Who Could That Be At This Hour?

Daniel Handler and Gregory Gallant are teaming up for a new children’s book series that kicks off this fall. That sentence may not mean a lot to you, unless you know that Handler is the real name of Lemony Snicket, the author of the mega-popular, best-selling A Series of Unfortunate Events children’s book series, and Gallant is better known as Seth, the Canadian cartoonist who created Wimbledon Green, George Sprott and Palookaville.

Who Could That Be at This Hour?, the first book in the “All the Wrong Questions” series, arrives in stores Oct. 23. Here’s a description of the book from its Barnes & Noble listing: “In a fading town, far from anyone he knew or trusted, a young Lemony Snicket began his apprenticeship in an organization nobody knows about. He began asking questions that shouldn’t have been on his mind. Now he has written an account that should not have been published, in four volumes that shouldn’t be read. This is the first volume.”

Publisher Little Brown plans a first printing of a million copies and has set up a teaser site to promote the book.

You might be accustomed to seeing the comics of Matt Furie and Lisa Hanawalt in avant-garde anthologies like Kramers Ergot and Thickness, or in their solo humor series from Pigeon Press Boy’s Club and I Want You, or in the stylishly sleazy pages of Vice magazine. But now you can share your love of these modern masters of anthropomorphic mayhem with your little ones!

Sandy Bilus of I Love Rob Liefeld notes that McSweeney’s, the literary magazine-slash-publisher with a very comics-friendly track record historically, has officially launched a subscription plan for its new children’s imprint McMullens with books by Furie and Hanawalt. Furie’s The Night Riders chronicles the bike-based adventures of a frog and mouse on a nocturnal journey, while Hanwalt’s Benny’s Brigade follows “the world’s smallest, chattiest, and most gentlemanly walrus” as he attempts to find his way home with the help of two little girls and three brave slugs. Presumably these books will be as beautifully drawn as any of Furie and Hanawalt’s comics, but with far fewer dirty jokes.

The books retail for $17.95 each, but are the launch titles for a McMullens subscription package that will get you eight books for $80 total, including shipping. Not a bad deal at all.

Justice League #1 (Second Printing)

Publishing | DC Comics will allocate the second printing of Justice League #1, with retailers receiving 32 percent of their orders, which now won’t ship until Sept. 21, the same day the third printing will be released. ICv2 reports some stores are concerned that potential new readers drawn in by the publisher’s promotional campaign for the New 52 won’t understand the two-week wait to pick up a copy of the comic. The website also runs down the list of cable television shows during which DC’s New 52 commercial is airing. [ICv2.com]

Passings | Comic Art Community reports that artist Dave Hoover passed away earlier this week. Hoover, who drew runs of Captain America and Starman in the 1990s, more recently worked on Zenescope’s Charmed comic. Before working in comics, Hoover was an animator, working on Flash Gordon, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, She-Ra: Princess of Power, The Super Friends, The Smurfs and many more in the 1970s and 1980s. [Comic Art Community]

The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man

Creators | In support of The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man, his new superhero children’s book (with Jake Parker), Michael Chabon tells the Wall Street Journal he wrote it for “the primary focus group,” his son Abe. “This was a story that I wanted to write for him. He’s at the age when, boys in particular, you get into kindergarten and it becomes much more important that you know how to control your body and strength, to restrain yourself and hold yourself back. He was working through a lot of that stuff and occasionally struggling with it. Part of the recipe of a four or five-year-old boy is superheroes and fascination with superheroes. They want to wear costumes all the time. They’ll wear their costumes to school. Part of what makes a superhero a superhero is the ability to use his body and have this incredible power and strength. It seemed like the superhero was a perfect figure to create a little story about someone who needs to control his power and recognize the limits of his power.” [The Wall Street Journal]

Creators | Continuing his publicity tour for Habibi, Craig Thompson talks about the new book in advance of this weekend’s SPX, which Thompson is attending as a special guest. [Washington City Paper]

Green River Killer: A True Detective Story

Creators | Writer Jeff Jensen chats with Geoff Boucher about his true-crime graphic novel, Green River Killer: A True Detective Story. [Hero Complex]

Creators | Retired Marine Capt. Dale Dye and his wife Julia Dye discuss Code Word: Geronimo, which tells the story of SEAL Team Six and the mission to kill Osama bin Laden. [USA Today]

Reviews | Spencer Ackerman takes a look at the 9/11 Truther comic The Big Lie, saying Rick Veitch’s newest work “makes Frank Miller’s forthcoming Holy Terror seem calm and reasonable.”[Wired]

Reviews| Robot 6 contributor J. Caleb Mozzocco reviews Boys of Steel, a children’s book about Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster that tells a carefully restricted version of the story as a picture book but adds a more unvarnished version at the end in text form. [Every Day Is Like Wednesday]

Troop 142

Reviews | Greg McElhatton reads Mike Dawson’s Troop 142 in collected form, after having followed it as a webcomic, and finds that it’s a somewhat different experience: “It was fun, that sort of story about young men at camp that instantly feels real. But reading again a year later, all in one sitting? There’s a much stronger emotional heft to the story that I think is slightly lost in serialized format.” [Read About Comics]

Reviews | Similarly, Xaviar Xerexes finds that the collected edition of Zahra’s Paradise packed a punch that the webcomic didn’t: “This may be the most emotional, involving comic I’ve read this year. I’ve read along with the webcomic but sitting down with the book and reading the story from start to finish was immersive and cathartic.” [ComixTalk]

Comic strips | How do you get your comic strip picked up by King Features? It’s a long shot in this market, says editor Brendan Burford, but he lays out the basics of what they are looking for. What not to do: Submit your comic in a glitter-covered binder or a toilet seat. Oddly, the comments get hijacked by fans of something called 2 Cows and a Chicken, which they keep pleading with Burford to pick up, even after he explains nicely why he can’t. File that under What Not to Do. [DailyINK Blog, via The Daily Cartoonist]

Retailers | Three comic shops within a mile radius of one another? That makes Falls Church sound like heaven. [Falls Church News-Press]

If you’ve seen Jordan Crane’s elegant webcomics hub What Things Do — or better still, if you’re one of the lucky few who have a copy of his hand-silkscreened, die-cut, three-books-in-one anthology NON #5 — you know that the cartoonist behind Uptight and The Clouds Above is one of comics’ best designers. But I think that with Keep Our Secrets, his new comics-style children’s book for McSweeney’s kids’ imprint McMullens, the man has truly outdone himself. This sucker is partially printed in heat-sensitive, color-changing black ink that disappears when touched to reveal a picture hidden underneath. Check it out in the video above, as two adorable tykes help demonstrate. If I were a little kid, I think being able to touch a book and suddenly see hidden stuff appear — like an accordion stuffed with cats, say, or a guy with banana hands under his gloves — would be something close to magic.

Disney will also be showing off their Disney Comics iOS app and they will have heaps of plain ol’ books at their booth (#1016), including limited quantities of upcoming releases. There will be giveaways: Phineas and Ferb masks and magazines, Rick Riordan Heroes of Olympus pens, and more. Filmmaker and author Don Hahn will be giving a panel on “Why We Create” and also signing copies of Brain Storm and The Alchemy Animation, and illustrator Joey Chou will also be there to sign his picture book It’s a Small World.

Ralph Cosentino is in a fairly unique position when it comes to getting superheroes.

An extremely gifted artist and children’s picture book author, Cosentino has been tasked with telling the stories of several DC superheroes via picture books, which means Cosentino is a) Reclaiming the characters for the audience they were originally created for, b) simplifying their stories down to their most essential aspects in order to fit them into about 32 pages (or the equivalent of thirty-some panels) and c) streamlining them to make them as appealing as possible to an audience unfamiliar with their comics.

Of course, while the children’s story book and comic book have a lot in common, they’re not exactly equivalent, and Cosentino’s work faces some demands that the original, Golden Age comic books did not, including making these characters and their first stories beautiful enough and satisfying enough that they earn their permanent, expensive ($16) format.

Cosentino started this series with 2008’s Batman: The Story of The Dark Knight (which I discussed at some length on my home blog, here), and continued it last year with 2010’s Superman: The Story of The Man of Steel. I was particularly excited to check out his new book, Wonder Woman: The Story of the Amazon Princess, since the character seems like such a difficult one to get…at least judging by the property’s permanent residence in Hollywood development hell, the recently passed-over David E. Kelly TV pilot and DC’s now seemingly annual reboots of the comics character.

Of the three books, the Batman one is by far the best, a fact that may be due to the character having the simplest story and the widest, deepest history to pull from. Being the first didn’t hurt any either, as the format Cosentino established—first person narration of an in medias res adventure, an account of an origin, a quick tour of a rogues gallery, and a few pages/panels of mission statement—was freshest the first time.

