Comic Book Resources

Gareb Shamus buys New England Comic Con

Looks like the Con War has opened a new front: Wizard Entertainment CEO Gareb Shamus has purchased the New England Comic Con to add to his ever-growing slate of comics and pop-culture shows. According to a press release posted on the Wizard site, the Con's previous owners, Larry Harrison and Jerry Tournasm of retailer Harrison's Comics & Collectibles, will continue to work for the show.

The latest addition to a roster of Shamus/Wizard shows that includes Anaheim Comic Con, Toronto Comic Con, Big Apple Comic Con, and Wizard World Philadelphia, the Wizard World New England Comic Con, as it will apparently be called, is not to be confused with either the Boston Comic Con -- whose guests for its April 10-11 show next year include Jim Lee, Mike Mignola, Eric Powell, and Bill Sienkiewicz at the top of a pretty impressive roster -- nor the previous Wizard World Boston show, held once (in 2005) before being canceled. Whether Shamus's latest attempt at a Boston event will engender the same sort of rivalry as his other cons have with such shows as Heroes Con, the Long Beach Comic Con, Fan Expo Canada, and Reed Exhibition's New York Comic Con and C2E2 remains to be seen.

More, undoubtedly, as it develops.

Straight for the art | Paul Pope's "Shakedown"

"Shakedown" by Paul Pope

I have no idea what this was drawn for, but c'mon, like I'm not gonna post a Paul Pope picture of a naked girl rocking out on a strategically placed guitar.

Oooh, a sale! TWO sales!

Milk & Cheese #2, from SLG Publishing

Kramers Ergot 7, from Buenaventura Press

Unholster your credit cards, comics fans: Two publishers are currently holding nigh-irresistible sales in their webstores.

As we've reported, cartoonist Evan Dorkin notes that indie-comics stalwart SLG Publishing -- home of comics by Dorkin, Jhonen Vasquez, Jim Rugg, James Turner and more -- is slashing prices on its entire library by 40%. Meanwhile, art-comics trailblazer Buenaventura Press -- the outfit behind books by Johnny Ryan, Jerry Moriarty, Lisa Hannawalt, and Matt Furie, not to mention Kramers Ergot -- has announced that they're offering an across-the-board 20% off sale. Both sales are designed to help their respective publishers weather these still-nightmarish financial times, so not only would taking advantage of them help score you some sweet deals, it'd be a mitzvah as well.

But these prices aren't sticking around forever, so you've gotta act now. And if you're ;ooking for a guide to help you do so, The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon has recommendations for both the SLG and Buenaventura sales, as well as a smidge of analysis as to what it all means. Beyond "great deals," that is.

Blackest Night vs. Siege: Place your bets!

Blackest Night #7

Siege #2

They say nice guys finish last, but when event comics will finish is anybody's guess. The demands of a high-profile series around which entire shared universes revolve can play havoc with scheduling. Naturally, editors and publishers love to maintain the artistic quality and consistency (and sales levels) provided by the big-name writer-artist teams that tend to lend such books a sense of "this is a big deal." On the other hand, they need to get books out on time so that other series whose storylines depend upon what happens in the event can proceed as planned -- and so that they don't end up alienating retailers and readers. But these same readers and retailers can end up just as irritated if they get the sense that the creators are being rushed, or if fill-in artists aren't up to snuff. It's a tough row to hoe.

With his front-row seat for a variety of events this decade, including Avengers Disassembled, House of M, Civil War, and Secret Invasion, Marvel Executive Editor Tom Brevoort knows this better than anyone. So it was with an obvious mix of boldness and trepidation that he made the following prediction on his Twitter account:

It's height of hubris time: I'm willing to bet that SIEGE will wrap up before BLACKEST NIGHT does.

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The Case of the Disappearing Comics Journal #300 -- Solved!

The Comics Journal #300

What the heck happened to The Comics Journal #300? Stuffed to the gills with a murderers' row of comics creators in cross-generational conversation (from Matt Fraction & Denny O'Neil to Art Spiegelman & Kevin Huizenga), this anniversary spectacular became a swan song of sorts when a letter to subscribers revealed that it would be the venerable comics-criticism publication's final journal-format issue -- henceforth switching to a more online-focused model with semiannual book-format print editions.

So the the news that the whole thing had been posted online was met with much rejoicing... but the subsequent news that the whole thing had been yanked back behind the subscriber wall per the orders of co-publisher and editor Gary Groth was met with much head-scratching. Was this the result of an internal debate over the utility of free-content-as-marketing-device, as web editor and Journalista! blogger Dirk Deppey seemed to imply the next day? Was it a really lousy way to debut the Journal's impending web-based iteration, as frequent Journal contributor and future Journal blogger Noah Berlatsky lamented? Or was it a reaction to retailers upset that the product they'd shortly be trying to sell had been made available for free with no advance warning, as Johanna Draper Carlson surmised?

Well, if you had Carlson in your office pool, get ready to collect: Today on Journalista!, Deppey revealed that retailer complaints were indeed the reason for the issue's Internet vanishing act.

"We pulled TCJ #300 offline largely due to retailer concerns over not having been given adequate warning about said plans before ordering the issue," Deppey writes. "It was a fair point, and one that we hadn’t properly considered." Deppey goes on to say that the issue will be back online for all in December after retailers have a proper chance to sell the print version, and that all future issues will be available online for free as planned.

So yeah, rough start for the Journal's bold new era. Still, it's clear a lot of people really want to read the issue -- not the worst problem in the world to have, no?

Marvel vs. Twilight -- fight!

Okay, not really -- I live with a Twilight fan, and as a co-writer of the latest episode of Marvel.com's Marvel Super Heroes: What The--?! video series, I can assure you it's all good-natured ribbing. Still, I think veterans of this summer's bloody Twilight-at-Comic-Con culture war will get a kick out of this Marvel-fied parody of Stephenie Meyer's teen-vampire saga, whose latest movie adaptation, New Moon, hits screens at midnight tonight. (Did anyone else know Dr. Michael Morbius was European?)

Al Columbia: Good news, bad news

Al Columbia's Pim & Francie

If fans of mercurial cartoonist Al Columbia have learned anything over the course of his sporadic but storied career, it's "get it while it's hot." He's got talent to burn, but he burned out on Alan Moore's Big Numbers, his groundbreaking work in Zero Zero and The Biologic Show has never been collected, and he kind of disappeared from the scene for a decade or so, infamously scrapping much of his own work before it could see the light of day. But after the recent release of his stunning art-comics-detritus collection Pim & Francie and signings at SPX and the Fantagraphics Bookstore, all is forgiven, right?

Let's hope so, because it seems Columbia's once again becoming an elusive commodity. First Columbia's signing at Brooklyn's Desert Island last Friday was canceled. Then, fellow artist Ashley Wood blogged that Columbia's planned installment of the Sparrow art-book series from IDW has been canceled as well.

But all is not lost: Pim & Francie is out and is awesome, Providence's Ada Books was still touting Columbia's scheduled December 11th appearance there yesterday afternoon, and as Robot 6 has noted, Floating World is selling a jaw-dropping print by Columbia titled "Toyland." (Thanks to Tom Spurgeon for the reminder.) Frankly, as long as the man produces work that looks like that, who cares what else he does (or doesn't do)?

Marvel goes bananas for Hitman Monkey

Jason Pearson's Deadpool #20 cover, featuring Hitman Monkey

The teaser image set the monkey-loving section of the comics Internet on fire -- and let's face it, that's a pretty big section of the comics Internet. Now the truth about Frank Cho's gun-toting mystery monkey has been revealed: He's Hitman Monkey, a new character swinging his way into the Marvel Universe. Editor Axel Alonso tells Marvel.com this simian assassin (technically a Japanese macaque) will first appear in a two-part Marvel Digital Comic Exclusive by Daniel Way and Dalibor Talijic -- featuring Cho's cover -- before wreaking havoc in February's Deadpool #20. Here's hoping for an eventual crossover with Gorilla Man from Agents of Atlas.

The Comics Journal #300 — now online in its entirety!

The Comics Journal #300

Kiss your productivity goodbye, comics fans: Every last page of the 300th issue of The Comics Journal has been posted online.

The Journal team had already pulled all the stops to make this anniversary issue something special even before it was announced that this would be the venerable comics-criticism publication's final quasi-magazine-format installment. The result is a killer collection of cross-generational interviews between Art Spiegelman and Kevin Huizenga, Jean-Christophe Menu and Sammy Harkham, Frank Quitely and Dave Gibbons, David Mazzucchelli and Dash Shaw, Alison Bechdel and Danica Novgorodoff, Howard Chaykin and Ho Che Anderson, Denny O'Neil and Matt Fraction, Jaime Hernandez and Zak Sally, Ted Rall and Matt Bors, Jim Borgman and Keith Knight, and Stan Sakai and Chris Schweizer. There's also a comics-format interview with Gary Groth by Noah Van Sciver, reviews of some of the past year or so's most momentous comics -- including Breakdowns, Acme Novelty Library #19 and Asterios Polyp -- and retrospectives galore. Long story short, there's so much stuff in there you're probably best off calling out sick from work. Oh yeah, the print version hits stores soon. (Via Dirk Deppey)

Marvel's monkey business

Who is this monkey? Why is he two-fisting handguns? Who's his tailor? I have no clue what the answers to these questions are -- all I know is he's drawn by simian specialist Frank Cho and being teased on Marvel.com as "Marvel's hottest new character." If there's one thing for sure about comics fans, it's that we're monkey whores, so I am therefore passing this on to you our readers.

Tune into Marvel.com on Monday for the big reveal, whatever the heck that might be. And check out Cho's blog for a sketch version of the piece labeled "Hitman Monkey." Are there two more glorious words in the English language?

Straight for the art | Seth's new Nancy design

Nancy and Oona Goosepimple, by Seth

Man, that's a knockout, huh? Feast your eyes on George Sprott author (and all-around Dapper Dan) Seth's design for Nancy, Vol. 2, the forthcoming installment of Drawn & Quarterly's gorgeous John Stanley Library.

The image hails from this post by D&Q's Rebecca Rosen, which you really ought to read if the cult of Nancy has been a bit inscrutable to you like it has been to me. Just for example, the above image is a Seth drawing ... which graces a book containing the adventures of a character created by, and best known through the work of, Ernie Bushmiller ... but D&Q's Nancy books collect John Stanley's run on the character from her comic books, as opposed to Bushmiller's newspaper strips ... but those books were actually drawn by Dan Gormley, working off Stanley's storyboard-format scripts. Phew! And then there's the role that Mark Newgarden's abstractified tribute to Bushmiller's Nancy, "Love's Savage Fury," played in the character's popularity with cartoonists...and ditto Newgarden and Paul Karasik's landmark essay "How to Read Nancy" ... ah, let Rebecca explain it to you, and why it all matters.

If this van's a-rockin', the spinner rack needs restockin'

I wonder: Will there ever be a movement to legitimize airbrushed van art in the same way that "graphic novels" have given comic books traction with the smart set? 'Cuz this ain't gonna help out in either department, but it sure is funny: Maxim lists the 12 Superheroes Who Should Be on '70s Vans, complete with Photoshopped visual evidence so convincing you can almost smell the newsprint and hear the Foghat.

My favorite's the Man-Wolf van (or is that the Van-Wolf?), but I also enjoyed the always welcome Thor/"Immigrant Song" gag and the description of Doctor Strange as "the lava lamp of superheroes." They're funny because they're true!

Con War dispatch: of con guests and collateral damage

Con War is hell, and you never know who's gonna get caught in the crossfire. Wizard owner Gareb Shamus's evolving effort to rebrand his publishing and online empire and take on Reed Exhibitions's C2E2 and New York Comic Con by aggressively counter-scheduling his Anaheim and Big Apple events has produced some nasty peripheral exchanges, even as direct confrontations between the two convention promoters have all but ceased.

Take the back-and-forth we noted last week between PvP creator Scott Kurtz and Comics Alliance honcho Laura Hudso . It started when Kurtz publicly blasted a Wizard/Shamus functionary with both barrels after the staffer obliviously sent him an email addressed to "Kurt" -- hey, these things happen -- soliciting his attendance at Anaheim Comic Con. Hudson took Kurtz to task for tarring all Wizard employees with a brush perhaps better reserved for the company's decision-makers. This led to a lengthy and ugly comment-thread roundelay between Hudson -- who, as the former senior editor of Tim Leong's defunct Comic Foundry magazine, need bow to no one in the "taking cheap shots at Wizard and its employees as though the two were fungible entities" department -- and Kurtz, some of his fans, and former Wizard staff writer Chris Ward. Over the course of the argument's five pages, posts were deleted; accusations of trollery, spamming, egomania and hypocrisy were thrown about like so much confetti; Hudson's problems during her tenure with Jenna Jameson-publishing Virgin Comics were hashed out; former Wizard President Fred Pierce was accused of buying off former Wizard critic Frank Miller; and a horrid time was had by all.

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That's Professor Bendis to you, pal

Brian Michael Bendis

Charles Xavier now has some competition in the "famous bald educators from Marvel Comics" department. As previously mentioned on on his Twitter feed, Brian Michael Bendis will be teaching a class at Portland State University, and now he's revealed the details.

On his message board, the Siege writer describes the course, "WR 399: The Graphic Novel," as "a class that I wish I had when I was in college." What looks like the official course-catalog description reads as follows:

The graphic novel features the unique marriage of words and pictures that has seeped into every facet of popular culture. This course will focus on all the storytelling elements that create the written word of this unique visual medium. Students will study the form and its influences, discover and create original works for both print and digital platforms, and be put through a classroom version of the editorial process. Throughout the term, there will also be a smattering of comic book professional guest lecturers.

The syllabus includes Robert McKee's Story, Stephen King's On Writing, Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, and Will Eisner's Comics & Sequential Art and Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative.

Bendis says he was inspired to take on the teaching gig by Dark Horse editor Diana Schutz, who featured him as a guest lecturer in her own PSU classes, as well as by the countless other comics professionals who've had parallel careers as educators. And to answer two questions Bendis's many fans are no doubt asking: No, he won't be posting his lectures online, and no, he's not quitting any comics projects to make room for his two two-hour class sessions per week. ("I’ll be doing this instead of reading Empire magazine and playing Rock Band iphone app when I should be working," he explains.)

Click the link for more details and background on the class.

Geoff Johns wants the Power of Grayskull

Geoff Johns and I have something in common: We both want Geoff Johns to write a He-Man comic.

In an interview at writer Poe Ghostal's toy and action figure news blog, the Blackest Night, Green Lantern, and Superman: Secret Origin writer says that He-Man and the Masters of the Universe is the only toy property he'd like to take a shot at writing. Now, normally this kind of offhand blue-sky wish-list comment wouldn't merit a post, but I really love He-Man and Johns has written some of my favorite superhero comics of the past several years -- and dammit, I've got a bully pulpit and I intend to use it.

Oh yeah, Johns discusses various other toy-related topics with Ghostal, including his childhood favorites and the highlights of his current collection. Unsurprisingly, Lantern Corps figures from DC Direct and Mattel fare pretty well, with Johns citing the action-figure version of his Blue Lantern character Saint Walker as his fave.

But seriously -- Geoff Johns on He-Man! Start your letter-writing campaign to DC and Mattel in the comments.