2009 December
Send Us Your Shelf Porn!
Welcome once more to Send Us Your Shelf Porn. Our guest this week is Sean Kleefield, blogger and author of the new book, Comic Book Fanthropology. Sean’s got quite the set-up in his basement, so we’ll cut straight to the chase and let Sean start the tour …
- December 16, 2009 @ 03:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Straight for the art | Stephanie Buscema’s website
by Stephanie Buscema
One of the creators announced as working on Marvel’s Girl Comics anthology is Stephanie Buscema, granddaughter of legendary comics artist John Buscema. She has a fun, distinct art style that you can witness firsthand over on her website; go check it out.
- December 16, 2009 @ 02:00 PM by JK Parkin
Murderers’ Row of talent teaming for Vertigo project [Updated]
by Dave Gibbons
Pamela Mullin over at Vertigo’s Graphic Content blog posted a teaser today for an upcoming project with a very impressive line-up of talent involved with it. That line-up includes Jim Lee, Rebekah Isaacs, Fabio Moon, Ryan Kelly, John Paul Leon, Lee Bermejo, Philip Bond, Eduardo Risso and Dave Gibbons.
So what is this mysterious project? Well, Pamela’s staying quiet on the details, but my own investigations* have turned up the fact that it’s related to Brian Wood’s DMZ. No doubt Pamela will have more details soon.
- December 16, 2009 @ 01:43 PM by JK Parkin
Rumors of Incredible Hercules‘ demise ‘are premature’
Incredible Hercules #136
Although word circulated this morning that Marvel’s The Incredible Hercules will end with Issue 150, one of the title’s writers claims “the rumors of our demise are premature.”
Despite receiving praise from fans and critics alike, The Incredible Hercules has never been a top seller. So it wasn’t a complete surprise to see Rich Johnston’s assertion that the series would come to an end … almost a year from now. (Okay, the distant date was a bit of a surprise.) However, co-writer Fred Van Lente quickly took to Twitter to cast doubt on the report.
“Incredible Herc fans: The rumors of our demise are premature — See Mar 2010 solicits (& spread the word),” Van Lente wrote. “Changes are coming to iHerc, but rest assured they are all part of The Big Plan (R).”
The four-part “Assault on Mount Olympus” storyline ends with February’s Issue 142, billed as “EVERYBODY DIES!” So what might the March solicitations contain? News of a relaunch, maybe? A move to back-up feature in another book?
The Incredible Hercules debuted in January 2008 in the aftermath of World War Hulk, with the boisterous demigod and teen sidekick Amadeus Cho simply taking over the Hulk’s title. Under writers Van Lente and Greg Pak, the series has been lauded for its humor, action sequences and continuing plot threads.
- December 16, 2009 @ 01:20 PM by Kevin Melrose
Strangeways: The Thirsty – Page 106
Art by Gervasio and Jok. Written by Matt Maxwell
I hope they got more bullets than I think they got.
There will not be pages next week. Instead, there will be a serialized short story from the Strangeways. And, like the rest of the universe, I’ll be taking a break between Christmas and New Years.
Yeah, I know I’m a stinker making ya wait, but when have I ever denied my stinkiness?
Don’t answer that…
- December 16, 2009 @ 01:00 PM by Matt Maxwell
What’s in a name? The return of Girl Comics
Girl Comics #1 (1949)
Yesterday Marvel announced a new three-issue anthology mini-series called Girl Comics, which will be edited by Jeanine Schaefer and created exclusively by women.
As you can see in the comments section for my original post, there’s been a mixed reaction to the project, particularly because of its title. You can also find even more commentary on it over in The Beat’s comment section, where they story broke.
So where exactly did that title come from? Well, as Douglas Wolk pointed out in the Beat comments section, it seems to stem from an old Atlas comic that was published from 1949-1952 (before its name was changed to the even more unfortunate Girl Confessions). Atlas, of course, is the company that eventually evolved into Marvel Comics and also published Strange Tales — which you may recognize as the name of another recent Marvel anthology. So there’s some symmetry there, and you have to wonder if they’ll be using any other old Atlas titles in the future (I vote for Bible Tales for Young Folk; you can find a complete list of titles Atlas published on Wikipedia).