If you’ve read the Batman and Superman books, one of the most immediately striking aspects of the Wonder Woman one is that Cosentino doesn’t fill it with the sorts of homages to classic panels, covers and poses that he did in the previous two; you can see the cover of Detective Comics #27 and the famous Flesicher Studios cartoon title card echoed right on their covers.

Instead, he takes a similar approach to the character that Walt Disney did with their 1997 Hercules movie, seeking design inspiration from the sides of Ancient Greek vases and other 2D art.

The book opens with a two-page “panel” featuring an aerial view of “Paradise island…the secret home of the warrior women known as Amazons,” with Wonder Woman circling it from the cockpit of a transparent plane. She’s seen from a far, her back to the reader.

Turn the page to the next two-page panel, and we see Wondy only visible from the waist down as she marches before a line of Amazon warriors standing before a flat, classic animation-like background of Greek temples and columns. We see the star-spangled shorts, a bracelet, red boots and a golden lasso. Then she races off in her plane to rescue an Inuit family trapped on a sinking ice floe, and to hang out with some Arctic animals (Batman’s opening adventure was to capture a bank robber, Superman’s to tear apart a pair of giant robots).

I’ve always thought one of Wondy’s biggest challenges in terms of finding new readers or adapting to new media was that, unlike the other points of DC’s trinity, her origin story (and all of her best stories) was (and were) specific to a particular period of time—World War II. Attempts to remove her from the “Save America and its allies from the Axis Powers” context inevitably make her mission seem vague and less urgent, and trying to find the equivalent of Hitler’s Nazis is understandably uncomfortable (If Martson created her a decade or two or three later, would she have been charged with fighting Soviet Communism? What if he created her today?)

Cosentino keeps the mythological aspects of her origin in place: The Greek gods have the childless Hippolyta sculpt a baby out of clay, and gave it life and special powers. The family drama aspect remains as well: A contest is held to find a champion to protect the world beyond Paradise Island, Wonder Woman enters secretly, defying her mother, and wins, receiving “A special costume, unbreakable silver bracelets, and a golden lasso of truth.” World War II and Steve Trevor are missing, and, as in George Perez’s take, Wonder Woman is sent to stop Ares, the god of war, who here “decided he wanted to rule the world.”

Over time, her mission “grew greater;” now it’s “to teach peace and respect to all…and to show the world how to live in harmony with nature…to save mankind and unite the people of earth through love and kindness.”

This is a pretty vague mission, compared to either her Golden Age one or the World’s Finest’s missions in their companion books, but that Cosentino opts for it is perhaps telling: Maybe this is as urgent as a modern day, timeless version of the Wonder Woman story can get…?

Also of note is the fact that Cosentino does away with the strange sci-fi fantasy trappings of the original Amazon society as presented by Marston and artist H.G. Peter, and the buildings, fashions and technology all seem perfectly in line with ancient Greece (um, except the invisible jet). The Amazons ride horses instead of kangas, and play arrows and bracelets instead of bullets and bracelets.

Cosentino uses the golden eagle version of the costume, and gives her shorts instead of panties. She also has a secret identity, Diana Prince, who is identified as “an ambassador in Washington, D.C.” (From Paradise Island? It doesn’t say) and she gets a spinning, lasso-derived transformation sequence.

The villain sequence includes Ares, given a pretty cool, Greek warrior-by-way-of hot rod costume, Silver Swan, Cheetah (Perez’s were-cheetah version) and Circe who, like Diana, is drawn with vase-like features.

So is this a Wonder Woman that work? Well, it doesn’t not work, which makes it a better take on the character than many others.

Batgirl #17

Welcome to a long holiday weekend (at least here in the United States) edition of What Are You Reading? Today our special guest is Doug Zawisza, who writes reviews and the occasional article for Comic Book Resources.

To see what Doug and the Robot 6 gang are reading, click below.

*****

Brigid Alverson

Pooches of Power!

I’m overwhelmed by cuteness right now! Capstone Press, which is a publisher I mainly associate with the library and school market, is launching a line of DC Super Pets chapter books, illustrated by Art Baltazar of Tiny Titans fame. I picked up Pooches of Power!, in which Ace the Bat-Hound and Krypto the Super-Dog team up to thwart a gang of sardine-stealing birds working under the aegis of The Penguin, and I have to say I enjoyed it. Despite being an early reader, it had a fairly complicated plot and plenty of interesting characters. I can see a lot of comics fans reading this story with their kids, but it’s also accessible enough that a child who had never heard of Batman before could enjoy it.

So, to bring my blood sugar levels down a bit, I read the first volume of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead. Yes, I know it’s been around forever, but I hate zombies so I never felt the urge to pick it up. Of course, I quickly realized what everyone else already knew, that this is far more than a zombie story; it’s one of those comics in which, in the immortal words of Pogo, “We have met the enemy and it is us.” In some ways, it’s a very familiar and typically American story — people thrust out of normal society (and away from the government) and forced to live by their wits, supplemented with plenty of guns. Kirkman makes it interesting even to zombie-haters like me with a varied cast of characters and some interesting interpersonal dynamics. By the end of the first volume, I knew I would be signing up for the duration.

Sean T. Collins

I’ll tell you what — if you ever wanna feel good about comics, spend a few days cramming with nearly every title you heard positive things about at the end of the year. Click the links for full reviews!

The Incredibly Fantastic Adventures of Maureen Dowd: A Work of Satire and Fiction by Benjamin Marra (Traditional Comics): In addition to being Marra what he does best — sex and violence in ’80s-trash fashion — this is a killer satire of one of America’s most satirizable pundits.

Crickets #3 by Sammy Harkham (self-published): As rock-solid a showcase of alternative comics as you’re likely to find, centered on a story about life as a low-level hack in Roger Corman’s ’60s/’70s movie factory.

Powr Mastrs Vol. 3 by CF (PictureBox): Kinky, funny, focused alt-SF/F. The artist also known as Christopher Forgues is doing something special in this series.

Mould Map #1

Mould Map #1 by various artists, edited by Hugh Frost and Leon Sadler (Landfill Editions): Each artist in this giant-sized artcomix anthology gets one page to tell a sci-fi story; in many cases this leads to stuff that’s more sci-fi tone poem than actual tale, and the material’s the better for it. It’s a British import, but American readers will recognize and welcome work from CF, Aidan Koch, and Matthew Thurber.

Bodyworld by Dash Shaw (Pantheon): Given the hubbub about how the webcomic version of this near-future sci-fi comedy was pushing that medium’s envelope, I was surprised by just how straightforward and focused it was. Strong character work, too, in an indie-comedy vein.

Map of My Heart by John Porcellino (Drawn & Quarterly): This collection of strips and prose from Porcellino’s seminal King-Cat Comics and Stories minicomic series is pulled mostly from around the turn of the millennium and tracks an ever more impressive refinement of the artist’s minimalist style and frequently melancholy subject matter.

Carla Hoffman

Daredevil: Reborn #1, by Jock

Okay, WAYR, you’re part of my New Year’s Resolutions too, so let’s get to it! I read Daredevil Reborn #1 because I am supposed to. Daredevil is a popular character and if you don’t know where he’s going, you can’t relate that info to customers looking to see where ‘that guy Ben Affleck played that one time’ is. After Shadowland, I was personally just done with Matt Murdock and whatever terrible thing he was going to do to himself this time, but I’m happy to report that Daredevil Reborn #1 is really good. This is exactly what Daredevil needs as far as character tune-up and this exactly feels like what Andy Diggle wanted to write about. The artwork has a hard line, empty feeling to it, where characters look rough and in the middle of nowhere, the perfect canvas for this little expedition to find himself. I’ll admit that I wasn’t surprised by Daredevil stopping at a mean, middle-of-nowhere locale for trouble he whines about not wanting in an internal monologue, but I love the pacing, the artwork and the art in the storytelling and -most importantly- I believe this is all going somewhere. Diggle isn’t just going to give us this same sad Daredevil story we’ve been reading for years, he’s going for change and I can believe that after this issue.

I also read Incredible Hulks #620 in an act of masochism. Don’t get me wrong, it’s well written, it’s just not what I want to read. Me and the Hulk books have had a strained relationship since I want them to be a man’s internal struggle with the monster inside, and they want to be a team book of heavy hitters with some inference to previous stories. I know, women always want to change the men we love, and I want the Hulk books to be more like when we met. I don’t like their new haircut and hip attitude that’s making them all popular. It’s worse too, because this issue mentions the Devil Hulk and boy howdy, I love the Devil Hulk from Paul Jenkin’s run on the book. It has Jarella too, plus Glan Talbot, Marlo Jones, two Abominations, Doctor Strange, Skaar and Korg and Hiroim and possibly the kitchen sink in a background cameo. Like I said, the story was good, but it doesn’t feel like the Hulk I fell in love with.

Man I relate to Betty Banner more and more each day….

