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.

Comic Shop Stop: Catching Up - Part Two

I used to do these every week - run down what new comics I'm excited enough about that I spent monies on them. But the less I bought the last few months, the less I could post, and I just fell outta the habit. So here's the second post in a series of posts catching up on some stuff I bought since the summer ended that I wanted to share. Here's a link to the first one. It's all rad and I recommend it 100-and-12 percent.

First up, some books I grabbed online:

FROM ONE PERCENT PRESS

SIMPLE ROUTINES #12 - JP Coovert first came to my attention as a CCS grad a couple years ago, and since then, I've been a fan of his work including his journal minicomic. He's a young, talented comics creator with an upbeat original voice and style and that shines through in his work.

THERE MUST BE MORE: THE SEARCH FOR BIGFOOT'S BOX - A great example of how fun JP makes his comics, this album-sized adventure features JP and two other oddball characters on a quest whose purpose you can figure out from the title of the book. This, I think, is JP's second album-sized book and his deceptively simple cartooning really benefits from the larger size.

TOO FAR - Anthology time! Joe Lambert edited (and contributed to) this collection of new comics by James Hindle, Alexis Frederick-Frost, Coovert, Jose-Luis Olivares, Dane Martin and Alex Kim. All killer, no filler. I missed SPX this year and when I found out this book debuted there, I worried I wouldn't be able to get my hands on a copy.

Luckily, all the above comics are available at the One Percent Press store. Click on any of the artists' names for more info on each.



Dustin Harbin decided to chronicle his life for a year in short, four-panel strips, and now you can get your hands on the thoughtful, densely illustrated results from Koyama Press for only six bones! It's a great value, Dustin's a great artist and letterer, the production's great, it's all just...GREAT. Go check out Dustin's blog and buy other great stuff from him in his store.



Before Netflix, Youtube, and instant-watch video services, if you were a suburban kid who wanted to see a movie, you had to work your way to a video store. And that's exactly what Brent Schoonover's 12-page minicomic is about - three friends scouring their small town's video shops for a copy of Peter Jackson's gore-classic, Dead Alive! They talk about girls, innocently fantasize pulling off a major crime and contemplate the future in a way that makes this short story comfortingly recognizable to any kid who grew up in a small town. The landscape format gives the story a widescreen feel and as a horror fan, a video fan, a comic fan, and a fan of stories about suburban kids on a quest, I was entertained like crazy. I just wish I had a whole series of these instead of the one.



A new Jeffrey Brown book where he draws comics about how outrageously awesome cats can be!!! The above picture shows how the rad cover has two die-cut panels. Even if you don't like cats, you'll be charmed by the smart comics. If you do like cats, WHY HAVE YOU NOT BOUGHT THIS BOOK ALREADY?! (click here to see Jeffrey talk about the cover process on his blog)



And that's it for the stuff I've bought online. Now for quick rundowns on the manga I recently purchased. With manga, I'm a finicky fan, only picking up more indie-minded titles with a focus on character. So please please please, if you haven't read manga for one reason or another, I promise you there's stuff out there for you, so give some stuff a try.



PEEPO CHOO VOL. 2 - On the surface, it's about sex, action, and an anime-obsessed fan accidentally uncovering corruption behind the comics industry. But beneath that, Peepo Choo explores the cultural differences between western and eastern cultures as mistaken by residents of each. Fast, fun, crazed, and only 3 volumes long, this is my kind of manga. Volume 3 is due out in December.



7 BILLION NEEDLES - A social outcast high school girl stumbles onto an alien invasion plot in this updated manga adaptation of Hal Clement's sci-fi story. Hikaru Takabe's version has tight art, an isolated mood, and a stirring, slow-burn pace. Fun fun fun (and only 4 volumes long).



SATURN APARTMENTS VOL. 2 - In the far future, Earth is abandoned and humans live in a structure circling the planet. It's there that a young boy works as a window washer, a dangerous job that killed his dad a few years prior, but that allows the young boy to rediscover his father through the job. This look at blue-collar workers in a sci-fi setting is a knock-out, but the low-key art is the real draw for me.

More soon, including some single issues I picked up at the actual store...

