The Ravagers by Ian Churchill

DC Comics’ Source blog has been busy today, what with all the artist announcements and those Before Watchmen statues. And now they’re providing a look at The Ravagers, the new teen super team coming to the New 52 in May, courtesy of Howard Mackie and Ian Churchill.

The group includes Fairchild of Gen13 and, most recently, Superboy fame, along with Rose Wilson and, um … Timber Wolf’s younger brother? A Brood? Actually, they seem familiar, but admittedly Wildstorm characters are kind of my blind spot, and I’m guessing that’s possibly where they appeared before. So, tell me in the comments — who are the Ravagers? Do any of them look familiar?

Resurrection Man #9

DC Comics announced they’re reshuffling the deck a bit on the New 52, with Birds of Prey artist Jesus Saiz is moving to Resurrection Man and Resurrection Man artist Ferndando Dagnino moving to Suicide Squad. Both are effective with issue #9 of each series, which also happen to contain a crossover between the two titles.

“I’m going to miss Birds of Prey immensely, although it’s also true that I was dying to work on the Dark line of books,” Saiz told DC’s The Source. “There’s some very interesting stuff happening in these books, and I’ve always considered horror / creating dark settings are some of my stronger areas as an artist, and I really haven’t had many chances to flex those muscles working in this genre during my career. So…I think I’m really going to enjoy working on Resurrection Man! Crrrrazy fun!”

“Call me insensitive but I must admit I’ve really enjoyed killing Mitch twice or thrice per issue,” said Dagnino. “Nevertheless, it all falls into place knowing that he will be in Jesus’ hands now. This run on Resurrection Man has REALLY been loads of fun but now I must confess I am even more excited to take over the responsibility of dealing with such a thrilling cast of characters as the Suicide Squad. Harley…I’m coming!”

No word yet on who will be drawing Birds of Prey after Saiz, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we find out later today. The cover above, for Resurrection Man #9, is by Rafael Albuquerque.

Update: DC Comics has announced that Animal Man artist Travel Foreman is moving to Birds of Prey, and 1990s Animal Man artist Steve Pugh will return to draw the character in his current series.

“A big reason I love the Animal Man character so much is because of the work Steve did on the character back in the 90′s with Jamie Delano,” Animal Man writer Jeff Lemire posted on his blog. “In fact, I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that I have been heavily influenced by a lot of the concepts Steve an Jamie created and represented them in my tenure on the book. So, to have Steve join colorist Lovern Kindzierski. letterer Jared K. Fletcher and I is a a dream come true for me. Steve is an incredibly talented illustrator as well as an extremely professional and reliable guy and with everything we have planned on Animal Man coming up, I know the Baker Family is in good hands!”

Who Could That Be At This Hour?

Daniel Handler and Gregory Gallant are teaming up for a new children’s book series that kicks off this fall. That sentence may not mean a lot to you, unless you know that Handler is the real name of Lemony Snicket, the author of the mega-popular, best-selling A Series of Unfortunate Events children’s book series, and Gallant is better known as Seth, the Canadian cartoonist who created Wimbledon Green, George Sprott and Palookaville.

Who Could That Be at This Hour?, the first book in the “All the Wrong Questions” series, arrives in stores Oct. 23. Here’s a description of the book from its Barnes & Noble listing: “In a fading town, far from anyone he knew or trusted, a young Lemony Snicket began his apprenticeship in an organization nobody knows about. He began asking questions that shouldn’t have been on his mind. Now he has written an account that should not have been published, in four volumes that shouldn’t be read. This is the first volume.”

Publisher Little Brown plans a first printing of a million copies and has set up a teaser site to promote the book.

Static Shock #4

Last month former Static Shock writer John Rozum revealed his side of why he left the New 52 series after only a handful of issues. His reasons came down to creative differences with his editor and with artist Scott McDaniel–or, as Rozum said on his blog, “From the first issue on, I was essentially benched by Harvey Richards and artist/writer Scott McDaniel.”

Now McDaniel has posted his side of the story on his website, noting, “I have remained SILENT because I fear no good thing comes from this type of public display. However, John chose to bring this into the public square. He has forced me to speak openly about our experience together on Static Shock, to correct the public record before his grotesquely distorted account matures in people’s minds as the truth of what happened here.”

McDaniel’s post is lengthy, as he gives some context around the book’s origins, the pressure of following in the footsteps of Dwayne McDuffie and the original Milestone book and how a poll on CBR about the New 52 books from last summer indicated the potential challenges the book might have in the marketplace. He then shares his side of how the collaboration started and when it soured, going into detail on some of the plot points Rozum called out in his original posts on the subject.

As I said, it’s lengthy and a lot to digest, so I’ll refrain from cutting any more of it up to post here and encourage you to read it on its own. My takeaway from all this is that sometimes people just don’t work well together, even talented creators like Rozum and McDaniel. Hopefully both of them will have a better experience on their next projects (which I look forward to seeing). I do agree with Rozum’s previous statement about the potential for Static Shock to be a breakout comic for DC, so hopefully this doesn’t sour the publisher on revisiting the character.

The Amazing Transformations of Jimmy Olsen

Hello and welcome to What Are You Reading? This week’s special guest is Simon Monk, an artist whose “Secret Identity” paintings we featured here on Robot 6 not too long ago. Monk is actually selling limited edition prints of his paintings on his website now, so go check them out.

