What’s the good word, Lattaphiles? It’s been a busy time here, in Lattaland. I have not one, not three but TWO big projects that have been keepin’ me busy, but not to busy to stop and talk to you about comic books. Put on another pot of coffee, I might be at this for a while.

‘The Purple Smurfs‘

By Peyo

published by Papercutz $5.99 paperback

The Purple Smurfs? Okay, first things first. We must address the black elephant in the room. When this story first ran in it’s native Belgium, It was called ‘Les Schtroumpfs Noirs’, which literally means ‘the black smurf’. While I understand this might be considered offensive to our American sensitivity,  it was in no way, a race parable. Smurfs are raceless and genderless (They are never referred to as he’s OR she’s.) While I consider it a carnal sin to change this beautiful artwork even in the slightest, I still understand the change needed to be made to bring this never-before-in-English comic over to the states.  Kudos for the Editor-In-Chief to at least address this very issue in the back of the book.

^{(Compare and contrast)}

While I understand and appreciate the necessarily of the change to bring this excellent comic to a wider audience, I gotta ask, why purple? Why, it’s hardly a noticeable change from their typical sky blue hue. Plus, infected smurfs don’t look nearly as threatening in what is basically a Smurfs comic as imagined by George A. Romero.

In this truly horrific tale, a bug bite causes a smurf to become for lack of better description, a zombie. Of course this condition spreads through the village by bites to the tail(!)  By the climax,all our blue buddies are infected  including the beloved Papa Smurf. You heard right, true believers.

Despite the color change, and the somewhat wispy computer lettering, I am super happy Peyo’s masterpiece is  being affordability imported and I look forward to more.

‘Lemon Styles‘

By David King

Published by Sparkplug Comic Books $9.00 B&W with spot color

Now this is more like it! What a beautifully designed 10 x10 mini comic. Wait, if it’s big, is it still considered a mini? No time to pontificate that now, I gotta comic to review!  David’s comics are beautifully drawn and the scripts feel personal, and  bit non sequitur with the lush brushwork and rich detail. Without a formal set up and punch line, most of his strips feel like the middle of a conversation, the middle of a melancholy, conversation at that.  Not to make it sound like it’s not funny. Heavens no. This book is very funny. In fact, it’s the perfect summer reading in your therapist’s waiting room.  Y’really outdid yourself this time, David.

Also of note, David is one of my top tweeters. More important than being a good cartoonist is the ability to break my heart in 140 characters or less.

Uncle Scrooge Comics By Gemstone

Oh glory of all glory! Dollar General somehow got their greasy meathooks on copious amounts of these incredible and thick Uncle Scrooge comics from a few years back and they are blowing them out for only a dollar a piece! All the issues I got are chock full of great stories by the likes Of Carl Barks and Don Rosa. These books are certainly worth every cent.  If you have a Dollar General in the vicinity, and even if you don’t, I ‘d highly recommend you make the trek and load up on ducks. Buy some for your friends too, while you are at it. Eh, on second thought…

I must insist that you click on this to see it all big n’ stuff.

Remember that avatard I did for my good friend Erin? Well, guess what?  It’s been upgraded from an avatard on her computer screen to being on her leg forever and ever. As an artist, this is the greatest honor I have been bestowed.

Kudos to Nick Quinn for the tattoo work, It came out better than I could have dreamed and dreaming I did. Lots of  love goes to Erin AKA Metal Martha Stewart, AKA Annie Knuckles. Congratulations. You’re insane.

I assure you, the man on the phone isn’t talking about his feelings.

Oh, Uncle Walt, where did we go wrong? There was a time where men (Yes, ladies, MEN) put on a pressed shirt, slacks and hat to sit down to animate all day.  Those days have sadly passed, and now we have John Lassiter be-boping around in a Hawaiian shirt like he’s at a bloomin’ Luau.  At least Hawaiian shirts have collars, many animators wear superhero t-shirts to work.  T-Shirts. I am glad Walt didn’t live to see that.

As a self-proclaimed nostalgic, I find old pictures of animators in the halcyon days of Hollywood endlessly fascinating.  These manly men doing manly art  all come from my out-of-print masterpiece (thank YOU Goodwill) The Art Of Animation. Sure, the book is more or less just a promotional piece patting their own backs for the just-released Sleeping Beauty, but it gives a rare insight into the Disney studio as it stood in 1958. I hope you enjoy the pics, because  it’s a pain to scan old books.

See the guy who’s singing? That’s Pinto Colvig, Goofy’s voice!

Frank & Ollie seem to be working on an already finished cel.

The legendary ‘Nine Old Men‘ in the sweatbox from left: Ward Kimball, Frank Thomas, John Lounsbery; 2nd row Eric Larson, Marc Davis, Milt Kahl, Woolie Reitherman,

top row; Ollie Johnston and Les Clark.

Cartoonist used to smoke  while drawing. This guy couldn’t be bothered to hide his cigarette for a promotional pic.

A tastefully covered model.

Ward Kimball is my favorite. I cried when he passed.

Sorry, sweetheart. Animation is a man’s job. You can ink and color, though.

The future of animation? It doesn’t look good, Walt. Doesn’t look good.

Every time I bother to leave my squalid home to face the pockmarked landscape of abandoned mini malls that I call my neighborhood, people stop me on the streets to talk about how much they love my duck posts. “Never enough duck posts!” That’s what I always hear.  Good thing my enthusiasm  for cartoon ducks without pants knows no bounds.

Here’s a trippy little drugged-out tale by my favorite cartoonist ever, Carl Barks.  Huey, Dewey & Louie trick “Unca Donald” into thinking that he’d slept to the far-off futuristic year, 1990.  Yeah, it’s your typical Rip Van Winkle scenario, but the ether (used to “doctor his cheap gasoline”) freak-out really makes this never reprinted oddity a great read  around the ol’  lava lamp.

For whatever cosmic chance and reason, the first comic I ever bought with my own money was a random Donald Duck comic. It might have been due to the fact that  I was repelled by how different superheroes looked in comic books compared to their ‘Superfriends’ counterparts. Of course, I eventually got into superhero comics as an angry adolescent with sizable revenge fantasies, but that was years later. None of that stuff really stuck with me or had any discernible influence, but  Disney sure as heck did. Enough about me, though. Enjoy some of this weird and wacky Donald Duck n’ friends images from the artist’s personal collection.

Well, it seems like y’all really liked the Bill Watterson interview. In the spirit of bringing you more about people vastly more talented than myself, I bring you an interview with Matt Groening from 1986, a year before he created  The Simpsons. I know, I know. Matt Groening interviews are a dime a dozen, but it is pretty interesting to read about Matt only one year before he hit pay dirt.  This is a lengthy and informative interview, so pour yourself some coffee and dig in.

No,  this is not a dream, then is not a hoax, this is an actual-honest-to-God interview with the JD Salinger of the funny pages, Bill Watterson. Before Calvin & Hobbes creator swore off interviews for good, he gave a lengthy and informative interview for Honk Magazine. By all means, give it a read. It’s one of the very very few interviews with this genius out there. Okay, without further ado, here’s Bill Watterson’s 1986 interview…

Oh, hello! I didn’t see you there. I guess I was too busy reading comics to notice you coming to this blog. Y’ see, it’s hard for me to do much else but read funnies after getting back from Heroes Con.

Travelmates/bedbuddies Brad McGinty, J. Chris Campbell and I met up and made the trek up to North Carolina- Oh wait, is Charlotte in North Carolina? I’ll have to ask our Father-figure slash roomie and all out organizer-for-us, Rob Ullman, when I get a chance. At any rate, we made the trek up to the greatest comic convention in the world, Heroes Con.  What makes it so great, you ask? Some nerve! Well, I mean like, besides the fact I get to see my favorite people in comics and/or world, I get more comics than I can shake a limited edition light saber sword at. Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself.

We came rollin’ up in my ’97 Corolla on Friday morning and decided to bite the bullet and park in a 20 dollar parking lot. I mean, like, dudes. We hadda lot of crap to carry, and I doubt you’d mistake Brad, J.Chris and I as people from your gym. (Rob Ullman, maybe, but still.) As it turns out, we didn’t move my car for the weekend so we got to slip out on Sunday sans paying for parking. Looks like we won this round, Heroes. Haha!