Comic Shop Stop: What I Bought This Week

Sometimes it's new stuff. Sometimes it's old stuff. Sometimes it'll be back issues or the same ol' thing I got 4 weeks ago. Whatever the case is, here's what I got at the shop this week (lemme know if you wanna borrow anything):



SATURN APARTMENTS VOL. 1 - This Viz Signature title's personal hook is that a young boy's father has died and now he'll have to take up the family vocation at an early age. The sci-fi hook is that the family vocation is window-cleaning the stellar ring of impossibly expensive apartments that now encircle the Earth since humanity evacuated it. This neato book is from writer/artist Hisae Iwaoke and it's the first manga Dave gave me a heads-up about this week...



I'LL GIVE IT MY ALL...TOMORROW VOL. 1 - ...this is the second. The plot of writer/artist Shunji Aono's tale of an unfulfilled family man who gives up his corporate career in favor of trying his hand as a manga artist really caught my attention. Also from Viz Signature, this book has the potential to break my heart.



DEATH TRAP - Lane Milburn's graphic novella first came to my attention when Sean reviewed it, and I'd planned on borrowing it from him down the line before a flip-thru in the store yesterday showed me something that prompted me to get it. That THING was a group of kids getting brutally murdered by a clan of nightmare-demon monsters. Maybe it was the nuts amount of '80s horror DVDs I've bought over the last week (more on that here SOON), but I felt more compelled to pick this up today than ever before.



STITCHING TOGETHER - I dunno a whole lot about Jim Henson, the man, but I've kinda always wanted to know more about how the ideas for the kinds of sprawling, genius designs and concepts he developed were birthed. This mini from Ed Choy Moorman (the above image is of a prior version of the book I bought – click here for info on its new printing and name-change) looks like it zooms in on intimate, specific scenes and the individual moments inspirations may have sparked for Henson as a young boy. Side note: Tom Hanks should produce a Henson bio directed by Ron Howard. Yeah, I said it.



HENRY & GLEN FOREVER - I didn't realize this was an anthology of 1-page gags featuring mostly cute, tongue-bursting-through-cheek depictions of rock icons Henry Rollins and Glen Danzig when I first heard about it here. I just thought it was a Tom Neely joint through and through. Even though I was mistaken and even though I don't really know dick about the music these bros created, I still giggled while flipping through. Go get it!

(Quick disclaimer: I borrow a LOT of stuff from Ben each week from Marvel, so I don't always buy single issues of the Marvel books. And I get everything from DC, WildStorm, Vertigo, and Zuda for free, so I never really buy anything from them unless I'm picking up for somebody else. So don't take my exclusion of DC stuff as a sign that the books aren't good enough to buy. They are. So there.)

Comic Shop Stop: What I Bought This Week

THERE WAS A SALE AT MIDTOWN COMICS!

All graphic novels and manga were 40% off this week, and since I've been buying less and less monthly books (thus allowing my comic budget to swell a bit), I went ahead and grabbed a few choice books this week that I've been wanting for a while. Here's what I got:



THE DRIFTING CLASSROOM VOL. 10 - Some mysterious explosion sent a school filled with kids spiraling through reality in this 11-volume horror/sci-fi/suspense series. It's like catching a late-night B-movie from the '80s. I have a hard time finding installments for cheap (which is almost the only way I buy manga anymore), so when I stumble upon them at random sales, I grab 'em while I can! Now I only need a couple more and I have the whole set. Goooood stuff.



DAYBREAK VOL. 2 - Brian Ralph's serialized, 3-volume zombie survival story! I've read the whole thing already and owned volumes 1 and 3 (and even bought 3 TWICE MORE on accident thinking it was the one I needed), so when I spotted this gem for almost half off, I couldn't pass it up. I know Sam's been looking forward to finally reading it, too.



IKIGAMI VOL. 4 - This installment of the political nightmare thriller about a government that randomly kills its citizens to invoke a fervor for life was new a couple weeks ago, but I held off on buying it at the time since I knew this sale was coming. BOING!



