Ah, the long comics-world nightmare is over, and Comic-Con has ended. According to what I have gathered from reading other comics sites in search of links, a new Superman movie poster has been unveiled, as well as the armor from Iron Man 3. The Eisner Award winners have been announced. Many pictures were taken. (We will surely be linking to more photo reports over the next few days.) And the Evil Eisner-winning Tom Spurgeon has provided his traditional show notes, always worth reading for those who couldn't attend. (For the record, Tom is my favorite comics blogger.)
We don't have much exciting movie news here, unfortunately, but we do have Ryan Holmberg's latest essential column on manga history, this time with a closer look at truth behind the conventional wisdom that Disney animation was the primary influence on Osamu Tezuka. Here's an excerpt:
One of the biggest blind spots in the scholarship on Tezuka Osamu is the assumption that his main access to Disney was through animation.
Granted, first contact might have been made watching Mickey alongside other American animation stars like Popeye and Betty Boop in theatres and at home in the 1930s. Wrote Tezuka in 1973 (roughly translated, here and throughout):
I liked Disney, I adored Disney, here before you is a man whose life was determined by Disney.
I first encountered Mickey around second grade at an animation festival [Tezuka was born in 1928]. Also my father brought home a rickety home projector called the Pathé Baby, and amongst the films he purchased was Mickey’s Choo Choo. From that point on I became attached to Disney by a chain that could not be cut.
And then from fascination to emulation,
I first followed the comics of Tagawa Suihō and Yokoyama Ryūichi. But suddenly, once I became devoted to Disney, I set out to copy and master that stuffed-animal style, eventually ending up with how I now draw.
But note that he does not specify what Disney media he “copied,” and nowhere does he say that he learned to “master” the Disney style on the basis of the animation alone.
We also have Frank Santoro's latest "New Talent Showcase", this time with reports from up-and-comers Angie Wang and Charles Forsman.
Elsewhere...
—The Guardian has an audio slideshow linked to Joe Sacco's recent collaboration with Chris Hedges.
—The Evil Tom Spurgeon has the first part of a massive interview with Image publisher Eric Stephenson.
—In an interview with the art blog Hyperallergic, MoCCA president Ellen Abramowitz revealed a bit more about the reasons for the museum's recent closing, claiming they were primarily financial.
—The A.V. Club revisits Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan.
