Dan Sinker, he who is Punk Planet, sent out a mass email announcing the last issue of this seminal magazine, which eventually fell victim the ruthless powers-that-be (new postal mass-mailing regulations, anybody?) which seek to kill the independent voice.

Punk Planet was, in my book, one of the greatest magazines ever. It covered basically any and all categories of independent entertainment, from music and film to literature and comics. More importantly, PP was also a champion cultural journal which discussed the politics of the day in informed and impassioned essays, articles, and what have you. Kudos to Dan, and all of the folks involved, on a stellar run.

The good news is that PP will continue on as a web magazine, as well as publishing the occasional book.

Recent PP editor and long-time comics head Anne Elizabeth Moore will be floating around with the end of the print mag, taking a break doing not much of anything, and i for one can't wait to see what she has up her sleeve next!

• Nick Bertozzi is a cartoonist who for some reason doesn't get the props he deserves. One of the brightest talents working today, he's well-loved by industry insiders and critics alike, and i can only hope that with two high-profile books of his out right now, The Salon and The Handcuff King (about Harry Houdini), the general readership for fine comics catches up with the Joneses.

The Daily Cross Hatch has a three-part interview with Nick, the first two parts of which you can read here and here.

• Volume one of Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus line has arrived, and it is awesome!! There's a bit of a debate over at the Marvel Masterworks message boards, about the paper stock used. Normally, most of Marvel and DCs expensive (and luxurious) archival books are printed on high-end, acid-free offset paper. For the price paid for many of these (some topping a hundred bucks), this is not an unreasonable demand. For whatever reason though, DC chose to print these Fourth World books on what appears to be a high-grade newsprint. Yikes! That said, besides that we're looking at $50 for an almost 400-page, hard cover, full-color book, i can't imagine this looking any cooler. Kirby's shit simply sings on a newsprint printed page (which i'm almost certain he planned for at the time he was creating this stuff), what with his chunky art and patented Kirby Crackle.

The design on this book is stellar. (Although sadly, not credited.) Riffing on the school of big, splashy uber-design which Chip Kidd has made so popular (though by no means invented), i have to say, i'm in love with this. I read those crappy b&w editions of the Fourth World DC put out a few years ago, and while i loved the material, the presentation sucked. Plus, with this new reprint project, the stories (represented over four different titles) are being presented in the order of publication, exactly as they were rolling fresh out of the brilliant mind of King Kirby, arguably at the zenith of his powers.

Seriously, i haven't been this excited for a book since the Uncanny X-Men Omnibus. If you like super-hero comics, this is truly a "must-have" item.

• There's a lengthy new interview with David Yurkovich at Comix Fan, about his upcoming benefit book for veteran Marvel scribe Bill Mantlo.

•Â Slow new-comics-day today... only picked up two books, and they couldn't possibly be more different … oversized HC Ultimate Fantastic Four vol. 3 (over-the-top widescreen action fare) and manga masterpiece, Yotsuba&! vol. 4 (cute cute cute).

• I'm outta here.... off to New York City for MoCCA, followed by my first ever trip to Montreal. See you next week.

* And finally, a call to arms, from Comic Book Legal Defense Fun Executive Director, Charles Brownstein:

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund urgently needs your help. This August, the long-running case of Georgia v. Gordon Lee will finally go to trial, with court costs expected to hit $20,000.

For nearly three years the Fund has defended Georgia retailer Gordon Lee, seeing him through multiple arraignments and procedures, and racking up $80,000 in legal bills. The charges stem from a Halloween 2004 incident in which Lee handed out, among other free comics, an anthology featuring an excerpt from the critically acclaimed graphic novel The Salon. The segment depicted a historically accurate meeting between 20th Century art icons Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, the latter depicted in the nude. It was a harmless sequence, no more explicit than the nudity displayed in the award winning Watchmen. Yet because the title found its way into the hands of a minor, Floyd County prosecutors hit Lee with two felony counts and five misdemeanors. The Fund eventually knocked out most of the charges, but must now defeat the two remaining misdemeanor counts of Distribution of Harmful to Minors Material, each carrying a penalty of up to one year in prison and up to $1,000 in fines.

The case is slated to go to trial the week of August 13. We urgently need your support in order to wage the best defense possible against these remaining charges, and that means raising the $20,000 that the trial is expected to cost. Here's how you can help:

Make A Monetary Donation: Every dollar counts, so please visit the cbldf.org and make a tax-deductible contribution today. As a thank-you for making a donation of $30 or more, the Fund will give you a brand new t-shirt displaying the text of the First Amendment in the shape of an American flag. Show your commitment to free speech, and your support for this very important case.

Join The CBLDF: Now is the time to join or renew your membership in the Fund. Your member dollars provide the baseline of support that we need to perform our casework, and defend your right to buy whatever comics you wish. If you join now with a basic membership of $25 you will receive a CBLDF Member Card, featuring new Groo art by the one-and-only Sergio Aragones, as well as a subscription to our news publication Busted!, and special admission to CBLDF events across the country. If you join at a level of $100 or more, you will also receive one of the new First Amendment t-shirts.

Donate Original Art & Collectibles: With summer conventions upon us, the Fund needs original art, high-grade comics, and other collectible items to make the most of our summer auctions. Please e-mail cbldf1@gmail.com for more information about how to donate to our auctions, or with a description of your intended donation. If your donation is accepted for our summer auctions, you will receive a letter of acknowledgment and a 2007 membership. To ensure that your donation is received safely, please do not send physical items until accepted by the CBLDF.

With Gordon Lee's freedom in the balance, the CBLDF needs everyone who values Free Expression in comic books to do his or her part to support this very important case. Please visit www.cbldf.org and make your contribution today.

Donations

Membership

Alan David Doane posts a thoughtful 2-part essay on the state of the industry, and the state of comics shops over at the Comic Book Galaxy blog.

I must say that i echo Alan's thoughts here as if they were my own. The dismal failure of 90% of the comics shop owner/managers to provide comics to a wider audience is mind-boggling to me. I won't say retailing is easy, by any means, but neither is it a rocket science.

So many times i've visited stores in new cities, with nary an art-comic on their shelves, where the dork behind the counter says, "Well, they don't sell." Duh, dude!! If you don't have them, people can't buy them! I'm not talking about somewhere in the middle of Kansas, i'm talking about super liberal college campuses (like where i went to school in Eugene, OR), where alternative comics would thrive.

One time, i checked back on a store who had purchased some comics from me at our standard wholesale discount, to see if they needed a restock. Sure enough, the comics had sold, but when i asked if he'd like more, he mumbled, "Thank god those are gone," as if he'd finally rid his store of a flea-infested stray dog. He MADE MONEY on my comics, but acted as if i were putting him in a bind. What the fu*k!@?

And sadly, in as much i think Diamond runs a very tight, friendly, and professional ship, i'd also agree that they aren't doing much by way of educating the retail community, or providing tools to help stock for a broader audience. They too cater solely to the men-in-tights and event cross-overs crowd, for short term benefit at the expense of long-term health. (And let's not get started on Previews.) Like David, i wonder if (direct market) Diamond, and by extension Marvel and DC … in targeting and serving mainly aging fanboys … won't eventually feel the pinch of this short-sighted thinking, and see the number of in-store consumers, as well the number of direct-market comic shops continue to dwindle, even as graphic novel sections in the book trade swell, in response to the most diverse and hungry real-world audience as the industry has ever seen.

It's somewhat hard to believe, but having polled other indy publishers, we've come to the conclusion that "maybe" 250 comics shops in North America represent 90% of our direct market sales. There's possibly 3,500 comics shops (or some weak iteration thereof, in the form of a baseball card store here or a hobby & games store there), and it's difficult not to wonder, and dream "what if?" even half of these shops truly knew the scope of PROFITS to be made in the emerging market for non-spandex comics? What would happen? Are you high? Our bottom line would quintuple! Our books would break-even right out of the gate... gasp, we could afford to nurture our talent for what they really deserve, improve production values, attend more international comics festivals, .... ah, the list goes on.

(Dream on, Brett.)

• Here's one for the "formalist geeks" in comics... Tom Hart writes in a recent email:
"Having recently seen Lars von Trier's The Five Obstructions, I found myself excited and inspired by the challenges and compelling dialogue that develops between the two artists. So I have asked formalist and friend Matt Madden to challenge me with 5 similar obstructions for my daily Hutch Owen comic strip that runs in two papers, in New York City and Boston.

"Bear in mind I create one of these a day, and they have to be printed at about 6 inches across, but aside from that, I've asked Matt to force me to upend my own patterns.

"Matt offered the first 'obstruction' this weekend and I've probably already failed it, but it's been posted at the address below.

"You can track the entire project (it will probably last a full week more) here and then see it in print the following week in the newspaper or online.

"Feel free to watch me flail around desperately."

• Sequart releases the first book in their new line of reference books, from the Sequart Research & Literary Organization, called Grant Morrison: The Early Years.

From the press release:
Grant Morrison redefined comics in the late 1980s and early 1990s from his trailblazing creation of ZENITH, through his metatextual innovations on ANIMAL MAN, to his Dadaist super-heroics in DOOM PATROL. Along the way, he explored the Batman mythos with his multilayered masterpiece ARKHAM ASYLUM and the literary GOTHIC storyline.

According to the book's author, Timothy Callahan, "the book explores the unifying themes of Morrison's early work, providing a close analysis of stylistic and structural techniques..."

Grant Morrison: The Early Years examines five of Morrison's works in detail, using plain language to open up Morrison's sometimes difficult texts and expands the reader's appreciation of their significance, creating a study accessible to both Grant Morrison aficionados and those new to his work. An extended interview with Morrison on his early career rounds out the volume.

Brett says: Whoo hoo! I'll definitely be checking out this baby! I'm a huge fan.

• Here's what the Bush-licking Neo-Con think-tank guys have wanted all along.

• And yet another theme song for a Top Shelf book comes our way, along with an excellent interview with Jeffrey Brown, speaking about Incredible Change-Bots, courtesy of Pirooz Kalayeh.

Pirooz is the author of the graphic novels GOLDEN ASHTRAY and WHY DO MEN DO STUPID THINGS FOR ASS?. He makes music with THE SLIPSHOD SWINGERS. His blog is called SHIKOW. He lives in Seoul, South Korea.

• The art from James Kochalka's Little Paintings 2 show at Giant Robot SF is now up for sale online.

• Gene Ambaum and Bill Barnes do a fun online comic strip set in a public library, called Unshelved. They recently did this excellent strip about Owly as part of their Book Club, which promotes books within the actual strip! Thanks to Jim Demonakos for the tip.

• Here are some pics that Jeff (Tales From The Farm) Lemire took of the Top Shelf window-display at Forbidden Planet in New York.

As well a picture of his booth at the Windsor Art Show, and the 5' x 9' painting he did of some of the characters from Ghost Stories (the follow-up to Tales From The Farm, and the second book in the Essex County trilogy).

This is a great example of a cartoonist who understands the value and import of getting out there, and getting his work to the people. Like the old adage says, one fan at a time.

Finally, i finally found some time to read the new anthology Syncopated Vol. 3, edited by Brendan Burford, and i must say it's a delight. I've always been a sucker for well-told historical comics, and this book (Burford's stated goal is especially in providing first-person accounts) succeeds admirably. I actually enjoyed virtually every strip, but there were a few stand-outs. First, yet more from the brilliant mind of Nick Bertozzi. He's been doing more and more material like this, and i LOVE IT! (Nick, looking for a publisher to collect all of these?) Greg Cook turns in more elegant, understated and sublime cartooning. And youngster Jim Campbell provides my favorite strip in the book, with a rollicking story about a young Teddy Roosevelt.

I think i read that Brendan will be at MoCCA next weekend, so i'll have to pick up a copy of issue #2, which sports this gorgeous cover.

Reading Syncopated inspired me to dig up two bookmarks i had buried here on my desktop, essays that Tom Spurgeon had written, one about the death of King Features head-honcho Jay Kennedy, and the second about a wunderkid whom Kennedy had groomed to succeed him if and when the time came, named Brendan Bruford. Impressive. This young man seems to have a bright future ahead of him, and i wish him the best of luck.

Thanks to Tom for two fine essays.

Alex Robinson will be doing a short fantasy comic for us later this year, called Lower Regions. (You read it here first, folks.) If you've never had the opportunity to read Alex's fantasy stuff (like the strip "One Gold Coin," in his mini-comic Tales of Action and Adventure), then you are in for a real treat.

Here is Alex's rough of the cover for Lower Regions... sweet!!

• Comic Geek Speak did a swell multi-person podcast review of Blankets.

• Gregory Benton just returned from a trip with his lady to Italy. Here are some gorgeous sketchbook drawings. Thanks Greg!

Compiano

David

Firenze

Milan Airport

Minotaur

Minotaur 2

Piacenza

Roma

• I just found out Jeffrey Brown will be doing a signing at Giant Robot in New York, the night before MoCCA!! Nice.

Friday, June 22, 2007, 6:00 pm ”“ 9:00 pm

Giant Robot Gallery
437 East 9th Street
Between 1st Ave. & Ave. A, in the East Village
New York, New York 10009
(212) 674-GRNY (4769)

gmy.net

• The new Diamond Previews is out. Here's what i'll be picking up (in addition to my Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and Image books, too numerous to list).

P. 212: AdHouse Books' The Ride Home, by Joey Weiser. I've read this book, and i LOVE IT!! Order this book above all else! It won't disappoint.

P. 216: Alternative Comics' Miriam, by Rich Tommaso. I've been a fan of Rich's work for over a decade now, and i dig everything he does.

P. 230: Archaia's Inanna's Tears, written by Rob Vollmar, whose Bluesman i really enjoyed.

P. 239: Avatar has new issues of two new Warren Ellis series, Doktor Sleepless and Black Summer, and they both look AWESOME! Don't tell him i said this, but while i'm a "wait-for-the-trade" guy, that should not discourage you from picking these up, if you're a floppy reader.

P. 269: Derf (of Derf in the City) self-publishes My Friend Dahmer. I've read this too, and it's super. At only three bucks, it's soooo worth it.

P. 299: Fantagraphics releases two books i'm salivating for in Steven (Ribs!) Weissman's Mean, and a bitchin' looking Hank Ketcham cartoon art collection, Where's Dennis?

P. 324: Microcosm gets it right, and after years of fuckery, amazing ink-stud Nate Powell's work is FINALLY back in print, with one of the year's most important collections, Sounds of My Name. Sounds effectively compiles the entirety of Nate's Walkie-Talkie series and miscellaneous stories. In a just world, this will end up on next year's Eisner ballot for collected edition of previously published material. Nate's lush world is dazzling dreamy stuff.

P. 395: Rock star comics crit, Douglas Wolk gets his first book, Reading Comics and What They Mean. Also, Paul (The Man at the Crossroads) Gravett's FOURTH luxurious retrospective, Cult Fiction. These are certain to both be "must-have" tomes in the reference library for any of the comics cognoscenti.

P. 362: Our own book, Super Spy, by Matt Kindt. This book is really really really really good.

Matt's doing a special promotion if you pre-order his book by June 30!! Free ink & watercolor sketch!!

