Comic Book Resources

The Fifth Color - The Triumph of the Inhuman Spirit

Yeah, yeah, I know. Tomorrow is indeed the Fourth of July and most have stirring visions of Captain America already mixed about their brains. Captain America: Reborn has set us on a path to recapture our Greatest Generation’s hero of choice perhaps with a depth and breadth of understanding of our country, patriotism and this symbol of the ol’ USA none of us would have had without the insightful storytelling of Mr. Ed Brubaker…

… but we’re going to skip all that today. Captain America posts on Independence Day are kind of cliché, don’t you think? And since Captain America: Reborn #1 is just starting out what could very well be Act Three of the epic tale that is Brubaker’s Grand Design, well. The man isn’t done with it yet, so we can save the throwing of roses and the ticker tape parades for how awesome he is for when he’s done getting to the awesome parts at the end of his awesomeness (SPOILER: it’s gonna be awesome).

Let’s instead turn towards a story that’s coming to its own close and the war of Independence that no one may win after all.
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Strangeways: Murder Moon - Page 06

Art by Luis Guaragna. Written by Matt Maxwell

Commentary after the jump.

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SDCC ‘09 | More exclusives, more panels, more everything

40th Anniversary Souvenir Book

The 2009 San Diego Comic-Con is less than a month away, with preview night kicking things off on Wednesday, July 22. If you are a publisher, creator, retailer or any other kind of exhibitor who would like to let folks know about any special plans you have for the show (panels, signing schedules, exclusives, debuts, etc.) drop me an email and I’ll run it here.

Also, to the right is the 40th anniversary souvenir book cover, featuring art by the great Rick Geary. Comic-Con debuted it on their Twitter feed, where they’ve also been announcing panels and auctions for membership badges.

Publishers | Red 5 Comics will be at booth S-9 in the small press area, with the creators of We Kill Monsters, Neozoic, Atomic Robo and Afterburn available for signings.

Books | Scott Morse says he’ll have about 100 copies of The Ancient Book of Sex and Science, which sold out before its release after being mentioned on BoingBoing. He’s also taking orders for a signed and numbered edition, which he’ll bring to the con if you order one.

Exclusives | Becky Cloonan will have a set of four silkscreen prints at the con, limited to 100 “signed, numbered, stamped and enveloped” copies.

I asked if she and the 5/Pixu crew had another book planned for this year, but she said they’ve all been so busy they haven’t been able to do one. She also said she’ll have a big announcement at the con, and she’ll have a table with with Brian Wood, Cliff Chiang and Jill Thompson.

Mini-comics | According to Ben Towle, J Chris Campbell of Wide Awake Press is putting together a Michael Jackson memorial mini-comic to sell at the con, which will feature stories and pin-ups of the King of Pop.

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Liefeld ‘can’t wait to someday undo’ Shatterstar development

From X-Factor #45

Rob Liefeld isn’t happy about the latest plot development involving Shatterstar, the Marvel superhero he introduced 18 years ago.

Last week’s X-Factor #45 ended years of speculation, and in-story hints, about the relationship between Shatterstar and Rictor by showing the former X-Force teammates — both C-list players in the X-Men universe — reuniting with a kiss.

On his blog, X-Factor writer Peter David assured fans the development “isn’t a fake out.”

Liefeld, however, wishes otherwise.

“… I have nothing against gays, I have gay family, nuthin’ but love here,” he wrote on his message board (registration required). “Ditto gay characters if that’s what their true origins are.

“As the guy that created, designed and wrote his first dozen appearances, Shatterstar is not gay. Sorry. Can’t wait to someday undo this. Seems totally contrived.”

Created by Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza, Shatterstar debuted in New Mutants #99 (March 1991) before becoming a fixture of X-Force when the series launched a few months later.

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ComicsLive | A guide to next week’s comic-related events

Welcome to ComicsLive, a guide to upcoming signings, conventions and more. If you’d like to submit an event for inclusion, please email them directly to me. Please include the venue, city and state, start time, event details and any related websites where we can send folks for more information. Virtual events, like online creator chats, are also welcome.

Friday, July 3

Bloomington, Minn | CONvergence — “a celebration of the funny side of science fiction and fantasy” — continues through Sunday and will have Dwayne McDuffie and the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew as its special guests, among others. More details can be found here.

