2011 January
Start reading now: Quantum Vibe
Quantum Vibe's future vision: Bubble cars, invisible phones, nagging moms
Scott Bieser was an early adopter of the webcomics-to-print model, and he has been putting a variety of entertaining sci-fi comics up on his Big Head Press site since 2005. His newest strip, Quantum Vibe, launched yesterday and will update daily. It looks like an interesting hybrid of soap opera and science fiction, with a harried heroine who manages to lose both her boyfriend and her job in the first few pages. The writing is solid (aside from the really weird swears) and Bieser’s vision of the future is fun if a bit pat (nothing has a visible power source).
The other comics on the Big Head Press site include the alt-history Roswell, Texas and the action-packed La Muse. I noticed in their blog that they are putting their comics on Longbox and hinting that they might not be free online forever, so this seems like a good time to go check them out.
(Via Comics Worth Reading.)
- January 4, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
Marvel promotes Tom Brevoort to Senior Vice President of Publishing
Tom Brevoort
Not to be outdone by his former fellow Senior VP – Executive Editor and (Cup o’ Joe: Marvel T&A partner) Axel Alonso, outspoken editor Tom Brevoort has been named Senior Vice President of Publishing by Marvel. Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada broke the news via Twitter while also congratulating Alonso for his ascension to the Editor-in-Chief position held by Quesada until today. Marvel tells CBR that further details about both promotions are forthcoming.
With his (imho) admirably candid Internet presence across a variety of platforms, Brevoort has emerged as Marvel editorial’s de facto voice, often to the tune of reader controversy. This has always struck me as a reversal from the “Nu-Marvel” days of the early 2000s, prior to Brevoort’s involvement in the publisher’s new Avengers and event-driven era, when the editor was viewed by many fans as a traditionalist counterpoint to/bulwark against Quesada, Alonso and then-President Bill Jemas.
In related news, can comic book publishers please take a brief break from industry-rocking publishing and personnel news for a little bit? I’m getting tired, and falling way behind on my stories.
- January 4, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
Quote of the day | Tom Brevoort on DC’s “Drawing the line at $2.99″ initiative
This meal costs less than most Marvel comics and the same as most DC comics
[Reader 1:] What do you think of DC’s “Drawing the line at $2.99″ pledge?
[Brevoort:] I think that if it works for them, and they can run their business and make their money on that cover price, good for them. But I know for certain that we can’t, so I must assume that they’re still in the traditional DC position of not really having to earn a direct profit in publishing, since they’ll get a credit for all of their licensing and so forth on the Warner’s ledgers. That’s not a luxury that we have–or really, that we want.
[Reader 2:] “…they’ll get a credit for all of their licensing and so forth on the Warner’s ledgers. That’s not a luxury that we have–or really, that we want.” Why not?
[Brevoort:] Because if you’re going to be a publishing division, to want to tell stories and to publish, don’t you want them to be read by people? Don’t you want them to be profitable? Sure, if we had the luxury of not having to make sure that each title earns its keep, we could coast a bit–but that wouldn’t make for better comics, that would just make us lazier and sloppier (and we’re plenty lazy and sloppy as it is.) Anything worth doing is worth doing well.
–In a pair of Formspring posts, newly minted Marvel Senior Vice President of Publishing Tom Brevoort essentially shrugs and says “nice work if you can get it” over DC’s announcement that all their standard-format ongoing series for both the DC Universe and Vertigo lines will run at 20 story pages for $2.99. Whatever the reasoning, Marvel’s own price cutbacks are less extensive. What’s most interesting to me here, actually, isn’t connected to the price-cut debate — it’s Brevoort’s implication that Marvel’s newish status as a Disney subsidiary hasn’t impacted its basic business model.
- January 4, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
Marvel promotes Axel Alonso to Editor-in-Chief; Joe Quesada to focus on Chief Creative Officer duties
Huge news from the House of Ideas: Axel Alonso has been promoted to Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Entertainment. Previously serving as Senior VP – Executive Editor alongside Tom Brevoort and overseeing the X-Men and MAX lines among other projects, Alonso will now oversee all of Marvel Publishing’s day-to-day aspects and report to Publisher and President Dan Buckley. Alonso replaces Joe Quesada, who shifts to full-time focus on Marvel’s multimedia initiatives in publishing, digital, film and television alike within his existing role as Chief Creative Officer.
This marks the end of Quesada’s transformative ten-year tenure as Editor-in-Chief, the longest such reign of anyone in the company’s history save Stan Lee and one that saw the publisher emerge from the shadow of bankruptcy to once again become the dominant player in the North American direct market for comics. Alonso played an integral role in the Quesada regime since 2000, with his experience at Vertigo coming into play as Marvel took major creative and personnel risks during what was known as the “Nu-Marvel” era. Marvel’s press release on the matter touts such controversial projects as X-Statix and The Rawhide Kid as major credits from Alonso’s resume right alongside runs editing Amazing Spider-Man and X-Men, so it seems that Marvel higher-ups value Alonso’s frequently unconventional approach to superheroics.
CBR News Editor Kiel Phegley has the full press release and further analysis.
- January 4, 2011 @ 10:30 AM by Sean T. Collins
Negima creator working with Google on online manga site
Welcome to J-Comi!
Manga creator Ken Akamatsu (Negima, Love Hina) has been pioneering an interesting business model: Putting out-of-print manga online, for free, as PDFs with no copy protection. The site, J-Comi, is supported by ads, and Akamatsu put his money where his mouth is by posting all 14 volumes of Love Hina on the site, which is still in beta.
Last week, Akamatsu announced that he is working with Google to develop a comics reader that will track readers’ location and interests and deliver targeted ads. That’s actually not such great news for readers—comics viewers seldom work as smoothly as a PDF, they won’t allow the comics to be downloaded to an iPad or other device, and everyone hates ads—but I guess you have to pay the bills somehow.
What makes this site a big deal is the names attached: Akamatsu has persuaded two of the biggest manga publishers in Japan, Kodansha and Shueisha, to play along. When the second beta test period begins, on January 11, the offerings will include Belmonde Le VisiteuR, from Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, which is also the home of the blockbusters Naruto and Bleach, as well as Hōkago Wedding (Afterschool Wedding), a previously unpublished 50-page story, and Kōtsū Jiko Kanteinin Tamaki Rinichirō (Rinichirō Tamaki, Traffic Accident Investigator), an older series from Shueisha’s Super Jump.
Akamatsu’s plans also include finding a way to allow readers to post comments alongside the comments (this sounds vaguely like Graphic.ly), which would allow fans to do their own translations right on the site.
- January 4, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
The new M.O.D.O.K. is ‘a bit of a charmer’
MODOK
After being defeated in last year’s World War Hulks storyline, the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing, aka M.O.D.O.K., apparently decided it was time for a makeover. Above is a rough sketch of the new design for the character, compliments of artist Gabriel Hardman.
“It’s a new age, and we need a new M.O.D.O.K. who works in new ways,” writer Jeff Parker told Marvel.com. “This one will get out and interact in a way the previous model didn’t. And he’s a bit of a charmer.”
Hardman went into detail on his design process for the lovable killing machine.
“Jeff had some specifics he wanted to integrate, specifically the legs and bald head. My design process was to go back through the previous iterations of M.O.D.O.K.’s look to get a feel for the choices other artists had made over the years. But I mainly focused on his early appearances. Anytime I design something for Marvel, I want it to feel like it could fit into the world Jack Kirby designed, even if it has more contemporary industrial design elements,” Hardman said.
And if the spider legs aren’t working for you, never fear — Parker stated on Twitter that M.O.D.O.K. would have several different modes. “That’s only one of MODOK’s modes, @NinjaCyborg -hope you like the others more,” he said.
The new M.O.D.O.K. debuts in Hulk #29, on sale Feb. 2.
- January 4, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by JK Parkin
Vertigo to (finally!) collect Morrison & Quitely’s Flex Mentallo
Another day, another huge announcement from DC Comics, via Vertigo’s Graphic Content blog: After a over a decade in quasi-legal limbo, DC will release Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s Flex Mentallo in a deluxe hardcover format in Fall 2011.
Long one of the most eagerly sought-after “uncollectible” books in comics, this four-issue 1996 spinoff from Morrison’s storied Doom Patrol run featured, in the person of its titular hero, a parody of the famous Charles Atlas bodybuilding ad “The Insult That Made a Man Out of Mac” — and thus attracted the legal ire of the Charles Atlas company. Though the courts found in favor of DC, the Charles Atlas company’s trademark-infringement/dilution lawsuit apparently spooked the publisher bad enough that their plans to collect the four-issue miniseries, scrapped when DC received Atlas’ original cease-and-desist notice, remained mothballed even despite the rise to superstardom of its creators on books like New X-Men, All-Star Superman, and Batman and Robin…until now. As such it’s the most high-profile example yet of DC’s post-Paul Levitz willingness to (re)publish books previously considered verboten, a la Warren Ellis and Phil Jimenez’s long-suppressed school-shooting Hellblazer story “Shoot,” which helped launch the “Vertigo Resurrected” initiative. It just goes to show you: There’s no resisting the Power of Muscle Mystery!
