2009 June
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies arrives on DVD Sept. 29
Warner Home Video has announced that the sixth Superman/Batman: Public Enemies DVD will arrive in stores on Sept. 29.
The animated movie adapts the first storyline from the title of the same name, by Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness. In it, Lex Luthor claims Superman is connected to a Kryptonite asteroid heading for Earth, and Luthor puts a bounty out on the duo. This puts them at odds with various heroes and villains.
- June 29, 2009 @ 09:02 AM by JK Parkin
SDCC ’09 | Middleman, a talent search, TV panels, toys and more
Comic-Con
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.
Programming | Leading up to the con, ICv2 will host a comics and media conference on Wednesday, July 22 at the San Diego Marriott. This ticketed event will include speakers such as Mike Mignola, Jeph Loeb, Dynamite’s Nick Barrucci, Top Cow’s Matt Hawkins and many more. Registration is now open.
Television | Warner Bros. sent out a press release on their schedule for Comic-Con, which includes panels for Smallville, Supernatural, Chuck and Big Bang Theory, as well as new shows like Human Target and V. They’ll be showing the pilot episodes of all their new shows.
- June 29, 2009 @ 08:10 AM by JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
The Life & Times of Scrooge McDuck
Publishing | Gemstone Publishing President Steven Geppi has issued a statement congratulating BOOM! Studios on its acquisition of the Disney comics license previously held by his company.
“I think the whole industry has observed their initial successes with their Boom! Kids line with great interest, particularly the immediate sell-through on The Incredibles #1, The Muppet Show #1, and Cars #1,” Geppi said. “It would be exciting to see Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories and Mickey Mouse and Friends, as well as any subsequent titles, follow in similar form.”
When Gemstone picked up the Disney license in 2003, the characters hadn’t appeared in U.S. comics for four years. However, rumors began swirling in March that the financially troubled publisher wouldn’t renew its agreement with Disney.
“We had some notable successes, both in terms of critical acclaim and sales, particularly with The Life & Times of Scrooge McDuck,” Geppi said in his statement. “While I am of course disappointed that I won’t be the one publishing these great characters anymore, I believe the future for them is still one of untapped potential.” [Scoop, via Disney Comics Worldwide]
The Ancient Book of Sex and Science
Publishing | Scott Morse reports that a recent mention on Boing Boing of The Ancient Book of Sex and Science has led to a sellout of the hardcover before its actual release: “Amazon has placed an order so large that I can’t fill it. We’ve vowed to NOT go back to press on these initial Ancient Book hardcovers (you’ll recall that Myth and War sold out in a few months). It appears that Sex and Science is now effectively ‘sold out’ as well.” He notes that he’ll have a limited number of copies available at Comic-Con. [Red Window]
Sales charts | Watchmen and the 27th volume of Bleach retain their top spots in the paperback and manga categories of The New York Times Graphic Books Best Seller List while the collection of Final Crisis debuts at No. 1 on the hardcover chart. [ArtsBeat]
- June 29, 2009 @ 07:14 AM by Kevin Melrose
Bluewater Productions to publish Michael Jackson biography in October
Tribute: Michael Jackson, King of Pop
That was quick … via press release, Bluewater Productions has announced a “special collector’s edition” biography comic book of Michael Jackson, who passed away last Thursday. The book will feature a wraparound cover and foreword by Giuseppe Mazzola, a friend of Jackson’s
The book is scheduled for October. The complete press release and an image of a second cover can be found after the jump.
- June 28, 2009 @ 09:14 PM by JK Parkin
Six by 6 | Six comic book action figures that need to be made right now
Action figures!
As a kid, I was a big fan of both comics and action figures; I probably spent my allowance equally on Uncanny X-Men comics and Star Wars action figures. The day I got my Emperor action figure in the mail was almost as good as the day I found a really cheap copy of Uncanny X-Men #129 at a used book store. Unfortunately, those two passions rarely met. It was a post Mego, pre-action figure boom world that I grew up in, so with the exception of the short-lived Secret Wars and Super Powers figures, there weren’t a lot of superheroes to be found on the toy aisle.
Nowadays, though, you can find action figures of just about any comic character on the shelves, from secondary X-Men like Forge and Banshee to independent characters like Madman. But there are still a few out there that the world needs, which is why Chris suggested we list a few characters who we felt needed to be captured in three-dimensional plastic with a kung fu grip.
Joining Chris and I this week is a special guest — High Moon writer and action figure aficionado David Gallaher. You can take a look at David’s collection of Marvel action figures right here.
So here we go …
1. Firestar (David Gallaher)
In looking over my collection, I thought about a character whose history dates back almost 30 years. Playing the lead role in one of the best Marvel cartoons, she starred in her own limited series, was in a couple of coloring books, was a member of the Avengers, an enemy of the X-Men, a founding member of the New Warriors, and is currently starring in Marvel Divas. Even better still – she was featured in her own Hardees kids meal!
