Comic Book Resources

Skottie Young guest draws The Abominable Charles Christopher

The Abominable Charles Christopher

Earlier this week artist Skottie Young filled in for his friend Karl Kerschl on The Abominable Charles Christopher, Kerschl's webcomic about a a sweet but somewhat dim sasquatch-like creature and his forest friends.

This is the second time Young has filled in for his friend, as he explained on his own blog:

Karl reached out and asked me to do a guest strip for his webcomic while he was out on some giant world tour where people are worshiping him and what not. I was flattered and agreed instantly. Then I realized that his wasn't the first time I would be there to help save Karl in a rough spot. (just kidding, he needed no saving, and i'm convinced he actually had enough strips to cover his time away and just posted my out of pitty...haha) Eons ago, when I was waiting tables at Ed Debevics in Chicago, I got my first phone call from Marvel asking me if I could do a fill in issue in the ICEMAN mini series. And artist named... you guessed it, Karl Kerschl had some life things going on and they needed someone to fill in. I had never drawn a comic book in my life and was about to do my first for Marvel. And the rest is history...or still happening, or something like that.

After seeing the strip, now I really just want to see Young doing a webcomic of his own.

Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Green Lantern Corps #41

Publishing | Buoyed by its Blackest Night miniseries and tie-in books, DC Comics claimed the first six slots on Diamond Comic Distributors' Top 300 list of books sold to the direct market in October.

It's a rare occurrence, to be sure, but just how rare? Charts-watcher John Jackson Miller contends we have to travel back more than 40 years, to a time well before the direct market, to find when DC last had the six best-selling comics (as sold to retailers). Yes, 1968. The closest DC came in the direct-market era, according to Miller, was in April 1993, when the publisher held the top five positions.

But back to October 2009, when DC also narrowed the market gap with Marvel to the closest margin in some time: The competitors were separated by just 2.43 percent in unit share, and 2.68 percent in dollar share. [Diamond Comic Distributors, The Comics Chronicles]

Retailing | Borders Group announced Thursday it will close about 200 of its Waldenbooks, Borders Express and Borders Outlet stores in January. The retail chain has been steadily closing mall-based stores in its Waldenbooks Specialty Retail division since 2001. About 130 mall stores will remain once the downsizing is complete. [Publishers Weekly]

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Straight for the art | Monster Mashups

Monster Mashups

Dean Haspiel points us to Monster Mashups, a collaboration between Tim Hall and Jen Ferguson "depicting the lesser known aspects of some of the most notorious creatures in the Western lexicon of horror." Haspiel says:

Tim Hall (writer) and Jen Ferguson (artist) began collaborating late in the summer of 2009, when Tim became aware of Jen’s peculiar art and vice-versa: a working friendship was born. Tim Hall had begun “Uplift the Positivicals,” a new “comic without comics” (somewhat like Hazel Motes’ “Church of Christ Without Christ” in Flannery O’Connor’s novel “Wise Blood”) on Act-i-vate.com, a webcomix collective founded by mutual friend and artist Dean Haspiel. Tim asked Jen to illustrate some of his most demented passages, which turned out to be the perfect assignment for the artist, who years earlier had nearly been booted out of an illustration program at Pratt and sworn off anything that involved “assignments.” Tim’s first request of Jen is that she draw a plushie’s fantasy: a Paddington Bear bed with mechanical arms. After this intriguing first request, stranger ones followed.

This weekend, it's King Con Brooklyn

King Con Brooklyn

Here's an event that makes me wish I lived close to New York City again: King Con Brooklyn, a comics and animation convention being held Saturday and Sunday at the Brooklyn Lyceum.

It has a great name, and boasts an impressive lineup of largely local guests, including Harvey Pekar, Al Jaffee, Denny O'Neil, Neal Adams, Brian Wood, Alex Robinson, Molly Crabapple, Dave Roman, Raina Telgemeier, Kevin Colden, David Gallaher, Steve Ellis and Matt Loux.

In addition, there's a programming schedule that includes workshops, a DC Comics/Zuda portfolio review, creator spotlights, and panels devoted to kids' comics, European comics, digital comics, animation and Marvel's publishing plans.

The convention will be held from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on both days at the Brooklyn Lyceum, 227 Fourth Ave., Brooklyn.

Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

The Book of Genesis Illustrated

Sales charts | R. Crumb's The Book of Genesis Illustrated climbs seven spots to No. 2 in its second month on BookScan's list of top-selling adult graphic novels in bookstores. It's bested, as most are, by the latest volume of Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto. But it's another story on USA Today's bestseller chart, where Crumb's book drops 49 places in its second week to No. 129. [ICv2.com, USA Today]

Passings | Tom Spurgeon, NPR's Mark Memmott and Ina Jaffe, and Michael Cieply of The New York Times have obituaries for Comic-Con co-founder Shel Dorf, who passed away on Nov. 3 at the age of 76.

Libraries | The Yoshihiro Yonezawa Memorial Library of Manga and Subculture opened over the weekend at Meiji University's Surugadai campus in Tokyo. Users can become one-day members of the library, where they can have access to about half of the 140,000 manga for about $1.10 per copy. The books can't be removed from the library. [The Japan Times]

Internet | Tom Spurgeon points out that the review blog Guttergeek will move to the expanded TCJ.com, joining a stable of hosted blogs that will include The Hooded Utilitarian. [Guttergeek]

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Douglas Rushkoff writes X, a graphic novel for new video-game franchise

From "X"

Author, media theorist and sometimes-comics writer Douglas Rushkoff (Testament, Life, Inc.) has penned a graphic novel to promote an as-yet-unnamed video-game franchise from Smoking Gun Interactive.

Illustrated by Cheoljoo Lee and Younger Yang, the comic -- it's simply called X -- is being previewed on this marketing site in installments that roll out over the next four weeks. The full graphic novel will be released next year. More stories are set to follow.

As you might expect from the mysterious title, the story of X involves secrets -- specifically, "the secret history of mankind."

So says the press release: "As a small, scattered group of people stumble onto the truth, they find that they are too late: every great power on earth has already aligned itself against humanity. The war is all but over. Their struggle to discover the truth will lead them into a massive conspiracy that predates humanity itself -- from the world's most ancient sites to the global centers of power."

Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Shel Dorf with Warren Beatty in 1990

Passings | Sheldon "Shel" Dorf, who in 1970 co-founded the event that grew into Comic-Con International, passed away Nov. 3 in San Diego's Sharp Memorial Hospital from diabetes-related complications. He was 76.

A collector of comics and Dick Tracy memorabilia, Dorf had run Triple Fan Fest in his native Detroit. After he moved to San Diego in early 1970, he met Ken Krueger of Alert Books in Ocean Beach and the two, together with a group of teen-aged fans, organized first Golden State Comic Con, held Aug. 1-3, 1970, at the U.S. Grant Hotel. Dorf served as president, or chairman, of the convention until the mid-1980s, stepping away just as the annual event was becoming a national stage for pop culture.

Dorf reportedly struggled with diabetes for years, gradually losing mobility and vision. He entered Sharp Memorial Hospital in 2008 and never left. His brother Michael was with him when he died.

Mark Evanier, of course, has a nice tribute to Dorf peppered with memories dating back to before that first convention. There's also an extensive Shel Dorf Tribute website, and a memorial banner topping the Comic-Con International homepage. The photo above, of Dorf with Warren Beatty on the set of the 1990 Dick Tracy movie, is borrowed from Alan Light's Flickr stream. [The San Diego Union-Tribune]

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Straight for the art | Sam Hiti's Death-Day

from Death Day

Saw this on Paul Pope's Twitter feed ... artist Sam Hiti has kicked off a webcomic called Death-Day, as well as an accompanying blog. Go check it out.

Unbound: Death stalks the internet

Interviews with comics creators usually include a lot of questions about the origins of the comic—what was the inspiration, how did you find a working partner, how did you find a publisher, that sort of thing.

One topic that hardly ever comes up is how the comic ends. It’s not the sort of thing one thinks of with regard to print comics, because the vast majority are either one-shot graphic novels or endless series that have been running since FDR was president.

Webcomics are a different matter. “Over 15,000 webcomics now exist online,” Wikipedia tells us, but probably 14,000 of those stopped updating after six episodes. This is the dark side of The Promise of Webcomics: It is true that anyone can start a webcomic, and that without the usual barriers to publication, such as editors and budgets, the web has become a seething cauldron of creativity. However, things like slush piles and contracts and editors are there for a reason: Not just to keep the crap out, but also to make sure the creator finishes the damn comic. The internet imposes no such restrictions. Consequently, many webcomics start with a burst of enthusiasm and fizzle when the creator runs out of ideas or has to study for finals.

Killer Komics, last updated January 2008, with a promise to update more frequently soon.

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Tony Millionaire does Achewood

Tony Millionaire's Achewood

Pretty self-explanatory, no? Maakies and Sock Monkey caroonist Tony Millionaire has done a guest strip for Chris Onstad's Achewood One of today's greatest humor cartoonists does one of today's greatest humor strips. There's even a cameo by Uncle Gabby and Drinky Crow. Click the link already!

(Via Brian Warmoth.)

Slash Print | Following the digital evolution

comiXology

Digital comics | Kiel Phegley talks to Ira Rubenstein, Marvel's executive vice president of digital media, about their partnerships with comiXology, iVerse, ScrollMotion and Panelfly. comiXology, meanwhile, has added another Marvel title to their catalog this week -- Civil War.

Digital comics | Don Reisinger over at CNET reviews several comics applications for the iPhone, including comiXology, Clickwheel, iVerse Comics and Comic Envi.

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What Are You Reading?

Blood's A Rover

Welcome to What Are You Reading. I hope everyone had a nice Halloween and spent at least part of it reading comics.

Our guest this week is Chip Mosher, Marketing Director at Boom! Studios, publisher of such fine books as Irredeemable and The Muppet Show. As the image above hints, Chip's been reading some rather interesting (and gritty) material, so click on the link below to discover what he and the rest of Robot 6 have been reading recently. Oh, and don't forget to let us know what you have been reading in the comments section.

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Halloween Reading | Joshua Smeaton's Haunted

From "Haunted," by Joshua Smeaton

I was happy to see this post at The Webcomic Overlook, as it reminded me about Joshua Smeaton's Xeric Award-winning webcomic Haunted, whose collected edition is solicited in November's Previews catalog. However, if you're looking for some entertaining reading for Halloween night (or afterward), the first five issues are available online.

Halloween Reading | Kate Beaton's 'Teen Hallowe'en'

Teen Hallowe'en

Because "nothin says Hallowe'en like teens being punks and throwing shit."

Halloween Reading | Church and Horn's Gamer Doug

Gamer Doug

Kevin Church and Paul Horn explain why you're better off playing those multiplayer games in the safety of your own home ...