- January 4, 2011 @ 08:04 AM by Sean T. Collins
Comics A.M. | Borders executives resign, manga leads NYPL list
Borders
Retailing | Troubles continue for Borders Group as the retailer filed notice Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission that Executive Vice President Thomas D. Carney and Chief Information Officer D. Scott Laverty have resigned. Just last week Borders, the country’s second-largest bookstore chain, announced it’s delaying payments to some publishers as it attempts to restructure its credit lines. [GalleyCat]
Passings | Longtime retailer Carl Tupper, who owned BSI Comics in Metairie, Louisiana, for 30 years, passed away on Dec. 29. He was 70 years old. [BSI Comics, ICv2.com]
Libraries | Four of the top five young-adult titles checked out from the New York Public Library in 2010 were manga: Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto, Tite Kubo’s Bleach, Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece, and Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball Z. Jennifer Holm’s graphic novel Babymouse and Jeff Kinney’s comics-prose hybrid Diary of a Wimpy Kid were the top two children’s titles. [NYPL Wire]
- January 4, 2011 @ 07:58 AM by Kevin Melrose
Stan Lee gets his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame today
Stan Lee, surveying his domain at Comic-Con International
This morning, a week after his 88th birthday, legendary creator Stan Lee will be honored with the 2,428th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Lee, who began his comics career more than 70 years ago as an assistant at Timely Comics, remains busy with a full slate of projects, from the three-book retelling Romeo and Juliet: The War and the Las Vegas casino show The Yin and Yang Battle of Tao to comics collaborations with Archie Comics and BOOM! Studios and the National Hockey League’s “Guardian Project.”
“I’m pretty proud of the fact that some of the stories I wrote so many years ago are still being read and hopefully enjoyed by the public and people are making motion pictures based on them, and television series and even a Broadway show,” Lee, whose most famous co-creations include Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and Iron Man, told CNN (there’s video at the link).
Today’s star ceremony, held at 11:30 a.m. PT at 7072 Hollywood Blvd., will feature Todd McFarlane and POW! Entertainment CEO Gill Champion.
- January 4, 2011 @ 06:30 AM by Kevin Melrose
Talking Comics with Tim | Nathan Edmondson
Who Is Jake Ellis?
This Wednesday marks the launch of writer Nathan Edmondson‘s quirky spy thriller five-issue miniseries for Image: Who Is Jake Ellis? The core concept is defined as follows: “Jon Moore is the most sought after spy-for-hire in Europe’s criminal world. This is because of Jake Ellis, a psychic man who is invisible to everyone except Moore. When a deal goes bad, the only one who can protect Moore from Europe’s most dangerous criminals is Jake Ellis. No one but Moore can see Jake Ellis. But Jake Ellis can see everything.” There’s clearly a great deal of advance interest in the series. According to Edmondson: “HeavyInk.com, one of the internet’s foremost comics retailers, reports that WHO IS JAKE ELLIS? #1 is the 3rd highest pre-ordered book for January–just below THE WALKING DEAD and BRIGHTEST DAY.” In addition to discussing Who Is Jake Ellis?, Edmondson (author of Olympus) and I also discuss the recent release of The Light TPB. In addition, HeavyInk offers a five-page preview of the first issue.
Tim O’Shea: What prompted you to go the psychological thriller route with Who Is Jake Ellis?
Nathan Edmondson: Part of what sparked Who Is Jake Ellis? was my interest in the idea that covert and special forces operatives put complete trust in those working for and alongside them. Those in the field or undercover rely 100% on the intel and action and defense of others. They’re comfortable doing this because they know exactly what those people are capable of and how well they are trained. I mean, it’s no easy task to turn your back to gunfire and trust the person at your back to defend you. And many operatives do that very thing. So that was one psychological dynamic that’s fascinated me.
The other theme is one of friendship, and more specifically, taking a friend for granted. I’ve done it and I know many people have and that’s something Jon has to consider in the story.
- January 3, 2011 @ 04:00 PM by Tim O'Shea
Exclusive: Archie Comics goes retro with cover design
The old...
... and the new
Longtime Archie Comics readers will get a jolt of deja vu in May, when the venerable comics publisher returns to its classic logo and cover design for all the comics featuring the Riverdale crowd. Titles on the new covers will be bigger, bolder, and set against a brightly colored backdrop. We asked why they were making the change, and company CEO Jon Goldwater responded,
Starting in May, we’ll be tweaking the look of some of our key titles—and it may look familiar to long-time fans of Archie. Here at Archie, we’re always looking at new ways to push the characters forward, but we’re also very aware of our history and what resonates with old and new readers. This new cover treatment puts the emphasis on the characters and brings back our unique and definitive cover design. It’s really a thing of beauty.
It certainly will make the comics easy to find on the newsstand.
- January 3, 2011 @ 03:05 PM by Brigid Alverson
$2.99 across the line, new letter columns, Milligan on Red Lanterns top DC announcement onslaught
Wow, DC Comics has returned from the holiday break with a vengeance. On its multiple blogs and here on CBR, the publisher has unleashed a veritable avalanche of announcements and initiatives for 2011.
Topping the list is the announcement, first mentioned by DC Entertainment President Diane Nelson and then expanded upon by Jim Lee, that DC will be holding the $2.99 price point across its line for all standard format ongoing series from both the DC Universe and Vertigo.
Meanwhile, PR guru David Hyde unveiled the return of letters pages to DC’s comics, presumably in the place of the current DC Nation column. Letters will be collected from both snail-mail submissions and messages submitted to the publisher’s new DCLettersPage.com website.
- January 3, 2011 @ 01:59 PM by Sean T. Collins
The Robot 6 Second Birthday Bash Round-Up
Wolverine and Jubilee #1
How was your weekend? Ours was pretty grand, as we here at Robot 6 celebrated our second birthday yesterday by taking over the Comic Book Resources home page. If you were still nursing a New Year’s hangover or watching reality TV marathons yesterday, not to worry — here’s what you missed:
- We saw a lot of excitement around the announcement that Fantagraphics will publish a definitive collection of Carl Barks’ seminal run of Donald Duck comic stories. Fantagraphics publisher Gary Groth spoke with Chris Mautner to officially and exclusively announce the project.The first volume is due this fall. Both Groth and Fantagraphics’ Kim Thompson show up in the comments thread to answer additional questions from our readers.
- A lot of our friends at various publishers gave us some great gifts in the form of exclusive previews. Marvel sent over two exclusives, for the last issue of Thor: The Mighty Avenger (buy the trades!) and the first issue of Wolverine and Jubilee. IDW Publishing gave us a great look at the start of their upcoming Infestation crossover, which will feature Transformers, GI Joe, Ghostbusters and Star Trek … and zombies! BOOM! Studios gave us a look at many of their April covers — specifically for their Disney titles, the Stan Lee Presents books and what I like to call the Waid-o-verse books — as well as Irredeemable #21. Tokyopop shared the cover art for the upcoming Priest Purgatory. Oni Press shared a lengthy preview of Possessions Vol.2. And lastly, Dark Horse Comics gave us a look at the big finale to Buffy Season Eight in the form of an exclusive preview of Buffy the Vampire Slayer #40. The book ships on Buffy Summers’ birthday, and they’ll be holding their own birthday bashes around the country on that day.
- January 3, 2011 @ 12:30 PM by JK Parkin
Sean Murphy helps American Vampire go to war
American Vampire #13
Pamela Mullin announced on Vertigo’s Graphic Content blog today that Joe the Barbarian artist Sean Murphy will draw an upcoming American Vampire spin-off miniseries that will coincide with an arc in the main book that takes place during World War II. In addition, he’s also supplying the above variant cover for issue #13, where the WWII “epic” begins. Scott Snyder is writing the spin-off.
This seems to be a vote of confidence in the series, which is good to hear, as it is an awesome read each month. The comic received a lot of attention when it launched because Stephen King wrote half of the first five issues, but in my opinion Snyder’s half made up the stronger of the two stories (he has since gone on to become the regular writer on Detective Comics). Both, of course, received a lot of help from the awesome Rafael Albuquerque.
Apparently I’m not alone in my assessment, as the book made it into CBR’s Top Ten of best comics in 2010. I also gave the recent hardcover collection to both of my brothers for Christmas this year, with my younger one declaring that it “kicked ass.”
For more on American Vampire, check out CBR’s video interview with Snyder from last year’s New York Comic Con, and of course the interview Paul Cornell conducted with him last month.
- January 3, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
Bill Sienkiewicz reveals his side of Alan Moore’s Big Numbers saga
from Big Numbers #3 by Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz
It is perhaps the greatest comic never published. Intended to be a 12-issue miniseries ambitious and complex enough to make Watchmen look like Wizard of Id on an off day, Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz’s Big Numbers was a Joycean look at life in a small English town as a big-box retailer prepared to set up shop. But this grand fiction-as-fractal-geometry experiment only managed to produce two published issues in 1990 before hitting a massive delay during work on issue #3, losing Sienkiewicz, moving from Moore’s Mad Love publishing imprint to Kevin Eastman’s Tundra, tapping Sienkiewicz’s then-teenaged assistant (and current reclusive Pim & Francie creator and alt-horror superstar) Al Columbia to take over, losing Columbia and all the pages he’d completed, and finally shuddering to a halt.
- January 3, 2011 @ 11:08 AM by Sean T. Collins