2010 March
Marvel’s O.M.I.T. mystery deepens
O.M.I.T. house ad from the 03/24/10 Marvel comics
What is O.M.I.T.? Marvel fans have been asking ever since guitar picks emblazoned with that cryptic acronym surfaced at Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada’s gig with nerd-rock outfit Kirby Krackle during Emerald City ComiCon two weekends back.
Now, as Robot 6 can exclusively reveal, the above O.M.I.T. house ad running in Wednesday’s Marvel comics provides a few answers. Whatever O.M.I.T. is, it’s debuting in July 2010, and features the talents of Quesada himself and, presumably, Amazing Spider-Man artist Paolo Rivera. Based on the billing, it looks like Quesada’s the writer and Rivera’s the artist, though we can’t say for certain.
But who or what does O.M.I.T. stand for? Your guess is still as good as ours…
- March 23, 2010 @ 06:59 AM by Sean T. Collins
New Warner Bros. studio will develop DC Comics games
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Warner Bros. will build upon the restructuring of DC Entertainment and the expansion of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment by opening a new game-development studio in downtown Montreal.
Announced Monday during a press conference, WB Games Montreal will develop video games based on DC Comics properties, GameFocus reports. According to Canoe, the new venture will feature an “upscale interactive gaming and 3D animation studio,” a quality-assurance center and facilities for adaptation and translation.
Although Warner Bros. in recent years has purchased LEGO games developer Traveller’s Tales, Snowblind Studios, the assets to bankrupt Midway Games and, just last month, a majority stake in Batman: Arkham Asylum developer Rocksteady Studios, WB Games Montreal will be the first studio the entertainment giant has started itself.
The new studio, which will receive about $7.4 million in subsidies from the Quebecois government, plans to employ more than 300 people by 2015. Canoe reports the arrival of WB Games will make Montreal “the sixth biggest city worldwide in the video game industry.” The city is already home to studios for major game publishers like Eidos, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft, lured there in part by government tax credits.
- March 23, 2010 @ 05:09 AM by Kevin Melrose
Talking Comics with Tim: Kat Roberts
Fever Dream
Robot 6 is fortunate to have Brigid Alverson covering the webcomics scene as well as she does through her Unbound column. But every once and awhile I like to jump into the webcomics mix and provide some coverage as well. Kat Roberts is set to resume (after a hiatus of a few months) her ACT-I-VATE webcomic, Fever Dream. Here is a snippet of Roberts’ bio: “…originally from North Carolina, now lives happily in Brooklyn. Her comics have appeared in Roctober, SMITH Magazine and the comix anthology Negative Burn, where she’s a frequent contributor. Kat is also member of XOXO Studios in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Aside from lots of drawing and painting, Kat spends her time working as a handbag designer, teaching footwear at FIT and repetitively watching Beat Street with her dance crazed daughter, Ophelia.” Fever Dream is described as “Sometimes autobio & sometimes fictitious, these short stories depict everything from the mundane to the absurd.”
Tim O’Shea: In developing Fever Dream for ACT-I-VATE, is this a project where you will continue to find and strengthen your narrative voice, or did you have that voice from the get-go on this project?
Kat Roberts: I’m very much still in the process of working out my narrative voice. It’s only been in the past year and a half that my stories actually began to feel like my stories to me. The feedback I’ve received from people through my livejournal blog, and now through Act-I-Vate, has been invaluable in my learning how to tell a story, and tell it in a way that will resonate with someone.
- March 22, 2010 @ 03:30 PM by Tim O'Shea
Tom the Dancing Bug dropped from Salon.com
Thrilling Tom the Dancing Bug Stories
Cartoonist Ruben Bolling took to his blog today to reveal that the online magazine Salon has canceled his long-running political/editorial comic strip Tom the Dancing Bug.
According to Bolling, the comic was canceled due to “severe budget constraints” rather than lack of traffic — indeed, as Bolling points out, Tom is frequently one of the site’s most-read features. He later added that Salon, which had hosted the strip since the site’s 1995 inception, seems unlikely to reverse the decision regardless of reader outcry.
I’m sure Tom Spurgeon will have further analysis, but even for someone with my casual dislike and distrust of all political cartooning, the cancellation seems notable for two reasons. First, Bolling is an obvious talent whose imaginative end-runs around the cliché-ridden visual vocabulary of your average political cartoonist made his comics that much more entertaining and his points that much more hard-hitting. Second, it’s almost creepy to think that editorial cartoonists may have just as hard a time making a go of things online as they do amid the staggering carcasses of America’s newspaper industry.
At least he’ll have an easier time getting health care.
(via Greg Pak)
- March 22, 2010 @ 01:33 PM by Sean T. Collins
Everyone’s a Critic | A roundup of comic book reviews and thinkpieces
Super-cute bacteria from the Moyashimon anime
Biochemist/manga adaptor Lianne Sentar looks at three manga series that get the science right (well mostly) and are still entertaining.
Noah Berlatsky thinks he has settled the question of what is and isn’t a comic once and for all, and he makes a pretty good case, but the commenters manage to have a lively argument anyway.
Librarians Eva Volin and Robin Brenner discuss all 10 volumes of Emma, and they jump right in with a discussion of full frontal nudity.
Jog takes a look at the many forms and uses of the thought balloon, which, despite an editor’s admonition to Stephen King, is far from dead. Scott McCloud adds his two cents as well. Related: Chris Sims explains exactly what’s wrong with the lettering in the Twilight graphic novel.
- March 22, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
Straight for the T | The Peanuts as, of course, peanuts
Peanuts as peanuts
I can’t imagine this is the first time this has ever been done, but I dig this “Peanuts as peanuts” shirt over on Threadless — mostly for the colors more than anything else.
- March 22, 2010 @ 11:30 AM by JK Parkin
Warner Bros. goes after girls market with Supergirl clothing line
Supergirl by Nastia
While the Walt Disney Co. works to broaden its appeal with boys, rival Warner Bros. is eyeing the lucrative girls market.
Variety reports that Supergirl is leading the charge as Warner Bros. Consumer Products teams with mid-range department store chain J.C. Penney for a line of clothes sporting the familiar “S” shield for girls ages 8 to 12.
Gymnast and five-time Olympic medalist Nastia Liukin is lending her name to the brand, called Supergirl by Nastia, and will serve as its spokesperson. The 20-year-old Liukin lives in Plano, Texas, headquarters of J.C. Penney.
According to the Dallas Morning News, Supergirl by Nastia is an extension of Supergirl Jam, the all-girls athletic competition and music festival launched four years ago by Warner Bros. This month the studio launched the Nastia Liukin Supergirl Cup, which honors young, rising female gymnasts.
The line, expected to be the first of several new products tied to the superheroine, will be priced between $20 and $38, and debut in stores on July 20 — in time for back-to-school shopping season.
The retailer will support Supergirl by Nastia with ads, direct mailings, social media and nationwide appearances by Liukin. And, hey, who knows? Maybe DC will even bring back Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the Eighth Grade or introduce another age-appropriate comic featuring the Maid of Might.
- March 22, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Is Mark Millar sexist and racist?
from Kick-Ass by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.
According to blogger Erin Polgreen, the answer is yes. Making the case at (of all places) Spencer Ackerman’s national-security blog at the progressive website FireDogLake, Polgreen alleges that in books ranging from Superman: Red Son to Wanted to Kick-Ass, Millar portrays even strong female characters like Lois Lane, Wonder Woman and Hit Girl as inveterate second bananas to their books’ male protagonists. She also gets some shots in at what she sees as the dubious racial politics at play in Wanted and Kick-Ass, where the ethnicity of various non-white minor characters is played as a punchline.
It’s interesting to see an argument against Millar’s treatment of “minority” groups (women are, of course, the majority, but you wouldn’t know it from comics) hinging on something as comparatively innocuous as his female heroes not proving as heroic as his male ones, given the far more violent and ignominious fates he frequently doles out to his characters. For example, if I were in one of his comics, I’d take out a big fat life insurance policy on any gay and/or black people I knew in-universe the second he came aboard. And with regards to women specifically, you’d think the treatment of rape in books like Wanted and Ultimate Comics Avengers would have at least raised Polgreen’s eyebrows, if not her ire. But hey, we report, you decide.
- March 22, 2010 @ 10:30 AM by Sean T. Collins
Mark Waid smells evil: The Irredeemable fragrance line
Mark Waid smells evil
BOOM! Studios is working with Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab to launch a line of fragrances based on Mark Waid’s Irredeemable comic. If you’ve wondered what the Plutonian smells like, now’s your chance to find out.
This isn’t the first time Black Phoenix has brought a sense of smell to the printed page … they’ve previously developed scents based on Peter David and George Perez’s Sachs & Violens, as well as several Neil Gaiman books, including Stardust and American Gods.
The line will debut at the Irredeemable First Birthday Party at Challenger Comics + Conversation in Chicago on April 16 during C2E2. The complete press release can be found after the jump.
- March 22, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art | Ross Campbell’s sketches
Storm
When he isn’t working on his upcoming graphic novel Shadoweyes, Ross Campbell can be found on his LiveJournal posting lots of cool art — from Storm (above) to Gamera to Hordak. Go check it out.
- March 22, 2010 @ 09:30 AM by JK Parkin
Kurt Busiek is now on Twitter!
Kurt Busiek (photo via Tegan Gjovaag)
Go, follow @kurtbusiek — perfect for those of you who like your voice of reason parcelled out in 140-character chunks.
(via Vito Delsante)
- March 22, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Diamond Book Distributors
Publishing | Citing frustrations over fulfillment, warehousing and invoicing issues, Checker Book Publishing Group reportedly has ended its exclusive book market agreement with Diamond Book Distributors. Simon Jones reports that Checker Publisher Mark Thompson made the announcement in a series of “strongly-worded posts” in a private online industry forum (Thompson apparently granted permission for the information to be reposted). Repeated attempts to contact Checker by phone this morning were unsuccessful.
The Dayton, Ohio-based publisher signed exclusively with Diamond in November 2003, expanding on an agreement made the previous year. Checker’s problems with the distributor apparently arose over the past 1 1/2 years. According to Jones’ post, “Outstanding canceled orders of Checker’s books are allegedly in excess of $250,000 in retail value.” Jones has more details. [Icarus Publishing]
- March 22, 2010 @ 08:38 AM by Kevin Melrose
pood enters the newsprint-anthology arena
from pood #1, by Sara Edward-Corbett
Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca, Joe Infurnari, Sara Edward-Corbett, Hans Rickheit and over a dozen more cartoonists will do their part to revive the dying art of broadsheet-style comics with the launch of pood, a newsprint comics anthology debuting at this year’s MoCCA Art Festival on April 10-11. Spearheaded by Blurred Books’ Kevin Mutch & Alex Rader and artist Geoff Grogan, creator of Look Out!! Monsters (one of the great hidden artcomix gems of the ’00s), the long-hinted-at pood will clock in at a whopping 17″ x 22 ¾”, with 16 full-color/black-and-white pages of sci-fi adventure, Western action and general weirdness, all for a measly $4. After its MoCCA unveiling, pood will hit comic shops in July and go quarterly thereafter via Mutch, Rader and Grogan’s new imprint Big If Comics.
Personally, I don’t see the appeal of newsprint. Newspaper-sized comics, sure — Kramers Ergot 7 is a mind-blower — but when I see things like Wednesday Comics or Comics Comics or even Paper Rodeo I think to myself, “Wow, wouldn’t this be much nicer on paper that holds colors properly and isn’t literally unpleasant to touch?” I just don’t have the newspaper (or zine) nostalgia gene that would enable me to look past the limitations of the paper itself. That said, am I up for getting giant comics pages from the creators of Afrodisiac or The Squirrel Machine for less than a cost of a Subway footlong? You betcha.
- March 22, 2010 @ 07:32 AM by Sean T. Collins
What Are You Reading?
Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading. Our guest this week is blogger and critic David Uzumeri, who can be frequently found at Funnybook Babylon, Savage Critics or Comics Alliance. Guy gets around.
And now we have him here as our special WAYR guest! To find out what David and everyone else at the mighty Robot 6 is reading this week, simply click on the link below.
- March 21, 2010 @ 01:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Best Bets | A look at the week ahead
Highlights from the upcoming week, drawn from the CBR Events Calendar. To submit an event, go here.
Dave Gibbons
Today: At 2 p.m. PST Dave Gibbons (Watchmen, The Originals) will host a free webinar on Manga Studio, teaching aspiring and professional artists how to create illustrations using the software. Space is limited to the first 500 people who register here. More details can be found here. (Manga Studio is a sponsor of Robot 6.)
Thursday: Legendary cartoonist Jules Feiffer will speak about his new autobiography Backing Into Forward: A Memoir from 7 to 8 p.m. at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York City.
Friday: The third annual Comicpalooza opens at noon at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston. Comics guests include Phil Foglia, Rob Liefeld, David Mack, Jim Mahfood, David Malki, Humberto Ramos, Ben Templesmith, Ethan Van Sciver, J.H. Williams III and Bernie Wrightston. The event continues through Sunday.
Friday: Toronto Comic Con Wizard World kicks off at noon at the Direct Energy Centre in Toronto. Comics guests include J. Bone, Adi Granov, Phil Jimenez, Dale Keown, Leonard Kirk, Yanick Paquette, Gail Simone, Cameron Stewart, Ty Templeton and J. Torres. The event continues through Sunday.
- March 21, 2010 @ 09:02 AM by Kevin Melrose