muppets
Jim Henson fansite celebrates 10 years with artist-led cavalcade
A
lthough the Muppets and the gang at Sesame Street might be puppets, they’ve made their way into comics on multiple occasions, and with the 10th anniversary of the Jim Henson-centric fansite Tough Pigs coming around this year, a number of artists have chipped in to celebrate the occasion.
For this event, Tough Pigs reached out to a variety of artists, including those from the Muppets and Fraggle Rock comics, the Sesame Street storybook illustrators and even fan artists to celebrate the event and the impact of Henson’s creations. One of the standouts of the bunch is the illustration at right by Mouse Guard creator David Petersen, who also contributed covers to to both BOOM! Studios Muppets titles and Archaia’s Fraggle Rock series.
Head over to the Tough Pigs site to see all of the artwork they’ve assembled, and look into the archives for other original art collected related to Jim Henson.
- August 19, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Chris Arrant
SDCC Wishlist | Amy Mebberson’s Green Lantern/Muppets mash-up
Muppet Lanterns
If you’re looking for some fun prints to buy in San Diego this weekend, Strawberry Shortcake artist Amy Mebberson has several, including the above mash-up of DC’s various Lanterns and the Muppets. Mebberson is no stranger to the Muppets, having drawn them when BOOM! had the license, and she’ll have a non-color coded Muppets print as well.
You can find Mebberson and James Silvani (Darkwing Duck) in the Artist Alley area of the con, table Table HH20. Just think of water …
- July 19, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
Archaia to bring back classic Fraggle Rock comics
Archaia assembled a talented group of writers and artists for its two anthlogies of comics based on Jim Henson’s 1980s television series Fraggle Rock, but the next volume will go a different route: Reprinting the classics.
The first Fraggle Rock comics came out in 1985-1986, during the show’s heyday, and were published by Star Comics, which was a division of Marvel. The series only ran 8 issues, all of which were written by Stan Kay and illustrated by Marie Severin, who later drew the Fraggle Rock comics that appeared in Muppet Magazine. Marvel reprinted five of these comics in 1988 without the Star logo.
Now Muppet fansite Tough Pigs reports that Archaia will publish a collection of these older Fraggle Rock comics, digitally remastered and collected into a softcover anthology. “That’s 80s content with a modern-day feel! Or at least a modern-day coloring job,” says writer Joe Hennes. The stories include The Magic Time Machine,” “The Trouble With Being #1,” “The Monster That Could Be Anything” and “The Doozer Who Wanted to Be a Fraggle.” The book will retail for $9.95 and will be available on August 31.
- June 23, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Caanan Grall draws Muppet Thor
For his 24-Hour Comics Day challenge, Caanan Grall came up with a brilliant mashup: Muppet Thor, in which the Muppets discover the mighty hammer Mjolnir and the Thunder God himself makes a surprise appearance with Miss Piggy. Grall does a nice job drawing the Muppets, and the story has some clever twists.
If you can’t get enough of Muppet mash-ups, head over to our sister blog Comics Should Be Good for a few more.
- June 17, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | Mike Keefe wins Pulitzer; BOOM! loses Classic Disney titles?
From Mike Keefe's portfolio
Awards | Denver Post editorial cartoonist Mike Keefe has won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning “for his widely ranging cartoons that employ a loose, expressive style to send strong, witty messages.” Keefe, who joined the Post in 1975, had previously served in the Marines and taught math in college. “I am gobsmacked,” the 64-year-old cartoonist says. “In recent years, the Pulitzer has gone to much younger folks who are newer in the business. I’ve always done pretty classical editorial cartooning. I thought my day had passed.” Comic Riffs has Keefe’s award-winning portfolio. [Denver Post]
Publishing | On the heels of successive announcements that Marvel will publish comics based on Disney’s Pixar and Muppets properties, licenses previously held by BOOM! Studios, comes word that BOOM! has stopped soliciting Classic Disney series like Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Uncle Scrooge and Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories. However, Diamond’s Previews catalog for July contains listings for the publisher’s titles based on such Disney Afternoon properties as Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck and DuckTales. [ICv2.com]
- April 19, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Kevin Melrose
Marvel to (re)publish Muppet show comics [UPDATED]
Marvel and parent company Disney are pulling the Muppet Show comics out of limbo—at least one of them. Marvel announced yesterday that it will publish Meet the Muppets, a 96-page Muppet Show comic written and illustrated by Roger Langridge, in a magazine format for $5.99. This is the first we have heard of Marvel publishing a Muppets comic, although it’s not too surprising, as they recently announced a new comics magazine based on their Pixar properties. BOOM! Studios had previously held the license for both the Pixar and the Muppets comics, and it looks like both magazines are reprints of that material. BOOM!’s version of Meet the Muppets was released two years ago as a graphic novel, although Marvel’s edition has a larger format (with fewer pages) and a lower price.
