Comic Book Resources

Marvel vs. Twilight -- fight!

Okay, not really -- I live with a Twilight fan, and as a co-writer of the latest episode of Marvel.com's Marvel Super Heroes: What The--?! video series, I can assure you it's all good-natured ribbing. Still, I think veterans of this summer's bloody Twilight-at-Comic-Con culture war will get a kick out of this Marvel-fied parody of Stephenie Meyer's teen-vampire saga, whose latest movie adaptation, New Moon, hits screens at midnight tonight. (Did anyone else know Dr. Michael Morbius was European?)

Trace Adkins plugs comic on Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson

Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson talks with country musician Trace Adkins about the comic book Luke McBain in a very funny interview. "This has gotten a lot bigger than I thought it would," Adkins says about the book, which features his likeness. Check out a preview of the book, written by David Tischman with art by Kody Chamberlain, here.

Video of the day: Matt Groening and Lynda Barry

Groening and Barry recite a rather amusing Life in Hell cartoon in this clip (via Mike Lynch).

A sneak peek at The Diary of a Teenage Girl -- the play

Phoebe Gloeckner's graphic novel/prose/illustration/autobio hybrid The Diary of a Teenage Girl is one of my all-time favorite comics, so to say I'm looking forward to its upcoming theatrical adaptation is to understate the case considerably. Headed for a March 2010 debut at New York City's 3LD, this multimedia extravaganza was written for the stage by Marielle Heller -- who also stars as main character Minnie Goetze -- and is helmed by co-directors Sarah Cameron Sunde and Rachel Eckerling. The above video provides a fascinating glimpse at the show so far, including some behind-the-scenes conversations between Heller and Gloeckner that provide new insight into (and photos of!) some familiar characters. I'm far from a theatre expert, but I have to imagine that in a post-Spring Awakening, post-Next to Normal theatrical climate, this stands a chance to get a lot of attention.

Halloween Viewing | Gambit and Rogue go to the movies

This week's episode of Marvel Super Heroes: What The--?! features not only a tribute to the greatest zombie-dancing video of all time, but also the voiceover work of Stan Lee. Enjoy!

Via

Your video of the day: Making Comics with Doug TenNapel

The Creature Tech author shows you how it's done in this 10-minute interview. (via)

xkcd: The Movie!

Well, kinda. Animator Noam Raby and musician Olga Nunes have teamed up to create "I Love xkcd," an animated musical version of webcomic god Randall Munroe's xkcd strip "xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel." (Which itself was a riff on the aforementioned basic cable network's jingle-based ad campaign.)

Raby's actually done this before, previously taking a crack at Munroe's look at when computer love goes bad, "Letting Go." Look for both movies to make their IMAX 3-D debut this holiday season.*

(Via Ezra Klein.)

* Do not actually do this

Straight for the art | Matt Wiegle's 1984 video

Even if you haven't read George Orwell's dystopian masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four, you're undoubtedly familiar with its ominous mantra-like totalitarian slogan, "Big Brother Is Watching You." Now you can watch Big Brother right back, courtesy of Ignatz Award nominated comics creator Matt Wiegle. Wiegle's illustrated a summary video of Orwell's novel for Sparknotes.com, Barnes & Noble's study-guide site. You can check out sketches, pencils, and inks for many of the scenes in the July and August archives of PartykaUSA.com, the website of Wiegle's comics collective -- as well as a few full-color finished versions at my other blog.

This isn't the first time Wiegle's worked with Sparknotes: He helped adapt Romeo & Juliet into graphic-novel form for their No Fear Shakespeare series. (To see him work with a vastly less talented creator, you can read three comics he and I did together at Top Shelf 2.0 if you're so inclined.)

Your video of the day: Backroom talks Bagge

Or rather, the comics podcast The Backroom talks to Peter Bagge in the first of this two-part interview. (found via Flog)

Marvel's 'Siege' trailer from today's retailer summit

It's amazing what you can find on YouTube these days ... according to the person who posted it, it is "Marvel's Secret trailer that was shown to us at the Diamond Retailer Summit in Baltimore tonight." Not sure how long this will be up or if it's supposed to be out there yet, so check it out while you can:

Read more about Siege over on the main CBR site.

Bernie Mireault's The Jam gets animated

The Jam

C02 Comics, the reborn web version of 1980s publisher Comico, has a new animation thing featuring Bernie Mireault's The Jam, a character I haven't seen in quite awhile. Each panel is static, but if you click on it, it does something. Head over there to check it out.

Via The Comics Reporter

Spider Woman breaks it down to the illest beats

G4 has a new music video featuring scenes from the Spider Woman Motion Comic set to a song called "Watch Your Step." If anyone sees the lyrics to the song pop up anywhere, please let me know ...

Straight for the art | Watch Skottie Young draw a cover

On his blog, artist Skottie Young shares a video of his digital drawing process for the cover to one of his Oz books for Marvel. "I then print this out and ink it traditionally with brush and ink," he says.

Comic creators make music videos more fun

Far Arden creator Kevin Cannon posts that he and an impressive line-up of artists helped create the video for the song "We R Super Heroes" by Robbert Bobbert and the Bubble Machine. Kevin was joined by Zander Cannon, Gene Ha, Farel Dalrymple, Jordan Crane, Craig McCracken and many more. Check out the video below ...

Brevoort trades his way to Fantastic Four #1

Months of effort, 84 trades and more than 500 comics have netted Marvel editor a copy of Fantastic Four #1, which Brevoort will donate to the Hero Initiative so they can auction it off. Check out the video update from Brevoort below:

Brevoort started trading comics in late 2008 with Marvel fans on his Blah Blah Blog on the company's website, all in an effort to see if he could one day get a copy of his holy grail.

"In all honesty, I was beginning to lose hope that we'd ever successfully complete this journey, especially after the previous near-misses," Brevoort wrote on his blog. "And I have to say, the thing that stands out the most for me about this whole Experiment is the vast generosity of Marvel's fans. Not only did most people offer up better books in Trade than what they were asking for, but a number of guys went even further, out-and-out donating items without getting anything in return outside of the feeling of doing something positive. There's no question, Marvel's fans are the best, as this whole experience proves beyond a doubt."