sir-links-a-lot

So anyway, there I was, looking up bald caps for sale on the Internet…

filed under Categories employee aaron, sir-links-a-lot 7 Comments

…when I came across this item:


First, it never occurred to me that there was a tie-in item of this particular type for the Superman Returns movie, though if you can dress up as Supes, I guess Lex is fair game.

Second, “Luthor” is totally misspelled on the package. I’m reasonably sure this is an official item, which makes the error fairly surprising…and I’ve also found pictures of this product with the correct spelling, so it was caught eventually, in case you were as worried about this as I was.

In other news:

  • Giving the Westboro Baptists any attention is a bad idea, I think, as it plays right into their hands…I don’t like even writing about them here, in fact. So I wasn’t really thrilled with the idea of the counter-protest we all knew was coming when the Westboro clan showed up at the San Diego Comic Con. But on the other hand…it’s kind of hard not to admire the guy with the “DARKSEID IS” sign. The fella(?) dressed as Futurama‘s Bender is amusing too. Pictures at the link if you want to see the hideous carnage.

  • “Say, Mike, what’s the last thing you were expecting to read on the Internet today?” “Well, I’m going to have to say it’s this interview with composer Harry Manfredini about his work on the 1982 Swamp Thing film!” “Wow, that was my guess, too!”

  • Speaking of Swamp Thing, as I so rarely do, Kevin Smith apparently revealed at a San Diego panel that Batman: The Widening Gyre began its life as a proposed Batman/Swamp Thing team-up series. Smith said about Swamp Thing, jokingly:

    “He just talks like a stoner, so it’d be a lot of fun to write.”

    Before any of you say anything…yes, I’d still buy and read it.

  • REMINDER: Employee Aaron is at the San Diego Comic Con, as is his lady friend Kempo (identifying photo of the two here), working the Arsenic Lullaby booth (#2200). Aaron is giving away free hugs, so just walk right up to him and grab him in a big ol’ bearhug. Don’t even warn him…he likes being surprised. Be sure to tell him Mike sent you!

The official “Mike’s still tired, so here’s a lazy link post” post.

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  • Friend of the site Rob Kelly gives us not only a Dick “Swamp Thing” Durock PSA, but an Adrienne Barbeau one as well.

  • If Superman #701 hasn’t been kicked around enough for your liking, here’s Dr. Polite Scott explaining why that one scene with Superman diagnosing that person’s heart condition is dumb.

    As Scott notes (and I’ve seen forms of this criticism pop up elsewhere), the point that this whole “Superman walkin’ the country” hoohar came from guilt over being accused of not doing enough to save someone’s life. …So let’s end the issue with Superman not doing enough to save someone’s life. Sure, why not.

    Also, I suspect removing “flight” from his travel options is increasing the number of Superman-preventable deaths in the DC Universe. …This whole comic is a test for potential Superman editors, isn’t it?

  • COMPLETELY UNRELATED: Thor is walking across the United States to get in touch with the non-divine, and happens upon a fellow with some heart trouble…resulting in the greatest sequence of comic book panels you will ever see.

  • Costuming for the Green Lantern movie and the Thor movie has been revealed, and lo, blood rained down from the sky, and brother did turn upon brother.

    Well, I think they look okay.

  • Announced is Vertigo Resurrected, a series of reprints of some classic Vertigo comics, and, most notably in this first installment, the first publication of the Warren Ellis Hellblazer story about school shootings that was pulled off the schedule after the Columbine murders.

    I’ve seen some inquiries here and there whether this means we’ll see the canned “Swamp Thing meets Jesus” story at long last…not holding my breath, though I’m curious what DC’s going to do when they reach that point in the paperback reprints.

    (RELATED: Why DC hasn’t jumped ahead and put out reprint volumes of Mark Millar’s Swamp Thing work, taking advantage of the current amount of press he usually gets. That won’t last forever, folks, so ride those coattails while you can!

It started off trying to help cartoonists I like, and then it went horribly, horribly wrong.

filed under Categories sir-links-a-lot 7 Comments
  • Max Huffman has his brand new laptop and he’s back making funny comics for you and me. God bless you, Max Huffman.

  • BEHOLD: You can buy Laugh Out Loud Cats original art for insanely cheap prices. INSANELY CHEAP. (Or you could just read the panels here.)

  • Here’s another “list of bad movies” that accidentally includes the first Swamp Thing movie. Presumably that was a typo. Especially this bit:

    “The thing is, Swamp Thing the comic didn’t really get good till Alan Moore took over. The version they adapted was a mediocre comic, and so they got a mediocre story.”

    Oh. Oh my.

  • Dig this fan-made Hulk versus Thing film from 1982. Your life will never be the same.

  • Say, do you have a dollar? Sure you do. And you should use that dollar to buy this comic this week:


    Why? Because Smurf comics are awesome, that’s why.

