2010 January
The Grumpy Color: Carla and Tom bury 2009 (part 2)
Over the course of New Year’s weekend, by way of dissecting the past year in DC and Marvel superhero comics, Robot 6 columnists Tom Bondurant and Carla Hoffman traded e-mail messages. This is part 2 of the result. Part 1 is here.
Batman and Robin #1
Carla: So, after Infinite Crisis, DC was like “Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman leave!” and then proceeded to skip the time that they had left, probably because it would be boring not to see their star characters not in their books. 2009 only had Wonder Woman keep her post as Bruce Wayne and Superman have sort of ditched their titles. How’s that workin’ out for you? Excited to see “Bruce Wayne Reborn?” Think Superman even needs to be accessible to the new reader anymore?
Tom: We’ve talked before about the Dick Grayson Batman, and on the whole I’ve liked both the idea and the execution, but it is a weird balancing act. It can’t be too different, or it’ll be the ‘90s and Jean-Paul all over again — but it can’t be too much the same, because then what’s the point? Obviously Morrison has pulled it off most effectively in Batman And Robin, but I liked the Winick/Bagley issues of Batman too. I’m eager to see how Dick/Batman fits into the new Justice League.
As for the Superman books, they also remind me of the ‘90s, and particularly the days of the “weekly” Superman comics where the supporting cast was so huge that Superman was practically an afterthought. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, because I do think Superman can be unnecessarily complicated. I mean, to me the basic Superman image is Clark ripping open his dress shirt and muttering “this looks like a job for Superman!” If Nightwing and Flamebird and Mon-El had been able to capture some of that over the past year, I think the books would have been better-received. Instead there’s this whole “the world hates the S-shield” plot wrapped around a pretty familiar government conspiracy. Parts of it have been good, but sometimes I hope it satisfies everyone’s need for big convoluted storylines. [CH: Good call!] And I am looking forward to the “Batman Vs. History” miniseries, because how can you not want to see Grant Morrison writing Pirate Batman?
- January 5, 2010 @ 02:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
Unbound: Brad Guigar on Webcomics.com
![brad-guigar-table[1]](http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/brad-guigar-table1-300x139.gif)
It sounds like a paradox: Webcomics.com is a how-to site explaining how you can make money as the creator of a free webcomic.
But you will have to pay to see it.
The standard model for creator-owned webcomics is to put the comic up for free and make money via ads and the sale of books, T-shirts, and other merchandise. And one of the most influential guides to that model is How to Make Webcomics, authored by the four members of the Halfpixel collective: Brad Guigar (Evil, Inc.), Dave Kellett (Sheldon), Scott Kurtz (PvP), and Kris Straub (Starslip).
In late 2008, Halfpixel took over the domain webcomics.com (previously owned by T Campbell) and reconfigured it as a how-to site for webcomics creators, providing advice on everything from how to draw word balloons to how to build an audience. Guigar is the editor-in-chief and writes most of the articles, with Kurtz and occasionally the others also providing content.
On January 3, literally overnight, Guigar put all the content behind a pay wall and announced that henceforth, readers must pay a $30 annual subscription fee to access it. The internets swelled with outrage, but Guigar pointed out that the site is a professional tool, not a webcomic, and thus of monetary value to creators.
I interviewed Guigar via e-mail about his reasons for the change and his reaction to the criticism that followed.
- January 5, 2010 @ 01:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
SNL stars gather for Diary of a Teenage Girl fundraiser
The Diary of a Teenage Girl's SNL star-studded fundraiser
Holy smokes, talk about high-profile support for a worthy project. On Sunday, January 31, Saturday Night Live cast members Fred Armisen, Abby Elliot, Will Forte, Seth Meyers, Jason Sudeikis, and The Lonely Island’s Jorma Taccone will headline an all-star comedy fundraiser on behalf of the upcoming Off-Broadway adaptation of writer/artist Phoebe Gloeckner’s The Diary of a Teenage Girl. SNL writers Colin Jost, Hannibal Buress, and John Mulaney, comedians Bridey Elliott and Emily Heller, and musical guest (sorry, couldn’t help it) The Renaldo The Ensemble will also perform.
