Uncanny!

Well, this is pretty cool.

Kieron Gillen, who finished up his run on Thor a couple of weeks ago and who will begin a new X-Men series entitled Generation Hope in a month or so will be joining Matt Fraction on the writing team for Uncanny X-Men starting with issue #531.

Remember that when Fraction joined Ed Brubaker on the title two and a half years ago with #500, he replaced Brubaker soon thereafter. Does this mean something of a changing of the guard for the X-Men? Is Gillen going to replace Fraction at some point in the near future?

I don't know, but what I do know is this: if you're going to put together a brilliant writing team like Fraction and Gillen, why the hell would you put Greg Land on the art?

Uncanny #531 comes out in December.

Comics Scholars ASSEMBLE!

Sorry for the lack of chatter here over the last week- Clare and I are in the midst of the start of a new semester and Jon just got a new job- but to make up for it, we have a lot of stuff coming up this week, including something really exciting that Jon is going to post in the next couple of days. The Long and Shortbox of It has hit the big time.

In the meantime, though, I have some exciting news to announce:

Sunday

1:30-2:30

COMICS STUDIES CONFERENCE SESSION #8: Art—Frank Verano (University of Westminster) weaves capitalism, culture, and contemporary art theory into an analysis of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Strikes Again, a work that takes on and subverts its function as both pre-sold commodity and work of art. Josh Kopin (Bard College) examines the way shared art duties on Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction’s The Immortal Iron Fist furthers the series’ narrative, while also exploring the structure of comics and the way we consume sequential art. Alexa Laura Siegfried (University of California, Riverside) questions whether there is a difference between fine art and illustration in a study of the relationship between contemporary artists like James Jean and Dave McKean and the fine art canon.

That's right, folks- I'm giving a presentation at NYCC in a few weeks! This one's a good one, too- it introduces something I'm calling the Comics Consumption Problem, which is something that we've done some work with here. I hope some of y'all will come check it out- it's going to be a blast. You should be able to find the full CSC schedule up at the NYCC website soon and if you do stop by, be sure to say hi.

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?