Comic Book Resources

Happy birthday, Alan Moore and Mickey Mouse!

Mickey Mouse and Alan Moore

This is probably the only day of the year you'll see those two names together in a headline.

Today marks the 56th birthday of the writer of Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Swamp Thing, From Hell and countless other influential and entertaining comics. It's also the 81st anniversary of the release of the animated short Steamboat Willie, and the date The Walt Disney Company celebrates as Mickey's birthday (despite his actual first appearance in Plane Crazy some six months earlier).

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)?

Library worker's battle with Black Dossier began a year ago

Black Dossier -- The Absolute Edition

More than a month after two Kentucky public-library employees were fired after refusing to allow a child to check out The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, details surrounding their dismissal finally are emerging.

In a lengthy article in the Lexington Herald-Leader, we learn the story didn't begin on Sept. 22, when Jessamine County Library circulation-desk attendants Beth Bovaire and Sharon Cook decided the graphic novel was inappropriate for the 11-year-old girl who had reserved it.

Instead, events date back almost a year, when the 57-year-old Cook, appalled that children had access to the Alan Moore-Kevin O'Neill book, challenged its inclusion in the graphic-novel section, which apparently is tantalizingly close to Young Adult Fiction. When that didn't work, she checked the book out of the library -- and kept renewing it, effectively removing it from circulation, until Sept. 21. That's when Cook tried to renew Black Dossier again, only to discover the computer wouldn't permit her to do so because the book had been placed on hold ... by a child, no less.

According to reporter Amy Wilson, on Sept. 22 Cook spoke to two of her colleagues about the problem, and Beth Boisvert, a part-time employee, decided to remove the hold, prohibiting the child from checking out the book. The next day, Cook and Boisvert were fired.

Cook still has the library's copy of Black Dossier, and is being charged 10 cents a day in late fees.

Wilson's article includes plenty of background on the library's policies, and Cook's efforts to challenge the book according procedure, which required her to, y'know, actually read it: "People prayed over me while I was reading it because I did not want those images in my head."

Cook and Boisvert contend the graphic novel amounts to pornography, and that the library could be committing a felony by making it available to minors. They want the citizens of Jessamine County -- "we are a conservative community," Boisvert says -- to determine whether Black Dossier, and presumably other works, meet community standards for obscenity, and to decide what books their children have access to.

In short, they want county taxpayers to select what appears on library shelves, and where.

Six by 6 by 6 | Six comics that scared the $#!@% out of us

Horror can be a tricky genre for comics. They can't engage in the same sort of "Boo!" surprises that, say, movies like Halloween can, mainly because the pictures are all laid out for you as you're reading. It's too easy for your eye to jump ahead and see that the big, bad monster is going to pop out of the casket three panels from now.

But if comics can't service that sort of immediate shock to the system (at least not very well) then where the medium does excel is in connoting dread, in prolonging tension, and in completely unnerving you. When done right, a good scary comic book can linger with you for a lot longer than your average Saw or Friday the 13th sequel.

With that in mind, JK Parkin and I came up with are six comics that at various points in our lives, had us checking under the bed or otherwise kept us awake all night. Be sure to add your own traumatic experiences in the comments section.

Continue Reading »

Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Blackest Night #3

Publishing | Sales of comics to the direct market increased 12 percent in September over the same month last year, lifting the third quarter by 7 percent. Graphic novels, meanwhile, slipped 2 percent in September and 10 percent for the quarter, largely because of the strong performance of Watchmen in 2008.

DC's Blackest Night #3 topped Diamond's comics chart, with sales estimated at 140,786, followed by Marvel's Captain America: Reborn #3 with 108,331. The "Blackest Night" event performed well for DC, with five related titles placing in the Top 10. ICv2.com notes in its analysis that the $3.99 price tag on some of Marvel's comics appears to be having an impact on sales, with the second issues of Ultimate Comics Avengers and Ultimate Comics Spider-Man falling about 15,000 copies each, and Hulk #15 dropping about 18,700 from the previous issue.

The graphic novels list was led by the fifth volume of Dark Horse's Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8, with an estimated 7,225 copies. However, the most interesting entry is probably R. Crumb's The Book of Genesis Illustrated, which charted at No. 28 with some 2,178 copies. [ICv2.com]

Continue Reading »

Alan Moore to launch 'the 21st century’s first underground magazine'

Dodgem Logic

Leah Moore has posted a press release about her father Alan Moore's newest project, "the 21st century’s first underground magazine." It's titled Dodgem Logic and will feature contributions from Moore, Melinda Gebbie, Kevin O’Neill and many more.

"As cheap and beautiful as a heartbreaking teenage prostitute, Dodgem Logic has a cover price of £2.50, with its content similarly tailored to the fiscal toilet-bowl that we are currently engaged in sliding down," the release reads. "Regular columnists provide delicious, inexpensive recipes, wide-ranging medical advice, simple instructions for creating stylish clothing and accessories from next to nothing, guides to growing your own dinner by becoming a guerrilla gardener, and, in the first of Dave (The Self-Sufficient-ish Bible) Hamilton’s environmental columns, a bold experiment in living with no money. The same approach to helping readers deal with socio-economic meltdown and a blitz of repossessions is there in upcoming features on the present-day resurgence of the squatters’ movement, or in our communiqués from the Steampunk/ Post-Civilisation gang on how to start rebuilding culture and society before those things have broken down completely and our children are reduced to battering each other to a bloody pulp with their now-useless X-Boxes in a dispute over the last tub of pot noodles."

The first issue will also contain a CD of "magnificent home-grown Northampton music." It's due in November from Knockabout Comics.

Alan Moore gives blessing to Miracleman reprints

In an interview with Kurt Amacker for Mania, Alan Moore discussed in detail his feelings towards Marvel's purchase of the Marvelman character and the chance of ever seeing his own version of the character in print again. In a nutshell: He's fine with it all as long as his name is kept off the credits and the character's original creator, Mick Anglo, gets to keep all the money:

Alan Moore

After being initially informed by Neil’s lawyer, I had to think about it for a couple of days. I decided that while I’m very happy for this book to get published—because that means money will finally go to Marvelman’s creator, Mick Anglo, and to his wife. Mick is very, very old, and his wife, I believe, is suffering from Alzheimer’s. The actual Marvelman story is such a grim and ugly one that I would probably rather that the work was published without my name on it, and that all of the money went to Mick. The decision about my name was largely based upon my history with Marvel—my desire to really have nothing to do with them, and my increasing desire to have nothing to do with the American comics industry. I mean, they’re probably are enough books out there with my name on them to keep the comics industry afloat for a little bit longer. I left a message to that effect with Neil. I’ve since heard back from the lawyer upon another issue, and he said that he was certain that would be the case—that Marvel would accede to my request. That looks like the way it will be emerging. And, Neil will be able to finish his Marvelman story because he has a completely different relationship with Marvel than I have with them—or rather, don’t have. The main thing is that I will feel happy to know that Mick Anglo is finally getting the recompense he so richly deserves. And, I will have distanced myself from a lot of the deceit and ugliness that surrounded the relaunching of Marvelman as a character.

Moore also has a few nasty words for former Warrior editor Dez Skinn and Eclipse Comics, and goes into great detail about how he came up with his own unique take on the character. Go read the whole thing.

SDCC '09 | Robot 6's Marvelman 101 guide

Marvelman teaser, by Joe Quesada

We've noticed some confusion surrounding Marvel's big announcement about its acquisition of Marvelman. Namely, some are wondering why this is big news, or asking who this Marvelman is anyway.

Fear not, we can help. After the break you'll find a guide to the whys and wherefores of Marvelman and why this really, truly is a really, really big deal.

Note: Parts of this article originally appeared here, as part of the "Collect This Now!"feature. It's been refurbished quite a bit, though.

Continue Reading »

Nobody Watches the Watchmen

Funny or Die offers up a parody meeting between Watchmen creator Alan Moore and his character Rorschach, as the famed author does whatever he can to keep people from watching the Watchmen DVD:

(Thanks Ian!)

What are you reading?

The Hunter

Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading. Our special guest for this week is Chris Butcher, blogger and manager of The Beguiling in Toronto, generally acknowledged as one of the finest comics shops in North America.

Chris is heading off to Japan and taking quite a lot of books with him. What to know what he's packing? Of course you do. Click on the link to find out ...

Continue Reading »

Six by 6 | Six comics that made us cry

Tom Strong #36

This week Chris Mautner suggested we share our softer sides and each talk about three comics that broke down our tough-guy exteriors and made us openly weep as we turned the pages. It's a risky venture, to be sure; to some members of our audience, this will destroy the "manly man" image we've worked so hard to build up on the blog, but for others, it will show there's more to who we are than just bad jokes and Shelf Porn.

So here they are -- six comics that made us cry. After reading our selections, be sure to grab a tissue and tell us what comics made you cry as well.

1. "We're brothers, Tom"

I always thought Tom Strong was the weakest of Alan Moore's ABC line (in fact I said so rather openly in issue #231 of The Comics Journal). Oh sure, there were lots of colorful dialogue and zany plots, but I felt the series was sorely lacking in gravitas. The characters seemed too thinly sketched to me and I couldn't find myself forming enough of an emotional commitment to them to care about what happened to them. It kept hinting that there was a lot more going on under the surface, but that's all it would do, hint.

That was until the final issue, no. 36, where, during the "end of the world as we know it" created by Promethea, Tom is confronted by the ghost of his arch-enemy Paul Saveen, who reveals that he is, in fact, Tom's half-brother. What follows is one of the most tender scenes I've ever read in a superhero book ("Jesus Paul" Tom says, breaking down "We tried to kill each other.") When, two pages later, Tom introduces Saveen to a passerby with a simple "This is my brother. This is my brother Paul" well, I just lose it. --Chris Mautner

Continue Reading »

No Faith No Moore?

Alan Moore

If you wanted an Alan Moore/Mike Patton team-up, it sounds like you can't have it.

Yesterday Billboard reported on a project by Lex Records tentatively called Unearthing that would team comics writer Alan Moore up with several musicians, including Faith No More's Mike Patton and Godflesh's Justin Broadrick.

Now Tom Brown, founder of Lex Records and the source for yesterday's story, is telling the Guardian that Patton and Broadrick aren't involved:

According to Lex founder Tom Brown, the confusion arose when he was asked by Billboard if anybody else was involved in the project. "I said no, but that Fog and Doseone had asked Justin Broadrick and Mike Patton if they were interested. I was very clear that they had not confirmed."

The other details on the project were correct -- it will include a photographic novel, art prints, a two-hour audiobook and a soundtrack that will include contributions by Andrew Broder of Fog. Patton, meanwhile, is doing some work with Lex Records, specifically a collaboration with TV On the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe.

Faith No Moore?

Alan Moore

Per Billboard.com, writer Alan Moore is working on a project with the British independent record label Lex Records that's probably best described as a multimedia project. It includes a photographic novel, art prints, a two-hour audiobook and a soundtrack -- on vinyl -- that will include contributions by Andrew Broder of Fog, Mike Patton of Faith No More, spoken word artist Adam Drucker and Justin Broadrick of Godflesh.

Tentatively titled Unearthing, the semi-autobiographical work will likely appear in early 2010.

Tom Brown of Lex Records talked about working with Moore on the project:

Of working with Moore, he says it's "refreshing to meet somebody that important, culturally, that's really down to earth and still into the core of what they do."

During the recording of the audiobook in Northampton, where Moore lives, the process was filmed for possible inclusion in the box set.

"It's the first volume of a series and it is definitely in the direction of an autobiography," adds Brown. "I know that he's writing another volume at the moment." He adds that it is provisionally titled "Unearthing" and says it is possible the book will get a separate release by a publisher.

(Hat tip: Ash's Twitter feed)

What the world's been waiting for: Alan Moore papercraft dolls

Alan Moore papercraft dolls

If you can't get your hands on the latest issue of British comedy magazine Mustard, which includes a 15-page interview with Alan Moore, maybe this will console you: The publication's website includes a printable papercraft Alan Moore by Sally Grossart.

Better still, there's two versions of the doll -- one dressed as the writer appeared in Mustard, and the other in his wedding finery. Both feature glowing eyes and a snakes-head cane. Naturally.

(via Forbidden Planet International)

What Are You Reading?

Pyongyang

Welcome to another edition of a little something we like to call What Are You Reading. Our special guest this week is none other than comics critic and blogger Johanna Draper Carlson, best known for her long-running site, Comics Worth Reading.

To find out what Johanna and the rest of the Robot 6 crew are currently reading, well, you know what to do ...

Continue Reading »