Some changes have been going on in the Real World which has led to a slight de-prioritization of this blog. As of today, I have started a new job as developer/designer at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, which (after a bit of acclimatization) should give me more time and more energy to things. 2010 should be a big year for yours truly and my projects, so stay tuned for upcoming c-c-changes. Real soon now™.

Well, it’s out. A longer, better trailer for Where The Wild Things Are. It’s based on a much loved children’s book, directed by a much loved director, heck, credits were designed by a much loved graphic designer. Prepare for the collective nerdy-net to break the internets, or something. But I have to admit… I never read the book.

Growing up (really, it’s more that I spent the first 25 of my 32 years there) in another country¹, I was never introduced to Where The Wild Things Are. Now, since I, like other white people, like this Spike Jonze fella, I figured I’d go the extra mile and heroically read my way through this alleged 48 page masterpiece.

I decided to check eBay and Amazon for copies (I’m a sucker for hardcovers) and noticed that there were 14 1-star reviews on top of the 397 4- and 5-star reviews. “Interesting”, I thought. Who are these wanna-be literary critics that feel the need to rain on the parade of generations? Were they defective as a child?

I expected snarky grown-ups. Instead, I found a review by Nicole, a 7-year old that wishes her dad would just stop reading this book to her.

I am almost 7 and my teachre said we have to say why we like a lot of books or do not like a lot of books this summer on amazon and then print out them and give them to our new teacher next year So I am starting with this book.

My dad reelly likes this book because he said it was good when he was a kid. I dont like it. The pictures are boring and the story is not long. My dad reads this to me a lot and I like the books that are newer. New books have pictures that are pretty and the storys are funner and longer. This book has pictures that look old. I wish my dad would read this to himself and let me read something diferent. Nichole

Yeah… kind of lost for words after that one.

¹ Oddly, someone did feel the need to make a mediocre attempt to translate all the Dr Seuss books, so whatevs.

Because too many people think all nerduo do is funny websites where you fill in the gaps, we decided to follow up with… a T-shirt. Yeah, we’re not really sure where that train of thought came from either.

Nonetheless… If you liked the G.I. Joe cartoon of olden days, check out The Battle. If you hated it, check it out too.

Below are a few of my favorite pieces from the series — those of you that have are in the neighborhood should really check it out.

_{below: Sinister Percussion by Jim Mahfood}

Nonetheless, the recent realization that, I do, in fact, like art, seems to have conveniently coincided with probably one of the most fun art shows I’ve read about. Full of Pryde is a show curated by Douglas E. Sherwood (one of the cool people from Oni Press) and Jason Leivian of Floating World Comics. The show (inspired by Douglas’ personal experiences with having hemophilia his entire life) acts as a fundraiser for the Hemophilia Treatment Center at Oregon Health & Science University. The organizers sked dozens of comic artists, graphic designers, and illustrators to do their rendition of Kitty Pryde — the spunky eternal teenager* X-Man.

With some amazing results (and the fact that Kitty was always a personal favorite of mine) the show looks… well, fun, like Kitty herself. The character is captured with varying success; however, the ones that get it really do get it.

Below are some of my favorite pieces from the exhibit. However, don’t take my word for it, check out the site.

_{Left: Kevin Cross; right: Aleks Sennwald}

_{Left: Barnaby Ward; right: Tom Neely}

_{Left: Ian McEwan; right: Zachary Baldus}

Of all of them, I think Hope Larson captures the spirit of the Prydster best. While she’s usually mentioned in one breath with husband Bryan Lee O’Malley (of Scott Pilgrim fame) she’s actually insanely talented in her own right.

The works are currently being auctioned on eBay for the HTC at OHSU, so get them while they’re hot. Except the ones I have my eye on, that is.

_{* = unless you ask Warren Ellis, that is.
Ohhh, Marvel and it’s elastic timelines…}

I’m currently dealing with the tail end of some excessive workload and will be refocusing i!o! as I re-learn how to breathe, sleep in and read up on fun stuff on the Internets.

