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In this week’s issue of the trade newspaper Advertising Age, “Media Guy” Simon Dumenco has astutely chosen this publication as his current “Pop Pick”.

‘Comics Comics’ ($5 by Internet order) is a new mini-mag that “aims to document contemporary and past comics, from a pluralistic, affectionate, but critical standpoint.” If that sounds a little heady, well, it is–and things get equally quasi-scholarly at comicscomicsmag.blogspot.com, where you can find loving meditations on the artistry of greats such as Scrooge McDuck father Carl Banks [sic]. But you don’t have to be a comics nerd to get inspired by the beautiful art. … Comics Comics shares creators and contributors with The Ganzfeld, an art annual … that shares a similar passion for thinky illustration. Check out theganzfeld.com and roll your mouse over the letters of the logo to view a supercool animation by Flash genius Patrick Smith. And then amuse yourself further by visiting his web site, vectorpark.com

Now we just sit back and wait for the flood of advertising requests from Courvoisier and Aston Martin, anxious to get in on this whole “graphic novel” craze everyone’s talking about. (Actually, come to think of it, if we were really that smart and marketing-savvy, we should have called the magazine Graphic Novels Graphic Novels.)

Also, sometime soon we will begin presenting actual, not just self-promoting material again. We felt like we needed to give you a chance to catch your breath and rest your mind a little first. We’ll start learning you again but soon.

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Dan and I are relatively new to blogging, so it may be a while before this blog (and the magazine it’s related to) turn into the zeitgeist-changing juggernauts they’re destined to become.

In the meantime, I thought it might be a good idea to introduce ourselves.

Dan and I (along with the brilliant painter and Web designer Patrick Smith) worked together on the early issues of The Ganzfeld, a journal which, since my departure from its pages, has become a pretty amazing, sort-of-annual publication of art, comics, and design with very few peers.

Now, we’re putting together something a little different, Comics Comics, a magazine devoted entirely to comics, which we hope will fill in some of the gaps left empty by current comics criticism. It includes reviews, editorials by working cartoonists (the first issue’s op-ed is by Paper Rad), comics by such luminaries as Mark Newgarden and Matthew Thurber, interviews, lists, essays on comics past and present, and other whatnot. Also, it’s free. (You should be able to find it in the same kinds of places you can pick up Arthur.)

Here’s a quote from the introductory essay in our first issue, which should be available in most areas in the next couple of weeks:

This magazine aims to document contemporary and past comics from a pluralistic, affectionate, but critical standpoint. Many of our contributors are cartoonists themselves, and are in a unique position to offer their personal takes on the medium. One particular goal of Comics Comics is to shine a light on corners of the medium that we feel are underexposed (such as the work of Jessica Ciocci) and to examine the work of more celebrated artists (such as Wally Wood) from new angles. We’re also interested in the comics library, and to that end feature book reviews that span the whole history of the medium, from the obscure and out-of-print to the popular and widely available. In each issue, we will feature reviews, essays, and interviews, as well as more unusual features, and, of course, comics from our contributors.

I guess that’s it for now. In the future, posts will probably be a lot more informal. And more frequent.

Next week, I’m going to try to talk about a great Scrooge McDuck story from a new, excellent, and cheap Carl Barks collection, which I highly recommend purchasing if you don’t already have any of his stuff.

P.S.

One other thing I should probably make clear in the interests of full disclosure: I am married to the cartoonist Lauren R. Weinstein, so any mention I might make about how her new book Girl Stories is one of the best comics releases of 2006 should possibly be taken with that in mind.

Excelsior!