  • Also, as I was Googling up “smurf napper” I received the message “do you mean smurf rapper?” and even though I didn’t at first, I sure as hell do now. And here is what I found:


    You’re welcome.

Three links will fill him, three links will thrill him.

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  • Bryant Paul Johnson shows us all what he thinks that China Miéville Swamp Thing comic might have been like. (Thanks pal Dave for pointing this out to me.)

  • Bully the Little Stuffed Bull is the single greatest stuffed animal comics blogger on the entire nerdinet, and he proves it yet again with this…well, I say “tour de force” a lot describing Bully’s posts, but seriously, how else could you describe the genius of…“What Really Happened the Night of June 16, 1973” — God bless that Bully.

  • As I’m writing this, the Jonah Hex film is at 10% on the Rotten Tomatoes review amalgamator. The mighty Roger Ebert gave it two stars, which, well, that’s better than one star, anyway.

    How I would have improved it: halfway through the film, Jonah Hex is whisked away from the Old West and transported into the future. C’mon, that would have been awesome.

Okay, that’s more than three links. “Three bullet points” isn’t quite as snappy. And yes, that’s a Brak Show reference. I’m not made of stone, people.

Just a few links today…

filed under Categories sir-links-a-lot, smurfs 4 Comments

…because pulling a Kirby pose takes a lot out of a man:

  • A couple of Comico’s founders, who work on the CO2 Comics site, noticed that I posted an old Comico promo kit and were, thankfully, amused by it. Also, they promise to post some other items from those early days of indie comics, which I’m looking forward to.

    Oh, and dig this: they’re posting pages from old Steve Lafler Dog Boy comics. Man, I do love the Dog Boy. And if you go over there and read some for free, maybe you’ll love Dog Boy, too!

  • Customer Kevin posted a pic of a guy in a jetback on his sketchblog. Who doesn’t like guys in jetbacks? Jetpacks are awesome.

  • Due to increased interest in Jonah Hex (thanks to the movie, which hopefully won’t kill all interest in the character once it’s released), Dwayne at Matching Dragoons has put together some links to posts on his site giving newcomers plenty of background on just who this fella with the funny-lookin’ face is.

  • By the way, did you know that pal Ian, one of the charter members of the Associated Comics and Pop Culture Webloggers of Ventura County, CA And Outlying Environs (which is, as always, ACAPCWOVCCAOE for short) is writing the new Darkwing Duck comic book from Boom! Studios, which debuted this week? Maybe if the boy wasn’t so shy and told us something about it on his Twitter feed….

    But seriously, I’m totally picking this up because Ian’s a pal and…well, I said either here or on my own Twitter feed that I’ve not seen frame one of a Darkwing Duck cartoon, and my awareness of the character is primarily from seeing him on the covers of the previous comic book appearances. But I’ll give it a try anyway. And if I end up not liking it, I’ll make Ian pay me back.

    QUOTES YOU WON’T SEE ON THE EVENTUAL TRADE PAPERBACK:

    “…If I end up not liking it, I’ll make Ian pay me back.”

    –Mike Sterling, funnybook salesman, blog dork

    It does look good, based on my quick flip-through, so I imagine Ian’s pocketbook is safe. For now.

  • Unrepentant Smurfs fan that I am, I’m so totally looking forward to the Smurfs movie:


    …Especially since I found out (and I realize this is fairly old news, but it’s new to me) that Jonathan Winters is voicing Papa Smurf.

    Here, let me repeat that for you:

    JONATHAN. WINTERS. AS. PAPA. SMURF.

    Oh, that I live in an age of miracles such as this.

    Additional Smurf information: Little Known Smurfy traits, the Smurf Life Cycle.

CREEPY CGI KIRK HEAD IS GO.

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Found via my favorite Star Trek-related (and Big Bill Shatner-specific) weblog/podcast, Look at His Butt, a test for a since-abandoned CGI series:


And here’s the Spock test, which uses Joe Pesci’s Not Safe for Work dialogue from Goodfellas. I would so totally have watched a Star Trek animated series with Pesci playing Spock.

If you still need to get your Shatner on, the Look at His Butt girls have this post collecting together YouTube clips of one of his Match Game appearances.

Man, I really do miss watching ’70s Match Game. I probably watched too much TV as a kid, but I don’t regret a single moment watching Match Game (sound at link). That show was fantastic.

• • •

In almost completely unrelated news: Dr. Polite Scott has put together an index of psychic nosebleeds for your perusal. You know, some dude in a comic book or movie starts using his, I don’t know, telekinesis or something, and he’s doin’ it really hard, and you can tell he’s really straining because suddenly there’s a trickle of blood from his nose. Well, Dr. Scott tells you the rest of the story, explaining just what the problems with this particular storytelling shorthand are.

That series of posts is one of the greatest things ever, by the way.

• • •

I apologize for the dependence on link-blogging over the last couple of days…it’s been one of those weeks. Hopefully I can generate a little of my own content soon instead of pointing at stuff done by other people.

So, uh…how are you doin’?

I’m just going to post a few links because I’m lazy.

filed under Categories sir-links-a-lot, swamp thing 11 Comments

• • •

EDIT: Oh good heavens…this just turned up in my Twitter feed, and it’s like God is punishing me for having sold POGs in the ’90s:

World’s Frownest.

filed under Categories employee aaron, sir-links-a-lot 2 Comments

So first, Employee Aaron drew this:


And then I drew this in response:


Neither of us were particularly sad at the time, so I have no explanation. But that won’t stop me from slapping these pics up on the site for all to…”enjoy.”

In other news:

  • Say, you know what’s five years old this week? Why, the weblog of Bully, the Little Stuffed Bull, that’s what! Since Bully is only six years old, he’s been doing his site for 5/6ths of his life! And who among us can say that?

    Congrats, Bully! May you defeat all the matadors life throws at you!

  • Fellow Bureau Chief Matt Wilson penned an article looking at the problems with “nerd news” reporting. Some interesting food for thought in there (especially the bit about some folks just not being able to admit they were wrong about something).

  • Here’s something I didn’t expect to see…the all-seeing Neilalien turns his Eye of Agamotto upon the last episode of Lost. It’s a short, thoughtful, and reasoned response to the show, and I can’t disagree with it.

    Speaking of Lost, get a load of Nedroid‘s “Twitpic” stream, with plenty of Lost comics and illustrations. If this strip doesn’t make you wish for a follow-up TV series with those two characters, then I don’t know what to tell you.

  • Longtime customer Kevin started a sketch blog and I’ve kept meaning to link to it. So here you go. The man wields a mighty pen.

  • If you somehow missed out on ordering the print version of The Journal of MODOK Studies fanzine, like I did, you can now get all three issues as PDFs from the official website. You’re welcome.

Or maybe he’s just a fan of James Bond’s boss.

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  • There’s a small bit of satisfaction in knowing that the somewhat appalling Loonatics Unleashed anime-esque redesign of the Looney Tunes characters from a few years back is currently being held by the current cartoon developers as an example of what not to do. (I mean, I get having to keep your old properties modern and relevant, but sheesh.)

  • Over at the latest installment of Awesome Hospital, HydrogenGuy asks if that’s a picture of “Swamp Thing wearing a Mike Sterling cap?” And indeed, there’s a pic of Swampy wearing a baseball cap with the letter “M” on the front. (There’s also a pic of a naked bottom at that link, so if you work for WE HATE CARTOON PICTURES OF NAKED BUTTS Industries, I would perhaps not look at the image at work.)

    Now, I know I could just ask the guys what create the strip, since I’m in regular contact with most of them, but I’m just going to go ahead and assume that, yes, that’s a drawing of Swamp Thing with a Mike Sterling hat. And if those guys say any different, they’re lying.

  • Via a comment someone left on my site and was caught by the spam filter (and, um, was accidentally deleted…sorry!), the third and final volume of the Swamp Thing TV series is coming out on DVD, available directly from Shout Factory. It’s a terrible series, but I do have to keep that Swamp Thing collection complete, don’cha know. (Also, the linked article makes two mistakes: 1) it notes Roger Corman’s involvement in the film series, even though he wasn’t involved in the films, far as I know, and 2) the writer accidentally refers to the two feature films as “horrid,” which is clearly not true. I mean, c’mon, just LOOK AT THIS:

  • You people sure act fast! As I noted yesterday, Max Huffman of Mocktopus fame was in dire need of a new computer, and thus offered up his drawin’ skills in exchange for donations. Well, he’s already met his goal, but if he keeps getting money, maybe he can get an even fancier computer! Plus, he’s going to need that extra money to cover postage once he starts shipping all the drawings he’s sending to donors (especially if he’s shipping overseas).

If only life were like that.

filed under Categories blogging about blogging is a sin, employee aaron, sir-links-a-lot 5 Comments

from World’s Finest #183 (March 1969) by Leo Dorfman, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito


Hey, I didn’t even realize when I pulled this comic aside that its cover date is the very month and year of my birth! (Its actual release date was likely a month or two previous, I think.) Huh, neat. To think my birth coincided with the raising of the Superman and Batman flags at the United Nations…where they fly even today.

Anyway, you guys had some comments on the redesign from yesterday, so let me respond to a couple:

Just Some Guy sez:

“Oh god! Searing pain in my retinas! The glare… too bright!”

Yeah, it is very…white, isn’t it? I’d been dead set on duplicating the exact look of the old site, which is one of the reasons it’s taken me so long to upgrade…I kept fiddling around with WordPress templates and getting frustrated and giving up. But I think this layout is a lot more open, and a lot less, I don’t know, 2003. I think I can live with it.

Plus, I finally changed the banner. Having some old friends staring back at me from across the top of my site helps ease the transition.

Walaka wonders

“Um, isn’t the apostrophe in your title backwards/upside down? What’s up with that?”

What, indeed? That’s just how the apostrophe is in this particular font used by this theme (Hanami, if you were wondering and if you hadn’t yet peeked at the link at the very bottom of the page). To tell the truth, it kind of bothered me at first, but just a little, and I kind of like it now. Just a little bit of weirdness in an otherwise stately design.

Plus, when I looked at the site on my work computer, it just had the standard straight-line computer apostrophe, so I guess whatever font that is isn’t installed in the shop’s computer. I just used “computer” three times in that sentence.

Pal Andres asks, in regards to my old comments:

“If I read the Blogger update correctly your old site will still be accessible, right?”

Well, it could be, if I go through the trouble of setting it up, but then I’d have two copies of my site on the internet and that could be confusing and screw up Googlers and Bingers and such. I mean, I could adjust settings so that Google wouldn’t index the other site or whatever, but one of the reasons I made the transition over to WordPress in the first place is to kind of keep things simple and in one place. Google’s new set-up would have required fiddling with subdomains and redirects to where Google would be hosting my actual posts, while all the media would still be served up by my hoster, and feh on that.

Employee Aaron declares

“The whiteness of your site will burn my retinas every morning from now on! Soon we will have progressive ruin the social networking site so we can compare Swampthing embroidered doilies!”

You’re fired.

C. Elam gives me more gray hair by suggesting

“I am sure you will be working on fixing links on a prodigious number of your entries, because that is the sort of thing that bothers folks like us. Good luck getting things back to ‘normal.'”

I do plan on fixing some of the internal links to other posts, but it’ll be a slow process since I’m gettin’ near to 3000 entries on this site, and I’d like to be able to sleep sometime. I’ll probably focus on the most recent year’s worth of posts, and work backwards from there.

Former employee Ray (and, in fact, the guy I replaced here at the shop!) pleads

“But you have to get the 1969 thing going. I MUST KNOW what you have done since 1969.”

I think instead of the rotating banner I used to have, that would display a new “since 1969” phrase every time you reloaded the site, I may instead be changing the phrase manually in my banner up there. Not quite as dynamic, I realize, but not everything can make the transition, I’m afraid!

I don’t have the rotating “what people are saying about PROGRESSIVE RUIN” thingie anymore, either, but I do plan on throwing those quotes onto my mostly-empty “About” page. Yes, even the one Dirk wrote about me six years ago about being “one of the better new comic bloggers to emerge so far this year.” I’m hanging onto that quote for dear life.

Ed queries

“Any plans to expand the blogroll to something approaching its former glory?”

Oh, yes, absolutely. But it’ll be a separate page, accessible via a button next to “HOME” and “ABOUT” up there by the banner. Assuming I can do that, that is. In fact, I would have done that today, except I spent all my blogging time doing that swank new banner image. (Who’s not a Photoshop expert? THIS GUY.)

One of the things that bothered me most about the other site is the sheer number of links in the sidebar. It looks cluttered and cramped, but I didn’t want to drop a bunch of links, either. By putting the links on a separate page, that’ll likely encourage me to add lots more of them, so hopefully I can get started on that soon. The links I do have in the sidebar were just kind of put up there to have a blogroll, and are mostly my closest internet pals, the folks with whom I do Fake AP Stylebook, and the mighty Neilalien, the first and most powerful of all comic webloggers.

Anyway, I hope that answered some of your questions about the site. It’s still a work in progress, and again, thank you for your patience and your readership. (And a reminder: you’ll probably need to resubscribe to the syndication feed for your RSS readers…just flip that little chromium switch there at the top of the page.)

In other news:

  • Employee Aaron’s girlfriend Mel had a drawing of hers printed in Tank Girl: Skidmarks #3, out this week in a funnybook store near you. Well, okay, we sold out already, but it’s available for reorder and I’ve got more coming! Here’s a little snippet of it:


    Pick up the issue and check out the whole pic! Oh, and read the rest of the comic, too. After you pay for it. With money.

    You can also visit her Deviantart site and take a gander at her pictures…which, um, may include that same Tank Girl drawing, BUT GO TO SHOP AND PAY MONEY FOR COMIC. Thank you.

  • This gentleman is putting together a list of the “100 Best Comic Book Covers” from 1980 to present, and I’m sure he’s going to get a lot of “um, you forgot” and “wow, really?” responses that these lists always get, but hey, a lot of those are nice images. So anyway, go check it out. Tell him he forgot this cover.