You think, Twenty-first century, and you go, meh, who cares.
Then you say “2010” and I want to be in a rocket-ship carved from the severed thumb of a Celestial, arm-wrestling and laughing with Jack Kirby, echoing across the stratosphere.
Happy New Year, World.
So DC has revealed that Grant Morrison is helming a story that involves Batman fighting his way through time to the present day, after his apparent death at the hands of Darkseid. There will be Bat-Caveman, Bat-Pirate, Bat-Cowboy, and every kid’s favorite, Bat-Witchfinder.
Here, Jesse Custer weighs in on this weekend’s planned Ku Klux Klan rally at the University of Mississippi:
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This week’s cover to the New Yorker (Nov. 2, 2009), entitled “Unmasked,” by the Chicago cartoonist Chris Ware, shows an artist at the absolute height of his powers.
In last week’s Ivan Brunetti-covered New Yorker (and what a great cover!), towards the back—’round Joyce Carol Oates’ book review and the literary backmatter—I noticed a couple of ads for—gasp!—the lowly comic book.
What, has the semester begun again already? So it has, so it has. More substantive posting coming soon, but in the meantime, please enjoy these things written by other people:
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Go read part one of Steven Grant’s thoughtful assessment of Howard Chaykin’s career and continuing influence. (And thanks to Grant for linking to the recent Chaykin coverage here.) I particularly enjoyed Grant’s discussion of the significance of some of Chaykin’s earlier works such as his Cody Starbuck stories and the graphic novels Empire, The Stars my Destination, and The Swords of Heaven, The Flowers of Hell: If Chaykin had vanished from comics in the early 1980s, as he threatened to do, it’s likely we’d still remember him for these works. In fact, it’s partly because American Flagg! was such a groundbreaking, game-changing series that Chaykin’s 1970s output has so often been neglected (and because so much of it is out of print, of course). Good stuff—can’t wait for part two next week.
