2011 June
Grumpy Old Fan | Blowed up real good
Justice League #1
[Note: This post was written Wednesday night, before the latest round of announcements.]
I was barely into the back yard when the lawn mower exploded.
This mower was far from new. My wife had owned it since a few years before we met, and it may have been old when she got it. It had cut the grass of at least four different addresses in three different states, and had been maintained and serviced fairly faithfully throughout its life. This summer, however, its persistent little engine had been making ominous noises that my amateur care could not entirely mitigate. When it ran over that big limb, which it tried mightily to shred as it had so many others, the stresses proved to be too much. The next thing I knew, there was a puff of smoke, a spray of oil, and a silver-dollar-sized hole in the mower’s side.
I pointed that out to my wife, to drive home the extent of the damage. “See that in the hole? That’s the piston.”
“We’ll take it to Sears in the morning,” was her reply.
Well, needless to say, by this point we were talking about an ex-mower. The most the Sears mechanics could suggest was to order a part that would cost more than a new mower. This was the tipping point for my wife, when practicality superseded sentiment. Indeed, the new mower is remarkably efficient by comparison, atomizing clippings and leaving a uniform green carpet in its wake. It is cool and bloodless, like a Secret Service agent or an athlete in prime condition. With luck, it will serve us as long and as well as its predecessor.
Now, clearly I am not telling you about my lawn mower because this has turned into “Grumpy Old Garden.” Neither am I saying DC had a gaping hole in its superhero line and we readers thought it could be simply patched. There was, and is, no simple solution — not even starting over entirely — to DC’s array of small and large ailments. A few weeks ago I talked about the relationships we readers form with these characters over time, and I can see a couple of ways to roll back whatever Flashpoint facilitates.
Still, after a week’s worth of pondering September’s lineup, I have decided it is time to embrace the new.
- June 9, 2011 @ 04:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
Gail Simone confirms that Secret Six will end with issue #36
Secret Six #36
If the news on the new Suicide Squad comic that Newsarama reported on earlier today wasn’t enough of an indication, Gail Simone confirms that August’s Secret Six #36 is indeed the last issue of the series.
Man, that sucks.
“On behalf of everyone who worked on this book, I want to thank those readers. In this market, there is no way that a book starring CATMAN, of all people, should even exist, let alone be the favorite read of so many pros, readers, and critics. More comics pros and staffers from all companies told me it was their favorite DC book than anything else I have ever worked on. I think the message was that there was room for outsider comics even during a time when the focus is so intent on the icon characters,” she said in a post on her forum over at the Bendis Boards. If you were a fan of the series, click on over there and read everything she has to say.
The current incarnation of the Secret Six first appeared in the Villains United miniseries back in 2005, as Catman, Scandal Savage, Ragdoll, Deadshot, Parademon and Chesire were recruited by the mysterious Mockingbird to oppose Lex Luthor’s Secret Society of Super Villains. The team next appeared in its own miniseries and in Birds of Prey before moving on to their own ongoing series in 2008. Although the membership changed slightly over the years, the tone and quality of the stories has not, as Simone and her artistic partners — Dale Eaglesham, Nicola Scott and J. Calafiore, among others — have shown that B-level villains can be just as intriguing and entertaining as A-list heroes (and sometimes even more so).
Simone says that the editors gave the creative team enough warning about it ending that they were able to end “the way we wanted, with our team intact.” That’s great to hear, and I look forward to seeing what happens to one of my favorite books in August.
- June 9, 2011 @ 03:30 PM by JK Parkin
Graphicly: The YouTube of comics?
The digital comics publisher Graphicly is not a company that is afraid of change—heck, they changed their name from Graphic.ly a little while ago—and today they announced a big one. As CEO Micah Baldwin explained to CBR’s Kiel Phegley, Graphicly is not only redesigning its site but also adding a number of features, including embeddable comics and comics from solo creators.
The use of social media has always been what set Graphicly apart from other digital comics distributors: Readers can put comments right on the comics page for other users to read, and the iPhone app includes a news stream telling you who is buying and reading what. Now they have redesigned their website, shifting from an iTunes model to more of a YouTube model—readers can embed a comic on their blogs or share it via Facebook and other social media, just as they do with videos.
The other difference is that Graphicly, which carries comics from Marvel, BOOM! Studios, and other publishers, will now accept comics from solo creators as well, so it becomes a place to be discovered as well as to discover. Baldwin explains:
But our process is a two-tiered process where we first check ourselves that the submission is not heavy porn or copyrighted material. The second process is where the community itself curates the content to let the best stuff bubble up. It’ll be going through a review process once it’s on the site. People can see books and review them, and once they achieve a certain level, they’ll enter into our promotional engine. Up until then, it’ll be the creator’s job to promote their own content.
Sounds a bit like Threadless, actually. Or Zuda. This really changes the nature of Graphicly, from a distributor to a true social-networking service that encourages conversations and sharing, and making it a very different animal from the other digital distributors out there right now.
- June 9, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
Quote of the day #2 | ‘The quintessential mutants of America were black’
My son is 10 and a romantic, as all 10-year-olds surely have the right to be. How then do I speak to him of this world’s masterminds who render you a supporting actor in your own story? How do I speak of the Sentinels whose eyes melt history, until the world forgets that in 1962, the quintessential mutants of America were black?
—from a New York Times op-ed piece on Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class by Atlantic contributor Ta-Nehisi Coates. In the piece, Coates praises the film as “the most thrilling movie of the summer…narratively lean, beautifully acted and, at all the right moments, visually stunning” — and at the same time finds the makeup of the film’s mutant heroes and anti-heroes an unintentionally revealing glimpse into the American psyche. “Here is a period piece for our postracial times — in the era of Ella Baker and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the most powerful adversaries of spectacular apartheid are a team of enlightened white dudes.”
Coates elaborates on both points, and more besides, on his blog. “It is easily one of my top five comic book movies ever, and significantly better than any of the other X-movies to date,” he writes, even after comparing it unfavorably to the racially homogeneous but racially aware Mad Men and calling it “a period piece blind to its own period.” He also offers a quick take on the pros and cons of the film’s treatment of women, a point examined in depth by The Mary Sue’s Susana Polo.
Elsewhere on the “sociopolitical examinations of the latest X-movie” beat, ThinkProgress’ Matthew Yglesias agrees with a point of Polo’s and argues (twice) that Magneto’s out-and-proud Brotherhood of Mutants has a far more appealing message than Xavier’s accommodationist group; Ezra Klein disagrees, pointing out that Magneto’s agenda is a supremacist one, and wondering if the real dividing line between rival mutant camps would be one between those who could profit monetarily from their abilities (eg. Storm selling her rainmaking services to agribusiness conglomerates and drought-stricken nations) and those who couldn’t; and Adam Serwer connects the film with Avatar‘s enlightened-colonizer-goes-native storyline as “another example of the way the quest for racial innocence so permeates American culture that it’s almost unrecognizable.”
- June 9, 2011 @ 02:15 PM by Sean T. Collins
Exclusive preview: Archie Babies
Earlier this year, the Archie Comics folks announced their first original graphic novel, Archie Babies, to be written by Mike Kunkel and illustrated by Art Mawhinney. Now here’s an exclusive first look at a sliver of the story; the book will be out next week.
- June 9, 2011 @ 01:31 PM by Brigid Alverson
Tr!ckster Symposia tickets go on sale Monday
Last month Scott Morse, Ted Mathot and many others announced Tr!ckster, a creator-focused event that will take place July 21-24 in San Diego. The event will feature an art gallery, retail space for participating creators and a series of symposia — “rigorous workshop events for focused creative individuals to add new ways of thinking to your work ethic.”
Creators like Skottie Young, Steve Niles, Mike Mignola, Jill Thompson, Mike Allred and many more will take about such topics as character design and development, art technique, visual storytelling and the creative process. They’ll run two a day July 21-24. While admission to Tr!ckster is free, you’ll need tickets to get into the symposia, which go on sale Monday. And since the event is at a wine bar, wine will be served during the sessions.
You can find a list of all the symposia after the jump, and come Monday you’ll be able to buy tickets on their website.
- June 9, 2011 @ 12:14 PM by JK Parkin
Brisk Iced Tea recruits Green Lantern, Kenneth Rocafort for new flavor launch
Brisk Green Tea with Mango Dragonfruit
PepsiCo and Lipton are releasing a new flavor of Brisk Iced Tea this summer — Brisk Green Tea with Mango Dragonfruit. And with a name like that, it naturally will have a promotional tie-in with the big Green Lantern film that opens next week.
As you can see to the right, the can features Ryan Reynolds/Hal Jordan and other members of the Green Lantern Corps. Following the Green Lantern promotional period, a new comic-inspired design by Kenneth Rocafort will appear on the packaging. Rocafort is the artist on the DC Comics reboot title Red Hood & the Outlaws, which comes out in September.
