R/G and Tintin. And the mighty Paul Gravett on the “Belgian original”: Tintin stares back at millions of men in the mirror every morning. We put a dab of gel in our hair at the front and shape a little quiff to give ourselves an extra bit of bounce and character. Whether or not we realise where this look derives from, we’re actually turning ourselves into the big-hearted boy reporter. It was while Tintin was driving in a high-speed, open-top car chase early on in his debut mission to Russia in 1929 that the roaring wind first ruffled up and blew back his ginger locks. His distinctive tuft has been standing up proud ever since. + Another Herg é story in the news, is that he may have died of AIDS. It was previously thought that it was leukaemia that killed him. As Tom Spurgeon says, it’s a bit of an historical footnote and both make you dead.
Art Spiegelman’s Maus gets a revisit as it’s 15 years since it won the Pulitzer. + Shakespeare goes Manga. + Austin Kleon has lunch with Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner. + Tom Spurgeon reviews Paul Hornschemeier’s The Three Paradoxes: “Because of the title — a reference to the three strongest of Zeno’s paradoxes, which discredit the notion of progress by pointing out in various ways that between one point and another lie an infinite number of halfways — we have to assume that Hornschemeier means for the book to question the idea of personal and artistic growth. His own work here, where the casual storytelling far outstrips the grasps at significance, suggests the problem may not be in an element of the journey but in the push to get from A to B.” Hornschemeier will read with 3:AM’s poetry editor, Tao Lin @ Atomic Books, Baltimore on June 21st.
Inspired by the Tarantino/Rodriguez trash-fest Grindhouse, Greg Hatcher looks at “Roger Corman vibe” B-list comics: Most of us have a taste for junk food whether we admit it or not. But I think you have to be over a certain age to really be a connoisseur; the form’s mostly died out. I don’t think there really is such a thing as B-movie comics or the equivalent any more, and though it’s probably a good thing for the artform in general, I confess it makes me a little wistful. There’s occasionally someone doing a tribute book or a pastiche or something, but you know, it’s just not the same. Nobody’s mother yells at them for reading Nextwave or Agents of ATLAS or stuff like that, no matter how much of the crazed B-movie sensibility they are straining to evoke. Today, series like that get hardcover collections. The subversive part’s gone.
[Image: from the All New Yang]
Drawn Here with Alison Bechdel. + Mundo Fantasma run ‘sudden interviews’ with Johnny Ryan, Joe Matt, Peter Bagge and Jim Woodring [via Journalista] + Woodring also talks to the Sydney Morning Herald: It’s true I used to hallucinate regularly. It’s slowed to the rate of one every two years or so. Sometimes I have what seems like a vision; more substantial than a hallucination. It’s as if something is coming through from a hidden realm. For example, right after high school I was taking an art history class and at the end of a series of slides on architecture I saw a lulu of an apparition on the blank screen. It was a big rubbery frog-like creature with a semicircular frown and one of its eyes looking upward. It shocked me out of my wits. I left school and never went back. I’ve drawn that creature dozens of times since and feel it has a place and purpose in my life, like a guardian or friend. I don’t really know what it is but I feel connected to it. [same]
Rutu Modan’s Exit Wounds excerpted. + Etgar Keret goes to Hollywood, with Wristcutters. + Marjane Satrapi goes to Cannes. And not without controversy either. A clip from the offending film can be viewed here [via Comics Reporter] + Bugpowder list the features on the two-disc DVD, The Mindscape of Alan Moore from Shadowsnake Films. + How to transform that old Transformers tattoo [via BoingBoing] + Hi, I’m a Marvel…and I’m a DC. + Darran Anderson celebrates 30 years of Thrillpower.
