episode 023: best of 2013

alec and joey return again to reflect on what comics they enjoyed in the year 2013. hear them sound like a couple of stoned teenagers as they discuss batman incorporated by grant morrison and chris burnham, pompeii by frank santoro, battling boy by paul pope, life zone by simon hanselmann, the end of the fucking world by charles forsman, backyard by sam alden, household by sam alden, training by josh simmons, fatale by ed brubaker and sean phillips, sex by joe casey and piotr kowalski, satellite sam by matt fraction and howard chaykin, the manhattan projects by jonathan hickman and nick pitarra, sky in stereo #2 by mardou, fury max by garth ennis and goran parlov, change by ales kot and morgan jeske, jupiter's legacy by mark millar and frank quitely, copra by michel fiffe, 3 new stories by dash shaw, new school by dash shaw, lose #5 by michael deforge, optic nerve #13 by adrian tomine, internet comics by mare odomo, young avengers by kieron gillen and jamie mckelvie, so long silver screen by blutch, and more.

music by a$ap ferg

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diary of a guttersnipe 06/17/2013: transcend r. crumbz.

by Shawn Starr

Mini-Reviews

Pixar's Cars Comics
by Patrick Kyle, Michael DeForge, and Mickey Zacchilli 

Patrick Kyle killed it on this issue.

Vaders Little Princess (Chronicle Books)
by Jeffery Brown

This is a book that your aunt or uncle, who vaguely remember you like "Star Wars", would purchase you for Christmas in addition to a package or two of socks. Existing as a sixty page collection of "Star Wars" references mixed with “dad’s just don’t understand teenage girls!” interactions between Darth Vader and a young Princess Leia (and her companions).

The books stronger material is found when Brown drops the single page illustrations and produces short sequential stories; these “extended” narratives force Brown to work past the one note nature of many of his illustrations.

This was my favorite strip.

The Manhattan Projects #12 (Image)
by Jonathan Hickman, Nick Pitarra, Jordie Bellaire

Another issue of 'The Manhattan Projects' and another issue where one of the characters turns out to be someone else than who we had thought they were. By the end of the next arc, I presume the entire cast will turn out to actually be secret Muslims from Africa bent on something....something....punchline.

Thor: God of Thunder #9 (Marvel)
Jason Aaron, Esad Ribic, Ive Svorcina

The only problem I can find in Aaron/Ribic’s run on Thor (besides the kinda too on the nose dialogue about “gods” and shit) is that i kind of hate present heroic Thor. Young brash Thor? Amazing. Old cranky Thor? More please! But with this story-line coming to a close soon, I’m pretty sure that Aaron’s not going to spin the series off into a buddy cop story about Young and Old Thor beating the shit out of people and fucking bar wenches with a band of bumbling vikings chasing after them.

But alas, life is filled with disappointment.

Red Team #3 (Dynamite)
by Garth Ennis, Craig Cermak, Adriano Lucas

I started watching "The Shield" this week, this seems like the kind of comic Garth Ennis does after watching "The Shield".  Also, art and coloring are pretty solid which is a nice step up from the recent string of Ennis non-Marvel work.

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so many links

for you

to read

or ignore

“It’s only led me to complete awesomeness at all times. It’s only led me to awesome truth and awesomeness. Beauty, truth, awesomeness. That’s all it is.” The Kanye West New Yorker interview is a thing of beauty.

Trailer for a possible Alex Schubert a.k.a. 'The Blobby Boys' a.k.a. 'Zine Police' a.k.a. 'Cyber Gang' animated thing for Fox’s ADHD block, which is art directed by Ben Jones of Paper Rad fame, leading me to be actually interested in a FOX animated lineup after ten years of not giving a shit ("Bobs Burgers" excluded). Additionally, here's a trailer for the new 'The Blobby Boys' book which is being published by Koyama Press later this year.

Simon Hanselmann was interviewed by Sean T Collins for The Comics Journal. It’s a strong interview on one of alt-comics rising stars, but it’s the last segment of the interview where Hanselmann discusses his cross-dressing and it’s impact on his life that this interview crosses over into definitive. Hanselmann is having a breakout year between his 'Megg and Mogg' Tumblr serial and his criticism/gag/whatever he feels like strip 'Truth Zone' for Frank Santoro’s Comic Book Workshop Tumblr. If half the things he has in the works for this year and next see daylight i can’t see him not becoming a big[ger] fucking deal in alt-comics. You can read most of his comics here.

Johnny Negron has a bunch of cheap art prints for sale on the PictureBox site.

"Girls" Season 38

An essay on Suehiro Maruo’s 'The Laughing Vampire' by Sarah Horrocks, who seems to be popping up all over my twitter feed lately.

Interview by some site i have never heard of with Johnny Ryan and Peter Bagge. The choice exchange is:

    Do you have some wisdom for young comic artists?

Draw more dicks.

