2011 November
New 52 Pickup | Weeks 12 and 13 – Issue 3 Decisions
Batman #3
Each Wednesday, DC’s New 52 hits shelves and CBR Staff Writer Steve Sunu is looking for the best bang for the buck in ongoing series. Cutting half his pull list each month from the original 52 in a battle royale, Steve has already narrowed the number to just 13 books. Which titles will make it past Issue 3?
It’s a Happy Thanksgiving for comics fans as we get our new comics right before a feast of turkey and other awesome food – but the end of every month for the New 52 on my pull list, something has to say goodbye. This installment will give an overview of the last six #3 issues on my pull and make the cuts down to the elite eight moving on to next month.
These two weeks included two of the wildcard picks: All-Star Western and Batman. Plus, DC’s flagship Justice League picks up speed and Aquaman gets some love from the local police force…kind of.
Warning! Spoilers ahead!
Batman
Written by Scott Snyder with art by Greg Capullo
Scott Snyder is killing it on this book, and the end of every issue makes me want to read more. The mastery of the cliffhanger here isn’t just the explosion at the end, but the revelation of information involving the Court of Owls and that they’ve been right under Batman’s nose for years. I’m really enjoying Snyder’s take on the Dark Knight here–it’s got a good balance of action and detective skills that really give a well-rounded picture of both Bruce Wayne and Batman. For some reason, though, I wasn’t as thrilled with Greg Capullo’s pencils here as I was in previous issues. It’s possible that it’s because the bulk of the book took place with Bruce Wayne and Lincoln having a conversation in a hospital room, but other than that, this was a fantastic issue.
- November 23, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Steve Sunu
Fantagraphics goes mini-comics crazy this holiday season
Fantagraphics mini-comics
Wouldn’t it be awesome if everywhere you shopped this holiday season offered a minicomic with a $50 purchase? Fantagraphics is doing just that, through their online store. They’ve created 21 mini-comics by a variety of their creators that are available free with the purchase of their “matching” book or books, or for simply purchasing $50 worth of stuff from their catalog.
“I always was very fond of the mini-comics format — take two to four 8 1/2 x 11 sheets, fold them once, staple, and voilà!” wrote Kim Thompson. “You have an adorable little 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 comic book for mere pennies. But I could never really figure out what to do with this old-school, low-tech format. Until now!”
The contents of the mini-comics are fairly unique, too; there’s a David B. one featuring a never-before-translated-into-English tale, and a Stan Sakai one that reprints a Nilson Groundthumper story that originally appeared in the Critters anthology back in the day. There’s one featuring out-of-print Peter Bagge strips, and one featuring a full-color 10-page summary of Tony Millionaire’s doomed attempt to get Billy Hazelnuts onto television. And more, by the Hernandez Bros., Jim Woodring, Johnny Ryan, Richard Sala, Bill Griffith, Ivan Brunetti and even Doc Winner, E.C. Segar’s assistant on Popeye.
The big chain stores might have cheap TVs this weekend, but how many of them come with a Tony Millionaire mini-comic? Not nearly enough, I tell ya.
- November 23, 2011 @ 10:30 AM by JK Parkin
Author Anne McCaffrey passes away at 85
Dragonflight #1
Anne McCaffrey, creator of the Dragonriders of Pern fantasy novels, passed away Monday at the age of 85. The multiple award-winning author died in her home in Ireland after suffering a stroke.
McCaffrey’s first novel, Restoree, was published in 1967, and was followed by the first Dragonriders of Pern novel, Dragonflight, in 1968. Nearly 100 of her books were published in her lifetime, and she was the first woman to win a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award. Eclipse Comics published an adaptation of Dragonflight in 1991, and a film adaptation by Watchmen and X-Men screenwriter David Hayter was announced earlier this year.
“She was an incredible world-builder,” comics creator Derek Kirk Kim wrote on his blog. “I also remember being blown away when she used ‘fuck’ repeatedly in a fantasy novel. It was the first time I’d seen that when I was a kid, and taught me the importance of keeping true to a character no matter what the genre or its conventions.”
Author Neil Gaiman remembers meeting her both through her books and, later, in person. “I met her as a person in the late 80s, when I was a young writer, at a convention, where she was the Guest of Honour,” he wrote on his blog. “It was a small convention, and she decided that I needed to be taken under her wing and given advice I would need in later life, which she proceeded to do. It was all good advice: how to survive American signing tours was the bit that stuck the most (she wanted me to move to Ireland, and I came close). I liked her as a writer, and by the end of that convention I adored her as a person.”
- November 23, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by JK Parkin
Marvel’s Route 666, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang delayed but not canceled
Route 666 #1 cover sketches, by Peter Nguyen
In the wake of a wave of cancellations from the House of Ideas, there emerges some good news for fans of CrossGen: While Marvel’s revivals of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Route 666 won’t debut in December and February, as originally announced, the publisher assures the titles aren’t canceled but merely delayed.
A Marvel spokesman tells Robot 6 the planned four-issue miniseries are simply being moved around on the publisher’s 2012 calendar.
Announced in August at FanExpo Canada, Route 666 and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang are set to join recent revivals of Ruse, Sigil and Mystic under Marvel’s fledgling CrossGen imprint. Buoyed by nostalgia for the defunct publisher, Ruse and Sigil had solid enough debuts — for miniseries, in any case — selling an estimated 28,500 copies each in February. But by their conclusion in June, sales of Ruse had plummeted to about 10,500 copies, and Sigil to 8,900. Mystic‘s August premiere was considerably weaker, moving around 18,800; by October’s Issue 3, that figure had fallen to less than 6,500.
Written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and illustrated Peter Nguyen, Route 666 re-imagines the CrossGen horror series, transplanting protagonist Cassie Starkweather to the 1950s, where she’s a deputy to U.S. Marshal Evan Cisco. Likewise, writer Peter Milligan and artist Roman Rosanas put a new spin on the Mike Perkins-Tony Bedard espionage comic Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, with a young agent ordered by MI6 to assume the role of super-spy Charles Kiss.
- November 23, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
British comics bring mischief to the iPad
I grew up reading British comics, but because I lived in the United States most of the time, I couldn’t just trot down to my local newsagent to get the latest Beano or Dandy. My aunts used to send me bundles of them every now and then from Ireland, and the arrival of these big rolls of comics, wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string, was always a special event in our household.
The Beano and The Dandy featured one- or two-page stories, mostly about mischievous kids punking their parents, their teachers, or the local bully, and they had a goofy sensibility that was missing from the smoother, blander American titles we got at home — Archie, Richie Rich, Little Dot.
While they are less exotic than a package from a foreign land, the brand-new Beano and Dandy iPad apps still deliver the goods. Both apps offer the full weekly comic at a reasonable price ($1.99 for most issues, 99 cents for one of the Dandys), plus a handful of back issues for free. The Beano is almost unchanged from the days of my youth, with old favorites like Roger the Dodger and the Bash Street Kids still causing rather mild trouble for all around them, while The Dandy is a bit edgier, with more short strips, fart jokes, and a comic called The Bogies that’s about boogers. (It’s funny and not particularly mucus-oriented but … eew.) However, it also features the very talented Jamie Smart breathing new life into the classic Desperate Dan (about an enormous cowboy who doesn’t know his own strength) and contributing a delightfully goofy newer strip “Pre-Skool Prime Minister.”
- November 23, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Carl Barks’ classic painting ‘The Sport of Tycoons’ fetches $262,900
"The Sport of Tycoons," by Carl Barks
Carl Barks’ 1974 painting “The Sport of Tycoons,” which features the iconic image of Scrooge McDuck swimming in his gold-filled vault, sold at auction last week for a record $262,900.
The painting is based on Barks’ often-reprinted 1952 tale “Only a Poor Old Man,” the first story in which Scrooge was the main character (in which, while swimming in his money bin, he says, “I love to dive around in it like a porpoise, and burrow through it like a gopher, and toss it up and let it hit me on the head!”). “The Sport of Tycoons” debuted in print in 1981′s The Fine Art of Walt Disney’s Donald Duck by Carl Barks.
The piece, part of the Kerby Confer Collection, was accompanied by the Heritage Auctions sales of two other Barks originals — “Sheriff of Bullet Valley” ($107,550), and “McDuck of Duckburg” ($101,575).
The auction also saw Jerry Robinson’s original cover art for 1942′s Detective Comics #67, the first Penguin cover, fetch $239,000, which Heritage dubs the second-highest price for a piece of American comic-book art.
- November 23, 2011 @ 07:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Wizard’s Gareb Shamus launches blog, Twitter feed — and shuts down digital magazine
Looks like Wizard Magazine/Wizard Entertainment/Wizard World founder Gareb Shamus is taking a more hands-on approach to the internet component of his comics-related empire. After years of communicating with his audience (or at least putting his signature on these communications) solely through press releases, editor’s letters, and the occasional confrontation over unrefunded subscriptions to the now-defunct Wizard magazine with a white Lando Calrissian cosplayer, Shamus has started a blog and opened a Twitter account. Meanwhile, Wizard Magazine’s much-ballyhooed digital incarnation — previously touted by Shamus as “the smartest business decision I’ve ever made” — appears to have disappeared from the Internet.
On Twitter, Shamus is following a dozen people, including Brian Michael Bendis, Jim Lee, Kevin Smith, and Whitney Cummings of the NBC comedy Whitney. So far his only tweet is a retweeted link to an interview with Siggy Flicker, matchmaker and star of VH1′s Why Am I Still Single? (Ironically, perhaps, that last bit reminds me of the weird fake Gareb Shamus twitter account that’s been following virtually all of us ex-Wizard employees for a couple of years now.)
On his blog, Shamus has posted interviews with creators Bill Sienkiewicz, David Mack, Marv Wolfman, Phil Jimenez, Greg Capullo, and Kevin Maguire, as well as his thoughts on chocolate chip cookies. That’s actually a pretty fun line-up.
But Wizard World, the digital magazine that replaced Wizard‘s print iteration after it and sister publication ToyFare were unceremoniously canceled? Nowhere to be found on its dedicated URL WizardWorldDigital.com. And on Wizard’s main site, currently billing itself as the place “Where Pop Fi Comes to Life,” Wizard World‘s death has gone unnoted as well. Perhaps White Lando can direct inquiries about this matter to @gareb.
- November 22, 2011 @ 04:03 PM by Sean T. Collins
The Middle Ground #78 | 10 things to keep you out of stores, trouble this weekend
Hey, it’s Thanksgiving this week! Which means it’s “Black Friday” this week! Which means, if you’re anything like me, you’re going to spend Friday staying far away from the madding crowds crushing themselves to death or a worryingly-close equivalent in search of a great bargain. So why not spend the time reading some comics, instead? For once, here’re some digital comics I think you should download and read instead of leaving the house this Friday.
This isn’t any kind of “best of” selection; it’s literally just a list of things that you may have missed that jumped out at me while perusing Graphic.ly and ComiXology’s selections this weekend, many of which are favorites of mine for reasons both strong and entirely random.
- November 22, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Graeme McMillan
Daniel Clowes and Seth in “Spot the Alternative Cartoonists”
Can you find the acclaimed comics creators behind The Death-Ray and The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists in this photograph by Adrian Tomine from their trip to the Miami Book Fair? Just be patient and keep searching — I’m sure you’ll see them in there eventually!
Move over, Ana Alexandrino’s photo of Killoffer — there’s a new sheriff of Awesome Pictures of Cartoonists-Town.
- November 22, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
Start Reading Now | Varmints by Andy Hirsch
Varmints
Andy Hirsch, illustrator of the SLG comic The Royal Historian of Oz, is self-publishing a digital comic called Varmints. The first two issues are available on his website and through Graphicly for $1 each, and he’s also serializing the first issue on the web.
The story revolves around Opie and Ned, two kids hunting down their deadbeat dad, the Criminal King of the West. The first issue alone features a saloon fight, a guy in a bear suit, a lucky hat and beans, so if you’re looking for a fun Western comic with all those elements, go check it out.
- November 22, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
Viz to release digital art anthology to benefit Japanese disaster recovery
First Flight by Dave Guertin
Viz Media will release Art for Hope, a digital art book anthology that benefits Architecture for Humanity’s ongoing disaster reconstruction efforts in Japan, on Dec. 1 through VIZManga.com and the Viz Manga app for the various Apple devices. The art book, which will be available until May 31, contains contributions from 40 artists from around the world, including Chew co-creator Rob Guillory, Long Tail Kitty and Mr. Elephanter creator Lark Pien, muralist Sirron Norris and Skullkickers co-creator Jim Zubkavich.
According to the press release, each of the 40 artists participating in the anthology used Autodesk SketchBook digital paint and drawing software applications in some way to create original pieces for the anthology. Selections from it will also be exhibited at the Autodesk annual user conference, Autodesk University, taking place at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1. Access to the exhibit is free to the public.
You can find a list of all the contributors after the jump.
- November 22, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by JK Parkin
Food or Comics? | A pre-Thanksgiving four-color feast
Wolverine and the X-Men
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.
Chris Arrant
If I had $15, I’d get one from almost every box–Image’s Invincible #85 ($2.99), DC’s DMZ #71 ($2.99), Marvel’s Wolverine and The X-Men #2 ($3.99) and independent title RASL #12 ($3.50). Not much to say about any of these I haven’t already said, except anytime Cory Walker draws a book I’d pay twice cover price.
If I had $30, I’d sneak out of Thanksgiving preparations to first get a book I was surprised I liked as much as I did, despite the last issue’s ending: Shade #2 (DC, $2.99). One thing I wasn’t amped to see was Deathstroke, but given James Robinson and Cully Hammer’s track record I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. Next up would be the epic (in my mind, at least) team-up of Warren Ellis and Michael Lark on Secret Avengers #19 (Marvel, $3.99). Seeing Ellis boil down the concept into “Run the mission. Don’t get seen. Save the world.” Hits me right between the eyes, and this new issue’s preview has be salivating over it. Last up, I’d pay the giant size price tag for Fantastic Four #600 (Marvel, $7.99) although my patience has worn a little thin with ending the series then bringing it back for #600.
- November 22, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by JK Parkin
Anthony Bourdain’s ‘gourmet slaughterfest’ Get Jiro! to arrive in June
Art from "Get Jiro!" by Langdon Foss
Vertigo at last has set a June 2012 release date for Get Jiro!, the eagerly anticipated graphic novel from acerbic chef, author and television host Anthony Bourdain.
Teased in September 2010 by Bourdain, and officially announced a few weeks later by the DC Comics imprint, the futuristic action thriller set in a world where food and the secrets of its preparation are the source of all power, leading master chefs to fight over a mysterious sushi chef named Jiro. Bourdain has described the graphic novel as “a gourmet slaughterfest, sort of like Fistful of Dollars meets Eat Drink Man Woman” and “Yojimbo meets Big Night and Babette’s Feast, an ultra-violent slaughter-fest over culinary arcana.”
Originally pegged for a 2011 debut, the 160-page hardcover is written by Bourdain (Kitchen Confidential, Medium Raw) and friend and novelist Joel Rose (The Blackest Bird, Kill Kill Faster Faster), and illustrated by artist Langdon Foss (Heavy Metal).
- November 22, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | The case against, and for, sales estimates
X-23 #20
Sales charts | Responding to an iFanboy article that speculates on what titles Marvel might cancel next, Men of War and Viking writer Ivan Brandon makes the case against sales charts and the subsequent analysis of them each month: “There’s an ongoing debate, for a bunch of years now. There are numbers that circulate every month, inaccurate numbers, people track them, people use that flawed ‘data’ to comment on what they see as the progress or decline on the list. A lot of comics professionals are against this, for a lot of reasons. In my case, for my books, the books I personally share copyright on … my reason is, and no offense to anyone out there: My income is none of your business. Just as your income is none of mine.”
Tom Spurgeon offers a counterpoint: “Sales information seems to me an obvious positive, not because it reveals the bank accounts of creators, but because what sells and to what extent is basic information about a marketplace, and the shape and potency of a marketplace seems to me a primary item of interest for anyone covering that marketplace. It’s foundational to our understanding of how things work and why. Certainly this information is already manipulated to brazen effect by companies with something to put over on customers; I have to imagine this would become worse under a system of no information at all being released.” [Ivan Brandon, The Comics Reporter]
- November 22, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
B.P.R.D. goes to hell in 2012 with five new miniseries
'It's all going to hell in 2012'
Following the teaser they sent out last week, Dark Horse Comics has announced five new B.P.R.D. titles that’ll be released next year and will “shake the organization to its very core.”
Here’s the line-up:
- First up, in February comes B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: The Long Death, written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi, with art by James Harren (Abe Sapien: The Devil Does Not Jest, Heralds). A team is sent to the deadly woods from New World to investigate a new series of disappearances, but they discover more than just the monster responsible, as loyalties are questioned and tensions mount!
- March will see the release of B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: The Pickens County Horror, written by Mike Mignola and Scott Allie, with art by Jason Latour (Wolverine, Scalped) and an all-new cover by Becky Cloonan. This chilling two-issue series brings a B.P.R.D. crew into the grips of a backwoods vampire clan hiding out in a Gothic southern home.
- Next, in May comes B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: The Transformation of J. H. O’Donnell, pairing Mike Mignola with Scott Allie again for the discovery of what drove the Bureau’s expert on ancient foes to near madness after a mission with Hellboy 24 years earlier. This supernatural thrill ride features art by B.P.R.D. newcomer Max Fiumara (Amazing Spider-Man) and a cover by Becky Cloonan.
- That same month features the return of the regular B.P.R.D. team of Mike Mignola, John Arcudi, and Tyler Crook, with B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: The Devil’s Engine. The Zinco Corporation again rears its ugly head after a devastating earthquake, pitting Devon and Fenix in an uneasy alliance against bat-faced monsters and the evil empire’s other mad-science experiments! Additionally, this new series will feature covers by former Hellboy artist Duncan Fegredo.
- Finally, Cameron Stewart returns to the B.P.R.D. universe in June with B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: Exorcism. In this story we learn more about Ashley Strode’s evolution as an agent after she meets up with a familiar face for a series of exorcisms in a rural Indiana town. Mike Mignola and Cameron Stewart team up to share writing duties, with pencils by Cameron and covers by Viktor Kalvachev.
“Let’s break some stuff that can’t be fixed. Let’s turn some corners where there’s no going back,” said Mike Mignola in a press release. “In both Hellboy and B.P.R.D., we’re saying, ‘Well, once we do this—once we round this corner—that’s it!’ It’s not like, ‘Oh, Batman, different costume.’ We’re doing stuff where there’s no way to fix it. That is the new reality in our world. You’re REALLY going to see that in 2012.”
- November 21, 2011 @ 10:20 PM by JK Parkin