New Linko! - Interviewing Stan Lee, Vintage Shuster Shop, Pokémon's Eternal Flame

Yo! Welcome to "New Linko!" which isn't much different from "Old Linko!" except I'ma do it more regularly and the heading is different and self-promotion yadda yadda. Shall we get to some links?

* Insert all "must-read piece of the week" qualifiers here for Alex Pappademas' Grantland profile on Stan Lee. Actually, in a lot of ways it's less a profile on Lee and more a profile on what it's like to interview Lee given the many contradictions surrounding his place in comics history. It was great to hear of another journalist struggling to reflect the full scope of what's happening today with the fact that Stan is a nice old man who's talking up his new stuff not to screw over others but to provide what he views as his part in their creation today. It's especially good to hear that since I'm talking to Stan on Monday (and no, I'm not going to bust his balls about Kirby and the Avengers).

Also: the above image is a promotional one for the documentary about Stan The Man created for some new cable channel called Epix which Pappademas summarizes enough in the article for you to know if you can skip it (though I'll probably watch because I'm totally stuck on archival interview footage). Anyway, I know that the backdrop in this image is meant to be a computery futuristic blast of Marvel energy thing, but it looks like they just threw up a kids bedsheet behind him and snapped a photo, right?

* Here's something I saw a while ago that I'm surprised I haven't seen more comic people discuss: a very one-sided post by animation critic Amid Amidi about how a planned Spumco coffee table book through PictureBox Inc. fell apart. I've enjoyed Amidi's books when I've read them, and I have mountains of respect for Dan Nadel, so I'm really bummed this fell apart, whatever the reason.

* In happier links that have been floating around my computer: Chris Kohler's Wired story about the continuing popularity of Pokémon the card game with kids is SO interesting to me. Raise your hand if you assumed kids stopped buying trading cards of any kinds circa 2004?

* Speaking of trading cards, this gallery of vintage 1940s Superman cards created by the Shuster Shop is fantastic (link via Mr. Tom Spurgeon). They say great art asks questions, and after looking at this art, I found myself asking questions like "Is that dude just throwing dynamite off a building?" and "Why is Superman fucking up that diver's game?"

Seriously though, I wonder if the card above's red-headed mad scientist is supposed to be the early Lex Luthor? God, I love Sigel and Shuster Superman comics.

* Speaking of some classic stuff I swiped from Spurgeon's site, here are some very meta Joe Simon/Jack Kirby kids comics.

* Topical Link to this blog post Link: Infinite Copyright Is Killing Culture.

* Occasionally I got off on a streak where I buy a bunch of random stuff on Amazon without thinking of the price. Next time that happens, I'm getting some of these gorgeous-looking UK kids comics by Luke Pearson.

* In totally different news, here's two links I've been sitting on that have told me all I need to know about the Manga industry in 2012: Jason Thompson's much-linked to piece on how the manga industry is digging its own grave, and Deb Aoki's 25 most anticipated manga releases of the year.

Linko!'s Weekly Crew Round Up

So here's a new feature focusing on links to the work of me and my compatriots. For now, I'm burying it here, but I reserve the right to get cocky and put it up top in the future:

* Rob Bricken at Topless Robot has like a zillion things worth reading every week, but I was very glad to read him on the official timeline of ever Zelda game ever. He found one of his nerd Grails!

* I love that we live in a world where they make Lego-esque toy lines out of obscure Peter David Spider-Man comics, and I love that my friend Zach Oat is in a job where he interview PAD about both.

* Ben had AT LEAST two fun stories worth your time up on Marvel.com this week: Tom Brevoort on the return of Thanos to The Avengers and Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning on New Mutants.

* Meanwhile on CBR, TJ Dietsch has been killing it with pieces like this DC Collectibles interview with Geoff Johns and Jim Fletcher and this one with Robert Kirkman about The Walking Dead #100.

* Finally, I had a lot of copy go up on CBR in the past week or so that I thought turned out well even for me, including this chat with Ed Brubaker on Fatale and my first ever talk with Andi Watson, one of my A#1 all-time favorite cartoonists.