Low Hanging Fruit

Paging the copy editor for the Bluewater Productions Web site: you have a typo on your September 2011 releases page. A hilariously awesome typo:

FAME: Justine Bieber 2

The sound you just heard was the hearts of little 10 year old girls around the world breaking, accompanied by the collective whooshing fist pump of little 17 year old lesbians who are now optimistic that Beebs might actually play for their team. Good work!

Look, I’m Classy; I Own Art

Don’t mean to brag but, we just got some art we purchased at a few conventions back from our local, friendly art framer. We bring stuff to him all the time – like the My Little Pony painting stuff that a 40 something year old by all rights should have put behind herself years ago. He doesn’t even think our stuff is that weird; yesterday, someone came in the store looking to get a lock, an honest-to-Christ authenticated fucking lock, of Abraham Lincoln’s hair framed in museum quality glass. I can only imagine this means the dude is done with his plans for cloning the man? Look out, Tea Party!

Anyway, check these out:

Top is a David Mack print set I picked up at San Diego in 2010. Bottom was from the Boston convention in 2009. Was a female artist who's name, unfortunately, the whiskey took.

This is a fantasy meet-up between old school Captain America and The Rocketeer by Jamie Snell from this year's SDCC. Support folks in Artists' Alley, people! They need to buy food so they can have the energy to fulfill filthy fanboy requests for pencil sketches of Zatanna on Wonder Woman.

This is an actual canvas painting of a Dalek by Josh Adams that I bought at this year's SDCC. It is menacing. but adorable.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lock of Warren Ellis’s beard on a used napkin in lucite to crate and store.

GD Fundamentalists

There’s a panel in Action Comics #1 where Superman is shot by a tank, and he utters, well… he utters this:

Which is not the worst thing I’ve seen in a comic book this week – that would be The Big Lie by Rick Veitch, which makes Hawk & Dove look like Great Expectations, and which I’ll probably rant about tomorrow – but apparently it made the owner of The Comics Conspiracy, a comic store in North Carolina, go apeshit ballistic based on their Facebook page:

As of today’s release of Action Comics #1 by Grant Morrison, The Comic Conspiracy, will until further notice, be boycotting all future Grant Morrison books. If you want Action Comics, you will have to buy it elsewhere…

Christian comic book readers and shop owners. Join us in the Grant Morrison Boycott. Action Comics #1 is a slap in the face to Superman, Christians and Superman creators Siegel and Shuster!!

…It grieves me to see a liberal Scottish schmuck like Grant Morrison take these liberties. I’m sorry, Superman would NEVER take God’s name in vain. In the words of the late Jim Croce, “You don’t tug on Superman’s cape.

The dude’s blowup got a lot of play in the comics press, including Bleeding Cool, Geeks of Doom, and about a million other sites including Reddit. And I’m guessing that DC Comics, who’re in the middle of the New 52 press juggernaut, didn’t want to alienate the huge Christian fundamentalist market segment, who are well known for their love for comic books and other genre fiction, because they trotted Action Comics writer Grant Morrison out onto the DC Source blog:

Raiders of The Lost Stash

Last Sunday at Atlanta’s Dragon*Con, Jim Steranko showed off his four concept paintings of Indiana Jones for pre-production of Raiders of The Lost Ark.

Keep in mind that Steranko painted this, and these others, before a frame was shot and before Harrison Ford – or even Magnum P.I. – was cast, and you’ll finally realize that, between Steranko on Raiders and Ralph McQuarrie on Star Wars, the greatest contribution George Lucas personally made to either project was “Faster”, “More Intense” and “Hire N-Sync so my rat kids shut the fuck up.”

Spielberg and Lucas were so impressed by the initial work that the duo approached Steranko to do fifty more paintings, “one a day up until Christmas,” as it was November at the time at the time of their second meeting…

Spielberg offered an extension until the first of the year, which Steranko candidly declined.

Considering this was 1979 or so, and that the average comic artist can do a page or two of PENCILS a day, I’m guessing that Spielberg then offered Steranko a mountain of cocaine… and considering the Raiders story conference notes, Lucas probably offered him Marie Osmond. (via i09)