2011 May
The Middle Ground #55: 5 Oni Press books you should probably read
As part of the Wait, What? podcast I do for the Savage Critics – You do listen, right? If not, shame on you – someone asked the other week what I thought of Oni Press, and I admitted that I am a fan of pretty much everything Oni puts out. It was a thought that reappeared in my head this weekend, re-reading Sarah Oleksyk’s spectacular Ivy and thinking, “Man, Oni owns the YA comic market, doesn’t it?” – even though Oni themselves call the book for Older Readers, for obvious reasons if you’ve read it… but as a YA book, it’s just so, so good. So, this week: Five Oni Press books you should really make a point of reading, if you haven’t already.
- May 31, 2011 @ 04:40 PM by Graeme McMillan
DC’s relaunch: ‘Fans will see a new approach to our storytelling’
Justice League
You might remember earlier this month when DC announced that Flashpoint #5, which wraps up the series, would be the only title they planned to release that week. As it turns out, that isn’t entirely true.
According to the USA Today article that announced the line-wide relaunch, the first comic out the gates will be Justice League #1 by Flashpoint writer Geoff Johns and co-publisher Jim Lee. According to a post on DC’s The Source blog, “Together they will offer a contemporary take on the origin of the comic book industry’s premier superhero team.”
This of course is one piece of the bigger story, i.e. the relaunch, the renumbering, the rebooting, the 52 titles. It has been rumored for awhile now, and Tom sort of discussed it in his column last week. A letter to retailers from Bob Wayne, senior vice president of sales, has been posted on the Sidekick Comics site, which adds a few more details. Among them, the following quote jumped out at me:
- May 31, 2011 @ 04:35 PM by JK Parkin
Food or Comics? | This week’s comics on a budget
Fear Itself #3
Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy at our local comic shop based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on a “Splurge” item.
Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList, and tell us what you’re getting in our comments field.
Chris Arrant
If I had $15, I’d first do a two-fisted grab of this summer’s big event series Flashpoint #2 (DC, $3.99) and Fear Itself #3 (Marvel,$3.99). It’s required reading if you’re writing about comics like I am, and as a reader I’m intrigued by both. Two questions come out of this: 1. I wonder which one jiggered their release dates to come out the same week as the other event book, and 2. I guess DC will have to take off its “Holding The Line at $2.99” logo, or at least add some fine print. Next up would be Uncanny X-Force #11 (Marvel, $3.99); Rick Remender and the artists here have made this the best x-book on stands, hitting me right between the eyes by revisiting older storylines and characters and giving them a modern spin. Lastly, I would get Turf #5 (Image, $2.99), because I’m one of the biggest Tommy Lee Edwards fans out there.
- May 31, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by JK Parkin
Super smurfy fan art by Mebberson and Telgemeier
Two talented artists just presented their own takes on familiar figures: Amy Mebberson shows off her drawings of Supergirl and Batgirl covers; she will be selling prints at Heroescon, and the originals will be auctioned off at the Heroescon annual art auction.
And at Smurfology, where Matt Murray is collecting sketches of the Smurfs by famous artists, Raina Telgemeier contributes a drawing of a Smurf shilling for Chef Boy-Ar-Dee, from an 80s-vintage TV commercial that apparently made a big impression on Raina. Check it out after the jump.
- May 31, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
NCS invites webcomics creators to the party
It’s not exactly pirates vs. ninjas, but there has been, shall we say, some ill feeling between webcomics creators and the National Cartoonists Society over the years. But there comes a time to put away childish things, including feuds, and this year the NCS actually invited three webcomics creators—Kate Beaton, Randall Munroe, and Dave Kellett—to present a panel at their annual meeting, which was held this past weekend in Boston. Naturally, Kellett worked this event, along with some of the high points of the evening, into his daily webcomic, Sheldon.
The big news of the evening was that Richard Thompson won the award for outstanding cartoonist of the year, an honor that anyone who reads Cul de Sac can tell you was well deserved. The award for best newspaper strip went to Jeff Parker and Steve Kelley’s Dustin, Jill Thompson won the Best Comic Book Award for Beast of Burden, and Joyce Farmer took Best Graphic Novel honors for Special Exits.
- May 31, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
Kirby Krackle goes green in ‘Ring Capacity’ video
Our friends in the Seattle nerd rock band Kirby Krackle have released a video for the song “Ring Capacity,” their ode to Green Lantern. The video features an animated battle between Hal Jordan and Sinestro, with a little help for GL from the band members.
The timing couldn’t be better, what with the Green Lantern film landing in theaters in a few weeks. There’s also a Facebook group for fans of the band hoping to get the song on the movie soundtrack.
- May 31, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by JK Parkin
Kupperman’s Mark Twain’s Autobiography 1910-2010 coming in September
Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010
Fantagraphics has revealed the cover for Michael Kupperman’s new book Mark Twain’s Autobiography 1910-2010, which is due out in September.
Playing off of the often-misquoted Twain quote about exaggerated reports of his death, Kupperman tells us what Twain has been up to since the author and humorist “supposedly” passed away. It involves the Yeti, the Six Million Dollar Man and the “skin trade,” if this post from Kupperman is any indication. It sounds like a lot of fun.
- May 31, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by JK Parkin
Quote of the day | Ed Brubaker on superheroes, violence, and the villainy of closure
Captain America and Bucky discuss their relationship
[I've] pretty much been given free rein on Captain America and Daredevil and all the stuff I’ve written for [Marvel] to do whatever I do because they like what I do. Still, I know what I’m doing. I know the superhero comic has to have a fight in it. I know there has to be a bad guy. I know that at the end of the day, the problem will not be solved by talking about it but will be solved by two people punching each other in the face. Although I have gotten away with letting the bad guys win a lot of the time, which is more true, I think.
David Milch said, when he created Deadwood, that part of Deadwood was wanting to exorcise — I think he worked on Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue, and he thought it was bullshit that every week they were solving crimes when in the real world people were always getting away with it. He wanted to do something about crime the way crime really is, where crime is corruption and crime is behind everything. It’s much more about what’s really going on in our country right now, where Bill Clinton deregulates the media and now we have seven companies that basically own America. Sometimes when I’m writing a superhero story I wonder if they really have to punch each other in the face. Is that really going to solve anything? I feel the same way sometimes when I watch episodes of Law & Order. I’m like, “Yeah, right. You found the sex offender and now everything is fine.” TV is big on closure, but I think closure is horseshit in real life. I’m still haunted by stuff I did in my teen years when I think about it too much.
There’s a lot to chew on and pick apart and mull over in Tom Spurgeon’s long, fascinating interview with writer Ed Brubaker on the occasion of the launch of the next installment of his and Sean Phillips’s crime comic Criminal this week, but this is the passage that jumped out to me. I’ve often said that the core idea behind superhero stories is “extraordinary individuals solving problems through violence”; now that I think about it, what sets Brubaker’s Captain America and many of his other superhero comics apart is that the violence committed by their extraordinary individuals tends not to solve much of anything.
- May 31, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
Lost in translation
Neil Cohn, who studies the visual language of comics, has some interesting things to say about this comparison of French translations of Marvel comics with their American originals. As you can see from the image above (and there’s another at the second link), the localizers didn’t just translate the words, they changed the images in very significant ways. The speed lines are missing in the French version, as is the “impact star” that marks the point where Captain America’s fist makes contact with Daredevil’s chin. The sound effects are missing as well. The changes were supposedly made to water down the violence for young readers, and indeed, they visibly change the meaning of the panels by taking away the immediacy of the visual impact.
Cohn points out that French comics use minimal speed lines, and when I think of French comics I certainly think of a cleaner look, so it may be that the localizers were, consciously or unconsciously, trying to make the comics look more French. Or, as Cohn puts it, “In other words, they are trying to translate the American Visual Language closer to French Visual Language.” This raises some interesting questions for further research (did I mention that he’s an academic?) including whether the presence or absence of speed lines indicates different ways of visually processing information in different cultures.
- May 31, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
2011 Eagle Awards winners announced
Eagle Awards
J.H. Williams III, Mike Mignola, Grant Morrison and Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba were among the big winners of the 2011 Eagle Awards, presented Saturday in conjunction with the London MCM Expo. Comic Book Resources was selected as the best comics-related website for the second year in a row.
