I almost never watch the interview portions of THE LATE SHOW. But since I learned that CBS and the regime did NOT want me to see Stephen Colbert's interview with James Talarico, I felt compelled to make sure I watch it. Such is the appeal of being told something contains forbidden knowledge!

Today on the blog, it's another origin of Detective Chimp, this one by Mark Badge and Andy Helfer (and Mark Waid and Dan Raspler):

This week's bookshelf, upon which sit Drawn and Quarterly books of a certain size and comic strip-related books...plus a few randos:

Well, it took me a little while to get used to the change in visual style, but I am now used to it. I like Caroline Cash's NANCY a lot.

What do Godzilla and the Creature from the Black Lagoon have in common? Well, probably a whole bunch of things, but, for the purpose of this post, they were both in comics drawn by Arthur Adams for Dark Horse in the '90s:

I have a lot of respect for this spokesman, but I am afraid I have no interest in this particular product.

I'm really excited for all the readers who might be encountering this book for the first time with this release. This is one of the earliest comics I read, and it helped me become a fan of Batman. And Simon Bisley. And Alan Grant. And John Wagner. And The Scarecrow.

Meet Detective Chimp! I wrote about the first appearance (and original origin) of the world's greatest chimpanzee detective on my blog today:

I'm enjoying this book so much that it's starting to cut into my productivity. Like, instead of sitting down to write, I just want to keep reading about the history of Bigfoot and the Yeti and their ilk.

Wait, why is Elmo still posting on the bad site…? Is that even a safe place for a three-and-half-year-old monster, what with all the Nazis and bots there…? Come to Bluesky, Elmo…!

When I saw the title of this post, I was sure it was about GOBLIN SLAYER. It is not.

Having recently read and wrote about NEW HISTORY OF THE DC UNIVERSE, I enjoyed reading someone else’s take, especially one as knowledgeable and well-written as this:

I do have interests other than comic books. Like the Marx Brothers, dinosaurs and the paranormal, the subjects of these four books I've read recently that have (almost) nothing to do with comic books (There IS a surprise introduction from a famous comic artist to one of them, though):

This week's bookshelf, another one filled with DC comics:

Well, I thought this exchange was funny:

I haven’t read a Marvel comic in quite some time now (and the last ones I did starred Uncle Scrooge and Godzilla). So I think I’m going to try this one. Is this a good one…? People really like these two characters still, don’t they…?

I think NOT denouncing such a post by the leader of your party suggests that either you don't mind the sentiments being expresses, or, worse, that you agree with them. If I were a Republican, I wouldn't be able to get to a keyboard fast enough to denounce that post.

Do you ever wonder how it was that Mr. Sputter managed to land Mrs. Sputter…?

It's the sixth of the month, which means it's time for A Month of Wednesdays, my column reviewing all the new-ish comics I read during the previous month. Here that means NEW HISTORY OF THE DC UNIVERSE, BATMAN-SANTA CLAUS: THE SILENT KNIGHT RETURNS, TITANS Vol. 4 and KOMI CAN'T COMMUNICATE Vol. 36.

My review of Noah Van Sciver's CALAMITY BEFORE JANE went up on Good Comics for Kids today, if you would like to read it:

Do you ever think about how these two characters are both anthropomorphized from the same animal species...?

I love this image so much.

This obviously isn’t her most talked about look last night, but this is my favorite Chappell Roan outfit from the Grammys, as it makes her look like she’s about to lead a battle against the galactic Empire:

“We would like to kill more people, but we’ve already killed so many people that we’ve run out of people to kill” is a weird thing to say.

Here are some images of Kelley Jones and John Beatty's Etrigan, The Demon that I scanned from a 1997 BATMAN comic for a review I ended up not writing:

The Spectre Hal Jordan re-teams with the JLA to fend off a very weird kind of alien invasion in JLA/THE SPECTRE: SOUL WAR, during which Batman and Hal finally make up:

This weeks' bookshelf, devoted to First Second and Toon Books:

Yessssss

The book I’m reading mentioned a string of different fish, the last of which was a stargazer. Having never heard of such a fish, I Googled “stargazer” and “fish” and wow, I was totally unprepared for what those guys look like…!

I hope my senators John Husted and Bernie Moreno and my congressman David Joyce, all Republicans, realize that congressional Democrats' plan to reform ICE—to have them unmask, start honoring the Constitution, etc.—IS the conservative position at this point. (1/3)

In today's blog post, we learn just how it is that Detective Chimp earned his extremely long life, via the "Whatever Happened to Rex the Wonder Dog?" back-up strip in 1981's DC COMICS PRESENTS #35.

I liked this comic strip:

I recently submitted some queries and book proposals to a couple of university presses, and yesterday I received another rejection. While it was disappointing as always to be rejected, I kind of liked this particular one, as it was addressed to "Professor Mozzocco." I like the sound of that.

Speaking of 1999, I still think this was a cool Flash costume:

I thought I knew exactly which long box I had all of my 1999 JLApe annuals in, but it turns out they weren't where I thought. This is either bad news or good news, depending on your interest in reading a very long blog post about this particular DC annual crossover event.

In September of 1999, Grant Morrison and Howard Porter's "World War III" was delayed for this DAY OF JUDGMENT epilogue, in which their JLA contends with the new Spectre in a fill-in issue that was...better than I remembered...?

If I sell 1,200 copies of my book in the first week, I will be pleased as punch.

This week's bookshelf:

Look what arrived just before an historic winter storm is due to do so…hopefully I can spend all day with it tomorrow…

I had to order this through WorldCat, the last resort of finding books from a library (This copy came from Virginia). It’s a remarkable book, and I wish it were still in print…although two different publishers now have the licenses for the two monsters whose stories dominate the collection.

Here's another review of a book I should have covered years ago, when it first came out, Douglas Wolk's must-read ALL OF THE MARVELS:

A promo for the Superman newspaper strip’s arrival in Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer on January 21, 1940. The strip been around for a little over a year at that point. And Cleveland is where Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster met and created Superman.

Trying to fill the HAIKYU!!-shaped hole in my heart with another volleyball manga…

To be fair, I used to confuse Greenland and Iceland myself. Of course, I was in grade school at the time, and not, you know, President of the United States of America.

Okay, I know it's spelled slightly differently, but every time I see this bat monster's name in print, I hear a voice with a cartoonish Irish accent exclaiming "Begorah!" in my head.

In a brief-ish follow-up to my last post about DAY OF JUDGMENT, I write about one of my favorite artists (John McCrea) drawing on of my favorite character designs (Ragman):

They’re good too! Some of these professional actors go totally method, and find their way into homes in Minnesota, from which ICE can then drag them out…

This is obviously crazy. What's even crazier than him thinking these things, or letting them motivate his actions though, is that he communicates them to others, as if he has no idea how crazy they are—and no one in his family or administration to say, "No sir, that is insane; don't say that."

Trust me Google, this is the one thing in my life I do not need help with.

Today on the blog, I discuss 1999's DAY OF JUDGMENT crossover event series which, somewhat remarkably, was among the very first handful of comics Geoff Johns ever scripted: