2009 September
Police search for missing Crayon Shin-chan creator
Crayon Shin-chan, Vol. 1
Anime News Network has word that Japanese police are searching for Crayon Shin-chan creator Yoshito Usui, who has been missing since Friday.
The investigation began on Saturday in Usui’s hometown of Kasukabe, Saitama Prefecture, and has expanded to other jurisdictions. According to reports, neither Usui’s family nor his publisher Futabasha has had contact with the 51-year-old mangaka.
Debuting in 1990, the popular Crayon Shin-chan follows the adventures of a rude, crude and rambunctious 5-year-old boy in Kasukabe who’s obsessed with bodily functions and older girls. The manga was adapted as an animated television series in 1992, and has spawned 17 anime films.
The manga is published in North America by DC Comics’ CMX imprint.
- September 15, 2009 @ 01:49 PM by Kevin Melrose
Unbound: Twisted History
Making fun of history has been a good gig for quite a while. I grew up reading Richard Armour’s fractured retellings of history-book standards, such as It All Started with Columbus, and of course Mad Magazine was a reliable source of misinformation. (The Marx/Marx Brothers and Lenin/Lennon confusion lingered for an embarrassingly long time, thanks to them.) And then there is Blackadder, a show whose humor content scales directly with the viewer’s knowledge of British history.
Mock history has proven to be a fertile vein on the web as well. It’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t love Kate Beaton’s Hark, A Vagrant. Reading her irreverent takes on historical topics is sort of like sitting in the back of class drawing moustaches on the Founding Fathers.
- September 15, 2009 @ 01:03 PM by Brigid Alverson
Doris Danger to fight monsters at SLG this November
Doris Danger Giant Monster Adventures
SLG announced earlier this month that they will publish Chris Wisnia’s Doris Danger: Giant Monster Stories in November. As you can probably guess from the title and the images above, the book features a lot of Kirby-inspired giant monsters.
“I made this book for people like me — people who love Jack Kirby, robots, low-budget 1950′s sci-fi films; realistic, somewhat non-stop army, secret society, AND spaceship action, absurd conspiracy theories, romance, bad dialogue, ridiculous plot lines, seventh grade humor, kitsch, and of course…GIANT MONSTERS!” Wisnia said.
If you’d like to get a sense of what to expect, check out Wisnia’s website, where you can buy some of his previous monster comics.
- September 15, 2009 @ 11:09 AM by JK Parkin
Universal offers some details on secretive Harry Potter theme park
Concept art for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter
Who needs Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk when you have Harry Potter?
Amid speculation as to what Disney’s announced $4-billion purchase of Marvel could mean to existing theme-park licenses, Universal Orlando today unveiled details for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, a 20-acre addition to its Islands of Adventure.
The rights to the $265-million “theme park within a theme park” were secured from author J.K. Rowling in 2007, but NBC Universal has managed to keep information about the project a secret.
- September 15, 2009 @ 10:09 AM by Kevin Melrose
Proving once again who the real superheroes are
A firefighter pays homage to Superman
From Time’s “Pictures of the Week” feature for last week comes this picture, which has the feel of a Superman cover. Even better is the fact that the copy editor who wrote the caption made the connection.
(Thanks, Tom!)
- September 15, 2009 @ 09:15 AM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art | Popeye vs. Namor
Let’s hope he gobbled down some spinach right before this … Evan “Doc” Shaner and Jay Fosgitt draw a clash between two titans, as Popeye and Namor prepare for conflict.
- September 15, 2009 @ 08:42 AM by JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
All-American Mickey
Business | Ted Anthony takes an interesting approach to the proposed purchase of Marvel by Disney, viewing the merger as a wedding of “two of the dominant sets of myths that inform modern America.”
“It’s almost as if, decades ago, they made these decisions about America,” says historian John Baick. “And one decided that America stops in the 1950s and the other decides that America plunges into a dark, chaotic future.” [The Associated Press]
Business | Disney reportedly is in talks with Indian publisher Vimanika Comics to develop some of its characters, based on Hindu mythology, to television and film. [Times Online]
Business | Matt Maxwell wonders whether the Warner Bros./DC Entertainment restructuring could lead the company to buy Diamond Comic Distributors before its option runs out in 2011. [Comics Waiting Room]
- September 15, 2009 @ 07:46 AM by Kevin Melrose
SPX announces 2009 programming
SPX 2009
The programming schedule for this year’s Small Press Expo is up on their website, which includes spotlight panels on Gahan Wilson, Peter Kuper, Jeffrey Brown, John Porcellino and more, as well as a critics round table that features our own Chris Mautner and recent guest blogger Sean T. Collins, among many others:
Critics’ Roundtable
A murderers’ row of comics critics will address general issues facing comics criticism today and will candidly discuss several new and recent works in a lively, no-holds-barred, roundtable conversation. Rob Clough, Sean Collins, Gary Groth, Chris Mautner, Joe McCulloch, Tucker Stone and Douglas Wolk will share their acute critical insights with moderator Bill Kartalopoulos.
Overall it sounds like a great line-up, so check it out if you’re able. SPX will be held Sept. 26-27 in Bethesda, Maryland.