Brooklyn, NY | The comic shop Rocketship will host a release party for local artist Adam Suerte’s latest comic, starting at 8 p.m. Details here.

White River Junction, Vermont | First Friday Book Release party, with four new books debuting by Colleen Frakes, Denis St. John, Morgan Pielli and Jen Vaughn at Revolution. Details here.

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Robot reviews: More potpourri

Wrapped-Up Foxtrot

Wrapped-Up FoxTrot
by Bill Amend
Andrews McMeel Publishing, $16.99

Here’s my basic problem with FoxTrot: I can’t stand the family. Not a one of them. They all come across as a bunch of unlikeable clods to me, each one too invested in their own personal tics and desperate obsessions to show any interest in each other. Really, they seem more interested in making each other miserable, especially the bratty youngest child, Jason, who would have been thrown to the lions years ago by any real-life family. Of course, without him we’d miss all those obvious and occasionally desperate attempt to reference contemporary pop culture. “Hey, they’re making a Star Trek movie! Let’s make a strip about it!” “Here’s a joke about World of Warcraft! You know, lots of people play that!” People complain about the saccharine sweetness of The Family Circus, but their are times I prefer that to the insufferable smart-alec attitudes of the Fox family.

This new Treasury collects the last of the daily strips as well as some Sundays. It’s certainly readable. It didn’t make me want to claw my eyes out the way, say Snuffy Smith does, but still, that’s a real annoying family.

More reviews after the link …

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Warner Bros. buys Mortal Kombat, other Midway Games assets

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe Kollector's Edition

Warners Bros. Entertainment has paid $33 million for most of the assets of bankrupt video-game publisher Midway Games, including Mortal Kombat, Joust and Spy Hunter.

Midway and Warner Bros. worked together on 2008’s Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, which sold more than 2 million units.

The Chicago Tribune reports a federal bankruptcy judge in Delaware approved the sale on Wednesday after no other bidders emerged. Warner Bros. made its offer in late May, some two months after Midway filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Warner Bros. chose not to purchase two of Midway’s development studios, in San Diego and Newcastle, England. Variety reports they will close within two months if no buyers step forward.

The trade paper notes the purchase, of course, means we should expect a sequel to Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe in the near future. And can a bevy of Wildstorm comic-book adaptations be far behind?

The best idea for a DC-Marvel crossover that we’ll never see

Gotham City Sirens #1 variant cover, by J.G. Jones

Pink Raygun’s Lisa Fary proposes the best idea for a DC Comics-Marvel crossover since Batman faced The Incredible Hulk, or the X-Men met the Teen Titans.

It involves two of the publishers’ all-female titles. No, not Detective Comics — the other ones: Marvel Divas and Gotham City Sirens.

“It would probably go something like this,” Fary writes. “The Divas would be at a fabulous lounge sipping lemondrop martinis, talking about relationships and cancer, and the Sirens would walk in and kill them for their table.”

It would be a relatively brief event, sure. One issue, tops. But it could help DC and Marvel ease past the obstacles that have prevented any crossovers since JLA/Avengers. Yeah, probably not. I just thought it was funny.

Fary also has an entertaining review of Marvel Divas #1 (a comic that I’ve not read yet): “Patsy Walker has written a book, there’s a party, we learn how the four superheroines became friends, then there’s man talk. And more man talk. And then? More man talk, with a special guest appearance by cancer.”

Top Cow’s third pilot season to feature Kirkman/Silvestri creations

On G4’s Attack of the Show yesterday, Blair Butler announced that Top Cow’s bringing back their Pilot Season competition, where they throw five comics into the octagon and let them battle it out (via fan voting) to see which two will go on to become mini-series. The twist this time around is that all five of them will be co-created by Robert Kirkman and Marc Silvestri, as detailed in this video:

No word on when the third Pilot Season competition starts. Last year’s winners were Twilight Guardian by writer Troy Hickman and artist Reza, and Genius by writers Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman and artist Afua Richardson.

Stunning sagas, alternate realities

Grumpy Old Fan

Marvel tends to revisit its past with a specificity that DC doesn’t duplicate. In projects like World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!, What If?, the current X-Men Forever, and (apparently) the upcoming Clone Saga miniseries, Marvel not only spins new stories out of particular points in continuity, it attempts to give particular creative teams the second chances at closure which the fates denied them. Of course, DC does quite a bit of looking back itself, but most of the time it’s not facilitating such second chances. Still, there are certain points in DC’s publishing history which seem to ask for their own “what if” moments; so I’m going to talk about a few of those today.

