2009 December
Strangeways: The Thirsty – Page 104
Written by Matt Maxwell. Art by Gervasio and Jok.
Having to multitask here as I plot a novel (non-graphic, you know, without pictures) and work on this. Makin’ my brain hurt, it is. Then there’s me looking at the first pages of MURDER MOON and realizing that they really should all be re-lettered. I think that’s just me looking for a distraction from plotting though. Like I’ve said before, the writing isn’t the hard thing, but the plotting can be murderous.
But writing without plotting? Even worse.
See you all Monday.
- December 9, 2009 @ 01:00 PM by Matt Maxwell
The Village Voice names its best comics of 2009
Parker: The Hunter
As the year winds down, these best-of lists are beginning to appear in rapid succession.
This time it’s The Village Voice, where art critic R.C. Baker runs down his selections for the best comics and graphic novels of 2009, which include titles ranging from DC’s’ anthology miniseries Wednesday Comics and Darwyn Cooke’s adaptation of Donald Westlake’s The Hunter to Al Columbia’s Pim & Francie and Tony Parker’s take on Philip K. Dick’s classic Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Baker’s choices appear as a round-up, rather than in list form. However, if you’re looking for a quick overview, you can may want to browse this gallery of covers.
- December 9, 2009 @ 12:40 PM by Kevin Melrose
Because nothing says Christmas like a plush mummy
McLeod's goodie bags
Looking for a high-quality stocking stuffer for that special comics fan on your shopping list? Jessica McLeod, creator of the comics Mungo Bean and Working Class Elf, may have just the thing for you. She’s put together two goodie bags based on her minicomics. Each package comes with a hand-screenprinted soft toy, comic, badge and gift bag. They both sell for $18 and different patterns are available for the back of the plush toy. Check out McLeod’s Esty site for more details.
- December 9, 2009 @ 12:10 PM by Chris Mautner
Comics Cavalcade: Postcards and punk rock
A Postcard From Fielder by Kevin Huizenga
- December 9, 2009 @ 11:40 AM by Chris Mautner
Charity auction features some pretty sweet comics items
The Portland Mercury
Every year at this time the Portland, Oregon, alternative weekly The Mercury gathers goods and services from area businesses and notable figures to auction off, with the proceeds benefiting a local charity.
The 2009 installment of The Mercury Online Charity Auction includes a couple of desirable comics packages — one from Dark Horse, and another from Oni Press, Fantagraphics Books, Top Shelf Productions, Bridge City Comics, Floating World Comics and actress Katee Sackhoff.
The Dark Horse lot contains more than $500 worth of goods, ranging from a retailer-exclusive One-Shot Wonders lithograph signed by Joss Whedon, Mike Mignola and Travis Charest to an original page of Joelle Jones art from Dr. Horrible to trade paperbacks of The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite and The Umbrella Academy: Dallas. (Bidding is up to $362.)
The other comics lot features a place on the Oni Press comp list, which means the winner will receive a copy of every book the publisher releases next year, plus select titles from Fantagraphics, a collected edition of Jeff Lemire’s Essex County trilogy, numerous graphic novels and trade paperbacks including Finder, Watchmen and Criminal, and an autographed photo of Sackhoff. (Bidding is up to $152.50.)
Follow the links to see the complete contents of each package. Bidding ends at 5 p.m. PST Dec. 11. Proceeds this year benefit Outside In, a Portland-based charity that helps homeless youths and disadvantaged adults.
- December 9, 2009 @ 11:06 AM by Kevin Melrose
Andy Clarke joins Batman and Robin for ‘Batman vs. Robin’
Batman and Robin #11 variant by Andy Clarke
Andy Clarke will follow Cameron Stewart as the artist on Batman and Robin, joining writer Grant Morrison with March’s Issue 10 for a story arc called “Batman vs. Robin.”
Clarke, who began his career at 2000 AD, most recently drew issues of DC Comics’ Batman Confidential and R.E.B.E.L.S.
In addition to Stewart, Frank Quitely and Philip Tan have illustrated arcs of Batman and Robin. At one point Frazer Irving was set for Issues 10-12, which initially were to be drawn by a returning Quitely.
Comics Alliance has a brief Q&A with Clarke and Batman Group Editor Michael Marts.
“As far as teasers go, the title of the storyarc — ‘Batman vs. Robin’ — might be the biggest teaser of all,” Marts says. “And expect to learn quite a bit more about the mysterious history of Bruce Wayne’s family tree.”
- December 9, 2009 @ 10:03 AM by Kevin Melrose
Marvel to launch a second Iron Man monthly series
Iron Man Legacy #1
To gear up for the Iron Man movie sequel, Marvel will debut a second ongoing series in April starring the Armored Avenger.