The Diary of a Teenage Girl uses a unique comics/prose/illustration hybrid format to tell the story of Minnie Goetze, a precocious teenager growing up in ’70s San Francisco who has an affair with her mother’s boyfriend. Sex and drugs abound, but it’s told in such an honest, hopeful, no-B.S. fashion that it’s as far away from after-school special territory as you can get. If you haven’t read it, you should — serious Best of the Decade material.
The very promising-looking play — a veritable multimedia extravaganza — is adapted from Gloeckner’s book by Marielle Heller and directed by Sarah Cameron Sunde and Rachel Eckerling.
Want to help the curtain for the show go up on March 15 as scheduled? Buy tickets to the “Beyond Funderdome Comedy Blowout” fundraiser. Regular tix are $85; VIP tickets, which include pre-show drinks with the performers, will run you $150. The fundraiser takes place at the same venue where Diary will run, the 3LD Art & Technology Center at 80 Greenwich Street in Manhattan.
- January 5, 2010 @ 12:36 PM by Sean T. Collins
Straight for the art | It’s Miller time for Sandman and Ben Grimm
Marvel Two-In-One #86 reimagined
Over at the always entertaining Covered blog, artist Rusty Shackles reimagines the cover to a classic, Marvel Two-in-One #86. Although fairly different than the original cover, it does seem to capture its spirit.
- January 5, 2010 @ 11:45 AM by JK Parkin
Your video of the day: In the studio with Mort Drucker
Here’s a trailer for a new interview series with great cartoonists, with the famous Mad magazine artist talking shop. (via)
- January 5, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Red Light Properties launches on Tor. com
Red Light Properties
As he mentioned in his response to our survey this past weekend, Dan Goldman has anew webcomic launching at Tor.com today. Red Light Properties is now live on their site, and is a “tropical-horror series” about a real estate firm in Miami Beach that cleans and sells “previously-haunted homes” to people who’ve lost their houses to foreclosure.
“All my projects since 2001 have been steps toward getting *this* series done right, and I’m thrilled to announce that my baby is finally born, weighing 16 color pages with another 8 coming to you every Tuesday for the next six months, free of charge,” Goldman said over email. “There will be no ‘continued in the print version’ at the end, either; we’re giving the entire novel away on Tor.com.”
Goldman is also experimenting with the presentation of the story. “I’ve changed up webcomics a bit in the way the pages are presented, and I’ve upgraded my process to using Maya to create/light virtual environments for my characters to inhabit, so there’s a lot of sexy-new here for you to enjoy,” he said.
After the jump you can find a couple of promotional pieces for the story, including a flyer for “Red Light Properties.”
- January 5, 2010 @ 10:30 AM by JK Parkin
Comics in 2009: Hot or Not?
Did the year we just left behind fail comics fans? That’s been arguably the hottest topic among comics bloggers and critics over the past month or so. Faced with the task of assembling their thoughts about the best and worst the medium brought us in the final year of the millennium’s first decade, a great many writers say that something just wasn’t right with what they read. Others, however, say the fault may not lie with comics overall, but just with the comics the first group was reading. And ground zero for the debate is the Savage Critic(s) group blog (to which I am an all too occasional contributor).
Perhaps the strongest — and certainly the strangest — articulation of the “something went wrong in ’09″ point of view was made by the inimitable critic Abhay Khosla. In a piece titled “So, Why Do Nerdy Things Work?”, Khosla took an essay ostensibly concluding a series on the pros and cons of John Rogers’s <i>Blue Beetle</i> run and used it as a springboard for discussing the year of his discontent. He kicked it off by assembling a round-up of similar skepticism:
I wasn’t very happy in 2009 anyways.
Apparently, I’m not completely alone: Messrs. Tim Callahan (“something’s missing”), Chad Nevett (“I think people are just tired… I can’t really defend things.”), David Brothers (“I’m bored to death”), Dr. Geoff Klock(“It’s diminishing returns… it is time to stop showing up on Wednesdays…”), Alan David Doane (“I have to admit that I have not been reading a lot of comic books lately”), and well… me in my last essay, according to some of you (“I’m pretty sure whoever wrote this comic is the Green River Killer, guys. I’ve been spending time in the crime lab, and I think I just cracked this mother wide open.”).
- January 5, 2010 @ 09:45 AM by Sean T. Collins
R.I.P. Barry Blair
Samurai
Bleeding Cool is reporting that Barry Blair, the founder of Aircel Comics and one of the more prominent figures in the black and white boom of the 1980s, died Sunday after suffering from a brain aneurysm.
