Nexus by Steve Rude

This year was not only a challenging one for artist Steve Rude, but it also marked the 30th anniversary of his and Mike Baron’s Nexus. So it’s great that it is ending with a bit of good news for the artist — Dark Horse Comics announced this week that the Eisner Award-winning duo will bring their popular creation back to comics next May in Dark Horse Presents #12.

“Nexus has never been a stranger to different publishers. Last seen under the Rude Dude banner in 2009, Nexus has stayed in limbo, never quite knowing when to return, or if he ever would return. Things come together in strange ways. With the backing of Mike Richardson of Dark Horse Comics, Nexus will return to comics,” Rude said in a press release. “We especially look forward to the response of Nexus’s devoted fans, and thank them for the wonderful support and encouragement they’ve given us since the book’s debut in 1981!”

Nexus was first published in 1981 by Capital Comics. Since then, it’s been published by First Comics, Dark Horse and Rude’s own Rude Dude Productions. Dark Horse has collected most of the material in several archive editions.

Susie Cagle

Legal | Susie Cagle, the cartoonist covering Occupy Oakland who was tear-gassed last month, was arrested early Thursday morning during the protests in Oakland. According to her father, cartoonist Daryl Cagle, Susie was being held at Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County, Calif. and was charged with unlawful assembly, even though she was there covering the event and had a press badge. Update: According to her Twitter account, Susie Cagle is out of jail and was charged with a misdemeanor, “present at raid.” [Fishbowl LA]

Legal | Tom Spurgeon offers more details on comic artist Steve Rude’s Halloween altercation, which led to the Nexus creator’s arrest that same night. According to Rude’s wife by way of Spurgeon, Rude was in costume handing out Halloween candy to kids trick-or-treating when his neighbors’ dogs began barking. Rude threw rocks at the neighbors’ fence, which led to a confrontation with them. Rude tore the neighbor’s shirt and pushed him, leading to the assault charges. Rude suffered physical abuse during the arrest and in jail before posting bail. [The Comics Reporter]

Rex Ogle

Publishing | DC Comics Assistant Editor Rex Ogle has reportedly left the publisher for a position at Scholastic. Ogle, who joined DC in 2008, worked on such titles as Blue Beetle, Justice League International and Justice League Dark, and wrote the recent Flashpoint: The World of Flashpoint miniseries. His departure follows that of Associate Editor Janelle Asselin, who left DC in late September for a job at Disney’s magazine division. [Bleeding Cool]

Digital | Jhonen Vasquez is preparing Johnny the Homicidal Maniac for its debut in digital form in January and notes that some fans have complained he’s making minor corrections to his original work: “I get what they’re saying, but it seems too weird to me to think that fixing typos, mistakes that were made not creatively, but simply on a grammatical level, changes the overall vibe or message of the book (be kind to others or stab them). Like I said, I get it, but I think the reaction is a bit…reactionary. I even made a joke about it in the announcement in the form of a George Lucas joke, but it went over some heads and those heads be upset about me adding Yodas into scenes where there weren’t Yodas before.” [Mindspill]

Uncanny X-Men #1

Creators | Kieron Gillen discusses working on the recently relaunched Uncanny X-Men, as well as his career as a video game journalist: “As a working creator there’s a limitation… You don’t want to pick fights, but there’s stuff where if you start doing critical theory, it becomes picking fights. So that’s what I kind of miss. I still do bits of games criticism. I do little bits of music journalism. Give me another 12 hours in the day and I’d still be doing it. I’m very into to the contextualization of culture. I talk to my own critics not to say, “You’ve got my view wrong!” but to generally say thank you. I’m always very pleased when I see someone hammer out 10,000 words on something I wrote… Being a journalist for as long as I was — you write a review, post it, and within hours you have 800 people calling you a c*nt just for having an opinion and giving something an 8/10 rather than a 9/10. And that makes you tough.” [ComicsAlliance]

Creators | Writer Joe Keatinge talks abut his other comic series announced at the New York Comic Con, Hell Yeah “I know where it will eventually end, but my hope is to not get there for a very, very long time. The way I look at is I know where the series will begin and where it will end. I have this all mapped out, but I’m giving Andre and I the freedom to go where we want. Maybe we’ll take short detours. Maybe we’ll go on entirely different path. That said, Hell Yeah is the direct result of almost thirty years of comics passion put into one book. I could write it for just about forever. A big goal of the book was to start something in the superhero genre, a genre in which I believe all others can exist, and go as far away from that as possible as well as exploring what other potential it has.” [iFanboy]

Courtesy of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office

Prices of Steve Rude’s artwork have been reduced in an effort to raise money for bail and legal fees following his arrest late Monday in what’s characterized as a dispute with neighbors.

“Steve has had a back and forth with the neighbors for quite some time now that started over their barking dogs,” states a message on Rude’s website titled “Help Bail the Dude Out.” “Last night Steve got hauled in.”

While details are scant, the Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff’s Office lists the Nexus co-creator as being held on charges of assault and failure to comply with a court order.

Rude’s art auctions can be viewed on his website and on eBay.

Update (Wednesday, Nov. 2, at 6:50 a.m. PT): Rude’s wife Jaynelle wrote last night on his Facebook page that he was able to post bail, but that they’re still in need of financial assistance: “Now we have to pay for the legal counsel so he doesn’t end up back doing hard time for trying to keep his sanity. All he wants is to be left alone to create his art, not harassed by people who call the police on our kids because a frisbee ended up in their yard.”

Borders

Retailing | Borders Group, the second-largest bookstore chain in the United States, could be liquidated as early as next week if no other suitors step forward by Sunday evening, the deadline established by a federal bankruptcy court. A judge on Thursday approved the company’s motion to auction itself off after a proposal from private-equity firm Najafi Cos. fell apart over the objections of creditors. Borders, which once operated more than 1,000 stores, now has 399 locations and nearly 11,000 employees, including 400 at its Ann Arbor, Michigan, headquarters. [The Associated Press, The Detroit News]

Awards | The Young Adult Library Services Association has announced the 2012 “Great Graphic Novels for Teens” nominations, a list that includes Takio by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming, Thor: The Mighty Avenger by Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee, Axe Cop by Ethan and Malachai Nicolle, How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less by Sarah Glidden and many more. The final list will be announced in January at the American Library Association’s Midwinter Meeting. [American Library Association]

World's Finest Deluxe, by Steve Rude

Creators | Steve Rude talks about his desire to work for DC again and why he won’t work for Marvel: “I specifically sought out DC, for two reasons. One, they would pay a subsistent page rate, and Two; they seemed like the friendliest of the two big companies. Regarding my feelings about Marvel, whose thinking seems even more corporate and elitist than DC, the beginnings of the dark, reality- based ethic which I find so unpleasant these days, seems mostly due to them and the start of the Quesada regime. Though I’ve had two recent offers to work on Marvel projects, they were politely declined.” [Pop Gun Chaos]

Creators | Bryan Lee O’Malley chats with Kentaro Takekuma and Koji Aihara, the creators of Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga, which inspired O’Malley’s work on Scott Pilgrim. [ComicsAlliance]

Creators | Laika creator Nick Abadzis discusses a series of webcomics he created for Big Planet Comics that give alternate endings for his 2007 graphic novel. [Tor.com]

Sidekicks

Creators | Sidekicks creator Dan Santat is selling copies of his new book through his website … and in turn buying the copies he’s selling from a local independent bookstore, Mrs. Nelson’s Toy & Book Shop. [Publishers Weekly]

Creators | The Guardian asked six comic creators to talk about their “favourite peer” — so Peter Kuper talks about Robert Crumb, Bryan Talbot talks about Joe Sacco and more. [Guardian]

Digital comics | eBook Newser profiles comiXology CEO David Steinberger. [eBook Newser]

Reviews | Don MacPherson looks at the first issue of Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra’s new Image series, Red Wing. [Eye on Comics]

Reviews | Our own Sean T. Collins reviews the dark-humor anthology Black Eye that was deemed too hot for Canada by customs officials last May. [The Comics Journal]

Reviews | Jeff Jackson discusses popular misconceptions about the Book of Revelation and how it figures into the X-Men on his way to reviewing The Apocalypse Plan, by Rafael Nieves and Dan Dougherty. [Comic Attack]

Analysis | Karen Green discusses Kate Beaton’s “voice” in Hark! A Vagrant. [comiXology]

The news last week about the return of First Comics makes me happier than it has any right to. Although I haven’t read an incredible amount of the publishers’ 1980s/1990s output–which included a couple of gems, which I have read: American Flagg! Nexus! Those two alone feel like they should earn First a place in most comic lovers’ hearts–the publisher holds a weird place in my heart for being, I’m pretty convinced, the first American indie publisher I ever bought a comic from, way back when.

Even stranger, that comic was the third issue of a crossover series–the only crossover series I think First ever did, in fact? They were, after all, a publisher that specialized in creator-owned books, so it wasn’t like there was much of a shared universe going on on a regular basis–that featured two characters I knew absolutely nothing about. So, why did I buy Crossroads #3, starring Luther Ironheart (Robot cop from Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg!) and Mike Baron’s Badger? Well, because it just looked kind of awesome.

The cover that so impressed me at age 13

Okay, there was a little more to it than that. My memory is fuzzy, because I was only about 13 or 14 when this happened, but I seem to remember picking up the issue in Futureshock, my local(ish) comic store–and suddenly any Scots of a certain age are nodding their heads in agreement, remembering the small, cramped store with stacks and stacks of random comics on shelves with little-to-no order or reason whatsoever–because I loved the cover (A Steve Rude painting, although I don’t think I even knew who Rude was at that point; I just thought it was a cool image, and that the two characters looked like fun), and because I had read something in some fanzine somewhere that said that Badger had been created by Mike Baron, whose Flash run at the time was proving to exert a curious fascination for me (One that, even years later, I can’t quite work out whether I actually liked it or not. But I did pick up every issue). I remember reading it excitedly –New characters! New publisher! I was branching out!–and enjoying it, but apparently not enough to go and pick up any other Badger comics; to this day, I’ve never read an issue of any solo Badger title, something that I still kind of regret.

(American Flagg!, as I said, I have read, but even that came years later, and through a curiosity about Chaykin and whether the series stood up to the hype; it really does, if you’re curious.)

Like I said, I really haven’t read enough of First’s comics to really have any idea of their place in comics history, but that issue of Crossroads got me to pick up some Nexus–don’t ask me how that worked–as well as some Dreadstar, E-Man and even some Classics Illustrated (Kyle Baker’s Cyrano De Bergerac is still one of my favorite comics), and from those, I ended up having this idea of First as a wonderful magpie publisher, picking up gems of books from other publishers and giving them a home and place to thrive –or, at least, exist. There wasn’t necessarily a connective thread between the books other than their being good, but somehow, that was enough, you know? I have an enormous amount of goodwill toward First Comics as a company and, maybe, as a concept as well; I have no idea what to expect from the reborn version of the publisher, but if it ends up being as winningly random and utterly fun as the original, it feels like a welcome addition to an increasingly conservative comics industry. Here’s hoping there’s an audience out there for it.

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark

Broadway | Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the retooled $75 million Broadway musical, took in $1.7 million for the week ending this past Sunday, which is above the $1.2 million the producers have indicated they need to reach to stay viable. The amount made it the No. 3 musical for the week, after Wicked and The Lion King. [Associated Press]

Legal | Robert Corn-Revere, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s general counsel, discusses the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. EMA, which sought to ban the sale of violent video games to minors. He notes that the court drew upon the history of comic book censorship in reaching its conclusion to reject the ban: “Citing the amicus brief filed by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, it noted the crusade against comics led by Dr. Frederic Wertham and observed that it was inconsistent with our constitutional traditions. The Court traced the history of censorship that targeted various media directed toward the young and held that restricting depictions of violence could not be justified under established principles of First Amendment law.” [CBLDF]

