July 2007 Archives

the shilling in the trawl

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A review of Death Note over at Salon!

I'm in San Diego, and... there sure are a lot of people here. My. Really, there are an awful lot of people here.

I just took up Idolator's challenge to condense "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" into a limerick in this Zoilus post... only to find that Carl had already done it better.

newspapers on "Reading Comics"

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more manifestations and more

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The fabulous Cecil "Seaskull" Castellucci just posted my "mix tape" of ten amazing punk YouTube videos over at Beige Is Punk!

My first post at The Savage Critic(s) wasn't about Essential Defenders after all--it's about Giant-Size Marvel Adventures The Avengers #1, except actually it isn't.

And thanks to Amadeo over at El Baile Moderno, there's an interview with me in Spanish. The Spanish isn't mine, by the way.

READING COMICS virtual errata slip

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A bunch of errors crept into the first printing of Reading Comics. (I say that in a passive sort of way, but in fact I put all of them there.) In the spirit of Franklin Bruno's Adcidents Will Happen, I figured it'd be wise or at least useful to have a "virtual errata slip" online until I can correct them in future editions.

Pg. 83: With regard to the "Journal of MODOK Studies": "MODOK" is a "Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing," not a "Mechanical Organism...," and there are three issues to date, not "at least four issues." Thanks to Ben Towle for the correction.

Pp. 158 etc.: Diana Schutz kindly notes that it's "Eisnershpritz," not "Eisenshpritz," and that it was named by Harvey Kurtzman.

Pg. 229: There shouldn't be a comma after "pseudonyms" ("Curt Vile" and "Jill de Ray" were pseudonyms rather than strips).

Pp. 269, 270, 275, 397 and 398: the last name of artist Phil Jimenez is misspelled. (This is particularly embarrassing, considering that one of the very few pieces of original comics art I own is a magnificent Invisibles page drawn by Mr. Jimenez.)

Pg. 367: The most embarrassing one by far: as Jeet Heer wrote me to point out, "the late underground cartoonist S. Clay Wilson" is very much alive. My apologies to him and to anyone misled by my error.

elephantine reduplication strategy

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Links keep popping up! Whitney Matheson of USA Today interviewed me for her Pop Candy podcast; there's also a little excerpt from Reading Comics there. Plus a plug for Keven McAlester's Roky Erickson movie!

And Nextbook.org has a piece I wrote about Douglas Rushkoff and Liam Sharp's Testament.

Gabe Roth has some kind things to say about Reading Comics, too. Thank you, Gabe!

upcoming appearances

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The sidebar usually takes care of this stuff, but I figured I should indicate where I'm going to be over the next month for people who get an RSS feed; more details will be filled in when I've got 'em!

July 25-29: Comic-Con International in San Diego

July 26:
"Drawing Style and Storytelling" panel, 12:30-2 PM (with Darwyn Cooke, Carla Speed McNeil, Colleen Coover, Cameron Stewart, and possibly a special guest--unfortunately, Brian Wood probably won't be able to make it)
Signing at Comic Relief booth, 2-3:30 PM

July 28:
"Meet the Press: Writing About Comics" panel, 10:30-11:30 AM (with Heidi MacDonald, Nisha Gopalan, Tom Spurgeon, Tom McLean, Graeme McMillan)
Signing at Comic Relief booth, 3-4:30 PM

July 29:
"Comics Are Not Literature" panel, 11:30 AM-1 PM (with Cecil Castellucci, Dan Nadel, Austin Grossman, Paul Tobin, Sara Ryan)

August 1: Panel and signing at Powell's City of Books, Portland, OR, 7:30 PM (with Steve Lieber and Jeff Parker)

August 2: Reading and signing at Brookline Booksmith, Brookline, MA, 7 PM

August 3: Reading and signing at Rocketship Comics, Brooklyn, NY

August 6: Panel and signing at Barnes & Noble Chelsea, New York, NY (with Nick Bertozzi, Sara Varon and Tom Hart)

August 11: Reading and signing at Quimby's, Chicago, IL, 7 PM

August 13: Reading and signing at Schuler Books, Lansing, MI, 7:30 PM

August 17: watch this space

August 19: Reading (for Live at the Apollo!) and signing at Pegasus Books in Berkeley, CA, 7:30 PM (with Kate Schatz and Shawn Taylor)

"you're thin for someone who likes food"

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Link time.

I contributed today's "Book Notes" entry over at Largehearted Boy--a playlist of 15 songs that are vaguely relevant to Reading Comics. Some of them have YouTube or MP3 links, too! This is also how I learned that I have a Wikipedia entry. (Well, a stub.) Immortality is mine.

A review of James Brown's The Singles, Vol. Three over at Pitchfork.

And word seems to have gotten around about this, but I've just joined the new All-Star Justice League lineup of The Savage Critic(s). Not sure what my first post is going to be, or when, exactly, but I have a feeling it'll probably be about Essential Defenders vol. 3. Don't hold me to that, though.

pralines, headaches and light bulbs

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Newly available in stores (at least at Amazon, anyway): Marooned, the Phil Freeman-edited anthology of music critics writing about an album they'd take to a desert island. (It's a sequel to the Stranded anthology that Greil Marcus edited in the '70s; Marcus wrote the introduction to this one.) It includes my essay about Stereolab's Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements, which I'm pretty happy with. Also: Daphne Carr, John Darnielle, Geeta Dayal, Simon Reynolds, Michaelangelo Matos, and much more...

I had an email discussion with Timothy Callahan this week about New Avengers #32, authorial intention and "bad readers": the whole thing is here.

Some very nice things being said about Reading Comics by K. at Unprintable Version and by Leigh at Picture Poetry.

Laura H., as I type this, is in the middle of a 24-hour marathon of reading and reviewing comics. Go Laura!

And me, the person behind the curtains of type? Uh... Maoz Vegetarian is a fine addition to Union Square!... I'll get back to you.

2x fat days and 1x more video

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Doug from Fat Day just forwarded me... this:

Yes: that is not Fat Day themselves, but a Japanese Fat Day cover band. In Tokyo. Playing songs from Fat Day IV.

In further Fat Day-related news, the new Dark Beloved Cloud Singles Club CD single just arrived from the plant: a split EP with Melt-Banana, on which both bands do Devo songs. Please start preparing for your mind to be blown right now.

And in further Dark Beloved Cloud-related news, Fly Ashtray just sent along their new video, for the 97-second riff-beast "Post Ignells":

book release party this Thursday!

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"Reading Comics" comes out tomorrow (although I've already seen it in a shop window or two)! Floating World Comics here in Portland is hosting a release party for it Thursday night, July 5--it's also the release party (and art opening) for Jeremy Tinder's Black Ghost Apple Factory. And Jeremy drew this excellent poster for it:

Hope to see you there!