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What Are You Reading? with Tim Seeley
Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye
Hello and welcome to What Are You Reading? Today our special guest is Tim Seeley, whose work you may know from Hack/Slash, Bloodstrike, Witchblade, Colt Noble, the upcoming Ex Sanguine and Revival, and much more.
To see what Tim has been reading lately, click below.
- April 29, 2012 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
Sam Costello on the end of Split Lip
Sam Costello’s Split Lip horror comic has been popular with reviewers and readers alike for a couple of years, so it was a surprise when Costello announced earlier this week that he is ending the comic, which is written by him and illustrated by different artists. We checked in to see what happened—and what will happen next.
Robot 6: When you first started Split Lip, what were you hoping to accomplish?
Sam Costello: There’s a big answer and a small one. The small one is that I just wanted to make comics, to write stories that would let me express some of the things inside me and demonstrate that perhaps I could be a writer of good comics. That’s not the interesting answer, though. The interesting answer is the big one: I wanted to make a different kind of horror comics.
This may seem like an odd thing to say about a comics market crowded full of titles filed under horror, but I think there are actually vanishingly few true horror comics. There are lots of comics with horror elements or themes, but many of them are actually something else: action with horror in them, romance with horror in them, adventure with horror in them. In my analysis, there are relatively few true horror comics, comics that peel away the social niceties and shared delusions we use to make the basic horror of existence (that we live in an indifferent universe, that’s there’s no meaning to life other than what we instill it with, how fraught and confused and misunderstood our relationships with others can be) bearable.
- April 27, 2012 @ 11:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comic Couture | Comic Strip Tees offers daily comics + tees
It’s a comic, it’s T-shirt … it’s both! Dov Torbin has created a new website called Comic Strip Tees that promises a new comic every day, along with a shirt featuring the artwork from that day’s strip.
“Every day Comic Strip Tees will showcase a comic by a different cartoonist,” he writes on the site. “It will also allow you to purchase a t-shirt with that comic’s artwork printed on it. Each shirt is limited edition and only sold for 7 days. The artists receive $2 for every shirt sold and retain full rights to their work.”
Currently the site is offering shirts by Roger Langridge, Simon Fraser, Pat Barrett and Mike Allred, but as he said, they’re limited, so if you’re interested pop over there and place your order before they’re gone.
- April 26, 2012 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | Archie launches web store; Footnotes in Gaza honored
Archie & Friends: Spring Has Sprung!
Digital comics | Archie Comics becomes the latest comics publisher to get a web-based store, allowing readers to purchase digital comics on basically any device that runs HTML5. While Marvel and DC have web stores built on the comiXology platform, this is the first time their competitor iVerse has gone outside the iOS. [Comics Alliance]
Awards | Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza is the winner of this year’s Oregon Book Award in the Graphic Literature category. [OregonLive.com]
Digital comics | Scott Kurtz, who knows a thing or two about digital comics, ponders the implications of Mark Waid’s aggressive move toward the digital realm: “This is something I’ve been warning my friends in webcomics about for a while now. That eventually, someone famous from the comic book industry would figure out that they should try what we’ve been doing for the last fifteen years or so, and would follow suit. All it would take is one or two high-profile creators succeeding at being ‘webcomicers’ and suddenly everyone would jump over. And the term ‘webcomic’ will finally die and just become ‘comic.’” [PvP]
- April 25, 2012 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Faith Erin Hicks shows her love for Airbender—and Korra
With The Legend of Korra, the new sequel to Avatar: The Last Airbender, hitting screens last week, the folks at Tor.com asked Faith Erin Hicks to draw a comic about her feelings toward both series. She obliged, with the combination of professionalism and fangirlishness that we have come to expect from her. Go, read, laugh.
- April 24, 2012 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Carla Speed McNeil’s Finder: Voice wins LA Times Book Prize
From "Finder: Voice," by Carla Speed McNeil
Finder: Voice, the latest volume of Carla Speed McNeil‘s celebrated science fiction series, has won the prestigious Los Angeles Times Book Prize, edging out such contenders in the graphic novel category as Jim Woodring’s Congress of the Animals and Dave McKean’s Celluloid.
The 32nd annual awards were presented Friday on the eve of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. This is only the third year for the graphic novel category; previous winners are David Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp and Adam Hines’ Duncan the Wonder Dog: Show One.
Published in February 2011 by Dark Horse, Voice collects the Eisner Award-winning 2008 arc of Finder, McNeil’s long-running print comic turned webcomic, described by her as “aboriginal science fiction.”
- April 21, 2012 @ 07:15 AM by Kevin Melrose
Start Reading Now | Get Off That Ship
Last weekend marked the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, so this is a perfect time to enjoy the first chapter of Alan Dunne’s graphic novel Get Off That Ship. It’s a fascinating true story about Father Frank Browne, a Jesuit novice and photography buff who was on the Titanic for its maiden voyage but lived to tell the tale because he was ordered off the ship by a superior. (You can see the actual photos and learn more about Father Browne here.)
Browne’s uncle, the Bishop of Coyne, had given him a first class ticket from Southampton, England, to Cobh, Ireland. On the journey, Browne became friendly with a wealthy American family who offered to pay for his passage all the way to New York. He telegraphed his superior for permission and was told “Get Off That Ship—–Provincial!” That peremptory command, of course, saved his life. Dunne’s webcomic has a fluid style, and he does a nice job of capturing the vastness of the ship, especially in the context of the times—our first glimpse of the ship is of the smokestacks towering over the houses of Southampton.
It’s not clear whether Dunne plans to put the rest of the story online, but what’s there is well worth a look.
- April 19, 2012 @ 10:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Read Dave Kellet’s Eisner-nominated book for free
As many of you know, I was an Eisner judge this year, and I can tell you that anytime someone was reading Dave Kellet’s Coffee: It’s What’s for Dinner, I heard giggling–even from the non-coffee drinkers. It’s a compilation of coffee-related strips from his daily webcomic Sheldon in which he affectionately mocks the extremes to which the caffeine habit drives people, and it’s full of his trademark deadpan humor.
Kellet is celebrating his second nomination in two years by making the book available for free download. It’s DRM-free, so you can read it anywhere, but I suggest you keep it to areas where you can laugh out loud without causing a disruption.
- April 19, 2012 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | Ali Ferzat named one of Time’s Most Influential People
Matt Wuerker's cartoon in support of Ali Ferzat
Creators | Ali Ferzat, the Syrian cartoonist who was abducted and beaten last year because of his criticisms of the government, was named one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World.” “Tyrants often don’t get the jokes, but their people do,” Pulitzer Prize-winning Politico cartoonist Matt Wuerker writes in his tribute to Ferzat. “So when the iron fist comes down, it often comes down on cartoonists.” [Time]
Publishing | In one of its wide-ranging interviews with comics publishers, the retail news and analysis site ICv2 talks with Dark Horse CEO Mike Richardson about the state of the market, the loss of Borders, his company’s 2011 layoffs, webcomics, and some early missteps with its digital program: “Quite honestly we’ve run into a few issues because the programs that we’ve done haven’t worked as well as we wished. We created some exclusive material and got less participation than we had hoped for. [...] We gave codes out to retail stores to drive customers into their stores. They could pick up the exclusive content by going to their participating comic shop. Evidently we didn’t do a good enough job getting the word out, so we’re retooling that.” [ICv2.com]
- April 19, 2012 @ 07:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | Tony DeZuniga hospitalized; record 3.5M FCBD comics ordered
Tony DeZuniga
Creators | Legendary comic artist Tony DeZuniga, the co-creator of Jonah Hex, has been hospitalized in the Philippines after suffering from a stroke and pneumonia. The 70-year-old DeZuniga is reportedly in the intensive care unit as friends and family rally to help with his medical expenses. [GMA News]
Retailing | Diamond Comic Distributors announced that retailers have ordered more than 3.5 million comics for Free Comic Book Day, up 23 percent from last year. Diamond also confirmed a second event centered on Halloween. [ICv2]
Graphic novels | The Irish Education Minister, Ruairí Quinn, has given his blessing to a manga-style graphic novel intended to help teenagers develop “emotional intelligence.” [TheJournal.ie]
- April 18, 2012 @ 06:06 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | Anders Nilsen’s Big Questions wins Lynd Ward prize
Big Questions
Awards | Big Questions by Anders Nilsen has won the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize for 2012, the second such award given by the Pennsylvania Center for the Book. The organization also named four honorees: Freeway by Mark Kalesniko, Habibi by Craig Thompson, Life with Mr. Dangerous by Paul Hornschemeier and Zahra’s Paradise by Amir and Khalil. The awards will be presented during a ceremony at Penn State later this year. [Pennsylvania Center for the Book]
Publishing | IDW Publishing has promoted Dirk Wood to vice president of marketing. Wood joined IDW in 2010 as director of retail marketing. [IDW Publishing]
Conventions | Misha Davenport previews this weekend’s Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo. [Chicago Sun-Times]
- April 13, 2012 @ 06:55 AM by JK Parkin
Kickstart My Art | Dr. McNinja’s Radical Adventures game
The Adventures of Dr. McNinja is the picture in the dictionary next to Awesome Webcomics, but creator Christopher Hastings isn’t content with that. He’s teaming up with Fat Cat Gameworks to create Dr. McNinja’s Radical Adventures and get his picture next to Awesome Games for Mobile Devices, too.
In addition to all the pirates, robots and fast-food employees McNinja has to jump over in the game, there are also some financial hurdles to pass. That’s why Fat Cat has created a Kickstarter site with rewards ranging from in-game currency and McNinja soda to limited-edition McNinja statues and having your likeness appear on one of the game’s villains. The game itself will be free when completed.
- April 12, 2012 @ 08:00 AM by Michael May
Nominees announced for 2012 Hugo Awards
Finalists have been announced for the 2011 Hugo Awards, which recognize the best in science fiction and fantasy. Presented annually since 1955 by the World Science Fiction Society, the Hugo is among science fiction’s most prestigious awards.
This year’s winners will be presented Sept. 2 in Chicago during Chicon 7, the 70th World Science Fiction Convention.
The nominees for best graphic story are:
• Digger, by Ursula Vernon (Sofawolf Press)
• Fables, Vol. 15: Rose Red, by Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham (Vertigo)
• Locke & Key, Vol. 4: Keys to the Kingdom, written by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW Publishing)
• Schlock Mercenary: Force Multiplication, written and illustrated by Howard Tayler, colors by Travis Walton (The Tayler Corporation)
• The Unwritten, Vol. 4: Leviathan, created by Mike Carey and Peter Gross, written by Mike Carey, illustrated by Peter Gross (Vertigo)
This is the fourth year for the graphic story category. Girl Genius, which won the first three years, was not included on the ballot at the request of creators Phil and Kaja Foglio.
Nominees of note in other categories include Dan dos Santos for best professional artist, xkcd creator Randall Munroe for best fan artist, and Captain America: The First Avenger and Hugo for best dramatic presentation-long form. See the full list of nominees on the Hugo Awards website.
- April 9, 2012 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | Arizona legislature pulls back electronic censorship bill
Arizona state flag
Legal | A proposed Arizona law that would make it a crime to annoy or offend anyone through electronic means has been held back for revision after a number of concerned parties, including the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, protested that it was too broad. The bill, which was passed by both houses of the Arizona legislature, basically took the language from the statute criminalizing harassing phone calls and applied it to all electronic devices, without limiting it to one-to-one communications. As a result, the language appears to make it a crime to post anything annoying or potentially offensive on the internet. [CBLDF]
Retailing | Brian Hibbs questions Mark Waid’s math, both with regard to comic shops and the cost of self-publishing, and brings up a number of arguments in favor of the Direct Market. He argues that having gatekeepers in the market is a good thing and that rather than refusing to take a risk on a new or different comic, retailers will go out of their way to stock comics they think their readers will like. [Savage Critics]
- April 9, 2012 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Time travel + revenge sex = Joe Infurnari’s new comic for Trip City
There comes a time when every person has to stand up for themselves… but young Salvatore Ghesboro does it in a most unusual way.
Launched yesterday at Trip City, Joe Infurnari‘s comic series Time Fucker shows the story of how Salvatore (“Sally” to his mother) looks to get revenge on all the bullies, friends and family members that have caused him anguish by “Time Fucking” them before they were born.
That’s right, time travel for revenge sex.
Using a cast-off time machine invented by Thomas Edison, Sal’s goal is to travel back in time and preemptively have sex with the mothers of his adversaries, with the goal of impregnating them and cancelling out his foes, or subverting them to be more like him. His first target? His half-brother, Dick.
Featuring cameos by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and an inventive use of Tony Atlas ads, Time Fucker is a surprising return for the Eisner-nominated Infurnari, but I’m not complaining because it’s rowdy and excellent. Infurnari’s already posted the first 10 pages of the story, with future installments planned for every Thursday this month.
- April 6, 2012 @ 12:00 PM by Chris Arrant