§ If only we could be as funny as Tim O’Neil.
§ The Forbidden Planet Blog Log interviews the guy behind the Comics Britannia mini series up, Alastair Laurence. Until you see the three-hour special on the history of British comics, this post will just have to do — it’s very educational.
§ Larry Young posts his side of an interview that never ran:
On old-money New York publishing houses starting to publish graphic novels: “Well, I guess there is a little bit of ‘it’s the early bird who gets the worm, but the *second* mouse who gets the cheese’ kind of thing going on there, but one of the things AiT offers the audience that no other publisher can is the strength of our high-quality brand. You know what you’re getting when you order an AiT book: a high-quality, entertaining read. I suppose I stopped worrying when three consecutive books, SMOKE AND GUNS, FULL MOON FEVER, and SUNSET CITY, three wildly different books from three very different creative teams, all had initial orders within *eight* copies of each other. That told me we’d reached a good level for entertaining our audience; that, as a rule, if you didn’t like one of our books, maybe next month’s offering will be more to your liking.”
§ Canadian TV spotlights AD: After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld
§ Evan Dorkin is still trying to make a living being Evan Dorkin when by all rights we should just take up a collection becuase he’s THAT GREAT:
I get work at places like Mad and Nickelodeon. I get calls from people who must’ve read my stuff when I was prolific, doing a lot of issues of Milk & Cheese and Dork, and doing a lot of stuff in anthologies, back when they were more…I guess “mainstream” alternative anthologies that I was involved in. Now it’s usually a collective of people and they’re all friends, and kind of exclusionary, kind of like Mome—or however you pronounce it. I’m not qualified to be in those kinds of things. There are a few things I’d like to do, but I tend to go where the wind blows me in my career, which has not been working so great recently. With a child you have certain responsibilities, and now we have to buy our own health insurance, for the first time—well, before we didn’t have insurance. So it’s tough to do fun comics that make $142.
Heidi, pass me that collection plate for Evan. If he and Sarah have such trouble scraping by, even with their pedigrees and skillz, then it’s not their failing, it’s that of anyone who dares call themselves a lover of the form.
Appreciate the kind words, but there’s no need to rattle the tin cup for anyone here. We’re not lighting cigars with hundred dollar bills, but we get by, without scraping, thankfully. We just don’t do a lot of our own comics anymore, for a number of reasons, some of which have nothing to do with the direct market or our ability or inability to sell books. Sure, it’s frustrating to not be able to get more of your own comics done, but that should be the worst of anyone’s problems. Don’t cry for me, Argentina.