2010 May
Taymor on Spider-Man musical: ‘I’m not doing this for a small audience’
Reeve Carney
Director Julie Taymor has acknowledged what virtually everyone else already knew: that the $52-million Spider-Man musical will have to be a Lion King-sized hit to eventually turn a profit.
“Yes, financially, of course it does, but I’m aware of that, that’s my responsibility as an artist,” Taymor told The New York Times this week. “I’m not doing this for a small audience; I’m doing it for a world audience.”
As it stands, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark will have to sell out New York City’s 1,700-seat Hilton Theatre for every show for four years just to break even. With weekly production costs of more than $1 million — hundreds of thousands of dollars more than elaborate shows like Mary Poppins and West Side Story — Spider-Man likely will be the most expensive musical in Broadway history.
The production finally is set to open in November after months of delays that led to the departures of co-stars Evan Rachel Ward (Mary Jane) and Alan Cumming (Green Goblin). Relative newcomer Reeve Carney remains as Peter Parker/Spider-Man.
Taymor was honored on Tuesday with a lifetime achievement award at the New Dramatists benefit luncheon, where Carney performed an anthem from Spider-Man written by Bono and the Edge called “The Boy Falls From the Sky.” The Wall Street Journal notes that the song, which “carried U2′s familiar anguished wail,” includes such lyrics as “You can fly too high and get too close to the sun/See how a boy falls from the sky.”
- May 20, 2010 @ 12:45 PM by Kevin Melrose
This weekend, it’s the Copenhagen International Comics Festival
Chris Ware's poster for the Copenhagen International Comics Festival
The Copenhagen Post looks toward the Copenhagen International Comics Festival, being held Saturday and Sunday in Denmark. The event boasts a poster by Chris Ware, and an impressive guest list that includes Ware, Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes, Dave Gibbons, Paul Gravett, Lars Jensen, Daan Jippes, Teddy Kristiansen, Kevin O’Neill, Frank Quitely, Peter Snejbjerg and Jean Van Hamme.
- May 20, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
This weekend, it’s the Maine Comics Arts Festival
Maine Comics Arts Festival Poster, illustrated by Jeff Lemire and designed by Brian Wood
The Portland Press Herald previews the Maine Comics Arts Festival, held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday at Ocean Gateway in Portland. Admission is $5. Guests include Jeff Lemire, Brian Wood, Skottie Young, Cat Garza, Mike Lynch, Christopher Mills, Jay Piscopo, Joe Quinones, Dave Roman and Raina Telgemeier.
On Saturday the Portland Public Library will play host to free panels and workshops from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Highlights include a featured-guest discussion with Lemire, Wood and Young, readings by Telgemeier and Roman from their all-ages graphic novels Smile and Astronaut Elementary, and a presentation about graphic novels for librarians and educators by John Shableski of Diamond Comic Distributors. See the full schedule here.
- May 20, 2010 @ 11:30 AM by Kevin Melrose
What girls like
Girl comics
Comics publishers often think they know what girls like, but once we get out of Disney Princess territory, it’s harder than it looks. DC had a good try with their Minx line, but they made a lot of missteps; they totally ignored the popularity of manga and produced a first round of books that were like the graphic novel equivalents of Afterschool Specials. They got better, but by then it was too late. It’s very, very hard to connect with teenagers.
Rather than sit in a air-conditioned office and think about it, creator Hope Larson (Chiggers, Mercury) did something original: She asked the girls what they like—actually, she polled 198 women who reported having read comics in their teens and tweens.
Somewhat surprisingly, given the way online discussions usually go on this topic, superheroes emerged as the favorite genre, although manga was a close second (yes, I know manga is a medium not a genre, but I didn’t write the survey). X-Men was the most popular series, followed by Sandman, Batman, Rumiko Takahashi’s manga (Ranma ½, Inu Yasha), Spiderman, Sailor Moon, and comics by Alan Moore and CLAMP. And this:
- May 20, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
On the Darkseid: Lee Bermejo re-covers Legion of Super-Heroes #294
Lee Bermejo's variant cover to Adventure Comics #12
As a part of their 75th anniversary, DC Comics has recruited several artists to recreate covers from classic comics, which will be used as variant covers for several of their books this year.
Yesterday they revealed another one, this time by Joker artist Lee Bermejo, who draws the cover to the last chapter of my favorite Legion story, “The Great Darkness Saga.” You can find the original cover after the jump.
- May 20, 2010 @ 10:30 AM by JK Parkin
Tonight’s Fringe to feature Red Lantern/Red Arrow cover
Remember this from yesterday?
DC Comics posted it to their Source blog without any explanation, and I speculated that maybe it was one of those 75th anniversary variant covers they’ve been featuring. But why all the secrecy?
Turns out it isn’t. Alex Segura explains on the Source that it’s actually an Easter Egg that’ll appear on the TV show Fringe tonight:
If you’re a fan of the show FRINGE on FOX, you know that part two of the show’s season finale airs tonight. And, as if you needed more reason to tune in (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX, we’ve got a few.
See, in tonight’s episode both universes are put at great risk as Walter (John Noble) and Olivia (Anna Tory) visit the “other side.” But what are some of the cool Easter egg-style things one would see on the “other side”? Well, stuff like that RED LANTERN/RED ARROW cover, for starters.
So tune in tonight, look out for more covers like the one above and come back to The Source tomorrow morning for a look at all the covers shown in the episode.
I don’t watch Fringe, so I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I’m gonna assume the “other side” is some sort of alternate version of reality where up is down, black is white and, um, green is red.
- May 20, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by JK Parkin
Comics come to the BlackBerry
Sure, the BlackBerry is great for making calls and getting e-mail, but until recently it has had a major flaw: Not much in the way of comics.
Now IDW is bringing comics to the BlackBerry App World, starting with their top-selling Star Trek: Countdown and rolling out a new comic each week, with the lineup slated to include Transformers and GI Joe.
According to Jeff Webber, IDW’s Director of ePublishing, each app will contain an entire series, and readers will be able to sample a story before they buy. The Star Trek: Countdown app checks in at 345 pages for $4.99, which is not a bad deal. They do seem to be going the route of having each comic be a separate app. But wait, there’s more:
Proud to be the first major publisher of comics available to BlackBerry users, IDW’s applications fully leverage the capabilities of BlackBerry devices to deliver the highest quality user experience. Each IDW comic features panel-by-panel viewing and scroll bar navigation, plus built-in news feeds that bring fans all the latest IDW news and updates.
Although a flood of comics apps have been released for the iPhone, iPad, and Droid, and comics are often among the top-selling apps in the iTunes store, developers have not paid as much attention to the BlackBerry. There is a version of the ComiXology Comics reader for the BlackBerry, along with a handful of horror comics from Carnival, but aside from that, offerings have been sparse, so IDW should have a large pool of potential readers who have BlackBerrys for work but haven’t been able to read their favorite comics on the small screen.
- May 20, 2010 @ 09:30 AM by Brigid Alverson
Digital piracy: Words to the wise
Go! Comi's Cy-Believers
Audry Taylor was the creative director of Go! Comi back when it was one of the hottest small manga publishers around. Now Go! Comi has disappeared from view, and Taylor is devoting her time to writing YA prose fiction, but when it comes to topics like digital piracy and digital publishing, hers is a voice worth listening to. “Dear Publishing, manga is 3 yrs ahead of you on pirated material,” she tweeted yesterday. Right now, manga publishers are going out of business. They didn’t ADAPT.”
She points out that publishers’ biggest competitor is free comics, adding, “Consumers need powerful emotional & psychological reasons to buy your books rather than just grab the nearest free e-book.” Low prices alone won’t do the job.
A lot of manga readers justify reading scanlations by saying they are helping build an audience, but Taylor noted that Go! Comi’s books continued to be scanlated long after they were available in English. She did point out that readers who couldn’t find their books in stores had no qualms about reading them online. And she offered a five-point prescription for publishers:
- May 20, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Emma, Vol. 1
Publishing | More commentary on the July closing of DC Comics’ CMX manga imprint, courtesy of Deb Aoki, Matt Blind, Christopher Butcher, Simon Jones, David Welsh and the crew of Good Comics For Kids.
Blind: “So, DC: I’d like to ask — how much did you recently spend on plastic rings as opposed to, oh, say, the now-past 5-year marketing budget for now-defunct [alas] critically-acclaimed manga publisher CMX?”
Butcher: “It was a line that was poorly conceived, poorly run for the first half of its life and then barely run at all for the last half. Then it was unceremoniously killed. The end.” [CMX]
Comics | About 230 pieces of rare original Tintin art will be auctioned next week in Paris. The items range in value from about $3,700 to more than $300,000. [Reuters]
- May 20, 2010 @ 08:25 AM by Kevin Melrose
Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs | Gunnerkrigg Court, Vol. 1
Gunnerkrigg Court, Volume 1: Orientation
Gunnerkrigg Court, Volume 1: Orientation
Written and Illustrated by Thomas Siddell
Archaia; $26.95
I’m certain without looking that someone somewhere has already compared Gunnerkrigg Court to Harry Potter. I imagine that someone somewhere may have even called it the next Harry Potter, because that thought crossed my mind too. I hope that no one’s called it a rip-off of Harry Potter, because that would be grossly unfair.
It’s impossible to ignore the superficial similarities. For one thing, there’s the concept of a young person’s entering a strange and wonderful school – divided into four “houses” even – where her parents once played important roles in the institution’s history. For another, there’s the structure of following this student through her academic career with each volume covering a single school year. But the story unfolding in Gunnerkrigg Court is very much it’s own, unique thing. There’s no particular significance given to which house characters belong to (at least not in this volume), none of the characters parallel JK Rowling’s, and Antimony Carver isn’t some kind of messianic wonderchild. She’s an outsider to most of the goings on at the school, but none of the other students single her out or bully her. They’re not always friendly to her, but that isn’t a significant focus of the story. Student politics aren’t even a consideration.
Antimony – or Annie, as her new friend Kat calls her – is a quiet, pleasant girl. She’s lonely, but not angsty about it. Having lost her mother at a young age and been shipped off to boarding school by her distant father, she seems to have accepted that that’s how life is for her. Her relationship with Kat is important to her though and reveals that she’s not content with being alone. The two girls share a profound friendship that’s sweet and funny. This optimistic attitude is something else that Annie has in common with Harry Potter, but her early experiences at the school separate her from him again.
Minotaurs, clockwork birds, ghosts, gods, and faeries after the break.
- May 19, 2010 @ 02:00 PM by Michael May
Straight for the art | The Monster Squad by Lou Romano
The Monster Squad by Lou Romano
Fred Dekker’s 1987 cult-classic kids’ horror-comedy The Monster Squad is like a mash-up between the classic Universal Studios monsters and The Goonies. Boasting killer creatures courtesy of the legendary Stan Winston and filled with non sequitur catchphrases (“Creature stole my Twinkie,” “Mummy came in my house,” “My name…is Horace,” and of course “Wolfman’s got nards”), it’s also edgy enough to never get off the ground if it had been made in this hyper-niche-oriented demographically tested era of moviemaking. (Yeah, I’m not optimistic about the remake.)
Despite being a relative newcomer to the Squad, illustrator and sculptor Lou Romano is making up for lost time by crafting this lovely suite of portraits of the movie’s monstrous stars: Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Wolf Man, the Gill Man, and the Mummy. Click here to see all five at full size from the comfort of your living room at 666 Shadowbrook Road or wherever you may reside.
(via Sam Walker)
- May 19, 2010 @ 01:39 PM by Sean T. Collins
Send us your Shelf Porn!
Hello and welcome once again to Send us your Shelf Porn! Today’s collection comes from John Hurley in sunny Tucson, Arizona, who has done some impressive things with his action figures and comic books.
If you’d like to show the world your collection, we can help! Just send me your write-up and some decent-sized jpgs of your collection, and I’ll take it from there. And now let’s hear from John …
- May 19, 2010 @ 01:00 PM by JK Parkin
Straight for the art | Steve Ellis draws Thor
Thor by Steve Ellis
On Twitter, High Moon artist Steve Ellis shares a “quick Thor warm up sketch” that he says took him about 20 minutes to draw. Nice.
- May 19, 2010 @ 12:20 PM by JK Parkin
What comics arguments do you never want to hear again?
Sometimes an interview can be interesting because of the questions the interview subject doesn’t answer. Case in point: Blogger and critic Noah Berlatsky’s interview with The Comics Reporter’s Tom Spurgeon. Pivoting off a recent Savage Critics roundtable on Daniel Clowes’s divisive black-comedy graphic novel Wilson, Berlatksy sets Spurgeon up with a characterization of literary comics of the sort Clowes creates as self-pitying, misanthropic, pessimistic, and tedious. It’s a characterization Spurgeon’s having none of:
[Berlatsky:] …there’s a default stance in certain regions of lit comics land which is basically: “life sucks and people are awful.” Which I think is glib and overdone and tedious, a, and which, b, can be made even more irritating by the fact that the people promulgating it are, you know, fairly successful, and (what with various autobiographical elements thrown in) the result often looks like a lot of self-pity over not very much.
So…I’m wondering how strongly you would push back against that characterization of lit comics in general…and also whether you feel it is or is not ever appropriate to think about a creator’s biography in relation to his or her work in that way.
[Spurgeon:] At this point I wouldn’t push back at all against the stance that says the default mode in lit comics land is basically “life sucks and people are awful” because it’s no longer an argument I take seriously. I don’t think it’s true by any reasonable measure and I’m done with entertaining the notion until someone presents the argument in a much more effective or compelling fashion than what always sounds to me like some angry, lonely, re-written Usenet post from 1997.
- May 19, 2010 @ 11:36 AM by Sean T. Collins
DC unveils another 75th-anniversary variant cover, maybe?
This week DC Comics has been unveiling some of the variant covers they’re doing in honor of their 75th anniversary. Each cover promises to be a “classic” cover redrawn by a “big name” artist, with the first two this week being Batman #700 by Mike Mignola and Superman #700 by Eduardo Risso.
Today DC’s The Source blog posted the above cover, a remade — and re-colored — version of the cover to Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76 (you can see the original after the jump), which was part of Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’ classic run on the book.
Unfortunately, they don’t list any additional information about the book, so while logic may dictate that it’s another in the variant cover series, I guess it could be something else. Any idea who the artist is?
- May 19, 2010 @ 10:38 AM by JK Parkin