* My favorite web comic, John Allison's Scary Go Round, ends today. What a bummer. As soon as I heard about the impending finale of the strip, I stopped looking at updates from the site in my Google Reader so I could spend tomorrow experiencing the whole wrap up to the adventures of Shelley, Amy and the rest of the gang while nursing a hangover and having a bit of a cry. If you're like me and don't read many of the nerd-culture and meme-celebrating gag-a-day web comics, please click through to the site and pop into almost any story arc and get reading. The strip really makes great use of the serialized story format, which I wish more web comics I have saved did. Suggestions for replacement reading welcome, although I'm excited to see what Allison's next project is too.
* Speaking of getting into new web comics, I may end up doing that through the new site Archive Binge, whose stated goal is to help you get caught up on strips that have been serializing for a while. Nifty. (Via Tom)
* Link that my older brother with two kids sent me Link: The story of two kids who fell in love with the Justice League after their uncle bought them a season of JLU DVDs. I can only hope to one day be this great to Colin and Lucy.
* Dave Paggi ReTweets the best links Link: Whoa. New Al Columbia book. I repeat: Whoa.
* OK, now I'm totally fucking confused. Anyone who's read this column with any regularity knows I've been following the story of the big ass Gundam they built in Tokyo lately. The thing was a giant robot built to scale (or close to scale) with the fighter bots of the famed anime. It had something to do with the Olympics, I guess. Then two people got married under it. Now, it's being disassembled piece-by-piece. WTF? As many blogs by Americans obsessed with Japan I've seen about this thing, I've yet to see anyone explain exactly what its purpose was.
Do any of you know why this thing was there or why it's been taken down? I mean, I'm happy about the idea that it won't be around when the final decision is made when the International Olympic Committee decides where the 2016 games will be. Jami and I drove by the building with the runner's mural on it, and they've since expanded the thing to include more athletes! Take that, Tokyo! On the down side: Michael Jordan has declined an invitation to fly to Europe and meet with the I.O.C. on Chicago's behalf. This is going to come down to the wire, me thinks.
* I spent a lot of time this week on the homepage for They Might Be Giants watching YouTube videos of animated versions of songs of their new kids album Here Comes Science. Click through a scroll down to watch some including the "almost political if it wasn't just common sense" track "Science Is Real." And if you want to know a bit more about the creation of the album, this article from Wired gives great background and has an audio link to one of the best tracks on the disc, the Danny Weinkauf-sang "I Am A Paleontologist."
* I don't link much to Superpunch from here because most of the comics-specific stuff from John Struan's totally bookmark essential catch-all nerd blog gets spread around everywhere else, but no one in my immeadiate sphere of influence seemed to jump on this quick interview with illustrator Lincoln Agnew about his super adorable work on the picture book Harry and Horsie which is about David Letterman's son going into space.
* I dug this interview my bud and Marvel.com Tuesday Q&A replacement Kevin Mahadeo did with Jeff Parker on the upcoming Agents of ATLAS/X-Men mini series.
* Hey! Lars Brown is on Twitter! And in my first week following the North World artist, my man posted a link to the weekly work schedule of a working manga artist in Japan. And I was going to link to it here to, but then I saw Caleb's write up of it, and you should really go read his version just for the headline he came up with.
* Jesse sent a bunch of us this video...you have to watch it.
The announcer is my favorite part. Here's Bill Ass' response:
* OK, I'm tired. If you live in Chicago, come out to the Mutiny tonight and see my band RF Modulator hack through a horrible unrehearsed set without our bass player at 10:00.
