From Wonder Woman #2, by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang

It’s perhaps a little fitting that Wonder Woman’s first post-relaunch visit to Themyscira, a magical, hidden island that can teleport to any location or time, should have echoes of Lost. In the preview of this week’s Wonder Woman #2, from the Maxim magazine website of all places, we get our first exposure to the (re-) rebranded Paradise Island, complete with unnerving, and downright threatening, whispers, and Others Amazons emerging from the shadows of the jungle.

Also worth noting: Queen Hippolyta is blonde again, for the firs time since, when, the 1987 relaunch? Wonder Woman #2, by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang, goes on sale Wednesday.

Previously on Lost: Dash Shaw, author of Body World and Bottomless Bellybutton, and Jesse Moynihan, storyboard artist for Adventure Time and author of Forming, teamed up a couple years ago to create an innovatively formatted fold-out comic for an issue of the literary magazine The Believer. Titled “Spiritual Dad,” the strip told a multi-generational story of fathers, sons and significant others struggling to find their destinies via various chemical and/or mystical means … leading one of them to a dreamlike vision of a plane crash, an island, a mysterious bald man on a vision quest, and other events that years later would become the subject matter of a little cultural phenomenon called Lost.

Flash forward to today, when cartoonist and commentator Frank Santoro hid the never-before-digitized comic, hatch-style, at the bottom of his long and compelling interview with Moynihan for The Comics Journal. Read the whole thing and marvel at the dense meta-magic performed by Shaw and Moynihan as they weave Lost into the tapestry of their own tale. Just be sure to dig into that interview, and Moynihan’s gorgeously colored Forming art, as you scroll down toward the comic itself.

Ty Mattson's LOST designs

A while back we told you about artist Ty Mattson’s rather stunning, gorgeously retro Lost-inspired art, created in part as invitations for a Season Six premiere party. Apparently we’re not the only people who dug ‘em: ABC is now selling merchandise featuring Mattson’s designs in its official Lost store, including silkscreened prints, t-shirts, hoodies, tote bags, mugs, mousepads, even skateboard decks. Looks like even showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are getting in on the act…

Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof

from Wilson by Daniel Clowes

“Likable characters are for weak-minded narcissists.” So says Daniel Clowes, the author of the recently released Wilson — and given that the book and its irascible protagonist have proven about as divisive as the Lost finale, his tongue may be only partially in cheek. The titular character in Clowes’s novel is a self-described people person who’s constantly decrying the way culture and technology fragment and divide society, but he does this in the nastiest and most insulting way possible to everyone he knows, leaving him no better off than the IT workers, superhero-blockbuster fans and so on he lambastes. He’s a tough character to like.

But does that mean Wilson is a tough book to like? Isn’t there such a thing as an unlikable character you love to read about nonetheless? Tim Hodler of Comics Comics says no and yes, respectively. In a post on the book, Hodler argues that the response to Wilson, particularly the negative response, has centered far too much on Wilson’s unlikability, ignoring the way other art forms have showcased jerks for centuries to memorable effect:

Because you know who’s unlikable? Oedipus! Medea! Hamlet! Macbeth! Captain Ahab! Three out of the four brothers Karamazov (probably a different three for every reader but)! Pretty much every character from the novels of Jim Thompson, the movies of Stanley Kubrick, and the poems of T.S. Eliot! I haven’t even mentioned the comics yet, but it is clear that the form boasts a very long, venerable, and distinguished tradition of characters that don’t invite “emotional investment” (from Otto Soglow’s Little King to Mark Newgarden’s Little Nun). Not everything good in art depends upon triggering the reader’s sympathies—and emotionally attaching yourself to fictional characters is not art’s only valid response.

Obviously comics have a grand tradition of anti-heroes, or at the very least characters with a nasty or unpleasant streak, who nonetheless come across as pretty cool or sympathetic in other ways. But unlike, say, Wolverine or John Constantine, Wilson doesn’t have any of the hallmarks of badassery. He’s just flat-out repulsive. But so what? Can’t using a repulsive person as your main character open up a whole new set of story opportunities and emotional responses?

To take this back to Lost for a second — because it’s that kind of week, after all — I was always taken aback by the fervor of the show’s anti-Jack fans. All the things about him they cited as reasons he was the series’ most annoying character — his stubbornness, his failures, his insistence on taking charge and making decisions he was ill-equipped to make — made him the series’ most fascinating character to me. His journey from clear-cut square-jawed hero (albeit with daddy issues) to suicidal perpetual screw-up struck me as a hugely gutsy and rewarding choice by the show’s writers. It didn’t matter to me that I wouldn’t want to hang out with him, or follow him across the jungle; as Hodler says, that kind of thing isn’t the be-all and end-all of fiction.

