Huzzah, comrades! I’m here at the 38th annual San Diego Comic Convention, the smelliest largest comic book and popular arts convention in the entire world. ‘Tis a strange and wondrous place, brimming over with fascinating media, enthusiastic people, stimulating conversation, and entertaining outbursts from shut-ins with socially crippling personality disorders. Over the next few days, I’ll be sending you postcards from the proverbial edge. To start things off, here’s some free product placement for the new iPhone:

The volume was already tattered by the time it made its way to me, passed almost reverently between the awkward 8th graders who usually spent most of their ride on the packed schoolbus (“Cattlecar 47” we named it, after students started sitting on the floor) staring out the window.

The book was Tears of an Angel, the second volume of Battle Angel Alita, Viz graphics’ translation of Yukito Kishiro’s Gunnm.

This was 1996 and in our part of the world, at least, manga was all but unknown. Inside we found a world like nothing we’d seen. An oppressive city hung in the sky over a massive scrapyard where no birds (or anything else) could fly. Bodies were replaced constantly with rugged, mad machinery. Blood flowed like water. In the midst of it all, the characters tried, desperately, to carve out their own peace. We were enraptured.

Not all youthful inspirations stand the test of time. But re-reading “Alita” recently, with a James Cameron-directed (urgh) movie on the way, I was pleased to find that it did. Even today, few visions of a mechanistic dystopia are as relentless, ballsy and downright heartbreaking as this.

From the great folks at Slave Labor Graphics comes the Map of Humanity. The brainchild of comics creator and artist James Turner, this wonderful piece just recently arrived in my mailbox and is proving to be all a good carto-fetishist could ever desire.

It’s all here: real cities rub shoulders with fantastic ones lumped in countries such as Beauty, Love, Realism, Hate, Abomination or Fool’s Paradise. If you want to pore over it in detail (warning: you will miss appointments, work and the outside world), do so here. On this map Chicago dwells in the lands of both Depravity and Industry, Dr. Doom’s Latveria borders Riyadh and Utopia is the waypoint between the continents of Wisdom and Reason.

There are a wealth of connections, allusions and little jokes strewn throughout, all – as the best things should – rewarding multiple ponderings. It’s also on ridiculously glorious-feeling super-paper too, for those out there that have that kind of fetish (such as certain editors of this publication who shall remain nameless).

Strange Maps: A completely unrelated site, save that it’s also addictive for cartofetishists

Rory Root in his element, SD Comic Con 2004. Photo from geekspeak.org.

Devastating news for the comics community: Rory Root is gone. The driving force behind Comic Relief died earlier today following complications from a hernia operation. Rory’s “comic bookstore” in Berkeley, CA is arguably the most important sequential arts hub in the country, housing a gasp-inducing variety of zines, art books, manga, indie magazines, self-published strips, trade paperbacks, and underground comix in addition to more mainstream fare.

Rory was a tireless promoter of all things weird and wonderful. His pure, unclouded love for the medium proved highly contagious. Ask anyone who ever spoke to him for more than five minutes and they’ll likely tell you Rory was the most kind and giving businessman they’ve ever met. The man’s knowledge was vast and he had an uncanny ability to read people. Once he’d sussed you out, he could almost always intuit what undiscovered title you’d most enjoy. He was known to give free books to newbies at his store. “Just bring it back if you don’t like it.” With that enthusiasm and generosity, he won untold legions of longterm customers.

The Comic Relief bookstore in Berkeley, CA. Photo by Allan Ferguson.

He championed underdogs, queers and iconoclasts in his store and on the web, went out of his way to support artists and writers he believed in, acted as a kind of Yenta for kindred spirits in the biz, and campaigned fiercely to get graphic novels into public libraries. In 1993, San Diego Con-goers were delighted to see Rory and his store receive the very first Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award. No one, no one deserved that honor more than he did. Quoting Carl Horn over on Warren’s post of Rory’s passing: “There’s no reason a comics store can’t be a successful part of the community and a progressive cultural force–I saw it work with Comic Relief.”

Encountering Rory in his element at Con or in his shop always put a smile on my face. Although I only knew him in that context, I’m having trouble keeping it together, so I can’t imagine what his loved one are feeling right now. My condolences to his friends and family.

I’m sure they’re a bit overwhelmed over there at the moment, but I can’t think of a better way to honor Rory’s passing than to browse Comic Relief online or in person at some point in the near future. There is so much obscure beauty in that store that spoke to Rory Root, and through him. Pick up something you’ve never heard of before that speaks to you.

EDIT (5/20/08): Comic Relief just updated their site: “If you would like to make a contribution to the cause that Rory kept very close to his heart, you can make a donation to The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) in his name.”

Yeah, okay, I know. Everyone and their granny has already blogged about this, but I just gotta chime in to quickly say that Garfield Minus Garfield is the most unexpected laff riot this side of Cthulhu Family Circus. Some sage old fart once said something along the lines of “the greatest truths are the simplest, so likewise are the greatest men” and that tenet definitely applies here:

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and methamphetamine addiction in a quiet American suburb.

It’s a shame that any attempt to make a Garfield Minus Garfield day-to-day calendar would be cockblocked by copyright litigation. Hey, I freakin’ loathe day calendars. They’re pointless, inane, a waste of trees. But seriously, I’d consider running out and getting some soul-destroying cubicle day job just to have an excuse to purchase and read the paper version of Garfield Minus Garfield every gosh darn day. Suck it, Dilbert!

(Via Circle the Globe, thanks.)

Left: the original Lil Soap by Jess Fink. Right: the Hot Topic rip-off.

Jess Fink, troche an illustrator and creator of dirty comics published by Fantagraphics, created the shirt design on the left, dubbed Lil Soap, and sold it through her Threadless.com shop. Hot Topic distributed the shirt on the right soon after. Jess wrote to the company that made the eerily-similar shirt for Hot Topic, and the presidents of the company (which is named New Breed Girl) responded with the following:

“It is my poiicy (sic) to encourage freelancers to use the free Getty photo images as reference points & we also use sketches from the Japanese free clip art books, which have inanimate objects with cute faces & legs etc. which are also very similar to the soap.”

Hmmm. Jess plans to take up the matter in court. In the meantime, friends have banded together to show their support by making parody images which include some hot soap-on-soap slash. It was way too early in the morning for me to behold this Harry Potter image (NWS?).

Friends of Jess have shown their solidarity by making images such as this.

• Original Shirt on Threadless
• Hot Topic Ripoff
• Gallery of Parody Images

It would appear that the writer Douglas Wolk has only a single brain, of normal size, in his shaggy head. However, I remain unconvinced that he’s not storing another one (massive, turgid, jigglingly all-knowing) in some top secret subterranean storage facility which he accesses remotely. There’s just no other explanation for the bottomless depths of his knowledge on certain subjects, namely comics, pop music, fringe culture and vegetarian cuisine.

His latest book, Reading Comics, is a must-read for veterans and newbies alike, and there’s a fantastic interview with Wolk by Tom Spurgeon up over at the Comics Reporter right now. If you’re in the bay area, Wolk will be in town this coming Saturday, Feb. 23, for WonderCon, giving a talk called “The Senses-Shattering Return of the Novel of Ideas!” at the Comic Arts Conference. Not to be missed.

23 years ago, twelve strange children were born in England at exactly the same moment. 6 years ago the world ended. This is the story of what happened next.

Thus kicks off Freakangels – comrade Warren Ellis’ new webcomic. Wonderfully illustrated by Paul Duffield, this much-anticipated creation reared its rusty, dusty post-apocalyptic head today and I couldn’t be more pleased. The teaser art looked promising and I’m happy to see the style, color and detail carried over into the actual comic.

The imperfect heroine, her tiny steam-chopper, and an eerily silent London are introduced in cold muted colors of early morning light. It’s satisfying to see the steampunk aesthetic carried over into a future rather than past, and I’m digging the plot, as well. Not to mention – telepathy! Well done, gentelmen.

Hey guys, I’m back from my super-secret Coilhouse mission to Belgrade/Ljubljana. I can’t tell you what I did there; I’ll only mention that it has something vaguely to do with stags and light beer. You will love it!

My jet-lagged brains really got a good rattle when I read Abstraction by Shintaro Kago, sent to us by Lucylle. Not safe for work! Don’t click it, mom! Lucylle describes Abstraction as “a short story in manga style, featuring an extremely creative approach to panel division/story continuity.”

I didn’t think I’d like it at first – the first few panels seemed so flat, so sparse, so lifeless. I thought, “this is why I think most manga is so boring.” But before I could finish thinking that sentence, my eye scrolled down to the page and something happened. The panels got weirder and weirder, and began to take a shape of their own. I felt like I’d been sucked into some sort of bizarre, claustrophobic fishbowl of dysmorphia, sex, awkwardness and pain, and most unsettling thing I felt as I kept on reading this was horror at how many of the completely anatomically-impossible, disjointed panels gave me an “oh shit, been there” kind of feeling. Ah, young love.

You’ve probably heard of Molly Crabapple – this statuesque damsel is a muse, cheeky illustrator, and mastermind behind the Doctor Sketchy’s cabaret life drawing phenomenon. After conquering audiences with her wit, drive and various artistic endeavors in addition to her Rainy Day Coloring book, Miss Molly has spawned another creation! A brave mercenary ever-expanding her field of practice, she’s ventured into the webcomics realm with author and co-conspirator John Leavitt. Behold, Backstage – the adventures of gossip-mongers/failed vaudevillians, Johnny Panama And Elizabeth Delancy. As reporters for the yellow tabloid “Backstage” Johnny and Elizabeth report on Anarchist dance hall numbers, debauched uptown parties, and where to find the cheapest liquor in town..I’m looking forward to watching the story unfold on Act-i-vate, especially since it’s promised to “romp through sex, drugs, and murder”. With Molly’s drawing style and filthy humor on board, it’s sure to be fantastic. Let the seedy fun begin!