The Oscar race of the comics industry is underway, as the 2007 Eisner nominees (for work that came out in 2006) have been announced .
Thank goodness Heidi MacDonald (from Barcelona, yet!) has all the nominees listed, so we don’t have to.
Elayne Riggs
Elayne Riggs is the creator of the popular blog Pen-Elayne on the Web. She was a founding member of Friends of Lulu, an organization dedicated to increasing the involvement of girls and women in comics, as readers and creators. She is married to inker Robin Riggs, with whom she shares two cats, and has odd love/hate relationship with Hillary Clinton.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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In my opinion, FUN HOME is one of the best books of the year in any format. So "YAY!" for Alison. And cheers to Alexa Kitchen, too.
Just a quick note to let you know that a lot of background material on how I created the FRANKENSTEIN MOBSTER and behind the scenes art, as well as some really amazing FRANKENSTEIN MOBSTER art by Adam Hughes, Jerry Ordway, Mike Oeming and Scott Morse is currently getting posted each week over at FEARnet.com – the website devoted to the special ComCast horror channel. This is the link to my weekly blog there they call GOBS AND MOBSTERS :http://www.fearnet.com/blogs/the_guest_house/b131…
I'm really enjoying Frankenstein Mobster. The schizophrenic nature of him sharing a body with three other mobsters really plays up the sexual tension. At least the tension Frankie feels. Vampi is still cold. I'm not sure what her motives or intentions are. Can a Vampire be attracted to a Zombie Mobster? Is it fair to call Frankie a Zombie? He's been reanimated. So he falls into the broader category of "The Undead," like Vampires, Ghosts, Ghouls and Zombies. I guess the major difference between Ghouls/Zombies and Frankensteins is the level of self-awareness, control and conscience that Frankenstein has. Frankenstein KNOWS he's a monster. And he has some level of control. So a Frankenstein evokes not just fear, but also pathos. You can feel sorry for Frankenstein. You can empathize with his loneliness. You can imagine a good soul trapped inside a horrible body. There isn't much love or pathos for Zombies. Sometimes you get those bizarre and horrific scenes where the living and still loving relatives of the undead, care and feed them (sometimes with their own flesh and blood) in a twisted metaphor of love. There's a scene like that in GrimJack with a vamp. That's pathetic, but it's not the Zombie that's pathetic, it's the living relative.Thanks for the link to fearnet.com. Thanks for putting in the extra effort in promoting Frankie and Vampi. Both on fearnet and here at ComicMix with the Ballad of Franking and Vampi! It deserves it. You've been able to pack a lot of plot and character into just a few pages. It's a very fun read.Speaking of Zombies, have you heard of Jonathan Coulton? He's a singer/songwriter who has done some amazing Comic Book style songs. "Skullcrusher Mountain." "The Future Soon." His Zombie Song is called "Re: Your Brains." It's very funny. FEARnet.com ought to do an interview of Jonathan Coulton. http://www.jonathancoulton.com/I think it would be cool for someone at Insight to adapt "Skullcrusher Mountain" or some other Coulton song into a comic! As an artist and musician, Mark, I think you can see the power and appeal of a blend of comics and music. It's been done before. Captain Fantastic, Kiss Unmasked and Alice Cooper's Psycho Circus were all comics/music crossovers. Rob Zombie has done some comics. Has he tied in music with any of his comics? Tori Amos recently did "Comic Book Tattoo," a comic based on her songs!But comics + music is EASY to achieve on the Internet! The merge can be seamless. No need for a scratchy flexi-disk. You can easily put an instrumental MP3 behind a comic. This would add an element that could really punch up the visuals! And with the semi-animated comics of "Watchmen" and "Invincible", timing a song with lyrics to comics images seems very achievable, even easy. Heck, I could do it with my crappy computer and my copy of $50 copy of Anime Studio! If only I could draw! Here's a little animation I did of a character that YOU have also drawn, Mark. Norbert! Of Vinnie B's famous International Norbert Conspiracy! The pan and slide animations done for Motion Comics are easier than character animations. Oh well, it won't be me doing them.I'll leave you with the first verse of a song:The Ballad of Frankie and VampiFrankie and Vampi were MonstersAnd, Oh Lordy, how they'd behaveThey swore to be true to each otherTrue until the graveWhich happened each night And baby that's just not right
NORBERT? Really. It is unique to convention sketches that the moment the sketch leaves the table it also leaves my memory. This results in an unsettling phenomena when I look at my own art and have no memory of ever having drawn it. This is in sharp contrast to just how much memory is embedded in any page of art I've done for my comics. In those cases looking at an old piece of my art is just like popping open a can of Play-Doh and smelling that pre-school aroma – I'm right back there at the moment of creation!As for music – there is a FRANKENSTEIN MOBSTER theme song. I'll have to post it online so folks can hear it. But limited animation is a mixed bag. I've explored that – and if someone is throwing money around I might get into it again. But in my gut I think we should either have COMICS or ANIMATION and leave the "in between" stuff alone.
We'll, I for one loved the EZ Street song. And I'm listening forward to hearing the Frankenstein Mobster Theme. I just think there should be a way to meld songs and comics. I just think in a lot of ways Comics and Songs have more in common than say, Songs and Movies. Comics are short form, like short stories. Even graphic novels generally break down into a series chapters and vignettes, like LPs!
BOO! the FRANKENSTEIN MOBSTER themeNow playing at this link – the original music composed and performed by Mark Wheatley—http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7002589
This is SO cool! Like the Monster Mash meets the Ventures. Creepy, goofy surf music! Perfect for Halloween! And I love the Lyrics!
And we have a new installment of my blog over at FEARnet up today. I manage to combine great art from Scott Morse, Alex Niño, Angelo Torres and Bernie Wrightson with several of my own illustrations to give a look at that incestuous practice of variant covers for comic books. These are for FRANKENSTEIN MOBSTER – here is the link:http://www.fearnet.com/blogs/the_guest_house/b135…I tell you – you have not seen my Frankie until you see how Scott Morse painted him!