2011 May
Robot 6 presents Icarus #2, page 1
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 16, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by Ryan Cody
No, Mr. Hiti! I expect you to paint!
Sam Hiti posted this awesome commission he painted for a friend’s 33rd birthday. Hit the link to see not only the uncropped version at various stages, but also a couple of process drawings that reveal how he got to the final product.
- May 16, 2011 @ 11:30 AM by Michael May
Comico production artwork up for auction
Grendel cover proof
Late last year a huge batch of production art, proofs and other items from defunct comics publisher Comico was listed on eBay. Comico co-founder Gerry Giovinco, now with CO2 Comics, questioned whether the seller, Coyote Surplus, had the right to sell it.
“It always was Comico policy to return all art to the creators. If there is art that was not returned, we are in total agreement that it should be returned to the rightful owners of the work. If you are a creator that believes your work could be among this lot, we would suggest you fight to get it back,” he said on the CO2 blog in December.
So whatever happened to the big batch of Comico production art? In a post titled “Finder Keepers,” Giovinco offers an update on the art and other items — they’ve been purchased by Collector Haven in Arizona. Photos of many of the items can be seen at comicoart.com.
According to a post on the site, Collector Haven bought more than 2,500 pounds of production artwork:
- May 16, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by JK Parkin
Calvin with a side of Bacon
Remember a few years ago when someone drew a comic of Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) and longtime foe Susie Derkins, uh, setting aside their differences? (The comic turned out to be by an artist who goes by the handle Bob-Rz on Deviantart.)
Well people grow, people change, and now Dan and Tom Heyerman, the creators of the webcomic Pants Are Overrated, are imagining what life would be like a few years later in Calvin and Susie’s household, when they have a daughter named Bacon. The first episode was just a one-off, but people reacted so well that they have posted a second comic as well, in which we see that Calvin and Susie haven’t changed all that much. Will there be more? Playing in someone else’s sandbox has its limits, but the Heyermans’ comic manages to be both convincing and original, not an easy feat to pull off, and we’d love to see more.
- May 16, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Dark Horse Presents goes digital, adds Andi Watson
Dark Horse’s anthology series Dark Horse Presents has been through a number of incarnations at this point: First as a print comic that ran from 1986 to 2000 and premiered some of the most outstanding work around; then as a digital comic at MySpace (yes, it’s still there) that ran online for free and was collected into trade paperbacks. The latest version is an 80-page print anthology, and Dark Horse just announced that it will be available in digital form as well, with each issue appearing on Dark Horse Digital a month after the print release. Unlike the MySpace version, it is not free but will cost $3.99 per issue, a considerable markdown from the paper-and-ink version, which retails for $7.99.
Dark Horse has also been revealing some of the creators and content at their blog; JK rounded up some of last week’s announcements, including new work from Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson, and on Friday they announced another addition: A new episode of Skeleton Key by Andi Watson, the creator of Glister and the original writer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- May 16, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | Comic sales slide slows; Thor press kit triggers bomb scare
Fear Itself #1
Publishing | The drop in year-over-year sales in the direct market slowed in April, with periodicals slipping 1.75 percent and graphic novels just .84 percent. Overall sales were down 1.46 percent for April and 6.5 percent for the first four months of the year. Marvel topped Diamond’s comics chart with Fear Itself #1, while DC led the graphic novel category with the 15th volume of Fables. [ICv2.com]
Crime | Police evacuated the bus terminal in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan, Friday afternoon after a suspicious package was discovered across the street. The Michigan State Police bomb squad was called in, and it was determined the mysterious package was merely a briefcase-shaped media kit promoting Acura’s involvement with Marvel’s Thor. A writer for Automobile, whose offices are next to the terminal, had discarded the “S.H.I.E.L.D. Assessment Test” kit in the recycling bin, but it wasn’t picked up — apparently because it isn’t recyclable. [WXYZ, Jalopnik]
- May 16, 2011 @ 07:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
X-Factor wins GLAAD Media Award
X-Factor #208
Marvel’s X-Factor, by Peter David, Valentine De Landro and others, was honored Saturday night as outstanding comic book at the 22nd annual GLAAD Media Awards in San Francisco. Presented by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, the awards recognize media for their representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and issues.
X-Factor features the characters Shatterstar and Rictor, whose romantic relationship — long a subject of online speculation and in-story winks — was finally confirmed in 2009. This is the second GLAAD nomination and first win for the series.
The other nominees this year for outstanding comic book were: Avengers: The Children’s Crusade, by Allan Heinberg, Jimmy Cheung and others (Marvel); Buffy the Vampire Slayer, by Joss Whedon, Brad Meltzer, Georges Jeanty, Scott Allie and others (Dark Horse); Fogtown, by Andersen Gabrych and Brad Rader (DC Comics/Vertigo); and Veronica, by Dan Parent (Archie Comics).
- May 16, 2011 @ 06:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
What Are You Reading?
The Essential Doctor Strange Vol. 3
Welcome once again to What Are You Reading? Today our special guest is John Jackson Miller, writer of Star Wars: Knight Errant and Mass Effect comics for Dark Horse and various Star Wars prose novels. He’s also the curator of The Comics Chronicles research website. His next comics series, Star Wars: Knight Errant, Deluge, starts in August.
To see what John and the Robot 6 crew are reading, click below.
- May 15, 2011 @ 01:17 PM by JK Parkin
Saturday Shelf Porn
Welcome once again to Shelf Porn, where fans show off their collections of comics, graphic novels, toys and other items. Today’s Shelf Porn was submitted by Tim Barklay, who shows us his great collection and kick ass room from Australia. If you’d like to submit your own Shelf Porn, we could certainly use it — just send a write-ups and jpgs to jkparkin@yahoo.com.
And now here’s Tim.
- May 14, 2011 @ 02:18 PM by JK Parkin
Robot Reviews | Garden
Garden
by Yuichi Yokoyama
Picturebox, 320 pages, $24.95.
It might seem odd at first glance to describe Yuichi Yokoyama’s work as dynamic, given his minimalist, antiseptic style that edges ever so closely to outright abstraction without ever crossing the line. Yet a close inspection of his work, particularly his latest book, Garden, shows what an utterly apt adjective it is. Nothing of significance ever happens in Yokoyama’s world, at least not in the sense we think of it when talking about narrative. There’s precious little plot per se, no threats or crisis, and no character development to speak of. Yet everything is in constant motion, in constant flux, if not already transforming then ready to be transformed into something else or at least be moved about. No one stands still in Garden, and their actions are depicting in tight close ups, off-kilter worm’s-eye-views or panoramic vistas. He’s Jack Kirby without the bombast or violence.
- May 13, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Perhapanauts creators looking for stories starring their characters
Perhapanauts creators Todd Dezago and Craig Rousseau have kicked off a new webcomics feature on the Perhapanauts website. Kicking off today is a new “What if?” style story, titled “Saints & Sinners,” featuring characters from the book by Rich Woodall and Jason Copland. And they’re looking for more stories in a similar vein.
Dezago posted earlier this week that “Tales from the Perhaps” will feature “alternate reality versions of our characters, not the characters themselves. por exemplo; put them in different time periods, different worlds, different story genres. a western, a horror movie, a space opera.”
In addition, they also plan to a series of webcomics called “Strange Tales of the Perhaps,” which he said are “a lot looser and wackier. the sky’s the limit and the weirder, the better! these are our versions of the bizarro comics and the strange tales stories.”
You can find the complete submission guidelines on the site.
- May 13, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by JK Parkin
Looking at the legacy of the Russ Manning Newcomer Award
With news this week that the nomination box is open for this year’s Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award given out by Comic-Con International, it’s a good time to look at some of the previous award-winners and who they beat out for this prestigious award. The award was named after Russ Manning, the prolific artist who worked on Tarzan, Star Wars and created the classic comic series Magnus, Robot Fighter.
The Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award has been awarded each year during the Eisner Awards ceremony at Comic-Con International, and is for noting the achievement of comic artists whose first professional work appeared within the last few years. After nominations from the general public, the final winner is chosen by Comic-Con International’s organizers and the West Coast Comic Club.
- May 13, 2011 @ 01:30 PM by Chris Arrant
If you only read one new DC comic on Aug. 31, it HAS to be …
Flashpoint #5
Flashpoint #5. Because that’s the only DC Comic coming out that day.
Here’s what the solicitation text, released today by DC on their Source blog, says:”The war between the Amazons and the Atlantians has arrived. The battles between Diana of Themsycira and Emperor Aquaman will tear this world apart – unless The Flash can fix it! IMPORTANT NOTE: Because of its impact on the DC Universe, FLASHPOINT #5 is the only title that DC Comics is currently soliciting to arrive in stores on August 31.”
I plan to be reading it, as the first issue really hooked me in what was probably the first Barry Allen story I ever really cared about, except for maybe the Crisis on Infinite Earths issue where he died. I’ll talk some more about it in our What Are You Reading? feature this weekend, but this particular first issue was a winner in my book.
But I wonder what could possibly happen in the final issue that has DC pushing everything else off the schedule?
- May 13, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by JK Parkin
Icarus #1 Wrap-up
Icarus is a comic by Ryan Cody and is serialized here on Robot 6, with new pages every Monday, Wednesday & Friday. Comments welcome. Icarus #1 wrapped up on Wednesday and we’re going to start issue #2 on Monday, with new, never before seen pages posted thrice weekly. The book is just ramping up and was left with a twist at the end of issue #1 that will continue to be explored in the future. For today’s post, I thought I would post some character sheets and behind the scenes images, as we get ready for the next chapter to begin on Monday.
- May 13, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by Ryan Cody
Frank Cho debuts first image from Guns and Dinos
The Beatles and Jay-Z. Cowboys and Aliens. Now Guns and Dinos?
Guns And Dinos is the name of an upcoming comic series by Frank Cho, and the first image just saw the light of day over on his blog. Cho describes the story as an “action adventure time travel story” where a military base is plopped down in the dinosaur era. The cartoonist promises “tons of violence and gore,” as U.S. Armed Forces go muzzle-to-snout with T. Rexes and their friends.
This is the latest in a volley of creator-owned work Cho has been lobbing to comic audiences; his new Image series 50 Girls 50 is set for release in June, and he’s already announced a harsh super-hero title called Brutal with Joe Keatinge. Although he might be best known as an artist on Marvel titles like the recent New Ultimates, Cho has spent most of his adult life as writer-and-artist on Liberty Meadows, University2 and the much-talked about Shanna The She-Devil series for Marvel.
As readers of that last title can attest, Cho knows dinos — and I can’t wait to read the book!
- May 13, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Chris Arrant