Todd Klein
Todd Klein and Dave Gibbons explain what ‘It Is’
It Is
Designer and letterer Todd Klein continues his artistic trek through the alphabet with another art print, as he and Watchmen co-creator Dave Gibbons team up on one called “It Is.”
“Dave has written a poem focusing on the ever-changing nature of our internal perception, that which makes up our own personal ‘I.’ I’ve designed and hand-lettered it,” Klein says on his blog. The print can be purchased from his website for $20 plus shipping.
- January 17, 2012 @ 10:00 AM by JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | Comics rebound in 2011 while graphic novels slump
Justice League #4
Publishing | John Jackson Miller takes apart the December sales numbers and finds that while comics were up for the month, graphic novel sales fell just enough to prevent the direct market from having its first up year since 2008. In fact, trades are down 16 percent from December 2010, and Miller spends some time discussing why that might be — and why next year might be different. [The Comichron]
Publishing | Houghton Mifflin has high hopes for Are You My Mother?, the new graphic novel from Fun Home author Alison Bechdel: The publisher plans a first printing of 100,000 copies. [Publishers Weekly]
Retailing | Diamond’s Retailer Summit will be held the two days before the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo, with attendees receiving free admission to the April 13-15 convention. [ICv2]
- January 9, 2012 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Klein and McManus create board-game inspired art print, Go Freelance!
Go Freelance!
Letterer and designer Todd Klein announced another print in his “alphabet” series, where he teams with various comic creators to create some nice looking art. This time around, he’s teamed up with artist Shawn McManus to create a print that doubles as what will likely be the hottest new game in comicdom when the holiday season arrives, Go Freelance! — “a board game that outlines the lives of two budding comics artists.”
“Here you’ll meet Artie and Scribbler as they make their way from childhood to retirement through the challenges, pitfalls, rewards and catastrophes of a creative livelihood,” Klein wrote on his blog.
The print costs $20 and can be purchased on Klein’s website.
- October 17, 2011 @ 01:26 PM by JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | Kirby family lawyer vows to appeal copyright ruling
Jack Kirby
Legal | Marc Toberoff, the lawyer suing Marvel on behalf of Jack Kirby’s heirs, plans to appeal Thursday’s ruling by New York federal judge Colleen McMahon that the Kirby estate had no claim to copyrights on the superheroes Kirby co-created for Marvel Comics. “We respectfully disagree with the court’s ruling and intend to appeal this matter to the Second Circuit,” Toberoff told The Hollywood Reporter. “Sometimes you have to lose in order to win.” [The Hollywood Reporter]
Creators | Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison chat about Supergods, The Sandman, Superman and more. “…when I did comics, it was also a performance,” Morrison said. “It’s like playing live. You don’t get much time to edit; we don’t really do second drafts in our business. I love that aspect of comics, where you could have a Sandman out and people would be talking about it immediately, and we could be responding to things that were happening all around us and it could be published three months later, or two months later, depending on how late we were. It’s not like writing a book, which is over a span of years like building a cathedral. The comic is so instant. That’s why it covers the seismic shifts of culture very, very accurately.” [Shelf Life]
- July 29, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Joe Casey and Nathan Fox take the reins on Haunt
Joe Casey and Nathan Fox have been named as the new creative team on Haunt, replacing co-creator/writer Robert Kirkman and artist Greg Capullo with September’s Issue 19.
Co-created by Todd McFarlane, the Image Comics series centers on Daniel Kilgore, a Catholic priest who’s haunted by the ghost of his estranged brother Kurt, a murdered secret agent. The two combine to form the superhero Haunt.
“The word ‘haunt’ is a very evocative word,” McFarlane tells USA Today. “I didn’t think we had hit that word yet in terms of being dark and moody and creepy in some of the things.” Casey says that he and Fox, who collaborated on Marvel’s Dark Reign: Zodiac, are taking “a real grindhouse/exploitation approach to the series. Hopefully the end result will be appropriately lurid and over-the-top while being a real nail-biter at the same time.”
Kirkman is reportedly leaving Haunt because of demands on his time by AMC’s adaptation of The Walking Dead — the second season began shooting this week outside of Atlanta — while Capullo is teaming with writer Scott Snyder on the September relaunch of DC Comics’ Batman.
- June 10, 2011 @ 07:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Klein, Rude team up to offer ‘Hope’
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.
- June 3, 2011 @ 10:30 AM by JK Parkin
Saturday Shelf Porn
Welcome once again to Shelf Porn, where fans show off their collections of comics, graphic novels and the like. Today’s Shelf Porn was submitted by Fritz Park from Seoul, Korea, whose collection is currently on display at a local bookstore.
If you’d like to submit your own Shelf Porn, we could certainly use it — just send a write-ups and jpgs to jkparkin@yahoo.com.
And now here’s Fritz.
- May 7, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
To do: Todd Klein signing in Philadelphia
From "F The Enchanted Letter," by Bill Willingham and Todd Klein
East Coast comics fans who are looking for something to do the night before MoCCA Festival could do far, far worse than the party and signing being held Friday evening for multiple award-winning letterer and designer Todd Klein at at Locust Moon Comics and Movies in Philadelphia.
The event will begins at 7:30 p.m. at the store, located at 4040 Locust St., near the University of Pennsylvania campus. Check out the press release after the break.
- April 7, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Illustrated poem by Gaiman, Lee and Klein available digitally
100 Words
Last year comic writer and author Neil Gaiman, artist and DC Comics Co-Publisher Jim Lee and letterer Todd Klein collaborated on an illustrated poem called “100 Words” that appeared in the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s Liberty Comics anthology and is also available as a limited edition print from Neil Gaiman’s NeverWear site. Today DC Comics announced that the seven-page poem is now available via its digital apps and its website.
It’s available for 99 cents, and DC is donating their proceeds from it to the CBLDF — making it a very easy and inexpensive way to benefit a good cause.
- March 2, 2011 @ 06:00 AM by JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | Borders files for bankruptcy, plans to close 192 stores
Borders
Retailing | Borders Group, the second-largest book chain in the United States, filed for bankruptcy protection this morning, announcing plans to close about 192 of its 639 Borders, Waldenbooks, Borders Express and Borders Outlet locations over the next several weeks. It’s unclear how many of the company’s 6,100 full-time and 11,400 part-time employees will be affected by the closings. Borders, which listed $1.29 billion in debt and $1.27 billion in assets, plans to continue to operate through the court process with the help of $505 million in financing from lenders led by G.E. Capital.
The likelihood of bankruptcy has loomed for the past several weeks as the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based bookseller pushed unsuccessfully for publishers and distributors to convert late payments into $125 million in loans. That concession was critical to Borders securing $550 million in refinancing from G.E. Capital. Publishers like Penguin Group, Hatchette, Simon & Schuster, Random House and HarperCollins are now, in Publishers Weekly‘s words, on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars. Diamond Book Distributors, which stopped shipping to Borders last month, is owed $3.9 million. [Bloomberg, The New York Times]
- February 16, 2011 @ 08:37 AM by Kevin Melrose
Todd Klein breaks down Marvel’s Daredevil logos
In the latest of his series of logo studies, letterer and logo designer Todd Klein spars with the mastheads of the 45-plus Marvel title Daredevil. Klein’s research on these series is impeccable, covering every permutation of the comics’ logo — reaching out when possible to the original designers, back into the Silver Age. He even provides copious notes for when he was hired to work on the logo in 1996.
Although Klein is best known for his lettering, he’s contributed logos to virtually all major American comic companies, and his logo work is seen on the Batman: Year One storyline, logos for The New Teen Titans and its characters, as well as Witchblade, Tom Strong and Iron Man.
Klein’s releasing his Daredevil logo study in four parts, with the final installment due any day now. Begin with Part 1 which starts with the title’s debut in 1964. Read the installments, and then scroll back through his archives for other interesting logo studies.
- January 19, 2011 @ 02:30 PM by Chris Arrant
Comics A.M. | Borders sets Feb. 1 deadline; will bande dessinée break out?
Borders
Retailing | The Borders death watch continues, with the struggling bookstore chain giving publishers until Feb. 1 to accept or reject a proposal to convert delayed payments into loans. Publishers reportedly are skeptical of the plan, which would see them take up one-third to one-quarter of the bookseller’s reorganized debt. The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based retailer also has hired bankruptcy and restructuring lawyers to advise in its restructuring efforts, which center on negotiations to secure a $500 million credit line from GE Capital.
Borders, the second-largest book chain in the United States, announced in late December that it would delay payments to key publishers and distributors, leading some — such as Diamond Book Distributors — to stop shipping books. Jacket Copy reminds us that Borders Group is closing nearly 200 Waldebooks and Borders Express outlets before the end of the month. Additionally, it’s shuttering 17 Borders superstore locations nationwide. [The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal]
- January 17, 2011 @ 08:15 AM by Kevin Melrose
Todd Klein designs dapper cover for Return of the Dapper Men
Return of the Dapper Men
We already know that Todd Klein is an award-winning letterer for all sorts of comics, and if you’ve been following along, you also know that he’s worked with various writers and artists to design some really awesome prints. So it’s no surprise that he designed the cover for writer Jim McCann and artist Janet Lee’s upcoming graphic novel, Return of the Dapper Men. The book is due from Archaia in November.
“Having a master designer like Todd Klein on board Team Dapper is a great honor,” said Archaia Editor-in-Chief Stephen Christy in a press release. “I’ve been talking for months about how special this book is, and how much fun it is as an editor to be working on a fairy tale entirely unlike anything seen in comics before. With Todd joining creators Jim McCann and Janet Lee as we bring Dapper down the homestretch to publication, I can promise readers that this is one of those instances where the quality and artistry of this book lives up to the hype!”
- August 11, 2010 @ 12:30 PM by JK Parkin
Klein and Willingham team for new art print
F The Enchanted Letter
Letterer Todd Klein has teamed up with Fables writer Bill Willingham for the latter’s sixth art print featuring a letter of the alphabet. “F The Enchanted Letter” features a poem written by Willingham stocked to the hilt with F-words–sorry, not that F-word–but words like fantasy, fairyland, fleece and, of course, fable.
Klein provides more details on how the print was created here and here. It goes on sale July 16, and you can find the first five prints he worked on with Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Mark Buckingham, Alex Ross and J.H. Williams III for sale here.
- July 13, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
Klein, Buckingham team up for ‘Each Beast at the Feast’ print
Each Beast at the Feast
Todd Klein has teamed up with several artists and writers over the last few years to produce a series of great prints … everyone from Neil Gaiman to J.H. Williams III has worked with the renowned letterer. Now Klein has teamed up with Fables artist Mark Buckingham to produce a new one called Each Beast at the Feast. The first print’s title started with an “A,” the second a “B,” etc. He’s on “E” now, so I guess it might be safe to assume that we still have plenty more of these to look forward to.
You can find Klein’s previous prints here.
- February 3, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by JK Parkin