2011 March
Smithsonian comics celebrate women in science
March is Women’s History Month (and indeed, today is International Women’s Day), so the Smithsonian Channel is running a series of shows on Sunday evenings telling the stories of various women in science — and they made some comics to go with them.
Written by Mallory Murphy, illustrated by Gerard Conte, and colored by Kevin Colden (who won a Xeric Award and was nominated for an Eisner for Fishtown), the comics go the traditional route, with covers that hint at more action than just sitting at a computer trying to make the code work (which is what the male scientist in my household seems to spend his time doing). In fact, each five-page comic focuses on a key moment in the scientist’s early life, when they started asking the questions that led to their research.
The storytelling style fits nicely with the subject matter, and each comic is short enough to pique the interest without delivering a lecture (always a risk with educational comics), so the site is worth pointing out to any young potential scientists, male or female, who might take an interest
- March 8, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Julie Taymor could depart Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark
Julie Taymor
Director Julie Taymor, who just last week said she was “in the crucible and the fire of transformation,” could be on her way out of the beleagured Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.
According to The New York Times, producers were negotiating Monday for the Tony Award winner to work with an expanded creative team — including veteran musical supervisor Paul Bogaev and possibly playwright/comics writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa — to overhaul the much-delayed and derided $65 million production. They’re reportedly also deciding when to officially open, now that a sixth delay is inevitable.
The show was scheduled to open next Tuesday, a date described in January by lead producer Michael Cohl as “the final postponement,” but The Times notes that theater critics have not received invitations, which are typically sent about two weeks before.
Taymor’s departure would, of course, be a seismic change for the trouble musical, which she’s steered from its genesis in 2002 through near-bankruptcy, repeated delays, cast departures, prolonged previews, injuries and critical scorn. Along the way, she’s been called everything from a creative genius to a megalomaniac, all the while serving as a lightning rod for criticism.
By far the most expensive and technically complex show in Broadway history, Spider-Man added another superlative to the list on Sunday: With its 98th preview performance, it broke the record set in 1969 by Jackie Mason’s A Teaspoon Every Four Hours.
- March 8, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Can feral cats and the iPhone save Tokyopop?
Last week, Tokyopop CEO Stu Levy took some criticism from a number of comics sites, including this one, after the manga publisher laid off two senior editors, Lillian Diaz-Pryzybl and Troy Lewter, and one brilliant new hire, former CMX editor Asako Suzuki. This week, Levy told Publishers Weekly‘s Calvin Reid that the Borders bankruptcy left Tokyopop cash poor:
“They owe us a significant amount of money. We’re not a big company and with less cash than we planned, we had to regroup to survive.” The layoffs, he added, were “the hardest part, because these were my friends and collaborators.”
In addition to the Borders bankruptcy, Tokyopop took another hit this year: Its agreement with Warcraft developer Blizzard Entertainment came to an end in January. Apparently, Blizzard was happy with the sales and the quality of the manga, but didn’t want to put in the time required to work on them.
But it’s not all grim: Tokyopop ended its distribution deal with HarperCollins earlier this year, but a Tokyopop representative told me they will continue to co-publish the Warriors manga (based on the middle-grade prose novels by Erin Hunter), which are among their bestsellers. According to the BookScan charts that Brian Hibbs posts every year for his “Tilting at Windmills” column, Tokyopop sold about 120,000 Warriors manga, divided over four volumes, in 2008, and 60,000 in 2009. In 2010, Tokyopop’s bestselling book was Warriors: Ravenpaw’s Path #2, which sold 22,715 copies, according to BookScan. The Warcraft manga didn’t come close in any of these years. This is just in the bookstore channel — that’s what BookScan measures — but for Tokyopop, that’s a significant chunk of its business, probably the lion’s share, so keeping Warriors is huge.
- March 8, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | February’s record low, skepticism about digital plans
Green Lantern #62
Publishing | February brought a noteworthy, if unwanted, record for the direct market: The lowest-ever top title on record. Green Lantern #62 led Diamond Comic Distributors’ Top 300 with an estimated 71,500 copies, 18,400 less than the previous record holder. Chart watcher John Jackson Miller writes, “For the first time, we probably cannot say that when all reorders and newsstand sales are added, the total will be above 100,000 — although we certainly would expect its eventual readership to go above that mark given reprint editions (to say nothing of digital).”
DC’s $29.99 Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne deluxe hardcover helped to push year-over-year dollars sales up 6.92 percent, offsetting a slight decline in periodicals to and nudging combined sales up .94 percent. “Sales of those ‘long tail’ titles below the Top 300 masked a weakness at the top of the list,” ICv2 notes. “Unit numbers at the top of both the periodical and graphic novel lists were some of the lowest since ICv2 has been tracking comic sales.” [ICv2.com]
- March 8, 2011 @ 07:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Talking Comics with Tim | Bryan Q. Miller
Batgirl 19
This Wednesday marks the release of writer Bryan Q. Miller‘s Batgirl 19, an issue in which “the “Order of the Scythe unleashes its first weapon in their war on Batgirl”. Miller was kind enough to do an email interview with me last week. I was surprised he was able to make the time, as I found out in the course of our discussion last week was also when he officially cleaned out his Smallville offices, where he served as executive story editor in the show’s final season. In addition to discussing Miller’s thoughts on Batgirl, we also delve into the collaborative aspect of writing Smallville. Miller also takes this interview as an opportunity to ask fans of the book to help spread the word about how great a series it is. As a fan of the series myself, I hope word of mouth on the series continues to grow and agree with Miller’s belief that “Stephanie Brown is ready for a bigger spotlight”.
Tim O’Shea: I’m looking forward to Batgirl going up against Slipstream, if for nothing else to see how she tackles someone with superspeed. Was that part of the appeal of pitting those two characters against each other?
Bryan Q. Miller: Batgirl’s been very re-active, as opposed to pro-active. As the Reapers start throwing themselves at her, she’ll have to learn to start being more of the latter, and less of the former. What someone with superspeed (like Slipstream) does for Steph is forces her to have to think even faster on her feet. Their first encounter may not go all that well, either.
- March 7, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Tim O'Shea
Plantable comic books
In the increasingly environmentally conscious world we live in, it’s about time comics did something.
A Chicago-based business named SPROUT HOME is doing that with a series of comics that you can plant and grow into a garden.
Although the actual comic content is short — two pages — the idea’s in the right place. It comes in two varieties, and I hope more to come. I smell a DC tie-in with Swamp Thing or Poison Ivy. I’d even agree to a Captain Planet.
- March 7, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by Chris Arrant
Comic Strips to Comic Flicks: Jack Kirby movies they haven’t made (yet)
In recent years, we’ve seen a boatload of comic books and graphic novels make their way to the silver screen, from “big two” stalwarts like Spider-Man and Batman to independent titles like Scott Pilgrim and 30 Days of Night. Among the various adaptations, though, some creators have emerged as magnets for Hollywood types — and one artist rules the roost when it comes to movies inspired by his hand: Jack Kirby.
Often referred to as the King of Comics, Jack Kirby was on the ground floor for many of today’s biggest comic-to-screen blockbusters: Iron Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four, The Hulk, Thor, Captain America. His primary collaborator was Stan Lee, but he also created Captain America with Joe Simon. The late-’80s He-Man flick Masters of the Universe was inspired by Kirby, and Kirby himself worked on several cartoons such as Thundarr the Barbarian and The Fantastic Four TV series. Heck, Kirby’s own life could be fodder for numerous films — from his relationship with Marvel and Stan Lee to a standalone movie about the little-known C.I.A. operation “The Canadian Caper,” where his artwork was used trick Iran in 1980.
Here’s a list of some stand-out creations from Jack and where we think they’d be a good fit.
- March 7, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Chris Arrant
Pastor turned surfer turned cartoonist
My own local newspaper, The News Herald, brought to light an interesting hidden gem of a comics talent located in a nearby church. Rob Woodrum is head of Eastgate Fellowship Church, and also an avid surfer and comics artist. And he’s talented!
