2010 October
Comics College | Kevin Huizenga
cover to Ganges #3
Comics College is a monthly feature where we provide an introductory guide to some of the comics medium’s most important auteurs and offer our best educated suggestions on how to become familiar with their body of work.
This month we’re looking at the career of a relative newcomer to the comics industry, Mr. Kevin Huizenga.
- October 22, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Inside the minds of Daniel Clowes and Johnny Ryan
Over on the CBR mothership, two potential “book of the year” candidates are talking about what makes them tick. First up is Daniel Clowes, author of Wilson. In a report on Clowes’s Dan Nadel-hosted spotlight panel at APE, CBR’s Karl Kelly reveals that Clowes thinks none too highly of the readability of classic comics even by artists he admires:
“I realized at a certain point that the thing that keeps me drawing comics and the thing that has always moved me along is that comics history is really disappointing,” Clowes responded. “It’s not the same as the history of novels, history of art, history of movies, the body of work is pretty spotty. The things we imagined don’t really exist. We imagine that Alex Toth did really amazing comics in the 50s that really worked, that were like Howard Hawk’s movies, but he didn’t do that. He never made a comic you could read. It’s terrible, and I say that thinking that he was one of the greatest geniuses of the 20th Century.”
- October 22, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
How he did it: Scott Chantler draws a magazine cover
Scott Chantler is featured in the latest issue of Quill & Quire magazine, and he also drew this month’s cover image. At his blog, he takes us step by step through the process of drawing and coloring the cover, including accommodating the art director’s requests; it’s interesting to watch the image change from one stage to the next, and to contrast the original sketch with the final product.
- October 22, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
The Walking Dead #77
Publishing | Image Comics Publisher Eric Stephenson talks at length about market share, the economics of creator-owned comics, fallout from the prolonged legal battle between Todd McFarlane and Neil Gaiman, and retailer concerns about simultaneous print and digital release of The Walking Dead: “… I was honestly a little thrown by the sheer amount of invective generated by the day-and-date release of a single Image digital title, sold at exactly the same price point as the print version of the book. Nobody was undercut, nobody had an unfair advantage, and I don’t see how it’s any different from offering the book for sale through any other storefront. Virtually every comic is available digitally on the same day it’s released to comic book shops — for free — and that has been the case for several years at this point. Publishers have slowly begun to establish a foothold in digital publishing, but I would be willing to bet more people downloaded The Walking Dead #77 for free than paid for it through our app. In fact, I’ll even go one better and speculate that more people downloaded The Walking Dead #77 illegally than bought the print comic. And you know what? The book’s sold out — we have more reorders than we can fill and we both know those reorders wouldn’t be coming in if retailers weren’t selling out of the books.” [Bleeding Cool]
- October 22, 2010 @ 07:54 AM by Kevin Melrose
Grumpy Old Fan | Notice I am not making a Spinal Tap reference: DC Comics Solicitations for (January) ‘11
Weird Worlds vol. 2 #1
Good grief, it’s not even Halloween and I have to think about the first DC comics of 2011? Even trying to pronounce that number makes my tongue stumble — I keep wanting to say “twenty-eleven” and it sounds like something made-up. Worse, I keep wanting to say twenty-leven, like a common hillbilly.
Nevertheless, I do like DC’s cover gimmick for January Two Thousand Eleven. The white backgrounds and big logos remind me of Superman #701′s minimalist cover, and that isn’t a bad thing. The cumulative effect of the style’s uniformity is also more effective than the last time DC emphasized the logos, back in (cover-date) February 2002. The light, open design is also a lot more cheery than January 2009′s black-background “Faces Of Evil.”
Still, we’re more interested in what’s between the covers, are we not?
JUST A TASTE
Right off I am pretty impressed with the selection of one-shots at the top of the solicits. The Starman/Congorilla special sounds very fun, especially with Rex the Wonder Dog involved. I’m curious to see what the Shazam! special does with Billy and Mary Batson, and I’m always glad for new John Henry Irons stories. The Wonder Girl special doesn’t interest me that much, but it doesn’t seem entirely about her anyway. Although most of these specials appear to tie into regular books (Justice League, Titans, and Teen Titans), they sound good enough on their own merits.
- October 21, 2010 @ 03:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
The Best I Yam: Ben Towle’s X-Men/E.C. Segar mash-up
by Ben Towle
Creator Ben Towle channeled Popeye creator E.C. Segar to draw the Uncanny X-Men. “I used E.C. Segar’s Thimble Theater characters as my models here,” he said, noting he used the X-Men crew that were active in the X-Men/Teen Titans crossover from the 1980s.
- October 21, 2010 @ 02:00 PM by JK Parkin
So what happened to Marvel’s new-title price cuts, anyway?
"Do you think this 'A' on my head stands for 'AVAILABLE FOR $2.99'?!?"
Kudos to our eagle-eyed Robot 6 and Spinoff compadre Graeme McMillan for spotting something interesting, and perhaps a bit frustrating, in Marvel’s January solicitations. On his Twitter, Graeme noted (edited slightly for clarity): “Number of new 32-page Marvel books @ $2.99 in new solicits: three. Number of new 32-page Marvel books @ $3.99 in new solicits: seven. What happened to price cuts?”
You no doubt recall that less than an hour after DC announced price cuts for its ongoing series during New York Comic Con — with a detailed list of the titles involved, along with page-count decreases and the cessation of back-up features — Marvel Senior Vice President-Sales & Circulation David Gabriel announced price cuts for Marvel, too, stating that new books launching in January 2011 will not debut at $3.99. Though details about the plan were scarce, here at Robot 6 we rounded up Marvel’s reaction to the price cuts at both publishers, from Senior Vice President C.B. Cebulski’s mild busting of DC’s chops for dropping page counts along with prices and, thus, reducing creator income, to sales communications manager Arune Singh’s statement that many titles debuting from Marvel in 2011 will ship at $2.99.
- October 21, 2010 @ 01:30 PM by Sean T. Collins
Help catch the jerk who stole two $125 comics
Pigeon Press wuz robbed! Publisher Alvin Buenaventura reports that his new publishing venture had two copies of the legendary, gigantic, expensive hardcover anthology Kramers Ergot 7 stolen from its table at APE this past Sunday morning. Buenaventura, who’s had a rough enough year as it is, is looking for help from any APE exhibitors and attendees who may have witnessed the thieves in action. With a book that size, they’d be hard to miss.
If you were at APE and you saw something, say something! Not only will you help catch a thief and (hopefully) facilitate the return of some very expensive merchandise, you’ll also help solve the mystery of how anyone could waltz away with two copies of a book roughly the size of a Great Dane.
- October 21, 2010 @ 01:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
These are their stories: SVU star creates comic
Christopher Meloni meets a fan at NYCC
Add Law & Order: SVU star Christopher Meloni to the list of celebrities who are turning to comics for their next big project: Meloni took a break from playing the buttoned-down Detective Stabler on the show to come up with the concept for AvaTom, a dark story about a software developer who creates a software system that turns around and takes control of its creator’s life, for Ape Entertainment. Jason Burns will script the comic, and Ramon Espinoza is the artist, but Burns insists Meloni was involved in the comic every step of the way.
Last year, Meloni was the voice of Hal Jordan in the Green Lantern: First Flight DVD series, so his comics credentials are in good order.
The poster for AvaTom, which definitely plays up Meloni’s role, is below the cut.
- October 21, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
BOOM! catches Bieber fever
BOOM! Studios’ marketing team, Chip Mosher and Ivan Salazar, visited several Los Angeles comic shops yesterday, supposedly to see how their newest comic, Stan Lee’s Soldier Zero, was doing at retail. I say “supposedly” because it looks like Mosher was really on a mission to find a copy of a certain Justin Bieber comic book that also hit shelves yesterday.
To see more of their L.A. comic shop tour, check out their YouTube channel.
- October 21, 2010 @ 11:30 AM by JK Parkin
Who benefits from Cathy’s retirement?
Dustin, the strip that most likely replaced Cathy in your paper
When Cathy Guisewite packed up her pencils and put the long-running strip Cathy out to pasture, something had to replace it. But what? Love it or hate it, Cathy was unique, so there was no obvious successor. At The Daily Cartoonist, Alan Gardner crunches the numbers and checks the press releases, and he figures the three strips that got the biggest boost from the empty slot were Dustin, by Steve Kelly and Jeff Parker; Stone Soup, by Jan Eliot; and Pickles, by Brian Crane
Gardner points out the obvious, that editors did not feel constrained to replace Cathy with a strip with a strong female lead (although Stone Soup more than fills the bill here, with not one but five smart, funny female characters). Dustin is about a twentysomething guy who live at home with mom and dad, while Pickles mines its humor from the daily doings of a couple who have been married for 50 years.
Here’s something that’s a little more consistent, though: The new strips that were launched this year seem to be doing very well, with five of the seven in the best-seller list. Gardner’s conclusion: Launch your strip the same year a well known creator is retiring.
- October 21, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Quote of the day | Grant Morrison on diversifying the DCU
Grant Morrison
“I’ve always wanted to diversify the DCU, but usually when I do it, James Robinson comes along and kills them all. [Laughs] But certainly we try. To me, I look out the window and see all kinds of people walking down the street, and I want to see that reflected in the superhero community. I’m sure a lot of readers would like to see themselves represented as well. It’s always been a focus of mine to widen the scope of DC’s characters internationally and ethnically.”
– Grant Morrison, on Batman and diversity, in a conversation with CBR’s Kiel Phegley. Thank goodness this topic isn’t very controversial, or else this could cause a stir!
Meanwhile, you’ve already made CBR’s Bat Signal column regular reading, right?
- October 21, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
Unpublished Alan Moore story released to web
Alan Moore
Alan Moore wrote Fossil Angels a few years back, and it was slated to run in issue #15 of the British occult magazine Kaos, but it never did: The magazine was sporadic at best, and issue #14, which also contains some Alan Moore writing and is available for free download here, was the last.
Moore recently gave Pádraig Ó Méalóid permission to publish Fossil Angels on his LiveJournal, Glycon. He explains:
I was lucky enough to be given a number of Alan Moore’s scripts by Alan himself a few years ago, and this was amongst them. I asked if I could publish it and, when another publication which it was slated to appear in folded, Alan told me I was free to go ahead. So, I am very proud to be allowed to present this piece on Glycon for its first publication anywhere.
Via the Forbidden Planet blog.
- October 21, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Kai Yorihito Kaiyori Shiki, Vol. 2
Publishing | Japanese magazine publisher Enterbrain has pulled both volumes of Kazuaki’s manga Kai Yorihito Kaiyori Shiki because of the unauthorized use of licensed photographs. The editors and the creator have apologized to readers and the copyright holders. [Anime News Network]
Retailing | Erik Henriksen surveys Portland, Oregon-area retailers about the potential effects of digital comics on the direct market. “Digital has blown up at a time when print sales are falling due to high prices combined with an over-saturated market,” says Adam Healy of Cosmic Monkey Comics. “Digital comics are one of the few ways to bring in new readers and perhaps lure back old readers. The vast majority of the public is barely aware comics are still being made, and fewer still are willing to make a special trip to a comic book store to figure out what’s going on in the comic world. Digital sales potential is in the millions, whereas print comics sales’ ceiling currently is around 100,000. Digital is not a threat to print sales, mostly because they are so low already.” [The Portland Mercury]
- October 21, 2010 @ 08:17 AM by Kevin Melrose
Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs | What Looks Good for December
Sherlock Holmes: The Painful Predicament of Alice Faulkner
Time for another trip through Previews to look for cool, new adventure comics.
Alterna
Sherlock Holmes: The Painful Predicament of Alice Faulkner – There’s a surprising amount of Sherlock Holmes stuff coming out this month, not that I’m complaining. In this book, Bret M Herholz adapts William Gillette’s 1899 play, Sherlock Holmes, or The Strange Case of Miss Faulkner.
Archaia
The Killer, Volume 3: Modus Vivendi – The next volume in Matz and Luc Jacamon’s beautiful and thrilling series about an international assassin.
Aspen
Lady Mechanika #1 – It’s with considerable discomfort that I’m interested in one of Aspen’s books. The company doesn’t have a great reputation for getting issues out on time or even always completing them for that matter. But I could really go for a cool, Steampunk adventure about a cybernetic detective.
Everything else, after the break.
Continue Reading »
- October 20, 2010 @ 04:00 PM by Michael May