• Craig Yoe's third Arf masterpiece, Arf Forum, is out and again, i'm floored by this incredible deluxe magazine. This is a near-perfect effort, and somehow reminds me of Mazzuchelli's classic anthology Rubber Blanket. If you've never had the Arf Experience, well then get on it!

• Jim Mahfood released a small print-run mini at APE a few months ago, called Ask For Janice. In which he rolls out, documentary comics style, the story of the Beastie Boys / Dust Brothers masterpiece, Paul's Boutique. He follows up with annotations of every song on the record. Choice.

• Also debuting at APE and which i finally just read, Greg Means' Tugboat Press Papercutter #4. Featuring, Sarah Oleksyk, John Porcellino, Venessa Davis, and Nate Beaty, Greg kicks down with yet another might issue of my favorite ongoing anthology in all the land. Papercutter rules!

• I read the first two issues, absolutely adored them, and then decided to wait for the trade of Warren Ellis' fabulous detective series FELL. Wow! Image did a limited hardcover, and it's really impressive. The tpb looks beautiful as well. With art by Ben Templesmith at his finest, this is great shit, and i can't wait to dive in. Oh, and Warren's smashingly "widescreen" geekfest, Ultimate Galactus Trilogy came out in oversized hardcover from Marvel. I read these in trade form, and this collection is even bigger, with big action art, and big big ideas. Fun stuff.

• Was on a four-day holiday this last weekend in Bend, and i made time to visit what i believe to be their only real comics shop, Pegasus Books, owned and operated by Duncan McGeary. To be honest, for a small town comics shop, i wasn't holding my breath for anything spectacular. Oh how very wrong i was. This is a truly excellent comics shop, and one that actually competes with the best that Portland has to offer.

While it's a little cramped, the space is used wisely, and the layout couldn't be better. The first section you see when you walk in the door, is real-world genre art and reference books for Fantasy, Film-Noir, Crime Fiction, Sci-fi, etc. But what makes this section brilliant is how he segues these genres into the like-minded material available in comics. So the horror section becomes the horror comics section.

Also right there at the front of the shop is the kid's section. A no-brainer, i think, but i'm amazed at how many comics shops give kids (only the freaking FUTURE of the industry), short shrift.

I was really impressed, and showed my enthusiasm by dropping some serious dough there, picking up the following: the new issue of Wizard; a Marvel Adventures Avengers ashcan, written by rising start Jeff Parker; the out-of-print Thor: Vikings, by Garth Ennis (which i read while The Kid was napping, and LOVED it!!); also by Garth Ennis, the first tpb of Boys, with art by Darick Robertson; a totally impossible to find Spanish language collection in the Todo Max series, El Canto Del Gallo, by world class cartoonist (and super nice guy) Max; and finally, an art book called The Paperback Art of James Avanti.

The paperback artist field is one i'm relatively new to (having only recently "discovered" the incredible Robert McGinnis), and this book is outstanding. Commercial artists like Avanti and McGinnis should be as widely recognized as stalwarts like Rockwell, and maybe, with rich books like these, someday it may happen.

Anyway, if you find yourself in Bend, Oregon for a little R&R, yuo could do worse than to visit this fine store, at 105 Minnesota Avenue. Duncan also writes a fun blog.

• Hoops talk... if you don't like basketball, then move along.

Also while on holiday this last weekend with the wife and kid, and we went to visit some friends one evening. At one point i asked the husband if he minded if i popped on the tube so i could see a basketball score. (Game 5 in Detroit.) He said he was an ex-hoops lover, and not having seen any playoff action for a few years, said sure.

We found the right channel JUST IN TIME to see Lebron BLAST past defenders like they were standing still, with a mere :03 seconds left in regulation, and throw down a thunderous slam dunk, to tie the game. Damn, it was epic.

Then, over the course of TWO overtimes, i witnessed before my very eyes, a literal changing of the guard. Where the Cavs were hungry and aggressive, the Pistons looked tired and almost disinterested. What the heck happened to Tayshon Prince? Or Chauncy Billups? They certainly didn't act like they came to play at all.

The Cavs do indeed however have an excellent defensive philosophy, and after learning that coach Mike Brown worked under Spur's coach Gregg Poppovich, it all makes sense. The Finals will be a slow as molasses, grind-it-out defensive affair, to be sure.

It's interesting though. As great as The Spurs and the Cavs are defensively, i was struck more than anything while watching the Suns, the Jazz, and the Pistons all lose their respective series... i truly believe that as important as defense is to winning a championship, even more important is the WILL to win. And all three of these teams looked like deer in the headlights, as they were taken out of their comfort zone, and their will to win slowly ran dry, like a deflating basketball. Where were Leandro Barbosa, Shawn (The Matrix) Marion, and Boris Diaw in the Phoenix series. Or Andrei (AK-47) Kirilenko and Mehmet Okur in the Jazz series. (Props to rising star, point guard Deron Williams, for keeping his team even remotely close in any given game. His will to win was palpable... sadly, other rising star Carlos Boozer was wildly uneven in the series, and not as affective as they would have liked.)

Yes, great defense can slow down good players. But a WILL TO WIN allows GREAT players the ability to crush great defense. Just look at the Spurs' Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, and Manu Ginobli, the Holy Trinity of guys who want to win. They will NOT be stopped. Or LeBron... man, after his timid first two games, he came out reborn, a man on a mission, and nothing could stop him as he dismantled the dazed Pistons. Beautiful, man.

Meanwhile, back in Portland, Blazermania is starting to explode again to a fever pitch not felt since the days when we had not only great players, but stand-up, likable players too. In the early 90s, the nucleus was Clyde (The Glide) Drexler, Terry Portland, Jerome Kersey, and Buck Williams. They made two Finals appearances, but just couldn't make it over the hump. The home town STILL loved them all the same.

Then General Manager (Sith Lord) Bob Whitsitt came along, with total disregard for the character of the team's personnel, and thus began the long hard road to converting the Trailblazers into the Jailblazers. Can you say Isaiah (J.R.) Rider, Rod Strickland, Rasheed Wallace, Bonzi Wells, Rueben Patterson, Qyntal Woods, and Zach Randolph? Thugs all.

(That said, when he's behaving, i actually really appreciate 'Sheed's game quite a bit. Ditto Zach.)

Then you've got Damon Stoudamire, who while not a hardened criminal per se, was stupid enough to go through an airport security metal detector with skunky weed wrapped in TIN FOIL shoved into his pants!! Good god, what a dumb-ass!

Now along comes the miraculous first draft pick, and (presumably) Greg Oden, the greatest Big Man in a decade or more, plus some excellent, stand-up, youthful players like Brandon (Rookie of the Year) Roy and LeMarcus Aldridge, and things are looking up up up. Plus with the rumor mill spreading word that Zach Randolph is now nothing but trade-bait, perhaps for once (now that they could be legitimate contenders AND he's no longer their "number one"), he'll get off his ass, shed some of that "baby fat," learn to play defense, quit whining, and play with purpose. (It's a long-shot, but damn this kid has so much natural talent.) Hopefully the 'Zers will keep forward Ime Udoka (a real balls-to-the-wall hustler and stellar defender), guard Freddie Jones (a native Portlander and former high-flying Duck), and center Joel Przybilla (who is a great baller when he's healthy).

As for the rest, i couldn't care less who goes. Nothing personal, but i could totally live without underachiever Darius Miles, aging players like Raef LeFrentz and Jamaal Magloire (who i LOVED back when he played with Mashburn and Baron Davis back in Charlotte), or the much over-rated Martell Webster.

While Phoenix is still my favorite team, it sure would be nice to once again scream, "Go Blazers!"