CBLDF advertising

Legal | Toronto comics retailer Chris Butcher comments on the CBLDF’s efforts to help a U.S. man facing criminal charges in Canada for possession and importation of child pornography because of comics that were found on his computer: “If you are a fan of any manga or anime, if you are a fan of comics, if you have even one comics page, anime clip, or ‘dirty’ picture on your computer, tablet, or phone, this is about you. This is about you being pulled aside, searched, your electronics confiscated to be sent away for weeks and months, all because you’ve got scans of Naruto on your desktop. This isn’t about ‘child porn’ or any variation thereof, this is about legally equating a description of a thing–written or drawn–with the real thing.” In related news, the Bonfire Agency has created ads for the CBLDF focused on this issue. [Comics212]

Webcomics | Greg Rucka and Rich Burchett have set up a site for their webcomic Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether, which was announced in April. The strip begins July 11 [Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether]

Creators | Public Radio International recently interviewed Shigeru Mizuki, creator of Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, the story of a doomed battalion in World War II that was recently published here by Drawn + Quarterly. [PRI's The World, via The Manga Critic]

Hark! A Vagrant

Criticism | Kristy Valenti analyzes Kate Beaton’s “voice” in Hark! A Vagrant. [comiXology]

History | Douglas Wolk traces how comics moved from being primarily aimed at kids to a more adult-oriented medium [Huffington Post]

Manga | Johanna Draper Carlson chronicles the history of josei manga (manga written for adult women) in the U.S. Sadly, it is mainly a story of good starts and poor follow-through. [Comics Worth Reading]

Comics | Robot 6 contributor Matt Seneca discusses the hardcover collection of Thor Godstorm, modern superhero comics and the art of Steve Rude. [Death to the Universe]

Reviews | Comic writer and soda blogger Neil Kleid yields to the taste of Dunkin’ Donut’s Captain America Cherry Coolata: “’Terrible’ would be spinning it politely. ‘Undrinkable’ hit the target more accurately, for after the fourth attempt and a rush of pounding drums to my cranium married with tense, shaking utensils I once called ‘fingers’ forced the expulsion of the remainder of the cup into the nearest trash receptacle.” [SodaBlog]

Business | Dean Haspiel and Seth Kushner join fellow Brooklyn entrepreneurs in a discussion of the secrets to success for small businesses. [Inc.]

Digital | Aspen Comics, which recently inked digital distribution deals with comiXology and iVerse, completes the triumvirate by signing with Graphic.ly as well. [CBR]

That’s the word according to legendary artist Steve “The Dude” Rude, who related in his regular e-newsletter that he was rebuffed when looking for work at DC. Rude left the Big Two a few years back to work on creator-owned work such as Nexus and The Moth, but after neither project failed to provide for him financially as he hoped he was looking to rekindle a relationship with his preffered publisher of the Big Two, DC. Here’s how Rude says it went:

One month ago, I began my contact with DC through an editor that I knew.  Having no success, I tried a second editor.  Then finally, one of the higher-up “exec” types. So far, one editor has responded–with a polite turn down.  The two others I never heard back from. Interesting world, isn’t it?

In this missive to his fans he explained that of all the characters at DC, the ones he was most drawn to currently was Supergirl, Superman, Big Barda and OMAC. But what do you think? Is there a place for Steve Rude at DC or Marvel in the year 2011? And if so, what would you like to see him work on?

Hope

Designer and letterer Todd Klein continues his artistic trek through the alphabet — skipping “G,” but he says he’ll get back to it — with another awesome art print, this time teaming up with Nexus creator Steve Rude to offer one titled “Hope.”

“I’ve been a fan of Steve Rude’s work since discovering NEXUS in the early 1980s, and I’ve worked with Steve as a letterer several times, most recently on his self-published issues of NEXUS, which was challenging but also a thrill to do,” Klein said in a post that details the creation of the print (you can find part 2 of the process here). “Steve’s work has always seemed to me to have a classical feel in the figure work, so I thought he might enjoy depicting Pandora and Hope. I asked Steve, above, when we met in San Diego, and though he was hesitant at first, he was intrigued by the subject, and finally agreed to do a print with me.”

