Jim Steranko

[Image via Whiz Bang Pow]

Check out these pictures by Andre Francois over at The Republic of Less.

I always got extra excited when I saw Batgirl cruise across the screen during the opening credits to Batman.

Yvonne Craig: Hooba Hooba.

[Featured Image via 1979 Semi-Finalist]

Thor by Jack Kirby.

Via the great Tumblr site, Comic Book Artwork.

Over at The Atlantic, check out this commentary about the difference between comic books and comic book movies from Jonathan Lethem (something I’ve been thinking about with the Tintin movie coming out soon):

The movies insist on transforming a form into another form, and yet the results fall into a hideous void between them. The mystery of the evocativeness of a comic book panel, the stillness-in-action, and the secret silence of the gutter between the two panels, is something that’s just fundamentally inaccessible to film.

The nearest I’ve ever seen to someone really reaching for that was that really aggressive and sort of horrible Frank Miller movie, Sin City. Which was still compelling because they seemed to be aware of the problem, and were trying to seize control of it. But it’s a little bit like, playing rock and roll on a harp or something. Movies are actually a very, very poor fit for the comic aesthetic.

The entrancement of film is that the reading protocols are invisible. You give yourself to a film, ideally, in a gigantic darkened auditorium: and it washes over you. It makes its own reality inevitable. And you don’t have to ever think about your efforts in reading or constructing it. You can’t slow or speed up that experience (I mean, now technically you can, but you don’t want to, you want to succumb). It masters you totally.

The seduction of a comic is secretly the exact opposite. People don’t think about it, but you learn to read a comic book. It’s a very complicated reading protocol. A very active one. It’s like you’re in a damp world and you have to keep striking matches to light it up. You’re constantly working to decide—do I read the words in the panel, do I read the word in the box at the top, do I look at the picture, do I skip ahead and look at where the pictures are going to go later on, do I do it fast, do I do it slow, do I read every word, do I mainly see it? What am I doing here? You’re always deciding how to make the narrative come alive. It’s actually a much more complicated form of reading than reading text! Because you’re making these switches from the visual to the verbal. So one is a completely globally active reading protocol, and the other is this sublime, passive dreamlike surrender. And I don’t think you can ever get from one to the other. They’re almost opposite ends of the aesthetic experience.

Tintin is coming…

The Adventures of Tintin from James Curran on Vimeo.

Picture by Jason Levesque

Herge (encore une fois)

The most incredible Gary Larson.

By Andres Franquin.

This picture is from a Gaston Lafaffe comic strip. Gaston was like the Dude from “The Big Lebowski,” a professional goldbricker. He was an early hero of mine. Here, Gaston’s co-workers find him in a cave of paperwork. When I was little I used to think this was the ideal fantasy–safe, content, and protected from the world.

[Picture via Under Consideration]

Hugo Pratt.

Al Hirschfeld and his daughter, Nina.

“Enter Sandman,” drawn special for Bronx Banter by Ben DeRosa. Bow Down.

For the comic book heads out there…

…check out 1979semifinalist.

It’s a really good blog.

Boo.

Rod Serling by Al Hirschfeld

Herge

Check out this wonderfulness from Dominic Philibert.

The Batman and Robin by Frank Miller.

…like that rally that wasn’t there?

At least not on Friday night at the Stadium. Down 3-2 the Yanks had the bases loaded in the fifth–on a gift, really, as a near triple play for the Jays turned into bases juiced nobody out–Mark Teixeira popped out to short and then Alex Rodriguez grounded into a 6-4-3 double play. In the eighth, Yanks down 5-3, they had the bases full again, but Derek Jeter whiffed–on a pitch out of the strike zone–and Nick Swisher tapped a harmless ground ball to first.

Freddy Garcia labored through five and David Robertson had a tough inning in the sixth; he gave up two runs and made a critical error. Robinson Cano hit two line drive home runs, absolute seeds, like pow!

But the Yanks couldn’t get a rally going and lost 5-3.

Nertz.