Last but not least I read Infinite Vacation #1 (Resolution #3!) because the cover looked interesting and a quick flip through looked weird enough for me. Other people will describe what happens inside the book better than I will, but suffice it to say that buying time to live your alter-selves’ lives in parallel universes with an app on your phone is rad. They don’t hold your hand through the idea, they just jump you right in with David Mackian artwork and smart and clever narratives. Do you like Cory Doctorow? Sure, we all do! Do you miss ‘hard sci-fi’ set in the real world and the idea that New Media could sell us on anything? How about a book that you’ll have to read a couple times to really understand? Infinite Vacation #1 is all of these and more. I think this is what all the cool indie kids will be talking about this week.

Chris Mautner

Networked

Networked: Carabella on the Run by Gerard Jones and Mark Badger — This is a unnecessarily convoluted story about a blue-skinned girl from another dimension who comes to our universe only to have the totalitarian regime from her world attempt to follow over to take over the Earth. The real purpose of the book is to warn everyone about the dangers of social networking and how the government can use stuff like Facebook and Twitter to monitor everything you do, etc. Considering the real dangers involved in sites like those — i.e. stalking, harassment, bullying, sexting — making grandiose arguments about how THE MAN is going to use FourSquare to create a one-world Orwellian state seems not only far-fetched, but a trifle irresponsible. Still, it’s always nice to see Mark Badger’s art.

Elephant Man by Greg Houston — Fitfully amusing superhero parody that dares to say what if Jon Merrick fought crime. A lot of the problems that plagued Houston’s last book — Vatican Hustle — plague this book: It’s a bit too wordy, it’s a bit too self-aware and a bit too in love with how “zany” it is. Still, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t laugh several times and the plot is a lot tighter than Hustle‘s. For those who don’t get easily offended and don’t mind yet another collection of smart-ass jokes about superheroes, Elephant Man will suit you fine.

Rat Catcher by Andy Diggle and Victor Ibanez — This is the latest book in Vertigo’s Crime imprint, about a double-agent in the FBI who goes around killing mob informants and another agent who attempts to go after him. The book plays around with the two characters’ identities to keep you guessing as to who’s who, but it’s pretty obvious from the outset. More to the point, the book’s very plot-heavy, to the point where there’s really no room for characterization. It moves speedily enough that fans of the genre probably won’t mind too much, but it comes up short when compared to more notable recent crime comics like Criminal or 100 Bullets.

Tim O’Shea

Superman #707

Used to be I believed the closest I would get to Mark Waid writing Superman was Waid on Irredeemable. But if Chris Roberson remains as strong as he is on this first issue of his Superman run ([#707]/part five of this JMS-initiated Grounded storyline), this is the closest we can get to Waid. I’m often nervous when a writer shares that he’s been a fan of a character since childhood (as Roberson has said of Superman), but I was pleasantly surprised to see Roberson’s healthy knowledge of Superman is something that he wields in a reasonable, while engaging fashion.

So, this week the final Thor: The Mighty Avenger came out and was as strong as the other seven issues. And I’m still waiting to hear from Marvel when writer Roger Langridge and artist Chris Samnee have their next ongoing or limited series is scheduled. Those two need to work together again on more than just Free Comic Book Day material.

Bryan Miller concocts the finest Damian Wayne scene to date in Batgirl #17, as he is forced to go undercover as a grade school student on a field trip.

Doug Zawisza

For the past half-decade I start every year with the same resolutions: lose weight, eat better, read more. Every year, I fail at all three. I decided to bring those resolutions back again this year, and I’m trying, I really am, to knock them down this year. I’m sure most of you are familiar with similar resolutions, but the read more resolution is one that I try to apply to things outside of comics.

I’m the father of three very bright girls, all of whom love reading. My wife is a kindergarten teacher, so there’s never really a shortage of reading material in our house. As a matter of fact, there’s usually too much. Everyone’s reading two or three things, here, there, or wherever. I’ve always had multiple reading options open at all times, and right now is no different.

Secret Zoo

The Secret Zoo by Bryan Chick is a book that I happened across while researching an idea that’s been baking in my brain for longer than I care to think about. As a father of three voracious readers, I’m always trying to help them find new worlds. This is one world I’m glad we’ve found. My oldest and youngest haven’t had a chance at this book yet, but my ten-year-old and I have been enjoying it immensely. It’s the story about a boy who is looking for his missing sister, Megan. Noah Nowicki finds clues that tie his sister’s, disappearance to the Clarksville City Zoo. Most of those clues come to Noah via the animals AT the zoo. Chick delivers a story that is filled with adventure, child-like enthusiasm, and unbridled hope.

Chick has stated that he has a target audience of 9-12-years-old, but I’m enjoying it nonetheless. It’s a smart read that holds a great deal of potential beyond this book. Chick has planned the series to run over ten volumes, with the second set to be released on Feb. 1.

Skippyjon Jones came home with my wife. As I’ve already mentioned, she’s a kindergarten teacher and has her students bring in their favorite books to share. How my children made it past kindergarten without partaking in the free-wheeling, madcap imagination of Skippyjon is beyond me. Judy Schachner delivers the story of this creative young kitty who imagines himself as a Chihuahua and dreams up adventures for his “pack” of Chihuahuas (who are really stuffed animals in his closet). It’s zany fun that even my 13-year-old gets a good laugh at.

After the kids go to bed and when the wife tunes in to her shows, I find myself with some spare time to flip some pages, so I do. This week the highlight of my comic stack was Batgirl, a book I’ve been enjoying since issue #1. Issue #17 features a team-up between current Batgirl (Stephanie Brown) and Robin (Damian Wayne) in a story that Bryan Q. Miller delivers with equal parts humor, adventure and character. The team-up is driven by Batgirl’s first official Batman Inc. assignment. It’s definitely the lightest of the Bat-books, but strong enough to leave you wanting to read more in a hurry.

Superheroes, Strip Artists, & Talking Animals

I’m also making my way through the anecdote-laden Superheroes, Strip Artists, & Talking Animals book by Britt Aamodt. Published by the Minnesota Historical Society, this book covers Minnesota’s Contemporary Cartoonists. It doesn’t limit itself to just mainstream comic books (and thereby the work of luminaries such as Dan Jurgens, Peter Gross, Doug Mahnke, and Pat Gleason) it also looks at the comic strip artists that call the North Star State home. Aamodt does a nice job of letting each artist – mainstream, independent, or comic strip – have a few pages of glory, including more than one sample from most of the artists. It’s a black-and-white book, but the art reprinted here translates well to grayscale life. The book itself has the heft of one of TwoMorrows’ Companion books, and the quality of the material within is pretty darn close to TwoMorrows’ standards.

The last thing I’m reading is on my iPod touch. I haven’t committed to a Kindle, iPad or other such reader device yet, but I have decided to experiment with the apps and my Touch. I’m reading The Inner Circle by Brad Meltzer. The book just hit the stands (digital and deadwood) on Tuesday past, but I’ve been able to bust out the iPod Touch while waiting for kids at dance or swim, or heating up my lunch at work. This has given me the chance to pack an extra seven chapters of reading into a week that wouldn’t normally allow such an extracurricular activity. The book is standard-fare from Meltzer, playing close to his Decoded show while investigating the National Archives in more detail. Beecher White is an archivist who happens upon a secret that may or may not be tied to the President of the United States of America. From there, assumptions are made, conclusions are jumped to, and adventure busts forth. As he has done in previous prose works, Meltzer peppers the story with comic book-related winks and nods. It’s a page-turner at this point, and I’ve found myself unlocking the Touch to read one more page quite frequently.

As for what’s waiting for me next, well, I just checked out Ed Brubaker’s Rise and Fall of the Shi’Ar Empire from the library. I haven’t done much X-Men reading in the past few years, so I’m looking forward to an interstellar adventure with Nightcrawler, Havok, Polaris, Marvel Girl and Warpath. That will be waiting nicely over to the side as I finish one of these other books.

