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1. I reviewed Amanda Vähämäki’s The Bun Field for the April/May issue of Bookforum, which is impressively packed with comics-related material in general, including Ben Schwartz on Harvey Kurtzman, CC contributor Joe McCulloch on Yoshihiro Tatsumi, and Nicole Rudick on Beasts!

2. Gary Panter animated, kinda.

3. Pretty awesome Milt Gross-created book reviews in comics form. I’ve never seen or heard of these before.

4. Not comics: The only review of Watchmen (the movie) you need. (The author of that also said some other stuff worth reading.)

5. Oh, and various prominent comics bloggers have weighed in on the new Cold Heat: here, here, here, and here.

UPDATE: I forgot one.

6. An interview with Ted May, partly re Injury 3. I’m pretty excited to see that issue, not only because I really liked the first two, but because CC designer Mike Reddy drew one of the stories in it. Mike showed me a few of the pages, and they were great, and I can’t wait to see the whole thing. Ok, I’m done now.

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Sorry for the holiday drop in posting. If you missed us, Eric Reynolds graciously volunteered to fill in for Frank over at the Fantagraphics blog the other day.

Until we get back up to speed—which shouldn’t take more than a month or three—here’s a bunch of random stuff that needs posting before I forget about it.

1. The percentage of Comics Comics readers who don’t also follow the Comics Reporter probably approaches zero, but it would still feel a little odd not to note that Tom Spurgeon included Dan in his annual series of holiday interviews this year. You can read that discussion here.

2. Tom also interviewed the ultimate love-him-or-hate-him comics critic, Abhay Khosla (I kind of love him myself, at least when I’m in the right mood). It’s a good enough interview that I would’ve been tempted to link to it in any case, but he says enough nice and/or interesting things about PictureBox, and Comics Comics in particular, that my hand was more or less forced. I feel like maybe I should be offended by his comparison of us to “foodies”, but I’m having a hard time working up any indignation. Is Dan’s repeated praise of Howard Chaykin’s Photoshop skills on Punisher War Journal really an example of a gourmand’s taste? Seems more like a rationalized junk-food addiction to me. (And I like Chaykin.) I guess I’m trying to say I’m not sure we really deserve such credit. I mean, maybe sometimes, but usually we’re probably closer to A Hamburger Today than Gourmet. (I have no point. And on top of that, I don’t know what I’m talking about. This is really just an excuse to think about the Bacon Hamburger Fatty Melt.)

3. The always thoughtful Rob Clough, who may be the comics-internet polar-opposite of Abhay Khosla (at least in terms of temperament), also recently praised Comics Comics 4, and with almost embarrassing enthusiasm and kindness. This only goes to show the awe-inspiringly broad appeal of CC. Still, his review is worth reading if only it convinces a few more people to check out the great and under-appreciated Mineshaft, the other magazine he considers.

4. Finally, I’m not about to start linking to a bunch of year-end best of 2008 lists (if you really like those things, then Dick Hyacinth has you covered), but Tucker Stone’s top ten at comiXology is the first place I’ve seen an extended take on one of the year’s other most under-discussed gems, Monster Men Bureiko Lullaby, and it’s worth pointing out for that reason alone.

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An anonymous source sent in the information below. Who knows why. Eric Reynolds, Fantagraphics shill and dear friend was, as we all were, a young fan once. Why, I myself once waited in line for what seemed like hours to have a stack of comic books signed by inker John Beatty. Yes, we all have our secrets. I shudder to think what long lost letter/picture etc. someone might find of mine. Like the one I wrote to Jaime Hernandez when I was 15 explaining about this awesome band I’d just learned about: The Clash. That was in 1991. Oh boy.

Dear Mr. Goodwin, Elektra: Assassin is some of the finest (if not the best) work Frank Miller has ever done. It even topped his recent issues on Daredevil and Dark Knight for DC. The events dealing with Elektra’s birth were very shocking. I never knew the details of Elektra’s birth or origin, and this story gave me an idea. I was really glad you could fit Matt into the story (if only for a few panels).

As for Bill Sienkiewicz, (how does he get “Sinkevitch” out of that?), I’m not too sure about his art. His old Moon Knight stuff is some of the best I’ve ever seen, but this book looks like he drew while on acid. I’ll have to keep in mind that Elektra was drugged during this story, which I hope accounts for her abstract thinking. If she is sane and/or not drugged next issue, I hope the art will reflect Bill’s true talents. All in all, it was a great book and I’m looking forward to next issue.

Eric Reynolds
Huntington Beach, CA

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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.]