You've heard about the big releases and books-of-the-show, you've heard about the autobiographical works, the Mazzucchelli's Asterios Polyp, the Paul Karasik's new Fletcher Hanks collection You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation! (sequel to I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets!), you've heard about the heat, you might have even heard of a large comics event in San Diego that's happened in the interim. Now it's time for Neilalien to share, and hopefully send some new eyeballs to, his favorite purchases of this year's Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival, in his mostly-non-autobio minicomix vein.
Neilalien's MoCCA tradition of getting a Doctor Strange piece of art, preferably from an indie artist doing sketches in support of the Museum, continues unabated with a beautiful illo by fave R. Sikoryak [Wikipedia page], with Doc being twisted around in a world of Doctor-Strange-ified comic-strip characters he never made! Check out the full scan! Thanks so much, good luck with Masterpiece Comics, and see you at the next Carousel.
Kool Aid Gets Fired by Tim Piotrowski
After 55 years of smashing through walls promoting the drink, Crapft Foods decides it's time to go in a new direction, and this minicomic hilariously chronicles Kool Aid Man's sad descent from sheltered icon into an ill-fated production of Sweeney Todd with other corporate mascots, career failure, a court-mandated name-change, an illegitimate child with Mrs. Butterworth, drugs, murder, poverty, and finally a cubicle-grind job given out of pity. Perfect. Unfortunately, the mini has been so popular that it's not available right now, but you can email Tim for notification when your copy is for sale. [Piotrowski's Portfolio] [Kool Aid page] [LiveJournal]
Joe And Azat by Jesse Lonergan
Coming in September, published by NBM ComicsLit: Jesse Longeran's graphic novel about his time in the Peace Corps in Turkmenistan, a Central Asian former Soviet Republic whose noble people are now saddled with one of the most corrupt and human-rights-abusing governments on Earth, complete with President-for-Life dictators with elaborately-inflated visions of themselves. While what's happening there is sad, you can imagine this is entertainment gold, and Lonergan's story and art is very charming. [Jesse Lonergan's Comics] [NBM Blog] [Amazon]
Cragmore, Book One, by Pat Lewis
The cartoonist's cartoonist, Lewis is set to strike again (this isn't his first Neilalien Fave of MoCCA) with Cragmore. "A Trump-esque billionaire has a near-death experience and becomes the devil's number one enemy in the process. It's evil vs. slightly more evil as Cragmore does everything possible to escape eternal damnation!" Funny stuff. Book One is the first 40 pages in minicomic format of the upcoming full-length graphic novel. [Pat Lewis' LiveJournal] [Flickr]
Robot 13 #1 by Thomas Hall and Daniel Bradford
Robot 13 tells the odyssey of a mysterious hero, awoken from the ocean floor in 01939, a mechanical man with a skull floating in a vat for a head, searching for answers about who he really is, fighting large tentacled monsters along the way. A new quarterly series from Blacklist Studios. Looks like fun, and Neilalien will be watching-- but to keep his long-term interest, Neilalien will either have to stop himself from being reminded of, or the work will need a new angle non-reminiscent of, Hellboy, Atomic Robo, and Basil Cronus of Godland. [Robot 13 on Myspace] [Tom Hall's Blog] [Dan Bradford's DeviantArt]
There was a time when Neilalien did his MoCCA recap and Favorites list the Sunday or Monday after the festival. Now it's two months later. Neilalien scoffs at your notion of "internet time", especially if the comics are not only still available, but with future projects and graphic novels coming out sooner now than two months ago, this is almost a better time to pimp these books and creators. But let this not be a sign of blogger burnout- just a busy summer for Neilalien- it takes time to read all that great MoCCA loot! If anything, the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art's annual festival is a burnout preventive, once again a complete and wonderful affirmation of comics and life and creativity. Despite the heat- dude, you might have heard about the heat this year. It required all of Neilalien's Photoshop skillz to edit out the sweat-shine from his photos. And some administrative glitches- Earth Minds Are Weak almost didn't get the table he paid for in advance!- there's no MoCCA Fest without him. The Puck Building is a more beloved and hip venue, but the Armory had the advantages of (a) everything on one floor, and (b) some amazing Works Progress Administration-era murals Neilalien probably would have never gotten to see otherwise. Always a joy to see Tim Leong, Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat, Jog, BeaucoupKevin and many others again. See you next year! [Comics Reporter recap, Collective Memory]
The Prisoner: Nine-minute SDCC preview of the upcoming miniseries starring Jim Caviezel as Six and Ian McKellen as Two [AMC] [AMC's Prisoner Blog with more]
Good Doctor Strange appearance in Thor #602. Mjolnir has been broken in the battle with Bor, and now Thor needs his hammer working again in one hour to save the fair lady Sif. Who does he call? Doctor Strange, natch- who's out in the Jersey woods smokin' doobies, apparently (and still with Eye and Cloak, another reason why it's a good app- this encounter must've happened before you-know-what). At first, Doc says he is unable to help Thor. Which is completely fine, if the writer has other plans for Mjolnir instead of a Doctor-Strange out- as long as it's for a good reason that Doc can't help, and Doc doesn't come off as incompetent- and it might set up Doc as too powerful to fix what a god like Odin has made. If this encounter had happened in New Avengers, Doc probably would have mumbled sad-sackly, "I-- I-- I don't know how to fix it." As written here by J. Michael Straczynski, we get better. Doc explains that Odinpower is necessary, or it's like trying to recreate a symphony without the sheet music. When Thor offers his own Odinpower, with the consequence that "he will be back where he was before he inherited it", and be more linked to the hammer than ever, Doc summons the ghostly elder forces of creation itself, and makes the repair happen. Actually having a mystical problem and doing something mystical to solve it. Artist Marco Djurdjevic's Doc is dark, creepy and widows-peaky. Check it out, Doc fans!
Check out the Ditko t-shirt Ditko-documentarian Jonathan Ross wore at SDCC [Twitpic]
The latest glimpse into Joey Quesada's ticking brain, the values that create the good, trying to justify the bad, one more time with "One More Day", definitely being a sizable chunk of Marvel's turnaround since becoming Editor in Chief in 02000 [io9]
(And my, how far we've come: The proprietor of the old Fanboy Rampage weblog now finishes the Marvel EIC's sentences about baiting fans online.)
Tron Legacy trailer raising eyebrows and buzz by looking not half-bad; for 02010 release [Flynn Lives] [Wikipedia page]
Cyril Jordan and Roy Loney, of the great classic band The Flamin' Groovies, backed by the A-Bones including Billy Miller (on vocals and maracas) and Miriam Linna (on drums), also with Ira Kaplan from Yo La Tengo (far right background on guitar). Good show @ Southpaw, Brooklyn NY, 7/24/09. Just a tiny bit of the "Slow Death" finale (before two encores). [YouTube]
Have a great time this weekend at San Diego Comic-Con International, everyone! [Program Schedule] Neilalien's going to take the weekend off (traffic decreases a bit over SDCC anyway). Be sure to email him any Doctor Strange news, panel questions and rumors you hear.
Michael Crichton: If you had told a physicist in 01899 that within a hundred years humankind would travel to the moon, and then lose interest, the physicist would almost certainly pronounce you mad.
JG Ballard, in The Atrocity Exhibition, called Neil Armstrong probably the only man for whom the 20th century will be remembered 50,000 years from now.
And in November: Fantagraphics' Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Volume 1 by Blake Bell; short essays include Daniel Clowes, Gilbert Hernandez [Amazon]
Lovely Warren Ellis speech about comics, "the purest form of visual narrative" which "staves off Alzheimer's" [Warren Ellis] [via Comics Reporter]
He reiterates one of Neilalien's long fave Warren points, that there are fewer people between the creator and the audience with comics than in any other media. Harvey Pekar: "Comics are just words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures."
Eight-page preview of Asterios Polyp, David Mazzuchelli's new graphic novel, a decade in the making, universally hailed as a masterpiece [New York Magazine's Vulture Blog]
Every review is glowing; Neilalien read and enjoyed these: [Comic Book Resources] [ADDTF]
Congrats to Jog, smart writer-on-comics and must-see-Neilalien-at-every-MoCCA-or-his-life-is-rendered-pointless, re: five years blogging! [Jog The Blog]
That's the equivalent of 100 years, given internet-time and the sea of dead blogs out there- and for the record Neilalien would never scoffingly describe someone who reached such a noble milestone as merely a "poking egg". ;) (Although Neilalien has been known to utter the phrase "spring chicken"...)
The Doctor Strange: The Sorcerer Supreme (the title inspires sighs now) animated DVD (02007) "is a travesty, an embarrassing insult to the source material made by charlatans, liars and incompetents" [The Taste of Rising Bile]
The Doctor Strange TV movie (01978): "How NOT to do a Superhero Movie" [Comic Book Catacombs]
Neilalien is wondering today if there's an interesting primary source for how people found out that Ted Cassidy, Lurch on The Addams Family, uncredited, voiced the demon Balzaroth in the 01978 TV movie [Doctor Strange TV movie Wikipedia page]
Al Jaffee (of the Mad Fold-Ins) answers the most important question of our time: Whenever he draws someone vomiting, why does he include complete fish skeletons? [Comics Comics]
The X-Men Universe Relationship Map [UncannyXmen.net] [via Bam! Kapow!]
No wonder so many mutants appeared, rendering their oppressed-minority metameme meaningless: They were getting busy. Especially Wolverine. The healing factor helps with sexual stamina and recovery, naturally.
The address of Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum is of a building Roy Thomas lived in during the 01960's [Comic Book Legends Revealed]
With a mini-history of references to Doc's retreat.
Update: They're also looking for the first mention of "Sanctum Sanctorum" in the comics record. The full phrase "Sanctum Sanctorum" first appears in Strange Tales #125 (the word "sanctum" alone appears as early as #116 (it was also called his apartment a couple times early on)):
Cup O' Joe Quesada column with Mark Waid includes Emma Rios designs for Strange miniseries [Comic Book Resources]
The art's likely in good hands with Rios. Also: Waid relates a funny-scary Misery-like tale with fans in Vermont.