2011 July
Talking Comics with Tim | Tyler Crook
Petrograd
Next month (August 3 to be exact) marks the release of writer Philip Gelatt and artist Tyler Crook‘s original graphic novel (published by Oni Press), Petrograd. To mark the upcoming release, Crook was kind enough to do an email interview with me. You might also recognize Crook’s name and work, given the fact he started his high profile role as Dark Horse’s B.P.R.D. artist this month. We discuss both projects. But before the interview begins, here’s Oni’s description of Petrograd: “During the height of the first World War, a reluctant British spy stationed in the heart of the Russian empire is handed the most difficult assignment of his career: orchestrate the death of the mad monk, the Tsarina’s most trusted adviser and the surrogate ruler of the nation. From the slums of the working class into the opulent houses of the super rich, he’ll have to negotiate dangerous ties with the secret police, navigate the halls of power, and come to terms with own revolutionary leanings, all while simply trying to survive.” Once you’ve read the interview, be sure to also visit CBR’s Petrograd preview.
Tim O’Shea: Were you interested in Russian history at all before tackling Petrograd? Once you got involved with the project, how much research did you have to do, on a variety of subjects, including the British Secret Service?
Tyler Crook: I was only interested in Russian history a little bit before this project. But mostly I’ve been interested in Russian Literature. Mostly Gogol and Dostoyevsky. Reading that stuff requires a little bit of history knowledge but I only ever figured out enough to get by. Phil Gelatt, the writer, did most of the heavy lifting when it came to doing the research. I read a couple books about the Soviet Revolution and scoured my local libraries for book with photos of Russia during the time period. I tried to use Google sparingly. The hardest part was finding photos of regular people doing regular things.
- July 25, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by Tim O'Shea
Ben Caldwell on Paradise Island
Paradise Island
It’s no secret that Ben Caldwell’s a big fan of Wonder Woman. Between his Wonder Woman story in Wednesday Comics and his awesome, but unpublished, pitch for a Wonder Woman manga, his love for the character is kind of famous.
So it was cool that after I wrote that screed last month on what makes Wonder Woman tick, Ben and I exchanged a few emails, one of which included the above pages from his sketchbook. It’s from another concept he was considering, but ultimately decided not to pitch: a series of children’s books about Paradise Island. My heart breaks a little knowing that it won’t become a real series, but it sure is fun to imagine what it would have been like.
- July 25, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Michael May
Comic Couture | Home-phoning alien vs. Predator
Owwwch...
Thomas G. Sullivan Jr. designed this T-shirt for Ript Apparel. My question is: What’s it going to take to get Dark Horse to adapt it into a comic?
- July 25, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Michael May
The many faces of Frank Castle, by Paolo Rivera
Punisher character study by Paolo Rivera
Paolo Rivera’s blog is always a joy for process junkies, filled with glimpses behind the curtain at projects in various stages of completion and, a personal favorite, “Wacky Reference Wednesday,” in which posts photos (typically of himself) he uses as references for composition or character poses. This morning is no exception: The Daredevil artist dusts off a three-year-old character study of The Punisher, which includes the rare shot of the vigilante laughing. I particularly like the death’s head detail on Frank Castle’s ammo pouches. Visit Rivera’s blog to see a larger version of the image.
- July 25, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
SDCC ’11 | Griepp: Digital is small but growing
At the ComicsPRO meeting last February, DC co-publisher Jim Lee held up a sheet of paper and a piece of dental floss. The paper, he said, represented revenues from print comics, while the dental floss was revenues from digital comics.
Milton Greipp, publisher of the retail news site ICv2, did more or less the same thing with numbers at the ICv2 Comics, Media, and Digital Conference that kicked off this year’s Comic-Con. In his White Paper on the industry, Griepp estimated that the market for digital comics grew from about $1 million in sales in 2009 to $6 to $8 million in 2010, but the fact that he still had a $2 million error bar shows just how much uncertainty remains. One thing is for certain, though: Griepp expects the market will double this year. He credited the growth in sales of mobile devices such as the iPad and Android tablets (the Sony PSP, one of the early digital comics platforms, seems to be dead in the water; Griepp attributed this to the hacking of Sony).
