Del Rey
A first look at Pride and Prejudice and Zombies graphic novel
From "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel"
USA Today’s Whitney Matheson has a first brief preview of Del Rey’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Seth Graham-Smith’s bestselling twist on the Jane Austen classic that led a bit of a mash-up trend (Graham-Smith’s followup, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, was released earlier this month).
The graphic novel, by Tony Lee and Cliff Richards, will arrive in stores in May.
- March 10, 2010 @ 01:30 PM by Kevin Melrose
Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: A publishing news roundup
Dragon Puncher
• The big news of the week is that Top Shelf has not only completely updated and streamlined their Web site, but has also unveiled a whole heckuva lot of new projects for the fall, 2011 and beyond, including new books by Jeff Lemire, Nate Powell, James Kochalka and Chris Eliopoulos. All in all it looks like an interesting line-up, containing a solid mix of all-ages and more adult-oriented material.
• Top Shelf isn’t the only one doing the Web site shuffle. Both Savage Critics and All About Comics have moved/updated their blogs,
• IcV2 offers some more information on Vertical’s plans to publish Osamu Tezuka’s Ayako in the fall.
• Tokyopop is planning to publish Neko Ramen, four-koma (or comic strip) about a cat that runs a noodle shop, and they’re posting sample strips to get folks all hot and bothered.. Look for it in stores in June.
• SLG will publish the debut graphic novel by one Diana Thung, titled Captain Long Ears. Check out our preview from earlier this year here.
• Here’s what the cover to the Essential Superman Encyclopedia will look like.
• And here’s what the cover to the next Zippy the Pinhead collection will look like.
- March 4, 2010 @ 10:30 AM by Chris Mautner
Robot reviews: King of RPGs
King of RPGs
King of RPGs Vol. 1
Story by Jason Thompson; Art by Victor Hao
Del Rey, 240 pages, $10.99
Jason Thompson is a talented, erudite guy. He knows more about manga than I can ever hope to absorb in the rest of my lifetime. His Manga: The Complete Guide is one of the best reference guides on the subject around and one of the most frequently pulled books off of my shelves. His monthly (or whenever) column on Comixology brims with intelligence and wit. Plus, he’s got a helluva collection.
- February 23, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs: What Looks Good for April
Cold Space
Time again for our monthly trip through Previews looking for interesting new adventure comics. I know it’s only been a week since the last one, but that’s ’cause I’d gotten behind.
Ape
Black Coat: Or Give Me Death – It took a while, but the second collection of my favorite Revolutionary War-era monster-hunter’s adventures is finally arriving.
Antarctic
Robin Hood – I’m a little nervous about Antarctic’s take on Robin Hood, but I’m encouraged by their publishing Richard Moore. I’ll give this a “shot” (ba-dum CHING!).
Boom!
Cold Space #1 – Celebrity comics aren’t exactly known for their high quality, but Samuel L Jackson is a smart, talented man. I’m taking the bet that he’s a pretty good writer too. Plus: space men.
- February 3, 2010 @ 06:37 PM by Michael May
Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: Del Rey/Villard’s 2010 plans
Wonder Woman Encyclopedia
We’re continuing our look at various publishers’ plans for the new year with an in-depth look at the Random House imprints Del Rey and Villard, which are best know for the number of manga, Webcomics and licensed material they release. What’s on their schedule for 2010? Click on the link to find out.
- February 1, 2010 @ 11:20 AM by Chris Mautner
Robot reviews: Spin-offs aplenty
Army of Two #1
by Peter Milligan, Dexter Soy and Jose Marzan Jr.
IDW, $3.99.
I’ve read great Peter Milligan comics and I’ve read horrible Peter Milligan comics. This, however, falls in neither category. That’s because this could have been written by anybody. There’s nothing unique or interesting about it. It betrays none of Milligan’s stylistic quirks or themes, and the art by Soy and Marzan merely serves to underscore how thoroughly and depressingly inane this spin-off of a somewhat popular video game franchise is. I suppose there’s the off chance this is intended to be some sort of satire, but if so it misses the mark sharply, not to mention the fact that others (most notably Kyle Baker) have done that sort of thing better. No, there’s no nice way to say it: This is hackwork, pure and simple, from someone who is capable of much, much better, and the fact that it’s a tie-in product to a video game doesn’t really excuse its shabbiness.
More reviews after the jump …
- January 19, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Chris Mautner
What Are You Reading?
This Year's Work in Lebowski Studies
Welcome to another round of What Are You Reading. Our guest this week is scholar, author and Comics Reporter columnist Bart Beaty, whose translation (along with Nick Nguyen) of Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of American Comic Books by Jean-Paul Gabilliet of the University of Bordeaux just came out this week via the University Press of Mississippi.
Click on the link to find out what Mr. Beaty and the rest of us are reading this week, and then let us know what’s on your plate in the comments section.
- January 10, 2010 @ 02:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Everyone’s A Critic: A round-up of comic book reviews and thinkpieces
• Abhay Khosla wraps up his five-part series on the recent Blue Beetle run over at Savage Critics, and asks questions that perhaps cannot be answered:
Panel from 'Blue Beetle'
Looking back, the list of nerdy crap that I have been a dorky spazz-wad for is very, very long– but why does that stuff work on me? What does all that dopey shit have in common? Is there a grand unified field theory of dorkism that can explain why certain ideas, images, idiocies, why they’re capable of burrowing under the skins of sloppy nerds such as myself? And can that theory explain why that material consumes not just my attention, but more and more attention globally at a time when attention is such a precious commodity?
• Jeet Heer further examines the “Protestant traditiion” of midwestern cartooning mentioned in a recent interview between Gary Groth, Kevin Huizenga and Art Spiegelman.
• Speaking of The Comics Journal, here are a few links of note: Steven Grant derides the Spirit Pop-Up Book; Robert Stanley Martin reviews David B’s Nocturnal Conspiracies; and some idiot blathers on and on about Pluto and 20th Century Boys. Under what rock did they find that moron?
- December 30, 2009 @ 08:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Robot reviews: Moyasimon Vol. 1
Moyasimon Vol. 1
Moyasimon Vol. 1: Tales of Agriculture
by Masayuki Ishikawa
Del Rey, 240 pages, $10.99
When I heard the basic gimmick for Moyasimon — incoming college student has the ability to see germs — a number of possible scenarios ran through my head. None of them, however, involved a professor sucking out the innards of a dead bird through its anus after the bird had been sealed up in the stomach of an equally dead seal that had been buried under the ground for several weeks. Nor did they involve the main character having his hand stuck up a cow’s anus with everyone watching (he does wear gloves) for several panels.
- December 18, 2009 @ 12:00 PM by Chris Mautner
What Are You Reading?
Key Moments from the History of Comics
Having had Thought Ballonists’ Craig Fischer over as our WAYR guest the other week, it seemed more than appropriate to invite his blogging colleague, scholar, educator, critic, author and all-around nice guy Charles Hatfield.
Find out what Mr. Hatfield is reading and see some embarrassingly complimentary birthday greetings about yours truly by clicking on the link below. And don’t forget to tell us your own reading picks in the comments section.
- December 6, 2009 @ 02:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Send Us Your Shelf Porn!
Welcome to Shelf Porn. Our guest this week is blogger and manga fan Cathy Pajunen. Cathy had posted some pics of her collection on her blog, so I asked her if she’d be interested in doing an expanded tour of her collection for Robot 6. Thankfully, she said yes.
Remember that we’re also on the lookout for holiday-themed shelf porn this month. If you’ve got some swell DC or Marvel tree ornaments, or a Naruto-themed creche, take a pic or two and send them to cmautnerATcomcastDOTnet and we’ll post them here in the coming weeks.
And now, on with the tour:
- December 2, 2009 @ 02:00 PM by Chris Mautner
What Are You Reading?
Criminal: The Sinners #2
Here at What Are You Reading, we don’t let a little thing like a holiday weekend keep us from our comics, no sir. Nor do we stop blogging about them.
Our guest this week is David Brothers, who can be found saying interesting things about comics at 4th Letter. Want to find out what he’s reading this week? Me too!
- November 29, 2009 @ 12:00 PM by Chris Mautner
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.
- November 15, 2009 @ 02:00 PM by Chris Mautner
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.
- September 18, 2009 @ 02:00 PM by Chris Mautner
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.
- September 17, 2009 @ 10:30 AM by Chris Mautner