Jumping all nimbly-pimbly from tree to tree

Huh. Both of yesterday's posts seem to've gone up just fine.

So what was I so pissed off about?

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Lots to talk about today. First off:

A couple weeks ago I took a look at the indie solicitations for books coming out in March. One of the books I singled out as looking pretty interesting was Toupydoops #1 (Lobrau Productions Inc, p.288, Previews order code JAN06 3131).

Creator (and Emmy Award winner?) Kevin McShane e-mailed me, then, to draw my attention to an eight-page preview of that first issue. Looks funny:



The concept here, see, is that Hollywood is the playground of the comic book industry. People don't want to be in Steven Spielberg movies; they want to be in Superman comics. So the lead characters here have a cartoony, stylized design, with some of the supporting cast looking just like normal people.

The series originated as a weekly college comic strip and each page carries that episodic feel, which should make for a nice content-to-physical-space ratio. There's a risk there of losing all forward momentum, focusing just on making the present page funny or self-contained, but if the preview here is any indication, McShane is aware of that and concentrating on balancing the greater story and the need for a humor comic to have at least one funny moment on every page.

I've got my pre-order in.

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Then Jason Rodriguez, in his final week of The Moose In The Closet, points me to the new book he's editing for Elk's Run writer Josh Fialkov. The new project is called World's End.

Over at the book's official blog, Fialkov gives us the lowdown on the series--

World's End is a five-issue miniseries, a post-apocalyptic action adventure in the vein of The Road Warrior with a bit of The Princess Bride thrown in. It's action packed, got a bit of romance, and... oh yeah... mutant freaks on motorcycles and giant sea monsters. It really has something for everybody.

The sort of overall creative plan is to do this mini-series to set up our world, and then, assuming it's the smash hit we all hope it will be, come back with other mini's about other parts of this world. I already have a rough idea for stories set in the U.S., Japan, and the U.K. This one takes place in what was once Eastern Europe.

--which sounds pretty good to me. The whole "different stories in the same world" angle is one I really enjoy; it worked beautifully in Small Gods, and Sin City, for example(s).

Then artist Scott A. Keating (who's been doing some jaw-dropping work on the Elk's Run coloring) treats us to a step-by-step panel sample:







I'll be looking forward to this one for sure.

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Ian Brill talks to Mark Chiarello, editor of DC's excellent artist spotlight Solo series, and gets right down to what we all want to know:

PWCW: What artists can we expect to see in the future?

MC: Coming up are Berni Wrightson, Brian Stelfreeze, Jill Thompson, Scott Hampton, Sergio Aragones, Brendan McCarthy, Kevin Nowlan, Jose Luis Garcia Lopez and George Pratt. Not a bad lineup, huh?

What I love about this series is the balance between artists I know, and whose work I'd love to see in this kind of setting, and artists I don't know at all, who get the opportunity to knock my eyes out and introduce me to their craft. Looks like it's gonna stay that way.

And of course, it's also nice to know that there's at least nine more issues of this coming.

And that one of them will be Sergio Aragones.



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Blair does a hell of a column this week at All The Rage. In addition to announcing the fortuitous return of Phil Hester's Image book, The Atheist, and reminding me that Grant Morrison will be doing Wildcats and The Authority (with Jim Lee and Gene Ha, respectively), which pretty much guarantees that the two books will have a clever sort of interplay with each other, he also brings the goods with an art preview of the upcoming Small Gods two-issue mini-series.



Good one, Blair - got me all excited and happy about comics!