2011 June
New manga magazine debuts in digital and print
Manga magazines are a tough sell; from Raijin to Pulp to Animerica to Shojo Beat, the publishing landscape is littered with noble experiments that lasted for a few years and then sputtered out (while remaining, it must be said, much beloved by their readers).
So you have to applaud the publishers of the new manga magazine GEN, although it seems like their marketing is a bit off. GEN bills itself as “Indie Manga from the Tokyo Underground,” but in the first issue, at least, it’s more like straight-up genre manga. “Underground” suggests Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s dark, sad stories, or the grotesque horror tales of Suehiro Maruo. That’s not GEN; instead, it offers a quartet of serialized stories that fall more or less into standard manga genres: There’s a fighting manga, one about an alien in a high school, a historical manga that looks like it will include some fighting action, and a ghost story. The stories aren’t bad, and the art is quite good, especially in Mask, the historical manga.
In an interview with Julie Opipari of Manga Maniac Cafe, GEN editor Robert McGuire says the manga in GEN are all created by doujinshi (self-published) artists. Doujinshi can be pretty “raw” (McGuire’s word), but these manga are all PG-rated; if there’s an adult aspect to them, it’s that they are more thoughtful than your standard boobs-and-battles manga.
GEN is published both as a downloadable PDF and a print edition. The first issue is available for free download, and the second issue is $2.99; the print edition is $9.95. The publisher seems to regard the print version as a collectible and the digital edition as the one most people will read. I read it on my iPad, which worked fine, except that the pages swipe Western-style, from right to left, but read Japanese style, from right to left as well. The magazine reads best in landscape mode, as it is presented in two-page spreads. It’s definitely worth a look; the inside may not match the marketing, but it’s still a solid read.
- June 28, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Joker breaks out the crowbar (again) in Detective Comics #881
A sequence from Detective Comics #881, by Jock
Last night Jock offered a sneak peek at “some Joker business” from August’s Detective Comics #881, the conclusion of his well-regarded run on the series with writer Scott Snyder, and the final issue before DC Comics’ big line-wide relaunch. It’s “the issue everyone will be talking about,” the publisher promises. That may be hyperbole, of course. But it also may be because Jock’s snapshot of a crowbar-wielding Joker harks back to a 22-year-old scene from Batman #427 that didn’t turn out so well for the character on the receiving end. Oh, sure, Jason Todd got better; it just took him 15 years.
Check out the original sequence after the break. Detective Comics #881 hits shelves on Aug. 10.
- June 28, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | Revamped Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark performing well
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark
Broadway | Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the retooled $75 million Broadway musical, took in $1.7 million for the week ending this past Sunday, which is above the $1.2 million the producers have indicated they need to reach to stay viable. The amount made it the No. 3 musical for the week, after Wicked and The Lion King. [Associated Press]
Legal | Robert Corn-Revere, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s general counsel, discusses the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. EMA, which sought to ban the sale of violent video games to minors. He notes that the court drew upon the history of comic book censorship in reaching its conclusion to reject the ban: “Citing the amicus brief filed by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, it noted the crusade against comics led by Dr. Frederic Wertham and observed that it was inconsistent with our constitutional traditions. The Court traced the history of censorship that targeted various media directed toward the young and held that restricting depictions of violence could not be justified under established principles of First Amendment law.” [CBLDF]
- June 28, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Talking Comics with Tim | Charles Soule
27
During HeroesCon earlier this month, I ran into 27 writer Charles Soule. Being a big fan of music (and comics of course), I was ashamed to admit that I had not run across his series (which launched last year from Image/Shadowline), built upon the rock and roll legend about certain very brilliant musicians dying at the age of twenty-seven. With the trade paperback of the first four issues set to go on sale this Wednesday, Soule and I settled in for a quick email interview. I was intrigued to learn about Soule’s contest for readers. Also, we talk about e sure to read to the end of this interview for a mention of Vanilla Ice.
Tim O’Shea: While at the heart of the tale, the threat of death looms–and yet as you note in this November 2010 CBR interview 27‘s theme is “really creativity”. Can you talk about why you wanted to explore the concept of creativity partially through death?
Charles Soule: Jumping right into the heavy stuff, eh? Fine by me. The “hook” to 27 revolves around the many brilliant musicians and artists who have died at age twenty-seven – they’re known in rock and roll mythology as the “27 Club,” and the idea is that there’s some sort of curse that takes particularly talented individuals well before their time. In the 27 comic, Will Garland, a superstar guitar hero, turns twenty-seven and his life falls apart. His hand gets hit with a nerve disease that makes him unable to play, and all sorts of other terrible things start to occur that make him realize he’s been hit by the curse. From there, he has to try to beat the curse and live to see twenty-eight. Lots of supernatural craziness, lots of rock music lore, lots of thrills, chills and guitar fills.
But as you noted, that’s just the surface story – the carnival barker tease that gets people in the freakshow tent. The deeper theme is creativity; why do some people seem almost compelled to make art, and what does that cost them? Why are some amazing talents taken young, and, of course, is it better to burn out or fade away (to, er, re-coin a phrase)? These are big questions, and I thought they were worth exploring. Most people are creative to some extent, and the ‘why’ of it all is worth trying to unravel.
- June 27, 2011 @ 04:00 PM by Tim O'Shea
Robot Reviews | Snarked #0
Snarked #0
By Roger Langridge
kaboom!
Roger Langride, writer of the Muppet Show comics and Thor: Mighty Avenger, set the bar pretty high when he decided to use Lewis Carroll’s characters, the Walrus and the Carpenter, in his new comic, Snarked. Carroll is a tough act to follow, and there’s a big risk that the new characters will fall flat compared to the original.
Langridge has succeeded admirably, however, in not only making an enjoyable comic but making one in which his story is both an original creation and true to its roots. Carroll’s walrus and carpenter use witty-sounding conversation as misdirection while they lure unsuspecting oysters to their dinner plates. Langridge’s characters, cast as lovable swindlers in some vague past, fast-talk their way into the palace to steal some food from the king’s kitchen, but unlike in the poem, they wind up with empty stomachs after all.
Snarked #0 is a tease, a one-dollar prequel to the series, which launches with issue #1 in October. This comic features an eight-page story, plus some special bonus content—puzzles, a fake diary and newspaper that relate to the story, and all of Carroll’s poems “The Hunting of the Snark” and “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” with the original illustrations.
- June 27, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
Her beautiful dark twisted fantasy: Emily Carroll’s “The Prince & the Sea”
Lavishly illustrated? Check. Lushly colored? Check. Twisty and turny? Check. Darker than a black steer’s tuches on a moonless prairie night? Big check. Fresh from winning the Joe Shuster Award for Outstanding Webcomics Creator, Emily Carroll returns to the web with “The Prince & the Sea,” a new story about star-crossed lovers set firmly in her gorgeous, grim tradition.
- June 27, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
Tobey Maguire caught in tangled legal web over poker winnings
Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker
Thanks to a lawsuit, we may finally get to the bottom of how Peter Parker juggled rent, Aunt May’s medical bills and web fluid. Spoiler: It’s not from freelancing for the Daily Bugle.
Radar Online and Star magazine report that Tobey Maguire, who starred in director Sam Raimi’s three Spider-Man films, is being sued for$311,000 he allegedly won in poker from now-imprisoned hedge fund manager Brad Ruderman. It seems the Ponzi-schemer was gambling (rather poorly) with his investors’ money — $5.2 million out of the $25 million he embezzled — in a series of high-stakes poker games held twice weekly from 2006 to 2009 in Beverly Hills. Now those investors want it back.
The no-limit games of Texas Hold ‘em, with their $100,000 buy-in, are alleged to have attracted such celebrities as Leonardo DiCarpio, Ben Affleck (Matt Murdock!) and Matt Damon. They’re also not legal which, according to the lawsuit, means Maguire and others aren’t entitled to the money they won from Ruderman. While DiCaprio, Affleck and Damon aren’t being sued, several others are, including director Nick Cassavetes, Welcome Back, Kotter star Gabe Kaplan and billionaire businessman Alex Gores.
According to Star, Maguire was a “very, very frequent player” whoraked in as much as $1 million a month from the games, and won $110,000 from Ruderman in a single hand. While underground poker clubs are illegal in California, the crime is rarely prosecuted.
Ruderman, former CEO of Ruderman Capital Partners, was convicted on two counts of wire fraud and two counts of investment adviser fraud. He’s serving a 10-year prison sentence in Texas, and is due for release in 2018.
- June 27, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
Mondo lights up Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Mondo Transformers poster
Mondo Tees, The Alamo Drafthouse’s collectible art boutique, has teamed up with Paramount Pictures to give away a poster by artist Jesse Phillips at the Tuesday midnight showings of Transformers: Dark of the Moon at the Arclight Hollywood in Los Angeles. That doesn’t mean the rest of the world is left in the dark, though; they also plan to sell the above variant edition of it on their site starting on Wednesday.
Stuff like this typically sells out really fast, so you may want to watch their Twitter feed to find out exactly when it goes on sale.
- June 27, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
Is DC Comics bringing an end to writing for the trade?
DC Comics
One of the most frequently criticized hallmarks of modern mainstream comics may be a thing of the past at DC Comics.
During a nearly four-hour meeting Friday in New York City, part of a nationwide push by top DC executives to sell direct market shops on the September relaunch, retailers were reportedly told that writers will no longer be expected to “write for the trade.” That means they won’t have to construct stories in, say, six-issue arcs to more easily fit the collected format.
“Writers have been told to write the story they want to write and not worry about the trade collecting,” Mike Gendreau of Modern Myths in Northampton, Mass., writes in a meticulous report to Bleeding Cool. ‘If they can tell a well-paced story in 4 issues, they’ve been told not to pad it to make it 6 issues. Editorial can worry about how it’s going to be collected. Going forward, books will be trade-collected depending on how the story fits. If a book has a 4-issue arc followed by a 3 issue arc, the trade will collect both. If it’s 2 4-issue arcs or 3 2-issue stories, those will get collected. As a side note, DC is looking into a new trade dress to represent the New 52 and a better spine design to call out information for fans.”
Frequently lumped in with decompression, the practice of “writing for the trade” has often been the target of comics fans who accuse writers of stretching out a story that could be told in two or three issues to five or six simply to fill the trade paperback. Even veteran writer Chris Claremont, whose classic X-Men storylines sometimes bled into each other, criticized the modern tendency, telling Graphic NYC, “One problem for me, as a reader, that I see in the modern presentation of comics, is the evolution of things to trades. What you have now are five issue bursts. Why? Because everything’s going to go into trade. I find that counter-productive; I want the flexibility and luxury of being able to expand a story by an issue if it’s working well, or cut it by an issue if it’s not. I don’t want to sit there and be locked into a defined format, which would make it awful for me to be a TV writer.”
- June 27, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Supreme Court rejects ban on sale of violent video games to minors
Grand Theft Auto IV
The U.S. Supreme Court this morning struck down a California law that would have banned the sale or rental of “violent” video games to minors, ruling that such a restriction violates the First Amendment.
With a 7-2 vote, the justices upheld a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the 2005 law, which never went into effect because of legal challenges but would have imposed $1,000 fines on businesses that sell violent games to those under the age of 18. According to ABC News, nine similar laws were passed across the nation, but all were blocked.
“Like books, plays and movies, video games communicate ideas,” Justice Antonin Scalia said in the courtroom. “The most basic principle of First Amendment law is that government has no power to restrict expression because of its content. [...] There is no tradition in this country of specially restricting children’s access to depictions of violence. Certainly, the books we give children to read — or read to them when they are younger — have no shortage of gore. Grimm’s Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed.”
- June 27, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
SDCC Wishlist | Cliff Chiang’s Epic Proportions shirt
by Cliff Chiang
I already have one Cliff Chiang shirt in my wardrobe, and hopefully come San Diego I’ll have another — the above shirt from Epic Proportions, a Comic-Con exclusive. EP has a whole line of signature tees by artists like Walt Simonson and Geof Darrow, so hopefully this will just be the first of many from Chiang.
For more on the shirt and Chiang’s upcoming run on Wonder Woman, head over to PopCultureShock for an interview.
- June 27, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by JK Parkin
Who’s the mysterious 15th member of the Justice League?
Justice League, by Jim Lee
When an image of the full, 15-member lineup of DC Comics’ relaunched Justice League leaked over the weekend, discussion immediately turned to the identity of two of the four female characters.
The figure on the left, between Atom and Firestorm, was quickly pegged as Element Woman, a member of the Secret Seven who debuted in Flashpoint #1. But the character opposite her hasn’t been so easy. Speculation soon settled on Zealot from the WildStorm universe, Black Canary, Power Girl — fan blog DC Women Kicking Ass has head shot comparisons — and even the monster-hunting Miranda Shrieve introduced in Flashpoint: Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown #1.
All are seemingly good contenders — all blonde, all with something to contribute to the Justice League roster, and to the newly tweaked DC Universe continuity. Black Canary has a history with the League — she’s alternately a founding member or a later addition, depending on the reboot — while Power Girl served with Justice League Europe. Of course, if the Justice League is starting anew, then none of that much matters. Zealot would help to cement the mergers of the DC and WildStorm universes (Martian Manhunter is now part of Stormwatch), and Miranda, along with Element Woman, would help to untangle how, or if, the threads of Flashpoint tie into the New DCU.
There are solid cases for each of those characters, right? Even if none has the beauty mark that the mystery woman sports above her lip. Right? Well, no.
Overnight, Justice League writer Geoff Johns dropped a bombshell that destroyed all of those theories. “That is not a blonde,” he wrote on Twitter. “(No one’s guessed the characters correctly yet.)”
So back to the drawing board, fandom! Who’s a not-blonde, beauty-mark bearing, turtleneck-wearing superheroine that no one’s thought of yet?
- June 27, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | Marvel’s ‘fathers of invention’; Gaiman, Tan win Locus Awards
Jack Kirby
Legal | Brent Staples pens an editorial for the New York Times on the legal battle between the Jack Kirby estate and Marvel: “The Marvel editor Stan Lee sometimes offered general ideas for characters, allowing the artists to run with them. Mr. Kirby plotted stories, fleshing out characters that he had dreamed up or that he had fashioned from Mr. Lee’s sometimes vague enunciations. Mr. Lee shaped the stories and supplied his wisecrack-laden dialogue. And in the end, both men could honestly think of themselves as ‘creators.’ But Mr. Kirby, who was known as the King of Comics, was the defining talent and the driving force at the Marvel shop. Mr. Lee’s biographers have noted that the company’s most important creations started out in Mr. Kirby’s hands before being passed on to others, who were then expected to emulate his artistic style.” [New York Times]
Awards | Writer Neil Gaiman (Sandman, The Graveyard Book) and artist Shaun Tan (The Arrival, Tales from Outer Suburbia) are among the winners of the 2011 Locus Awards. Gaiman’s “The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains” won for best novelette, while “The Thing About Cassandra” won best short story. Tan won for best artist. [Locus Online]
Legal | Jeff Trexler reviews the legal battle between Warner Bros. and the heirs of creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster through the filter of the Neil Gaiman/Todd McFarlane decision, where a judge ruled Gaiman has copyright interest in Medieval Spawn, Angela and other Spawn characters. [The Beat]
- June 27, 2011 @ 07:00 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
What Are You Reading?
Hello and welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading? Today’s special guest is Shannon Wheeler, New Yorker cartoonist and creator of the Eisner Award-winning comic book Too Much Coffee Man, Oil & Water, the Eisner-nominated I Thought You Would Be Funnier and the upcoming Grandpa Won’t Wake Up.
To see what Shannon and the Robot 6 crew have been reading, click below …
- June 26, 2011 @ 04:06 PM by JK Parkin
Is this the full line-up for the new Justice League?
Toon Tumblers, makers of some really awesome glasses featuring some of your favorite comic book heroes, revealed one of their San Diego Comic Con exclusives last night on Facebook, a Justice League tumbler. And here’s the artwork:
Justice League
As you can see, it features the seven heroes we’ve seen in the preview shot that’s been making the rounds since DC announced the new Justice League book coming in September (the original seven – Martian Manhunter + Cyborg), as well as several more heroes — Firestorm, Atom, Deadman, Hawkman, Green Arrow, Mera, maybe Black Canary and another character I couldn’t easily identify, but DC Women Kicking Ass identifies as Element Woman.
No official word has come from DC that these characters are indeed the rest of the new Justice League, so it’s speculation at this point. It makes sense, based on the design, but for some reason I thought they said there were only seven more characters in the League, not eight. But maybe I’m misremembering.
- June 26, 2011 @ 09:54 AM by JK Parkin