One for us aging Marvel UK fans.

Over at his blog-of-many colours, old hand Akira The Don provides a rather on-the-nose guide to cult Marvel UK character Death's Head.  Always was more of a Knights Of Pendragon man, myself.

It's the very first Bad Librarianship vodcast!

Now also in iPhone-friendly YouTube version!

I'm down with the kids.

The Reverend Dave Johnson has been having a good clear-out of his hard-drive of late, sticking lots of old stuff up on his DeviantArt page, and today he's been writing about, and showing, lots of stuff he did while art directing the first two seasons of BEN 10.  I know I shouldn't be encouraging kids to land on this blog via Google searches for BEN 10, what with all the swearing and shit. Anyway, kids, sick of looking for pictures of Lady GaGa's man-clunge on Google images? Fuck up your eyes staring at this load of bollocks!

Been caught soliciting: Image, May 2010.

Issue two of Jonathan Ross and Tommy Lee Edwards' TURF,  and doesn't that vampire on the cover look familiar?  Should we be coining the phrase "vanity comic" to describe this product?

 And more Casey/Scioli mind-mangling in the GØDLAND CELESTIAL EDITION TWO hardcover, for those of us who prefer our comics to come in gigantic slabs that can be used as offensive weapons.

Stuff craftily hotlinked from the good eggs at CBR.

Joe's blogs.

Hey, y'know that Joe Bloke guy who does the Grantbridge Street & Other Misadventures blog?  Yeah, that dude. He's got the best taste of all those crazy cats running comic scan blogs.  But what you mightn't know? He's started a second blog featuring scans of old pulps. It's called Two-Fisted Tales Of True-Life Weird Romance (I think that just about covers everything worth a damn in world literature), and just as soon as Steve Jobs releases the Porn-O-Matic 5000, it may well become my second favourite bedtime reading matter.

Ladrönn's 2nd cover for THE SPIRIT.

Who could have guessed that the combination of Mexican Moebius-fetishist José Ladrönn and Will Eisner's Denny Colt would be so damned... simpatico?

The cover for Brendan McCarthy's FEVER #2.

Keaare Andrews fashion mag-lookin' ASTONISHING X-MEN

Via Newsarama.

I want one of these for my living room.

Seven stuffed and tattooed pigs by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye on display at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Nice on the French Riviera.

Ah, pigs. Do they ever stop giving?

If I was Tharg.

When I (rather drunkenly) started the hashtag meme if I was Tharg on Twitter yesterday, I didn't realise it would have such legs. But in vague illustration, signifying nothing other than I like 'em, here's a few random images I have knocking around my hard drive.

Frank Quitely's BATMAN & ROBIN #12 cover.

I love you Vince, but are you sure legs work like that?

Darwyn Cooke FTW.

Mike Allred's cover for his new (Chris Roberson-written) Vertigo series I, ZOMBIE is pretty damned good. But then Darwyn Cooke slips ahead of him with his variant cover and sticks it in the back of the net.

Both via Graphic Content.

Devilpig does Deadpool, again.

While I'm on a theme: I've never bought a Deadpool comic that in any way satisfied me as a reader. So y'know what's really annoying? When Marvel solicit Deadpool comics with great cover art by Dave Johnson (click on the image for the full glory of the Reverend's backgrounds), and interior artists of the calibre of Phil Bond. Maddening. And it gets worse, but more on that later...

Eric Canete: easy, tiger.

Eric Canete doing increasingly frequent drawing gigs for Marvel Universe comics leaves me with a problem: I love Canete's work, don't give a toss about Marvel's all-consuming need to tie all their comics together, all the time. Still, some people have managed to make decent individualistic work in this rigid framework (I'm looking at you, Casey & Fox), and this cover is magnificent, in a Asaf and Tomer Hanuka kind of vein.

Looks like he character of Luke Cage will be heading over to THUNDERBOLTS from NEW AVENGERS soon. Joining him there will be 2000AD stalwart Kev Walker, so that's more damned Marvel comics I'll end up buying.

Been caught soliciting: Dark Horse, May 2010.

It's all Mignola 'round these parts (all via CBR).

Notes: interesting to see Mignola and Corben's differing takes on the same material. And that B.P.R.D. cover sure looks like a big scary penis.

JR Jr draws Thor, again.

In my time, I've bought a lot of badly written comics because John Romita Junior was drawing Thor in them. Don't think I'll ever learn (I'll blame it on The Destroyer beating up Kirby's Thor in the back of SPIDER-MAN WEEKLY in the '70s).

I love Hector Umbra and I love Hellboy. But which is better? There's only one way to find out... FIGHT!

I love Uli Oestrle's Hector Umbra. I wish there was a nice English translation of it, so you could all love it, too. And my ongoing affair with the Hellboy franchise has even became a thing of amusement for podcasters in need of a shave and a good haircut. So this groovy convention sketch at Uli's blog gave me a little thrill.

Just a little one. Like some codeine on an empty stomach. I'm not a pervert.

More on PARADAX: the TV show.

I trust you've checked out the two links in my previous entry already? Good. Now I'll begin. Here's some of the art Brendan is using in presentations as he pitches PARADAX! around Hollywood. There's even a little bit of new art to see in that second slide, in the character designs in the bottom left.

Brendan McCarthy: A round-up.

News: an interview by Chris Mautner over at Robot 6.

Rumours: Rich Johnston on what Reverso's getting up to in L.A.

Trust in me.

Just did this at some guy's website over here. Hours of fun for all the family.

I Want To Hold Your Severed Hand

Turkish freelancer Mahmud Asrar, currently doing some work for Marvel, draws the Zombie Beatles.
(From his DeviantArt page)

Marc Craste's animation for the BBC's Winter Olympics coverage.

You'll like it. Even if it is soundtracked to Michael Bublé.

No shit, Sherlock

So, in a video statement to the Midem conference in Cannes, Radiohead's Ed O'Brien reckons the music industry has been putting money ahead of creativity in recent years. Fuck me, how insightful.  I'd put it another way - a cartel of bastards, with Simon Cowell as their public face, have gleefully turned the artform of popular music into their own private strip-mine.   Ed O'Brien is however, a nice polite boy from a college town, whereas I'm a mountain man with rough country manners.

Everybody seen these preview pages from Brendan McCarthy's FEVER yet?

Minds will be blown.

Been caught soliciting: Everybody and their mothers edition, April 2010.

I'm not the sort who buys a comic for its cover, but Ladronn's for DC's relaunched THE SPIRIT #1 is gorgeous.

The one non-Vertigo DC title I will be buying is covered with some repackaged art we've all seen before, so that doesn't get a plug. Okay, It's the Rucka/Williams III BATWOMAN: ELEGY collection.

As a long-suffering Neil Young fan, I'd buy this anyway, but the art should be spectacular. Best colourist in the business gets a cover credit, too.

Image will be sticking out TURF, by Jonathan Ross and Tommy Lee Edwards. As one could have expected from the verbose Ross, the preview pages show it is overwritten-as-fuck. But hey - variant cover by Sir Duncan Fegredo!

Johnny Romita Junior does a cracking take on the cast of JERSEY GODS for the third trade paperback. It's a real shame the solicitation text makes it all sound so final: "Zoe is super-charged - and about to take Barock down. Never let your girlfriend borrow your super-powers. Sinister forces are lining up against our favorite Jersey couple that threaten to destroy their union...and their very lives. Hang on to your seats, the JERSEY GODS train is about to derail in the stunning conclusion you never expected. No lie: It will ROCK you! Collects JERSEY GODS 10-12, plusthe complete MARK WAID back up story, the six-page JERSEY GODS promo from INVINCIBLE and the JERSEY GODS pages from POPGUN."

Well, it's not much of a month from Marvel, unless you love their whole HEY KIDS! MORE OF THE SAME FROM BENDIS! direction. But if you love comics that might instead surprise and challenge you, why don't you try this?
"SPIDER-MAN: FEVER #1 (of 3)
Written by BRENDAN MCCARTHY
Pencils & Cover by BRENDAN MCCARTHY
One of comics' most innovative and original voices, Brendan McCarthy, brings SPIDER-MAN: FEVER -- a truly unique and surreal story evoking the classic Silver-Age psychedelia of Steve Ditko's Dr Strange. In FEVER, Spider-Man is abducted by a depraved tribe of spider-demons to a bizarre dimension, where he is to be eaten alive. Dr. Strange goes on a perilous occult quest to rescue his friend -- and tangles with some very peculiar characters along the way...
32 PGS./Parental Advisory …$3.99"

Full DC solicits at CBR - Full Marvel solicits at CBR - Partial Image solicits at CBR