts an old post looking back at Vertigo during their 10th Anniversary and how they may have changed the face of comics... or not.

"Vertigo didn't actually change the industry; Vertigo was merely the first to move towards a series of changes in the existing retail model which seem, in retrospect, inevitable. The imprint has always been a much more quiet presence than their influence would imply.

---------------

Paul Pope's new Batman comic "Batman: Year 100", which I was dumb enough to leave on the shelves, seems to be all the rage this week. Here are two well written reviews of the book, one by Jon Cormier, and one by Jog.

---------------

The Ever Entertaining Mike Sterling makes the roundup yet again, this time with a couple of awkward meetings with some artists that happen to come in the store.

---------------

Since we're talking about Mike, it looks like he may have kicked off another round of the "100 Things I Love About Comics" meme. Mike did it, Tom the Dog did it, Bill Doughty did it. Are you going to join in? I only made it to 50 last year so I may try to finish my list soon.

---------------

Sean Maher's Quality Control brings the quality this week by looking at the indy solicits for April. Here are parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.

---------------

Any Eddie Campbell fans out there? Anyone interested in his new book after the recent Comics Journal interview? If you answered yes to either question, or you're just curious, Graeme McMillan got a little sneak peak and tells us a bit more about it.

---------------

A lot of people don't realize that anyone can make comics. Shawn Hoke clues people in by showing a comic he made to give to his lady, Kate, for Valentines Day. Awwwww, isn't that sweet! He called it "Never Trust Cats with Glitter or Glue".

---------------

Pssst. Hey you. Looking to know what's been going on way over on the other side of the Marvel or DC Universe? Then I have the thing for you. It's called Spoilt. It's nothing but plot, but be careful man, don't go unless you want the story spoiled.

---------------

We'll end with another illustration blog this week. This blog may be familiar to readers of Fables, Machine Teen, Batgirl, and Green Arrow. Yep, you probably guessed it, I'm talking about cover artist extraordinaire James Jean. His blog Process Recess showcases not only his amazing cover work, but his figure drawings and magazine illustrations as well.

---------------

That does it for this week; check back next week for another tour around this little thing we call the blogoverse.

Read More