- June 28, 2009 @ 03:31 PM by JK Parkin
What Are You Reading?
Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?
Welcome to What Are You Reading, where we talk about stuff, but mostly books, especially comic books. Our guest this week is our fellow CBR blogger Brian Cronin, whom most of you no doubt know via the excellent blog Comics Should Be Good and author of the new book Was Superman Was A Spy: And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed!
To discover what Brian and the rest of the crew are reading, simply click on the link below.
- June 28, 2009 @ 10:20 AM by Chris Mautner
Seven Days | The week in comics
A look at the biggest, and most interesting, stories from the past week.
1. BOOM! Studios grab the license for Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse comics: The four-year-old publisher acquired the comic-book rights to the Disney characters previously held by the financially troubled Gemstone Publishing. Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories and Mickey Mouse and Friends will join the BOOM! Kids imprint, already home to comics based on The Muppet Show and Disney/Pixar’s The Incredibles and Cars.
2. J. Michael Straczynski will leave Thor sooner rather than later: Writer J. Michael Straczynski confirmed reports that he’ll end his award-winning run on Marvel’s Thor with the September issue. An impending crossover that he first mentioned in May helped him to conclude it’s time to leave.
- June 27, 2009 @ 03:43 PM by Kevin Melrose
My Thoughts on HeroesCon 09
HeroesCon
The most negative feedback I’ve heard about HeroesCon comes from a rather interesting source, Creative Director Dustin Harbin. “I flubbed updating all the seating locations correctly.” I’m here to tell you Harbin, if a creator is going to complain to anyone, it’s to the journalist from CBR who shows up at your table and introduces himself. Any creator I encountered over the weekend seemed quite pleased to be at the show, no complaints. And I had a blast, as I do every year I attend the con.
After attending this year’s con, I left with a newfound appreciation for the panel coverage all the news sites provide. I only covered a few panels, and I was overwhelmed at all that I had to take in (and all that I almost missed, thank you digital recorder…).
In between panel coverage, I had numerous great moments with or around creators:
- Finding out Roger Langridge‘s dream project would be a comics adaptation of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot using Laurel & Hardy (and buying Fred the Clown from him)
- Walking by Chris Claremont as he regaled a fan with what I can only guess may have been a Jim Shooter as EIC recreation, slamming his fist on the table and yelling: “Kill Iron Man! Kill the Avengers!”
- Standing with my wife in the Westin hotel elevator and watching as Mice Templar writer Bryan J.L. Glass boarded the elevator as a small child/complete stranger told him in detail of his plans to spend the day at a water park. There was a split second where I think Glass contemplated tagging along. (I’m extra appreciative of Glass for not shunning me when I reminded him of my failure to follow-up on my commitment [at a con last year] to interview him.)
- June 26, 2009 @ 09:48 PM by Tim O'Shea
The Fifth Color | Our Own Heroes
Like boy bands, sentai teams and sitcom pals, the X-Men thrive on fan identification. Mutants aren’t just the outsiders, they are in many ways just like us. They’ve been multi-gender and multi-racial, with backgrounds as rich and diverse as they are simplistic and stereotypical. Just enough to give the reader something to identify with and hook them into the rest of the story. While it might seem odd since I certainly can’t ‘relate’ to being possessed by an innate cosmic power only to be resurrected while my genetic clone has had a baby with the boy I crushed on in high school, you have to admit that the X-Men, above all other Marvel comics, find a way to relate to all of us and we likewise see ourselves in Xavier’s students.
They have grown with us pop-culturally, from Kitty Pryde’s interest in home computers to Jubilee’s rollerblading mall-rat ‘tude to Pixie’s ‘Chemical Romance’ so to speak. They have loved and lost and grown older (but not too much older) and wiser (but not too much wiser) as we grew up along with them, each generation it seems getting their own freshmen class of mutants. They’ve been heroes, they’ve been villains and then they switch around in that gray area for a story or two, I could go on. But today is not for the X-Men as a whole, but one particular member not cited on Marvel.com or listed by the inexhaustible uncannyxmen.net. Someone I got to know through the talents of Joe Casey and John Paul Leon… and the funding of Steven Spielberg and General H. Norman Schwarzkopf.
- June 26, 2009 @ 03:31 PM by Carla Hoffman
ComicsLive | A guide to next week’s comic-related events
Welcome to ComicsLive, a guide to upcoming signings, conventions and more. This type of information can sometimes get lost in the archives when it’s posted a few weeks or months ahead of time, so we’ll be consolidating them into one weekly calendar-esque post every Friday and running reminders at the bottom of Kevin’s Comics A.M. posts on the day of the event. Hopefully this will ensure the information is easier to find when you need it.
