my god it's full of stars

Neil Gaiman can claim many honorifics: acclaimed comics writer, bestselling novelist, Newbery Award-winning children's author, dater of rock stars. To this list we can now add "owner of an intimidatingly awesome book collection." Shelfari, the online social networking site for book lovers, has posted an astonishing photo gallery of Gaiman's wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling personal library; if possible, it's even more impressive than you might have imagined the Sandman scribe's bookshelves to be. As a person who actually purchased a house in part to have more shelf space, I can only say that the creator of Dream is living the dream.

(Via Tom Spurgeon, whose headline for the link is so good that you really ought to click over there and reward him with your traffic just to see it)

Miracleman #23

Although he admits he's uncertain what will happen with the property, Neil Gaiman says he's "delighted" that Marvel has acquired the rights to Marvelman, and would like to complete the story he began nearly two decades ago.

Gaiman succeeded Alan Moore as writer on the series, then called Miracleman because of trademark concerns, with 1990's Issue 17. He collaborated with artist Mark Buckingham through Issue 25, which was never published because of the collapse of Eclipse Comics.  That issue would have reintroduced Kid Miracleman.

"Right now I'm not entirely sure what's going to happen," Gaiman writes this morning on his website, "and Mark Buckingham and I haven't signed anything, but I'm really hopeful that Marvel will bring Alan Moore's stories back into print, and the work I did with Mark Buckingham (Miracleman 25 was finished, ready for printing, 16 years ago. It's still in Mark Buckingham's possession, although some of the lettering balloons have gone a bit yellow.) I'm not entirely sure what Marvel's plans are for the character at this point -- obviously I'd like to finish the story I started."

Gaiman elaborates a little more in this brief interview with Matthew Surridge for the Montreal Gazette: "... To be honest, I’m just delighted that Marvel have acquired the rights legally, and are talking right now with us about reprinting the work, bringing the work back ethically. Which is a lot more than – you know, [Canadian comics creator] Todd McFarlane [who] … announced that he was going to be reprinting it without paying us. Things are definitely in a better place."

For more on the complicated history of Mick Anglo's Marvelman/Miracleman, be sure to check out Chris Mautner's overiew.

Marvelman teaser, by Joe Quesada

We've noticed some confusion surrounding Marvel's big announcement about its acquisition of Marvelman. Namely, some are wondering why this is big news, or asking who this Marvelman is anyway.

Fear not, we can help. After the break you'll find a guide to the whys and wherefores of Marvelman and why this really, truly is a really, really big deal.

Note: Parts of this article originally appeared here, as part of the "Collect This Now!"feature. It's been refurbished quite a bit, though.

Miracleman #3

So who is this Marvelman character, and why should I care?

First of all, we should explain that the Marvelman character was known in the United States as Miracleman. That may be where part of the confusion is coming from.

Why did they rename the character?

Because Marvel objected to the title. Funny world, innit?

Hold on there. You're getting way ahead of yourself. Start at the very beginning: Who is this character and who created him?

Marvelman was created in 1954 by British artist/writer Mick Anglo. Marvelman was basically a god-like superhero whose secret identity was a boy reporter named Michael Moran. Moran only had to say his magic word "Kimota" (pronounce it backward) to turn into a magnificent physical specimen with extraordinary abilities.

That sounds an awful lot like DC's Captain Marvel.

Yes, indeed. He is, for want of a better word, a Captain Marvel rip-off. You see, prior to '54, a man named Len Miller had been reprinting Captain Marvel stories in the U.K. But when Fawcett Comics, owner of the Big Red Cheese, had folded up shop, unable to win its lengthy legal battle against DC (and that's another story in and of itself), Miller turned to Anglo to create a similar character. Anglo chronicled the adventures of Marvelman, and his friends Kid Marvelman and Young Marvelman until about 1963, when the series came to a close.

Miracleman #1

OK, so Marvel bought a second-rate Shazam. Why should I care about this again?

Two words: Alan. Moore. In 1982 Moore was hired by the new Warrior magazine, along with artists Gary Leach and Alan Davis, to bring back and re-interpret Marvelman. Their vision fit perfectly in the gritty, more "realistic" framework of fantasy stories that Warrior and other comic magazines were creating at the time.

These stories featured a grown-up Moran, now pushing 40. Having completely forgotten about his years as a superhero, he works as a freelance reporter, and is frequently depressed and given to migraines. Then, while on assignment, he gets caught in the middle of a terrorist raid, remembers his magic word and transforms once again into Marvelman, ready to rid the world of evil.

