Comic Book Resources

Neil Gaiman: 'George R.R. Martin is not your bitch.'

A Game of Thrones

Here's the quote heard 'round the internet today, from comics writer/novelist Neil Gaiman. Specifically, he was responding to a fan of George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series of novels, but just substitute Martin's name with John Cassaday or J.G. Jones and Song of Ice and Fire with Planetary or Final Crisis, and you'll see where I'm going with this.

The fan wanted to know if it was unrealistic "to think that by not writing the next chapter Martin is letting me down, even though if and when the book gets written is completely up to him?"

Gaiman sums it up pretty succinctly: "George R.R. Martin is not your bitch," The Sandman creator said. "This is a useful thing to know, perhaps a useful thing to point out when you find yourself thinking that possibly George is, indeed, your bitch, and should be out there typing what you want to read right now."

This reminded me of a post I did last year -- it was a post about an upcoming comics convention, and one of the guests was Final Crisis artist J.G. Jones. One of the fine folks in the comments section pointed out that Final Crisis was late, and they were shocked Jones would take a weekend off to go to a convention instead of staying home to work on the book. Never mind that Jones going to a convention isn't exactly him blowing off and screwing around; in his case, it's actually work, and second, it's the weekend, two days that many, many other people in the country don't actually work.

Anyway, go check out Gaiman's full post; sometimes it's good to be reminded that comics, books and other forms of entertainment we all enjoy aren't being created by machines.

Robot Love | Q&A with Love and Capes creator Thom Zahler

Love and Capes Valentine

Since 2006 Thom Zahler has been chronicling the romance of Mark and Abby, a.k.a. The Crusader and, um, Abby in the self-published book Love and Capes. As a part of Robot Love week here at Robot 6, Zahler shares a little bit about the couple, romance, the future of the book and a special promotion for fans that ties into the couple's big day.

JK: What I love about Love and Capes is that the relationship between Abby and Mark is the kind everyone wants, the kind to root for. What kind of relationship advice do you think Mark and Abby would offer somebody less lucky at love than they’ve been?

Thom: Abby would say that you have to kiss a lot of frogs. She was a little unsure of dating Mark when they first met. She took a chance on him after a lot of bad dates with other guys, and wound up being surprised with this quiet guy. We’ll see how, too, because in an upcoming issue, we’ll see their first date.

She’d tell you to be confident, too. Your vision of yourself and how you really are don’t always mesh. Abby dating a superhero is very much like a grade-school teacher dating a rock star. You do kind of look and say “What does the rock star see in that little common person when they hang out with supermodels and actors all the time.” What the other person is looking for is something only they know, so don’t be surprised when they find it in you.

Abby’s very much Mark’s rock in a way Amazonia never could be. Some people think, “Oh, she’d NEVER go for me” or “I’m not good enough for her.” You’ve got to trust that the other person knows what they want.

And she’d also say, “Watch out for the ex.”

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Robot Love | I ♥ learning from comics

Agents of Atlas

Editor’s Note: With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, we’ve declared this the week of Robot Love and resurrected I ♥ Comics. In one of our favorite features, various comics creators, bloggers, retailers and fans discuss the things they love about the medium.

Today we welcome our guest Jeff Parker, creator of The Interman, co-creator of Mysterius: The Unfathomable and writer of a lot of Marvel's comics -- Agents of Atlas, Age of the Sentry, X-Men First Class: Finals and Exiles.

by Jeff Parker

These comics we read can make us smart. Or at least, able to kill Seat 28D during the InFlight Trivia Challenge.

Comics have an inordinately facile ability to get information into the reader's head. A few years ago I was in Washington, D.C. running around looking at monuments and the like, and I took the once-a-week tour of the Federal Reserve building. It's surprisingly cool, do it when you're there on a Thursday sometime. At the end of the tour they gave out a COMIC BOOK that attempted to explain how the Fed works. It was badly drawn, weakly colored, and yet- it actually got across to me some understanding of the mysterious process by which the Fed sets interest rates and influences economic growth or tries to thwart inflation. I was impressed that they took the steps to make a comics giveaway, and it made me happy to retrace the steps they must have gone through. As the guide of the day had explained, one of the big hurdles the people in the Federal Reserve have is trying to explain to the public how they do what they do. The job description requires some understanding of economic theory and process to even get to the nuts and bolts. They obviously spent a lot of time trying to figure out what delivery system could get the curious up to speed, and they arrived at a flimsy newsprint comic with no coated stock cover. And I still have it. They also showed a film about the Fed, but the comic still did a better job distilling the information.

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WonderCon '09 | Panel schedule announced

Comic-Con International has posted the programming for WonderCon, which is coming up Feb. 27-March 1 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. As its run by the same folks who do San Diego, it has that same feel and variety, but is a little more laid back and low key than the madness that is the San Diego Comic Con. My brother and I were able to walk right into the X-Files panel last year just as it started ... same with the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles panel. I don't think you could ever do something like that at San Diego. In any event, it's a great opportunity to see creators and actually chat with them a bit.

Let's see what will be going on ...

• Marvel's been absent from WonderCon for the past couple of years, and while they don't appear to have a booth, they do have a presence this year. Both Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction are guests of honor, and it looks like Jeph Loeb, Mark Paniccia and Axel Alonso, among others, will also be there. Of note is a discussion between Fraction and author Michael Chabon on Saturday that will likely be worth the price of admission alone.

• Speaking of special guests, Brian Azzarello and Dave Johnson are also attending and will host a panel on 100 Bullets on Saturday ... followed by a night at Isotope Comics. And although Dan DiDio won't be at the con this year, DC's got Jim Lee, Will Dennis, Ian Sattler, James Robinson and Aaron Lopresti, among others.

• Oni Press, IDW, Dark Horse, BOOM!, SLG, Aspen and Top Cow will also be on hand, both on the floor and at various panels to talk about their latest projects.

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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