2011 August
Quote of the day | Dave Gibbons, on the future of Watchmen
“I think, without wishing to sound like a deposed dictator or a mob boss, that I’d like to take the Fifth and at this point say I reserve my position and say I have no comment to make. [...] It’s not something that I’d personally like to see happen. I sense you’re drawing me a little off the position of not commenting on it, so I think I’ll kind of leave it like that. What I would say is, intrinsic to the whole idea of Watchmen is that they existed in a world that was the way it was because of their existence. And I think to transplant them into another world actually removes a huge part of what is the essence of Watchmen.”
– Watchmen co-creator Dave Gibbons in an interview with CBR TV,
addressing perennial rumors about a sequel to the landmark 1986 miniseries, and the possibility of the characters being integrated into the DC Comics universe
- August 11, 2011 @ 07:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Captain America #1 goes Canadian for Fan Expo Canada
Captain America #1 FanExpo variant
Marvel is heading north to Fan Expo Canada Aug. 25-28, and they’re bringing an exclusive Dale Eaglesham-drawn variant cover for Captain America #1. Cap, however, is nowhere to be seen; instead Wolverine and Alpha Flight sport Cap-like shields for the hometown crowd. The “variant” shields worn by Puck and Guardian are really nice touches.
- August 11, 2011 @ 06:00 AM by JK Parkin
Previews: What Looks Good for October
Spera, Volume 1
It’s time once again for our monthly trip through Previews looking for cool, new comics. As usual, we’re focusing on graphic novels, collected volumes, and first issues so that I don’t have to come up with a new way to say, “Jeff Lemire’s Frankenstein is still awesome!” every month. And I’ll continue letting Tom and Carla do the heavy lifting in regards to DC and Marvel’s solicitations.
Also, please feel free to play along in the comments. Tell me what I missed that you’re looking forward to or – if you’re a comics creator – mention your own stuff.
Archaia
The Grave Doug Freshley – A lot of publishers are doing Weird Western comics lately and that’s just fine with me.
Spera, Volume 1 – I like the sound of this fairy tale in which a couple of princesses combine efforts to save their kingdoms. It’s not that I’m anti-prince, but that’s a cool, new way to do that story.
Avatar
Captain Swing and the Electrical Pirates of Cindery Island – Warren Ellis doing Steampunk sounds thrilling, but really all they had to say was “pirates.” I bet this is still really good though, even if you’re pickier than I am.
Boom!
Roger Langridge’s Snarked #1 – After a well-loved zero-issue, Langridge’s version of Wonderland gets its real, official start.
- August 10, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Michael May
Your Wednesday Sequence 22 | Eduardo Risso
Jonny Double #2 (1998), page 17 panels 1-5. Eduardo Risso.
The fight scene is like a litmus test for cartoonists. Of all the medium’s conventions, only the gag strip comes close to the sheer amount of depiction fighting has been given in comics. Like the gag, most good artists can choreograph one effectively. What’s much more difficult and much more rare is a fight that’s both blocked out well and unique looking. Unlike gags, however, the fight scene is a very specific thing: impact shots of multiple human figures in motion, negotiating one another’s presence in physical space. Again, just the number of times people fighting have been drawn into sequenced panels over the past century-plus of comics means it can be tough to find an acme for it that’s truly one’s own, completely untouched by anyone else.
So tough, in fact, that I don’t feel 100 percent comfortable declaring this Eduardo Risso sequence to be completely his own. Though I’ve read my fair share of comics and never seen anything like it, the possibility always exists that somewhere in some moldering Toth back issue or barely-distributed Tim Vigil zine, the same exact route was taken into showing the same actions. That said, it’s a great little piece of comics, and Risso bangs it out in a high style well worth examining regardless of its ultimate individuality.
- August 10, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by Matt Seneca
Quote of the day | Meredith Gran on the best way to support women in comics
Meredith Gran
My sincere thoughts on how to promote the presence of women in comics:
Pay them. No, seriously. Pay them with money.
