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ComicMix Columns & Features for the Week Ending August 24, 2008

  • News
  • August 24, 2008

The traditional summer vacation week has begun, with most family-types heading to familiar retreats and time shares before the kids return to school, while politicos gear up for their quadrennial conventions with pundits in tow. Gonna be a weird week, I’m thinking. But we’ll still be here, bringing you our regular columns and features. Here’s the roundup from this past week:

Loads and loads of hugs to our newly-hired news editor, Bob Greenberger! Want my old ComicMix business cards?

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Paul Levitz on Comics, DC and the State of the Industry

  • News
  • August 24, 2008

dclogo-00-5982662During San Diego Comic-Con, ICv2 conducted a fairly comprehensive interview with DC president/publisher Paul Levitz to chat about the state of the comics industry and the recent past, present and potential future. The interview was broken down into three parts, and each of them has some worthwhile questions and answers from DC’s head honcho.

From Part One, some frame of reference for the decision-making process when it comes to which characters/titles to put the spotlight on:

Some people think that Watchmen is a risky movie for presenting comics to a broad audience because it’s so dark. What are your thoughts on that?

The great successes are always the things that you can’t prove in advance will work or will not work. You get a Superman because it’s a departure from what was there before. There were ancestors of him in the creative process, but it represented a leap forward. And the same reason that my predecessors were nervous about putting him on the cover of every issue of Action Comics for the first few until they got the sales figures in, were the things that in part created the potential for him to be the breakaway at this time. I don’t think there’s a lot of mid-ground for Watchmen. I think it will either be very successful or it will be a passionate cult favorite. Everything we’re seeing so far indicates to me that we have a good shot at it being a breakaway.

From Part Two, an interesting observation of the economic status of what DC believes to be the typical comics buyer:

Do you predict any differences in how sales in the different channels will respond to the economic conditions?

The comic shop owners are still more vulnerable to the high intensity-high value customer. Luckily a high proportion of our customers are in industries that have been doing relatively well—high technology kinds of things tends to pop up fairly frequently in the descriptions of jobs in our field, so hopefully that’ll be sustaining. The bookstore side of the world, I think, is just vulnerable to all of the challenges that book publishing is having now. Even if the graphic novels are a very bright spot in their world, and they seem to be, book publishing is not having an easy time right now.

From Part Three, some insight regarding DC’s plans for webcomics and their Zuda program:

The screen is a powerful method of delivery for a younger generation and it’s going to be part of our business one way or another, hopefully in a very complementary fashion. I think we start doing print stuff on Zuda in early ‘09 in the current schedule. And that will be an interesting test to see how that translates over.

 

Review: ‘The Dead Boy Detectives’ by Bryan Talbot and Ed Brubaker

deadboy-3368922By my count, there are four good reasons to buy [[[The Sandman Presents: The Dead Boy Detectives]]], now out from Vertigo.

First, it’s cheap, at a slight $12.99 for some 100 pages of comics.

Second, it’s a heckuva good mystery yarn with plenty of occult elements.

Third, it’s part of The Sandman world, and there are plenty of readers who snap up anything associated with Neil Gaiman’s creation.

But the last — and, for me, best — reason to pick up the book is that it further illustrates Ed Brubaker’s dexterity as a writer. I’ve long said that the thing that makes him so talented is that if his name wasn’t on the cover of his comics, you wouldn’t be able to recognize him as the author (also, his books are all quite good).

Unlike a Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis or Brian Michael Bendis, Brubaker writes comics without stamping his voice all over them. And, in [[[The Dead Boy Detectives]]], he shows off a wholly new voice, slipping seamlessly into the world of the ghostly boy sleuths and their London setting.

Like all great P.I. stories, this one begins with a girl, then gets all weird with shriveled dead bodies, witches and immortal creeps. It’s not quite unpredictable yet manages to be surprising.

But, mostly, the great characterization of ghosts Charles and Edwin and their childish interplay is what makes this one a winner. Well, that and the other reasons listed above.

Van Jensen is a former crime reporter turned comic book journalist. Every Wednesday, he braves Atlanta traffic to visit Oxford Comics, where he reads a whole mess of books for his weekly Reviews. Van’s blog can be found at graphicfiction.wordpress.com.

