The Gosh! Authority 02/12/09

Cold December hellos to you!

One of our favourites this week is Walt Disney’s Peter Pan HC as illustrated by the brilliant Mary Blair. Blair worked at Disney for over 34 years defining the look of what are now classic films like Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella. Her illustrations for those are already out in a hardcover picture book and we’ve got ‘em on the shelf in the shop if you missed them before. Unlike other artists whose work was transferred faithfully to the screen Blair’s served more as an inspiration than a final design. You can see what I mean in this Flickr set. It’s a great looking children’s book rather than a film making-of thing and it’s very nice indeed.

Another one that arrived earlier is Bob Dylan Revisited HC, a collection of thirteen graphic interpretations of Bob Dylan’s songs. Loads of artists pop up in here either interpreting his lyrics or illustrating them as they come. Dave McKean does Desolation Row and it’s weird, full-colour (as they all are) and very McKeany, and Lorenzo Mattotti does A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.

For the first time in fifteen years you can bag yourself some brand new Beanworld. Larry Marder’s Beanworld HC Volume 3: Remember Here When You Are There! completes the Springtime stories in which Beanworld harmony is interrupted. Marder’s been keeping a blog of late and if you head over there you’ll see a page of his convention sketchbook scribbled on by Neil Gaiman who was told to draw something bean-related (enter Sandbean). Anyway, the new book’s here, undoubtedly peculiar and probably very funny. March doubletime to the preview, chow sol’jers!

On the subject of peculiar, read Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary. Art Spiegelman said he would never have done the autobiographical, Pulitzer prize-winning Maus had Justin Green not done it first. In 1972 Green wrote and illustrated Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary – the first long autobiographical work in underground comics – in which Binky Brown (Green’s alter ego) struggles with Catholic guilt, his then undiagnosed OCD and the crippling fear that rays of energy emanating from his nether regions will strike a picture of the Virgin Mary. It’s a classic of sorts and it goes without saying that Robert Crumb’s a fan. The original comic’s long out of print and for the last decade or so it has only been available as part of the Binky Brown Sampler from Last Gasp. Grab an oversized hardcover copy this week courtesy of McSweeney’s.

One Model Nation is a graphic novel written by actor/musician Donovan Leitch and Courtney Taylor-Taylor (or C. Allbritton Taylor as the cover would have it) of the Dandy Warhols about a made up band a bit like Kraftwerk. In this alternate version of late 70s Berlin One Model Nation kick started the revolution before mysteriously disappearing a few months later. There’s a long interview with Leitch over here where he explains it much better than I did along with a few preview pages illustrated by Jim Rugg (Street Angel).

In a rare occurrence this week we’ll have a DVD on our new release shelves:


Drawing Between the Lines is a short documentary about Jeffrey Brown and his candid approach to storytelling. It’s only 20 minutes long but there’s 55 minutes of bonus material (whatever that may be) to make it seem like a proper DVD. What’d Brown think about it all? “It was weird. I mean, it’s weird enough reading about myself, but watching myself talk about myself drawing stories about myself is even weirder.” More of that here.

If you’ve been collecting the latest Popeye collections you’ll be hauling another big one home this week. Popeye HC Volume 4 Plunder Island collects the epic Sunday-continuity story that ran for a full eight months, featuring the horrible Sea Hag and her sidekick the Goon. As with the previous volumes it’s all reproduced in lovely full colour. Fantagraphics have provided you with a 15-page PDF preview but it’s a sizable 7MB so mind how you go.

Pope Hats #1 is a handsome looking debut from Ethan Riley and the most impressive debut in years according to Seth (It’s a Good Life if You Don’t Weaken). It’s one of those where young people sit around talking about nothing and everything and this reviewer reckons there’s plenty of room for another comic about whining, aimless youth.

In the other kind of comics this week you’ll see two new Blackest Night miniseries kick off with Blackest Night The Flash #1 (of 3) by Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins (preview here) and Blackest Night Wonder Woman #1 (of 3) by Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott (preview). The Fall of the Hulks begins with Fall of the Hulks: Alpha, a one-shot by Jeff Parker (Agents of Atlas) and Paul Pelletier (War of Kings). Here’s yer checklist – you can cross the first one off.

This week you’ll also get the first Dark Avengers Annual by Brian Michael Bendis who says all sorts of things about it over at CbR. It’s illustrated by Chris Bachalo and you can see preview pages here. Bendis’ Siege: The Cabal One-Shot is out too, setting the stage for next month’s big Siege event. Don’t miss it if you’re planning on following that one.

Also on the racks is an Empowered One-Shot by Adam Warren that you might fancy. He talked about the series with CbR back in June but the only mention this one-shot got was a small maybe because it hadn’t happened yet. I’ll send you that way anyway as a recap or something but it’s probably old news to most of you.

Gosh! Favourite Darwyn Cooke illustrates the 50th issue of Jonah Hex – a double-sized anniversary extravaganza. He talks about it at his almost-blog here and from the preview pages it looks like it’s going to be a good’un.

And finally, Jason Pearson illustrates the X-Force Annual (preview here) so if you’re a Body Bags fan you’ll be wanting it.

In other news, if you’d like to win an autographed copy of Michael Kupperman’s Tales Designed to Thrizzle then get yourself over to the website of Patrick Wensink, author of Sex Dungeon For Sale! He’s holding a colouring contest in celebration of the release of said book and you can pick from three images to scribble on. Jesus toast?

-- Hayley