Rude joins an impressive list of creators who have teamed with Klein to create prints — Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Alex Ross, J.H. Williams III, Mark Buckingham and Bill Willingham. All the prints, including the new one, can be purchased on his site.

Rude recently posted a slew of amazing marker sketches he’s done since the beginning of the year. Some are commissions, some were for conventions, and others for raffles and contests he has from time to time.

In addition to the amazing Superman piece shown at right, Rude has also posted several other pieces including Elektra, Red Skull, several Nexus drawings and even a commission requesting a beefcake and shirtless Scott Free — aka Mr. Miracle!

Check it out!

DC's VP – Art Direction & Design Mark Chiarello (photo by Brian Walters)

Rumors began to swirl about a sequel to Wednesday Comics as soon as DC’s weekly anthology debuted in July 2009. But now we finally have confirmation from a contributor that something’s in the works.

Bleeding Cool picked up on word from the Facebook page of Steve Rude that the Nexus artist is working on a New Gods strip for a new Wednesday Comics. Years ago Rude and writer Mark Evanier were in line to do a New Gods series but it fell through (although they did do a Mister Miracle Special sometime back). For Wednesday Comics 2 there’s no word yet whether Rude is writing and illustrating or working with someone else.

The book’s editor Mark Chiarello confirmed last June, as the collected edition was released, that thought has gone into a sequel. All this  begs the question — who else is in the book? Let’s put some pieces together …

Earlier in this year Jill Thompson told Newsarama she was approached to do a Wonder Woman strip for the first series but had to turn it down due to working on Beasts of Burden. However, she asked to be considered if Wednesday Comics came back.

During a panel at Baltimore Comic-Con in 2009, Chiarello and some of the contributors to the first series spitballed some ideas of what they’d like to see in the sequel. Read Comic Book Resource’s full report, or follow on for who recommended who:

• Kevin Nowlan recommended Adam Hughes
• Joe Kubert recommended his other son Andy Kubert
• Brian Stelfreeze recommended Mike Mignola, Bernie Wrightson and George Perez
• Chiarello recommended Tim Sale, Darwyn Cooke and Walt Simonson, returning not as a writer but as an artist
• Simonson recommended Frank Miller, Stan Sakai, Sergio Aragones and Perez

Chiarello even said he had a conversation with Harlan Ellison about wanting to do a Doctor Fate strip with Simonson.

That’s who the pros would like to see in a Wednesday Comics sequel, and back in 2009 Robot 6 weighed in — but what creators and characters are on your wishlist?

From Steve Rude's 2011 calendar

Creators | Renowned artist Steve Rude has announced that money raised from an online art and comics auction has enabled he and his family to keep their home: “When I saw the bread coming in after Gino made her announcement (this was unbeknownst to the oblivious Dude), I was, and still am, in a mild state of stupefication. The outpouring of generosity was clearly far beyond what Gino and I could’ve asked for. Your contributions poured in from all corners of our planet; the sizeable backstock of comics and Dude related ‘higher reading paraphernalia’ were ordered by the spit-load; and Erik Larson bought his complete Next Nexus 3 issue! All said, we saved the house.” The Nexus creator is still working to regain his financial footing, so he’s selling 2011 calendars and, soon, a new sketchbook. [DudeNews]

Creators | Stan Lee will receive his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Jan. 4. [Mark Evanier]

Jim Davis

Comic strips | Cartoonist Jim Davis has issued an apology for an ill-timed Garfield strip that appeared on Veterans Day. The strip, which appeared in newspapers on Thursday, featured a standoff between Garfield and a spider, and referred to “an annual day of remembrance” called “National Stupid Day.” In a statement, Davis explained that the strip was written almost a year ago, “and I had no idea when writing it that it would appear today — of all days.” [CNN, The Daily Cartoonist]

Conventions | Wizard World Austin Comic Con kicks off today at the Austin Convention Center. [The A.V. Club Austin, KXAN]

Retailing | Citing the economy, Words and Pictures will closes its location on the University of Calgary campus after 20 years. [The Gauntlet]