Publishers who would like their books to be reviewed at ComicMix should contact ComicMix through the usual channels or email Van Jensen directly at van (dot) jensen (at) comicmix (dot) com.

‘Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe’ Joker: “Want to see a magic trick?”

  • News
  • August 23, 2008

At the Liepzig Games Convention, Midway had revealed the latest characters to appear in Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe. And is cool as it was to hear that Deathstroke the Terminator will be getting his videogame debut (we’re not counting the animated Teen Titans game), nothing beats game producer Hector Sanchez demonstrating the Joker’s fighting moves for the Game Trailers television show.

Proving once and for all that some DC characters will have finishing moves, the Joker shows how to end a fight with style. See for yourself below. (Warning: It’s rated “M” for a reason.)
 
 

‘Sandman’ Celebrating 20th

  • Uncategorized
  • August 23, 2008

This year marks the 20th anniversary for The Sandman, Neil Gaiman’s famed comic book series from Vertigo. And, no surprise, the DC imprint is putting out a bunch of Sandman material to celebrate.

We’ve already seen the anniversary poster (see below), and a few other projects and events were just announced.

The fourth volume of The Absolute Sandman, collecting the last 19 issues, comes out in November. The Sandman: Dream Hunters also comes out that moth, a four-part mini series with art from P. Craig Russell. And Vertigo is releasing a tarot deck set featuring Dave McKean’s covers from the series.

There will also be a CBLDF and DC Comics tribute and auction in New York on Nov. 8 at an undetermined location, and Chip Kidd of Pantheon will interview Gaiman at the 92nd Street Y in New York City on Nov. 9.

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For a list of characters in the poster, check out New York magazine’s Vulture blog, which originally posted the image.

ComicMix Radio: Why Is This Comic So Cool?

  • News
  • August 23, 2008

This is just one of the secrets we uncover as we talk to the people who move the coolest things on the planet, Heritage Auctions, plus:

  • The latest on the Watchmen battle
  • More Secret Invasion blow outs
  • Stargate:Atlantis goodbye and hello

So dig in your closet, find some old comics you want to sell and then Press the Button to hear from the experts!

And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via badgeitunes61x15dark-8086622 or RSS!

 

 

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Garth Ennis on “Battlefields”

  • News
  • August 23, 2008

bf-nightwitches01-cov-00-5127467Over at CBR, Kiel Phegley has provided the highlights of a nice conversation with writer Garth Ennis (Preacher, The Boys) about Dynamite Entertainment’s upcoming "Garth Ennis Month," which will feature the debut issue of a nine-part limited series titled Garth Ennis’ Battlefields. The World War II-themed series will unfold in three connected stories this October, the first of which will be titled The Night Witches and feature art by Russ Braun.

Here, Ennis explains the ties that bind the three stories together:

“If there is an element that unites the three stories — this is something I like to leave up to the reader, so I’ll keep it vague — it might be a look at various ways of approaching conflict, depending on who you are, where you come from, what you’re up against,” Ennis said. “How the Russians fought the Germans was not quite like how the British fought them, for instance, and how the British in turn fought the Japanese was different again.”

It would seem that the subject is a near and dear one to Ennis, as the writer offers up quite a few thoughts about his plans for the series, his creative process with regard to the each story’s schedule and the artists with whom he’ll share creative credit. He also gives credit where it’s due with respect to the subjects of the stories.

“If nothing else, the stories in Battlefields highlight the courage of people whose time has almost passed and whose stories are fading. ‘The Night Witches,’ for instance: young women in their teens and early twenties, flying obsolete biplanes at night against the most lethal military machine in the world, facing potentially catastrophic consequences should they be captured alive. Or ‘The Tankies,’ men going into battle against heavy odds, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that the enemy has them outmatched and outgunned on every level, but doing it anyway. That, to me, is heroism, and that deserves to be acknowledged.”

For more on Battlefields, including some art from the series and the cover to issue #1 of Night Witches (a small version of which is posted here), head over to CBR.

Obama-Palooza, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • August 23, 2008

The major political parties’ conventions this week and next follow the Olympics like night follows day. Just as the quadrennial sports event serves as a ceremonial battleground with ornate rules and rituals, so do the Democratic and Republican conventions to choose the party leaders and figureheads.

Just as the Olympics represent combat in a peaceful way, the political conventions represent democracy. Our elected representatives assemble to choose candidates for the highest office in the land.

It’s a charming system, but hopelessly out of date. Sure, in the past, before mass media, before telephones, it made a certain amount of sense for people to congregate and make these decisions. There was a time when there most states didn’t have primaries, and so the question of whom to nominate was left to the party bosses.

Before then, political conventions were an excuse to party, a time for the regional bosses to convene – in the stereotypical smoke-filled room – and personally select the candidates.

This system, while not democracy, was not always bad. Through it, we had candidates like Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Theodore Roosevelt. With it, we get candidates like George W. Bush and … well, I think my point is made right there.

When I was first voting, all that changed. The debacle that was the Democratic convention in 1968 demonstrated that the system was a farce. Since then, the trend has been more towards the appearance of including the wishes of the voters in the selection process.

Nothing in this world is that simple. The influence of money, bias, and corporate media make it all but impossible for the average citizen to determine what the real issues are, and where the candidates stand. It serves the interests of the power structure to distract us with foolish questions such as which candidate we’d prefer to hang out with in a bar, which candidate can bowl, which can Google, and what kinds of cookies the wives bake.

Politics is so much simpler in comics, where tradition favors painting everything in black or white, good or evil. When Lex Luthor runs for office, we know he’s corrupt. It’s rare to find a creative team that depicts a more complicated system, such as Warren Ellis’ and Darick Robertson’s brilliant Transmetropolitan. (more…)

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What’s “Watchmen” About?

watchmen-cover-00-5610748Over at The Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon has asked readers to let him know how they would answer the question, "What’s Watchmen about?" It’s a nice feature, as I believe Watchmen to be one of those projects that has been held in high regard by comics fans for so long that it’s difficult to think outside of our comics fishbowl and explain why it’s such an important story to someone with little knowledge of the industry.

Here’s the answer I gave Tom, which I came up with pretty quickly due to having been asked that same question by someone yesterday:

Watchmen examines the relationship between superheroes and society and the ways in which this relationship changes over time given a variety of real-world factors. What would happen when the shine wears off and things like politics, economics, racism and the knowledge of one’s own abilities far and beyond that of everyone else come to the surface? The story examines all of this by way of a noir-style murder mystery in which one of the former "superheroes" investigates the mysterious death of a former member of the superteam "The Watchmen."

That was my three-sentence answer that skips over so much of what makes Watchmen great to comics fans, but is most likely to hook newcomers to the comics scene. In this case, it seemed to work, as the person I told this to called me up an hour later to say he’d watched the trailer again and now definitely wants to see the film.

You can read more responses over at The Comics Reporter, but feel free to add your own to the comment thread here or email Spurgeon (via the link provided in his post) in order to have your answer added to the feature.

Paul Pope on Toys and “THB”

  • News
  • August 22, 2008

batman-year-100-1-00-2678935Over at the L.A. Times’ geek culture blog Hero Complex, T.J. Kosinski talks to celebrated creator Paul Pope (Batman: Year 100, 100%) about the upcoming re-release of his fan-favorite series THB, as well as what he sees as the "new canvases for comics."

According to Pope, the upcoming reprint of THB (due out in 2009) will feature quite a bit of new material — almost half the project, in fact.

Talking about clothing design, upcoming iPod artwork, and the possibilities of designer wallpaper was all very interesting, but what grabbed my attention most was the future of "THB," Pope’s independent comic begun in 1995. The futuristic series featured the exploits of a teenage girl, HR Watson, and her super-powered bodyguard, THB. That collection due next year will be half reprints and half unseen material.

While I was on the edge of my seat, Pope leaned back in his chair and opened up about "THB," referring to it as “his baby.” “I’ve been working on it this whole time,” Pope explained. In fact, he’s accumulated so much new material that the complete collection of THB will total four volumes.

Pope also spoke to Kosinski about joining the growing pool of creators who have turning their attention to the vinyl toy market. His "Masked Karimbah" figure was one of the major hits of San Diego Comic-Con, and Pope seems to be hitching his future success to both the collectible vinyl scene and his designer line of DKNY Jeans clothes hitting shelves next month. 

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