Linko! XLVI

* So Kevin joined the blog this week...or is joining I guess (post some shit, bro!). While Ben's introduction was lovely as usual, I thought I'd point out that K-Smooth has been a busy bee of late elsewhere including Marvel.com where he took over my old Tuesday Q&A gig and at CBR. To help acclimate you to the finer points of his style, here are three links from each site that you might want to check out:

On the Marvel side, we've got a really nice Jonathan Hickman Q&A about S.H.I.E.L.D. (by the by, it feels like I've been waiting forever for issue #2), a sufficiently goofy Q&A where Dan Slott dodges Kevin's most ardent attempts to pry info on Amazing Spider-Man #600 (it was Aunt May that got hitched!) and one of a series of profiles of the upcoming Young Allies team with Sean McKeever, this one on Firestar (who I always liked as a kid).

On the CBR side, don't miss Matt Sturges on JSA All-Stars, an engaging report on the C2E2 panel that for some reason paired Mark Waid with Jeff Smith and a Francis Manapul Flash interview that you'd never be able to tell was conducted by Kevin last minute on my couch with me standing over him going "Oh, and ask him about Geoff Johns' big plans" in crappy fake sign language.

* And this isn't a link, but with Kevin joining, it's really apparent that I'm the only dude on the blog who's not looking like a total goof in his photo on purpose. Best comment suggestion for what my photo should be instead wins one back issue I find in my apartment, free shipping included.

* The one link you should all TOTALLY click on this week: apparently some Sirius radio show did a tribute to Alex Chilton this week featuring the insanely satisfying Sondre Lerche and perhaps my favorite power pop frontman of the past 20 years, John Davis of Superdrag. It replays on the Sirius site Sunday evening and Monday evening. I know I'll be listening.

* It's Memorial Day this weekend. Fortunately for me at least, I don't have any close relatives who had to give their lives for this country, but I do have two vets that are very close to me: my brother and my grandfather. The former is blogging about the latter at One Pilot's War. It's mostly a transcription of grandpa's love letters to grandma during WW2 with some other info thrown in.

* Speaking of my family, I spent last weekend checking out Robots Need Love Too, a robot-themed art show featuring my homeboy for life Tony Purcell. I'm going to try and get some photos loaded up from that in the next few days, but in the meantime you should not hesitate to bookmark Tony's new art blog where he'll be posting works like the full pitbull painting you see at the right.

* OK, back to comic book nerd shit. All praise to Tom Spurgeon for pointing me in the direction of this post on forgotten Captain Marvel ripoffs both because it was awesome and because it introduced me to Charlton Vs. MLJ, which is a blog about exactly what it sounds like which for me is total nerd porn.

* Speaking of MLJ/Might Crusaders posts pointed out by Spurge, this post highlighting the original appearance of the Fox made me laugh out loud for real. I'd show you, but I don't want to take hits from Booksteve, so click through, huh?

* This bummed me out for some reason I can't explain because it's not like I ever watched him on TV, you know?

* Comic book homework Link: Reading the first issue of Secret Avengers this week, I realized I had no idea what the Serpent Crown actually was. Thanks, Wikipedia!

* Bryan Lee O'Malley Tweeted this pretty complete list of Scott Pilgrim video game references. It's thorough, for sure.

* Finally, Jim McCann introduced me to "Premakes" which I'm sure are pretty fun across the board, but the following "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Ghost Busters" ones stood out in particular: