My friend Tom Floyd got recognition today in his local newspaper, The Lincoln Journal Star. They're running a story today about Tom and his online comic, Captain Spectre.
Regular readers of Captain Spectre know that it had been on hiatus while Tom was working on a comic project for Moonstone Books. As of 3 weeks ago, Tom started posting weekly again. Let's keep our fingers crossed that he can keep it up!
My costume for the year is the classic Captain America villain, Red Skull. Happy Halloween!
A reminder that there will be a new Spider-Man movie in... 2007(!) The first photo of Thomas Haden Church as Sandman has been posted online.
James Weldon has posted his Graphic Novella, Polio: A Virus’ Struggle, on the Science Creative Quarterly's website. It's interesting in two ways; interesting in its discussion of the Polio virus (I had no idea it was of such ancient origin), and interesting in its breezy presentation of hard facts.
While entertainment comics have trended towards decompressed naratives (very few super hero comics tell a complete story in a single issue) the ability of the form to transfer information is impressive. I was likewise impressed when this function of the form was on display in the Action Philosopher comics, a series of comics that discusses the works and ideas of 3 Philosophers per issue.
On a lark, John recently picked up The Goon: Fancy Pants Edition, a selective reprint collection of The Goon, an ongoing comic series. The Goon and his buddy Frankie are a couple of ne'er do well thugs. Only by virtue of their struggles with the undead do they achieve the patina of heroes, but their actions are always guided by self interest. The stories are full of a strange wit that is reminiscent of Plastic Man, and the art is well polished. Early on in the series, Eric Powell uses beautiful shaded pencil drawings for flashbacks and traditional inked lines for the part of the story taking place in the current moment.
Today John found one of newer issues, #12, in the back issues at our
local comic shop, and I think the art has made a leap forward. I took a
quick photo of my favorite panel (Goon boxing a robot) to give you an idea what's up. The outlines of the characters are still being inked, but the pencil shading is being left in place on top of computerized coloring . The effect is impressive.
If you're interested in The Goon, the back issues are available from Darkhorse individually, or in trade paperback collecitons. Eric Powell's official The Goon website is at TheGoon.com.
John and I were thinking of picking up some of the Christopher Reeve Foundation Superman Tags, and while looking around on the store that sells them, John found this statue. I'm not sure, but I think it's supposed to represent that time Superman experimented with cocaine, and came home to find Lois in bed with Aquaman.