–Octopus Pie cartoonist Meredith Gran argues that money talks when it comes to women comics creators. “It’s not a question of awareness,” she goes on to say, “It’s a question of who’s getting paid,” because even a modicum of financial security enhances confidence and enables artists to create more and better work on their own terms. Gran also points out that her prescription for supporting men cartoonists is identical. “Paying people to work” does indeed seem like a pretty solid plan, and it reminds me of the utility of Tom Spurgeon’s “Rooney Rule” idea for publishers, which would put many more non-male and non-white creators in a position to secure paying jobs.
- August 10, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
Greg Pak and Mike McKone team up for Astonishing X-Men
Astonishing X-Men #44
Fresh off his run on The Incredible Hulk, writer Greg Pak will team with artist Mike McKone on Astonishing X-Men, Marvel announced today.
Their run begins in November’s Issue 44 as Storm seeks out Cyclops in a story that Marvel promises will feature “not just all-out action, but possibly a surprising romance.” But wait, isn’t Ororo, queen of Wakanda, married to T’Challa?
“After Xavier, the X-Men’s two greatest leaders are Scott and Ororo,” Pak says in an interview at Marvel.com. “They’ve borne responsibilities few others can conceive. And just those experiences alone should provide them [with] reasons to bond. But maybe they’ve just never had a moment to consider it; each has always seemed to be wrapped up in a wild romance with someone else. The current Scott/Emma and Storm/T’Challa relationships are amongst the most passionate in the Marvel Universe. So yes, what the heck is going on? I’ll just say that everything that’s happening is utterly inconceivable, but completely real, completely in character, and completely in continuity.”
Astonishing X-Men marks a return to Marvel’s mutant franchise for both Pak and McKone. Pak wrote two X-Men: Phoenix miniseries as well as Magneto: Testament, while McKone co-created Exiles and drew issues of X-Men: Prime and X-Men: Unlimited.
“I am so ridiculously happy to be working with Mike on this book,” Pak says. “He’s tearing it up with his trademark clean lines, dynamic action, and phenomenal character work. And he’s cranking up the sexy like nobody’s business. Just look at that cover.
- August 10, 2011 @ 12:30 PM by Kevin Melrose
Stumptown organizer responds to MoCCA conflict
As noted here on Monday, and amplified by Heidi MacDonald, two big indy comics shows, Stumptown Comics Fest (in Portland, Oregon) and the MoCCA Festival (in New York City) are now scheduled for the same weekend, April 28-29, 2012. MoCCA was originally scheduled for April 14-15, and in the letter to exhibitors that MacDonald reproduces at her site, no explanation is given for the change, although it is clear organizers realize that some exhibitors will be inconvenienced by the shift.
I went to MoCCA for the first time this year, and several creators told me they were doing both shows, which were a week apart. I was impressed that they made the effort, but it was clearly worth it to them, so it’s not surprising that there has been some grumbling, and it was nice to see Stumptown organizer Indigo Kelleigh’s gracious response to the conflict:
I just wanted to state for the record, that I know the difficulties in arranging for a venue for an event of this size, and more often than not our own final dates are dictated by the venue’s availability moreso than our desired schedule. I can’t assign any malice to this announcement on the part of the MoCCA organizers, and I hope nobody else does, either.
I do believe that there’s plenty of talent on both coasts, and further that this move will not harm either of the shows in the short term. For a show like Stumptown, which has only seen increased demand year after year, even last year in our move to a much larger exhibit space, I don’t believe this unfortunate scheduling will impact the quality of our Comics Fest in the slightest.
Some of the commenters at The Beat had said more or less the same thing, but it’s good to hear it from a show organizer. (Torsten Adair pointed out that Wizard World Anaheim is also scheduled for that weekend, but no one was complaining about that.) It sounds like the organizers of indy-comics shows already do try to avoid conflicts, but they don’t always succeed. I hope they do next year, because one inevitable result is that the East Coast artists stay on the East Coast and the West Coast artists stay on the West Coast, and everything gets a little bit more boring.
