2010 February
Your chance to be killed on the cover of a new IDW book
Wire Hangers #1 variant
Writer, artist and musician Alan Robert wants to kill you — or at least make you the latest victim of a serial killer on the cover to his new book from IDW Publishing.
Wire Hangers kicks off its four-issue run in April and is about a homeless man who tries to stop, and subsequently gets blamed for, a series of disappearances in New York. One of the comic’s first issue covers will feature a newspaper article listing the latest victims of the Suicide King Killer, and IDW is giving away a chance for one lucky(?) fan to be that victim.
You can find all the contest details on their site, but hurry — the contest closes on Friday.
Incidentally, CBR’s Shaun Manning recently spoke with Robert, who plays bass for the metal band Life of Agony and is the front man for the punk band Spoiler NYC. Robert told Manning how he used Twitter to pitch the book.
“I started using Twitter at the beginning of last year,” Robert said. “It was around the same time that I was finishing up my ‘Wire Hangers’ proposal and pitch pages. I started following some of my band-mates at first and then started following some of my favorite comic artists and writers. Templesmith was one of those people. I saw that he had a new book coming out with writer Chris Ryall, called ‘Groom Lake.’ So, I started following Ryall, too. Little did I know that Ryall happened to be the Editor-In-Chief of IDW Publishing! Anyway, long story short, Ryall and I traded some music and comics and ended up hitting it off right away. A few months later he saw the animated trailer I put together for ‘Wire Hangers.’ He asked what my plans were for the series and pretty soon after, we had a contract in place.”
Is there anything Twitter can’t do? Besides let me post more than 140 characters, of course …
- February 17, 2010 @ 11:08 AM by JK Parkin
iFanboy acquired by Graphic.ly
Digital comics company Graphic.ly announced today that they’ve acquired the news/podcast/comics community site iFanboy.
Per the press release, iFanboy’s founders will join Graphic.ly, as well as keep their responsibilities for the iFanboy site and community. Conor Kilpatrick and Josh Flanagan will lead content creation for iFanboy and overall publisher and creator relations, while Ron Richards will oversee product and business development for iFanboy. iFanboy’s content will be integrated into Graphic.ly’s website and digital comics software.
“As community and content become more and more entwined, Graphic.ly wants to be at the forefront of the new digital comic age. By acquiring iFanboy, we become part of one of the best communities in the industry,” said Micah Baldwin, CEO and co-founder of Graphic.ly. “Working with iFanboy, we are able to take our vision to the next level and fully integrate our product into the fandom community.”
“Graphic.ly has the future in mind, and that’s something iFanboy has always valued,” Flanagan wrote on iFanboy this morning. “Their first product is a digital comics reader and platform, a movement iFanboy have always supported. But in addition to that, Graphic.ly is very committed to being a part of the comics community at large, and to growing the comics audience. They expressed an interest in bringing some folks on who were respected in the comic book industry and had developed an awesome community of comic book lovers. Eventually when all those people turned them down, they were stuck with us.”
That post also includes a Q&A about the change, promising “more writing, more reviews, more features, more fun, more discussions, more creators, more anything we can think of to make iFanboy better for you. This development will finally give us the opportunity to improve iFanboy in all the ways we’ve wanted to, but haven’t been able to because we have lacked the time and the resources and the manpower that are needed to make our ideas a reality.”
The complete press release is available after the jump.
- February 17, 2010 @ 10:20 AM by JK Parkin
Read Roberson and Allred’s I, Zombie prequel for free
"I, Zombie" from "The House of Mystery Halloween Annual"
To promote the debut in May of I, Zombie, the new series from Chris Roberson and Mike Allred, Vertigo has posted online the seven-page “prequel” that appeared in October’s The House of Mystery Halloween Annual.
- February 17, 2010 @ 09:45 AM by Kevin Melrose
Straight for art | For your sketchbook want a sketch, hmm?
Gahan Wilson's Yoda
There are many benefits to working for a comics publisher like Fantagraphics. If you’re Mike Baehr, for example, you get to have some of the most notable cartoonists in North America draw pictures of Yoda I’m sure I’ve linked to his sketchbook before, but it’s worth pointing to once again, as he’s got lots of new images online, including sketches by Jeff Smith, Anders Nilsen, Marc Bell, Frank Santoro, Jason Lutes, Lewis Trondheim and Gahan Wilson.
