2011 February
Periscope Studios teaches those pesky pigeons a lesson during Mad Men art week
Betty Draper by Jonathan Case
If you’ve been jonesin’ for Don, Betty and the rest of the Mad Men gang during the long months between seasons– especially after seeing January Jones in the X-Men: First Class trailer — Periscope Studios has your virtual hook up. Last week was Mad Men week on their Tumblr blog, and they shared all sorts of inspired art — including the above piece by Jonathan Case, a faux ad for the infamous Red Rider BB Gun.
Click on over there for more art by Dustin Weaver, Jesse Hamm, Steve Lieber and more.
- February 14, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by JK Parkin
Hey, did you know a bunch of Ben Katchor’s Metropolis magazine strips are online?
‘Cause I sure didn’t, but I’m glad to discover that they are, in all their full-color glory. Click here to check out “A Vacancy in the Art World,” the latest strip from the great cartoonist behind Julius Knipl, The Jew of New York, and The Cardboard Valise; then click here for Metropolis‘ Ben Katchor archive. No one’s better at exploring the strange spaces of urban living and the even stranger things people think up to put in them.
- February 14, 2011 @ 12:15 PM by Sean T. Collins
Happy Valentine’s Day from Emily Carroll
She first garnered major attention right around Halloween with her short, sharp shock of a horror comic, “His Face All Red.” Now, in honor of what Blanche Devereaux once referred to as “the most romantic day of the ye-ah,” cartoonist Emily Carroll has posted another all-new webcomic, “Anu-Anulan and Yir’s Daughter,” and this time around, love is in the air rather than bloodspatter. This story of an amorous shape-shifting goddess and her beloved’s beautiful hair is so convincingly authentic an evocation of ancient legend that you’ll probably be stunned to learn that it wasn’t drawn from some dusty library book of world myths, but from a world-building project completely of her own creation. It’s also makes excellent use of the web’s scrolling capabilities, and there are a couple of formal tricks at play in terms of how Yir’s Daughter is portrayed and referred to that made me say “dang, that’s smart” once I cottoned to them. Read it with someone you love!
- February 14, 2011 @ 11:30 AM by Sean T. Collins
Vertigo’s Strange Adventures anthology coming in May
Strange Adventures
Via Comic Vine comes word on Strange Adventures, a new anthology due from Vertigo this May that will feature the first chapter of Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso’s Spaceman.
Per Comic Vine, the anthology will feature eight 10-page science fiction short stories by folks like Peter Milligan and Scott Snyder. On Twitter, Jeff Lemire has revealed he’s doing a story about Ultra the Multi-Alien (who appears on Mark Buckingham’s variant cover above).
Check out Lemire’s Ultra after the jump.
- February 14, 2011 @ 10:49 AM by JK Parkin
The revolution will be live-streamed: Domatille Collardey and Sarah Glidden’s “Egypt from 5,000 Miles Away”
If you were like me, the Egyptian Revolution that unfolded over the past several weeks and culminated (for the moment) in President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster on Friday was a complicated thing to know how to react to. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not like Glenn Beck prophesying the coming Luthor/Braniac-style Communist/Islamist team-up against the West, nor am I even a more run-of-the-mill conservative commentator rumbling ominously about the power of the Muslim Brotherhood. And my feelings upon seeing untold millions of ordinary, unarmed people weather the attacks of government goons quads and kick out a man who’s looted and tortured them and their country for decades (in part at America’s behest) with nonviolent protest was unalloyed joy.
But how to express that joy? Should I, even? After all, I know no more about the real political situation inside Egypt than any of the overnight experts who suddenly popped up to opine on the talk shows and cable news nets. My information was coming primarily from Al Jazeera English’s invaluable live-streaming broadcast on its website and from the Twitter streams of international and native Egyptian reporters on the ground, and from the relative oasis of calm analysis that was MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show and its dialogues between host Maddow and correspondent Richard Engel. Was that enough?
- February 14, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
Crack that whip!: Johnny Ryan’s “Mark + Gary Forever”
How’s this for a Valentine’s Day treat? In the slash-eriffic vein of Tom Neely and Igloo Tornado’s Henry & Glenn Forever — the surprise-hit minicomic that reimagined musclebound hardcore-punk progenitors Henry Rollins (Black Flag) and Glenn Danzig (The Misfits) as a happily cohabitating couple — comes Prison Pit troublemaker Johnny Ryan’s latest strip for Vice magazine, “Mark + Gary Forever.” For the New Wave-impaired, that’s Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh and synthpop icon Gary Numan, united by their shared sense of futuristic weirdness — and now, in Ryan’s comic, L-O-V-E. In a story drawing heavily from their biggest hits, “Whip It” and “Cars” respectively, Mark and Gary have a lovers’ quarrel over Gary’s profligate spending. Will they patch things up? Are they not men? Are “friends” electric? The answers to these questions and more await you at the link — and at the big Henry & Glenn Gang-Bang group art show and book signing at Los Angeles’ La Luz de Jesus Gallery this coming Friday, featuring contributions (some old, some new!) by the whole Igloo Tornado gang, plus Ryan, Jordan Crane, COOP, Kaz, Steven Weissman, Bald Eagles and many more. It’s the only way to live!
- February 14, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
Comics A.M. | Borders nears Chapter 11; Diamond’s secret shopper results
Borders
Retailing | The financially troubled Borders Group reportedly could file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as soon as today or Tuesday, setting the stage to close about 200 of its 674 Borders and Waldenbooks stores and eliminate thousands of jobs. [The Wall Street Journal]
Retailing | Diamond Comic Distributors revealed that 98 percent of the more than 500 direct market stores visited by secret shoppers during the first month of day-early delivery were found to be in compliance with the program’s street-date requirements. According to Diamond, of the 10 stores discovered to be in violation of the agreement, one was reported by another retailer while the others were discovered by secret shoppers. [ICv2.com]
- February 14, 2011 @ 08:20 AM by Kevin Melrose
Spider-Man musical cited for two safety violations, skewered by SNL
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark
The troubled $65-million musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark has been issued two safety violations for accidents last year that resulted in the injuries of three performers.
Citing an unnamed official with the New York State Department of Labor, The New York Times reports the findings require the show’s producers to continue safety measures put in place in December after Christopher Tierney, one of several aerialists who doubles for Spider-Man, fell more than 20 feet, suffering serious injuries. Two other performers were hurt while rehearsing a stunt that catapults them from the back of the stage to the lip.
According to the newspaper, state officials will continue to conduct announced inspections. If they find any safety measures aren’t being followed, they can withdraw variances issued last year allowing aerial sequences to be performed over the audience.
News of the violations capped off a week that began with scathing reviews, then continued with an angry response from the show’s lead producer and, on Friday, a report that the production is again turning to focus groups.
To add insult to injury, Spider-Man was again lampooned by Saturday Night Live, this time in a fake commercial for the law firm of Gublin & Green, which specializes in winning settlements for anyone injured by the show. “We’ve settled all kinds of complaints: ‘Didn’t like the songs’; ‘confused by the plot’; ‘insulted legacy of Spider-Man’; ‘Fell asleep so suddenly I hit head on seat in front of me’; ‘sucky title’ …” Watch the video after the break.
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the most expensive and technically complex show in Broadway history, is set to officially open on March 15, after five delays.
- February 14, 2011 @ 07:04 AM by Kevin Melrose
What Are You Reading?
Chew Omnivore Edition
Welcome to What Are You Reading?, our weekly round-up of the comics and other stuff that have escaped the unread stacks of books next to our beds. Our special guest this week is Nathan Edmondson, writer of the Image comics Who is Jake Ellis?, The Light and Olympus. To see what Nathan and the Robot 6 crew have bene reading, click below.
- February 13, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by JK Parkin
Saturday Shelf Porn!
Hello and welcome to Shelf Porn, where, like on Valentine’s Day, love is always in the air … love for pictures of people’s comic stuff, anyway. Today’s Shelf Porn comes from James Parmenter, who shows us pictures of his comic and toy-filled loft.
If you’d like to share the love, we always need more Shelf Porn. Send your write-up and pictures to jkparkin@yahoo.com.
And now let’s head up stairs to James and his loft …
- February 12, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
Creator Q&A: Joe Ollmann confronts his ‘Mid-Life’
Mid-Life
Unless you follow the small-press or Canadian cartooning scenes very closely, there’s a good chance you haven’t heard of Joe Ollmann before now. He’s been somewhat on the peripheries of the industry for a few years, though he’s won acclaim for short story collections like This Will All End in Tears. I suspect his star will rise considerably however, with this week’s release of his excellent Mid-Life, Ollman’s first graphic novel, courtesy of Drawn & Quarterly.
The book follows John, an all-too self-aware middle aged dad (and fictional stand-in for Ollmann himself), who, while working on his second marriage and raising a toddler son, finds himself growing ever so slightly obsessed with Sherri Smalls, the children’s entertainer his young child currently enjoys watching and listening to. The book then switches perspectives between John, as his obsession grows and he attempts to find an excuse to head to New York and “interview” the object of his infatuation, and Smalls herself as she mulls over signing a lucrative TV contract and wonders why she’s been so unlucky in love up till now.
Hilarious in that way that only good, sharply observed, cringe-inducing comedy can, Mid-Life suggests that Ollmann has a long and laudable career ahead of him. I talked to him over email about the book, the trick of blending autobiography into fictional material and the perils of parenting. Despite my barrage of personal and potentially embarrassing questions, he remained polite and thoughtful throughout, for which I am tremendously grateful.
- February 12, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Hornschemeier covers Strange Tales 2 with help from Kate Beaton
How much do you love Marvel’s Strange Tales anthology? The mixing of independent talent with these mainstream comic icons is truly something to behold, and it looks like Marvel is continuing that with the recently leaked cover to the second volume’s collected edition.
Cartoonist Paul Hornschemeier recently released the cover he designed for Strange Tales II (as you can see on the right) , which features Hornschemeier’s design sensibilities with the art of Kate Beaton. Hornschemeier calls Beaton “one of the best, most pitch-perfect cartoonists working today,” and said he knew she wanted her work on the cover even before he started going through the book’s contents.
Make with the clicky to Hornschemeier’s blog to see the cover at a larger size as well as the back cover and more thoughts on the whole project.
- February 11, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Chris Arrant
Jon Goldwater on the reality of Riverdale
I recently interviewed Archie Comics co-CEO Jon Goldwater, and after we had covered the business at hand, we digressed a bit on the topic of some upcoming comics. Archie has definitely become more topical over the past year, yet it’s hard to imagine an Archie creator being nominated for an Eisner award. So I put the question to Goldwater: Is the fact that people generally don’t take Archie comics too seriously a plus, because it gives creators the freedom to take on subjects that would be more controversial in a different context, or is it a bad thing because, well, people don’t take the comics too seriously? Here is his response:
Neither. When you are dealing with the world of Riverdale, you’re dealing with real people, not superheroes. Archie, Betty, and Veronica are based on real people. They are teenagers who go to high school, albeit in a safe environment that doesn’t exist any more in the real world—I wish it did—and they have the opportunity to deal with real life issues that have resonance. In the other ones, if something goes wrong, some superhero is going to come to the rescue. If something goes wrong in Archie, you had better use your brains, your wits to figure it out, and that gives us the opportunity to push the social boundaries—within the boundaries of Riverdale. I hope people do take us seriously. Very often a lot of our stories are fun romps and jokes, but part of what I want to do here, since I came to Archie, is tackle some real issues for kids today. I think we really have our own ground.
(Image from Betty #190; here’s a preview if you want to see what happens next.)
- February 11, 2011 @ 02:15 PM by Brigid Alverson
One cartoonist’s dream of video games
What do you get when you give a creative person too much free time? Sometimes it’s playing too many video games, while other times you might get an off-the-wall idea. Sometimes you might get both.
As an exercise, cartoonist Marian Churchland (Elephantmen, Beast, Madame Xanadu) is serializing her thoughts (and art!) on designing a video game — a video game with one goal in mind, to “please and amuse Marian.” Inspired by her recent time spent playing Final Fantasy XIV, this dream video game project is going under the title of The Crossing.
Here’s how Marian describes it:
The Crossing is an interim world, where the great heroes of earth arrive when they die, and through which they may pass in order to attempt to reach the land of the Gods. This will make more sense at length, and in a later post I’ll scribble the map over with more detailed locations, but for now I’ll keep it simple.
You might think of it as a world of gates. All the most bloodied heroes and warlords from human mythology arrive through those gates, and eventually they make their way (or not) to the farthest and most perilous gate, the crossing point to godhood.
Although only a week into the project, Churchland has posted maps, the game’s races and even items to find. Although no actual video game is expected to materialize, the idea of a cartoonist thinking in this way — world-building a story — is very interesting and evocative. Visit her blog for more details.
- February 11, 2011 @ 01:30 PM by Chris Arrant
Youth Gone Wild: McKeever, Norton team for Fear Itself: Youth in Revolt
Fear Itself: Youth in Revolt
Writer Sean McKeever and artist Mike Norton, the co-creators of the character Gravity, are getting the band back together for a miniseries that will team their creation with several other of Marvel’s younger heroes, including Firestar and various characters who were featured in Avengers: The Initiative.
Fear Itself: Youth in Revolt, a tie-in to Marvel’s big event, is “a limited series this May that will see former members of the Initiative drafted back into government service as the Marvel Universe begins to fall apart in a spiral of terror,” according to Marvel.com.
“With YOUTH IN REVOLT, we’re taking a look at how a palpable sense of fear and despair can affect the younger generation of heroes,” McKeever told Marvel.com. “In the first issue, they’re deputized by the federal government in anticipation of terrible things to come, but what then? When they’re rushed into action without any strategy, who suffers? When things get out of hand, who will step up and who will crumble? And how well can they stand up to their own fears?”
Some of the other characters mentioned as appearing in the series include Cloud 9, Prodigy, Thor Girl, Komodo, Hardball, Ultragirl and “other members of Marvel’s youth movement” who the creators wouldn’t reveal quite yet.
- February 11, 2011 @ 12:45 PM by JK Parkin