He complained to friends of an ear ache previously and was on medication as a result. However he felt so ill, he was eventually taken to hospital, but it was too late.
Blair’s Web site has a rather brief eulogy up for now.
A rather prolific cartoonist, the Canadian-born Blair produced a number of manga-influenced comics (at a time when manga was barely causing a ripple) under the Aircel imprint, such as Elflord and Samurai. The line is probably, however, for publishing the Men in Black comics, which, of course, eventually became a popular movie. He later worked extensively on Richard and Wendy Pini’s ElfQuest series. He also worked in animation and for Malibu Comics (which bought Aircel during the b&w implosion).
Blair is perhaps best known for the number of erotic comics he produced, which include titles like Leather and Lace and Sapphire (published by NBM — last link NSFW). These books frequently came under controversy and criticism due to the fact that the main characters in these comics frequently appeared to be childlike and/or under age of consent.
(found via)
- January 5, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Work begins on long-awaited third volume of Casanova
Casanova #14
I was a bit skeptical last month when writer Matt Fraction teased, “Just wait till we make the Casanova announcements.” After all, we’ve been fooled before.
But if you followed Twitter over the holidays — the accounts of Fraction and artists Gabriel Bá and Fabio Moon, specifically — you saw clear indications that work has indeed begun on the long-rumored and much-anticipated third volume of the critically acclaimed spy-fi series.
“Hey, guess who remembered how to write Casanova today?” Fraction tweeted on Dec. 19. “Pages 1-6 of Casanova v3 completed and sent to @Gabriel_Ba e @fabiomoon. ho ho ho.” Bá replied two days later with: “Pages 1-6 of Casanova v3 – [In] @mattfraction ‘s own words: ‘Okay. That might actually sound like the most impossible thing of all time –’”
And just this week Fraction posted: “Writing more Casanova tonight. Rereading the whole series since the last time I proofread the issues.” That was followed last night by, “It’s as though I’ve set out to make Moon and Bá hate me and salt the earth beneath my feet” and the encouraging tag “casanovasback.”
Debuting in June 2006 in Image Comics’ 16-page “slimline” format, Casanova follows the timeline-jumping exploits of free-lance thief and espionage artist Casanova Quinn. The second volume, Gula, concluded in May 2008.
- January 5, 2010 @ 07:46 AM by Kevin Melrose
Saturday passes sell out for Comic-Con 2010
Bye-bye, Saturday passes
If you’ve put off nailing down plans for Comic-Con International, prepare to kick yourself: Saturday memberships are gone.
Single-day passes went on sale just three weeks ago.
For a quick, and jolting, comparison, Saturday passes for last year’s convention didn’t sell out until April 2009. It seems par for the course, though, considering that four-day memberships for 2010 sold out during the first week of November.
According to the color-coded bars on the Comic-Con website, Friday passes may not be long for this world; they’re at 68 percent as of this morning. Last year they were gone by April 20.
Comic-Con International kicks off on July 21 in San Diego with a (sold-out) preview night, and runs through July 25.
(via Deb Aoki)
- January 5, 2010 @ 06:13 AM by Kevin Melrose
Talking Comics with Tim: Chris Wisnia
Doris Danger
After self-publishing his work for a few years, this past November, SLG Publishing released Chris Wisnia’s 96-page Doris Danger: Giant Monster Stories. As we quoted Wisnia when the book was first announced: “I made this book for people like me — people who love Jack Kirby, robots, low-budget 1950′s sci-fi films; realistic, somewhat non-stop army, secret society, AND spaceship action, absurd conspiracy theories, romance, bad dialogue, ridiculous plot lines, seventh grade humor, kitsch, and of course…GIANT MONSTERS!” I email interviewed Wisnia back in November about the project. Before jumping into the interview itself, Wisnia wanted me to mention: “My website is www.tabloia.com, where you can find plenty of tidbits and bonus features. OH! And SLG is sending out free audio commentary CD’s, narrated by myself, to readers.”
Tim O’Shea: After years of self-publishing, how did Doris Danger land at SLG?
