Neilalien : A Doctor Strange Fansite : A Comic Book Weblog  

Some Ditko background work predating Daring Love #1 is believed found [Collector's Society Message Board] [thanks Howard!]
According to scienticians, Daring Love #1, coverdated September 01953, is Ditko's first published comics work [chronological list of Ditko's comics work at Ditko Looked Up]. The example above is from Classics Illustrated #107, coverdated May 01953, possibly made possible by the publisher tapping the cartoonist school Ditko attended to keep costs down.

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This past weekend, it was Neilalien's absolute pleasure to finally meet one of his best and longest-time online/weblog/comics friends in person: Doctor Strange uberfan and gadabout Howard Hallis, and his lovely wife, visiting NYC from LA. It was a too-short time of good tunes (at Deva), good food, good drinking, good comics, good film (Persepolis), and good friendship (and also some damn good resisting of the desire to violate Steve Ditko's studio and privacy). A fun time was had by all.

Howard seemed to be fishing a couple times over the weekend for reassurances from Neilalien that this weblog must certainly attract all sorts of crazy people far more obsessed about Doctor Strange than Howard. But nope! Howard, you are the sickest of them all. Get thee to a psychiatric institution! ;)

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Happy New Year, gentle readers!

Posted 31 December 02007 - Permalink

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Stan Lee Happy 85th Birthday to Stan Lee!
Comic books keep us young!

Ageism And Discrimination In Comic Books, or, Whatever Happened to Frank Springer? [20th Century Danny Boy] [via Trout]

Skrully teaser image for big Secret Invasion event [Newsarama]
Expect too many more "Who could be teh Skrullz?" speculation hype articles like this one over the coming year [Newsarama]

The United Nations hopes to bolster its image damaged by the unilateral diplomatic efforts of some Western countries by teaming up with Marvel Comics to teach children the value of international cooperation [UPI.com]

Posted 28 December 02007 - Permalink

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Doctor Strange illo (with an Orb-ified Mordo) by Paul Smith [Comic Book Catacombs]

Posted 26 December 02007 - Permalink

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Will Smith is destructive, underachieving superhero Hancock; movie in July 02008 [Hancock movie official website; funny trailer (unless maybe if you have no sense of humor re: whales)]

Cloverfield looks like 9/11 + Godzilla + Blair Witch; movie in January; Neilalien trusts JJ Abrams (Alias, Lost) [Cloverfield movie official website/trailer]

Dean Trippe interview re: loveable all-ages superhero-genre-goose webcomic Butterfly [Wizard Entertainment] [Butterfly]

"The Best American Comics 02007" highlights the good (the resonant unadulterated creator/reader link) and the bad (the creative limits of internally-focused existential torpor) of autobiographical comics [New York Times Sunday Book Review]

Posted 24 December 02007 - Permalink

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Metamorphosis Odyssey: the absolute peak of Jim Starlin's creativity [Pulse]

Baby-Boom Children and Harvey Comics After the Code: A Neighborhood of Little Girls and Boys [ImageText]

The Golden Age of comics is now; the future is ours to lose if comics don't grow up re: ego, nostalgia, complication [Permanent Damage]

Long Will Pfeifer interview; great approach to writing superhero comics [Comics Reporter]

Top 10 Tips for New Bloggers From Original Blogger Jorn Barger [Wired] [via LinkMachineGo]
Neilalien's blogging sensibilities, and the format of his weblog, were greatly shaped by Robot Wisdom, and these tips still have Neilalien nodding yes. But "what a weblog is" will never be firmly defined, has evolved much over the last ten years, and there are 20 different (and no "wrong") formats and ways to blog- thus rendering this list as needless one-true-formatism- or merely tips for better "linkblogging" ("merely", but tips still desperately needed on the web- still way too many blind "Click here"s and "You should read this"es and "This disturbed me"s and Tumblrs and Twitters with nondescriptive link/post titles- Neilalien has no time or interest or curiosity to follow (or hover over) links that don't tell him where he's going and what content will be there when he gets there- and if you use a method to track outclicks, you'll likely see that few others are clicking on links with hip-but-vague-and-useless texts as well).

Posted 21 December 02007 - Permalink

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Dr. Strange by Mark Wheatley Dr. Strange by Mark Wheatley, the back image of The Comics Journal #66 (September 01981), lives online [at Comics Reporter's TCJ image online storage area with lots of cool scans (Coston's cover to #69 lives there too)] [thanks Tom!]

Late order adjustments like Final Order Cutoff (FOC) don't make up for solicitation shenanigans; new Point of Sale (POS) computerized inventory system reveals TPB non-movers [Brian Hibbs Tilting At Windmills]

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen faces its greatest threat: copyright [Franklin Harris]

Douglas Wolk review of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier [Salon]

Where is the literary writing quality, the John Steinbecks, of the comics medium? [Paul Pope essay on the First Second Books website] [via Comics Reporter]

Optimism for, and results by, superhero comics feminism; "superhero comics fandom is possibly one of the most feminist-friendly fandoms" [Pretty, Fizzy Paradise] [via When Fangirls Attack]

If you're going to service the fans with some gratuitous cheesecake, get a good artist to do it [Threshold] [via When Fangirls Attack]

Posted 17 December 02007 - Permalink

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Daniel Danger's Doctor Strange Daniel Danger's Doctor Strange print for Under The Influence: A Tribute to Stan Lee exhibit at Gallery Nineteen Eighty Eight, 8 January to 1 February 02008, in LA [G1988 Future Exhibitions] [via Blog@Newsarama]

Joe Casey writes The Last Defenders miniseries, out in March; no word on the lineup [Newsarama]

Ed Brubaker interview re: his Criminal plans; to exist, the TPBs need good-selling comic books, so the comicbook buyers will get rewarded with their money's worth of extras [Comic Book Resources]

Posted 13 December 02007 - Permalink

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Tom Brevoort talks about those old-school Marvel 3-Bags for department stores [Marvel.com]
Wow, that takes Neilalien back! He got a lot of books that way as a kid before his bicycle-to-the-comic-shop era. And Tom's right, the middle book you couldn't see that well was usually a filler dog. Neilalien spent many a time trying to find a comic he wanted bundled with two non-dogs.

