2011 March
Comics college: Frank Miller
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Comics College is a monthly feature where we provide an introductory guide to some of the comics medium’s most important auteurs and offer our best educated suggestions on how to become familiar with their body of work.
Strap yourself in for a long read, because this month we’re looking at the rather lengthy and considerable career of one of the most influential comics creators of the past 40 years, Mr. Frank Miller.
- March 26, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Kickstart my art | Help World of Hurt jump from the web to print
World of Hurt
Jay Potts has been publishing his awesome, award-winning blaxploitation webcomic World of Hurt since 2009, and now he’s looking to bring the pain in print as well. And he’s using Kickstarter to hopefully make it happen.
Potts said he hopes to publish a hardcover collection of “The Thrill-Seekers,” the first storyline he serialized on the web about Pastor Hurt and his search for a missing college student.
“This Kickstarter project was started out of my desire to raise the funds to self-publish a graphic novel which collects the The Thrill-Seekers storyline,” Potts wrote on Kickstarter. “The graphic novel will also feature bonus material, such as production sketches, layouts and an introduction by author and filmmaker, David Walker of BadAzzMofo.com. The graphic novel will be an 88-page hardcover book with a landscape format of 13″ X 6.5″ to match the original dimensions of the comic strip. Although the interiors will be black & white, the cover will be in full color. Part of the Kickstarter funds will also be used to pay for an artist to paint over my cover pencils to recreate the classic, pulp feel of a Blaxploitation movie poster.”
And of course he’s offering rewards, including stickers, copies of the hardcover, original art and more, based on how much money you choose to contribute. Head on over to Kickstarter for more information.
- March 25, 2011 @ 02:06 PM by JK Parkin
Recreating Kandor
For over a decade, artist Mike Kelley has been re-creating the bottled city of Kandor in various forms, including blown glass, lightboxes, and videos, as a commentary on memory and change (Chris recently noted an exhibit of his work in LA). While doing this, he realized that—unlike every other aspect of superhero comics—the appearance of Kandor, the last remaining city from Superman’s home planet of Krypton, is not canon. From the exhibit catalog (quoted at Super Punch):
Interestingly, the image of Kandor was never codified and the numerous representations of it in the comic book throughout the years vary widely in appearance. In this exhibition Kelley reconstructs ten unique versions of Kandor, with its enclosing bottle, which, despite obvious differences, purport to depict the same city. Thus, Kandor – as an eternally maintained, but constantly reconfigured, relic of Superman’s childhood – is an apt symbol of Kelley’s interests in the vagaries of memory…
and so on and so forth. This isn’t the only thing Kelley does—if it was, he would be a mere obsessed fanboy as opposed to a Fine Artist—and his other work ties into it in different ways.
Anyway, Kelley’s work has been collected in a new book, Mike Kelley: Kandors, and that has prompted the New York Times to put a slideshow of some of his images online. They are beautiful but also oddly generic; I think of Kandor as being more detailed than that, but as Kelley is interested in what is forgotten as well as what is remembered, maybe that’s part of the concept.
- March 25, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
Wowio relaunches Spacedog as digital graphic novel imprint
Wowio was a pioneer in digital comics back in the olden days, when they offered free, ad-supported digital comics. The company has been through a lot of changes since then, and the comics aren’t free any more, although they do offer a free download every month (usually a pretty good one) to readers who “like” them on Facebook. And unlike other digital distributors, they offer books in PDF and ePub format, so they are portable and can be moved from one device to another. (In other words, you can actually own these digital comics.)
Spacedog Entertainment developed comics and graphic novels that were then published by other publishers and shopped around for film development. Their properties include The Covenant and Proximity Effect (published by Top Cow), The Gift (Image), and Helen Killer (Arcana).
Now Wowio has acquired Spacedog and is relaunching it as a graphic novel imprint, starting with four previously published titles: Helen Killer, Fiction Clemens, Death Comes to Dillinger, and M.I.T.H. The comics are priced at 99 cents each, and the plan is to publish an issue a week, starting in April, and to expand the line to include other Spacedog properties, including those mentioned above.
- March 25, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
Lansdales and Wachter jump aboard That Hellbound Train
Dave Wachter's cover for That Hellbound Train #1
Chris Ryall has a preview up at his blog of That Hellbound Train, a three-part miniseries based on Robert Bloch’s Hugo-winning short story “That Hell Bound Train.” (Bloch is best known as the author of Psycho, the novel on which the Alfred Hitchcock movie was based.) The story is a classic deal-with-the-devil tale with a nice twist at the end, and it should make a great coimc.
Writers Joe and John Lansdale are doing the adaptation; you may remember that Joe is also the writer for IDW’s latest iteration of 30 Days of Night. David Wachter, who was nominated for an Eisner for his work on The Guns of Shadow Valley, is the artist for the project. On his blog, David shows how he developed the first cover.
Incidentally, Googling “That Hellbound Train” (I was looking for folk sources) turns up some unrelated but very tasty music videos, which doubtless will make a good soundtrack for reading the comic.
- March 25, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
James Kochalka draws animated cells
Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall when James Kochalka was discussing this assignment with the editor? Kochalka illustrated the cover of the latest issue of Trends in Cell Biology, which provides this helpful caption for his drawing:
The actin cytoskeleton assembles into a variety of structures in order to fulfill its unique role in diverse cellular processes, including polarized transport, cytokinesis, patch formation during endocytosis, and mating in fission yeast.
Kochalka’s fertile imagination has made this both interesting and adorable. But will there be a T-shirt?
(Via the Top Shelf blog.)
- March 25, 2011 @ 09:45 AM by Brigid Alverson
DC Comics shares Flashpoint character designs
It’s Friday, which means DC Comics is once again sharing some teasers on its Source blog for the upcoming Flashpoint event. With the event being an alternate reality/Elseworlds-type event, that means they have plenty of opportunities to redesign some of their characters — and it looks like that’s what they’re sharing today.
The first one they’ve posted is Element Woman, designed by Jim Lee:
Element Woman
- March 25, 2011 @ 08:55 AM by JK Parkin
Oxford English Dictionary adds ‘hentai’ entry
Annual additions to the Oxford English Dictionary, “the definitive record of the English language,” always draw media attention because when a word or phrase is enshrined in the 127-year-old OED it becomes “official,” legitimate. It’s no longer just regional slang, professional jargon or an annoying acronym; it’s in the dictionary. Look it up, Mom!
This year’s updates are no different, drawing notice for an OED first — the heart symbol becomes the dictionary’s first graphic entry — as well as the inclusion of such text-messaging/online abbreviations as LOL and OMG. Thankfully SMH didn’t make the list of 45,436 new definitions (this year, at least).
But one that did is hentai, a noun that the companion Oxford Dictionaries — the OED site is subscription-only — defines as “a subgenre of the Japanese genres of manga and anime, characterized by overtly sexualized characters and sexually explicit images and plots.”
Which I guess will all help make that errant “OMG I <3 hentai” text immediately, if embarrassingly, understandable.
- March 25, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark to lose Geek Chorus in overhaul
Patrick Page as Green Goblin and Reeve Carney as Peter Parker in "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark"
The sweeping changes to Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark will include the elimination of one of Julie Taymor’s signature elements, the widely panned Geek Chorus.
Based on the troubled musical’s four original creators — Taymor, her co-writer Glen Berger, Bono and the Edge — the geeks are four comic-book fans who make up the plot as the story unfolds, serving as a device to cover the show’s complicated scenery changes while doling out chunks of exposition. As practical as their purpose might be, they were described by some critics as “useless” and “utterly superfluous.”
The New York Times reports the four actors — Mat Devine, Gideon Glick, Alice Lee and Jonathan Schwartz — were told Thursday night that the Geek Chorus will be cut when the $70-million production goes on hiatus on April 18. The newly expanded creative team, led by director Philip William McKinley, Berger and script doctor (and comics writer) Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, apparently has found a way to execute scenery changes without the aid of the chorus. According to Broadway World, there’s no word yet on what will happen to the performers once their roles are dropped.
The loss of the geeks is only the first in what’s expected to be a wave of major changes made in the wake of Taymor’s departure on March 9. Green Goblin’s confusing story arc will reportedly be clarified, the unpopular “Deeply Furious” number cut, and the role of the eight-legged villainous Arachne reduced if not eliminated entirely (The Times says the character, another of Taymor’s signature creations, “is expected to remain, for now, though as a scaled-back character”). Bono and the Edge are also writing at least two additional songs.
In another change, Broadway World confirms that Chase Brock is replacing original choreographer Daniel Ezralow, a Taymor loyalist who designed the show’s complex flying sequences.
Spider-Man will return from its three-week hiatus on May 12, and continue preview performances until the scheduled opening night on June 14.
- March 25, 2011 @ 06:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Grumpy Old Fan | Going on about ongoing series, Part 3
Jonah Hex, stability's poster boy?
The first two parts of this little exploration looked at DC’s attempts to launch ongoing series in the ‘80s and ‘90s, when line-wide events became regular occurrences in the superhero line. However, as those surveys made abundantly clear, said events didn’t seem to relate much either to concurrently-launched ongoing series or to the relative success of said series.
