First Off

Ian Quinn: Why is your medium of choice comics?

Chip Zdarsky: Because I'm relentlessly horny, and comics can be worked on throughout the night, alone. And once in a while you'll need some reference material so you'll just HAVE to go the InterNet, just for a sec, and that "sec" turns into three beautiful, moist minutes.

iq: Do you have a social agenda in your work?

Cz: Yes, thank you for asking.

iq: What level of fame do we (your fans) need to take you to in order to ensure both a comfortable life for you and a steady stream of new, quality work for us?

Cz: High? A high level of fame? I'd like that.

iq: To whom would ye give no quarter?

Cz: The stupidest people I've ever known could still end up being art directors, so to answer your question, I would give quarters to everyone because you never know who is holding the rest of the quarters you so desperately need to play Strider.

iq: What are you, personally, looking forward to doing in your work?

Cz: Something printed in colour, actually, I'm sure you were expecting some smartass answer, but there you have it. Colour. I just want to keep drawing, I'm stupidly lucky in that people pay me to draw and write and colour, so I just hope that continues until I'm dead. People keep telling me that I can live on in my work, but I'm not sure if I believe or understand that. Cause Charles Schulz is still not returning my calls. Love, Chip!

You really should check out Prison Funnies, Chip's website. You should really check out the The Act_I_Vate webcomic blog to see Chip's excellent Zdarskyverse strips, as well as several [many! -ed] other quality strips. Stalk Chip on his livejournal. Chip will be in Austin for the Dragon's Lair 20th Anniversary, August 25th-27th.

--ian That's a fine piece you got there, buddy-boy. Mmmm, a gun like this ain't just for playin' kissy with.

http://www.pinktentacle.com/2006/07/gallery-of-fantastic-creatures/

Found on boingboing.

I really want my own fantastic creature to put on a shelf somewhere...

--Ian

X-Posted to Designated Sidekick

"For example, if you were offered a shot at being in the Teen Titans, why would you take it? The level of death, pain, insanity, torture by demon/alien, loss of loved ones, loss of team mates and the rest that goes with the membership card would have to have you say "Sorry, Suicide Squad has better working conditions"." Quote the Designated Sidekick

Even with the added risk, an offer to join the Titans (or the JLA, or the Avengers, etc.) is like getting drafted to the NFL. Sure, there's a high chance that you could sustain massive, life-threating, crippling, even fatal injuries, but damn, it's the NFL.

Same idea applies, I think. I hope I'm not being overly simplistic here, but I think even within the DCU and Marvel U, there is an urge in the younger/ less popular/ less powerful superheroes to want to play with the 'big boys,' and this has even been written enough times to prove true. (To great effect, I thought, by Grant Morrison in his JLA run, where..um, Kyle Rayner, maybe? is talking about being in the presence of near-gods. feel free to correct me on this one... i know for sure it's JLA, at least. I believe Spidey does a similar thing in the New Avengers title.)

Now really, to get to the heart of it, writers on the big universe books tend to suck. Even when they have great bodies of work outside the big two, they just phone it in, or are forced to do shoehorn work with editorial mandates, or any number of things influenced by ego and the newest summer blockbuster, writing for these licensed-content-generators can't be a terribly rewarding experience. Characters get killed, rebirthed, recharged, crisis-ed of the infinite or identity varieties, etc. etc. ad-freakin-nauseum. It's easy to fill a few pages of paying work with the death of one shmuck or another. If it boosts sales and leads to a few more bucks in your pocket, great. If people get pissed off and start screaming your name from rooftops or message boards, they just need to remember to spell your name right.

So why do we keep buying this crap?

a)Because *we* want to play with the big boys. Through all of this BS, somehow, Batman is still -cool-. Spider-Man could be written to be a furry with a particular fetish for Aunt May in a Snoopy costume, but that's not going to change how great Spider-Man...wait, that might actually do it...

The idea of Spider-Man will remain great. "With great power comesyaddayaddayadda" and all that jazz, there are some amazingly fantastic stories out there starring your friendly neighborhood sad-sack, whether or not another good one ever gets made. The moral to this, I think, is that continuity isn't actually that big a deal. The best stories almost all stem from a revamp, reboot, or retelling these days. Who cares if you miss a few months years decades, if nothing substantial actually happens?  Which brings me to...

b)...is a little trickier. b) is your comics geek self-loathing that says it's better to put up with a little crap just so that you can keep having your new crap the week it comes out...and besides, it's bound to get better soon(er or later), and it'd be lame to have a *gasp* gap in your collection run, cuz y'know one day Nightwing #134-147 are going to totally put the little one through grad school... keep in mind, anything that DC or Marvel put a TM or circle-R to are the equivalent of Britney Spears and Avril Lavigne. Superman sells Pepsi... end of fucking story. Especially at the level that books are selling these days, fans are essentially worthless to anyone up the ladder in Marvel or DC. What's your $3 worth when the movie is worth $300,000,000?

So, once you've gotten over b), you take another look at a) and start buying collections wisely, only proven material. Who needs to spend $3 a month for a 10-minute decompressed sexist racist anti-intellectual lightboxed-from-a-porno 'read?'

Not me, not any-fucking-more.

Comics should be good, but they're often not.  It seems that when it comes to human artistic endeavour, there's always a need to seperate wheat from chaff.  Hopefully one day they'll stop giving jobs to the guys who suck, and keep giving them to the ones who rock.  Ones who rock being, by definition, ones who aren't sexist, racist homophobes, and don't resort to easy outs or cheap tragedy to keep the drama level up. Y'know, good writers...

I still read a few big-2 heroes, and am inclined to pick up new ones, too. The great thing about the small market is the freedom it brings. Brubaker's run on Captain America has been amazing to me so far, and I've -never- been a Cap fan before. Gail Simone has me pretty hooked to Birds of Prey, I love Peter David's X-Factor, and am looking forward to Vaughn's Dr. Strange and Brubaker's X-Men, and Morrison's Batman...
--Ian

So, here's how it works:
myspace meme that I found particularly interesting...  and I just like my funny results, though I could use a much better fight theme.

Open your music player (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, etc).
Put it on shuffle.
Press play.
For every question type the song that's playing.
When you go to a new question press the next button.
Some songs fit perfectly.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Opening Credits: "Blue Lights" - Pretty Girls Make Graves

Waking Up: "Offend in Every Way" - The White Stripes

Falling in Love: "Miss Elaine" - Run D.M.C. (snort!)

Fight scene: "Laid" - James (HAHAHAHAHA!)

Breaking up: "Heel on the Shovel" - 16 Horsepower

Getting back together: "Return to the City of the Dead" - Powerman 5000 (0_0)

Secret Love: "My Vagina" - NOFX

Life's okay: "Join the Dots" - Queen Adreena

Mental breakdown: "Please Hold" - Enon

Driving Flashback: "Tobacco Road" - Albert Collins, James Cotton, Junior Wells (weird...)

Partying: "The Doodler" - Turing Machine

Happy dance: "P.L.U.C.K." - System of a Down (hahaha)

Regretting: "Getting Smaller" - nine inch nails (neat!)

Long night alone: "Give Up... And Move On" - Oneida (Ha!)

Final Battle: "Attack" - System of a Down (YEAH! okay, so this wasn't the first thing that came up... but the others were intro tracks that made absolutely no sense)

Death Scene: "Porno Disaster" - The Octopus Project (hahahaha)

so, in my movie I'm... a homicidal (possibly hermaphrodite) southern porn star.

i think this sounds cool enough to burn. so if any of you want a copy, just ask.

--Ian

Here's the titles and Diamond codes for the books I'm looking forward to this week:

APR060057V OLD BOY VOL 1 TP (C: 1-1-2) $12.95 DAR
Love the movie, haven't read the fanscans of this yet.  Looks good, though.

MAR060384D FABLES VOL 7 ARABIAN NIGHTS AND DAYS TP (MR) $14.99 DC
Woohoo! A storyline I haven't already read...  This book keeps getting better, for me anyway.  I hope the trend continues.

APR060282D TOP 10 BEYOND THE FARTHEST PRECINCT TP $14.99 DC
Hooray for more Top 10.

MAY062007D UNCANNY X-MEN #475 $2.99 MAR
Ed Brubaker starts his run on Uncanny.  I'm thinking yes.  Could be great...

APR063443E RUROUNI KENSHIN VOL 28 TP (C: 1-0-0) $7.95 VIZ
Woot, the last volume of Kenshin!  I'll be happy to have this series complete...  So, so great.

APR063014H FLIGHT VOL 3 GN (C: 0-1-2) $24.95 RAN
ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY BRILLIANT!  I lurve Flight 1, Flight 2 was even better (and bigger!), so I hope Flight 3 will be simply amazing.  The first two were everything an anthology should be.

MAY063379F JAMES BOND MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN SC (NOV035064) (C: 0-1-2) $16.95 DIA
MAY063380F JAMES BOND SPY WHO LOVED ME TP (C: 0-1-2) $17.95 DIA
I know nothing about these, but they might be worth a look...

MAY062758F LICENSABLE BEAR #3 $3.50 ABO
Hooray for Licensable Bear!  We should all be wearing Licensable Bear merch.  Somewhoreone should license some, or something.

DEC053005F MONOLOGUES FOR THE COMING PLAGUE SC $18.95 FAN
This has me almost by title alone...  a quick google gets...  "Monologues for the Coming Plague is the longest and most ambitious work to date by Anders Nilsen...Taking a cue from the school of Automatic Writing, an aesthetic mode championed by Andre Breton at the beginning of the 19th century that became the foundation of the Surrealist Movement, Nilsen began work on Monologues for the Coming Plague. The process is born out of a stream of consciousness followed by limited editing and rearranging. The book ranges playfully from riffs on the gag cartoon to paranoid soliloquies of a surrealistic apocalypse, with references to contemporary politics, pop culture, and religion, plays on language, and sequential abstractions."  [from http://www.fantagraphics.com/recent/bks.html]
Looks like a lot of fun.

MAR063212F THEY FOUND THE CAR $7.95 FAN
Mmm.. more Fantagraphics goodness, this time from Gipi.  "a late-night telephone call about a mysterious car which went missing seven years ago and has now been recovered causes a chain reaction of violence." [from Last Gasp]


I'll try to chime in with notes on any or all of this that I get to pick up, later on.

--Ian