Retailing | Max Mitchell profiles Cosmo Cassetta, owner of Cosmo’s Cards & Collectables, one of the few remaining comic stores in the Bronx. After 20 years in business, Cassetta is thinking about retirement. [YourNabe]

Bakuman

Best of the year | Molly McIsaac makes her selections for the best manga of 2011. [iFanboy]

Creators | Moebius will make a rare U.S. appearance on Nov. 20 as a speaker at the CTN Animation Expo in Burbank, Calif. [Hero Complex]

Creators | Jef Catapang profiles comics artist and TV host Francis Manapul. [Canadian Immigrant]

Creators | Warren Ellis discusses his tools of the trade. [Warren Ellis]

Comics | David Brothers wades into this week’s announcement that J. Michael Straczynski will leave as writer of Superman and Wonder Woman and focus on a sequel to the Superman: Earth One graphic novel. [4thletter!]

Comics | An assistant professor of English at Indiana State University presented a lecture Thursday called “Batman’s Dark Night of the Soul: Space and the Spatial in Arkham Asylum,” focusing on Grant Morrison and Dave McKean’s Arkham Asylum. [Indiana Statesman]

Nexus, by Steve Rude

Creators | Renowned artist Steve Rude and his family are in danger of losing their home, so the co-creator of Nexus is auctioning art in hopes of raising the money to meet a Nov. 15 deadline. [Steve Rude's Facebook, The Comics Reporter]

Publishing | Retailer news and analysis site ICv2.com suggests Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series could close out 2010 as the No. 1 graphic-novel property of the year, surpassing the top-selling adaptation of Stephen Meyer’s Twilight. [ICv2.com]

Digital comics | David Brothers wonders how the rise of digital comics might change comics “culture,” and the Wednesday ritual. [4thletter!]

Comic Book Guy

Retailing | Some 20 years after the character’s debut, the Boston Herald asks retailers what they think of The Simpsons‘ Comic Book Guy. “I love the fact that my occupation gets the Simpsons treatment, an over-the-top stereotype,” says Larry Doherty, owner of Larry’s Wonderful World of Comics in Lowell, Mass. “If your occupation doesn’t get the Simpsons treatment, maybe it’s irrelevant.” [Boston Herald]

Creators | Tucker Stone talks with Darwyn Cooke at length about his adaptation of The Outfit. [Comics Alliance]

Creators | Douglas Wolk chats briefly with artist Doug Mahnke. [Techland]

Creators | Dartmouth’s student newspaper covers a lecture by Fun Home cartoonist Alison Bechdel. [The Dartmouth]

Nexus: As It Happened

The numbers for the last two books are in and they don’t look good. We have been told that Nexus: As it Happened V1 will reach Diamond by the 9th which should be in time for the 13th in stores date. Around June 16th we will receive our Diamond order for 101/102.

Steve has only the cover to 101/102 to complete then the artwork is complete for all of the books as he inadvertently did the trade paperback cover before the 101/102 cover.

Steve is then turning his focus to gallery paintings. Steve is a brilliant artist and we’ve been living hand to mouth for the past 3 years. Losing over $5,000 in the last 2 printings we have been unable to pay our mortgage have have no desire to lose our house.

Steve does plan to continue in comics putting out a book direct to trade every few years and using gallery painting as a means to finance his comic endeavors.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us by ordering commissions or purchasing artwork.

Nexus, co-created by Rude with writer Mike Baron, first appeared in 1981 and has been published over the years by Capital, First Comics and Dark Horse. Rude started self-publishing Nexus in 2006, with issues 99 and 100 of the series.

Blogger John Jakala shares his reaction to the news:

It bums me out to think of a dedicated comic pro losing money and not being able to pay his mortgage due to pursuing his dream of putting out comics. Luckily, Rude is able to support himself through other means, but it’s a bummer to think that an incredible talent and industry legend like Rude isn’t able to make a living via comics. I don’t know if self-publishing was part of the problem, if that made it less likely for fans and retailers to see or order his work if it wasn’t up at the front of the Previews catalog under one of the major comic publishers?

Jakala suggests heading over to Rude’s website and purchasing some Nexus comics, which sounds like a fine idea to me.