2009 December
Unbound: Elan’ Trinidad on God (TM)
Elan’ Trinidad’s latest comic, God™ (that’s the shorter version of the name) is a bit of a challenge for strictly linear thinkers.
Trinidad was nominated for an Eisner Award for his haunting comic Speak No Evil: Melancholy of a Space Mexican, in which he illustrated the voicelessness of illegal aliens by creating a society that literally removed their mouths. He handled that heavy metaphor with great delicacy, creating a surrealistic world where such things are almost plausible.
While Speak No Evil was compact and self-contained, God™, is a sprawling and ambitious satire that takes on both commercialism and religiosity. It’s also wickedly funny. The basic idea is that a large multinational corporation has bought up all the intellectual property rights to God and the whole cast of characters of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The comic intersperses slices of broad satire about commerce and religion with slices of a day in the life of accountant-priest Joeb Kim, who is having a tough day to say the least. I checked in with Elan’ via e-mail to see what he is up to and where he is going with God™.
- December 15, 2009 @ 01:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
Complex.com’s 50 best comic covers of 2009
The Transformers: All Hail Megatron #9, Detective Comics #857 and Dark X-Men: The Beginning #1
At Complex.com I join Complex Magazine Design Director Tim Leong, Comics Alliance Editor Laura Hudson and Chris Sims of Chris’s Invincible Super-Blog fame to select and comment on the 50 best comic-book covers of 2009.
The covers, as the introduction to the list acknowledges, are pretty mainstream and heavy on the superhero fare (we were provided with a list of candidates, and asked to whittle the number to 50). Still, they reflect a solid range of cover artists, from John Cassaday and J.H. Williams III to Yuko Shimizu and Juan Doe.
As I did last January, I’ll be making my own list of the best covers of 2009 after the first of the year.
- December 15, 2009 @ 11:30 AM by Kevin Melrose
Robot reviews: The Great Anti-War Cartoons
The Great Anti-War Cartoons
The Great Anti-War Cartoons
Edited by Craig Yoe
Fantagraphics, 192 pages, $24.99
The title says it all really. It’s a collection of editorial cartoons and the occasional gag cartoon with a specific focus on the futility of war. The book is subdivided into sections like “The Brass” and “Famine” to perhaps give the book a bit of structure. While there is the occasional modern contribution or art from before 1850, most of the work in the book seems to focus on the late 19th to mid-20th century, with a decided emphasis on the World War I era, which makes sense given the stunning horror of that war and the prominence of newspapers and other print media at the time.
By and large, the cartoons collected here offer little in the way of visual surprise — skeletons, fat cats with diamond pins and the Roman god Mars abound. Only occasionally do you really come across a really shocking image, like Louis Raemaekers’ “Barbed Wire” or John Sloane’s “The History of Ignorance Obeying Orders.” Most of the cartoons offer the same simplistic truisms about how bad and evil war is without really doing more than scratching the surface. Only humorists like George Booth and Gerald Scarfe seem to offer anything beyond the basic “war is hell” trope.
What the book does offer, however, is a feast of great early 20th century illustration. There are a few recognizable names here, like Winsor McCay and Art Young, but a number of great discoveries as well, like Daniel Fitzpatrick and Luther Bradley. While their ideas may involve resurrecting the same tired metaphors again and again, their craftsmanship, linework and sense of design and composition is often striking, and the best reason I can think of for buying this book.
- December 15, 2009 @ 11:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Straight for the art | Roger Langridge’s Pet Avengers
Roger Langridge's Pet Avengers
Roger Langridge, whose Muppet Show comic from BOOM! probably deserves to be considered when talking about the year’s best comics, shares the step-by-step process he used for creating the above cover for an upcoming issue of Marvel’s Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers.
- December 15, 2009 @ 10:30 AM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art | Stuff I Remember
Graham Annable has a Flickr set he’s been regularly updated to entitled Stuff I Remember, which focuses on random memories of his childhood. Take the above image for instance:
I spent countless hours in our living room reading Stephen King novels and listening to cassettes over and over. Each book has a particular album attached to it that I still hear in my head anytime I see the book cover. “Pet Sematary” will be forever linked to The Fixx “Phantoms” for me.
(via)
- December 15, 2009 @ 10:00 AM by Chris Mautner
For the Gorillaz fan who has everything: Demon Lamp
Ever wonder what Tank Girl creator Jamie Hewlett is up to these days? Apparently he’s making lamps shaped like little demons and selling them on the Internet. And I’ll bet there’s some of you out there right now updating your Xmas list.
- December 15, 2009 @ 09:30 AM by Chris Mautner
Marvel to publish Girl Comics anthology next year
Girl Comics
Heidi over at The Beat breaks the news that Marvel is putting out a three-issue anthology called Girl Comics — think Strange Tales, but created exclusively by women. Contributors include Kathryn Immonen, Marjorie Liu, Devin Grayson, Ann Nocenti, Trina Robbins, G. Willow Wilson, Stephanie Buscema, Amanda Conner, Jill Thompson, Louise Simonson, Valerie D’Orazio, Colleen Coover, Molly Crabapple, Nikki Cook, Ming Doyle, Abby Denson and Carla Speed McNeil. The book is edited by Jeanine Schaefer, who gave Heidi more details on the project.
“It’s actually comics BY women—and I mean, top to bottom: written, penciled, inked, colored, lettered. The logo is by a woman, all the interior design, production, proof-reading and editing is all by women,” Schaefer said. “Although some creators have gravitated towards their favorite female super hero, it’s not specifically focused on our female characters, and I’m not trying to generate content that I think will appeal to more women. I don’t want to give away all the stories, but we’re really running the gamut of Marvel characters, from Punisher to the FF to Mary Jane. We’re making great comics by great women, period—when given the opportunity to create a story about whatever they wanted, the pitches I got back from everyone have been hugely diverse in tone and characters.”
The first issue is due in March.
- December 15, 2009 @ 09:02 AM by JK Parkin
Who’s who in Asgard (by way of Broxton, Oklahoma)
From Olivier Coipel's massive Thor poster
Unless you’ve immersed yourself in Marvel’s version of Norse mythology, odds are that many of the 63 characters on artist Olivier Coipel’s interconnecting covers for the Thor: Tales of Asgard miniseries left you scratching your helmet. Well, last month Marvel released the covers as a 10-foot-wide poster — 118 inches by 33 inches, to be specific — and this morning the publisher provided a handy character key so you’ll be able to tell Haakun from Harokin and Alibar from Aske.
The poster is available from retailers for $30 or less. Framing may cost you a pretty penny, though.
- December 15, 2009 @ 08:34 AM by Kevin Melrose
Straight for the art | ‘Epic Misney’
No more Disney/Marvel art mash-ups are necessary, as T. Campbell and John Waltrip have provided the definitive version. $15 bucks and a print is yours. (via)
- December 15, 2009 @ 08:00 AM by Chris Mautner
A roundup of best-of comics lists
Final Crisis
Best of the year, best of the decade — these best-of lists are coming out so quickly that it’s difficult to keep up with them. But let’s try:
• Comics critic Douglas Wolk selects the best graphic novels of 2009, from Asterios Polyp to Final Crisis, for Barnes & Noble.
• At The Daily Cross Hatch, a roster of creators ranging from Jeffrey Brown to Lilli Carre to Dean Haspiel select “the best damned comics of 2009.”
• At io9.com, Graeme McMillan spotlights 10 of the decade’s best science-fiction comics, including 100%, Planetes and Casanova. He also names Batwoman as one of the best new characters of the decade.
• Drawn! contributors Matt Forsythe and John Martz roll out lists of their favorite comics and art books of the year.
• Writer-artist Gerry Alanguilan discusses his favorite comics of the year with the Forbidden Planet International blog.
• Matt Price, feature editor and comics blogger for The Oklahoman, includes A Drifting Life and A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge among his choices.
• At Geek To Me, Marissa Meli selects her Top 8 comics of the year.
• A contributor to The Inkwell Bookstore blog takes the “Best Comics I Read in 2009″ approach with a rundown that includes Cold Heat, Pluto and The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.
• Mike Williams at Techland counts down the Top 10 superhero deaths of the decade.
- December 15, 2009 @ 07:57 AM by Kevin Melrose
Frank Miller’s 300 sequel Xerxes to depict Battle of Marathon
Xerxes, from "300"
Nestled in this Los Angeles Times article about the resurgence of Greek mythology in popular entertainment just may be the first official details of Frank Miller’s sequel to his 1998 miniseries-turned-2007 box-office hit 300.
Previous reports had indicated that the new graphic novel, which would be used as the basis for another movie, is set between the Battle of Thermopylae and the Battle of Plataea, shown at the end of 300.
However, according to the LA Times article, the follow-up is now titled Xerxes — Xerxes I of Persia is the antagonist of 300 — and takes place 10 years before Thermopylae.
“It’s the Battle of Marathon through my lens,” Miller told the newspaper last week. “I’ve finished the plot and I’m getting started on the artwork.”
Among the criticisms levied against 300 is Miller’s depiction of Xerxes as an inhumanly tall, bejeweled androgynous figure at the head of a near-demonic horde.
The Battle of Marathon marked the end of Persia’s first invasion of Greece, triggered by the involvement of Athens and Eretria in revolts by several regions in Asia Minor against Persian rule. Xerxes’ father Darius I was the ruler of Persia at the time of the conflict.
(Via ComingSoon.net)
- December 15, 2009 @ 06:56 AM by Kevin Melrose
Liquid Comics partners with film company for graphic novel line
Liquid Comics, the company that replaced Virgin Comics, has partnered with L+E Productions on a line of graphic novels that can be developed for film and television.
Variety reports that Epic Cycle will debut with three titles: H2O, based on a novel by Grant Calof about a global drought that sparks a search for water within the Earth; A Thousand Arts, a Stuart Moore-written kung-fu adventure set in the Alaska wilderness; and Purgatory, Ron Marz’s graphic novel about a professor hired by the Catholic Church to prove the existence of an afterlife.
Liquid emerged in September 2008 following a restructuring and management buyout of Virgin Comics, the three-year-old company plagued by low sales. Liquid’s titles include John Woo’s 7 Brothers, Guy Ritchie’s Gamekeeper, Nicolas and Weston Cage’s Voodoo Child, and a slew of comics based on Indian mythology.
Founded in 2007 by Eric Eisner, son of former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, L+E produced the high-school comedy Hamlet 2.
- December 15, 2009 @ 05:18 AM by Kevin Melrose
Matt Fraction confirmed for Thor — along with John Romita Jr. [Updated]
Thor & Iron Man Free Comic Book Day cover
The L.A. Times’ Hero Complex blog confirms what Marvel Publisher Dan Buckley hinted at last week — Matt Fraction is indeed taking over the ongoing Thor title. He’ll be joined by an artist familiar with the character, John Romita Jr., who drew the title circa 1998-2000.
Update: So it looks like I jumped the gun a bit; John Romita Jr. is drawing Marvel’s Free Comic Book Day book, whose cover is featured above, featuring Iron Man and Thor. The regular artist for Fraction’s run on Thor has yet to be announced.
Update: Fraction speaks with Comic Book Resources about Thor.
- December 14, 2009 @ 06:34 PM by JK Parkin
Talking Comics with Tim: James Turner
Warlord of Io
Earlier this year, James Turner was one of the first creators to see his work (Warlord of IO) not to be published due to Diamond’s increased order threshold for publishers policy. But in announcing that the miniseries would not be published, SLG instead chose to make the Warlord of IO miniseries be available for download (as noted back in May). The series, described by SLG as galactic politics, most recently released its third issue. I wanted to see how having one’s work available for download instead of being published (and the PR surrounding this business decision) benefited and/or affected Turner, thus this email interview.
Tim O’Shea: Understandably it could not have been fun to be the poster child for Diamond’s change in policy, but did the series benefit somewhat by an increased profile and getting more folks to be aware of your work?
James Turner: It was definitely the best possible moment to be canceled. I have always been known for my timing. The publicity certainly didn’t hurt, even if It didn’t help much with sales of the digital version. It may with the full GN. Who knows? You just gotta keep on truckin’.
One thing about the whole affair that’s rather funny is that after Rex was canceled, I decided it would be wise to do a series that appealed to a larger audience. Something more mainstream, more accessible, and easier to read. I knew it was a tough challenge to launch a new series and I wanted to have the best chance possible of creating an ongoing work. I had two ideas in the works: Warlord of Io and Hell Lost. Warlord of Io, as a sci-fi comedy adventure, seemed to have longer legs and broader appeal than the more esoteric and possibly controversial Hell Lost, so that’s the one I went with. Of course it pancaked into the pavement before the first official issue came out. There’s a lesson in there somewhere but I haven’t figured it out yet. It may be that I just need to harness the astonishing power of boobs more.
- December 14, 2009 @ 03:19 PM by Tim O'Shea
And now, a picture of Alan Moore wearing the Three Wolf Moon t-shirt
Pictured: the magic of the Internet
The Mage meets the Meme: Click over to our sister in Robotitude, Topless Robot, for the story behind this glorious Photoshop concoction.
- December 14, 2009 @ 03:00 PM by Sean T. Collins