Linko! LXX!

Whew! OK, welcome back to a bunch of stuff I've had open in my browser tabs for week. To start, I just want to say that even though Ben's recent Tweet about this blog becoming a TV blog was both apt and hilarious, I'm hoping to get back into comics blogging with more regularity after our drawn-out Smallville-a-thon/Game of Thrones takeover. That is, after I burn off a final few TV-ish links.

* First, anyone who watched the last Smallville at least 35% seriously will enjoy director Greg Beeman's diary of the finale's production. Great photos too including the one above.

* By the way, the Twitter account I followed along with most during all the finale shenanigans was GrahamTracey's. Dude really loved that show in a way we'll never get.

* Probably not as much as this guy, though. (Thanks, Jim Gibbons)

* In other TV news, now that "Justified" has wrapped for the year, I really want to pick this or something like it up.

* And now on to the hard-line comics shit...


First up, an A+ post from Lea Hernandez about how she posed to be a cover girl for Rocketeer artist Dave Stevens. But really it's about so much more than that (and has tons of better imagery in the post). Also: Hernandez notes that she tried to get a spot in IDW's current Rocketeer anthology relaunch but was rebuffed by editorial. She's trying again, and I 1,000% would like to see what she's got cooking

* Great Anders Nilsen quote. I think I'm going to have to dig to figure where exactly it came from though.

* Friend sent me this and I'd never heard of it: Comics as a path to prison reform – both in promoting comics reading in the prison population and publishing true comic stories from inside the clink through the efforts of Lois Aherns.

* Ken Parille on Jack Kirby and Chris Ware at The Comics Journal.

* Speaking of Ware, here's a piece he did for local Chicago Magazine. (I believe this came from Tom Spurgeon weeks ago)

* This picture always makes me grin. I don't think it was really for anything except keeping the trademark fresh. Ditto these ones.

* A while ago, I was a bit down on the birth of the MTV Geek site, but they've been doing some fun blogging of late. Case in point: Alex Zalben talking to Joe Casey.

* A Topic To Return To Very Soon, But Just a Link For Now: Aquaman is the best damn superhero in comic history.

* On to the general Pop Culture arena...


Sad thing about how the internet works: if you don't take the time to watermark your art images in some way with your name, then you get no credit when people troll through Tumblr to make galleries like this one. Some names you can tell just looking through – Ethan Van Sciver for example – but the more bizarre/disturbing examples of fan art will be made by invisible elves I'm afraid.

* Please for you to read: a very nice, very short essay on childhood reading by my school adviser, novelist and all-around rad lady Anne Ursu.

* Required reading: The Paris Review talks about the seminal Our Band Could Be Your Life with author Michael Azerrad.

* Our bud Dan Brooks files a fun interview with Fastball frontman Tony Scalzo on his music today for Flight Path.

* Novelist and X-Men writer Victor Gischler is researching some kind of project by soliciting the opinion of men and dad's about their trips to Disney World/Land over the years. Go play along at this blog.

* To end on a totally cornball note: this was a very cute interview with the First Lady.