2011 July
SDCC ’11 | Legendary reveals trailer for Frank Miller’s Holy Terror
Legendary Comics, the comic-publishing arm of Legendary Pictures, has revealed a new trailer for Frank Miller’s upcoming graphic novel Holy Terror. The project began as a “Batman vs. al-Qaeda” book for DC Comics before Miller eliminated Batman from it in favor of a new character called The Fixer, who you can see in action in the trailer.
The book will be published this September to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The trailer was revealed by Legendary as the “first of four locks” being opened, and they ask fans to help open additional locks by sharing content on Facebook and Twitter. “This was the first of four locks that will reveal exclusive content throughout the weekend, so be sure to check back regularly. Remember, the more you spread the word, the faster each reveal will be released!”
- July 21, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by JK Parkin
SDCC ’11 | Jim Lee discusses DC relaunch with local news
San Diego TV station CBS 8 interviews local-boy-made-good Jim Lee, co-publisher of DC Comics, about his part in the DC relaunch. He even responds to a bit of fanboy criticism, noting that DC’s characters “have always been in a state of flux every since they were created back in the late 1930s.”
The video also shows a bit of the action inside the con, for those who are wishing they were there.
- July 21, 2011 @ 07:30 AM by Brigid Alverson
The apes rise again in BOOM! webcomic
In case you missed it last week — just like they did for their new Elric series, BOOM! Studios has launched a mini-site and webcomic to promote their Planet of the Apes comic book. And in this case, the story also serves as a prequel to the upcoming big blockbuster movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes, due in theaters Aug. 5.
The comic is written by Daryl Gregory, who writes the PotA comic, with art by Damian Couceiro and Tony Parker. Two more installments will be posted each Wednesday over the next two weeks.
- July 21, 2011 @ 07:00 AM by JK Parkin
Art Spiegelman is on Facebook; can Twitter be next?
It’s not usually a big deal when a comics creator gets a Facebook page, but Art Spiegelman is not your run-of-the-mill comics creator. He’s the guy who did Maus, the graphic novel that changed the world. So yeah, this is a big deal, especially as he is on Facebook to promote MetaMaus, his new book (due out from Pantheon in October) about the making of Maus. The book will include not only Spiegelman’s ruminations on the genesis of his Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel but also a DVD of the entire book, with hyperlinks to sources and annotations. Naturally, Art and the Pantheon folks are promoting it at San Diego Comic-Con this week, with special MetaMaus buttons.
For a bit more on MetaMaus, check out this article in The Art Newspaper, and for a bit more on Spiegelman, stay tuned to his Facebook page.
But will he tell us what he had for breakfast?
- July 21, 2011 @ 06:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
SDCC ’11 | Lois Lane’s new boyfriend revealed [Updated]
When DC Comics confirmed on Monday that, as of its September relaunch, the 15-year marriage of Clark Kent and Lois Lane never happened, the publisher tossed in another juicy relationship detail: “Lois Lane is dating a colleague at the Daily Planet (and his name isn’t Clark Kent).” Could it be Steve Lombard or Ron Troupe? Perry White or Jimmy Olsen?
It turns out it’s none of those. Instead, the New York Daily News tells us this morning, Lois’ boyfriend is … Jonathan Carroll. No, not the award-winning fantasy author. The blond beau is a new character debuting in September’s Superman #1, where, judging by the preview, he receives a shirtless introduction to Clark and the readers.
Superman #1, by George Perez and Jesus Merino, goes on sale Sept. 28. Expect more details to emerge at Comic-Con International during this afternoon’s “DC Comics: The New 52″ presentation and Friday’s Superman panel.
Updated: DC has released a better-quality preview of Superman #1. You can see Jonathan’s two-page introduction after the break.
- July 21, 2011 @ 05:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
SDCC ’11 | A round-up of Wednesday’s news
Orchid
Comic-Con International in San Diego hasn’t officially started yet—tonight was Preview Night—but the news has been rolling in. So let’s take a look at today’s announcements
• Dark Horse announced three new projects earlier this evening. They will publish a comics adaptation of The Strain, the sci-fi/vampire trilogy by filmmaker Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. The comic will be written by David Lapham with art by Mike Huddleston.
