Princeless/Skullkickers sketches

I’ve been meaning to check out Jeremy Whitley and M. Goodwin’s all-ages comic Princeless ever since reading an online review of it last month, and now it looks like my procrastination has paid off–Princeless: Save Yourself, the collection of the first volume, will include a new story featuring a Princeless/Skullkickers crossover by Skullkickers writer Jim Zubkavich and drawn by Goodwin.

You can see Goodwin’s sketches of the characters, from her Deviant Art site, above. The collection arrives in April.

Dragonflight #1

Anne McCaffrey, creator of the Dragonriders of Pern fantasy novels, passed away Monday at the age of 85. The multiple award-winning author died in her home in Ireland after suffering a stroke.

McCaffrey’s first novel, Restoree, was published in 1967, and was followed by the first Dragonriders of Pern novel, Dragonflight, in 1968. Nearly 100 of her books were published in her lifetime, and she was the first woman to win a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award. Eclipse Comics published an adaptation of Dragonflight in 1991, and a film adaptation by Watchmen and X-Men screenwriter David Hayter was announced earlier this year.

“She was an incredible world-builder,” comics creator Derek Kirk Kim wrote on his blog. “I also remember being blown away when she used ‘fuck’ repeatedly in a fantasy novel. It was the first time I’d seen that when I was a kid, and taught me the importance of keeping true to a character no matter what the genre or its conventions.”

Author Neil Gaiman remembers meeting her both through her books and, later, in person. “I met her as a person in the late 80s, when I was a young writer, at a convention, where she was the Guest of Honour,” he wrote on his blog. “It was a small convention, and she decided that I needed to be taken under her wing and given advice I would need in later life, which she proceeded to do. It was all good advice: how to survive American signing tours was the bit that stuck the most (she wanted me to move to Ireland, and I came close). I liked her as a writer, and by the end of that convention I adored her as a person.”

Jon Snow and Ghost by Gianluca Maconi

As reported in What Are You Reading?, I am a huge, huge, huge fan of writer George R.R. Martin’s bold, bloody, brilliant epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire. And I pretty much can’t wait for HBO’s adaptation of the series, Game of Thrones, which stars Sean Bean, Peter Dinklage, Mark Addy, and Lena Headey and hits televisions on April 17. Finally, of course, I like comics and cartooning. So here’s a two-great-tastes-that-taste-great-together situation if ever there was one: deviantARTist Gianluca Maconi’s A Song of Ice and Fire gallery, featuring drawings of many of the major characters. That’s the black-clad bastard son Jon Snow and his direwolf Ghost above; click the link for Maconi’s vivaciously drawn takes on the rest of the Stark family, the Lannister siblings, King Robert Baratheon, Danaerys Targaryen and more. (And if you’re curious about the books but aren’t convinced they’re worth your while, allow me to make the case.) Winter can’t come soon enough.

(via Westeros)

Meg Murry from A Wrinkle in Time by Hope Larson

If you’re one of those people who know that there is such a thing as a tesseract, then you’re in for a treat: Above is cartoonist Hope Larson’s take on Meg Murry, one of the young heroes of Madeleine L’Engle’s beloved science-fiction classic A Wrinkle in Time. Larson’s adaptation of the book for Farrar, Strauss and Giroux is slated to debut in Fall 2012, clocking in at a whopping 392 pages. Visit Larson’s blog for more on the book and this piece, from the bruise on Meg’s face to the reason you won’t be seeing her in this outfit in the book itself.

Heaven and the Dead City

CO2 Comics is a webcomics site that presents a mix of classic and new comics. Heaven and the Dead City, their newest addition, looks like a classic but is actually new work by emerging artist Raine Szramski. It’s a fantasy tale drawn in a nice, chunky, old-fashioned style; they only have two pages up so far, but you can see more of Szramski’s fantasy art here.

A self-portrait by Frank Frazetta

A roundup of remembrances, tributes and obituaries for legendary fantasy artist Frank Frazetta, who passed away Monday at age 82:

Timothy Bradstreet: “It’s very difficult to articulate how much Frazetta influenced me. That influence does not seem readily apparent in my work after all. Sure, I tried my hand at drawing just like Frazetta just like everyone else did. A lot of great artists have tried and have fallen short. Frazetta’s influence with me goes deeper — our hearts are connected, style and process are simply a means to an end. I read Frazetta’s own words speaking to what goes through his mind when he creates, and that confirms for me that we share a common connection. He may have painted with fire, but the coals are stoked somewhere much more deep down in the soul.”

Guillermo del Toro: “He gave the world a new pantheon of heroes. He took the mantle from J. Allen St. John and Joseph Clement Coll and added blood, sweat and sexual power to their legacy. … He somehow created a second narrative layer for every book he ever illustrated.”

Tom Richmond: “Frazetta’s fantasy illustrations were so charged with mood, savagery and movement they literally seethed and smoldered from the cover of these books. As beautifully rendered as the other cover illustrations of Boris Vallejo were, there was always something elemental and primal that put Frazetta’s work on a level all its own.”

Mark Evanier: “It would be difficult to overstate Frazetta’s impact and influence. Artists were inspired by his depictions of the human form. Writers were inspired by the evocative moods and imagery. Rarely has an illustrator so ‘connected’ with his audience. That astronomical prices paid for Frazetta originals — one painting recently going for a cool million dollars — testify to his enduring popularity.”

Heidi MacDonald: “Smashing with every brushstroke the stereotype of the wimpy artist (or Rockwell, pipe clenched firmly between teeth), Frazetta was the man of action in deed and thought. Accordingly his imagery was violent, shocking, brutal, even brutish. Men stabbing giant snakes; women with their gleaming, globular butts turned to the camera as they were kidnapped by bestial man-like figures; bodies piled up in battle being chopped to stew-sized chunks by bloody swords. This wasn’t subtle stuff. But Frazetta’s artistry was. In the hands of a lesser creator these scenes would merely have been vulgar (and often are.) But Frazetta applied the palette and brush control of a Renoir to his primitive vision.”

Richard Friend: “I would go to book stores as a kid, and I’d see these covers by Frank and you’d just be drawn to them. They could pull you from half way across a store over to see them. … They almost demanded to be seen. You would just see this abstract design that was so interesting and then as you’d get closer to it. The piece just got better, and better and better.”

Michael Cavna: “Amid all his artwork’s massive swords and towering cliffscapes and thundering skies of menace, Frazetta could flat-out make the viewers’ eye feel the ‘meat’ of the thing. Coiled pythons. Poised big cats. Rippling torsos posed just so. Frazetta’s artwork pulled you into worlds that put you at immediate peril — and it all started with the sinew. Glorious, striving, all-too-mortal muscle.”

Chris Ryall: “The guy leaves behind an unmatched legacy. I even have his 1982 calendar hanging on my wall right now (1982′s day/dates match up to 2010′s…). I’d say he’ll be missed but his work will always be here for all of us.”

Lars Walker: “He was an artist, not an author, but I suspect he was responsible for more fantasy book sales than any single person except J.R.R. Tolkien.”

Obituaries
• The New York Times
• Los Angeles Times
• Pocono Record

Tributes and interviews
• Gary Groth’s 1994 interview with Frazetta [TCJ.com]
• Frazetta’s place in fantasy art history secure [Pocono Record]
• Comic book artists remember Frank Frazetta [Newsarama]
• Ten iconic Frank Frazetta works [Techland]
• Eight memorable album covers by Frank Frazetta [Houston Press]
• Frazetta’s Warren covers and a Shining Knight story [Comics Should Be Good]
• Frazetta’s movie posters [Some Came Running]
• Frazetta’s 10 most striking cover illustrations [Westword]

Frank Frazetta in his Florida studio

Renowned fantasy and comic-book artist Frank Frazetta passed away today as the result of a stroke. He was 82.

Heidi MacDonald has confirmation from his agent Robert Pistella that Frazetta died in a hospital near his home in Boca Grande, Florida.

Born on February 9, 1928, in Brooklyn, Frazetta began illustrating comic books at age 16, later working on titles like Barnyard Comics, Thrilling Comics and Happy Comics for Standard Publishing Co. By the early 1950s, he was drawing the Shining Knight stories for DC’s Adventure Comics, New Heroic Comics for Eastern Color and Durango Kid for Magazine Enterprises. In 1953, he started working as an assistant for Al Capp on Li’l Abner.