Langridge commented at Bleeding Cool,
I have to say this is the first I’ve heard of any of this, though I’m glad the material will continue to be out there and available.
At the time of the Pixar changeover, all the parties were curiously quiet about the Muppets license. Now that this book has been announced, perhaps we will hear about the fate of the unpublished Muppets comics, a four-comic series titled The Four Seasons, which are currently in limbo, with no announced plans from BOOM! or Marvel to publish them.
Update: When asked about the project, BOOM! sent the following response:
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the team at Marvel are a group I respect greatly and consider friends. It’s exciting to see them republish Harvey Award-winning BOOM! content from the incomparable Roger Langridge. Susan Butterworth and the entire Muppet Studios team are fantastic people, and they were a joy to work with. With any luck, Roger’s unpublished FOUR SEASONS arc will find success on their publishing schedule,” said BOOM! Studios founder and CEO Ross Richie.
- April 12, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Food or Comics? | This week’s comics on a budget
20th century Boys
Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy on Wednesday based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on what we call our “Splurge” item.
Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList if you’d like to play along in our comments section.
Brigid Alverson
If I had $15,
I’d get volume 13 of 20th Century Boys. This series is fantastic, and I hear there’s a big reveal in this volume.
If I had $30,
I’d add some floppies to the mix. This is a good week for a lot of the series I have been following on and off: Atomic Robo: Deadly Art of Science #4 ($3.50), Sixth Gun #9 ($3.99), Kill Shakespeare #9 ($3.99). Since I have a bit left over, I’ll throw in Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #716 ($3.99), because I really have been enjoying that classic Disney.
- February 22, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by JK Parkin
Food or Comics? | This week’s comics on a budget
Witchfinder: Lost and Gone Forever
Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy on Wednesday based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on what we call our “Splurge” item.
Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList if you’d like to play along in our comments section.
Michael May
If I had $15:
I’d start with Witchfinder: Lost and Gone Forever #1 ($2.99). I love weird western tales and can’t imagine a better creative team for one than the writers of BPRD and artist John Severin, who illustrated so many of Atlas’ classic westerns. Then I’d grab The Muppet Show, Volume 5: Muppet Mash ($9.99) because hey, Roger Langridge, Muppets and classic monsters.
If I had $30:
I’d add a couple of Big Two all-ages comics to the pile. If Marvel’s Super Hero Squad Spectacular #1 ($3.99) is half as fun as the show it’s based on, it’ll be worth taking home and reading to the boy. I’ll just have to keep ignoring the irritating, unnecessarily three-fingered character designs. I’m even more confident that we’ll enjoy DC’s Super Friends, Volume 4: Mystery in Space ($12.99) because we’ve been so delighted with the first three collections. David just turned nine and by way of celebration, he wanted to go back and re-read the Superman’s Birthday story from volume two.
- February 1, 2011 @ 04:26 PM by JK Parkin
Amy Mebberson’s cuteness overload
Amy Mebberson keeps pretty busy drawing Muppet and Pixar comics for Boom! Studios, and she also has done covers for their standard Disney characters line. So how does she relax after a hard day churning out the cuteness? By turning the dial to 11 and sketching super-cute versions of Barbie and comics characters. Amy has just set up a new blog, Fun Size, to collect her sketchcards and other incidental drawings of cute, rounded, smiling characters. For her everyday sketches, including the sketch covers she did for the Muppet comics at cons this year, check out her other art blog, My Blue Sky.
- December 29, 2010 @ 12:30 PM by Brigid Alverson
SDCC ’10 | Highlights of Sunday’s comics programming
Comic-Con International
At last we arrive at the schedule for the final day of Comic-Con International — Sunday, July 25 (aka “Kids’ Day”).
Below you’ll find highlights of the comics-related programming, which include the final Smallville panel, an appearance by famed Japanese artist Yoshitako Amano, spotlights on Matt Fraction and Dennis O’Neil, and a look at the upcoming Spider-Man storyline “Origin of the Species.”
The full programming schedule for Saturday can be found here.
10 to 11 .m. Emily The Strange — Get your last day of Comic-Con off to a strange start with Dark Horse’s Emily the Strange panel! Meet Emily’s creator Rob Reger and Dark Horse editor Shawna Gore, and come prepared to quench your curiosity about all things Emily. Exciting announcements, wacky wordplay, and tasty news bits are all on the menu for this early bird panel! Room 3
10 to 11 a.m. Jack Kirby Tribute — It’s time once again to pay tribute to Jack “King” Kirby, the prolific writer/artist who co-created some of the world’s most famous superheroes, including the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Thor, Captain America, the New Gods and many more. Kirby biographer and friend Mark Evanier (Kirby: King of Comics) hosts this annual Comic-Con tradition and is joined this year by writers Marv Wolfman (Tomb of Dracula, New Teen Titans) and Kurt Busiek (Astro City, JLA/Avengers) and other Kirby fanatics to discuss the King. Room 4
- July 11, 2010 @ 11:09 AM by Kevin Melrose
Straight for the art | Langridge finds it, the Rainbow (Bridge) Connection
by Roger Langridge
Here’s another submission for this weekend’s HeroesCon art auction — this time The Muppet Show and The Mighty Thor‘s Roger Langridge combines two of Disney’s properties into one awesome mash-up. And hey — why not a Thor/Muppets comic?
- June 3, 2010 @ 11:30 AM by JK Parkin
C2E2 | Mebberson gets the Muppets
Amy Mebberson sketching the Muppets
Divalicious artist Amy Mebberson has taken over the interior art chores on BOOM! Kids’ Muppet Show comics from Roger Langridge, and BOOM! publisher Ross Richie described her art this way: “Roger does the full cartooning mode, Amy tries to preserve the notion that the hand is inside the Muppet,” which caused editor-in-chief Mark Waid to exclaim “There’s a hand inside the Muppet?” BOOM!, which has been making kind of a thing of variant covers for conventions, came up with a unique idea for C2E2, the Get-A-Sketch cover: It’s blank, and Amy sketches the buyer on it—as a Muppet. This requires the artist involved to be a good sport, and Amy certainly put in a lot of hours at the booth, but she always looked like she was having a good time.
- April 19, 2010 @ 02:00 PM by Brigid Alverson
Send us your Shelf Porn!
This week we have a special guest contributor to Shelf Porn — comics writer Jesse Blaze Snider. Snider will be at C2E2 this weekend in Chicago, signing copies of Toy Story and other comics at the BOOM! Studios booth, so be sure to drop by and tell him how cool his shelf porn looks.
If you’d like to contribute to Shelf Porn, just send a write-up and pictures to jkparkin@yahoo.com.
And now let’s turn it over to Jesse …
- April 14, 2010 @ 02:00 PM by JK Parkin
Send us your Shelf Porn!
Welcome once again to Shelf Porn, our weekly visit inside the walls of a fan’s collection. Today’s collection belongs to one Chaos McKenzie, who shows off his comics, trades, graphic novels, original art, action figures and stuffed animals. As you can see in the picture above, he’s agot a nice collection of Power Girl-related art and comics.
If you’d like to contribute to Shelf Porn, just send a write-up and pictures to jkparkin@yahoo.com.
Take it away, Chaos!
- April 7, 2010 @ 02:00 PM by JK Parkin
The Muppets do The Wicker Man
A Muppet Wicker Man
Now this is a great Muppet caper. British comics creator Paul O’Connell has blessed the world with A Muppet Wicker Man, a fumetti in which the heads of Kermit, Gonzo, Miss Piggy et al are superimposed on the bodies of Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland and so on for a re-enactment of director Anthony Shaeffer’s 1975 horror classic The Wicker Man.
If you’ve ever seen the movie, you already know it’s one of the greatest, and strangest, fright films of all time. Now imagine it with Muppets. Yes, I think it’s safe to say the Internet has lived up to its promise at last.
Note: Assuming grainy topless shots of Miss Piggy aren’t workplace safe, this is NSFW. But who needs a job when you have A Muppet Wicker Man?
(Via Tom Spurgeon, with my eternal thanks)
- March 2, 2010 @ 08:26 AM by Sean T. Collins