- September 15, 2009 @ 05:39 AM by JK Parkin
Talking Comics with Tim: Christopher Yost
Red Robin 4
By now most folks will have read Red Robin 4 (which was released on September 9), but if it’s still in your reading pile from this past week please make sure to read it before reading this interview with series writer Christopher Yost. (Consider that your official spoiler warning.) In addition to discussing the events of the issue, we delve into the plans ahead for the book and the life of Tim Wayne (formerly Drake), as well as the premiere of the new series artist Marcus To as of issue 6.
Tim O’Shea: Issue 4 is now out and had a fairly big reveal in the hunt for Bruce Wayne. This has been building up for four issues, did DC tell you exactly how they wanted the reveal to occur–or did they give you some creative levity to structure the reveal in your own way?
Christopher Yost: [Editor] Mike Marts and I had been talking about this from day one, and it was something that I wanted to do from the start. Tim’s incredibly smart, incredibly driven… if there’s evidence and clues out there, he’s going to find it. And as you saw, he did. We still haven’t revealed what put him on that road, of course… but I knew I wanted to tie Red Robin into the end of Grant’s Final Crisis super-early on.
But to answer the question, DC has given me nothing but freedom and creative levity. It’s pretty great.
- September 14, 2009 @ 03:30 PM by Tim O'Shea
Cool things to bookmark: Project Waldo
Panel from 'Project Waldo'
Video game artist Nate Simpson is having a go at making his very first comic and blogging about the experience:
Sometimes it feels like I’m running a marathon while tied to the starting line with a bungee cord. Each step takes more effort. I’m like Steve Martin in the Three Amigos, held against the prison wall by weighted chains. “Gonna make it! Gonna make it! Gonna make it! Notgonnamakeit notgonnamakeit notgonnamakeit!”
(found via Drawn)
- September 14, 2009 @ 02:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Strangeways: The Thirsty – Page 085
As a novelty, it’s even on time.
Art by Gervasio and Jok. Written by Matt Maxwell.
You can say this for Collins, he’s stubborn as they come. Sometimes that’s even a virtue, ‘stead of just getting people mad at you.
Another page up on Wednesday. Considering the fate of the weekly contest as well. I was never one for giving the people what they don’t want.
- September 14, 2009 @ 01:00 PM by Matt Maxwell
A first look at Cameron Stewart’s work on Batman and Robin
From "Batman and Robin" #7
Cameron Stewart offers a glimpse at a page from December’s Batman and Robin #7, which kicks off his three-issue reunion with Grant Morrison. (The two previously worked together on Seven Soldiers: Manhattan Guardian, Seaguy and Seaguy: Slaves of Mickey Eye.)
“I need you to go in to your local comic shop and talk to the people who work there, and tell them that you’re really looking forward to this,” Stewart writes on his blog, “and if you really want to be bold, suggest that they should probably order a few extra copies to be safe. Tell them that it ties in with the big Blackest Night crossover (it does*) and that sales could conceivably be higher. I feel like, as a guy who hasn’t done a whole lot of big mainstream superhero work, I’m the dark horse in this race and I need all the help that I can get, and it would be great if advance word-of-mouth could help make a little jump in sales.”
Visit Stewart’s blog to see the entire page. Also, check out his interview with Comic Book Resources.
- September 14, 2009 @ 12:04 PM by Kevin Melrose
Straight for the art: Awesome’s grid paintings
Batman on the grid
German artist Andy Awesome has a series of acrylic paintings where he boils down the essence of a particular item of pop culture on a series of almost abstracted circles painted on a 2×2 grid. Click on the link to see his takes on Peanuts, the Smurfs, Homer Simpson and various Marvel superheroes.
(found via The Ephemerist)
- September 14, 2009 @ 11:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Steve Lieber talks Whiteout, research and the secret to drawing good snow
"CulturePulp," by Mike Russell
Mike Russell talks at length with artist Steve Lieber about collaborating with Greg Rucka on Whiteout, the just-released film adaptation — it didn’t fare well at the box office — and what went into making the 11-year-old Oni Press miniseries: “I was a damned troll under a bridge. [laughs] I was just really unpleasant. I was solving new problems, and rather than feeling satisfied that I was solving new problems, I was getting angry because everything wasn’t coming out perfect the first time I put a line down. I would spend 10 hours, 11 hours, 13 hours, 14 hours. I wasn’t sleeping right. I wasn’t treating myself right. But in the end, one decent page after another was coming off my table — and it was the first time that I could really say that about my career.”
Russell also transforms part of the interview into an entertaining comic.
- September 14, 2009 @ 10:29 AM by Kevin Melrose
Cool things to bookmark: Debbie Drechsler’s new blog
Image from one of Drechsler's notecards
Artist Debbie Drechsler (Summer of Love, Daddy’s Girl) has a new blog up, which is mainly worth noting because a) she’s got a online store where you can puchase some very nice notecards; and b) she’s started a wonderful new sketch blog, entitled Just Around the Corner, where she draws the various plants she finds lurking in her neighborhood. (found via flog)
- September 14, 2009 @ 10:00 AM by Chris Mautner