PAUL MOVES OUT - I can't get enough of Michel Rabagliati's relatable autobio stories and his stark art style reminds me so much of innocent '50s advertising. This book about his time at art school was the last of his I had yet to pick up, but I've eyeballed it at Midtown for a long while as it sat in that shelf above the back issues by the window. It even has the sun-bleaching on the edges to prove it!



20TH CENTURY BOYS VOL. 2/PLUTO VOL. 2 - I went to the shop with my buddy Darren (REMEMBER: shopping with friends is AWESOME) and asked him which of these two Naoki Urasawa releases I should pick up. I've got the first volumes of each, but I haven't read them yet, though I know I'll LOVE them. I wanted to take advantage of the sale price, after all. "Go crazy and get 'em both," he said. Fuck it, it's 2010. I did it.

How about you guys? Get anything good?

(Quick disclaimer: I borrow a LOT of stuff from Ben each week from Marvel, so I don't always buy single issues of the Marvel books. And I get everything from DC, WildStorm, Vertigo, and Zuda for free, so I never really buy anything from them unless I'm picking up for somebody else. So don't take my exclusion of DC stuff as a sign that the books aren't good enough to buy. They are. So there.)

Comic Shop Stop: What I Bought This Week

Sometimes it's new stuff. Sometimes it's old stuff. Sometimes it'll be back issues or the same ol' thing I got 4 weeks ago. Whatever the case is, here's what I got at the shop this week (lemme know if you wanna borrow anything):



ZOMBIES THAT ATE THE WORLD #8 - The end of the Devils Due reprint of this Humanoids zombie comic from Guy "I'm kicking Rickey's ass with B.P.R.D." Davis!



ZOMBIES THAT ATE THE WORLD #3 - I'd missed this issue when it came out (and read all the way to issue #5 before realizing I was missing it) and couldn't find it for forever. Of course it was sitting in the Midtown back-issue bin. Man, combined with the Iron Fist issue I found a couple weeks back, this find puts me on a missing back-issue hit list killing spree.



RASL #6 - Jeff Smith's series about a dimension-hopping thief hits the half dozen mark. I also saw a copy of the over-sized first hardcover on the discount shelf at Midtown, but passed cause I already have the issues. Besides, I reserved my dough for...



not simple - I first saw this on some site (maybe this?) listing upcoming interesting manga literally 3 days ago, so after a flip-thru at the store - and since it was a light week - I grabbed it. Whenever I've sampled the Viz Signature line with books like Solanin and Cat-Eyed Boy, I've been delighted, so this story about a guy searching for his sister with its odd line art and indie vibe made me feel like I'd like it. I've got a peculiar taste when it comes to manga, so my purchases are few and far between, but the more personal stories like this are the ones I'm most likely to try. I've been pleasantly surprised since I started testing the manga waters more in the last three years and discovered that the genre wasn't at all what I thought it was. Really, there's something for everyone, so don't be biased like I was - give stuff a try. I recommend checking regularly here and here for smart info on nontraditional options for superhero comics folks looking to sample some manga possibilities.

How about you guys? Get anything good?

(Quick disclaimer: I borrow a LOT of stuff from Ben each week from Marvel, so I don't always buy single issues of the Marvel books. And I get everything from DC, WildStorm, Vertigo, and Zuda for free, so I never really buy anything from them unless I'm picking up for somebody else. So don't take my exclusion of DC stuff as a sign that the books aren't good enough to buy. They are. So there.)

That Gundam In Tokyo Is Only The Beginning of The Giant Robot Craze

Wow have I wasted a lot of time on this:


So, anyone who reads Linko! weekly will know I've been semi-following the story of the massive robot that conquered the man-made Odaiba Island in Tokyo this summer. I say "semi-following" because really I've just been confusingly posting pictures of the thing sent to me by friends completely devoid of explanation or context. I'm not sure what this exactly says about me and loose collection of nerd reporter, but it can't be good that almost no one writing in the American comics blogosphere seemed to have much of a clue what was going on with this giant otaku installation beyond ging, "Wow! That's neat! Wait...they took it down already?"

