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It's "Kashimir", not "cashmere."
One is an unspeakably soft fabric for the construction of sweaters. The other is a mountainous region between India and Pakistan (I think.) One is soft like yeti fur, the other is the place where yetis make their home. One is a Led Zeppelin tune, the other is best known for stretching over Mamie Van Doren. Or was that Janet Leigh?
Other than that, the latest issue was joyous perfection. I'm digging this volume more than the first one (which I liked just fine, thankyew.)
But it's not a total waste of time in terms of finding new music, either. Discover Music - Pandora.
Basically, you punch in the name of a beloved band, and Pandora uses black magic and voodoo to come up with other bands that you may or may not like. And if you don't like a recommendation, just skip on to the next one or simply let songs stream. I'm betting this turns into a pay service shortly, so you might want to check it out while it's still free.
EDIT to post that indeed it's a pay service. Not sure how much, but what's intriguing for free may not be worth a nickel. Not if you're a cheapskate like me...
I'm probably not going to make any friends with the following, but here goes.
Claypool Comics is in potential trouble, as evidenced by this link: MILE HIGH COMICS presents THE BEAT at COMICON.com: Claypool threatened by Diamond policy. Basically, some of their books are not going to make the new thresholds established by Diamond for distribution. These were controversial a few months ago when first announced, but the the argument over them died down pretty quickly. Personally, I don't particularly care for those minimums, but Diamond can establish them with impunity because they're a functional monopoly.
As much as I'm bothered by the potential stifling of another set of editorial voices, I have to wonder how Claypool hasn't found a consistent audience for its books over 12 years of publication. No, I'm not intimiately familiar with their works, just passingly so. I don't know all the details, but I do wonder what their audience looks like and if perhaps they might be better served by dropping floppies altogether and moving to a quarterly/biannually-published thicker magazine. Or is their audience made up of impulse-buyers?
Either way, they've been around for a long time and haven't managed to connect to a larger audience. Diamond's threshold isn't *that* high (for instance Strangeways #1 is over it by a significant margin, though I don't know for sure if that would have happened if it wasn't a Speakeasy book). Maybe looking for a different way to do things is what's called for now (as painful as it might seem at the moment.)
Of course, I'm just an ignorant loudmouth.
So, remember when I said that it was going to hit November 30th? Well, that was before I found out that Speakeasy was going with Lamppost printing for their books. I'd heard the news about Lamppost dumping all but Alias books and felt bad about it, but didn't figure it affected me directly, because as far as I knew, Speakeasy's books were being printed by Quebecor, and I hadn't heard different.
So much for assumptions. Turns out that when Lamppost hosed their clients, I was caught in the blowback. Which meant that Strangeways #1's date was now back up in the air. Last week, I got news that Speakeasy was back with Quebecor and there were going to be some changes to things (but none of them affected me, as I've got a black and white book--the only montly b/w book Speakeasy is doing, to the best of my knowledge.)
To all the reviewers who got on the stick and got reviews of the book up the week it was supposed to ship, you have my thanks and my regret that it's not going to mesh as well as I'd like it to. Here's a couple that have gone up already (including the first one, from my old alma mater as it were, Broken Frontier.)
Ken Gallant reviews Strangeways #1 at Broken Frontier
James Wood, not James Woods, reviews it over at Opiate of the Masses
There's probably going to be a couple more this week as well, unless they read this and chuck the reviews in the dustbin (not that I'd blame 'em).
When there's a new street date for #1, I'll post it right here. I wish there was something I could do to change this, but some things are beyond even my cosmically-spawned powers.
It'd be Bill Messner-Loebs that got me blogging again. Welcome to Heaven, Dr. Franklin press release, which you can read over at Nat Gertler's About Comics website. The book looks intriguing to me, but then I'm a sucker for non-dogmatic views of Heaven.
As for the absence, well, stuff like that happens. Particularly when one takes a sabbatical from the blogoverse for a week-long Thanksgiving holiday. That and when you sorta totally burn out on things. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I've only got so much energy to blog about comics when I should really be writing them and not obsessing about the marketplace overall, but really should be obsessing about my own work.
But I'm back. There's really only so long I can stay shut up as it is.
The first time it was available a couple years back, Rock 'n' Roll by Fábio Moon, Gabriel Bá, Bruno D'Angelo and Kako, is going to be available in the states again, courtesy Image. There's a preview at the following link, and you really oughta take a look at this gorgeous stuff comicon.com: Moon on the Heart of ROCK 'n' ROLL
And did I mention that Fábio did the pinup for the second issue of Strangeways? Or that his brother Gabriel did the pinup for the third? Oh yes. Pay attention to the brothers, folks, as they've got the drive, talent and skill to cast some long shadows in comics.
