2010 March
Next week’s WonderCon: What are your plans?
Tiki Tour
The convention season is in full swing, as Kevin has already noted a few times today. Next weekend brings WonderCon, the first show of the year put on by Comic-Con International, which takes place in San Francisco.
If you’re a comics company, professional or retailer who is exhibiting at the show or has something special planned next weekend, we want to hear from you. Drop me an email at jkparkin@yahoo.com with details on your show plans, and I’ll include it in a roundup next Wednesday.
In the meantime, here are a few “after hour” events I already know about:
- The Hero Initiative and the Cartoon Art Museum are hosting a benefit Friday, April 2 for artist Ed Hannigan. It will include an art auction, which you can bid on by proxy if you aren’t going to be there live.
- James Sime at Isotope Comics is once again hosting a couple of events. The first is a tiki bar crawl through San Francisco with artist Dave Johnson on Friday night. The second is a Jonah Hex-themed party with Jimmy Palmiotti, Amanda Conner and Darwyn Cooke on Saturday. You can find more details on both events here.
I’d also be remiss if I didn’t share my own plans for Saturday evening — I’ll be on a panel with a bunch of people who are smarter than me:
6:00-7:00 Comics Journalism— Join David Brothers (4thletter!), Kate Dacey (manga critic), Graeme McMillan (io9), JK Parkin (Robot 6), and Ron Richards (iFanboy), for a roundtable discussion of comics journalism from all angles. What should publishers and readers expect out of the varied and often fluctuating landscape of comics criticism online? Is comics print journalism dead? What makes a writer worth reading? Expect answers to these questions and more as the panelists, each practicing a different discipline of comics journalism, talks about the what’s, why’s, and how’s of writing about comics online. Room 232/234
Come by and say hi.
- March 26, 2010 @ 11:02 AM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art | Mahmud Asrar makes you feel the force
Darth Vader TPB cover
Artist Mahmud Asrar shares the cover to a collection of Darth Vader stories that’ll be published in Turkey. I think the first-person perspective works really well here.
- March 26, 2010 @ 10:30 AM by JK Parkin
This weekend, it’s Hi-Ex!, Spring Memorabilia and Thing
Hi-Ex! 2010
The day’s barely begun, and already I’ve made a mistake. Earlier I wrote there are no fewer than three conventions being held this weekend, when it turns out there actually are at least six. I neglected the U.K., which over the next few days plays host to Hi-Ex!, Spring Memorabilia and the U.K. Web and Mini Comix Thing.
Hi-Ex!, the third annual Highlands International Comics Expo, will be held Saturday and Sunday at Eden Court in Inverness, Scotland. Guests include Charlie Adlard, Asia Alfasi, Gary Erskine, Andi Ewington, Simon Fraser, John Higgins, Dave Shelton, Jon Sloan and Dave Taylor.
Spring Memorabilia, held Saturday and Sunday at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, England, is a pop-culture and sports convention with a comics element. Guests in “Comic City” include Lee Bradley, Mike Collins, Al Davison, Laura Howell, John McCrea and Lew Stringer.
And finally there’s the U.K. Web & Mini Comix Thing, held Saturday at Queen Mary University’s Great Hall in London. Exhibitors include John Allison, Jess Bradley, Marc Ellerby, Roger Langridge and Tom Siddell.
- March 26, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Straight for the art | Marian Churchland’s Final Fantasy costumes
If Beast creator Marian Churchland were a Final Fantasy character, she would be a Thief.
- March 26, 2010 @ 09:30 AM by Brigid Alverson
This weekend, it’s Toronto Comic Con Wizard World
Toronto Comic Con
The doors should just be opening at the Direct Energy Centre for Toronto Comic Con Wizard World, the first of nine confirmed conventions on this year’s Wizard World Tour. The show continues through Sunday.
Comics guests include J. Bone, Adi Granov, Phil Jimenez, Dale Keown, Leonard Kirk, Yanick Paquette, Gail Simone, Cameron Stewart, Ty Templeton and J. Torres. Media guests include Gil Gerard, Erin Gray, Ernie Hudson and Doug Jones.
Metro features a preview of the convention, with quotes from Simone and Wizard CEO Gareb Shamus.
In related news, Wizard is partnering with New York City Horror Film Festival and Fearsmag.com to host a Horror Pavilion at its shows in Anaheim, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, New York City, New Jersey and Austin.
- March 26, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
This weekend, it’s Planet Comicon
Planet Comicon
Convention season kicked off two weeks ago, but this weekend it kicks into full gear with no less than three events. First on our list is Kansas City’s Planet Comicon, held Saturday and Sunday at the Overland Park International Trade Center. The Kansas City Star has a preview.
Comics guests include Jason Aaron, Rick Burchett, Michael Golden, Jeremy Haun, Phil Hester, Matt Kindt, Sean McKeever, B. Clay Moore, Jai Nitz, Ande Parks, Don Rosa, Stephane Roux, Chris Sprouse and Cat Staggs. If your tastes run toward the “pop culture” arena, the event also features the likes of Lou Ferrigno, Helen Slater and Jane Wiedlin.
- March 26, 2010 @ 08:34 AM by Kevin Melrose
Twilight: The Graphic Novel turns besteller lists all sparkly
Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 1
Considering that the first volume of Twilight: The Graphic Novel sold more than 66,000 copies in its first week of release — the largest-ever debut for a graphic novel in the United States — it’s no surprise it’s topping sales charts.
On Thursday, the Yen Press adaptation debuted at No. 6 on the USA Today bestseller list, which reflects sales of books in all categories at about 7,000 brick-and-mortar stores plus online retailers. And now this morning, Twilight topped The New York Times graphic book list, which employs some arcane formula that no one seems to understand.
In addition, the book hovers at No. 4 in Amazon.com’s Comics & Graphic Novels category, wedged between volumes of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and at No. 1 on Barnes & Noble’s list.
Twilight: The Graphic Novel, adapted by Young Kim, was released on March 16 with a 350,000-copy first printing. Stephenie Meyer’s series of young-adult novels on which the comic is based has sold more than 53 million copies worldwide.
- March 26, 2010 @ 07:57 AM by Kevin Melrose
Frank Frazetta speaks out about family fight, allegations
Frank Frazetta Sr. (1994 photo)
Legendary fantasy and comic artist Frank Frazetta has spoken publicly for the first time about the bitter family feud that came to light in December with a break-in at the Frank Frazetta Museum.
The artist’s son, Alfonso Frank Frazetta, known as Frank Frazetta Jr., is charged with burglary, criminal trespass and theft after he allegedly used a backhoe to break into his father’s museum in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, to steal 90 paintings worth about $20 million. Frazetta Jr. claimed he had been instructed by his father “to enter the museum by any means necessary to move all the paintings to a storage facility” to protect them from other family members.
In an interview this week with the Pocono Record, the 82-year-old Frazetta Sr. said he never told his son anything of the sort: “No, absolutely not. I don’t know what the hell he was doing.”
“My son is an alien,” he told the newspaper from his home in Boca Grande, Florida. “There’s no telling what he’ll do. He’s been like that for, I don’t know, how many years. We played baseball in the old days. He always chose the opposite side from me.”
As we reported last week, Frazetta Jr. has been sued by Frazetta Properties — now managed by siblings Heidi Grabin, Holly Frazetta Taylor and William Frazetta — in an attempt to prevent him from selling or reproducing his father’s artwork and claiming to be his authorized representative. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for trademark and copyright infringement, counterfeiting, breach of contract, unjust enrichment and false designation of origin.
Frazetta Art Gallery, the website operated by Frank Jr. that sold lithographs, books, clothing and other merchandise based on his father’s artwork, was taken offline shortly after the lawsuit was filed.
In the interview with the Record, Frazetta Sr. dismissed allegations made by Frank Jr., Frank Jr.’s wife Lori Frazetta and others that he’s being held in Florida against his will and controlled by his other three children.
“I’m in my own home,” he said. “I’m the only one who lives here. Yes, absolutely I’m under my own free will. My daughters don’t tell me what to do. I’m a man of my own word.”
The Record also reports that supporters of Frazetta Jr. will hold a candlelight vigil tonight outside of his home “to save Frank Frazetta Sr. and his artwork.”
- March 26, 2010 @ 06:35 AM by Kevin Melrose
Today’s Grumpy Old Fan is brought to you by the letters J, M, and S, and the DC Entertainment comic-book solicitations for June 2010
Wonder Woman #600, by George Perez
There doesn’t seem to be a lot going on with DC in June. Sure, there are the Trinitarians’ anniversary issues and the new Green Arrow series, but beyond that there’s not much in the way of lineup changes. This may be a scattershot look at DC’s solicitations, a mile deep and an inch wide.
Still, that never stopped me before, so…
IT’S MY BIRTHDAY TOO, YEAH
Who would have thought that all those delays and hiatuses actually helped DC’s Big Three series sync up? It’s almost as if Dan DiDio planned Wonder Woman’s four-month break back in 2006 (not to mention the lack of any regular Super-titles in May).
I kid because I love, of course. I’ve always liked it when anniversary issues were used as jumping-on points, and I think it’s good of DC to schedule them one after the other like this. (Plus, Justice League #50 will be coming up in the fall, and Action Comics #900 is about a year away, so it’s not like everything happens this month.)
- March 25, 2010 @ 02:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
Kickstart my art | Diamond Comics #5 brings comics to Portland
Diamond Comics #4
The more I read about Portland, Ore. the more it sounds like some sort of comic book super city, where everyone is sitting around writing comics, or writing about comics, or talking about comics, or simply reading comics as they sip overpriced lattes out of recycled cups under giant Redwoods. Kind of like a mix of Hicksville and the Ewok village from Return of the Jedi. Anyway, I hope to go there someday*, but I don’t know if the real thing can live up to the image I’ve built up in my head.
I imagine, though, that Floating World Comics in Portland is probably cooler than the image I have in my head, if not for any other reason than they come up with cool projects like this.
- March 25, 2010 @ 01:38 PM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art | Meet Ms. Inkwell …
Ms. Inkwell
The Inkwell Awards, which recognize inkers for “their quality work and contribution to the comic book industry and sequential art process,” enlisted artist Randy Green to help them design a new “spokesperson” for their awards — Ms. Inkwell.
“While IA contributor Tom Schloendorn and I were selling raffle tickets,” said the group’s founder Bob Almond in a press release, ‘I joked about how if we had a female mascot wearing an inkwell bottle outfit and stopper on her head we could sell more tickets. And that idea percolated but I still needed a design for my idea. All I knew was that I didn’t want anything campy like what I originally joked about. We certainly didn’t want any silly super-heroine costumes or her riding a giant brush or pen quill, or even a scantily-dressed ‘booth babe’ as we were concerned how we would be perceived and we wanted to be taken seriously.”
Model Chrissy Cutler will play the role of Ms. Inkwell at several upcoming conventions. The full release can be found after the jump.
- March 25, 2010 @ 01:16 PM by JK Parkin
Everyone’s A Critic | A roundup of comic book reviews and thinkpieces
It Was the War of the Trenches
Peter Richardson discusses why World War I did not capture creators’ imaginations the way other wars have, and he accompanies his discussion with a beautiful counterexample, a sample from Jacques Tardi’s It Was the War of the Trenches, upcoming from Fantagraphics next month. (via Journalista)
Craig Fischer has a decidedly mixed review of The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion, but then halfway through he goes roaring off into a digression on one of Hal Foster’s possible influences, Olive Beaupre Miller’s series of children’s books titled My Bookhouse. For good measure, someone just sent Ben Towle a set. (I had these as a kid, and they are lovely.) For more about Foster, see Ng Suat Tong’s recent post at The Hooded Utilitarian.
Tom Crippen, who is no Sarah Palin fan, cries foul nonetheless on Oliphant’s cartoon showing her postcoital encounter with a moose, pointing out that it probably reveals more about Oliphant than Palin.
Vom Marlowe reviews vol. 1 of Song of the Hanging Sky, a lovely manga with a quirky plot and a few perplexing translation problems.
Brian Heater thinks Jason’s Almost Silent is a good choice for graphic novel newbies.
Frank Santoro reviews Gipi’s Garage Band at Comics Comics.
Also at Comics Comics: Jeet Heer posts some loosely related notes on John Stanley.
Larry Cruz explains why video game webcomics are a good thing at The Webcomic Overlook.
Sean Gaffney reviews D&Q’s latest Yoshihio Tatsumi release, Black Blizzard.
- March 25, 2010 @ 12:30 PM by Brigid Alverson
Comics Cavalcade | Richard Sala, Spider-Man and crotch shots
Sweet Tooth #1 by Jeff Lemire
- March 25, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
Chillax with Matt Furie’s Boy’s Club
from Boy's Club by Matt Furie
Over at Vice Magazine, there’s a brand-new Boy’s Club strip by Matt Furie. Since I pimp this comic so hard I might as well be its PR guy, I’m tempted to say “‘Nuff said.” But if you’ve never discovered the screamingly funny world of Furie’s furry friends before, this is a great opportunity.
Boy’s Club is an occasionally surreal stoner comedy starring a quartet of vaguely college-aged monsters, Brett, Landwolf, Pepe, and Andy — four chill bros who love pizza, weed, video games, catchphrases, and bathroom humor. If that rough description has ever fit you at any point in your life, then brother/sister, is Boy’s Club the comic for you. You can check out more strips at Vice and on Furie’s MySpace blog, and buy copies from Buenaventura Press at Last Gasp.
- March 25, 2010 @ 11:30 AM by Sean T. Collins
Want some gravy on that?
The Lunch Lady does it again
Jarrett J. Krosoczka’s Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute is the latest graphic novel to be nominated for a book award: The Children’s Book Council picked it as a finalist in their Children’s Choice Book Awards earlier this month in the third-to-fourth-grade category.
Krosoczka’s cheery, canary-yellow books are sort of a school-cafeteria take on Maxwell Smart, with the Lunch Lady and her sidekick Betty taking on various outlandish forms of evil with specialized weapons such as taco night-vision goggles and banana boomerangs.
The CBC finalists were voted on by actual kids, so it’s not surprising that Krosoczka’s book made the cut, as he heads directly for the fourth-grader’s funnybone; the public at large can vote for the winner online, and the results will be announced on May 11. (Krocosczka explained the origins of the Lunch Lady when I interviewed him for Graphic Novel Reporter last year.)
- March 25, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Brigid Alverson