Category: News

Kirby books by Evanier

On the anniversary of the day Jack Kirby left this world, his longtime friend and colleague Mark Evanier has announced his planned two-volume biography of the King. The first volume, says Evanier, "will be a very nicely printed art book with a simpler but quite complete version of the Kirby biography. The volume will also be loaded with rare Kirby art, all of it in reproduced in full color, much of it shot from the original artwork.

That needs a bit of explanation. Many of the pieces will consist of black-and-white artwork in pencil or ink but we’ll be printing them in color so that you can see all the pencil marks, corrections, smudges and in some cases, notes in the margins. There will also be plenty of pages that print Jack’s art in pencil form and, of course, color pieces and some things you’ve seen before but not in the way we’re going to present them. This book will be called Kirby: King of Comics and it will be released in October of this year by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., which is one of the world’s most prestigious publishers of high quality art and illustrated books. It’ll be a hardcover volume, 9" by 12-1/2", all in color and with a gatefold and all sorts of nifty features that we hope will make it worthy of its subject."

Mark is also seeking "interesting and special Kirby art to include in the book… I’m most interested in pieces that are either historic or early… I’d like to locate the original art to some early pieces and especially to things that weren’t done for Marvel, or were done for DC in the forties or fifties. I’m also trying to find intricate pencil pieces and one or two really spectacular pages from the Fourth World material."  Please contact Mark if you have anything along those lines.

The Dark Tower: interview with Peter David

dt001_cvr_quesada-200-3567913Peter David, writer of stuff, was able to take a few minutes between bowling, barfing babies, and boarding a plane to Maine to explain what’s germaine and urbane (and other words in the same vein) about the new Dark Tower series, going on sale tonight at midnight. Oddly, even though I’ve known Peter for over two decades and have been his webmaster for almost five years, this is the first time I’ve ever interviewed him…

Q. Assume I know nothing (always a fair assumption) about The Dark Tower. For those folks out there who’ve never read The Dark Tower or any other works by Stephen King, or just know his works from the movies, can you sum up what the heck’s going on here? What things do I need to know about the story that will make it accessible to me? Or will the comic be fully accessible to those who know nothing about The Dark Tower or even Stephen King?

A. You don’t really need to know anything about the series (well, aside from how to read) than anyone required when the very first Gunslinger novel was published. Basically, Dark Tower is a blend of fantasy and iconic western heroes, detailing the life’s story of Roland, the last of the Gunslingers of a long-ago city called Gilead, and the circumstances that forged him into the hero he eventually became.

Q. So this is more of a true dark fantasy than King’s usual horror?

(more…)

Len Wein – Thumbs up on 300

300-2-200-8789234Len Wein went to a preview of the movie based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel 300, and has a very positive review of it up on his blog. “The story is one of history’s great tales of heroism and sacrifice and this film definitely does it justice… One word of caution, though: this film is as graphically violent as any I’ve seen.”

Graphic violence, from a Frank Miller graphic novel? How unexpected!

A bissel schmoozing at NYCC

Neil Kleid reports on the panel in which he’ll be participating at the New York Comic Con, "The Jewish Side of Comics." Guess what they’ll be talking about? Don’t worry, it’s not on shabbos. On the other hand, nu, would it hurt them to have bagels? Or a maidele or two like Leela Corman (to talk about Unterzachen, her graphic novel in progress about twin sisters in the turn-of-the-last-century Lower East Side)?

Comics companies gear up for Toy Fair

Prior to becoming the center of the comic book world with the New York Comic Con, the Javits Center plays host to the 2007 American International Toy Fair this week (from February 11-14), and companies with comic-book tie-in toys are gearing up for their presentations. Hasbro has various Marvel-related offerings, Diamond and Dark Horse have exhibiting booths, but curiously the Toy Fair website makes no mention of McFarlane’s vast array of merchandise.

Could Todd & co. be a no-show? 

The Beat has Day 1 pictures.

Mike Gold: The Editor Babbles

mikegold200-8917977Welcome to ComicMix — well, phase one of ComicMix.

This is the part where I’m supposed to explain who and what we are. In order to do so, I’m going to have to do something I rarely do and generally avoid: I’m going to speak seriously.

I’d like to say "welcome to the 21st Century," but I’m seven years late and not quite that pretentious. So I’ll get down to the details. Phase one of ComicMix is a community based around news, information, opinion and blogging, covering the entire range of the comic art medium and those elements in the broader media that we all tend to enjoy. We add this because, contrary to old-time fan thinking, we do not live in a vacuum.

We post the news continuously, we post our columns daily, we post our information and background stuff incessantly, we post our all-new podcasts thrice-weekly (starting Tuesday, February 13th; as they used to say in Pogo, "Friday the 13th falls on a Tuesday this month"), and we run our blogs continuously and irrepressibly.

(more…)

Stardust reappears

Catch it whilst you can! Neil Gaiman reports that the more-or-less authorized Stardust movie website is back up. Stardust, of course, ties into Stardust the graphic novel by Neil and artist Charles Vess. Neil has also announced that Paramount has moved up the official release date of the Stardust movie to August 10 of this year. Considering the San Diego Comic-Con International is on July 26-29, I should think a debut showing there isn’t entirely out of the question.

And speaking of works by Neil, IESB’s Robert Sanchez asked director Joel Schumacher yesterday which comic book character he’d most love to tackle. “The response – Neil Gaiman’s Sandman!”

The Return of Nexus

Cosmic avenger Nexus returns in July in his most intense story ever. After a ten year hiatus creators Mike Baron and Steve Rude have forged a Nexus that will take its place among the greatest comic book stories ever told. "Space Opera" unfolds on a galactic scale: a tale of life, love, hate, death, war, peace, betrayal, resurrection and the nature of faith. The first issue of "Space Opera" sees the birth of Horatio’s and Sundra’s child and the return of old enemies.

"Learning that Nexus is coming back is like hearing you’re going home again after years in the wilderness." — Neil Gaiman. Space Opera will be self-published.

Baby’s First Mythos

C.J. Henderson (Batman: Joker’s Apprentice) has come out with an exceptionally twisted book called Baby’s First Mythos. With its cardboard cover and binding, it feels like my old Super Grover kids book (oh, like you didn’t have one) but it reads like a children’s primer to H.P. Lovecraft. Think Edward Gorey meets Cthulhu.

The price is $9.99, not counting years of therapy bills for the young recipients — unless, of course, they are the last sane ones left when the Old Ones come to devour us…

Colleen Doran’s Nightmare

Colleen Doran’s newest project has been revealed – and Heidi MacDonald is editing it! The Nightmare Factory is a horror anthology put out by FoxAtomic featuring adaptations of three of horror author Thomas Ligotti’s short stories by writers Stuart Moore and Joe Harris and art by Colleen, Ben Templesmith, Michael Gaydos and a cover by Ashley Wood.

Considering the acclaim with which the Stephen King Dark Tower adaptation was met, there’s a good chance this antho will garner similar successes, particularly around Hallowe’en time (the in-store month is October).