- August 10, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
Langridge and Samnee reunite for Snarked cover
Chris Samnee and Roger Langridge’s Thor: The Mighty Avenger was a big hit with everyone except its editors, it seems; the kid-friendly version of Thor was cut down in its prime, canceled after only eight issues, despite getting good reviews.
Langridge has moved on to his creator-owned comic Snarked, a light-hearted caper story about two rascals based on Lewis Carroll’s The Walrus and the Carpenter—it’s not the most likely topic for a comic, but Langridge makes it work quite nicely. With Snarked #0 in shops now and Snarked #1 due out in October (it’s solicited in the August Previews), it’s time for a bit of Snarked hype, and BOOM! Studios delivered the goods directly to my in-box with a rather breathless press release touting the “special 1:10 Thor: The Mighty Avenger homage variant by fan-favorite Chris Samnee.” The homage is rather indirect, of course, because Thor himself (being the property of Marvel) doesn’t appear on the cover, but glance from this to the cover of TMA #4 and you’ll see the resemblance. Anyway, it’s nice to see Samnee and Langridge together again, even if only for a cover.
Langridge’s interlocking variant covers, which are very handsome indeed, are below the cut.
- August 10, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Wonder Man’s ‘Revengers’ to take on the Avengers
Revengers
Marvel released a preview for New Avengers Annual #1 by Brian Michael Bendis and Gabriele Dell’Otto yesterday, which features Wonder Man and a new team he’s put together called The Revengers. Avengers readers may remember that when Steve Rogers was putting together the latest iteration of the Avengers, former Avenger Simon Williams, a.k.a. Wonder Man, took issue with the team reforming and turned violent against his former teammates (Mind control?). His new attitude will apparently be addressed in the first New Avengers Annual, where he pops up leading a bunch of C- and D-grade characters, many of whom have some sort of connection to the Avengers.
“I think we are better than them,” he says in the above sequence, comparing his new crew to the Avengers. Which, yeah … it’s either mind control or he’s just gone completely off his rocker due to a power leakage, because he’s assembled quite the collection of losers to get his revenge. Let’s take a look at who he recruited …
- August 10, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by JK Parkin
Kirkman considering a Walking Dead prequel
After years of following the ongoing survival of a band of people in a zombie apocalypse, Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman is considering going back to show how it all started.
In an article by William Keck for TV Guide, the TV critic reports that Kirkman is considering doing a “Volume Zero” of The Walking Dead, showing both the origins of the apocalypse as well as how Rick’s wife Lori and friend Shane went from “grieving friends to lovers.”
On multiple occasions since the beginning of the series in 2003, Kirkman answered questions about the origin of the zombie plague by saying he’d rather focus on the survival aspect, explaining that the main premise of the book is that it shows what happens after the end of a traditional zombie movie. The idea of a Walking Dead prequel, and as a standalone graphic novel, is an interesting prospect both for the story points as well as the potential sales juggernaut it could be. And for artist, would it be longtime artist Charlie Adlard, a return for original series artist Tony Moore, or perhaps some new third party in the mix? Time will tell.
- August 10, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Chris Arrant
Apple insists on edits to Underground Classics app
Warning: Pretty much every image in the linked article is flagrantly, joyously NSFW. If your eyeballs disintegrate and hair grows on the palms of your hands when you click the link, well, don’t say we didn’t warn you.
Underground comics are by their nature transgressive, so it comes as no surprise that the Comix Classics: Underground Comics app produced by Toura, an app platform often used by museums, and Comic Art Productions and Exhibits, ran afoul of Apple’s content guidelines. As Kim Munson, who designed the app, explained to Michael Dooley of Imprint Magazine, the app is not a digital comic but “more of an interactive art exhibit.” It’s based on James Danky and Denis Kitchen’s book Underground Classics: The Transformation of Comics into Comix, and it contains all the comics from the book and the exhibit plus some new graphics.
Oddly, when the app was submitted to Apple, the iPad version was accepted as is (with a string of warnings to potential consumers about sex, nudity, etc.) but the iPhone version was rejected for “excessively objectionable or crude content.” Munson removed 16 images, which apparently shifted the ratio enough to make the Apple folks happy. (For those who like to skip straight to the good stuff, the deleted images are at the link.) Munson noted that “The deletions were plainly based purely on the visual representation, not the context of the pieces.”
- August 10, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | Superheroes’ big-screen struggle for diversity; Z-Cult FM returns
Green Lantern
Movies | National Public Radio commentator John Ridley critiques Hollywood for being even less diverse than the Big Two when it comes to diversity in lead characters, and demolishes their blame-the-audience theory that white people won’t go to see a movie with a black lead by pointing to a study by Indiana University professor Andrew Weaver: “Weaver found that white audiences tended to be racially selective with regard to romantic movies, but not necessarily when it came to other genres. So, sorry, Hollywood. You can’t blame it on the ticket buyers.” [NPR]
Piracy | Comic-book torrent tracker Z-Cult FM, which was threatened with legal action by Marvel in 2007 and eventually shut down in 2009, has re-opened its virtual doors. [Facebook]
Creators | Becky Cloonan talks about the joys and the hardships of being a full-time comics creator: “Comics are hard work. Comics are relentless. Comics will break your heart. Comics are monetarily unsatisfying. Comics don’t offer much in terms of fortune and glory, but comics will give you complete freedom to tell the stories you want to tell, in ways unlike any other medium. Comics will pick you up after it knocks you down. Comics will dust you off and tell you it loves you. And you will look into its eyes and know it’s true, that you love comics back.” [Becky Cloonan: Comics or STFU]
- August 10, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
The Middle Ground #64: I Read The News Today, Oh Boy
Why aren’t there more news comics? Is that an odd thing to wonder, or to ask for? Probably; comics are generally fiction these days, after all, and non-fiction comics trend more towards autobio and self-reflection than looking at the world around us, but still. News comics. I think I want some. Continue Reading »
- August 9, 2011 @ 04:30 PM by Graeme McMillan
Frank Cho working on X-Men miniseries
Frank Cho draws the X-Men
Frank Cho, who is busy working on two upcoming series for Image, Guns & Dinos and Brutal, noted on his blog this weekend that he’s working on an X-Men miniseries. Cho notes that he’ll both write and draw the series. “I can’t say too much right now but this miniseries will have three of the hottest women in the Marvel Universe,” he said. As you can see above, Cho is familiar with the X-Men and Women, having drawn the covers for Schism.
Cho also noted he’s working on “pet project” called Jungle Queen, which he will watercolor and paint. “At this point, it will only be published in France where there’s no censorship against nudity like here in America,” he said, adding that it would come out in the next 2-3 years.
- August 9, 2011 @ 02:09 PM by JK Parkin
Food or Comics? | Fear of a Bad Island
Fear Itself #5
Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy at our local comic shop based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on a “Splurge” item.
Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList, and tell us what you’re getting in our comments field.
Graeme McMillan
It’s a week where I’m happily embracing the superhero of it all. If I had $15, I’d go for the fifth issue of Marvel’s Fear Itself ($3.99), mostly because I’m this far in and I’ll probably keep going just to see how it turns out instead of actually enjoying it, as well as the first issue of “Spider Island” in Amazing Spider-Man #667 (Marvel, $3.99) to continue my love/hate relationship with Dan Slott’s Spider-Man run. But when it comes to full-on nostalgia, DC has me in the palm of its hand with DC Retroactive: Justice League of America – The ’80s #1 (DC, $4.99). No joke: The Justice League Detroit era is one of those guilty pleasures that I not only can’t explain, but also can’t resist – Gerry Conway revisiting that failed team for a new one-shot (especially with art by Ron Randall) is something that I literally can’t help myself but pick up.
- August 9, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin