Bill Willingham
Nominees announced for 2011 Hugo Awards
The Unwritten, Vol. 2: Inside Man
Finalists have been announced for the 2011 Hugo Awards, which recognize the best in science fiction and fantasy.
Presented annually since 1955 by the World Science Fiction Society, the Hugo is among science fiction’s most prestigious awards. This year’s winner will be presented Aug. 20 in Reno, Nevada, during Renovation, the 69th World Science Fiction Convention.
The nominees for best graphic story are:
• Fables, Vol. 14: Witches, written by Bill Willingham; illustrated by Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha, Jim Fern, Craig Hamilton and David Lapham (Vertigo)
• Girl Genius, Vol. 10: Agatha Heterodyne and the Guardian Muse, written by Phil and Kaja Foglio; art by Phil Foglio; colors by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)
• Grandville Mon Amour, by Bryan Talbot (Dark Horse)
• Schlock Mercenary: Massively Parallel, written and illustrated by Howard Tayler; colors by Howard Tayler and Travis Walton (Hypernode)
• The Unwritten, Vol. 2: Inside Man, written by Mike Carey; illustrated by Peter Gross (Vertigo)
This is the third year for the graphic story category. Girl Genius won the award the two previous years.
The full list of nominees can be found on the Renovation website.
- April 25, 2011 @ 06:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Where in the world is Gene Ha?
'Batman & Robin' #22 variant cover by Gene Ha
“Where in the world is Gene Ha?”
That’s what comic fans like me have been wondering the past year. Sure he’s been popping up as a cover artist on some big DC titles and rounding out the last issues of The Authority: Lost Year, but in terms of real, sink-your-teeth into it comics work it’s been a drought. But thankfully, Gene Ha has popped up to explain what’s going on.
In a blog post on his website, Ha explains that the his major creator-owned project Back Roads with Bill Willingham at IDW (announced back in 2009) has fallen apart due to the writer stopping to turn in scripts — just after Ha turned in the complete first issue – pencils, inks and colors. With the full story of Back Roads estimated to be 132 pages and no new script pages in a year, Ha’s pretty much said the project is dead.
Getting back into the swing of things, Ha has worked on those previously mentioned covers for DC, and he also did a Mouse Guard story with writer Lowell Francis. He’s also working on shorts for House of Mystery and the IDW Rocketeer miniseries. The most enticing bit of news is something else.
“I’ll be doing a few issues of an iconic DC character this summer, DC should announce details soon,” Ha revealed. “And finally, after all that, I’ve been working on something with James Robinson.”
Look for more on Gene Has’ website, but before you go — tell us your favorite Gene Ha work and what iconic character you’d like to see him work on!
- February 10, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Chris Arrant
Comics A.M. | Diamond plans digital service? Eisner judges named
Diamond Comic Distributors
Retailing | Rich Johnston confirms that Diamond Comic Distributors is developing a digital comics service that, in the words of a company representative, “will be entirely focused on driving sales of digital comic-related content through brick and mortar comic book specialty retailers.” No details were made available, but an official announcement is expected “in the near future.” In the meantime, Johnston gathers initial reactions from several retailers. [Bleeding Cool]
Publishing | Amit Desai, who has worked at Warner Bros. since 2004, has been named as DC Entertainment’s senior vice president, franchise management: “In his new role, Desai will develop and implement the individual franchise plans for Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, The Flash, MAD Magazine, Vertigo titles, and other DC properties. This will include driving wider cross-promotional support across all Time Warner divisions.” [press release]
Publishing | Alex Segura, former publicity manager at DC Comics, has been hired by Archie Comics as executive director of publicity and marketing. [press release]
- December 6, 2010 @ 07:28 AM by Kevin Melrose
Fables #100 to feature puppets, board game and new art by Willingham
Fables #100
Vertigo has released some details on the big 100th anniversary issue of their long-running Fables series. Those of you who read previous issues know that one of the Fables characters has challenged the evil Mister Dark to a duel, and it sounds like that duel will make up the bulk (62 pages, by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha and Andrew Pepoy) of the $10 issue. But it will also include:
• A 10-page prose story written by Buckingham and drawn by Willingham. Although Willingham is known primarily as a writer nowadays, he used to both write and draw his creation, The Elementals. Plus he worked for TSR as an artist before that, drawing the covers to Dungeons & Dragons books and modules.
• A set of do-it-yourself Fables puppet theater illustrated by Buckingham
• A three-page story written by Willingham with art by Cinderlla artist Chrissie Zullo
• A three-page story written by Willingham with art by Joao Ruas
• A two-page Fables board game, illustrated by Buckingham, with game rules by Willingham
• Four celebrity “Burning Questions” stories, all written by Willingham, featuring questions from actors who are also Fables fans, with art by Adam Hughes, J.H. Williams III and Dave Johnson.
The 100-page square-bound book arrives in shops Dec. 8.
- November 8, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
Klein and Willingham team for new art print
F The Enchanted Letter
Letterer Todd Klein has teamed up with Fables writer Bill Willingham for the latter’s sixth art print featuring a letter of the alphabet. “F The Enchanted Letter” features a poem written by Willingham stocked to the hilt with F-words–sorry, not that F-word–but words like fantasy, fairyland, fleece and, of course, fable.
Klein provides more details on how the print was created here and here. It goes on sale July 16, and you can find the first five prints he worked on with Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Mark Buckingham, Alex Ross and J.H. Williams III for sale here.
