2010 February
Straight for the art | Stephen DeStefano’s Lucky in Love sketches
by Stephen DeStefano
Stephen DeStefano of ‘Mazing Man and Venture Bros. fame is working with writer George Chieffet on a graphic novel for Fantagraphics called Lucky in Love.
“LUCKY is actually a book that’s been years in the making, though,” he says on his blog. “And LUCKY wasn’t always LUCKY. Originally he was named ‘Cholly Potatoes’. A year or two after that, he was named ‘Lefty’.
I thought it’d be fun to share some sketches and strips I’d done over the years developing the character—I’ve tons of this stuff, but here’s a little of it to start with.”
Click on over to his blog to check out more early sketches of the character who would eventually become Lucky.
- February 5, 2010 @ 01:42 PM by JK Parkin
Con War Contrast: Wizard and Reed’s guest lists
Search Robot 6 for our most recent Con War stories and you might get the impression that the action has been one-sided. In under a month, Gareb Shamus’s Wizard Entertainment has added four new shows to its “Wizard World Tour” of “Comic Con”-branded pop-culture conventions.
Apart from the early-December announcement that Wizard rival Reed is partnering with Lucasfilm to put on the next Star Wars Celebration — a move that forced Wizard to reschedule its Chicago Comic Con — the outfit behind the New York Comic Con and Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo has left the expansion arms race to its opponent.
Instead, perhaps attempting to make good on its nose-tweaking tagline “The con Chicago needs, the con you deserve,” Reed has focused on shoring up its C2E2 guest list. The show boasts some true heavy hitters, including Geoff Johns (superhero comics’ biggest writer), Alex Ross (superhero comics’ biggest painter), Gail Simone (superhero comics’ most prominent female writer), Jeff Smith (arguably the biggest name in children’s comics with Bone) and, in a very rare con appearance, Chris Ware (arguably the biggest name in alternative comics with The ACME Novelty Library).
Additional guests on the pretty-massive roster include Jim Cheung, Mike Mignola, Steve McNiven, David Finch, Steve Epting, Geof Darrow, Frank Cho, Gene Ha, Adam Hughes, Greg Land, Ethan Van Sciver, Ben Templesmith, Mike Perkins, Butch Guice, David Lloyd and a dedicated line-up of women creators spearheaded by Amanda Conner, Jill Thompson and Sherrilyn Kenyon. And as best I can tell, every single guest C2E2 has announced actually makes comics.
- February 5, 2010 @ 12:01 PM by Sean T. Collins
Lawyers attempt to stop Olivia Munn comic
Flip cover for "Celebrity Showdown," by Cat Staggs
Online retailer Heavy Ink has been targeted by attorneys seeking to stop the release of a comic book starring model/actress Olivia Munn.
As Boing Boing noted on Thursday, the cease-and-desist letter demands that all advertising, distribution and production stop on Antarctic Press’ Celebrity Showdown Olivia Munn One Shot #1, a “hilarious spoof” that finds the Attack of the Show co-host swarmed by fans at Comic-Con International.
“Unable to escape,” the solicitation text reads, “her gamma-irradiated cells explode and unleash the fury of The 50-Foot Womunn. It’s the showdown of the century! Geeks vs Munn!”
The letter states that Munn did not grant permission for her image to be used or exploited, and seeks the destruction of all copies of the comic, which is due for release in April.
Heavy Ink President Travis Corcoran has brushed off the legal threats, clarifying that Celebrity Showdown isn’t the retailer’s comic — it’s written and drawn by Brian Denham for Antarctic — and arguing that Munn is a public figure and fair game for parody.
However, as intellectual-property attorney Geoff Gerber points out, this isn’t an issue of copyright but of right of publicity, which involves an individual’s right to control and profit from the commercial use of her name and likeness.
“There is no absolute defense to a right of publicity claim based upon parody,” Gerber writes. “Instead, parody is part of the general defense based upon First Amendment free-speech rights. … It should also be noted that it is not clear that Celebrity Showdown would be considered a parody.”
I’ve contacted Antarctic Press for comment, and I’ll update the post when they reply.
- February 5, 2010 @ 11:04 AM by Kevin Melrose
13-year-old fights to bring back Cerebus the Aardvark
Cerebus the Aardvark graffiti
Kris Akwei-Howe probably isn’t familiar with Dave Sim’s landmark Cerebus the Aardvark series, but he’s doing his part to keep him alive via another sort of landmark. The comic character used to adorn a bridge in Blyth, Northumberland, England until the county council cracked down on local graffiti and painted over it.
Now the teenager wants it back, and has started a Facebook group to build support.
It sounds like it’ll be an uphill battle, as the mural’s artist is believed to have passed away and repainting it would be a criminal act, according to the head of neighbourhood services at the Northumberland County Council.
- February 5, 2010 @ 10:38 AM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art | Glen Brogan’s White Violin
by Glen Brogan
Artist Glen Brogan shares his rendition of the White Violin, from Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá’s Umbrella Academy.
“…the brilliance of her design is so iconic that it’s hard to not want to draw her,” he said on his blog. “I’m sure even if many of you haven’t read the books you’ve seen her image looking at you from a comic store shelf and found it hard not to think ‘What is that?’ Her design makes the comic look like something that has already long been established, even when it was brand new, so I give many kudos to the artist and writer for that.”
Check out more of Glen’s artwork on his site and on the Autumn Society blog.
- February 5, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Legal | On Thursday 20th Century Fox filed six lawsuits against several dozen people the studio claims sold DVDs containing unfinished versions of X-Men Origins: Wolverine before the movie’s May 1, 2009, theatrical release.
In December, the FBI arrested Gilberto Sanchez, a New York man suspected of uploading an unfinished edit of the film to a file-sharing website. Sanchez claims he purchased the bootleg for $5 from a street vendor. [Media Decoder]
Legal | The Department of Justice has delivered another blow to Google’s controversial plan to make millions of out-of-print books available online. In a statement issued Thursday night, the DOJ said that despite “good faith” efforts, the revised agreement still suffers from class certification, copyright and antitrust issues. A hearing on the proposed agreement is scheduled for Feb. 18. [Publishers Weekly, Epicenter]
- February 5, 2010 @ 09:26 AM by Kevin Melrose
Meltzer likes Logan as Spider-Man
Buffy #32
With word spreading that Logan Lerman is the front runner to succeed Tobey Maguire as Spidey/Peter Parker in Sony’s Spider-Man franchise, Robot 6 reached out to New York Times best-selling author Brad Meltzer (Identity Crisis) for his thoughts on the possibility.
Lerman, who plays the lead in the upcoming Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, starred as Bobby McCallister on the Meltzer-created Jack & Bobby TV series that aired on The WB from 2004 to 2005.
Meltzer told Robot 6: “For all the fuss about how cute Logan is, people forget what an incredible actor he is. Think of it. We based a whole show around him. Most adults can’t carry that. Plus, I wrote his first real kiss, so I’m rooting for that.”
Meltzer is currently writing the penultimate arc of Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8 with his first issue out this week.
“I’ve waited 25 years to use the X-Men/Titans crossover. And the Superman jokes. And I deeply love every person who sent me a tweet (@bradmeltzer) about it. This first issue of Buffy was the comedy. The other genres are coming and are not nearly as happy.”
- February 5, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by Jeffrey Renaud
What does Rick Veitch’s soul look like?
Rick Veitch's soul
According to the Swamp Thing, Brat Pack, and Army@Love cartoonist, it looks something like this animated gif. Go to Veitch’s blog for the dreamy explanation.
(Via Arthur Magazine)
- February 5, 2010 @ 08:35 AM by Sean T. Collins
A copse of obscurity
Grumpy Old Fan
At the height of DC’s big-event mania, it was almost a running gag that a forgotten DC character (most likely an obscure Teen Titan) would be decapitated, dismembered, or otherwise used as cannon fodder for the likes of Superboy-Prime or Black Adam.
