Comic Book Resources

Hit-Maker? Not so much

Face Thief

Here's a blast from the past ... Brian Hughes looks back at Marvel Comics' Superstars of Tomorrow event that ran through their 1993 annuals. While a few of the characters went on to bigger roles (like Captain Marvel's son, Genis, who sported the name Legacy back then) others like Bantam, Tracer, Hit-Maker, Face Thief and Devourer never made much of an impact. Individual trading cards spotlighting the new characters were bagged with each annual, meaning you had to buy two copies if you wanted one in mint condition.

Hughes also shares some pages from Marvel:Year in Review '93, which included a humorous look at the stunt written by Tom Brevoort and Mike Kanterovich, as they poke fun at each character and suggest a few that didn't make it in. Ah, the 1990s ...

Comics Cavalcade: Goofy and Gossip Girlz

King Aroo by Jack Kent

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Straight for the art | Allan Sanders' superheroes

Sanders' Superheroes

Get your weekend off to the right start by checking out this collage of superheroes by illustrator and animator Allan Sanders. (via)

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 ...

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Everyone's A Critic: A round-up of comic book reviews and thinkpieces

• Ng Suat Tong time again! This time he's over at the Comics Reporter, talking about how mainstream (i.e. DC and Marvel) comics tend to mostly be writer-driven these days, and how few of these big-name writers fail to utilize the medium well, using Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's Born Again saga as a comparison point.

From Miller and Mazzucchelli's 'Born Again

If Bendis and Maleev's take on Daredevil falters at times in its disregard for the formal properties of comics, it is also guilty of rolling out age old tropes for the "revival" of superhero titles. One is left with the impression that mainstream comics writing has not only stagnated but in all likelihood regressed in the last decade becoming competent yet mediocre.

Lots more good stuff at the link.

• Abhay Khosla declares the "3 Jacks" story from Daredevil #500 "pretty much the best Marvel comic of the year so far, right?"

• Jog looks at Jacques Tardi's West Coast Blues and compares/contrasts its noirist tendencies to Darwyn Cooke's recent Parker adaptation: "Both books contain framing images of Our Man on the road, a socio-economic subtext, and a dénouement that nod toward the inscrutability of these hard men and their achievements. You'd swear this was a response to Cooke's book, if you didn't know it was an English translation of a French album from 2005."

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Quick, into the Rastermobile!

The Filter Heroes!

Want to declare your love for superheroes and graphic design programs in one fell swoop? No problem! Chop Shop's Filter Heroes T-shirt has what you need. I'm particularly impressed by Halftone Pattern Maker. That's a rather unique super power. (found via Comics Alliance)

Who is the Gray Mask?

Gray Mask covber from Collier's

That's the question Geoff Boucher is asking over at Hero Complex, based on a 1915 cover to Collier's magazine he bought for $10.

"I remember being a bit startled when I saw the image for the simple fact that it was a comic book-style hero more than two decades before Superman and Batman," he writes. He notes the character came before The Shadow and Zorro, but not the Scarlet Pimpernel, who debuted on stage in England in 1903.

As to who the Gray Mask is and who wrote the story, writer Christopher Farnsworth responds in the comments section with some additional information. The story in Collier's was written by Charles Wadsworth Camp, father of author Madeleine L'Engle. The full prose story can be found on Google books. And there was a silent film made out of the story as well.

Straight for the art | Kerry Callen's Tigra

Tigra

Halo & Sprocket creator Kerry Callen shares a six-page Tigra comic he created for Marvel's What the..? title many moons ago, in which the heroine resented the fact that she wasn't being featured in any Marvel comics at the time. Be careful what you wish for, Tigra.

"In the early 90's I had submitted a 6 page Tigra idea to What the..?. Marvel showed interest in it and then What the..? was canceled. End of that story," he wrote on his blog. "This was during the time period when John Byrne was doing She-Hulk and Tigra wasn't being used in any comic."

SDCC '09 | Titan to publish Simon/Kirby omnibus

Splash page from Fighting American story

According to the Jack Kirby Museum blog, Titan Books, publishers of the recent Best of Simon and Kirby, is going to be releasing a comprehensive, 480-page omnibus of every single superhero comic Jack Kirby and Joe Simon worked together on -- that didn't involve DC or Marvel properties of course.

The Simon and Kirby Superheroes will be released in summer 2010 in the special 11″ x 7-1/2″ oversized format, making it possible to reproduce the comic book pages in their original printed size. “Comics were larger in the Golden Age of the medium,” explained series editor Steve Saffel, “and we wanted to be able to give readers the full experience of these brilliant stories.” As with The Best of Simon and Kirby, the stories will be fully restored by Kirby historian Harry Mendryk, presented on quality matte stock paper in vivid color.

Included in the book will be such colorful characters as the Fighting American, Lancelot Strong, The Fly and the Stuntman, which, I'm sure, bears no relation to the Peter O'Toole movie.

Need more info? Titan has a special site already set up, where they hint at plans to release separate collections of the detective, horror and romance stories the celebrated duo worked down the road.

Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: A (short) publishing news round-up

Starting Point by Hayao Miyzazki

Three items of note. First of all, Viz will be publishing a new collection of essays, interviews, memoirs and manga by the one and only Hayao Miyazaki. Entitled Starting Point: 1979-1996, the book goes on sale Aug. 4.

The book will cover the first-half of Miyazaki’s legendary career, during which he rose from humble beginnings to create some of the most seminal animated features ever made, including Nausica Of The Valley Of The Wind, Castle In The Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service and Porco Rosso, as well as his launch of Studio Ghibli. A fitting introduction is offered by John Lasseter, the Chief Creative Officer at Pixar and Walt Disney. Ponyo is Miyazaki’s newest feature film and will be released by Walt Disney in North America this August.

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Straight for the art | When superheroes get old

When Elektra's ready for the rest home

I think I have linked to this or something like it back in the day (whichever day that was), but this rather amusing collection of cartoons by Donald Soffritti is always worth a second look, especially since it seems he's put these illustrations together in a new book.

Time to vote in the faux superhero mayorial race

As you might remember from Wednesday, the New Organizing Institute is running a training course this week for organizers and campaigners on technologically-enabled organizing. This training includes a mock-election of eight Superhero candidates for mayor of Washington, D.C.

Well, today is election day in the country's fake capitol; you can cast your vote here for which candidate you think would make the best mayor.

I still stand behind my endorsement of Green Lantern, who I think made a lot of great points on his site, but in the interest of fairness here are the other candidates he's running against:

• Atom
• Batgirl
• Batwoman
• Cyborg
• Green Lantern
• Spider-Man
• Superman
• Wonder Woman

The polls close in about an hour and a half, so vote while you can!

Update: Via email, the New Organizing Institute announces that Wonder Woman is the winner. Congrats to her campaign team, and to the Green Lantern folks for putting up the good fight and coming in third after the Atom.

What are the seminal comics of the Bronze Age?

X-Men #94

That's the question penned by the aptly named Comics Bronze Age site. There are some good picks here, though they perhaps unsurprisingly stick by and large to the Big Two, with a bone thrown to Cerebus and Elfquest. I'm surprised, however, that Howard the Duck doesn't get a mention. Poor Steve Gerber.

So what books would you add and why?

Straight for the art | Matthew Clark's Doom Patrol

Doom Patrol by Matthew Clark and John Livesay

Over on his MySpace page, Doom Patrol artist Matthew Clark shares some promo art recently inked by John Livesay (found via Periscope Studios).

D.C.'s onslaught of superhero candidates

Green Lantern for Mayor

This post on Ecocomics left me scratching my head over why Kyle Rayner was running for mayor of Washington, D.C., or why someone would set up a snazzy-looking website for him. I mean, sure; I'd pick Kyle over Hal or Guy (but not John Stewart) any day for mayor, and like I said, it's a snazzy-looking site, and he does have the endorsement of the Flash, but what's up with the site? Is it some kind of viral marketing thing for the upcoming Green Lantern movie, or maybe an ad for a sequel to DCU Decisions?

Then I find out Kyle's not running unopposed. It appears Spider-Man is also in the race. As is Superman. And the Atom. Even Batwoman, who is apparently for bird equality in D.C.

As it turns out, the sites are part of the New Organizing Institute's BootCamp, where attendees are tasked with running their own mayoral campaigns for fictional characters as part of their training. You can find a full list of the sites they've created here.

And while I was hoping I could throw my own endorsement out there for Batwoman, her stance on bird equality sounds just a little too crackpot for me. So Kyle it is -- Green Lantern gets my vote.