Meet Me In Cognito, Baby

There's a new Incognito mini coming out in the next couple of months, and that means that Sean Phillips is posting pages of the Brubaker written mini up on his blog, starting with this first one:
This is the pulpiest of the comics being released right now. Needless to say, I'm excited. More of Sean Phillips work (including more stuff from Incognito) can be found here, at Sean Phillips' blog.

The Long and Shortbox Of It Reads Comics in Public!

A few days ago, the 28th of August, was the anniversary of Jack Kirby's birthday. The 'King of Comics' would have turned ninety-three this year. And unfortunately, he still wouldn't be getting his due respect.

(Check out this first part of a great two part video documentary if you're not familiar with his work.)

In fact, STILL today lots of creators, publishers, editors, readers, and commentators such as us don't get the basic courtesy of being treated like everybody else. We can still get funny looks when we read 'picture books' in the public sphere.

Brian Heater, blogger with The Daily Cross Hatch, decided to make something out of the occasion and his own lingering feelings of embarrassment among the masses around the medium he enjoys and writes about. So he has started an unofficial holiday, to be held every year on the anniversary of Jack Kirby's birth, making comics comfortable and common in public spaces, out of the closet and in the light of day!

And The Long and Shortbox Of It! participated in International Reading Comics in Public Day! Yes we did.

Me, reading Tintin:

Clare, reading Daredevil:

And here's a MOVING picture!

The Reading Comics in Public Day site can be found here!
And their Facebook page is here!

I'm looking forward to next year.

~ @JonGorga

Too Bad "Born Again" Was Already Taken

Jock's cover for Daredevil: Reborn #1 (which debuted earlier today over at Robot 6) is just killer. I love pretty much everything about it.

What I don't love so much is this whole Reborn idea. It has long been my belief that Daredevil is, quietly, one of the best titles that Marvel puts out. It seems to me that a solid run like that, unbroken over a decade plus and through three writers, is a terrible thing to cancel. One wonders if the title wasn't selling as much as Marvel would have liked for an ostensibly A-List character, but even if that were the case why put Daredevil through this again? He's already been born again once, right?

My problem with Shadowland isn't that it's bad (in fact it's pretty good), nor is it with the concept on its own merits: a small-ish event featuring street level characters, particularly the often overlooked ones, is a pretty fantastic idea. Mostly, I don't like that Daredevil doesn't seem to play a part in his own story, that all these things happen to him and we don't really get to see how he reacts or understand what he's thinking- ol' hornhead is just a fascist, and that's all there is to it. The logical conclusion to this, of course, is the end of Daredevil, and then perhaps a phoenix-like rebirth.

And we've never seen that before, have we?

It would be nice to get some good swashbuckling kung fu crime comics again. That's all I really want. Is it really so much to ask?