Therefore, now that the dark period is apparently coming to a close, I thought it would be nice to look at some dust-gathering DC folk who might benefit from the occasional guest appearance. Take last week’s Justice League #41, for instance. A flashback featured the 18th-century characters Tomahawk and Miss Liberty, who found an otherworldly artifact examined in the present day by scientist Darwin Jones. Later in the issue, Troia finds Batman and Robin taking out the Yellow Wasp (who both she and I initially misidentified as Killer Moth).
- February 4, 2010 @ 01:30 PM by Tom Bondurant
Straight for the sculpture | Anyone order a Robert Crumb statue?
The eyes ... they follow me wherever I go ...
For the past eight years, Seattle-based artist Michael Leavitt has created a series of sculpted figures of famous artists and entertainers like Andy Warhol, David Byrne, David Lynch and so forth. Now he’s made one of comics legend and Bible adapter Robert Crumb:
This fully articulated wood-carved sculpture was commissioned by an out-of-state collector. Before it ships off to the private collection, the piece will be put on public display at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery for one night only during the reception for Gahan Wilson on Saturday, February 13. If you can’t make it then, you can view Leavitt’s recent work, including collaborations with Fantagraphics friend Charles Krafft, at Stolen Space Gallery in London May 13 through May 30.
Click on the link to see another shot of the statue hawking his wares at a table. Large-bottomed Amazonian sexual fantasy figure is presumably not included.
- February 4, 2010 @ 12:30 PM by Chris Mautner
“I am a tiger who is also a lady”
Tigra ... kind of
Chip Zdarsky has the scoop on one of the as-yet-unrevealed members of the relaunching Avengers books. I’m kinda surprised we haven’t seen more humorous mock-ups like this, but maybe they are on the way. Nice Stockton reference, too.
- February 4, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art | Templesmith’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Art by Ben Templesmith
Ben Templesmith unveils some pages he created for an unsuccessful bid to adapt Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (BOOM! Studios’ approach — a 24-issue series using the original text of the science-fiction classic — apparently was preferred by Dick’s heirs.)
“My take was always going to be a little different,” Templesmith writes, “definitely not wanting to use every single word of prose but getting all the dialogue and descriptions as right as I could. Translations between mediums, I’m sure you’d all agree, should be about playing to the strengths of the new one, not just trying to force a square peg in a round hole, etc.”
- February 4, 2010 @ 11:30 AM by Kevin Melrose
Your video of the day: Brodner on Zinn
Editorial cartoonist par excellence Steve Brodner draws a caricature of the late Howard Zinn in real time.
- February 4, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Straight for the art | ‘Pop Unintentional’
Left: 'Captain America; Right: 'Gossip'
I really dig these abstracted superhero paintings by Bob Kessel. Apparently they’re part of a new exhibit of his work entitled “Pop Unintentional.” The good news is some are available as prints, in case that Lilli Carre piece I mentioned earlier doesn’t do it for you.
- February 4, 2010 @ 10:30 AM by Chris Mautner
What did Wizard know about Watchmen 2?
Art Adams art for Wizard's piece on Countdown: Arena
If you’ve been within a six-yard radius of a comics blog over the past day or so, you’ve probably read Rich Johnston’s rumor that DC is planning to release a sequel and/or prequels to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s stone-classic superhero landmark, Watchmen. The thinking is that whatever his issues with Moore, and vice versa, former President Paul Levitz kept the kibosh on any further use of the Watchmen world and characters, and that with him gone, Senior Vice President-Executive Editor Dan DiDio is opening the door to such projects.
We can’t speak to the veracity of the rumor — nor will DC, who told Robot 6 the company has no comment. But as an ex-Wizard employee, I can clear up some things regarding one of Johnston’s bits of evidence. He writes:
But there were moves. A Wizard splash showing DC’s Countdown multiverse had Rorschach as one of the combatants and it was rumoured one of the universes in the DC 52 Multiverse was intended to be the Watchmen world.
The piece Johnston’s talking about was done toward the tail end of my time with the company in 2007, during a period when I was working primarily on the website rather than the magazine, but I do know how it went down.
- February 4, 2010 @ 09:59 AM by Sean T. Collins