2010 December
Check out Kill Shakespeare for free through iTunes
Kill Shakespeare, Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery’s mashup of all Shakespeare’s characters into one huge bad-guys-versus-good-guys story, has done very well, so well that the first two issues have sold out. What’s that? You didn’t get to see them? Well, if you have an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch, you’re in luck: Publisher IDW is offering the first two issues for free through the iTunes store. (This actually started a while ago, but some of the downloads didn’t work—now they do.)
You can pick them up through the Comics+ or IDW apps, both of which are free and really should be on your iThing anyway. And if you like what you see, check out the subsequent issues for 99 cents each—Issue #7 just went up this week.
Here’s a bit of background on Del Col and McCreery from their college newspaper.
- December 16, 2010 @ 09:30 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | Spider-Man musical delayed again? Tokyo manga restrictions
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark
Broadway | The planned Jan. 11 opening for the $65-million musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark likely will be pushed back again, Kim Masters reports. Yet despite technical problems, actor injuries and repeated delays, preview performances are selling at an impressive 98.2 percent capacity. [The Hollywood Reporter]
Legal | Roland Kelts provides commentary on the passage by the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly of controversial legislation to further restrict sexual content in manga and anime: “Now we have Version 2 of the non-existent youth bill, with its opaque language promising to monitor depictions of fictional characters government officials decide are too young to be engaging in the fictional activities government officials decide are too harmful to real youth that government officials decide are too youthful to view or read about them. Meanwhile, it remains legal in Japan to possess child pornography, live-action or illustrated, rendering most attempts at enforcement toothless.” Meanwhile, Japan Real Time, the Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal report on the new ordinance and the surrounding controversy. [TCJ.com]
- December 16, 2010 @ 08:43 AM by Kevin Melrose
Marvel officially announces CrossGen imprint, first titles
Ruse #1
After months of teases, Marvel has officially announced a new imprint, CrossGen, as well as the first two titles and their creative teams.
Ruse #1 by Mark Waid and Mirco Pierfederici, with a cover by Butch Guice and Mike Perkins, debuts in March. Waid and Guice worked on Ruse back when it was published by the original CrossGen circa 2001. Joining Ruse is Sigil, written by Mike Carey and drawn by Leonard Kirk. Both are four-issue miniseries.
“SIGIL is epic fantasy on a colossal scale, ultimately spanning the whole of human history,” Carey told Marvel.com. “It tells the story of a young girl who has inherited a unique talent and destiny from her dead mother and has also been enlisted without her knowledge or understanding in a war that spans all of space and time. The amazing Leonard Kirk is our [artist], so when I throw around all these adjectives about huge scope and epic scale, you know I’m not kidding.”
“Simon [may be] the world’s greatest detective, but he’s overlooking a mystery that’s right under his nose: the secret that Emma is keeping would floor him,” Waid told the site. “Together, they solve impossible crimes in a series that’s a little Fantastic Four, a little Sherlock Holmes, and a lot of mystery. This may be the most fun I’ve ever had writing.”
Founded in 1998 by Florida entrepreneur Mark Alessi, CrossGen featured a line of titles in a variety of genres with a shared universe, or “Sigilverse,” with characters broadly linked by the Sigils they received. The first wave of comics launched in 2000 with Sigil, the fantasies Meridian, Mystic and Scion, and the “untold tales” anthology CrossGen Chronicles. Later additions included the Victorian detective series Ruse, the contemporary horror Route 666, the pirate adventure El Cazador, the fantasy Sojourn and the wuxia comedy Way of the Rat. CrossGen filed for bankruptcy in 2004. Later that same year, Disney bought the company’s assets for $1 million. Marvel began teasing the return of CrossGen last summer at Comic-Con International in San Diego.
- December 16, 2010 @ 07:33 AM by JK Parkin
Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs | FX2: The Lost Land
FX2: The Lost Land
FX2: The Lost Land
Written by Wayne Osborne; Illustrated by Uko Smith
IDW; $19.99
In FX2, Wayne Osborne takes analogues to various superheroes and other adventurous characters and archetypes and then mashes them into a story so packed that it may just include the kitchen sink as well. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that, but I suspect that readers will have mixed feelings about it. I certainly waffled about it a few times.
If we re-replace the FX characters with the ones they’re standing in for, the story’s about Green Lantern and Spider-Man’s attempt to rescue a bunch of high school kids from the Mole Man. The villain has appeared from the ground in the middle of a football game and taken his captives back into the Earth. Among the kidnap victims is Mary Jane Watson, who’s transformed by Tyrannus into the Hulk (she becomes too dumb and uses the word “smash” too much to be a She-Hulk analogue).
The characters don’t stay in the caves forever though. When the Hulk disappears, the heroes follow her to the Savage Land where they meet up with Ka-Zar and learn the horrifying truth about what the bad guys are really up to. There’s far more at stake than the lives of a few kids.
- December 15, 2010 @ 04:00 PM by Michael May
Bendispalooza: Atomic Comics hosts Brian Michael Bendis for weekend of fun
This past weekend Atomic Comics in Arizona welcomed Avengers/Powers writer Brian Michael Bendis to the store for a weekend of meeting fans, eating Chick-Fil-A and teaching a seminar on writing comics. Store owner Mike Malve was kind enough to send over a report from the event, which you can read below.
by Mike Malve, owner of Atomic Comics
This past weekend Atomic Comics was honored to host a gigantic comic book personality event: Bendispalooza! Man, what a blast the fans and I had! As owner of Atomic for over 25 years, I’ve hosted many a signing, and was super excited to bring Brian Michael Bendis back to sunny Phoenix AZ. It has been six years since Brian and his friends Joe Quesada and Brian Finch were all at Atomic Comics, so to make this appearance even better, we held a PALOOZA rather than a mere signing.
Festivities kicked off Friday night with a paid comic book and graphic novel writing seminar led by Brian Bendis. I knew Brian currently teaches a regular class at Portland State University and I also knew the boy loves to talk, so I figured it was a natural match. But never in a million years did I think we would attract so many people who happily shelled out $25 to participate in a comic book writing class taught by THE Bendis. (No offense, Brian!) In total we had over 35 paid students for the class, including some who drove all the way from Los Angeles to attend. I think Brian was hoping for ten while I had projected success to be defined by 20. So we were both pleasantly surprised with the turnout. But even better than the numbers was the fact that everyone came prepared and ready to learn. Paper, iPad, pen and laptops in hand, they sat at the tables jotting down every important word that was discussed.
- December 15, 2010 @ 02:03 PM by JK Parkin
How to build your own Fables puppets, by Mark Buckingham
Fables Puppet Theatre
The Fables crew and Vertigo really knocked one out of the park last week with Fables #100, the mammoth-sized anniversary issue that included a 62-page main story (the bulk of which was an awesome battle of magic and mayhem between Mister Dark and Frau Totenkinder), several back-up stories, a board game and a do-it-yourself Fables puppet theater. If you enjoyed that last one but weren’t sure how to proceed with turning the 2-D comic page into a 3-D theatre, artist Mark Buckingham shows you how to do it over on the Vertigo blog. Get yourself some color copies of the pages (so you don’t have to tear apart the book itself) and some card stock paper, grab some glue and scissors, and go to town.
- December 15, 2010 @ 01:00 PM by JK Parkin
Girl Genius novel out as e-book
As we reported last August, Phil and Kaija Foglio have signed multiple contracts to adapt their webcomic Girl Genius into a number of different formats, including novels, audiobooks, and an omnibus edition of the comic. Now we’re seeing the first fruits of this effort, as Teleread reports that Baen Books is offering the novelization of the story, Agatha H and the Airship City, as an e-book for $6. This is $1.99 less than the Kindle version and a considerable savings over the print edition, both of which will be released on January 1, according to Amazon. Unlike Kindle, Baen Books downloads are DRM-free; if you’re a sci-fi fan, you might want to check out their site, because they offer the first volumes of a lot of series for free.
Phil Foglio is also blogging about the process of producing and promoting the book at his LiveJournal, and he is asking readers who are planning to buy the book through Amazon to do so on January 12, Kaija’s birthday, in order to push the book up the best-seller chart (a la Machine of Death)—and also give his wife a nice birthday present.
- December 15, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
comiXology launches on the Android
Comics by comiXology
comiXology, who currently sell digital comics through various applications on the iPhone and iPad, as well as through their own website, released a “beta” comics application for the Android mobile operating system today. Per the release, the Comics by comiXology Android beta app will include comics from many of the publishers comiXology works with on the various Apple devices, including DC Comics, Image, Dynamite and BOOM! — but no Marvel, it seems.
Honestly I’m not real familiar with what comics are available already in the Android marketplace, since I don’t have an Android phone. Earlier this year Graphic.ly announced they’d be selling Marvel titles on the Android, while I know iVerse and Robot Comics also sell comics on it. But this is the first time DC Comics, at least, will be available on the Android, which should please its users.
You can read the entire press release after the jump, which includes a list of publishers they’ll have available.
- December 15, 2010 @ 10:30 AM by JK Parkin
The best of the best of the year lists
Wilson
As we burn through the final days of 2010, more and more websites and publications are unveiling their best-of lists — so many that keeping up is a challenge. Here’s just some of what’s been released in the past few days:
• Daniel Clowes’ Wilson is the sole comics entry on Time magazine’s rundown of the year’s Top 10 fiction books.
• The Village Voice selects the best comics and graphic novels of the year, including Steve Tatham and Pete Von Sholly’s Repuglicans, Charles Burns’ X’ed Out, Darwyn Cooke’s The Outfit, and Neal Adams and Denny O’Neil’s Superman vs. Muhammad Ali Deluxe Edition.
• The crew at Good Comics for Kids compiles an impressive list of the year’s best comics for kids, organized by age group.
• Jezebel lists its favorite female comic creators of 2010: Katie Cook, Colleen Cover, Sarah Glidden, Lucy Knisley, Hope Larson, Linda Medley, Nicola Scott, Fiona Staples, Raina Telegmeier and Jen Van Meter.
• U.S News & World Report names the first volume of The Unwritten, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross, among “The Top Debate-Worthy Books of 2010.”
• Torontoist selects cartoonist Jason Kieffer as one of 2010′s “villains” for his book The Rabble of Downtown Toronto, described as “a collection of forty profiles of street people, many of whom are homeless, drug-addicted, or mentally disabled.”
• IGN.com rolls out its Best of 2010 awards.
• Multiversity Comics counts down the most overlooked titles of the year.
- December 15, 2010 @ 09:34 AM by Kevin Melrose
MattyCollector.com also experiencing pain-enducing levels of traffic this morning
Comic-Con International aren’t the only ones having trouble selling things on the internet. Mattel’s action figure collector’s site MattyCollector.com released several new items today, including a Masters of the Universe figure, Superman and General Zod figures, and (the reason I was checking the site) a new Darkseid/Kalibak two-pack for their long-running Justice League Unlimited line.
Everything went on sale at 9 a.m. Pacific, which is when I hit the site and got this:
I did get in about eight minutes later, selected my item, went to checkout, and then started getting the “traffic management” page again before I could complete my transaction. Dang it. Around 9:17 a.m. I got back in, and it remembered where I was in the checkout process (which was nice … I figured I’d be starting from scratch). A few seconds later, my order was complete. Trying to go back to the home page, however, brought the holding page back up.
I guess today is good practice for next February, when the hotel process for San Diego kicks off.
(Update: And of course, after I post, the site doesn’t appear to be having any issues … and it doesn’t look like anything is sold out yet, so head over there quickly before it does).
- December 15, 2010 @ 09:30 AM by JK Parkin
CCI tests new ticket system, ‘burned through 1,000 tickets in about 60 seconds’
Comic-Con International
This morning at 8 a.m. Pacific Comic-Con International tested their new system for selling tickets to the 2011 show. As we noted earlier this week, it involved using two vendors and making 1,000 tickets available during the test.
The test is now closed, according to their website, which now reads, “The test is now completed and we are analyzing results.”
Comic Book Resources executive producer/head honcho Jonah Weiland attempted to purchase tickets when they went on sale, and sent us a report on what he experienced:
– At 8:00 I clicked through to the Ticketleap Web site and put in a request for two tickets.
– The site was very slow to respond, but about 60 seconds after putting in my request (8:01) I got the following message: “Checkout failed: Not enough tickets remain for the event to fulfill your purchase”
– Beginning at 8:02 I began to see “502 Bad Gateway” error messages as I would try to reload the page.
– Once pages would begin loading again properly, about 8:05, the message on the screen (once it would load, it was still a tad slow) said, “Tickets are currently not available to this event.”So, if this is to be believed, they burned through 1000 tickets in about 60 seconds.
If you hit the TicketLeap site, you can see comment page after comment page from various folks who attempted to get tickets this morning. A few note that they received a conformation code, but many, many more were frustrated by it.
Update: Kiel Phegley talks to CCI’s David Glanzer about the test, while Heidi at the Beat has some numbers from TicketLeap.
- December 15, 2010 @ 08:59 AM by JK Parkin
Dylan Meconis on how she funded Family Man
Cartoonists don’t usually pop up on money blogs, but at American Express’s Currency site, Douglas Wolk talks to Dylan Meconis about how she financed the print edition of her webcomic Family Man. Basically, she says, “I asked the internet very nicely,” and her fans ponied up $11,000 to cover costs. Meconis explains why she didn’t use Kickstarter, and delves into nuts-and-bolts issues like health insurance, her next big purchase, and her other work:
What’s the biggest misconception people have about cartoonists’ finances? I’m sure some people think that we’re all just rolling in that sweet Internet money. But there’s a lot of background work that you don’t get to see as a fan, because it’s just freelance engagements: a lot of commercial illustration, a lot of educational comics and corporate comics, to explain a new business process or do a training manual or something. A lot of companies want that cool graphic-novel feel—to keep people awake during a PowerPoint.
- December 15, 2010 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Tokyo tightens restrictions on sexual manga, anime
As expected, the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly on Wednesday passed a controversial bill to further restrict the sale or rental to minors of manga and anime containing “extreme” depictions of sexual acts.
The amendment to the Youth Healthy Development Ordinance, which already prohibits the sale of “harmful publications” to anyone under the age of 18, also calls for the industry to self-regulate by toning down content designed for general release.
Requirements for self-regulation and restrictions on sales will take effect on April 1 and July 1, respectively. The amended ordinance includes a non-binding clause stating that the city government will carefully consider a work’s artistic and social merits in the evaluation process. According to BBC News, publishers, studios and retailers who break the law face fines of up to 300,000 yen (about $3,575).
The bill has generated strong opposition from publishers and creators. On Friday 10 Japanese publishers, including including Kadokawa Shoten, Shueisha, Shogakukan and Kodansha, announced they will boycott next year’s Tokyo International Anime Fair, sponsored by the Tokyo government.
- December 15, 2010 @ 06:30 AM by Kevin Melrose
The Middle Ground #33: Introducing The Best Graphic Novel of 2011
I know that it’s still December 2010 – and not even the end of December, the point where we all make our lists of the best of the year – but it’s possible that I’ve already read my favorite book of 2011. Its name? Stigmata.
- December 14, 2010 @ 04:30 PM by Graeme McMillan
Food or Comics? | This week’s comics on a budget
John Byrne's Next Men
Welcome once again to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy based on certain spending limits — $15, $30 to spend and if we had extra money to spend on what we call the “Splurge” item. Check out Diamond’s release list for this week if you’d like to play along in our comments section.
Michael May
If I had $15:
There are a lot of great periodicals coming out this week, so I’d have some hard choices to make. With only $15, I’d concentrate first on those with the cheapest prices: the first issue of Dark Horse’s new Mighty Samson ($3.50), Atomic Robo and the Deadly Art of Science #2 ($3.50), and Mouse Guard: Black Axe #1 ($3.50). I’m already a huge fan of both Atomic Robo and Mouse Guard and – based on its concept and vague memories of stories I read as a kid – hope to become one of Mighty Samson too. I’d spend the last of my money on Northern Guard #1, because I’m a sucker for Canadian superheroes.
If I had $30:
I’d add Doc Macabre #1 ($3.99), John Byrne’s Next Men #1 ($3.99), and Strange Tales 2 #3 ($4.99). “Doc Macabre” is an awesome name and I love Steve Niles’ pulp stuff, I’ve been waiting 16 years for that Next Men issue, and the Strange Tales book has a Kate Beaton story in which the Avengers go to a carnival. I’d pay five bucks just for Beaton’s deal, but it’s also got a Thing tale by Harvey Pekar (and yes, Harvey Pekar is in the story).
- December 14, 2010 @ 04:00 PM by JK Parkin