Looked at in isolation, that number seems impressive, but Griepp also estimated total sales of print comics and graphic novels in 2010 at $635 million, which means that digital sales are about 1% of the print market, a tiny slice indeed.
These numbers are dynamic, however, and print and digital sales are changing in different ways. Digital may be burgeoning, but print is in a slump, with total sales down in 2010 from $680 million the year before. Things have picked up this year, but the picture remains grim for monthly comics: Sales of comics were down 8%, graphic novels were up 3%. Put those together, and the market as a whole is down 2%.
- July 25, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
SDCC ’11 | A roundup of Sunday’s announcements
Defenders
As is typical, Sunday was a bit slower in terms of announcements at the San Diego Comic-Con, but there were some on the last day of the show:
• At the Fear Itself panel, Marvel made several announcements, including a new Defenders series by Matt Fraction and Terry Dodson. The team includes Dr. Strange, Iron Fist, Namor, Red She-Hulk and Silver Surfer.
• Jason Aaron and Marc Silvestri will chronicle the adventures of Bruce Banner and his alter ego starting in October, when Incredible Hulk #1 hits the stands.
• Much like Siege begot the Heroic Age, Fear Itself will bring Battle Scars, a post-event branding for the Marvel Universe titles. Several Shattered Heroes one-shots will be released, focusing on how Fear Itself impacts various Marvel heroes.
• Marvel confirmed the launch of The Fearless, a bi-weekly series by Matt Fraction, Chris Yost, Cullen Bunn, Mark Bagley and Paul Pelletier.
• DC Comics released a gallery of character designs and sketches for the New 52 launch.
• Comic-Con International released the full list of Inkpot Awards recipients from this year’s show. The list includes Steven Spielberg, Alan Davis, Chester Brown and many more.
- July 24, 2011 @ 08:17 PM by JK Parkin
SDCC ’11 | Fantagraphics to publish EC Comics Library
from Corpse on the Imjin by Harvey Kurtzman
On the same day that Fantagraphics announced The Complete Zap Comix, the publisher revealed it will bring yet another treasure trove of groundbreaking comics back to the stands. At its panel at Comic-Con International and in an interview with The Comics Reporter’s Tom Spurgeon, Fantagraphics announced it had acquired the rights to publish the EC Comics library from the representatives of its late publisher, William M. Gaines.
Known for pushing comics’ boundaries of formal innovation and craft as well as raw content before anti-comics hysteria and the creation of the Comics Code helped stifle the publisher in the mid-’50s, EC has generally been reprinted in formats that center on its (in)famous horror, crime, science fiction, and war anthology series, such as Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, The Haunt of Fear, Crime SuspenStories, Weird Science, Weird Fantasy, Two-Fisted Tales, and Frontline Combat. What sets the Fantagraphics reprint project apart is that individual creators’ work will be culled from the series in which it appeared and presented in a series of black-and-white solo spotlight volumes. The first four books announced will collect war stories written by Harvey Kurtzman (Corpse on the Imjin and Other Stories, featuring art by Kurtzman, Gene Colan, Russ Heath, and Joe Kubert), suspense stories by Wally Wood (Came the Dawn and Other Stories), horror stories by written by Al Feldstein and illustrated by Jack Davis, and science fiction stories by Al Williamson.
Click on over to The Comics Reporter for more details, including an interview with editor and co-publisher Gary Groth.
- July 24, 2011 @ 01:10 PM by Sean T. Collins
What Are You Reading? with George O’Connor
The Incal
Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading. JK Parkin is off in San Diego trying to get that Elvis Stormtrooper’s autograph, so I’ll be your host today. Our special guest this week is George O’Connor.
O’Connor is probably best known as the author of the ongoing Olympians series of graphic novels, which attempt to retell classic Greek myths (the latest, Hera, just came out from First Second). He’s also the author of such books as Journey Into Mowhawk Country and the children’s picture book Kapow, as well as the artist of Ball Peen Hammer, which was written by Adam Rapp.
