2009 October
Gay comic-book characters, from A to Z
Hulkling, Batwoman and Wallace Wells
Sean Brennan, who operates HeroesNHunks (NSFW!), has put together an impressive clearinghouse of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender characters in comic books.
Called QueerSupe, it contains more than 230 names to date — most with images and links to profiles — from Apollo and Midnighter of The Authority to Hopey Glass of Love and Rockets to Tim Gunn of Project Runway and Models, Inc.
(Of those characters, 45 are dead, but, hey, some of the living ones actually appear in books on a regular basis. So, that’s … something. Right?)
QueerSupe seems like a nice, and nicely organized, successor to the Gayleague’s character list, much of which was lost earlier this year when the website was hacked. (That list has begun to reappear, but in a less user-friendly format.)
- October 29, 2009 @ 11:02 AM by Kevin Melrose
Batman’s new villain says let’s go crazy, let’s get nuts!
Batman & Robin #6
DC’s The Source blog shows us Frank Quitely’s cover to Batman & Robin #6, which features Batman’s “most dangerous, psychopathic, murderous foe,” The Flamingo, according to editor Michael Marts.
Now all the motorcycle-riding killer needs is a string of one-word named “apprentices” of the female persuasion …
- October 29, 2009 @ 10:30 AM by JK Parkin
Your video link of the day: Drawing Fire
Paul Conrad: Drawing Fire, is a 2006 documentary about the three time Pulitzer-Prize winning editorial cartoonist. Now the whole thing is available online for you to enjoy. It’s also available on YouTube if you can’t use Hulu for whatever reason. (via)
- October 29, 2009 @ 10:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Thin wallets, fat bookshelves | A publishing news roundup
The Original Johnson
• IDW has announced the street dates for a couple of publishing ventures recently, including the their two Archie collections. The Best of Dan DeCarlo Vol. 1 will hit stores in May, while The Classic Newspaper Comics Vol. 1 will arrive in June.
More notably, the company also announced they would be collecting and releasing Trevor Von Eeden’s The Original Johnson, about the life of boxer Jack Johnson, in December. In his recent interview with The Comics Journal, Von Eeden had discussed contract disputes he had been having with co-publisher ComicMix about the work so it’s nice to book being completed and in print form.
• According to a press release that seems to be going around town, Fantagraphics and Supermen! editor (and former Fanta employee) Greg Sadowski will be working together on a series of seven collections of Golden Age comics. They are: Setting The Standard: Alex Toth at Standard Comics 1952-54, The Road To Plastic Man: The Golden Age Comics of Jack Cole 1937-41, Away From Home: EC Artists at Other Companies, Creeping Death From Neptune: Basil Wolverton’s Sci-Fi and Horror Comics 1938-55 and The Comic Book Frankenstein: The Monster According to Dick Briefer. That’s a pretty amazing line-up. I’m especially excited for that Briefer book.
- October 29, 2009 @ 09:30 AM by Chris Mautner
Reactions to The Comics Journal’s changes abound
The Comics Journal #300
Tom Spurgeon followed up his initial breaking news yesterday with a quick Q&A with publisher Gary Groth about the proposed changes to the venerable magazine. Among the revelations: The new site should launch next month, the magazine’s staff will stay the same and no changes will be made to the daily Journalista feature or the message board.
Oh, and there will be more Kenneth Smith. Here’s Groth speculating on some of the details:
I suspect that little of the material on the website will be reprinted in the print edition; rather, I’m anticipating that short pieces that appeared on the website may be expanded for the print edition — or the reverse, an excerpt of something we plan for the print edition may be previewed on the website. But there’s going to be a learning curve while we figure out the different editorial requirements for both the website and the print edition. My main goal is to maintain the editorial impetus of the magazine on the website, making it an intelligent and sometimes provocative source criticism and commentary.
The mood on the Internet regarding the planned changes seems tentatively positive, although a certain amount of nostalgia for the magazine as it was once still lingers, judging by the reactions from folks like Alan David Doane, Johnny Bacardi, Heidi MacDonald and folks on the TCJ message board.
UPDATE: Steven Grant considers the Journal’s legacy in his latest column.
- October 29, 2009 @ 08:45 AM by Chris Mautner
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
The Pirate Bay
Legal | A new study claim the shutdown two months ago of file-trading site The Pirate Bay by Swedish authorities “significantly, if temporarily, disrupted” the illegal trafficking of digital files worldwide. The emphasis is on temporarily. The white paper, released by anti-piracy company DtecNet, found the closing forced traffic to flood other BitTorrent trackers, “causing temporary secondary outages” for several days.
The study finds that BitTorrent traffic is soon expected to return to levels seen before the shutdown, with relatively new website OpenBitTorrent emerging as the successor to The Pirate Bay. [The Live Feed]
Sales charts | R. Crumb’s much-publicized adaptation of The Book of Genesis debuts at No. 8 on USA Today’s bestseller list. Meanwhile, the 46th volume of Masashi Kishimoto’s popular shonen series Naruto inches up three spaces to No. 136. [USA Today]
- October 29, 2009 @ 07:49 AM by Kevin Melrose
Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs: Bizenghast
Bizenghast, Volume 1
Bizenghast, Volume 1
Written and Illustrated by M. Alice LeGrow
Tokyopop; $9.99
It was the back cover copy that got me. It promised a young girl, a creepy town, and a “terrifying collection of lost souls that leads her to the brink of insanity.” “The residents of Bizenghast,” it claims, “are just dying to come home.”
Meanwhile, the front cover presents a beautiful, gothic heroine with long, dark hair and an ornate, white dress. She’s got large, expressive eyes, but she looks calm and confident. I wanted to see this lady triumph over ghosts while struggling to keep her mind together in the process. Unfortunately, that’s not exactly the story we get.
I mean, technically it is. And it begins well enough. The first page is a newspaper story in which we learn that Dinah Wherever is an orphan who lives with her aunt in a creepy, former boys’ school called St. Lyman’s. The paper tells us that the aunt stands to inherit a lot of money from her dead sister and brother-in-law, so immediately we’re suspicious. And that’s cool.
What are also cool are LeGrow’s depictions of Bizenghast and St. Lyman’s. Bizenghast looks like a quiet, little, European town. Though we’re told that people live there, it always looks strange and deserted. Sort of like a ghost-town version of Frankenstein Village. St. Lyman’s is crumbling and covered in ivy and a flock of black birds flies over the dense woods behind the school.
Where it goes wrong after the break.
- October 28, 2009 @ 10:30 PM by Michael May
Six by 6 by 6 | Six unholy couplings
I’m not sure what inspired a set of six matches made in Hell, but I can tell you that it was fun picking from the scads we Robot Sixers suggested. They’re not all slow-motion trainwrecks, and neither are they all necessarily tragic. One doesn’t even last that long. All of them have been fun to watch over the years — but all of them kinda make you think “oh, this could be bad.”
Therefore, in no particular order, JK Parkin and I present six pairs who might have done better as spares….
Arella and Trigon. After Angela Roth fled her abusive Gotham City home, she thought she’d found solace in the arms of religion. Unfortunately, her new church turned out to be a cult bent on bringing the Devil to Earth. This didn’t quite work out for the cultists (who should’ve waited fifteen years for Neron and Underworld Unleashed), but they did introduce Angela to Trigon, a stud with curly red hair and gold-flecked bedroom eyes. Following a sequence more soft-focus ’70s-turtleneck horror than Rosemary’s Baby, it wasn’t long before Angela was in Trigon’s dimension, pregnant with his child. That, in turn, was his cue to show her his true self: antlers, red skin, and four eyes (and not the nerdy kind, either). Trigon then sent Angela back to Earth, where she was saved from suicide by an emissary from the pacifist land of Azarath.
- October 28, 2009 @ 03:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
Send Us Your Shelf Porn!
It’s Wednesday, and you know what that means. Other than New Comics Day I mean.
That’s right, it’s time for Send Us Your Shelf Porn, where collectors get to spill their guts, figuratively, at least. Our guest this week is Karl Heitmueller, a cartoonist/artist/writer and bartender who currently resides in Jersey City, NJ, though he originally used to manage a record store in my neck of the woods and I’d bug the heck out of him by frequently browsing in the place and not buying anything. I’ll make it up to him today by recommending you check out some of the comics on his Web site and pick up a copy of the delightful The Retail Adventures of Kalli and Rex.
And with that I’ll let Karl take over now. Click on the link to get started on the tour.
- October 28, 2009 @ 02:00 PM by Chris Mautner
First look (I think) at the cover for American Vampire #1
American Vampire #1
Since Vertigo’s announcement late Sunday there’s been a lot of coverage in the comics and mainstream press about American Vampire, the upcoming monthly series whose first arc is co-written by none other than Stephen King.
But while we’ve seen several pieces of concept art by Rafael Albuquerque, I believe this is our first look at his cover for Issue 1, which debuts in March 2010. The art accompanies a brief Q&A in USA Today with writer Scott Snyder, who discusses the comic’s development, King’s involvement, and what he likes about Albuquerque’s art.
- October 28, 2009 @ 01:20 PM by Kevin Melrose
Strangeways: The Thirsty – Page 098
Holy cow! That inital 0 digit in the titles is about to become outmoded!
Written by Matt Maxwell. Art by Gervasio and Jok.
Wonder how long the residents of Drytown are going to let this makeover continue, anyways?
- October 28, 2009 @ 01:00 PM by Matt Maxwell
Your video of the day: Making Comics with Doug TenNapel
The Creature Tech author shows you how it’s done in this 10-minute interview. (via)
- October 28, 2009 @ 12:48 PM by Chris Mautner
Straight for the art | J. Bone’s Great Pumpkin-inspired cartoons
The Great Pumpkin, by J. Bone
The talented J. Bone uses the holiday classic It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown as the springboard for a couple of hilarious and, of course, well-drawn gags. (Warning: In the second cartoon, Charlie Brown employs off-color language!)
Poor, poor Linus …
- October 28, 2009 @ 10:14 AM by Kevin Melrose
Straight for the art | Rob Steen’s monster sketches
Whispering Grass by Rob Steen
Artist Rob Steen, who draws the Flanimals series of books written by Ricky Gervais, as well as various comics like Elephantman and Afterlife, has a sketch blog where he posts all sorts of creepy and kooky creatures. Go check it out.
- October 28, 2009 @ 09:42 AM by JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Libraries | In the wake of the recent firings of two Kentucky library employees — circulation desk attendants, not librarians — who refused to allow an 11-year-old to check out a copy of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the crew of Good Comics for Kids discusses who should decide what children may read. [Good Comics for Kids]
Publishing | Simon Jones questions why Japanese publisher launched its long-anticipated U.S. division with a reprint of the first volume of Ghost in the Shell that’s flipped and missing pages that Dark Horse had restored: “What’s your master plan, Kodansha? Why was it necessary to take this license away from Dark Horse, if you’re not doing a different treatment of the book? It couldn’t have been because you felt Dark Horse wasn’t promoting the property, because I haven’t seen any marketing efforts from you. I can’t even find your URL in this book.” [Icarus Publishing]
- October 28, 2009 @ 08:17 AM by Kevin Melrose