Comic Book Resources

Fraternity for heroes opens this fall

from Hero House

Justin Aclin and Mike Dimayuga have a new series coming out from Arcana Comics in September called Hero House, about a superhero fraternity. And they've launched a blog to detail how the book came together. Here's a description of the book:

Epsilon Epsilon Psi is a fraternity with a unique mission: to prepare the super-powered students of today to become the best superheroes they can be. Nate Hedges was a teen superhero and the star of his school, but at college he feels like a nobody. So when he's tapped by the university president to go undercover and investigate the Eps, will he find the super-powered hazing the administration fears? Or will he find a place where he finally belongs?

Although the blog is still fairly new, you can check out a lot of art from the series at Mike's website (which is where I nabbed the Owl-topus art up top).

Via Sean T. Collins

You know, some folks take up stamp collecting

Cereblog

Talk about ambition. Leigh Walton and Laura Hudson have created a new comics site, titled Cereblog, devoted to (as you may have already guessed) Dave Sim's seminal (and just a wee bit controversial) series Cerebus. Their goal? To dual critique all 300 issues, one each week.

Cerebus: A Diablog (or sometimes Cereblog) is an ongoing close reading in two-part harmony. Neither of us was born yet when Cerebus was launched, and neither of us has previously read very much of the series. We’re curious to see what Dave Sim’s work, in all its twisted glory, has to say to a new generation of readers. Grab your own copy and read along with us!

All kidding aside, so far they seem to be off to a strong star. Here, for example, is Leigh on issue one:

What’s interesting about the “Cerebus is an aardvark” juxtaposition — seemingly the point of the comic — is that the comic largely doesn’t notice. The opening few pages of this issue, when the human characters are shocked to see a warrior aardvark riding a horse and entering a bar, comprise pretty much the only time in the series (I think) when the comic draws attention to the conceit. “Thought later he would be called the finest warrior to enter our gates, at the time, he was but a curiosity…” “I can’t serve YOU here… YOU’RE A…” etc. But then he’s hired by two thieves to join their heist, with a minimum of hesitation, and that establishes the treatment for the rest of the book: Cerebus is funny-looking, and he’s recognized as an unnaturally skilled warrior, but he’s not a dog walking on its hind legs or anything.

Please join me in wishing them the best of luck. By the time they get to Reads, they'll need it.