- July 13, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
Talking Comics with Tim: Chris Roberson
Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love
This Wednesday, February 3, will see the release of the fourth installment in the six-issue Vertigo miniseries, Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love by (writer) Chris Roberson and (artist) Shawn McManus. Recently, I was fortunate enough to email interview Roberson about Cinderella, as well as his upcoming ongoing Vertigo series with artist Mike Allred–I, Zombie.
Tim O’Shea: Looking at the historical flashbacks that open issues 2 and 3 of Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love, I’m curious are you a fan of history? Which of the historical flashbacks you have built into the story reflects your favorite historical era?
Chris Roberson: History is one of my passions (alongside cartoons, puppets, superheroes, quantum physics, etc). I minored in history in college, and taught middle school history for a couple of years before I’d paid off the karmic debt left over from being a smartass when I was in school. In the eighteen years or so it took me to break into comics, I built a career as a writer of science fiction and fantasy prose, and a good percentage of my short stories and novels have played around with history in one way or another—alternate histories, period pieces, you name it.
As for which of the flashbacks in Cinderella reflects my personal favorite era, I’d probably have to punk out and say “All of them.” I’m a fan of stories set in each of those time periods, and getting to work all of them into Cindy’s backstory was like being a kid in a candy store.
- February 1, 2010 @ 03:00 PM by Tim O'Shea
Tom Brevoort and Neil Gaiman (and Bill Willingham) talk Marvelman
Marvelman by Joe Quesada
“I think I just wrote a Robot 6 article,” Marvel Executive Editor Tom Brevoort said via his Twitter account yesterday evening. Right you are, Tom! This blog’s official Top Tweeter of 2009 kept the magic alive yesterday with an impassioned defense of the controversy du jour, Marvel’s offer to swap unsold DC comics for a Deadpool variant (more on that later). But perhaps even more notably, he posted some revealing comments about the status of Marvel’s recently acquired Marvelman.
Brevoort revealed that he attended a meeting focusing on the legendary revisionist superhero series with Neil Gaiman, successor to the book’s prime mover Alan Moore:
On another note, attended a cool Marvelman meeting today where Neil Gaiman told us how his last 2 unfinished storylines will end. Been waitin something like 17 years to find that out!
Brevoort’s followers were soon popping the champagne, but the editor was quick to point out that he was not saying Gaiman would necessarily return to finish the stories, and that future plans for the title have yet to be confirmed:
- January 15, 2010 @ 08:52 AM by Sean T. Collins
Trick or treat fun at the House of Mystery
from House of Mystery Halloween Annual
I’m not sure I want to know what kinds of “treats” kids can expect when visiting the House of Mystery … but anyway, the Vertigo blog Graphic Content has some preview pages up from this month’s House of Mystery Halloween Annual.
They include looks at the House of Mystery framing sequence, a new Merv Pumpkinhead tale by Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham, and one page of Chris Roberson and Mike Allred’s “I, Zombie” tale. Now those are treats I can get behind.
- October 1, 2009 @ 10:04 AM by JK Parkin
Win a copy of the Fables novel Peter & Max
Peter and Max
I mentioned on Sunday that I really enjoyed the first Fables novel, Peter & Max, but don’t take my word for it — Vertigo is giving away 10 copies of the book on their blog. All you have to do is head over there and post who your favorite Fables character is and why. The only difficulty I’d have is choosing between Bigby, Boy Blue and Cinderella …
- September 29, 2009 @ 09:34 AM by JK Parkin
Six by 6 | Six great comics published by Comico
Grendel
The birth of the direct market brought a slew of new independent publishers in the 1980s, including First Comics, Eclipse and Comico. It was the latter that really made an impact on both myself and Strangeways creator Matt Maxwell at the time.
In an email discussion earlier this week about 1980s comics, the subject turned to Comico, and Matt and I started listing some of our favorite series by the publisher. So when I decided to make them the focus of this edition of Six by 6, I reached out to Matt to see if he’d be interested in helping me out this week. “I started expanding my horizons right about the time they started publishing comics,” he told me, a sentiment I can echo. Elementals, in fact, may have been the first non-Marvel/DC comic I ever bought.
So without further ado, here are six great titles (actually seven, if you’ll note how Matt slipped in an extra title in his last entry — sneaky!) that Comico published back in the day.
1. Grendel, written by Matt Wagner, art by Matt Wagner and a host of others: I missed out on the Comico Primer and the very early Grendel material, but I came on board for Devil by the Deed, which was a graphic novel retelling of those stories that came out about the time that the Devil’s Legacy (written by Matt Wagner with art by the Pander Brothers) started up. In short, I was blown away by the range of the themes at play in Wagner’s storytelling (and by the hyper-stylized renderings of the Panders.) The first convention sketch I paid for was a Christine Spar Grendel (right before I got Stephen Bisette to draw Cthulhu). Grendel really was a comic for grownups when such a thing was a comparative rarity. I can’t do it justice in the time I have here, but really, every fan of sequential storytelling owes it to themselves to catch up on this book, which I believe is being reprinted in its entirety by Dark Horse. Romance, treachery, betrayal, crime, noir, science fiction, dark fantasy, even straight superheroics can be found in the pages of Grendel, not to mention an incredible range of formal techniques and experimentation, and work by artists who are both superstars now and all but forgotten, sadly. (Matt Maxwell)
- August 16, 2009 @ 02:31 PM by JK Parkin