2010 August
The gum must be made of Kryptonite
Pink Tentacle shares an awesome series of posters “that appeared in the Tokyo subways between 1976 and 1982.” They offer riders etiquette lessons and reminders, and feature a wide variety of pop culture icons — including Superman, Astro Boy, John Wayne, Santa Claus and Jesus, among others.
- August 9, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by JK Parkin
Lulu Awards to continue
Danielle Corsetto, last year's Lulu of the Year
Nominations for the Lulu Awards, which honor female creators and characters in comics, are now open. (Full disclosure right here: I was a judge for last year’s Lulu Awards.) The awards ceremony take place at Long Beach Comic Con in October, and nominations are currently open to the public.
The future of Friends of Lulu, which sponsors the awards, was looking uncertain for a while, after president Valerie D’Orazio disclosed two weeks ago that the organization had major problems, including missing financial records, and had frozen its membership. D’Orazio stated that she would take steps to dissolve FoL if no one stepped forward to help run it. People did step up, and a few days later D’Orazio announced that a new interim Board of Directors had been formed, and the organization will continue, at least for now.
More or less concurrent with this, D’Orazio sketched out the goals for a new initiative, which she has dubbed Comics Revolution 2012. The goals are pretty ambitious:
- The Return Of Comics To The Masses
- The Creation of Tomorrow’s Heroes & Icons
- Increasing Opportunities For Comic Creators
- Misogyny/Racism/Homophobia No-Tolerance Policy
- Giving Back To The World
D’Orazio has set up a website, Comics Are For Everyone, for Comics Revolution 2012, and for the moment, at least, the Friends of Lulu blog will be hosted there.
- August 9, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
One Piece, Vol. 59
Publishing | The 59th volume of Eiichiro Oda’s wildly popular pirate series One Piece will set a manga record with a 3.2-million copy first printing from Japanese publisher Shueisha. The previous record of 3.1 million copies was held by the 58th volume of the series. [Anime News Network]
Publishing | Mary Ann Gwinn spotlights the partnership between Fantagraphics Books and Rosebud Archives to publish archives of vintage comics. [The Seattle Times]
Comic strips | Craig Schulz, son of Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz, discusses the “Peanuts on Parade” public art project, David Michaelis’ controversial book Schulz & Peanuts: A Biography, and caring for his father’s legacy: “Our biggest fear has always been somebody buying up the rights and us not having any control. We’d rather have this property make $10 million a year for 50 years, than make $100 million in one year and walk away from it.” [The Press Democrat, via Journalista]
- August 9, 2010 @ 08:46 AM by Kevin Melrose
Quote of the day | Tom Brevoort vs. Robert Kirkman
Tom Brevoort
“I see Robert Kirkman has joined the Erik Larsen ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ club when it comes to the content in mainstream super hero comics. Guys, you’ve got all the freedom in the world to do whatever kinds of comics you want, and so do we. It’s unapologetically ironic that the guy publishing INVINCIBLE, probably the bloodiest, goriest super hero comics in years, is the one casting these stones. And yes, I know he tries to contextualize it, but it’s still ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ If you want those kinds of comics, MAKE THEM! I think it’s absurdly hypocritical to publish a violent book that looks like an issue of Teen Titans on the racks, then take this stance. And just to be clear: I like both Robert’s and Erik’s work. Never miss an issue of WALKING DEAD or INVINCIBLE.”
— Marvel VP-Executive Editor Tom Brevoort, responding to Robert Kirkman’s complaints about the violence in Big Two superhero comics
I have a few thoughts on this:
1) It pains the yellow journalist in me to have to include the conciliatory bit at the end there, but I’m all about ethics.
2) As I told Brevoort over Twitter, I think both the hyprocrisy angle and “If you want those kinds of comics, MAKE THEM!” is a bit unfair. Let’s say Jay-Z wants to hear a good country song every now and then — should he stop rapping? Kirkman seems much better suited to what he’s doing with Invincible and The Walking Dead than to traditional Big Two supercomics, but that doesn’t pre-invalidate his opinions on those comics, opinions that ought to be allowed to rise or fall on their own merits. Attack the idea he’s advancing, don’t go the pot/kettle route. Well, at least don’t do it over Invincible, which as a creator-owned book Kirkman made up from scratch is pretty different kettle of fish. But Marvel Zombies, on the other hand…
- August 9, 2010 @ 08:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
Troublemaker sells well, but fans are not convinced
One of the big trends of the past five years or so has been adapting prose works into graphic novels. It’s the sort of thing that seems like it can’t fail, since you pick up both graphic novel fans and the audience for the original work, but it has two major pitfalls with these books; one is publishers who rely too much on the writing and hire mediocre artists for the illustration, and the other is fans of the author who order the book online, not realizing it’s a graphic novel, and then complain about it.
Dark Horse’s Troublemaker, written by Janet and Alex Evanovich and illustrated by Joelle Jones, suffers from the latter but not the former. By all accounts, the book is doing well; it is getting good reviews, and it has been the number-one book on the New York Times graphic books best-seller list for the second week in a row. It’s not doing so well on Amazon, though, where the average customer rating is one and a half stars.
What gives? This excerpt from a one-star review, currently rated “most helpful,” pretty much sums it up:
- August 9, 2010 @ 07:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Toy company sues Stan Lee and Archie Comics over Super Seven trademark
Stan Lee's "Super Seven"
A toy manufacturer and distributor claims Stan Lee, POW! Entertainment, Archie Comics, A Squared Entertainment and others violated its trademark with the new multimedia series Super Seven — after two of the companies promised they wouldn’t.
Announced in February, Super Seven is a planned comics, animation and online property about seven aliens whose spaceship crashes on Earth, where they’re befriended by Lee and resume their lives as superheroes.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday in San Francisco federal court, Super7 says its attorney contacted A Squared Entertainment and Lee’s POW! Entertainment in March to point out its longstanding trademarks and warn them not to violate those rights. In a response received later that month, the toymaker was reportedly assured the companies “have decided to move in a different direction and are in the process of developing another mark for their products.” In another letter, in early June, Super7 was told the companies planned to trademark “Stan Lee and the Super Seven.” The toymaker’s counsel responded the name was still too similar and “would be likely to confuse consumers,” and invited the attorney for the two companies to contact Super7 “to discuss the matter further.”
The plaintiff claims it heard nothing more on the matter until last month when, during Comic-Con International in San Diego, Stan Lee and executives from Archie Comics and A Squared Entertainment announced Super Seven will launch later this year.
The lawsuit seeks compensatory damages, a judgment ordering Lee and his co-defendants to stop using Super7′s trademark, and the destruction of all prints, packaging and advertisements bearing the names “Super Seven” or “Stan Lee and the Super Seven.”
- August 9, 2010 @ 06:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
What Are You Reading?
Usagi Yojimbo: Return of the Black Soul
Welcome once again to What Are You Reading? This week our special guest is Paul Maybury, creator of the webcomic Party Bear. His work can be found in Comic Book Tattoo, various volumes of Popgun and 24seven, and, of course, the full-length graphic novel Aqua Leung. Be sure to check out the sketches he shares.
To see what Paul and the rest of the Robot 6 crew have been reading lately, click on the link …
- August 8, 2010 @ 09:47 AM by JK Parkin
Tony Scott to direct Millar and McNiven’s Nemesis adaptation
Nemesis
The news that writer Mark Millar teased earlier this week has finally, officially broke — Tony Scott, director of The Last Boy Scout, Top Gun, Man on Fire and True Romance, will direct the movie adaptation of Millar and Steve McNiven’s Nemesis, their creator-owned title published under Marvel’s Icon banner.
“As you can imagine, I’m more than excited,” Millar wrote on the Millarworld forums. “Steve is delirious and this puts our books instantly in an entirely different league in Hollywood terms. Tony said this was a very timely project and Fox want to get this moving as soon as possible. Next up is a script and the writer we talked about did one of my top five movies of all time. The actor he’s shooting for as the lead character is going to blow your socks off.”
According to Deadline Hollywood, the rights were acquired by 20th Century Fox, and the film will be produced by Scott Free Productions.
- August 7, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by JK Parkin
Chain Reactions | Fogtown
Fogtown
The slow expansion of DC’s Vertigo Crime “sub-imprint” continued this week with the release of Fogtown, an original graphic novel by writer Andersen Gabrych (Batman, Detective Comics) and artist Brad Rader (Catwoman, True Adult Fantasy).
While Fogtown contains many of the classic noir elements, like femmes fatales, seedy locations and sordid crimes, it breaks out of the mold in at least one notable respect: Frank Grissel, the hard-knuckled private eye, is a closeted homosexual living in 1953 San Francisco.
Here’s a sampling of what people are saying about the graphic novel:
Glen Weldon, NPR.org: “The story of Frank Grissel, a private detective in 1950s San Francisco who (sing along, you know the words) finds himself drawn into a web of deceit, Fogtown is pulpy, lurid, gleefully trashy, occasionally contemptible, frequently ridiculous, crammed to the gills with noir cliches — and kinda great. It’s kinda great because Grissel is hiding a big, fat Capital-S Secret, and it’s one that doesn’t turn up in this kind of story with anywhere near the frequency it could. Seeing its repercussions play out amid all the classic private-dick tropes — femmes fatales, gruesome murders, hero-set-up-to-take-the-fall, etc. — is a lot of fun. And because Gabrych and Rader hit those tropes hard, for all they are worth, Fogtown never feels like a mere pastiche. Or, Hammett help us, as a parody.”
- August 7, 2010 @ 08:02 AM by Kevin Melrose
Who shall rise in November? (Probably Thunderstrike)
Marvel.com has posted a teaser on their site for something kicking off in November. The headline reads “The World Still Needs Heroes,” with the tag “One shall rise in November.” Based on the artwork and the fact that word leaked out already that Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz are working on a Thunderstrike comic, it’s probably a safe bet that’s what it is for.
I wonder if the silhouette in the image means that Kevin, son of the original Thunderstrike, is picking up his dad’s mantle (like he did in the MC2/Spider-Girl comics).
- August 6, 2010 @ 02:48 PM by JK Parkin
Vertigo disappears from DC app—unless you’re a grownup (Updated)
Comixology's DC application
Valerie D’Orazio noticed that all DC’s Vertigo titles had disappeared from the DC iPad app, which is powered by comiXology, although they remain available on comiXology’s non-publisher-specific comiXology app. We wondered if this had something to do with the fact that the DC app is rated 12+ while the Comics app is 17+, and a quick e-mail to comiXology CEO David Steinberger confirmed that hunch:
Yes, the DC app is a 12+ age-rated app, while Comics by comiXology is a 17+ app. Vertigo title[s] purchased on our app or at comics.comixology.com will appear in the DC app, as long as you’re logged in as the same comiXology user.
The Comics app is free, so as long as you’re over 17, you can buy titles like The Losers, Fables and Sandman from the Comics app and read it in your DC app—a bit cumbersome, perhaps, but it works.
UPDATE: I e-mailed David some follow-up questions; here are his answers:
Brigid: So the key is really that if you have a comiXology account, your identity is constant across all the different apps?
David: Yes, every app (and the website comics.comixology.com), with the current exception of the Marvel app, is part of the comiXology platform, so if you buy DC on the DC app, you can view it on the Comics by comiXology app, or on comics.comixology.com, and vice versa. The same with BOOM!.
I feel like this hasn’t gotten enough attention. We were the first to have digital comics available both on the iOS and on the web, so you don’t even need an iPhone or iPad to buy and read digital comics, but if you do, you can buy and read on any of these devices and the web.
Brigid: Are you restructuring it so that all the apps appear to be 12+ unless you are logged in as an older user? Someone just said to me that the Boom app went from 17+ to 12+.
David: Nope, we just made the argument that the BOOM! content was 12+ and was mis-categorized as a 17+ app. Apple apparently agreed, and on the latest update let us move it to 12+.
We don’t currently have parental controls built into the app, so whole apps have to be either 12+ or 17+ (or 9+ or all ages).
- August 6, 2010 @ 01:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
Interview: Kurt Hassler on Yen Plus online, and more!
![8.2010_Cover[1]](http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/8.2010_Cover1.jpg "8.2010_Cover[1]")
Yen Press editorial director Kurt Hassler unveiled the online version of Yen Plus magazine at Comic-Con last month, and it has given people plenty of fodder for discussion. The magazine is available in all regions (unlike other online manga sites, which are often limited to North America), and it will cost $2.99 per month, although Yen is offering a free online trial through September 9. What’s up at the moment is a mixed bag of old and new, Korean and original English-language manga—but no Japanese titles, although Hassler has hinted broadly that the all-ages favorite Yotsuba&! will be included in the mix in future.
Coincidentally (or perhaps not), the Japanese series Black Butler, Nabari no Ou, and Pandora Hearts, which had been serialized in the print edition of Yen Plus, are now up on a new online manga site from Square Enix, the Japanese publisher of those series. That site is also in a free-sample mode right now, with an online store projected to open in the fall. Hassler would not comment on the relationship between the two, but the Square Enix site is currently hosting the Yen Press editions of these manga.
I spoke to Kurt about the new Yen Plus, the recent removal of all the online manga from OneManga.com, and Yen’s new line of children’s books.
Brigid Alverson: How will the paid version of Yen Plus differ from the free version we have been reading?
Kurt Hassler: It’s really not going to be different. The experience you have now will be pretty much the same. The only different element will be the PayPal component for getting your subscription.
Brigid: What about the Japanese content?
Kurt: That is something we are working on. We have the first title, but finalizing the contract is always getting down to the wire. It is not going to be a ton of material initially; you are going to see material being added gradually over time as licensors get comfortable with digital distribution.
- August 6, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
Making the world safe for Yahoo!’s mobile applications
Neal Shaffer and Daniel Krall, creators of the Oni Press title One Plus One some years back, recently did some advertising work for Yahoo!’s various mobile applications. The duo created a comic book (which can be read online here) that appears in the latest issue of Wired Magazine and on the Wired website.
“This was an awesome project to work on,” Shaffer said on his blog. “The assignment went like this: come up with a modern superhero story that integrates Yahoo!’s products in a fun, interesting way. We had three pages to work with — one splash page for the front and two panel-based pages from there.”
- August 6, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by JK Parkin
Quote of the day | Robert Kirkman, on darker elements in superhero comics
Robert Kirkman (by Megan Mack/GQ)
“When I was reading comics when I was 15, Superman didn’t deal with rape so much, you know? There weren’t a lot of dark elements to mainstream superhero comics. I think that it’s pretty obvious that one of the things that’s hurting comics is that the subject matter is so inappropriate for a mass audience. You know, Marvel just did an intercompany crossover which was supposed to be something all of their readers can read, and it had guys ripping each other in half and intestines were flying all over the place. That’s the kind of thing that you would see in a Walking Dead comic. I don’t want to see Spider-Man swinging around, tripping in intestines going, ‘Aw, crap! What a mess!’ That’s not the kind of thing that’s going to get Billy down the street off of his Xbox. I think part of the problem is that the writers and artists that are doing these books want to write them for themselves, instead of for the audience they should be writing to. And I think that’s a real problem. [...] I think it’s cool to see superheroes rip people in half. Because if superheroes really had superpowers, that’s the kind of shit that would happen, just on accident, you know? And so I created a book called Invincible that isn’t meant for a younger audience, and has superheroes ripping each other in half. But I didn’t try to take Superman and turn it into that book. I did my own book. I think that’s the key.”
– writer Robert Kirkman, on the gradual darkening of mainstream superhero comics
- August 6, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
‘Hardcore violent’ Suicide Squad game may involve John Ostrander
Suicide Squad #1
Veteran writer John Ostrander may have a hand in the “hardcore violent” Suicide Squad video game announced two weeks ago at Comic-Con International.
In an interview with CBR TV posted this morning, DC Entertainment Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns revealed he has already spoken with Ostrander, who in 1987 resurrected the nearly three-decades-old property and wrote, or co-wrote, the series for its 66-issue run.
Ostrander’s update recast the Suicide Squad as supervillains employed by the U.S. government to perform missions that were considered suicide runs. That series, as well as the short-lived 2001 relaunch, featured such characters as Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, Bronze Tiger, Enchantress, Captain Cold and Amanda Waller.
“Suicide Squad is an awesome title,” Johns told CBR TV. “Even if you’ve never heard of Suicide Squad, that’s a cool video-game name. [...] It’s going to take years to make, but I’m psyched because everyone’s committed to it, and it’s going to be, you know — not to get into too much detail, but obviously, Deadshot and all of those guys … I think it could be a fantastic game. I think it’s a fantastic group of characters that have never done much outside of the comics.”
The Suicide Squad game is part of a push to get more DC characters in titles from the rapidly expanding Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment division. (In March Warner Bros. announced a new Montreal studio that will focus largely on developing games based on the company’s comics properties.)
“Jim Lee and I were talking a lot about video games,” Johns said, “and one of the things we want to do is not just do Batman, not just do Superman. We want to do all sorts of characters that would be great in any medium.”
You can watch the entire video after the break.
- August 6, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by Kevin Melrose