Borders

Retailing | Troubles continue for Borders Group as the retailer filed notice Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission that Executive Vice President Thomas D. Carney and Chief Information Officer D. Scott Laverty have resigned. Just last week Borders, the country’s second-largest bookstore chain, announced it’s delaying payments to some publishers as it attempts to restructure its credit lines. [GalleyCat]

Passings | Longtime retailer Carl Tupper, who owned BSI Comics in Metairie, Louisiana, for 30 years, passed away on Dec. 29. He was 70 years old. [BSI Comics, ICv2.com]

Libraries | Four of the top five young-adult titles checked out from the New York Public Library in 2010 were manga: Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto, Tite Kubo’s Bleach, Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece, and Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball Z. Jennifer Holm’s graphic novel Babymouse and Jeff Kinney’s comics-prose hybrid Diary of a Wimpy Kid were the top two children’s titles. [NYPL Wire]

Organizations | Child’s Play, the charity founded in 2003 by Penny Arcade creators Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, raised $2,294,317.53 in donations in 2010, setting a record for the organization, which provides toys and video games to hospitals worldwide. [Gamasutra]

Death Note Black Edition, Vol. 1

Publishing | Deb Aoki looks ahead to 82 new manga series and one-shots set to debut this year. [About.com]

Conventions | Jessica Testa previews the first Amazing Arizona Comic Convention, which will be held Saturday and Sunday at the Mesa Convention Center in Mesa, Arizona. Guests include Robert Kirkman, Rob Liefeld, Jeph Loeb, Joe Benitez, John Layman, Ryan Ottley, Cory Walker, and cast members from The Walking Dead. [The Arizona Republic]

Creators | Tom Spurgeon continues his holiday interview series with writer Kelly Sue DeConnick: “Every story is absolutely perfect when it only lives in my head. I’m confident, I have all kinds of ideas, snippets of dialogue, etc. — it’s like a high almost. And then… I have to start writing it down. And once those ideas meet the real world and I can examine them from even the distance of my eyes to the page… well, that’s when it becomes clear that I’m not a genius after all.” [The Comics Reporter]

Creators | Writer Ruthie Kott relates a humorous story told to her by Paul Hornschemeier. [Gapers Block]

Webcomics | Todd Allen and Scott Beaderstadt’s comic Division and Rush has moved from the ChicagoNow website to its own domain. [Division and Rush]

Crooked Hills

A few days ago I posted a teaser for a new Cullen Bunn project coming from Evileye … and now Cullen has revealed more details about it on his blog. Crooked Hills is a new series of prose books for kids that “blends mystery and adventure to weave a fun an unforgettable story of will, friendship and family bonds,” according to the press release.

“Crooked Hills, Missouri, is a combination of many of the small towns in which I grew up,” Bunn said, “from Newton Grove, North Carolina, to Thayer, Missouri. (Thayer in particular helped to form a template for Crooked Hills.) Those towns were rich with interesting people and even more interesting urban legends and ghost stories. With CROOKED HILLS, I imagined sitting in the heart of a dark forest around a campfire, telling kids those kinds of spine-tingling ghost stories. So it seemed to me that having a witch come back to life to kidnap kids and be eaten by a hell hound would scare the living daylights out of almost anybody. But in that nightmare, I also saw a chance to explore what happens when kids face their fears; to overcome them can be incredibly liberating and empowering.”

And as someone pointed out in the comments section of the teaser image, the promo artwork is indeed by Bunn’s The Sixth Gun co-conspirator Brain Hurtt.

Modesty Blaise

Passings | Writer Peter O’Donnell, creator of the Modesty Blaise comic strip, died May 3 at age 90.  Steve Holland notes that although the prolific novelist suffered from Parkinson’s disease, he “kept in touch with fans and continued to pen introductions for Titan’s Modesty reprints.”

Born in south London on April 11, 1920, O’Donnell wrote such adventure strips as the long-running adaptation of the James Bond novel Dr. No, Garth, and Romeo Brown before being asked in 1962 to create a new character for the Daily Express. He came up with Modesty Blaise, whose catsuit-wearing heroine fought villainy with the help of her right-hand man Willie Garvin. The strip was quickly picked up by the Evening Standard, and ran from May 1963 to July 2002.

O’Donnell also wrote a series of Modesty Blaise novels and, under the pen name of Madeleine Brent, several historical romances. [Bleeding Cool, Guardian, Times Online]

Zuda Comics

Publishing | Webcomics commentator Mike Perridge considers what form a retooled Zuda Comics might take. [mpd57]

Publishing | Marvel has signed separate deals to launch a children’s books line at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers and to expand its partnership with Bendon Publishing. [Publishers Weekly]

Awards | A look at the Eisner Awards nominees for best continuing series. [Suvudu]

Creators | A spotlight on, and video interview with, artist Alex Ross. [Chicago Now]

Berkeley Breathed

Creators | Sam Thielman chats with Berkeley Breathed about IDW’s Bloom County: The Complete Library, fans and the controversy surrounding his 1987 Pulitzer Prize: “It was really spearheaded by this guy Pat Oliphant. He did not like me, he was sure that I had stolen the penguin from him — that little character down by his signature is a penguin, apparently. It was a cover story in the Washington Journalism Review. I took it lightly, but I should have gone over and punched him in the face. In their minds, you don’t win a Pulitzer unless you’re cutting heads off. Now it’s no longer called editorial cartooning — it’s called cartooning, which is what it should be called.” [Publishers Weekly]

Creators | Daniel Clowes talks about his latest book, Wilson, and where the name comes from: “I wanted a very bland name, the type of comic strip name you’d see in a ’50s or ’60s comic strip that has no distinguishing characteristic at all. Of course, there’s Mr. Wilson, who lives next door to Dennis the Menace. There are lots of people with the last name Wilson, it’s probably like the eighth most common name in America, something like that. It’s not as obvious as Smith, but I wanted it to seem generic, I wanted him to seem in some way like he’s a comic character. You don’t even know if it’s his first or last name because I changed my mind about that so much that I decided it’s just a single name, like Cher.” [Gothamist]

Dash Shaw

Creators | Lauren Helman talks with Dash Shaw about BodyWorld, process and the future of comics: “Right now in bookstores, all of the comics are grouped together: the reprints are right next to the contemporary comics, next to Marvel and DC, next to a nonfiction comic, etc. It’s as if you went into the book store and everything, all of it, was organized alphabetically. So I think what’ll happen in comics is that it’ll become more like other books, in that a Web cartoonist doesn’t necessarily read print comics, in the same way that some romance author doesn’t necessarily read the latest science fiction works. That’s already happening. But that’s unusual in comics. It’s usually been a small community. But, at the same time, I think there will be people who are viewing everything as a whole. So someone will like Robert Crumb, Otto Soglow, and Suehiro Maruo and then make comics that they’d want to read. Everything will move farther apart and also come closer together at the same time.” [Suvudu]

Art by Faith Erin Hicks

Creators | The National Post rolls out more Q&As with creators attending this weekend’s Toronto Comic Arts Festival: Leslie Fairfield; Clayton Hanmer; Tara Tallan; Diana Tamblyn; Dalton Sharp; Jason Kieffer; Sam Logan; Adam Bourret; Faith Erin Hicks; Ethan Rilly; Hyein Lee; Will Dinski; and Rachel Dukes. [Toronto Comics Art Festival]

Creators | Cullen Bunn continues his  interview tour in support of The Sixth Gun, his new supernatural Western (with artist Brian Hurtt) from Oni Press. [Comic Monsters]

Creators | Brian Heater wraps up a three-part interview with Jamie Tanner and Robin Enrico, and kicks off a four-part Q&A with Ben Snakepit. [The Daily Cross Hatch]

Eldritch

Creators | David Harper talks with Aaron Alexovich and Drew Rausch, the team behind Eldritch, Zuda’s winning entry for April. [Multiversity Comics]

Creators | Sword of Dracula and Psy-Comm writer Jason Henderson discusses his new young-adult prose novel Alex Van Helsing: Vampire Rising. [KansasCity.com]

Comics | Yesterday saw a list of the richest characters in superhero comics, so it’s only fitting that today there’s a rundown of the poorest characters. [Comic Vine]

Comics | Kevin Guhl counts down the 10 best deaths of Spider-Man from Marvel’s What If …? series. [Topless Robot]

C2E2

Conventions | The inaugural Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo drew an estimated 27,500 unique attendees, slightly less than the 30,000 expected. “We felt it was an excellent launch,” Lance Fensterman, Reed Exhibitions vice president, told ICv2.com. “For the last year this show has been a theory. For the last three days people have been able to walk around and experience what the event, the concept, and the community are about, and now we can grow from here.” Christopher Borelli, Brent DiCrescenzo and Heidi MacDonald file wrap-ups from the show. [C2E2]

Publishing | According to ICv2′s annual white paper, presented during the Diamond Retailer Summit at C2E2, sales of comics and graphic novels in the United States and Canada fell 5 percent last year as the total market declined from an estimated $715 million in 2008 to $680 million in 2009. In the book channel, manga sales dropped by more than 20 percent, while sales of kids and young-adult graphic novels jumped by more than 50 percent. [ICv2.com]

Diamond Book Distributors

Publishing | Checker’s Mark Thompson has released a lengthy, and scathing, open letter detailing the grievances against Diamond and CEO Steve Geppi that led the publisher last month to cut ties with the distributor: “The total lack of transparency of Diamond’s internal financials in this economy is tantamount to Russian roulette. Financial bravado alone does not cut it anymore. These publicly filed and successful lawsuits against Diamond ownership and smatterings of financial information discussed with Diamond led us to believe that there are going to be substantial hurdles for Diamond going forward. We believe insurmountable hurdles in a climate of already conservative lending and spending. Checker could not justify continuing with Diamond to anyone with which we have a business relationship.” [press release, via Journalista]

Digital comics | Apple CEO Steve Jobs has admitted the company made a mistake when it rejected an iPhone app from political cartoonist Mark Fiore, who last week won a Pulitzer Prize. Apple invited Fiore to re-submit the app. [Media Decoder, Media Decoder, Comic Riffs]

Wizard World Anaheim

Conventions | Annie Burris and Michael Worthan report from Wizard World Anaheim Comic Con. [Wizard World Anaheim]

Awards | Callie Miller eyes the finalists in the graphic novel category of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Winners will be announced on Friday. [LAist]

History | An art historian unravels the mystery of a Superman painting that hangs in the library of Lehman College in New York: It turns out the painting, by H.J. Ward, is the first official portrait of the Man of Steel, commissioned to promote the Superman radio show. It had long adorned the office of Harry Donenfeld, owner of National Allied Publications (aka DC Comics), but disappeared after his retirement in 1957. [City Room]

Education | The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in Dover, New Jersey, get the spotlight. [The Record]

Comics | A look at pop stars who dip their toes into the comic-book pool. [Financial Times]

Comics | A woman who has “never really gotten into comic books” discovers Marvel’s Pride & Prejudice adaptation. [Chip and Co.]

It Was the War of the Trenches

Peter Richardson discusses why World War I did not capture creators’ imaginations the way other wars have, and he accompanies his discussion with a beautiful counterexample, a sample from Jacques Tardi’s It Was the War of the Trenches, upcoming from Fantagraphics next month. (via Journalista)

Craig Fischer has a decidedly mixed review of The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion, but then halfway through he goes roaring off into a digression on one of Hal Foster’s possible influences, Olive Beaupre Miller’s series of children’s books titled My Bookhouse. For good measure, someone just sent Ben Towle a set. (I had these as a kid, and they are lovely.) For more about Foster, see Ng Suat Tong’s recent post at The Hooded Utilitarian.

Tom Crippen, who is no Sarah Palin fan, cries foul nonetheless on Oliphant’s cartoon showing her postcoital encounter with a moose, pointing out that it probably reveals more about Oliphant than Palin.

Vom Marlowe reviews vol. 1 of Song of the Hanging Sky, a lovely manga with a quirky plot and a few perplexing translation problems.
Brian Heater thinks Jason’s Almost Silent is a good choice for graphic novel newbies.

Frank Santoro reviews Gipi’s Garage Band at Comics Comics.

Also at Comics Comics: Jeet Heer posts some loosely related notes on John Stanley.

Larry Cruz explains why video game webcomics are a good thing at The Webcomic Overlook.

Sean Gaffney reviews D&Q’s latest Yoshihio Tatsumi release, Black Blizzard.

The Sword, Vol. 3

Is the El Nino winter getting you down? Cheer up my friend, I’ve got just the thing. Namely, another round of What Are You Reading. I bet you’re feeling better already.

Our special guest this week is the lovely and talented Nina Stone, wife of Tucker Stone, who can frequently be found dipping her toe into the comical book waters over at  The Factual Opinion, via her regular weekly column Romancing the Stone (formerly known as the Virgin Read).

To find out what Nina and the rest of the R6 crew is reading, click on the link below. But first, put on a sweater. You look cold.

Doomwar #1

Sean T. Collins: This week I read and reviewed three comics that just wanna entertain you:

Doomwar #1, by Jonathan Maberry & Scot Eaton: The start of a mini-event starring my favorite Marvel villain. Will it live up to the bad Doctor’s inherent awesomeness?

Batman & Robin #9, by Grant Morrison & Cameron Stewart: The final Stewart issue of Morrison’s Dynamic Duo ongoing is pretty much a master class in fight choreography, and in making the ever-growing army of Bat-people interesting in and of themselves.

Naoki Urasawa’s Monster Vols. 1-3, by Naoki Urasawa (duh): A thriller with the addictive power of crack, with heaping helpings of schmaltz on the one hand and very specific and interesting political subtext on the other. Fifteen more volumes to go!

Marvel's Blade Runner

Matt Maxwell: BREAKING THE MAYA CODE
Documentary on the history of breaking and subsequent resurrecting of Mayan as a living language. Pretty fascinating stuff. I mean, how do you take indecipherable ruins of a civilization that was dead nearly a thousand years before it was found and breathe life into them? How does a language going from being just a fossilized skeleton to being taught in schools fifteen hundred years after its death? There’s even some moments of true horror (the burning of hundreds of ancient Maya texts by a zealous Franciscan friar–utterly lost forever, but for *five* books that had been found in other locations) for those of you into that sort of thing.

MARVEL MOVIE SPECIAL: BLADE RUNNER
Archie Goodwin, Al Williamson and others, Steranko Covers.
Al Williamson draws BLADE RUNNER. Geez, what more do you need? Found it for a couple bucks awhile back, and you should do the same. Nothing will replicate the atmosphere and texture of the film (no matter how many have tried to do so) ‘cept maybe William Gibson’s prose, so don’t expect an exact recreation. However, what you can expect is one of the great comic artists drawing little instants from the film, which is just fine by me. Check your local bargain bins (and dig the special ‘behind the scenes’ feature in the back, complete with photo reproduction technology that makes me ten years old again.)

Hellboy Vol. 5: Conqueror Worm

Chris Mautner: Hellboy: Conqueror Worm by Mike Mignola — Still on my Hellboy quest. Still mightily impressed with how Mignola is able to keep several secondary story threads going while maintaining a moody, slam-bang thriller. Great stuff.

Phoenix Vol. 12 by Osamu Tezuka — This is the final volume in the Phoenix series, but isn’t part of the main series. No, this is a collection of interlocking tales Tezuka did back in the ’50s for a much younger audience, concerning a pair of star-crossed lovers who, with the help of the Phoneix and some cute and cuddly animal friends, find themselves battling it out for true love’s sake in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. Despite the battle scenes and occasional death, it’s a much lighter and fluffier tale than most of Tezuka’s work that’s been translated in the U.S. so far, and betrays a lot more of Disney’s influence than, say, Ode to Kirihito. Still, it’s a fun, engaging affair, full of slapstick and daring adventures.

Also still plodding along through Vol. 5 of the Comics Journal Library. Last night I finished the Russ Manning interview. Manning strikes me as a rather insightful, smart artist, one with a keen understanding of what makes comics, or at least the type of adventure comics he was doing at the time work. You can sense in his interview with Arn Saba a desire to see the medium live up to what her perceived as its true potential. It’s a shame he didn’t live to see that happen. I suspect he would have been surprised, but delighted.

Batman and Robin #9

Tim O’Shea: Batman and Robin 9: What Sean T. Collins wrote, but imagine it with more mono-syllabic words in my version. Seriously, I was ragging on the first two legs of this three parter, but Morrison kind of deflates most criticism I had in this resolution leg. Cameron Stewart draws stories that brings a smile to my face.

Justice Society of America 36: In continuing to buy this series, I keep telling myself it will get better. I am wrong. The series does not seem to enter the radar of new DC exec Geoff Johns. Why do I say that? Well even though in The Flash Rebirth miniseries, Jesse Chambers has re-assumed the Jesse Quick mantle, she still maintains the Liberty Belle identity in JSA. Could the right hand please talk to the left hand on these matters, please? Also, in the year 2010, is it still necessary to utilize villains that sport the swastika? Maybe Marvel’s Red Skull still wears swastika shorts, but his evil seems a bit more present day than JSA’s current lead bad guy, Captain (sigh…really?) Nazi.

The Flash Rebirth 6: I really hope Johns further explores one panel in the final installment of this much delayed pivotal miniseries (I really hope it was not a tossaway cutesy bit on the writer’s part). No surprise: Zoom loses. In the aftermath, Barry Allen returns to his job in the crime lab–and is shown a room full of cold cases “we couldn’t solve while you were away”. Allen replies: “Consider them mine.”

Fantastic Four 576: I really appreciate Jonathan Hickman’s approach to Sue Richards. She comes across as a nonprofit CEO running a think tank with her genius husband left to tinker in his lab. Eaglesham continues to show his penchant for working Johnny and Ben comedy into any scene he can. (Geek aside–on midpanel page 4, does the artist reveal that Ben even has a rock tongue? That’s an unexpected/unexplored detail, I don’t think ever addressed by past artists). Kudos to both storytellers for tackling a tale that is bereft of any dialogue for almost 12 pages.

Irredeemable 11: Tony goes to visit a foster family that dumped him back in the system, but not until he’d left a lifelong impression on them. As Mark Waid reveals the trail the Plutonian left behind him almost since birth, it seems to be he didn’t just become evil in a flash, but merely learned to hide his true nature from most people. I hope Peter Krause will be back on drawing full issues with issue 12 (he only drew half of issue 11).

Smile

Brigid Alverson: Well, everyone else is doing it, so I picked up Raina Telgemeier’s Smile this week. I really liked it for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that she so convincingly recreates the world of a middle-schooler. Every detail rings true. I love her easygoing style, and the comic really comes to life now that it’s in color. This book has a
really timeless feel, and it’s destined to be a classic.