To see what Simon and the Robot 6 crew have been reading, click below.

*****

Michael May

Habibi

I finally finished Habibi (it wouldn’t have taken me so long if I wasn’t reading four other books at the same time. #WhenWillILearn?). As others have noted, it sticks with you long after you finish it. The sheer amount of time that I spent with Dodola and Zam means that I can’t just put them away and move on now that I’ve finished the story. Especially not after everything I watched them go through. It’s a manipulative book, and my natural reaction to noticing I’m being manipulated is to resist it, but Craig Thompson pushes through my defenses with the overbearing weight (in emotional terms as well as page volume) of his book. That sounds like a bad thing when I write it, but I suppose the important part is that it works. I felt strongly for these two characters and became invested in seeing how they turned out, even though I could see what Thompson was doing to make me feel that way.

I also read Howard Lovecraft and the Ice Kingdom. A friend of mine wrote the sequel, so I wanted to catch up on this before I check out his. There’s probably a way to turn HP Lovecraft’s C’thulhu mythos into an all-ages comic, but this wasn’t it. The tone is uneven, zipping back and forth wildly between disturbing horror and children’s cartoon. Ice Kingdom wants us to take its threats seriously (and is at its best when presenting disturbing monsters and their effects on young Lovecraft’s now-insane father), but it’s hard to do that when the boy adopts C’thulhu himself as a pet and insists on calling him Spot. On the other hand, I also could have bought into a fun lark through a tame version of C’thulhu’s world without the references to human sacrifices and child-eating elder gods. Ice Kingdom tries to have it both ways and doesn’t work.

Tom Bondurant

This week I caught up with one book about which I’d been morbidly curious, and another about which I just learned but knew I had to have.

Justice

The first was Justice, the 12-issue bimonthly miniseries from plotter/finisher Alex Ross, scripter Jim Krueger, and penciller Dougie Braithwaite. I read the first issue when it came out (back in 2006); and despite a somewhat compelling end-of-the-world teaser, it never quite grabbed me. Still, at worst I figured it would satisfy whatever desire I might have to see Ross’s take on the ’70s DC of my youth. First I waited for DC to collect the whole thing in one book, and then I waited a while longer for an acceptable discount. And it’s not a bad story, as far as semi-gritty evocations of “Challenge of the Super Friends” go — it’s just that whatever good story there is, is buried under Ross’s watercolor sentimentality. The plot involves Luthor, Brainiac, and a Legion-of-Doom-ish array of super villains turning to the good side (or are they?) in order to cast the Justice League as an insensitive pantheon who’d rather keep humanity down than solve the world’s problems. Much of the book involves the villains incapacitating our heroes and their friends and allies, including an extended subplot about Brainiac’s experiments on Aquaman. (Apparently, if you ever thought “Super Friends” needed more surgical torture, this book is for you.) Because the cast expands geometrically as the book goes on, it all gets busier and busier; and between double-page layouts which don’t initially read that way and finishes which literally blur away critical distinctions, Justice can be hard to read. There are also some sequences which just don’t pass the smell test, like Solomon Grundy (apparently, since it’s off-panel) taking out both Robin and Kid Flash. However, Green Lantern’s “imprisonment” pays off, despite looking at first like an indulgent foreshadowing of “Emerald Twilight,” and there are a few other odds and ends which make me want to give it another chance. Nevertheless, there’s a lot of fan service here for those in the know, like extended homages to the ’60s “Batman” show and gratuitous attempts to “prove” that Plastic Man is eternally superior to Elongated Man. To paraphrase another cartoon from my youth, of all the Alex Ross books in the world, this one may be the Alex Rossiest.

The second book was Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson’s adaptation of Alien for Heavy Metal, a graphic novel called Alien: The Illustrated Story (lettered by John Workman and I suppose colored by Simonson). At 61 pages, it tracks the movie pretty faithfully, but it neither adds to nor subtracts from the movie’s essential beats. Instead, it translates them almost effortlessly to the printed page, capturing everything from the sterile opening sequence to the eerie ancient spacecraft and the xenomorph’s brutality. Simonson also does a great job with likenesses, which seems trivial but really helps with something like this. Perhaps because of the format, or even the painted color palette, this comes across as entirely separate from Simonson’s other licensed work on Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars. This adaptation boils Alien down to its visceral horror-story core, and makes it something which could easily have appeared in a sci-fi anthology like Heavy Metal.

Oh, and I read Winter Soldier #1 (by Ed Brubaker and Butch Guice), which was as good as I was expecting from the team responsible for making Bucky’s revival both believable and sustainable. And yes, that means I was (once again) totally wrong about the predictive value of any similarities its promotional materials may or may not have had to a certain Stephen J. Cannell/Lorenzo Lamas syndicated TV series, and I am not just saying that because a guy named “Bonderant” (one letter off, but still) gets the crap kicked out of him halfway through the issue. In short, I’m on board for issue #2, okay? Okay?!?? (Sheesh!)

Tim O’Shea

Finally read the final issue of the Alpha Flight miniseries/ongoing/nope, miniseries. It’s a shame to see a creative team firing on all cylinders (as Greg Pak/Fred Van Lente and Dale Eaglesham were on this project) and for the sales not to follow in response. The writing team’s approach toward Puck is one aspect I will miss the most.

Fatale #1

This week two colorists really floored me with their work. First up is Dave Stewart bringing an outstanding cinematic sheen to the second issue of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ Fatale series (Image). Sidenote: I am bewildered at the thin paper stock that Image is using for the covers of this series. But that is a minor complaint. It does not take away from the overall unique noir look to the series. I say unique in that Stewart is using a diverse (and sometimes vibrant) color palette that surprisingly works in the noir setting (which is typically rather dark by nature).

The other colorist is someone I’ve raved about before–Bettie Breitweiser. On the first issue of Brubaker’s Winter Soldier, she works wonders with Butch Guice’s amazing art. There is one scene where James Barnes is videoconferencing with Jasper Sitwell. The layers of floating red video screens countered with the cool blue tones of James’ panels are just astounding. One panel had me just sitting there and wondering how Breitweiser did it. I appreciate when art gives me reason to pause. In terms of characters, Black Widow is as much a star of this series as James, which is a welcome approach for my money,

Hulk #48. May I officially beg writer Jeff Parker to keep Machine Man as a member of the Hulk cast? In this issue, Parker has Aaron thank someone, in the heat of battle, when they hand his cut-off arm back to him. Heh.

One question to the readers: The countdown banner to AvX–is anybody else reminded of the Toys R Us Shopping Spree banner (among other banners) in the 1980 Marvel Comics?

Brigid Alverson

The Unwritten

I jumped right in to Mike Carey and Peter Gross’s The Unwritten with the first volume of the collected edition, and I loved it from the start. It’s the story of Tom Taylor whose father used him as the lead character in a Harry Potter-like fantasy series. His father disappeared under mysterious circumstances when Tom was still a child, but his whole past is coming back to haunt him. The creators do a really nice job of weaving the Tommy Taylor stories in with their ongoing plot, and they bring in all sorts of other literary allusions as well. The first volume ends with a side story about Rudyard Kipling that is simply stunning. Unfortunately, as I near the end of the second volume, I’m starting to wonder how tight the plot really is. The stories are becoming episodic, but there are also a lot of questions left unanswered, and I’m not sure the authors know the answers. I certainly hate it when a character in a book refuses to share information with the hero for no good reason, as is happening here. Still, even as a series of episodes, Tom Taylor’s adventures are good fun and full of interesting literary trivia, so I’m in this for the long haul.

I spent some time in the Mignolaverse as well this week, with B.P.R.D.:Being Human and Hellboy: House of the Living Dead. The B.P.R.D. book is a collection of short stories, each focusing on different characters, and it’s actually a good first B.P.R.D. book as it touches on a number of origin stories. The first, and longest, story features Liz Sherman as a sulky teenager dragged along by Professor Trevor Bruttenholm to help out with the exorcism of a house and forest where a witch was hanged during the Salem witch trials. The Salem witch trials are a bit overdone as a topic, but I like the way the story showcases the young Liz in all her awkwardness. In the other stories, an older Liz and Abe Sapien discuss the ethics of killing their enemies, Roger the Homunculus and Hellboy do a little zombie-fighting in the Deep South, and we see the origin story of the Ectoplasmic Man. There’s plenty of horror and action in these stories, but the creators do a good job of mixing in the human side of the characters as well.

Hellboy: House of the Living Dead takes Hellboy south of the border and turns him into a luchador who is compelled to fight a latter-day Frankenstein’s monster. At only 56 pages, this story is short and pretty straightforward, but it’s well done and an interesting take on the Frankenstein story.

Simon Monk

Supergods

I recently read Grant Morrison’s book Supergods in which he sets out clearly his ideas about life, the universe and everything. Although I tend to be more attracted to street-level narratives such as Daredevil and The Spirit, I have always enjoyed Morrison’s work for its exuberance and extremity. Reading Supergods encouraged me to reread some of his classic stuff such as Zenith and Animal Man, but the biggest surprise turned out to be The Invisibles. On its initial publication I gave up on it about half way through its run so I had never read it as a single entity. It was far more coherent and exciting than I remembered it, despite fizzling a bit at the conclusion. I was struck at how Kirbyesque it seemed, thematically it is very Fourth World and the team/family interaction felt like a twisted version of the FF.

I love autobiographical comics such as Eddie Campbell’s Alec, and I recently discovered a self-published gem titled Many Happy Returns by Jan Wheatley. It turns out that Jan is the same age as me and had a very similar upbringing just 10 miles away from my home town. These coincidences gave the two issues published so far an incredible personal resonance for me, adding up to a pretty moving reading experience. Jan Wheatley is definitely a creator whose development I shall enjoy following.

I have a six-year-old son called William, and we tend to read a lot of comics together. I love testing out new stuff on him to see how he responds. Big hits so far include early Fantastic Four (started when he was three!), Bone, Jack Cole Plastic Man, ’50s and ’60s World’s Finest and Chip Kidd’s Bat-Manga book. Perhaps surprisingly the trade collection he can never get enough of is The Amazing Transformations of Jimmy Olsen featuring Elastic Lad, Human Flame-thrower, et al. Some of these crazy silver age tales have been read in bed on a Sunday morning a dozen times or more. He is a big fan of the Batman: The Brave and the Bold cartoon so I tried a few of the ’70s Bob Haney and Jim Aparo issues on him. Not a great response from William but I was surprised at how gritty they were: some of them read like a ‘Kojak’ episode with superheroes added.

Hello and welcome to Shelf Porn, where we give fans the opportunity to show us their collections, both big and small. And today we have one that falls into the former category, as Bryan Hodgson a soon-to-be pharmacist who shares his collection of graphic novels, statues, original art and more.

If you’d like to see your collection here, drop me a note at jkparkin@yahoo.com. Let’s make it happen!

And now let’s hear from Bryan …

*****

My name is Bryan Hodgson, I am 33 and I have been collecting comics in one form or another for about 20 years. I am a part owner of one of the local comic stores, and I have recently returned to University to pursue a career as a Pharmacist. My wife (Lisa) shares my passion for the hobby and has become quite the enabler when it comes to additions to the collection. As such we have comic or comic-related paraphernalia in nearly every room of our house. I tried to take pictures of everything that we have set up, but I may have missed a few things here and there.

Additionally I do have a large collection of monthly comics (somewhere around 7,000+ issues), but I didn’t include pictures of them because I don’t find large white boxes incredibly interesting. If any of the readers are interested, I can certainly send them some pictures.

I did my best to number the pictures in such a way that it is like a tour around our house. I’ll make a few comments along the way, but for the most part I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. If you have any comments or questions I will be happy to answer them. On to the collection.

Starting upstairs pictures 1 through 9 include what we have on display in our living room, dining room, kitchen and main floor bathroom. The art above the fireplace is by John Cassaday and is my favorite piece in my collection.

Pictures 10-14 follow you as you make your way downstairs to the bulk of the collection. Yes Mario is made out of lego and the alien from Space Invaders is made out of chainmail links.

This is a set of art prints that the SDCC put out in 2006 for the DC comic stamps. I missed grabbing the Marvel ones that were released later so if any of the viewers know where to grab a set I would love to know.

Pictures 16-29 are three of the display cases I have stuffed full of statues and busts. I did my best to arrange each shelf with a theme in mind. Care to take any guesses?

Pictures 30-38 are found within our non-superhero comic room. The Earthworm Jim riding Tommy was a fantastic commission from Doug TenNapel who is one of the humblest comic creators I have met (super-tall too!).

And the remainder (pictures 39-89) are within the main comic room. The anal-retentiveness I put into organizing my collection becomes readily apparent within this room. Books are arranged thusly: DC and Others Absolute, Marvel HC Oversized, DC HC Oversized, Marvel HC, DC HC, Marvel Trades, DC Trades, Independent HCs, Independent Trades and then art books, regular novels and board games. It’s almost a sickness how particular I am with organizing and aligning the books.

As a final statement I would like to say that I have thoroughly enjoyed viewing the other collector’s shelf porn on the website. It is always nice to see collections (large and small) from across the world. Thank you for hosting my collection and thank you for introducing me to so many wonderful collections from other fans.

Winter Soldier #1

This past week saw the release of Winter Soldier #1, as Ed Brubaker once again brings Bucky back with the help of Butch Guice, Bettie Breitweiser and Joe Caramagna. The ongoing series stars the former Captain America and Black Widow in kind of a Mr. and Mrs. Smith-like team-up book. An espionage thriller, the comic launches out of the revelation that the Russians created other Winter Soldier-like sleeper agents and features something I never thought would be a divisive plot point among readers–a gorilla with a machine gun. Isn’t that one of the universal truths in comics, that gorillas = awesome, and gorillas with machine guns = super awesome? Here are a few opinions on that, as well as the overall book itself …

Jesse Schedeen, IGN: “Darkness, espionage, and spycraft are all elements that essentially drained out of Brubaker’s Captain America series with the relaunch, to the detriment of that series. Luckily, these elements are all the prime focus of Winter Soldier. If you miss the grittier Captain America stories of 2005-2010, this book has exactly what you’re looking for.”

Greg McElhatton, Read About Comics: “…Winter Soldier is taking a mostly more-serious, grounded tone… but still reveling in all of the craziness that the Marvel Universe offers, like talking Communist gorillas, or cyborg Prime Ministers. I like that he’s taking established Marvel villains like the Red Ghost and his Super Apes and keeping their same spirit alive, but at the same time making them feel a bit more dangerous, for lack of a better word. The overall grounded feel for Winter Soldier doesn’t exclude the fantastic, it just makes them fit better into the book’s particular world view.”

Rob at Crisis on Infinite Midlives: “So regardless of my tone, this is a book that, story-wise, hits everything that you’d want it to…

“…and then we get to the gorilla with a machine gun.

“Oh, I wasn’t kidding: after finally chasing down one of the Winter Soldier stasis tubes in Minnesota, and following a well-paced and suspenseful stealth infiltration and firefight scene… we’re shown a gorilla. Firing a machine gun. While screaming ‘Death to America!’ In Russian. So, y’know, he’s a commie gorilla. Because a capitalist gorilla would be screaming, ‘Of course you can shock my testicles to test consumer electronics!’

“Now, this isn’t my first trip to the rodeo; I understand the long and distinguished role of killer, intelligent apes in comic books. But it’s one thing to see one trading punches with The Flash in the middle of a hidden, hyper-evolved hidden city… it’s quite another to turn the page on a fairly straight Cold War action story (Yeah, I know that Bucky has a bionic arm, but it’s not like he got it from Galactus or anything) and see a talking monkey. In Minnesota.”

