Today we bring you the latest from R. Fiore, who not only discusses the new edition of Ed the Happy Clown, but also has a lengthy disquisition on variant comic book covers for The Shadow, and actually quite a bit more. This one'll keep you busy for a while. Here's a bit about The Shadow:
The prime beneficiaries of the alternate cover come on opposite sides of the consumption spectrum. At one extreme is the collector-loon, who likes nothing more than to have something more to collect. For this buyer Dynamite supplies not only 4 or 5 evenly distributed variant cover designs, but God’s own number of hyper-rare “retailer incentive” variants for collectors to war over. On the other end of the spectrum is the buyer of the collected edition, which will contain all the variants as an appendix. For the buyer who wants to read the comics as they come out but will be damned if he’s going to be gulled into buying more than one copy of the same comic book, it becomes a matter of dubious consumer choice. You are called upon to choose how your comic book is going to be decorated in the same way you choose what color car you’re going to drive. Or more charitably, you are promoted to a practical art critic through the act of choosing.
Elsewhere:
-He brought us some attention this week... here's a fine appreciation of Maurice Sendak from the New York Review of Books.
-Prompted by a recent Tezuka fundraising campaign, Christopher Butcher posted a series of thoughts about Kickstarter. Last week Tim mentioned the ongoing Kickstarter discussions. I'm glad there's some public debate about it.
-Mike Gartland's Failure to Communicate, a series of close readings of the Jack Kirby and Stan Lee comic book stories focused on the tension between Kirby's intentions and Lee's published versions, is now online at the Jack Kirby Museum.
-Cartoonist Brandon Graham checks in with one of his extremely fun updates on all things in his world.
-And finally, via Jeet Heer and Michael Tisserand comes news of sad cutbacks at the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Here's a petition should you wish to get involved.
