• Diamond's Previews, er, previews Man of Rock: A Biography of Joe Kubert by Bill Schelly
• Pol Culture looks at Bill Schelly's Man of Rock: A Biography of Joe Kubert
• Public Radio International's Studio 360 talks to Jessica Abel about the formative influence of Love and Rockets (streaming audio embedded below, or download the MP3)
As an experiment, I'm switching to a daily link post instead of the weekly "blogosphere roundup" -- hopefully smaller chunks will be easier to digest, not to mention more timely. And here we go:
• Derik Badman cites a Jaime Hernandez story in an article about the use of the first-person point of view in comics
We've got a brand-new selection of downloadable wallpapers featuring recent and upcoming Fantagraphics titles. Just click on the size that matches your monitor resolution and the image will open in a new window; if you're on a PC, right-click the image and select "Set As Background"; if you're on a Mac, control+click and select "Set As Desktop Background." (We don't know what the procedure is for iPhones, but if you have one, you probably do, right?) And for our complete selection of wallpapers, click right here!
"When I was coming up in the '80s, the representation of Latinos, even at the literary level, was incredibly un-diverse. Even amongst hard-core Latino writers I really admire, there wasn't the kind of writing about the sectors of the Latino community that I was familiar with.
"Love and Rockets was not only a revolution in comics, it was a revolution in Latino letters. It was the first time that people were writing about the kind of Latinos that I grew up with where being a Latino was a given. What we really drew or what compelled us in our lives was who we were dating, the music we were listening to, the problems we were getting into.
"These guys were the originators of the kind of suburban Latino stories where they had all the problems of the community and the enormous complexity of who we were as young people. It was a dynamic part of the larger U.S. society, and not some static, nostalgic, sepia-print photo of itself."— Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Junot Diaz
"Having just approved the proofs for printing the brand new Love and Rockets Volume Three I can't help but post about HOW FUCKING AMAZING these New Stories are. Absolutely mind-blowing on the part of both Gilbert and Jaime.
"EVERY SINGLE PANEL of Jaime's work is ridiculously well-rendered. Like a mural you'd stare at for days and yet each one is cast aside as simply a panel in another story he's done. And even more amazing is how he's pulled off telling a perfect Superhero story-- the thing I wish I got from the Marvel/DC Universe (or even, to be honest, Omega or Cold Heat or TMNT) is right there in his 50 page contribution to NS#1. Can I call it an homage? Or is it simply a progression of the genre-- one where Jaime adds just the right tone of human-ness to do what the Marvel Universe does while offering a gentle, gauntlent-gloved hand to pull it out of its insipid, calculated hole? I won't ruin things by posting panels, especially since there will surely be throngs of people who will better review this work in the near future.
"I don't know how to compare Gilbert's work to most popular comics. What he does is unequaled. He changed my perception of what story-telling is and he keeps doing it. It's even more satisfying than his brother's truly perfect lines.
"The thing is this: The Bros. would be burned out and spinning bald (if urgently smoking) wheels had they simply pursued a career in the Studio System of Marvel/DC where they'd be celebrated but increasingly reigned in. Having lived an under-scrutinized life of perfecting their Art has left them somehow scaling a peak that is, impossibly for their time, just going higher and higher. They're both at the top of their game nearly thirty years after they began pushing themselves towards that peak. I'm a cynic and I'm amazed at how crazy good their work on L&R3 #1 is."
