2011 August
Bryan and Mary Talbot collaborating on graphic novel
Mary Talbot, the wife of Bryan Talbot and the daughter of James Joyce scholar James S. Atherton, has unveiled some stunning images from Dotter Of Her Father’s Eyes, the graphic novel she is writing and her husband is illustrating. The book tells two coming-of-age stories in parallel, that of Mary herself and that of James Joyce’s daughter Lucia.
If you’re wondering what Mary does when she isn’t writing graphic novels, her website says she is a scholar who studies “language, gender, and power” and has held a number of academic positions. Her other book, Language and Gender, is not a graphic novel. Dotter, which will be published in the UK by Jonathan Cape next year, looks like an amazing story, and hopefully a U.S. edition will be forthcoming before long.
(via Forbidden Planet)
- August 12, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
Robot Reviews | Willie & Joe Back Home and Will Eisner’s PS Magazine
Willie & Joe: Back Home
Willie & Joe: Back Home
by Bill Mauldin
Fantagraphics, 288 pages, $29.99
PS Magazine: The Best of Preventive Maintenance Monthly
by Will Eisner; Selected and with an overview by Eddie Campbell
Abrams, 272 pages, $21.95
There can arguably be no finer example of how to completely sabotage a successful career than what cartoonist Bill Mauldin did upon returning back to the United States at the close of World War II. The youngest person (he was 23) to win the Pulitzer Prize at that time, his gag cartoons, featuring dirty, worn-down, battle-hardened, embittered soldiers (most notably the pair known as Willie & Joe), which ran in Stars and Stripes and later in national newspapers, allowed soldiers to vicariously let off steam — someone out there knew what they were going through — and gave the citizens back home a look at the war that few media outlets at the time provided.
- August 12, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Brandon Graham re-draws the Fantastic Four
On his blog this week, Brandon Graham shared this recent commission in which he redrew (and updated the dialogue to) a page from Fantastic Four #9. The uncropped version and the original Lee/Kirby page are in that link, but if you want to skip the NSFW parts of his blog, he’s also got handy direct links to both pages.
- August 12, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by Michael May
Abrams to feature art of Star Wars comics in new book this October
Star Wars art by JH Williams III
LucasFilm and Abrams Books have teamed up for Star Wars Art: Comics, a collection of artwork from “the entire history of Star Wars comics publishing,” from the first Star Wars adaptations published in 1977 by Marvel to the present day.
According to the press release, the artwork has been “hand-selected and curated” by George Lucas and will feature interior pages and fully painted covers from artists such as Al Williamson, Howard Chaykin, Adam Hughes, Bill Sienkiewicz, Dave Dorman, and many more. It will also feature newly commissioned art by 20 creators, including John Cassady, Sam Kieth, Mike Mignola, Paul Pope, Frank Quitely, Jim Steranko and, as seen above, J.H. Williams III.
“I wanted something that was a new character of my creation,” the artist wrote on his blog. “I had been told that George was a longtime comics fan. So I also wanted to go for this classic giant monster versus hero idea, like stuff you might see in old [Jack] Kirby comics, but here it needed to be a mechanical weapon that looked like a creature, giving a sense of story beyond fighting a giant monster. This gives more weight for the snippet of a bigger unseen plot idea. And the scene had to have a strong design sense to it, so it could have a signature look that could be identified with my sensibilities, but still felt like Star Wars when you look at it.”
This is the second book in Abrams’ Star Wars Art series; the first one, subtitled Visions, was released last year. Star Wars Art: Comics has an introduction by Virginia Mecklenburg, a foreword by Dennis O’Neil, and a preface by Douglas Wolk. It features a cover by Dave Dorman and is due in October.
- August 12, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by JK Parkin
Ruskoff, Sudzuka team for Vertigo graphic novel
A.D.D.
Douglas Rushkoff (Testament) returns to Vertigo this January with a new graphic novel called A.D.D. The writer and media theorist is teaming with artists Goran Sudzuka and Jose Marzan, Jr for the story of the Adolescent Demo Division, a group of kids raised to “test media, appear on reality TV and enjoy the fruits of corporate culture.”
Here’s how Vertigo describes the project:
The Adolescent Demo Division (A.D.D.) are the world’s luckiest teen gamers. Raised from birth to test media, appear on reality TV and enjoy the fruits of corporate culture, the squad develop special abilities that make them the envy of the world—and a grave concern to their keepers.
One by one, they “graduate” to new levels that are not what they seem. But their heightened abilities can only take them so far as the ultimate search for their birth families proves to be a most harrowing discovery.
Rushkoff previously teamed with artist Liam Sharpe for the short-lived series Testament at Vertigo, while Sudzuka has worked for the publisher on Outlaw Nation, Y the Last Man, Hellblazer and the recent Strange Adventures anthology. A.D.D. is due in stores in January 2012.
- August 12, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by JK Parkin
SPX programming lineup announced
Organizers have released the programming schedule for the Sept. 10-11 Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland, which includes panels featuring Jessica Abel, Kate Beaton, Roz Chast, Sarah Glidden, Tom Neely, Alex Robinson, Johnny Ryan, Craig Thompson, Jim Woodring and more.
Among the moderators will be Robot 6 contributors Sean T. Collins, talking with Thompson and leading a discussion about drawing the grotesque, and Chris Mautner, interviewing Ryan.
Held at the Bethesda North Marriott Convention Center, SPX includes the presentation of the annual Ignatz Awards, a festival prize that recognizes outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning. See the full programming schedule after the break.
- August 12, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Memo to JManga backers: Show us the manga
JManga is the online manga service that readers have been waiting for: Fresh manga in a variety of genres (including lesser-selling ones like sports manga), straight from Japan, on your computer, iPad, Android, or Kindle. They launched at San Diego Comic-Con with a panel, and Deb Aoki has provided us with the most comprehensive reporting on it yet by posting a transcript of the SDCC panel and an interview with six representatives of JManga and participating publishers Kodansha, Shogakukan, Futabasha, and Kadokawa Shoten.
JManga is a great idea, and there was a lot of talent in the room, but there’s only one thing that manga readers care about: The manga. And it was very troubling that in their big SDCC panel the publishers could not identify a single title that it would carry (although the Futabasha rep hinted pretty strongly that Crayon Shin-chan would be on there). When Aoki asked if the manga in the enormous banner over their heads would be included in the JManga portal, JManga rep Robert Newman answered:
My apologies, but this information cannot be disclosed at this time. We will provide you with more information regarding titles around the timing of the launch.
- August 12, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | Man charged with insider trading in Disney-Marvel deal
Disney & Marvel
Legal | The Los Angeles Times reports that the Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Toby G. Scammell with insider trading. Scammell has been accused of using confidential information “surreptitiously gleaned” from his girlfriend to make $192,000 off of Disney’s 2009 acquisition of Marvel Entertainment. Scammell’s girlfriend was an intern working in the corporate strategy department at Disney. [Los Angeles Times]
Comics | Heidi MacDonald rounds up questions creators have raised about the Womanthology project, which raised $109,000 on Kickstarter, specifically about how the extra money will be used and whether the creators who are involved will be paid. Organizer Renae De Liz has posted additional details on the Womanthology site. [The Beat]
Conventions | Wizard World Chicago Comic Con gets into full swing today in Rosemont, Illinois. Comics guests include Brian Azzarello, Jim Cheung, Mike Deodato Jr., Gary Friedrich, Patrick Gleason, Mike Grell, Dave Johnson, Ariel Olivetti, Eduardo Risso, Bill Sienkiewicz and Ethan Van Sciver. The Chicago Sun-Times briefly spotlights attending artists Ivan Brunetti and Don Kramer, while the Daily Herald interviews Brunetti and Nate Powell. [Wizard World]
- August 12, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Grumpy Old Fan | Farewell to the role models of Secret Six
The Secret Six hit the road
With last week’s final issue of Secret Six, the curious journey of a fan-favorite title came to an end. It began as Villains United, a six-issue miniseries (with subsequent special) which tied into 2005-06′s Big Event, Infinite Crisis. The characters proved popular enough to warrant their own six-issue sequel, called simply Secret Six (and collected as Six Degrees Of Devastation); and that in turn earned them a respectable 36-issue regular-series run. I suspect Secret Six could probably have gone as long as writer Gail Simone wanted, but the New-52 relaunch seems to have gotten in the way.
Now Simone is moving on, co-writing Fury Of Firestorm and writing the Barbara-Gordon-centered Batgirl — but before that, she and penciller Jim Calafiore gave the Sixers an eminently appropriate sendoff.
(SPOILERS FOLLOW for some parts of the Sixers’ sordid past….)
- August 11, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
Please please please let me kickstart what I want
Rubber Ring
I love that Shawn Demumbrum discovered The Smiths the same way I did: through the Pretty in Pink soundtrack. But more than that, I love that he’s put together a group of storytellers with a similar affection for the band who want to make an anthology based on its songs. There’s a Kickstarter campaign of course, but it’s already reached more than double its initial goal of $3000.
The plan is to have 13 stories answer this question about 13 songs: “What story plays in your head when you listen to your favorite Smiths song?” According to the Kickstarter page, each creative team will make a 4-8 page story inspired by their favorites. Demumbrum writes that “The song acts as an inspiration, jumping off point, theme or mood for the story” and that “Each story varies in style and genre.”
