paul jenkins
Grumpy Old Fan | A full bracket for DC’s March solicits
OMAC #7
Since the March solicitations kick off the back half of the New 52′s first year, it’s probably worth noting that the whole line remains unchanged: no “midseason replacements” like Justice Society, but no cancellations either. If I hear relieved sighs from OMAC and Men of War, certainly Dan DiDio and Jim Lee have to be pleased generally that they’ve gotten this far with the 52 intact.
Well, pleased or stubborn, I suppose. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.
Ahem. Away we go…!
HISTORY LESSONS
One of my pet peeves about the New-52 is the sense that it lacks a meaningful “history.” For at least the last few decades, a reader might not have known exactly what had happened or when, but s/he could tell that these characters hadn’t just fallen off the turnip truck. I say this because the solicits for Justice League #7 and Flash #7 both allude to their books’ untold backstories. With Justice League, we’ll learn about membership turnover and other details of the five years between the League’s debut and today. (To be sure, some of that has already been alluded to in the League’s previous present-day appearances, like JL Dark #1.)
- December 15, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
Humberto Ramos on his self-published book Fairy Quest: Outlaws
A lot of things happen at Comic-Con, from media spectacles to actual comic book news. And amidst all the news, announcements and rigamarole this year was the debut of a new graphic novel by creators Paul Jenkins and Humberto Ramos. The two have done a number of books in their time, but this does it on a new stage — their own stage, self-publishing.
Fairy Quest: Outlaws is the first of a projected four-book series that takes the Western world’s most beloved fairy tales and sets them up in their own world — Fablewood — where they’re forced to re-enact their stories everyday like marionettes. Ramos is no stranger to creator-owned work; although he might be best known now for Amazing Spider-Man, he’s done far-ranging projects such as the vampire-epic Crimson to the Catholic thriller Revelations, amongst others. I talked with Ramos about Fairy Quest: Outlaws on the eve of the convention to find out more.
- July 28, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Chris Arrant
Comics A.M. | Charlaine Harris’ new graphic novel; the origins of Epic
Charlaine Harris
Publishing | Charlaine Harris, author of the “Sookie Stackhouse” novels on which HBO’s True Blood is based, says that after she finishes the last two “Sookie” books, she plans to work on a graphic novel with Christopher Golden. “I’m very excited about that. It’s called Cemetery Girl with Christopher Golden, and it’s a very exciting opportunity.” Harris had mentioned wanting to do a novel called Cemetery Girl back in 2009, about “a girl raised by ghosts in a cemetery,” but put it on hold when she found out the plot was similar to Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book.
Based on the description in the news report, it sounds like the story has been tweaked, as it says the graphic novel “centers on a woman who finds herself living in a cemetery with no memory of her past but a clear sense of a mysterious threat hanging over her.” This isn’t the first time Harris’ characters have found their way into comics, as IDW publishes comics based on HBO’s True Blood, and an adaptation of her Grave Sight novels has been published by Dynamite. [NBC San Diego]
Publishing | Former Marvel Comics editor and Transformers writer John Barber has joined IDW Publishing as a senior editor. IDW also announced the promotion of Tom Waltz to the company’s first senior staff writer position, in addition to his duties as editor, and the expansion of the company’s book department with longtime IDW employee Alonzo Simon becoming an assistant editor. [press release]
- July 13, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
DC’s ‘New 52′ web page inadvertently reveals names of original writers
The original Supergirl listing on DC Comics' "The New 52" landing page (courtesy ComicsAlliance)
We’ve known for a few weeks now that some writers were attached to titles in DC Comics’ upcoming relaunch, only to find themselves shuffled off even as the official announcement was made. While some creators have spoken openly about the hurried, and somewhat-confused, pitch and rejection process, the names of other writers, and the corresponding titles, have been a mystery.
But with the launch last night of the publisher’s new landing page for “DC Comics: The New 52,” ComicsAlliance discovered that some of the original creators were, at least briefly, listed among the issue descriptions, providing evidence of the original plans. There’s confirmation of Brian Wood, instead of Michael Green and Mike Johnson, on Supergirl, Michael Alan Nelson, rather than Ron Marz, on Voodoo, and Simon Spurrier and an undetermined artist, rather than Paul Jenkins and Bernard Chang, on DC Universe Presents.
C.O. Austen, whom ComicsAlliance theorizes might be much-criticized Uncanny X-Men writer Chuck Austen, was also listed on Blackhawks, in place of Mike Costa, who actually ended up with the gig.
DC has made the corrections this morning, but ComicsAlliance has the screencaps from last night.
- July 1, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Food or Comics? | This week’s comics on a budget
Batman Inc. #7
Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy at our local comic shop 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 a “Splurge” item.
Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList, and tell us what you’re getting in our comments field.
Chris Mautner
If I had $15:
I’d pick up Batman Inc. #7 ($2.99) and that would be it, so afterwards I’d pat myself on the back for not blowing my whole $15.
If I had $30:
I’d go with Farm 54 ($25), a new hardbound collection of stories by the brother and sister team of Galit and Gilad Seliktar, courtesy of Fanfare/Ponent Mon. It’s basically a semi-autobiographical collection of tales capturing a young woman at various critical stages in her youth, adolescence and young adulthood, all done in a tentative, wispy watercolor. Lovely stuff to flip through, at the very least.
- June 28, 2011 @ 05:00 PM by JK Parkin
What Are You Reading?
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #50
Hello and welcome to What Are You Reading? This week our special guest is Ross Campbell, creator of Shadoweyes and its recent sequel, Shadoweyes in Love, as well as Wet Moon, Water Baby, The Abandoned and “Refuse,” a short story in the recent Strange Adventures anthology from Vertigo.
To see what Ross and the Robot 6 crew have been reading lately, click below.
- June 19, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by JK Parkin
Jenkins and Ramos’ FairyQuest finally makes its way to the U.S.
After years of waiting, Humberto Ramos had to take it into his own hands to bring his European graphic novel FairyQuest to America.
After initial plans to go through an un-named publisher fell through, Ramos has decided to self-publish the book in an extremely limited edition of 1000 at this year’s Comic-Con International at San Diego. Created with long-time collaborator Paul Jenkins, FairyQuest was released in Europe almost three years ago, but the duo couldn’t find the right publisher to bring it to the states.
Although best known now for his work on Amazing Spider-Man, Ramos has done numerous creator-owned projects such as Crimson and Out There at DC/Wildstorm, and even an earlier European series called K.
The sneak peeks over the years have kept my motor running, and I’m glad come July I’ll finally be able to get my hands on Ramos’ rarest work.
- June 15, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Chris Arrant
Bill Sienkiewicz reveals his side of Alan Moore’s Big Numbers saga
from Big Numbers #3 by Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz
It is perhaps the greatest comic never published. Intended to be a 12-issue miniseries ambitious and complex enough to make Watchmen look like Wizard of Id on an off day, Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz’s Big Numbers was a Joycean look at life in a small English town as a big-box retailer prepared to set up shop. But this grand fiction-as-fractal-geometry experiment only managed to produce two published issues in 1990 before hitting a massive delay during work on issue #3, losing Sienkiewicz, moving from Moore’s Mad Love publishing imprint to Kevin Eastman’s Tundra, tapping Sienkiewicz’s then-teenaged assistant (and current reclusive Pim & Francie creator and alt-horror superstar) Al Columbia to take over, losing Columbia and all the pages he’d completed, and finally shuddering to a halt.
- January 3, 2011 @ 11:08 AM by Sean T. Collins
The Fifth Color – What About Bob?
The Sentry has come a long way, baby. Bob Reynolds’s story is no longer a man struggling with an addiction who was close to his dog, he’s just about as far from that as possible. The original April Fool’s Prank for The Golden Guardian of Good turned out to be a larger tale of a man with the greatest amount of power having the greatest amount of responsibility. That when you create the equal and opposite reaction to the power of a thousand exploding suns, the only way to win was to do nothing at all. At his first introduction, we are left with a very quiet and beautiful study of the greatest good and the worst evil residing in an everyday man and the world that had forgotten him.
When Bendis puled him out of the Vault for his New Avengers, the stakes had already been changed. The balance of good an evil was gone, just an implanted a virus from Mastermind and possible delusion villain The General that created psychological problems and the existence of the Void, which was just another extension of Reynolds himself. We lost our philosophical battle and our more peacable idea of wrong and right to be able to tear Carnage in half in space.
Okay, there’s nothing wrong with that. Bendis even brought in Paul Jenkins as a character in the book to explain everything, kind of having him sign off on the project. Despite his immense power and complexity, the Sentry was going to be an Avenger. Hey, they’ve worked with gods and demi-gods before, what’s the difference?
- November 6, 2009 @ 05:00 PM by Carla Hoffman