OK, I like Moore and all, but that sounds kind of boring.

I haven't gotten to the good part yet. It turns out the memories that Moran has of his youth and origin are suspect, to put it mildly. The seemingly cartoon villain he believed to be his nemesis was the force responsible for his creation and has returned to finish his experiments. His former teen-age sidekick Kid Miracleman has grown up to be the most psychotic and dangerous being alive. Oh, and his wife is pregnant.

Been there, done that. This sort of revamping goes on all the time.

True. These days, the "everything-you-know-is-wrong" character reinvention has become a cliche. But it's important to remember it was a relatively new idea when Moore came along. More significantly, Moore's ultimate aim with the series is a lot grander and philosophical than merely shifting the tone and upping the violence quotient to fit a more cynical readership.

Miracleman #15

But I like violence. Lots of violence.

Then you're in luck. Because if Marvelman is remembered for anything, it's Issue 15, easily one of the darkest, most violent comics not only in Moore's canon but quite likely in the medium ever (and I've read S. Clay Wilson). In the issue, a gibbering Kid Miracleman battles his former partner and friends, leveling London, with little left to the imagination as to the type of carnage wrought. John Totleben's art is chaotic and gruesome, with wreckage, severed limbs, dead bodies and other horrors crowding and choking each page.

Again, it's a distinct rejoinder to the fan's wish/wonderment of "What if superheroes really existed?" Well, Moore reminds us,they'd lay to waste the world around you. They'd destroy everything you ever believed in and replace it with a world that, while it might be filled with wonders and triumphs, would deny you your basic humanity. Beyond simple genre subversion, though, Moore is explicitly pointing out -- as he did from a different perspective in V for Vendetta -- the danger inherent in attempting to create any utopia, super-powered or otherwise.

You know, the more you describe this, the more it sounds a lot like Watchmen.

As with Watchmen, Marvelman explores the idea of what life would be like in a world with god-like superheroes. Parallel themes of the corruption of power, individual responsibility and such abound. As with Ozymandias, Marvelman does indeed ultimately save the world, reshaping it into a divine utopia, though not without a severe cost.

Because of the similarities, Marvelman tends to get seen as Watchmen redux, even though it was first down the pike. Certainly it's not as tight a story -- it's a sprawling work that took several years to complete and had a revolving door of artists. In addition to Leach and Davis, Rick Veitch and, finally, Totleben made significant marks on the series.

But if Marvelman lacks the clock-like craftsmanship of its big brother, it nevertheless remains a compelling work, full of stunning, indelible sequences and characters. At times it's almost operatic whereas Watchmen is more like a concerto.

Miracleman #9

Your musical analogies leave something to be desired. So what happened after Moore finished the series?

Two more words: Neil. Gaiman. After wrapping up the series with Issue 16, Moore handed the reins (and what he thought were his share of the rights) to Gaiman, who picked up and poked and prodded at what Moore had left behind, sometimes brilliantly. Sometimes not so.

Unfortunately, Gaiman never got the chance to finish his tale, and the series ended at Issue 24.

Why?

Eclipse Comics, which had by this time taken over publishing the series, went belly-up in 1994.

From there it gets complicated. To keep it short, Gaiman, Todd McFarlane and various other folks, have been fighting over the rights to the character in court ever since. Both thought they had at least partial ownership, as McFarlane had bought the rights to Eclipse's creative assets. Turns out Anglo had the rights all this time, and indeed, had never given the rights to Warrior in the first place. But it's taken years and years of wrangling and legal briefs to get this point.

How come I've never heard of this series before?

Because all those original stories have been out of print for a decade or more, and are harder than hen's teeth to find online and a lot more expensive to boot (though I understand there's the occasional BitTorrent file to be found, not that we approve of that sort of thing).

Miracleman #23

So will Moore's and Gaiman's series finally see the light of day again?

Let's hope so, as these are great stories and No. 1 on my list of books that need to be reprinted right now. Marvel certainly wouldn't have bought the rights to the character if it didn't at some point want to republish the long-lost Moore (and Gaiman) masterpiece.

Marvel now owns the rights to Anglo's stories from the '50s and will no doubt publish those in some fashion soon. But it's still unclear how much rights Moore (not to mention Davis, Buckingham or any of the other artists) have regarding republishing their work. Gaiman apparently helped broker the deal, though, and Marvel is in talks with the various creators. Certainly the chances of seeing a Miracleman Omnibus in the next year or two seems more likely than ever. And that's kind of stunning.

This isn't nearly enough Marvelman information. I want more.

For more on Marvelman, visit here, here, here and here. You may also want to buy a copy of this.

July 17

Multiple cities | Watchmen returns to theaters with additional footage for a limited run in Los Angeles, New York City, Dallas and Minneapolis. Details can be found here.

July 18

Baltimore | Geppi's Entertainment Museum hosts Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology editor Keith Chow, art director Jerry Ma, artist Alex Tarampi and writer Larry Hama from noon to 4p.m. for a presentation, discussion and signing.

Portland | Cosmic Monkey Comics hosts a 24-hour zine challenge beginning at 10 a.m. and ending, naturally, at 10 a.m. the next day.

Jeffrey Brown's Hulk

Puyallup, Wash. | Comic Evolution will host a March of Dimes benefit that includes a silent auction and several artists doing sketches for donations, including Paul Gulacy, Clayton Crain and many more.

San Francisco | Isotope Comics hosts a signing and party for Geoff Johns, writer of Blackest Night, Green Lantern and various other titles. They'll have free buttons and a selection of Lantern Corps. cocktails. The signing begins at 4 p.m. and the 21+ party begins at 7 p.m.

July 19

San Francisco | Comix Experience hosts Neil Gaiman for a signing, Q&A and reading. This is a ticketed event.

July 21

New York | The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art hosts a Scarlett Takes Manhattan book release event with Molly Crabapple and John Leavitt, starting at 7 p.m.

July 22

New York | Celebrating the 600th issue of Amazing Spider-Man, Dan Slott signs at Jim Hanley's Universe, 4 West 33rd St. starting at 6 p.m.

San Francisco | The Comic Outpost hosts a Spider-Man #600 exhibit where they will display all 600 issues of the title. They'll also host a raffle that benefits the Hero Initiative.

July 23

Brooklyn, N.Y. | Paul Karasik and Dan Nadel will be at Desert Island from 7 to 9 p.m.for the book launch of You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation!

San Diego | The Chuck Jones Gallery at 232 Fifth Avenue will kick off a Jim Lee art exhibit with a visit from Lee from 7 to 9 p.m. RSVP required.

July 22-26

San Diego | The sold out 2009 Comic-Con International returns to the San Diego Convention Center. Keep an eye out on Robot 6 and CBR for coverage of the con.

More in July

July 28 | Stuart Moore at the Comic Book Club in New York

More in August

Aug. 1 | WASFEn Con 3 in Wausau, Wisconsin

Aug. 8 | Jeff Smith in Toronto

***

If you’d like to submit an event for inclusion, please email them directly to JK Parkin. Please include the venue, city and state, start time, event details and any related websites where we can send folks for more information. Virtual events, like online creator chats, are also welcome. The next ComicsLive will likely be delayed a few days due to the San Diego Comic Con, but it will run ... so please send in your submission!

The Graveyard Book

Neil Gaiman took home two awards at The Audies tonight, including the 2009 Audiobook of the Year award, for The Graveyard Book.

Gaiman not only wrote the book, but also read it for the audiobook version. He's been Twittering from the awards all night, and tweeted "Argh oh god i got it" when he won.

The Graveyard Book was up against Brisingr by Christopher Paolini and A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of my Father by Augusten Burroughs for the top award. It also won in the "Children's Titles for Ages 8-12" category and was nominated in the "Thriller/Suspense" category.

In addition, Chip Kidd's The Learners, read by actor Bronson Pinchot, won in the humor category. Kidd has done design work for a number of comic-related books, including Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross, in addition to designing covers for numerous novels.

Congrats to both Gaiman and Kidd on their awards.

Stamps designed by Dave McKean

Fans in the United Kingdom and the United States both have something to look forward to in the mail later this year. First, the Royal Mail will introduce new stamps (pictured above) designed by Dave McKean featuring assorted mythical beasts. In addition, if you buy a presentation pack, the stamps will include a short story by Neil Gaiman. The stamps are due June 16.

And for those of us on this side of the ocean ... later this week the United States Post office will unveil the designs for stamps featuring the five main Simpsons characters -- Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie. No word on when the stamps will actually hit stores, but I'm sure they'll announce that on April 9 as well.

Miracleman #23

After almost 20 years, it looked like the first two issues of Big Numbers were the only issues we'd ever see. But last week the third issue miraculously surfaced on the internet.

Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz's aborted epic is one of those series that, even 20 years later, still gets people talking and wondering about what might have been. On his blog, Eddie Campbell remembers talking to Kevin Eastman about why the third issue was never published, even though it was finished: "I recall asking publisher Kevin Eastman at the time why, even though the 12-issue series was abandoned, he couldn't put out the existing third issue," Campbell writes. "He looked at me as though I was daft. Who would want a third issue if they knew there wouldn't be any after that?"

And yet here we are, in 2009, talking about a third issue no one would want.

Big Numbers is far from the only series that ever fell into comic limbo. In honor of Pádraig O Méalóid's eBay purchase, here are six other comics that I'd like to see more of. Note that for the purpose of this list, I avoided titles that were officially canceled for sales reasons (like Blue Beetle, Aztek or Chase ... that's another list for another day) and instead focused on comics that we expected to see one day, but for some reason or another, they were never published (at least not yet, anyway). Books where I feel I could use some closure. Like last week, I received a little help from my fellow Robot 6 bloggers, so thanks to Kevin Melrose, Tim O'Shea and Michael May for their suggestions.

1. Miracleman: I would consider three comic titles the "holy trinity" of stories lost to comic book limbo -- three books that were created but never saw print for one reason or another. One would be the previously mentioned Big Numbers #3, while another would be Miracleman #25. Written by Neil Gaiman and drawn by Mark Buckingham, the 25th issue of this epic series was never published.

The legal battles between Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane over the rights to the character have become legendary, and they're only one piece of the legal maze that surrounds the rights to Miracleman/Marvelman (if you'd like to run that gauntlet, you can check out many of the referenced articles in the Miracleman Wikipedia entry, or find yourself a copy of Kimota! The Miracleman Companion by TwoMorrows, which details the property's history). What I do know for sure is this -- Moore, Gaiman, Buckingham, Alan Davis, John Totleben and the rest of the creators involved with the book created 25 monumental issues before the book's publisher, Eclipse Comics, folded in the mid-1990s. Only 24 of those saw print, and Gaiman has said if they can ever unravel the legalities he wants to get the material back into print. Hopefully that day will come in my lifetime.

2. The end of Rick Veitch's Swamp Thing run: And heres' the third of the trinity I mentioned -- Swamp Thing #88. As part of a time travel arc written by Veitch, Swamp Thing was going to meet Jesus in issue 88,. The cover for that issue would have featured an image of Swamp Thing as the cross where Jesus died. DC decided not to publish it, so Veitch left the title, and not only did fans miss out on that particular stories, but we never saw how Veitch would end his excellent run on the title.

This is another one that I'm hoping we haven't heard the last of. As noted on the Swamp Thing Annotations site, back in 2004 Veitch said he'd be willing to finish his run on the book and even change parts of #88 deemed too offensive for publication. Heck, if Chris Claremont can pick up the X-Men where he left off, why not have Veitch finish his Swamp Thing run? It doesn't look like DC is interested, which is too bad; I guess fans will once again have to turn to eBay.

Doc Frankenstein #1

3. Doc Frankenstein: Along with Shaolin Cowboy, Burlyman Entertainment's somewhat controversial Doc Frankenstein was written by the Wachowski brothers of The Matrix trilogy and Speed Racer fame. Drawn by Steve Skroce, it detailed the fabled monster's journey through history, as the immortal being becomes a heroic figure plagued by his own origins. It was a great mix of philosophical ideas, satire and big explosions.

The book started out on a bi-monthly schedule in 2004, then moved to a, what, yearly schedule sometime during its run? As of the end of 2007, six issues have been published, but since then, nothing -- we haven't heard about anything comic-related out of Burlyman or the Wachowski brothers since.

4. Leave It To Chance: Back in the mid-1990s, Starman writer James Robinson and Uncanny X-Men artist Paul Smith created Leave it to Chance, a fun comic about the daughter of a city's mystical protector. The book was initially part of Wildstorm's Homage line (which also included Kurt Busiek's Astro City), then moved to DC when they bought Wildstorm, then returned to Image for its 13th (and, it would turn out, last) issue. (For more on the series, I recommend reading this post from the Holy Heroes blog, which captures the spirit and energy of the comic).

