Free Comic Book Day
Details emerge on Free Comic Book Day offerings for DC Comics, Image
DC Comics: The New 52
When the 2012 Free Comic Book Day line-up was announced, some folks mistakenly assumed that gold-level offering, DC Comics: The New 52 Special Edition would simply be a reprint of previously published material. As revealed on The Source today, that’s not the case.
The comic will feature “art by legendary illustrator Jim Lee and other top talents” and will “include a new story by New York Times bestselling writer Geoff Johns.” In addition, the book will also include previews of DC’s second wave of New 52 titles, including Batman Incorporated, Dial H, Earth 2, G.I. Combat, The Ravagers and Worlds’ Finest. They also say to stay tuned for “more surprises to come.”
In addition, the Free Comic Book Day site also has more information and a preview from Image 20, the 20th anniversary anthology of “six, all-new original stories promoting upcoming Image Comics titles.” Two of the titles will be Revival by Tim Seeley and Mike Norton, which you can preview on the site, as well as G-Man by Chris Giarrusso. The other stories will be announced at a later date.
The FCBD site also has previews from several other FCBD titles, including Oni’s Yo Gabba Gabba and Bad Medicine titles, and Viz’s Voltron Force, among others, so head over there if you want to check them out early.
Update: Apparently I misread the initial post and thought Jim Lee was drawing the new Geoff Johns story, but based on Brian Hibbs’ response in the comments section below, that may or may not be the case. I’ve updated the post above.
- January 30, 2012 @ 09:30 AM by JK Parkin
12-Gauge Comics hits the road again with The Ride on Free Comic Book Day
The Ride
12-Gauge Comics is restoring the vehicle that helped put the company on the road, as they bring back The Ride as a part of their Free Comic Book Day offering for 2012.
For those not familiar with it, The Ride is an anthology series conceived by 12-Gauge president Keven Gardner that features various stories of murder and mayhem, with the unifying theme of a 1968 Camaro that appears in each story. Creators who worked on The Ride in the past include Chuck Dixon, Cully Hamner, Doug Wagner, Ron Marz, Jason Pearson, Brian Stelfreeze and many more. And now you can add Nathan Edmondson and Paul Azaceta to the list, as they prep the engine for a new The Ride series, a preview of which will appear alongside the Gale Anne Hurd-conceived Anti on FCBD.
Courtesy of 12-Gauge, here’s an exclusive look at the cover for The Ride by artist Andrew Robinson, and you can find a page from the book after the jump. Free Comic Book Day is May 5.
- January 24, 2012 @ 09:00 AM by JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | Persepolis trial resumes amid uproar in Tunisia
Persepolis
Legal | The trial resumed today, if only briefly, in Tunis for the president of a Tunisian television network accused of “insulting sacred values” when he aired the adaptation of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. Tensions were so high in the courtroom that proceedings were postponed until April. The Oct. 7 broadcast resulted in an attempted arson attack on the network’s offices and the arrest of some 50 protesters. Nessma TV President Nebil Karoui, who apologized in October, is charged with “insulting sacred values, offending decent morals and causing public unrest” because of the outrage triggered by a scene in Persepolis showing God, which is prohibited by Islam. [AFP]
Organizations | Stumptown Comics, the organization that puts on the Stumptown Comics Fest every year in Portland, Oregon, has added three new members to its board: Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Executive Director Charles Brownstein, Boilerplate co-author Anina Bennett and editor Shawna Gore. [Stumptown Comics]
- January 23, 2012 @ 07:00 AM by JK Parkin
Talking Comics with Tim | Tom Brevoort
Tom Brevoort, photo by Luigi Novi
Let’s not mince words, the online presence of Tom Brevoort has provided hours of great reading for Robot 6 readers. Given his constant and unflagging willingness to interact with consumers via social media, Brevoort is a quote machine (His Twitter bio? “A man constantly on the verge of saying something stupid–for your entertainment!?”). There’s always a directness (some would say bluntness) to his manner online–making him the ideal subject for an interview. Last year saw Marvel promote Brevoort to senior vice president for publishing. 2011 was a year of some major successes for Marvel, as well as a year where some hard business decisions were made. In this interview, conducted in mid-December via email, I tried to cover a great deal of ground (we even briefly discuss DC’s New 52 success)–and Brevoort did not hold back on any of his answers. For that, I am extremely grateful. Like any high profile comics executive, Brevoort has his fans and his critics (and many in between), but I like to think this exchange offers some perspectives everyone can enjoy.