So last week, I went google fishing to find out how much info was actually out there for an American audience to dig into this thing. Here's what I gots:


Announced sometime around March, the Gundam earned it's three-month stint of kind of lighting up and blowing a bunch of steam at random intervals in celebration of three factors: the 30th Anniversary of "Mobile Suit Gundam" (first anime of the whole Gundam franchise), the environmentally-driven Green Tokyo Project and, tangentially, Tokyo's bid for the 2016 Olympics (and I know I've been making a lot of jokes about that, but I'm seriously wondering how a temporary installation was supposed to impress the IOC. Did they promise to rebuild duder if they got the games?). Early word of the project must not have hit so hard in America as the earliest mention of the whole shebang I found was on the French Gizmodo where I nabbed the above CGI model from, but soon things started popping up in English

There's a great general write up on the project here, though it's really just a translation of a Japanese newspaper article, and the LA Times travel blog posted a basic fact-sheet on the project and how to get there. These are nice and all, however news of the event rarely popped up on nerd-centric sites. The one major (and probably obvious) exception was the Anime News Network who had all the latest news that for some reason never got widely reposted amongst American comics types, including some great coverage of the robot's unveiling complete with videos I couldn't entirely understand:


A while ago, I got into it with some folks on a comment thread at The Beat about whether or not American comics journalists were any good at covering manga and other Japanese pop culture crazes. I said then and still think now that we do a pretty shitty job of noting the spaces where our interests crossover with those of Japanophiles and teenagers who really dig Naruto and what not. ANN is doubtlessly the site covering this stuff better than anyone out there, and I'll take some shit outright for admitting that I barely check their coverage of anything because I don't connect to/don't understand so much of it. If there's a blog that aggregates more of the manga news and the bigger geek cultural stuff that comes out of sites like ANN for folks like me, I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

Anyway, ANN had plenty of other fun bits on what Sunrise did across the summer to draw more attention to the 59-foot fucking robot they erected in a major city, including an auction to have one's photo taken from the 'bot's shoulder and the search for the perfect couple to be wed at the statue's feet.

God, I wish I would have heard more about this as it was going on. By far, the absolute best thing I found online was this photoset and too brief news report on the 30-something couple who won the privilege of finally making their three-children relationship legal at the statue's feet while the groom announced, "I swear my everlasting love to Gundam in front of Gundam." You just can't make this shit up!

I'm sure plenty of folks in America see the fact that the Gundam's already been disassembled as a missed opportunity, but ultimately we may be better off not having it around. See, despite it's status as a promoter of a Green Tokyo, the statue's presence seemed to really fuck up the nature 'round Odaiba Island. Plus, there are plenty of ways to live the magic of real life giant robots to this day as the craze seems to just be starting!


Example 1: Baby Gundams!

For anyone super bummed about missing out on the Gundam specifically because they love Gundam and not just giant robots, the owners of the property have plenty of other impressive bits scattered throughout Japan including the above Gundam chibi which stands outside Bandai's headquarters and several "memorial" statues in Toyko at anime museums and the Sunrise animation studios. If that isn't enough, you'll have to be content looking over photosets of the big guy or watching this crazy time-lapse video on a repeated loop.


Example 2: The Kobe Project!

My personal pic for the next excitement-worthy Japanese robot statue is the Kobe Project – the currently underway project to erect a giant version of Tetsujin 28. I think it opens in October (if this blog's info is still accurate), although I can't tell if it's temporary or permanent. In any event, read more about it with photos here and here.


Example 3: The Robot Taekwon V Amusement Park!

As you can see, this one's still in the development and design stages, but it appears that South Korea isn't going to take their neighbor's giant robot construction sitting down. Plans are underway for a whole amusement park centered around that country's Robot Taekwon V franchise (what do they call animated films in Korea? Is it still anime, or do they have a different name like manwha?). Anyway, you can read what little I've found about this project over here.


Example 4: All Robots Are Bigger In Texas!

For anyone who won't be able to afford a trip to Asia this year to celebrate giant roboticism in immobile statue form, the good ol' U. S. of A. has got you covered with Dallas' The Traveling Man installation. Sure, it's not based on a cartoon or anything, but it looks pretty neat. Plus, I bet if this trend continues, we'll see a big ass Iron Man or Stormtrooper in Hollywood by 2011.