Tagged: comics

12 Overlooked Comics in 12 Years

  • News
  • June 27, 2008

Tom Spurgeon of The Comics Reporter has always been great at introducing me to comics I might never have been aware of were it not for his recommendation, so I was particularly intrigued by his recent list of the "Twelve Mostly Overlooked Comics Published In The Last Twelve Or So Years."

While the list includes quite a few small-press titles that flew under my radar and seem well worth the time to hunt down, Spurgeon also has some kind words for a title with ties to a certain comics-to-film blockbuster:

Maybe the craziest Marvel book ever, US War Machine is emblematic of that brief time in mainstream American comics when it seemed like a terrific idea for the major property-owning players to mess around with its second-tier characters by marching them through the violence, language and sexual implication wringer common to a TV show on HBO or Showtime.

But the title that really caught my eye was the Motofumi Kobayashi manga Apocalypse Meow:

It’s like The Boys From Company C as played by the Muppets, only you keep waiting for a musical number that never arrives and Fozzy Bear gets capped before they get off the boat. Apocalypse Meow (its original title was the even better Cat Shit One) exudes loopy qualities from every pore in a way that makes it a time capsule of its historical moment, when translated manga seemed poised to take over the comics world no matter what the hell might be happening on the page.

Consider me sold.

Head over to The Comics Reporter for the rest of Spurgeon’s list.

MTV Spotlights Comics Based on Videogames

  • News
  • June 27, 2008

Once or twice I’ve written about all the comics that were based on videogames. But I’m relieved to find I’m not the nerdiest comic gamer out there. Tracey John at the MTV Multiplayer blog has posted an amazingly comprehensive list of every videogame that has been ported over to comic books.

There’s the sweet kids’ comics from our youths, like Sonic the Hedgehog, as well as upcoming ones like Gears of War. There’s even the ridiculously infamous Doom comic.

But wait! They left off Mercenaries (with a Mike Turner cover, no less) from Dynamite Entertainment and the upcoming Brothers in Arms. Also conspicuously absent are the Capcom comics Bionic Commando and Lost Planet from Devil’s Due Publishing that were announced here on ComicMix.

I guess my nerd crown is safe… for now.

Danny Elfman on Scoring Films Based on Comics

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  • June 26, 2008

From Beetlejuice and Batman to Nightmare Before Christmas and the recent remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Danny Elfman has provided the music that has turned good films into great films, and has been no stranger to scoring the big-screen adaptations of comic books. In a short time, movie-goers will be treated to another pair of Elfman-scored films based on popular comics, as the Emmy-winning and (many times over) Oscar-nominated composer has provided the music for Wanted and Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

SuperHeroHype recently snagged Elfman for a short interview about the process of finding the right sound for comic books, his inspiration and the difference between the two films from his perspective.

CS/SHH!: Was "Wanted," which has much edgier music, more fun?

Elfman: Well, they are each fun in a different way. "Hellboy" was a little more romantic and traditional, but I love paying homage to Bernard Herrmann, who for me is my master. Any time I get to do that it’s a great joy. "Wanted" is like a whole other ballgame. I did a whole different thing: more synthesizers, percussion, and guitars. I had my guitar out. I was so glad that the two of them were so different.

Check out the full interview on SuperHeroHype.

Happy Birthday: William Woolfolk

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  • June 25, 2008

Born on Long Island, New York in 1917, William “Bill” Woolfolk once claimed that he didn’t create many comic book characters but he did coin many of their most famous lines.

He was responsible for Captain Marvel’s exclamation of “Holy Moley!”, among other well-known lines.

Woolfolk started writing comic books in the early 1940s after he graduated from New York University. His first jobs were with Will Eisner and Jerry Iger’s company but he also wrote for Police Comics, DC (Superman and Batman), Timely (Sub-Mariner and Captain America), and Fawcett (Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr., and Bulletman).

When Eisner went off to fight in World War II in 1942, Woolfolk and Manley Wade Wellman took over writing The Spirit. Woolfolk also served as chief scriptwriter for the 1961-65 courtroom drama The Defenders and wrote more than a dozen novels, including the 1968 bestseller The Beautiful Couple.

Woolfolk won many awards over the years, including a Scribner for short-story writing in 1940, two Emmy nominations for The Defenders, and an Inkpot in 2002. He died in 2003.

