Friday, April 27, 2007

Jesus Christ's Blog

Trudy hates it when I do anything "illegal." She's a real square in that way. That's why she works at the bank.
"Its wrong to illegally download music," she said. But I was all like, "Whatever, Judge Trudy." (She really hates it when I call her that!) "I'm serious, Jesus," she said. "Hillary Duff worked really hard to make those songs, and she should be compensated." "Oh, yeah?" I said. "Well, I had two spikes hammered through my wrists." And Trudy was all like, "Oh, will you PLEASE let go of that already?" And I was all like, "Sure, I will… as soon as I get compensated for it."
SNAP!
Link. Via Slog

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

BREAKING: Sweet-On-Superman Sarge Sentenced

A Fort Eustis drill sergeant was sentenced to six months in military prison after pleading guilty on Monday to a series of training transgressions including an incident in which he instructed a subordinate to dress like Superman and simulate sex acts.

Staff Sgt. Edmundo Estrada was court-martialed for his actions and relationships with low-ranking soldiers(...) In an affidavit filed April 16, 2006, a soldier accused Estrada of sexually assaulting him. He said he came to Estrada complaining of depression, and that Estrada instructed him to dress in Spandex and pretend to be Superman, weakened by Kryptonite and undergoing sexual torture. The soldier said Estrada photographed him during these acts and threatened him if he refused to participate.

Soldiers from Estrada's previous unit said he demanded to photograph them shirtless and wearing spandex.
Superman_Sarge

John Layman At The Keyboard

hello
Composing his blog.

Fuck Dana Milbank

Rep. Dennis Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment vs. Dick Cheney yesterday. This offended Washington Post reporter/Keith Olbermann crony Dana Milbank, who responded by mocking Kucinich's hair, his height, and his failure to seek Nancy Pelosi's permission.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Horror In The TV Listings

American Idol

KCPQ13 Tuesday [4/24] 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM
TV-PG "Idol Gives Back" The six finalists perform songs about compassion and hope.

Friday, April 13, 2007

Indie Film Or Archie Comic?

This is inspired: identify-the-plot quiz [Via The Beat].

U.S. Debate On Race Ends

front041307
UPDATE: Someone understandably interpreted this post as a gesture of support for Leatherface. The truth is, I'm glad he could be fired not once but twice, and I wish he worked for a third company that could fire him today.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Summersong

AVNTRANS001000_col_jets

In the straight news department, here's what I'm up to for the summer. This is adapted from my newsletter, which is sent out anywhere from one to three times a month, depending on what's going on. You can sign up by sending me an email at stuartcomics@mindspring.com .

And by the way: If anyone knows a good way to paste hyperlink text from Apple Mail into Blogger, please let me know, either in the comments or at the above address. I tried going through Word, TextEdit, Pages, and Safari...even looked at the source code, but I just couldn't keep the links intact.

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• June 2007: POSTCARDS: True Stories That Never Happened is a beautiful hardcover anthology from Villard/Random House, featuring work by Harvey Pekar, Matt Kindt, Phil Hester, Tom Beland, Antony Johnston, Ande Parks and Joshua Fialkov. Editor Jason Rodriguez's concept was an ingenious one: He gave each of the creative teams an actual, vintage postcard and asked us to craft stories about what the often-enigmatic messages on them might have meant.

Michael Gaydos (ALIAS) and I have contributed an eight-page story called "Tic Tac Bang Bang." It's set in 1909 and takes a very strange card into slightly absurdist territory. I don't want to give the whole thing away, but one thing I wanted to do was to try a sort of experiment in comics format, like Will Eisner used to do in THE SPIRIT and Alan Moore & Rick Veitch did occasionally in GREYSHIRT. This meant I handed Michael a ridiculous, and ridiculously detailed, layout to work from. He pulled it all off gorgeously in a beautiful greywash style -- and you can actually win a page of the original art by entering a contest here.

Jason recently did a week of interviews with POSTCARDS's contributors on Newsarama. You can find all of them through this page, or jump right to the talk with me & Michael here . Amazon's page for the book is here.

• July 4, 2007: NEW AVENGERS/TRANSFORMERS, from Marvel and IDW, is just what it says on the label. Tyler Kirkham (PHOENIX: WARSONG) and I are the team behind this insanely big-scale crossover, which pits the "classic" New Avengers (pre-CIVIL WAR) against the evil Decepticons -- and maybe against Optimus Prime and the Autobots, too. And since the action takes place in Latveria, you've got to figure a certain Marvel dictator is involved as well.

This has been a giant romp from start to...well, we're not finished yet, but start to now, anyway. And Tyler Kirkham is really doing the best work of his career; his Avengers are fiercely powerful and his Autobots are just plain cool. I don't have any of his art to show yet, but you can see Jimmy Cheung's gorgeous cover to issue #1 above or here. It features that Captain America fellow you may have heard of recently, in happier times.

Four issues, monthly. More here and here.

Around the same time, Marvel will also collect my two WOLVERINE stories, in collaboration with the very talented CP Smith, in a volume called WOLVERINE: BLOOD AND SORROW, which also features two stories by Rob Williams & Laurence Campbell, and David Lapham & David Aja. I'm very proud of these, particularly the cover story "The Package," in which Wolverine must escape from a hostile African country alive -- with a baby strapped to him. 

And if you missed my story in ANNIHILATION: HERALDS OF GALACTUS #1, it'll be re-presented in the hardcover collection ANNIHILATION: BOOK THREE, along with much goodness by Keith Giffen, Andrea DiVito, and others. Mine features the origin and fate of STARDUST, the newest Herald to Galactus the planet-eater.