Jason Bowles, Sciencefiction.com: “One sticking point some readers may have is the reference to both Bucky and Black Widow’s involvement in the Cold War. They are very clearly described as having been active agents during that time period, she as having been active during the entire era, which spanned from the 1940s-early 90s! Now Bucky’s stasis pod might account for him staying youthful all that time, but how do they explain Natasha’s eternal youth? They honestly don’t. I get that the character was created during that time period, originating as a Russian spy before defecting to the U.S. It’s not a huge problem for me, as the story overall is excellent, and I understand that comic book time works differently than real time. I just rolled with it, but others may have bigger issue with that.”

Jim Mroczkowski, iFanboy: “As for the art, Butch Guice and colorist Bettie Breitweiser appear to have quite a few new tricks up their sleeves. The art seems to have a more painterly quality than in years past, and Guice appears to have gone to the Alex Maleev School for Photoreferencing since the last time we saw him. Black Widow in particular always looks like a posed model, while Bucky always looks drawn ‘from scratch,’ giving the whole thing a kind of mash-up quality. I found it to be a pleasant surprise, but it is well known that this style has its detractors; if you’re one of them, consider yourself forewarned.”

David Uzumeri, ComicsAlliance: “Butch Guice and Bettie Breitweiser have been working with Ed Brubaker on Captain America for a while, but this is a dramatic step up for them both. The best description I can come up with for the art in this series is that it’s like watching ghosts of smoke act a scene behind a cracked windowpane in the rain. For all of Guice’s shadows and blacks, Breitweiser enhances every panel of the book with an otherworldly hue, creating paranoid scenes that look and feel pallid and grim — and that’s just the present-day sequences. Haunting images of the past are just that, distorted, monochromatic, and bleeding together in pale blues and spot reds. It’s the long winter of Bucky’s memory between 1945 and 2005.”

Chad Nevett, Comic Book Resources: “In many ways, Winter Soldier #1 picks up right where the previous volume of Captain America left off. Brubaker and his artistic collaborators know these characters so well, they don’t miss a beat. There’s a noticable shift from the bright and shiny blockbuster action of superhero comics to the shadowy world of espionage, but fans of the Brubaker-invigorated Bucky Barnes will no doubt love this. Finally, the Winter Soldier has his own series, and it’s everything you’d hope for.”

Today de Campi posted an update that should make fans of Smoke happy–Smoke artist Igor Kordey “is coming back to do a 20-page flashback sequence that literally I know he will draw better than anyone else in the world (sorry, everyone else, but it’s true),” de Campi said on Kickstarter. She also said that A Distant Soil creator and Orbiter artist Colleen Doran has agreed to draw a sequence for the graphic novel as well.

De Campi said she decided to pursue multiple artists for the project while on a road trip from New York City to Mexico City. “I did a lot of thinking on I-81 about how to proceed with the book, and decided to go back to my original plan of having different artists draw different sections of the book,” she said. “Ashes breaks down really nicely into 20-50 page chunks (and a couple really small sections, 3 or 4 pages) based on location, time and secondary characters.”

She said she has reached out to “a ton” of other artists and will develop a new production and printing timeline once she’s nailed down artists for the entire book.

The Variants, the humorous web video series set at Zeus Comics in Dallas, wrapped up its second season this week. The episode features the cast dealing with a potential investor and his attorney. “Can the Zeus employees handle their scrutiny, or will they throw each other under the idiot
bus in pursuit of vacation days and dental?” The episode also features appearances by Curt Franklin and Chris Haley of the webcomic Let’s Be Friends Again.

The episode wraps up a season that featured some fun moments, like the D&D episode and the guest appearance by Mark Waid. According to Zeus Comics’ Richard Neal, a third season is in the works for late summer/early fall. “There will be a couple of bigger cast and character announcements closer to the launch of the new season,” he said.

from Darkness

This one has been making the rounds; I think I saw it first on Kate Beaton’s Tumblr, which I linked to earlier this week.

French cartoonist Boulet, who has worked on Dungeon with Lewis Trondheim and Joann Sfar, participated in a 24 Hour Comics event during the Angouleme Festival and came away with a delightful story called “Darkness,” which is kind of what it might be like to be roomies with Morpheus or Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance or the brooding elf from Dragon Age 2 or some other dark, mysterious, handsome stranger that can make the girls swoon just by the way he walks into the room. Boulet nails it perfectly and sticks the landing on a fun story.

Cocotte

Ryan Kelly, artist of Local and the upcoming Saucer Country, has posted a teaser on his blog for a new webcomic he’s doing with writer/chef Kat Vapid. Titled Cocotte, a word with a double meaning, Kelly describes it as a “frank, humorous, and often soul-crushing look into the world of cuisine and the professional kitchen environment, as well as a love letter to life in Minneapolis.” No word yet on when it launches, but we’ll keep you posted.

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The Coldest City

Wasteland writer Antony Johnston is teaming up with artist Sam Hart for a new Cold War-era graphic novel, The Coldest City. Due in May from Oni Press, the graphic novel is the first in a series of spy thrillers by the writer.

“I like working with shadows and mystery, whether it’s a horror story and there are literal monsters in the dark, or something grounded in real life where those monsters are people. Espionage is all about working with secrets and deciphering the unknown. In The Coldest City, the threat may be real, or it may not even exist at all. Finding the list is like chasing a phantom,” Johnston said in the press release, which also touted Oni’s history of espionage thrillers and historical fiction, from Queen & Country to the recent (and awesome) Petrograd.

The story is about British secret agent Lorraine Broughton, “an experienced MI6 officer whose assignments have taken her all over the world, but never to Berlin — making her an ideal candidate to infiltrate the city amidst the chaos right before the fall of the Iron Curtain.” She’s looking to recover a list of names of every covert officer from every intelligence agency operating in the city.

The black-and-white, hardcover graphic novel debuts in May 2012 and will retail for $19.99. A website for The Coldest City, with more information and sample scenes from the book, can be found at www.thecoldestcity.com.

-Hark! A Vagrant creator Kate Beaton, explaining how the success of her webcomic and the subsequent print collection has brought a lot of offers her way, “from children’s books to television work,” which she plans to pursue. Which is good news for her, but the bad news is it means she won’t be updating her site with new comics as frequently. She has started a Tumblr where she’ll post sketches and other stuff in the meantime.

Wet Moon Vol. 6

Wet Moon creator Ross Campbell has been posting pages from the sixth volume of his series of graphic novels online for awhile now, which isn’t due out from Oni Press until October. However, the always busy artist, whose work can also be found in Extreme’s Glory revival, Shadoweyes and his Mountain Girl minicomics, announced that he will begin syndicating pages from the book on the web. He also plans to post “other Wet Moon-related stuff” on the blog, like “maybe in-progress drawings, process notes, stuff about volume 7, maybe some History of Wet Moon type stuff like the pre-comic origins of the series …” Look for pages to start appearing Feb. 4.

Prince of Cats

DC Comics unveiled their plans for collections, trades and original graphic novels yesterday for late 2012, both for the DC line (which included the Amethyst news) and for Vertigo. In addition to collections of ongoing titles like The Unwritten and the upcoming Saucer Country, the Vertigo list included a few items of note:

• Fables: Werewolves of the Heartland, which was supposed to be out last fall but was delayed until September 2012, has now been pushed back to November 2012.
• Just in time for Halloween is a deluxe edition that collects the various Death miniseries that Neil Gaiman wrote during his epic run on Sandman. It includes both The High Cost of Living and The Time of Your Life, as well as the Death-centric stories from Sandman #8 and #20. It also includes a bunch of shorter stories, like the Death tale from the 9/11 book DC put out and the infamous public service announcement piece about the proper way to put on a condom, starring Death, John Constantine and a banana.
• And in September Vertigo will release an new original graphic novel by Ronald Wimberly, who drew Sentences: The Life of M.F. Grimm and some other books for Vertigo. I’m not sure exactly what the book is about, but Wimberly has a Tumblr set up where he is posting art, like the piece up top.

DC Comics: The New 52

When the 2012 Free Comic Book Day line-up was announced, some folks mistakenly assumed that gold-level offering, DC Comics: The New 52 Special Edition would simply be a reprint of previously published material. As revealed on The Source today, that’s not the case.

The comic will feature “art by legendary illustrator Jim Lee and other top talents” and will “include a new story by New York Times bestselling writer Geoff Johns.” In addition, the book will also include previews of DC’s second wave of New 52 titles, including Batman Incorporated, Dial H, Earth 2, G.I. Combat, The Ravagers and Worlds’ Finest. They also say to stay tuned for “more surprises to come.”

In addition, the Free Comic Book Day site also has more information and a preview from Image 20, the 20th anniversary anthology of “six, all-new original stories promoting upcoming Image Comics titles.” Two of the titles will be Revival by Tim Seeley and Mike Norton, which you can preview on the site, as well as G-Man by Chris Giarrusso. The other stories will be announced at a later date.

The FCBD site also has previews from several other FCBD titles, including Oni’s Yo Gabba Gabba and Bad Medicine titles, and Viz’s Voltron Force, among others, so head over there if you want to check them out early.

Update: Apparently I misread the initial post and thought Jim Lee was drawing the new Geoff Johns story, but based on Brian Hibbs’ response in the comments section below, that may or may not be the case. I’ve updated the post above.

As I mentioned last week, the T-shirt site Threadless has unveiled the four designs for the fourth round of their “Comics-On Tees” series, this time with a theme of “Monkey Around.” The comics are written by Chris Roberson and feature artwork from Colleen Coover, Mike Allred, Chris Samnee and Francesco Francavilla.

Check out all four designs after the jump, which you can buy individually or as a set for $79.

*****

Mike Allred (front and back):

Colleen Coover:

Chris Samnee:

Francesco Francavilla:

The Silence of Our Friends

Hello and welcome to What Are You Reading? This week our special guest is Ao Meng, who writes about comics for the Daily Texan, the University of Texas newspaper, as well as Novi Magazine.

To see what Ao and the Robot 6 crew have been reading, click below …

*****

Michael May

Planet of the Apes

I’ve read a couple of issues of BOOM!’s Planet of the Apes since the last time I contributed to this feature, and it’s still my favorite monthly series right now. It’s scary how good it is because experience tells me that comics this awesome are too good to be true and don’t last. Not that I have any reason to believe PotA’s going away; it’s just one of those irrational fears you get when you really love something and can’t stand the thought of not having it around anymore.

Something else I read recently was Pilot & Huxley: The First Adventure by Dan McGuiness. I’d never heard of it before and the deceptively simple art didn’t grab me right away, but I grinned and chuckled my way all through this thing. It’s about a couple of kids with an overdue video game rental that–unknown to them–contains the password that activates an alien Weapon of Doom. Unfortunately for the aliens, they don’t remember the password and need the game, so they hire Death to capture the boys, but Death sort of botches the job and sends the pair into an alternate dimension where swamps are made of bees and little girls turn into giant monsters. It…is…awesome.

Tom Bondurant

Aquaman

It may be perpetuating a stereotype to say that this week I read a pretty good issue of Aquaman, but, well … issue #5 was pretty good. Beginning with Aquaman literally dropped into the middle of a desert, it sets up the next big arc (the real reason Atlantis sunk) while serving nicely as a standalone survival tale. Geoff Johns’ script is efficient and well-paced, using a nonlinear narrative to good effect. There seems to be a little more pointed puncturing of Aquaman’s perceived inferiority, which at this point is a little old, so thankfully there’s not a lot. (Johns does get good use out of Aquaman’s telepathic powers, and that’s always nice.) Ivan Reis and Joe Prado’s art is straightforward as ever, conveying both Aquaman’s determination and his world-weariness.

The Fury Of Firestorm The Nuclear Men #5 (written by Gail Simone and Ethan Van Sciver, drawn by Yildiray Cinar) was also a decent standalone issue, reframing Ronnie and Jason’s continuing struggles with their powers in the context of a global Firestorm network. Specifically, when said network places our heroes in a too-good-to-be-
true planned community — a plot device which by this point should come with a “Ye Olde” prefix — you just know things are going to go horribly wrong. And so they do, but in a well-choreographed way which gives the reader some hope that maybe this time will be different. In other words, despite the predictability, this turned out to be a rather suspenseful issue, infusing the overall storyline with some necessary momentum.

This week I finally got a chance to check out Jeff Parker and Erika Moen’s Bucko, only about eleven months after everyone else on Earth, and just in time for it to wrap up. Still, not surprisingly, I liked this sprightly farce a lot. The combination of Parker’s energetic script and Moen’s endearing art is instantly appealing, and the plot is like “Three’s Company” on acid. (In a good way, of course.) I’m only through the first part, but I’m eager to see the rest.

In other better-late-than-never news, last night I was up late polishing off The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, so that my wife and I could catch David Fincher’s adaptation before it leaves the local theaters. The last half of the book took just under three hours to read, and at the risk of spoiling it (even obliquely), I thought the denouement was somewhat anticlimactic. I mean, I liked the book pretty well, but the first half is all about adapting to life on the frozen tundra, the third quarter jumps full-on into the mystery, and the last little bit is an extended wrap-up. I don’t doubt that the new movie will be fairly faithful, but I can’t imagine how the upcoming DC adaptation will deal with some of it.

Brigid Alverson

In Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes, Mary Talbot weaves her own growing-up story with that of James Joyce’s daughter Lucia. Tying the two stories together is Mary’s father, who was an eminent Joyce scholar. That meant less to his daughter, of course, than the way he treated her, warm and cold by turns, and sometimes unbearably harsh. Mary’s own story is an engaging tale of growing up in a large family in England after the war; Lucia’s is equally fascinating in a different way, as she led a more artistic and demanding life but was equally frustrated by her father’s needs and prejudices and, ultimately, her own mental illness. The book is skillfully illustrated by Mary’s husband, Bryan
Talbot, and it sits comfortably on the shelf next to Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.

Friends With Boys

Mary Talbot grew up in a house full of brothers, and so did Maggie McKay, the heroine of Faith Erin Hicks’s Friends With Boys. In both cases, the boys add a certain madcap energy to the story, constantly fighting and breaking things, but in Friends With Boys, they also bring emotional depth. As the book opens, Maggie is starting high school after years of being home-schooled by her mother—who has just left the family, for reasons that are left vague. Maggie quickly makes friends with a brother and sister, but there’s a strange tension between them and her older brother, and the boys on the volleyball team. Hicks unfurls the backstory slowly, then brings it all to a head with a theft and a fight. While the plot itself is a bit improbable, the characters are well grounded and believable, and overall it’s an enjoyable read.

I also picked up Kate Beaton’s Hark! A Vagrant this week. It’s very hit-or-miss—sometimes Beaton makes me laugh out loud, other times the strips make me wish I knew more about Canadian history. Overall, though, there are more yuks than WTFs, and it’s easy to give a “read” recommendation on this one.

Chris Mautner

Mark Twain's Autobiography

Is there something wrong with me? Is my sense of humor on the fritz? Am I becoming too jaded? What could possibly be the reason for my completely “meh” reaction to Michael Kupperman’s latest book, Mark Twain’s Autobiography 1910-2010. I mean, I really like Kupperman’s work. I think he’s one of the funniest cartoonists going today. But Twain felt somewhat undercooked to me.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still funny, just fitfully so. I didn’t greet the book with the sort of over the top vocal laughter that I usually do when reading his comics. Perhaps I’ve grown blase. Perhaps I’ve just become accustomed to Kupperman’s style and tics and it’s harder for him to get me laughing. Perhaps he’s better with comics than straight prose. Perhaps I’m just not a fan of all the Mark Twain jokes (I’m kind of not).

Whatever the case, any fears I had that Kupperman’s magic had ceased to charm me were swept away with the latest issue (that’s no. 7) of his regular series, Tales Designed to Thrizzle. Kupperman is back to his usually hilarity here, at least as far as I’m concerned, with a side-splitting parody/mash-up of Inception and Quincy, and a lengthy list of funny names for shower heads (I’m especially fond of “Mrs. Dallospray”). I take it all back. There’s nothing wrong with me after all.

Ao Meng

Spera

I’m actually pretty bad about finding time to go down to my local shops, but my last haul from a few weeks ago was pretty big: I picked up a copy of Josh Tierney’s Spera Vol. 1, mostly to see some choice web cartoonists make their leap from humble RGB to glorious CMYK. I especially loved the contribution from UK-based Nobrow Press mainstay Luke Pearson, whose two-color-on-cream-paper short sat nicely in contrast with the colorful explorations found in the rest of the book. I’m a big fan of adventure comics, and the energy on display here is infectious.

Speaking of adventure comics, Ryan Cecil Smith’s SF Supplementary File minicomics (I’ve only got #1 through #2B) are a whole lot of fun, and are a huge bang for your buck. #1′s contained origin story is a great continuation of that groove Smith’s been riding since the CCC#9 anthology. I really fell in love with the extended three-part #2— a”cover” of a 1979 space opera manga— one of a new trend of risograph comics that, to the best of my limited knowledge, have been sparked off by those noisemakers in the Ryan Sands camp. I also picked up Jonny Negron and Jesse Balmer’s Chameleon #2, which I believe contains the North American debut of Uno Moralez, whose pixel-art nightmares have been the best-kept secret of cartoonist livejournal rings for a couple of years now. Chameleon‘s two editors’s contributions are as on point as always.

Anyways, back to Mr. Smith’s minis— they are absolutely beautiful. They’re not nostalgic as much as interested in the techniques used by previous generations of cartoonists, and how much emotional heavy lifting they were capable of. To use terms from hip-hop, the other great American art form, It’s not quite a sample as much as an interpolation, where a producer or artist will re-record, re-sing and/or re-instrumentalize a melody, usually (but not always) because of sample clearance issues. Another very good interpolation by Kevin Huizenga is in the new Kramers Ergot, his being one of an obscure 1956 Charlton sci-fi short with an unknown writer. Who knows if this “interpolation comics” thing will eventually become another alt-comics trend, but this new type of dialog with comic’s labyrinthine history is incredibly interesting, and tickles a particular bone that classical reprints don’t quite scratch.

Let’s see, I also read The Silence of our Friends, a very readable and a great all-around First Second issue. Nate Powell’s art totally caries the book from it’s Oscar-awards-season material and towards something of real craft. I picked up the new King Kat #72, which is as good as always, but significantly more melancholic than the last issue. As one of the titans of the auto-bio genre, Porcellino’s commitment to the rawness and expression of his work is humbling to see. He’s a true living legend, that one.

Hello and welcome to Shelf Porn, where fans show us their collections. Today’s submission comes from Victor Liew in Edmonton, Alberta Canada.

If you’d like to see your collection right here on Robot 6, just send me a write-up and some jpgs, and we’ll make it happen!

Now let’s hear from Victor.

*****

I began officially collecting comic books with Alpha Flight 1 by John Byrne, which led to his Fantastic Four run, which led to Uncanny X-Men, which led to New Teen Titans, and so on. So far, I’ve managed to confine my hobby to one basement room in the house. The highlights include a complete run of Miracleman 1-24 and to date I am three issues away from completing the 300-issue run of Cerebus – unfortunately I require 1, 3, and 4 which are pretty difficult to find at an affordable price.

Although my comics are in long boxes, I keep my graphic novels, hardcovers, trade paperbacks, and collectibles on shelves. Most of the Star Wars toys are original to my childhood. Luckily I was not one of those kids whose parents threw out their toys. I managed to keep mine in pretty good shape for the most part. Other items I was able to reacquire as I got older, got a job and actually had some cash to buy.

The shelf with the Lone Wolf and Cub/Samurai Executioner/Path of the Assasin manga digests also holds most of my Star Wars swag. On the top shelf is a Dark Knight promotional vacuform (although it’s a little beat up) plus the LP for the original Star Wars record album.

The manga spin rack that holds the Archie digests was retrieved from a “dumpster dive” from a local comic shop that threw it out. It was perfectly fine so I pulled it out of the garbage, threw it in my car and drove off before too many people noticed what I was doing.

I went on an Absolute edition binge, much to the detriment of my wallet. The Battlestar Galactica Viper on the shelf is an original toy from 1979 . I also have a Cylon raider on the adjacent shelf. In both cases, they shoot out small red missiles but this was changed due to safety concerns as kids were getting nailed in the eyes with the missiles. Later versions of the viper and raider had missiles but they did not detach from the ships.

The room has original artwork from Steve Rolston on Queen and Country, a Darick Robertson head sketch of Billy Butcher from The Boys, and a Steve McNiven Nemesis sketch. The Batman Earth One print was signed by Gary Frank at Fan Expo in Toronto 2010.

Hope you like what you see. I love looking at other collector rooms so hopefully my room is worthy of inclusion. Happy New Year!

by Mike Allred

The folks the social T-shirt site Threadless are gearing up for a fourth volume of their “Comics-On Tees” line, where they ask a writer and four artists to design shirts that tell a story. Although they won’t be officially announced until Jan. 30, they did reveal the creator involved and teased some artwork from the shirts. And based on what they’ve shown so far, it looks like the theme this time revolves around monkeys.

Volume 4 is written by Chris Roberson of iZombie and Superman fame, with designs by artists Mike Allred, Colleen Coover, Chris Samnee and Francesco Francavilla. You can see some of Allred’s artwork above, and Francavilla’s after the jump.