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.
Today, June 26
Toronto | Pulp Fiction, an art exhibit featuring the works of Marc Bell, Amy Lockhart, Peter Thompson, Seth Scriver and many more Canadian cartoonists, opens at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art. The exhibit kicks off with an opening party tonight at 7 p.m. and runs through Aug. 23. More details can be found here.
- June 26, 2009 @ 01:43 PM by JK Parkin
Strangeways: Murder Moon – Page 03
Cowboys make their appearance in the cowboys and werewolves western/horror story MURDER MOON.
Art by Luis Guragna. Written by Matt Maxwell
Commentary after the jump.
- June 26, 2009 @ 01:00 PM by Matt Maxwell
Robot reviews: Potpourri
Goats: Infinite Typewriters
by Jonathan Rosenberg
Del Rey, 176 pages, $14
A strange thing happened to me while reading this collection of Rosenberg’s well-known webcomic about a pair of clueless programmers, an evil chicken, a goat, a fish and an even more evil baby chick. Initially I wrote the comic off as one of the many smarmy, self-conscious humor strips that proliferate the Net with their cute pop culture references and deliberate bizarre and often violent antics — antics that often make me think that Berkeley Breathed had a lot to answer for.
But then as I dove further into the book I found Rosenberg attempting to, if not deepen his story, at least stretch it out into something more epic and knotty. Plot lines started to weave into each other. Philosophical and political themes started to emerge and the parodies started to get a bit more thoughtful than “celebrities suck.” He seemed to be trying to create something beyond his initial gag-a-day formula and I find it tough not to admire that. He still has yet to create a character I feel any empathy for and I’m not sure he has the artistic chops to match his ambition, but I like his moxie.
- June 26, 2009 @ 11:44 AM by Chris Mautner
Straight for the art | Olivier Schrauwen’s art blog
Olivier Schrauwen illustration
The My Boy author and Mome contributor Olivier Schrauwen has some pretty nifty illustrations up on his blog.
- June 26, 2009 @ 10:55 AM by Chris Mautner
Marvel Divas may pleasantly surprise us (seriously!)
From "Marvel Divas" #1
Despite my immense skepticism about the Marvel Divas miniseries when it was clumsily announced in April, I found myself enjoying the preview for the first issue, which debuts next week.
Oh, there are still a couple of problems, not the least of which is J. Scott Campbell’s “sex sells” cover that’s completely disconnected from the tone of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s writing and Tonci Zonjic‘s interior art (there’s a ’70s variant cover, though).
It’s a bit difficult to get past the datedness of the Sex and the City-meets-the-Marvel-Universe pitch, which feels further anchored to the late ’90s/early ’00s by the preview’s speed-dating scene. (Yes, I know there was a Sex and the City movie released just last year, but the concept still seems quintessentially late ’90s.)
But … I like those first six pages of Marvel Divas #1, even if as a reader of early-’80s Avengers I have to ignore that Monica Rambeau was once the leader of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and teammate of She-Hulk in order to buy a scene in which our “Divas” are annoyed by the arrival of Sue Storm, Jennifer Walters and “the other glamazons.”
Photon, Hellcat & Co. are with Kathie Griffin on the D-list? Fine.
Unlucky at superheroics and love? (Black Cat, too?) Well … okay. You get some leeway because of the art and dialogue. The latter even saves the aforementioned speed-dating sequence — an artifact from a 2000 TV sitcom — with the line, “Face it, tigress — you just hit the jackpot.” Well, that and the guy whose interest in Felicia Hardy probably isn’t romantic.
Sure, it’s only a six-page glimpse. And I remain concerned by clues the miniseries could take “A Very Special Episode” turn with a breast-cancer storyline.
However, at this point I’m willing to give Marvel Divas a chance — at least for a couple of issues.
- June 26, 2009 @ 10:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
SDCC ’09 Fat Bastard Challenge, Week Two
Last week CBR’s main man Jonah Weiland challenged Entertainment Weekly editor/comics writer Marc Bernardin to a weight loss contest leading up to the San Diego Comic-Con. Dubbed the SDCC ’09 Fat Bastard Challenge, both competitors are attempting to lose 20 lbs. before the big con.
Their motivation is:
- The person with the most weight loss by San Diego is treated to a $50 meal by the loser.
- They both have to donate $10 to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund for every pound of weight less than 20 they haven’t lost by San Diego.
We’ll be checking in with them every week leading up to the final weigh-in, set to take place on the CBR Yacht at Comic-Con International in San Diego on Thursday, July 23. Now let’s hear how they did this week:
- June 26, 2009 @ 09:21 AM by JK Parkin