Comic Book Resources

Straight for the art | Becky Cloonan draws Namor for Strange Tales

from Strange Tales #3

Yesterday we learned that Becky Cloonan is one of several creators contributing to the third issue of Marvel's Strange Tales anthology, and over on her blog she reveals she'll be doing a four-page tale featuring the Sub-Mariner -- a tale she wrote, drew, colored and lettered.

SDCC '09 | 15 announcements that make us happy

Bone: Quest for the Spark

San Diego Comic-Con is always a wild ride filled with crazy cosplayers, Hollywood hype and just generally somewhat-controlled chaos. In the midst of it all, a few comic book announcements managed to sneak out.

Here are 15 of those announcements (in no particular order) that Kevin Melrose, Chris Mautner and I were happy to hear:

1. New Bone books
So it looks like one of those new books isn't going to be comics but a novel written by Tom Sniegoski and illustrated by Smith. Which is a bit of a bummer, but only a bit. I'm still pretty psyched to see more stories set in that universe and Sniegoski has proven himself to be an able and witty writer on stuff like the Stupid Stupid Rat Creatures mini series, which, by the way, will be included in the Tall Tales book. So yeah, this is great news all around. I'm eager for more Bone. --Chris Mautner

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SDCC '09 | Dark Horse Comics signings and panels

Dark Horse Comics has a full signing schedule for their booth on all five days of the show, as well as several panels. As Kevin mentioned earlier this week, they'll be formally announcing Rafael Grampá’s Furry Water, and there's also a big super secret announcement involving Gerard Way, Shaun Simon and Becky Cloonan. The trio will sign at the booth about 45 minutes after the Gerard Way panel on Saturday.

No doubt Dark Horse will have all sorts of cool stuff to buy, look at and pick up for free at their booth as well. Check out their complete schedule after the jump.

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Talking Comics with Tim: MoCCA's Karl Erickson

The 2009 MoCCA Festival poster, illustrated by Molly Crabapple

While I did not attend Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) Art Festival 2009, held back on June 6-7, I was struck at the amount of constructive feedback that came out of people's reports after the festival. It goes without saying that almost everyone thought the new venue (the 69th Regiment Armory) needed air conditioning and many folks were understandably dismayed with the logistical challenges and delays that occurred at the festival's start. While reading a great deal of reactions from attendees and exhibitors, I was curious to get a lessons learned perspective from the organizers. Fortunately, Karl Erickson, MoCCA Director, was willing to take my email questions. In his answers, Erickson seemingly made it clear he was open to constructive feedback. While my questions aimed to cover a great deal of various concerns, I welcome folks to chime in with additional thoughts in the comments section. My thanks to Erickson for his time.

Tim O'Shea: The first question has to be--did you explore the possibility of air conditioning this year? Was it deemed just too cost prohibitive? If you're staying at the Armory, do you intend to have air conditioning in 2010?

Karl Erickson: We did explore air conditioning for the Armory, but, yes, it was just too expensive. As far as staying at the Armory we are looking at dates earlier in the spring to help alleviate the heat.

O'Shea: Can you speak to what happened to cause the hour-long delay on Saturday and logistical challenges (like delayed book deliveries, only one trashcan on the show floor [by some reports], names missing from the guide book)--and are you establishing measures to try to minimize these situations next year?

Erickson: The delay was due to a few different factors, the major being a severe miscommunication with the trucking company that was to deliver not only many of our exhibitor’s books, but all of our supplies for the festival, not least being our cash registers and other check-in essentials. Of the problems that we did have, having one trashcan for the entire show floor was not one of them. We definitely had many trashcans.

We are certainly taking steps to contain and minimize the mistakes of this year, the most important of which is getting a much earlier jump in the planning and execution of the Festival. This includes a lengthy review of the 2009 Festival with practical solutions suggested. These include moving the Festival earlier in the spring (as this is not the first year we have had heat problems, AC or no), starting on every aspect of the Festival earlier, and creating a new MoCCA website that will deliver information much more effectively to exhibitors and attendees.

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SDCC '09 | More exclusives, more panels, more everything

40th Anniversary Souvenir Book

The 2009 San Diego Comic-Con is less than a month away, with preview night kicking things off on Wednesday, July 22. If you are a publisher, creator, retailer or any other kind of exhibitor who would like to let folks know about any special plans you have for the show (panels, signing schedules, exclusives, debuts, etc.) drop me an email and I'll run it here.

