2009 November
Slash Print | Following the digital evolution
comiXology
Digital comics | Kiel Phegley talks to Ira Rubenstein, Marvel’s executive vice president of digital media, about their partnerships with comiXology, iVerse, ScrollMotion and Panelfly. comiXology, meanwhile, has added another Marvel title to their catalog this week — Civil War.
Digital comics | Don Reisinger over at CNET reviews several comics applications for the iPhone, including comiXology, Clickwheel, iVerse Comics and Comic Envi.
- November 2, 2009 @ 11:30 AM by JK Parkin
Put your money where your comics are (or something like that)
It's Storm, but in wallet form
Now that we’ve officially turned the corner on Halloween, it’s time to start thinking about holiday shopping. No, don’t make that face, I’m being serious.
And if you’re shopping for that special comic book aficionado in your life and not sure what to get them, why not consider a wallet? More precise, a Comic Wallet. Albert Doan, of Calgary, Canada, turns old (and some new) comic books and turns them into laminated, reinforced wallet, which he then sells on his site for about $20-$30 a pop. He’s even got a series of Blackest Night wallets available, if you just can’t get enough DC zombies. He also handles special requests, so if you’ve been anxiously craving to certain sequences from say, Faust, folded up and stuffed in your back pocket, now’s your chance. Myself, I’m holding out for a Little Lulu set.
- November 2, 2009 @ 11:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Wall-to-wall Ware
How much Corrigan can you stand?
The Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture at the University of Tennessee has a new exhibit up entitled “MultipleXMultiple: A Survey of Contemporary Printmaking.” The interesting (and comics-related) thing about this show is they’re highlighting the work of Chris Ware by displaying every page from every issue of Acme Novelty Library so far on a wall. One of the student curators, Daniel Maw, has pictures of the installation on his blog, and talks about the idea behind the show over at Flog:
In order to showcase the epic nature of this comic we elected to purchase two copies, cut the bindings off each, collate the pages, and display all [390] pages in a grid on a 23 x 10 foot wall. It is quite impressive to take it all in at once as it demonstrates the tremendous amount of talent and work that went in to the creation of the book.
- November 2, 2009 @ 10:30 AM by Chris Mautner
Paul Pope, Dustin Harbin do Dune
Dune art by Paul Pope
Cartoonist and Heroes Con creative director Dustin Harbin is obviously a comics guy. But even for sequential-art partisans, every once in a while the literary spice must flow. Thus Harbin has created the Dune book club, a weekly discussion of the original science-fiction classic by author Frank Herbert, hosted on Harbin’s blog. In addition to thought-provoking posts and comment-thread chats about the book, which Harbin calls “probably my favorite novel ever,” the book club is also something of an art club, with Harbin, Paul Pope, Patrick Keck, Peter Lazarski, Pen Ward, Thomas “Smo” Smolenski, and Evan Dahm all providing luscious comics and stand-alone illustrations based on the book. (Pope, another big-time Dune devotee, had already drawn a scene from the book in the style of a Wednesday Comics page.) Personally, I’m waiting for someone to take a crack at a sandworm.
- November 2, 2009 @ 10:01 AM by Sean T. Collins
Things to do: ‘Political Cartooning in NYC’ on Nov. 3
Bill Kartalopoulos emailed me to let everyone know about a panel he’ll be moderating tomorrow, Nov. 3, at the The New York Center for Independent Publishing, 20 W. 44th St., New York.
The panel will discuss the history and current challenges facing political cartoonists in The Big Apple and features Eric Drooker, Tom Hart, Tim Kreider and Peter Kuper.The full press release is below the jump.
- November 2, 2009 @ 09:30 AM by Chris Mautner
Amazon unleashes its best of 2009 lists, too
Stitches: A Memoir
Not to be outdone by Publishers Weekly, Amazon.com has released its own expansive Best Books of 2009, with an Editors’ Picks list that, perhaps unsurprisingly at this point, features David Small’s memoir Stitches at No. 9.
The editors’ Top 100 books include David Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp at No. 67 and Seth’s George Sprott: 1894-1975 at No. 75.
Those three works also lead the editors’ choices for the Top 10 Comics & Graphic Novels of the year:
1. Stitches: A Memoir, by David Small (WW Norton)
2. George Sprott: 1894-1975, by Seth (Drawn & Quarterly)
3. Asterios Polyp, by David Mazzucchelli (Pantheon)
4. All-Star Superman, Vol. 2, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (DC Comics)
5. The Umbrella Academy: Dallas, by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba (Dark Horse)
6. Locas II: Maggie, Hope & Ray, by Jaime Hernandez (Fantagraphics Books)
7. The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders, by Emmanuel Guibert and Didier Lefèvre (First Second)
8. A Drifting Life, by Yoshihiro Tatsumi (Drawn & Quarterly)
9. The Book of Genesis Illustrated, by R. Crumb (WW Norton)
10. Masterpiece Comics, by R. Sikoryak (Drawn & Quarterly)
The Customer Favorites list, ranked according to Amazon.com orders through October, naturally looks much different (only books published for the first time in 2009 are eligible):
- November 2, 2009 @ 09:25 AM by Kevin Melrose
Publishers Weekly announces its Best Books of 2009
Parker: The Hunter
Book-trade magazine Publishers Weekly is among the first outlets out of the gate with a Best of 2009 list.
In addition to David Small’s National Book Award-nominated memoir Stitches, announced last week as one of the magazine’s Top 10 books of the year, the PW list includes a comics category:
• Parker: The Hunter, by Darwyn Cooke and Richard Starking (IDW Publishing)
• Driven by Lemons, by Josh Cotter (AdHouse Books)
• Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth, by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou, and Alecos Papdatos and Annie Di Donna (Bloomsbury)
• The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders, by Emmanuel Guibert and Didier Lefèvre (First Second)
• Asterios Polyp, by David Mazzucchelli (Pantheon)
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe, by Bryan Lee O’Malley (Oni Press)
• Footnotes in Gaza, by Joe Sacco (Metropolitan)
• A Drifting Life, by Yoshihiro Tatsumi (Drawn & Quarterly)
• You’ll Never Know: A Good and Decent Man, by Carol Tyler (Fantagraphics)
• Pluto, by Naoki Urasawa (Viz Media)
- November 2, 2009 @ 07:38 AM by Kevin Melrose
Are Mark Millar and Steve McNiven reviving Marvelman?
Miracleman #15
While currently this is nothing more than pure conjecture, a quick Google search has led this part-time blogger to believe that the much-hyped, super-secret, forthcoming Mark Millar/Steve McNiven project for Marvel is in fact a Marvelman series.
Millar announced Friday that he and McNiven – his collaborator on Civil War and “Old Man Logan” – are joining forces on Nemesis for the House of Ideas with an expected launch date of March 2010.
“Nemesis” just so happens to be the subtitle of Miracleman #15 , written by Alan Moore and penciled by John T. Totleben.
Considered by many to be the most “shocking,” “disturbing” and “sought-after” appearance of the Mick Anglo creation, the issue features an epic battle between Miracleman and his “nemesis” Kid Miracleman.
Did Millar land the ultimate gig to be the man responsible for folding the classic British hero into the Marvel Universe?
Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada has apparently been listening to pitches since the publisher announced at Comic-Con International that it had purchased the rights to the property. Who better than the Glaswegian scribe to reintroduce Marvelman?
Again, nothing but a late-night musing here, but what do you think?
- November 2, 2009 @ 06:00 AM by Jeffrey Renaud
Halloween Treats!
Miles Burnside-Clapp of Santa Barbara, CA invites you to read some fine literature.
Local comic shop Metro Entertainment in Santa Barbara, Calif. held a costume contest yesterday in honor of the season, and the results were amazing! Visit their Facebook photo gallery and see a fantastic collection of comic, TV and game-inspired costumes… maybe even a cheeky columnist from Robot 6?
- November 1, 2009 @ 07:50 PM by Carla Hoffman
What Are You Reading?
Blood's A Rover
Welcome to What Are You Reading. I hope everyone had a nice Halloween and spent at least part of it reading comics.
Our guest this week is Chip Mosher, Marketing Director at Boom! Studios, publisher of such fine books as Irredeemable and The Muppet Show. As the image above hints, Chip’s been reading some rather interesting (and gritty) material, so click on the link below to discover what he and the rest of Robot 6 have been reading recently. Oh, and don’t forget to let us know what you have been reading in the comments section.
- November 1, 2009 @ 09:45 AM by Chris Mautner