 

Embracing Continuity in Comics… and Life

  • News
  • June 25, 2008

It’s no secret that continuity is equal parts bane and boon to comics, with no shortage of passionate arguments extolling its virtue and, in some cases, its status as the greatest threat to storytelling in the history of the printed word. Recently, comics blogger Hudson Phillips posted his own thoughts about the role of continuity in comics, including some thoughts on why you should think about your own life — and all its embarassing moments — the same way you think about continuity in comics.

According to Phillips:

 

Don’t be ashamed or where you came from. Embrace it. Then move on.

 

I think this is a great philosophy in life as well. There are some definite continuity issues in my own life. I’d love to erase parts of my past that I’m embarrassed or ashamed of… from getting into a bad relationship, ultimately ending in divorce – to letting one of the true loves of my life, music, slip through my hands – to throwing up at assembly in 7th grade or farting in algebra class in 8th.

I’d love to just get rid of my 30 years of continuity and start over. But just like in comic books… I can’t. What’s done is done. It’s out there, written in stone. There’s no changing it.

So, what choice do you have?

Head over to hudsonwrites.com for the full essay.

 

(via comicsreporter)

 

The Fragile Nature of ‘Geek Cred’

  • News
  • June 24, 2008

Beware the power of words, folks. Over at Cinematical, the movie news site’s resident "geek beat" contributor Elisabeth Rappe has taken a comment I left on one of her recent posts and turned it into a full-blown column, titled "The Touchiness of Geek Cred."

In the column, Rappe discusses the Survivor-esque mentality of geekery and the first time she realized that niche-culture gatherings like comic and science-fiction conventions weren’t the friendly grounds she expected them to be. The ever-present drive to cull the herd and create a higher place on the social ladder is in full effect just as much inside the niche cultures as outside, she observes.

For geeks of the feminine persuasion, the environment is even more cut-throat, according to Rappe:

As a female, I find I have to prove myself even more. The first time I went to ComicCon, I fell into a casual conversation with a guy about the comic book movie spin-offs. I mentioned that I really wanted to see the eventual Wolverine, and he sneered: "You just want to see it because you’re a girl, and Hugh Jackman is hot!"

"Hey," I replied tartly. "Wolverine is the best at what he does, and what he does isn’t very nice."

"You know the catchphrase. I take that back."

Well, thanks. This is something a geeky girl runs up against often, and it is useless to fight it. Men can see Catwoman for Halle Berry, girls cannot see 300 for Gerard Butler. Frankly, I do it too. One woman I was friends with joined my online movie community solely to talk about Butler. She was horrified when the fanboys called her on it. But I too was aghast. "You can’t just go in and talk about hot guys – you have to talk about Frank Miller first! You have to prove yourself a geek!"

Head over to Cinematical for the rest of the column.

Rappe’s observations reminded me of a recent post here on ComicMix, in which I mentioned that I have yet to read any of the Harry Potter books and narrowly escaped a nasty tar-and-feathering by readers.

mapslegends2-9137528

Review: ‘Maps and Legends’ by Michael Chabon

mapslegends2-9137528Maps and Legends
By Michael Chabon
McSweeney’s Books, May 2008, $24.00
 
Michael Chabon has had the good luck to be writing in an era when it’s possible to both be a respected, bestselling literary writer and have a public, abiding love for some of the more disreputable genres. His best-known novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay, is not only a fictionalized story of the fledgling comic-book industry during World War II, but also has a very definite fantasy element. And his latest novel, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, is a detective story set in an alternate history – tying it into two types of genre fiction.

If he’d started writing twenty years earlier, or even ten, he probably wouldn’t have been able to do that; only in the last decade or so have writers like Chabon (and Jonathan Lethem, who transitioned from genre science fiction straight into the “literary novel”) been able to admit to their love of genre. Previously, literary writers could go slumming and use genre ideas once in a while – think Doris Lessing with the “Canopus in Argo” series, or The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood – but they could never admit to reading or liking books actually published in that genre. Kurt Vonnegut, after all, was only taken seriously because he ritually denied being a SF writer every day before breakfast.

But Chabon goes even further than his pop-culture-loving compatriots do; he doesn’t just admit to liking science fiction and detective stories – he’s even willing to claim that comics can be pretty damn good, and that some of them have influence him.

(more…)

‘God of War’ Creator Talks Spider-Man Videogames

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  • June 24, 2008

Unless you’re a rap star, it’s rare for established entertainment professionals to openly criticize someone else in the industry. But when they do, people pay attention — if only as a reminder that the pros can occasionally be angry fans just as much as the rest of us. One of comics’ famous feuds was the Peter David and Todd MacFarlane debates from the ’90s. Now videogames based on comics get theirs.

David Jaffe is considered one of the big names in the videogame industry for designing the Twisted Metal and God of War series, among other hits. On his personal blog, he posted images from the upcoming Spider-Man: Web of Shadows game and wrote a plea for the makers of Marvel Comics videogames to make the games more true to the spirit of the comics.

Please stop putting Spiderman games in big open sandbox environments where you swing around and do oh so slight variations on 4 pretty dull mission types (chase/race/collect/etc) and then once in a while toss in a boss fight and/or a somewhat unique mission.

I LOVE Marvel Comics and I LOVE the promise of games based on Marvel Comics. But why can’t you guys make a game that feels like a comic? I don’t mean art style wise; I don’t mean like Comix Zone with panels and cliche stuff like that. I mean feels like a comic in a story based, narrative way: a game that shows off the OTHER aspect that makes Marvel Comics so special: The characters/story. It’s not JUST about the powers, you know. But your games are always ONLY about the powers.

The post was followed up by another entry where he countered some reader rebuttals. His argument concludes:

I LOVE Marvel comics and want to see them start making games worthy of their amazing history of great products and characters. I want to see them apply their smart logic to making films to their games division.

The posts are rare example of a AAA-level creator speaking out like a fan. If you agree or disagree, let us know in the comments.

I would like to point out that Marvel: Ultimate Alliance had a story that rivaled any recent Marvel crossover, accurately detailed Marvel history, and gave us some theatrical-quality cinematics. (See below.) Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 has been announced for 2009 and will cover the events of Civil War.

Heroes Con Roundup: Capes Dominate, Wieringo Remembered, DC Dishes

  • News
  • June 23, 2008

As I’m writing this, Heroes Con 2008 hasn’t quite wrapped up. I had to shuttle back to Atlanta to get ready for the day job Monday morning, so I missed out on a handful of interesting-sounding Sunday panels.

Friday and Saturday held plenty of excitement, intrigue and interest, though, so let’s go through what went down:

In case you didn’t read the update in my coverage of Friday’s State of the Industry panel, Mark Waid and Erik Larsen were just joking about bringing John Byrne on for Boom! Studios’ Farscape book. I didn’t make that clear enough, as it started a short-lived rumor around the ‘Net.

That panel had a few other moments of interest, including Waid saying the comics delivery system "sucks" and is "catastrophic." Dan DiDio also admitted to "cannibalizing" current comics readers through variant covers and the like.

But the line of the day came when Erik Larsen said webcomics "look like crap." Waid responded: "You’re 45. I don’t care what you think. I care what a 12-year-old thinks." Still, no one offered any good ideas on making the jump to electronically delivered comics.

Saturday had a lot of good panels. Too many, in fact, as I missed out on Disney’s panel on The Kingdom, its new comics publishing venture. Anyone attend that?

(more…)

Original Hulk Concept Art, Character Designer Interviewed

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  • June 22, 2008

The Incredible Hulk is still smashing away in theaters, but that doesn’t mean we can’t keep playing the "What If?" game with the Green Goliath’s latest big-screen rampage.

Over at XSI Base, Incredible Hulk character designer Aaron Sims discusses some of the creative decisions made while conceiving the look of the latest Hulk — as well as his nemesis, Abomination. Here, Sims addresses the difference between Abomination of the comics world and his big-screen counterpart:

The Abomination went many different directions. Some at the beginning were closer to the comic, but everyone felt it didn’t make sense to what happening in the movie. They wanting it to look like it was growing from within and the bones and muscle would break through the skin.

While it’s a fun read, the real treat in this article is the gallery of early designs for both characters, including the frightening Hulk seen here:

Head over to XSI Base for more design images and the rest of the interview.

 

(via Cinematical)

 

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