Comic Book Resources

This Sunday, it's Wonder Woman Day

Wonder Woman Day IV

On Sunday DC Comics' Amazon princess will be celebrated in a pair of Wonder Woman Day all-ages events in Portland, Oregon, and Flemington, New Jersey, that will benefit domestic-violence prevention and intervention agencies in both states.

Portland Mayor Sam Adams has even officially declared Oct. 25 to be "Wonder Woman Day."

The Portland event, which will be held from noon to 6 p.m. at Excalibur Comics, 2444 SE Hawthorne Blvd., will benefit Raphael House of Portland, Bradley Angle and Portland Women's Crisis Line. Guests include Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, Gail Simone, Aaron Lopresti, Ron Randall and Paul Gulacy.

The Fleminton event, which will be held from noon to 5 p.m. at Comic Fusion, 42 Main St., will benefit Safe in Hunterdon. Guests include Joe Sinnott, Chris Muller, Ken Haeser, Rob Kramer and Buzz Hasson.

Both events are free, and will feature silent auctions of work by such artists as Alex Ross, Adam Hughes, Gary Frank, Nicola Scott, Jeff Smith and many more.

For more information, visit the Wonder Woman Day IV website.

Place your bets now: Will Wonder Woman hit its 45th issue, or its 600th?

DC Nation

Just as Marvel has returned several of its long-running titles -- Captain America, Thor and Incredible Hulk, among the more recent -- to their original numbering, DC Comics is contemplating the same approach with at least one series.

In this week's "DC Nation" column, DC Comics Executive Editor Dan DiDio opens the door to the possibility that Wonder Woman, one of the company's most consistently published titles, could mark its 600th issue in June 2010 (rather than No. 45 under the current system). Debuting in 1942, Wonder Woman was relaunched in 1987 and again in 2006, each time with a new No. 1 issue.

"In case you didn't know, there is a group of Wonder Woman fans who feel that her ongoing series needs the numbering that would be reflective of her time and stature in the industry," DiDio writes. "After all, both Superman and Batman are closing in on issue 700, and Wonder Woman, being an integral part of our trinity, should be right up there with them. ... Not a bad argument. These fans felt so strongly about this, they even started a mail-in postcard campaign to plead their case."

He offers the counter-argument that the current numbering -- Issue 36 comes out later this month -- "is more inviting to the casual fan who might want to come in and sample a series without feeling like the story is weighed down by over 65 years of history."

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Arby's unleashes JLA paper toys on humanity

JLA bobbleheads

And the papercraft kits just keep on comin'. This time it's a set of JLA-themed bobblehead dolls, created by Matt Hawkings of Custom Paper Toys. Better yet, these will be available in Arby's restaurants this week for a limited time with the purchase of a kid's meal. The dolls include Superman, Green Lantern, Flash, Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl and Bizarro (not pictured). You can see more detailed pictures of the figures on Matt's Flickr page.

(found via the Ephemerist)

Send Us Your Shelf Porn!

We've had Batman, Superman and a host of lesser DC heroes featured here at SP Central, but Wonder Woman hasn't really gotten her due, shelf porn-wise, ... until today.

Today we're featuring the extensive WW collection of Elizabeth Reeves, a self-described Princess Diana fangirl who has got quite the collection to prove it. And how. Click on the link to see the evidence for yourself and let Reeves take you on a guided tour ...

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What are you reading?

Sequence from 'EmiTown'

Welcome to What Are You Reading, where we talk about all the wonderful comics and other stuff we're currently engaged with and hopefully point you toward some quality material. Our guest this week is Jamie S. Rich, author of the new graphic novel You Have Killed Me and, of course, our guest-blogger for the week.

A bad case of pinkeye kept me from doing to do much reading this week, but thankfully the rest of the Robot 6 team seems to have made up for my lapse. See what they've been reading by clicking on the link below ...

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Morrison fascinated by 'contradictions and complexities' of Wonder Woman

Final Crisis #5

In the past six months Grant Morrison has moved from apologizing for his treatment of Wonder Woman in Final Crisis to hinting at a "different project" that might examine the themes surrounding the Amazonian princess.

Now he reveals she's the iconic DC Comics character he'd most like to work with next.

"I’ve become fascinated by all the contradictions and complexities in the character over the years," Morrison tells the A.V. Club in a broad-ranging Q&A, "and would love to do an All-Star Superman-style take that would clarify and redefine what she stands for, and what she’s capable of as a character."

In his appearance with author Clive Barker earlier this month at Meltdown Comics in Hollywood, Morrison said, "These extremely weird, dark elements of Wonder Woman haven’t been adequately dealt with. Wonder Woman remains a really bizarre, untouchable character. She should represent women in the same way Superman represents men.”

Send us your shelf porn!

Welcome to this week's edition of Send Us Your Shelf Porn. Today we're joined by Douglas Nasluchacz of Riverside, California, who has amassed an impressive collection of comic-related memorabilia over the past 30 years. Rather than waste time on an intro, let's jump right in ...

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Straight for the art | Yep!

Wonder Woman and Spider-Man

Artist Aimé Jalon shares all sorts of wonderful comics, anime and manga-inspired art on her website, including the above reimagining of Wonder Woman and Spider-Man. (I wonder where they're headed?)

Via Super Punch

Brought to you by the color red: DC Comics Solicitations for September 2009

Grumpy Old Fan

The September solicitations are here, bringing with them another month's worth of teases and puffery.  There are ongoing series for the Red Circle characters, a new edition of Red Son, and a paperback featuring a Communist Lady Blackhawk.  As if that weren't enough, this batch includes the start of a long-awaited Superman miniseries, the highly-anticipated conclusion of Flash:  Rebirth, and a couple of minor characters in desperate need of some salesmanship.  I'm also fairly sure that DC has made some kind of history in its writing corps.

Before we get to that, though, a non-solicitation item.  I'm pretty happy that DC will be putting at least part of Wednesday Comics in a newspaper, even if it's just the first installment of the Superman strip in one issue of USA Today. You may remember a couple of months ago that I went off on a little tirade about DC not supporting Wednesday Comics sufficiently, and while this isn't quite what I had in mind, it may be pretty effective.

Now then...
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Triple playmaker: an interview with Kurt Busiek

Grumpy Old Fan

Although I wrote quite a lot over the past year about DC's weekly series Trinity, I kept coming up with questions that went outside the scope of my weekly notes. Fortunately, writer Kurt Busiek was nice enough to participate in the following e-mail interview, conducted after Trinity concluded (and after he returned from a well- deserved vacation).

We discussed the nuts and bolts of producing Trinity, its connections to a couple of Busiek's other DC projects, a few nitpicky items, and what the year-long series leaves behind.

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

From Z-Cult's website

Piracy | Comic-book torrent tracker Z-Cult FM has announced it's shutting down, less than two years after it complied with demands from DC Comics and Marvel to remove links to pirated copies of copyrighted work.

"After Marvel and DC tried to sue us, we decided to remove those [links to] comics," administrator Serj says, "then every other publisher started sending us e-mails so we removed those too. In end we were left with a tracker but not many torrents on it." [TorrentFreak]

Publishing |  Tom Spurgeon has word that art director Arlene So has been let go from Wizard. Just last week it was reported that Darren Sanchez, vice president of production and circulation, had been fired, while photographer Dylan Brucie had quit. [The Comics Reporter]

Publishing | Tokyopop's John Parker briefly discusses the publisher's plans and performance, and the state of the manga market. [ICv2.com]

Conventions | There's a lot of coverage from this weekend's MoCCA Festival in New York City, including recaps from Sandy Billus, Sean Collins, Geekanerd (with a photo gallery), Brian Heater and Heidi MacDonald. Much, much more undoubtedly will follow. [MoCCA]

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What are you reading?

Essential Man-Thing Vol. 1

Welcome to What Are You Reading Our guest this week is the blogger and critic Noah Berlatsky.

Click on the link to find out what Noah and the rest of us are currently reading. And don't forget to tell us what you're reading too in the comments section.

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Annotations for Trinity issue #52

Trinity #52

Well, it all comes down to this. With Trinity #52, Kurt Busiek, Mark Bagley, and the rest of their intrepid band have one last opportunity to sound off about Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Who will live? Who will die? Will there be food? And where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?

Join me, won't you, for one more trip around the triune block!

SPOILERS FOLLOW

"Where They Should Be" was written by Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza; penciled by Mark Bagley (pages 1, 4-5, 19-25) and Mike Norton (pages 2-3, 9, 12, 18), Tom Derenick (pages 6-8, 10-11), and Scott McDaniel (pages 13-17); inked by Art Thibert (pages 1, 4-5, 19-25), John Stanisci (pages 2-3, 9, 12, 18), Wayne Faucher (pages 6-8, 10-11), and Andy Owens (pages 13-17); colored by Pete Pantazis and Allen Passalaqua, and lettered by Pat Brosseau; Rachel Gluckstern, associate editor; Mike Carlin, editor.
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Annotations for Trinity issue #51

Trinity #51

Lots of last-minute housecleaning in this penultimate issue of Trinity. Just about every lingering subplot is either resolved or set up for resolution, which doesn't leave much old business for next week's conclusion. Considering the standalone nature of this miniseries -- and the fact that it's a 52-issue standalone miniseries -- I think that's for the best. There will probably be some super-powered action next issue, but I still hope that Kurt Busiek & Co. have left room for a thoughtful epilogue.

We're not there yet, though.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

LEAD STORY (pages 1, 12-22)

"Can You Hold Out" was written by Kurt Busiek, pencilled by Mark Bagley, inked by Art Thibert, colored by Pete Pantazis, and lettered by Pat Brosseau; Rachel Gluckstern, associate editor; Mike Carlin, editor.

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Six by 6 | Six comic items I’d bid the hell out of on eBay, if I could

If you're like me, you've probably spent at least one night staying up until 2 a.m. to get in a final bid on an item on eBay. In my case, it was a vintage Mickey Mouse watch that my wife had her eye on. While I've never burnt the midnight oil for anything I've personally wanted off the site, there are a few fictional, comic-related items I could see bidding the hell out of on eBay for, if indeed they were real. And today I present six of them.

No doubt many of the items on this list would violate eBay's prohibited and restricted items, at least in our world; for the sake of this list, let's pretend it's not in continuity.

1. Mr. Freeze’s freeze ray: The temperature today in my neck of the woods is over 100 degrees … in May, in California. What the hell? So on a day like today, I’d be more than willing to spend some time on eBay bidding on Mr. Freeze’s freeze ray. Instead of using it to make everyone’s life miserable and to fight guys in bat suits, I’d use it to turn my town into a winter wonderland … at least until Wednesday, when we should be back around the normal and more palatable 85 degrees.

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