So what say you, Robot 6 readers? Are you willing to give comics about creeps a chance? Or do you think comics work better when you’re able to truly feel for their characters?

From Northlanders #28, by Brian Wood and Leandro Fernandez

I concede that, like so many people, I’ve had Lost on my mind for the past couple of days. However, am I the only one who, upon seeing this lovely preview for Northlanders #28 by Brian Wood and Leandro Fernandez, instantly thought of the closing moments to Sunday’s series finale?

To prove I’m not totally crazy, I’ve included a couple of screencaps after the break. Isn’t it a little eerie? (The similarity, I mean, not my craziness.)

From "Lost: The End"

From "Lost: The End"

Lost by Chip Zdarsky

The National Post has a really cool interactive drawing of the cast from Lost, which allows you to add characters to the drawing by the season they were introduced. You can also scroll over the characters for biographical info.

“The original is on two large sheets of bristol taped together,” said Chip Zdarsky, who created the piece. “I looked like a madman working on it in the office. And then I had to learn Flash. That program is stupid!”

Lost wraps up tomorrow night.

A pair of off-the-beaten-path comics have surfaced over the past few days that are perfect for readers who like their comics with a pop-cultural flair. First up, there’s Henry & Glenn Forever, a collection of romantic one-panel gags starring those famous star-crossed lovers, Henry Rollins and Glenn Danzig. If you’ve ever wanted to know how the lead singers of Black Flag and the Misfits would maintain a relationship in the face of interference from their Satan-worshipping next-door neighbors Darryl Hall and John Oates, now’s your chance. Henry & Glenn Forever comes to us from Igloo Tornado, a collective consisting of The Blot‘s Tom Neely and his artistic compatriots Gin Stevens, Scott Nobles, and Levon Jihanian, and it’s available for $4 from Microcosm.

Next, Dash Shaw and Jesse Moynihan, the cartoonists responsible for the boundary-shattering webcomics Body World and Forming respectively, have teamed up to create a comic about Lost for the latest issue of the venerable alt-lit journal The Believer. The kicker? It folds out of the mag to a height of almost three feet! According to Moynihan, the strip, called “Spiritual Dad,” is “a story loosely based on things I heard from my dad about his life, mixed in with characters from LOST.” Somehow, doing a Lost-inspired comic about daddy issues feels appropriate to the spirit of the show. Check it out wherever books or magazines are sold!

Vintage-style DC Comics posters, by Michael Myers

Jill Pantozi spots a Flickr set of really nice vintage-style DC Comics posters by Michael Myers featuring Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow and Hawkman. The latter two — the most recent additions — are arguably the best of the bunch. Myers has also begun a Marvel set which, to date, has only a poster of Captain America.

For those Lost fans among you, the artist has animation-style renditions of the show’s characters — including Jacob and the Smoke Monster.

"The Substitute" by Ty Mattson

The Island isn’t done with us yet! Only a few episodes remain for the much-loved series Lost, and that’s meant a veritable submarine-full of artistic tributes around the Internet. Artist and designer Ty Mattson has created some of the coolest I’ve seen so far.

The piece above is from Mattson’s series “Season 6 in Black and White,” featuring an image that sums up each episode, posted the day after it airs. The poster below is one of eight retro-tinged designs Mattson came up with for Season Six premiere party invitations. Keep them coming, artists of the world!

(via Shaggy Erwin)

Lost poster by Ty Mattson

Lost vs. Saul Bass from Hexagonall on Vimeo.

If there are two things on this Internet I never get tired of, it’s fan-made tributes to Lost and fan-made tributes to opening-credits design god Saul Bass. So a tip of the hat to designer Hexagonall, whose video above combines these two wonderful things. His Tron/Bass mash-up is a killer, too.

(via Todd VanDerWerff)

By all accounts tonight’s episode of Lost, now in its final season, looks to be a momentous one. (Note: I hate finding out that a given ep will be “so-and-so-centric” beforehand; alas, that ship has sailed for me as far as tonight goes, but I’m not gonna spoil it for y’all if you haven’t heard.) With that in mind, why not kick back with a few Lost-related goodies from the world of comics?

Hark! A Vagrant‘s Kate Beaton recently finished an epic catch-up on the show, which has apparently prompted a fit of creativity. The Lost comic strips she’s recently posted to Twitter include an ode to her least-favorite character, an astonishing truth about Sawyer, and a bit of 20/20 hindsight for Jack.

Cat Rackham‘s Steve Wolfhard gets in on the action by questioning Locke’s pronunciation.

The Cloudy Collection’s David Huyck catches an unfortunate glimpse of something best left unseen.

Nedroid‘s Anthony Clark has gone absolutely Lost-comics crazy. Just click on his Twitpic account and start scrolling, and you’ll find page after page of little Lost delights.

Finally — and you might wanna wait till your lunchbreak for this one — feast your eyes on this astonishing gallery of Lost illustrations, paintings, sculpture, toys, and god knows what-all else from Gallery1988′s Lost Underground Art Show back in December. Glorious, and gloriously weird, stuff. Kind of like the show!

(Links via Kate Beaton and Scott Campbell)

from "Lost Is Damn Exciting" by Kate Beaton

And who doesn’t? (Wait, don’t answer that, the comment threads around here get contentious enough as it is.) But what I really liked about Hark! A Vagrant cartoonist Kate Beaton‘s take on her own Lost fandom (she’s playing catch-up with the DVDs and is currently in the middle of Season Four) is how she captures the way a really great show can have a literally physical effect on you. Check the whole strip out here.

LOST 365 #4: "John" by Jared Stumpenhorst

I think this is my favorite artistic tribute to Lost yet: Artist Jared Stumpenhorst’s LOST 365 is a daily project in which Stumpenhorst will create one Lost-related work of art every day for a year. The pieces so far boast a strong sense of design and lack the usual cutesiness you tend to see with such projects — and, dare I say it, they’re occasionally rather haunting. Warning: vague, artistically rendered spoilers ahoy.

(Via Whitney Matheson)

Everyone seems to be linking to this Flickr set of “Lost”-inspired cartoons by Graham Annable, and I see no reason not to join the party.

by Faith Erin Hicks

Here’s another Lost sketch, incidentally, by another creator who has a book coming out from First Second later this year. Faith Erin Hicks shares an image of Jack and some of the newer cast members, i.e. ones that didn’t crash on the island in the first season.

“Oh man oh man oh man I am so excited I really really really really hope the show creators’ll be able to wrap this thing up in a good way (DON’T KILL OFF MY JULIET YOU BASTARDS I LOVE HER) I’m so excited. YAAAAAAAAY,” she writes.

by Vera Brosgol

In celebration of tonight’s season premiere of the last season of Lost, artist Vera Brosgol has been sharing sketches on Twitter based on previous episodes from the show’s first five seasons. Brosgol’s Kristyna’s Ghost will be published by First Second next year.

Via

Brian K. Vaughan

With news breaking that Brian K. Vaughan was leaving überhit television series Lost, Robot 6 contacted the multiple Eisner Award-winning writer to ask one question: “Why?”

In an email response tagged with the subject, “My only official statement,” Vaughan said simply: “I can confirm that I left Lost to become best friends with Olivia Munn.”

He then linked back to an item posted this morning by Munn, co-host of G4’s Attack of the Show!

In the piece, Munn revealed that Lost show-runner Damon Lindelof publicly stated Vaughan had left the show for “greener pastures.” Lindelof made the announcement during a DocArzt Lost podcast posted on July 4.

In the piece, Munn shared that Lost show-runner Damon Lindelof publicly stated Vaughan had left the show for “greener pastures” during a Q&A session presented by Curzon Cinemas on July 3.

DocArzt & Friends Lost Blog posted the transcript the following day.

Munn goes on to theorize that the move might have been made so Vaughan can begin work on one of his movie projects that are in various stages of development: Ex Machina at BenderSpink, Y: The Last Man at New Line/Warner Bros. and his King Arthur movie Roundtable at Dreamworks.

Update: Corrected the source.

Michael Emerson's Krazy Kat illustration

This has only the thinnest of connections to comics, but I’m such a fan of actor Michael Emerson and his creepy-funny portrayal of Bejamin Linus on ABC’s Lost that I’ll make the leap.

In an appearance Thursday on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, it was revealed the Emmy Award-winning actor had been a free-lance artist in the 1970s and ’80s, working for The Boston Globe. Among his illustrations was the one shown at right, for an article about “a guy who was haunted in his dreams by the comic-strip character Krazy Kat.”

See? There is a comics connection.

Better still, but completely unrelated to comics, is Emerson’s dramatic rendition of the nursery rhyme “Little Boy Blue,” which you can see in the video after the break.

As an aside: Isn’t Jimmy Fallon just a terrible, terrible talk-show host? Wow.

(via TV Squad)