In the mean time, a few awesome things:

Check out The Mercury Men. A classic, amazing looking B&W serial that just happens to run on the web. The finesse I’m seeing in the trailer gets me as excited as I was for Doctor Horrible — not in the very least because it seems inspired by the same sources as Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which I wholeheartedly dug the heck out of. Check out the trailer (below), visit their site and/or follow@themercurymen on Twitter.

Also fun: SF show drinking games.

Here’s a triple dose of Spock.

First off, Take one part Warhol’s Marilyn and one part Spock. Stir. Mr Brainwash presents:

Sadly, this is the more normal of my two Spockish links: Bad Spock. The brief: Artists are asked to make bad art of Spock. Not as cool as the Batusi, but still worth a checkin’ out.

Lastly, what do you get when you blend homemade childhood toys and unhealthy nerd obsession? That’s right: Spock Monkey. God help us all.

How do you make the Venture Brothers even better? Add Veteran comic book artist / painter Bill Sienkiewicz to the mix. Bill did these illustrations for the Venture Brothers Season 1 DVD Set.

New Math is new. And clever as hell. Updated every monday.

At the risk of sounding like a Trekkie (but seriously — what blogger would not post this?), I have to share this one: MightyGodKing’s latest Photoshop Marathon tackles the insane metric f—load of licensed Star Trek novels.

For starters, check out irrg! orrrg! on Twitter. More to follow.

Supposedly invented by Adam West for the 60s Batman show, the Batusi (a not-so-clever pun on the Watusi) weaseled it’s way into pop culture thanks to it’s appearance in Pulp Fiction as “the dance John Travolta and Uma Thurman perform at the Jackrabbit Slim’s dance contest”. Batusi definitely sounds better than that mouthful.

Inspired by Mike Allred’s cover (shown above) for his DC Solo issue,  Doing The Batusi is a fun blog that redefines “niche subject” by featuring sketches and commissions by comic book artists and cartoonists featuring a character of their choice (only rule: not Batman), well, doing the Batusi.

It’s only just starting out, but damned if it’s not fascinating as all hell.

Prior to that, I found out that Paul Pope’s next book, Battling Boy, will be published by First Second.

Leaving me to ask that eternal question: Whuhwho?

First Second is “an imprint of Roaring Brook Press, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, which owns some of America’s most prestigious publishers, known for great integrity and literary quality”. First SEcond lists an impressive roster of creators and is managed by cartoonist Mark Siegel.

As Siegel writes, “First Second is committed to quality, aiming for the highest literary, artistic and production standards. The works of true authors and artists, as opposed to the old style of mass-produced disposable comics, these books are intended to be works of lasting value.” It’s when I read this mission statement that I got most excited about this publisher.

However, sadly, aside from an interesting State of The Union with Mark Siegel on Newsarama, there’s very little mention of the publisher on the Internets.

The short version? From everything I’ve found, First Second is awesome.

Covered really is a wonderfully fun project; there’s a ton of artists, famous and not, that I would love to see do this as well. Above: Jeffrey Brown interprets Wolverine.

Abhay identifies the point in the series well by connecting it to minor cast member Young Neil. “He’s an asshole”. So are you”. “I’m young, I’ll grow out of it” is the essence of the book. Within the six volumes that will make up this series, this book is the asshole. It’s a bit of a downer as it’s a dark book but at the same time it’s such a gorgeous progression of the original story that there’s no way that it feels unnatural. This is the book where everyone wakes up and realizes they’re a older than they were. This is the act where things look bad. This is the act where you get both depressed and really excited about the upcoming conclusion to the series.

Scott Pilgrim is probably, long term, one of the biggest things to come out of this decade. While a movie is being made, this merit is purely deserved based on the fact that it was impossible to describe SP as being “like [insert book title here]” and in the years to come, we will (hopefully) see graphic novels that will be described as “like Scott Pilgrim”.

