I'm kind of a big deal in France

Okay, not really. But I did get some comments a few posts back from a guy who calls himself Cho Cho Les Marrons (I think that translates as Cho Cho Chestnuts). Check it out; he gives a link to an interesting-looking graphic novel with art by Terry Dodson in a different style than his superhero work. Anyway, here's a link to Cho Cho's blog (translated from French using Google). He's got some posts about comics by the likes of Joann Sfar, Louis Trondheim, and Osamu Tezuka. And Bone! And the real treasure is a sketch done by Nick Derington of Mike Allred's Madman rocking out with The White Stripes! Awesome!
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Following Cho Cho's link to Mike Allred's message board, I found a cool bit of news: Paul Pope is going to be doing a 12-page backup story in Fantastic Four #543! Sweet! Pope has some more information on his blog, under the January 4 and January 6 entries. Check out this awesome picture (click it to see a bigger version):



Pope also reveals in his January 11 entry (although maybe it's been mentioned elsewhere) that his "Berlin Batman" story (I don't know the actual title), which was his first mainstream work, will be included in the Batman: Year 100 trade paperback, which is coming out on January 17. Damn, I might have to pick that up now. I have the single issues, but the first issue has a misprint (several pages are repeated), and I would love to check out this story. I'll see.
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Oh, and in my previous post about Texas Strangers, Antony Johnston showed up to castigate me for misrepresenting his quote about comics for kids. Sorry, Antony!