2011 October
NYCC | Stan Lee and 1821 Comics launch kids imprint
Reggie the Veggie Crocodile
Expanding their partnership, Stan Lee and 1821 Comics will unveil a line of kids’ comics today at New York Comic Con.
Called Stan Lee’s Kids Universe, the imprint will feature characters like the Fuzz Posse, a group of police dogs, and Reggie the Veggie Crocodile, a reptile who becomes an outcast because he shies away from meat.
“The whole idea is to give them the kind of stories that they haven’t read before that they can easily understand and relate to,” Lee tells The Associated Press. “While we want these to be reasonably educational and good for kids — that goes without saying — but our main purpose to be entertaining … kids have a great sense of humor if you can reach them the right way.”
- October 14, 2011 @ 04:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
NYCC | A round-up of news from Thursday (and before)
Green Arrow
The New York Comic Con officially opened its doors this afternoon, but comics publishers and distributors have been releasing announcements leading up to it all this week. Here’s a round-up of news from today, as well as some that hit earlier this week.
• DC Comics, who were having a pretty good week already, announced two creative team changes for the New 52. Ann Nocenti of Daredevil and Longshot fame will write Green Arrow starting with issue #7. She spoke to Comic Book Resources about her approach to the series: “I have a particular way of writing a comic. Comics are short. They are only twenty pages, so you can take a year of comics and that can be your opera, and the opera can have a lot of different passages in it. I kind of believe every issue should be a single story, just a complete story. But there is a momentum that forms like triptychs over it, and then it forms your big overtures, and then the whole thing ends up kind of operatic. I also want a beginning, middle and end, a classic short story approach to every single comic. What I do is I try to figure out, what is the kick in this comic, what is the main feeling I want to get, and everything in the comic has to serve that.”
• And Marc Bernardin (Monster Attack Network, The Highwaymen, The Authority) will take over the writing duties on Static Shock beginning with issue #7. “As a fan and as a writer, one of the great things about Static isn’t just that he’s a new hero, it’s also that he’s a young hero,” Bernardin told CBR. “He will make the mistakes of youth and, even though the New 52 is resetting a lot of heroes to their early days as do-gooders, there’s nothing quite like the fumblings of a teenager.”
- October 13, 2011 @ 08:54 PM by JK Parkin
DC, General Mills team to bring Justice League to cereal boxes
Justice League: Unstoppable Forces #1
DC Comics has struck a deal with General Mills to include custom editions of Justice League in specially marked boxes of Big G cereals, The New York Times reports. The partnership is expected to be announced at New York Comic Con.
The publisher is printing a whopping 12 million copies of four Justice League books — “Unstoppable Forces,” “Artificial Invasion,” “Sinister Imitation” and “Breakout!” — featuring a classic roster of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash and Aquaman. (And they’re in their classic costumes, to boot!) The stories will begin in print and continue online at BigCerealHeroes.com, where you can get a sampling of the four titles.
The 24-page comics, by Scott Beatty, Paul Tobin, Doug Wagner, Joshua Williamson, Christian Duce, Derec Donovan and Bruno Redondo, are 5 inches by 7 inches and ad-free, except for a mention that they’re “brought to you by Big G cereals.” They can be found inside designated boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Honey Nut Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Trix, Golden Grahams, Reese’s Puffs and Cocoa Puffs.
The DC Comics promotion, which runs through October and November, will be supported with advertising in traditional media, online and through social media.
- October 13, 2011 @ 04:30 PM by Kevin Melrose
Grumpy Old Fan | With Games, the play’s the thing
The New Titans in the "Perez 2" era
The New Teen Titans: Games is the latest in an ever-expanding series of projects I never thought I’d see — a list which includes 2001′s The Dark Knight Strikes Again, 2005′s Englehart/Rogers/Austin Dark Detective, the various Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire Justice League International reunions, and of course George Pérez finally getting his bravura turn on JLA/Avengers.
In the waning years of the 1980s (so the stories go), New Teen Titans co-creator Marv Wolfman had an idea for a Titans graphic novel. Wolfman, Pérez, and editor Barbara Kesel conceived Games — basically a supervillain-caper story with an espionage/terrorism angle — as a one-shot spinoff of the wildly successful ongoing series. Pérez then drew some 70 pages before complications sent the project into the limbo of unfinished possibilities. However, as the years went by and the stars realigned, and that possibility of finishing Games turned into probability, Wolfman and Pérez were forced to rethink their approach to the material, both in terms of changed styles and changes in content.