While “the art is like manga art” will be thrown around, it doesn’t quite cover it. Manga influenced, yes. Cartoony in places, but clearly “indie cartoonist” in other. Try labeling it; you’re wrong no matter what you do.

Scott Pilgrim is like Scott Pilgrim. Labeling will not bring you happyness, only sadness; read Vol 1 through 5 of an amazing series and receive both in a double whammy.

Something of a ring ring, but this episode of The Show By Ze Frank — recently unearthed by the lifehack/productivity bloggers —
really identifies a problem that has plagued myself and many other creatives (artists, designers and coders alike): letting ideas loop in your head until you’ll never execute them because your expectations will never match the final result. Or, as Ze calls it: Brain Crack.

You are usually able to trace back addiction to a specific moment.

For me, it’s easy enough to track it back to that moment. I also know exactly what the causes were: X-Men #1 by Chris Claremont, Jim Lee and Scott WIlliams, Uncanny X-Men by John Byrne, Whilce Portacio and Art Thibert and X-Factor by Peter David, Larry Stroman and Al Milgrom were responsible for a 5+ year descent into brokeness caused by collecting X-Men comics. Claremont “left” X-Men after #3, and I stayed. Jim Lee bailed after 11 to go off and co-found Image, and I stayed. And I kept spending.

I bailed from X-titles about 4 years later, but never strayed from spending a regular sum each month on comics. Via the X-men, I (like many of my peers) burnt a nice stack of money on Image comics, left both of those franchises behind and instead dove into some DC work (Starman, specifically) and some wacky indies and some of the Vertigo titles. I returned for two stints to the X-Verse; Grant Morrison’s run and Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men arcs. Hey, enough with the stares. It was a familiar place, and the drugs, er, books were great.

A few more jumps followed (again to the DC camp, but that’s a long, boring story) and I’d like to think that I came out as a more balanced, well-behaved junkie. Er, collector.

Or so I thought.

Early February, Marvel announced a new X-men book. X-Men Forever, written by Chris Claremont. The skinny: Chris never left. It’s 1991. Marvel is reprinting X-Men #1-3 as X-Men Forever “Alpha”. The book picks up from there.

Now, I’ve picked up more recent copies of Chris’s work. I can’t lie — It was completely lost on me. Stiff writing, overly wordy dialog and dubious plots just didn’t work for me anymore.

With that in mind, I approached the solicitation for this new book rationally: It can’t work. It’s a bad idea. Better yet, it’s a horrible idea. Disasterous. Think Catwoman (the movie). What about the last 18 years of continuity? Morrison’s run? Insulting. Awful. Yes, just plain awful.

Yet in the back of my mind, I have to wonder: haven’t we all imagined this happening to all our favorite nerd-fi franchises? Roddenberry resurrected to helm Voyager out of the Suckfest Nebula? Neil Gaiman putting the finishing touches on Sandman #242? George Lucas coming back to dir…er…yeah…uhm…

You get my drift. It’s something that hasn’t been done. It’s X-Men Forever, bitches. It’s 1991, I’m 15, I’ve never seen a girl naked, and God do I want to buy issue #1 of this series. Shoot me now.

Norwalk, CT , February 2, 2009:  Reed Exhibitions has today announced the launch of Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2) which will take place April 16 – 18, 2010 at McCormick Place in downtown Chicago.  The new show will be structured in the spirit of New York Comic Con (NYCC) which was launched by Reed Exhibitions in 2006 and saw attendance grow from 33,000 in its first year to 67,000 in 2008, making it the fastest growing comic and pop culture event in the U.S.  Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo comes in response to significant customer demand.  Reed officials note that customers of New York Comic Con have frequently and repeatedly asked Reed Exhibitions to bring a major pop culture event to downtown Chicago .

Hey, Wizard. How do you like them apples?