• They also announced a series written by Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello with art by Scott Hepburn. Orchid is about a 16-year-old prostitute in a dystopian future “becoming the Spartacus of whores.” Each issue will come with a music track by Morello.
• And finally on the Dark Horse front, they will publish comics set in the young vampire world of P.C. Cast’s House of Night novel series. It will be co-written by Kent Dallan with art by Joëlle Jones. You can see a trailer promoting all three new books on YouTube.
- July 21, 2011 @ 12:01 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Quote of the day | Grant Morrison vs. nerd culture
The geek shall inherit the earth: Mark Millar and Grant Morrison in happier times
[Mark Millar and J.G. Jones’s] Wanted articulated a new myth for the hordes of suddenly cool under-achievers who’d been lionized by the rise of “nerd culture.” Big business, media and fashion were, it seemed, so starved of inspiration, they’d reached down to the very bottom of the social barrel in an attempt to commodify even the most stubborn nonparticipants, the suicide Goths and fiercely antiestablishment nerds. The geeks were in the spotlight now, proudly accepting a derogatory label that directly compared them to degraded freak-show acts. Bullied young men with asthma and shy, bitter virgins with adult-onset diabetes could now gang up like the playground toughs they secretly wanted to be and anonymously abuse and threaten professional writers and actors with family commitments and bills to pay.
Soon film studios were afraid to move without the approval of the raging Internet masses. They represented only the most miniscule fraction of a percentage of the popular audience that gave a shit, but they were very remarkably, superhumanly angry, like the great head of Oz, and so very persistent that they could easily appear in the imagination as an all-conquering army of mean-spirited, judgmental fogies.
In the shadow of The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell’s immensely influential book on social networks and marketing, nobody wanted to risk bad word of mouth, little realizing that they were reacting, in many cases, to the opinions of a few troublemakers who knew nothing but contempt for the universe and all its contents and could hardly be relied upon to put a positive spin on anything that wasn’t the misery and misfortune of others. Too many businesspeople who should have known better began to take seriously the ravings of misinformed, often barely literate malcontents who took revenge on the cruel world by dismissing everything that came their way with the same jaded, geriatric “Meh.”
– Action Comics and Batman Inc. writer Grant Morrison on the nastiness of “nerd culture” in Supergods, his new prose non-fiction book about superheroes. Morrison uses the protagonist of his former friend and protégé Mark Millar’s Wanted, a downtrodden office drone who launches a rape-murder spree when he discovers he’s part of a secret supervillain society, as a symbol of how nerds, a group of people bullied and marginalized by society, have frequently used the newfound power conferred upon them as pop-culture trailblazers to bully and marginalize others. Or as another writer of science fiction once put it, “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” (He likes Wanted, fwiw.)
It’s a bit surprising to see Morrison resorting to the fat-virgin stereotype, but in the context of the book it becomes clear that he was burned pretty badly by over-the-top fanboy rampages, up to and including threats against him, following such works as New X-Men and Final Crisis — hence the obvious and perhaps forgivable rancor in response. Food for thought during the San Diego Comic-Con, nerd culture’s annual Woodstock?
(via Matthew Perpetua)
- July 20, 2011 @ 04:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
Your Wednesday Sequence 19 | Frank Santoro
Incanto (2006), pages 11 and 12. Frank Santoro.
One of the main problems all visual art has to deal with (comics very much included) is the fact that it’s completely impossible to create an artistic representation of the world that matches the fullness of visual experience we get by simply keeping our eyes open in daily life. Instead, art becomes a lens through which we focus on particular details of the visual world at the expense of others, a process of selective simplifications. The cartoon drawing that nearly all comics art engages in to some extent or another is a form in which art’s move out of reality toward a place of greater simplicity is put right on display. Cartooning is basically a rigorous form of abstraction, in which the world’s every shape and form is put through the funnel of an individual drawing style, coming out the other end as a readable system of pared down two-dimensional symbols.
