Comics - The Washington Post

There’s a word for this!

Tom Toles — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 11:15:00 GMT

Just when you thought you were out of the rabbit hole of curiouser and curiouser American Policy Debate, through the looking glass we go again, complete this time with flying shards and seven years of bad luck.

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RIP, KIM THOMPSON: Out of D.C.’s comics scene, Fantagraphics co-publisher grew into widely influential figure

Michael Cavna — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 00:05:29 GMT

KIM THOMPSON was born in Denmark, but everything changed when he arrived in America for the first time, at age 21. On the fertile soil of Virginia, a massively influential comics career took root.

“Kim's parents settled in Fairfax [Va.] when they moved back from Europe,” friend and co-publisher Gary Groth tells Comic Riffs on Wednesday. “I was living in College Park — having attended the University of Maryland — when I met Kim, and we worked out of my apartment, editing The Comics Journal.”

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The Almighty NSA?

Tom Toles — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 11:15:00 GMT

While we’re on the subject of brain research (I am anyway), here’s a new thought. It isn’t new under the sun, nothing is, but it’s new to me in the last ten minutes.

Of course it would be wrong to think about religion as simply a utilitarian evolutionary brain adaptation to facilitate social cohesion, and we should feel guilty for thinking about it that, as religion would tell us to be, and so we WILL feel guilty, but we’ll do it anyway, because the truth wants to be free, even if religion sometimes has other ideas about that. But anyway the historic emergence of the idea of an all-seeing, punishment God seems to have coincided with societies larger than small family-based groups. And the scientists who study this stuff, being as they are of a cause-and-effect orientation of mind, got to thinking maybe this was evolution’s way of helping large groups cohere and function and keep everybody relatively honest amidst the greater degree of anonymity and opportunities for cheating that larger groups allowed. God is watching! He’ll get you for this! If you are unfamiliar with this line of speculation, I’ll give you a minute here to mull it, or Google it. Take your time. The Washington Post paywall doesn’t have a taxi-style meter on it.

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Tuesday’s outtake

Tom Toles — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:02:43 GMT

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Time In!

Tom Toles — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:15:00 GMT

I just read a piece in the NY Review of Books about Time and Space. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/jun/06/time-regained/ There were a couple things about this piece that I liked. First was the nap that the picture of Albert Einstein triggered. I was already struggling with the subject matter, (oh that non-intuitive space-time continuum stuff!) but when I came to the picture of Abert’s smiling face, it was just too much inferiority-feeling to deal with so I fell blissfully asleep. When I woke up I realized I had solved the mystery of the Universe! Just kidding. When I woke up I felt a little less tired and continued reading.

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CAVNA’S CANVAS: Neil Gaiman’s transporting gift for the magical power of ‘place’ [+ANIMATED VIDEO]

Michael Cavna — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 04:01:00 GMT

ED. NOTE: Today, Comic Riffs kicks off a new feature in which we take a close look at various aspects of storytelling. And to launch this offering — as well as The Post’s new animated-interview video — we couldn’t think of a better candidate than best-selling and beloved novelist/comics writer Neil Gaiman (whose first adult novel in eight years, “The Ocean at the End of the Lane,” hits bookshelves physical and virtual Tuesday). So today, we pause to appreciate one of Gaiman’s particular gifts: His ability to tap the stirring power of “place.”

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‘MONSTERS UNIVERSITY’: How a mockumentary gave Dan Scanlon a boost up to the director’s chair

Michael Cavna — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:22:36 GMT

DAN SCANLON has more than a bit of Christopher Guest coursing through his comedy veins.

Scanlon is a master of animated story at Pixar, but it was his vision for a live-action mockumentary that has given his career an extra boost.

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Monday’s outtake

Tom Toles — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 22:31:48 GMT

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Fully automatic

Tom Toles — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 11:15:00 GMT

Recent research shows that voice-activated texting is still very distracting for drivers. Alternatively, a recent Onion headline said that ‘Texting While Driving Okay If You Look Up Every Couple Seconds’. What do these two contradictory collections of words tell us? That people want to do other things than drive when they are driving. And they don’t want to pay attention to the road, particularly.

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‘MAN OF STEEL’: As film tops box office, here’s A Fanboy Review

David Betancourt — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 21:52:43 GMT

ED. NOTE: “Man of Steel” ($125-million opening) dominated the box office over the weekend, setting a June record in its domestic debut. Amid the wide disparity between many film critics and fanboy audiences, Comic Riffs asked contributor David Betancourt to provide “A Fanboy’s Review.”

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‘MAN OF STEEL’: Superman soars above expectations with June-record $125M debut

Michael Cavna — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 17:27:39 GMT

SUPERMAN HAS JUST made DC Entertainment’s world safe for sequels.

Desperately needing a new tentpole film to plant in the ground since the Dark Knight circus left town, DC/Warner Bros. can now celebrate: “Man of Steel” managed to scale middling reviews and tempered studio expectations to dominate the weekend’s box office.

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Friday’s outtake

Tom Toles — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 22:29:30 GMT

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Friday rant: Brave New Whirled edition

Tom Toles — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 11:15:00 GMT

Feeling dizzy yet? Welcome to TMI world.

Part 1. Have you decided whether Edward Snowden is a hero or villain yet? Well hurry up! There is lots of speculation about his motives! Be sure to read and listen to all of it! Don’t forget to factor in the girlfriend! Is the damage to the national security profound? Or overblown? Lots of opinions there too. You’re late with yours! I’m late with mine. On purpose. I think I’ll start the journalism equivalent to the Slow Food movement. Slow News. Sometimes, as in usually, the blizzard of first-in information is either Simply Wrong, or more commonly, Missing That Key Fact That Hasn’t Come Out. Is there more to come? Probably! So often it’s better to shelter in place while the Info Blizzard howls, and shovel out at your leisure. Growing up in Buffalo teaches some valuable things.

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‘MAN OF STEEL’: Want to dig deeper into Superman’s past? Here are our 14 recommended reads

David Betancourt — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 03:42:23 GMT

ED. NOTE: Throughout the week, Comic Riffs has focused on facets of Superman — the big, blue birthday boy — in advance of the new “Man of Steel.”

— M.C.

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KICKSTARTING THE COMICS: From D.C. to San Diego, here are today’s picks

Michael Cavna — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 22:42:04 GMT

NOT HAVING an established annual comics convention in Washington, D.C. — in 2013 — was a bit like the District lacking a major sports team:

Baffling, bordering on the ridiculous.

This year, fortunately, organizer Ben Penrod headed up the debut of Awesome Con DC — and the reported turnout of more than 7,000 fans to the Washington Convention Center was proof-positive that the comics appetite is strong in the nation’s capital.

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Thursday’s outtake

Tom Toles — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 22:03:00 GMT

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WorkStation Adventure

Tom Toles — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 11:15:00 GMT

I just heard a newly employed person in a temporary job say that he has figured out that the one thing he doesn’t want is a job where he sits in front of a computer all day.

That pretty much leaves unemployment as his options. Does anyone NOT sit in front of computer all day? No, don’t start listing all the non-computer-sitting jobs there are. I know there are a few left, or will be until the robots take them. They’ll take the ones in the cubicles too, eventually, but we still have a little bit of meanwhile left.

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Wednesday’s outtake

Tom Toles — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 23:03:25 GMT

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I know what you’re thinking

Tom Toles — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 11:15:00 GMT

At last a subject that cuts in different ways! The public debate(s) in the US have mineralized into tedium in their left-right oppositionalism. Now along comes the whirling dervish of Privacy to slice and dice the electorate who showed up unprepared with talking points to defend themselves with.

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SCOTT SNYDER on creating ’SUPERMAN UNCHAINED’: ‘It’s a huge honor and it’s really scary’

David Betancourt — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 03:59:54 GMT

WITH THIS WEEK’s release of “Man of Steel,” many new fans of Kal-El, the last Son of Krypton, will be looking for a comic book to help with their newly piqued interest in Superman.

So who did DC Comics turn to, knowing that a new wave of Supes readers were right around the corner?

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‘SUPES’ OF THE DAY: Hans Zimmer soars with new ‘Man of Steel’ score

David Betancourt — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 17:51:56 GMT

IT’S OFTEN said that every superhero needs his or her own theme music.

And when thinking of such theme music, there’s one sound that comes to mind faster than a speeding bullet: John Williams’s epic score to the 1978 “Superman” movie starring Christopher Reeve.

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Long story short

Tom Toles — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:15:00 GMT

ZZZZZ. It’s June, and I can’t be bothered much today. I lie here uncharacteristically relaxed, and getting up seems as hard as breathing must be for a giraffe. Did you ever wonder how giraffes breathe? Lie down and think about it with me here for a bit. Like watching summer clouds. Maybe we’ll see one that looks like a giraffe. It’s that long long neck, you see? How can breathing through that work? A giraffe’s lungs exhale and the used air goes up the neck and up and up and when it finally gets to the mouth, time to inhale again! And back comes all the used air into the lungs. See the problem here? Makes me tired just to think about it. Oxygen deprived.

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Monday’s outtake

Tom Toles — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 23:03:18 GMT

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‘SUPES’ OF THE DAY: Upon 75th anniversary, we ask creators: Why does Superman endure?

Michael Cavna, David Betancourt — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 18:40:58 GMT

ED. NOTE: Throughout the week, Comic Riffs will focus on facets of Superman — the big, blue birthday boy — in advance of “Man of Steel.”

IT WAS about 80 years ago that a pair of Cleveland teens began dreaming up an outsider of a superhero who — in a single bound issue — would helped launch an entire industry.

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MAURICE SENDAK: Google’s rollicking Doodle tribute lets the rumpus begin

Michael Cavna — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 11:58:17 GMT

LET THE animated rumpus begin.

Just more than a year after Maurice Sendak’s death, and an even half-century after the publication of his most famous book, his wild things spring eternal.

Young Max may have been sequestered to his bedroom in 1963, but his imagination could not be, and the snarling party of monsters — led by their boy king — continues to stir our senses. And so it is apt that to celebrate what would have been Sendak’s 85th birthday today, Google kicks off its rollicking rumpus of an animated Doodle with a nod to his “Where the Wild Things Are” — the book that fought off initial critical pans to become a bestselling, generation-spanning classic.

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