2009 June
A dead hero, four divas and a crusty sailor walk into a comic shop …
Tomorrow is Canada Day, and you know what that means: the return of Steve Rogers as Captain America!
It’s also New Comics Day, which means Captain America: Reborn #1 won’t be alone on store shelves. Fighting the much-publicized issue for attention will be the debuts of Greek Street, Justice League: Cry for Justice, Marvel Divas and Witchfinder: In the Service of Angels.
In addition, there’s the penultimate issue of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s run on Fantastic Four, the second issue of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s Batman and Robin, the conclusion of Roger Langridge’s Muppet Show miniseries, and Kevin Cannon’s Far Arden. For starters, obviously.
To see what other comics might deserve a second look, just keep reading. And, as always, be sure to leave your picks in the comments below.
- June 30, 2009 @ 02:55 PM by Kevin Melrose
Unbound: Calling Riverdale on your iPhone
At first glance, most Archie comics look very much like they did when I was reading them, back in the days when you could still buy comics in drugstores. For a dime. (Yes, I’m that old.)
That may lead the casual observer to think that Archie comics are staid and old-fashioned and never change. Actually, the editors and creators do a lot of experimenting, both with characters (as with the Archie: Freshman Year comic) and with art (witness the New Look—in case you’re following along, Reggie is the latest character to go all realistic).
The Archie folks have also embraced digital media: They put a hefty preview of each issue up at the Archie News blog, for instance, and all the core characters have their own personal blogs. When Veronica announced her impending wedding, she got 184 comments. That’s pretty enviable for any publisher’s blog. (This backfired, as these things so often do, during the New Look controversy: Betty and Veronica used their blogs to complain bitterly about the redesign, and they even started rogue blogs off-site, which have since disappeared.)
Still, when Archie Comics inked a deal with iVerse to make Archie titles available on the iPhone and iPod Touch, I wondered exactly who they thought would be reading them. After all, how many seven-year-olds have iPhones? So I e-mailed some questions to Stephen Oswald, Associate Editor for Archie Comic Publications. His answers suggest that the Archie folks are jumping into this with both feet: They are already putting 7-9 issues a month onto the iPhone, with plans for that number to increase, and at least one title (one of the weaker sellers, from the looks of their ABC figures) will move away from print and become a download-only series.
- June 30, 2009 @ 01:54 PM by Brigid Alverson
Video: Becky Cloonan and a double shot of Grant Morrison
As a part of Sub-T Independent Week on MTV (Sub-T being an abbreviation for Subterranean, one of their programs), MTV talks to Becky Cloonan in part 1 in a series:
Meanwhile, MTV’s Splash Page kicks off a series of interviews where Percy Carey talks to Grant Morrison:
- June 30, 2009 @ 01:01 PM by JK Parkin
Robot reviews: Low Moon
Low Moon
Low Moon
By Jason
Fantagraphics Books, 216 pages, $24.99.
For his latest and 13th (by my admittedly sloppy count) book, Jason has decided to try something a bit different. In addition to the snappy hardcover packaging, Low Moon collects not just the title tale, but four other stories as well, all presented in the same four panels to a page format, a quite different layout compared to previous works.
And yet this is still Jason. Anyone who’s read his work before will know the drill here, right down to the pupil-less animal-faced characters who seethe with inner pain while maintaining a stone-faced expression. In attempting to stretch himself, though, he offers some of his weakest work to date, but some of his strongest and emotionally wrenching as well.
- June 30, 2009 @ 12:11 PM by Chris Mautner
Marvel offers Captain America Reborn: Prelude for free online
Captain America Reborn: Prelude
Captain America Reborn #1 hits stores tomorrow, just in time for the big Fourth of July weekend here in the States. If you’d like to get a hint of what to expect, Marvel has posted Captain America Reborn: Prelude on their digital comics site — for free to everyone, not just subscribers to the service.
The short story features Sin, the Red Skull’s daughter, who the government attempts to draft into the Thunderbolts. Yeah, that’ll go over well … it’s by Ed Brubaker and Luke Ross.
- June 30, 2009 @ 10:51 AM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art | Jeremy Eaton’s Cartoon Jumbles
Cartoon Jumbles
Artist Jeremy Eaton creates these really cool pieces of art he calls Cartoon Jumbles, “wherein I take two divergent cartoon characters and place them in a semi-abstract assemblage, based on color, form, and character mythos,” he writes on his blog. Subjects he’s mashed together include Snuffy Smith and Luke Cage (above), Atom Ant and Ant Man, Thor and Asterix, Charlie Brown and the Watcher, and Bazooka Joe and Nick Fury, among many others.
Starting this Friday, the comic shop Secret Headquarters in Los Angeles will host an art show featuring his creations. You can check’em out online here and here.
- June 30, 2009 @ 10:23 AM by JK Parkin
Congratulations, followed swiftly by criticisms [Updated]
Buzzboy: Sidekicks Rule #3
Within moments of the announcement this morning of the nominees for the 2009 Harvey Awards, Twitter was abuzz with congratulatory notes. Minutes after that, the criticisms began.
“Have 15 friends? You, too, can get a Harvey Award nomination,” wrote frequently outspoken cartoonist Evan Dorkin. “This year’s list is worse than ever, makes the Eisners look like the Nobels. … I mean, nothing personal to the nominees that don’t suck or didn’t get in their [sic] by ballot stuffing. But, come on — three Zuda comics noms? … Okay, let’s rephrase: Nothing against anyone. But imo the Harvey Awards are so obviously broken it’s not funny.”
Dorkin wasn’t alone in his questions and complaints. (Cartoonist Faith Erin Hicks summed up this morning’s Twitter traffic as “Equal number of tweets offering congrats to Harvey noms & discussion about the ballot stuffing.”)
Some of the questions center on the five nods for John Gallagher’s Buzzboy, whose presence in 2008 was a story in a Free Comic Book Day all-ages anthology and an issue of Buzzboy: Sidekicks Rules! sold at conventions and select stores.
“I am positive that many across the internet will offer up a collective ‘What Th–?’ about us getting the recognition we are getting,” Gallagher writes on his website, “and I join them in that — but i really do appreciate those that may have thrown their support our way.”
- June 30, 2009 @ 09:35 AM by Kevin Melrose
Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: A publishing news round-up
• Ladies and gentlemen, Dwayne McDuffie has an announcement:
The very first Milestone comic will finally be collected, 17 years after its original publication. HARDWARE: THE MAN IN THE MACHINE will reprint Hardware #1-8, featuring the character’s origin, and first adventure. The Direct Market (comic book store) release date hasn’t been announced yet, but it tends to be about a month earlier than in the general market.
• In other news, Archaia announced plans to start a new $9.95 hardcover line of books, where one graphic novel will be released each quarter at that low price. The plan kicks off in August with the release of The Engineer: Konstrukt.
• Fantagraphics co-publisher Kim Thompson says the Norewegian artist Jason’s next project will be a repackaging of his previous books in the new Low Moon format. The first book, Almost Silent, will collect You Can’t Get There From Here, The Living and the Dead, Tell Me Something and Meow Baby! The next book, What I Did, will tentatively collect The Iron Wagon, Shhhhh and Hey Wait. Thompson also adds that Jason is working on a new graphic novel, Werewolves of Montpellier, which will be out in summer of 2010.
- June 30, 2009 @ 08:55 AM by Chris Mautner
Straight for the art | The cover of Northlanders #21
Northlanders #21
Writer Brian Wood unveils the absolutely beautiful cover for Northlanders #21, with art by Massimo Carnevale and by Wood.
I’ve liked all of the covers for the Vertigo series, but I find this one particularly striking. I’m generally not keen on vertical type, but here I don’t mind it as the repositioned logo clears space for the steeple and the crow-filled tree, and visually signals something new (in the case of Issue 21, the beginning of an eight-part arc). You couldn’t ask for a better pairing of story title — “The Plague Widow” — and art, either.
Plus, it doesn’t hurt that Carnevale is downright phenomenal.
Northlanders #21 is set for release in September.
- June 30, 2009 @ 07:21 AM by Kevin Melrose
Nominees announced for 2009 Harvey Awards
Harvey Awards
All-Star Superman, Buzzboy, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Nat Turner and DC’s Zuda Comics imprint made strong showings in the nominations for the 2009 Harvey Awards, announced this morning.
Named in honor of the late cartoonist and Mad magazine editor Harvey Kurtzman, the awards recognize outstanding work in comics. They will be presented Oct. 10 in Baltimore during Baltimore Comic-Con.
Jeff Kinney’s best-selling children’s series Diary of a Wimpy Kid led with six nominations: Best Writer, Best Cartoonist, Best Inker, Best Continuing or Limited Series, Best Graphic Album-Original and the Special Award for Humor in Comics.