The series ended with several dangling plotlines, not the least of which was the question of whether or not Chance's father, Lucas Falconer, was really dead or not. There was also a cadre of villains from the previous 12 issues forming a pact to take Chance down. But while issue 13 promises a "next time," it never came ... perhaps Robinson's Hollywood work prevented him from doing further issues, or maybe sales were low. Dunno. What we do know, however, are two things Robinson revealed at WonderCon: Lucas wasn't dead, and further issues of this fun series aren't planned. "We’re never going to publish this, so I can tell you, her father isn’t dead. He was going to be the next falconer," he said.

from Aqua Leung

5. Aqua Leung: Created by Mark Andrew Smith and Paul Maybury, Aqua Leung was intended to be a series of graphic novels about the forgotten son of the king of Atlantis, a coming-of-age tale about his rise to the throne. Blogger Dick Hyacinth was a fan of the book and sums up his feelings on it nicely:

As for the book itself, it wasn't without it problems, but there were a number of really terrific moments. I'm not really a fan of mid-brow, ground level type comics, mostly because they seem to lack the energy of the trashier stuff and the sophistication of the artsier stuff. The worst examples end up being uptight but not especially deep (the vast majority of Vertigo's output springs to mind). However, a strong, art-emphasized approach can yield some very commendable results--I'm thinking Mike Mignola and Eric Powell here. I thought Aqua Leung was in this territory, with the promise of even better things to come.

Unfortunately, there was a disagreement between the two creators over who did what on the book, as was detailed in the comments section of Maybury's LiveJournal (the specific post appears to no longer be available, but you can find the comments toward the end of this Lying in the Gutters column). It's a shame not only that their partnership ended, but that it ended in such an unpleasant manner.

Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. #11

6. Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E.: You might be wondering why I included Nextwave on this list. Didn't it have an ending? Wasn't it a 12-issue limited series, and all 12 issues were published? Or wasn't it canceled, so doesn't including it on this list violate my rule about not including comics that were officially canceled?

Well, maybe, on that last one. But no, Nextwave wasn't a mini-series, as writer Warren Ellis noted on his blog a couple of years ago. "To clear up a common misconception: NEXTWAVE was always pitched as an ongoing series. However, my original intent was to do 12 and then pass it on to someone else. This got garbled, somewhere down the chain of communication, and so the first issue or two got solicited as 'part xxx of 12,'" he wrote.

But did it have an ending? Sure. But let's go back to the beginning. Nextwave was a brilliant, satirical series from Marvel, written by Ellis, wonderfully drawn by Stuart Immonen and immaculately colored by Dave McCaig. It featured a cast of B- and C-grade Marvel characters, like Machine Man, Monica Rambeau (the former Captain Marvel) and Boom Boom from X-Force fighting a guerrilla war against the Beyond Corporation and their "Unusual Weapons of Mass Destruction."

Ellis said that the book was doing okay as a monthly, while sales of the first trade were "terrific." And he was up for doing a second year on the title, but Marvel found that at its current sales levels they could afford to keep Ellis on as writer, but not Immonen as the artist (he went on to draw the higher-profile Ultimate Spider-Man after Nextwave). So yes, I was hesitant to put Nextwave on this list, as I feel like we did get some closure with that last issue. But Ellis also promised we would, indeed, one day have more of Monica, Boom Boom and the rest. "NEXTWAVE #12 will be the last issue of the ongoing series: but there will be more NEXTWAVE to come, presented as a sequence of limited series," Ellis wrote on his blog.

So sure, closure, but also the promise of more Nextwave. And thus I wait, patiently, for more of this insane and delightful comic.

*****

So there you have it, six titles we were expecting to see more of but for a variety of reasons didn't. As we saw last week, anything can happen with an old, aborted project, so maybe the final blog posts on all of these comics have yet to be written. No doubt I've overlooked some other ones (like Chester Brown's Underwater, as Chris Mautner suggested, or DC's Thriller, as Tom Bondurant threw out), so I'd love to hear from the rest of you on other projects you'd like to see finished.

As JK noted yesterday, Neil Gaiman appeared on The Colbert Report last night to answer Stephen Colbert's charges about Gaiman's children's book The Graveyard Book.

"Isn't there a danger here that our children will stop being frightened of graveyards?" Colbert asked in the interview. "Because without that how are we supposed to get them to eat their vegetables?"

You can watch the full episode at the Colbert Nation website.

As you can see in the video below, the popular conservative talk show host called Gaiman out on his latest book, where a young orphan escapes his family's killer by wandering into a graveyard:

The program starts at 11:30 p.m. Eastern on Comedy Central.