I’ve got neither the time nor the inclination to do much of a post today. So you’ll have to make do with a few of these random links.

* If you’ve never heard of Rob Liefeld… count yourself lucky. He’s widely considered the worst and most painfully inept artist working in comics today. He got popular in the ’90s, when style-over-substance artwork was all the rage, but unlike a lot of popular artists in the ’90s, he’s actually been getting worse as the years pass. Anyway, here’s a link to a bunch of his worst drawings, with appropriately funny and crude commentary.

* Valerie D’Orazio is printing some excerpts from a book she’s writing about the comics industry and growing up geek. Go check out Part One, then go read the rest of her site for some more goodies.

* Did you know that Orson Welles planned to make a Batman movie with an all-star cast back in the 1940s? Is it true? Definitely not. But it’s probably the best comics-related hoax ever.

* New costumes for Wonder Woman? Of course, they won’t make it into the comics, but they look like good fun.

* We’ve talked before about how much I love heavy metal, right? Check out “Brutal Legend,” a video game coming out next year. Designed by Tim Schafer, who put together games like “The Secret of Monkey Island,” “Full Throttle,” “Grim Fandango,” and “Psychonauts”. Click “Live Gig” to see the game’s trailer — yes, it is the most METAL computer game in history. Vocal actors include Jack Black, Rob Halford, Ronnie James Dio, and Lemmy from Motorhead. Numerous metal bands are providing songs for the soundtrack. I hope they release this for PC so I don’t have to go out and buy a console…

Is it Friday? Yes! Is it night? Ehhh, close enough! Is it fightin’ time? Yeaaah! Time for Friday Night Fights!

From 1959’s Our Army at War #81 by Bob Haney and Ross Andru: Sgt. Rock makes his first appearance in comics by doing something that all good Americans should do as often as possible: beating the snot out Nazi punks!

It’s not just violentastic — it’s All-American Violentastic!

Busy, busy, busy. Do I have time for some comics reviews? Yes, I think I do.

Justice Society of America #11

The “Kingdom Come” Superman is still around. He says his version of Earth has been destroyed. (It has? Has anyone told DC? I think they think it’s still around.) Power Girl is breaking up about being the last survivor of Earth-2. The rest of the team helps save the new Judomaster (a martial arts expert whose special power is that she can’t be hit by anyone) from a bunch of Yakuza super-assassins.

Verdict: Thumbs up. But that might be because I’m a fan of the team. No, not really the highest recommendation, is it?

Lobster Johnson #4

More pulp goodness from Mike Mignola. The evil Memnan Saa has a vril-powered dragon, and he hopes that an army of them will help him conquer the world. Jim Sacks is dead, but he was dead before — his vril-powered armor has empowered his spirit, and he strikes a near-deadly blow against Saa’s forces. Can Lobster Johnson get the good guys — and himself — out safely?

Verdict: Thumbs up. An enthusiastic thumbs up this time. I love pulp and horror, and Mignola may be the best pulp/horror writer the comics industry has ever seen.

Blue Beetle #21

First, let’s all enjoy an inappropriate giggle at that cover, okay?

As for the story, the Spectre, God’s own vengeful and extremely violent Spirit of Judgment, has taken up residence at a local prison, where he’s gorily slaughtering prisoners who were involved in a deadly prison riot. One of the prisoners is Luis, the guy who injured Jaime’s father, and if the guard who Luis attacked dies, the Spectre will kill him, too. Beetle can’t figure out how he’s supposed to stop an omnipotent spirit — both his father and his (secret) girlfriend Traci Thirteen advise him to forgive Luis and let go of his anger. But will something so simple be of any use against a horrific monster like the Spectre?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This issue wasn’t even written by regular writer John Rogers, but the characters of Jaime, his family, and friends are so well-established that the fill-in writer still does an excellent job. I’m not all that happy with the inclusion of the Spectre — any value he used to have as a character has pretty much disappeared. I could write a great deal more about the problems with the Spectre — and I will, later. Not today. Too busy.

 

Believe it or not, if you need to buy a comics fan a present, you can get them books other than comic books.

Astounding, yes, but absolutely true. Comics fans read lots of different kinds of books — science fiction, fantasy, horror, history, science, politics, computers, you name it. But if you’re looking for some comics-themed books they might enjoy, check these out.

(Preliminary note: This list includes several books that I haven’t read yet, but they’ve at least been highly recommended to me in the past. In addition, some of these books aren’t in print anymore, but all can be obtained through used book sellers. I’m linking to Amazon’s descriptions for these books because I buy from them regularly — if you prefer another online bookseller, search for these books on their site.)

Fiction: I’m not a big fan of licensed comic book novels — you know, prose novels about Iron Man and Batman, etc. But superhero fiction about original characters is a sub-genre that I’ve seen a lot more of in recent years. Here are a few that you might find entertaining.