Manga section moved away from children's section in South Carolina Books-a-Million bookstore after customer complaint re: naked boy in a shojo (for teen girls) [ICv2]

Now it's Jughead's turn to get updated; new slacker look and personality; still has the crown; he gets laid now [Newsarama]

Ultimates 3 is as bad as it's been universally reviled; bad panel analyzed [The Hurting]
What has happened to supercomics?! Long-hinted incest between siblings Ultimate Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch confirmed in Ultimates 3 #1 [recap and sample discussion at CBR]

According to this, CGC recently slabbed its millionth comic; Diamond mulling a new periodical with pricing/market updates like the old Overstreet's Comic Price Review [Scoop]

Out today for Doc fans: New Avengers #37, Essential Doctor Strange Volume 3.

Posted 12 December 02007 - Permalink

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CBLDF Member Appreciation Holiday Parties! NYC's is tonight! Enjoy one near you [Comic Book Legal Defense Fund]

Posted 10 December 02007 - Permalink

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TV Guide, Tim Kring hype us to keep wanting more Heroes after this season's finale [TV Guide]
The writer's strike resurrected Sylar! Without the strike delaying Heroes production, he would've been too busy playing the young Spock in the new Star Trek movie. If you want Neilalien to keep watching?: More Kristen Bell! (And less with the growing power levels and easy healings/resurrections.)
Update: Comic Foundry's Tim Leong has met Bell, that lucky bastard!

How Batman acts when dealing with a character that's coded as gay [Postmodernbarney]

Watchmen TPB selling strong, to only sell even better as movie approaches [ICv2] [Watchmen movie official site/blog]

Marvel is teaming up with the Elks to fight underage drinking; comics, essay contest, apple pie [PR Newswire] [Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks webpage]
Neilalien had no idea the Elks were still around in this Bowling Alone world. Good for them!

Neilalien saw a preview for the animated Persepolis movie at the Brooklyn Academy of Music the other night before No Country For Old Men. Looks good.


Congrats to Progressive Ruin on four years of primo comics blogging!

Posted 6 December 02007 - Permalink

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Cannot Miss: Paul Karasik presentation re: Fletcher Hanks and I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets, this Saturday 8 December 7 PM in NYC [Rocketship]
See you there, Neilalienistas!

Straczynski unthrilled with how he?/editorial wrote "One More Day", explains reality of working on a company-owned character; Joey Q's obsession/bumbling to undo marriage really is out of love for Spidey homeslice [JMS News] [via Isotope]

New Avengers #36 shower confrontation: nicely nonexploitive, or not sexy enough? U-Decide! [Scans_daily]

Generating a comprehensive list of women working in the comic book industry [Friends of Lulu] [via Occasional Superheroine]

What's New? with Phil & Dixie comic strips from old-school Dragon Magazines are online! [Airship Entertainment]

Posted 5 December 02007 - Permalink

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Doctor Strange foe Nightmare cameo in John Ostrander's webcomic Tales of Munden's Bar on ComicMix [thanks John!] [Grimjack: The Manx Cat]

Letterer Todd Klein studies the history of the Batman logo [#1, #2, #3, #4, #5] [via LinkMachineGo]

Fred Hembeck interview re: The Nearly Complete Essential Hembeck Archives Omnibus [Newsarama]

The Comic Book Is Back, in Luxe Coffee-Table Form [New York Times]
The books are sweet!- but... these precious expensive over-sized hundred-pound in-IKEA-catalog-backgrounds omnibuses ultimately might not fit Neilalien's concept of "comics", which can moodily err on the side of "roll up some subversive escapist trash in your back pocket".

Posted 4 December 02007 - Permalink

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Dormammu Classic Marvel Figurine Gordon Lee prosecution condemned in local paper op-ed [Rome News-Tribune] [via Comic Book Legal Defense Fund]

There would seem little evidence of a massive conspiracy to degrade public morality or pervert children in that. Nor was the comic in question actually "porn" of any kind, but appears to fall under the legal definition of "art."

List of known Earths now that the DC Universe is a multiverse again [Newsarama]
Via Comics Reporter with a funny post about what he would be doing across the DC multiverse, with a kind inclusion of Neilalien.

The acclaimed Classic Marvel Figurine series from the UK will include Dormammu (#64) in April 02008 [Classic Marvel Figurine Collection website] [Forbidden Planet International has a Dormammu page] [thanks Howard!]

The Doctor Strange minimate is reviewed [Minimate Headquarters]

New Marvel trade dress for Fantastic Four [Comic Book Resources]
A response: "I don't like it when comic books look embarrassed to be comic books" [BeaucoupKevin]

Marvel Turns Incompetence (re: MDCU going down) into Marketing Gimmick [Bostodelphia] [Who's To Blame? video series at Marvel.com]

Our Gods Wear Spandex: The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes author Christopher Knowles has a blog [The Secret Sun]

Related: High praise for the book; on the nature of superheroes; on Marvel downloads [Confessions of a Comic Book Guy column at ICv2]

Comprehensive list of websites and other online viral marketing machinations for the upcoming Batman movie The Dark Knight [Ghost In The Machine] [MetaFilter] [examples: The Gotham Times; Gotham Police Department; take a test to become a Joker henchperson]

Posted 3 December 02007 - Permalink

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