2009 October
Straight for the art | ‘Welcome home’
Welcome home, Paul Levitz
Jim Lee and the Wildstorm office collaborated on this wonderful Legion of Super-Heroes piece for Paul Levitz, the former president and publisher of DC Comics, as well as once and future writer of the Legion. The framed version, which looks like it has messages written on it from the Wildstorm folks, can be found at the link above.
- October 12, 2009 @ 11:01 AM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art: Monster Brains’ arcade art galleries
Very, very hot back then.
Centipedes were hot back then.
Want a trip down memory lane that won’t even cost you a quarter? There may not be a deluxe line of hardcover reprints dedicated to the visionaries whose fervid fantasies festooned the arcades of your youth, but chances are these anonymous artists shaped your appreciation of cartooning nearly as much as the stars of any given DC Archive or Marvel Masterwork. Enter Monster Brains, one of the Internet’s great repositories of weird and wild art and illustration, curated by Aeron Alfrey (himself no slouch when it comes to macabre art). Over the past two weeks, Monster Brains has played host to a daily avalanche of arcade art from video games and pinball machines. It’s a veritable nostalgia button-masher, to be sure (Millipede! R-Type! Karnov!), but it’s also an inspiring look at an area of cartooning with seemingly no rules, where the goal was simply to stand out even among a sea of similarly lurid-looking games. Mission accomplished!
If an event comic came out looking like this, I'd by three copies of each issue
- October 12, 2009 @ 10:30 AM by Sean T. Collins
MoCCA Art Festival moves to April; Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Fest announced
MoCCA 2009
The Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art has announced that its annual MoCCA Art Festival has been moved from its usual summer-months perch in June to the weekend of April 10-11 for 2010. Founded in 2002, the Manhattan-based MoCCA (which, like Frankenstein’s monster, has taken on the name of its creator in the popular parlance) quickly became one of the highlights of the alternative/indie/small press convention circuit, drawing on New York City’s large number of local comics creators and thriving population of arts-interested consumers to cement its place alongside such venerable shows as SPX and APE.
Last summer’s MoCCA spurred a host of complaints about the event’s disorganization and the oppressive heat in its unairconditioned new venue, the 69th Regiment Armory at 68 Lexington Ave. A move to the comparatively temperate month of April, coupled with a year of Armory experience under the MoCCA organization’s collective belt, could go a long way toward remedying those problems. (The cost of a table will likely remain a sore spot, though.) Moreover, given its location in the media capital of the world and its appeal for the graphic-novel wings of major New York publishers (heck, even DC’s Vertigo imprint exhibits at the show), moving MoCCA out of the increasingly crowded and competitive summer-fall convention season makes may make it easier for the show to maintain an identity as a major-minor player in the con circuit vis a vis those exhibitors and audiences (although the spring is hardly less crowded at this point).
Meanwhile, the NYC small press scene’s bustling Brooklyn-based subset now has a show to call its own: The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Fest. Overseen by two of the Borough of Kings’ altcomix anchors, retailer Desert Island and publisher PictureBox Inc., the con will take place on December 5th at Our Lady of Consolation Church (184 Metropolitan Ave.) in the decade-defining hipster enclave of Williamsburg. Charles Burns, Kim Deitch, Ben Katchor, Michael Kupperman, Gary Panter, Dash Shaw, Jillian Tamaki, Matthew Thurber, and Lauren Weinstein are listed as featured guests, and admission is free. With that December date, we’re guessing a lack of air conditioning won’t be an issue…
(Hat tips: Tom Spurgeon and Heidi MacDonald)
- October 12, 2009 @ 10:01 AM by Sean T. Collins
Straight for the art | Planet Hulk DVD cover by Alex Ross
"Planet Hulk" box art, by Alex Ross
I somehow missed it on Friday when USA Today’s Whitney Matheson unveiled the Alex Ross box art for Marvel’s Planet Hulk animated feature, which hits stores on Feb. 2. Follow the link to see the full image, and watch the trailer here.
- October 12, 2009 @ 09:30 AM by Kevin Melrose
Your video of the day | Mouly and Clowes talk covers
Clowes' New Yorker cover
Dan Clowes graces the cover of this week’s new Yorker, as seen above, and in the video below, he and New Yorker Art Editor Francoise Mouly, along with several other contributing artists, talk about how the image came to be. (found via D&Q)
- October 12, 2009 @ 08:54 AM by Chris Mautner
Preview Sacco’s ‘Footnotes’
I don’t know if it’s been up for months now or just went up over the weekend, but Macmillan has an extensive preview of Joe Sacco’s latest book, Footnotes in Gaza, which should be out in stores by the end of the year. Expect a good deal of chatter, and, considering the times, a dash of controversy over this one.
- October 12, 2009 @ 07:54 AM by Chris Mautner
AdHouse Books cancels FCHS collection
FCHS
Writer Vito Delsante announced this morning on Twitter that, “due to low pre-orders,” AdHouse Books won’t be publishing FCHS, the webcomic-turned-graphic novel described as “Archie meets 90210.”
The comic, by Delsante and artist Rachel Freire, debuted in December 2007 at the now-defunct Chemistry Set online collective, and caught the attention of AdHouse’s Chris Pitzer the following summer. A 128-page collection was added to the publisher’s fall 2009 schedule, and promoted online, at conventions and with a full-color Free Comic Book Day issue.
FCHS, Vol. 1, had been solicited for November release. Delsante spoke last month about the comic with Robot 6′s Tim O’Shea.
- October 12, 2009 @ 07:47 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Dragon Ball, Vol. 3
Manga | Wicomico County Public Library in Maryland is conducting an “internal reconsideration” of Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball after the popular series was removed from a combined elementary/middle school library last week due to depictions of nudity and sexual situations. The public library has pulled the manga while it decides in what section the T-rated series should be shelved. [The Daily Times]
Publishing | Deb Aoki gets more details from Viz Media Senior Editor Eric Searleman about the publisher’s relaunched original comics initiative, which began accepting submissions last week: “We’re hoping to publish a wide range of comics by a diverse group of creators. A lot of people are expecting Viz Media to publish manga (or comics that look like manga) but we don’t plan on limiting ourselves, in any way. It doesn’t matter to us if you draw like Tite Kubo or Darwyn Cooke. If you’ve got an awesome idea for a comic book, we want to see it.” Simon Jones provides commentary. [About.com, Icarus Publishing]
- October 12, 2009 @ 06:54 AM by Kevin Melrose
What Are You Reading?
Map of My Heart
Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading. Pull up a chair and sit down, won’t you? Our guest this week is Bill Kartalopoulos, who teaches classes about comics and illustration at Parsons, is a contributing editor for Print Magazine, and a comics reviewer for Publishers Weekly. But he’s probably best known as the Programming Coordinator for the SPX convention in Bethesda, MD.
Bill and everyone else has quite a number of books by their bedside table this week, so we’ll get right to it. Be a dear and click on the link below, won’t you?
- October 11, 2009 @ 11:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Winners of the 2009 Harvey Awards
All-Star Superman, Vol. 2
The winners of the 2009 Harvey Awards were presented last night during a ceremony at Baltimore Comic-Con.
Named in honor of the late cartoonist and Mad magazine editor Harvey Kurtzman, the awards recognize outstanding work in comics.
The winners of the 2009 Harveys are:
Best writer: Grant Morrison, All-Star Superman (DC Comics)
Best artist: Gabriel Ba, The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse)
Best cartoonist: Al Jaffee, Tall Tales (Abrams Books)
Best letterer: John Workman, Marvel 1985 (Marvel)
Best inker: Mark Morales, Thor (Marvel)
- October 11, 2009 @ 06:21 AM by Kevin Melrose
The Fifth Color – New Practice
Doctor Voodoo: Avenger of the Supernatural is yet another book to cash in on that ‘Avengers’ gold that does New, Mighty, the Initiative and Dark so well these days but it doesn’t really need it. Jericho Drumm doesn’t need a byline for being Sorcerer Supreme, the job title should be enough. I also don’t think he should be so quick to tack on his PhD. Sure, it’s in Psychology and that’s nothing to sneeze at, but that degree will do him jack all in the days to come.
Having been chosen specifically by the Ancient One for the power/responsibility gig of the century, Brother Voodoo (again, no offense to the Doctorate but Brother Voodoo is a much cooler moniker and his actual brother’s spirit is such an essential part of his character; besides, it’s not like anyone calls Speedball ‘Penance’…) has taken the role rather quickly and with little fanfare. He still wants to go back to his job at the clinic, he grabs whatever magics he can (even scary dark stuff) to patch up holes in the barriers between this world and the next and if Doctor Doom shows up, well he’ll add him to his To Do list. There’s no messing around in his first issue, no lingering doubts no fond retelling of his origin, it’s right to business.