The set list is:
“Death at One’s Elbow” by Glen Curren and Madame M
“Shoplifters of the World Unite” by Shawn Demumbrum and Matt Goodall
“Rubber Ring” by Dennmann
“Girlfriend in a Coma” by JP Manzanares
“Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before” by Henry Barajas and Christian Vilaire
“Cemetry Gates” by Libbi Rich and Eric Schock
“That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore” by Emily Rich and Jenn Fuguet
“How Soon is Now?” by Foo! and Sam Lagreen
“Pretty Girls Make Graves” by Thomas Healy and Justin Miller
“Panic” by Matthew Burke and Joshua Green
“What Difference Does It Make?” by Michael Kessler and Jeff Pina
“Handsome Devil” by Shelby Robertson
“Suffer Little Children” by John Chihak
Demumbrum hopes to debut the book at Tucson Comic-Con in November.
Update: Sterling Gates tweets that he’s also contributing a story to the book based on “William, It Was Really Nothing.”
- August 11, 2011 @ 01:10 PM by Michael May
What can we learn from Icons: The DC Comics and WildStorm Art of Jim Lee (aside from the fact that Jim Lee draws really well)?
If you’re a habitual reader of superhero comic books, or, worse still, a writer whose primary focus is the comic book medium and industry, chances are you’ve been thinking about DC Comics pretty much constantly this summer. It’s been hard not to, given the ambitious, controversial scope of the publisher’s upcoming relaunch, and the way they’ve managed to keep the conversation going by carefully doling out information about it at their own pace.
And, when you think about DC Comics these days, chances are you’re thinking of Jim Lee’s versions of the characters.
Beyond his current role as the company’s co-publisher, Lee’s become the company’s defining artist (ironically, perhaps, without actually working on a regular comic book series for quite some time). He’s the guy who draws the public face of the company’s stars.
Click on dccomics.com, and you’ll see Lee’s Justice League as the banner. Click to the company’s The Source blog, and you’ll see a Lee-drawn Trinity as the banner. Lee designed all of the characters for the publisher’s DC Universe Online video game. Lee redesigned much of the DC Universe for their upcoming relaunch (and quite radically so compared to the more modest DCUO designs). It was Lee who drew the company’s Google doodle a while back, and a great deal of DC-branded merchandise, from tennis shoes and to action figures, features Lee versions of the characters.
The pervasiveness of his visual influence extends to many of the artists chosen to work on the characters’ comic books, and the style in which they’re depicted—DC is too big a publisher to really have a house style, but there’s a loose majority style in which Lee’s influence is rather apparent.
So with visions of a high-collared Justice League dancing in my head as they usually do (Confession: I think about the Justice League the way some people you might encounter on a big-city street think about the CIA and mind control), I was at my local library the other day and noticed a big, huge, atlas-sized tome sitting on a cart, awaiting to be filed back where it belonged.
The cover featured a dramatically-lit Trinity, an outcropping of rock hiding their feet, standing above giant gold letters reading “ICONS” and “Jim Lee.” Picking it up—with an “Oof!” and the thought, I really need to start working out again—I saw that it was actually Icons: The DC Comics and Wildstorm art of Jim Lee.
Naturally I brought it home to pore over, thinking it might be some sort of Rosetta Stone to how Lee went from the guy who made Jeph Loeb’s totally random “Hush” story arc into something readable to becoming the guy who will define DC Comics for a generation (if the relaunch works out as they seem to hope it will, otherwise he might become known as the guy who made DC’s superheroes look silly for a few years in the 20-teens).
If nothing else, the book was about the size and weight of the Rosetta Stone.
- August 11, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by J. Caleb Mozzocco
Ashcan All-Stars cover Sin City on new sketchblog
Miho by Tyler Crook
Shawn Crystal sends word that a stellar group of artists have formed a new sketchblog, Ashcan All-Stars. The line-up includes Crystal, Christopher Mitten, Erik Jones, James Stokoe, Khary Randolph, Moritat, Nathan Fox, Robbi Rodriguez, Ryan Stegman, Sheldon Vella and Tyler Crook. This week the crew kicks off their blog with a bunch of Sin City sketches, while future themes will include Blacksad, Zelda and Skydoll.
I should also point out that Sin City features strippers, so several of the pieces are not safe for work.
- August 11, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by JK Parkin
Seth throws his support behind Marvel boycott
Coober Skeber 2 cover by Seth
Wimbledon Green creator Seth has joined in the call to boycott Marvel following the recent court ruling that Jack Kirby’s heirs have no claim to the characters he co-created for the publisher, saying, “I hope it catches fire and spreads. The corporation badly needs to be shamed into doing the right thing.”
