Author: Glenn Hauman

‘GrimJack: The Manx Cat’ #1 available from IDW Publishing this August

  • Uncategorized
  • June 16, 2009

gj-manx-cat-1-cover-588px-2618404

We might as well make it official:

IDW Publishing is pleased to announce the
upcoming launch of the first series of ComicMix.com properties,
GrimJack: The Manx Cat. For the first time in print, fans can now enjoy
the adventures of GrimJack in 26 full color pages published straight
from the online comic. Writer John Ostrander and artist Timothy
Truman skillfully return to the grim and gritty interdimensional land of
Cynosure, in which gun-for-hire GrimJack holds court in the fabled
Munden’s Bar.

“We’re excited to be bring some of the best ComicMix properties to
real-world books, and GrimJack is a great way to start,” said Greg
Goldstein, chief operating officer of IDW. “The new books are a great
new way to enjoy ComicMix fans to enjoy their favorite comics, and
expose the properties to new fans.”

GrimJack debuted in the mid-80s and rapidly became one of First
Comics’ best-selling titles. Created by Ostrander and Truman, the
series was revived in 2005 for the graphic novel Killer Instinct,
published by IDW, which is also home to the trade paperback reprints of the First Comics’ material.

“It’s sort of a homecoming for us,” GrimJack and ComicMix
editor-in-chief Mike Gold notes. “We’ve had a long and productive
relationship with IDW – absolutely the best I’ve had in my career.
There’s no better choice to restart at the place we took off initially,
with a brand-new GrimJack mini-series.”

GrimJack: The Manx Cat #1 will be available in stores in August. Diamond order code JUN09 0951

About IDW
IDW is an award-winning publisher of comic books,
graphic novels and trade paperbacks, based in San Diego, California. As
a leader in the horror, action, and sci-fi genres, IDW publishes some
of the most successful and popular titles in the industry including:
television’s #1 prime time series CBS’ CSI:
Crime Scene Investigation; Paramount’s Star Trek; Fox’s Angel; Hasbro’s
The Transformers, and the BBC’s Doctor Who. IDW’s original horror
series, 30 Days of Night, was launched as a major motion picture in
October 2007 by Sony Pictures and was the #1 film
in its first week of release. In April 2008, IDW released Michael
Recycle, the first title from its new children’s book imprint,
Worthwhile Books. More information about the company can be found at http://www.idwpublishing.com.

‘Pearls Before Swine’ endorsement video

  • News
  • June 15, 2009

Normally, we wouldn’t promote in such blatant promotion efforts. Heck, we haven’t even gotten around to publishing our own GrimJack press release. But this touching effort by Stephan Pastis for his latest Pearls Before Swine collection was so earnest, we just had to show you.

Pearls Sells Out: A Pearls Before Swine Treasury, the 12th book in the series, comes out August 18. Order now.

‘The Maxx’ animated series online

  • News
  • June 15, 2009

MTV is bringing back a lot of stuff from the 90’s– The State, Denis Leary commercials, Aeon Flux and other Liquid Television spots, and the like on MTV2 Legit, a new series on MTV2. One of the recent additions to their web site is Sam Kieth’s The Maxx, from MTV Oddities– and the serie, from the co-creator of Sandman, is even weirder than I remembered. Take a look:

Scott McCloud lecture on Understanding Comics at TED

  • News
  • June 14, 2009

As it turns out, the man who wrote Understanding Comics
 and Making Comics
 is pretty good at understanding and making the multimedia presentation too. (This isn’t a real surprise– in the mid 90’s, at the initial boom of the World-Wide Web, a lot of web designers and artists had copies of Understanding Comics
 on their desk, because it helped them get a handle on this new medium and how to communicate in it.)

Here’s Scott McCloud at the TED Conference. Enjoy the lazy Sunday afternoon and enjoy Scott’s speech:

Eisner Awards voting deadline reminder

  • News
  • June 12, 2009

Via Jackie Estrada:

Just a reminder that the deadline to vote in the Eisner Awards is Monday, June 15.

The following working comics industry professionals are eligible to vote in the Eisner Awards:

  • Comic book/graphic novel/webcomic creators (writers, artists, cartoonists, pencillers, inkers, letterers, colorists)
  • All nominees in any category
  • Comic book/graphic novel publishers and editors
  • Owners and managers of comic book specialty retail stores

The ballot can be found at http://www.eisnervote.com/

Hot Chicks with Stormtroopers – you can find anything on the Internet

  • News
  • June 11, 2009

Maybe those guys in the 501st Legion know something we don’t.

Or maybe domain name registration is getting so cheap that it’s not a big deal to register hotchickswithstormtroopers.com. Either way, the site promises to deliever just what the name says.

And isn’t it nice that people can find what they’re looking for– and in this case, do it without violating Godwin’s Law?

Ask Chris Claremont about ‘X-Men Forever’ #1

  • News
  • June 11, 2009

While we’re still transcribing the rest of the first massive interview with Chris Claremont, he’s graciously agreed to answer questions about X-Men Forever going forward. So here’s what we’re going to do:

We’re going to collect questions from you from now until Sunday at midnight. Then we’re going to present the best questions to Chris, along with a few of our own. We’ll run the answers on Wednesday.

With X-Men Forever running bi-weekly, this will give you a fix to tide you over between issues. And we may work with Marvel to add some of these questions and answers to trade collections of the book.

Oh, and yes, SPOILERS ARE ALLOWED IN THE COMMENTS THREAD. If you haven’t read the issue yet, don’t blame us for any spoiled surprises.

Futurama comes back from the future

  • News
  • June 10, 2009

Matt Raub at the Flickcast confirmed it for us:

Comedy Central has picked up the rights to renew 20th Century Fox Television’s Futurama for 26 new episodes, six years after getting initially canceled by the Fox network. In a recent EW interview with a 20th Century Fox spokesman, they say the DVD sales and reruns have had a “blockbuster” performance: “When we brought back Family Guy
several years ago, everyone said that it was a once in a lifetime thing
— that canceled series stay canceled and cannot be revived,” 20th
Century Fox TV Chairmen Gary Newman and Dana Walden said in a joint
statement. “But Futurama was another series that fans simply
demanded we bring back, and we couldn’t have been happier when Matt and
David agreed that there were many more stories yet to tell.” Both creators David X Cohen and Matt Groening were of course ecstatic about the news, Groening adds “We’re thrilled Futurama is coming back. We now have only 25,766 episodes to make before we catch up with Bender and Fry in the year 3000.”

But as far as Matt’s hope that if Family Guy and Futurama can return from the grave, then Greg The Bunny could come back too– probably not. Dan Milano, the man behind (and under and inside, for that matter) Greg The Bunny was just signed to write the remake of Short Circuit, so he’s going to be busy for a bit.

What do Apple’s iPhone announcements mean for comics?

iphonecomic-6079316If you have a Macintosh or a iPhone, yesterday was a high holy day for you, as Apple’s WWDC Keynote Speech was given yesterday, outlining Apple’s hardware and software plans for the next few months. We’ll let other people such as The Unofficial Apple Weblog cover the full release info and instead concentrate on the items that are going to impact comics the most.

Hardware: Sadly, no one’s announced the iPad yet, that long rumored half-tablet, half-netbook. But a new iPhone was announced, to go along with the over 40 million iPhones and iPod touches that have already been sold to date.

While the price on the new iPhone is a bit hefty, what will interest people is the price drop for the old iPhone– the 8GB iPhone 3G will sell alongside the iPhone 3GS for $99 (with contract, obviously). While not the ideal comics reader, it certainly will continue penetration into the market. Even more, as parents upgrade their own iPhones to the newest models, they’re likely to hand their old ones to their kids as it’s  a (comparitively) cheaper upgrade.

Software: iPhone 3.0 releases in a week and a half on June 17, free for iPhone users, $9.95 for iTouch users. Biggest changes for comics fans:

  • The App store now has “in app purchasing”. That’s where you can purchase another app or service from within an app. Obvious usage: You get to the end of issue #1 and then immediately buy #2, or other comics which the publisher has thoughtfully linked for you to buy.

  • The software will also allow subscriptions to be made on a month-to-month basis. Again, the usage is obvious: subscribe to the latest book, and when it’s ready, it’ll be pushed to your iPhone.
  • Parental controls have been improved in iPhone 3.0, which will allow for the sale of more adult content. Again, the implications are huge, as hundreds of independent titles that might have fallen afoul of Apple’s occasionally odd policies for content will now be able to be distributed online.

All in all, a pretty productive update. Expect to see products taking advantage of the relaxed restrictions rolling out from comic publishers shortly after June 17.

If you don’t already own an iPhone, will this make you more likely to buy one? If you’re already using it, will this make it more likely that you’ll read comics on your iPhone? Discuss in comments.

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