2009 September
Your Mileage May Vary: The New Batgirl Costume
Batgirl costume sketch, by Lee Garbett
Costume changes always makes for interesting discussions among comics bloggers. This time it’s Batgirl getting the makeover.
Diamondrock of Title Undetermined does not like the costume:
All the practicality has been thrown out the window in what I would see as a misguided attempt to tie Steph’s Bargirl costume to her Spoiler costume. The purple just doesn’t work. The leg pouch is all 90′s “anti-symmetry.” It just looks bad. And again, the free flowing hair is just going to get in her way. Couldn’t she tie it back in a ponytail or stuff it in her cowl like she did with her hood? Honestly, how many women athletes do you see competing with their hair loose? If a runner or a soccer player doesn’t do it, then a vigilante certainly shouldn’t.
- September 19, 2009 @ 01:09 PM by Melissa Krause
The Fifth Color | Writer with a Home
It’s been said that Sean McKeever has a survey group of teenage girls chained in his basement and, in exchange for their opinions and feelings, they get one hour of Gossip Girl a week and a poster of the Jonas Brothers to encourage development.
Wait. That’s probably not true. But it has been said, mostly cited as a reason for why his Mary Jane-focused series-mini-series-then-series-again comics were such absolute joys to read for fans of all ages and genders. By the time we got Mary Jane Loves Spider-Man (a very Joanie Loves Chachi title for me but that reference was so not in the target demographic), we had to say goodbye as our Pal left for the Distinguished Competition. Never fear, I thought to myself, some good could come from this! Maybe they’ll put him on Supergirl, another can-do gal who could easily be put into that rich and delicious McKeever high school setting that feels oh my gosh, just like <i>mine</i>. At DC, the plucky can-do gal can fight super-villains at the same time she’s trying to get her best friend on speaking terms with the friend’s ex and oh, the stories just write themselves! Sean McKeever can really set the stage of high school life without making it feel hackneyed or childish so I expected they’d really let him work with the DCU.
Short answer: it didn’t go very well.
- September 18, 2009 @ 03:05 PM by Carla Hoffman
Robot Reviews: Those wacky Asian countries and their crazy comical books
X-men: Misfits
X-Men Misfits Vol. 1
Story by Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman. Art by Anzu
Del Rey, 192 pages, $12.99.
Grafting the X-Men onto a shojo manga template isn’t a half-bad idea, considering the soap opera antics of the series back in its heyday (and indeed, even today). The problem lies in that Telgemeier and Roman have grafted too much of the template onto this comic, so that none of the characters have any room to move beyond their narrowly defined roles. It’s way too slavish to shojo cliches — Anzu apparently never met a chibi she didn’t like. There’s some amusement in seeing Angel gussied-up Bishonen style or Beast looking like Totoro’s second cousin, once removed, to be sure. But its adherence to shallow formula is just as bad as the dull exposition and fight scenes that make up most modern X-Men comics. Too bad. I was really hoping for something that blended the best aspects of both Western and Eastern comics, not something that swapped out one set of cliches for another.
- September 18, 2009 @ 02:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Six by 6 | Six impressions I left Anaheim with after the D23 Expo
I meant to get this up sooner, but travel, jury duty (ugh) and life in general delayed me a few days. In any event, the D23 Expo came and went last weekend, as the Disney “fan fair”/big marketing experience in Anaheim showcased everything from company’s movie and television slate to upcoming changes to its theme parks.
1. Overall, this was an extremely well-run event. Not surprisingly, Disney knows something about hosting thousands of people in a fairly confined area, and doing it in a way that those people leave worn out but with smiles on their faces. That doesn’t mean there weren’t issues – I’m still waiting for someone to give me back the hour or so I spent waiting for the Princess and the Frog presentation to start – but looking at the entire weekend, Disney handled the crowds really well. This was a combination of pre-planning (most of the employees who were handling the crowds seemed to have come over from Disneyland, where I’m sure they’re used to moving large masses of people around) and on-the-spot learning (getting out of Sunday’s big arena presentation on the animation slate was much easier than leaving Friday’s live-action film presentation, and I’m pretty sure Sunday’s crowd was bigger).
- September 18, 2009 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
Brevoort trades his way to Fantastic Four #1
Months of effort, 84 trades and more than 500 comics have netted Marvel editor a copy of Fantastic Four #1, which Brevoort will donate to the Hero Initiative so they can auction it off. Check out the video update from Brevoort below:
Brevoort started trading comics in late 2008 with Marvel fans on his Blah Blah Blog on the company’s website, all in an effort to see if he could one day get a copy of his holy grail.
“In all honesty, I was beginning to lose hope that we’d ever successfully complete this journey, especially after the previous near-misses,” Brevoort wrote on his blog. “And I have to say, the thing that stands out the most for me about this whole Experiment is the vast generosity of Marvel’s fans. Not only did most people offer up better books in Trade than what they were asking for, but a number of guys went even further, out-and-out donating items without getting anything in return outside of the feeling of doing something positive. There’s no question, Marvel’s fans are the best, as this whole experience proves beyond a doubt.”
- September 18, 2009 @ 11:37 AM by JK Parkin
Scalped, and the power of ‘show and tell’
Review links usually are Chris Mautner’s territory, but I want to point out this solid overview of Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera’s Vertigo series Scalped written for fans of crime fiction, rather than for a comics readership.
Crime writer Jay Stringer builds his review around what comics can do better, or at least more easily, than movies, television or prose:
Scalped, Vol. 4
Could this be a film? Yes. It could be a rushed and violent spectacle. It could cram the whole thing into two or three hours and barely scratch the surface of what this series has achieved so far.
Could it be a television show? Sure. The Wire has proved that this sort of thing is doable. But it would take the very best writers and directors, to say nothing of a cast who would be willing to sit out whole episodes at a time as the focus shifts.
What a comic book can do that doesn’t work on screen is to really get us into the heads of the characters. It can show and tell. And because of that, it only needs to do a little of each to hit home very powerfully.
The fifth collection of Scalped will be released in November. You can download the complete first issue from the Vertigo website.
- September 18, 2009 @ 10:45 AM by Kevin Melrose
Just in time for winter, Marvel to publish Winter Guard this December
Winter Guard
Marvel has started to tease some of their December comics over on their website, starting with the Hulk titles. One of those titles features the Winter Guard, who appeared recently in the Hulk.
I remember them, though, as the Soviet Super Soldiers, who first appeared back in the early 1980s when the Hulk was roaming the world and meeting all sorts of new heroes, as chronicled by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema. At the time, the team included Darkstar, her brother Vanguard, Ursa Major and Crimson Dynamo. The new team consists of Darkstar, Red Guardian, Crimson Dynamo and Major Ursa, but I think the Darkstar and Red Guardian identities have been assumed by new folks. I’m sure David Gallaher and Steve Ellis, the team behind High Moon and this new one-shot, will fill us in in December.
- September 18, 2009 @ 10:05 AM by JK Parkin
Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for the DC/Days of Our Lives mash-up
Marvel Comics pays homage to the recently canceled daytime soap opera Guiding Light by making their 2006 Halloween crossover with the 70-plus-year-old TV show available for free on their digital site. I recall the TV version of the mash-up being pretty thoroughly trashed. Can’t speak for the comic though.
Oh, the last episode of Guiding Light runs today as well. Just in case you were interested.
- September 18, 2009 @ 09:30 AM by Chris Mautner
Help Chuck BB’s Threadless submission become a real T-shirt
Odin Undead
Black Metal artist Chuck BB has entered the ongoing contest that the T-shirt site Threadless holds, and you can help his design become a T-shirt that’s sold on the site by voting for it. Click the image below to head over to the site and cast your vote:
- September 18, 2009 @ 08:09 AM by JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Ohio State University
Education | Ohio State University’s cartoon library has been renamed the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum in recognition of a $7-million donation from the Elizabeth Ireland Graves Foundation to help renovate its new space. Billy Ireland was a cartoonist for The Columbus Dispatch from 1898 until his death in 1935.
The $21-million renovation of historic Sullivant Hall, expected to be completed in 2013, will house the cartoon library and museum and the university’s dance department. The library contains the world’s largest collection of cartoon art. [The Columbus Dispatch]
Legal | Japanese publisher Kodansha reportedly has sent cease-and-desist letters to a popular scanlation site. [AstroNerdBoy, via MangaBlog]
Publishing | Speculation has begun as to whether another manga publisher has closed. [The Manga Critic]
- September 18, 2009 @ 07:37 AM by Kevin Melrose
No character left behind
Grumpy Old Fan
So this is the post where I blend a week’s worth of restructured-DC coverage with my own ill-considered thoughts, and try not to sound too naïve and/or obtuse in the process. Should be fun, right?
Yeah.
While it’s a little foolish to attempt any real predictions at this early stage, I’m left with a few general impressions. First, I get a good vibe from new DC Entertainment President Diane Nelson. I don’t know that we’ll be bonding over ‘Mazing Man next summer in San Diego, but for now she’s not saying anything too worrisome.
- September 17, 2009 @ 02:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
Jamie Tanner’s Kickstarter Project
The Aviary
When Jamie Tanner put together his Eisner-nominated book The Aviary, it took him six years. For his follow-up, he’d like to reduce that time to six months. That’s where you come in. To meet this schedule he’s set up a PBS-like pledge drive, with varying rewards depending on how much moolah you promise to give. $8, for instance, gets you a small, blank sketchbook, while $50 nets you a page of original art. You can even be drawn into the comic or have a character named after you. See the video at the link for more details.
- September 17, 2009 @ 11:30 AM by Chris Mautner
Straight for the art | Dave Perillo’s GI Joe
GI Joe
Artist Dave Perillo drew this Jay Ward-esque image of the GI Joe team, as well as one featuring their archenemies in Cobra. Maybe next he can do their animal sidekicks.
- September 17, 2009 @ 11:02 AM by JK Parkin
Everyone’s A Critic: A round-up of comic book reviews and thinkpieces
Sandman
Let’s try to run through some of the more notable links of the past several days. My apologies if this is old news to you or I missed something.
• Kicking things off, I should note that the gang at the Hooded Utilitarian are offering an in-depth analysis of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series. In order: Noah Berlatsky, Ng Suat Tong, Tom Crippen and Von Marlowe.
• Ken Parille looks at the work of his fellow blogmate Tim Hensley, specifically his Wally Gropius series: “I can’t think of another cartoonist who approaches space — and what we might call ‘spatial color’ — in such a rigorously strange way.”
• Abhay Khosla talks about comics by way of crime novels:
So: a year from now, if we’re unlucky and Vertigo Crime no longer exists, and some so-and-so is screeching that “None of youse fools on the internet people could have done better because we are geniuses who thought of EVERYTHING” … I would suggest that maybe one thing they could have done differently is launched their crime line with crime fiction…? Just a silly thought.
- September 17, 2009 @ 10:30 AM by Chris Mautner
Straight for the art | The Last Match
by Matthew Thurber
Matthew Thurber, Jeffrey Brown, Shaun Tan, Nick Abadzis and many, many more contributed to an art exhibit called The Last Match. The exhibit features about 150 different matchbook-sized pieces of artwork by artists from 38 countries, according to the project’s website.
Check out all the artwork on Flickr. Via
- September 17, 2009 @ 10:30 AM by JK Parkin