2010 May
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Love & Rockets
Digital | Sean Kleefeld points out the launch of Underground and Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels, “the first ever scholarly, primary source database focusing on adult comic books and graphic novels,” the site’s home page says.
The site currently hosts 24,000 pages of comics and a small number of The Comics Journal issues — all with the permission of the copyright holders — with plans to eventually expand to 100,000 pages of materials. The site’s advisers and partners include Fantagraphics’ Gary Groth and Kitchen Sink Press’ Denis Kitchen. Access to the site is available for one-time purchase of perpetual access or as an annual subscription. [Underground and Independent Comics]
Publishing | Robot 6 contributor Brigid Alverson rounds up reactions from the manga community on the recent layoffs by Viz Media. [Publishers Weekly]
Publishing | John Jackson Miller crunches direct-market sales estimates for April, comparing them with previous years. [The Comichron]
- May 19, 2010 @ 09:54 AM by JK Parkin
‘Most likely to save the world’
Image Comics sent over another teaser today for Morning Glories, the new series by Nick Spencer, Joe Eisma and Rodin Esquejo. With this one, we get an idea of what the plot of the book might be about, beyond the high school drama the others teased.
Check out the previous teasers here, here, here, here and here.
- May 19, 2010 @ 09:05 AM by JK Parkin
CMX reactions
Oyayubihime Infinity
The reaction to DC Comics’ announcement yesterday that it was shutting down its manga imprint, CMX, ranged from dismissal to dismay. “Does manga not make money anymore?” thundered Rich Johnston at Bleeding Cool, conveniently ignoring the fact that Naruto has topped the graphic novel charts in the U.S. for years. Johnston lists the last round of books that CMX will publish as well as a rather tantalizing list of books that will not see the light of day, at least not anytime soon.
Longtime watchers of the manga scene placed the blame squarely on DC, which hired good people (director of manga Asako Suzuki and editor-in-chief Jim Chadwick) and let them license good manga (Emma, Astral Project), then allowed the books to die with poor distribution and zero publicity. David Welsh, who blogs as The Manga Curmudgeon, summed up the situation nicely:
Back in the days when Paul Levitz was in charge, you could make bank that he would barely mention DC’s manga imprint during his nine-part year-end interviews with ICv2. When they launched the Minx imprint, Karen Berger acted over and over again like DC was inventing comics for teen-aged girls, resolutely ignoring the manga market until enough people asked “What the hell is she talking about?” And even when forced to admit that there were all kinds of comics for teen-aged girls, she never noted the fact that her employer published some of them.
- May 19, 2010 @ 08:30 AM by Brigid Alverson
See Carnival of Souls comparisons from $60-million Heroes lawsuit
Carnival of Souls #1
Carnival Comics has provided Robot 6 with a copy of Jazan Wild’s $60-million lawsuit against NBC and Heroes creator Tim Kring, complete with color images detailing alleged similarities between the TV series and the comic Carnival of Souls.
The lawsuit, filed May 13 in Los Angeles federal court, alleges that the traveling carnival featured prominently in the fourth season of Heroes is “virtually identical” to the one depicted in Wild’s 2005-2006 comic series.
Wild (aka Jason Barnes) wants to prevent NBC from rebroadcasting the season, and seeks compensatory and punitive damages for copyright infringement, intentional interference with prospective economic advantage, unfair competition and unjust enrichment.
After the break you can see some of the side-by-side comparisons from the complaint:
- May 19, 2010 @ 04:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
The Middle Ground #5: Sitting Up Straight On The Back Of The Bus
I’m pretty sure that the first licensed comic I actually bought would’ve been a Star Wars comic. I don’t really remember ever buying any of them, but I remember always having them around (For some reason, I specifically remember them always being around when I was sick, although I do remember eagerly running home from the newsagent with the first issue of Return Of The Jedi, hoping to find out what happened in the new movie before it came out, and being somewhere between excited and upset to realize that the movie adaptation only filled the first third of the issue, with a random SW story and The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones filling up the rest). The first one I remember actively collecting was the Marvel UK version of Transformers, although I didn’t think of that as a licensed comic; my head didn’t work that way, yet, so it was just a comic that was connected to those toys that I thought were awesome in some mysterious way.
So why is there some kind of stigma against licensed comics these days?
- May 18, 2010 @ 02:30 PM by Graeme McMillan
Straight for the art | Artists pay tribute to Jim Henson
by David Petersen
It’s been 20 years since The Muppet Show creator Jim Henson passed away, and ToughPigs.com paid tribute to him by asking several artists — including David Petersen (above), Amy Mebberson, and Roger Langridge, among others — to contribute original illustrations honoring the visionary creator. Go take a look.
- May 18, 2010 @ 02:00 PM by JK Parkin
Three reviews worth a thousand words
from Blue Spring by Taiyo Matsumoto
A great comic review can make you feel like you’ve read the book without showing you so much as a panel…but, y’know, showing a panel really can’t hurt. And three recent reviews — Tucker Stone on Taiyo Matsumoto’s Blue Spring, Charles Hatfield on Blaise Larmee’s Young Lions, and Noah Berlatsky on Junji Ito’s Uzumaki — really struck me with their well-selected spot art. A glance at each review’s illustrations — dynamic, sexy, and horrific respectively — can probably tell you whether these books are the kind of thing you wanna check out, which is great, because each review is a solid examination of what makes them worth checking out in the first place. Click the links, feast your eyes, and see what you think.
- May 18, 2010 @ 01:30 PM by Sean T. Collins
Darkwing Duck upgraded from a mini to a monthly
BOOM! announced today via press release that the previously announced Darkwing Duck mini-series has been upgraded to a monthly series due to “tremendously positive fan support.” The book, by Ian Brill and James Silvani, kicks off in June.
“The fan response for Darkwing Duck has been amazing!” Brill said in the release. “The fans wanted more, so we’ll give them more! Not just more issues but more adventure and more humor. After the first story, which will have big changes for Darkwing and family, we’re going to take the readers on an even crazier ride!”
Check out the complete press release and a preview of the first issue after the jump.
- May 18, 2010 @ 01:00 PM by JK Parkin
Play ball!
Cross Game
In the spring, a young man’s fancy turns to baseball, and manga is here to help. There are two baseball series debuting this month, and one is free to read on the internet: Cross Game, a “poignant coming-of-age story,” according to the Shonen Sunday website, about a young man who wants to play baseball and the family of four sisters who live down the road (because, after all, this is still manga). The first chapter is up on the website now, and Viz is also streaming the first five episodes of the anime at their anime site.
If that whets your appetite, check out Diamond Girl, a new series from DC’s manga arm, CMX. It’s about a girl with an unusual talent for baseball that is matched only by her hatred for the game. The humor is broad and slapstick, but the art is very stylized, so readers who don’t care for manga might want to sit this one out. (Alas, we have just received word that CMX is shutting down, so this series probably won’t be completed. It’s a fun read anyway, though.)
- May 18, 2010 @ 12:30 PM by Brigid Alverson
Straight for the art | Josh Cooley’s Inappropriate Golden Books
Golden Book GoodFellas by Josh Cooley
Pixar story artist Josh Cooley likely has his hands plenty full at his day job, but fortunately for us he’s paying tribute to the non-animated, R-rated movies he loves by making Golden Book-style children’s picturebook-style images out of them. He’ll be collecting them in a Golden Book of his own in time for the San Diego Comic-Con. Until then, you can check out his inappropriately adorable take on The Godfather, Leon, The Graduate, The Terminator, The Silence of the Lambs and more in this Kotaku gallery — but I’d also recommend simply scrolling through Cooley’s blog, where you’ll also find sexy pin-ups, inappropriate antics involving He-Man and Falcor from The Neverending Story, and lots more.
(via Rob Humanick)
- May 18, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
Wolverine vs. farm fresh eggs, by Faith Erin Hicks
Wolverine
The second issue of Marvel’s Girl Comics anthology comes out tomorrow, which include a NextWave story by Faith Erin Hicks. If you can’t wait to see her take on the Marvel U., though, you’re in luck — she’s posted a complete Wolverine short story on her website that she created as a try-out for Marvel last year.
“So last year about this time was my very first contact with Marvel,” she writes on her blog. “Specifically I was asked if I’d pitch an 11 page ‘Iron Man or Wolverine story.’ Since I had absolutely no interest in drawing Iron Man (all that mechanical armour, ugh!) and consider myself a patriotic beaver-flag-waving Canadian type, I opted for Wolverine. I sent Marvel 11 pages of thumbnails and a script, and never heard back. Boo hoo! Oh well. Eventually they asked me to do a submission for Girl Comics, so it all worked out in the end.”
The story features ninjas, eggs and crying New Mutants. Go check it out.
- May 18, 2010 @ 11:30 AM by JK Parkin
Eduardo Risso reinterprets classic Neal Adams cover for Superman #700
From Eduardo Risso's variant cover for Superman #700
DC Comics unveiled another 75th-anniversary variant cover this morning with acclaimed 100 Bullets artist Eduardo Risso’s take on Superman #233 — “Kryptonite Nevermore!” — the iconic 1971 cover by Neal Adams. Risso’s interpretation will be used as a variant for June’s Superman #700. You can view the full image after the break.
Risso’s cover follows the debut yesterday of Mike Mignola’s variant for Batman #700. The DC Universe blog promises another 75th-anniversary variant tomorrow; odds are it’s Adam Hughes’ cover for Wonder Woman #600.
- May 18, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
New stamp to honor Archie and friends
Please Mr. Postman...
That’s right, America’s favorite teens will be featured on a new postage stamp to be issued on July 16. From the press release:
The United States Postal Service will be honoring the Archie love triangle as part of the “Sunday Funnies” series for “offering an idealized portrait of American adolescence” since 1946, when the comic books expanded to include the newspaper strip. The daily newspaper strip, now written by Craig Boldman and illustrated by Fernando Ruiz, continues to run in newspapers and online publications worldwide.
Funny, I don’t really think of Archie as a newspaper strip, so it’s interesting to hear it has been running that long. The other stamps in the Sunday Funnies line are Beetle Bailey, Calvin and Hobbes, Dennis the Menace, and Garfield, which is sort of an odd assortment. Anyway, it’s nice to know that the Archie gang will be assuming their rightful place, alongside Mother Teresa, Tom Mix, the Lunar New Year, and the Mackinac Bridge, as the subject of a U.S. postage stamp.
- May 18, 2010 @ 10:30 AM by Brigid Alverson
DC to shut down its CMX manga imprint
Emma, CMX's most successful manga (aside from Tenjho Tenge)
Bad news for manga lovers today: DC Comics is closing CMX, its manga division, as of July 1.
CMX set up shop six years ago and got into hot water with fans a few months later, when they tried to publish Oh! Great’s boobs-and-battles manga Tenjho Tenge with a teen rating by censoring it heavily. Fans reacted with indignation, but a CMX editor was heard to remark years later that TenTen was its best-selling title. The imprint also published a number of classic shoujo (teenage girls) manga series, including Swan and the comedy-adventure title From Eroica With Love.
Asako Suzuki took over as director of manga in 2006 and quickly shifted the tone. She and Editor Jim Chadwick went out of their way to establish rapport with fans, and a number of the series they licensed, including Emma, The Name of the Flower and Kiichi and the Magic Books, garnered good reviews. They also published a number of all-ages and kid-friendly series, such as The Palette of 12 Secret Colors. CMX books were hard to find in bookstores, however, and at conventions the imprint often seemed to be an afterthought, with little space allotted to the division in the DC booths and panels.
In addition to Japanese manga, which it licensed through a co-publishing agreement with the Japanese cell-phone publisher Flex Comics, CMX also published Fred Gallagher’s Megatokyo. That series will continue under the DC banner.
The official statement can be found after the break:
- May 18, 2010 @ 10:04 AM by Brigid Alverson
Dark Horse to debut ’1 for $1′ reprints in August
1 for $1: Sin City: The Hard Goodbye
On the heels of similar initiatives from DC Comics, Marvel and Image, Dark Horse has announced its “1 for $1″ program offering reprints of 12 of its most popular comics for $1 each.
The campaign debuts in August with six comics: Aliens vs. Predator, Sin City: The Hard Goodbye, Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, Usagi Yojimbo, Conan and The Goon.
Twenty-eight page comics from creators like Frank Miller, Mike Mignola, Stan Sakai, Kurt Busiek, Cary Nord and Eric Powell — for $1 apiece? That’s tough to beat.
You can see the solicitations for the six titles below:
- May 18, 2010 @ 09:30 AM by Kevin Melrose