Comic Book Resources

Straight for the art | J. Bone's Great Pumpkin-inspired cartoons

The Great Pumpkin, by J. Bone

The talented J. Bone uses the holiday classic It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown as the springboard for a couple of hilarious and, of course, well-drawn gags. (Warning: In the second cartoon, Charlie Brown employs off-color language!)

Poor, poor Linus ...

When I wake up in the morning and the 'larm lets out a warning ...

From "Saved by the Spell," by Lucy Knisley

The always-entertaining Lucy Knisley imagines what J.K. Rowling might've come up with had she been inspired to create Harry Potter some two decades earlier. The result? A Saved by the Bell-style TV series called Hogwarts High, starring John Cusack, Mark Paul Gosselaar and Brooke Shields, and featuring David Bowie as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

Six by 6 by 6 | Six vampires we'd like to share a drink with

The Count

Editor's Note: As mentioned earlier today, we're celebrating Halloween all this week here at Robot 666. Here's the first of six Six by 6 columns with that theme, by guest contributors Tony Trov and Johnny Zito. They are the creators of Black Cherry Bombshells, the girl-on-zombie web comic from Zuda Comics. This October saw the debut of their newest title, LaMorte Sisters, about a vampire orphanage run by strict nuns.

By Tony Trov & Johnny Zito

(In no particular order)

1. The Count

Tony Trov: The Count is a mysterious force on Sesame Street. He has these neurotic ticks that makes him really intense. The Count counts things, even when there's just one. His math OCD makes him great at figuring out the tip.

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Watch the Vertigo Crime television commercial

From the Vertigo Crime television ad

The Vertigo blog has posted video of the DC Comics imprint's first-ever television commercial, which debuted last night on BBC America. The ad, which spotlights the debut titles from the Vertigo Crime line -- Dark Entries by Ian Rankin and Werther Dell’Edera, and Filthy Rich by Brian Azzarello and Victor Santos -- will air on cable throughout the next month.

Your video link of the day: A Burne Hogarth TV ad

The good folks at Flog! found this odd 1970s television ad for Excedrin pain reliever animated by none other than Burne Hogarth, co-founder of the school of Visual Arts, Tarzan artist of renown and author of several how-to books used and referenced by just about every cartoonist on the map.

Venture Bros. lives: 'Hank, I will give you so much money not to shoot your dad'

Venture Bros.

As if you needed more of a reason to check out last night's season premiere of Venture Bros. on the Cartoon Network, the episode featured a ton of references that fans might enjoy, to Marvel Comics #1, Raiders of the Lost Ark and even the CGC comics grading system. You can watch it online at the Adult Swim website.

Straight for the art | Haspiel's Bored to Death sketches

from Bored to Death

HBO's new comedy Bored to Death features a lot of art by artist Dean Haspiel, from the opening sequence he illustrated to the sketches by the character Ray Hueston, played by Zach Galifianakis and inspired by Haspiel himself. Now HBO has a page where they're collecting all of the artwork by Haspiel/Hueston.

Peter Bagge's Bradleys are heading for FOX

Move over, American Dad

Could Buddy Bradley be the next Bart Simpson? That's the tantalizing possibility presented by Fantagraphics' Eric Reynolds today, as he revealed that writer/artist Peter Bagge has signed a deal with the FOX network to produce a pilot for a potential prime-time animated series based on the Bradleys, the less-than-functional family at the heart of Bagge's series Neat Stuff and Hate. The show would reportedly focus on Buddy's teen years at home.

This caps off a rather high-profile few months for Bagge (ahem, Professor Bagge) , a period that has seen the release of his political-strip collection Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me from Fantagraphics and his long-suppressed Incorrigible Hulk story in Marvel's Strange Tales anthology. No word yet on whether he plans to have Mrs. Bradley pose for Playboy.

Happy 40th Birthday, Monty Python!

"And there was much rejoicing": Terry Gilliam art from Monty Python and the Holy Grail

It was forty years ago today that the world got slightly sillier: Today marks the 40th anniversary of the airing of the first episode of the seminal sketch-comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus on October 5th, 1969. Greatly beloved by nerds everywhere (God only knows how I'd have gotten through middle school without my two-cassette copy of The Final Rip-Off), the troupe—comprising John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin—has a deeper comic-book connection than simply the shared interests of many of its fans. For starters, there's their send-up of Superman in the sketch "Bicycle Repair Man," which takes a Twilight Zone twist on the Superman concept and plays it for laughs:

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'Can you imagine spider-powers and infallibility?'

Spider-Pope!

On last night's episode of The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert spied a spider crawling on the face of Pope Benedict XVI and posed a hypothetical scenario that would make Stan Lee proud: "... Given all the toxic waste and loose nuclear radiation all over Eastern Europe, if that spider bit the pope we might soon have ... Spider-Pope!"

"He could shoot holy water from his wrists," Colbert continued. "Trap atheists in his web, and every time someone used birth control his popey-sense would tingle!"

Your video of the day: A trailer for Kyle Baker's 'Dexter'

Remember when I mentioned the other week that Kyle Baker was going to be doing a cartoon based on the popular Showtime series Dexter? Well, here's the first trailer, found via Beaucoup Kevin.

Joss Whedon confirms Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Nine

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Vol. 6 (by Jo Chen)

With still another dozen issues to go in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight -- the Dark Horse comic-book continuation of the cult-hit TV series -- creator Joss Whedon already has confirmed there will be a Season Nine.

"Well, 40 issues was always the goal [for Season Eight], and that’s how we’re playing it," Whedon tells Complex.com. "We’re around issue 30 now, we’ve got about 10 to go, five of which I have to write, so I have to get on that. Then we’ll pause for breath and then we’ll start Season Nine.

"... I have had for a long time a conception for Season Nine that is very different from Season Eight. It may not run as long, because 40 issues sounds great until you realize that it’s four or five years."

In the interview, which focuses heavily on Dollhouse, Whedon also talks about his Astonishing X-Men collaborator John Cassaday, who will direct an episode of the science-fiction TV show.

"He’s a storyteller," Whedon said. "I gave him shorter scripts than any other artist I’ve worked with because he has an extraordinary visual sense and it very much matches my own. ... With Cassaday, I know he can tell a story, I know him as a person, his sensibility, the way he is with other people and I just feel that this step is logical for him, it’s something he’s been pursuing for a while."

Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for the DC/Days of Our Lives mash-up

Marvel Comics pays homage to the recently canceled daytime soap opera Guiding Light by making their 2006 Halloween crossover with the 70-plus-year-old TV show available for free on their digital site. I recall the TV version of the mash-up being pretty thoroughly trashed. Can't speak for the comic though.

Oh, the last episode of Guiding Light runs today as well. Just in case you were interested.

Straight for the art | Annie Wu's Scott Pilgrim/Venture Bros. mash-up

by Annie Wu

Artist Annie Wu's mash-up of the Venture Bros. and Scott Pilgrim is just one of many pieces of fun artwork you can find on her blog.

D23 | Day one pictures + more

Mark Waid

So the movie panel I talked about in an earlier post was a big highlight of the day, but another one was getting to meet Mark Waid, who I haven't ever met in person, at the BOOM! booth at D23 today.

Or, actually, one of the BOOM! booths at the show, since they have two. I'll explain after the break ...

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