Post Comment

This is really sad news. RIP Steve Gerber.

UPDATE: More here and here.

UPDATE II: And lots, lots more here.

Read Comment (1)

Sorry for the recent radio silence. As you no doubt have already noticed, the great Cage Match topic vote ended a while back, and it was a neck-and-neck race all the way to the end. In a surprise photo finish, Paul Pope’s Heavy Liquid ended up beating Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis by two votes.

For posterity, here’s the final tally:

All Star Batman and Robin: 9 votes (6%)
Army@Love: 7 (4%)
Bête Noire: 8 (5%)
Gilbert Hernandez’s more mainstream work (Grip, Girl Crazy): 5 (3%)
Heavy Liquid: 41 (28%)
Late-period Kirby (Captain Victory, Silver Star): 9 (6%)
Marvel Zombies 2: 6 (4%)
Middle-late period Kirby (Kamandi, The Eternals): 17 (11%)
Persepolis: 39 (26%)
Ultra Gash Inferno: 5 (3%)

146 votes were cast in all.

Next time around, we probably won’t include quite so many books on the ballot, as it appears that so many choices may have split the votes to an unhealthy degree. But a lot of the also-rans will probably return in future polls.

As soon as we all read (or re-read) the book, we’ll get the Cage Match started. (I’ve been turning my apartment inside out for the past week looking for my copy, and have so far been unable to find it. This will surprise anyone who’s ever seen the meticulous state in which the Hodler/Weinstein household keeps its comics organized.)

So thanks for your patience and stay tuned. And thanks to all of you who voted.

Post Comment

Today’s your last day to cast or change your vote in the Cage Match poll over in the sidebar, so if you haven’t done it yet, now’s the time. The race is pretty incredibly tight — Persepolis and Heavy Liquid have been running neck and neck all week — but it’s still not impossible for any of the books to win, if enough people organized or something. (I doubt that will happen, but I kind of like imagining that people care enough about this to canvas for votes.) In any case, this is the last chance for those of you who haven’t voted yet to make your voice heard.

Also, in a daring move that you may not have noticed because it was buried in the comments, Frank (CC‘s resident fashion director) has proposed special Cage Match-related headgear. You won’t be able to see us, but during the competition, we’ll all be wearing masks:

We encourage you to locate a Comics Comics t-shirt and a pair of scissors.

Read Comment (1)

He’s first over the line one more time.

Read Comments (10)

Speaking of Brendan McCarthy, he’s got some original art up for sale right now on Artdroids, including a bunch of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stuff. I assume Jacob Covey will be all over this.

(Via.)

Read Comments (5)

Thanks to everyone who submitted nominations for our next Cage Match debate topic. (If you aren’t familiar with the concept, check out the first one here.) Over the weekend, we whittled your suggestions down to ten possibilities, and have now put a poll up in the sidebar. Please vote for your favorite argument-starter.

Don’t be too devastated if your horse doesn’t win, by the way; these are all good choices, and if we keep doing Cage Matches, many of these (as well as some nominations that didn’t quite make it this time around) will more than likely return for later rounds.

Sorry for the dragged-out, too-many-early-primaries nature of this process. We’re still experimenting, but next time around this will be a streamlined super-train.

Read Comments (7)

1. I was just beginning to wonder why Eric Reynolds and the Fantagraphics gang weren’t putting up any new posts on the FLOG! blog, and now I know: it’s because they switched their online location. Bookmark it here.

2. An anonymous commenter to our last post pointed out a pretty interesting new interview with Bill Sienkiewicz.

3. Another (!) interview with Frank, this time including a glimpse into PictureBox:

Part One

Part Two

[Not that it matters, but I edited this to change the order of the items; it seemed weird to put so much video up top.]

Read Comments (42)

Loyal CC reader Alex H. has requested a second Cage Match feature, and while it may be a week or two before we’re ready for another one, we still need a good topic for discussion. (If you missed the first one, our subject was the current in-progress remake of Omega the Unknown.) So if any of you readers have any suggestions, please let us know by posting them in the comments. Maybe we’ll set up a poll or something after we’ve gotten enough good possibilities. Or maybe we’ll just decide amongst ourselves, if there’s only one or two.

So far, the following have been suggested:

1. Persepolis
2. The kind-of post-Bill Sienkiewicz comics created by people like Dave McKean and David Mack
3. Enigma
4. All Star Superman
5. All Star Batman and Robin
6. Marvel Zombies 2

Some of those seem like they might work, some of them don’t, but it would definitely help for us to have a few more choices (non-superhero comics are more than welcome). Don’t miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

Read Comments (8)

We’re going crazy with the talking about comics lately, and Dan steps up to the plate for the latest in our recent series of interviews. Here he is on Inkstuds, in discussion with two of the best comics thinkers around, Jeet Heer and Tom Spurgeon. I probably won’t get a chance to listen to this until this weekend, but there’s nothing stopping you from taking the plunge now.

UPDATE: I was able to listen to it after all, and there’s a lot of good talk in there. Well worth checking out.

UPDATE II: Oh, but Dan: Omega the Unknown? Really? Obviously I like that comic a lot, but if you only get to pick one book …

Read Comments (5)

Frank’s energy these days is starting to make the rest of us here at Comics Comics look bad, so I’m kind of pissed at him, but if you want more of Frank on art and comics (including Storeyville and Cold Heat), Chris Mautner has just posted the second part of his interview with him today. Frank’s really on fire in this one.

(And here’s part one if you missed it.)