2010 May
Straight for the art | Becky Cloonan is metal
Over on her blog, Demo artist Becky Cloonan shares a T-shirt design she did for the San Francisco metal band Voetsek. Hopefully they’ll be selling these on the web in addition to at their concerts.
- May 25, 2010 @ 10:30 AM by JK Parkin
Roommate, friend paint a grim picture of Stephen Perry’s last months
Timespirits #9
Police have released few details of the investigation into the possible murder of ThunderCats writer Stephen Perry, who disappeared from his home in Zephyrhills, Florida, at least nine days ago.
However, in an interview with the St. Petersburg Times, Perry’s roommate James Davis, considered a “person of interest” in the case, recounts details of what may have been the writer’s final months.
Perry, who suffered from bladder cancer, had been jobless, without health care and, for a time, forced to live in his van with his 5-year-old son Leo. Over the past eight months, the writer’s plight was brought to the attention of the comics industry by the likes of artist and longtime friend Steve Bissette and the Hero Initiative, a charity that helped him to line up work and pay rent, utilities and medical bills.
But on Sunday police discovered Perry’s van abandoned at a Tampa motel with a severed arm nearby. More remains were found in a dumpster at a gas station two miles from his ransacked home. On Friday police arrested James Davis and his wife Roxanne Davis, who shared the house with Perry, on unrelated charges.
In the interview, James Davis contends Perry had a crippling addiction to oxycodone, which he was prescribed for cancer pain. But he also questions whether the Timespirits creator was actually ill, and accuses him of hatching eBay scams to support his drug habit. However, Bissette assures the newspaper that Perry underwent surgery to have a cancerous tumor removed in March 2009, and quit painkillers “cold turkey” that summer.
Davis also claims he received a text message from Perry on May 14, two days before police discovered the van, thanking him for watching the house and saying “he was going somewhere.”
Related:
• Bissette continues his remembrance of Perry.
• David Allen Jones writes about his interactions with Perry.
• Mark Evanier and Colleen Doran consider Perry’s financial plight, and “the roller-coaster-ride lives of those who freelance.”
- May 25, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Straight for the art | Go Nagai artbook
Go Nagai art
Otaku USA editor Patrick Macias has a blog where he likes to post weird, random, mostly retro Japanese stuff, and his latest post is sort of awesome (and also sort of NSFW): A sampling of Go Nagai art, which I assume is from this art book, Go Nagai: The Novel Art Collection.
- May 25, 2010 @ 09:30 AM by Brigid Alverson
DeFalco revives The Man from R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E.
Super-spies in Riverdale
The Archie folks are bringing back one of their vintage titles, The Man from R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E., as a four-issue miniseries scripted by Tom DeFalco. Harking back to the time when all super-villains and spy organizations identified themselves with preposterous acronyms, the story casts Archie and the Chok’lit Shop gang as super-spies trying to defend the dangerous Formula Z from the evil minions of C.R.U.S.H.
I like DeFalco’s description of his concept:
“In bringing back The Man from R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E., my question was: if spies actually existed in the Archie world, how could they be seamlessly integrated into Archie’s continuity while still being true to his universe?” remarks Archie Comics alum and writer, Tom DeFalco. “That is my creative challenge – to create a realistic and dangerous situation for the characters to act in, kind of like mashing up 24 and The Bourne Identity with Chuck and Get Smart.”
If anyone can pull this off, it’s DeFalco, who started his comics career as an editorial assistant at Archie Comics and wrote for them for quite a while before going off to do Marvel, where he wrote The Amazing Spider-Man and various other titles.
- May 25, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Border
Retailing | The struggling Borders Group has raised $25 million from the sale last week of 11.1 million shares of new stock to Bennett S. LeBow, a financier and corporate raider best known for his investments in the tobacco industry. LeBow, who’s now the bookseller’s largest shareholder, also was named chairman, replacing Richard McGuire. [Detroit Free Press, ICv2.com]
Creators | Rich Johnston uncovers the sad family troubles behind Gene Colan’s recent injury, his missing artwork and confusing state of business affairs. Clifford Meth, Colan’s friend and business associate, seems to confirm Johnston’s take on events. [Bleeding Cool]
Passings | Tom Spurgeon pens a more extensive obituary for comics creator and animator Howard Post who, as we noted yesterday, passed away last week. [The Comics Reporter]
- May 25, 2010 @ 07:57 AM by Kevin Melrose
Talking Comics with Tim: Colleen Coover
Coover's Hercules the Olympian Babysitter
In 2004 I was fortunate enough to interview Colleen Coover–during her Small Favors days/on the eve of the creation of her and husband Paul Tobin’s all-ages Banana Sunday. I enjoyed her art then, but never hoped for how effectively Marvel would tap her fantastic style for many of its books and characters. Much to my delight, it seems like Coover’s reputation and fanbase is growing larger every day. Last week saw the release of Girl Comics No. 2, which featured a two-page opening piece by Coover as well as a Shamrock eight-page adventure drawn by her (and written by Kathryn Immonen). We briefly discussed it, as well as her other current Marvel work (such as the Hercules back-up tale in Thor and the Warriors Four) for this brief email interview. I look forward to down the road when Coover flexes her “writer muscles” (as she calls them).
Tim O’Shea: Marvel’s keeping you busy at present. How did the Hercules the Olympian Babysitter story land on your table?
Colleen Coover: The book’s editor Jordan White asked me to come up with a Power Pack backup story for a four-issue mini series. I was flipping through Bullfinch’s Mythology one evening, and I came up with the Hercules story when I woke up the next morning. At the time I didn’t know that the Alex Zalben’s main story was a team-up with Thor, titled Thor & The Warriors Four, so it was a happy coincidence that I used one of Marvel’s other mythological characters!
- May 24, 2010 @ 03:45 PM by Tim O'Shea
Batman XXX: A Porn Parody hits stores today
Although it’s highly unlikely you’ll find it on a Target end cap, Vivid’s Batman XXX: A Porn Parody, hits stores today. The pornographic film stars Dale DaBone and James Deen as Batman and Robin in a takeoff on the 1960s Batman TV show.
“The amount of interest that this movie has been getting is absolutely amazing, and actually quite humbling,” said director Axel Braun in a press release. “I was very lucky. I had an amazing cast of incredibly talented people who shared my passion for this project, a crew that pulled all the stops to help me realize my vision, and the support of the best Adult company in the world.”
The release also denotes that Braun is working on his next superhero film, Superman XXX: A Porn Parody, to be released under the Vivid-Superhero imprint. He told CBR’s Kiel Phegley earlier this month that the Superman film will parody the Christopher Reeve Superman movies — and also explained how he’s not worried about being sued by Warner Bros.
- May 24, 2010 @ 03:15 PM by JK Parkin
What comics arguments do you want to hear more often?
Hulk vs. Superman by Mike Deodato Jr.
When you think about it, it only makes sense: Because the comics conversation is so dominated by old arguments, it can be tough to make room for new ones. That’s the thesis of a new post by The Comics Reporter’s Tom Spurgeon listing “Three Arguments We Could Be Having.” After we here at Robot 6 pivoted off Spurgeon’s interview with Noah Berlatsky to list the comics arguments we’d prefer never to hear again, Spurge is returning the favor by suggesting three he thinks we’d be better off having in their place: “1) Does reprinting archival comics have a moral component?; 2) Why are so many Direct Market shops still female unfriendly?; 3) What are all these superhero comics really saying?”
In other words, while the current golden age of reprints is a boon to all fans of the medium, what do its practitioners owe the creators of the comics they’re reprinting in terms of not just royalties, but also the best possible packaging and analysis of the material? Everyone’s got horror stories about some creepy store where the wares or employees make it a “shop at your own risk” situation for women and girls — why has that not translated to industry-wide action on those affronted consumers’ behalf? Should superhero comics be expected to have more of a message than “superheroes are awesome,” and if that is the message you go with, shouldn’t that be reflected across the board instead of occasionally having them indulge in really nasty behavior or suffer jarringly grim setbacks to get across the importance of a particular storyline?
- May 24, 2010 @ 02:45 PM by Sean T. Collins
Jim Woodring is freaking me out
"Frank and the Faithful" by Jim Woodring
His latest book Weathercraft just came out last week, but already Frank cartoonist Jim Woodring’s next graphic novel is making me deeply uncomfortable. Woodring is showing off images from and inspired by his forthcoming The Congress of the Animals on his own blog and over at the Fantagraphics blog, and they’re among the creepiest things I’ve ever seen him do. And if you’ve read the excellent Weathercraft, an early contender for book of the year, you know that’s pretty damn creepy.
- May 24, 2010 @ 02:15 PM by Sean T. Collins
Straight for the art | Tom Neely’s Conan
detail from Tom Neely's Conan painting
The Blot author and and illustrator Tom Neely is no stranger to the metal or the macabre, and he combines the two — with sexy results! — in this NSFW painting of Robert E. Howard’s Conan commissioned for an upcoming issue of Dark Horse’s Conan comic.
If you’d like to see more of this kind of thing by Neely, I don’t blame you; fortunately, he’d like to do more of it. Says Neely: “I had a ton of fun drawing this and it kinda makes me wanna do more of this kind of illustration work… That’s a big hint to all you editors out there! Why hasn’t anyone asked me to do something for Marvel’s Strange Tales? Or a cover for the newly revived Creepy Comics? Or anything else… Hire me people!” Listen to the man, folks.
- May 24, 2010 @ 01:45 PM by Sean T. Collins
Manga market realities
Schoolgirl with superpowers
Rich Johnson, who has served time as both vp of book trade sales at DC and as co-publisher of Yen Press, has an interesting analysis of the state of the manga market at The Beat. His basic point is that manga became a commodity and, for a while, quantity trumped quality:
I actually heard a representative of one the two biggest manga publishers say “Well, in March we released forty-five titles and the other publisher released forty-seven titles, and that’s why they had more market share this month.” Huh? What were the titles? In bookstore you get the big buys based on the book – not because you released fifty other titles that month.
That was true, and I remember people complaining about Tokyopop, in particular, churning out too many titles. But the market has changed a lot since 2007, and one of the changes has been reduced output. There are two pieces to this puzzle: some publishers folded, and others cut back their lines. Either way, it is somewhat healthier to have sales drop because you are making fewer manga to begin with than to have them drop because you have warehouses full of books you can’t move.
Overall, I think Rich nails it, which is not surprising given his years in the industry, but I thought a few of his points, regarding piracy, female readers, and farm teams, missed the mark a bit.
- May 24, 2010 @ 11:47 AM by Brigid Alverson
The Brave and the Bold lost covers team Batman with everyone from KISS to Kitty Pryde
"Lost" Brave and the Bold issue
With all the talk lately of reinterpreted classic covers and Fringe “other side” covers, it seems like the perfect time to direct your attention to The Brave and the Bold: The Lost Issues,.
The blog features mock-ups of The Brave and the Bold covers, teaming series star Batman with everyone from James Bond and Jonny Quest to Kitty Pryde and the members of KISS. Because who wouldn’t want to learn more about Alfred’s affair with Aunt May?
- May 24, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by JK Parkin
Frank Quitely covers classic Gil Kane for Green Lantern #60
Frank Quitely's variant cover for Green Lantern #60
After unveiling 75th-anniversary variants last week from the likes of Mike Mignola, Eduardo Risso, Lee Bermejo, George Perez and Walter Simonson, DC Comics this morning debuted Frank Quitely’s reinterpretation of Gil Kane’s classic 1967 cover for Green Lantern #52.
Quitely’s cover will serve as a variant for November’s Green Lantern #60. You can see the full image after the break.
- May 24, 2010 @ 10:30 AM by Kevin Melrose
Robot Sixth Gun | An interview with Cullen Bunn
The Sixth Gun #1
One of the standout offerings from Free Comic Book Day was undoubtedly the debut issue of The Sixth Gun, a new supernatural Western from Oni Press that reteams The Damned collaborators Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt.
Set in the American West in the aftermath of the Civil War, The Sixth Gun centers on the pursuit of a pistol that possesses a dark and otherworldly power. The first issue will be re-released on July 14, the same day that Issue 2 arrives in stores.
In anticipation of that second issue, Robot 6 is featuring a series of posts dedicated to the new monthly series (we like to call them “Robot Sixth Gun”). You’ve likely already devoured the first issue, and gotten a glimpse of what the book’s creators are reading.
Today we talk to writer Cullen Bunn about the importance of setting the story in the Old West, the role of the supernatural, what we can expect from the second arc, and more.
- May 24, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Nat Gertler on Stephen Perry and the Hero Initiative
Salimba 3-D (1986)
About Comics publisher Nat Gertler posted the following over the weekend in response to the news about writer Stephen Perry., and we thought it was worth posting on its own.
by Nat Gertler
I hadn’t known Steve over the years (although I am quite fond of some of his work), but over the last few months I’d been interacting with him, mainly via email – first with small amounts of charity, then with helping him through straightforward business, buying out the rights to the Salimba work he did with Paul Chadwick, then with buying a new Salimba prose story from him.
Steve struggled hard during those few months, from his physical failures, from problems of access to health care, and from the various other difficulties brought on by lack of money. But through all that, he continued expressed his appreciation for all that his supporters had brought, feeling that he only had a roof over his head and what health care had held him together this long thanks to that support, which came largely from those within the comics community, whether it was old friends like Bissette, or from both pros and fans he had not known, or from the wonderful Hero Initiative. He knew the end was coming (although not in the way it appears to have come), and was doing whatever he could to smooth the path for his son. (That concern permeates the prose story, which he felt was the last he would write; in it, Salimba struggles to care for a child that she is not equipped to handle.) It is such a relief that, whatever has befallen Steve, it has not befallen Leo.
Give to the Hero Initiative — they’ve got a lot of way to give, some quite painless. If you want to keep up your tough-guy image, they have a variety of cool products you can buy so you can pretend you’re not being charitable when you send them your money. They do a lot of good with what they get.
- May 24, 2010 @ 09:34 AM by JK Parkin