- December 16, 2009 @ 12:30 PM by JK Parkin
Comics Cavalcade: Exercise, extraterrestrials and Hanukkah hijinx
“Postcard from Fielder 2″ by Kevin Huizenga
“The Miracle” by Johnny Ryan
- December 16, 2009 @ 12:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
The Times‘ Manohla Dargis on women in Hollywood: “Women are starved for representations of themselves”
The Hurt Locker
This is not a story about comics — but in a way, it is: In a fairly devastating piece in the New York Times and a no-holds-barred interview with Jezebel, film critic Manohla Dargis lays out the sorry state of films made by and for women in Hollywood today.
Dargis presents the evidence in painstaking and depressing detail. First there’s the good news: hits like Sex and the City, Mamma Mia, and The Twilight Saga: New Moon have made it all but impossible to dismiss women as a “niche” audience. (Which stands to reason, since they’re 51% of the population after all.) The bad news, of course, is that these films — and most romantic comedies and Sandra Bullock vehicles, to name a pair of other standard and successful “femme-driven” film types — are not very good. Dargis argues that their success stems from a massive number of female moviegoers desperate to see themselves represented somehow, anyhow, on screen.
Another silver lining: women-directed films have some hot Oscar prospects this year, led by Kathryn Bigelow’s masterfully suspenseful Iraq War action-drama The Hurt Locker. But Bigelow had to struggle for years to get that movie made, while equally worthy male directors with similar track records cruise from one big-budget star vehicle to the next. And the critical success of The Hurt Locker or Nora Ephron’s Julie & Julia can’t mask the fact that the major Hollywood studios released a grand total of 11 films directed by women this year. Want a comics connection? Soon-to-be Marvel parent company Disney had one; DC owner Warner Bros. had none. Meanwhile, perhaps Bigelow shouldn’t hold her breath on Oscar night: In the Academy Awards’ 81-year history, only three women have been nominated for Best Director, none of whom went on to win.
- December 16, 2009 @ 09:50 AM by Sean T. Collins
The University of Western Ontario receives huge comics donation
Captain Canuck
The University of Western Ontario received an early present this holiday season — comics collector and retired college professor Eddy Smet is in the process of giving them “what is believed to be the largest and most valuable collection of comic books ever donated to a Canadian university,” the school’s newspaper reports.
Smet is donating “a significant portion” of his 10,000-plus, single-issue and original graphic novel collection to Western Archives, the archival research department of Western Libraries. The collection includes comics from the 1970s and 1980s, including complete runs of Miracleman, Watchmen and Swamp Thing, as well as the first 14 issues of Captain Canuck, “arguably Canada’s most popular and important superhero comic,” the paper says.
“It’s like cutting off my own arms because I’ve been collecting for more than 40 years, but I know giving my collection to a place like Western will provide a wonderful resource for students and faculty who are studying pop culture, visual arts or even women’s studies,” Smet said.
(Thanks Jeffrey!)
- December 16, 2009 @ 09:20 AM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art | ComicsAlliance and Periscope’s 12 Days of Christmas
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtledoves
AOL’s ComicsAlliance blog has teamed up with the creators at Periscope Studios this holiday season to reimagine the classic Christmas carol “The 12 Days of Christmas.”
“Every day until the 25th, we’ll be posting a new illustration from a comics creator at Periscope Studio that reinterprets the days of the traditional carol as comic book parodies,” writes Laura Hudson. Today’s post features the above image by Andreas Schuster — which is kind of an “Oh my god, are they really doing what I think they’re doing?” moment — while yesterday’s featured Ben Bates replacing the fabled partridge with another type of bird. Be sure to check back between now and Christmas to see what the rest of the Periscope crew comes up with.
- December 16, 2009 @ 08:52 AM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art | Brandon Graham’s 33rd birthday comic
by Brandon Graham
I was out last week, so I missed a couple of items that I hope to share today … the first of which is this comic strip from King City creator Brandon Graham. I should probably mention that the link goes to Brandon’s LiveJournal, which can sometimes be not so safe for work.
On his 33rd birthday, which was last week, he started to create a story where he was going to meet the “gods” of comics. “I was going to draw them as big mount rushmore faces of Tezuka Herge and Kirby,” Graham says. “The bathtub stuff was all a lead up to meeting the comic gods but then as I was penciling it. I realized I needed to turn in another KC back cover. So it became one of those.”
The comic will appear as the back cover to King City #8.
- December 16, 2009 @ 08:00 AM by JK Parkin
DC’s Superman: Earth One will be a $20, 128-page hardcover
Superman: Earth One
The announcement last week of DC Comics’ new line of original graphic novels left at least two significant questions unanswered: How many pages will the Earth One titles be, and how much will they cost?
Thanks to Amazon.com, and Collected Editions, we now have an idea. The online retail giant lists Superman: Earth One as a 128-page hardcover priced at $19.99. That’s the same price and page count as Joker, the 2008 original graphic novel by Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo.
Collected Editions does some quick math, and concludes that while the equivalent number of pages in monthly comics would cost you just $16.45, with discounts — “everyone and their uncle gets some kind of discount on comic books, at least 30%” — Superman: Earth One is actually kind of a deal.
Superman: Earth One, by J. Michael Straczynski and Shane Davis, is set for release on Sept. 7, 2010. Batman: Earth One, by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank, presumably will debut sometime later.
- December 16, 2009 @ 06:33 AM by Kevin Melrose
Best of! Most of! (Satiate the need)
Chew, Vol. 1
You didn’t think we were finished with all of those best-of-the-year/best-of-the-decade lists, did you?
• USA Today blogger Whitney Matheson names her favorite comics of 2009, including Trina Robbins’ The Brinkley Girls, Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s A Drifting Life and Kiminori Wakasugi Detroit Metal City, Vol. 1.
• Matheson also has begun to reveal her annual list of the Top 100 people of the year. The 2009 installment so far includes Yoshihiro Tatsumi (No. 89), Tim Gunn (N0.78; hey, he was in Marvel’s Models, Inc.) and Lilli Carre (No. 69).
• MTV’s Splash Page names John Layman and Rob Guillory’s Image comic Chew as the best new series of 2009, and recognizes a dozen other categories, from best new webcomic (Bad Machinery) to best comic adapted from another medium (Parker: The Hunter).
• IGN.com bestows its Best of 2009 Awards, including best original graphic novel (Parker: The Hunter), best new series (The Unwritten) and best series (Unknown Soldier).
• The contributors to Manga Recon reflect on the best and worst manga of the year, by category (best new series, best yaoi, etc.). Titles include Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka, Kiyohiko Azuma’s Yotsuba&! and Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim.
• Johanna Draper Carlson names her best/favorite manga of 2009.
• Book By Its Cover announces its best books of 2009, which include Kramers Ergot 7 and Marc Bell’s Hot Potatoe.
- December 16, 2009 @ 05:37 AM by Kevin Melrose
It’s a week packed with collections, art books, red rings and blood colossi
Welcome to another edition of Can’t Wait for Wednesday, our stroll through the new comic book releases for the week. Tomorrow brings quite a few high-end items to shops, as well as a fairly decent number of new and noteworthy comics.
If you’re still doing your Christmas shopping and have a fellow fan on your list, you probably can’t go wrong by choosing one of several collections arriving this week. You can choose from one of three Robert Crumb books, Craig Yoe’s Art of Steve Ditko, a massive collection of Gahan Wilson’s Playboy cartoons, a Charles Vess art book, a Batman archive, the definitive Rocketeer and a collection of Matt Fraction’s previous Thor stories — just in time for the announcement that he’s writing the title. That collection includes Reign of Blood, which will always have a soft spot in my heart just because I really dig seeing our own Carla Hoffman explain the story of the Blood Colossus to various folks at conventions. We should really tape her performance and post it here for the whole world to see.
On the comic front, Image kicks off a new series called Forgetless, BOOM! shows us Mark Waid isn’t as evil as we once thought with Incorruptible, DC continues the Blackest Night story with a couple of tie-in books, and X-Factor gets renumbered just in time to celebrate its 200th issue. And that’s only a brief glimpse of the bounty waiting for you tomorrow.
To see what Kevin, Chris and I have to say about this week’s stash, please read on … and let us know in the comments what you’ll be getting.
- December 15, 2009 @ 04:17 PM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art | Joshua Cotter’s Comix Revolution T-shirt
by Jooshua Cotter
Chris Pitzer over at AdHouse Books tipped us off to this cool T-shirt by Joshua Cotter, creator of Driven by Lemons for the comic shop Comix Revolution in Illinois. This shirt — and shirts by Geof Darrow, Jessica Abel and Jay Ryan — can be bought on the shop’s website.
- December 15, 2009 @ 02:01 PM by JK Parkin