Put simply, cartooning is a type of figurative drawing, a way to approach the making of representative marks. However, it’s interesting to note that cartooning’s process differs from the basic idea behind figurative drawing fairly significantly. More or less, drawing is an attempt to create a convincing facsimile of the real world, to approximate it by creating a sense of visual reality even if complete duplication is impossible. Cartooning, on the other hand, is more often about creating something solidly other than what surrounds us. The best cartoonists are the best stylists, less concerned with the realism of their work and more with its internal logic, making shapes and lines that have more to do with stylistic consistency than the look of reality. Cartooning jettisons fidelity to the way things really are for a uniformity of appearance: under the brushes of the best, it’s always apparent that everything, from clouds to cars to clothes to characters, have come from the same unmistakable hand.
- July 20, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Matt Seneca
Balloonless: Marc DiPaolo’s War, Politics and Superheroes
Because you are reading this column on Robot 6, which is one of the blogs attached to Comic Book Resources, which is a long-time website devoted to covering all aspects of comic books, from industry to fandom, it’s safe to assume that you already have the equivalent experience of a Bachelor of Arts in superhero studies.
Therefore, Oklahoma City University professor Marc DiPaolo’s War, Politics and Superheroes: Ethics and Propaganda in Comics and Film is probably going to be something you’ll enjoy curling up with or reading on the beach, even if it is a college textbook with the words “politics” and “ethics” right there in the title. (And, if you’re already pretty conversant in superheroes, it’s worth noting that DiPaolo never talks down to readers, so his work is easy to engage with even if a Superhero and Politics 101 book seems like something you’re well beyond).
DiPaolo defines “superhero” rather widely, including not only the capes and codenames crowd popularized by DC and Marvel, but also Captain Kirk, James Bond, Dr. Who, Rambo, Xena and Jack Bauer and other such idealized heroic figures from genre entertainment. His cast assembled, his book contains a series of chapter-length essays, each dealing with a particular character or group of characters and various political readings of their various adventures.
Broadly, the thesis is that superhero adventures comment on, react to and even shape American public opinion and government policy, a discussion largely divorced from the opinions or intentions of their creators (With a few obvious exceptions, like the way the various worldviews of Stan Lee, Steve Ditko and John Romita shaped the original Spider-Man comics).
- July 20, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by J. Caleb Mozzocco
SDCC ’11 | Archaia rolls out Cow Boy by Cosby and Eliopoulos
Archaia announced this morning it will publish Cow Boy, an all-ages title created by Nate Cosby (Pigs, Jim Henson’s The Storyteller) and Chris Eliopoulos (Franklin Richards, Pet Avengers).
Boasting the tagline “Justice ain’t got no age,” Cow Boy is the tale of Boyd, a 10-year-old bounty hunter determined to round up his entire outlaw family. The comic will include short stories by the likes of Roger Langridge, David Gallaher and Steve Ellis, Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener, Colleen Coover, Paul Tobin and others.
A seven-page preview can be found on the book’s blog. Cow Boy will be released in March 2012. In the meantime, check out CBR TV’s just-posted interview with Cosby recorded at WonderCon.
- July 20, 2011 @ 01:30 PM by Kevin Melrose
Dean Haspiel checks into Warehouse 13
Artist Dean Haspiel already has an Emmy, so it’s no surprise that the television world has taken note of his talents. He shared on his blog that he was hired to do lead character design, lead props and two comic book covers for a 10-part motion comics web series called “Of Monsters and Men” for SyFy’s Warehouse 13. The series can be viewed on the SyFy website for free, and will be added to the season 3 DVD set.
Head over to his blog to view pitch and concept art for the series.
- July 20, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by JK Parkin
SDCC ’11 | Artists customize “Spy vs. Spy” toys
Spy vs. Spy by Peter Kuper
It’s the 50th anniversary of the Mad Magazine feature “Spy vs. Spy,” and to celebrate, the magazine created a blank “Spy vs. Spy” toy and asked various artists to customize it. They’ve been sharing them over on their blog, with plans to display them in the DC Comics booth this week at the San Diego Comic-Con.
Peter Kuper designed the one shown above; check out the rest on the Mad blog, the Idiotical.
