Something for the New York area comic fans:

Andrew D. Cooke, director of the full-length feature film documentary Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist, and his brother Jon B. Cooke, writer/co-producer of that movie and editor of the award-winning Comic Book Artist magazine, will be guests of New York City’s acclaimed improv comedy group the Comic Book Club this coming Tuesday, Sept. 9, at 8:00 p.m., at the Peoples Improv Theatre on 154 West 29th St., in Manhattan! Tickets are five bucks each.

The Comic Book Club is a weekly comic book talk show featuring the best comedians in New York talking shop with industry professionals from all corners of the comic book world. Hosted by Justin Tyler, Pete LePage, and Alex Zalben, Tuesday’s episode will feature an excerpt from the Cookes’ documentary, which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival and is about the life and career of one of comics’ most gifted artists, who not only created The Spirit (adapted as a major motion picture this coming Christmas by legendary Frank Miller) but was a seminal influence on the field up to his death at 87 in 2005. The brothers will be on hand to discuss the film, which showcases interviews with Eisner, Jules Feiffer, Stan Lee, Kurt Vonnegut, Art Spiegelman, Frank Miller, Michael Chabon, and many, many others, and no doubt the boys will also take a razzing from the CBC hosts.

For more information — and a look at the trailer — regarding Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist, please visit www.montillapictures.com

To check out Comic Book Artist magazine, go to www.topshelfcomix.com

Comic Book Club can be found online at http://popcultureshock.com/cbclub/ and is spotlighted in a spiffy New York Times article at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/theater/18comics.html (or on my Facebook page)

The Peoples Improv Theatre Web site is www.thepit-nyc.com

Comic Book Club is every Tuesday night at 8:00 p.m. at the Peoples Improv Theater, 154 W 29th St., New York City. (212) 563-7488
 

Torso, the film adaptation of Brian Michael Bendis’ graphic novel, is looking to start shooting in early 2009.  The movie, set to star Matt Damon as the famed Elliot Ness, is looking to film in Cleveland but is seeking tax breaks to make extended shooting financially reasonable.

As reported in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, producer Bill Mechanic is seeking tax breaks or will lens interior scenes in Michigan, with its 40% tax incentives, and only shoot on location for exteriors.

"It all comes down to what’s the best place to get our movie shot for the least money," Mechanic said. "We want to shoot the entire movie, the interior and exterior shots, in Cleveland because that’s where the action takes place and so we wouldn’t have to relocate the crew. But without incentives, it doesn’t look like we can afford it."

The state’s legislation is stalled at the capitol.

Torso tells the story of the grisly Kingsbury Run murders where 13 people died between 1934 and 1938.  Ness, then the city’s safety director, never found the killer. It inspired Bendis and Marc Andreyko (Manhunter) to cowrite the graphic novel version of other story with Bendis providing the artwork. The six issue miniseries was later collected by Image Comics as Torso: A True Crime Graphic Novel, releasing it in 2001. The miniseries won the 1999 Eisner Award for "Comic Book Excellence, Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition".

The film rights were sold in January 2006 with screenwriter Ehren Kruger handling the adaptation for director David Fincher.  Mechanic is set to produce alongside Don Murphy, Todd McFarlane and Terry Fitzgerald.

Alysse Soll, formerly the Vice President of Marketing of the National Hockey League, joins the DC Comics staff as Vice President, Ad Sales & Custom Publishing, it was announced by DC Comics President and Publisher, Paul Levitz. In this position, Soll will develop and manage new advertising initiatives, oversee DC’s innovative custom publishing program, identify cross-platform opportunities with other media companies and supervise the advertising sales team.

Normally we wouldn’t make reference to this sort of a hire, except that Ms. Soll used to work for the NHL. Which is a perfect excuse for us to run this Mike Grell artwork from a hockey superhero comic book project that never materialized… hockey stars by day, superheroes by night!

Charles Kochman was recently named Executive Editor of Abrams ComicArts, a new imprint at Harry N. Abrams.  The publisher rewarded Kochman with the promotion and imprint in recognition of his successful efforts to celebrate comic books and graphic storytelling with best-selling books.  Kochman, a former book editor at DC Comics, joined Abrams several years back and has published a wide variety works that have garnered reviews and award nominations starting with Mom’s Cancer. His Diary of a Wimpy Kid has earned a place atop The New York Times best seller list and merited national acclaim.

Recently, Kochman sat dfown with ComicMix to review his career and where things are headed next.

CMix: How did you first get involved with publishing?

Charles Kochman: After an internship at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, my first paid job in publishing was at PlayValue Books, the licensing division of the Putnam Publishing Group. I started there right after graduation from Brooklyn College, in July 1985, working with my mentor and now friend Michael Teitelbaum. Everything I know about editing, and being an editor, I learned working at his side. Besides being a great guy, Mike and I shared a lot of common interests in music and movies and comics. Together we created a modest publishing program for our parent company, MCA Universal.

The first book I edited with Mike was a Back to the Future movie storybook, adapted by Bob Fleming. In addition, we published books on licenses like Photon, The Bionic Six, and An American Tale. I also got to write many coloring and activity books, including ones on dinosaurs, unicorns, and the Universal monsters. It was good training. The dinosaurs coloring book actually hit the B. Dalton bestseller list for some reason, which shocked all of us, including our president. I still have the note he sent me where he wrote “Holy shit! Bravo!” on a copy of the list.

After PlayValue I worked at Bantam Doubleday Dell [from 1987–93], where I edited the Choose Your Own Adventure series. There I also edited books with LucasFilm on Star Wars and Young Indiana Jones, Encyclopedia Brown, and a great karate series called Dojo Rats. Given the complexity of the Choose Your Own Adventure books, which I edited on a monthly schedule for five years, I got to sharpen my editorial skills in a way that I otherwise couldn’t have had I been working on other less “interactive” titles. The books were also successful, so it raised my profile in the industry, attracting the attention of some executives at DC Comics.
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Philadelphia’s Institute of Contemporary Art has opened an exhibit, "R. Crumb’s Underground", running through December 7.  As a part of ICA’s Comics, Animation and Graphic Novels at Penn – A Year-Long Celebration, the exhibit chronicles Crumb’s work from the pioneering early days of Underground Comix through his more modern works of art.

The 100+ works of art were originally selected and organized by Todd Hignite, the publisher and editor of Comic Art magazine in 2007 for San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts before coming east.

The retrospective was reviewed by The New York Timeswhich noted, “Whatever the aesthetic and formal attractions of his work, Mr. Crumb’s penchant for barging past the limits of good taste and political correctness into psychologically juicy and dangerously complicated territory is still the main draw. His most amazingly provocative creation is Angelfood McSpade, a young, inky black, big-breasted African woman in a palm leaf skirt who was inspired by racist caricatures of the ’20s and ’30s. Sweet-tempered and dimwitted, the long-suffering Angelfood is subjected to all kinds of sexual abuse in various episodes Mr. Crumb has drawn. In one hilarious strip in the exhibition she is abducted and molested by aliens in a U.F.O.”

The review also recommends visitors allot up to three hours to properly take in the exhibit. Institute of Contemporary Art, 118 South 36th Street, Philadelphia; (215) 898-7108.