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Spectrum 18 award winners: Rebecca Guay and David Palumbo win twice

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  • March 13, 2011

Rebecca Guay, A Flight Of Angels

It’s always nice to see comic artists getting respect in places outside of the clubhouse, and so they were as the eighteenth annual Spectrum awards for excellence in science fiction and fantasy art were chosen Saturday evening. Spectrum is widely considered one of the most influential art awards in the genre.

Comics
Gold: Rebecca Guay for A Flight of Angels
Silver: David Palumbo for Sleep
Silver: Joao Ruas for Fables #96 cover

Concept Art
Gold: Kekai Kotaki for Riven Earth
Silver: Tomaz Jedruszek for Legends of Norrath

Dimensional
Gold: David Meng
Silver: Akihito

Books
Gold David Palumbo for God’s War
Silver: Dan Dos Santos for White Trash Zombie

Advertising
Gold: Ryohei Hase for Narco Americano
Silver: Sam Weber for The Fisherman’s Wife

Editorial
Gold: Andrew Jones for Share One Planet
Silver: Brom for Redd Wing

Institutional
Gold: Richard Anderson for Knight March
Silver: Donato Giancola for Mind Machine

Unpublished
Gold: Rebecca Guay for Pandora
Silver: J. S. Rossbach for White Heat
Silver: Scott Brundage for Tigers Have Striped Skin

Awards were chosen by jury members Nathan Fox, Gregory Manchess, Shena Wolf, Jarrod and Brandon Shiflett, Boris Vallejo, and Julie Bell.

Photos and video of the judging can be seen on the Spectrum website. Congratulations to all the artists!

via Announcing the Spectrum 18 award winners. | tor.com | Science fiction and fantasy | Blog posts.

The Day The Movies Died

Recommended Reading: ‘The Day the Movies Died’

  • News
  • March 13, 2011

The Day The Movies DiedThis is disturbingly depressing– this is what we have to look forward to in movie theaters this summer:

Four adaptations of comic books. One prequel to an adaptation of a comic book. One sequel to a sequel to a movie based on a toy. One sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a movie based on an amusement-park ride. One prequel to a remake. Two sequels to cartoons. One sequel to a comedy. An adaptation of a children’s book. An adaptation of a Saturday-morning cartoon. One sequel with a 4 in the title. Two sequels with a 5 in the title. One sequel that, if it were inclined to use numbers, would have to have a 7 1/2 in the title.

And it gets no better in 2012:

Here’s what’s on tap two summers from now: an adaptation of a comic book. A reboot of an adaptation of a comic book. A sequel to a sequel to an adaptation of a comic book. A sequel to a reboot of an adaptation of a TV show. A sequel to a sequel to a reboot of an adaptation of a comic book. A sequel to a cartoon. A sequel to a sequel to a cartoon. A sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a cartoon. A sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a movie based on a young-adult novel. And soon after: Stretch Armstrong. You remember Stretch Armstrong, right? That rubberized doll you could stretch and then stretch again, at least until the sludge inside the doll would dry up and he would become Osteoporosis Armstrong? A toy that offered less narrative interest than bingo?

And what’s truly horrifying? I looked at his list of titles and he missed a bunch. There’s at least one movie with $200 million dollar budget based on a game that springs to mind. Not a computer game, mind you– a board game.

Hell, I’m expecting a movie version of Minesweeper any day now. (Having said this, I just looked on YouTube, and lo and behold…)

Luckily, no one’s made a movie of Hungry Hungry Hippos yet, although now that I have committed this to pixels, somebody inevitably will make it.

I’d say this is just a movie phenomenon, but really– how much streamlining is going on in the comics industry themselves? Both DC and Marvel seem to be streamlining everything down to seven major brand lines each, leaving precious little room to breathe and make something new.

The worst takeaway from the article:

The good news is that the four-quadrant theory of marketing may now be eroding. The bad news is that it’s giving way to something worse—a new classification that encompasses all ages and both genders: the “I won’t grow up” demographic.

Does that sound like the current hardcore fanbase of comics to you too?

via The Day the Movies Died: Movies + TV: GQ.

Saturday Morning Cartoons: ‘Club Villain’

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  • March 12, 2011

club-villain-catwoman-and-harley-quinn-7805543

Gotta love the name checks in this one, folks. From Poison Ivy and Dr. Doom to Elmer Fudd… just watch.

DOWNLOAD THE MP3: http://tinyurl.com/ClubVillain

Lyrics and vocals by Ray Johnson
http://bit.ly/hkgd8U

Produced by Mavrick
http://bit.ly/ebiM30 (more…)

ALL PULP DOWN FOR MAINTENANCE

  • News
  • March 11, 2011

Due to several changes and additions going on as well as just general maintenance, ALL PULP will be inactive from this post until Monday, March 14th, 2011!   Catch up on your favorite ALL PULP stories until then and come back Monday to see what ALL PULP has in store!! but for now we are….

DOWN FOR MAINTENANCE
RETURNING ON
MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2011

Trump On Charlie Sheen

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  • March 11, 2011


Donald Trump (along with Meatloaf) weighs in on the success of CELEBRITY APPRENTICE, the “villain” Richard Hatch and his cut on the whole Charlie Sheen mess. Plus Spider-Man gets spanked (again) on Broadway.

Don’t forget – Pop Culture never sleeps (and neither do we). Catch the latest 24/7 on The Point Radio.

HANCOCK TIPS HIS HAT TO THE SEA GHOST!!

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  • March 11, 2011

TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-Reviews of Things Pulp by Tommy Hancock
THE SEA GHOST #1 (ONE SHOT)
Written and Illustrated by Jay Piscopo
Nemo Publishing Group

This is my third review in as many days of a Jay Piscopo work.  The previous two reviews had words in them like ‘nostalgic’, ‘cutting edge’, ‘reminds me of Saturday morning cartoons’, etc.  They were both digest sized graphic type novels that read extremely easily and were filled with great, fun stuff.  The third item I’m reviewing from Jay is a straight up comic book spotlighting a character from Piscopo’s CAPT’N ELI universe and opened it expecting a totally different experience than reading the previous two works.

Thankfully for me, I was dead wrong. 

THE SEA GHOST is a human given great powers by an undersea race in an effort to save his life.   He fights during World War II as the Sea Raider, but after some tragedy, takes on the role of The Sea Ghost.  He is well established in this role, working with his children as a hero as this comic opens.

I could get fancy and say all sorts of cool things about how Jay achieved what he wanted to, according to his own piece in the book, about a great homage to characters, especially Space Ghost.  That feel is definitely here.   But I think I’ll simply say that this story is just plain FUN.   I opened it and swore I was looking at a Gold Key comic from when I was a kid.  And that is a COMPLIMENT!  I enjoyed the ‘independent’ comics even then because the styles were so different and experimental.  THE SEA GHOST harkens back to that as well as back to the great Silver Age books where literally anything could happen.  The Sea Ghost can investigate a strange ship and get sucked in and be on another planet and it works! (That happens, by the way).   The focus is definitely on the Ghost in this issue, but there are cool threads and supporting characters that pepper this thing like bullets from a Tommy gun.  I particularly want to see more of a trio of characters who show up toward the end!!

THE SEA GHOST is a rollicking tale that has a ton of stuff in it, but also stays very true to the ‘undersea’ nature of the character as well as evokes comic tales of times past, the ones that were full of wonder and excitement and just had the intention of telling one heckuva tale.

FIVE OUT OF FIVE TIPS OF THE HAT-This one hit with me on all cylinders.

Mix March Madness Webcomics Tournament: Round 1 Play By Play!

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  • March 11, 2011

As you’ve seen if you’ve been following the site at all this week, we’ve taken sixty-four popular webcomics and are putting them head to head in a single-elimination tournament. As a result, it’s been a very busy week here at ComicMix, and we have less than 40 hours of voting in the first round, so we wanted to point to some of the highlights.

The contest getting the highest vote totals right now is Gronk vs. Zeke Is Hungry, which is seeing a lot of love from their respective Twitter followers. The most one-sided blowout so far has to be Maakies vs. Erfworld, where Rob Balder is beating the heck out of Tony Millionaire.

At this point, there are a couple of upsets in the works, with young upstarts beating out long established strips. While one or two people pointed out that some of the match-ups are a little odd, we couldn’t find any better way to select matches than a random selection process. Is it fair that either Penny Arcade or Hark! A Vagrant! will be knocked out in the first round? Maybe not, but one was going to be knocked out by the end of the tournament no matter what happened. It’s a testament to the strength of the entire webcomics community that there are so many good strips out there that I personally have been tearing my hair out over many of the choices (who can choose between some of these, both are just so gooooood… but of course, that’s what makes this exciting) and that there are so many good strips that we didn’t include that we may have to do another one of these next month. How does April Armageddon sound to you?

But wait– we aren’t even done with the first round of this month’s contest. So if you haven’t voted, your chance is right below!

(more…)

Twitter Updates for 2011-03-11

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  • March 11, 2011

MORE HAT TIPPIN’ FROM HANCOCK TO CAPT’N ELI!!

  • News
  • March 11, 2011

TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-Reviews of Things Pulp by Tommy Hancock
THE UNDERSEA ADVENTURES OF CAPT’N ELI:VOLUME TWO
Created, Written, and Illustrated by Jay Piscopo
Cover by Joe Zierman
Nemo Publishing, 2008

The first issue/appearance/episode of anything is the best, right?  It’s a law, someone surely has said, that sequels and/or continuations cannot stand up to the first time whatever great awesome concept it is we’re encountering again made itself known.  It’s just not possible, right?

Well, maybe so…but that was all before Jay Piscopo released the second volume of THE UNDERSEA ADVENTURES OF CAPT’N ELI!

CAPT’N ELI is a story centered around a boy orphaned from one set of parents and found in the sea by a second set of parents and reared and raised with great values and a penchant for finding danger and adventure.  Along the way he picked up a dog he taught to tie knots, a parrot able to speak in complete sentences in around 70 languages, a mentor who was once a golden age hero turned villain, but is he?, a team of sea based researchers, some time travel, and an encounter with an undersea world made up of warring factions of seadwellers…oh…and dinosaurs….and robots, big and little, and…and…yeah, there’s lots more…

Just as in the previous volume, Jay Piscopo deftly captures a feel for old cartoons and comic books while at the same time crafting the images and the story in such a way that any modern reader would thoroughly enjoy the romp they were being taken on.    The art is fantastic and evocative of great Saturday morning adventures.  You can see the influence of Alex Toth especially throughout this volume, which continues THE MYSTERY OF THE SARGASSO SEA’ adventure started in the first volume.   I found myself seeing hints of all sorts of cartoon heroes I grew up with hidden..and sometimes not so hidden…in the faces of Eli and those around him.  

The pacing of this tale never lets up, but you don’t get lost in it.  The edutainment factor I found in the first volume is handled just as well in this story, teaching enough to move to the story along as buildings crumble and ships explode.  Something that is easier to say in a second volume than with a first can be said here as well.  The characters, good, bad, and otherwise, are likable and make the reader want to learn more about them, to see what happens to them.  And Jay gives hints and origins and background in a teasing sort of ‘here’s just enough for you to come back’ way, but it works…it makes the reader want to know more, yet still leaves the reader feeling like they know enough to like (or dislike) the character.

The only drawback to this volume may be that TOO much happens.  Pacing is excellent, but the inclusion of so many characters and events might boggle a reader not prepared for the sensory overload that this fantastically told tale is.

FIVE OUT FIVE TIPS OF THE HAT-No doubt.  This middle chapter of this great adventure had everything the first part had and more.   If this were a movie, I’d be in line for VOLUME THREE now.

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