Chris Wisnia: I self-published about a dozen books from 2004-2007, but it was very expensive. Around 2006 or so, I began taking my books around at conventions, and showing my work to publishers, with the hopes of getting picked up by someone. I’d left a few things with Dan Vado at SLG, for maybe a year or so. For some reason, I didn’t get the impression he was interested in anything.
Then in 2008, at Wondercon in San Francisco, I went and re-introduced myself, and he remembered me (or my work). I told him I’d emailed a few times and not heard back. And he said he never got any of those emails. And he gave me his card. It was then I realized I’d been emailing the generic SLG “info” site administrator or whatever. When I wrote his actual address, he wrote me back within the day.
- January 4, 2010 @ 04:00 PM by Tim O'Shea
The Grumpy Color: Tom and Carla bury 2009, Part 1
Blackest Night #6
Over the course of New Year’s weekend, by way of dissecting the past year in DC and Marvel superhero comics, Robot 6 columnists Tom Bondurant and Carla Hoffman traded e-mail messages. This was the result.
Yeah, that’s right, e-mail. Why do things the easy way?
Tom: Okay, Carla — it’s the end of 2009, Blackest Night is in the home stretch, Siege is ready to start, and it’s our job to make sense of the past year.
First question: should Marvel be worried about the “Blackest Night surge” of the past two months?
Carla: Direct answer: no.
Longer, more thoughtful answer: Heck no.
“Okay, take this seriously Carla” answer: Last year, at this time, Marvel was hip deep in Secret Invasion tie-ins. The fact that DC has learned that slapping a banner on your books sells more copies is just proof we’re finally down to business. Whether that business is being bought by a multi-billion dollar entertainment corporation or learning that telling fans that one book is going to have catastrophic consequences throughout the entire universe catapults that book to superstar status, it all comes down to promoting the industry. Marvel’s been heralding big tent events for the past how many years with banner books and aftermath tie-ins, so for DC, it looks like they finally got the formula right.
TB: Well, DC has been doing “bannered books” since Crisis On Infinite Earths, but yeah — it seems like Blackest Night has hit some kind of fan sweet spot. Generally, though, I think that comes from a relatively simple premise plus the “power of Geoff Johns.” It seems to be enough, because previous DC crossovers sure haven’t had the coattails BN has.
- January 4, 2010 @ 03:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
EXCLUSIVE preview: Fall of the Hulks: M.O.D.O.K. #1
Fall of the Hulks: MO.O.D.O.K.
You might remember that Ryan Dunlavey did a humorous M.O.D.O.K. story last summer for Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited that tied into the events of Dark Reign. Well, he has another M.O.D.O.K. story coming out this week on the site, with this one playing off of the “Fall of the Hulks” storyline. It’ll be up on MDCU on Jan. 6.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics, you can find an exclusive preview of the story after the jump.
Fall of the Hulks: M.O.D.O.K. #1
On-Sale: January 6, 2009
About: M.O.D.O.K. has finally stepped out of the shadows of his hometown bullies and joined the ranks of the Intelligencia alongside fellow “big brain” villains like the Leader, the Mad Thinker, and Red Ghost! But can such a choice assemblage of evil nerds ever truly be free of lame-brain jocks? Find out as the Intelligencia comes face to face with… the Insmelligencia!
Contact:
Jordan White (Editor)
Ryan Dunlavey (Writer, Artist, Inker, Colorist, Letterer)
- January 4, 2010 @ 01:57 PM by JK Parkin
Strangeways: Winter Break
Since I didn’t get my week off last week, I’m getting it now, darn it.
Instead of new Strangeways content, you can read over my rambling and shambling overview of the decade. Hope to have it all wrapped this week.
Part 1: BUT THE HANGMAN ISN’T HANGING AND THEY PUT YOU ON THE STREET
Part 2: BOURNE ALONG BY WHAT YOU CANNOT SEE
Part 3: MY FAVORITE FLAVOR, CHERRY RED
The STRANGEWAYS winter special is still up for reading as well. As is the preview from the backup feature of THE THIRSTY, entitled “Red Hands,” right here at Robot 6.
Back on Wednesday with updates to the decade-wrap, pages start next Monday.
- January 4, 2010 @ 01:00 PM by Matt Maxwell
Comics Cavalcade: Mice, dogs and an Ibis
Jingle Jangle Tales by George Carlson
- January 4, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Chris Mautner