Friday was a bit slow on sales for all of us, well, everyone I talked to, but honestly, I didn’t notice. I don’t even think I was behind the table all that much,leaving my good friend Shannon Smith to man the table we shared as I was making the rounds and seeing what’s new with all my comic buddies. “Not much” was the resounding consensus. Comic people are so modest. I was pleased and surprised to see so many of my Athens pals (Robert Newsome, Patrick Dean, Joey Weiser, David Mack and Drew Weing) also seated in Indie Island. No wonder this show feels more like home that my hometown show ever does. Burn, Dragon*Con, burn!

That night Rob, J.Chris, Brad, Shannon and I met up with another good friend and favorite person in comics, Ben Towle, and had a costly dinner at some Chinese restaurant. Well, costly for us poor folks. We discussed comics(duh) and the breasts of our waitress and how they were all hanging out and stuff. Later on, we had a screening of Brad’s brilliant cartoons in the Dollar Bin suite. It always sounds funny to say, but sometimes I forget just how brilliant Brad really is. His cartoons slayed, and unlike last year, security didn’t squelch our party down plans, and party down we did,man! We drank like it was going out of style, just like comics books. We all woke up with hangovers the next day and ahead of schedule. Oh well, what can you do?

After a little hair of the dog, we got it together with some bagels and coffee and hit the convention. We got to see our pal, Ashley Holt, which of course, was really nice. Homeboy is smart.  Also, I got to spend time with my sister Sally Bloodbath and her boyfriend Matt Wiegle which was also very nice. Jeez, I need a thesaurus. Sales were pretty darn good, and I musta done, like, zillions of sketches.

That night we made our annual trek to Phat Burrito where I got to spend some time with Sally, Matt, Liz Ballie, Jackson New Jersey’s very own Meghan Ansbach and her boyfriend Lee. We mostly discussed records, n’ things, which was a welcome change from the 34 hours of comic talk. Ah, who I am kidding? We talked about comics too. Also, during the course of the evening, Brad, J.Chris, Rob and I had a beer with Tom Spurgeon and talked about the Atlanta comic scene. Surprise, surprise. I had only negative things to say about it. I read Comics Reporter daily, so this was a highlight of the show for me.

Later on that night, I got a chance to smoke a little grass* with my man P. Cleland and another unnamed cartoonist.
*Just kidding. We’d never really do anything illegal on the top of a parking garage.

Sunday is my shopping day, so shopping I did. I bought some weird, wacky comics for a dollar a piece, like this weird Daffy and Roadrunner comic (all the Looney Tunes birds,together at last!) and some peak Carl Barks Uncle Scrooge comics, because I can’t come home without duck books. Speaking of which, Boom! Studios was there with there new Disney comics, which I am a big fan of, especially the Euro duck stuff. Man, that’s some cartoony goodness! I love it. Love it, I say. We need more like that. I heard a DuckTales book is around the bend.

It’s always depressing packing up after this show, and this year was no different. I would say though, without a doubt this was my best year at Heroes. The con was stress free, and I sold a metric ton of crap. What more can I ask for? This is sleep-away camp for nerds that never went to camp.

Welp, that’s about it- Oh wait, I’d love to mention a few more fine people. Warning: more plugs than Steve Carell’s hairline up ahead.
Ken Dahl, M.K. Reed, Evan Dahm, Pale Rider crew, Gabriel Dunston, Chris Pitzer, Dean Trippe, Jason Horn, Van Jensen, Rob Venditti, Travis J. Hill, Jamie Walker, Boom!, Tom Bancroft, David Mack, Dollar Bin Podcast (Adam,Ted, Brian, Kris, Devin, Brandon), Mr.Phil, Martin Steenton, Andy Ruton, Heather McKinney, Stephanie Gladden, John Miller, Chris Schweizer, Duane Ballenger, Rich Barrett, Erakis Pemeza, Shawn Daughhetee, Scott Elingburg, Justin and Jason Gammon and Jamie Ouzts extra special thanks goes out to my man Dustin Harbin for inviting me to be part of Indie Island. See ya next year, sucker.

Tune in soon for more news on the next Rashy Rabbit!

From your pals at Lattaland, Have a hap-hap-happy Easter.

In Honor of Keith And The Girl’s NEW relationship book,What Do We Do Know? I am doing five free avatards with proof of purchase. Noarmjames is a good sport.