Tim O’Shea: Whether it’s in your job description or not, fan outreach via social media is definitely part of your job–clearly by your own choice. What benefit or enjoyment do you get from interacting with the fans/consumers?
Tom Brevoort: I’m not sure that I get a particular benefit, except maybe just being the center of attention for a few minutes—maybe everything I do is motivated by ego! I’m a whore for the spotlight! But I started doing this kind of outreach back in the formative days of internet fandom, largely because I like the idea of internet fandom. I know that, if the internet had existed when I was a young comic book reader, I’d have been on those message boards and in those chat rooms all the time, obsessively—just like a certain portion of the audience today. So I like the idea of giving back, of being accessible enough that anybody who has a question or a concern knows where to find me, or at least to find somebody with an insider’s track who might have the background and knowledge to speak to their point. In a very real way, it’s all an outgrowth of what Stan Lee did in his letters pages and Bullpen pages. Joe Q, I think, was really the first person to perfect that approach for the internet age. As EIC he was incredibly available to the audience in a myriad of ways. It’s a philosophy that’s very much woven into our DNA at Marvel. And for the most part, our fans are interesting, vibrant, cool people, especially when you meet them in person.
- January 1, 2012 @ 11:55 AM by Tim O'Shea
Comics A.M. | New home for CCS’s Schulz Library collection
Art by Alexis Frederick-Frost
Libraries | The Center for Cartoon Studies has found a new home for the Schulz Library, whose previous location was damaged in a flood in August: the old post office in downtown White River Junction, Vermont. The school was able to purchase the building with the help of Bayle Drubel, a real estate developer and founding CCS board member who bought the post office in 2004. Renovations are set to begin this winter to create room for instruction space, faculty offices and the Schulz Library cartoon collection. [The Center for Cartoon Studies, via The Daily Cartoonist]
Creators | The Atlantic profiles Zippy the Pinhead creator Bill Griffith. [The Atlantic]
Creators | Artist Fabio Moon talks about teaming with Zack Whedon on the new Serenity comic that makes up one-half of one of their Free Comic Book Day offerings. [ComicsAlliance]
- December 23, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Jim Lee designs Free Comic Book Day T-shirts
DC Comics has unveiled Jim Lee’s T-shirt design for Free Comic Book Day 2012 featuring the current lineup of the Justice League. The image is an homage to a classic Justice League of America illustration by José Luis García-López, which you can see below.
The T-shirts will be available for order in January’s Previews catalog, with proceeds benefiting promotional efforts for FCBD.
- December 13, 2011 @ 02:20 PM by Kevin Melrose
Baltazar, Aureliani’s Superman Family Adventures coming next May; Tiny Titans ends with #50 [UPDATED]
DC Nation 2012 Free Comic Book Day Super Sampler
Along with the rest of the “Silver” comic books coming on Free Comic Book Day next year, DC Comics announced the DC Nation 2012 Free Comic Book Day Super Sampler, which will feature comics based on their animated series Green Lantern, Young Justice and a new series called Superman Family Adventures. Today on the Source, DC announced the creative team for that book–the Tiny Titans team of Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani are working on the monthly Superman Family Adventures, which kicks off next May.
“I have been sitting on the edge of my seat, biting my tongue about Superman Family Adventures since Thursday, July 21 at approximately 4 p.m., when Art and Franco came to see me at SDCC and showed me the proposal for this series,” said series editor Kristy Quinn. “Whew. Now, at least, you’re all stuck waiting with me—I was getting lonely sitting at my desk with all this cool stuff I couldn’t share!”
Update: Issue #50 of Tiny Titans will be the final issue, as noted in today’s solicitations. Baltazar and Aureliani have been the creative team on Tiny Titans since DC started publishing it in 2008.
- December 12, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by JK Parkin
FCBD: BOOM! launches Dune, Bad Medicine surfaces
Diamond has released its Silver Sponsor comics for Free Comic Book Day, meaning that the full array of FCBD comics is now before us. There’s quite a variety: Judge Dredd, Buffy, Gilbert Hernandez’s Marble Season, Smurfs, Donald Duck, Voltron, My Favorite Martian. There’s an anthology of Middle Eastern comics and a (censored) Howard Cruse comic. Over at The Beat, commenter Torsten Adair points out that BOOM! Studios is putting out a Dune comic that hasn’t been announced anywhere else—although the solicit text makes it clear that this is just the first of a series: “a must-have precursor to the epic launch of the adaptation of Dune books from BOOM! starting in July!” And Marble Season was only announced on Thursday. On the other side of the news cycle, the Oni Press selection, Bad Medicine, was first announced in 2008 and is just now coming to the surface—it isn’t even on Oni’s website. The writers are the extremely busy team of Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir, and the art is by Christopher Mitten.
A few other observations: The Gossamyr comic from Th3rd World Studios features art by “talented newcomer Sarah Ellerton.” I don’t know who let that by, but Ellerton is anything but a newcomer; she has been making webcomics (Inverloch, The Phoenix Requiem) for close to a decade now, although it’s clear from the cover that her art has matured quite a bit. Viz is back in the FCBD game but not with their Shonen Jump samplers of years gone by; this year they are all about Voltron Force, and they were pretty excited about these graphic novels at NYCC this year. Yen Press is highlighting their adaptation of Cassandra Clare’s The Infernal Devices, which was announced at NYCC.
- December 11, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
The Middle Ground #80 | Free Comic Book Day?
When the 2012 Free Comic Book Day “Gold” titles were announced last week, you would’ve been forgiven for thinking that the Archaia release was either a mistake, practical joke or particularly egregious typo, but it wasn’t: The indie publisher really is putting out a 48-page hardcover anthology of strips for free. Beats a reprint of a year-old issue of Avengers, at least, right…?
- December 6, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Graeme McMillan
Thoughts on the FCBD Gold comics
Free Comic Book Day is only six months away, and the FCBD folks started the drumbeat on Friday with the announcement of the Gold Sponsor comics. I didn’t realize this was a competition:
“We had a record amount of entries from publishers this year with more than forty-five different titles” said FCBD spokesperson Leslie Jackson. “Retailers on the committee had a tough time deciding on which titles to choose for Gold sponsorship, but we’re sure fans will be pleased with the line-up for next year.”
While the choices may have been difficult, it’s hard to imagine that someone couldn’t come up with something more enticing than what Image has to offer: “An anthology featuring all-new stories with a mix of Image’s old and new best loved characters!” Could you possibly get any vaguer than that? They don’t even have a cover design. If my comic got bumped for that, I’d be steaming. On the other hand, Archaia’s 48-page hardcover, featuring new material (not reprints or bits of something to come) looks mighty sweet, all the more so because they name names: A Mouse Guard story from David Petersen, a Jim Henson’s Labyrinth story by Ted Naifeh and Cory Godbey, a side story from Royden Lepp’s new graphic novel Rust, a Cursed Pirate Girl story from Jeremy Bastian, a Cow Boy story by Chris Eliopoulos and Nate Crosby, and a Dapper Men tale from Jim McCann and Janet Lee. There’s this year’s wow factor.
The line-up actually seemed pretty obvious to me, so I went back and looked at the Gold Sponsors for the past five years. Sure enough, six of the publishers are there every year: Archie, Dark Horse, DC, IDW, Image, Marvel. Since five of these are also Diamond’s premier publishers, and Archie is a newsstand juggernaut, there’s no surprise there. BOOM! Studios has been a Gold Sponsor for the past four years and Archaia for the past three. The other slots vary: Ape Entertainment was a Gold Sponsor in 2011 and 2010 but is missing this year, and Bongo and Oni are back after a two-year absence. Others who have popped up once or twice in the past five years: NBM/Papercutz (2011), Drawn & Quarterly (2010), Viz (2008 and 2009), Dynamite (2008), Virgin (2008), Gemstone (2007), and Tokyopop (2007).
There’s more to come: The Silver Sponsors will be announced next week.
- December 3, 2011 @ 04:30 PM by Brigid Alverson
Dark Horse announces two Free Comic Book Day flipbooks for 2012
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Dark Horse Comics has announced two flip books for next year’s Free Comic Book Day, scheduled for May 5, featuring four of their licensed titles — The Guild, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Wars and Serenity.
The first comic will feature a Buffy the Vampire Slayer tale that sees the title character finding it hard to take a vacation from “all things that go bump in the night,” paired with a Guild tale which features the group of gamers heading to the beach. The second title features a Han Solo and Chewbacca tale where the two have a falling out over one of their customers, paired with a Serenity tale.
You can find additional art after the jump.
- November 23, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by JK Parkin
NYCC | Free Comic Book Day adds Halloween 2012 event
Diamond Comic Distributors announced at Thursday’s retailer breakfast at New York Comic Con that it will add another Free Comic Book Day event, set for Halloween 2012.
