Jack Kirby’s Argo art sold better than expected. The cover for Dark Knight Returns #2 went for over half a million dollars. The original art market interests me, just because I think it’s really going to explode in the future.
The most interesting man in the world has an interesting and useful hobby.
New York looks at one man’s recommendations to improve the Subway.
Mightygodking thinks Norman Osborn was better off dead.
Fundamentally, the Green Goblin was far more interesting as a meme appropriated by a variety of Spider-Man’s friends and enemies for different purposes than the character of Norman Osborn had ever been. There were more interesting stories to tell about the memetic Green Goblin, the banner that Spider-Man’s enemies rallied to, the ghost he could never defeat because you can’t kill an idea, than there ever were about poor old pathetic Norman and his mental disorder.
And bringing him back proved it. Marvel has been doing a desperate tap dance ever since bringing Norman Osborn back from the dead to avoid people catching sight of how uninteresting he is. They’ve amped up his power levels from “guy that Spider-Man could probably cold-cock with one good punch if he wasn’t always sneaking out while another bad guy took the lumps” to “able to take Spider-Man in a fair fight” all the way up to “a suitable threat to the entire Avengers team”. They’ve transplanted Lex Luthor’s personality from the DC Universe (where, to be fair, it’s no longer being used because they decided over there that Lex was more interesting as a battle-suited chump who takes it on the chin every time he fights Superman) into the Green Goblin so that he can be threatening as a master manipulator and player of games, rather than the failed businessman and lightweight never-was criminal that he actually was when he was alive. They’ve had him kill off the “pretenders” to the Goblin identity, not realizing that the pretenders were far more interesting than the original.
IDW’s next Artists Edition will be the best of EC Comics.
A slightly cheaper collection of great comic book work is the Daniel Clowes Reader.
Scott Adams explains an atypical post.
David Uzumeri has a lengthy piece on the end of Morrison’s Batman run.
The review acknowledges two interesting things about the series that aren’t strictly content-related. One is that what Morrison was doing was so different and so singularly odd it kind of created a bubble around itself during DC’s universe-revamp, at least long enough for the story to get to its end mostly intact. I find that kind of fascinating, and maybe the most Morrison thing about the project. Another is that the artists involved really had a lot to do with what worked and what didn’t. That is an obvious idea, certainly, they’re one-half of each work’s authorial team. Still, the effect of the artists issue to issue is something that Morrison fans and superhero comic book fans sometimes have a hard time engaging unless that artist is a super-stylish craftsperson like Frank Quitely. Morrison can be a very dominant partner.
Having Morrison working these old-time Batman-related series seemed to me a positive for that tradition of making comics, a boon for a way of presenting work that’s been shunted aside for relaunches and reboots and renumberings and stand-alone formats that are at time driven by a market bending reed-like in the direction of talent that may or may not deserve it. It’s like getting 12 episodes of a writer with a prestige HBO series writing/producing pedigree working one of the network crime franchises.
Peter David posted his thoughts on leaving the Hulk in 1999.
The Comic Book Resources list of readers’ favorite X-Men stories came to an end. Man, Age of Apocalypse was popular.
Unconventional wedding proposal.
An actor I’ve heard of was just selected as the new Doctor Who. Here he is discussing Star Wars on In The Loop.
The first is that Jesus is speaking against any masochistic desire in His disciples to provoke their own persecution. He has already warned us that we will be persecuted for righteousness’ sake (Matthew 5:10-12). But we are not to invite it. When hearers of the gospel turn nasty there can be a perverse pleasure in baring our necks and martyring ourselves. But being persecuted is not the point. The point is spreading the gospel which is as precious as pearls.
Bendis posted his intro to The Incal, a Moebius graphic novel.
The addictive “Modern Seinfeld” twitter account landed its writer a job on a sitcom.
What Would Spidey Do? 