Accordingly, the Games we have today isn’t quite an artifact or a re-creation. Although it is rooted significantly in Titans lore, it doesn’t seem inaccessible to new readers. It’s a continuation which, for various reasons, can’t be “official,” and it’s also a standalone story which offers another look at the pair’s signature work. It may well be their last word on these characters, but it’s hardly an ending. It’s what they would have done twenty-odd years ago, except that it works best when taken slightly out of that context. Take it from someone who grew up in the land of strong bourbon — Games may be one of the most potent distillations of the Wolfman/Pérez experience.
Naturally, all that requires some explanation, so here we go….
- October 13, 2011 @ 04:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
Dustin Harbin’s tribute to Dylan Williams
Cartoonist Dustin Harbin posted a tribute comic for the late Sparkplug Comic Books publisher Dylan Williams today, and it’s a fitting tribute indeed.
Harbin’s point is that Williams created a publishing house designed to make the kinds of comics he wanted to see a reality, so that thinking about his death is as much thinking about the presence of comics he brought into the world as it is about the absence of the man himself. And with the welcome news that Sparkplug will be continuing under the auspices of Williams’ wife Emily Nilsson, his friend Tom Neely, and his colleague Virginia Paine, it looks like that aspect of his legacy will continue to be honored.
- October 13, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
New Danger Girl coming from IDW next year
Danger Girl
Back in 2009, when IDW announced their intentions to collect Andy Hartnell and J. Scott Campbell’s former WildStorm series Danger Girl, they mentioned plans to publish new stories at some point. Today in an interview with Comic Book Resources, IDW’s Chief Creative Officer and Editor-in-Chief Chris Ryall revealed that plans are in the works on a new Danger Girl series coming next spring.
Reporter Shaun Manning asked Ryall about Abbey Chase’s appearance on the cover of Infestation 2 #1. “Yeah, we were going to do her own ["Infestation 2"] series, but we’re actually doing a new Danger Girl series in the Spring, too, so we didn’t want to conflict with that,” Ryall said. “She’ll be part of the storyline but not have her own spinoff book attached to the Infestation event.”
While it’s been years since a Danger Girl solo comic graced the stands, Abbey Chase and her friends have popped up in other places, including the Danger Girl/Army of Darkness crossover series published by Dynamite earlier this year.
- October 13, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by JK Parkin
Grampá channels pop music icon for unused Nightcrawler redesign
Those of you who enjoyed the Rafael Grampá Batman art I posted earlier this week and want to see more from the artist should dig this … one of the folks who commented in that thread, Serge, shared a whole bunch of links to more great Grampá stuff (with a bonus Rafael Albuquerque piece). It appears that the artist regularly writes and shares artwork on ig.com, which has proven to be a treasure trove of cool stuff.
Just like the original post, his columns are all in Portuguese, but if you’re interested in reading them, you can try an internet translation site or use Google Chrome, which gave me the option to translate them. As is typical, the translations are far from perfect.
–Those of you who were calling for Grampá to do more Batman should enjoy this column, where he details the process he used to create the piece, a tribute to Frank Miller. Lots of nice process artwork.
–Also of interest, Grampá draws the Age of Apocalypse Nightcrawler, who as of late has been appearing in Uncanny X-Force:
Nightcrawler, King of BAMF!
- October 13, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by JK Parkin
Plutonian vs. Max Damage in Irredeemable-Incorruptible crossover
Incorruptible #25
BOOM! Studios has announced a four-issue crossover pitting Mark Waid’s fallen superhero the Plutonian against his nemesis Max Damage in an epic tale spanning Irredeemable and Incorruptible.
The story examines how the Plutonian, the world’s greatest superhero turned mass murderer, and Max Damage, the reformed supervillain become adversaries. It kicks off in December in Irredeemable #32, by Waid and artist Diego Barreto, and continues in Incorruptible #25, by Waid and Marcio Takara, before concluding in Irredeemable #33 and Incorruptible #26.
“This is the crossover we’ve been waiting to tell,” BOOM! Studios CEO Ross Richie said in a statement. “We get to peer deeper into Max Damage’s origins. These two iconic characters have been powerhouse adversaries since the first issue and we are thrilled to add to the mythology of both of these great series.”
Read the follow announcement below:
- October 13, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
Chiang, Crabapple, Cavallaro support Shirts For A Cure at NYCC
Shirts For A Cure, a project started by the Syrentha J. Savio Endowment to raise money in their efforts to provide financial assistance to underprivileged women who cannot afford breast cancer medicine and therapy, sells exclusive shirts for various bands and musical artists on their site. And they’ll be at the New York Comic Con this weekend selling shirts created by artists like Mike Cavallaro (his design is shown above), Molly Crabapple and Brian Ewing.
In addition, Wonder Woman artist Cliff Chiang will hold a signing at their booth Friday at 4 p.m., where you can get one of the last 50 of his limited edition Wonder Woman print.
And even if you can’t attend the con, go check out their site … they’ve got some cool shirts for a great cause.
- October 13, 2011 @ 11:30 AM by JK Parkin
Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run coming full circle?
Grant Morrison’s final arc of New X-Men was the futuristic “Here Comes Tomorrow,” but after his last issue much of what the writer had done in his three years on the title was shuffled out, leaving readers wondering where had “tomorrow” gone?
Truth be told, Morrison introduced a number of outside-the-box ideas during his 40-plus issues on New X-Men, and it would’ve been difficult for any publisher to juggle them all. Some concepts, such as Emma Frost joining the primary X-team and Jean Grey being written out of the picture, have proven permanent. But others, such as the X-Corps and characters like Xorn and Beak, have largely been written out of existence.
In recent months some characters, like Quentin Quire and Fantomex, have been dusted off for use in X-Men: Schism and Uncanny X-Force, but by and large Marvel has had difficulty coming to terms with Morrison’s additions to the X-Men franchise. Here’s a quick list of some Morrison-era New X-Men morsels that could (and should) be brought back to the fore come X-Men: Regenesis.
- October 13, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Chris Arrant
The Sequential Goose | Chris Duffy
All this week at Robot 6 we’re interviewing some of the many contributors to First Second’s new anthology, Nursery Rhyme Comics. Today Brigid Alverson talks to the editor, Chris Duffy.
Chris Duffy is the former editor of Nickelodeon Magazine‘s comics section and the current editor of SpongeBob Comics. I was interested in hearing the inside story of Nursery Rhyme Comics—how he rounded up this diverse array of talent and what sort of marching orders he gave them—and Chris obliged with some interesting insights into the making of Nursery Rhyme Comics.
Brigid Alverson: You have some really big names contributing to this book. Were you the one who recruited them, and if so, how did you get them to participate?
Chris Duffy: Almost everyone we asked wanted to be a part of the book. That’s the good news with a collection with a great, clear concept like this book has. Everyone wants in! The challenge was paring down our list to 50 cartoonists (harder than you might think) and just making all those phone calls and emails. I did most of the contacting, though Mark Siegel and Calista Brill broke the ice with a lot of creators who they knew well. I should mention that the idea began with former First Second publisher Lauren Wohl.
- October 13, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Lovecraft’s Old Ones to infest IDW titles next year
Infestation 2
In advance of this week’s New York Comic Con, IDW Publishing announced a sequel to last year’s Infestation crossover that will run from January through April.
Infestation 2, like its predecessor, will feature a supernatural threat that spreads into several different “universes” inhabited by IDW properties. Instead of zombies, this time around the threat is the “Old Ones” from horror writer H.P Lovercraft’s stories. Duane Swierczynski (Birds of Prey, Cable) and David Messina, who drew the original Infestation series, are the creative team on the two-issue Infestation 2 series, while other creative teams will tackle the related books featuring Transformers, G.I. Joe, 30 Days of Night and more. Here’s a breakdown of the event:
- Infestation 2 #1 ($3.99, 32 pages, full color) will be available in stores on Jan. 25, with covers by Alex Garner and Livio Ramondelli.
- Infestation 2: Transformers #1 and #2 will be in stores on Feb. 1 and 15, respectively. It’s by writer Chuck Dixon and artist Guido Guidi and is set in the “Hearts of Steel” timeline.
- Infestation 2: Dungeons & Dragons: Eberron #1 and #2 will be in stores on Feb. 8 and 22, respectively, written by Dungeons & Dragons novelist Paul Krill.
- Infestation 2: Team-up one-shot will be in stores on Feb. 29, featuring the Weekly World News‘ Bat Boy and Groom Lake’s grey alien Archibald. It’s by Chris Ryall and Alan Robinson, with covers by Eric Powell and Bill Morrison.
- Infestation 2: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 and #2 will be in stores on March 7 and 21, respectively, by Tristan Jones and Mark Torres.
- Infestation 2: G.I. Joe #1 and #2 will be in stores on March 14 and 28, respectively, by Mike Raicht and Valentine de Landro.
- Infestation 2: 30 Days of Night one-shot will be in stores on April 4, by Swierczynski and artist Stuart Sayger.
- Infestation 2 #2 will be available in stores on April 11.
Every issue of the event will feature a connected cover by artist Livio Ramondelli, and IDW will produce special incentive temporary tattoos with each issue. IDW will also release promotional ashcans in November with interviews and artwork.
Update: Comic Book Resources talks to Ryall about the project. He confirms that J. Scott Campbell’s Danger Girl will be a part of the event, although she won’t have her own series or one-shot tie-in. IDW will publish a new Danger Girl series next spring.
- October 13, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by JK Parkin
Richard Pace asks DC heroes ‘How did the New 52 affect you?’
Actions speak louder than words, and comics speak louder than any description could give. Without further ado, look at comic artist Richard Pace‘s humorous take on the New 52 from the characters’ point of view:
- October 13, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Chris Arrant
Digital comics lead pirate to call it quits
Could we be coming to the end of an era?
iFanboy has a fascinating interview with a recently retired comics pirate who says that same-day print and digital releases make comics piracy pointless:
As to why I quit, the “Scene” has become petty and incestuous. No one cared about “preserving” comic books in a digital form anymore. It was all about getting YOUR copy out FIRST so that you could flood the fileshares before someone else could get their version out just to acquire digital kudos from those around you. I grew wary of the “Race” and took a hard look at the current digital space. Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, and even Archie have been pushing more and more digital initiatives. If digital archiving was really my goal, and not piracy, then wasn’t I fooling myself by continuing to scan and edit comics that the publishers were offering in a pure digital form? DC’s push for “day and date” releasing of all their mainline titles cemented it for me and I stepped away.
He also comments on the addictive nature of scanning and the group dynamics of the pirates. This sounds like an expensive hobby, as he bought a lot of books to scan them — and sometimes bought hard copies of books he had read online. Underlying all this is the odd notion that making a book digital “preserves” it, although he contradicts that by buying the print editions. Anyway, interesting stuff and well worth reading; I’m looking forward to the rest of these interviews.
Meanwhile, Colleen Doran has put together an interesting roundup of links for freelancers at her website, and among them is one that finishes the story of HTMLcomics.com. As we reported in May 2010, the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida had filed a suit in federal court asking that Gregory Hart forfeit six web domains that hosted scans of copyrighted material (actually, Hart got to keep one because it turned out to be just a blank web page). Earlier this year, Hart agreed to forfeit the web addresses; Copyhype has the details. The domains, including the infamous htmlcomics.com, now belong to the U.S. government, but nobody seems to be doing anything with them at the moment. Doran comments that her take has gone up since the sites were shut down, but that is probably due to other factors. In the end, Hart was not charged with any crimes or sued by any publisher.
- October 13, 2011 @ 07:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Abrams buys U.K. graphic novel publisher SelfMadeHero
U.S. art and illustrated book publisher Abrams announced Wednesday it plans to buy London-based graphic novel publisher SelfMadeHero. Financial terms weren’t disclosed for the deal, which is expected to be finalized in the next several weeks.
Founded by Emma Hayley, SelfMadeHero launched in 2007 with its much-publicized Manga Shakespeare line, which reinterprets the Bard’s plays, and Eye Classics, which adapts classic works like A Tale of Two Cities and The Picture of Dorian Gray. The publisher expanded in 2009, adding original fiction, Sherlock Holmes adaptations, and biographies (beginning with the well-reviewed Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness, published in the U.S. by Abrams ComicArts).
Hayley will remain as managing director, but distribution in the U.K. and export markets will be handled by Abrams & Chronicle Books. In spring 2012 SelfMadeHero will launch a North American graphic novel list that includes Chico & Rita by Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal, Kiki de Montparnasse by Catel & Bocquet, The Lovecraft Anthology: Volume I edited by Dan Lockwood, But I Really Wanted to Be an Anthropologist by Margaux Motin, and Best of Enemies: A History of U.S. and Middle East Relations by David B. and Jean-Pierre Filiu.
“Having long admired SelfMadeHero’s publishing program and Emma Hayley’s eye and taste for original and exciting graphic novels and material for both adults and children, I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work with her and her team to bring the books to even larger audiences,” Abrams President and CEO Michael Jacobs said in a statement. “We at Abrams have been looking to expand our reach in the still growing markets for comics and graphics and think that with SelfMadeHero we have found a perfect complement to our existing Abrams ComicArts publishing program.”
Abrams’ comics line includes Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Art of Jaime Hernandez, Nat Turner, Mom’s Cancer and Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?
- October 13, 2011 @ 06:00 AM by Kevin Melrose