Linko! LVIII

* First of all, congratulations to my pal and former classmate Will McIntosh for winning a 2010 Hugo Award for Best Short Story. You can check out Will's winning story "Bridesicle" right here, and all the winners here including some comics folk like Shaun Tan! For more of Will's stuff, you should check out the new October/November issue of Asimov's for his killer short "Frankenstein, Frankenstein."


* And hey, while I was at the bookstore picking up Asimov's this week, I stumbled upon Giant Robot #66 (it says July, so maybe it's not the most recent issue?). Anyway, if you see this you should check it out for the cover feature on Bryan Lee O'Malley alone. GR publisher/head writer Eric Nakamura conducts the interview, and while he's not super familiar with the ins and outs of the comics business or the history of Scott Pilgrim in specific, his straightforward line of questioning covers a TON of ground. Anyone who's a fan of O'Malley would get a lot out of it.

* This essay by Libertarian Party co-founder David Nolan about then-contemporary Marvel Comics as a metaphor for conservative ideals unearthed by the Comics Comics crew is a nice piece of history, but my favorite part was the Dick Ayers drawing of the Commie Ape.

* Links for My Older Brother: So Roger Ebert is convinced that Joaquin Phoenix's "I'm Still Here" documentary is 100% real and 100% disturbing. Meanwhile, the New York Times' Manohla Dargis is sure that this is all a put-on by Phoenix and director Casey Affleck to send up celebrity culture. So...mission accomplished there, right?

* This was fun: shoe-maker Palladium Boots has taken to promoting their product by encouraging wearers to explore the burnt out husk of Detroit.


* I tells ya, I like Jeff Parker's writing an awful lot, but I wasn't sure I was down to pick up his run on Thunderbolts mostly because "the adventures of reformed C-list Marvel villains" never held much attraction for me. But I'll be damned if the artists Parker and his editors have been lining up haven't been making me want to rethink my position. After enjoying what I've seen of Kev Walker's loose, expressive cartooning on the book to date, incoming fill-in artist Declan Shavley is just KILLING it. See his Crossbones sketch above, and check out more of his work and how to win sketches such as that on his blog.

* Worth a browse: Paul Gravett on a Hypercomics exhibit he just curated. I've got a post in me somewhere about an old-school Gravett presentation of a formerly fringe piece of comics to Western audiences, and seeing posts like this are good fuel to get me off my ass and writing. (Via)

* MUST READ: Heartbreakingly strange story of the suicide by fire of sci-fi writer F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre. The video is pretty intense as well.

* Let's wrap this week with a trio of fun music links: first up, an interview with my alt country man crush Cory Branan!

* Second: everyone's been telling me to listen to this Das Racist stuff, and thanks to this link I now can. (Via)

* Finally, my buddies in Wally Dogger made a video for their song "You Only Like Me When I'm Leaving" on the road a week back. I love it if only for the faces Swerve makes during the guitar solo and at the end, but the song is really great as well. See more on their YouTube Channel: