Comic Book Resources

X-Men re-imagined as animals on new shirt

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Hot off the Comic-Con debut of their new line of comic shirts, Threadless has posted another shirt that comic fans might dig — X-Menagerie, featuring the X-Men re-imagined as animals. I wonder if these guys know the Pet Avengers?

Yen Plus magazine goes online

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Yen Plus magazine launched two years ago at San Diego Comic-Con, and at this year’s SDCC, Yen Press relaunched it as a web-only publication.

Subscriptions to the magazine will be priced at $2.99 per month, compared to $8.99 per issue for the print version, and Yen is offering a free trial through September 6, so I thought I’d go in and kick the tires a bit. What I found was a mixed bag: The interface is clean and smooth, and I was delighted to find a short comic by the talented Madeleine Rosca (creator of Hollow Fields), but just as with the print version, I was left wondering who exactly they are editing this magazine for: The signup restricts it to readers over 17, but most of the series (Nightschool, Maximum Ride, and especially Rosca’s Haunted House Call) are more appealing to younger teens, while Jack Frost and Gossip Girl are clearly pitched at older readers—and may make the magazine off limits to younger teens, at least if their parents get a glimpse of the full content.

There are no Japanese manga in this issue, although the Yen folks promise that Yotsuba&! will join the lineup in future issues. One reason for this may be that the Japanese publisher Square Enix has set up its own online manga site (apparently in partnership with Yen Press) and their titles include Black Butler and Soul Eater, two former Yen Plus series. I hope Square Enix is giving Yen a good cut of the take from that website, because Black Butler is one of their most popular series.

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House of Mystery Halloween Annual to feature ‘Lucifer’ story by Carey, Gross

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House of Mystery Halloween Annual

Over on the Vertigo blog, Pamela Mullin shares some news that was revealed this weekend in San Diego — the line-up for October’s House of Mystery Halloween Annual:

To start it off, Matt Sturges and Luca Rossi introduce a group of eternal trick-or-treaters who will make there way through new Lucifer story by Mike Carey and artist Peter Gross, Madame Xanadu by Mike Kaluta and artist Jill Thompson, izombie by Chris Roberson and artist Mike Allred, and Hellblazer by Peter Milligan and artist Guiseppe Cumoncoli.

It’s been four years since the Sandman spin-off series Lucifer ended; it should be fun to see Carey and Gross return to those characters. I’m also all in for the Kaluta/Thompson pairing on Madame Xanadu.

Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

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Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 6

Publishing | Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour, the sixth and final volume of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s award-winning series, sold out of its initial 100,000-copy printing at the distributor level within a few days of its release last week. Oni Press plans a quick 50,000-copy second printing, with the possibility of additional copies if they’re needed. Edgar Wright’s film adaptation of the series, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, opens on Aug. 13. [ICv2.com]

Publishing | At Comic-Con International, IDW Publishing announced plans for the Ultimate Alex Raymond Collection: The Definitive Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim, which includes every Sunday installment from both classic comic strips collected in an oversized edition. [press release]

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SDCC ’10 | Reaching for the Top Shelf

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from Infinite Kung Fu by Kagan McLeod

Over on the CBR mothership, Sonia Harris has an extensive and art-heavy report on Top Shelf Productions’ panel at the San Diego Comic-Con. In addition to a look back at a fairly momentous year for the independent publisher — from Nate Powell’s Swallow Me Whole Eisner win to the release of the film adaptation of The Surrogates to the company’s “Swedish Invasion” initiative — the panel covered a plethora of upcoming releases, including the much-anticipated alternative-manga anthology AX, Kagan McLeod’s webcomic collection Infinite Kung Fu, and more. Here on Robot 6, of course, we covered the ‘Shelf out of the TS line-up, from Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlement Vol. III: Century #2 -1969 on down.

EXCLUSIVE: Joe the Barbarian film adaptation in the works

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Joe the Barbarian #1

Grab your sword and check your blood sugar: Writer Grant Morrison has informed Robot 6 exclusively that a feature film version of Joe the Barbarian is now in development with Thunder Road Pictures, producers of this year’s Clash of the Titans remake. “Thunder Road just called me today and said we can officially announce it, so I’m quite happy about that,” Morrison says, though he himself won’t be writing the screenplay.

Launched in January, Joe the Barbarian is an eight-issue DC/Vertigo miniseries written by Morrison and illustrated by Sean Murphy. In its pages, a diabetic teenager named Joe is drawn into a fantasy world populated in part by his toys and his pet rat, where he discovers he is the long-prophesied “Dying Boy” who must save the world from the sinister King Death — while in the real world, home alone and delirious from diabetic shock, he struggles to stay alive. A hardcover collection of the acclaimed series is slated for a February 2011 release.

This is the third Morrison movie project announced in as many days: Morrison is writing the independent film Sinatoro for director Adam Egypt Mortimer, while Warner Bros. is planning an animated adaptation of Morrison and Frank Quitely’s Eisner Award-winning series All-Star Superman, written by Justice League Unlimited‘s Dwayne McDuffie.

Quote of the day | Alan Moore, on raising expectations

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“This has always been a problem. It’s been a problem since Watchmen, really. You have a horrible moment when you think, What am I going to do after this? And then you think, I have to do something better. And then you have a horrible moment halfway through that project thinking, What am I going to do after this? And this has been pretty much my life’s story for the last 20 years. It’s just constantly raising expectations for myself to the point where inevitably I must surely collapse under my own mass and become some sort of creative black hole, that sucks everything into it. Hopefully that’s a way off yet.”

– writer Alan Moore, discussing the high creative bar he’s set for himself
with his in-progress novel Jerusalem, and what comes after

Talking Comics with Tim: Paul Cornell

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Soldier Zero

Well before SDCC and last week’s BOOM!/Stan Lee press conference, Paul Cornell. When we did this email interview, details had not been released about Soldier Zero, Cornell’s collaboration with Stan Lee and BOOM! Studios. (For details about Soldier Zero along those lines, please be sure to read CBR’s Shaun Manning’s interview with Cornell from last week). For this interview, I instead focused upon Cornell’s clear respect for Lee’s work and general storytelling approach, as well as the opportunity to work with BOOM. As witty and sharp as Cornell is, it made for an enjoyable interview, despite his busy workload. I appreciate Cornell’s time, as well as BOOM! Studios’ Chip Mosher willingness to arrange the interview. I’m hoping that in addition to creating a great tale for us to read, Cornell garners the Stan Lee nickname he so clearly craves.

Tim O’Shea: Back in 2009, at your blog, you lamented that you entered the industry after Stan’s heyday of giving collaborators nicknames. Now that you’re working with Stan, have you scored a nickname from him yet?

Paul Cornell: I think I’ll try and pluck up the courage to ask him for one. That’d be like being knighted.

O’Shea: In a DowntheTubes 2008 interview, in terms of your own comics writing, you said “…what I try and do is what all the best superhero books do. I try and write modern Greek and Roman myths that actually reflect things that are going on right now. Much as every body of mythology talks about what is happening right now, in terms of when it was created. … And everything that Stan Lee ever did was literally just about looking out of his window. His Marvel comic body of work, which is all about New York, is just extraordinary.”

Are you looking out the proverbial window to write this Stan Lee project? If you are, can you share some of the view?

Cornell: This particular window is looking into the real lives of wheelchair users, and trying to create a superhero that reflects their experiences in the modern world. It’s Stan doing what he always did best, with us acting as Rick Rubin to his Johnny Cash: demonstrating that what Stan does isn’t about pastiche and nostalgia, but is classic and timeless, and can be immediate in today’s world.

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Comic Couture | DC Comics and Converse create superhero shoes

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Batman Converse

DC Comics and Converse have teamed up to create a line of shoes featuring Batman, Superman and Green Lantern. The shoes debuted over the weekend and could be found on the feet of the crew working the DC booth at Comic-Con International.

“Part of a promotional effort with our friends at Converse, the shoes merge two of my favorite things — a pair of snazzy Chuck Taylor’s and comics,” said Alex Segura, who runs DC’s The Source blog. “Don’t take my word for it, though. Our very own James Robinson was among the creators showing off his new kicks at a signing hosted by Converse at the Horton Plaza Journeys store in San Diego yesterday.”

The shoes are available at any Journeys store or online.

A look at Fantagraphics’ fall/winter catalog

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Pogo Vol. 1

One of the biggest pieces of news coming out of this year’s Comic-Con was the announcement by Fantagraphics that they would start reprinting Floyd Gottfredson’s seminal Mickey Mouse comic strips.

But that book is at least a year away. What ever shall we read in the months between now and then? Thankfully, Gary Groth, Kim Thompson and company have the answer, via their lengthy fall/winter catalog, which I’ve taken the liberty of breaking down into bite-sized chunks for the hoi-polloi to peruse. No doubt some of these titles you’re probably well aware of and already expecting. But hopefully there’s one or two surprises in the list.

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Start reading now: Holiday Wars

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After the whirlwind of news that was San Diego, it’s nice to sit down and just read some comics. Here’s one I discovered this morning: Holiday Wars, by Scott King (creator), Michael Odom (penciler), Guiseppe Pica (colorist) and Arturo Said (inker). Having such a big team explains why the comic looks so professional.

The basic idea is that the holidays (or their personifications) are all locked in some sort of epic struggle; the comic begins with the Easter Bunny torturing Santa Claus but then slips into a high-school drama storyline that is interrupted by a giant chick pecking the lacrosse coach to death. It’s not quite as grim as that makes it sound, though; one of the fun things is that apparently all the holidays have personifications, including Administrative Assistant Day and Super Bowl Sunday. That leaves plenty of scope for King’s sense of humor to come through, and as the comic is only 36 pages long so far, this is a good time to jump aboard — it’s a quick read, and you get a nice chunk of story.

The boys of manga: We love ‘em ‘cos they’re vague

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Tom Baker — not the actor who played the fourth Doctor Who, but a writer who regularly covers manga for the Daily Yomiuri in Japan— recently had a conversation with Aya Kanno, the creator of the manga Otomen, about how to draw boys for girls’ manga. Most of the fourth volume takes place at the beach, and Kanno and her assistants spent a lot of time agonizing about whether to include nipples and sharply cut abs.

In the end, none of that stuff made it into the finished drawings; the boys are almost detail-free. To explain this, Baker recalled a conversation with Roland Kelts, author of Japanamerica:

A crucial element of [Japanese pop culture] style is minimalism, Kelts said. He described how Eiko Tanaka, founder of anime company Studio4C, made this point to him… “She very quickly drew a circle with these actually quite brilliant, exquisite points in it, in two or three strokes of the pen. And she said: ‘Look. What is that?’”

Despite its extreme simplicity, Kelts recognized the drawing as a cat. He said Tanaka then told him: “You can look at this cat, and imagine so much, see so much of the cat – your cat – because I haven’t filled everything in, because I haven’t identified the details of the cat.”

“Applying these ideas to ‘Otomen,’” Baker says, “the blank space within a character’s physical outline allows each teenage girl reader to fill in whatever boy-body details are yummiest to her.”

Obviously this isn’t unique to manga — Scott McCloud makes a similar point with regard to cartoon faces in Understanding Comics — but it’s interesting to see it being applied in a real situation. Not all shoujo manga is as simple as Otomen (which is about a very feminine boy, another reason for a lack of pecs and body hair), but the complexity is usually not so much in the drawings as the way the comic is put together. Some creators, such as Arina Tanemura, crowd the page with panels and crowd the panels with an explosion of different screentones — not just dots, but flowers and stars — but their characters usually remain straightforward. For someone accustomed to manga, Western comics that go the opposite way, with a lot of facial detail, can be quite hard to read (at least that has been my experience).

SDCC ’10 | There’s got to be a morning after

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Absolute All-Star Superman

A quick round-up of Comic-Con updates, additional announcements and interesting links:

• Warner Bros. Animation officially announced a DC Universe Original Movie based on All-Star Superman, the award-winning series by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. The direct-to-DVD animated feature, set for release in spring 2011, is written by Dwayne McDuffie, who calls the series “one of the greatest stories in comic book history.”

• ICv2.com has additional details about one of the more interesting announcements from the convention, Fantagraphics’ partnership with Disney to publish the complete Mickey Mouse comic strips by Floyd Gottfredson. The collections will be released beginning in May at a rate of two volumes a year. They will retail for $29.99.

• Tom Spurgeon rounds up the selections from the Thursday panel “The Best and Worst of Manga 2010.”

• Speaking of Spurgeon, his “Notes from the Convention Floor” posts are, as usual, well worth reading: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4.

• I enjoyed Todd VanDerWerff’s coverage of Comic-Con for The A.V. Club, including his visit to Artists’ Alley, and this broader post in which he questions whether the convention is “worth serious news coverage.”

• In the midst of Comic-Con, the Los Angeles Times rolled out a look at digital comics and their potential impact on the industry. “Comic book stores have a very close relationship with their customers,” says author and critic Douglas Wolk. “But the old-school collectors are aging, and it may be that the print comic goes away eventually. There is an entire generation of readers who is not interested in physical copies.”

• Grant Morrison chats briefly with IGN.com about his newly announced series Batman Inc.

• Is it just me, or are the round-ups of convention “winners and losers” pretty much meaningless? I’m sure Snakes on a Plane was declared a “winner” of whichever Comic-Con it was promoted — 2006, maybe? — and we all know how that played out.

SDCC ’10 | A roundup of Sunday’s news

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Comic-Con International

Announcements slowed down on Sunday at Comic-Con International, and apparently so have I. So let’s get to it …

• Marvel announced that Dan Slott will be the sole writer on Amazing Spider-Man, as the “Brand New Day” storyline comes to a close. He’ll work with artists Humberto Ramos, Marcos Martin and Stefano Caselli on the series. The book will ship twice a month.

• At that same panel, Marvel announced the creative team on the new Spider-Girl series teased in recently in Previews will be Paul Tobin and Clayton Henry. They also announced a new Carnage miniseries by Zeb Wells and Clayton Crain, as well as an Osborn miniseries by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Rios about Norman Osborn’s time in prison.

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SDCC ’10 | Marvel unveils Captain America’s shield … and the Infinity Gauntlet?

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The Infinity Gauntlet at the Marvel booth

Helmets for Thor, Loki, and Odin? Sure. Captain America’s shield (see below)? Stands to reason. After all, these are key props from Marvel’s next two potential blockbuster movies, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger. But at Marvel’s booth at the San Diego Comic-Con today, the Infinity Gauntlet was reavealed in all its giant-sized glory. And now, let the speculation commence …

(via Agent M)

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