DC’s All-Star Superman, which ended in October 2008, received five nominations, for Best Continuing Series, Best Writer (Grant Morrison), Best Artist (Frank Quitely), Best Inker (Jamie Grant) and Best Colorist (Jamie Grant). Sky Dog Comics’ all-ages Buzzboy earned five nods, for Best Writer (John Gallagher), Best Cartoonist (John Gallagher), Best Letterer (Thom Zahler), Best Inker (Rich Faber), Best Cover Artist (Frank Cho for Buzzboy: Sidekicks Rule! #3) and the Special Award for Humor in Comics (John Gallagher).
Comics and creators from Zuda online initiative, which debuted in 2007, garnered a combined seven nominations, including nods for Best New Series for High Moon, Night Owls and Supertron.
Kyler Baker’s historical graphic novel Nat Turner earned four nominations for Best Graphic Album-Previously Published, Best Single Issue or Story, Best Writer and Best Artist.
The full list of nominees for the 2009 Harvey Awards can be found after the break:
- June 30, 2009 @ 04:38 AM by Kevin Melrose
Collect This Now! Rubber Blanket
Rubber Blanket #1
One of the most hotly anticipated books of the year, at least among the indie crowd, has got to be David Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp. The book has been earning a plentiful number of plaudits, but part of the interest is surely the fact that Mazzucchelli hasn’t published a book in almost 15 years and hasn’t had a strip published since 2001.
With all the fanfare surrounding the book, however, it seems odd that up till now no one has attempted to collect the three oversized issues of Mazzucchelli’s seminal self-published series, Rubber Blanket. While the three issues aren’t necessarily hard to find, securing them can prove to be a bit pricey. More importantly though, Rubber Blanket was a seminal series, both in Mazzucchelli’s development as an artist and in the indie comix scene of the early 90s.
- June 29, 2009 @ 02:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Strangeways: Murder Moon – Page 04
Art by Luis Guragna. Written by Matt Maxwell
Commentary after the jump
- June 29, 2009 @ 01:00 PM by Matt Maxwell
Tyrese Gibson causes Mayhem on Twitter
Mayhem
It was a busy weekend for Tyrese Gibson, what with the opening of the second Transformers film last Wednesday, the BET Awards on Sunday and promoting his new comic, Mayhem, on Twitter in between.
With more than 160,000 followers on Twitter, the actor started encouraging them to call 1-888-COMICBOOK, the number for Diamond’s comic shop locator, to find a local comic shop and ask if they ‘d have his Image Comics series when it comes out in August.
He went on to mention several shops that fans reported would carry the book, and even gave out the phone numbers of shops that hadn’t heard of it. Then he went on to call a few of them himself.
“I just called the shop.. Attitude was crazy call her and make her aware of MAYHEM,” he wrote after calling Lone Star Comics in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He also tried to call shops in New York and New Jersey.
“It’s STANDARD in the comic book industry to ORDER ONLY 2 or 3 copies I think it’s PURE B.S!! PRE-ORDER 400 and Make your CUSTOMERS aware go!” he said later on Saturday.
Mayhem #1, written by Gibson, Mike Le & William Wilson, with art by Tone Rodriguez, is due in August.
- June 29, 2009 @ 11:31 AM by JK Parkin
Add two more names to the list of gay superheroes
From "X-Factor" #45
As Gay Pride Month winds down, Pink Kryptonite takes a cursory look at the state of gays and lesbians in superhero comics. It’s the usual suspects, mostly — Wiccan and Hulkling, Obsidian, Batwoman, The Question, etc. — with two notable, and very recently added, exceptions: Marvel’s Shatterstar and Rictor.
That’s right, those C-list mainstays of the X-Universe Shatterstar and Rictor. Last week’s X-Factor #45 ended years of online speculation — and in-story winks — about the nature of their relationship by showing them reuniting with a kiss.
Witnessing the moment, Strong Guy says, “Uh-kay. Didn’t see that comin’.” Judging from the number of fan sites devoted to the pair, he’s about the only one who missed the signs.
Some of the sites, of course, contain slash fiction. But others, such as Shattering the Earth, chronicle the characters’ histories and sift countless issues searching for clues about their sexuality and formerly theoretical romance.
- June 29, 2009 @ 10:45 AM by Kevin Melrose
Monsters & Dames charity art auction
by Joe Jusko
Earlier this year the folks at the Emerald City ComiCon put together a benefit book called Monsters & Dames that featured pin-ups by many of the artists who attended the con. The original artwork by Joe Jusko (above), David Petersen, Bruce Timm, Mark Brooks and many others is being auctioned off to benefit the Seattle Children’s Hospital; you can find the available pieces up on eBay right here.
- June 29, 2009 @ 10:02 AM by JK Parkin