Weekend Reading: Spacehawk, The Dandy, Kirby and Howard Cruse

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Interviews, Movies, Reviews, Dark Horse Comics, DC Comics, Marvel Comics,

I'm stuffed with the turkey of Thanksgiving, but there's always time to unstuff some of the internets. Let's take a look at things to read between naps.

This has gotten a lot of play, but it’s too funny to not link to: Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter has compiled his list of the 10 Least Powerful People In Comics. Number five made me laugh out loud.

And Spurgeon does it again: I think Howard Cruse is one of the great cartoonists to have emerged from the Underground Comix movement. Spurgeon’s interview with him is an excellent read.

The Dandy, the long-running British comic book for kids, is getting cancelled in December and the line-up for the last issue is spectacular - 75 stories in a 100 page issue. I want one. Oh yes I do! Lew Stringer shares some details.

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Weekend Reading: Maberry, Wes Craven, Tamara Drewe and Dave Dorman

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: DVD, Editorials, Marvel Comics,

Everyone who’s anyone in the indie comics scene is currently at MoCCA Fest 2011 in New York. But me? I’m just linking to stuff.

Write: Comic book retailer and blogger Mike Sterling is part of a group that runs Fake AP Stylebook. They’ve got a book out, Write More Good, and for those of us who love to laugh, it’s a must-have. Back away from the DC and Marvel relaunches and put your money to a better use. Here's a taste from the book: "While it's tempting to call them baristi because of the Italian roots, the plural of barista is journalism majors."

It even got a nice review in The New Yorker. “Write More Good, like the account from which it grew, is a tongue-in-cheek takedown of an industry already on shaky ground.”

Maberry: Marvel Comics writer Jonathan Maberry is also a novelist. SF Signal breaks down his latest Joe Ledger novel and gives it thumbs up. “Great conspiracy thinking with large events; misdirection; interesting, complex criminals who don't like each other; a great dog and destruction of one of Maberry's favorite writing places!”

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Weekend Reading: Jaime Hernandez, Green Hornet & Girl Genius

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Interviews, Movies, Television,

Let’s roll...and punch 2011 in the face!

Maggie: Over the holidays, Tom Spurgeon starting running his annual interview series. He stopped at #20 and it’s one of my favorite comic creators ever, Jaime Hernandez of Love & Rockets. They talk about digital comics, work-for-hire, deadlines, formats and Jaime’s process. Great stuff. As someone who’s met Jaime on several occasions and read whole issues of L&R direct from the original art, I enjoyed the heck out of this interview. (In fact, I heartily recommend the entire Comics Reporter Interview series for this season. You can find the list of all 20 interviews and their links here.)

Hornet: If you’re looking forward to the new Green Hornet movie with Seth Rogen, or have been following the GH comics from Dynamite, here’s some fun stuff courtesy of Evan Lewis at Davy Crockett’s Almanack: a collection of vintage GH collectibles. I want everything shown here.

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Peter Steiner: Cartoonist & Thriller Writer?

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

I’m always the last to know.

I knew of Peter Steiner’s work as a cartoonist because he’s had something like 400 cartoons published in The New Yorker over the years. And I’ve probably seen most of them. He has a loose, fun style that’s classicly New Yorker-ish and his gags are very funny.

Then I found out that he’s also a writer of books as well. Only he’s not writing comic novels about summers in Connecticut or the party crowd in the Hamptons. He’s doing a 180 from his cartooning and he’s writing, wait for it, spy thrillers.

And he’s got not one, not two, but three of them, including his latest that came out earlier this year called The Terrorist. It shouldn’t surprise me, but maybe I’m a cartoon bigot who expects cartoonists to only do funny things.

I’m over that now, and I accept that cartoonists can also be writers of thrillers, science fiction novels, and historical mysteries, or even drive cabs or fix leaky drains. I certainly didn’t complain when I found out that New Yorker cartoonist Bruce Eric Kaplan (BEK) was writing for Seinfeld and producing Six Feet Under.

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Peter Arno: Avoiding Easy Stagnation

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

Peter Arno was one of the great cartoonists of his generation, probably one of the greatest of all time. A mainstay of The New Yorker, his work helped define the magazine, and he was wealthy enough to party on with the types of people he lampooned in his cartoons. He was only 64 years old when he died in 1968.

In the introduction to his book, Peter Arno’s Ladies & Gentlemen (Simon and Schuster, 1951), Arno answered a few questions that had been constantly hurled at him over the years. One of my favorite responses was to the age-old question all creative people must suffer.

Here’s Arno:

“Question Number Two seems to be: ‘Where do you get all your ideas? Do they just come to you?’

“The last thing they do, madam, is ‘just come.’ My ideas are produced with blood, sweat, brain-racking toil, the help of The New Yorker art staff, and the collaboration of keen-eyed undercover operatives. For the first few years I did think up most of my own situations. I had to. I was developing a style and a new kind of format, and there was no way anyone else could do it for me. But as time went on, and a distinct pattern for my work was set, it became easier for others to make contributions. By “others,” I mean the scant handful of gifted idea-men (there are hordes of the other kind) who have grown up in the field during the past few years.

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