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.



Whew, busy week! I apologize for posting this a little late today. Lots of convention news this week with both Megacon and the New York Comicon going on. Let's start there, shall we?

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* New York Comicon

Chris went to the New York Comicon and brings us several posts dealing with all the brouhaha surrounding the event. Start with "Friday, Part One". Then continue reading "Friday, Part Two", "This is what success looks like",and "I Love A Photo Parade"

If you want all the real dirt head over and read Neilalien.

* Speakeasy MIA

Over at Comic Book Commentary, Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, well...comments...on Rosario Dawson leaving Speakeasy for Image Comics.

"Except for some generally positive buzz for the Flying Friar one-shot -- much of which is due to writer Rich Johnston's admirable, if relentless, self-promotion -- things have been pretty quiet on the Speakeasy front since that announcement. Their web site is currently being overhauled; their MySpace page has no content of note on it; and their recently appointed editor/PR guy, Vito Delsante, has been curiously silent since said appointment a few weeks back, even deleting his own announcement of the appointment from his LiveJournal without any explanation."

Update: As seen below it looks like Speakeasy is no more, it's always sad to see a company go as I'm sure a lot of people will be hurt in the process.

* Ringwood Returns

Ken Lowery doesn't post often, but when he does it always seems raw and splattered with truthy bits that hit you right in the gut, or at the very least get you talking. His recent post using bits of the legendary speech by then-FCC chairman Newton Minow and adapting it to the current comic industry is no exception. Also of note is his state of the blogosphere post on his 2nd blogoversary.

"The blogosphere has lost all ambition.

Everyone's very comfortable, and the current Rock Stars of the comics blogosphere got there by doing safe material. No one's trying to change much of anything. The ones who "go places" use their blogs as launching pads into careers in established arenas... something comics professionals are often criticized for doing when they launch into movies or TV."

* An Excuse to Link to Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog

Laura points out that the Fremont library in Seattle is starting a program to look at Persepolis as a comic rather than a historical work. Seattle is all the way across the country since I live in Sunny (read Rainy) Florida, but this post gives me a great reason to link to Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog. I particularly enjoy Laura's quick reviews and linkblogging skills.

* World War II, Letters Pages, and The Comics Code Authority

What does those topics have in common? All of them are covered in this week's Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed over at Comics Should Be Good.

* First Second

Have you visited First Second's site recently? They not only have guest bloggers like Nick Abadzis, Lewis Trondheim, and Eddie Campbell, but the site features sketches and previews almost everyday. The site is pretty impressive for a comic book company's blog.

* The Bluesman, BeucoupKevin, and the Bwah-Ha-Ha's

Kevin isn't just a funny guy. You wouldn't know it when you read his Genius Covers Sunday posts, but he has some depth as well. He shows his stuff with his review of Rob Vollmar and Pablo Callejo's Bluesman. I still haven't picked this up. That's something I'll have to remedy soon.

* Happy Birthday Dorrian

He's 31 by the way. I just thought everyone should know that.

* Black History Month Continued

There are even more Black History Month profiles at the Absorbascon this week. Check out Fatality, Black Mass, Dr. Mist, Amazing Man, Gravedigger, Vixen, XS, and Nubia.

* Not a Blog, But Go Look Anyway

Power Girl (The Classifieds)

How to Write a Comic Quickly

Where does Sterling find all these weird message board posts and wiki wackiness. wikiwackiness should be a word. Say it five times fast. It's fun. Anyway, he points out a wiki site about none other than "How to Write a Comic Quickly". If only it were that easy.

* Graphic-Novel Gazing

Why isn't that the name of a blog yet? Someone run with that will you?

Mad Ink Beard, discusses Novels vs. Graphic Novels and discovers it's a little hard to pin down a definition for either.

"Looking up “novel” in a dictionary (one for literary terms), I am hard pressed to find any definition that is more sensical than “a novel is what is called a novel”. Even a simple definition like “an extended fictional prose narrative” (Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms) is followed by numerous exceptions and qualifiers."

* R.I.P. Pantha

Somewhere out there someone is crying after reading this stirring eulogy for Pantha written by Brian Cronin. Me? I'm too busy laughing to cry.

* Ground Will Break Fall

Take a look at this comic overview of Punisher #2 created by Dave Campbell and tell me Marvel shouldn't just hand him the reignsto the next Punisher series right this second.

* Redemption for Iron Spidey?

I trust Jim Roeg. Take a look at what he has to say about Spidey's New Suit, A Marvel Renaissance, and DC's Final Issues before OYL.

"It isn’t just that it looks slick, but that it, and the new powers that accompany it, finally defamiliarize Spider-Man for us again, so that we can feel the danger that Peter feels when he leaps off that roof and must trust in the new suit’s ability to allow him to glide safely down to the street."

* If This Be Homage!

Marc Singer, of the appropriately titled I Am NOT The Beastmaster, has been reading some of Joe Casey's new books Godland and Iron-Man: The Inevitable. Here's a clip of what he has to say about Godland.

"It crosses Kirby and Starlin with a dollop of Morrison (Mr. Nobody would be right at home at the Funhouse, don't you think?) and bombards us with goofy character designs and large-scale action, all of it imbued with the futurism of sixties science fiction and the irreverence of the sixties counterculture. A pleasant alternative when your local comics shop is running short on bald Scotsmen."

* T.H.U.N.D.E.R.S.T.R.U.C.K.

Matt wonders why the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents haven't been brought back with all the other licenses popping up at comic companies lately.

"If you're of the liberal persuasion, here's a group of U.N. sponsored superhumans, normal joes except for their gadgetry, who battle an international arms merchant over stolen technology he gained by killing one of those only-in-comics polymathic geniuses who kept all the work 'in his head'. And if you're a more conservative type, well, they're a team of paramilitary enforcers who fly around the world kicking ass for a pseudo-government agency!"

* Cricetidae Convoyer

Mark Fossen seems to think that "Mouse Guard" should be part of Free Comic Book Day. He's even gone so far as to pick up an extra copy or two for his girls to read and some extras for his nieces and nephews.

"As the industry gradually shifts to graphic novels, and most monthly books are simply serialized paperbacks, Mouse Guard hits the "single" structure just right. There's a complete story the this slim book, with multiple beats, but it ends on a nice cliffhanger that leaves you wanting more."

* Swoon over Vertigo

Tim O'Neil posts part two of his look back at 13 years of Vertigo written way back in 2002.

"It would be hard to imagine a more unlikely candidate for the job of sparking a massive revolution in mainstream comics than DC’s Swamp Thing circa 1983. It bears consideration that any one out of hundreds of obscure and mostly forgotten DC characters could have been lucky enough to exploit the same unique combination of creative and commercial coincidences that resulted in Swamp Thing’s success."

* Size Matters, But it's an Insult to Injury

Shawn Hoke, king of all things Mini-Comic, wants us to head on over to Ben Rosen's blog, Insult to Injury, where we can see the process he goes through in bringing a page of his mini-comic to life.

* Illustration Blog of The Week

This week's illustration blog is Brando Blogo. Brandon (B.J.) Scott is studying animation at Sheridan College and looks to have a bright future in the biz. I particularly like his Batman. Via Drawn.