Comic Book Resources

DMZ, Mesmo, Choker, Human Target and more fight the snow to get to shops this week

Welcome once again to Can't Wait for Wednesday, our weekly look at what you can expect to find in your local comic shop tomorrow.

Although a snowstorm caused some problems at Diamond Comics Distributors' headquarters this week, I hear through the grapevine that they aren't expecting any delays in getting comics shipped out to shops. Good news indeed.

To see what Kevin, Chris and I have to say about this week's comics, read on ...

Hicksville

Chris Mautner's Pick of the Week: Hicksville Definitive Edition

One of the most important comics to come out of the art comix scene of the 1990s, Hicksville was the finest love song ever written to the medium at that time. A mystery set in a quaint New Zealand town where everyone just happens to be an ardent comics junkie and no one wants to talk about its most famous resident, superhero artist Dick Burger. It's such a significant and beloved work that it's hard to believe it's languished out of print for so long. Thank goodness Drawn and Quarterly has seen fit to reissue it and get it out in front of people's noses again. If you haven't read this yet, you're missing out on a real treat. (Drawn and Quarterly)

Continue Reading »

Hogarth and Montana named to Eisner Hall of Fame

Archie #1

The Eisner Awards judges have selected legendary artists Burne Hogarth and Bob Montana for automatic induction this summer into the Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame.

Hogarth, who passed away in 1996, was an illustrator best known for his work on the Tarzan newspaper strip, an art educator and the author of influential anatomy and drawing books. Montana, who died in 1975, was the co-creator of Archie who drew the Riverdale gang for three decades.

The judges also chose 13 nominees from which voters may select four to be inducted into the Hall of Fame for 2010:

• Carl Burgos -- the late Golden Age-era artist and co-creator of the original Human Torch
• Steve Gerber -- the late writer and co-creator of Howard the Duck and Omega the Unknown
• Dick Giordano -- the artist and longtime DC Comics editor
• Michael Kaluta -- the artist best known for his work on Starstruck and The Shadow
• Jack Kamen -- the late illustrator and prolific EC Comics artist
• Frans Masereel -- the late painter, woodcut artist and creator of Mon Livre d'Heures
• George McManus -- the late cartoonist and creator of Bringing Up Father
• Sheldon Moldoff -- one of Bob Kane's primary "ghost artists," and co-creator of Hawkgirl and Poison Ivy
• Marty Nodell -- the late artist and co-creator of the Golden Age Green Lantern
• Bob Oksner -- the late artist known for his work on humor, adventure and superhero comics
• Bob Powell -- the late artist known for his work on Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, and Blackhawk
• Yoshihiro Tatsumi -- the creator of Abandon the Old in Tokyo, A Drifting Life and The Push Man and other stories
•Mort Weisinger -- the late and longtime DC Comics editor and co-creator of Aquaman, Green Arrow and Johnny Quick

Online voting is open now through March 31. The inductees will be announced during the Eisner Awards ceremony held July 23 during Comic-Con.

Read the full press release after the break:

Continue Reading »

Unbound: Getting in on the ground floor

There are some things about comics that work better online than print, and there are some things that just don’t work as well.

For instance, you can pick up a 200-page graphic novel and read it in pretty much one sitting, and usually that’s a pleasurable thing to do. Reading 200 pages worth of webcomic archives? Not so much. No matter how interesting a comic may be, a screenful of links to past episodes is a daunting sight to the new reader, and clicking, waiting for each page to load, and scrolling can become tedious pretty quickly.

So, for those who don't have time to wade through pages of old comics, here are five promising startups, all new comics that have launched since the beginning of 2010. There's a variety of styles and genres here, but all are so new that you can be up to speed in a few minutes. And all look like they will be worthy additions to any RSS feed.

Continue Reading »

Your other video of the day: Nino Falanga, world's fastest cartoonist

I dunno about world's fastest, but that is pretty fast. Courtesy of Mike Lynch:

[Falanga] did work behind the camera, for the animation departments at MGM and UPA, and did live action film and TV work (both behind and in front of the camera) in the US, Italy and Spain.

Here he is on the American game show To Tell the Truth. The celebrity panel is composed of Kitty Carlisle, Durwood Kirby, Gene Rayburn and Peggy _____ (I forget her last name- she was on a zillion game shows in the 60s and 70s). While the celebrities are guessing who is the real cartoonist, the contestants are drawing caricatures of them.

Straight for the art | Emerald City's Monsters & Dames charity art book art

by Livio Ramondelli

The Emerald City Comicon, scheduled for March 13-14 in Seattle, is once again putting together a charity art book featuring pin-ups of "Monsters & Dames" by some of its very impressive guest list. Proceeds from the book benefit the Seattle Children's Hospital.

Over on Gelatometti, several attendees have been posting their contributions, including Livio Ramondelli (above), Carlos D'Anda and Oliver Nome, among others. Go check'em out.

Comic-store owner faces child-pornography charges

Legal

An Ontario comic-store owner charged in July with voyeurism now faces additional charges of possessing child pornography.

Domenic Giorgio, owner of A Dragon's Realm in Maple, Ontario, was arrested in July after he allegedly was caught using a video camera to spy on a woman in the store's restroom. Police seized DVDs and a computer, and in the subsequent investigation reportedly discovered files containing child pornography.

York Regional Constable Rebecca Boyd told The Caledon Enterprise that the new charges, filed just last week, are only for the possession of child pornography and are unrelated to accusations of videotaping the store's restroom.

