Boy, it’s been a looonnng time since I did one of these! Some of these links are so old since I first bookmarked them, they might already be dead by now.
And, as usual, these are mostly all cribbed from Comics Alliance, Bully, and the Comics Reporter…
Comics have come a long way since Milton Caniff could put a hideous Chinese stereotype in a family newspaper, or create a racist World War II guide to telling “Japs” from Chinese people — right? Well… but what about those papers today that only want one “black strip” — Candorville or Curtis, but not both? The top ranks of Marvel & DC heroes are overwhelmingly white — and, thanks to “regressive storytelling” at DC, they’re becoming more so. Black heroes, Hispanic heroes, seldom have their own titles. And, oh by the way — how about some characters with roots in India? Please? Tim, Kumar, and Mulele discuss the past history of racism — intentional and not — in American comics, and the present-day reality of most comics’ racial non-diversity. Also: Why Canadian-citizen Kumar never cared about Alpha Flight!
Links, links, and more links:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
I like the art of Adam Hughes very much, but this statue is bad:
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/03/24/batgirl-statue-adam-hughes/
Not comics, but this seems to be the season for Leiji Matsumoto movies:
CG Captain Harlock — http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-03-24/captain-harlock-new-cg-pilot-images-staff-revealed
Live Action Uchu Senkan Yamato (a.k.a. Star Blazers in the US) — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jExoH_JjMZg
Galaxy Express 999 is one of my all-time favorite manga. Some day we are going to cover it on the podcast, I swear.
When you are not listening to Deconstructing Comics, I highly recommend you check out Gary Groth’s interview with Todd McFarlane from the early days of Image. Hilariously and predictably, within months of this interview McFarlane began engaging in various business practices which contradicted much of what he states here. He did, however, stand firm by his word that there was no point in him trying to improve as an artist:
Finally, Fantagraphics has a preview up of their new CAPATIN EASY book, one of my all-time favorite newspaper strips:
KS
For the past few weeks, every time I stumble across any interesting links in my comics website lurking, I’ve been emailing them on to Tim and Mulele (I’m guessing they don’t visit the same news websites I do). Tim has been encouraging me to post these on the Deconstructing Comics site, but I have been reluctant because I would just be regurgitating links I stole from other people’s lists of links. So, I’ve finally conceded, and in a flagrant abuse of administrative power will post a link to a video completely unrelated to comics in any way, and stolen from Tom Spurgeon’s www.comicsreporter.com —
Star Trek Convention 1975. If you love Star Trek in any way, this will take your breath away:
And now for some real links —
Ditko compositions: http://abstractcomics.blogspot.com/2010/02/ditkos-spider-man-part-1-aka-hey-look.html
Balak’s digital comics: http://balak01.deviantart.com/art/about-DIGITAL-COMICS-111966969
The many faces of Lum (Urusei Yatsura): http://www.tcj.com/manga/so-many-lums
Basement collection: http://www.seriejournalen.dk/blogs.asp?blogid=18&id=478#artikel478
More Ditko: http://comicscomicsmag.blogspot.com/2010/01/rom-64.html
Traditional Comics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeXCsvUlzSc
KS
