Comic Book Resources

Wolverine: Weapon X 100 covers up for bid at eBay

by Josh Medors

Several pieces of original art from The Hero Initiative's Wolverine: Weapon X 100 Project are available for bidding on eBay ... including this one by Josh Medors, which just looks absolutely incredible. Also pieces from Chris Bachalo, Colleen Coover, Art Adams, John McCrea and several others can be found as well.

Go check'em out and place a bid; it's for a good cause.

Straight for the art | Sean Murphy's Wolverine Alphabet (and more)

Sean Murphy's Wolverine ABCs

As we noted the other day, Vertigo has expanded the upcoming Grant Morrison/Sean Murphy series Joe the Barbarian from six issues to eight. Looking at Murphy's deviantart account, it's not hard to see why. Among the visual delights therein are letters A through H of a Wolverine Alphabet, featuring the Ol' Canucklehead and friends kickin' it Sesame Street style. (Unsurprisingly, the set has Marvel editors beating a path to the DC-exclusive artist's door.)

The gallery also includes page after luscious page of Murphy's work on Hellblazer, a few Joe the Barbarian preview pages, and random other goodies, from a recreation of the poster for Easy Rider starring Wolverine and Banshee in place of Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda to the below image of all of Murphy's childhood heroes one one team. No wonder Vertigo veterans Paul Pope, Cameron Stewart, and Jock have all been tweeting Murphy's praises.

We're guessing Einstein's the team leader

Straight for the art | Three from Ben Templesmith

Batman by Ben Templesmith

Fell and Dead Space artist Ben Templesmith recently shared three "in process" sketch posts on his blog, featuring the Batman sketch shown above, Wolverine (which includes commentary along the way) and the 1940s Black Orchid, for a "Remake/Remodel" challenge on the Whitechapel forum. Go check'em out; that Whitechapel thread also includes remakes by Pia Guerra and Ryan Kelly.

Marvel.com teases PSP comics + Motion Comics contest

Marvel.com posted a couple of videos yesterday related to two recent announcements about their digital comics efforts. First, here's a sneak preview of the PSP Digital Comics service announced earlier this month:

Marvel also recently announced a partnership with a company called Aniboom, a "virtual animation studio" that will give animators "the opportunity to create unique motion comics based on comic book stories starring such renowned Super Heroes as the Hulk, Wolverine and Nova." Basically it's a contest where contestants create a Motion Comic based on a Wolverine vs. Hulk story or a Nova story. The grand prize is $10,000.

You can check out a promotional video about the contest after the jump.

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SDCC '09 | Marvel costumes coming for LittleBigPlanet

Wolverine Sackboy

During yesterday's "The Next Generation of Marvel Video Games" panel in San Diego, Marvel debuted three new costumes they've developed for the Playstation 3 hit LittleBigPlanet, the game that combines platform adventure with community gameplay, enabling gamers to create and share their own levels. In addition to Wolverine (above), they also have made Sackboys -- as the game's characters are called -- of Iron Man and Captain America.

According to Kotaku, "Marvel showed off three concept renders of Sackboys that may be coming to the PlayStation 3 exclusive, but did not offer dates for the costumes, nor confirm that this would be the extent of the Marvel characters that would be licensed for LittleBigPlanet use." Click over to see Cap and Iron Man.

Marvel.com's Wolverine tease

Wolverine: The End

Marvel.com has posted a teaser image from an upcoming Wolverine/Terminator crossover, or maybe another round of Wolverine: The End, or ... well, they don't really say what it is exactly, do they? It makes my face hurt, though.

The Fifth Color | Marvel Solicitations for September 2009

Okay guys, this is September. Time to get serious. The summer blockbusters are either put to rest or coming to an end, and we have 11 different #1 issues to sort through, not to mention the other 11 #2 issues that are kicking it into high gear from last month. And what about the eight issues we know NOTHING about?? Pencils down, kids. The Marvel U just got real.

Or kind of ridiculous in regards to the ongoing narrative. But don't be afraid, not everything is all new and different. Let's take a gander at the September solicitations for the House of Ideas and see what we can look forward to hearing about when we're darn good and ready.

Okay, no joke, there are indeed 11 #1 issues coming out, from the benign Thor and Punisher Annuals (I actually find myself missing when they used to number annuals by the year they came out) to the long-awaited Spider-Woman #1 and Wolverine: Old Man Logan Giant-Size #1. There's even the ridiculous, but I'll get to that later. Point is, this is just as much a month for starts of things to come as August, which tips the scales at 14 #1 issues. Marvel may tout their 600th Captain America, Spider-Man or Incredible Hulk, but let's face it: #1 on a cover gives the book that delectable little collector's spice.

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What Are You Reading?

Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 5

Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading. This week I'm pleased to announce that our special guest star is Dash Shaw, who wowed the critics last year with his doorstop family drama Bottomless Belly Button and was just nominated for an Eisner for his recently completed Webcomic Bodyworld (soon to be published in book form by Pantheon).

To see what Shaw and the rest of us are reading, click on the link below.

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Apparently they've made a Wolverine video game

And big surprise, it's a tie-in in to the upcoming Hugh Jackman film (now playing on a Web site near you). Here's a trailer of the game:

Anyway, a lot of the big video game sites have taken a look at the game and are offering previews. What were their initial impressions? Click on the jump to find out.

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Hero Initiative reveals new comics projects, 'director's cut' video

Matt Price continued to report news and announcements from the annual ComicsPRO meeting in Memphis over the weekend; you can read his updates both at the Nerdage blog and The ComicsPRO blog. During the meeting, the Hero Initiative announced two fund-raising projects that comics fans should enjoy: a Wolverine "100 Covers" project (similar to the Spider-Man and Hulk cover projects) and Hero Comics, an anthology that will include a new American Flagg! story by Howard Chaykin, as well as contributions from Gene Colan and Josh Medors. The anthology, which is being organized by IDW's Scott Dunbier, is due in August.

Speaking of the Hero Initiative, the organization released a promotional video about their organization, which ran a little more than a minute. Now they've put out a longer version, which runs about five minutes:

Six by 6 | Six stories I'd like to see in Marvel's 'indie' anthology

Wolverine: Dying Time

It's been quite awhile since we first heard word that Marvel Comics had an anthology in the works featuring some of the best independent creators around, and a recent MyCup 'O Joe column revealed several of the creators involved -- Jim Rugg, Paul Pope, Dash Shaw, Stan Sakai, Paul Hornschemeier and Jason, just to name a few.

The lineup of talent is impressive, and many of the stories they'll be working on are inspired -- Jim Rugg's Machine Man-turned-motorcycle is hot, while Dash Shaw's Dr. Strange is such a nature pairing it seems like they should just launch it as an ongoing. But it also got me thinking -- who else would I want to see featured in this book? I started my list with a couple of creators who I remembered already had story ideas ripe for the picking, then asked my fellow Robot 6ers to help me come up with a few more. I should probably mention that I avoided any creators who have already been announced for the book.

So without further ado ...

1. Jeffrey Brown's "Wolverine: Dying Time" story -- A few years back Jeffrey Brown (Clumsy, The Incredible Change-Bots) shared his love for a certain Canadian mutant in a non-commissioned story that featured Wolverine taking on an army of zombies. Honestly, when I first heard about this anthology, this was the first thing that came to mind, as it seems to me that the one overriding reason why Marvel would want to do an anthology like this is to publish this story. Brown's loose art style fits the subject matter perfectly, and heck -- the story's almost done already.

It's practically the patron saint of this list.

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More on Wolverine as masterpiece

van Gogh-inspired Wolverine by Laura Martin; and Warhol-inspired Wolverine by Morry Hollowell

The Washington Post unveils six more variant covers from Marvel's Wolverine Art Appreciation Month, featuring images of the hirsute mutant inspired by the work of famous artists. The gallery can be viewed here.

Wolverines Playing Poker

Wolverines playing poker

Marvel is celebrating 35 years of Wolverine with a series of Wolverine Art Appreciation variant covers -- which feature the merry mutant as he might have been drawn by famous artists like C.M. Coolidge (above), Edward Gorey, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali and more. You can check out the variant covers on various Marvel comics in April, or keep an eye out on Marvel.com as they share more of them.

The greatest vs. the greatest: Heads will cave in from shear awesomeness

ItsJustSomeRandomGuy, the creator of those "I'm a Marvel, I'm a DC" video clips from a couple years back, has a new one featuring two familiar-looking movie stars:

Click the link above to view his entire YouTube channel, where you can see his past work. Good stuff.

Latest auctions for Carla and Lance end soon

I linked to the awesome artwork Walt Simonson donated to our auctions for our injured friends Carla and Lance Hoffman a few days ago, and since our latest round is about to end I thought I'd show off a few more pieces currently available for bidding. First up, a Wonder Woman original watercolor by Jose Carlos:

Wonder Woman

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