2011 November
Wonder Woman hardcover due next May
Wonder Woman #6
DC Comics completed their list of 52 collections for the new 52 relaunch titles by announcing that a Wonder Woman hardcover, collecting issues #1-6 of the series by writer Brian Azzarello and artists Cliff Chiang and Tony Akins, will come out next May. The 144-page book will retail for $22.99.
DC announced via their January solicitations that Akins, who has previously drawn Jack of Fables, Elementals and, with Azzarello, a comic called Red Dragon from the now defunct Comico, would fill in for artist Cliff Chiang on issue #5 and #6. According to Chiang on Twitter, he’ll be back on the book with issue #7.
- November 15, 2011 @ 01:15 PM by JK Parkin
Ben Katchor resolves labor disputes the hard way
Last month, The Cardboard Valise cartoonist Ben Katchor used his strip in Metropolis magazine to envision a world where corporate CEOs were forced to work in their own stores — by which we mean all of them, every day. This month, though, the 1% is striking back. In a strip entitled “Johnny ‘The Pump’ Clematis,” Katchor chronicles a day in the life of the title character, a working stiff hired out by the heads of various multinationals to take out labor-union officials using the massive robotic boom of his cement truck. Hey, I’m sure those unions were a public health hazard, right?
- November 15, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Sean T. Collins
Food or Comics? | Vess, Wonder Woman, Mudman and more
Mudman
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
What’s that, you say? Paul Grist’s new Mudman series starts this week (#1, Image Comics, $3.50)? Well, that’s how I’m starting my $15 haul this week. While I’m at it, let’s add Avengers Origins: Luke Cage #1 (Marvel, $3.99) and Kirby Genesis: Captain Victory #1 (Dynamite, $3.99), before finishing up with the third issue of Wonder Woman (DC, $2.99) for a superheroic week that goes from the earth to the gods, with some blaxploitation and aliens thrown in the middle for flavor.
DC would dominate the other half of my budget if I had $30. I’d be grabbing the third issues of Green Lantern Corps, Justice League and Supergirl ($2.99 each, except Justice League for $3.99), but I’m surprising myself as much as anyone else by grabbing The Bionic Man #4 (Dynamite, $3.99) for my final pick – I read the first three issues in a bunch this weekend and really enjoyed the book to date much more than I’d been expecting.
- November 15, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by JK Parkin
Bill Griffith posts Zippy/Family Circus crossover
I was surprised when Bil told me he read Zippy in his local Arizona paper and liked it. He didn’t even qualify his opinion with the usual, “Of course, I don’t always get it.” Until then, I hadn’t paid much attention to The Family Circus, but I slowly began to see that you could read more into it than what appeared on the surface.
We mentioned the other day that the late Bil Keane once did a Family Circus crossover with Bill Griffith’s Zippy. Griffith has a nice piece at The Comics Journal that explains how the crossover came about and reinforces what everyone says about Keane being a nice guy but also sharper than his genial comic would lead you to believe; he also posts the Zippy strips that feature Jeffy and the Family Circus panel that features Zippy in all their surreal glory.
- November 15, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Mark Millar defends Frank Miller against ‘cyber-mob mentality’
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Frank Miller, whose tirade against the Occupy movement was met with a largely negative, and frequently heated, response, has found an unlikely defender: left-leaning writer Mark Millar.
In a post on his Millarworld forum, the writer of Kick-Ass and The Ultimates says, “It’s strange to watch your favourite writer getting strips torn off him for a couple of days.”
“Politically, I disagree with his analysis, but that’s besides the point,” Millar continues. “I wasn’t shocked by his comments because they’re no different from a lot of commentators I’ve seen discussing the subject. What shocked me was the vitriol against him, the big bucket of shit poured over the head by even fellow comic-book creators for saying what was on his mind.”
As one commenter points out, it probably shouldn’t be shocking that Miller’s no-holds-barred screed, which characterizes Occupy protesters as “a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists” who “can do nothing but harm America,” was answered with a degree of vitriol. Or, in the commenter’s words, “if you throw the first bucket of shit [...] then you should be prepared for some splashback.” Perhaps if Miller’s commentary had been more reasoned and less inflammatory — “decorous,” as Miller himself would say — the reaction might’ve reflected that.
- November 15, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | Chris Claremont donates archives to Columbia
Chris Claremont
Creators | Longtime Uncanny X-Men writer Chris Claremont is donating his archives to Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The collection includes materials for all of his major writing projects over the past 40 years, notebooks with story ideas, drafts of short stories, plays, novels and comic books, and materials from his early training in the theater and his career as an actor. “We hope this is the first of more comics papers to come to the University,” said Karen Green, Columbia University’s ancient/medieval studies librarian and graphic novel librarian. “We want it to be a magnet for these kinds of archives in New York City, where the comics medium was born.” [Publishers Weekly]
Awards | USA Network and DC Comics’ Burn Notice webcomic has won a Media Vanguard Award from Advertising Age. [Advertising Age]
Creators | Michael Cavna talks to two comics creators with very different takes on Occupy Wall Street, sequential journalist Susie Cagle, who was arrested as part of the Occupy Oakland protests, and conservative editorial cartoonist Nate Beeler, who walks past the Occupy D.C. site every day and regards it as “quaint,” smelly, and out of step with the rest of the country.” [Comic Riffs]
- November 15, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Talking Comics with Tim | Jim Gibbons on Brain Boy
Brain Boy Archives
On general principle, I love any project with an alliterative name like Brain Boy. And even though JK Parkin just interviewed Dark Horse Assistant Editor Jim Gibbons, when I found out he had the scoop on the Brain Boy Archives that Dark Horse is set to release this Wednesday, November 16, I pestered Gibbons for a brief email interview. The 1962/1963 six-issue series serves as the only comic written by prose novelist Herb Castle. And while Castle developed the origin with legendary artist Gil Kane, after that first appearance, the actual series was drawn by then-newcomer Frank Springer. Inspired by the Cold War landscape of the early 1960s , the short-lived series proved a great springboard for discussion with Gibbons.
Tim O’Shea: How did the idea first come about to develop a Brain Boy archive?
Jim Gibbons: This was all Dark Horse Comics’ head honcho Mike Richardson’s idea. That guy knows his old comics like nobody’s business and we—as a company—wouldn’t have as extensive or as impressive an archival collection series without the passion Big Mike brings to the table for a lot of these projects. As a relatively young guy, I’d never heard for Brain Boy—and may not have had I not been assigned to work on this project with editor extraordinaire Philip Simon—but man, I enjoyed every wacky turn of this short-lived comic series.
- November 14, 2011 @ 04:06 PM by Tim O'Shea
pood to cease publication with issue #4
As a newspaper broadsheet it was always able to do so literally, but now the alternative comics anthology pood has folded in the unfortunately metaphorical sense. Writing on the pood blog, co-founder and co-editor Geoff Grogan says the publication’s fourth issue will be its last.
Through pood, editors Grogan, Kevin Mutch, and Alex Rader published a wide array of challenging, often unfashionable altcomix work, by creators ranging from Jim Rugg to Hans Rickheit to (in the anthology’s fourth and final issue) DC and Dick Tracy artist Joe Staton. But Grogan says that the project, always a labor of love, was a quixotic one in today’s marketplace: Its unconventional newsprint format, uncommercial contents, and budget-necessitated lack of a dedicated PR person made it impossible to generate enough revenue to continue the series.
- November 14, 2011 @ 03:11 PM by Sean T. Collins
Quote of the day | Jim Woodring says hey, it could be worse
Bad as things can get, there is solace to be found in the fact that we do not live in the cold-blooded realm of the swiftly mutating amphibian.
—Master cartoonist Jim Woodring (Weathercraft, Congress of the Animals, The Frank Book) looks on the bright side. And indeed, in a time when influential comics creators are tearing the internet apart with every digitized utterance, it’s nice to find something on which we can all agree. I would prefer not to be a frog-man getting trampled to death by a frog-horse — I am the 99 percent.
This aphorism and the accompanying image above were posted to Woodring’s blog under the title “NIGHTMARISH SKETCH,” and who are we to argue about that characterization?
- November 14, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
Batman Beyond returns as ‘digital first’ series
Batman Beyond Unlimited
DC Comics announced today that Batman Beyond, which went away for awhile when the DC New 52 line-wide relaunch happened, will return next February as, in their terms, a “digital first” series. The comic by Adam Beecham and Norm Breyfogle will be released as weekly chapters digitally prior to being collected each month in a 48-page printed series, Batman Beyond Unlimited.
Batman Beyond will actually entail one-half of the print comic; the other half will be Justice League Beyond by Dustin Nguyen and Derek Fridolf, which will also be released digitally before it hits print. This “marks the first time that DC Entertainment is launching an ongoing series digitally ahead of its planned monthly print release,” the Source said.
Fans of the previous Batman Beyond series might remember that it was one of DC’s first comics to be released on the same day in digital format as it was in print.
- November 14, 2011 @ 01:30 PM by JK Parkin
‘It’s all going to hell in 2012′
'It's all going to hell in 2012'
Dark Horse Comics sent out a teaser today for a “spring title launch,” with promises of an announcement next week. It’s not looking so good for the B.P.R.D., is it?
- November 14, 2011 @ 01:06 PM by JK Parkin
Kickstart my Tezuka?
Digital Manga is a small manga publisher that has explored a number of unconventional ways of doing business, including the Digital Manga Guild, an attempt at legal fan translation. Last week, they tried another new approach: A Kickstarter drive to fund a new edition of Osamu Tezuka’s Swallowing the Earth.
Kickstarter is usually a venue where independent creators raise seed money for new projects. At first blush, that’s not what Digital’s pitch sounds like:
Unfortunately we printed too few copies, and the book is no longer available anywhere (except on eBay for exorbitant prices). Fans are constantly asking us to print more of the book, but simply put, we’re a small company, this is an expensive book and we can’t afford to put up the cash for another print run.
As Lissa Pattillo points out, this is a win-win situation for Digital and its readers: Digital gets the money for the reprint up front, and participants in the drive get a pretty generous package of rewards—in addition to the book, backers get their choice of other volumes of Digital manga, with the highest-level backers getting a pretty big box of books (with free shipping). On the other hand, she raises the question of whether this is a sound business plan, if Digital can’t afford $4,000 for a reprint they are confident will make them money.
- November 14, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
The demise of Haven: The rest of the story
Haven Distributors
It has been about a month since Haven Distributors closed its doors, and Lance Stahlberg, the director of the company, explains why: The owner didn’t invest in the business.
The business did not fail because our discounts were too low, or because there is no room in the market. DC’s new 52 had no impact on us at all. I just couldn’t reach out to enough retailers when I was the guy placing orders, managing inventory, and packing the damn boxes by myself for most of the company’s lifespan. The vast majority of those customers who did make the leap away from the big D became avidly loyal supporters. It was getting more to break their inertia and start thinking differently that took more time than I had when I was juggling so much by myself. Then at points when we were starting to get ahead, that’s when Mr. Magoo would turn off the tap and I had to return to bootstrap financing. And all sense of progress went up in a puff of smoke.
There’s a lot more at the link, but the bottom line is that Stahlberg sees a lot of potential for a second distributor that focuses on independent comics, but without the resources he needed to run the business, he couldn’t reach that potential. “I simply never had the capital that I needed to expand, or to take advantage of any momentum that I managed to pick up,” he says.
That’s not quite the end of the story, though: Stahlberg says that someone else is planning to enter the indy-comics distribution biz—and hopefully this time they will have the financing they need to run the business properly.
- November 14, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
BOOM! announces creators for ongoing Peanuts comic
Peanuts #1
BOOM! Studios has announced the creators for their upcoming Peanuts comic book, which will feature both new stories and reprints of strips by creator Charles Schulz.
The ongoing series, which was announced last summer as a part of their KABOOM! kids line, will feature new stories by Vicki Scott (Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown), Paige Braddock (Creative Director at Charles M. Schulz Creative Associates, Jane’s World, Martian Confederacy), Shane Houghton (Reed Gunther) and Matt Whitlock. Scott and Braddock worked together on a story that appeared in #0 preview issue that was released earlier this month.
This isn’t the first time Charlie Brown and the gang have appeared in comic book form, and it isn’t even the first time they’ve appeared in comics done by someone besides creator Charles Schulz. As detailed on Comicartville.com, the Peanuts characters appeared in numerous comics in the 1950s and 1960s, some of which were reprints of newspaper strips, some new stories by Schulz and some by artists who worked for him.
“I’ve always been under the impression that Charles M. Schulz always drew and directly supervised all aspects of his strip and characters, so this was something of a surprise,” wrote Dr. Michael J. Vassallo on Comicartville.com. “From a variety of sources, I learned that these DELL issues were produced by a crew of artists working for Schulz and who did advertising artwork for him. The main artist was Dale Hale. This information has been confirmed for me by the late comic strip art collector/historian/agent Mark J. Cohen, who was gracious enough to ask Charles M. Schulz over dinner about his contribution to those Dell issues. Mr. Schulz enumerated that he did the very first one himself with Jim Sasseville doing the next few and Dale Hale doing all the rest.”
This first issue of Peanuts ships in January.
- November 14, 2011 @ 10:07 AM by JK Parkin
Top Shelf launches two digital apps
Top Shelf goes digital
Both Top Shelf and comiXology sent out press releases this morning announcing that they’ve launched two new apps for the Apple iOS, one for general readers and one aimed at kids.
The Top Shelf Productions iOS App will include comics and graphic novels like From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, Essex County by Jeff Lemire and Infinite Kung Fu by Kagan McLeod. The Top Shelf Kids Club iOS App will feature books like Owly by Andy Runton and Johnny Boo by James Kochalka, among others. Purchases on these apps will sync across the Comics by comiXology platform — iOS, Android and the Web.
To help promote the launch, Top Shelf and comiXology are offering five graphic novels at reduced prices for the next week:
$1.99 for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1910 by Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill
$1.99 for Owly book 1 by Andy Runton
$0.99 for Johnny Boo book 1 by James Kochalka
$1.99 for Clumsy by Jeffrey Brown
$2.99 for The Surrogates by Robert Venditti & Brett Weldele
- November 14, 2011 @ 09:11 AM by JK Parkin