To see what George and the rest of the Robot 6 crew have been reading …
- July 24, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Chris Mautner
SDCC ’11 | A roundup of Saturday’s announcements
Saga
Three down, one to go … here’s a list of the major comics-related announcements made at Comic-Con International in San Diego on Saturday:
• A number of new projects were announced or promoted at Image’s Creator-Owned Comics panel, not the least of which is the return of Brian K. Vaughan to comic books. Vaughan will write a book called Saga, which is co-created and drawn by Fiona Staples. Vaughan told CBR that the book is “an epic drama chronicling the life and times of one young family fighting to survive a never-ending war. 100 percent creator-owned. Ongoing. Monthly. Fiona and I are banking issues now.”
• Image also announced that Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman is collaborating with Charlie Adlard on a new series of graphic novels called Album. The books will be released roughly 18 months apart, 60 pages long, with different themes each year, with the first being Passenger. It’s co-published with Delcourt in France and will be available simultaneously in English and France.
• Jonathan Hickman and Nicky Pitarra will team up for The Manhattan Projects at Image. Hickman is also doing a book called Secret with artist Ryan Godenheim.
- July 24, 2011 @ 08:32 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
SDCC ’10 | Legendary announces new titles from Pope, Wagner [UPDATED]
The Tower Chronicles
Legendary Comics announced at its panel this afternoon at Comic-Con International that it will publish new projects from Paul Pope and Matt Wagner.
Set for release this holiday season, PulpHope is a more than 200-page retrospective of Pope’s career, featuring many pieces that haven’t been seen before. A previous edition was published in 2007 by AdHouse Books.
The Tower Chronicles, developed by Wagner with Legendary CEO Thomas Tull, is a supernatural action-adventure about a bounty hunter with a hidden past who, backed by a team of high-tech mercenaries, protects civilians from the things that go bump in the night.
“We are thrilled to be working with Pope and Wagner on these upcoming projects for Legendary Comics,” Editor-in-Chief Bob Schreck said in a statement. “Just as our film division works with the best-in-class talent and filmmakers to produce content for the fandom demographic, so too will Legendary Comics move forward on our mandate to publish works from the best in A the industry.”
Legendary also will release Frank Miller’s Holy Terror in September.
Update: The Hollywood Reporter reports that Simon Bisley will provide artwork for the Tower Chronicles. They also provide additional details on the PulpHope book, calling it “a revamped version of the artist’s out-of-print art book titled PulpHope, stripping away 100 pages and throwing in 100 new ones incorporating work Pope has done in the music, toy and clothing spheres, as well as other material.”
- July 23, 2011 @ 05:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
SDCC ’11 | Lady Luck revealed as mystery Justice League member
Justice League, by Jim Lee
When the line-up for the post-relaunch Justice League was revealed a few weeks ago, many fans wondered who the woman was on the right, beneath Green Arrow and Hawkman. Was it Zealot, Black Canary, Power Girl, Savant, Lady Quark or any of the other characters fans guessed?
Well, if you guessed the 1940s character Lady Luck, then you’re in luck …
At the DC Comics “New 52″ panel today in San Diego, Justice League writer Geoff Johns solved the mystery. As Kiel Phegley reports on CBR, the character is “a reinvention of an old character called Lady Luck…every time she buys a lottery ticket she wins. She’s going to get involved with the JLA after she attempts to buy out WayneTech.” He added she takes up crime fighting because she feels her life of luck has left her frustrated and directionless.
If you’re curious as to who the original Lady Luck was, a quick look around the internet reveals she was created and designed by Will Eisner in the 1940s under the pseudonym “Ford Davis,” along with artist Chuck Mazoujian. She was created to fill the back pages of a 16-page Sunday newspaper supplement that was done in the form of a comic book; Eisner’s The Spirit occupied the first half, and Lady Luck shared the spotlight with Ms. Mystic. Other creators who worked on the character include writer Dick French, and artists Nick Cardy, Klaus Nordling and Fred Schwab. In those comics, Lady Luck didn’t have super powers, and her alter ego was Brenda Banks. You can find more information on her here and here.