Equally convincing, but much more disturbing, is Swallow Me Whole, Nate Powell’s tale of teenage schizophrenia. I had a hard time reading this book, partly because I really identified with the mother in the story — I have teenagers myself, and while thankfully, they are pretty normal, a lot of the situations, including caring for a sick parent, hit home. This is far from light reading, and sometimes it felt like chunks of the story were missing, but Powell’s art is amazing, not only his depictions of hallucinations but the way every panel carries the mood and emotions of the characters.

City of Spies is brand-new, but it feels like a real classic comic. Set in the 1940s, it features a poor little rich girl, Evelyn, who goes to live in the big city with her bohemian-artist aunt. She pals up with the son of her building’s super, and the two of them go hunting for German spies—and actually find one. Interspersed in the narrative are pages of Evelyn’s own comic, a superhero tale featuring the people around her. It’s clever and very nicely drawn, with both a palette and a drawing style that fit right in with the period.

On Chesil Beach

Nina Stone: What AM I reading? I ask myself this question often, usually as I run hastily out the door in the morning to the subway. Running around to try and find something to read on the train can be tricky because one wants a book that’s relatively lightweight and/or small — you don’t want your whole “bag situation” thrown off by your reading choice. But then, of course, you want something good, too. Something that will grab me, that I will get immersed enough so as not to care about the smelly homeless woman who traipses back and forth between my subway car and the next. It’s gotta fit, and it’s gotta be functional.

I’m reading the perfect book for that situation right now. Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach. I am a huge McEwan fan. And I’m surprised that I am. I always thought myself to be more of a “relationship book” kind of person. And I’m embarrassed to admit that because of that, at one brief, crazy point I was only reading Oprah picks. Funny story, actually. On our second date, my now husband had me meet him on the top floor of the Barnes & Nobel in Union Square and told me that we each had 20 minutes to pick a book for the other person. We couldn’t talk about it or discuss it. We had to pick the book, go and pay for it, and then exchange books later. It was totally romantic, as he picked God Shaped Hole for me. (A book in which the couple do this exact same game except that it’s in a record store. It was a scam, but it was an obvious one, which I found endearing.) However, I was in a cold sweat. It was only our second date, and I was so embarrassed by what my book choice might say about me. And all I could think of to keep picking was, like, Wally Lamb’s I Know This Much is True, and I could tell he’d hate that. Or at least make fun of me for it. Honestly, I thought that the book I picked, if it reflected too poorly on me, could have been a deal breaker. I picked some book about scholars and drinking or something. And when he realized that I hadn’t read it he was like, “Wait – the point was to pick something that you’d read and liked!” What’s my point? My embarrassment about my usual picks for myself. Not so much anymore, but for a while, yep.

Cinderella #4

When I first read McEwan’s Enduring Love, I was so riveted by it that I went out and bought everything I could by him. He’s so good at that succinct kind of prose that cuts right to the chase, and he tells simple stories — usually with some ingenuous, crazy twist, that – and oh yeah, his books are relatively small, and lightweight. (Making them perfect train reads. The only downfall of the train read is that, well, you must stop reading when you get off the train, and I’m only about half way through. But loving it!)

On the comics front, I’m about to plunge into the third volume of The Sword. If you have read anything I’ve written recently at TFO, you’ll know that The Sword and I have been seeing quite a bit of each other lately. I thought things were going to cool off … but I’m pretty excited about it. I’ve also got Cinderella Number 4 here. I read the first 3 issues, and thought I’d lost interest. But just the other day found myself wondering what was happening in that story. Turns out the fourth issue had come out a few weeks ago, so how about that?

And then of course, I spend a good portion of my day reading children’s books, to children. So here’s a big shout out to Mo Willems’ Knuffle Bunny. An absolutely adorable tale that both children and parents completely relate to when reading and are entertained by again and again. And of course, I love screaming “Aggle Flaggle Klabble! Wumpy Flabby! Snurp?!” But who wouldn’t?

Mr. Kick-Ass and Little Miss Hit, by Steven Anderson

Artist Steven Anderson depicts characters from Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.’s Kick-Ass in the style of children’s book illustrator Roger Hargreaves (author of the Mr. Men and Little Miss series). Anderson’s Flickr account features similar takes on Red Mist, Wolverine, The Hulk, Nick Fury and numerous other comic-book characters.

(via Super Punch)

Deadman Wonderland Vol. 1

Arriving on your virtual driveway like a big, thick newspaper (remember those?) it’s time once again for What Are You Reading. Our guest this week is Deb Aoki, who runs the excellent Manga About.com site, which, if you have any interest at all in Japanese comics, you really should have that site bookmarked and/or in your RSS feed.

I’m abstaining from participating in this week’s WAYR, as a nasty cold has made it difficult to form coherent sentences. But Deb and the rest of the Robot 6 crew have a veritable boatload of interesting comics to talk about, so be sure to click on the link and see read their comments. Oh, and be sure to share with us what you’re reading in the comments section, OK?

Conquering Sword of Conan

Sean T. Collins: I’m slowly carving my way through the final run of Robert E. Howard Conan stories in the collection The Conquering Sword of Conan. Man are these things good, and so bleak. Every once in a while it creeps out explicitly: “Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.” Or even better, from the earlier collection The Bloody Crown of Conan: “Through his physical revulsion ran the sense of a shattered dream of man’s idolatry, its glittering gold proved slime and cosmic filth. A wave of futility swept over him, a dim fear of the falseness of all men’s dreams and idolatries.” Howard killed himself, of course; sometimes you read these stories and understand.

On a brighter note, I just received Where’s Waldo?: The Complete Collection in the mail from Amazon. There’s a review in me someplace so I won’t talk at length, but I can’t wait to see if the pure joy of Martin Handford’s cartooning in these things that I remember from when I was a kid holds up today — just the thrill of creating a world on paper and filling it with little people and little dramas and adventures. Where’s Waldo? is like My First Fort Thunder.

Brave and the Bold #31

Tim O’Shea: J. Michael Straczynski was smart to take the Brave and Bold gig (or whomever assigned it to him was smart). Once a month he gets to play with whatever DC characters he can think of using. And he’s gone way off the grid with the Atom and the Joker this month. Ray Palmer literally gets in the Joker’s head–for medical reasons. But my favorite moment in the book was the opening page where the doctors seeking Palmer’s help give him a cell phone number, which he cannot transport himself through. So his arrival is delayed until he calls back on the land line. Comedy gold. At least it was for me.

Blackest Night: Starman 81 could only have been better if Tony Harris had done more than just the cover. I really could care less about the whole “Hope, Anger, Fear, Love, Grumpy, Dopey, Gassey” narrative that comes along with these Blackest Night stories. I mean am the only person that thinks in two years we won’t wince at the goofiness of these characters brought back from the dead (that aren’t really the characters) but that see everyone as knockoffs of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The appeal for this issue had nothing to do with the Black Lanterns, what got me was James Robinson writing the O’Dare family again–and Shade. Robinson can dabble in the Superman universe all he wants, but his strongest voice and passion remains in Opal City. There’s rumblings that Robinson might be open to doing more with Shade — and I hope the sales on this issue warrant him exploring that instinct further.

Y’know if DC can have a pulp series of books and those red circle comics, I think they need to make room for a humor line. No I’m not asking to bring back Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis’ comics, but maybe find some more titles in the vein of Power Girl. Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner have achieved the right mixture of adventure and comedy with this series. The key to the comedy’ success is Conner’s art. This issue wraps up the Vartox storyline and fortunately the writers give the guest character a little more depth and a little less comedy in this issue. There’s still plenty of yucks, rest assured. I also appreciate how the creators works relatively normal interactions with civilians into this series. It hearkens slightly back to Johns’ approach to Flash a number of years ago.

I want to see Grant Morrison do more stories like Joe the Barbarian. It may be his level of creative ambition is exactly the same in his DC superhero work as it is with this Vertigo work, but he’s trying too hard in the former case. At least that’s how it feels after reading the first issue of his collaboration with artist Sean Murphy. Clearly I come in with a slight bias, having seen some advance art and having interviewed Murphy, but damn if this art is not staggering. Hell, before the hallucinations began I was just in awe of Joe’s bedroom.

I’m not sure how Jeff Parker has done it, but even though the Agents of Atlas ongoing has come to an end, they are everywhere this month. They appear in a back-up in Incredible Hercules, start a four-issue miniseries versus the Avengers and feature prominently in the Thunderbolts. And yet I’m not sick of them yet. Even better, when I think about it, each story entertained me. But I’m unsure when the Agents or Parker ever sleeps.

Marcos Martin draws Amazing Spider-Man 618: Need I say more? Oh Dan Slott constructs a tale where Aunt May finally gets around to telling Peter what a loser he is. No, Slott’s not become a bad writer of Aunt May, you just have to read the story to understand. Its exquisite how Martin uses May’s reaction to a discovery she makes in this issue for a funky layout/reveal opportunity. I’m a sucker for unique layout and Martin’s a master at that. Maybe another artist has done the following before, but I don’t remember it: Martin goes to the trouble of rendering Spidey swinging by skyscrapers and you see both the character as well as his reflection on the building. You have to see it. Martin could draw a Spidey Clone story and I’d buy the damn thing, honestly.