Or very real opportunity to get comics into the hands of people who by and large are completely ignored by the DM as a whole?
COMICON.com: 50 CENT & G-UNIT COMIC BOOK STARS
I'm not all that wild about Mr. Cent or his associate Mr. Unit, but this could be a big thing, assuming that the books are of any reasonable quality to sustain themselves past flash-in-tha-pan status. I know that Ed was hoping for more hip-hop comics, but I'm not sure this is what he had in mind.
And why the hell wasn't there a Wu-Tang Clan comic? Or was there? And if there was, why wasn't it the biggest thing since sliced bread?
NEWSARAMA - DC NEWS FROM THE RRP MEETING
I'm a little slow on this. But then I've been a little slow on everything this past week, haven't I? Between dadding and getting Strangeways #2 lettered/prepped, it's been a week.
As for the info in the above link, let's take a little look.
Wildstorm will be starting up the "Storm and Sorcery" line of books, starting with Red Sonja crossing over with Claw (a DC character with whom I'm not familiar). I guess the success of Conan is getting enough attention that Wildstorm wants to give the genre a shot. If they're good stories, then I'll be excited. Otherwise, it'll be superhero comics (minus the spandex and plus some blood/guts/bodices). Hmm. That sounds suspiciously like superhero comics as they stand today...
The revived Wildstorm universe will get some talent. I'm moderately interested in Wildcats with Morrison and Jim Lee, but not jumping up and down about it. Gen13 might be interesting. Gail Simone has proven she's got what it takes to write up entertaining team books, so I may give it a shot. Couldn't care about the others, really.
I wonder, however, if Wildstorm will become the home of adult superheroics in DC again, as Infinite Crisis seems to want to bring back a more optimistic breed of superheroics. That would explain all the interest and talent being funneled into the line again.
Hmm. What's this LoEG project? The Black Dossier? Wonder if it's notes and ephemera, since I can't see Alan Moore giving much real content to DC at this point.
52 gets further outlined, but they gotta ditch the 2.99 price point if they want wide adoption. That'll be three bucks a week for a year. Ouch. Still holding my breath to see how all the writers will work with one another. I'm suspecting there will be roadbumps, but I'm always like that.
The team of Simonson and Chaykin on Hawkgirl has my interest. In theory. Let's see how the practice comes out, shall we?
Absolute Sandman gets announced and will start in 2006. Apparently it's going to supercede the current run of hardcovers. This will be an interesting experiment. At first I'd read that it was going to supercede all future pressings of the books, and I was going to point out the commercial folly of shuch a move, but I was a bit too hasty. I think that this will bring collectors out of the woodwork, but I suspect it'll cut into their long-term bookstore market for the hardcovers. These things are going to be pricey and that will likely scare a bunch of folks off of them. As long as they keep the softcovers in print, they should continue to bring new readers and keep their status as evergreen books.
As for me, I'd only be interested in an Absolute Dust Covers, as I've already got all the hardcovers in first printings (minus Dream Country-so if anyone has a line on that, lemme know, but only the original 1st ed hardcover, not the homogenized series that came after.)
Gotham Central comes to an end. We knew it was coming, but it had to happen. I actually feel that the book was treading water for awhile following the departure of Michael Lark (with a few exceptions-mostly due to Steve Lieber's art). I may or may not be interested in the follow-on series that's rumored to start next year, though I have to admit without Ed Brubaker's involvement, I'm a lot less enthusiastic about the prospect.
June and July will get deluged with "major" releases. One a week, for about eight weeks before and during the high news season of SDCC (though last year took a damper to that--we'll see if it continues.)
Darwyn Cooke's Spirit book starts in June. Yes, I'll be all over that, even though it's "sacrilege" that Eisner isn't directly involved. Oh, and apparently there's going to be toys based on Darwyn's designs from DC: the New Frontier, but what would make me happier is a single volume collection. Maybe even an Absolute edition.
And a bunch of other news about toys that I really can't get all that worked up about.
For the most part, it seems like a lot of business as usual, maybe even wagon-circling in terms of DC offerings. Yes, a reinvented Wildstorm could be a good thing, but the proof will be in the pudding. Absolute Sandman should sell a few copies, but may not have the staying power of Watchmen, mostly because with Watchmen, you get it all in one volume. Sandman will be at least four, perhaps five or even six volumes. That's a lotta simoleons.
This is a teeny, tiny little piece of Guy Davis' pinup for Strangeways #1.
