2010 June
Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs | Days Missing and Non-Serial Series
Days Missing
This week’s column isn’t so much a review as it is an observation and a request for your thoughts and recommendations. One of the things that appealed to me about Archaia and Roddenberry’s Days Missing series when I learned about it at C2E2 was the non-serial aspect of it. Rather than unfold a long-running plot about it’s main character and the people and things that threaten his goals, Archaia and Roddenberry chose to present the series in almost an anthology format. Though one in which the same character appeared every issue and always had adventures that followed a similar formula.
I’m reminded of some of the TV shows I used to watch as a kid. Today, shows like Lost have changed the television landscape to the point that every show has to have some kind of over-arcing plot. Even detective shows – which you’d think would be perfect for a simple format of stand-alone episodes – have meta-stories like Will Jane Ever Catch Red John? or Will Castle and Beckett Ever Tell Each Other How They Feel? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but there’s something pure and refreshing about shows where it’s just our heroes fighting this week’s bad guy or trying to meet this week’s challenge.
Comics are the same. Even when the latest company-wide crossover isn’t besieging them, most comics stories can’t wrap themselves up in a single issue. The Writing for the Trade phenomenon is so standard and familiar that it isn’t even worth griping about anymore. That’s what makes a book like Days Missing stand out.
After the break: What it’s about and do we want more of it?
- June 30, 2010 @ 08:19 PM by Michael May
Selina’s not-so-big score — caught on tape!
Catwoman: Wanted
We noted on Tuesday that New York City police are on the hunt for, well, Catwoman — or at least a brazen criminal who’s robbed shoe and beauty stores while wearing a cat mask.
The woman, who was described by the New York Post a “lithe 5-foot-6, 115 pound thief,” wore blacking clothing, a black scarf and that trademark mask to stick up two stores last week in the East Village and Forest Hills, Queens. In broad daylight, no less.
Now police have released a video of the suspect, whom you can see glide into the high-end Arche shoe store, where she reportedly browsed for 45 minutes — the tape is edited, thankfully — before donning the mask and telling the sales clerk, “Give me the money. I have a gun.” (Note the customers who mill around while the robbery takes place.)
What was Selina’s big score? A whopping $86 from the shoe store. She made out better the next day at The Body Shop, where she slunk away with $500.
(video via The Village Voice)
- June 30, 2010 @ 06:59 PM by Kevin Melrose
Send Us Your Shelf Porn!
Welcome once again to Shelf Porn! Today’s submission comes from Pat Loika, a writer and illustrator who lives in San Diego and is the artist on The Villain, among other works.
If you’d like to submit your Shelf Porn, drop me a line at jkparkin@yahoo.com.
To see Pat’s killer studio, click below …
- June 30, 2010 @ 02:00 PM by JK Parkin
Evileye teases a new Cullen Bunn project
Evileye Books sent out a teaser yesterday for something coming soon from our friend Cullen Bunn, who has had a few guest posts with us over the past few weeks. We already know that Bunn is working with artist Shawn Lee on a series called Raze for them, but this looks to be something different. Hopefully we’ll learn more soon.
- June 30, 2010 @ 01:00 PM by JK Parkin
Mark Millar begins work on ‘Old Man Logan’ sequel
Wolverine #66, the beginning of "Old Man Logan"
Mark Millar revealed he’s plotted a sequel to “Old Man Logan,” the bestselling 2008-2009 arc billed as “the greatest Wolverine story ever told.”
“It’s been in the back of my mind since before I started writing the first issue of the original,” he wrote last night on his message board, “but this was the first time I’d actually put pen to paper. Marvel had offered me a classic book a few weeks back and when I was sitting on the plane planning to put some notes together I just couldn’t stop. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the book I was offered, but the ‘Old Man Logan’ sequel. It opens with this insane Spidey flashback which pretty much sets the tone. My God, it’s going to be fun to write.”
Millar cautioned that he still has to pitch the idea to Marvel this week, “so this isn’t an announcement by any means.” However, he said, “the first one did so many printings of each issue. I think we averaged around 120,000 copies per book in the end and trade sales were amazing so it should be fine.”
Beginning in August 2008′s Wolverine #66, “Old Man Logan” reunited Millar and his Civil War collaborator Steve McNiven for an eight-part story set in a dystopian future where the United States has been divided among supervillains, who have wiped most of the heroes out of existence. To pay his rent and care for his family, Logan accepts a job from a blind Hawkeye to accompany him across the country to deliver a secret package. The storyline experienced a few delays before finally concluding in September 2009′s Wolverine: Old Man Logan Giant-Size #1.
- June 30, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
Meet your friendly schoolyard wall-crawler
A 13-year-old boy in Cambridge, England, has transformed two vacuum cleaners into a device that enables him to climb walls like Spider-Man — okay, almost like Spider-Man — earning him the admiration of classmates and the scorn of J. Jonah Jameson.
Hibiki Kono, a Spider-Man fan, spent five months designing and assembling the gadget, made from two dirt-cheap vacuum cleaners (about $22.40 each) and square wooden pads.
“My mum thinks it’s brilliant,” he said, “but she won’t let me us it in my bedroom as she is worried I may pull down the ceiling.”
- June 30, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
The return of the Hornet, kinda, in Irredeemable #18
Irredeemable #18
Irredeemable cover artist Dan Panosian shares the upcoming cover to issue #18, which features the return of a character we met in the first few pages of the first issue, as the Plutonian killed his whole family. “And you thought the Hornet was dead!” Panosian writes. “Well, he is, this cover is a flashback. Seems he was up to some shenanigans before he passed! The Plutonion’s mighty ears must still be burning.” The Hornet also appeared in a flashback story in the Irredeemable Special.
- June 30, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by JK Parkin
ALA: Crappy pictures of awesome comics
Here's the swag shot from ALA 2010
OK, I’m not going to be winning any photography awards anytime soon, but I picked up a lot of interesting comics at the American Library Association midsummer meeting, and I wanted to write about them while they were still fresh.
Hit the jump for details.
- June 30, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Media and fans (and Lynda Carter) react to Wonder Woman makeover
Wonder Woman #603
When DC Comics revealed the new costume, and story direction, for Wonder Woman yesterday afternoon, the publisher set off a firestorm of media coverage and fan reaction. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it’s not all positive. Not by a longshot.
In fact, some of the responses to our initial post about Jim Lee’s retro-’90s redesign — complete with leather jacket, shoulder pads and choker — and J. Michael Straczynski’s origin overhaul seem downright glowing when compared to, say, Nikki Finke’s assessment.
Under the headline “DC Comics Has Ruined Wonder Woman!” the Hollywood-industry blogger wrote: “Of course, it took a bunch of men to ruin her. Look at the new costume design by DC Comics Co-Publisher Jim Lee below: she looks ready for Goth Day at the Sherman Oaks Galleria. (Shame on Diane Nelson, the head of DC Entertainment, for allowing this to happen. And for not finding a talented woman writer to update the icon’s saga.) Here’s the announcement about the dumbass stuff that DC Comics is doing to her. So let me start the campaign: FREE WONDER WOMAN!” Still, Finke managed to score “exclusive” Wonder Woman art by Don Kramer (a revised version of the previously released cover for September’s Issue 603).
The Awl’s Maura Johnston is only slightly more kind than Finke, briefly noting the new costume in a post titled, “DC Comics Starves Wonder Woman, Then Drags Her To Hot Topic”: “So the overall vibe given off by her is darker, more serious, ‘designed to be taken seriously as a warrior’ — not to mention, more ready to be franchised into a tie-in clothing line for similarly disaffected female fans.”
At New York magazine’s Vulture blog, Willa Paskin boldly endorses the new outfit, characterizing the “overall effect” as “fairly badass, and nicely common sense: It really is much easier to focus on fighting crime when one isn’t worrying about accidentally flashing lady parts.”
Speaking to The New York Times, which unveiled the new look, Straczynski explained he wanted “to toughen her up, and give her a modern sensibility,” adding, “What woman only wears only one outfit for 60-plus years?” (The latter statement is as inaccurate as it is cringe-worthy, as the newspaper’s costume slide show demonstrates.)
- June 30, 2010 @ 08:05 AM by Kevin Melrose
JMS, Jim Lee change Wonder Woman’s costume, origin
Wonder Woman's new costume
Internet, prepare to be broken in half: As you’ve read at The New York Times, DC’s Source Blog, and right here at CBR, Wonder Woman is getting a new costume and new direction starting with tomorrow’s issue #600.
According to writer J. Michael Straczynski’s comments on the Source, his Wonder Woman run will see the Gods “change the timeline,” removing their protection from Paradise Island, leading to its destruction and to Wonder Woman’s Superman-style smuggling off the island as a baby to be raised among normal human society:
It’s now nearly twenty years later. Diana has been raised in an urban setting, but with a foot in both worlds. She has little or no memory of the other timeline. She knows only what she’s been told by those who raised her On the run, hunted, she must try to survive, help the other refugee Amazons escape the army that is still after them, discover who destroyed Paradise Island and why…and if the timeline can be corrected or not.
Any resemblance to Mephisto’s magicaboola of Spider-Man’s life in the “One More Day” storyline, the true authorship of which — by either Straczynski or co-writer and artist (and Marvel Editor-in-Chief) Joe Quesada — remains controversial and contentious, is strictly coincidental, I’m sure.
- June 29, 2010 @ 04:47 PM by Sean T. Collins
The Middle Ground #10: The Future Is Now – Well, 10 Years Ago, Actually
There are senses of scale that I just can’t quite get my head around. I mean, sure, I get that Marvel and DC are massive corporate monoliths that stride the comics landscape like overproductive Goliaths, leaving Wolverine books and relaunches of beloved pre-Crisis heroes in their wake, but once you get beyond that obvious tier, the comic industry always gets a little blurred for me.
For example: Judging by Diamond’s Previews catalogue, the next three largest publishers would be Dark Horse, IDW and Image, and I’m sure that’s probably right once you track down the volume of releases and sales figures for each publisher. But that doesn’t mean that, every single month, when I look through Previews, I can’t quite shake the feeling that Fantagraphics deserves to be a premiere publisher purely based on the quality of their releases, if that makes sense? Similarly, Boom! Studios often runs alongside IDW in my head, so part of me wonders whether or not they, too, are soon to make the leap to premiere status (especially considering the Disney books, which must sell well for them).
Oddest of all, though, is the fact that in America, 2000AD is probably as well known for printing early work from creators like Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Peter Milligan, Jamie Delano, Mark Millar, Alan Davis, Barry Kitson, Sean Philips and many many more (says he, suddenly sounding like someone trying to sell you a compilation album on television in the wee small hours of the morning) than it is for… well, for being 2000AD. The idea that 2000AD can be considered a niche product by comics fans genuinely, seriously, stuns me whenever I think about it, even moreso when I realize that that idea has some legitimacy considering the low sales and audience the title has in the US, because – to me – 2000AD is another Marvel or DC Universe.
- June 29, 2010 @ 04:00 PM by Graeme McMillan
Hotz, Powell cover second issue of Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Oddities
Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Oddities and the Ghastly Fiend of London
As promised back in January, Eric Powell is bringing back Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Oddities this fall in a new mini-series that pits Billy and the crew from Fineas Sproule’s traveling spectacle of biological curiosities against Jack the Ripper.
Courtesy of Dark Horse, we’re pleased to debut both covers for the second issue, which ships in October. The one up top is by series artist Kyle Hotz, and after the jump you can find one by Eric Powell (along with solicitation information).
- June 29, 2010 @ 03:30 PM by JK Parkin
Food or Comics? | This week’s comics on a budget
Abe Sapien: The Abyssal Plain #1, by Dave Johnson
Welcome to the first of hopefully many editions of “Food or Comics?”, the spiritual successor to our “Can’t Wait for Wednesday” feature. As we did in CWFW, we plan to share what new and notable comic books we’re excited to see in shops every Wednesday, but with one twist — a price limit.
Every week we’ll tell you what comics we’d buy if we had $15 to spend, if we had $30 and if we had some “mad money” (like a gift card) to blow on what we’re calling a “Splurge” item. Admittedly, this was a tough exercise, much tougher than I thought it would be, and a reminder as to why I buy my books from a place that offers a discount.
To see what Kevin Melrose and I would spend our hard-earned money on, keep reading …
Kevin Melrose
If I had $15, I’d buy …
Abe Sapien: The Abyssal Plain #1 ($3.50)
I admit that I’m picking this up as much for Dave Johnson’s cover as I am for the story, which recounts one of Abe Sapien’s first B.P.R.D. assignments: searching for an ancient relic in a sunken Soviet U-boat. It’s by Mike Mignola, John Arcudi and Peter Snejbjerg, so it’s well worth the $3.50. (Dark Horse)
- June 29, 2010 @ 02:40 PM by JK Parkin
Meredith Gran on the ingredients of Octopus Pie: “The sort of lifestyle webcomics demand”
Webcartoonist Meredith Gran’s Octopus Pie: There Are No Stars in Brooklyn — collecting the first few stories from the Octopus Pie webcomic — has just hit stores, and Gran marked the occasion by speaking to CBR’s Alex Dueben. Here’s what I’d call the money quote:
[Alex Dueben:] You started working on webcomics as a teenager, essentially growing up with the industry. What were the comics that really inspired you and have had a particular influence on “Octopus Pie?”
[Meredith Gran:] I’ve really admired the cartoonists behind the Dumbrella collective for years. Jon Rosenberg of “Goats,” R. Stevens of “Diesel Sweeties” and Jeffrey Rowland of “Wigu/Overcompensating” in particular taught me a lot about the business, cultivating a readership, and the sort of lifestyle webcomics demand.
Artistically, most of my influences come largely from outside the webcomics bubble. Though David McGuire of “Gastrophobia” attended college with me, and I see a lot of similarity in our styles.
My background is in animation, and I was raised on Looney Tunes (Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett) and MGM shorts (Tex Avery), which I consider some of the biggest influences, even if the comic itself doesn’t resemble them superficially. I love Genndy Tartakovsky and Craig McCracken’s shows of the 90s. “The Simpsons” is probably in there too.
Suddenly it struck me — a dude weaned on the “Dueling Banjos” of the traditional North American comics scene, first superheroes and then alternative comics — that webcomics really truly is its own beast. Now you’ve got a generation of cartoonists who’ve grown up reading them, springboarding off their artistic and business models, and incorporating the sorts of influences you really don’t find in either Acme Novelty Library or Savage Dragon (to name the only two comics I was reading regularly a decade ago). “The sort of lifestyle webcomics demand” probably has a lot in common with the lifestyles demanded by newspaper strips, superheroes, altcomix, any kind of comics, but in terms of influence and output, it stands alone…
- June 29, 2010 @ 01:30 PM by Sean T. Collins
Start reading now: Tales of a Checkered Man
Tales of a Checkered Man
A few months ago I started hearing buzz about a webcomic called Tales of a Checkered Man, but when I went to read it, I was dismayed to find that the creator had ignored all the standard webcomic tools, such as “next” and “previous” buttons, and instead posted his comic in an unreadably small format and forced readers to go through a series of steps to move from one strip to the next. So I gave up on reading it and posted a rant instead. Although I didn’t call the comic out by name, the creator, Denver Brubaker, figured it out and responded so good-naturedly that I felt a little bad about it. But only a little.
Anyway, since he was such a good sport about it, I feel honor bound to tell you that he has relaunched the comic in a new website that has navigation, readable comics, all the bells and whistles, and you should go take a look at it. It’s a gag strip riffing on Batman and other traditional superheroes, and it starts a bit slow, but Brubaker has a nice, unusual drawing style and some good gags. He’s just starting a new story arc now, so this is an excellent time to jump on board. Enjoy!
- June 29, 2010 @ 12:30 PM by Brigid Alverson