2010 March
Marvel confirms April debut for Iron Man: Extremis motion comic
From "Iron Man: Extremis"
Word actually leaked out on Friday that Marvel’s next motion comic will be Iron Man: Extremis, but the publisher makes it official this morning with this announcement, and trailer, on Entertainment Weekly‘s PopWatch blog.
As we speculated last week, the motion comic adapts the 2005 story arc by Warren Ellis and Adi Granov that heavily influenced the story and look of the first Iron Man film.
The first six episodes of Iron Man: Extremis will be available for download from iTunes, Zune and Xbox Live for $1.99 each beginning April 16 — ahead of the premiere of Iron Man 2 on May 7. Each additional episode will be released every two weeks.
Iron Man: Extremis is Marvel’s third motion comic, after Spider-Woman and Astonishing X-Men (both now available for free on Hulu). You can watch the trailer for Extremis at PopWatch.
- March 24, 2010 @ 09:37 AM by Kevin Melrose
Millar and McNiven’s Nemesis, and the Times Square billboard that wasn’t [Updated]
The Times Square billboard purportedly promoting "Nemesis"
From Mark Millar, the man who brought you the story of Orson Welles’ efforts to produce the very first Batman movie, comes this photo of a billboard purportedly advertising Nemesis — in comic shops today! — in New York City’s Times Square.
“Times Square, New York City, 15 minutes ago,” Millar wrote this morning on his message board. “Is this what happens when you give a comic-book writer some movie royalties?”
Well, not necessarily. Eagle-eyed viewers, or Google Image searchers, may recognize the photo as originating from slightly more than “15 minutes ago” — like January, when much hay was being made over the Weatherproof billboard that featured President Obama.
So, no Nemesis billboard. Decent bit of Photoshop work, though; it certainly convinced some people.
You can see the original photo after the break.
Update: In the comments thread, reader MD shares a snapshot of what the billboard on that street corner actually looks like this morning. (If you’ll recall, Weatherproof Garment Company agreed to remove the Obama ads at the request of the White House.)
- March 24, 2010 @ 07:54 AM by Kevin Melrose
You, too, can smell like Tony Stark
Diesel's limited-edition "Iron Man 2" fragrance
Not that I’ve given it much thought, but I imagine Iron Man smells like a mixture of metal, stale sweat and booze. However, the fine folks at Diesel apparently have a different (and, arguably, better) idea, as they’re releasing a limited-edition Iron Man 2 fragrance — just ahead of the movie’s premiere, naturally.
For the cologne, Diesel has remade the familiar clenched-fist bottle of its Only the Brave line in red and gold. The box, as you can see in the image above, features art from Marvel comics.
So, what does Iron Man smell like? According to the LA Times’ All The Rage blog, Diesel describes the scent as, “top notes of lemon blossom, mandarin and coriander leaves, a heart of labdanum, black rose and lavender, and a dry down of amber, tolu wood and ebony wood.”
Wait, wait, wait. Mandarin?
The cologne, which retails for $67.50, will be available in major department stores and Diesel boutiques in mid-April.
- March 24, 2010 @ 07:12 AM by Kevin Melrose
IDW returns to Jurassic Park, with covers by Miller, Pope, Adams and more
Jurassic Park #1, by Frank Miller
Two months after Frank Miller tweeted “I just drew a really cool dinosaur,” everything finally falls into place with IDW Publishing’s announcement of Jurassic Park: Redemption, a new ongoing series by IDW Senior Editor Bob Schreck and artist Nate Van Dyke.
June’s Issue 1 will feature covers by Frank Miller and Tom Yeates, with subsequent covers in the initial five-issue arc by Yeates with variants by Arthur Adams (#2), Paul Pope (#3), Bernie Wrightson (#4) and Bill Stout (#5). What’s more, IDW will be giving away posters at WonderCon featuring Miller’s cover art.
The series is set 13 years after the events of the first Jurassic Park film, as John Hammond’s now-adult granddaughter Lex Murphy works with the United Nations to keep people off of Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna, while her brother Tim tries to redeem their grandfather’s name.
In addition to the new series, IDW has secured the rights to reprint the Topps Jurassic Park comics from the 1990s in a trade paperback.
- March 23, 2010 @ 06:20 PM by Kevin Melrose
A short interview with Matt Thorn
A Drunken Dream
Like a number of online alt-comix pundits, the announcement earlier this month that Fantagraphics was going into the manga-publishing business both intrigued and delighted me. So much so that I took it upon myself to email manga scholar and translator Matt Thorn, who is serving as the editor for this line (if such a term can be used) of books. I sent him a list of questions, which (due to his understandably busy schedule) he was only recently able to reply to:
Four years is a long time to sit on a project like this. Why was there such a long gestation period?
It simply took that long to go from Dirk Deppey and me proposing the line to Gary Groth, to going through the process of acquiring rights, and doing all the other things we needed to do before we could make the announcement.
- March 23, 2010 @ 01:45 PM by Chris Mautner
Stories that matter: Amruta Patil
Amruta Patil defines herself first as a writer, not a comics artist, but pictures are as essential to words in her storytelling. In an interview with Paul Gravett, she discusses her debut graphic novel Kari, the many influences on her work (from Mughal miniatures to Tintin) and what she learned during a recent residency in Angoulême, France:
That I ought to stop apologising for my lack of exposure to “norms.” My lack of familiarity with storytelling traditions, my gender, my foreignness — these could all be assets. That I ought to be more meticulous about my artwork. That I need to exercise utmost discrimination in spitting things out into the print world. Bookshops are filled with swill — one needs tell stories that matter.
Patil is working on Parva, a graphic novel distilled from the great Indian epic The Mahabarata. “Many Indian writers come back to the feet of these epics at some point in their career — it is almost a coming-of-age ritual,” she says.
You can see more of Patil’s work, including her 24-hour comic Noah & The Ship of Fools, at her art blog.
- March 23, 2010 @ 12:30 PM by Brigid Alverson
Vampire-hunting children and the 1950s U.K. comic-book scare
Sunday Mail clipping from the vampire scare
While the U.S. comic-book scare of the 1950s boasted Senate hearings, bonfires and the founding of the Comics Code Authority, it always seemed to be lacking a certain … something. It turns out that “something” was vampire-hunting children.
Don’t worry, though, Scotland had our backs.
In its preview of an upcoming BBC Radio 4 documentary, BBC Scotland recounts the incident that set off the United Kingdom’s horror-comic panic and led to strict censorship laws: On the evening of Sept. 23, 1954, hundreds of children, armed with knives and sharpened sticks, descended on a Glasgow cemetery to hunt the so-called Gorbals Vampire, a 7-foot-tall revenant with iron teeth who was said to have eaten two local boys.
The children, ages 4 to 14, were sent home by a constable, but they returned night after night, determined to find and destroy the fiend.
Of course, there was no vampire, and no missing schoolboys. But just as the Glasgow youths were swept up in an urban legend, they were caught up in a media and political feeding frenzy as adults were eager to find an explanation — or a scapegoat, perhaps — for the unusual, and unnerving, behavior.
Much like politicians on this side of the Atlantic, those in the U.K. settled on American horror comics, such as EC’s Tales From The Crypt and The Vault of Horror. Never mind that there were no iron-fanged, kidnapping vampires in any of those titles. In 1955 the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act was passed, banning the sale to minors of magazines and comics portraying “incidents of a repulsive or horrible nature.” And, well, that was that.
The Radio 4 documentary, which airs at 4 p.m. PST on March 30, sounds fascinating, as it includes interviews with people who as children participated in the hunt for the Gorbals Vampire. (You should be able to listen to the story on the BBC iPlayer.) Plus, y’know, vampire-hunting children!
More than five decades later, it appears as if the iron-fanged creature actually may have sprung from a local nursery bogey — a monster created by parents to keep naughty children in line — called the Iron Man, and not from those awful, awful American horror comics. So … oops?
(The accompanying newspaper clip is borrowed from the Southern Necropolis Research website).
- March 23, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
Your video of the day: Jules Feiffer on drawing with sticks
At Bigthink.com, cartoonist Jules Feiffer shares how he used to draw using “sharpened dowels from the local meat market.” Via
- March 23, 2010 @ 11:30 AM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art | Cameron Stewart’s Wild West Bruce Wayne
Bruce Wayne by Cameron Stewart
On his blog, artist Cameron Stewart shares some preliminary sketches of cowboy Bruce Wayne. Stewart will draw the third issue of Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne, featuring the time-hopping lead character in the Wild West.
Bonus: Chris Sprouse’s variant cover to issue #1
- March 23, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by JK Parkin
A Hatch-full of Lost comics and art
By all accounts tonight’s episode of Lost, now in its final season, looks to be a momentous one. (Note: I hate finding out that a given ep will be “so-and-so-centric” beforehand; alas, that ship has sailed for me as far as tonight goes, but I’m not gonna spoil it for y’all if you haven’t heard.) With that in mind, why not kick back with a few Lost-related goodies from the world of comics?
Hark! A Vagrant‘s Kate Beaton recently finished an epic catch-up on the show, which has apparently prompted a fit of creativity. The Lost comic strips she’s recently posted to Twitter include an ode to her least-favorite character, an astonishing truth about Sawyer, and a bit of 20/20 hindsight for Jack.
Cat Rackham‘s Steve Wolfhard gets in on the action by questioning Locke’s pronunciation.
The Cloudy Collection’s David Huyck catches an unfortunate glimpse of something best left unseen.
Nedroid‘s Anthony Clark has gone absolutely Lost-comics crazy. Just click on his Twitpic account and start scrolling, and you’ll find page after page of little Lost delights.
Finally — and you might wanna wait till your lunchbreak for this one — feast your eyes on this astonishing gallery of Lost illustrations, paintings, sculpture, toys, and god knows what-all else from Gallery1988′s Lost Underground Art Show back in December. Glorious, and gloriously weird, stuff. Kind of like the show!
- March 23, 2010 @ 10:30 AM by Sean T. Collins
NYT critic perplexed by narrative device
The New York Times doesn’t review a lot of comics, so when they set Tanya Lee Stone loose on Sarah Stewart Taylor and Ben Towle’s Amelia Earhart: This Broad Ocean, that’s news. Stone is the author of a prose biography of Earhart as well as the much-acclaimed historical work Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream. But Stone’s major critique of the book is that it mixes fact and fiction without distinguishing between the two.
Taylor also creates a narrator who did not exist — Grace Goodland, a girl reporter following the events for The Trepassey Herald. Other than a few quotations — like the content of a telegram Amelia dictates to a clerk: “Thanks fatherly telegram. No washing necessary. Socks, underwear worn out” — the conversations between her and the other characters seem to be based on research, but largely invented. As an Amelia Earhart fan, I’ve always thought she was exciting enough without any assistance.
Maybe, but graphic novels tell stories, and no matter how interesting the facts may be, the creators need a narrative framework to hang those facts on. Grace Goodland is so obviously a point-of-view character that it’s hard to imagine readers in the target age group (10 to 14, say) thinking that she is a real person. Perhaps the book should have included an fact vs. fiction section in the back, a la The Magic School Bus, but teenage readers would likely find that patronizing. The book is meant to be read as a story, not a biography—the creators limit their scope to a six-day period in Earhart’s life, and they use the character of Grace to show her impact on the women of her time, something that wouldn’t have been possible in a strictly factual presentation. Sometimes fiction can convey more truth than facts, and by presenting Earhart in context, the creators provide readers with an introduction to Earhart and a jumping-off point for those who want to know more.
- March 23, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
‘You need to check out Choker — dang, that art is nut smash!’
Dallas retailer Zeus Comics and Collectibles has released a funny, over-the-top video — it’s a nod to local TV commercials for used-car dealerships and monster-truck rallies — to promote Ben Templesmith‘s store appearance on April 3.
- March 23, 2010 @ 09:30 AM by Kevin Melrose
Cutting out the middleman
Meredith Gran has a big announcement about Octopus Pie: Villard will be publishing a 272-page print edition, which collects the first two years of the webcomic in a single volume, along with an exclusive bonus story. In typical webcomicker fashion, Gran talks directly to her readers and gets right to the point, encouraging them to buy the books directly through her site:
This is a crucial time in the success of Octopus Pie. The sales of this book will do a lot to determine whether or not future books can be made. If you love the comic, but have never ordered OP merch before, this is a fantastic way to show your support.
She also points out that if you buy the book directly from her site, at $16 for an autographed edition, or $24 for the same book with a personalized drawing, she gets a cut. The price through online retailers Barnes & Noble and Amazon is $10.80, and it will be interesting to see if readers are willing to pay more in order to directly support the artist (and get the personalized copies). Gran has already self-published three volumes of the comic, which chronicles the adventures and misadventures of two twentysomething Brooklynites, but the Villard edition presents the same material at a lower price, so it’s already a better deal.
- March 23, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Alien vs. Pooh is the cutest/horriblest comic ever
from Alien vs. Pooh
Strange things are afoot in the Hundred Acre Wood in Giant Hamburger’s Alien vs. Pooh, a disturbingly adorable mash-up of A.A. Milne’s lovable stuffed bear and H.R. Giger terrifying acid-blooded xenomorph. Look for a guest appearance by another extraterrestrial beastie, too.
(via Infocult)
- March 23, 2010 @ 08:30 AM by Sean T. Collins
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Judge Dredd, by John Hicklenton
Passings | John Hicklenton, the comic artist best known for his work on 2000AD, Judge Dredd Megazine and Nemesis the Warlock, passed away last week after a long fight with Multiple Sclerosis. He was 42. Hicklenton was an advocate for better treatment of MS sufferers, becoming the subject of the award-winning 2008 documentary Here’s Johnny that detailed his struggle with the disabling neurological disease. [Forbidden Planet International Blog]
Organizations | The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has announced the expansion of its management team: Cheyenne Allott has been hired as development manager, overseeing fund-raising and outreach initiatives; and Brady Bonne has joined as operations manager, coordinating the organization’s office and fund-raising logistics. [press release]
- March 23, 2010 @ 07:58 AM by Kevin Melrose