2011 August
What’s happening with Wizard’s Los Angeles convention?
Wizard World Los Angeles
Heidi MacDonald at The Beat noted this week that several Wizard World shows disappeared from the company’s website, while one in particular, the Los Angeles show, seems to no longer have dates.
Originally scheduled for Sept. 24-25, Wizard’s site now says the dates are “TBD,” while the Los Angeles Convention Center site still lists the show. Despite the fact that they’ve been very active on Twitter and Facebook the last few days promoting last weekend’s Wizard World Chicago show, Wizard has made no mention of a change in date, a cancellation or whatever is going on with the L.A. show.
“So, Wizard pulls the plug on the LA show, just five weeks out, after inviting me and inducing my purchase of a non-refundable room?” creator Ande Park tweeted earlier today. And in the comments section at The Beat, Simon Fraser wonders if he should cancel his flight or not.
Wizard initially announced a show in Los Angeles two years ago that ended up being canceled; this latest show was announced in April and already had a fairly large guest list in place. And as CBR noted earlier this year in a piece by Josie Campbell, the L.A. convention scene has grown considerably; the Long Beach Comic Con is scheduled for Oct. 29-30, while the Comikaze Expo is scheduled for Nov. 5-6. Comic-Con International is also considering Anaheim as a possible location for WonderCon next year.
- August 16, 2011 @ 07:24 PM by JK Parkin
Food or Comics? | D is for Daredevil, DeConnick, Deadlands and ducks
Supergirl
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
As we’re heading towards the middle of August, it’s no surprise that curiosity is getting me to pick up more than a few DC books just see how particular series “end;” I’d be getting Justice League of America #60 and Legion of Super-Heroes #16 (both DC, $2.99) anyway, because I’ve been following those series for awhile, but I’m likely to add Batman #713 (DC, $2.99) to the pile as well, if only to see the explanation as to why Dick quits being Batman before the big relaunch. But it’s not all endings for me with my $15 this week; I’d also make a point of grabbing Daredevil #2 (Marvel, $2.99), because the first issue was just breathtakingly good, and the series became a must-read before I’d even reached the last page.
If I had $30 this week, I’d add to my list of DC final issues with Supergirl #67 (DC, $2.99), which Kelly Sue DeConnick has talked up in interviews as being the highpoint of her short run to date and a great capper to the series as a whole. I’d also check in with the third issue of David Hahn’s All Nighter (Image, $2.99), as well as see if Nick Spencer’s Iron Man 2.0 is worth a look with the mini-collection of the first three issues, Iron Man 2.0: Modern Warfare (Marvel, $4.99).
- August 16, 2011 @ 06:03 PM by JK Parkin
The Hero Initiative’s questionable political tweet [Updated]
A crude political comment that’s appeared for most of the day on the Twitter feed of The Hero Initiative has apparently gone unnoticed by most of the charitable organization’s more than 3,000 followers.
The tweet, “America! Stick your dick in the crazy!,” popped up early this morning as part of a tongue-in-cheek meme devoted to potential campaign slogans for Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Republican presidential candidate. Twitter memes aren’t at all uncommon — they appear daily without fail in the “Trends” column — but it’s unusual for an organization reliant on volunteers and donations to wade in with a remark so potentially, or patently, offensive.
Only two of The Hero Initiative’s Twitter followers responded to the comment: One wrote, “Love the cause, not so much the twitter feed,” while the other asked, “Can I get a refund on my 2011 membership?”
It seems likely the tweet wasn’t intended to be sent from The Hero Initiative feed, but instead from the personal account of an organization staff member. If that’s the case, it’s a matter of carelessness rather than poor judgment. However, it remains crude no matter what.
Hero Initiative President Jim McLauchlin didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.
Updated (6:51 p.m. PT): McLauchlin responded in the comments below, explaining, “We had a spam problem over the weekend as well while I was on the road as well. Just saw this, and we have deleted the message. Passwords changed.”
- August 16, 2011 @ 05:56 PM by Kevin Melrose
The Middle Ground #65 | On A Cigarette
If there’s one thing that the independent comic industry fails at as a whole, it’s self-mythologizing. Considering that the majority of the most interesting work (and, presumably, stories behind that work) since, oh, the mid-80s, say, have come from publishers that aren’t called Marvel or DC, why does it feel as if there’s an entire history of the comic world that is entirely missing from the collective consciousness? Continue Reading »
- August 16, 2011 @ 04:00 PM by Graeme McMillan
Faith Erin Hicks’ next project available online
Friends with Boys
Before her new book, Friends with Boys, comes out in February, Faith Erin Hicks will serialize the entire story on the web. The first 32 pages are already up, with plans to add new ones each weekday until the publication date.
The Zombies Calling and The War at Ellsmere creator noted that she will also be blogging on the site, “giving you lovely readers the inside scoop of what my process was during the making of this graphic novel.” She also said she probably wouldn’t be making comics if she hadn’t started reading free webcomics on the internet.
“When I first started reading comics, really reading comics, comics that I felt were made for me (a school-age girl), they were online comics,” she said on her blog. “I didn’t have a comic book store to go to, nor did I have friends who were into comics. I had no connection to the comic book industry. But I had a computer, and I could access the internet, and there were comics on the internet. These comics were made by a diverse group of cartoonists, and (at the time) most were done ‘for fun.’ Reading online comics gave me new perspective on comics, and showed me what was possible for the medium, beyond the superhero genre. Later, as my tastes evolved and I gained disposable income, I became a comic consumer. I do not think I would be the hearty purchaser of comics if it wasn’t for the online comics I read while in school.”
According to the site, Friends With Boys is about Maggie McKay, a home-schooled teenager entering her first year in public high school and who is stalked by a local ghost. “Having a ghost follow you to school on your very first day … very not cool.” It’s due in comic and book stores next February from First Second.
- August 16, 2011 @ 03:10 PM by JK Parkin
13 years later, Chase finally gets collected
In a blog post titled simply “Finally!,” J.H. Williams III notes the inclusion in DC Comics’ solicitations for November a listing for a trade paperback for Chase, the woefully short-lived 1998 series he created with D. Curtis Johnson.
The title came out of the same experimental era at the publisher that produced such comics Young Heroes in Love, Aztek: The Ultimate Man and Hourman, and introduced us to Cameron Chase, a cynical, cigarette-smoking agent with the newly introduced Department of Extranormal Operations.
I’ve written before about my love for Chase, which was a wonderful looking glass into the workings of the DC Universe, with Cameron providing an outsider perspective on the actions and lives of superheroes. She had ties to a costumed character and frequently interacted with the capes-and-tights set — from Batman and Nightwing to Alan Scott and Klarion the Witchboy — but she wasn’t part of that world. Well, not that she’d admit.
Cameron and the DEO far outlived Chase, which unfortunately ended with its tenth issue, part of DC’s “One Million” event. The character had a prominent role a decade later in Manhunter, while the Department of Extranormal Operations, also created by Williams and Johnson, has become a fixture of the DC Universe, even appearing in the Green Lantern movie.
“Chase was one of those series that came out at time when almost everything new from DC was getting the axe within a year due to slow sales,” Williams writes on his blog. “Ironically, as we were getting chopped, a groundswell buzz was happening around what we were doing, but unfortunately not in time to save the series. In all the years since then, Chase The Series had garnered a cult status, becoming almost more popular after its death than when it was alive.”
As Williams’ “Finally!” title suggests, this is the first time Chase has been collected; I tracked down the full run several years back at Mid-Ohio Con, where all 10 issues were bagged together for a decent price. The 352-page trade paperback goes well beyond that, though, collecting Batman #550 (Cameron Chase’s first appearance), plus a bunch of stories from the Secret Files line. It arrives in stores on Dec. 21.
- August 16, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
First look at Batman: Earth One cover
Batman: Earth One
The listing and cover art appeared this morning on Amazon.com for Batman: Earth One, the long-awaited DC Comics graphic novel by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank.
Announced in December 2009 along with the bestselling Superman: Earth One by J. Michael Straczynski and Shane Davis, Batman: Earth One takes Bruce Wayne back to Crime Alley, where tragedy set him on the path to become the world’s greatest detective. Both graphic novels were originally set to debut in 2010, but obviously only Superman hit that target date. Batman is listed for release on May 8, 2012 (not necessarily set in stone), a little more than two months before the opening of The Dark Knight Rises. Here’s the Amazon description:
Geoff Johns, the writer of BLACKEST NIGHT, GREEN LANTERN and INFINITE CRISIS re-teams with superstar artist Gary Frank, his collaborator on SUPERMAN: SECRET ORIGIN, SUPERMAN:BRAINIAC and SUPERMAN & THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES, to create this original graphic novel that gives new insight into Bruce Wayne’s transformation into Batman and his first year as The Dark Knight. This follow-up to the # 1 New York Times bestseller, SUPERMAN: EARTH ONE, by J. Michael Straczynski and Shane Davis is the latest in the series that features the industry’s top writers and illustrators and their unique takes on DC’s characters. It’s the perfect book for new readers of graphic novels as well as longtime comic book fans.
(via Collected Editions)
- August 16, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
Skate, read or die? Penguin Classics turns altcomix book covers into skateboards
Penguin Skateboards
Over the last few years, Penguin Books has gotten various cartoonists to draw covers for classic books, like Tony Millionaire, who drew the cover to Moby Dick, or Richard Salas, who drew the cover to Great Expectations, and so on.
Now via Flog comes word that some of those covers have made their way onto skateboards. Yes, classic literature covers, drawn by some of alt.comix’s best, featured on skateboards.
As you’ll see above, Penguin created some limited edition skateboards using the covers by Jason for Jack Kerouac’s Dharma Bums, Lilli Carré for Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Thomas Ott for Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle. These were given away in a photo contest on Facebook, which unfortunately is over, but they’ll be showing them off on various college campuses this month and next. Hopefully they’ll be available to purchase at some point … not that I’m coordinated enough to skate.
- August 16, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
Five talents I’d like to see on projects for Marvel and DC
Although mainstream comic publishing is built on characters and brand names, the importance of creators has been one of the keys to its success. Since the early 1990s, talented creators have served as fonts of ideas as well as big draws for sales. And with the competition between DC and Marvel reaching to new heights in the build-up to “The New 52,” comic creators are being snapped up left and right into exclusive agreements and put to work. But amidst all of this, there remains a number of talents that haven’t been drafted. They might simply prefer to work on their own outside the Big Two or are just waiting for the right offer. I’m going to list creators who could make a big difference if they chose to go to Marvel or DC.
Let me preface this to say that I’m avoiding mentioning some creators due to the fact that they’re generally considered as not looking for work from Marvel or DC. I’m talking about creators like Alan Moore, Brian K. Vaughn, Robert Kirkman, Mike Mignola, Joss Whedon and the like.
Joe Hill: Joe Hill is many things to many people. For comics readers he’s the co-creator of the IDW epic Locke & Key; for novel readers he’s the writer of Horns and Heart-Shaped Box; for Stephen King, he’s his son. With all of that, Joe Hill could be a potent force if DC or Marvel would choose to go the lengths to get him on board. Hill is no stranger to super-heroes; he wrote a story for Marvel’s Spider-Man Unlimited years ago, and did the recent series The Cape for IDW. Imagine him in the city limits of Gotham or perhaps showing up in Marvel’s version of Hell’s Kitchen.
- August 16, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Chris Arrant
Digital Manga Guild launches first title
The Digital Manga Guild, an experiment in fan translation created by Digital Manga Publishing, launched yesterday with its first manga, Tired of Waiting for Love, which is available online only at Digital’s eManga.com website.
Digital’s strategy is to get a lot of manga onto the market quickly by using nonprofessional translators, editors, and letterers who don’t get paid up front but get a 12% cut of profits once the books start selling; Digital and the Japanese licensor also wait for their share until the profits start rolling in. Digital CEO Hikaru Sasahara says that one thing keeping manga off the U.S. market is the high initial costs, both the license fee paid to the Japanese licensor and the cost of translation and other prep. By shifting those costs to the end of the process, rather than the beginning, he hopes to be able to vastly increase the number of books brought over here: The DMG plans to publish 50 to 100 books per month, all digitally on the eManga site and, eventually, via Kindle, Nook, and other channels.
This could be bad news for professional translators, editors, and letterers, especially in the manga field, but in fact the Digital Manga Guild is an idea that probably works better for yaoi manga than for other genres. The reason lies in the similarity of yaoi manga to romance novels, something that Sasahara has long been aware of (Digital also offers Harlequin manga at eManga.com). Like romance readers, yaoi fans are voracious readers who will read just about everything available. They have their favorite authors, and Digital is planning quite a few books by creators whose work has already been published in English, but they will also read a book by an unknown. When you read so many manga, getting a new story is more important than having a physical copy, and many readers may prefer digital to print because it gives them fresh stories without the clutter (and at a lower price). And most yaoi manga are one-shots, so Digital doesn’t have to worry about maintaining consistency across a series, which makes it easier to have multiple books being translated by different teams at the same time.
- August 16, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Penny Arcade and PvP creators team up for new comic
Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, creators of Penny Arcade, and PvP creator Scott Kurtz have begun collaborating on a webcomic even more off-mainstream than the ones they are working on now. Those comics were just about gamers, but The Trenches, which debuted last week and updates on Tuesdays and Thursdays, is a comic about a game tester. To sweeten the deal for the target audience, the blog will feature true-life adventures sent in by readers who are game testers themselves. It seems like narrowcasting, but the humor in the opening episodes seems to be fairly broad, so maybe it won’t be as tech-y as it first sounds.
- August 16, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Robert Kirkman signs deal to distribute Skybound titles in Asia
Robert Kirkman’s fledgling Skybound comics line is expanding into Asia through a new distribution deal with the production company Moving Images.
Launched in July 2010, the Image Comics imprint is home to Kirkman’s books, most prominently The Walking Dead and Invincible, as well as hand-picked additions like Brandon Seifert and Lukas Ketner‘s Witch Doctor, and the recently confirmed Thief of Thieves, a collaboration between Kirkman, Nick Spencer, Shawn Martinbrough and a rotating roster of writers.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Skybound Asia will be based in Singapore, allowing the imprint to distribute directly to regional markets. The new venture will have a presence this weekend at the Singapore Toy, Game & Comic Convention.
“The next step for Skybound and The Walking Dead in particular is the evolution into a global brand,” Kirkman says. “Partnering with Moving Images to form Skybound Asia is the first logical step toward that goal. It will allow us to gain a foothold in emerging markets in order to bring Skybound comics and products to an entirely new fan base.”
- August 16, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | Kirby heirs appeal Marvel ruling; Steve Geppi sued over art deal
Jack Kirby
Legal | As he promised he would do last month after a federal judge declared the heirs of artist Jack Kirby had no claim to copyrights on the superheroes he co-created for Marvel Comics, Kirby family lawyer Marc Toberoff filed an appeal Monday with the Second Circuit Court of Appeal.
“Specifically, the estate of comic book superhero legend Kirby — co-creator of Captain America, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men, The Avengers, Iron Man, Hulk, The Silver Surfer and Thor — sent notices terminating copyright to publishers Marvel and Disney, as well as film studios that have made movies and TV shows based on characters he created or co-created, including Sony, Universal, 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures,” Deadline reports. [The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline]
- August 16, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by JK Parkin
Talking Comics with Tim | Rachel Pandich
Aspire
Rachel Pandich is an ambitious writer. I first became of her eight-issue miniseries, Aspire (Movement Comics), when I ran across it at this year’s HeroesCon (Pandich and series artist Ashley Lanni were invited to peddle the series at Teenage Satan‘s booth by Marsha Cooke). The miniseries aims to tell the tale of Destiny, a 12-year old girl who wants to fight crime. In addition to discussing this miniseries, Pandich discusses her upcoming involvement in Womanthology.
Tim O’Shea: Is Movement Comics your own publishing entity established to publish Aspire?
Rachel Pandich: No. I’ve had the script for the first issue of Aspire since late 2006 early 2007. It took a lot of shopping around for both a publisher and an artist. Finally a friend sent me an email directing me to Movement Magazine. Movement is an indie music zine that had dabbled in the local comic book scene before so I figured “Why not?”
O’Shea: How did you and artist Ashley Lanni first decide to start collaborating?
Pandich: Like I said, I’ve had the script for the first issue for a while. I was on my fourth artist, who was very quickly giving me every excuse in the book as to why he could not finish the first page, when I met Ashley. It was at Jacksonville’s monthly artwalk. Another artist that was next to her was handing out fliers for a pop-culture art show the next week. I went and Ashley was there too. I liked what I saw and a few months later we had agreed to work together.
- August 15, 2011 @ 04:00 PM by Tim O'Shea
Quote of the day | Anders Nilsen on his career-spanning Big Questions
“It’s my newest book, but it’s also my oldest.”
Big Questions was Anders Nilsen’s first comic. That was 1999. Twelve years later, the epic series is finally finished and ready to come out in a massive 600-page collected edition from Drawn & Quarterly. What’s it like to have the entire dozen-year breadth of your career as a cartoonist exist as a single story between two covers? CBR’s Alex Dueben asked Nilsen about it. I’m lucky enough to own every single issue of the series, including those early minicomics, and it’s an absolute beast — half Achewood-style character-driven funny-animal comic, half nightmarish and shocking exploration of violence and fanaticism, and half document of Nilsen’s startling progress as an artist. Okay, that’s three halves, but hey, it’s a big book. You should read it, and this interview.
- August 15, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Sean T. Collins