2010 April
Yen Press to move Yen Plus magazine online
Yen Plus (April 2010)
Yen Press announced today it will end the print edition of Yen Plus with the July issue and move the two-year-old manga anthology magazine online.
“The print magazine will be no more,” Publishing Director Kurt Hassler wrote, “but Yen Plus will live on as an online manga anthology! As such, it will have the ability to reach more readers than ever before while giving those same readers an option to peruse manga (and maybe some light novels?) legitimately online. Will there be other changes? Most definitely. You can expect to see content changes which we will announce when the time is right. Our commitment, however, is to keep bringing you the best and most diverse anthology experience every month.”
Launched in August 2008 by the Hachette Book Group imprint, the magazine has been used to introduce such titles as Black Butler, Nightschool and Soul Eater and the adaptations of Maximum Ride and Gossip Girl.
- April 21, 2010 @ 01:30 PM by Kevin Melrose
Slash Print | Following the digital evolution
Body World: Better on paper?
Webcomics: Sarah Morean strongly recommends buying the print version of Dash Shaw’s Bodyworld over reading it online.
Printed, Bodyworld is 384 pages. That’s a lengthy piece of fiction. Online, it is 14 chapters worth of “infinite canvas.” The promise of infinity sounds great when discussed in theory, but in practice the method kind of fails me. To take in the complete story of Body World, it helps to bookmark your progress for a break, it also helps to reference old images on past pages. It is totally irritating to do this online, but far easier to do in print.
Webcomics: Warren Ellis is doing that thing again where he asks creators to come forward and tell his readers about the webcomics they are working on. This is a great way to find new things to read, and he promises to make it a monthly thing. (Via the indispensable ComixTalk.)
Webcomics: DKM Marlink takes a look at webcomics that ended abruptly, leaving readers longing for closure.
- April 21, 2010 @ 01:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
Straight for the art | Chris Schweizer’s Lobster Johnson
Lobster Johnson, by Chris Schweizer
Chris Schweizer, creator of Crogan’s Vengeance, Crogan’s March, and hopefully a slew of other Crogan books, takes a jaunt into Hellboy territory with this sketch of Lobster Johnson. Chris doesn’t post sketches too often on his LiveJournal, but when he does, it’s always worth a look.
- April 21, 2010 @ 12:30 PM by Brigid Alverson
DC Entertainment confirms Young Justice cartoon [Updated]
Young Justice
Today DC confirmed a rumor that started floating around earlier this year — a Young Justice cartoon is on its way to the Cartoon Network.
From the Source:
YOUNG JUSTICE is an all-new series produced by Warner Bros. Animation and based upon the characters from DC Comics. In YOUNG JUSTICE, being a teenager means proving yourself over and over – to peers, parents, teachers, mentors and, ultimately, to yourself. But what if you’re not just a normal teenager? What if you’re a teenage super hero? How much harder will it be to prove yourself in a world of super powers, super villains and super secrets? Are you ready to come of age in such a world? Are you ready for life or death rites of passage? Are you ready to join the ranks of the great heroes and prove you’re worthy of the Justice League? The members of Young Justice—Robin, Aqualad, Kid Flash, Superboy, Miss Martian and Artemis—are about to find out.
They also announced a “animated sketch-comedy series” based on Mad Magazine.
Update: The Source has added some official artwork for the series.
- April 21, 2010 @ 11:46 AM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art | A cover fit for a King
Titan sent over the cover to a new version of their WWE Heroes comic by wrestling hall-of-famer Jerry Lawler that they’re selling on the WWE website. “The King” of course is the wrestler turned announcer who can be heard every Monay on Raw, as well as an artist in his own right. In 2007, Lawler provided a cover for the comic book Headlocked and he’s also drawn a cover for Dynamite’s Green Hornet comic.
- April 21, 2010 @ 11:30 AM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art | Dawson’s dropped scene from Troop 142
Troop 142
Troop 142 creator Mike Dawson shares a “DVD extra” — an extended scene that won’t make it into the final story.
It’s a funny scene, but Dawson explains why he dropped it.
“I probably drew these pages over two years ago, and even though I think this scene is funny, I’m not sure that there’s a place for it to fit into the story anymore,” he writes on his blog. “And, aside from that, my drawing style has changed enough since then that I think it would be pretty noticeable if I just dropped it all in somewhere.”
- April 21, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by JK Parkin
Your video of the day | pood #1: The Motion Picture
Look at the size of that thing! It’s pood #1, the new newspaper-style alternative-comics anthology edited by Geoff Grogan, Kevin Mutch, and Alex Rader and featuring contributions from Jim Rugg & Brian Maruca, Hans Rickheit, Sara Edward-Corbett and many more. And in this video, you can sort of get a sense of just how much comics is packed onto each page. You got a better way to drop four bucks on a funnybook?
- April 21, 2010 @ 10:30 AM by Sean T. Collins
Straight for the art | Cliff Chiang’s C2E2 sketches
Kitty Pryde by Cliff Chiang
With convention season moving into full swing, there’s lots to look forward to — an endless array of comic announcements, cosplaying, waiting in lines for autographs … and probably my favorite thing, sketches. By folks like Cliff Chiang, who regularly updates his blog with the sketches he does at conventions, like this batch right here from this past weekend’s C2E2. Go check’em out.
- April 21, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by JK Parkin
Straight for the ewww | Charles Burns’s Black Hole in the real world
Photo by Max Oppenheim, make-up I can't look at very long by Bill Turpin
Photographer Max Oppenheim and prosthetics artist Bill Turpin‘s recreations of the “yearbook photos” found in Charles Burns’s teen-sex-horror graphic novel Black Hole are spreading around the nerd Internet like the teen plague itself. You can find a couple at the Fantagraphics blog, and a couple more at Boing Boing, and a few more at io9, and the whole set at The Operators. Oppenheim and Turpin created the images for British magazine 125, but they’ll be on permanent display in my nightmares.
- April 21, 2010 @ 09:30 AM by Sean T. Collins
Straight for the tat | Cameron Stewart’s convention-sketch Batman tattoo
Batman tattoo based on the art of Cameron Stewart
“Did the most terrifying commission of my life today at C2E2,” tweeted Batman & Robin artist Cameron Stewart on Saturday. What made it so scary? The guy who commissioned the piece — a drawing of Batman, to be specific — told Stewart he planned on immediately getting it tattooed on his body. No pressure!
Fortunately, the words “Cameron Stewart” are pretty much a seal of quality when it comes to drawings of Batman, and as Stewart revealed today, the tattoo came out bitchin’. You can click here to see the original art, too. “A busy convention is not my ideal environment to draw something that will go on someone’s body forever,” Stewart noted, but he really shouldn’t worry so much.
- April 21, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
Breathed and USA Today return to Bloom County (and the ’80s) [Updated]
From the Sept. 29, 1982, "Bloom County"
To mark the release of Bloom County: The Complete Library, Vol. 2, from IDW Publishing, all this week USA Today has been reprinting select installments of the influential ’80s comic strip, along with commentary from creator Berkeley Breathed.
Asked whether there were aspects of the era he wished he’d poked more fun of, Breathed responds: “Honestly, there are those that I wish I’d just ignored. As we edited the new volume of Bloom County cartoons, my editor had to constantly stop me from apologizing for every Michael Dukakis cartoon that I was contractually compelled to include. Those same editors wish me to quickly add that there really are far less Michael Dukakis cartoons than my whining might indicate and don’t let that scare you off. I would only add that one is too many. Sarah Palin was born way, way, way too late. I get Dukakis.”
(via The Daily Cartoonist)
Update: On a related note, IDW is selling a limited edition of Bloom County: The Complete Library, Vol. 1, with an exclusive sketch and signature plate.
- April 21, 2010 @ 08:35 AM by Kevin Melrose
Do yourself a favor and read this Paul Pope interview
Paul Pope's original cover for Solo #3
In advance of Paul Pope’s appearance this weekend at the Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland, Oregon, Mike Russell sits down with the cartoonist for a wide-ranging interview that touches upon, among other topics, his pursuit of a “world comic,” working for Japanese publisher Kodansha, Psychenaut — the experimental sci-fi mash-up film and the comic — and his First Second Books project Battling Boy, which boasts sprawling, 50-page fight scenes.
“They go on forever,” Pope says. “That’s from manga. One of my favorite books is Egawa Tatsuya’s Tokyo University Story — and he would have long sequences where basically nothing would be happening except a guy in a bicycle riding along, or two guys playing Ping-Pong. And that’s just so cool to me — not because it’s jerking off on paper, but because it feels real. It’s that fugue state you get into when you’re doing something — when you’re playing chess or drinking coffee in the morning trying to wake up. … To me, the magic of comics — and art — is trying to say something real about life in an artificial medium. To re-create life, or to sub-create it, to use Tolkien’s term.”
AICN dubs the lengthy Q&A “a must-read interview”; it’s definitely that. Go read it.
- April 21, 2010 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Awards reminders: Eisner voting open, Harvey nomination deadline looms
Harvey Awards
Two important notices regarding the top comics-industry awards:
• The deadline to submit nominations for the 2010 Harvey Awards is Friday. So, if you’re a comics creator, you have just two days to email your ballots, as snail mail is probably cutting it close at this point.
• Online voting is open for the 2010 Eisner Awards. Creators, editors, publishers, and owners and managers of comic stores are eligible to vote.
- April 21, 2010 @ 07:30 AM by Kevin Melrose
Sportsmen take aim at Bluewater’s DeGeneres comic
Ellen DeGeneres, animal lover
When last we heard about Bluewater Productions, the publisher was getting bad press for making bad comics and not paying creators. But now it gets to play the Heroic Defenders of a Noble Cause by issuing this press release detailing how the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance has launched a wave of protests against its biography of Ellen DeGeneres, taking aim at her “lifestyle,” which includes being gay and donating a third of the profits from her comic to the U.S. Humane Society.
The gay-bashing seems to have come from individuals, rather than the Sportsmen’s Alliance, however; the actual press release on the group’s site only bashes the U.S. Humane Society on the grounds that it is a lobbying organization and doesn’t actually help lost puppies. And the letter the USSA sent to Bluewater asks the publisher to cut off its relationship with the Humane Society, not to withdraw the comic, as has been reported elsewhere. While it wouldn’t be surprising, given the state of the culture wars, that Bluewater did get some nasty hate mail, and some of it may have come from USSA members, the organization itself seems to be more preoccupied with preserving its right to kill animals than telling people how to live.
Anyway, given Bluewater’s track record (see the link above about not paying creators), I seriously doubt the U.S. Humane Society is going to be building its next headquarters with the proceeds from this comic.
- April 21, 2010 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson
Warner Bros. buys MMO game developer Turbine
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Warner Bros. has acquired Lord of the Rings Online developer Turbine Inc. for a reported $160 million, adding the Massachusetts-based company to a rapidly growing video-game stable.
The move gives Warner Bros. control of all games based on the J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy series, and enables the studio to develop online games around the DC Comics properties. As the Los Angeles Times notes, Turbine’s specializes in the creation of massively multi-player online games, such as Dungeons & Dragons Online, Asheron’s Call and the previously mentioned Lord of the Rings.
Warner Bros. obtained the rights to The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit in 2008 when it purchased New Line. It already has the license to make console-based games based on the Tolkien properties.
Turbine will become part of Warner Bros. Interactive, a division that’s expanded dramatically over the past few years with four major acquisitions: a majority stake in Batman: Arkham Asylum developer Rocksteady Studios in February; Snowblind Studios and most of the assets of bankrupt Midway Games last year; and LEGO games developer TT Games in 2007.
Just last month Warner Bros. announced plans the construction of a studio in Montreal that will develop games based on DC Comics properties.
- April 21, 2010 @ 06:06 AM by Kevin Melrose