Giorgio, 43, also is charged with two counts of assault in the original incident, which arose after a 21-year-old female customer asked to use the store's restroom. She was allegedly followed by Giorgio, who entered an adjacent room. The woman's boyfriend became suspicious, and reportedly discovered a camera on a tri-pod. The couple confronted the retailer, and a minor physical altercation followed.

Who was that masked Fantagraphics cartoonist?

Well, that's Like A Dog author Zak Sally above, but Fanta has a whole Flickr set full of photos of some of their most notable creators and contributors, which is great if you ever wanted to know what Jason or Richard Sala looked like. (Note: Fanta's Mike Baehr notes that some of these photos are kinda old, and asks not to use them for press/publicity purposes, mkay?)

Straight for the art | Photos from the Afrodisiac 'AfroTour'

Jim Rugg outside of Chapel Hill Comics

AdHouse Books has a Flickr photo set documenting the Southern leg of cartoonist Jim Rugg's "AfroTour" in support of the release of the Afrodisiac hardcover. Rugg and AdHouse Publisher Chris Pitzer appeared at signings at Velocity Comics in Richmond, Virginia, Chapel Hill Comics in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Heroes Aren't Hard to Find in Charlotte, North Carolina.

"This was the first time I've done anything with a comics store outside of my hometown," Rugg writes on his blog, "and was overwhelmed with everyone's kindness and support from the store employees to readers both new and old."

Straight for the art | Chris Uminga's superhero art

Colossus by Chris Uminga

Reader David Bedard pointed us to this post on Oculoid with several cool superhero images by artist Chris Uminga. You can also check out Uminga's website here and his deviantART site here.

New Yorker celebrates birthday with Ware, Tomine, Clowes, Brunetti

Yes, the New Yorker

Heidi MacDonald and D&Q beat me to the punch, but just in case you missed the news, I thought I'd let you know that this week's issue of The New Yorker magazine is sporting four swell covers by Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, Adrian Tomine and Ivan Brunetti. Supposedly when you arrange the four covers together in a certain way, a super-secret picture forms. Alright, I'll spoil it: It's a picture of Eustace Tilly. It must be one of those "Magic Eye" type images though, because I've been staring at the bloody things for hours on end, and all I'm getting is a headache.

Your video of the day: That creepy Crumb figure

Courtesy of Comics Alliance comes this short video of that R. Crumb figurine I mentioned last week. And hey, it does come with a big-boned female fantasy figure! And Fritz the Cat too! How about that.

Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

From "Troublemaker!"

Publishing | Publishers are wagering that Stephenie Meyer isn't the only prose author whose name can move massive amounts of graphic novels. We already knew that Yen Press is rolling out a staggering -- by North American comics market standards, anyway -- 350,000-copy first printing for Twilight: The Graphic Novel. But now George Gene Gustines reports that Dark Horse will print 100,000 copies of Troublemaker!: A Barnaby Adventure, a continuation of Janet Evanovich's series of Motor Mouth novels. The Evanovich deal was announced in May. [The New York Times]

Business | Imagi International, the computer-animation studio behind TMNT and Astro Boy, has shut down amid layoffs and mounting debt. Although the studio will ask a Hong Kong court to name liquidators, it plans to continue to develop film ideas and outsource the animation work to other countries. [ABC News]

Continue Reading »

Sammy Harkham's Crickets returns!

Crickets #3

That's pretty much all I got, folks. According to a post on the blog for Harkham's L.A. book and music store Family, Crickets #3 is "happening soon." That appears to be the cover up above.

Around this time last year, Harkham announced the cancellation of the series, then published by Drawn & Quarterly, due to Diamond's new minimum-order thresholds. At the time, the Kramers Ergot editor and cartoonist said the third issue "will come out in some DYI form in the next couple months." I think I speak for all of us when I say better late than never!

Pirate, Cowboy Batman on 'Return of Bruce Wayne' covers

Batman: Return of Bruce Wayne #3

DC Comics revealed the final next two covers for its Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne miniseries today; above you'll see the cover to issue #3, and after the jump you can find the cover to issue #4. (Update: It's actually a six-issue mini, so we still have two more to go).

You can also check out the covers to issue #1 and issue #2 if you missed them; all of them feature Andy Kubert drawing various historically themed Batmen, from a caveman to a cowboy.

Continue Reading »

Robot Review: Talking to Strangers

Talking to Strangers
Written by Fehed Said; Illustrated by Nana Li, Wing Yun Man, Faye Yong, Chloe Citrine, and Sonia Leong
Sweatdrop; $12.99

The cover to Talking to Strangers shows a young girl with a Band-Aid on her cheek. She’s in a downtown area of a large city, but there’s no one around. Her expression is very passive. It’s so wounded that it’s not even sad; it’s lifeless. But she’s leaning forward at you and her hand is pulling back the headphones she’s wearing so that she can hear what you have to say. It’s a beautiful, haunting image.

There’s this theme that keeps coming up in movies and books that I’m experiencing lately. It was in Up in the Air and in a Jeff Daniels/Lauren Graham film I just watched from last year called The Answer Man. It’s an especially powerful message in these days of easy, long-distance communication. It’s about how we’re meant to connect with people. Not just to talk to them, but to share with them and laugh with them and cry with them. To reach out to those around us and help; not just with a charitable donation sent by couple of mouse-clicks, but with our hands and feet and hearts. Maybe it’s just me, but that’s a message I need to hear a lot and I love it when it’s delivered with enough power to push through my complacency.

Fehed Said introduces his anthology with a story about how reaching out and talking to strangers literally saved his life. The book itself is a collection of six stories, all written by Said, illustrated by various artists, and dealing with this theme.

How it does after the break.

Continue Reading »