2010 April
Down on the manga farm
Like a Chia Pet, but more entertaining
Tokyo artist Koshi Kawachi has found a new use for old manga: He uses them as a growing medium for radish sprouts. While this seems like an eminently practical form of recycling, Kawachi’s crop is aesthetic rather than agricultural: He planted his seeds for an installation in a Nagoya department store. (Via Pink Tentacle.)
- April 12, 2010 @ 09:30 AM by Brigid Alverson
Read Marvel’s Soldier X online for free
Soldier X #1
Even in a Nu-Marvel-era X-Men line that included Grant Morrison’s New X-Men and Peter Milligan & Mike Allred’s X-Statix, the Cable reboot Soldier X was a weird, wild, wonderful standout. Written by Darko Macan and illustrated by Igor Kordey, the series offered an almost absurdist take on the superhero concept, with a never-more-powerful Cable struggling with his methods and motives while tracking a super-powered Russian peasant girl. Though it’s never been collected in trade paperback, the series has become a cult favorite, with writers like Joe “Jog” McCulloch and yours truly praising the way it both explored and exploded the character and the genre.
Now you can find out for yourself what the fuss is about: Marvel will be rolling out the book’s first five issues at its Digital Comics Unlimited site all week long, for absolutely free. Issue #1, which sets the scene, is already up. Give it a shot and let us know what you think!
- April 12, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
Marvel splits with Diamond Book Distributors, signs with Hachette
Marvel
Beginning in September, Marvel’s titles will be distributed in the book market by Hachette Book Group. Diamond Comic Distributors will continue to carry Marvel products to the direct market.
The announcement, made this morning in a press release from Hachette, ends months of speculation as to whether Marvel, now owned by Disney, would end its five-year-old agreement with Diamond Book Distributors. As Heidi MacDonald notes, many expected Marvel to sign with HarperCollins, which distributes Disney’s book divisions.
MacDonald speaks to DBD’s Kuo-yu Liang, who assures her the distributor will survive the loss of Marvel.
Read the Hachette press release after the break.
- April 12, 2010 @ 08:30 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
From Wikipedia's lolicon entry
Legal | In what some have already dubbed “the next Christopher Handley case,” Wikipedia co-founder Lawrence Sanger has reported Wikimedia Commons to the FBI for “knowingly distributing child pornography” in violation of Section 1466A of the U.S. PROTECT Act. Sanger, who left Wikipedia in 2002 and four years later launched the rival Citizendium, specifically points to entries on pedophilia and lolicon.
Manga collector Christopher Handley was sentenced in February under the same federal statute for possessing “obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children and mailing obscene material.” [The Register, Icarus Publishing, Geekosystem]
Business | This profile of Walt Disney Company CEO Robert Iger suggests there’s already friction between Marvel’s Isaac Perlmutter and Disney’s consumer productions division: “Hollywood, familiar with Mr. Perlmutter’s penchant for ruling his roost, has started to whisper: Will he turn into Mr. Iger’s version of Harvey Weinstein, the hard-charging Miramax co-founder who caused Mr. Eisner so many headaches after Disney acquired the little studio?” [The New York Times]
- April 12, 2010 @ 07:58 AM by Kevin Melrose
Del Rey closes the book on Marvel manga
X-Men: Misfits
It looks like the manga publisher Del Rey has canceled the second volumes of its X-Men: Misfits and Wolverine: Prodigal Son. The news broke in a conversation on Twitter, where manga blogger Deb Aoki tweeted a tip that the books had been canceled and Lissa Pattillo noted that they had been taken down from retail sites.
Dave Roman, who co-wrote the X-Men books with his wife, Raina Telgemeier, confirmed this in two tweets of his own:
Wow! News travels fast! @goraina and I super disappointed since it was written as a 2-part story and it will be unfair to readers.
We only found out last week. We still don’t have a lot of the details beyond it being a cost of licensing vs. profits issue. :/
Roman added that he had seen some of the pencils and assumed that the artist, Anzu, was “far along, but still deep into it.”
Antony Johnston, the writer of Wolverine: Prodigal Son, confirmed that book’s demise on his blog:
- April 12, 2010 @ 04:52 AM by Brigid Alverson
What are you reading?
Mysterius the Unfathomable
Welcome once again to What Are You Reading?, where we talk about exactly what the title implies every Sunday. Today’s special guest contributor is BOOM! Studios editor Ian Brill, who works on their Farscape line, the Eisner-nominated Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and the upcoming CBGB comic, among others. He’s also the writer of a new Darkwing Duck miniseries coming from BOOM! later this year.
To see what Ian and the Robot 6 gang have been reading this week, click the link below.
- April 11, 2010 @ 12:30 PM by JK Parkin
Bendis and Maleev tease their creator-owned title O-X
Teaser for the creator-owned comic by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev
As the industry gears up for next weekend’s C2E2, the websites of frequent collaborators Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev have been rebranded to promote their long-promised creator-owned project.
The mysteriously titled O-X, set to debut in July from Marvel’s Icon imprint, will be officially announced on Thursday — the day before the Chicago convention — during Blair Butler’s “Fresh Ink” segment on G4 TV’s Attack of the Show!
O-X will mark Bendis’ first creator-owned title since Powers, his long-running superhero-police procedural with Michael Avon Oeming.
Bendis and Maleev first worked together in 2000 on the Spawn spin-off Sam and Twitch, and have since collaborated on such Marvel titles as Daredevil, Halo: Uprising and Spider-Woman. A creator-owned collaboration has been teased since at least July 2007.
- April 11, 2010 @ 07:37 AM by Kevin Melrose
Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs | What Looks Good for June
Mighty Samson Archives
Time again for our monthly trip through Previews looking for interesting new adventure comics.
Dark Horse
Mighty Samson Archives – I barely remember these comics from when I was a kid, but they and stuff like Planet of the Apes, Thundarr the Barbarian, Kamandi, and Marvel’s War of the Worlds comics with Killraven have created a soft spot in me for this kind of urban, post-apocalyptic, monster-filled world.
Flash Gordon Comic Book Archives – This mostly makes me mad because it’s a reminder that I can’t get the volumes I want from Checker’s reprints of Alex Raymond’s strips. But it could also help tide me over until those become available again.
Abe Sapien: Abyssal Plain #1 – I’m so far behind on BPRD that something in the solicitation for this spoiled part of Abe’s story that I haven’t read yet. And made me even more anxious to catch up. At any rate, any new comic about Abe Sapien is worth mentioning.
Buzzard #1 – As is any new thing by Eric Powell. But I especially love the look of this character. He’s one of my favorites from The Goon and I’m glad he’s getting the spotlight for a bit.
Pirates, werewolves, dinosaurs, a giant talking bear or two, and more after the break.
- April 11, 2010 @ 07:00 AM by Michael May
Before the Young Avengers, we almost had the Young Avengers
New Warriors #1
Marvel’s senior VP-executive editor Tom Brevoort shares a fun blast from the past over on his Marvel.com blog: a proposal for a series called Young Avengers. But this isn’t the Allan Heinberg/Jim Cheung book that came out in 2005; it’s a proposal from 1989, by studiomates Jim Valentino and Rob Liefeld. Before Youngblood, Shadowhawk, Deadpool, X-Force or even Guardians of the Galaxy, the duo pitched a series about Namorita, Firestar, Vance Astro, Speedball and Richard Rider — as Torpedo, rather than Nova — coming together with two new characters to train under the direction of Rick Jones.
“At the time this was written in 1989, while both of them had dabbled in doing Marvel work, neither creator had really had a break-out hit. Sharing a studio at the time, they hoped that YOUNG AVENGERS might be it, with Jim writing and Rob illustrating a series they would co-plot,” Brevoort writes.
Although the pages are a bit blurry when scanned in — they were typed more than 20 years ago — you can still read about some of the plots and villains they planned to use, as well as new characters they were creating named Cougar, Brahma, Photon and Combat. Which may sound familiar to readers of Youngblood and related titles.
“As it turned out, work was already underway on the book that eventually was entitled NEW WARRIORS, which prevented this incarnation of YOUNG AVENGERS from moving ahead. It’s actually pretty extraordinary to see how close the line-up for what Jim and Rob proposed was to the eventual NEW WARRIORS team,” Brevoort writes.
If only they’d given Rick Jones some battle armor and a skateboard …
- April 10, 2010 @ 08:39 AM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art | The Periodic Table of Imaginary Elements
"The Periodic Table of Imaginary Elements," by Russell Walks
For those science nerds among us, illustrator Russell Walks has created this cool poster collecting fictional chemical elements from comics, literature, television, film and games, categorized by medium and origin (e.g. “Magically Occurring on Earth”).
A quick glance shows such comic book-based substances as Amazonium (Wonder Woman), Dilustel (Captain Atom), Inertron (Legion of Super-Heroes), Marvelium (Captain Marvel/Shazam), Uru (Thor), Kairoseki (One Piece) and, of course, Kryptonite (Superman).
You can order “The Periodic Table of Imaginary Elements” for $25 through Walks’ website.
(via Kotaku)
- April 10, 2010 @ 06:51 AM by Kevin Melrose
The Fifth Color | No Mutants, No Peace
Does your family have a flag?
From movies, TV shows, comics and novelizations of movies that were comics, I think it’s a safe bet that everybody knows what the words ‘Xavier’s Dream’ means. Martin Luther Xavier Jr. has been telling people this dream in long speech bubbles for years; the idea that mutants and humans can coexist in harmony. Sure, his actions have been questionable at times, but this one thing has been his anthem since the books started. He’s considered other views, he’s accepted some ‘evil’ mutants in to his home, he’s been pretty fair and has always worked with humans and taught to the betterment of man and mutantkind. An educator and an orator, he’s always made sure that peaceful coexistence was his goal.
This means a lot of fighting.
Rare in the Marvel Universe are the non-violent demonstrations for mutant equality. While fine control and a level of self-esteem might have been the goal for Danger Room training, we think of it more as a place for squad tactics and target practice. Make no mistake, the fight did tend to come to them from human fears and evil mutants, but for a man so set on peace it did take a lot of fastball specials and telepathic mindwipes to try and make that happen.
(WARNING: Hey Nightcrawler, there’s a SPOILER below this break so if you’ve never read X-FORCE or didn’t check out your own appearance in this week’s UNCANNY X-MEN #523, go find out what happens and then come back. You’re not going to be happy…)
- April 9, 2010 @ 04:00 PM by Carla Hoffman
Robot reviews | Footnotes in Gaza
Footnotes in Gaza
Footnotes in Gaza
by Joe Sacco
Metropolitan Books, 416 pages, $29.95.
If you’re at all familiar with Joe Sacco’s comics — if you’ve read any of his previous graphic novels, like Palestine, Safe Area Gorazde or The Fixer — then it won’t come as much of a shock to you when I say that his latest book, Footnotes in Gaza, is another exemplary work, perhaps even his best to date. You’re already aware of the high standards he continually sets for himself as a storyteller and an artist and how he amazingly seems to reach those benchmarks time and again. You probably don’t need much convincing.
If you haven’t read any of Sacco’s books up till now, you’re in for a treat. Well, I suppose “treat” is the unequivocally wrong word to use considering the book’s grim subject matter, but there is something so captivating and masterful about Sacco’s work — he uses the medium to such great effect, squeezing every bit of tension and drama from his narrative while avoiding obvious, sentimental heart-tugging or one-note political polemics — that it’s hard not to be stunned by the power of artistry on display, even while you’re being moved to anger or sadness by the tragedy he’s recounting.
- April 9, 2010 @ 03:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Kidney Komix Kapers
Jana Christy is donating a kidney to her brother, and since she can’t think about anything else anyway, she’s recording her experience in webcomic form. There are only two chapters up so far, but it’s an interesting account, enlivened by Christy’s quirky sense of humor.
- April 9, 2010 @ 02:30 PM by Brigid Alverson
Manga publisher up for sale at rock-bottom price
Yakuza in Love, from Aurora's Deux imprint
Attention all you fans who think you know more about the manga industry than the publishers: Here is your big chance. A Southern California manga publisher is up for sale for a measly $300,000—and that includes inventory valued at $338,461. Informed speculation on the web is that this is Aurora Publishing, which has been known to be having financial issues lately. The announcement states that “This company was founded in 2006 as the wholly owned subsidiary of one of the Japanese manga power houses.” Aurora is indeed a subsidiary of the Japanese company Ohzora, and it is located in Torrance, California, although it began publishing in 2007, not 2006. Interestingly, Aurora just removed all its manga from the Netcomics online comics site. Aurora’s main manga line is kind of meh, and their sexy LuvLuv series was probably out of sync with American tastes, but their yaoi imprint, Deux, was well loved by fans for its quality and content, and they will be missed.
- April 9, 2010 @ 02:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
It’s Deadpool’s world, we just live in it
Deadpool Corps #3
USA Today talks to Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld in a post-WonderCon article about all things Deadpool. Three things in it jumped out at me:
1) The cover to Deadpool Corps #3 features a fun homage to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at the Disney parks. Also, USA Today credits the cover to Liefeld, but I believe it’s actually by Arthur Suydam — at least that’s what Marvel.com says. The cover is indeed by Rob Liefeld and Mike Capprotti, according to Liefeld on Twitter. (Thanks and apologies, Rob!)
2) Deadpool is almost 20 years old. Holy cats.
3) “…and there are rumors of everything from a Deadpool Noir series to an R-rated Deadpool MAX title to a Kidpool spinoff.” Hell, why not? I say milk it — it kind of goes with the tone and attitude of the character.
- April 9, 2010 @ 01:41 PM by JK Parkin