Comic Book Resources

On Stranger Tides author discusses next Pirates of the Caribbean movie

On Stranger Tides

Back at the D23 event in September, Disney announced they were doing a fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, subtitled "On Stranger Tides." This caused several people to wonder aloud, "Hey, does this have anything to do with the 1988 Tim Powers book of the same name?"

Yes, it does. Geoff Boucher with the L.A. Times catches up with Powers, who says Disney optioned the book almost three years ago. His book is about a group of pirates, including Blackbeard, searching for the Fountain of Youth ... which viewers of the third Pirates movie may remember being mentioned at the end of that movie:

"I've watched all the movies several times, of course, and I think the clear thing they would use is the trip to the Fountain of Youth," Powers said. "My main character doesn't overlap with Jack Sparrow at all [in personality or circumstance]; they're totally different characters. I suppose they might overlap the Geoffrey Rush character Barbossa and Blackbeard. The only thing I feel certain they will hold on to is the Fountain of Youth since they telegraphed that at the end of the last movie."

The movie is scheduled to come out in the summer of 2011.

What are you reading?

Labor Days Vol. 2

Welcome once again to What are you reading?, the weekly column where the Robot 6 team runs through what comics and other stuff they've been checking out lately. As Chris is in Bethesda this weekend, I'm filling in for him as your host.

Our special guests this time are Philip Gelatt and Rick Lacy, creators of the Labor Days graphic novels published by Oni Press. Volume two, Just Another Damn Day, is now available in finer retail establishments everywhere. (You can check out a preview here).

See what they've been reading, as well as the rest of the Robot 6 crew, after the jump ...

Continue Reading »

Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs: Cursed Pirate Girl #1-2

Cursed Pirate Girl #1

Cursed Pirate Girl #1-2
Written and Illustrated by Jeremy Bastian
Olympian Publishing; $4.95 each

On the back cover of Cursed Pirate Girl #1, Mike Mignola calls Jeremy Bastian a genius and declares, “I almost never see work this original.” If pirates and Bastian’s whimsical and detailed style aren’t enough to make you curious, praise from Mike Mignola – who knows a thing or two about originality – concerning the book’s uniqueness ought to. I mean, that’s like hearing David Petersen call it “stuff that makes other artists jealous and comic readers drool.” Oh, wait. That’s on the back cover too.

I promise I’ll get to the book itself in a second, but there’s another remarkable quote on the back of the second issue. Painter Gail Potocki calls the series, “our generation’s Alice in Wonderland.” Which is interesting because one of the first things you notice when you open it is the influence of classic Alice illustrator John Tenniel with his opulent linework and exaggerated body types. Another way of describing Bastian’s style might be, “Jeff Smith as inked by Gary Gianni.”

But there’s much more to Potocki’s Alice comparison than just the art. Lewis Carroll’s stories were joyous celebrations of childhood and imagination. And while Bastian’s book isn’t as nonsensical as Carroll’s, there’s certainly that sense that anything can happen. And often will.

Continue Reading »

D23 | Day one's big movie panel

My wife and I flew down to Anaheim, Calif. last night to attend Disney's first-ever D23 Expo, a fan convention focused on anything related to the House of Mouse. The event kicked off on Thursday with a presentation by Bob Iger, Disney CEO, which we unfortunately missed, but you can read about what he said about the Marvel deal over on CBR.

We picked up our badges -- or, actually, wristbands -- last night, and headed over to the Anaheim Convention Center this morning for our first full day.

Continue Reading »

Captain Blood and the Peril of Indie Comics

Matthew Shepherd, Michael Shoyket and David Hedgecock rework a few pages from Captain Blood to address the problems independent comics have with distribution, ultimately asking readers to "demand more from comics." And, in one panel, not to download comics ... which seemed very unpirate-like.

Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs: SLG's Captain Blood #1

Captain Blood #1

Rafael Sabatini's novel Captain Blood opens with rebellion, battle, and a country doctor dragged kicking and screaming into a civil war he wants nothing to do with. It's an exciting opening that not only lets you know who Dr. Peter Blood is, but also explains his motivations for the rest of the novel.

SLG's is the second comics adaptation of Captain Blood I've ever read - the other being part of Graphic Classics' Sabatini volume - and I think it's interesting that both adaptations choose to begin their stories later in Blood's life when he's been sold into slavery by his own government. They both then flash back to England almost immediately, picking up Sabatini's beginning.

I'm not sure why that is. I understand the advantage of starting a story with later, more exciting events and then skipping back to explain what's going on. But Blood's slave career is hardly more exciting than the action and drama around his fateful midnight house call to the bedside of a rebel leader. Or to his subsequent, wrongful imprisonment and monkey trial. That's cool, thrilling stuff.

Continue Reading »

Talking Comics with Tim: Chris Schweizer

Crogan's Vengeance

Chris Schweizer is a creator that lives in my neck of the woods: Atlanta. I always enjoy the opportunity to support (albeit imported) local talent. I recently email interviewed him about Crogan's Vengeance (Oni Press), described by the publisher as  "the first in an ongoing series of adventure graphic novels spanning continents and centuries as cartoonist Chris Schweizer climbs through the various branches of the Crogan clan's family tree! Volume one of THE CROGAN ADVENTURES series introduces us to 'Catfoot' Crogan, an honest sailor who finds himself thrust into a life of piracy! Crogan never wanted to be a pirate and he never dreamed he'd wind up at odds with the most dangerous buccaneer ever to sail the Spanish Main! But there's more to this fight for 'Catfoot' than just staying alive, there's also CROGAN'S VENGEANCE!"

As noted at Schweizer's own site: "He received his BFA in Graphic Design from Murray State University in 2004, and did his post-graduate work in Sequential Art at the Atlanta branch of the Savannah College of Art and Design . . . he now teaches as a professor of Sequential Art and Animation at SCAD-Atlanta."

Thanks to Schweizer for an interview and thanks also to Oni's Cory Casoni for facilitating the interview.

Tim O'Shea: Your pirate tale really relies on strategy being conveyed in battle partially with dialogue and visually, how did you strike a balance that did not make it too detailed or not detailed enough, while still being entertaining?

Chris Schweizer: A lot of it was gut instinct and hope.  In some of the scenes where strategy came into play, I was very mindful of the potential to get bogged down in factual minutia.   I tried to combat this a couple of different ways - firstly, by giving the bare minimum amount of information needed to understand what was going on, making sure that once an idea had been put forth in dialogue that it wasn't repeated in subsequent dialogue.  The other was panel composition and subject focus.  Showing the different members of the crew in varying states of readiness rather than simply following the protagonist, Catfoot, around, bought me a little bit of extra reader attention during these expository battle preparations... at least, I hope it did.

Continue Reading »