Frazetta left Capp in 1961 and started illustrating for men’s magazines, eventually teaming with Harvey Kurtzman on the bawdy “Little Annie Fanny” strip that appeared in Playboy. It was during this period that Frazetta began painting movie posters, and covers for paperback editions of action-adventure and Warren magazines like Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella. Frazetta’s work from the mid-1960s to the early ’70s became the primary influence for science fiction and fantasy art for decades.

Frazetta’s work and legacy were at the center of a bitter family feud that seemed to erupt in July 2009 after the death of his wife Eleanor “Ellie” Frazetta, who had long run her husband’s business. The dispute played out in public, with criminal charges, a lawsuit and angry allegations. Luckily, though, the family seemed to resolve its differences just last month.

Frazetta is survived by four children: Alfonso Frank Frazetta (Frank Jr.), William Frazetta, Holly Frazetta and Heidi Grabin.

Welcome once again to Shelf Porn, our weekly look at one fan’s shelves. Would you like to show off your shelves? Drop me an email and let’s see what we can do.

Today’s edition of Shelf Porn comes from book reviewer Joshua Hill. While he has a small-but-growing comic shelf, he more than makes up for it with his collection of science fiction books. So let’s turn it over to Josh …

*****

My name is Joshua S Hill, and I’m currently in the process of editing my first novel whilst simultaneously writing environmental news at Planetsave.com and fantasy book reviews at, funnily enough, FantasyBookReview.co.uk.

A good portion of the fantasy books you’ll see on my shelves have been sent to me by publishers to review, and I’m doin pretty well in terms of read-and-reviewed compared to simply shelved-and-unread. Though you’ll see that Anathem by Neal Stephegnson has a nice big bookmark in it (but so does Ulysses by James Joyce, so I shouldn’t be too upset about it).

These are my shelves.

The four here are the main shelves I will be looking at, though there are four more out of shot that house various religious texts, biographies, classics and miscellaneous. I moved a chair out of the way to take the shot, as the carpet marks show in that corner … there.

And of course the dusty top of two shelves which house seasons 1-8 of Stargate SG-1, and the complete collections of Buffy and Angel.

I’m actually rather proud of my library, as I think I’m allowed to call it at this point. Three bookshelves almost totally dedicated to fantasy. A bookshelf almost totally dedicated to Star Wars, two shelves to TPB’s and three to Star Wars.

This is probably my favourite shelf, as it contains a large collection of books written by (or in a couple of cases on) J.R.R. Tolkien. There’s the original trilogy, Hobbit, Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and several other smaller collections. Moving across into the History of Middle Earth stuff, into another copy of the Silmarillion and then the reference books, before another two copies of the Hobbit and an Alan Lee illustrated Two Towers.

Another of my top 5 authors is Terry Pratchett, and owning 18 hardcovers is a nice thing, let me tell you. Completely re-readable.

And there’s the Star Wars collection. Top row contains books BBY up until the X-Wing series, which continues the ABY books and into almost all of the New Jedi Order books.

You really can’t have enough large fantasy series, and some of my favourite authors claim shelves to themselves; including Steven Erikson, Robin Hobb and Robert Jordan.

Next is the TPB’s, and this is my “Big Two” shelf. The Omnibi are my prides and joy, though the deluxe Gotham Central’s aren’t half bad either.

And the “Everyone Else” shelf, which includes some of my favourite writing from the pen of Greg Rucka and Brian Wood.

I’d have more comics but I can’t justify buying them because I can’t review them. Not yet at least. I’m working on it. I promise.

And that’s all that you care about. There’s a shelf of books that get sent to me that I just don’t want to read, and another shelf of books that get sent to me that I want to read, but are further down the list than the publishers would like them to be. I’d show you the books signed by James Barclay, Michael A Stackpole, Trudi Canavan and Isobelle Carmody, my Star Trek figurines and the multiple copies of the Lord of the Rings movies I have, but you’d get bored. So I’ll leave it at that.