ICv2.com reports that while the traditional FCBD will still be held May 5, 2012, Diamond found interest from publishers in supporting a second, similar event on Halloween, “which has become, next to Christmas, the holiday with the most retail impact.”
Many retailers already hold kid-focused events on Halloween, with some giving away comics left over from Free Comic Book Day. Diamond has in the past encouraged stores to give away themed kid-friendly minicomics as “sugar-free safe bag stuffers.” This year’s selections include 16-page issues of Scary Godmother, Archie’s Laugh Comics, Donald Duck and The Smurfs. However, next year’s offerings will be part of a full-fledged Free Comic Book Day event.
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- October 14, 2011 @ 07:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
NYCC | A round-up of news from Thursday (and before)
Green Arrow
The New York Comic Con officially opened its doors this afternoon, but comics publishers and distributors have been releasing announcements leading up to it all this week. Here’s a round-up of news from today, as well as some that hit earlier this week.
• DC Comics, who were having a pretty good week already, announced two creative team changes for the New 52. Ann Nocenti of Daredevil and Longshot fame will write Green Arrow starting with issue #7. She spoke to Comic Book Resources about her approach to the series: “I have a particular way of writing a comic. Comics are short. They are only twenty pages, so you can take a year of comics and that can be your opera, and the opera can have a lot of different passages in it. I kind of believe every issue should be a single story, just a complete story. But there is a momentum that forms like triptychs over it, and then it forms your big overtures, and then the whole thing ends up kind of operatic. I also want a beginning, middle and end, a classic short story approach to every single comic. What I do is I try to figure out, what is the kick in this comic, what is the main feeling I want to get, and everything in the comic has to serve that.”
• And Marc Bernardin (Monster Attack Network, The Highwaymen, The Authority) will take over the writing duties on Static Shock beginning with issue #7. “As a fan and as a writer, one of the great things about Static isn’t just that he’s a new hero, it’s also that he’s a young hero,” Bernardin told CBR. “He will make the mistakes of youth and, even though the New 52 is resetting a lot of heroes to their early days as do-gooders, there’s nothing quite like the fumblings of a teenager.”
- October 13, 2011 @ 08:54 PM by JK Parkin
Read the first FULL issue of Oni’s Spontaneous
Courtesy of our friends at Oni Press, we’re really pleased to present the Free Comic Book Day edition of Spontaneous #1, the new series by writer Joe Harris and artist Brett Weldele. Here’s a description of the book:
Driven to discover the truth regarding his father’s mysterious death many years prior, Melvin Reyes seeks to prove the existence of Spontaneous Human Combustion after fresh outbreaks of the phenomenon reveal a pattern only he can see, a predictability model only he can read, and the terrifying realization that whatever phenomenon consumed his father is also boiling inside of him, just waiting for release.
The first issue will be available again — this time for purchase — in July, when the second issue also comes out. But you can check it out after the jump …
- May 25, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | FCBD 2011 generated $1.5 million in publicity
Free Comic Book Day
Retailing | Free Comic Book Day founder Joe Field reports that this year’s event drew between 300,000 and 500,000 people to participating retailers, and generated an estimated $1.5 million in publicity for comics and comics stores. “Free Comic Book Day may have been my idea ten years ago, but seeing the remarkable things this event has done for the entire comics world is really encouraging,” he writes on his store’s blog. “Many of my comics retailer colleagues in the U.S., Canada and 40 other countries bring energy, creativity and enthusiasm to FCBD, making it a very special community event that is now the world’s largest annual comics’ event. All of this shows just how current the comics’ medium is — and how vital comic book specialty stores are to our local communities.” [Flying Colors, via The Beat]
Legal | In the wake of the latest confiscation of comics by Canadian customs agents, Laura Hudson looks at how creators and fans can protect themselves when crossing the border. [Comics Alliance]
Comic strips | Tundra marketing director Bill Kellogg has launched Ink Bottle Syndicate, which represents eight comic strips: That Monkey Tune, by Mike Kandalaft; Holy Molé, by Rick Hotton; Sunshine State, by Graham Nolan; Half Baked, by Rick Ellis; Future Shock, by Jim and Pat McGreal; 15 Minutes, by Robert Duckett; Biz, by Dave Blazek; and, of course, Tundra, Chad Carpenter. [The Daily Cartoonist]
- May 18, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Kevin Melrose