Mini-Commentary

A few comics-related thoughts to close out this week:

1. Alex Toth was the man, and one thing I'm hoping will come in the next few years are a series of high-quality collections of his work and writings and writing about him and his life and art, a la the B. Krigstein books from Fantagraphics. Both Toth and Ditko have been saddled with offbeat, small publishers who put out strange collections of their work, when both really deserve more lavish, comprehensive treatment.

2. I dig me some Marjane Satrapi, but I have close to zero interest in the Persepolis movie.

3. New Comics Journal is excellent. I've never read Strangers in Paradise and didn't think I wanted to, but Terry Moore is a great interview. One funny thing is how in debt to Gary Groth Dirk Deppey is as an interviewer. There are worse inspirations, absolutely, but the funny thing I notice is that neither can go very long in a conversation without disparaging the comics industry, deserved though that may be. At one point, Dirk laughs at the absurdity that he and Moore are even discussing that it's okay to do comics about normal male/female relationship woes, when...Dirk was the one who brought it up as important. Not a big deal, but I think that the more you point out the differences in comics, the more you highlight the sophisticated, adult ones, the more you kind of separate them from the herd in the minds of many, and often not in a positive way. A beginning cartoonist should feel like they could be the next Dan Clowes or Johnny Ryan or Arthur Suydam if they want, and any of those options are just fine.

4. Nice Tom Crippen review of Showcase Presents: Superman. It was a softball, but he went yard with it.

5. I've written about this before, often in reviews of comics where Alex Ross does the covers, but there are just some cover artists who do work so much better than the interior artists that it ruins your ability to enjoy the contents. I've never read Helios but I received one for review this week. Sexy, Jim Lee-esque cover of our heroine, and I'm not sure who drew it. Interiors are by Gabe Pena, I think his name is, and the people all have these potato faces and kind of dot eyes and it just doesn't seem suited to sci-fi melodrama, if that's what the comics is supposed to be. It was so off-putting I haven't read it yet. The window has closed on Helios for now. Maybe I'll try again some day.

6. NinthArt calling it quits. I'm ambivalent about this, to be honest. It just was never a site I visited regularly, though there have been some very good pieces there over the years and I even contributed something once, as a favor for one of the writers, and that after saying some negative things about the site. I don't remember what I said or what I wrote for them. I never cared for the roundtable, as the three guys were too similar in taste and voice, and they've always had this weird dichotomy of writing at length about interesting comics but feeling the need to also hype the hot new releases every week in their Forecast. Looks like some interesting stuff has gone up in the past couple weeks, so I'll be catching up before it all goes away. I think it will probably be a good thing for some of the writers, who will appear more unique on their separate blogs and columns and such.