Instead, the number of new ongoing series debuting in a particular calendar year looks somewhat cyclical. There were five new ongoings in 1985 (the year of Crisis On Infinite Earths), up to 14 in 1988 and 17 in 1992, then easing down to 15 in 1994, 13 in 1996, and 10 in 1997. In 1998 and 2000, DC launched only four new ongoing series; in 1999, six; and in 2001, seven. At the risk of exciting you too quickly with more numbers, a later year will have sixteen.
For now, though, we pick up in 2002, at the beginning of a quieter time.
* * *
Continue Reading »
- March 24, 2011 @ 04:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
Preview: Elric: The Balance Lost
Elric: The Balance Lost
As we previously reported in December, BOOM! Studios has picked up the license to make comics starring Michael Moorcock’s Elric, and they plan to kick it off on Free Comic Book Day this May. The book will be written by Superman and iZombie scribe Chris Roberson, with art by Francesco Biagini, who worked on BOOM!’s Dead Run title.
Courtesy of BOOM!, after the jump you’ll find three preview pages from the Elric FCBD comic — a prequel to the ongoing series that kicks off in July.
- March 24, 2011 @ 03:30 PM by JK Parkin
ComicsPro survey dampens perceptions of alternative covers as retailer incentives
The American comic retailer organization ComicsPro recently released the results from an internal poll questioning which incentives from publishers do the most to increase their orders of a particular book.
Although ComicsPro’s Amanda Emmert didn’t elaborate as to how many retailers responded, the percentages reveal a lot. According to the survey, 63 percent of comics retailers who responded said that discounts for larger orders of a book are the most effective incentive for them. This outpaced other incentives by a 3:1 ratio, with returnability and free additional comics coming in at around 20 percent each. Of all responses, none said alternative covers were an effective means to stoke retailer’s purchase orders.
Emmert added at the end that smaller comic retailers might be more welcoming of free copies and returnable comics, while “larger retail accounts look more for deep discount offers, although the correlation was anecdotal.”
It’s worth a look for anyone working in the publishing — or creative — side of the comic industry, and even armchair comics quarterbacks like you and me.
- March 24, 2011 @ 02:30 PM by Chris Arrant
WonderCon | Don’t fear mutants, fear the beard
Uncanny X-Men #534 WonderCon variant
Although Marvel has held panels at WonderCon over the last couple of years, they haven’t exhibited on the show room floor … until this year, that is. Not only will they have a booth on the floor April 1-3 when the show returns to San Francisco, but they also plan to bring copies of Uncanny X-Men #534 featuring a cover by Giuseppe Camuncoli that Giants fans will appreciate. It’s awesome to see Cyclops and crew supporting their new hometown’s championship team.
“Being from San Francisco, I am ecstatic about how strong Marvel’s presence will be at WonderCon this year,” Axel Alonso, Marvel’s Editor-In-Chief, told Marvel.com. “And with San Francisco now the adopted hometown of the X-Men, it just made perfect sense to create a variant for this show which celebrated the city and its achievements.”
- March 24, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by JK Parkin
BOOM! invades Planet of the Apes
Looks like those darned dirty apes are doing it again.
BOOM! Studios has announced that it has acquired the storied comic rights to the long-lasting Planet of the Apes franchise. With a new movie set for later this year, BOOM! has tapped sci-fi novelist Daryl Gregory (Dracula: The Company of Monsters) and artist Carlos Magno (Green Latnern Corps) to go into ape-infested territories… but not without a few surprises.
“In the new series, we’re taking our cues from the classic Apes movies, but we’re shaking it up with some major surprises of our own,” says BOOM! Studios Editor-in-Chief Matt Gagnon in a press release. “This book is sure to make fans new and old cheer, rave and, dare I say, go Ape when they see what we have in store for them!”
Set for an April debut, the BOOM! comic series Planet of The Apes will serve as an informal prequel to the original 1968 movie, in a time where Ape society hasn’t yet reached its golden age as seen in the movie. With the upcoming movie reportedly set to show the apes initial rise against humankind, this comic series could be an integral part of the expanding mythos.
- March 24, 2011 @ 01:30 PM by Chris Arrant
Jill Thompson gears for war — err, I mean — prints!
Back in February we showed off an amazing illustration Jill Thompson did of the DC super-hero Wonder Woman. It became a bit of a hit across the internet, and for the thousands — or dare I say, millions — of fans who fell in love with Thompson’s illustration, you now have a chance to have it in your own home.
Over on her blog The Seahorse, Thompson announced that she’s doing a series of prints based on her art. Although the original painting of Wonder Woman was sold just moments after it was revealed, Thompson is doing a print of the piece — as well as several others — for those wanting to get this outburst of creativity on their wall.For only $20 you can get a 8.5″ x 11″ print, not including shipping and handling.
Go over to her website to find out more, and check out the other prints she’s made available. She also does original commission and paintings for sale as well. Let me know if you want to buy one for the Robot 6 offices!
- March 24, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Chris Arrant