Linko! LXVII

* First of all, Ben and I have been slowly dreading the end of "Smallville" since we've started our blogging adventure this year so this is potentially great news. I really need to re-read the above mini too. I remember digging it more than I expected (where HAS Damian Scott been anyway?)

* Getting to this week's best and/or most overlooked interviews: Ben's chat with Kieron Gillen on Uncanny X-Men was really fun. Ben, are you doing the Tuesday Q&A's now, or was Kevin just drunk this week?

* On an entirely different comics front, Brigid Alverson's interview with Ape Entertainment's Jason Burns was enlightening. I think that whole "Why would you try and sell kids comics in the Direct Market?" question has been asked so often rhetorically that people forget how important it is to actually ask it of publishers. Related. You should read Hope Larson's Twitter response to the interview as well as the subsequent back-and-forth that she has with Olympians cartoonist George O'Connor (each word is a link to a new Tweet in sequence, BTW).

* Hey! Somehow I missed that Matt Duarte has been doing comic interviews on The Weekly Crisis, but I enjoyed this latest one with Stuart Immonen. Need to catch up on that blog in general, I do.

* Interviews I'm saving until I catch up on the series: Robert Kirkman at IGN about whether or not Merle is The Governor and one about the firing of certain writers that Heidi MacDonald links to here.


* Shameless CBR plug of the week: if those Image teasers didn't get you signed on for their new series than the Joe Casey/Mike Huddleston team should have. If neither did, see what it's all about thanks to Josh Wigler's announcement story.

* Holy shit, here's something: A young chap named Mark Millar interviewing an up-and-comer named Grant Morrison. In four parts: one, two, three, four. Blog is worth following if you're on Tumblr too.

* I think four people I know on Facebook posted a link to this Slate piece on MFA culture versus New York City publishing culture when it comes to literary fiction. It was interesting at the very least. I'm not sure I agree with a lot of Chad Harbach's blanket statements about either culture, and some of his specific examples fall flat, but in general I think its point about how each camp of writer's navigates their creative and professional lives is interesting and doesn't speak well towards more great books getting written in the years ahead of us as a result. Thank God for comic, man.

* In case we didn't mention it when you were looking, go bookmark Destructor.