Classic Star Wars Vol. 1

Tom Bondurant: Dark Horse’s first collection of Marvel’s Star Wars comic is currently by my bedside, so this week I read the first post-movie storyline. Written by Roy Thomas (with Don Glut scripting the last issue), co-plotted and pencilled by Howard Chaykin, and inked (in wildly divergent styles) first by Steve Leialoha and then by Tom Palmer, it is an extremely broad homage to Seven Samurai. That’s right, it’s the one with the giant green rabbit and the killer hedgehog; and mostly it’s a framework upon which Thomas and Chaykin can hang very familiar character types. (The villain is a caricature of Sergio Aragones, “Sergei-X Arrogantus.” Aragones had previously been a villain — under his own name, even — in an issue of Bat Lash.) Of course, this is nothing new for Star Wars, considering its own eclectic influences (including Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress). In many ways I think Thomas and Chaykin were parodying SW itself. It was a fun story, and it helped set up the parallel storylines which would drive the book for the next several issues. However, I did spend a lot of time trying to find the original Chaykin under those overpowering inkers….

Speaking of overpowering inkers, on a lark I pulled Justice League of America #155 (June 1978) out of storage. “Under The Moons Of Earth” was written by Gerry Conway, pencilled by Dick Dillin, and inked by Frank McLaughlin. This is another issue from my misspent childhood, and I was glad to see it had aged well. The setup is simple: a second Moon (called “Regnar” by its people) suddenly appears in Earth orbit; and immediately its gravity starts causing all manner of natural disasters. The JLA is quick to respond, and Batman (of course) eventually discovers that the Regnarians are up to no good. I enjoyed this issue because it showed the Leaguers as professionals, calmly and confidently racing around the world to save as many civilians as possible. Both Conway and Dillin were in good form here. Conway gave the Leaguers several nice character moments, including an exchange between Batman and Red Tornado which was just on the good side of hokey; and Dillin used judiciously-placed montages to depict the worldwide destruction and the League’s response. To be sure, this was a 34-page story (back then, JLA was one of DC’s “Giant” books), so they had room to include such things; but I thought it was paced well and told efficiently. The big fight at the end, when Superman, Batman, and Green Lantern defeat the Regnarian army, takes a little over a page. Conway and Dillin had their share of clunkers, but this wasn’t one of them.

A Study in Scarlet

Brigid Alverson: Graphic novel adaptations of classic literature are a dime a dozen, but Sterling Publishing’s version of A Study in Scarlet stands head and shoulders above the rest. I enjoy reading Sherlock Holmes, but I had never read this one, and it was particularly interesting as it is the first in the series — both Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are introduced in this book. I.N.J. Culbard’s art is lively, and the muted colors create a convincing Victorian mood. This is an absolutely beautiful book, with a handsome cover, French flaps, and cream-colored paper, and it’s a great way to experience Sherlock Holmes in a new way.

I also read a much more juvenile mystery this week: the Max Finder Mysteries, published by Owl Kids, a magazine you may remember from grade school. What grabbed my attention about this book is that the art is by Michael Cho, whose work I know from the Transmission X webcomics collective. Max Finder is a sleuth in the mold of Encyclopedia Brown — he knows lots of obscure facts, and he has a smartass female sidekick. The thing that grabbed me is that these mysteries are actually pretty hard to solve. They don’t hinge on knowing odd facts; you have to put together subtle visual clues with the personalities and possible motives of the characters. It’s a very holistic approach, and even though I read a lot of adult mystery novels, I was really proud of myself the first time I figured out one of Max Finder’s cases.

"The Umbrella Academy: Dallas" trade paperback, by Gabriel Ba

Matt Maxwell: The Umbrella Academy: Dallas
I really love the art, but the characters and situations seem very by the numbers weirdness, rather than being compellingy strange. Still haven’t finished this and the ending might blow me away and change my opinion of the book, but that’d take quite some doing at this point. Still, the lovely art by Gabriel Ba goes a long way toward making this an enjoyable read.

100 Bullets, v1
No, I’ve never read it before. I’m kinda wishing I’d started earlier. The writing is incredibly lean with nothing wasted, and the art is…well…it’s Eduardo Risso, who brings a fluidity and expressiveness that commands attention. That and he knows how to use black and shadows like nobody else, which serves the material incredibly well. I wonder how long the series’ conceit can hold out, though. But I’m willing to stick around and find out.

Preacher v.2
Yes, I haven’t read Preacher either. Leamme alone. I’m trying to get caught up. Wrongness drips from every page, every panel. But aside from that, there’s a lot of meat on the story’s bones, even with Ennis’ love of grotesqueries semingly for their own sake. Though from what I’ve heard, things don’t kick into gear just yet, which has me curious for the next volume. Hopefully there’s more than thumbs being jabbed in various eyes (metaphorically speaking). I mean, that’s not such a very hard thing to do in and of itself. Still, looking forward to the next one.

Bokurano Ours

Deb Aoki: What am I reading now?

Well, not surprisingly, I have a stack of manga by my desk. I read a lot, and I usually read pretty fast, but there are a few recent arrivals that I couldn’t stop thinking about and have been chatting about lately.

I first saw the video trailer for Deadman Wonderland by Jinsei Kataoka and Kazuma Kondou at the TokyoPop offices last year and was intrigued by this sci-fi headtrip of a story. Now that I have the first volume in my hands, it has certainly delivered.

Set in a not-so-farfetched future after a giant earthquake has submerged most of Tokyo, Deadman Wonderland is about Ganta, a middle-school student who was a survivor of the disaster. Ganta enjoys a peaceful life in Nagano, until a cloaked and masked man in red appears. With a sweep of his hand, the man in red massacres all of Ganta’s classmates, and leaves Ganta to take the blame. The dazed and confused teen is then sentenced to “Deadman Wonderland,” a theme park prison where prisoners are forced to compete in deadly games for tourists’ entertainment.

Nicely drawn, albeit often gory art, lots of inventive, twisted twists and a dash of subversive humor makes Deadland Wonderland a fascinating and fun read. I have no idea where Kataoka and Kondou are taking this story, but they’ve got me hooked enough to want to buy and read volume 2.

Actually, I have a bunch of sci-fi stories on my stack this month. After being serialized online at VIZ Media’s SigIkki.com, the first volume of Bokurano: Ours by Mohiro Kitoh is due out next month. I’m all for the online reading experience but somehow, nothing quite beats being able to read a story like this in book form.

As the story opens, 15 kids are enjoying a seaside outing, when they meet a strange man who invites them to play a game. The next thing they know, they’re introduced to a gigantic robot and told that they’ll each be taking turns controlling it to defeat aliens. At first, it seems cool to control something so big and powerful, but the kids soon enough discover that the game has higher stakes than they thought.

I was one of the few folks who read (and bought) Kitoh’s earlier series Shadow Star when it was published by Dark Horse, so I was thrilled to see Bokurano: Ours published here. There’s definitely some similarities in tone and style: children thrown into situations that they can barely comprehend much less handle, dynamic battle scenes, and a compelling mix of innocence, cynicism and dark, dark humor.

Black Butler

Speaking of dark humor, Black Butler by Yana Toboso from Yen Press is out this week. From its cover, Black Butler looks like pure eye-candy for Gothic Lolitas – but there’s more going on here.

The “black butler” is Sebastian, the handsome and utterly unflappable butler to Ciel Phantomhive, a young aristocrat who is the head of a rich and powerful clan. Whatever Ciel wants, Sebastian delivers. No request is too impossible, no situation is too dangerous for Sebastian to handle – he can fend off kidnappers by using silverware as deadly weapons, then whip up mouth-watering pastries for teatime without breaking a sweat. But Sebastian’s frightening efficiency comes at a high price.

I started noticing fans wearing Black Butler costumes at anime conventions about a year before Yen Press announced their acquisition of this title, so anticipation is pretty high in certain fandom circles for this title. I was initially skeptical because it’s just so, so pretty. But Black Butler is surprisingly funny and action-packed too. All that, and some food porn scenes too? I’m down with that.

Remember

Gorgeous, not-so-typical art is also what draws me to Remember, TokyoPop’s second full-color volume of stories by Chinese manhua artist Benjamin. Benjamin’s lush palette and confident, painterly strokes makes Remember lovely to look at, even though he piles on the emo angst to the point where I just want to slap him.

Remember is definitely a flawed work – the story is awkward and the script is full of pompous, navel-gazing prose. But what makes Remember more fascinating for me than Orange (his first U.S. published work) is that it offers a glimpse of the Chinese comics publishing industry. A young artist is constantly frustrated by editors who tell him he draws the wrong kinds of stories (he should draw historical dramas, not modern tales) and that he draws the wrong kind of way (he should draw more like Japanese manga). Just when he’s ready to give up, he meets a pretty and idealistic female comics creator who encourages him to push past his limitations.

