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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Retro: Orbiter (TPB)

Prior to 9/11, there were many who believed that my generation's defining moment happened on January 28, 1986, when the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Kennedy Space Center, instantly killing all 7 crew members aboard, including the first teacher scheduled to fly in space, Sharon Christa McAuliffe. I was in 11th grade at the time and while it was definitely a notable moment, I recall feeling somewhat removed from it all, born a year and a half too late to have any memory of Neil Armstrong's historic walk on the moon and therefore lacking any real…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Interview: Fialkov on Elk’s Run

It's a sad fact in the comics industry today that succesfully launching a brand new title is a Herculean feat for the Big Two, requiring a massive marketing and promotion campaign with no guarantees of success. For independent publishers, it's a near impossible task. Even sadder is the fact that the lower half of the Diamond Top 100 - wholly dominated by mainstream super-heroes, historied licenses and/or A-list creators - typically bottoms out around 25,000 copies, making "successful" a somewhat relative term. So what to do when a really good comic book comes along, one not in the front of…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Review: Western Tales of Terror #1-3

Comic books I like generally fall into one of two primary categories: 1) well-written, character-driven fare (Gotham Central, Ex Machina); or, 2) old school, straight-up fun comics (Ezra, The Losers). A third category - the thought-provoking, big idea classic - is a rare treat that usually starts in one of the two other categories before transcending it.Hoarse and Buggy's Western Tales of Terror is a great example of that second category: old school, straight-up fun comics combining the peanut butter and chocolate of Cowboys and Zombies...and it's an anthology, to boot!Narrated by Pete, a sarcastic, foul-mouthed, undead cowboy - "I…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Comment: Making Comics Thin-Skinned

It's no secret that creative types can be pretty thin-skinned when it comes to their art, especially when they're in their early developmental stages. Personally, when I first got into the poetry slam scene - competitive poetry readings, for the uninitiated, where original poems are performed and then judged on a scale of 0-10 by five random members of the audience - I was pretty thin-skinned, ready to curse out, throw beers at, or fight judges who gave my poems low scores. After awhile, as happens to most poets on the scene, I matured, wrote and performed better poems, and…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Free Trade Guerrilla: Superman: Secret Identity (TPB)

Intro time: My name is Oscar and where once I was a rabid collector and all-around comic fiend, I have had to calm my obsession down to where I now visit nationwide bookstores and happily use their cafés to help me catch up on what's happening in the comic book world through trade paperbacks. Not the most precise way to stay in the scene, but it sure is economical!My last such trip saw me pick up Superman: Secret Identity by Kurt Busiek & Stuart Immonen.This limited series starts with a rather ridiculous idea, what if there was a kid by…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Comment: Giving the People What They Want

Marvel EIC, Joe Quesada, and his main partner in crime, Brian Michael Bendis, caused a minor tempest in a teapot a couple of weeks ago during Newsarama's "Quesadarama" PR stunt that gave Quesada "control" of the site for the week. He posted an entertaining mix of informative and self-indulgent interviews with the likes of Kevin Smith, Allan Heinberg and, in a series of five installments, Bendis. During the third installment, the duo hypocritically riffed on the state of online journalism and the merits of Rich Johnston's rumor column, Lying in the Gutters, as well as the signal-to-noise ratio on various…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Review: Greg Rucka, Novelist

I first came across Greg Rucka's work in Gotham Central, during his Eisner Award-Winning "half a life" story arc (issues #6-10). In it, he puts his protagonist, Detective Renee Montoya, through the ringer in a well-paced, character-driven story of obsession and revenge. I'd only returned to comics less than six months prior at that point and was blown away by the difference in quality and style from the men-in-tights comics I'd grown up on and had initially sought out. Better yet, because Gotham Central takes place on the fringes of Batman's world, it was quality storytelling without the condescending pretension…

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