2009 June
Unbound: Hey, kids’ comics!
My father loved Archie comics and Mad Magazine. He read them unashamedly in public and made frequent references to them in conversation—references that often only his kids understood.
Dad could pull that off. For one thing, he was a theoretical physicist, so it’s not like he came off as dumb—just eclectic. And he was well known for his goofy sense of humor anyway. (Even when he had advanced Alzheimer’s, he still would come out with the odd bit of Three Stooges schtick.)
For most of us, it’s not so easy. My teenage daughters react with shock and embarrassment if I bring a comic along to read while running errands. Of course, everything I do evokes shock and embarrassment from them, so I ignore that, but a lot of adults do feel self-conscious about reading comics, particularly kids’ comics, in public.
On the internet, however, no one knows you’re a grownup. Which is just as well. Some of the best comics on the web are aimed at kids, but many of them, like Pixar movies, operate on two levels, speaking to both kids and adults.
- June 23, 2009 @ 01:03 PM by Brigid Alverson
Straight for the art | The most terrifying Black Lantern of all
Black Lantern Cheeks
Thom Zahler shares his “pitch” for a “Blackest Night” tie-in — Cheeks the Toy Wonder, who died in Ambush Bug #1.
“Unless, he’s the big twist reveal at the end, of course,” Zahler writes. “In which case, sorry to figure it out, Dan.”
- June 23, 2009 @ 11:49 AM by JK Parkin
Grab a 40: Andy Belanger pours a Bottle of Awesome for Zuda
Last week DC Comics’ webcomics initiative, Zuda, began dropping hints on Twitter and their blog about their next webcomic, making references to “bottles” and “awesome.” So I guess it comes as no surprise that the strip that debuted yesterday was Bottle of Awesome by Andy Belanger.
Belanger is no stranger to the world of webcomics, as his Raising Hell strip currently runs at the webcomics collective Transmission X. I spoke with him about his new strip and everything else he has going on comics related, both online and off.
JK: So what exactly is Bottle of Awesome?
Andy: Bottle of Awesome is my escape from everything I would normally do. I’m a horror aficionado, The bulk of my work thus far has been horror. Bottle of Awesome is a step in the complete other direction from that. It’s a comedy, however, dark at times. It’s me getting in touch with my high school days. I wanted to tell a story that was a throwback to all those ’80s “You can do it” films. Films like The Karate Kid, Weird Science, Real Genius and so on. I have been noticing a trend in comics where it feels like every comic is Batman. Every character is a dark brooding anti-hero with a chip on his shoulder and a set of dead parents as his motive. Comics just seem to all have the same mood and as much as my work is knee deep in it, I wanted a change. That change is Bottle of Awesome!
- June 23, 2009 @ 10:40 AM by JK Parkin
Could The Last Airbender actually turn out to be decent?
This has little to do with comics, beyond those issues of Nickelodeon Magazine, but I’m such a fan of the Avatar: The Last Airbender animated series that I couldn’t resist posting the first official teaser for M. Night Shyamalan’s live-action adaptation.
The movie has at least three things going against it: the difficulty inherent in making the leap from animation to live action; the casting, at least initially, of white actors in the four central roles; and Shyamalan’s spotty track record.
But I admit that this 1 minute and 41-second teaser looks, well, if not promising then … not awful. I never thought I’d say that.
- June 23, 2009 @ 09:23 AM by Kevin Melrose
Straight for the Art | Sam Hiti’s Ghoulash 2
Ghoulash 2
If you’re like me and need a little more Sam Hiti to keep you going until his next graphic novel, the cartoonist has awesome news for you. He’s following up his previous Ghoulash “collection of inky manifestations” with a sequel.
Ghoulash 2 is at the printers and will make it’s debut at what Hiti hilariously (but accurately) calls San Diego Media Con. He also promises a few other new titles, which makes me wish now that I was going to the convention. Really though, I’d go home happy with just that cover.
- June 23, 2009 @ 08:44 AM by Michael May
The best there is at being emasculated
Ex Men
Dan Piraro, creator of the comic strip Bizarro, talks about the strip that ran this past Sunday — “Ex Men” — and how he regrets the strip about men estranged from their families ran on Father’s Day.
“So I’d like to apologize to any estranged fathers out there who found this cartoon to be painful,” he wrote on his blog. “I got divorced in the mid-nineties when my daughters were 9 and 14, so I know it can be tough. On the bright side, it probably isn’t a tough as being a huge, blue furry guy with a face like a baboon’s ass. So count your blessings.”
- June 23, 2009 @ 07:46 AM by JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Wizard Entertainment
Publishing | The same day that Wizard Entertainment CEO Gareb Shamus announced the launch of a new magazine, news trickled out of two more departures from the troubled company.
Tom Spurgeon reports he’s been told Kate Napolitano, managing editor of Wizard’s ToyFare magazine, gave her notice on Friday. Jairo Leon, who seems to have been the company’s last in-house designer, was fired Sunday evening.
Meanwhile yesterday, Shamus announced the planned October launch of FunFare, a family-focused magazine covering toys and games. It appears to be a retooled version of Wizard’s Toy Wishes, complete with the much-touted “Hot Dozen” toys list. (It’s perhaps ironic to point out that Napolitano also was managing editor of Toy Wishes.) The Toy Wishes subscription page is no longer available.
If the company website is any indication, there may have been some hiccups in the launch of FunFare: The magazine initially was set to debut with a Spring 2009 issue — sporting President Obama variant covers, naturally. [Wizard Entertainment, FunFare]
Detective Comics #854
Publishing | Ed Tahaney provides some context for the release this week of Detective Comics #854, starring lesbian crimefighter Batwoman: “While it’s a positive step to see a gay character step out into a principal role, mainstream comic book companies are still struggling to depict greater diversity on their pages. To a large degree the fantasy worlds inhabited by DC Comics and its biggest rival, Marvel (the company behind Spider-Man), are still chock-full of straight white men in tights and spandex-covered women with melon-sized breasts.” [The Advocate]
Publishing | The CW’s Reaper could be the latest canceled TV series heading to comics. [TV Guide]
- June 23, 2009 @ 06:47 AM by Kevin Melrose
SDCC ’09 | Oni Press announces talent search
Oni Press
Oni Press is holding a “talent search” in lieu of portfolio reviews at the San Diego Comic Con. The rules are fairly simple — if you want Oni to review your art, they’ve provided five-page scripts from three writers for artists to illustrate and bring to the con. Artists can also mail their entries to Oni.
For more information, check out the press release after the jump. While the contest is definitely geared toward artists, there’s a small benefit for writers, too — three script samples from three professional comic writers, which are linked after the jump.
- June 23, 2009 @ 05:24 AM by JK Parkin
Talking Comics with Tim: Matthew Loux
Salt Water Taffy
The world needs more kid friendly but goofy stories like Matthew Loux‘s Salt Water Taffy (Oni), which has seen two volumes released to date. You can get a taste for the wacky pursuits of brothers Jack and Benny by checking out the webcomic site here. After email interviewing Loux, I look forward to seeing Volume 3–The Truth About Dr. True (be sure to check out these preview pages) when it comes out sometime later this year.
Tim O’Shea: Your art style has some distinctive elements I would love to ask you about. You seem to favor a style that is almost like an old time TV series. And what I mean by this is the establishing of long exterior shots, setting a scene and then you move into the smaller panels for dialogue and plot development. How did you arrive at such an approach visually? I love the way you draw arms when they are slack–the lack of elbows on people. What’s the thinking on wavy arms?
Matthew Loux: Thank you. I think i just watched to many cartoons and TV in my lifetime. In a lot of ways this series is my way of doing a cartoon. Each volume is it’s own stand alone episode while still having throwbacks to previous adventures. It also might seem like old TV because I’m pretty straight forward about my visual storytelling. I keep pretty normal panel shapes and don’t mess around with overly dynamic panel composition. I like to show depth and detail in a panel, but I don’t do dynamic for dynamic’ sake. Also there are certain jokes that only work with very straight forward, full body compositions, much in the way of Donald Duck comics, Pogo, Peanuts, and early Bone. And when drawing my arms, They can easily become emotional explanation points. I can show almost as much about a characters mood through they’re arms than i can with their faces. Or at least I can hammer an emotion home. It works for two Kid characters since sometimes it seams like kids are made of rubber.
- June 22, 2009 @ 03:45 PM by Tim O'Shea
SDCC ’09 | Is it too early to start posting about San Diego?
Comic-Con
That’s a stupid question; it’s never too early to start posting about San Diego. Comic-Con International: San Diego takes place July 23-26 at the San Diego Convention Center. And as you may have heard, it’s completely sold out.
Like we did for the New York Comic Con, I’m going to start compiling news and notes about what’s happening this year into updates that will become more frequent, and eventually annoying, as we get closer to the convention. So if you are a comics publisher, creator, retailer, etc. who has plans for the con, I want to hear from you. If you have:
- a brand-new book, comic, print, toy, etc. that’s debuting at the show,
- any sort of limited edition “con only” merchandise,
- some sort of contest or special event leading up to the show,
- a signing, booth or panel schedule, or
- anything else related to the big San Diego show that fans should know about,
then email me and let me know. We’ll be running these up until showtime.
