Dave Wachter
Nominees named for 2012 Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award
Comic-Con International has announced the nominees for this year’s Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award. They are:
- Craig Cermak, artist of Voltron, Year One (published by Dynamite Entertainment)
- Martin Cóccolo, artist of Helldorado (published by APE Entertainment)
- Tyler Crook, artist of Petrograd (published by Oni Press) and B.P.R.D. (published by Dark Horse)
- Teagan Gavet, penciler of Norgard: Across Thin Ice (Published by Sofawolf)
- Dave Wachter, artist of Night of 1,000 Wolves and That Hellbound Train (published by IDW Publishing)
The award is named for Russ Manning, the prolific artist who worked on Tarzan and Star Wars, and created the classic comic series Magnus, Robot Fighter. Started in 1982 as a joint presentation of Comic-Con International and the West Coast Comics Club, this award honors a comics artist who, early in his or her career, shows a superior knowledge and ability in the art of creating comics. Previous winners of the award include Dave Stevens, the first winner in 1982, as well as Art Adams, Jeff Smith, Gene Ha, Jerome Opeña, Steve Rude, David Petersen, R. Kikuo Johnson, Marian Churchland and Nate Simpson, who won last year.
The winner will be announced July 13 during the Eisner Awards ceremony at Comic-Con International in San Diego.
Food or Comics? | Higher Earl Grey
Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy at our local comic shop based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on a splurge item.
Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList, and tell us what you’re getting in our comments field.
NonNonBa
Chris Mautner
If I had $15, I’d grab the latest Lio collection, Zombies Need Love Too. Cartoonist Mark Tatulli has one of the better newspaper comic strips going these days.
If I had $30, I’d nab what is clearly the book of the week, NonNonBa, the latest book from Shigeru Mizuki, author of Onward Toward Our Noble Deaths. NonNonBa aims more toward Mizuki’s traditional milieu of Japanese folklore and yokai monsters, though this book is more autobiographical in nature in that it deals with his relationship with his grandmother and how she instilled in him an interest in the spirit world. I’ve been anxiously awaiting this release.
My splurge for the week would likely be one of two books from First Second: Either Baby’s in Black, Arne Bellstorf’s fictionalized tale of the sadly doomed Beatle, Stuart Sutcliffe, or Mastering Comics, Jessica Abel and Matt Madden’s follow-up to their previous how-to textbook, Drawing Words, Writing Pictures.
Lansdales and Wachter jump aboard That Hellbound Train
Dave Wachter's cover for That Hellbound Train #1
Chris Ryall has a preview up at his blog of That Hellbound Train, a three-part miniseries based on Robert Bloch’s Hugo-winning short story “That Hell Bound Train.” (Bloch is best known as the author of Psycho, the novel on which the Alfred Hitchcock movie was based.) The story is a classic deal-with-the-devil tale with a nice twist at the end, and it should make a great coimc.
Writers Joe and John Lansdale are doing the adaptation; you may remember that Joe is also the writer for IDW’s latest iteration of 30 Days of Night. David Wachter, who was nominated for an Eisner for his work on The Guns of Shadow Valley, is the artist for the project. On his blog, David shows how he developed the first cover.
Incidentally, Googling “That Hellbound Train” (I was looking for folk sources) turns up some unrelated but very tasty music videos, which doubtless will make a good soundtrack for reading the comic.
Talking Comics with Tim: Adam Besenyodi
Deus ex Comica
It stands to reason that if you’re reading this site, you’re a fan of comics. Some folks step away from collecting at different times for varying reasons. And then some come back. Adam Besenyodi recently wrote a book, Deus ex Comica: The Rebirth of a Comic Book Fan, that documents his history as a fan. As described at Amazon: “With a mix of humor, recollection and insight, Deus ex Comica explores how the Marvel Comics stable of titles influenced Adam’s pre-teen and adolescent years, his rediscovery of sequential art as an adult, and the pleasure of watching his own son’s first steps into the comic book universe.” This Saturday, Free Comic Book Day, Besenyodi will do a book signing at Bill’s Books and More comic book shop in Canton, Ohio, from 12pm to 3pm.
Tim O’Shea: How did you score Tom DeFalco to write the foreword to your book?
Adam Besenyodi: Oh, man! Tom DeFalco. I put Tom in the “legendary” category with regards to comics and Marvel, so it is still kind of crazy to me that he wrote the foreword to my book. I met Tom through LinkedIn, actually — the professional networking site. I introduced myself to him and we struck up an online friendship. In early 2008, I started sharing with him the online Deus ex Comica series I was writing for Field’s Edge, and Tom was really supportive and encouraging of my writing.
Around mid-year 2008 I decided to turn the online series into a proper book, and as I was wrapping up the first full draft of the book in December, I began to think about including a foreword and who I could ask to write it. Tom has always been quick to respond and this time — even amid the holiday crush — was no exception. He graciously looked past the awkwardness of my proposition and immediately agreed to write the foreword to the book.