Comic Book Resources

What Are You Reading?

From Hell

Hey there, hi there, ho there, it's time once again for What Are You Reading. Our guest this week is blogger and Top Shelf pr guru Leigh Walton. Want to know what Leigh is reading this week? Of course you do! Click on the link to find out, then let us know what you're reading in the comments section.

Continue Reading »

Robot Reviews: Those wacky Asian countries and their crazy comical books

X-men: Misfits

X-Men Misfits Vol. 1
Story by Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman. Art by Anzu
Del Rey, 192 pages, $12.99.

Grafting the X-Men onto a shojo manga template isn't a half-bad idea, considering the soap opera antics of the series back in its heyday (and indeed, even today). The problem lies in that Telgemeier and Roman have grafted too much of the template onto this comic, so that none of the characters have any room to move beyond their narrowly defined roles. It's way too slavish to shojo cliches -- Anzu apparently never met a chibi she didn't like. There's some amusement in seeing Angel gussied-up Bishonen style or Beast looking like Totoro's second cousin, once removed, to be sure. But its adherence to shallow formula is just as bad as the dull exposition and fight scenes that make up most modern X-Men comics. Too bad. I was really hoping for something that blended the best aspects of both Western and Eastern comics, not something that swapped out one set of cliches for another.

Continue Reading »

Everyone's A Critic: A round-up of comic book reviews and thinkpieces

Sandman

Let's try to run through some of the more notable links of the past several days. My apologies if this is old news to you or I missed something.

• Kicking things off, I should note that the gang at the Hooded Utilitarian are offering an in-depth analysis of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. In order: Noah Berlatsky, Ng Suat Tong,  Tom Crippen and Von Marlowe.

• Ken Parille looks at the work of his fellow blogmate Tim Hensley, specifically his Wally Gropius series: "I can’t think of another cartoonist who approaches space -- and what we might call 'spatial color' -- in such a rigorously strange way."

• Abhay Khosla talks about comics by way of crime novels:

So: a year from now, if we’re unlucky and Vertigo Crime no longer exists, and some so-and-so is screeching that “None of youse fools on the internet people could have done better because we are geniuses who thought of EVERYTHING” … I would suggest that maybe one thing they could have done differently is launched their crime line with crime fiction…? Just a silly thought.

Continue Reading »

What Are You Reading?

Pluto, Vol. 4

Another Sunday is upon us again. Time to kick back, crack open a Snapple and tell you all about the comics we're reading. Our guest this week is Ivan Brandon, whose prose you may have come across in books like NYC Mech, 24Seven or the new Image series Viking.

To discover what Ivan's reading, click on the link below, Snapple or no Snapple ...

Continue Reading »

SDCC '09 | Random news and notes

Lewis Trondheim

Here are a few items of interest I managed to glean from various places on the Interwebs:

• Lewis Trondheim will be doing a 16-page comic for the iPhone that will be available in 18 languages. Not to be outdone, Stan Lee is releasing Stripperella for the iPhone too.

• Stripper's Guide blogger Allan Holtz announced that his "Guide to U.S. Newspaper Comic Strips and Cartoon Panels" is now under contract to be published by University of Michigan Press. "The book is a compendium of the vital statistics about comic strip and panel series that have appeared in American newspapers."

• Also according to Spurgeon: AdHouse will be working on an art book with Rafael Grampa, though it might not see the light of day until 2011 due to Grampa's busy schedule.

• BOOM! will be releasing a hardcover version of Don Rosa's The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Can a complete Carl Barks collection be too far away?

• Del Rey is going to publish a graphic novel version of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Um, yay?

What are you reading?

Prince Valiant Vol. 1

Welcome to another round of What Are You Reading. Our guest this week is blogger, critic, Comics Comics editor and expectant dad Tim Hodler. To find out what Mr. Hodler and the rest of us are reading this week, click on the link below. And be sure to let us know what you're currently reading in the comments section.

Continue Reading »

Robot reviews: More potpourri

Wrapped-Up Foxtrot

Wrapped-Up FoxTrot
by Bill Amend
Andrews McMeel Publishing, $16.99

Here's my basic problem with FoxTrot: I can't stand the family. Not a one of them. They all come across as a bunch of unlikeable clods to me, each one too invested in their own personal tics and desperate obsessions to show any interest in each other. Really, they seem more interested in making each other miserable, especially the bratty youngest child, Jason, who would have been thrown to the lions years ago by any real-life family. Of course, without him we'd miss all those obvious and occasionally desperate attempt to reference contemporary pop culture. "Hey, they're making a Star Trek movie! Let's make a strip about it!" "Here's a joke about World of Warcraft! You know, lots of people play that!" People complain about the saccharine sweetness of The Family Circus, but their are times I prefer that to the insufferable smart-alec attitudes of the Fox family.

This new Treasury collects the last of the daily strips as well as some Sundays. It's certainly readable. It didn't make me want to claw my eyes out the way, say Snuffy Smith does, but still, that's a real annoying family.

More reviews after the link ...

Continue Reading »

Robot reviews: Potpourri

Goats: Infinite Typewriters

Goats: Infinite Typewriters
by Jonathan Rosenberg
Del Rey, 176 pages, $14

A strange thing happened to me while reading this collection of Rosenberg's well-known webcomic about a pair of clueless programmers, an evil chicken, a goat, a fish and an even more evil baby chick. Initially I wrote the comic off as one of the many smarmy, self-conscious humor strips that proliferate the Net with their cute pop culture references and deliberate bizarre and often violent antics -- antics that often make me think that Berkeley Breathed had a lot to answer for.

But then as I dove further into the book I found Rosenberg attempting to, if not deepen his story, at least stretch it out into something more epic and knotty. Plot lines started to weave into each other. Philosophical and political themes started to emerge and the parodies started to get a bit more thoughtful than "celebrities suck." He seemed to be trying to create something beyond his initial gag-a-day formula and I find it tough not to admire that. He still has yet to create a character I feel any empathy for and I'm not sure he has the artistic chops to match his ambition, but I like his moxie.

Continue Reading »

What are you reading?

The Hunter

Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading. Our special guest for this week is Chris Butcher, blogger and manager of The Beguiling in Toronto, generally acknowledged as one of the finest comics shops in North America.

Chris is heading off to Japan and taking quite a lot of books with him. What to know what he's packing? Of course you do. Click on the link to find out ...

Continue Reading »

Straight for the art | Del Rey reveals Talisman cover

Talisman Issue #0

You may have heard that Del Rey was planning to offer a graphic novel adaptation of Stephen King and Peter Straub's best selling novel, The Talisman, featuring art by Tony Shasteen and a script by Robin Furth.  Now Del Rey has revealed that Massimo Carnevale (known for his work on Y: The Last Man) will be the cover artist for the monthly series. What's more, a special preview ssue, as seen above, will be released at this year's Comic-Con.

Full press release from Del Rey after the jump.

Continue Reading »

Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: A publishing news round-up

The Art of Steve Ditko

• Can nothing stop Craig Yoe? The Modern Arf, Boody and Secret Identity editor and author is apparently getting  his own imprint, entitled YOE! Books, and courtesy of IDW. The first book released will be the hardcover Art of Steve Ditko.

• Same Hat blogger Ryan Sands reveals that he and Evan Hayden will be adapting Suehiro Maruo's The Strange Tale of Panorama Island for Last Gasp. The manga won the New Artist Prize at the Annual Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize earlier this year. Sands and Hayden previously translated Tokyo Zombie for the company. Island will be released in spring 2010. You can read Ryan's description of the book here.

• Heidi MacDonald notes that up and coming cartoonist Alexa Kitchen, daughter of publisher and cartoonist Denis Kitchen, will have a book out from Hyperion this fall entitled Grown-Ups Are Dumb! (No Offense).

• Del Rey has picked up the rights to two Kodansha manga series: Samurai Deeper Kyo and Wild@Heart. Tokyopop originally published the first 34 volumes of the former series. Del Rey will release an omnibus edition of volumes 35 and 36 in December. Wild@Heart will be released in January.

• Editor and British comics devotee Steve Holland has set up his own publishing imprint, Bear Alley Books, which will reprint ...wait for it ... classic British comics.

• Brooklyn artist Jason Fraspin is working on a comic about WWII pilot Ben Steeple and has a preview over at his blog.

What Are You Reading?

The Collected Doug Wright

Welcome to What Are You Reading. Our special guest this week is PictureBox publisher, Art Out of Time author and all-around top dog Dan Nadel.

Remember, we want to know what you're reading as well, so feel free to share what comics you've been enjoying (or haven't as the case may be) in the comments section.

And now, here what we're reading ...

Continue Reading »

Send Us Your Shelf Porn!

Welcome once again to Send Us Your Shelf Porn. It's like the old Queen for A Day show, but with comics.

We've got a really special, nay, massive tour for today as author, editor, critic, cartoonist and all-around renaissance guy Jason Thompson has pulled back the curtain and allowed us to peek into his extensive manga, comics and rpg collection. I think you'll agree he's taken some rather creative steps in organizing and storing his collection in a relatively small space.

Is it time for him to possibly seek out ... brrr ... a storage center? I'll leave that to you, dear reader to decide, as I hand the reins of this column over to Mr. Thompson:

Continue Reading »

What Are You Reading?

A Drifting Life

Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading. Our special guest this week is Katherine Dacey, a former contributor to Pop Culture Shock and current contributor to the Good Comics for Kids blog. She also is the driving force behind the impressive new blog, The Manga Critic.

To see what Katherine and other Robot 6ers have been reading lately, click on the link ...

Continue Reading »

Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: A publishing news round-up

Moomin kids' book

* Over at the Drawn & Quarterly blog, Tom Devlin announces that the company will be starting a children's book line, entitled "D&Q Enfant." The first few titles in the line will consist of Moomin picture books.

* The blog Monster Brains has a brief preview of Johnny Ryan's upcoming grand guginol graphic novel, Prison Pit. It's probably NSFW.

* The Cartoon Network and Del Rey have joined forces to produce a series of graphic novels based on the popular Secret Saturdays cartoon show. The first volume will hit stores in September.

* Zenescope has announced plans for a third and final Wonderland mini-series.

Continue Reading »