* Martin Wisse judges the entire era of EC Comics from some reprints he bought remaindered (link via Tom Spurgeon). My thought is that yes, the writing in most of the EC horror and SF stories was rote hackwork, but Kurtzman's Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat, as well as Krigstein's "Master Race" are without question among the best comics ever created, words and pictures both. Not only are they not, as Wisse asserts, examples of comics where "the story doesn't matter," but rather, they represent absolute perfection in their melding of image with text, something Kurtzman and Krigstein (geniuses both) were obsessed with. I don't care if I never read a Jack Kamen cuckolded husband story again, but the thought of not being able to pull out Master Race or a Kurtzman war comic from time to time, to remind myself how good comics can be, fills me with despair. Krigstein and Kurtzman alone make EC a line worth the respect and awe it generates in informed comics readers. I'm sure a similar argument could be made by an aficionado of Mad, or even the SF or horror books, but I'm too much of an elitist snob to go there. I wouldn't be surprised to see someone else challenge Wisse's rather undercooked assertions, though.
* Last night on Trouble With Comics, I posted an essay on Seven Funnybooks That Changed How I Saw Comics. On Twitter I offered a prize to anyone who could guess what my favourite quote from a comic book was, but only one person took a guess and he was wrong. It's in the post.
* Why Bob Temuka thinks Love and Rockets #28 is the perfect comic book.
* Alan Moore's Unearthed (coming from Top Shelf Productions) is certainly something to look forward to, no matter what format you decide to buy it in.
* Uncomics: Roger Green takes ABC News to school. The diseases of Star Trek (Before Watchmen gave me #7; I hear eating Chik-Fil-A causes #3). Save yourself some money. And, uh, Vertigo is not better than Citizen Kane. No movie is better than Citizen Kane.
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