- February 17, 2010 @ 09:10 AM by Chris Mautner
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Disney Books
Publishing | Jonathan Yaged has resigned as vice president and U.S. publisher of the Disney Book Group to become CEO of House Party, a consumer-activation and marketing company. Yaged joined Disney in 2000 as director of business affairs.
The Disney Book Group’s Hyperion imprint publishes such graphic novels as Jellaby, Houdini: The Handcuff King, the Artemis Fowl adaptations and the popular W.I.T.C.H. series. [Publishers Weekly]
Publishing | Japanese cartoonist Shuuhou Satou, who in April announced he would make his comics available online for a small fee a month after they appeared in print, reportedly earned about $5,500 from Internet sales in January. The mangaka began the online venture because he was unhappy with the profit-sharing setup of traditional publishing. [Japanator]
Publishing | Bandai Entertainment finally has launched a separate manga website. [Japanator]
Legal | Steve Geppi, lawsuit magnet. [The Beat]
- February 17, 2010 @ 08:38 AM by Kevin Melrose
This week Hercules falls, Voodoo ends and Shiga lets you choose your own adventure
Captain America #603
Welcome once again to Can’t Wait for Wednesday, our weekly look at what you can expect to find in your local comic shop tomorrow. To see what Kevin, Chris and I have to say about this week’s comics, read on …
Kevin Melrose’s pick of the week: Captain America #603
Given all the controversy surrounding the previous issue, is it safe to presume there will be a run on Part 2 of “Two Americas” as political pundits and members of right-leaning message boards search for hidden messages and perceived slights? Perhaps instead of those they’ll simply find the kind of engaging, complex and slow-burning story for which Ed Brubaker & Co. — in this case, artist Luke Ross — have become known in the past five years on Captain America. (Marvel)
- February 16, 2010 @ 03:03 PM by JK Parkin
Talking to Chip Mosher about BOOM! Town
A few weeks ago we learned that BOOM! Studios, publisher of everything from Mark Waid’s Irredeemable series and Farscape to Disney/Pixar comics like The Incredibles and Cars, was branching out into the alt.comix arena. Their new imprint, BOOM! Town, will publish and market “literary comics,” selective reissues of out-of-print works and merchandise.
Their first few projects include:
- A Too Much Coffee Man mug.
- A political satire/collection of prose pieces and artwork called Repuglicans.
- I Thought You Would be Funnier, a collection of Shannon Wheeler’s rejected New Yorker cartoons.
- A reissue of a set of 36 trading cards by R. Crumb that were originally released by Kitchen Sink Press in 1991.
- A reissue of The Grasshopper and the Ant by Harvey Kurtzman.
The line is being overseen by BOOM! publisher/co-founder Ross Richie and their marketing director Chip Mosher. I interview Mosher via email over the last week about the new imprint, what their plans are for it and the online reactions to one project in particular. My thanks to Chip for his time.
- February 16, 2010 @ 02:00 PM by JK Parkin
Unbound: Gag comics that won’t make you gag
The internet abounds in gag comics. The three- or four-panel gag strip is by far the dominant form, and you find it all over the web, both generic comics and those catering to various niches. Of course, as with all things webcomic, finding the comcs is easy but finding the good comics is more of a challenge.
So here is a sampling of gag comics that I have been reading lately. Some are thigh-slappers, while others are more likely to elicit a smile, but there’s a good deal of variation in style and topic, which hopefully means there’s a comic in here for every funnybone. And if you were to subscribe to the RSS feed of each of these, your news reader would have its own funny page every morning. Sort of like your local newspaper—only funnier.
Bug is a minimalist comic that is all about the joke. The characters are one step up from stick-men, and they are completely anonymous—there is no consistent character from one strip to another. The art is simple, but it does the job, which is to showcase creator Adam Huber’s deadpan humor. Every strip is a witty twist on some aspect of modern life, from what hang gliders are thinking to why canes are cooler than walkers, and every one so far has been dead on.
- February 16, 2010 @ 01:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
Quote of the day | Mark Evanier on Kirby and the Captain America kerfuffle
Captain America Comics #1
“Well, since Jack’s been dead now for sixteen years, he’s even less qualified to discuss that comic than I am. But on at least two message boards, folks are debating what he would have said and how his politics would be described in today’s political environment. Again, I can’t say. Jack is not in today’s political environment. When I knew him he was a solid, lifelong Liberal Democrat. Would he still be? Who knows? [...]
I see no reason to presume Jack would have changed … or that any change would not have taken him towards more progressive ground. But I’m not going to sit here and tell you any particular change could never have occurred. About the only thing I’m reasonably sure of in this area is that there is nothing that could have ever happened, up to and including a complete personality transformation, that would have caused Kirby to not despise Richard Nixon.”
– writer Mark Evanier, friend and biographer of Jack Kirby,
on what Captain America’s co-creator might have thought about the current Tea Party controversy
- February 16, 2010 @ 12:30 PM by Kevin Melrose
Robot reviews: Pim & Francie
Pim & Francie In Golden Days
Pim & Francie: The Golden Bear Days
by Al Columbia
Fantagraphics, 240 pages, $28.99
Can an art book have a narrative? What I mean by that is, can book purportedly made up of a series of unrelated images — or at least, images that don’t ipso facto follow a traditional narrative path — produce one anyway, even if it’s unintentional?
That’s one of the questions I asked while reading Pim & Francie, Al Columbia’s latest (and it should be noted, first ever) book. It’s more a collection of unfinished work and ephemera than an outright comic, but it many ways it remains Columbia’s most disturbing material yet.
- February 16, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Straight for the art | Batman’s rogues, by David Petersen
Art by David Petersen
Mouse Guard creator David Petersen doesn’t post on his blog all that often, but when he does it’s always a treat, as he crams the entries with new covers, commissions, fan art and glimpses into his process. His latest post, which includes this commissioned illustration of five of Gotham’s vilest, is no exception.
- February 16, 2010 @ 11:30 AM by Kevin Melrose
Preview: ‘Hey Princess’
Hey Princess
Today we wrap up our look at Top Shelf’s upcoming Swedish Invasion with a preview of Hey Princess by Mats Jonsson. The book is a confessional autobiography centering on Jonsson’s arrival into the big city and his desperate attempts to find love and become hip. Not necessarily in that order.
Our exclusive preview begins just as Mats has finally convinced the girl of his dreams to break up with her boyfriend and come out with him to a concert… after which she promptly disappears with the band’s lead singer to ‘hang out’ in his hotel room …
- February 16, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Chris Mautner
McSweeney’s San Francisco Panorama comics section available for purchase
Back in December McSweeney’s released a “21st-century newspaper prototype” called San Francisco Panorama. Featuring 320 pages of original content, the broadsheet-format project contained investigative journalism, sports reporting, a book section and prose, with contributions from the likes of Stephen King, Michael Chabon, James Franco and Chip Kidd, among many others.
And, of course, it featured a comics section, with contributions from Erik Larsen, Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, Seth, Jessica Abel, Adrian Tomine, Kim Deitch, Ivan Brunetti, Gene Yang, Alison Bechdel, Jon Adams, Keith Knight and many more. The full issue can still be bought online for $16, but now McSweeney’s is also selling the comics section for $7. In addition to all the comics, it comes with a Chris Ware poster titled “Rocket Sam,” which features a build-it-yourself paper spacecraft, and accompanying scenery and characters.
(Hat tip: Jon Adams)
- February 16, 2010 @ 10:20 AM by JK Parkin
Your other video of the day: Formula VS. Perfume by Heads Up Display
Formula VS. Perfume by Heads Up Display from Carlos Molina on Vimeo.
When he’s not creating comics like Fishtown or I Rule the Night, Kevin Colden is playing drums and designing freakin’ puppets for the band Heads Up Display. How cool is that?
Above is the video for “Formula VS. Perfume,” which features puppets designed by Colden and built by the band’s lead singer, Josh Davis-Dillard. The video was directed by photographer Seth Kushner, whose work you might be familiar with from the NYC Graphic website, and Carlos Molina. Part of it was also filmed at Bergen Street Comics in Brooklyn, N.Y.
- February 16, 2010 @ 09:46 AM by JK Parkin
Your video of the day: Tezuka rave-up
The Shooting Star Project found this crazy animated video from the band Raver (circa 2008) featuring just about every Osamu Tezuka character around (though I didn’t see Lamp anywhere). (via)
- February 16, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by Chris Mautner