Linko! X

Holy Lord. Have I been doing this ten weeks? I've got to find a better way to use my time.


* So yeah, MoCCA. I can't even begin to describe how great a time I had last weekend in NYC for that show. Like, a life-affirming, sanity-saving, outlook-altering great time. My comics friends are some of the coolest, funniest, most beautiful people I know, and it's a total bummer that I don't see them more often. That said, it's crazy how little of my enjoyment over the weekend came from the show itself. I mean, it's not like I had as many complaints against the festival as some others (though I had one big complaint that no one else in all the writing on the show has hit upon), but overall this was the first MoCCA I went to where I didn't feel super excited about returning next year. I may not go back. Anyway, I'm putting some of this here because after writing my CBR report on the show and contributing to the PW report, I didn't have time to do a personal round up for the blog and am now feeling I'm behind the times to write one here.

* In any event, there's plenty of people whose write-ups you should read that aren't me, including Sean's first big post, Rickey's rundown, Heidi MacDonald's personal report, Heidi's link-o-rama and for everything else just go to Tom Spurgeon's mega post. Oh, and there were some fun reviews I saw hitting the sites too like these from Matthew Brady and this from Sarah Jaffe. And yeah, I posted the least awful of my terrible photos on CBR's Live! blog (scroll down a bit).

* My buddy Chris Ward is writing an Obama comic for Blue Water Productions. I'm sure you've already decided whether or not you're at all interested based only on the words "Obama" and "comic," but I think we can all agree that his run in the local press is hilarious including this local paper profile and ESPECIALLY this video.

* In other "my friends do cooler things than me" news: new music project from Pauly Doerr: Chasing Dinosaurs

* Via Alejandro: apparently Namor is a gay icon:



* Another Onion bit via Michael Kupperman: One of the better opinions I've seen there in a while.

* Two Sides of the Same Coin Link #1: According to The Wall Street Journal, Baby Boomers are coming out in force at this year's college commencements to apologize to young people for fucking up America. No shit, you guys.

* Two Sides of the Same Coin Link #2: According to The New York Times, trust fund hipsters in Williamsburg can't survive without their parents. Jesus, my generation sucks too, don't we? We're all doomed.

* Brian Warmoth has discovered the most expensive book for the Kindle.

* Back to comics, I saw my first Twitter fight break out this week. It was crazy. Laura Hudson and Chip Zdarsky called Rich Johnston out for this post, the ins and outs of which are explained here. And look, I know that I'm friends with Hudson and friendly (I think?) with Chip and that I don't know Rich from Adam in real life, but looking at all this objectively, does anyone think that Rich isn't implying intellectual theft with his Swipe File feature? I don't really care what The Comics Journal used to say or what disclaimer he runs with it, when 90% of your column is comparing photos to the artwork of Greg Land for humor effect, I think even the most well-read and reasonable people are going to assume that you're always implying one artist steals from another when you post two images together with dates on them. Am I crazy in thinking that?

* Coincidentally, writer Mark Waid is offering to give $10 to the Hero Initiative for every person who blocks Rich on Twitter.

* What's that? You want more depressing comics news? OK, how about this laughable "Girl's Guide to Comic-Con" from the L.A. Times?

* Back to fun: Is "30 Rock" a "Muppet Show" rip off? (Via Brian Bendis)

* Whoa. A website that can identify the color in any image for you.


* I'm not sure what led to my discovering this cache of reviews of infamous box office flops at the AV Club, but I enjoyed what I've read so far, including this one on the Super Mario Bros. movie and this one about "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, the book of which I just read last year and thoroughly hated.

* Finally, I'm actually really bummed about how the digital TV transition means the Death of TV on the Radio. I used to listen to soap operas with my grandma every day when she'd pick me up from school and always thought it was so awesome. Tonight, I plan on hooking up my rabbit ears one more time and watching the signal go out. Does anyone else hope they'll show a cheesy "We now conclude our broadcast day" montage like in "Gremlins 2: The New Batch"?