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Brian K. Vaughan to Write ‘Runaways’ Movie

Big name superheroes like The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America and The Avengers aren’t the only Marvel properties hitting the big screen.

The lesser known characters are getting their crack at film stardom, including the ragtag group of young heroes known as the Runaways.

Created in 2002 by Brian K. Vaughan as part of Marvel’s Tsunami line, Runaways follows a group of kids who discover their parents are evil supervillains. Vaughn, who left the series at the conclusion of the second volume, will return to the property he co-created and write the script for the upcoming movie.

No director is currently attached to the film, but maybe they’ll hire Richard Donner and the movie will be like a super-powered version of The Goonies.

(via Hollywood Reporter)

Happy Birthday: Hergé

Georges Prosper Remi was born in Etterbeek, Brussels, Belgium in 1907. He was still in school during World War I, when Brussels was occupied by the Germans, and doodled images of the invaders in his notebooks.

In 1920 he attended the collège Saint-Boniface and joined the Boy Scouts troop there. His first published drawings were in the school’s Scout paper and in the monthly Boy Scouts magazine Le Boy-Scout Belge. In 1924 he began signing his illustrations “Hergé,” the French pronunciation of his first and last initials reversed. He would keep the pseudonym for the rest of his life.

After finishing school, Hergé worked at the Catholic newspaper Le XXe Siècle. In 1926 he published his first cartoon series, Totor, in Le Boy-Scout Belge. In 1928 Hergé was given responsibility for Le XXe Siècle’s weekly children’s supplement, Le Petit Vingtième.

In 1929 he debuted a new strip of his own creation there, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets. Tintin became an immediate success, and Hergé produced new Tintin adventures right up to his death in 1983—the 24th and last one, Tintin and Alph-Art, was published unfinished.

Hergé received many awards during his lifetime, including the Harvey, the Eisner, the Adamson, and the Grand Prix Saint Michel. He was posthumously inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2003.

 

New Yorker Copies Kirby ‘Tales To Astonish’ Cover Image?

 According to Gawker, the New Yorker recently ran a cartoon that plagiarizes the very famous cover of Tales to Astonish by King of Comics, Jack Kirby.  The too-cool-for-school blog asks, "Comic book geeks, your services are at last required.  How obscure is this?" 

On behalf of geeks everywhere, allow me to say, it’s not at all obscure.  It’s one of the more famous images around.

[Above image pulled from Gawker for use in comparison.]

Interview: Mark Sable on Cyborg, the ‘Heroes’ Webcomic and ‘Two-Face: Year One’

When it comes to portraying the duality of a character, there are probably no better examples in the DCU than Victor Stone and Harvey Dent — otherwise known as Cyborg and Two-Face. With two new miniseries, Grounded writer Mark Sable intends to bring readers the back-stories of these two tragic characters.

With DC Special: Cyborg, the writer takes a look at the fan-favorite Teen Titan in a six-issue arc that began this week. Victor Stone was an Olympic athlete who, after being crippled, was resurrected with experimental prosthetics by his scientist father. Blessed with powers but cursed by his accident, he called himself Cyborg and became an important member of the Teen Titans. Created in 1980 by Marv Wolfman and George Perez and introduced in the pages of The New Teen Titans, Cyborg quickly became one of the most popular DC characters of the ‘80s. He even became a member of the Super Friends on the ‘80s Saturday morning cartoon, The Super Powers Team: The Galactic Guardians.

In Two-Face: Year One, the writer takes a look at one of Batman’s most dangerous villains in a miniseries whose first issue hits shelves just days before Aaron Eckhart takes on the big-screen role of Harvey Dent in July’s Dark Knight. The two-issue miniseries follows Dent as he runs for District Attorney and has the accident that changes his fate (and his relationship with Batman) forever.

I spoke with Sable about Cyborg, Two-Face, the characters’ respective miniseries and writing webcomics for the hit NBC television series Heroes.

CMix: To start with, tell us what fans of Cyborg can expect from your new series.

Mark Sable: It’s a six-issue series and the first issue is almost like a “Year One” in the sense that it gives you a lot of his origin. I’m not tinkering with his origin. I’m trying to be as respectful as possible to what Marv Wolfman and George Perez did, because I think Cyborg’s origin is one of the best in comics. There were a couple of things that needed to be slightly tweaked to make everything make sense. It’s done deliberately because I want people who aren’t familiar with Cyborg to be able to pick it up. It lays the groundwork for what this series is about. Without giving too much away, we really weave his supporting cast of human characters into the story as well as the Teen Titans, so it was important for people to know who they are. (more…)

Review: ‘The Rabbi’s Cat 2’ by Joann Sfar

rabbi21-9512084Joann Sfar, one of the major lights of the current European graphic novel scene, has written or collaborated on more than one hundred books, but probably his most famous and acclaimed work is the original [[[The Rabbi’s Cat]]], which won the prestigious Jury Prize at the Festival International de la BD d’Angouleme (Angouleme International Comics Festival).

Sadly, I still haven’t read it. Luckily, that means that I can review this sequel with an eye towards the new reader – since I was one myself.

The Rabbi’s Cat 2
By Joann Sfar
Pantheon, April 2008, $22.95

The title character is a nameless talking cat in Algiers in the 1930s, the pet of Rabbi Sfar – or perhaps of his beautiful, frustrated daughter Zlabya and her husband, a younger, urbane rabbi from Paris. I say “talking cat,” but most of the characters can’t tell that he talks – and it’s not clear what the difference is between those who can and those who can’t. (But the reader can always understand, which is the most important thing.) [[[The Rabbi’s Cat 2]]] collects what were the fourth and fifth French albums in the series, as the original Rabbi’s Cat collected the first three.

(more…)

Nick Fury May Appear in Future Marvel Films

Nick Fury’s appearance in the special scene after the end credits of Iron Man may not be the last we see of the man with the eye patch.

Fans have assumed that Samuel L. Jackson will naturally resume the role in the forthcoming Avengers movie, but now we have a little more evidence to support that prediction. Well, not much, but at least it’s something.

According to Devin Faraci at CHUD, Jackson recently met with Kevin Feige, the President of Production at Marvel Studios. The two haven’t met since Jackson filmed the cameo scene in Iron Man. It’s only idle speculation as to what the two met about, but Marvel could be getting a fast start on assembling its Avengers and getting them locked down with contracts.

The Avengers film is currently slated for release in July 2011.

(via CHUD)

Patriot Games, by John Ostrander

You may have seen this via e-mail. It’s getting passed around a lot.

It is the VETERAN, not the preacher, who has given us freedom of religion.
 
It is the VETERAN, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press.
 
It is the VETERAN, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
 
It is the VETERAN, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to assemble.
 
It is the VETERAN, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial.
 
It is the VETERAN, not the politician, who has given us the right to vote.
 
It is the VETERAN who salutes the Flag.
 
It is the VETERAN who serves under the Flag.

At this point, a photo follows with Marines escorting a flag draped coffin to a grave and is followed by a prayer for the dead that I remember from my Roman Catholic days.

This is lump-in-the-throat, tear-in-the-eye agit-prop. Normally, I wouldn’t care – but they’re using veterans, whom I think should be honored, to try and make points for the Right, and that gets me riled. (more…)

Hunter S. Thompson: The Comic Book?

Journalista recently directed me to a quartet of illustrations based on gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson found on Hey Oscar Wilde! It’s Clobberin’ Time!!!, a website featuring work from artists’ personal collections, focusing on interpretations of their favorite literary figures.

Confession time: I’m one of those people who has read everything ever written by or about Thompson, and he remains one of my favorite writers of the last few decades. Needless to say, this illustration of Thompson by Ben Templesmith, who also happens to be one of my favorite artists in the comics industry, caused me to have a minor heart palpitation.

The four pieces of Thompson-inspired art featured on the site include work by Scott Morse, John Kricfalusi and Jim Mahfood in addition to the piece by Templesmith pictured here.

 

Review: ‘X-O Manowar: Birth’

There’s something so gleefully ridiculous about the concept of X-O Manowar that you can’t help but smile while flipping through this paragon of 1990s comics.

Essentially Encino Man meets Battlefield Earth (though far better than such a comparison implies), [[[X-O Manowar: Birth]]] (Valiant, $24.95) collects the series’ beginnings as Aric, a fifth-century Visigoth, escapes from his alien captors with the aid of a miraculously powerful suit, then finds himself in the modern world.

The creative team — Bob Layton, Jim Shooter, Barry Windsor-Smith and Joe Quesada — push the fish-out-of-water story to the extreme, with the evil arachnid-like, laser-zapping aliens on a quest to enslave humanity and only the brutish, idiotic Aric standing in their way (actual sample of Aric’s dialogue: “But why I can… no… uh…”).

The story is completely over the top and doesn’t offer much to ponder over, but it’s also not striving for that. Screw pathos, this is a down-to-the-last-out laser battle with spider aliens! Aric bounces from one fight to another, and each comes through with a surprise or two.

Included are issues 0-6, with some scripts and original drawings for issue 0, and the original story “[[[The Rise of Lydia]]].” The collection is also recolored and remastered, and it’s an attractive hardcover volume. I’d recommend this primarily for those who either are long-time X-O fans, or for those who can’t pass up a good, messy fight with aliens.

Changes Afoot at Archaia Studios Press

One of the biggest Cinderella stories in comics publishing has been that of Archaia Studios Press, which began primarily as an outlet for the projects of co-founders Mark Smylie and Aki Liao and exploded with the success of series like The Killer and Mouse Guard.

Not too long ago, ASP announced a big slate of upcoming books. This morning, they made a far different announcement: Liao is leaving the publisher "for personal reasons" and efforts are being made to transition into a larger operation.

Though this isn’t necessarily good news — the publisher acknowledges struggles to get books out on schedule — it is very nice to see ASP handle the shakeup in such an open way. From the release:

Ken Light, an investment banker at the DAK Group specializing in small to mid-size company divestitures, sales, and acquisitions, will be assisting ASP in the search for an outside investor or strategic partner to acquire Aki’s stake in the company.

As part of the reorganization, the company will also take the opportunity to address internally the publishing delays that have plagued it of late to ensure a smooth schedule that satisfies not only its own standards but also that of its creators and the expectations of fans and retailers.

“Our growth in the last year has clearly strained our workflow capacity,” said ASP co-publisher Mark Smylie. “Lateness has historically been a problem with many creator-driven and creator-owned titles, but our own workflow issues have exacerbated the situation. We are as frustrated with our struggle to get books out on time as, I’m sure, are our readers, and we want to make sure we come out of the reorganization with a better workflow and solicitation process model. So while there will be some further delays in the release of recently solicited titles as we restructure, we also want to make sure we emerge in the next few months from our reorganization with a release schedule that we can hit on a regular basis, as guaranteed as possible. We can only ask that our many supporters, retailers and fans alike, be patient with us during this time.”