Vice talks to Gary Panter about art and stuff. Panter shows some originals to 'Dal-Tokyo' and 'Jimbo in Purgatory' which look amazing. Panter always comes off as the nicest guy in comics, he drew me a dinosaur the one time i meet him. Anyways, here's a recent auto-bio comic Panter did.

Louis C.K. interview, which is kind of old but i just got around to reading it. The parts about Woody Allen are really interesting, i need to sit down for a week and watch all of that mans films.

Oily Comics started taking 3 and 6 month subscriptions again. They are also debuting their first large form work at CAKE this weekend 'Habit' #1 a 52 page comic by Josh Simmons which you should buy. Josh Simmons is the bees knees.

A video tour through the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. That original art is bonkers to look at in video, i can’t even comprehend seeing it in person.

diary of a guttersnipe 02/11/2013: one sec alaska

by Shawn Starr

Didn't read many comics this week because i hate comics. That or nothing came out that i cared about. Also, snow.....a lot of snow.

Mini-Reviews

Hawkeye #7 (Marvel)
by Matt Fraction, Steve Lieber, Jesse Hamm, Matt Hollingsworth

'Hawkeye' #7 is such a made for TV special rehash of [Insert Movie About A Natural Disaster That Shows The Triumph Of The Human Condition] and every other feel good movie that it borders on parody, each story is soaked in "We're New Yorkers and we are TUFF!!!!" that it turns into a Lifetime film about surviving something...anything....and thinking your better for it. Even though several boroughs lost all contact with the police, power wasn't restored for weeks, and gas was rationed, i guess everyone is better for it. Except those people who died. They didn't tuffin up. They just stiffened up.

But! At least a single Marvel writer wanted to talk about it, and donate his royalties to charity. That is nice. Even though his multi-million (billion?) dollar corporate overlords take credit for the issue, while contributing nothing, just like when Gene Colan died, or when those offensive 9-11 Comics where Dr.Doom cried were published, along with whatever other bullshit that they pump out.

Avengers #4 (Marvel)
by Jonathan Hickman, XXXX Kubert (i don't know which one of the Kuberts' it was...nor do i care), Frank D'Armata

No Opena, No thanks.

Satan Soldiers (Self-published)
by Tom Scioli

Scioli drawing an evil superman comic ala Kyle Baker, colored like Lynn Varley on 'The Dark Knight Strikes Again', and writing it as something that should be getting released at BCGF makes 'Satan Soldiers' one cool ass comic.

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Kanye Wes Anderson

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links

I've been reading a lot of Simon Hanselmann Tumblr comics ('Girl Mountain'  / 'Truth Zone' ) recently, it centers around a group of stoners: Megg, Mogg, and Owl fucking around in a small Australian town. While 'Girl Mountian' focuses more so on the stoner aspects, along with mild autobiography, 'Truth Zone' takes the same casts and uses them to criticize and promote several alt-comics creators and works in a way which is probably only funny to the people who read Frank Santoro's Comics Workbook Tumblr (which is to say not many, but i am thankfully among the few).

Here's a strip from 'Girl Mountain': 

And one from 'Truth Zone':

This week's Comic Books ARE BURNING IN HELL led me to read 'Ultra Gash Inferno' (along with a couple other Suehiro Maruo books) and try and figure out if a Ricky Lime was the same thing as a Shirley Temple. And if you know what 'Ultra Gash Inferno' or a Ricky Lime is you should understand how strange and amazing this episode was.

Jog on why he writes is a must read. I don't understand the train of thought that says talking about 'Heavy Metal' or '2000 AD' or Japanese niche porn, while ignoring the new Ware book is the same as trying to replace Clowes or Ware in the comics pantheon. Those books are covered forty ways from Sunday  Two god-damn critical stall-worth's (Gary Groth and Eddie Campbell) came out with 4,000+ word retorts to one guy saying he didn't think EC was the best thing ever created. What the fuck are they doing in their off-time? (Besides talking up Crumb and Spiegelman at every instance). I guess Gary Groth and Fantagraphics and The (print) Comics Journal are the only people allowed to discover new things. Because they are...older? Only speaking of the general consensuses "Greats" misses everything the general consensus might have ignored, a fact Groth probably should have learned based on the past ten years (or more) of Fantagraphics' publishing history.

And while mentioned here is Eddie Campbell on criticism and EC comics, and Ng Suat Tong's response.

a real conversation

Shawn Starr: Did you see that Sasha Grey movie? 

Joey Aulisio: Dude....I've seen every Sasha Grey movie.

I'm glad that Marvel offers a variant cover to every issue for all those people who like looking at little kids dressed up as superheroes. It's nice that they care.

Ales Kot is taking over 'Suicide Squad' which i hope turns out good, but i read enough about DC to know that they will fuck it up.

If you even mention not buying a comic because of its creators rampant homophobia then you sir are just like Joseph McCarthy...or those Salem Witch Hunt people...and you also hate freedom of speech. You fucking monster.

The Mindless Ones talks about 'Promethea'

Study Group has a Michael DeForge designed T-Shirt up for preorder.

Al Pacino everyone.