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Angel and Spike? ‘What in the slashy heck?’

Spike and Angel, from "Dark Horse Presents"

For fans of slash fiction, it’s been a pretty good couple of weeks. First, Rictor and Shatterstar kissed on the final page of X-Factor #45, and now Angel and Spike …

What’s that? I couldn’t hear you over the collective “squeeeee!” of thousands of fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer slash. Yes, I said Angel and Spike.

Say what you will about Buffy creator Joss Whedon, but the man knows his audience. In the July edition of MySpace Dark Horse Presents, Whedon and Buffy cover artist Jo Chen — no stranger to comic-book slash herself — give a certain segment of fandom what it wants. Well, almost.

In the three-page short, titled “Always Darkest,” Buffy’s two great loves appear to give in to their deepest desires — well, slashers’ desires, at any rate.

All of the “Smooch-Smooch-Sproing” action has an oh-so-obvious explanation, of course. (There, there, slashers …) But, hey, the story also features Nathan Fillion’s Caleb character from the TV series. So, there’s some consolation.

Veitch shares the secret origin of the Sentry

early Sentry concept art

The Sentry has had an interesting history at Marvel … remember how the Sentry was first publicized — as a “forgotten” character created by Stan Lee back in the day? And in the comics, there’s the whole plotline about how he made everyone forget who he was to save the world from the Void, even his best friends the Hulk and Reed Richards. So the whole theme of forgotten history has been crucial to the character.

Well, here’s one more “now it can be told” piece of the character’s puzzle: Rick Veitch has started a series of blog posts that explain his role in creating the Sentry with Paul Jenkins. Check out the first part here, the second here and the third here. It’s an interesting, and fitting, reveal about the character.

Straight for the art | Persepolis 2.0

Persepolis 2.0

One of the more interesting comics mash-ups this week was Persepolis 2.0, a remixing of Marjane Satrapi’s groundbreaking graphic novel designed to draw awareness to Iran’s current post-election plight. Matthew Weaver of the Guardian talked to the comic’s creators, two Iranian exiles called Sina and Payman, who apparently did the work with Satrapi’s blessing:

Sina said the updated cartoon was intended to show how history was repeating itself in Iran.

“The reaction to Persepolis 2.0 has been great,” he wrote in an email. “We’ve had visitors from 120 countries thus far, and a large volume of emails from people asking how they can help support Iranians.

“This has really infused us with energy, and we’re now working on additional ways to help get the word out.”

The panty-shot decree heard ’round the world

From Supergirl #36

Who’d have guessed in a week that saw the debut of Captain America: Reborn and Marvel Divas so much attention would be paid to Supergirl’s shorts?

Specifically, that she now has shorts. Longish red bike shorts, under her mini-skirt.

The addition even caught the eye of National Public Radio’s Glen Weldon, who salutes Supergirl editor Matt Idelson for his no-more-panty-shots decree.

“It’s not a big deal, but it’s a pretty big deal,” Weldon writes, “and here’s why: 1. The decision suggests that superhero comics may at long last stand ready to evolve beyond the adolescent objectification of the female form in which they have so gleefully wallowed for long decades; and 2. Supergirl flies, duh. She hovers over people’s heads. In a skirt.”

Blogger Kirk Warren delves a little deeper into the problems with the Maid of Might’s costume, from the belly shirt to the ultra-mini-skirt to what he colorfully describes as “Blue Diaper Syndrome.” (I totally swiped the above image from Warren.)

Although online reaction to the bike shorts has been overwhelmingly positive, there are certainly a few fans who are disappointed by the decline in upskirt shots. Luckily, Topless Robot’s Rob Bricken already has them covered. So to speak.

“It’s not like Power Girl is putting on a sweater or anything; there’s plenty of superheroines left to ogle,” he writes. “And there’s always actual pornography, too.”

Straight for the art | Dreamstar

Hernandez's 'Dreamstar'

Gilbert Hernandez has a new superhero comic up over at the recently moved-from-MySpace Dark Horse Presents. What more do you need to know?