2010 November
Send Us Your Shelf Porn!
Welcome once again to Shelf Porn! This week’s shelves were submitted by David Doub, publisher of Dusk Comics, who shares his collection of manga, graphic novels and more.
If you’d like to contribute to Shelf Porn, it’s easy — just send your photos and write-up to jkparkin@yahoo.com. We received a few submissions after our plea last week, but we could still use more.
And now let’s hear from David …
- November 17, 2010 @ 02:00 PM by JK Parkin
Clowes’ Death Ray makes a cameo on Paul movie poster
Paul
The movie Paul stars Shawn of the Dead alumni Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as two British comic fans who run into a real-life alien on the way to Comic Con (Jonah Weiland spoke with them about Paul on the CBR boat during the real San Diego Comic Con this past summer).
The movie poster for the UK was recently released, and it features the two stars and their alien friend … with Pegg sporting an Eightball shirt with Daniel Clowes’ popular Death Ray character. Unfortunately, according to Fantagraphics, the shirt isn’t available to purchase, but maybe if the movie is a hit or when the Death Ray project Clowes hinted at during his APE panel comes out, we’ll see them on the rack.
- November 17, 2010 @ 01:00 PM by JK Parkin
Spacenite 2 to celebrate ROM, raise money for Bill Mantlo
Rom & Friends by Ben Marra
Floating World Comics in Portland, Ore. is hosting another art tribute/fundraiser for comics writer Bill Mantlo, who was paralyzed after a hit-and-run accident in 1992. The event, a “sequel” to the event they held in 2007, includes an art show that features various creators drawing ROM, Spaceknight, which Mantlo wrote back in the 1980s.
Participating creators this time around include Mike Allred, Jeffrey Brown, Michael DeForge, Tan Eng Huat, Ben Marra (above), Luke Ramsey, Jon Schnepp and Matt Timson, among many others. You can check out some of the artwork over on the event’s blog. They’ll be selling digital prints of each piece at the show on Dec. 2, with plans to auction off the originals on eBay afterward. You can find more information on the Floating Worlds site.
- November 17, 2010 @ 12:30 PM by JK Parkin
What makes a kid-friendly comics shop?
Spider-Man #8, one of the featured comics at kidscomics.com
Kids’ comics are big business these days, and Diamond is doing their best to help get the young folks back into the funnybook habit; back in March they launched a new website, kidscomics.com, which is sort of a Previews for all-ages comics, with catalog descriptions, lists of new and upcoming releases, and even a modified Previews order form with just kids’ comics on it.
The side also includes a “kid-friendly comic shop” locator. At the Joe Shuster Awards blog, Joe Haines takes a look at Diamond’s criteria for making that list. Originally, the requirement was to order $200 worth of kid-friendly comics a month for three months. (Diamond labels comics as “kid-friendly” in Previews, so there’s no ambiguity there.) As Haines points out, you can earn that “kid-friendly” label just by ordering the full line of Boom! Kids comics each month, with no risk (because adults will buy them too) and no need to go any further afield. He also notes that Diamond lists Marvel Master Works and Marvel Omnibus books as kid-friendly, which in fact they are (they are reprints of older comics) but the cover price of $50 to $100 is outside the range of most allowances. Diamond recently tweaked the criteria, which Haines thinks is a good thing, as it encourages retailers to diversify a bit, but it’s still way easy to qualify without trying too hard.
- November 17, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
Incognito and The Walking Dead among Angoulême official selections
Incognito
Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ Incognito, Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard’s The Walking Dead, and Darwyn Cooke’s adaptation of Parker: The Hunter are among the official selections for the 2011 Angoulême International Comics Festival.
The winners of the festival’s prestigious awards are selected from this pool of 58 titles. Rich Johnston notes that the inclusion of Incognito marks the first time a comic published by Marvel has been named as an official selection (Incognito is a creator-owned series released through Marvel’s Icon imprint).
Other selections familiar to U.S. audiences include Charles Burns’ X’ed Out, Daniel Clowes’ Wilson, Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou’s Logicomix, David Mazzuchell’s Asterios Polyp, Joe Sacco’s Gaza 1956, Dash Shaw’s BodyWorld, James Sturm’s Market Day, and Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto. The full list of titles can be found here.
The prizes will be announced during the 2011 festival, held Jan. 28-31 in Angoulême, France.
- November 17, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Safety inspectors to examine more Spider-Man flying sequences
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark (by Annie Leibovitz)
State safety inspectors return today to New York City’s Foxwoods Theatre to continue an assessment of the complicated flying sequences for Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the $60-million musical that’s been plagued by setbacks.
According to The New York Times, inspectors were shown just 13 of the show’s 27 aerial sequences during their visit two weeks ago, leading to another delay that moves previews from Nov. 14 to Nov. 28 and the opening from Dec. 21 to Jan. 11. Inspectors must sign off on all of the sequences before they can be used in public performances.
The Julie Taymor-directed musical will be the most expensive in Broadway history — it will cost about $1 million a week to produce — and the most technically complex, with aerial maneuvers that send actors out above the audience and catapult them across the stage. Two actors have been injured during rehearsals of the flying techniques, triggering separate investigations by the New York State Department of Labor and Actors’ Equity.
As we reported on Tuesday, the role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man is so physically demanding that producers are considering a second cast member to fill in for star Reeve Carney for as many as two performances a week.
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, which features a score by Bono and the Edge, also stars Jennifer Damiano as Mary Jane Watson and Patrick Page as Green Goblin.
- November 17, 2010 @ 10:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Negima creator to launch free manga site
Ken Akamatsu, the creator of the manga Love Hina and Negima, is launching a new site that will post out-of-print manga, for free, as simple PDFs, with no DRM (copy protection). The difference between this and a scan site like, say Onemanga.com, is that the manga will be posted with the creators’ permission and everyone will get a cut of the advertising revenues from the site. (Oh, and the site is in Japanese, but it’s a model that could work in the U.S. as well.)
If this doesn’t immediately seem like a good idea, take a look at the comment thread on our post on the shutdown of the pirate site HTMLcomics: Many of the people who were using it were reading out-of-print comics that weren’t available anywhere else. While one portion of the comics audience lives for each Wednesday’s new releases, there are plenty of people who are quite happy, even eager, to read older comics. On the other hand, people generally aren’t willing to pay a lot for them, unless they are rare. Akamatsu’s site will bring people over from the pirate sites and generate a trickle of income from works that otherwise wouldn’t be bringing in one thin dime.
There is a placeholder here, but no site yet. The beta version will go live on November 26, and Akamatsu plans to start with a big splash by posting all 14 volumes of Love Hina. That should get him some eyeballs. Once they tally the clicks, the final version of the site will launch in January.
- November 17, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Quote of the day | Joe Quesada, on the end of Thor: The Mighty Avenger
Thor: The Mighty Avenger #4
“Sorry about the TMA cancellation, folks. For the record, I don’t make those decisions. That said, it’s a great [comic] and may be back again someday.”
– Joe Quesada, editor-in-chief and chief creative officer of Marvel,
on the cancellation of the critically acclaimed, yet low-selling, Thor: The Mighty Avenger
- November 17, 2010 @ 05:01 AM by Kevin Melrose
Food or Comics? | This week’s comics on a budget
Batman Incorporated #1
Welcome to another installment of “Food or Comics?” Every week we set certain hypothetical spending limits on ourselves and go through the agony of trying to determine what comes home and what stays on the shelves. So join us as we run down what comics we’d buy if they only had $15 and $30 to spend, as well as what we’d get if we had some “mad money” to splurge with.
Check out Diamond’s full release list if you’d like to play along in our comments section.
Graeme McMillan
If I had $15, at least $9 of it – okay, $8.98 – would be already spoken for. The first issue of Batman Incorporated ($3.99) and one-shot lead-in Batman: The Return #1 ($4.99) offer up the first glimpses of what Grant Morrison has in mind for his new Batus-quo and, after the way he brought the RIP/Return of Bruce Wayne storyline to a close, I’m pretty much on board no matter what. The remaining money…? It’s a tough one, but I’m going to go for Spider-Girl #1 ($3.99), pretty much because I like Paul Tobin’s writing, I like the Twitter gimmick (Somewhere, Joe Casey’s going “I did it first in Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance!” and I know, Joe), and, most importantly, the Spider-Girl short was my favorite part of last week’s Amazing Spider-Man relaunch issue. Who could’ve seen that coming?
- November 16, 2010 @ 04:00 PM by JK Parkin
The Middle Ground #29 | Dear sir or madam, would you read my book?
If there’s one job in comics that I’m not sure that I’d want, it’d be the guy who has to tell everyone that J. Michael Straczynski isn’t writing the Superman or Wonder Woman series anymore (sorry, Alex). But if there’s another job, it’s PR person for an indie publisher.
See, Marvel and DC have it (relatively) easy when it comes to PR, at least when it comes to the comics internet: Sites like Newsarama, Comics Alliance or this very place are pretty much primed for almost any piece of (real) news that either publisher puts out, because news from either publisher – or, to a lesser extent, Image – is big news, both in terms of the fact that the companies are so big in the industry that they can set the news agenda if they try hard enough, and in terms of the fact that stories about Marvel and DC are what the majority of visitors to those sites want to read, and every website wants the hits, so they’ll go where the virtual money is. But for indie publishers, that’s not only not the case, but any and all press that gets released will have to fight for attention (and, let’s face it, normally lose) against the Marvel/DC PR for the day.
- November 16, 2010 @ 03:00 PM by Graeme McMillan
“Two roads diverged…”: Conor Stechschulte’s creepy Two Broken Branches
Now here’s a novel idea for a horror comic. In Closed Caption Comics collective member Conor Stechschulte’s webcomic Two Broken Branches, a guy and a girl strolling through the dark woods one night have a choice to make: Stay on the road and plow on to their destination even though it might take them all night, or see if they can find some warmth and companionship at a nearby campfire even though it’ll take them off course. Stechschulte’s solution? Show the stories that emerge from both possible decisions, right next to each other — sticking to the road on the left-hand side, investigating the fire on the right-hand side. Suffice it to say that the tales diverge wildly and neither ends pleasantly, although you’ll have to read them to find out for whom. And both are drawn in Stechschulte’s sinister, shadowy, scratchy style. Check it out.
(via Noel Freibert)
- November 16, 2010 @ 02:15 PM by Sean T. Collins
Thor: The Mighty Avenger to end in January
Thor: The Mighty Avenger #8
As eagle-eyed readers already may have realized by its absence from Marvel’s February solicitations, the publisher has canceled Thor: The Mighty Avenger with January’s Issue 8. A Marvel spokesman confirmed the cancellation, saying it will be “a satisfying end for fans.”
Created by Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee, the critically acclaimed all-ages series was announced during April’s Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo as a timeless, accessible take on the classic character. The comic began with Thor’s reappearance on Earth after a thousand-year absence, enabling the creators to chronicle the thunder god’s first meetings with friends and foes ranging from Jane Foster and Captain Britain to Hank Pym and Mr. Hyde.
The first two issues were released in July, selling about 20,000 and 14,000 copies, respectively — certainly not great numbers, but not out of step with other all-ages titles at either Marvel or DC Comics. Unfortunately, sales continued to slip even as the publisher expanded its Thor books in the lead-up to the Kenneth Branaugh-directed movie, which opens in May 2011. By October’s Issue 5, Thor: The Mighty Avenger had dipped below 10,000 copies.
Issue 6, which features Fin Fang Foom, is set for release next week.
- November 16, 2010 @ 01:45 PM by Kevin Melrose
Linebacker Lance Briggs hosts comic book drive in Chicago
If you’re in the Chicago area, Lance Briggs wants your old comics.
The Chicago Bears linebacker and comics fan is working with Chicago-based comic retailer Comic Vault to collect comic book donations for the needy and members of the Armed Forces. The drive ends Dec. 11, when Briggs will make an appearance at the shop.
The comics will be donated to the Chicago Housing Authority and to the Armed Forces. You can find more details here.
- November 16, 2010 @ 01:00 PM by JK Parkin
The Spider-Man musical’s very own clone saga?
Matthew James Thomas
Producers of the frequently delayed Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark plan to select a second actor to play Peter Parker because of the physical demands of the role.
The New York Times reports that cast member Matthew James Thomas, best known for the British musical drama Britannia High, is being considered to fill in for star Reeve Carney for as many as two performances a week after the show opens in January.
The $60-million production isn’t just the most expensive show in Broadway history, but also the most technically complex, with two dozen aerial maneuvers that send actors out above the audience and catapult them across the stage. Two performers, at least one of whom doubles as Spider-Man, have been injured during rehearsals, triggering separate investigations by the New York State Department of Labor and Actors’ Equity.
Producers earlier this month were unable to demonstrate all of the flying stunts during a routine safety inspection, forcing another delay that moves previews from Nov. 14 to Nov. 28 and the opening from Dec. 21 to Jan. 11.
Directed by Julie Taymor and featuring a score by Bono and the Edge, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark also stars Jennifer Damiano as Mary Jane Watson and Patrick Page as Green Goblin.
- November 16, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
If there were a comics version of the Netflix Watch Instantly queue, what would you put on it?
Today Pop Candy’s Whitney Matheson did something that some consider too revealing even in this socially networked, airport x-ray’d age: She posted 20 movies from her Netflix “Watch Instantly” queue. Like anyone else’s, it’s a motley crew of movies made possible by a massive library of films and the power to watch any of them at any time with a few clicks of a mouse — a blend of “comfort food” you want access to at all times, unwatched stuff you’re dying to see at the next available opportunity, major investments of time or energy you haven’t been prepared to make just yet, “eat your vegetables” fare you know you ought to watch eventually, and goofy guilty pleasures you’re simply tickled to be able to watch whenever you feel like it.
This got me thinking. I know there are any number of logistical and financial reasons why such a thing doesn’t exist for comics. But we comics readers are an imaginative bunch, no? And today I choose to imagine a world where I can load up pretty much any book I can think of and read to my heart’s content. So here’s what my imaginary “Read Instantly” queue would look like, circa today. Check it out, then let us know what’s on your queue in the comments!
- November 16, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Sean T. Collins