- June 22, 2009 @ 02:43 PM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art | Yep!
Wonder Woman and Spider-Man
Artist Aimé Jalon shares all sorts of wonderful comics, anime and manga-inspired art on her website, including the above reimagining of Wonder Woman and Spider-Man. (I wonder where they’re headed?)
- June 22, 2009 @ 01:51 PM by JK Parkin
Strangeways: Murder Moon – Page 01
Strangeways over at Robot 6 continues, though THE THIRSTY takes a break for the next several weeks. In its place, the first chapter from the first STRANGEWAYS graphic novel, MURDER MOON.
Art by Luis Guaraga. Writing by Matt Maxwell.
Commentary follows after the jump.
- June 22, 2009 @ 01:00 PM by Matt Maxwell
Pride and prejudice and (Marvel) zombies
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
At the risk of repeating something already covered in JK’s convention roundup, there’s at least one publishing announcement from this weekend that deserves another look: Marvel has turned to novelists Seth Grahame-Smith, Jonathan Maberry and David Wellington for the next installment of its Marvel Zombies franchise.
Maberry, author of Patient Zero, already is familiar to Marvel readers for his “Wolverine: Ghosts” short, Punisher MAX: Naked Kill one-shot and his upcoming run on Black Panther. Wellington penned the Monster trilogy of zombie-apocalypse novels — Island, Nation and Planet — the Laura Caxton vampire series, and the werewolf novel Frostbite.
And Grahame-Smith made a splash a few months ago with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a widely publicized mashup that combines the 1813 Jane Austin classic with elements of zombie fiction. His follow-up is Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
The three will join comics writer Fred Van Lente on the five-issue Marvel Zombies Return, which debuts in September. According to CBR’s panel report, each issue will spotlight different characters: Spider-Man, by Van Lente and artist Nick Dragotta; The Avengers, by Van Lente and Wellington Alves; Wolverine, by Maberry and Jason Shawn Alexander; Iron Man, by Wellington and Andrea Mutti; and The Hulk, by Grahame-Smith and Richard Elson.
I’m not really a fan of the zombie sub-genre, and I haven’t read any of the previous Marvel Zombies miniseries, but this seems like a pretty smart move by the publisher to keep the franchise fresh (so to speak) and to potentially expand the audience.
Also, I like what I’ve read of Wellington’s work serialized online. So it definitely has that going for it.
- June 22, 2009 @ 12:20 PM by Kevin Melrose
Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now: Happy Father’s Day!
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now
It’s a day late, but I’m sure my dad wouldn’t have minded. He was very forgiving when it came to his little girl. Yesterday marked the sixth Father’s Day I spent without my dad, and it was as hard as ever. But I take a lot of solace in memories of him, and among them is the important role his influence had on my pop culture education.
My dad and I spent many an afternoon sharing a bowl of Cheez-Its and watching kung fu movies. As always, I was drawn to the glamorous young women in gorgeous costumes — who could hold their own in a rumble with the rival kung fu school! And there will always be something iconic for me about crazy old men in trees and the nefarious sifu who meditated on beds of nails. My dad was a sifu, a kung fu teacher, himself (among my memorbilia of him are two spears and a photograph of him breaking a cinderblock with his fist) but, alas, I never learned much beyond ma from him, to my everlasting regret.
Kung fu fiction is called wuxia in China and includes prose, movies, and comics. I saw a few wuxia graphic novels in Shanghai when I was there three years ago, but I didn’t by them, also to my regret. If anyone knows of good kung fu comics available in the U.S., please recommend them to me here!
Happy (belated) Father’s Day to all the dads out there. Share what you love with your daughters, even if you think they won’t like it because it’s not tea parties and princesses. They love all the attention and time they can get from their dads. I know I did.
- June 22, 2009 @ 11:24 AM by Jennifer de Guzman
And Crumb said ‘Let there be a $500 version of my book.’ And there was
Crumb's The Book of Genesis
As Tom Spurgeon reported on Friday, WW Norton is offering a limited edition slipcase of Robert Crumb’s highly anticipated adaptation of The Book of Genesis that comes with a signed print. The cost? A mere $500. Amazon.com has the book listed for only $315, a relative bargain by any standard (it also seems to be the cheapest price on the Net right now based on my admittedly quick perusal). There will only be 250 copies of this edition available, so order yours now. You are going to be ordering one right? C’mon, confess, who among you is going say ‘heck with fixing the washer and dryer’ and pick one of these up instead?
- June 22, 2009 @ 11:21 AM by Chris Mautner