Established in 1976, the United Kingdom-based fan awards recognized U.K. and U.S. creators and their works. The winners are:
Favorite newcomer writer: Paul Cornell
Favorite newcomer artist: Sara Pichelli
Favorite writer: Grant Morrison
Favorite writer/artist: Mike Mignola
Favorite artist — pencils: J.H. Williams III
Favorite artist — inks: Mike Mignola
Favorite artist — fully painted works: J.H. Williams III
Favorite colorist: Dave Stewart
Favorite letterer: Richard Starkings
Favorite editor: Matt Smith/Tharg
Favorite publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo/WildStorm
Favorite American comic book — color: Batman and Robin, by Grant Morrison plus various (DC Comics)
Favorite American comic book — black and white: The Walking Dead, by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard (Image Comics)
Continue Reading »
- May 31, 2011 @ 07:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
The Dark Knight vs. Wolverine in stylish Batman Deliverance
Batman Deliverance
French director Pierre Desgranges and Atomic Production have produced a Dark Knight Returns-inspired short film called Batman Deliverance that takes key elements of Frank Miller’s landmark comic — an aging Bruce Wayne, a Gotham plunged into chaos — and adds a bit of a twist. A hirsute, clawed twist.
The purists may not care for the addition of Wolverine to the story, but they’ll be hard pressed not to appreciate Desgranges’ beautifully shot, noirish film (don’t miss the Batcave!). Check out the video after the break.
- May 31, 2011 @ 06:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Talking Comics with Tim | Matthew Loux
Salt Water Taffy (Vol. 4): Caldera's Revenge
Back in April, writer/artist Matthew Loux released the fourth volume in his all ages Salt Water Taffy series for Oni Press, Caldera’s Revenge (Part 1). This installment (as detailed by Oni): “Part 1 of Jack and Benny’s first multi-volume adventure! The boys are having a hard time reading The Hidden History of Chowder Bay, given to them by Captain Hollister. So when a spooky whaling ship appears in the bay, it’s no time at all before the boys abandon the tome and find themselves in the middle of the action, searching for the fiercest whale that ever lived: Caldera!” The advantage of an interview like this is the fact that back in June 2009 Loux and I discussed the early days of Salt Water Taffy for Robot 6–and this second go-round allowed me to consider Loux’s work then and now (when developing my questions). Thanks to Loux for his time and thoughts. As happens periodically with these discussions, Loux has a question for his readers at the end.
Tim O’Shea: The most recent volume (Vol. 4/Caldera’s Revenge) of Salt Water Taffy was the first part of a two-parter tale (to be completed with Volume 5). Was there any trepidation on your part to do a two-parter split between two volumes, or in fact are you hoping it will draw readers even more into the story than if the two volumes were standalones?
Matthew Loux: When I was working out the story for Caldera’s Revenge I had originally figured it to be one volume like the previous three Salt Water Taffy‘s, but once the script was finished and I started laying out pages, I quickly realized that there was no way I could fit it all and still do the storytelling justice. We were faced with the option of doing a larger book and breaking from the original format, or splitting it into two. I was in favor of keeping the original format and doing two books instead of one. Luckily I was able to end Caldera pt. 1 on a really nice cliffhanger which became a perfect place leave off, and it will be a great spot to pick up again in Caldera pt. 2. Even though I didn’t originally write the story with that in mind, I think It works extremely well for both books.
- May 30, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by Tim O'Shea
Robot 6 presents Icarus #2, page 7
Icarus is a comic by Ryan Cody and is serialized here on Robot 6, with new pages every Monday, Wednesday & Friday. Comments welcome.
Ryan Cody is the creator, artist, writer, & colorist of ICARUS, a bi-monthly super-powered adventure/espionage book published through Super 75 Comics. Ryan’s past projects include illustrating the graphic novel VILLAINS forViper
Comics as well as contributing to the Eisner-Award winning anthology, Popgun Vol.3, from Image comics.ICARUS #1 is currently available as both a .99 digital download and in print. For more information or to order a print copy of ICARUS, please visit www.super75comics.com
- May 30, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by Ryan Cody
What Are You Reading?
Mysterius the Unfathomable
Welcome to What Are You Reading?, our weekly look at the comics and other stuff we’ve been enjoying lately. Our special guests this week are Aaron Alexovich (Invader Zim, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Serenity Rose, Fables) and Drew Rausch (Sullengrey, The Dark Goodbye, Cthulhu Tales), the creative team behind the horror/comedy comic Eldritch!
To see what Aaron, Drew and the Robot 6 crew are reading, click below …
- May 29, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by JK Parkin
Saturday Shelf Porn
Welcome to another edition of our weekly Shelf Porn column! Today’s submission comes from Reverend Wallace Ryan, who shares his library or graphic novels, toys and more with us — including the above Captain America jack-in-the-box. You can check out a video of his set-up on Facebook.
If you’d like to see your pictures here one Saturday, we’d love to feature them — just send me an email with a few images and a write-up.
And now let’s hear from Wallace …
- May 28, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin