Parker'sdream72

§ While we were poking around artist Tom Fowler’s website for Halloween, we found this cartoon which portrays writer Jeff Parker and nicely sums up some of the differing stresses of creating comics. As for why Parker is an alligator…you’ll just have to read the link.

§ Imagine one of the world’s greatest cities hosting a series of events starring the world’s greatest cartoonists, put together one one of the world’s greatest comics scholars. That’s London’s Comica. Paul Gravett has more.

Because too much is happening, comics are too vibrant to limit them to one festival a year, even one that’s grown from ten days to three weeks. With the year-round flexibility of Comica events, we can welcome major guests whenever they can make it to London, from Art Spiegelman and Marjane Satrapi to Alan Moore and Joe Sacco, only a few weeks ago, to a packed house, and Daniel Clowes lined up for next spring.

[snip]To treat comics as a totally valid contemporary artform, to show where the medium is heading right now locally and internationally, and how comics can interconnect with every other artform. In many ways, the aims, the mission, of Comica are in sync with what Peter Stanbury and I envisaged when we used to co-publish Escape Magazine back in the 1980s – to escape, to break out from narrow definitions and formulas, to liberate comics to be anything they want and everything they can be. That’s why we’ve put Spiegelman together with Philip Pullman, Posy Simmonds with Ian McEwan, Moore & Gebbie with Stewart Lee – or this year Logicomix author Apostolos Doxiadis with Marcus de Sautoy and Ben Templesmith with Philip Ridley. And Comica hosts the best, from whatever field of comics, from Japanese comics, with Junko Mizuno, to American superheroes, like Alex Maleev last year and Cameron Stewart this year – quality is there in every sector of this medium.


§ Jon Gutierrez explores the original Astro Boy story a tale of abandonment and abuse, themes which, unsurprisingly, the under-performing CGI remake did not grapple with.

§ Hero Complex reports on a current show comparing Indian myth to superheroes.

§ Jameson Steed at the Daily Titan captures industry thoughts on SDCC’s pricing and early Preview Night sellout.

§ Mania.com digs up more info on Fabio’s THOR

The most important thing to establish up front was that this was not a Marvel movie. Kersley had concocted the idea for the film with Fabio and animation writer Henry Gilroy (‘Clone Wars’), and based their story on Norse myth. However, they clearly borrowed two elements from the Marvel version: Thor would share his Earthly existence with a human (in this case a young boy) and he would have long blond hair. Mythology mavens know that Thor is traditionally depicted with red hair.