If you want to see the whole thing, then you're going to need to actually pick up the issue, open it, thumb through the pages until you find it and then, only then, will you be rewarded. Of course, you could just buy the damn thing, and that way you'd have it and be able to cherish it forever. Your choice.
Graeme McMillian resurfaces as apprentice savage critic at the blog bearing the same name. We'll see just how rampaging he is outside of his native environment...
COMICON.com: MANGA IN THE NEWPAPERS
Manga (or OEM) comics as part of the Sunday Funnies pages in papers like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Los Angeles Times? This smells like it could be something big (though most kids don't read the newspaper, and the average age of your average newspaper reader is more like 55, or so I've been told anecdotally.) That said, it seems like a pretty major barrier to have come down, and look who's standing in the breach: Tokyopop.
Granted, kids who are into this stuff have probably already found it on the net, as opposed to in print, but still this is a big deal in terms of shaping mainstream conception of manga, thogh not necessarily by extension, comic books. Obviously a developing story.
Kudos to Comicon Pulse for picking up on this first (so far as I can tell.)
NEWSARAMA - ILLUMINATING THE ILLUMINATI WITH BRIAN BENDIS
So the smartest guys in the Marvel Universe get together and meet behind closed doors to direct the fate of the world. And oh, by the way, the've been doing this for years and years and never told anyone about it and there's threads that run through all of Marvel History (whatever that actually is) that they've been controlling.
Six superheroes skulking in a meeting room and staring daggers at one another. Yippee!
No, seriously, go check out the OH SO SERIOUS preview panels in the link above. Really, there'll be FAR REACHING CONSEQUENCES, but there's gonna be a lotta lotta talking heads before any of that.
Maybe I'm in a bad mood today (which isn't the case), but this thing appears to be residing in the borders of Land of Wasted Time. Right there at the corner of Everything You Know Is Wrong and Big Things Are Gonna Happen.
Check out the "Singles or OGN" thread over at the Engine in the "Starting Out" section. Some nice, chewy reading to go through and consider if you're considering jumping into making comics. I'd love to link direct to it, but the Engine doesn't allow for such fripperies.
Warning: You will not get an easy, slam-dunk answer.
NEWSARAMA - WIZARD WORLD TEXAS 2005 RECAP
So, this is what passes as comics news from Wizard World. Granted, WW is driven by WIZARD, which is interested primarily in the franchise characters from the big two, so there's not going to be much in terms of anything that isn't a superhero book. Which is to say, there's barely any news of interest to anyone outside comics. Heck, there's barely any news to those folks interested in comics. Teasing that major characters are going to die and that the fan's apple carts are going to be upset is strictly by the numbers these days.
I was interested to see the issue of ad space in Marvel books being brought up. More ads means more money for Marvel as a result of publishing (though not particularly because of the cache of any single character, since ads are similar all across the line in any given month -- an assumption, grant you, but I don't think I'm too far off on this.) Either that or they had to cut their ad rates to entice more advertisers into their pages to keep ad revenues stable (pure conjecture).
It has seemed to stir up a few fans, though. I wasn't real happy myself when I had to dredge through their monster books to find all the story pages (but still, it's not as bad as the 70s when you had 3-4 pages of ads at a time). However, it does make me want to wait on the trades of a lot more things from Marvel (as much as I like BIG IN JAPAN, I can wait). Whether or not it will have any impact in their real bottom line in terms of monthly numbers has yet to be seen. Squaking on blogs and messageboards is something we're all good at. Actually taking our dollars elsewhere is where we usually fall short.
I've gotten to the point where I don't care about exclusives any longer. We all know that it's the characters that drive the mainstream market. Yes, there are creators who have built in fanbases (cf myself and Grant Morrison, Cameron Stewart, Darwyn Cooke and others). However, those fanbases aren't enough to ensure unqualified successes on books that don't involve franchise characters. Sad fact. Stephen King sending in plot breakdowns for DARK TOWER comics is really not that big a deal (I mean it's a deal, not a huge one.) Joss Whedon sells a lot of X-MEN, but I bet if he brought FRAY over to Marvel, it wouldn't do too much more than it did over at Dark Horse. Betcha.
And is it me, or does the idea of 4 writers simultaneously writing 52 sound like a really not good idea? I can't imagine two writers who approach superheroes more antithetically than Greg Rucka and Grant Morrison. I just can't. Both are strong-willed creators who know what they want to do with their characters, and they do very very different things.
But news that's going to bring more readers who aren't interested in comics now to the table? Didn't see it. Absolute Sandman, uh no. Collectors only.