Veteran artist and educator Stephen R. Bissette asked fans late last month to stop buying all “Kirby-derived” Marvel products in an effort to pressure the company to better credit the artist and fairly compensate his family for the properties he helped to create. Seth, like Bissette, takes particular issue with Marvel’s characterization of Kirby’s contributions, and the supporting testimony offered by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas and others.
“The corporate lie about Kirby’s role in the creation of all those characters is abhorrent,” Seth writes on his blog. “It’s a bold faced lie. Everyone knows it’s a lie. No one is fooled. Everyone lying for the company should be ashamed. Stan Lee should be ashamed. What the Marvel corporation is doing might be legal but it certainly isn’t right.”
Seth concedes a boycott isn’t a sacrifice on his part — he’s never worked for the publisher and can’t recall the last Marvel product he bought — but encourages others to “refrain from supporting the corporation until some form of justice is brought forth for Mr. Kirby.”
(via The Comics Reporter)
- August 11, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
SDCC ’11 | How comics learned to stop worrying and love the Con
San Diego 2011 was all about playing the game, about recognizing that Comic Con isn’t gonna be what any of us wants or needs or cares about, it’s instead going to try to be a little bit of what everyone who comes there cares about. All the starfuckers just there to see someone who was on TV one time, all of the PR flacks looking for the next big thing or trying to sell us the next big thing, the toy makers, the funny t-shirt hawkers, the deep discounters, the booth-babes, and even the comics folks—this is the year we all just sucked it up and realized that we were all gonna be in this together, and it’s gonna be in the same old San Diego convention centre in the same old gaslamp, and we’re all just gonna get used to it. So we did. We’re all playing the game now.
–from retailer/blogger/TCAF organizer/Wallace Wells inspiration Chris Butcher’s excellent report on this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. It’s an entertaining blend of photo parade, personal anecdotes, and astute analysis of the comics presence at the show.
Butcher contrasts San Diego with other shows he’s worked at “where 100% of the audience was potentially interested in 100% of what I was selling,” as opposed to even a good year at San Diego, where most attendees are there for something other than buying comics, let alone the specific comics and comic art he was selling as booth manager for Street Fighter publisher UDON and representative of Toronto retailer The Beguiling’s original art sales wing. He also notes that no single book garnered “book of the show” accolades of the sort that previously greeted such works as Blankets, Kramers Ergot, and the one-volume Bone, and that even publishers with a killer suite of products and announcements walked away from the show playing second fiddle to the usual churn of Hollywood advance buzzmaking and Marvel and DC announcements (which were themselves fairly subdued this year).
But! Butcher says it was the best San Diego he’s been to in a while, which is reflective of what I’ve heard from most of the comics-centric attendees this year. Whether it’s due to Hollywood’s lowered expectations for the show and the consequently lessened obnoxiousness from that aspect of the show; the establishment of offshoot events dedicated specifically to comics; recalibrated expectations and/or wholesale retreat from the con by some of its more outspoken alternative-comics detractors; or simply renewed attention to its still-fine line-up of comics publishers, retailers, creators, and programming; the show went over better this year among comics folks than at any time in recent memory, lack of a “book of the show” be damned.
- August 11, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
Brian Churilla’s alternate theory of D.B. Cooper
You have to give the Oni Press folks credit: They know when to run with a story.
When news surfaced last week of a possible new candidate for the true identity of the hijacker known as D.B. Cooper, Oni marketing director Cory Casoni jumped right on it, sending out an mock-indignant e-mail asserting that the D.B.-come-lately is nothing more than attempt to discredit the theory behind their D.B. Cooper comic. What, you didn’t know Oni was doing a D.B. Cooper comic? Well, you do now. Brian Churilla’s The Secret History of D.B. Cooper isn’t due out until March 2012, but it’s never too early to start shilling’.
Oni’s description sounds a bit like The Men Who Stare At Goats Hijack a Plane: The theory of the comic is that Cooper was part of a secret CIA program in which “altered states of consciousness were used to assassinate Soviet targets from afar,” but he wigs out and becomes a “rogue agent.”
CBR’s Steve Sunu extracts more information from Churilla, who hints darkly that there may be more to this comic than meets the eye:
Unfortunately, Churilla was unable to reveal the actual spark point for the book, saying, “In regards to the project’s impetus, that has become integral to the story itself; a breaking of the fourth wall that I’m unable to really get into because I would like to avoid being subpoenaed.
“In a way, the story chose me,” Churilla continued. “I apologize for being so cryptic, but it gets explained in the book.”
- August 11, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson