Weekend Pattering for 1/2/15

** O.k.  Having to type 2015 is going to take some getting used to.

** Found via Comics & Cola's Zainab Akhtar, a fantastic comic by Rosemary Valero-O'Connell called "If Only Once, For a Little While."

From "If Only Once, For a Little While"

** Chris Sims of Comics Alliance talks to Tom Scioli and John Barber about Transformers Vs GI Joe, a comic that turned up on a couple of our "Favorites of 2014" lists.

** Ivan Brunetti failed at drawing Nancy and explains why (via Boing Boing.)  I never knew that Brunetti briefly drew the Nancy strip back in the 1990s.

Ernie Bushmiller beats John Byrne to the joke

** Via Lee Sullivan Art, here's a guide to writing and drawing comics. A lot of it is about doing British licensed comics but the 2nd half is interesting to see the discussion about page layouts, especially using Kirby as its template.  The article itself is interesting in a "How to Create Comics the Marvel UK Way" type of generalization but the illustration of 20 different Kirby layouts is fascinating.

** Brenna Clarke Gray at Panels has a take down of a Daily Telegraph writer who thinks that adults who read comics are stupid.  Yes, there are still people in this world who think that.

** For your weekly dose of Art Spiegelman, Jeet Heer Storifies his Twitter essay on Parody as Apprenticeship.

Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau

** At Comics Riff, Michael Cavna looks at last Sunday's Doonesbury comic and its confrontation with the University of Virginia's rape allegations.

** More on visual storytelling, this time with Neil Cohn at Visual Linguist on Igor Kordey.  Count me as one of those who wish Kordey had spent more time working on American comics a decade or so ago when he was doing New X-Men and Cable. And check out Alex DeCampi and his Smoke, a fantastically drawn book (reprinted a year ago by Dark Horse as part of Smoke/Ashes flipbook.)

** Naoki Urasawa's Pluto as a stage play?  When does it hit Broadway?

And finally, the week in Panel Patter Land.  Spoiler-- it was the week of lists.

Whit Taylor

• Whit Taylor's Year In Review
• RoB M. on Burrito Burrito Burrito
• James' favorite single issues of 2014
• Rob's favorite superhero comics of 2014
• Guy Thomas' favorite books of 2014 
• James' favorite series of 2014
• Rob M.'s favorite speculative comics from 2014
• Rob M.'s favorite everything else from 2014
• Scott's favorite comics from 2014
• 2015 New Year's Resolutions from Panel Patter and friends