2011 March
Avengelyne returns this summer from Image Comics
Avengelyne
Rob Liefeld announced on his blog today that Avengelyne, a character published by his Maximum Press company back in the mid-1990s, will return in a monthly series later this summer from Image Comics.
The new series will be written by Liefeld and Mark Poulton (Koni Waves) and illustrated by Owen Gieni. Poulton previously wrote the character in an Avengelyne vs Koni Waves one-shot that Arcana published last year. Gieni has worked on several webcomics, including Sore Thumbs and Wicked Powered.
Avengelyne, an angel cast from Heaven who fought demons on Earth, appeared in several miniseries, one-shots, crossovers (including one with Glory, another Liefeld creation) and her own series from Maximum Press, and was later published by Avatar.
- March 31, 2011 @ 06:57 PM by JK Parkin
Grumpy Old Fan | Into the hundred-issue woods
Green Lantern vol. 2 #100
News of The Flash’s cancellation has led to speculation that the title, whenever it returns, will pick up its original numbering. Considering that Wonder Woman was renumbered last year to reflect the accumulation of all its various incarnations, and Adventure Comics resumed its original numbering as well, Flash might not be the last title DC renumbers.
Today I’ll look at Flash and several other DC titles which could get this treatment in the next several years.
* * *
First, though, let’s consider Wonder Woman. Last year, the 45th issue of WW Vol. 3 was dubbed issue #600, thereby implicitly treating the current series and its predecessor as direct continuations of the original 1942 series. The math was pretty straightforward: Vol. 1 went to issue #329, and vol. 2 went to #226, so that left the 600th issue to vol. 3′s 45th. (329+226+45 = 600.) Volume 2 did have two irregularly-numbered issues, #0 (part of 1994′s “Zero Month,” which the rest of us called August), and #1,000,000 (for DC One Million, naturally).
- March 31, 2011 @ 04:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
WonderCon | A round-up of stuff to do and buy at the con
WonderCon
The 25th annual WonderCon kicks off in San Francisco tomorrow, with special guests like Robert Kirkman, Berkeley Breathed, Paul Levitz, Joe Quesada, Frank Quitely, Seth, Bill Sienkiewicz and many more. The show runs through Sunday.
Comic Book Resources will be at the show doing video interviews, covering panels and all that good stuff. From our own team, both Carla Hoffman and myself will be on hand, so watch the main site and the blog for updates all weekend. I’m even on a panel Friday afternoon, which should be a lot of fun.
After the jump I’ve collected all the WonderCon-related items that have hit my in-box or I’ve seen around the web over the last few days, including booth schedules, stuff to buy and all that cool stuff …
- March 31, 2011 @ 03:30 PM by JK Parkin
WonderCon | Frank Quitely’s stunning print benefits the CBLDF
Frank Quitely's CBLDF print
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund will be at WonderCon this weekend (booth #323) with a lot of cool stuff that Frank Quitely fans should dig. First up is a stunning print, above, that they’ll sell for $20, along with a signed and numbered black and white facsimile edition of the original art that’ll cost you a $50 donation. It’s limited to just 50 pieces
In addition, they’ll have two sets of CBLDF Signature Series postcards. Each set is a $10 donation, with one set featuring Quitely’s full-color character designs and the other set featuring some of his figure sketches.
You can see the postcards on the CBLDF website, along with their complete plans for the show this weekend.
- March 31, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by JK Parkin
Comic Couture | XXX (meaning “30,” not “dirty”) X-Men T-shirts
yours truly
I’m a multipurpose nerd: In addition to being a big comics person, I’m also a t-shirt devotee. I started a (sometimes NSFW) Tumblr about them and everything! As such one of my favorite t-shirt purveyors is Found Item Clothing, which has dedicated itself to painstakingly accurate recreations of t-shirts from cult classic movies. (“STEPHEN KING RULES” from The Monster Squad and “BULL SHIT” from The Jerk are my all-time faves; right this very moment I’m wearing the now out-of-print “Double Deuce” bouncer uniform tee from Road House.)
But today, the Found Item blog has turned its attention to the funnybook realm, and rounded up 30 great X-Men t-shirts. Some are authorized, some bootlegged, some are one-of-a-kind homemade affairs, some are worn by Sir Ian McKellen, some are super-rare Al Milgrom-illustrated affairs available for $200 on eBay, and many of them are simply wonderful. Go take a look. How many do you own?
- March 31, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
Page after glorious page of behind-the-scenes Strange Tales II art
line art for the Strange Tales II #1 cover by Rafael Grampa
Over at ComicsAlliance, Laura Hudson has a real treat for those of you who like your superhero comics with an alternative twist: 50-plus pages of sketches, thumbnails, pencils, inks, color studies and more from the Strange Tales II hardcover, which debuted this week. Click on over and get a glimpse at the creative process behind contributions from Kate Beaton, Jeffrey Brown, Ivan Brunetti, Farel Dalrymple, Rafael Grampa, Dean Haspiel, Jaime Hernandez, Paul Hornschemeier, Benjamin Marra, Edu Medeiros, Harvey Pekar, Frank Santoro, and Paul Vella. That’s hella Strange!
- March 31, 2011 @ 01:30 PM by Sean T. Collins
“Space cars fighting robots in space”
Neill Cameron got a fun gig recently: Drawing Battle Force 5 (written by Rik Hoskin) for Totally… HOT WHEELS magazine (which I think is strictly British). Here’s his description:
It’s about a bunch of dudes who have awesome space cars which they drive around in space fighting monsters and aliens and robots and stuff. Very Saturday Morning Cartoon (indeed, I think it literally is a Saturday morning cartoon), and as you can imagine from that description, TOTALLY FUN TO DRAW!
Cameron posted a generous sample of art, both concept sketches and finished pages (without the lettering) on his blog so we can see for ourselves. Enjoy!
- March 31, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
New soccer-horror hybrid plays for keeps
SCORE!
Ok, maybe that’s a bit stereotypical, but it gives me a chance to fill you in on this innovative new series that’s being previewed free online. Created by writer Geoffrey Wessel and artist Jeff Simpson, the soccer crime serial Keeper is a very strong piece of work with an very unique concept ripe for success.
The creators are serializing pages of the comic online every Wednesday while also building towards a full first issue for print release.The comic has gotten some good accolades from veteran comic creators like Phil Hester, Rob Williams and Jacen Burrows — with the latter describing it as a “sports horror hybrid”.
Both creators were on hand earlier this month at C2E2 showing off their book in the Web Pavilion. For more, you can visit their site keeper-comic.com
- March 31, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by Chris Arrant
Kodansha to bring back Tokyo Mew Mew, Love Hina
Kodansha Comics unveiled their fall lineup today, and in addition to the already announced return of Sailor Moon, they will be bringing two more classics from the early days of licensed manga: Tokyo Mew Mew and Love Hina, both with new translations and a pocketbook-friendly omnibus format.
Both series were originally published by Tokyopop. Tokyo Mew Mew is a classic shoujo battle manga, featuring super-cute girls whose DNA has mysteriously mingled with that of various animals; they fight to save Planet Earth using ribbons and marshmallows and other sweet, girly things. Love Hina is a classic harem manga about a hapless slacker who gets kicked out of his parents’ house and ends up living in a girls’ dorm. Hilarious complications ensue! Readers who can’t get enough of boys accidentally barging into the shower may also enjoy Kodansha’s other series, Negima, by the same creator, Ken Akamatsu.
But wait! There’s more! The fall list will also include followups to two other older series. Shugo Chara-Chan! is a four-panel comic strip based on Peach-Pit’s 12-volume series Shugo Chara, which will end in September. And for the boys-love crowd, @Full Moon is the sequel to Until the Full Moon, which was originally licensed by Broccoli and is being brought back by Kodansha this summer. With its supernatural overtones (one character is half werewolf, half vampire), this seems tailor-made for the supernatural-romance crowd.
For those who can’t get enough, the full press release is after the jump.
- March 31, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
IDW to publish monthly Ghostbusters comic
Ghostbusters
IDW’s Chris Ryall teases something that I’m sure will be discussed at this weekend’s WonderCon — the launch of a monthly Ghostbusters comic. It looks like the teaser is by Dan Schoening, who has worked on the Ghostbusters: What in Samhain Just Happened special as well as the Kung Fu Panda comic.
- March 31, 2011 @ 10:30 AM by JK Parkin
BOOM! Studios credits Hellraiser #1 sellout to free ‘Prelude’ PDF
Hellraiser #1 second printing
BOOM! Studios announced via press release this week that the first printing of Hellraiser #1 has sold out, with a second printing on the way. While Hellraiser #1, which was released last week, is no longer available from distributors, your local comic shop may still have copies on store shelves.
These sorts of announcements are fairly common nowadays, to the point that it’s probably pretty rare that we’d even blog about them. Michael May did a really thoughtful interview with the Archaia folks earlier this year about sellouts and what they mean. Looking back at Michael’s intro, he highlighted some questions that I know go through my mind when I see these sorts of press releases, things like whether retailers under-ordered, was the print run really low, did the comic just really click with the audience or was it marketed really well?
While no doubt it doesn’t hurt to have Clive Barker, a writer with a built-in fanbase, returning to write one of his signature creations, BOOM! gave credit to that last one in the press release. The company released a PDF copy of Prelude to the Hellraiser #1 on the day the comic came out.
“Given the tremendous fan response online and how well Hellraiser #1 sold in comic shops nationwide, I feel confident in saying the online PDF worked just as we’d hoped,” Chip Mosher, BOOM!’s marketing director, told Robot 6. “But beyond selling out, we wanted to make it as easy as possible for comic book fans and non-comic book fans to host and share the all-new, all-original Prelude to the Hellraiser #1 PDF and give as many people a chance to experience the beginning of an all-new Hellraiser series. We know there are plenty of horror and Clive Barker fans who may not be comics fans, so by having a quick, easy and completely free way to read and share the Prelude to the Hellraiser #1 we hoped this would be enough of a catalyst to get more people interested in comic books.”
- March 31, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by JK Parkin
Stan Lee to develop Schwarzenegger comic
Remember a few weeks back when we noted that former California governor and Terminator star Arnold Schwarzenegger was hinting that he was working on a comic? Well, it’s true, and none other than Stan Lee is going to be a part of the creative team.
It’s not clear exactly what role Lee will play in the comic, but he had plenty to say to Entertainment Weekly, as did Schwarzenegger himself. The character will be a superhero named The Governator, and Lee refers to him as a “semi-fictional” character, which makes one wonder. Is there a real Arnold Cave somewhere, perhaps in an undisclosed location? Or is it just that the cast will include Schwarzenegger’s real-life wife (Maria Shriver) and kids?
Along with the Arnold Cave, the Governator will have a fleet of super vehicles at his disposal, a closet full of “Super Suits” that allow him to fly and perform other super stunts, and a team of colorful sidekicks, such as Zeke Muckerberg, the precocious 13-year-old computer whiz who acts as the Governator’s cybersecurity expert. Naturally, there will also be recurring supervillains — including an evil organization called Gangsters Imposters Racketeers Liars & Irredeemable Ex-cons (or G.I.R.L.I.E. Men, for short). For Schwarzenegger, the cartoon is obviously the next best thing to being President. “I love the idea of a control center below my house with a path so that boats and submarines can go right into the ocean,” he tells EW. “In the cartoon, my house is much closer to the beach than where we live, but, you know, it’s a cartoon.”
Oh, so that’s the fictional part—the house is closer to the beach.
But has anyone told them about this? Or will it be terminated with extreme prejudice?
- March 31, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | Four indicted in comic collector’s death
Legal
Legal | A Rochester, N.Y., businessman and the three men he allegedly hired to steal $40,000 worth of comics have been indicted on federal murder charges in connection with the death last summer of an elderly collector.
Authorities allege that Rico Vendetti hired Rochester residents Arlene Combs, Albert Parsons and Donald Griffin to break into the rural Medina home of Homer Marciniak, a 77-year-old retired janitor, on July 5 to steal his comic collection, described as “his pride and joy.” Police say the burglars entered the house in the pre-dawn hours after cutting the telephone line. When Marciniak awoke and surprised them, he was allegedly beaten and knocked to the floor. Although his injuries weren’t life-threatening, Marciniak died of a heart attack later that day. The four defendants face mandatory terms of life in prison if convicted. [The Buffalo News]
- March 31, 2011 @ 07:35 AM by Kevin Melrose
Green Lantern: Emerald Knights arrives in stores June 7
Green Lantern: Emerald Knights
Warner Home Video announced yesterday that the animated movie Green Lantern: Emerald Knights will arrive in stores June 7, 10 days before the release of the big Green Lantern feature film.
The movie has Hal Jordan telling a newly recruited Arisia six interlocking tales of various Green Lanterns, including Abin Sur, Kilowog, Laira and Mogo. The six stories are written by Geoff Johns, Michael Green and Marc Guggenheim, Dave Gibbons, Peter J. Tomasi, Eddie Berganza, Alan Burnett and Todd Casey.
It features the voice talent of Nathan Fillion (Firefly), Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men), musician Henry Rollins, wrestler Rowdy Roddy Piper and Wade Williams (Prison Break). The film is executive produced by Bruce Timm and directed by Lauren Montgomery, Jay Oliva and Christopher Berkeley.
The press release also noted that the film will include a preview of the next DC Comics animated movie, Batman: Year One. You can find the entire release after the jump.
Green Lantern: Emerald Knights will have its world premiere tomorrow, April 1 at 6 p.m. at WonderCon in San Francisco. A panel discussion by filmmakers and voice cast will immediately follow the screening.
***** Continue Reading »
- March 31, 2011 @ 06:00 AM by JK Parkin
Your Wednesday Sequence 4 | CF
City-Hunter Magazine #1 (2009), page 4 panels 1-3. CF.
It’s easy to overlook just how incredible a thing sequence in comics can be. It’s the language the form uses to construct itself, so of course it’s going to gain some transparency for the average reader, become as silent and reliable and forgotten as the shapes of the individual letters that make up this article. Sequence is the most essential element of comics, and as such it’s taken for granted by many who engage the form.
But sequence is magic. To me the most mind blowing, amazing aspect of the comics form is how it can juxtapose multiple images that have absolutely no continuity, no relationship between themselves, and still force readers to see them as connected, inextricable, bound up in one whole. That might sound obvious or silly when they’re sitting right next to one another — comics panels do share the context of the pages they’re printed on, the books they reside in — but the same can be said for a Rembrandt hanging next to a Girodet in an art museum. That shared context is a mysterious and powerful thing. I’m not sure anybody can explain why it works, why we instinctively understand disconnected single-panel images as contributing parts of a whole. It just does. We just do.
That inherent ability to make completely separated parts interact and speak to one another gives comics an interesting potential for abstraction and poesy that isn’t really available in any other medium. It isn’t something that’s explored all too often — mostly when two disconnected panels appear in sequence, a third will come along at some point and square the circle by placing them in a larger scene together, giving them a shared pictorial context. And that’s fine, that works for telling stories and choreographing scenes and plenty of the other things comics do. This sequence from CF’s xeroxed City-Hunter zine, though, is cool because that doesn’t happen. Image leads to image more intuitively, the substance of the pictures themselves, not the content, suggesting the form the next one takes.
- March 30, 2011 @ 05:00 PM by Matt Seneca