* The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. This Pulitzer-winning novel follows the lives and careers of a couple of young comic book creators in the 1930s and ’40s.

* Those Who Walk in Darkness by John Ridley. In a world where all super-people have been outlawed, Soledad O’Roark is an MTac — a cop who hunts down and executes metahumans for the crime of being alive.

* Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman. Dr. Impossible is an evil genius. Fatale is a crimefighting cyborg. Can Fatale and Earth’s other heroes stop Impossible from destroying the world? Or will this be the time he finally gets away with it?

Non-fiction: Histories of comics, cultural studies, biographies. There are tons and tons of these kinds of books.

Here’s a sampling of what’s available.

* The Great Women Cartoonists and The Great Women Superheroes by Trina Robbins. Just what they sound like. Lots of illustrations, lots of references, lots of good reading.

* The Comic Book Heroes, Men Of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book and Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence by Gerard Jones and collaborators. The first two are histories of the comic book industry; the third is a argument in favor of letting kids indulge their natural love of comics, fantasy, and let’s-pretend.

* Schulz and Peanuts by David Michaelis. A new biography of Charles M. Schulz, creator of the “Peanuts” comic strip.

* Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America by Bradford W. Wright. Another history of comics, told with an emphasis on how comics and superheroes have impacted American culture.

* Up, Up, and Oy Vey!: How Jewish History, Culture, and Values Shaped the Comic Book Superhero by Simcha Weinstein. Yet another comics history, focusing on the multitude of Jewish writers and artists who created comics and superheroes.

* Superheroes and Philosophy: Truth, Justice, and the Socratic Way edited by Tom Morris and Matt Morris. A collection of essays by philosophers and comics writers, including Mark Waid, Jeph Loeb, and Denny O’Neil, examine morality, ethics, and philosophy through a comic book lens.

Go check ’em out.

In other words: Five lightning-fast reviews:

 

The Spirit #11

It’s the final battle — the Spirit vs. the diabolical El Morte and his army of zombies!

Verdict: Thumbs up! Good art, good story, great drama. Next to the last issue of the brilliant Darwyn Cooke’s stories and art, so pick it up!

 

Sugarshock #1-3

As far as I can tell, this is only available on Dark Horse Comics’ MySpace page. It’s written by Joss Whedon, creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Firefly,” and it’s about a really weird but really fun rock band and their long, long, long journey to a Battle of the Bands contest.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Holy guacamole, was this one fun. Just wild, wild fun. Tons of wonderful, awesome, funny stuff. Go read it — it’s pretty short and extremely entertaining.

 

Umbrella Academy #3

What’s left of the Umbrella Academy takes on the Terminauts. Spaceboy appears to be the only one of these guys who’s much good in a fight. Also, Vanya tries to rejoin the family, gets rejected, and runs back to the evil Orchestra Verdammten.

Verdict: Thumbs up. But not as good as the previous issues.

 

Teen Titans #53

The Future Lex Luthor (from the future!) unveils the all-future, all-evil Titans Army. Starro attacks everyone, Miss Martian kacks her future evil self, Robin mopes.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’m a sucker for stories about future evil doppelgangers from the future.

 

Grendel: Behold the Devil #1

A sociopathic super-assassin/acclaimed novelist kills a whole bunch of people and is just too wonderful and smart and cool and unstoppable and perfect for anyone else. Oh, and he wears a stupid mask.

Verdict: Thumbs down. The “Grendel” series was one of the things that irritated the tar out of me in the ’90s, and ten years hasn’t made the concept the slightest bit more appealing.

 

Will Terrell by Will Terrell

This past weekend’s “Texas Country Reporter” segment on the Lubbock Sketch Club seems like a good time to present this short interview I did with the Sketch Club’s head honcho, Will Terrell.

Could you tell us something about yourself? Background, history, age, biography, etc…

I did not grow up in West Texas, in fact I moved around a whole lot before I ended up here. From Austin to Dallas to Denver to Houston and so on. Nine times in all. I moved to Lubbock my Senior year of High school and graduated in 1995 from Lubbock High.

I decided I wanted to make comic books for a living after graduation, mostly because I couldn’t really picture myself doing anything else. I’ve pretty much always been a storyteller. Even as a little kid I would make up invisible worlds wherever I was. Moving around so much, your imagination is pretty much all you have. I’d lay in bed, or in a field somewhere, and make up stories involving every person I knew going on some strange adventure or another with me. In retrospect, it was only natural for me to do that for the rest of my life.

How did the Sketch Club come about?

The Sketch Club came about from my experiences living in San Diego. I worked as a caricature artist out there at Seaworld and Legoland California. While there, I worked with hundreds of other professional artists — cartoonists, caricature artists, comic book artists, and so on. This environment, combined with the knowledge I attained studying at the Watts Atelier of the Arts, allowed me to learn more in a six month period than I’d learned in 10 years in West Texas. It was the entire culture of learning as a group and constantly challenging each other that inspired me to start the Sketch Club when I returned to Lubbock.

I don’t believe that Lubbock has any less talent than other cities, the problem is that there aren’t enough resources or opportunities to do something with it. In this I saw an opportunity for the Sketch Club. I’d been trying to start some sort of comic book artists group in Lubbock since the very beginning. I’ve tried lots of different ways of doing that. From publishing companies, to artist studios, to teaching classes and workshops. None of those seemed to work though. I can honestly say though, that the Lubbock Sketch Club is already enormously successful at what I intended it for. And it is only getting better and better.

Things look to be moving forward very quickly for y’all, especially with the new space at Asbury. Please tell us a little about the new space and all it entails? How quickly is the Sketch Club growing?

The Hope Shalom Community has provided a space for the Sketch Club to give hands-on art education to the community. We are very grateful for this opportunity. Our attitude is to be interactive with teaching and learning. To make the process fun and easy, and teaching people to teach themselves. This is why you’ll see us at local events covering 4 or 5 tables with artists of all ages drawing and having fun.

The new spaces at the Asbury United Methodist Church allow us to do several things. We’ve started with a weekly figure drawing/painting group and that has been very successful so far. It’s training that is available to anyone, that might otherwise be very hard to come by outside of a university (sometimes even INside of a university). In the spring we will begin the next phase of the Sketch Club by hosting monthly workshops on illustration, digital painting, cartooning, etc., as well as a weekly after-school program. We’re very excited about that.

The sketchclub seems to be growing at a steady pace. We just passed our first birthday in October, and we had 35 people show up to our weekly Freebirds Saturday Sketch Night. The numbers tend to fluctuate each week, but we average 20-30. And we’re constantly getting new people along with our regulars cycling through depending on their schedules. Our figure drawing group averages 6-10 people every Wednesday night, and we intend to grow that into multiple nights.

What do you have planned for the Sketch Club’s future?

In the immediate future, we are planning to publish our 3rd issue of the Sketch Club Sketchbook in January. Along with our first comic book anthology. We are also putting together our first comic book CONVENTION in conjunction with the Science Spectrum and Star Books and Comics scheduled for Saturday, May 3rd, 2008 (Free Comic Book Day!).

In the near future, we would like to do a lot more public events where we have tables set up where the general public is invited to sit and sketch with us. We did 4 this year. My favorite was the Lubbock Arts Festival, where we had over 400 people sit down to draw with us, and we did cartooning for kids workshops for more than 3,000 kids. I’d also like to start taking that into the local school systems.

In the long term, we intend to incorporate the Sketch Club and file as a non-profit art organization. And focus a lot of our energy into training artists to teach and putting them in after-school programs around the city. With an emphasis on teaching young artists to make a career out of their art, and providing the resources and opportunities for them to do that… while enjoying the process.

Is there anything else I should have asked you but forgot to?

There is no fee to join the Sketch Club. Just show up and participate! We meet every Saturday night from 7-10 p.m. at Freebirds world burrito, 4930 S. Loop 289. Also visit our website for more information: www.elsketchoclubo.com

 

Marvel Atlas #1

This was the coolest comic I got last week. This one caught my eye on the shelf because I thought it was related to Marvel’s wonderful “Agents of Atlas” series, but what I found instead was still pretty sweet. You know those “Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe” books that Marvel has been printing since forever? The ones that spotlight a dizzying array of Marvel characters, list their biographies, adventures, background information, and so much more? Well, this does the same thing, but for entire countries.

Some of these entries are even moderately factual. Up to a certain point, the printed histories of Germany, France, Russia, and Japan conform entirely to what’s in our own history textbooks. Of course, these are Germany, France, Russia, and Japan in the Marvel Universe, so at some point, the Baron von Struckers and Doctor Dooms and Captain Britains start making their appearances.

And then there are the entirely fictional countries, like Lemuria, Sin-Cong, Morvania, Monster Island, and of course, Latveria. Among the cool details you get are the flags of Latveria (features Dr. Doom’s iron gauntlet), Monster Island (It actually has claw marks on it. I wonder if Godzilla actually designed it.), and Rumekistan (my favorite flag in the book — it includes a shield with a DNA helix on it); the short, tragic history of the fully depopulated European nation of Slorenia; and, of course, a great deal more. There is a lot of text here, and a lot of cool details about Marvel’s version of the world.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This issue dealt solely with Europe, Asia, and Australia. The next issue will focus on North and South America and Africa. You should pick up both of them.