• July 2007: EARTHLIGHT returns! More hard science fiction by me and Christopher Schons, presented in manga format by Tokyopop. In volume 1, we met teenager Damon Cole and his classmates at the Earthlight Academy on the first moon colony. Things took a nasty twist toward the end -- which left volume 2, out in July, spring-loaded for action. 

EARTHLIGHT v2 was one of the easiest things I've ever written; the characters just knew what they were going to do, the political situation was all set up, and the action played out beautifully. Of course, it helps to have Chris making me look good. His characters, fashions, and tech are all spot-on. 

Volume 1 was well received, and nominated for three Glyph Awards. Here's what one reviewer said about it:

"Moore's tale is a coming of age story set in a larger narrative of speculative science fiction and socio-political futurism. Moore gives Damon's trials and tribulations both poignancy and edge. His observations on technology and society are plausible and engaging -- just what sci-fi needs to make it interesting and relevant...[Mr. Schons] is a virtuoso at drawing sci-fi tech, gear, sets, and environments that are more science than they are fiction and fantasy. His character drawing is expressive and hyper dramatic, but his art can be subtle and human."
-Leroy Douresseaux, Comic Book Bin

More reviews on the Amazon page. You can pre-order volume 2 here

And as I write this, I'm at work on volume 3. So the saga continues. (Actually, as I write this, I'm AVOIDING working on volume 3. But you know what I mean.)

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Thank you, kind readers. We now return you to the Beer, the Meat, the Snark, and the Yankees.

Friday, April 06, 2007

Briefing By Tony Snow's Cancer's Press Secretary

MR. SNOW’S CANCER’S PRESS SECRETARY: Good morning, everybody. Now, for all those who've been trying to create this narrative that Tony Snow's Cancer is threatening Tony Snow’s life, which is silly, what we've really said is that we're going to pursue legitimate means to try to get his medical team to change its behavior. Tony Snow’s Cancer wants to make it clear to Tony Snow, who has a long and proud history, that it does welcome closer relations. But his doctors are a problem right now, because they are openly talking about the possibility of nuclear radiation and chemical weapons. Tony Snow’s Cancer is not about to sit back and let an extremist element destabilize Tony Snow.

Q Tony Snow’s Cancer said, "I've heard those allegations about malignancy; it's just not true." How can it say that when it hasn't seen all the medical records?

MR. SNOW’S CANCER’S PRESS SECRETARY: I'm not -- how would you define "malignancy"?

Q How would you define it, Tony Snow’s Cancer’s Press Secretary?

MR. SNOW'S CANCER'S PRESS SECRETARY: Well, it's a loaded term. I mean, I think what Tony Snow’s Cancer -- what Tony Snow’s Cancer is saying is that there is no -- I don't want to hug the tar baby of trying to comment on the malignancy -- the alleged malignancy -- the existence of which I can neither confirm nor deny.

Q Tony Snow’s Cancer’s Press Secretary, do you have a sense of how the course of Tony Snow’s Cancer might differ this time, versus the first occurrence of Tony Snow’s Cancer?

MR. SNOW’S CANCER’S PRESS SECRETARY: Look, what Tony Snow’s Cancer will not do is commit itself to specifics. Is anything off the table? No. But this is a case where Tony Snow’s Cancer, I think, is willing to work with moderate members of the medical community to come up with solutions.

Q Is Tony Snow’s Cancer optimistic?

MR. SNOW’S CANCER’S PRESS SECRETARY: I don't know if it -- I think "determined" is the proper term to use.

Q Just one quick question, if you're able to answer. Has Tony Snow’s Cancer spread to any other areas, anywhere beyond the liver?

MR. SNOW’S CANCER’S PRESS SECRETARY: It's a very important statement for Tony Snow’s Cancer to be at these places and to take very aggressive action to build a basis for growth. Tony Snow’s Cancer may not have gotten the credit it deserves for that.

Q Where other than the liver?

MR. SNOW’S CANCER’S PRESS SECRETARY: At this point that's a level of operational detail I'm not willing to address right now.

Q I guess what I'm wondering is, it's now been day after day of Tony Snow’s Cancer pursuing a policy that poll after poll shows is extremely unpopular.

MR. SNOW’S CANCER’S PRESS SECRETARY: Well, I'm not -- I'll let you read the polls. But I think -- look, if somebody has a poll that says, do you want Tony Snow’s Cancer out tomorrow? Do you want him to be able to come home tomorrow? The answer is, yes. Of course. Everybody wants Tony Snow to come home tomorrow.

Q It's an unpopular cancer. We don't have any --

MR. SNOW’S CANCER’S PRESS SECRETARY: Well, all cancers are unpopular, Jim.

Q You don't think this cancer is -- at this point, are we debating about what the American people think about this cancer?

MR. SNOW’S CANCER’S PRESS SECRETARY: You know, it's interesting because depending on the questions you ask. Again, if you ask a question, do you think it's important to succeed? Yes. People agree with that. Do they think that you ought to seek victory? If you ask, if the alternative is radiation and chemical weapons, people don't want that.

So, again, a lot of times you can frame questions in different ways. But let's be honest -- people don't like cancer. But on the other hand, people also don't like poison, they don't like radiation, and Tony Snow’s Cancer has to keep all those things in mind. And it does and constantly --

Q But Tony Snow’s cancer is as resolute as ever that --

MR. SNOW’S CANCER’S PRESS SECRETARY: Yes.

Q -- one day it will be proven correct?

MR. SNOW’S CANCER’S PRESS SECRETARY: The failure to finish is the sort of thing that is going to allow other diseases to sit back and wait, and it also is going to undermine confidence in Tony Snow, and that's something that we cannot afford.

Q Our thoughts are with Tony, so if you would pass that on, we'd appreciate it.

MR. SNOW’S CANCER’S PRESS SECRETARY: I’m not going to get into that with you, Helen.