A Wrinkle in Time

Great news for fantasy fans: Mercury cartoonist Hope Larson has announced on her Twitter account that she will be adapting Madeleine L’Engle’s classic SFF novel A Wrinkle in Time as a graphic novel.

It’s been a while since I read the book — “a while” meaning “not since elementary school” — but I recall the story of a group of children’s interstellar search for their missing scientist father via the use of folds in the spacetime-continuum called “tesseracts” as being dazzlingly smart, imaginative, and at times dark. I believe the planet Camazotz was the first dystopia I ever encountered in literature. (I always suspected IT was the inspiration for the landmark Orb song “A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld,” too.) The book racked up awards upon its 1962 release and launched L’Engle’s four-book “Time Quartet.”

For her part, Larson seems aware of the heady legacy she’s tinkering with. “According to my editor, Margaret Ferguson, L’Engle never wanted her books to be illustrated,” she tweeted. “I’m doing my best not to screw it up.”

First production photo from HBO's "Game of Thrones"

HBO has ordered the pilot plus nine episodes of Game of Thrones, the highly anticipated television series based on George R.R. Martin’s bestselling A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy novels.

Production begins in June in Belfast, with the series set to debut on the cable network in spring 2011.

From the moment the rights to the novels were sold to HBO in January 2007, many doubted whether a sprawling fantasy could ever make it to television. As recently as Monday, Martin himself expressed doubts as to whether the network would greenlight the show.

“From the start of this, I’ve told myself, ‘Don’t get too emotionally invested in this, or you will be devastated if it doesn’t go’,” Martin wrote on his blog. “Wise words, those. I’m a smart guy. But easier said than done. I’ve failed. I am totally emotionally invested, and if HBO does indeed decide to pass, for whatever reason, I will be gutted.”

Debuting in 1996, A Song of Ice and Fire is set in mythical, medieval Westeros, a continent torn between a dynastic civil war, a threat of invasion from the north and the impending return of the rightful heir to the throne. Four of the planned seven books have been released. The Hedge Knight and The Sworn Sword, two of three novellas set in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, were adapted as comics by Dabel Brothers Productions.

The HBO series takes its name from the first novel, A Game of Thrones. The cast includes Sean Bean, Peter Dinklage and Lena Headey.

Blue Bloods: Masquerade

Publishing | Italian movie producer Domenico Procacci has purchased Bologna-based graphic novel publisher Coconino Press, adding it to his Fandango filmmaking and book-publishing company. In addition to its own titles, Coconino publishes the Italian editions of works by such artists as Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes, and Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi. [Variety]

Publishing | Young-adult novelist Melissa de la Cruz has signed new contracts with Hyperion, the Disney Book Group imprint that publishes her bestselling Blue Bloods series. The deal calls for three companion books to the teen-vampire drama, including Blue Bloods: The Graphic Novel. [Variety]

The Last Unicorn

Publishing | IDW Publishing will adapt Peter Beagle’s bestselling 1968 fantasy novel The Last Unicorn as a six-issue miniseries. The comic, by writer Peter B. Gillis, artist Renae De Liz and colorist Ray Dillon, will debut in April. [ICv2.com]

Publishing | Simon Jones offers commentary about declining manga sales in Japan: “Some blame was again placed at the industry’s increasing focus on niche genres (just as comics is a spandex ghetto, manga is facing a crisis of the moe slum), but I think this is being overstated as a cause, when it’s really a symptom that is self-feeding.  Manga sales have gone down … it could be lower birth rates, or competition from other media, or internet piracy (come on guys, we don’t need to couch this in flowery language), or any combination of those.  But it all comes down to fewer companies being able to produce mainstream products, because a growing segment of mainstream audiences are no longer willing to pay for them despite increasing demand.” [Icarus Publishing]

Publishing | Micha Hershman, former graphic-novel buyer and marketing executive with Borders Group, has joined Dark Horse as the company’s senior director of marketing. [press release]

AOL

Business | Time Warner has set Dec. 9 as the date to complete its separation with AOL, ending one of the worst media deals of the decade. The spinoff, which comes just shy of 10 years after the merger, is expected to be followed by massive layoffs at AOL. [Variety]

Legal | Again? The heirs of Stephen Slesinger, the man who in 1931 signed a licensing deal with Winnie-the-Pooh creator AA Milne, are again taking Disney to court, this time over accusations of unpaid royalties. The moves comes on the heels of a judge’s September ruling that confirmed Disney as the rights holder. [BBC News, via The Daily Cartoonist]

Retailing | Industry veteran KC Carlson takes a lengthy look at the early days of the direct-market system. [Westfield Comics]

Retailing | Did you know that Ryan Sohmer, co-creator of the webcomic Least I Could Do, opened his own comic store about a month ago in Pointe-Claire, Quebec? [The Chronicle]

Retailing | A comic-book store also has turned up in Old Bridge, New Jersey. CJ Comics will have its grand opening on Nov. 21. [MyCentralJersey]

Gunnerkrigg Court

Webcomics | El Santo compiles his list of the 10 best webcomics of the decade, including Hark! A Vagrant, Gunnerkrigg Court and High Moon. [The Webcomic Overlook]

Comics | At least once a year a newspaper in the U.K. declares one character or another “the first gay superhero.” This time it’s a gay super-team/comic named Spandex. [The Sun]

Comics | John Geddes spotlights Alien Legion, the early-’80s Epic Comics series whose Dark Horse ominbus edition hits stores this week. [USA Today]

Creators | George Gene Gustines profiles the legendary Joe Kubert, who’s permitting “a large trove” of his original art to be auctioned on Friday. [The New York Times]

Creators | Robert Kirkman discusses his first exposure to Image Comics, the history of the company, becoming a partner, and writing Image United. [Techland]

Creators | Brian Heater continues a multi-part interview with Jerry Moriarty. [The Daily Cross Hatch]

Comics | Brandon Thomas launches a multi-part examination of the Morrison-Era New X-Men and Whedon/Cassaday-Era Astonishing X-Men. [Fiction House]

Snooker

• Cartoonist Ben Towle has announced the release of Snooker, a 64-page collection of his various minicomics. It’s available for $10 at this site.

• I mentioned awhile back that Charles Burns was the editor for this year’s edition of The Best American Comics series from HoughtonMifflin. It looks like Michael Kupperman is handling the cover chores on that book as well.

• In case you missed it: Archaia is partnering up with Henson Studios to make comics based on the Fraggle Rock, Labryinth and Mirrormask franchises.

• In case you missed it part II: Movie producer and comic book author Jeff Katz has started a new entertainment company, American Originals, that will publish comic books, among other things

• Broken Frontier reveals that Drawn and Quarterly will be publishing an English version of Brecht Evens’ The Wrong Place early next year.

• Save your mana points now: Wizards of the Coast will release their first ever Magic: The Gathering graphic novel, Path of the Planeswalker, in October.

• Hey, Osamu Tezuka’s Swallowing the Earth is now on sale at Akadot Retail, though it looks like you might pay for the privilege of being a first-buyer.

• Wondering what’s up with the Graphic NYC book? The authors of the photo book of Big Apple cartoonists spill the beans on their publishing plans.

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.

DEL REY ANNOUNCES MASSIMO CARNEVALE AS COVER ARTIST OF STEPHEN KING AND PETER STRAUB’S THE TALISMAN

Nei Ruffino tapped as colorist; Never-before-told prequel, ‘Issue 0,’ to be sold in comic shops this fall, with a special preview edition released at Comic-Con International in San Diego

NEW YORK, NY – June 16, 2009 – Del Rey, an imprint of Ballantine Books at the Random House Publishing Group, announced today the cover artist and colorist of The Talisman comics series by Stephen King and Peter Straub.

Cover art will be created by Italian artist Massimo Carnevale, best known in the U.S. for his cover art for Y: The Last Man under DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint, and for his covers of the series Northlander. Born in Rome in 1967, Carnevale has done cover art for numerous Italian comics as well as created his own complete stories. He has received numerous awards for his work in both painting and cover design.

Coloring will be done by Nei Ruffino, who is currently working on Supergirl and Green Lantern for DC Comics, and Escape from Wonderland from Zenescope. She has worked on Return to Wonderland and Final Destination from Zenescope, Dragonlance Chronicles from Devil’s Due, and Gunplay from Platinum Comics. Ruffino has also designed toy boxes and worked on online games for Hasbro’s My Little Pony and Littlest Pet Shop properties.

The epic saga of The Talisman debuts with Issue 0, a never-before-told prequel to the story, to be published by Del Rey Comics this Fall. The Talisman novel, originally published in 1984, is the story of a young teen named Jack Sawyer, who can save his dying mother only by retrieving a magical talisman. To find it he must cross back and forth between our world and the frightening and dangerous landscape of its “twinner” counterpart. Issue 0 explores the separate lives of Jack’s father—in our world, and the mysterious realm known as the Territories—and how evil scheming will forever change Jack’s peaceful life. The series is being adapted by Robin Furth and illustrated by Tony Shasteen. The Talisman Issue 0 will be available in comic book stores everywhere on October 21, 2009.

A limited, black-and-white convention edition of Issue 0 will be available for free exclusively at this year’s Comic-Con International in San Diego, taking place July 22-26. The special issue will be distributed by  Del Rey at Booth #1129.

Both The Talisman and its sequel, Black House, are in print with Ballantine Books. Television rights to The Talisman are under development by Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy.

Panel from CF's 'Cave'

Vice Magazine, never one to shy away from comics, presents a decidedly odd and somewhat gruesome comic by Christopher Forgues (aka CF).

The Color of Earth

Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading? Our special guest this week is Brigid Alverson, whom dedicated manga fans will know as the force behind the excellent Mangablog. If that’s not enough, she’s also a contributor to the Digital Strips podcast, and oversees the School Library Journal’s Good Comics for Kids blog, which is about … well, you figure it out.

Anyway, click on the link below to find out what Ms. Alverson and the rest of the Robot 6 gang is reading this week.

Mouse Guard #1

Tom Bondurant: This week I finished Mouse Guard: Fall 1152, by David Petersen. On the whole I liked it. Petersen’s an excellent artist, and I thought his designs and his use of color really conveyed a fantasy-adventure feel. At times I thought his storytelling was a little confusing, particularly when he switched from a mouse’s perspective to a more normal one and I had to hunt for the mice in the corner of the page. I also had some problems distinguishing among the three lead mice, both in terms of costume and personality.

However, I thought Petersen did a good job keeping the plot moving and the reader focused, without making me feel like I was being led along. It was a straightforward story, but I have to admit I thought the exposition towards the end made it sound a bit more nuanced than the rest of the book portrayed it.

Clearly Petersen put a lot of thought into world-building. I appreciated his work, but I almost wish it had been more integral to the story instead of tacked on at the end. Still, I thought it was good, and I’m looking forward to Winter 1152.

I’m just about done with Essential Avengers Vol. 2, but the book’s been worth it already. Finally I know how that Ultroids story from issue #36 ends! I read #36′s story as a reprint thirty-odd years ago and always wondered how the team got free of their alien captors. (Issue #36 also featured one of Don Heck’s creepiest alien females ever.) However, I did have some problems with the book’s printing. Some pages were too light, like the inked art had been bleached away along with the color; and some pages (and covers) hadn’t been bleached sufficiently. I wonder if Marvel hadn’t perfected the process when this book was printed, or if the state of the original comics had something to do with it.

I’ve also started re-reading Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern, and got from the Rebirth miniseries to the ongoing series’ early teens. By and large these stories hold up pretty well. Rebirth works too hard to convince the reader that Hal is Teh Awwsum, but Johns does a good job putting all the pieces of the Silver Age GL status quo back together. I’m not a huge Ethan Van Sciver fan — more often than not, his work can be rather stiff — so that also cut against my enjoyment of Rebirth. I thought the regular series looked better under its original art team of Carlos Pacheco and Jesus Merino, and then under the current team of Ivan Reis and Oclair Albert. I’m finishing up “Revenge of the Green Lanterns,” the big adventure story featuring the Cyborg Superman’s new-model Manhunters, and I’m enjoying Johns’ foreshadowing “Sinestro Corps” and its aftermath.

Strongman

John Parkin: While on vacation I had time to read several books, including:

Strongman by SLG: If you’re going to read one book about a former Luche Libre star fighting against an organ smuggling ring, this is the book. It has a lot of heart, and I mean that figuratively … it also literally has a lot of livers and kidneys and other organs that you’d expect from a book about an organ smuggling ring.

Hercules: Love and War: I’ve been reading Hercules in collected format since he took over the Hulk’s book. The last collection before this one featured the Secret Invasion crossover issues, which I found a little lacking compared to the stories that came before. So I was happy to see the book return to its usual level of charm with this collection. In it, Hercules and his sidekick Amadeus Cho both learn a little bit about love and heartbreak, as the pair runs afoul of a group of grouchy Amazons. And they fight Wonder Woman, kind of.

Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman: I’m not quite done with it yet, but I can echo Chris Mautner’s recommendation from a few weeks ago. Particularly the parts told from the viewpoint of Doctor Impossible.

A Drifting Life

Chris Mautner: Right now I’m about 200 pages into A Drifting Life, Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s massive, 800-page memoir of his life in manga from Drawn and Quarterly. It’s quite different than the grim material that Tatsumi’s known for and that has graced the three volumes of his work that D&Q has released previously. It’s much more of a straightforward “and then this happened” approach, with Tatsumi moving from event to event with freight train like speed, with lots of reference to artists and works that have never been released in the U.S. and quite possibly never will.

Still, it’s a fascinating book, a great account of a young man’s attempt to make the hobby he loves so desperately his occupation. And it’s a fascinating trip through the early years of manga, an era very few Westerners know anything about. Despite some cluelessness, I’m really digging it.

Preacher Vol. 1

Matthew Maxwell: PREACHER v. 1
No, I haven’t read it before this. Yes, this is my first time through. No, I didn’t like his run on HELLBLAZER. Yes, I like this a lot more. No, I can’t see this having been written by anyone else. Yes, I like it quite a bit. Gonna take me some time to get through the whole thing I imagine.

MUSEUM OF TERROR v. 2
More Tomie. I found this to be very hit and miss. Either Tomie is an all-powerful indestructible woman-girl of darkness who destroys for the fun of it, or she’s a walking plot device. It’s hard for me to like a lot of this because it’s very much “Tomie just wrecks things and you watch.” There’s some really messed-up horror elements, but none of it’s scary in the slightest. My interest picked up towards the end of the volume, when they actually decided to weave some character-driven plots and not just show off twisted imagination.

LONE WOLF AND CUB v. 8
Slowly working my way through this. Unlike MUSEUM OF TERROR, it’s all very good, meaty character/history stuff with gorgeous art (not that Ito is chopped liver in this regard). But getting the whole series is going to end up bankrupting me.

WORLD’S FUNNEST SPECIAL
Evan Dorkin and friends destroy the DC Universe(s) with the help of Bat-Mite and Myxlptzyk. I bet I only spelled one of those right. Fun, but not the sort of thing you need to read a second time (though seeing Frank Miller take the piss out of himself was kinda neat.)

She-Hulk #38

Michael May: Still catching up, this week I read a couple of final issues: She-Hulk #38 and Simon Dark #18. Both were bittersweet experiences.

Simon #18 was a peaceful issue. At first it feels like Steve Niles is kind of coasting through it. And you couldn’t really blame him if he had. He and Scott Hampton had just finished a big story arc and of course you don’t expect them to begin another epic in the final issue. Nor would a quick, snap-bang done-in-one story have been an appropriate wrap-up to the moody, elegant pacing of the rest of the series. But as Niles and Hampton show their cast winding down and going back to regular life for most of the issue, it’s only to lower our guards and punch us in the gut at the very end with a perfect, emotional good-bye. And while you’re still reeling from that, you realize that it’s also a hopeful end. As in: I really hope this series finds another home soon.

She-Hulk #38 was also perfect. I generally enjoyed Peter David’s run, but boy how I wish that every issue had been more like this one. Not that I blame him for wanting to address the aftermath of Civil War and World War Hulk and how it affected his main character. I don’t blame David as much as I do the rest of the Marvel U for putting She-Hulk in the position where those were the kinds of stories David felt obligated to tell. From reading this last issue, it seems obvious to me that this is the fun, clever kind of story he wanted to have been telling all along.

Marvel Boy

Lisa Fortuner: How far behind am I over here? I’ve only found the last issue of Final Crisis this month, thanks to AAFES superslow comic shipments (though I should be grateful to have the paltry selection I do), and finally have a chance to sit down and read them this weekend. Sadly I’ve missed the community gripefest over this one, but I think I’ll recover.

I also got my Marvel Boy trade in the mail Friday morning, so I guess that makes for a Grant Morrison weekend.

Tim O’Shea: This afternoon I was enjoying a nice early spring afternoon, clearing some overgrown bushes and vines in my front yard, listening to Peter Gabriel on the iPod. And out of nowhere I flashed on a summer afternoon from my childhood, when I came back from a family vacation, only to find my brother had dropped off Avengers 200 for me to read. But first I had to clean my room, before I could read the comic book.

Avengers #200

I was so excited to read the 200th issue (in retrospect the plot’s pretty forgettable), but as kid, this was one of my first milestone issues. So excited I was, that when I was done cleaning my room, I laid the book down at the center of my made bed and took a picture of the issue. I kid you not. That photo is lost in one of my boxes of stuff somewhere, but I remember that moment clearly — after years of reading many other comics. And this afternoon as I looked at the blue Southern clear sky, I caught that sensation I always feel when I discover a new book, song or work of art that affects me. I love spring.

Most graphic novels I grasp and enjoy on the first read. When I was doing my Anders Nilsen interview this week, this response — “I suppose I would hope with most of my work that people are compelled, because they are interested enough, to reread it, and that they find something they didn’t see before that makes it worth the effort.” — really hit home with me. I enjoyed my first read of Nate Powell’s Swallow Me Whole — the art, the lettering, the whole damn thing is both lyrical and maddening. But I know I need to read it many more times to fully grasp it.

Also, this week, I really enjoyed the latest installment of Mark Waid’s Potter’s Field. I’ve not read the previous installments, but now I want to go track them down.

Nightschool

Brigid Alverson: At NYCC I got an advance copy of The Color of Earth, a Korean graphic novel from First Second about a girl in a rural Korean village learning about love and sexuality. It’s set in the past and relies heavily on nature imagery, so it feels very poetic, yet at the same time the conversations are quite frank. I’m not sure that teens, who are the intended audience, will be comfortable with the subject matter and the way it is presented, but it offers a lot of food for thought for older readers and the art is lovely.

I’m also reading the collected edition of Svetlana Chmakova’s Nightschool, which has been running in Yen Plus magazine. The great thing about this book is that it’s about supernatural doings but at the same time it’s very down-to-earth, so the characters act in very believable ways. Svet’s style has matured a bit since Dramacon, but she has kept her very expressive character designs, and Yen is doing the book up with a bigger trim size and nice white paper that really shows it off well.

The first two volumes of Crown literally made me laugh out loud because the story is so over the top. The writer, Shinji Wada, is a big shoujo manga writer in Japan and the artist, You Higuri, is known for manga that blend beautiful men with romantic settings. Crown is the story of two deadly mercenaries who quit their jobs to protect the sister of one of them, a princess whose life is in danger. Higuri and Wada have a great time parodying all the clichés of shoujo and boys-love manga: The guys are constantly striking poses with their guns and winding up in compromising situations together, and the girl is so adorable and puppylike that by volume 2 Higuri has started drawing her with ears and a tail.

At Good Comics for Kids, we are celebrating Women’s History Month by focusing on comics with strong women characters, so Female Force: Hillary Clinton was a natural choice. Hillary is such a strong figure that it’s impossible to be neutral about her, so I liked the fact that the writer made himself a character and talked about his reactions to things and how her work had affected his life. I’m also reading Sabrina Jones’ bio of Isadora Duncan, which is entertaining but a bit choppy.

And here’s an unexpected treat: I ordered a graphic novel through Paperback Swap recently, and the person who sent it to me put one of his mini-comics in the package. Laterborn, by Jason Martin, is a small comic with a series of rather poignant vignettes of young love and longing. It was a refreshing change of pace, and I’m hoping to see more of his work in the future.