- July 20, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
SDCC ’11 | Check out pages from Constant, Scott and James’ Torn
Following up on the interview I posted today, we’re happy to bring you a preview of Torn, the graphic novel by Andrew Constant, Nicola Scott (Birds of Prey, Secret Six) and Joh James (I.C.E., RPM). The pages include the prologue drawn by Scott (who also drew the cover), followed by a sequence of pages drawn by James.
The book is published by Gestalt Comics, who can be found in San Diego at booth #4500-4501. Check out the preview after the jump …
- July 20, 2011 @ 11:30 AM by JK Parkin
Robot 6 Q&A | Andrew Constant transforms the werewolf myth in Torn
After years of attending the San Diego Comic-Con as a fan and budding comic writer, Andrew Constant will spend the 2011 show on the other side of the table, selling his debut graphic novel, Torn. Constant teamed with artists Joh James and Nicola Scott to tell a werewolf tale with a bit of a twist, catching the eyes of Greg Rucka, who called it “a wonderfully subtle story from a decidedly deft hand” and Gail Simone, who said “it reads like it’s written on the side of a silver bullet.”
The book is published by Gestalt Comics, an Australian publisher exhibiting at the show this week in booth #4500-4501 (you can find their signing schedule here). Constant took the time to answer some of my questions about the book both before and after his transcontinental flight from Australia.
JK: Torn is your debut graphic novel, correct? How did the project come together?
Andrew: Torn is my debut graphic novel. It came about due to my love of the werewolf and my boredom at their current interpretations as seen across a variety of mediums. This is not to say I’m a genius writer (far from it, actually), I just thought that there was room for a different type of story, one which may challenge the reader, rather than play to preconceived notions of what a werewolf story should be.
Nicola has been a friend for ages, and she had some time many moons ago (moons, get it? sigh…), so drew the prologue for me. From there, I shopped the concept around. There were many expressions of interest, but it wasn’t until I came across Gestalt Comics that I found the best publishing home for the work.
JK: What is Torn about?
Andrew: The big picture concept is that it is the story of a wolf who is transformed into a man, in a brutal and tragic fashion. We then follow his difficult and violent journey as he tries to come to terms with his new identity in the alien landscape of a harsh and unforgiving city.
- July 20, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by JK Parkin
Six by 6 | Six Xeric Foundation grant recipients we love
Since 1992, the Xeric Foundation, founded by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Peter Laird, has awarded grants to comic creators that allowed them bring their comics to the world. Late last week Laird announced that the foundation would stop providing grants to amateur creators, noting that “the advent of essentially free web publishing has forever altered the way aspiring comic book creators can get their work out into the public eye.” The foundation will instead devote its grant funds to charitable organizations.
The barriers to entry for getting your comic work out in front of people may have changed, but as Sean Kleefeld points out, the Xeric Foundation provided another benefit to comic fans. “…here’s why I’ll miss the Xerics: they have been an incredibly powerful shorthand for identifying great comics,” he wrote on his blog. “Oh, there’s other comic awards out there, of course, but those always come across as hit or miss for me. Just because a comic won a Harvey or an Eisner or whatever doesn’t mean I’ll really enjoy or appreciate it. But the Xerics, I’ve found, are consistently high quality and enjoyable. I have yet to read a Xeric-winning book that I didn’t enjoy, a claim I can’t make regarding the Eisners.”
So when I threw out the idea to do a Six by 6 list highlighting some of our favorite Xeric Foundation recipients over the years, I didn’t realize what I was asking; it didn’t register just how many completely awesome creators out there have benefited from the grant. So, when I say “Six Xeric Foundation grant recipients we love,” that’s not to say that they are the only ones we love. Hell, just throw all the names in a hat and pick out six, and you’ll have a list just as legitimate as this one.
Also, it was interesting to see how my fellow bloggers interpreted my request for entries for this list; while some, like Chris Mautner, did what I was expecting and talked about what one of their favorites went on to do after receiving the grant, others reached out to some of them to get their thoughts on the discontinuation of the grants. So the content of the list is … varied.
As always feel free to share thoughts on some of your favorites in the comments section. You can find a list of all the recipients here.
- July 20, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by JK Parkin