Written by Fred Van Lente (Incredible Hercules) and drawn by Steve Kurth (Ultimate Armor Wars), Iron Man Legacy will feature self-contained story arcs set during different points in Iron Man’s career.
Announced the same week that War Machine ends, Legacy — not to be confused with the 2008 miniseries Iron Man: Legacy of Doom — will join Matt Fraction and Salvador Larocca’s current monthly The Invincible Iron Man.
“We feel that Iron Man is an important enough character and a broad enough character that we can explore different aspects of his history and tell exciting stories that way,” Van Lente tells IGN.com.
The first arc, titled (coincidentally enough) “War of the Iron Men,” will involve a paramilitary organization in a war-torn European country that somehow obtains some Iron Man armor and uses it for ethnic cleansing.
- December 9, 2009 @ 09:19 AM by Kevin Melrose
McSweeney’s San Francisco Panorama takes comics stars to the streets
James Stokoe's poster for the San Francisco Panorama
Wow, newspaper nostalgia is quite the hot ticket for comics these days, huh?
First there was Kramers Ergot 7, Sammy Harkham and Alvin Buenaventura’s avant-garde anthology, printed at a massive size meant to emulate Winsor McKay’s full-page Little Nemo in Slumberland newspaper strips. Then there was Wednesday Comics, DC’s 12-issue anthology title, published on fold-out newsprint. And now there’s the San Francisco Panorama, a one-time-only “21st-century newspaper prototype” that doubles as the 33rd issue of author/publisher Dave Eggers’ McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern.
Boasting 320 pages of original content, the broadsheet-format Panorama contains full-color comics from Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, Seth, Jessica Abel, Adrian Tomine, Kim Deitch, Ivan Brunetti, Gene Yang, Alison Bechdel, Erik Larsen (still can’t get over that) and more. It also features prose contributions of varying stripes from such comics-relevant authors as Michael Chabon, Chip Kidd, Stephen King, Junot Díaz and Michelle Tea, and a poster of the 49ers’ Patrick Willis drawn by Wonton Soup‘s James Stokoe. And there’s all the other stuff you’d expect from a newspaper — journalism, sports, features, a magazine, a book section and more. Only, y’know, all fancy-pants.
The New York Times reports that the paper has already sold through the limited run made available for sale on the San Francisco streets yesterday at the low price of $5, but it’s still available (or will be soon, that is) at the full $16 pricetag at bookstores and at the McSweeney’s site. Click here for an extensive preview.
(Times link via Pop Candy.)
- December 9, 2009 @ 08:30 AM by Sean T. Collins
Your video of the day: Jeff Smith inks a panel
The subject line says it all really, doesn’t it? (via)
Also: Note that the recent documentary about Smith, The Cartoonist, will be airing on some U.S. PBS stations over the next few weeks.
- December 9, 2009 @ 08:05 AM by Chris Mautner
Time.com’s nerd blog picks the best comics of the decade
The Ultimates, Vol. 2
Sharpen your sticks, blogosphere: Time.com’s new Techland blog has unveiled its 10 best comics of the decade. (And not a one of them is manga.)
The list — one entry per page, annoyingly enough — is incredibly mainstream, with DC Comics and its imprints claiming half the spots. The remaining are divided among Image Comics, with two, and Top Shelf Productions, Archaia and Marvel with one each.
However, Marvel’s sole title was named the top comic of the decade: The Ultimates, by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch.
“I’m a nerd, of course,” Techland’s Mike Williams writes in the introduction to the list, “so at first I tried to find some quantifiable metrics to determine The Ten. But when sales numbers and movie tie-in revenue dollars didn’t pan out I changed tactics. I went with my gut.”
Here’s what his gut came up with:
- December 9, 2009 @ 07:20 AM by Kevin Melrose
Bruce Wayne will return in a time-spanning miniseries by Grant Morrison
Bruce Wayne pirate design, by Andy Kubert
DC Comics’ week of announcements continues this morning with news of the return of Bruce Wayne in a time-traveling miniseries written by Grant Morrison.
Debuting in April 2010, the aptly named Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne finds the character — presumed dead after the events of Final Crisis but actually hurled into the far-flung past — attempting to reclaim his memory and his place in time.
“Return is a fairly intricate time-travel story in which the world’s greatest hero, the optimum man, is up against the supreme challenge to his ingenuity and skill,” Morrison tells USA Today. “How does Batman get out of the ultimate trap? It has a mystery and an apocalyptic countdown going on, there are some major twists and reveals, and it sets up big changes to the Batman universe status quo.”
The six-issue miniseries, which features a rotating roster of artists beginning with Chris Sprouse and followed (possibly) by Frazer Iriving, opens in the Late-Paleolithic Era and then moves on to 17th-century Gotham Village, and so on.
“Each of the stories is a twist on a different ‘pulp hero’ genre — so there’s the caveman story, the witchhunter/Puritan adventurer thing, the pirate Batman, the cowboy, the P.I. — as a nod toward those mad old 1950s comics with Caveman Batman and Viking Batman adventures,” Morrison says. “It’s Bruce Wayne’s ultimate challenge — Batman vs. history itself!”
The first issue of The Return of Bruce Wayne will be 38 pages, with subsequent issues containing 30.
- December 9, 2009 @ 06:14 AM by Kevin Melrose
Good Comics for Kids selects the best kids’ comics of 2009
Frankie Pickle and the Closet of Doom
Barely a week after some corners were still — still! — lamenting a supposed lack of “all-ages” books, Good Comics for Kids has released an impressive list of “The Best Comics for Kids 2009.”
The 27 titles, organized by age group, represent a wide range of genres, from humor to fantasy to superhero fare. Among the books: Eric Wight’s Frankie Pickle and the Closet of Doom, Jeff Smith’s Little Mouse Gets Ready, Kean Soo’s Jellaby: Monster in the City, Chris Chris Eliopoulos and Ig Guara’s Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers, Jeremy Love’s Bayou, Richard Sala’s Cat Burglar Black and Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka.
“Though our list encompasses a variety of serious genres — historical fiction, memoir — we also felt it was important to include titles that were just plain fun, especially for beginning readers,” Katherine Dacey writes in the introduction to the list. “We also realize that there can be a gap between what critics deem ‘excellent’ and what kids are actually reading, so we encourage you to share your own experiences: How have kids reacted to the books on our list? Do you agree with our age recommendations? Are there titles that we overlooked?”
- December 9, 2009 @ 05:52 AM by Kevin Melrose
Manga, Muppets and Daytrippers fill a quiet week for comics
This week sees only a few major releases from Marvel and DC Comics — a New Avengers Annual from the former and a handful of Blackest Night tie-ins from the latter — but manga publishers step into the void with several titles, ranging from new volumes of Yotsuba&! and Detroit Metal City to omnibus editions of One Piece and Hot Gimmick.
Of course, it’s not all manga: B.P.R.D.: War on Frogs and Citizen Rex come to a close, Daytrippers, Nation X and The Muppet Show Comic Book debut, and War Machine says farewell … for now.
And that’s just for starters. JK Parkin is on vacation this week, but to see what Chris Mautner and I have to say about this week’s releases, keep reading. As always, let us know in the comments section what you plan to get.
- December 8, 2009 @ 03:15 PM by Kevin Melrose
Unbound: See you in the funny papers
It’s the holiday crunch time and we could all use a bit of humor, so today, for your reading pleasure, I’m reviewing two very different webcomics that both made me laugh out loud.
The first is The Princess Planet. I saw people recommending it here and there, but I resisted for a long time because anything involving princesses reeks of kid stuff. Having survived my daughters’ princess phase, I was more than happy to pack it in.
As it turns out, though The Princess Planet channeled what I was muttering all those years and turned it into funny. The star of the show is Princess Christi, who gets bored on the very second page and turns herself into a superhero, leaving her attendants behind to draw moustaches on the skinny girls in her magazines. That sort of deliberate anachronism, drawing bits of modern life into the faux-medieval world of fairy tales, is the straw that Brian McLachlan has been spinning into gold for the past four years. The jokes mostly turn on the characters’ self-awareness that they are fairy-tale clichés, and running gags include one-upmanship among the princesses and the king and queen’s quest to find a new heraldic symbol for their kingdom to replace the current one, a pile of grass eating a sandwich.
- December 8, 2009 @ 01:45 PM by Brigid Alverson
Straight for the art | Ben Herman’s Beautiful Dreamer sketchbook
Beautiful Dreamer by Richard Howell
A chance encounter at Tunde Adebimpe’s table at the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival led to my discovery of Ben Herman’s impressive collection of Beautiful Dreamer sketches. In his sketchbook’s pages, the lovely telepathic New God from Jack Kirby’s Forever People is given her due by Dan DeCarlo, Dick Ayers, Ramona Fradon, Gilbert Hernandez, Mark Bode, Tania Del Rio, Michael Wm. Kaluta, Danielle Corsetto, John Bogdanove, Todd Nauck and many more. Go feast your eyes, and check out Herman’s entire assortment of ComicArtFans.com galleries — his Star Wars and Avengers sketchbooks are nothing to sneeze at, either.
- December 8, 2009 @ 01:16 PM by Sean T. Collins