From the press release:
In keeping with Brisk’s tradition of putting creative control of the package artwork into the hands and heart of an artist, Brisk and Warner Bros. Studios chose well-known DC Comics artist Kenneth Rocafort to give Green Tea with Mango Dragonfruit a look that aligns with both what’s inside and the epic film, Green Lantern. The artwork reinforces the unique connection between green tea and the “green energy” that fuels the “Green Lantern” Corps, and serves as the first of a two-series design partnership. Following the Green Lantern promotional period, a new comic-inspired design by Kenneth will live on all Green Tea with Mango Dragonfruit packaging.
“I’m excited about this unique partnership with a progressive brand,” says Kenneth Rocafort. “It’s not every day that an artist is given the opportunity to create art in this way.”
You can see Rocafort’s packaging designs and read the entire press release after the jump.
- June 9, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by JK Parkin
I’d buy this: Tom Scioli, potential New Gods artist?
Black Racer
Tom Scioli’s name might not have popped up in DC’s big list of creators for this September’s relaunch, but maybe it should have. The Godland artist has posted a “decreasingly jokey open letter” to the publisher on his blog, suggesting that maybe he’d be a good choice for a New Gods series.
And he’s got the art to back it up, like the above image of the Black Racer; click over to his post to see more.
- June 9, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark makes final changes
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark
Broadway | As of last night’s preview performance, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is officially “frozen,” meaning there will be no more script rewrites, new lyrics or altered choreography before the $70-million musical opens on Tuesday. In fact, the producers are confident enough to invite critics to attend previews over the next three nights, with their reviews to be published after the opening. “The show, in my opinion, is bulletproof at this point,” Reeve Carney, who stars as Peter Parker, told The New York Times. “I mean, as bulletproof as anything can be. And we want to do right by the people who stood by us, to help this show be seen for what it is.”
However, it’s not all good news for opening night. The New York Post reports that producers hoped the Empire State Building would be lit in red and blue on Tuesday, but the landmark’s owners would do it only if a change were made to the show: specifically, that the climactic battle between Spider-Man and Green Goblin be moved from the Chrysler Building to … the Empire State Building. [The New York Times]
Retailing | Najafi Cos., a Los Angeles-based private equity firm, is reportedly interested in buying at least half of the 405 bookstores operated by the bankrupt Borders Group. [Bloomberg]
- June 9, 2011 @ 07:25 AM by Kevin Melrose
Quote of the day | Kieron Gillen on the end of Uncanny X-Men
Uncanny X-Men #544
“When I joined Uncanny after S.W.O.R.D. I thought ‘There’s no way I can get THIS cancelled.’ But there are no limits to my power.”
– writer Kieron Gillen, reacting to this morning’s news that Marvel’s
long-running Uncanny X-Men series will end in October with Issue 544
as a result of X-Men: Schism
- June 9, 2011 @ 05:40 AM by Kevin Melrose
Your Wednesday Sequence 14 | Yuichi Yokoyama
Garden (2011), page 12. Yuichi Yokoyama.
(remember, manga means read right to left)
Saying Yuichi Yokoyama is the best artist of environmental processes that comics have going is a bit like saying somebody is the best right fielder the nation of Switzerland has going: it isn’t really something we’ve got a lot of. Even with the increasing prominence of landscape drawings in American comics — I’d guess it’s a combined effect of the art-comix revolution, which put sequential pages on the same level as fine-art paintings for the first time, and the translated manga boom, which introduced many a stateside reader to the more landscape-heavy Japanese comics tradition — the emphasis I see is surprisingly foreign to the comics medium. In both American and Japanese cartooning, most landscape scenes seem mainly concerned with using the form to put forth a panorama of images, a bouquet of still shots. That’s fine, but it misses a potential that this Yuichi Yokoyama page taps deep into.
What simple landscape drawing misses in its depiction of environments is that the world is a living place, a constantly unfolding process rather than a fixed background. Traditional, single-image landscape painting can’t really be called on to depict that process since it’s only single images; but comics can, and yet it does so rarely. That’s the purest, most transcendent aspect of Yokoyama’s strangely literalist manga: he draws the living world, and he uses the comics form to do it. In Yokoyama, environmental forces perform the role of “characters” with regularity, propelling sequence with the development that their very existence entails. Here, more typical characters drop out entirely and the page fixes around an unusual type of interaction for comics: not that of living things, but of the natural and man-made worlds. And still, it’s as dynamic and recognizable a “short story” as any tracking of human movement through space or conversation, a beginning, middle, and end in five panels.
- June 8, 2011 @ 02:28 PM by Matt Seneca
Robot 6 presents Icarus #2, page 11
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
- June 8, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by Ryan Cody
Original Sandman team reunites for Hero Initiative anthology
My First Landlady
Just in time for next month’s San Diego Comic Con, IDW will release Hero Comics 2011, an anthology that benefits the Hero Initiative. The book will feature a new Chew short story by John Layman and Rob Guillory, an Elephantman story by Richard Starkings and Dougie Braithwaite, and a new story called “My Last Landlady” by Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth and Mike Dringenberg — the creative team on the first five issues of the landmark 1980s/90s DC series The Sandman. The anthology is edited by IDW’s Scott Dunbier.
“When it comes to doing the impossible, there’s a dude who doesn’t really recognize that ‘impossible’ exists. Ladies and gentlemen, there is only one Scott Dunbier. Accept no substitutes,” the Hero Initiative’s Jim McLauchlin said on the HI’s blog. Head over there to check out the first two pages of the story.
- June 8, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by JK Parkin
Start (and Finish) Reading Now | Bobwhite
Magnolia Porter wrapped up Bobwhite on Sunday, and graduation season seems like an appropriate time for a valedictory strip—one that reminds the characters that this is a new beginning.
Bobwhite is a gag strip about three college friends in an art school in Providence. Roughly speaking, Ivy is a sort-of normal illustration major, Marlene is a sophisticated film student, and Cleo is a ditz who yearns to design video games, but to describe them this way doesn’t do the comic justice at all. Porter actually has a great description with the wrapup post:
I started Bobwhite because I wanted to write about girls who I felt were missing from the kind of college movies and tv shows I was watching. Girls who didn’t have life magically figured out, who talked about stupid stuff and wasted their time doing dumb things. Girls who couldn’t always get what they wanted and made mistakes as often as they made good decisions. Girls who I felt resembled myself and the people I knew. I also wanted to write about college as I experienced it- where there weren’t always wild parties to go to and amazing, crazy, life-changing events every other night.
The best part of college for me was hanging out with other women and cracking each other up. Bobwhite captures this nicely; Porter’s art is pretty rough in the early strips, but the dialogue is spot-on. Three years’ worth of strips is a generous portion, but you can read it in episodes (there’s even a handy Semester Guide dividing it into chapters), so bookmark it and save it for a lazy summer day—or to help you procrastinate when you have to pull an all-nighter.
Porter has already launched a new comic, Monster Pulse, and she is also collaborating with Kel McDonald and Amanda Lafrenais on a vampire satire, Dracula Mystery Club.
(Via ComixTalk.)
- June 8, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Could Kickstarter be the third largest indie GN publisher?
At Publishers Weekly, Todd Allen crunches some numbers and points out that if you look strictly at the number of books solicited per month, you could argue that Kickstarter is the third largest indie graphic novel publisher in the U.S. In May, Allen points out, 10 graphic novels and 5 single-issue comics were pitched on Kickstarter. Looking strictly at graphic novels, more books were solicited on Kickstarter than by Image, Boom, or even Vertigo.
Allen admits he is comparing apples and oranges:
It perhaps isn’t natural to look at Kickstarter as a publisher. Functionally, it exists somewhere between a direct-to-consumer pre-sales program and a PBS/NPR pledge drive. Consumers are pledging money to projects they’d like to see completed and if they pledge in sufficient amounts (in most cases) they get a copy of the finished work.
Indeed, as the name implies, Kickstarter is mostly used to get a project off the ground, either to help fund a self-published work or pay an artist to work on a book that will be published by a traditional publisher. It’s one-time money; you don’t fund a monthly comic on Kickstarter, you fund your first issue or two. Traditional publishers build a brand—Kickstarter will publish 10 or 15 different comics every month, never repeating itself, while Vertigo will publish issue after issue of Fables and American Vampire. The other major difference is that Kickstarter is just a storefront. The artist does all the work of creation, promotion, and distribution. There is no editor, no marketer, no sales person (unless the artist hires them). Kickstarter may help fund and publicize a project, but it won’t get the completed work into comics shops or bookstores.
Allen envisions an expansion of the model in which creators use Kickstarter to pay themselves and the cost of printing a small run, say 2,000 to 3,000 copies of a comic or graphic novel, and then selling it both through Kickstarter and in the direct market. The snag here is getting it to the direct market: Diamond doesn’t generally take chances on small comics, although the interest generated through Kickstarter might change that. Furthermore, as many comics creators have learned, promoting and marketing your comic is a lot of work, and doing it all yourself takes time away from the drawing board. That’s not a sustainable model in the long run for most creators. While it’s a great incubator for new projects, Kickstarter is not likely to upend traditional comics publishing anytime soon.
- June 8, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson