2010 April
Dash Shaw at Isotope Comics in San Francisco this Tuesday
Bodyworld and Bottomless Belly Button creator Dash Shaw will appear at Isotope Comics in San Francisco on Tuesday … here are the details:
Tune in and Turn on with Dash Shaw @ the Isotope
Come celebrate Dash Shaw’s new darkly-exhilarating, mind-altering, genre-expanding graphic novel BODYWORLD at the Isotope on April 27, 2010, 7-11 p.m.
BODYWORLD presents a dystopian future in which the Hunter S. Thompson of botanists, Professor Paulie Panther, descends on the bucolic Boney Borough to research a newly discovered psychedelic alien plant that induces telepathic body-swaps when smoked. Shaw, the well-known comics visionary behind BOTTOMLESS BELLY BUTTON, THE UNCLOTHED MAN, and MOTHER’S MOUTH, bends the genre even further this time as his art dives head-first into the psychotropic experiences of his characters. Neither his characters, nor the reader will come out the same.
Come take the head-trip that is BODYWORLD with us!
Tune in and Turn on with Dash Shaw @ the Isotope
Tuesday, April 27th
7-11pm21 and over please.
Never a cover.
- April 24, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by JK Parkin
Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp wins LAT Book Prize
Asterios Polyp
The Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were announced last night, and the Graphic Novel award went to David Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp. The judges commented:
Mazzucchelli’s monolith is a beautifully executed love story, a smart and playful treatise on aesthetics, a perfectly unified work whose every formal element, down to the stitching on its spine, serves its themes. No wonder the main character is an architect finding his way back to his Ithaca and his Penelope: “Asterios Polyp” is an odyssey of design as well as writing and art and cartooning. Steeped in classicism and wholly modern, it’s a pleasure to read, and maybe even more of a pleasure to contemplate and discuss.
This is the first year the prizes have included a graphic novel category; the website calls graphic novels “an expanding part of the book landscape, both aesthetically and commercially.”
- April 24, 2010 @ 05:15 AM by Brigid Alverson
Tokyopop announces one new title, stays mum on another
Hetalia manga, Japanese cover
Tokyopop has just announced a new manga license, and another is on the way.
The new announcement, which came on the publisher’s Facebook after plenty of teasing on Twitter, is Chibi-Vampire Airmail, a series of short stories about Karin, the main character in Chibi-Vampire. Since Chibi-Vampire has been one of Tokyopop’s strongest selling series, it’s not surprising that they would grab a followup. The new book is due out Aug. 31.
Meanwhile, earlier this month blogger Lissa Pattillo noted an Amazon listing for the manga Hetalia: Axis Powers. This week I got an e-mail from Amazon suggesting that since I have ordered similar books, I may be interested in ordering Hetalia. That seemed to be pretty definite, but Tokyopop marketing director Marco Pavia declined to confirm it, although he did allow that if Tokyopop were to make such an announcement, it would probably come on their Facebook. Noted. Hetalia: Axis Powers sounds like an interesting book: The characters are all personifications of the different nations, with Italy playing the lead role. As I noted a few weeks ago, there were a lot of Hetalia cosplayers at Anime Boston, so there seems to already be a following.
- April 23, 2010 @ 03:29 PM by Brigid Alverson
The Fifth Color | Forward into the Past with Marvel’s July 2010 Solicitations
shoes can kill
This monthly look at three months ahead in the Marvel Universe was going to show the cover to the all new Gorilla-Man #1, but instead I went for the image you see on your right. Please click to embiggen and let’s all try to figure out what’s going on.
Yep, that’s Emma Frost … tonguing a forkful of pancakes while sitting on Scott Summers’ back. There’s a lot of things that boggle me in this picture (When did Emma’s hair get crazy long? Is Scott happy to be sway-backed under the weight of Emma’s California king-sized rump? What expression is that? Where did the Leno chin come from? Is this a repurposed Batman and Robin cover from the Distinguished Competitors?) but really, this all comes down to those shoes. Those human head-sized shoes on those twiggy ankles.
Where did she get those shoes?
In (somewhat) more sensible news, let’s go look at what Marvel has in store for us in the month of July. Women of Marvel seems to be rolling right along, there’s always the collector’s delight of the brand-new #1, and the start of some blood-drinking, non-sparkling threats to our heroes and pals…
P.S.: Thanks for bearing with our technical difficulties. Just like those ankles, my WordPress skills broke under the weight of my own thoughts! I still don’t know what Scott Summers thinks of all this.
- April 23, 2010 @ 02:00 PM by Carla Hoffman
Thin wallets, fat bookshelves | A roundup of publishing news
3X4
- AdHouse will distribute 3X4, by Scott Morse, Lou Romano, Don Shank and Nate Wragg, the guys behind Sex and Science and The Ancient Book of Myth and War. AdHouse describes the book as “a unique collection of paintings built around the simple aesthetic of the numbers 3 and 4. Be it shape, line, texture, or color, this collection dares to boldly add a new perspective to modern art.”
- Per Ross Campbell, the sixth edition of his popular Wet Moon series of graphic novels from Oni Press is now slated to come out next year. “I’ll be finished with the book on the same schedule, but Oni has restructured their workflow a bit so their turnaround/build time is longer now, making WM6 most likely a February 2011 release,” he wrote.
- Heidi at the Beat points out that this preview of the London Book Fair by Publishers Weekly reveals that Ben McCool and Billy Tucci are working on a graphic novel adaptation of the film Alexander Nevsky by Russian director Sergei Eisenstein.
- Jim Rugg will debut a new Rambo minicomic at this weekend’s SPACE event.
- Meathaus has scans of a Charles Burns minicomic called Free Shit “with preview art from an upcoming project of his.”
- Rami Efal has self-published Never Forget, Never Forgive, which was originally serialized on the webcomics collective site ACT-I-VATE. “It is a tragedy taking place in 16th century Japan and is a cross between Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, Sophocles’ Antigone, and Lone Wolf and Cub,” according to the author.
- April 23, 2010 @ 01:09 PM by JK Parkin
Robot reviews: Hotwire, Things Undone, Vatican Hustle, Missile Mouse and Copper
Hotwire Comics Vol. 3
Hotwire Comics Vol. 3
Edited by Glenn Head
Fantagraphics Books, 138 pages, $22.99
Once again, Hotwire returns to attempt to fill in that edgy alt-comix niche that was so prominent in the 80s and early 90s and has seemingly been eclipsed by the more literary, rarefied indie comics of today (sort of). If for no other reason, this anthology should be lauded for giving folks like Mary Fleener and Mack White the opportunity to showcase their work, since no one else seems to be interested in doing so these days. There is always the occasional dull or misguided piece (David Paleo and David Sandlin’s work continues to fail to interest me), but the stellar work by folks like Michael Kupperman, R. Sikoryak, Onsmith, Johnny Ryan, Tim Lane and Mats!? make this well worth your time.
- April 23, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Straight for the art | Vintage-style DC Comics posters
Vintage-style DC Comics posters, by Michael Myers
Jill Pantozi spots a Flickr set of really nice vintage-style DC Comics posters by Michael Myers featuring Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow and Hawkman. The latter two — the most recent additions — are arguably the best of the bunch. Myers has also begun a Marvel set which, to date, has only a poster of Captain America.
For those Lost fans among you, the artist has animation-style renditions of the show’s characters — including Jacob and the Smoke Monster.
- April 23, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Straight for the art | John Romita Sr.’s variant cover to Avengers #1
by John Romita Sr.
Marvel.com shows off the variant cover to the upcoming Avengers #1, as drawn by John Romita Sr., legendary artist and father of the comic’s artist, John Romita Jr.
- April 23, 2010 @ 10:30 AM by JK Parkin
Everyone’s a Critic | A round-up of comic book reviews and thinkpieces
The Comic Reader #212
Reminiscence: Mike Sterling looks back at The Comic Reader #212 and the impact it had on him.
Analysis: Kristy Valenti compares Raina Telgemeier’s Babysitter’s Club graphic novels to their prose counterparts.
Review: Christopher Allen reads James Sturm’s Market Day and enjoys it very much: “There is a meditative, calming quality to a period story like this, spare in text and paced with Old World tempo of footsteps and the creak of the donkey cart.”
Reconsideration: Kate Dacey hated Choco Mimi, but she gives it another chance after reading a positive review by an actual kid.
Comparison: Ben Towle compares Casterman’s French edition of Jacques Tardi’s It Was the War of the Trenches with Fantagraphics’ American edition.
Review: Gavin Lees reviews two of First Second’s spring YA graphic novels, both about teenagers in World War II: City of Spies and vol. 1 of Resistance.
Design: Seth Kushner reviews Dash Shaw’s The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century from a graphic design nerd’s point of view.
Review: Two out of three ain’t bad: Noel Bartocci reviews the Irredeemable Special #1 and enjoys the first two stories; the third, not so much.
- April 23, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Process: David King on lettering
Word balloons should be round!
David King, creator of Danny Dutch, has a nice little set of lettering dos and don’ts up on his blog right now. Some are fairly subtle, and even if you don’t make comics, it’s interesting to see the hidden rules of word balloons (“Word Balloons Do Not Exist In Our Dimension”) made explicit. King winds it up with a few examples of really sweet lettering from a variety of sources.
- April 23, 2010 @ 09:30 AM by Brigid Alverson
Could we see a Marvel vs. Capcom 3 comic?
Marvel vs. Capcom 3
On the heels of the official announcement of Marvel vs. Capcom 3 comes hints that the latest installment of the epic fighting game could cross over into comics.
Kotaku reports that although Marvel won’t confirm discussion of an adaptation, a representative for UDON Entertainment, which holds the Street Fighter license, said a comic would be a “natural progression.”
“The comic medium is such an influence on both companies, both franchises,” UDON Project Manager Jim Zubkavich told the gaming blog. “You look at the game, the style, it’s built off of a comic book aesthetic. It’s such a natural fit. It’s easy to build off of. The reality is, we are a generation of people who love these fan crossovers, it’s almost like fan fiction come to life.”
However, a company spokesman was quick to clarify the publisher isn’t in a position to confirm a possible comic-book crossover.
Ontario-based UDON has held the comics rights to Street Fighter since 2003, and currently releases the titles Street Fighter II Turbo and Street Fighter Legends: Ibuki. The publisher also has provided artwork for Capcom games like Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix and Capcom Fighting Evolution, and promotional art for the re-release of Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes.
Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds is set for release in spring 2011.
- April 23, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Bootleg manga? There’s an app for that!
Screenshot from the MangaDL app
Yesterday, someone at Anime News Network noticed that a free iPhone/iPad app called Manga Rock was scooping bootleg manga — in this case, scans of books published in the U.S. — from a scanlation site. Yen Press has already contacted Apple to ask that the app be taken down until all Yen titles are removed, but since the developer claims not to be affiliated with the site the scans are taken from, it’s difficult to see how this could be enforced. Manga Rock was still available this morning, although apparently Apple has pulled a similar app, MangaDL, from its store; the developers profess ignorance as to why.
Here’s why that doesn’t matter: There are still plenty of multi-comic manga apps on the iTunes store, and every one of them is a mobile reader for a scanlation site. All of them. Some legitimate comics reader apps carry a smattering of manga, but so far the manga publishers themselves have stuck to the older model of publishing each chapter as a separate app. That’s an expensive and clumsy way to read comics; the paradigm has shifted, but the manga publishers haven’t responded.
The publishers should be worried about this. From the user comments on these things, users like the convenience and the features, as well as the fact that for a buck or two (or nothing, if they don’t mind ads) they can read a ton of manga for free and keep it forever. Some users may not realize what’s going on. Some of the interfaces look pretty slick, and since Apple vets all apps, it’s reasonable to assume they wouldn’t let anything as blatant as a mobile version of Onemanga.com into their store. Reasonable, but incorrect.
I’m sure that publishers can tick off a lot of reasons why a multi-title reader would be hard to do. Japanese creators are notoriously reluctant to part with digital rights, and the reader would have to include titles from many publishers, not just one. But if I were reading comments like “I’ve been looking to buy fruits basket (my favorite manga series) and now I have them for 2$ !! Hehe I’m so happy:)” I’d be looking hard for a way to make it work.
- April 23, 2010 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Lawsuit and theft charges dropped as Frazetta family settles differences
Frank Frazetta in his Florida studio
The family of famed fantasy artist Frank Frazetta has settled a bitter, and very public, feud that was marked by criminal charges and a lawsuit.
According to a statement posted online early this morning by publisher Vanguard Productions, all litigation involving Frazetta’s children and art “has been resolved.” The Pocono Record reports the agreement comes after the family — including Frazetta, sons Alfonso Frank Frazetta (Frank Jr.) and William Frazetta and daughters Holly Frazetta and Heidi Grabin — met with their attorneys and a federal mediator for two days to resolve the legal battle before trial.
Theft charges will be dropped against Frank Jr., who was arrested in December 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. Frank Jr. claimed his father told him “to enter the museum by any means necessary to move all the paintings to a storage facility” to protect them from other family members — something 82-year-old Frank Sr. denies.
The lawsuit filed last month against Frank Jr. also will be dropped. His three siblings, who manage Frazetta Properties, accused Frank Jr. of violating their father’s trademarks and copyrights by selling lithographs, books, clothing and other items, and misrepresenting himself as the “authorized representative” of Frank Sr.
The dispute over Frazetta’s artwork reportedly began in July 2009 after the death of his wife Eleanor “Ellie” Frazetta, who ran her husband’s business for years.
According to the online statement, “Frank, his four children and his management team are thrilled to put any past differences behind them and look forward to working together as a family to preserve and promote the art and legacy of one of America’s greatest artists.”
The release also reaffirms that Frazetta’s art and intellectual property are owned by Frazetta Properties, and that Robert Pistella and Stephen Ferzoco continue as “the exclusive representatives” for sales, licensing and marketing.
“All of Frank’s children will now be working together as a team to promote his remarkable collection of images that has inspired people for decades. Frank wishes to thank all of his fans around the world for their loyal and enthusiastic support since the passing of his beloved wife of over 50 years, Ellie Frazetta.”
- April 23, 2010 @ 06:52 AM by Kevin Melrose
Grumpy Old Fan | Small print: DC Entertainment solicitations for July 2010
Brightest Day: The Atom
DC’s July solicitations include such high-profile titles as Brightest Day, Justice League: Generation Lost, three Grant Morrison Bat-books, Neal Adams’ Odyssey, and the 50th issues of Ex Machina and Green Lantern Corps. We’ll touch on some of those in this modest survey.
However, as usual, it was an eclectic group of books which caught my eye … starting with a feature I wasn’t expecting to see.
NIGHT AND DAY
I hate to dismiss a series which I’d like to read before it’s even seen the inside of a comics shop, but I think the Atom Special and its subsequent co-feature may do better in collected form than in single issues. I base this on the quite-possibly-irrational notion that a significant amount of DC readers want to read about the Atom, but don’t especially want to follow the Legion of Super-Heroes.
- April 22, 2010 @ 02:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
A bear hug? I say thee nay! Well, okay …
Art from the cover of "Thor: The Mighty Avenger" #4, by Chris Samnee
I honestly didn’t think it was possible for me to be any more excited about Thor: The Mighty Avenger, the all-ages series announced by Marvel at C2E2.
I like Norse mythology and, at least in theory, Marvel’s version of the god of thunder, so it has that much going for it from the get-go. Add to that the creative team of Roger Langridge (Fred the Clown, The Muppet Show) and Chris Samnee (The Mighty, Siege: Embedded), and the artist’s outstanding character designs – the clincher is a reference to Namor’s “old pair of ladies panties” — and I’m verging on giddy.
But today Editor Nathan Cosby pushes me over the edge by unveiling Samnee’s line art for the cover Issue 4, which depicts a slightly embarrassed Thor gripped in a bear hug by Volstagg. It’s cute on an Asgardian scale.
Thor: The Mighty Avenger debuts in July.
- April 22, 2010 @ 01:30 PM by Kevin Melrose