Woodrum makes his living through art, and published a memoir graphic novel The Wanderer for Wonderwhat and Hope Amid Horror as well as the ongoing webcomic Rabbi Encounters, a modern fable based on the stories of Jesus.
“I have a very clear intention behind what it is I’m trying to do — clear to me,” Woodrum said in the article. “But I realize for some people it kind of becomes a source of contention. For me, I think it’s really important to keep it outside the expectations or the stereotypes we’ve come to associate with who the subject matter is about. If we can put this on a different stage and just change the props around but keep the story the same — it’s amazing how much more impact it can have, I think.”
To see more of Woodrum’s work, surf over to his website.
- March 7, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by Chris Arrant
Secret scars of the Greatest Generation: Carol Tyler on You’ll Never Know
from You'll Never Know, Book Two: Collateral Damage by Carol Tyler
Because World War II is generally regarded as “the Good War”; because, even in the face of the firebombing of Tokyo and Dresden, the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the alliance with, and subsequent awarding of Eastern Europe to, the rapacious, murderous regime of Josef Stalin, it’s still pretty clearly a good thing that the side that won, won; because it marked the ascension of America as the free world’s undisputed superpower; because, Pearl Harbor and internment camps aside, it wasn’t fought on American soil. Because of all that, it’s easy to forget that it was the most massively, horrifically violent rupture of civilization in all of human history, and that like less favorably viewed conflicts such as World War I, Vietnam and Iraq, any such blow to the world’s societal and moral fabric is going to have devastating consequences for decades or more to come.
- March 7, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
Hell on Earth: Guy Davis leaves B.P.R.D.
On any other day this would have been the very first thing I wrote about, but I figured you may have already been aware, thanks to the high-pitched wails of “NOOOOOOOOOO” that echoed throughout Twitterdom when the news broke Saturday at Emerald City Comicon: Artist Guy Davis is leaving B.P.R.D. The current B.P.R.D: Hell on Earth: Gods miniseries will mark the end of Davis’s run as the regular artist for the core Hellboy spinoff, which along with its parent title formed the heart of the “Mignolaverse.” Newcomer Tyler Crook will take over as the book’s artist with the subsequent arc, Monsters — his second-ever comic from a major publisher. Davis himself will focus on his creator-owned title The Marquis and other projects. Click the links for CBR’s interviews with both artists on the changeover.
- March 7, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
Another Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark delay seems all but certain
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark
When even the show’s most vocal defender is reporting on an apparent sixth delay for Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, you begin to think there’s something to the growing belief that the $65 million musical won’t officially open until June.
Roger Friedman, a longtime friend of director Julie Taymor who’s used his Showbiz411 website to chastise theater critics and counter reports by the New York Post’s Michael Riedel, now says the March 15 date — described in January by lead producer Michael Cohl as “the final postponement” — is being called a “Hope-ening.”
“One source says every time the show doesn’t open they call it a ‘Faux-pening’,” Friedman writes this morning. He frames the move as a way to sidestep the April 28 deadline for the Tony Awards while giving the creative team more time to retool the show as much as possible within the constraints of the highly complex mechanics: “I am told that the feeling is that week to week the show is selling well enough ($1.55 mil last week.) that opening now, getting panned again, and then getting snubbed by the Tonys — which is likely — is worse than just staying the course and continuing to make improvements.”
This latest delay was perhaps telegraphed early last month by a wave of negative reviews, followed by reports that comics writer and playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa had been approached to rewrite the book, and the hiring of veteran conductor and musical supervisor Paul Bogaev.
The troubled production, which has been plagued by mechanical glitches, injuries and cast departures as well as delays, was cited Friday by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for three serious safety violations for four separate incidents last year — including the one in which Christopher Tierney plunged from a platform on stage, breaking ribs and fracturing his skull. Producers were fined $12,600, a drop in the bucket for the most expensive show in Broadway history.