Also, to the right is the 40th anniversary souvenir book cover, featuring art by the great Rick Geary. Comic-Con debuted it on their Twitter feed, where they've also been announcing panels and auctions for membership badges.

Publishers | Red 5 Comics will be at booth S-9 in the small press area, with the creators of We Kill Monsters, Neozoic, Atomic Robo and Afterburn available for signings.

Books | Scott Morse says he'll have about 100 copies of The Ancient Book of Sex and Science, which sold out before its release after being mentioned on BoingBoing. He's also taking orders for a signed and numbered edition, which he'll bring to the con if you order one.

Exclusives | Becky Cloonan will have a set of four silkscreen prints at the con, limited to 100 "signed, numbered, stamped and enveloped" copies.

I asked if she and the 5/Pixu crew had another book planned for this year, but she said they've all been so busy they haven't been able to do one. She also said she'll have a big announcement at the con, and she'll have a table with with Brian Wood, Cliff Chiang and Jill Thompson.

Mini-comics | According to Ben Towle, J Chris Campbell of Wide Awake Press is putting together a Michael Jackson memorial mini-comic to sell at the con, which will feature stories and pin-ups of the King of Pop.

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Video: Becky Cloonan and a double shot of Grant Morrison

As a part of Sub-T Independent Week on MTV (Sub-T being an abbreviation for Subterranean, one of their programs), MTV talks to Becky Cloonan in part 1 in a series:

Meanwhile, MTV's Splash Page kicks off a series of interviews where Percy Carey talks to Grant Morrison:

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Straight for the art | Cloonan's con sketches

Becky Cloonan draws Delirium

Over on her blog, Demo artist Becky Cloonan shares a bunch of sketches she's done at recent conventions, including this one of Delirium of the Endless. Nice.

Free the PIXU Four: A chat with Bá, Cloonan, Lolos, and Moon

The cover to the hardcover edition of PIXU, coming July 2009 from Dark Horse Comics

Dark Horse recently revealed it will publish a hardcover collection of PIXU, a unique four-way collaboration between award-winning creators Gabriel Bá, Becky Cloonan, Vasilis Lolos and Fábio Moon. Previously released as two self-published issues, PIXU is a horror comic book that tells the story of an apartment building full of haunted individuals, and the PIXU itself, a supernatural mark that portends great evil.

The four PIXU creators are scattered across the globe -- with Cloonan living in Brooklyn, twin brothers Moon and Bá in São Paulo, Brazil, and Lolos splitting his time between Brooklyn and Athens, Greece. The book is at once a story, an experiment and a reflection of their tight friendship -- four disparate, distant and visionary mad scientists becoming one through the magical act of creating comics together. Best of all, the book is creepy as all hell.

The original issues of PIXU were printed at a limited run of 1,000 copies each -- but you can still find these handcrafted soon-to-be-eBay-bait comics at Khepri.com.

To celebrate the July release of the hardcover edition, we reached out to the PIXU quartet to find out the secret history of the book, and their own origins in the world of horror.

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Will Cloonan's East Coast Rising ever set sail again?

Cloonan's cover for "East Coast Rising," Vol. 2

Last summer's restructuring at Tokyopop triggered an "OEL constriction" that left the fate of many of the publisher's original English-language titles up in the air.

Some books would see print, others reportedly were destined for life online, while others still -- contract negotiations permitting -- could find a home at another company.

One of the books affected was the second volume of Becky Cloonan's East Coast Rising, a generally well-received romp about punk-rock pirates who sail the waters of a submerged New Jersey.

Some eight months after the announced restructuring, and more than a year after Vol. 2's scheduled release, the book's future is still in doubt.

"A lot of you are probably wondering, 'Oh, Becky! When O when is East Coast Rising v2 coming out?' and to that I can only say I don't know," Cloonan writes today on her blog. "I have kept quiet since they decided not to print it last year, but I'm very close to finishing it; about 30 pages away from completion, I'm just waiting on the 'go' from TP. Every time I think we get close to making a deal, something happens that makes it seem like it won't go through, so right now I'm just waiting. Hopefully I'll have some good news about it soon, but in the meantime I'm treating it like a pet project that one day I might see printed."

Meanwhile, Cloonan is plenty busy: In addition to the new volume of Demo at Vertigo, she's working on a Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Tales of the Vampire one-shot with Vasilis Lolos for Dark Horse.