Remember isn’t perfect, but it’s interesting to see a Chinese creator striving to define comics on his own terms.

Oh No!

This isn’t exactly comics, but it’s pretty cool so I’m posting it here anyway. Using classic Japanese monster movie posters as his guide, children’s book illustrator Dan Santat turned out a really rocking cover for his latest project Oh No! (Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World). He blogs about putting the whole thing together here,

The best part? The cover folds out to become a poster kids can hang on their wall. (via)

Will Everyone Please Stop Freaking Out Over Ayn Rand by Peter Bagge

24 Hour Chalk Comic by JB Winter

Eddie and Medicine Man

‘GWC’ pt. 2 by Jesse Moynihan

Kate Beaton does Wonder Woman

Rain by Elijah Brubaker

A 400-foot graphic novel scroll

Clyde Crashcup Invents the Cow by John Stanley

Henry Aldrich by John Stanley

Terror of the Transvaal by Don Rosa

Nancy Vol. 1

Nancy Vol. One
by John Stanley
Drawn and Quarterly, 128 pages, $24.95.

When faced with the challenge of adapting Ernie Bushmiller’s classic comic strip to longer comic book format, John Stanley’s response was simple and economical: Turn her into Little Lulu.

That’s the only conclusion I can come to after reading this collection of stories in D&Q’s ongoing “John Stanley Library” project. Nancy is pretty much Lulu with frizzier hair, Sluggo is a thinner and slightly more benign Tubby. There’s even a snotty rich kid and bratty little boy similar to Wilbur and Alvin. Stanley even repeats one of his Tubby stories involving a burglar almost note for note.

That doesn’t make Nancy a bad book by any stretch of the imagination. Mediocre Stanley is still miles above most people’s best work. The best stories here though are the ones involving Oona Goosepimple, an odd, Wednesday Addams-type girl who supernatural antics cause no end of anxiety for poor Nancy. It’s those stories where Stanley — freed of the Bushmiller formula — really gets inventive and inspired. If the ratio of Oona stories increases as the volumes do, then I’ll keep buying these books as long as D&Q are able to get them out.

Reviews of Moomin, Amulet and more can be found after the jump …

The Book About Moomin

The Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My
by Tove Jansson
Drawn and Quarterly, 20 pages, $16.95.

I’m a sucker for die-cut books — anything that plays upon the whole “Oh, it looks like it’s part of the page, but look closely and you’ll see it’s a window into the next one” thing gets extra points from me. And D&Q has already won me over on Jansson with the wonderful job they’ve done reprinting her Moomin strips, so it’s not like I had to be won over with the company’s first entry in their new kids Enfant line. The only real surprise here is Jansson’s lovely use of limited color and composition on these expansive two-page spreads. So yeah, it’s a great book that will be sure to please the young and old at heart. Buy it, read it, enjoy it.

Outlaw: The Legend of Robin Hood
by Tony Lee, Sam Hart and Artur Fujita
Candlewick Press, 21.95.

This is a rather odd and needlessly dark and depressing retelling of the Robin Hood tale. Honestly I’m really not quite sure what to make of it. Are kids really clamoring for some sort of gritty, psychological portrait version of this story? Isn’t the whole point of Robin that he’s carefree and dashing and not burdened by guilt? Shouldn’t the art be featherlight, colorful and fun, with detailed, intricate backgrounds that convey a sense of place instead of having everyone constantly drawn in half-shadow or worse and clumsy coloring that seems splotched on by a computer? Maybe it’s my own nostalgia talking, but I can’t imagine young readers preferring for an instant this version of the character over one of the countless other variations that already exist, both in and out of comics.

Amulet, Vol. 2

Amulet Book Two: The Stonekeeper’s Curse
by Kazu Kibuishi
Scholastic, $21.99.

There’s nothing particularily surprising or original in Kibuishi’s ongoing fantasy series. It follows the plot and themes of countless other young adult books — there’s an evil dictator , a bad guy who’s conflicted about the side he’s working for, a talisman that grants its user fabulous powers, assorted wise men, amusing sidekicks and two plucky kids who find themselves tested by an inheritance they’d rather not have.

But if Amulet treads upon familiar ground, it nevertheless remains a captivating and enchanting read, largely due to Kibuishi’s skills as an artist and storyteller. He paces the tale exceedingly well, gives his characters just enough detail and back story to make them seem more than cardboard cut-outs and never gets so bogged down in the mythology of the world he’s created that the reader becomes bored or disinterested. Really, Amulet is an excellent lesson in how to deliver a satisfying genre exercise that both stands apart and with the crowd. If I were interested in creating something similar I’d be studying the hell out of this book.

Vermonia Vol. 1: Quest for the Silver Tiger
by YoYo
Candlewick Press, $9.99.

As if to underscore my point about how the importance of execution comes this dull, confusing, ill-thought-out manga about a group of skateboarding teens who turn out to have the necessary power or inheritance or what-have-you needed to save a lost world. The whole thing is a muddled, inane mess, and really only serves to show just how much effort and skill went into Amulet.

Stone Rabbit: Deep-Space Disco
by Erik Craddock
Random House, $5.99

This, on the other hand, I liked quite a bit. It’s got a nice, manic energy and Craddock has a clean, crisp style that suggests many years spent in the animation trenches. It’s basically about a put-upon rabbit who constantly gets ridiculous capers. In this particular case that means getting mistaken by space aliens for a dangerous interplanetary killer while the real killer assumes his identity on planet Earth.  It’s replete with the type of one-liners and non-sequitar jokes you find in most children’s cartoon TV programs these days, but thankfully it doesn’t feel the least bit pandering or smarmy. Plus, the jokes are actually kinda funny.

Sammy Harkham's Where the Wild Things Are

We’ve said it once before, but it bears repeating: Vice Magazine has commissioned a murderer’s row of 24 alternative comics artists–including Sammy Harkham, Tony Millionaire, Matt Furie, Lisa Hanawalt, Jordan Crane, Benjamin Marra, and Vanessa Davis–for a hugely impressive comics tribute to Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jonze’s long-anticipated movie adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s classic storybook. The movie comes out today, and all 24 artists’ interpretations are now live. Let the wild rumpus start!

Elsewhere, Monster Brains has posted a nice little gallery of Sendak’s art, along with a video interview with the illustrator.

Little Mouse Gets Ready
by Jeff Smith
Toon Books, 32 pages, $12.95.

Children’s comics don’t get more basic than this. Little Mouse wants to go play in the barn with his brothers and sisters, but first he has to get dressed. He does so step by step showing readers important things like how to button your shirt (and illustrating a narrative sequence of events). Then there’s a punchline and rimshot, the end.

Smith’s art is lush and spry here. I especially liked Little Mouse’s Warner Brothers-style reaction at the end. There’s no denying it’s a cute book, made by an extremely talented guy. But this is really a book for preschoolers and those just learning to read. If you know someone like that, then Little Mouse will make a great gift. But older Bone fan, even those still in elementary school, aren’t going to get too much out of this, beyond a chuckle or two at the end.

Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute
Lunch Lady and the League of Librarians
by Jarrett J. Krosoczka
Knopf, 96 pages each, $5.99 each.

This is another superhero/super-spy parody, along the lines of Word Girl, but with a whole K-12 cafeteria theme. For example, our hero has a spatula that doubles as a helicopter blade, she throws chicken nugget bombs, she wields fish stick nunchucks, and so on and so forth.

Even by kid standards, it all feels a little shallow. The jokes basically stay on that lunch-derived level and never build on each other in a satisfying way. The characters are all rather generic and Krosoczka’s art work is rather bare-bones as well. I think kids will like it — it’s certainly not offensive or dull — but I don’t think it’s going to hang around in their imaginations the way good children’s literature is supposed to. Even by second grade, they’ve seen this kind of thing before.

Knights of the Lunch Table: The Dragon Players
by Frank Cammuso
Scholastic, 128 pages, $9.99.

Combining King Arthur mythology with middle school angst is a recipe for disaster (witness, or better yet don’t, Tokyopop’s Avalon High) but Cammuso manages to make the whole enterprise work. Part of the reason is he isn’t a slave to the source material but just takes what he needs and mushes it into a school setting until it fits. It doesn’t hurt that he has a fun, rubbery, big-nose art style that plays up the comedy.

This time, Artie and his friends somewhat unwittingly enter into a robot joust contest, a feat which finds them double-dealing with basement-dwelling nerds, infiltrating junkyards and trying to avoid bullies and detention. There’s no real surprises here, and the whole “don’t cheat” moral comes out of a thousand ABC Afterschool specials, but Knights has nevertheless proven to be an engaging, witty series that’s growing on me with every new volume.