Comic Book Resources

Comics, Covered | The best covers of the week

Spider-Man 1602 #2

I've written a good deal at Robot 6 and elsewhere about comic-book cover art and design, but, unfortunately (for me at least), not so much in recent months. I hope "Comics, Covered" will remedy that, as each Saturday I select the six best covers -- the most striking, the most successfully executed, the most intriguing -- to grace the shelves that week.

This week's list is filled with three comics from Marvel, one from Image, one from DC's Wildstorm imprint and one that's technically not a comic at all.

To find out what made the cut, read on.

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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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Straight for the art | George Perez draws the Wildstorm Universe

WildCats #19 and The Authority #18 covers

Here's another item George Perez can check off his list of "comic book universes I need to draw" -- the artist of New Teen Titans, Crisis on Infinite Earths and JLA/Avengers provides two interlocking covers for WildCats #19 and The Authority #18.

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

Legal

Legal | Twin brothers in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, have been sentenced to three months in jail for possessing anime- and manga-style images depicting children in sexual situations.

David Scott Hammond and James Cory Hammond, 20, pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography after police discovered the images downloaded on their home computer last November. Although David Hammond's attorney said his client didn't realize it was illegal to download cartoon pornographic images of children, the prosecutor asserted that, "Every one of these images involves the victimization of children. The victimization wouldn’t happen in the first place if there weren’t people there to look at this material."

Earlier this month, lawmakers in Alaska began considering a bill that would expand the state's child-pornography laws to include cartoons. And in June a U.S. appeals court upheld the conviction of a Virginia man who was prosecuted, in part, under a 2003 federal statute outlawing possession of cartoon images depicting the sexual abuse of children. [The Chronicle Herald]

Viz Media

Publishing | The San Francisco headquarters of Viz Media was closed for two days this week after an unexpected downpour on Monday caused storm drains to overflow, flooding parts of the city. [Anime News Network]

Publishing | Just last week we were reporting that Villard had acquired the rights to Fated, a graphic novel written by Michael Jackson and Gotham Chopra. Now comes word that the Random House imprint paid $800,000 for it. Illustrated by Mukesh Singh, artist of Virgin Comics titles Gamekeeper, Devi and Jenna Jameson's Shadow Hunter, the black-and-white book is due out in June. [Crain's New York Business]

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Straight for the art | 'Welcome home'

Welcome home, Paul Levitz

Jim Lee and the Wildstorm office collaborated on this wonderful Legion of Super-Heroes piece for Paul Levitz, the former president and publisher of DC Comics, as well as once and future writer of the Legion. The framed version, which looks like it has messages written on it from the Wildstorm folks, can be found at the link above.

Planetary #27 is worth its wait

Grumpy Old Fan

Obligatory Tardiness Joke: I was going to wait a year or so to discuss Planetary #27, but you know....

[crickets]

Ahem.  My most recent trip through the Planetary series was a couple of weeks ago, on a Sunday afternoon. I read the first two Planetary paperbacks before dinner, and finished off issues #13-26 after "Mad Men." After years of waiting interminably between issues, it became almost compulsory for me to read the next one immediately, regardless of how late it was getting. Taken as a single extended storyline, Planetary starts slowly, but before too long has gained considerable momentum.

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Perhaps Planetary would be better served by a Venn diagram

Planetary #27

In what he bills as the first part of "A Planetary Restrospective," Funnybook Babylon's Chris Eckert goes all Nate Silver on the Warren Ellis-John Cassaday series, which concludes this week after 27 issues ... and more than 10 years.

Eckert isn't fooling around, either: He has a pie chart -- one that breaks down Cassaday's page output over the past decade. A pie chart!

Take us back to Feb. 3, 1999, the day the first issue of Planetary was released, Mr. Peabody Eckert: "Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Geoff Johns and Greg Rucka were all newcomers to mainstream comics with a smattering of 'Big Two' credits between them. Mark Millar was best known in America as Grant Morrison’s writing partner. No one had heard of Bill Jemas or Dan DiDio, and when people thought of 'comic book movies' Batman & Robin or Spawn came to mind."

Simpler times, indeed.

But back to the pie chart: I'm not sure what it really tells us, other than Planetary and Astonishing X-Men comprise about three-quarters of Cassaday's interior work since 1999. Still, though, everything's better with pie charts. And pie.

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

Yaoi Press

Legal | Yaoi Press Publisher Yamila Abraham was arrested Monday in Las Vegas on federal fraud charges related to online sales of an "herbal" alternative to recreational street drugs. Authorities claim the product contained no herbal supplements and was actually composed of dextromethorphan hydrobromide (DXM), the active ingredient in over-the-counter cough suppressants. The charges date from 2005 and 2006, when Abraham operated the mail-order website Pleasureherbs.com.

If convicted, Abraham, 34, could face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each of the seven counts of mail fraud, up to one year in prison and a $250,000 fine on one count of misbranding a drug, and up to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine on one count of introducing goods in domestic commerce by means of false statement. She also could be forced to forfeit property from the proceeds of the crime up to $186,680 and any equipment used to make the drugs.

On the Yaoi Press blog, Abraham asked for everyone to "please keep a cool head, and have faith. This situation is not going to end Yaoi Press. Don't believe the hype." She stressed that she will continue to appear at conventions, including this weekend's OtakuMex in Albuquerque, New Mexico. [Las Vegas Sun]

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Straight for the art | Astro City: Astra Special #1 cover

Astra #1

I thought this cover for the first issue of the upcoming Astro City: Astra Special was pretty striking when it first popped up on Wildstorm's The Bleed blog in July, but I really love what Comicraft did to make it look like a magazine. Very cool.

The book comes out at the end of September.

Lapham to tackle Modern Warfare 2 for Wildstorm

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 #1

Today's DC solicits confirmed what Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling tweeted over the weekend -- that Wildstorm has picked up another video game license, this time for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

The most interesting part of the news, though, is that the book will be written by David Lapham, of Stray Bullets and Young Liars fame. Kevin West will provide the art, with Federico Dallocchio on covers.

Edginton and Fabbri bring zombies to London in Victorian Undead

Victorian Undead

Wildstorm revealed yesterday what that zombie-fied Sherlock Holmes image from earlier this week was all about -- it's a new six-issue mini-series called Victorian Undead by writer Ian Edginton and artist Davide Fabbri. The story revolves around Holmes and Watson trying to figure out who is behind the zombie plague that's infected 1854 London. Watch for the first issue in November.

The Tony Moore cover from earlier this week is the main cover for the book, BTW; the one above, by Simon Coleby, is the variant.

Elementary, my dead Watson

Victorian Undead

Austin over at Wildstorm's The Bleed blog posted the above teaser image earlier today under the heading "Victorian Undead" featuring what appears to be a zombiefied version of Sherlock Holmes. Using my own detective skills, I've determined this is the variant cover for the first issue of a comic called Victorian Undead.

(OK, it was in the file name -- "victorian_undead1_varcov." Which could be a ruse. But what isn't a ruse is that Tony Moore drew the cover, and it's due in November.)

What Are You Reading?

Pluto, Vol. 4

Another Sunday is upon us again. Time to kick back, crack open a Snapple and tell you all about the comics we're reading. Our guest this week is Ivan Brandon, whose prose you may have come across in books like NYC Mech, 24Seven or the new Image series Viking.

To discover what Ivan's reading, click on the link below, Snapple or no Snapple ...

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SDCC '09 | 15 announcements that make us happy

Bone: Quest for the Spark

San Diego Comic-Con is always a wild ride filled with crazy cosplayers, Hollywood hype and just generally somewhat-controlled chaos. In the midst of it all, a few comic book announcements managed to sneak out.

Here are 15 of those announcements (in no particular order) that Kevin Melrose, Chris Mautner and I were happy to hear:

1. New Bone books
So it looks like one of those new books isn't going to be comics but a novel written by Tom Sniegoski and illustrated by Smith. Which is a bit of a bummer, but only a bit. I'm still pretty psyched to see more stories set in that universe and Sniegoski has proven himself to be an able and witty writer on stuff like the Stupid Stupid Rat Creatures mini series, which, by the way, will be included in the Tall Tales book. So yeah, this is great news all around. I'm eager for more Bone. --Chris Mautner

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SDCC '09 | Wildstorm goes to hell with Dante's Inferno

Dante's Inferno

Visceral Games, one of Electronic Arts' studios, announced that Wildstorm will publish a comic book based on the forthcoming video game Dante's Inferno. A special "Issue 0" preview edition of the Dante's Inferno comic will be given away at Comic-Con International 2009 in San Diego at the EA (Booth #5213) and DC Comics (Booth # 1915) booths.

The six-issue comic miniseries will be written by Christos Gage and drawn by Diego Latorre, and will go on sale in December.

"When Christos and I saw the early gameplay demo of the game, our jaws just hit the floor," said Hank Kanalz, Vice President and General Manager, WildStorm. "The nature of this game, as well as the original work, inspired WildStorm to take a unique approach in the creative. Diego Latorre's art is outstanding and atypical for a game-based comic. EA has really set the bar high, and we strive to achieve or surpass the mark with this book."

Dante's Inferno is set in the poem's nine circles of hell - limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, anger, violence, heresy, fraud and treachery. Per the press release, players take Dante on an epic descent through hell, battling their way through a terrifying gauntlet of demons to reclaim the soul of his beloved Beatrice. The Dante's Inferno comic will highlight the action-packed moments in the game, and will also deliver more perspective on Beatrice's experience, adding more depth to the game's story and exploring more of the poem's dramatic depiction of the underworld.