- March 7, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Under new management: The Comics Journal revamps, relaunches its website
The Comics Journal, a venerable, influential and controversial mainstay of comics journalism that had developed an air of the walking wounded in recent years, has radically revamped and relaunched its online presence. Its new editors are Dan Nadel and Tim Hodler, best known as the minds behind Comics Comics magazine and, in Nadel’s case, the art-comics publisher PictureBox Inc.
The print version of the Journal will continue to be helmed by founding editor and Fantagraphics co-publisher Gary Groth, acting in a more hands-on capacity as of the forthcoming Issue #301 than he has in years, by the sound of it. Kristy Valenti serves as editorial coordinator. Contributors to the new TCJ.com include Frank Santoro, Jeet Heer, Joe “Jog” McCulloch, Ken Parille, Ryan Holmberg, Rob Clough, Richard Gehr, R.C. Harvey, R. Fiore, Vanessa Davis, Bob Levin, Patrick Rosenkranz, Nicole Rudick, Dash Shaw, Jason T. Miles, Andrew Leland, Naomi Fry, Jesse Pearson, Tom De Haven, Shaenon Garrity, Matt Seneca, Tucker Stone and Hillary Chute. On a Robot 6-related note, my colleague Chris Mautner and I will also be contributing.
A look at the new site reveals a multifaceted approach, with reviews, columns, interviews, lengthy features and essays (the current lead feature is a look at the legacy of, and turmoil surrounding, Frank Frazetta by writer Bob Levin), an events calendar, selected highlights from the magazine’s archives, and more. The biggest news, perhaps, is that Hodler and Nadel plan to have literally the entire 300-issue Comics Journal archive scanned and posted online by the end of this year and made available in its entirety to the print magazine’s subscribers. Click here for Hodler and Nadel’s welcome letter, in which they explain some of the changes and reveal a bit of what’s ahead. (And click here for their farewell letter to Comics Comics.)
- March 7, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
Robert Kirkman and Rob Liefeld unite for The Infinite
The Infinite
Robert Kirkman is re-teaming with Rob Liefeld, the artist he once described as “the modern-day equivalent of Jack Kirby,” for a science fiction adventure called The Infinite.
USA Today reports the series, which debuts in August from Kirkman’s Image imprint Skybound, centers on a soldier who travels back in time to recruit his 19-year-old self, and others, to help defeat a future world-conquering villain called The Infinite. “It’s a buddy movie with yourself,” Liefeld says.
The two previously worked together on Image United, and had planned to collaborate on a Killraven miniseries for Marvel (however, that project never materialized).
“We both like tech gear, James Cameron, Star Trek and Star Wars,” Liefeld tells the newspaper, “so it’s a big sci-fi fantasy epic, but it’s got a lot of heart.”
- March 7, 2011 @ 04:37 AM by Kevin Melrose
What Are You Reading?
Wolverine Noir #1
Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading, our weekly look at whatever books, comics or cereal boxes we happen to be reading at the moment. JK Parkin is on vacation for the next week, so I’ll be your host until he gets back.
Our guest this week is Vancouver artist Jason Copland, who has contributed to the Perhapanauts series and currently draws the online comic Kill All Monsters (which is written, of course, by our own Michael May)
To see what Jason and the rest of the crew are reading, click below.
- March 6, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Google celebrates Will Eisner’s birthday
To mark what would have been Will Eisner’s 94th birthday, Google is honoring him with a homepage “doodle” spotlighting The Spirit and the cartoonist’s imaginative blend of type and architecture. Scott McCloud, who helped design the piece, also writes a tribute to Eisner on the Official Google Blog: “For most of his career, Eisner was years, even decades, ahead of the curve. I saw him debating artists and editors half his age, and there was rarely any question who the youngest man in the room was. It helped that he never stood on ceremony. Everyone was his peer, regardless of age or status. None of us called him ‘Mr. Eisner.’ He was just “Will’.”
- March 6, 2011 @ 04:50 AM by Kevin Melrose