2011 November
Robot Review | Mr. Murder is Dead
Written by Victor Quinaz; Drawn by Brent Schoonover
Archaia; $19.95
The premise of Mr. Murder is Dead isn’t a unique one. It’s the story of a retired, Dick Tracy-like, police detective whose arch-enemy turns up murdered. As the cops investigate the crime, the detective – who may or may not have committed the act; that’s part of the mystery – wrestles with his own aging and what it means to his life that such a central part of it is now gone. Aging heroes aren’t new, nor is the technique of looking back on their lives through a series of retro-looking comics, but Quinaz and Schoonover bring depth to the concept that’s missing from similarly-themed books.
Most of the books like this that I’ve read have a strong meta-context to them about the history of heroic fiction. Depending on the author’s point-of-view, the point is often to either glorify or demonize the past in comparison with contemporary trends in adventure stories. If it’s venerating the Good Old Days (the more popular choice, I’ve noticed), the elderly hero will rail against the complicated darkness of modern stories by longing for simpler times depicted with clean lines and basic colors. If it takes a cynical view of Days of Yore, a younger protagonist may reflect on old injustices and stereotypes with art that highlights those elements. Mr. Murder, on the other hand, isn’t all that concerned about commenting on the past. At least, not our collective past. Its story is more personal than that and more affecting.
A better comparison for Mr. Murder would be something like Joshua Hale Fialkov and Noel Tuazon’s Tumor, also published by Archaia. The books are completely different in plot and tone, but they share an interest in looking at an old detective’s struggle to come to terms with his more exciting past. In Tumor, that takes the form of invasive memories making it difficult for Frank Armstrong to separate the past from the present. Mr. Murder’s Gould Kane (aka The Spook) is all there mentally, but has a ton of emotional crap to sort out: the murder of Kane’s fiancée on her wedding day, Kane’s later relationship with his dead bride’s best friend, the child that he may or may not share with her, his changing feelings about the law and what society owes him after so many years of service and sacrifice. Kane is a complex character and Mr. Murder rightly chooses to focus on him and his flaws. It’s not as interested in referencing or paying homage to crime noir stories as it is just being one itself. It goes about the business of doing that in a really interesting way though.
- November 18, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Michael May
New York’s School of Visual Arts Launches Online Magazine, INK
After launching the careers of a number of prominent comic creators over the years, New York’s School of Visual Arts is launching a free digital magazine app exclusively devoted to comics. Titled INK, its first issue already boasts some impressive talent and is available on your computer or iPad free of charge.
INK‘s first issue in split between both comics newcomers as well as tenured professionals. Several comic pros who teach at SVA contribute, including Klaus Janson, Nick Bertozzi and Joey Cavalieri, but it’s the work of these talented unknowns that really make the magazine memorable. Check it out!
- November 18, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by Chris Arrant
Emerald City Comicon launches webcomic with Chris Giarrusso and Brad Guigar
Comics have covered a variety of subjects, but in a unique new webcomic strip by Brad Guigar and Chris Giarrusso, comics themselves are the subject. Launched earlier this week, Tales From The Con aims to give a humorous look at the ins and outs of comic conventions and the unique vagaries of these fan-driven events. Another interesting facet of the webcomic is that it’s originating from the website of a convention itself — Emerald City Comicon.
“Anyone who has exhibited at a comic convention has a great story about the experience — some funny, some frustrating, some bizarre — and that makes for great comics,” said Brad Guigar in a press release. “Combined, Chris and I probably have 20 years of conventions under our belts. Not only is this a terrific chance to share some of that, but it’s a unique way to connect it to one of the premiere comic conventions in America, the Emerald City Comicon.”
According to Guigar, convention director Jim Demonakos approached him about this project without knowing Guigar had briefly mentioned this sort of thing in an earlier interview with GammaSquad as an ideal compliment to a publisher’s website.
ECCC and the creators plan to post a new installment of Tales From The Con every Thursday on the convention’s website. I expect con crud jokes early and often.
- November 18, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Chris Arrant
Craig Thompson on Orientalism: “Bring it on”
I’m not even paraphrasing! In a lengthy and fascinating interview with Nadim Damluji, the writer whose thoughtful critique of Craig Thompson’s Habibi spearheaded the discussion of Thompson’s use of Orientalist tropes and stereotypes in his depiction of Arab and Islamic culture and people (particularly women), Thompson comes right out and welcomes all the sticky, tricky, at times uncomfortable and unpleasant associations his use of harems, slavers, sultans and so on call to mind.
- November 18, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
Talking Comics with Tim | Greg Pak on Bill Mantlo
Greg Pak's first Bill Mantlo comic
Greg Pak‘s Afterword tribute to Bill Mantlo in the final issue of his Hulk run (The Incredible Hulks 635) genuinely gave me pause (and as I said as much in that week’s WAYR). Then last week when Kevin Melrose made us aware of LifeHealthPro/Bill Coffin‘s devastating profile of Bill Mantlo’s life since 1992, which clearly struck a chord with many Robot 6 readers. Once I saw Pak’s comment in the thread, I realized I wanted to talk to Pak about Mantlo. While I have long respected Pak as a writer, his decision to set up a donations page for Bill Mantlo’s care is the reason why I admire him. My thanks to Pak for the interview and for scanning the cover to the actual copy of his first Bill Mantlo comic (Micronauts 3), which we get to discuss also.
Tim O’Shea: At what point in your run on the Hulk did you realize that you wanted to write the Afterword, partially about Bill Mantlo?
Greg Pak: I’d cited Bill Mantlo as a big influence many times over the years in press and publicity for my various Hulk storylines. So it was a natural for me to focus on him in the afterward to Incredible Hulks #635. And it was a huge pleasure to be able to formally dedicate the run to Mantlo on that final page.
- November 18, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Tim O'Shea
Village Voice cartoonist gives Washington D.C. a DC-style makeover
It seems DC’s New 52 reboot is catching on in the strangest of places — Washington, D.C.. In a city sometimes so odd it seems like a fictional city straight out of DC’s pages, Village Voice cartoonist Ward Sutton as put the 2012 Presidential contenders in the guises of some of DC’s finest in what could be the best crossover ever.
In addition to the fabulous “Mitt-amorpho” depicting Mitt Romney as Metamorpho, Sutton also casts President Barack Obama as Semi-Superman, Rick Perry as the Flash In The Pan, Sarah Palin as Wondering Woman and more. See more over at Tom Tomorrow’s page on Daily Kos, which is reprinting the illustrations.
- November 18, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Chris Arrant
Comics A.M. | The Power Within creators land on Out’s ‘Out 100′ list
Charles Christensen and Mark Brill
Creators | Out magazine has included writer Charles “Zan” Christensen and artist Mark Brill in its 17th annual “Out 100″ list highlighting the 100 gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people of the year. Christensen and Brill are the creators of The Power Within, an anti-bullying comic book published by Northwest Press. “Inspired, or rather upset, by Tyler Clementi’s tragic death last year, the pair set out to create an empowering story of an eighth-grader picked on for being gay,” the magazine writes. Northwest Press has distributed over 700 free copies of the book to more than 50 gay-straight alliances, schools, churches, community centers and other youth organizations. [Out]
Creators | Uncanny X-Men writer Kieron Gillen considers the accessibility of the relaunched comic in light of reviews he’s read around the web, particularly the fact that some people were thrown by the X-Men living in San Francisco: “Of course, I can see the reason why it’s thrown the people … they know the X-Men live in a mansion in Westchester. That they’re not living in Westchester is the problem. It’s not about giving the information to read the story that’s there. It’s about correcting pre-existing assumptions. In other words, it’s not a problem about being accessible to new readers – because a genuinely new reader would accept the fact the X-Men live on Utopia in the same way that they except that Bilbo lives in the Shire – but rather a problem with the readers being old readers. They feel lost not because of the story on the page, but the gap between the old story in their heads and the story on the page, and wanting to know what connects the two.” [Kieron Gillen]
- November 18, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Grumpy Old Fan | We are family: DC solicits for February 2012
Because a Crisis On Infinite Earths homage would have been too predictable
At first I wasn’t especially excited about too much in DC’s February solicitations. However, the more I looked around, the more optimistic I became. Six months into the New 52, some connections are starting to gel, and their interactions (well, as far as what you can glean from the ad copy) seem more organic. As always, there were a few pleasant surprises in the collected editions, and some details from which to spin hopeful speculation.
But enough with the purple prose — let’s hit the books!
TO UNLIMITED AND BEYOND
The gee-whizziest news of the February solicitations has to be the digital-first format of Batman Beyond Unlimited. I have not been the quickest to adapt to digitally-conveyed comics, mostly because my personal technology level hasn’t caught up. However, I do read a number of webcomics, as well as newspaper strips online, and if the price were right, I’d gladly sample BBU’s features on my computer before picking up the print version. Having Dustin Nguyen and (yay!) Norm Breyfogle involved doesn’t hurt either.
Continue Reading »
- November 17, 2011 @ 04:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
Does Koyama Press have the coolest publisher backstory ever?
Consider the tale of Annie Koyama, the publisher of the eponymous art-comics outfit Koyama Press, as explained to Robot 6′s Chris Mautner (him again?) for CBR.
Her successful career as a producer in film, television, and commercials came to an end when she was handed a terminal diagnosis of multiple brain aneurysms. Unable to work, she started playing the stock market with no experience whatsoever…and ended up generating enough cash to form both a nest egg for herself and a slush fund for local artists whose work caught her eye. Meanwhile, a risky surgical procedure saved her life: “I still have another aneurysm but choose to mostly ignore it” is how she describes what remains of her condition. And now she’s responsible for getting gorgeous comics by Michael DeForge, Dustin Harbin, Steve Wolfhard and more into our hot little hands. Kickass Annie, I salute you.
Read the whole thing for much more on Koyama the person and the press, and what they both look for in art and comics.
- November 17, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
Quote of the day | Art Spiegelman on the pain of revisiting Maus
MetaMaus
The book exists on a crossroads between family history and comics. And explaining the geography of where the work sits involved answering both questions pretty fully, and it was very difficult to reenter, I’ve got to say. Very painful….Well, you know, you get calluses when you work, and it protects you as you do your gardening, and during the thirteen years of Maus, I got my protective layer of dead skin, so that I could kind of deal with my family and history at least, and even get the comics done efficiently, if thirteen years is efficient. But those went away. You get new skin. And re-entering, looking at my dead family, rereading, and further reading, on an area where I haven’t really been focused, i.e., the death camps, and reading more, is really painful — and even looking back at my own work, and how it’s affected my work life since is difficult. So, I avoided the project for a long time. The first month or so was really devastating. Then the callouses came back, and I could go on to shaping and making a byoo-ti-ful book. So that’s why, basically.
—Art Spiegelman on how revisiting his masterwork Maus was hazardous to his mental health, in an interview on the exhaustive new Maus-umentary book/DVD MetaMaus with Robot 6′s Chris Mautner for The Comics Journal.
I have to say that even if I were dismiss the difficulty of having this personal and painful a work as your personal career centerpiece, and even if I were to discount his editing of RAW, his New Yorker covers, his illustration and children’s books, his publishing work, In the Shadow of No Towers, and the expanded re-release of Breakdowns, I’m still much more sympathetic than many with regards to Spiegelman’s supposed failure to produce another work commensurate with his Pulitzer Prize-winning family history of the Holocaust. That comic changed the entire art form for the better, and that’s one more art-form-changing comic than most people have drawn.
- November 17, 2011 @ 02:30 PM by Sean T. Collins
Zack Soto premieres Study Group Magazine
And while we’re on the subject of big BCGF news, how’s this: Cartoonist and editor Zack Soto has announced the launch of Study Group Magazine, with a first issue slated to debut at the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival on December 3rd. Spinning out of Soto’s long-running Studygroup12 anthology (the last issue of which debuted at last year’s BCGF) and co-edited by Soto and former Comics Journal editor Milo George, Study Group Magazine will include both comics and comics journalism. On the latter score, the first issue will feature an interview with Craig Thompson by George, an interview with cover artist Eleanor Davis by Soto, and a profile of Brecht Evens by Greice Schneider. As for the comics themselves, look for contributions from Soto, Michael DeForge, Jonny Negron, Trevor Alixopulos, David King, Aidan Koch, Daria Tressler, Chris Cilla, Malachi Ward, and Jennifer Parks. And be sure to visit Soto’s blog for some gorgeous purple-and-yellow two-tone preview art.
- November 17, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
Three makes it a trend, right?: The new JLA is A-OK with using lethal force
Justice League #3
“Should Batman kill the Joker?” is a perennial favorite among superhero fan conversation topics, always leading to a variety of different answers. A Golden Age appearance aside, Batman’s bosses at DC Comics have always answered the question the same way, however: Hell no.
Part of the reason for that is practical. You don’t kill off a popular, money-making character (well, you can now and then if it will make more money, but then you have to bring the character back to life somehow). Part of it is smart franchise management. If Batman kills off his enemies, then he runs out of guys to fight awfully quickly. There’s a reason Spider-Man has such a big and colorful rogue’s gallery to fill movies, cartoon and toy lines with, while The Punisher doesn’t. But a big part of it has to do with Batman’s characterization. Maybe it doesn’t make sense to not kill a mass-murderer you find yourself in deadly combat with on a bi-monthly basis, and sure, it makes even less sense to go out of your way to save the life of said mass-murderer as Batman regularly does for The Joker and his other foes, but then, dressing up as a bat to fight crime doesn’t make much sense either—Batman’s weird, and that’s what makes him so appealing. Of course his moral code is weird too.
The red, un-crossable line Batman has drawn between beating someone within an inch of their life and actually killing them is one shared by most superheroes. The hero pushed to the limit finally getting the villain at their mercy at the climax and forced to decide whether or not to end the villain’s life of evil once and for all is a staple of super-comics.
And it hasn’t changed all that much in the years since, say, “The Trial of The Flash.” Particularly in the DC Universe (The Marvel heroes embraced killing foes en masse during 2008′s Secret Invasion, in which they went to war with the alien Skrulls).
- November 17, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by J. Caleb Mozzocco
Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive ends in February
Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive #529
Even as Comic Book Resources reports the cancellation of Ghost Rider, a preview of Marvel’s February solicitations reveals Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive will end with Issue 529.
Spinning out of the publisher’s “Shadowland” event, the title launched in December 2010 as Black Panther: The Man Without Fear, picking up the issue numbering of the ending Daredevil as T’Challa became the new guardian of Hell’s Kitchen. The series was written by award-winning mystery author David Liss (A Conspiracy of Paper, The Ethical Assassin), joined by such artists as Francesco Francavilla, Shawn Martinbrough and Michael Avon Oeming.
The solicitation text for Issue 529 teases, “Kingpin vs. T’Challa in this status-quo changing series finale,” raising the possibility that Black Panther could relaunch, or revert to a previous title and numbering. However, October sales estimates place the series at about 18,000 copies, below Marvel’s traditional line of death, and less than the just-canceled X-23 and Ghost Rider.
Those titles join a rapidly growing list of recent Marvel cancellations that includes Alpha Flight, Victor Von Doom, Destroyers, Iron Man 2.0 and All-Winners Squad. In addition, PunisherMAX concludes in February with Issue 22.
Update (1:12 p.m. PT): Liss has commented on Twitter, writing, “Sadly the news is true. Our Black Panther run ends in February with #529. But keep reading until the end. It’s going to be a wild ride!”
- November 17, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival unveils programming slate
Table for table, the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival, now prepping for its third outing, is my favorite alternative comic con. Now it’s announced the programming and panels for its Saturday, December 3rd show, and the line-up’s unsurprisingly impressive. Highlights include spotlight panels on EC Comics/MAD Magazine artist Jack Davis and Diary of a Teenage Girl author Phoebe Gloeckner; Daybreak‘s Brian Ralph in conversation with Powr Mastrs‘ CF (moderated by Tom Spurgeon); and Asterios Polyp‘s David Mazzucchelli in conversation with author/editor/designer Chip Kidd (moderated by Bill Kartalopoulos).
In addition, BCGF-affiliated satellite events include music performances by CF, Paper Rad’s Jacob Ciocci, and Gary Panter; a film festival featuring trashy Eurocinema based on comics by the likes of Guido Crepax and experimental animation curated by Lilli Carré and Alexander Stewart; and a live performance of mixed-media pieces by Ben Katchor, R. Sikoryak, Matthew Thurber and more. In other words, you’ve got a full weekend ahead of you if you want.
Find the full list of programming after the jump.
- November 17, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
Get CIA: Operation Ajax app for free—for now
CIA: Operation Ajax is a standalone graphic novel iPad app about the CIA-led coup d’etat that overthrew the democratically elected prime minister of Iran and pushed the Shah, who had previously been more of a figurehead, into a position of power. The story is fictional, but it’s based on a factual account of the 1953 coup, Steven Kinzer’s book All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, and Kinzer acted as the story editor.
This is the first graphic novel from publisher Cognito Comics, and it has been in the works for a while—the first press release came out over a year ago. The app exploits a lot of the added features that the iPad makes possible: The story is told with limited animation that includes both the flow of the panels and the action within them, and the reader can click away to view historical documentation, including newsreels and CIA files. I read the prologue and part of the first chapter, and so far it seemed like a story that is told mostly in single panels, with a lot of variation and interesting effects—you’re not just zooming from one rectangle to another. It crashed a few times while I was test-driving it this morning, but when I restarted it resumed at the point where the crash occurred. Hopefully that will get fixed in the near future.
The regular price of the app is $7.99, but it is free “for a limited time,” which doesn’t seem to be specified anywhere. I would grab it today, just to be sure.
(Via GeekDad.)
- November 17, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Brigid Alverson