- July 23, 2011 @ 04:00 PM by JK Parkin
SDCC ’11 | Jock creates poster for upcoming film The Divide
The Divide by Jock
Jock of Detective Comics and Losers fame has a created a poster for Mondo, Alamo Drafthouse’s collectible art boutique. The poster is for the upcoming movie The Divide, and the poster was revealed last night during a “special basement screening” at the San Diego Comic-Con (How cool does that sound — basement screening? I imagine them having cage fighting right afterwards).
The movie, due in 2012, is described as such:
In this graphic and violent, post-apocalyptic thriller, nine strangers—all tenants of a New York high rise apartment—escape a nuclear attack by hiding out in the building’s bunker-like basement. Trapped for days underground with no hope for rescue, and only unspeakable horrors awaiting them on the other side of the bunker door, the group begins to descend into madness, each turning on one another with physical and psycho-sexual torment. As supplies dwindle, and tensions flare, and they grow increasingly unhinged by their close quarters and hopelessness, each act against one another becomes more depraved than the next. While everyone in the bunker allows themselves to be overcome by desperation and lose their humanity, one survivor holds onto a thin chance for escape even with no promise of salvation on the outside.
- July 23, 2011 @ 03:30 PM by JK Parkin
SDCC ’11 | Marvel to launch The Fearless in October
The cover of the August Previews catalog gives us an indication of how Marvel will follow up Fear Itself, and what we should expect to emerge from the publisher’s Sunday panel at Comic-Con International.
October will see the debut of The Fearless, “an event that shows readers what’s in store for their favorite characters in the wake of the Fear Itself event. Anyone that enjoyed Fear Itself should be interested in finding out how Captain America, the Avengers, and other characters from all across the Marvel Universe deal with the aftermath.”
Although further details haven’t been publicly released by Marvel or Diamond Comic Distributors, Newsarama reports that the twice-monthly series will be written by Matt Fracion, Cullen Bunn and Chris Yost, and illustrated by Mark Bagley and Paul Pelletier. The website also confirms the October launch of Incredible Hulk, by Jason Aaron and Marc Silvestri.
Stay tuned to Comic Book Resources for more information as details surface from Comic-Con.
- July 23, 2011 @ 02:31 PM by Kevin Melrose
SDCC ’11 | Fantagraphics to publish Complete Zap Comix
As was revealed during today’s Fantagraphics panel at San Diego, the Seattle-based company plans to publish The Complete Zap Comix. The book, which will collect every issue of the seminal underground comics series to date, is tentatively scheduled to be released in the fall of 2012. It will be a hardbound, two-volume slipcase, similar to their collections of Harvey Kurtzman’s Humbug magazine and Bill Mauldin’s Willie & Joe series.
One of the most influential comics ever published, the first two issues of Zap were created entirely by Robert Crumb, who then invited other artists to contribute, including Spain Rodriguez, the late Rick Griffin, S. Clay Wilson, Victor Moscoso, Gilbert Shelton and Robert Williams. The series quickly not only catapulted Crumb and the other artists to stardom (or a relative stardom at any rate), it quickly became seen as one of the more prominent symbols of the counterculture movement of the 1960s, along with LSD, rock music and head shops (where issues were usually sold). While it was not the first underground comic, it was viewed by many both inside and outside the counterculture movement as the lodestone for the underground comics scene, and its existence and influence directly led to the development of the alternative comics scene in the 1980s and 1990s.
Fantagraphics was kind enough to share today’s revelation with Robot 6 prior to the start of the San Diego con, and we took the opportunity to talk to publisher Gary Groth about the project, its origins and the comic’s significance.
- July 23, 2011 @ 01:30 PM by Chris Mautner
SDCC ’11 | You have until 1 p.m. to bid remotely in the CBLDF art auction
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is holding an art auction tonight in San Diego to raise money for their various programs, but even if you can’t attend the live auction, you can still bid on some really nice art (like the above Snarked image by Roger Langridge). But you’ll need to hurry — bids will only be accepted until 1 p.m. Pacific today. You can find complete details, including a list of what’s up for auction, on the CBLDF site or after the jump.
- July 23, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by JK Parkin