some late-afternoon linkblogging for a quiet Monday.
Item! I went to my local comic book shop this weekend, but the only comic I bought was 1999 by U.S. cartoonist Noah Van Sciver. I liked it. Compelling slice of life/coming of age plot in a scrabbly post-Ed Brubaker/Chester Brown mode with lots of inky black.
Item! From March 30, a collection of Canadian comics retailers weigh in on the new DC 52 and periodical comics sales in general as part of a regular feature for Toronto-based Comic Book Daily. I found these reports fascinating, with store owners honestly reporting on what has worked for them and the actual response of customers to new floppies. Several retailers mentioned an Image comic I have never heard of, The Strange Talent of Luther Strode by Justin Jordan and Tradd Moore, as something of a breakout hit that new comic shop visitors are discovering.
Item! The latest Quinntessential Comics episode at TDot Comics featured the Autobiography Book Club, a discussion of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis and Chester Brown’s Paying For It.
Item! Jamie Coville has some great recordings of the Toronto Comicon from last month, including Jeff Lemire, George Perez, and Mark Bagley. Coville is the go-to guy for Toronto-area “converage” and always has tons of great audio-visual.
Item! Joe Ollman shows us what his original art looks like on the d+Q blog.
Item! Those Inkstuds podcasts are coming fast and furious. I can barely keep up! The three most recent Robin McConnell interviews are with three critically-acclaimed cartoonists who are sure to be worth listening to: Matt Forsythe, Bill Griffith, and Bill Sienkiewicz.
Item! 30-odd years after Marvel comics brought the Electric Company to comics with Spidey Superstories, Sesame Street gets the same treatment with a new series from something called Ape Entertainment.
Item! The Shuster Awards is walking readers through its nominating process, with the latest post about the second round of nominations for the English language artist categories.