It’s about time.
- October 9, 2009 @ 03:00 PM by Carla Hoffman
Straight for the art | Blackest Breakfast
Blackest Breakfast
Jeremy Wojchihosky creates the greatest super hero/cereal mash-up since the brilliant Breakfast of the Gods … Blackest Breakfast, featuring various cereal mascots as DC’s various Lantern characters.
As Caleb Goellner points out, the no-longer-produced Quisp mascot is the Black Lantern, while the Trix rabbit — who did whatever he could to get a hold of his precious, precious Trix cereal — goes orange. The Lucky Charms leprechaun also would have filled that role well. My favorite is probably the mascot of Fruit Loops as the head of the loopy Indigo Tribe.
- October 9, 2009 @ 02:30 PM by JK Parkin
On Stranger Tides author discusses next Pirates of the Caribbean movie
On Stranger Tides
Back at the D23 event in September, Disney announced they were doing a fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, subtitled “On Stranger Tides.” This caused several people to wonder aloud, “Hey, does this have anything to do with the 1988 Tim Powers book of the same name?”
Yes, it does. Geoff Boucher with the L.A. Times catches up with Powers, who says Disney optioned the book almost three years ago. His book is about a group of pirates, including Blackbeard, searching for the Fountain of Youth … which viewers of the third Pirates movie may remember being mentioned at the end of that movie:
“I’ve watched all the movies several times, of course, and I think the clear thing they would use is the trip to the Fountain of Youth,” Powers said. “My main character doesn’t overlap with Jack Sparrow at all [in personality or circumstance]; they’re totally different characters. I suppose they might overlap the Geoffrey Rush character Barbossa and Blackbeard. The only thing I feel certain they will hold on to is the Fountain of Youth since they telegraphed that at the end of the last movie.”
The movie is scheduled to come out in the summer of 2011.
- October 9, 2009 @ 01:59 PM by JK Parkin
And now, a picture of C.B. Cebulski with Paris Hilton
That's hot.
No, your eyes don’t deceive you: That’s Marvel Talent Coordinator C.B. Cebulski with noted, uh, person Paris Hilton. This meeting of the minds took place at last night’s New York Comic Con One Year Out Party at NYC’s Bowlmor Lanes, where a Marvel Editors vs. Marvel Creators bowl-off coincidentally took place near a Paris-attended party. The Creators—who included Greg Pak, Dan Slott, and an on-fire Peter David, who rolled a 177—defeated an Editorial team that boasted Cebulski, Axel Alonso, and Mark Paniccia by a score of 900-873 in a charity match that raised money for the CBLDF. The Beat’s Heidi MacDonald was there, and has more. And oh yeah, NYCC named John Romita Sr. and John Romita Sr. its 2010 Keystone Guests of Honor during the festivities.
Hilton’s run on New Avengers begins with January’s issue #61.*
* NOT TRUE
(pic via @CBCebulski)
- October 9, 2009 @ 01:27 PM by Sean T. Collins
Robot reviews: The Big Kahn
The Big Kahn
The Big Kahn
Written by Neil Kleid, art by Nicolas Cinquegrani
NBM, 176 pages, $13.95.
Here’s the thing. I have a friend who fell in love several years ago with a wonderful, intelligent woman. His parents, however, refused to recognize their relationship and threatened to disown him if he married her. Why? Because she didn’t practice the same religion they did. Eventually they thankfully relented and embraced his now-wife, but it resulted in several years of ugly tension and discomfort for everyone involved, to put it mildly.
I have another friend who has two sisters who were both disowned by their father because, you guessed it, they married outside of the church. In the one case the sister married a Mormon. In the other, she just abandoned the church altogether. My friend has told me several times that her dad’s decision all but rendered her family asunder and caused scars that are still linger these many decades later.
So when one of the main characters in The Big Kahn, an up-and-coming young rabbi, has this huge guilt complex because in a moment of weakness he slept with a gentile girl, I’m not really feeling his pain. In fact, I want to punch him in the nose.
- October 9, 2009 @ 01:00 PM by Chris Mautner