Tagged: comics

ComicMix Radio: Keith Giffen Obsesses

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It takes a certain sort of comic creator to oversee 104 weekly comics in a two-year period, not to mention wiping out a bunch of heroes at the other comic company across the street. That guy is Keith Giffen, and he talks to ComicMix about where he’s been and where he’s going, plus:

— Comic creators dominate the Scribe Award nominations

— Finally –  American Flagg

— Stan Lee and Disney team-up

—  Sure, there’s another  exclusive Graham Crackers Comics variant that could be in the mail to you – if you win by e-mailing us at: podcast [at] comicmix.com

While you were waiting to press the button, Keith Giffen just finished three more comics!

 

 

And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via badgeitunes61x15dark-9221820 or RSS!

Review: ‘That Salty Air’ by Tim Sievert

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That Salty Air
Tim Sievert
Top Shelf, 2008, $10.00

For a book about the sea, [[[That Salty Ai]]]r feels awfully Minnesotan. (Or maybe I’m just reacting to the underlying Norwegian-ness of both Minnesota and Sievert’s story – but there is something hard and dour and northern about That Salty Air.)

Maryann and Hugh are a young couple who live in a lonely cabin by the sea, and whose main source of income seems to be fishing. One day, the postman delivers two letters from the local doctor – it’s immediately clear that Maryann’s letter has told her that she’s pregnant, but we get a couple of montages of sea life (red in tooth and claw, for some immediate symbolism) before Hugh gets his letter.

From it, he learns that his mother has drowned, and he immediately turns against the sea, blaming it for her death. Really, he curses the sea and throws a rock, beaning an important squid far below (which action will be important later). Hugh curses his life, runs off to town to get drunk, and generally behaves badly through the middle of the book, while Maryann sits at home, trying to keep things together.

She also hasn’t gotten a chance to tell Hugh she’s pregnant yet, since he flew off the handle so quickly and so completely. He eventually does come back, and they reconcile, with each other and with the sea…more or less.

That Salty Air is an exceptionally symbolic story, very obviously so. Sievert is clearly young and energetic, and I expect he’ll be someone to reckon with once he settles down a bit. This particular book has a lot of strong points – the particulars of characterization, the evocation of a particular landscape, the inky blacks and assured panel-to-panel transitions – but its story made this reader roll his eyes more than once. It’s a bit much to swallow.

But, on the other hand, it’s only ten bucks for over a hundred pages of comics by a real talent. It’s hard to beat that. And I expect Sievert’s next book will add some subtlety to the already impressive strengths of That Salty Air. He’s definitely a talent to watch.


Andrew Wheeler has been a publishing professional for nearly twenty years, with a long stint as a Senior Editor at the Science Fiction Book Club and a current position at John Wiley & Sons. He’s been reading comics for longer than he cares to mention, and maintains a personal, mostly book-oriented blog at antickmusings.blogspot.com.

Publishers who would like their books to be reviewed at ComicMix should contact ComicMix through the usual channels or email Andrew Wheeler directly at acwheele (at) optonline (dot) net.

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April Fools Day Round-Up: Were You Fooled?

  • News
  • April 2, 2008

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When it comes to April Fools Day on the ‘Net, I’m not sure where I stand. On one hand, I’m endlessly entertained by the creativity various companies show in their efforts to pull the digital wool over readers’ eyes. It’s also an amazing promotional opportunity, providing websites that normally wouldn’t be players in the viral marketing scene a chance to flex their creative muscles and attract new readers.

On the other hand, however, it’s an editor’s worst nightmare. Every story is likely to be a hoax, and it’s damn near impossible to break any authentic news due to the inherent skepticism of online readers for a 24-hour period.

It’s a bit of a personal hell for me, too. Every year, I wake up on April 1 and remind myself that anything I read that day is probably an April Fools Day prank. And every year, I end up getting excited about a story anyways, only to realize that it was just another joke — more often than not, this happens after I go public with my excitement, adding to the embarassment. In the end, I’m reminded of Charlie Brown trying to kick that football time and time again, even though he ends up on his back in the dirt every time he makes the attempt. I feel his pain.

So this year, I’ve put together a list of some of the highlights from this year’s April Fools Day on the Interwebs. It’s nowhere near a complete list, just some of my personal favorites from the world of comics and comics culture, as well as a few notable non-comics pranks. Feel free to add your own to the ‘Mix (pun totally intended) by adding a link in the comment section at the end of this article. (more…)

‘Cul de Sac,’ the Comic Strip You Need to Read

  • News
  • April 1, 2008

I had all but given up on newspaper comic strips in recent years. My favorites (Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side, Peanuts, etc.) had disappeared and every new innovative comic appeared online, not in the funny pages.

Then a friend pointed me to Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson of the Washington Post. Like many of the great strips, Cul de Sac features a young central character (Alice, in this case) who simultaneously looks at the world with the dreamy innocence of youth and the cynical sensibilities of an adult.

That balancing act is consistently funny on a daily basis, as Thompson finds the most creative ways to point out the lunacy of the world from both children’s and adult’s perspective. My favorite strip might be the one below, in which Alice’s brother opines on the world of comic books:

So, I have a new newspaper comics strip. Maybe the "funnies" page isn’t dead yet. Or maybe it is: I read Cul de Sac online.

ComicMix Radio: Playing it Straight on April Fools Day

tbolts2-3273938Looking back at the stories we’ve covered over the last year, it would be hard to make anything up that actually — in comics — couldn’t be true!  Instead, we leave the whoopee cushions to others and deliver our dead-serious list of new comics & DVD releases for the week, plus:

— More on Warren Ellis’ exit from Thunderbolts

— Devil’s Due Publishing brings their comics to your cellphone

— Jae Lee awaits words from the fans on Dark Tower sequel

—  And, no joke, another  exclusive Graham Crackers Comics variant could be in the mail to you — if you win by e-mailing us at: podcast [at] comicmix.com

Just  press the button and nothing bad will happen!

 

 

And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via badgeitunes61x15dark-5280119 or RSS!

 

Review: ‘The Education of Hopey Glass’

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There’s something effortless about the comics of Jaime Hernandez. Both in storytelling and art, his Love and Rockets books glide smoothly, seamlessly along – perfect little vignettes into imagined lives.

This isn’t to say Hernandez doesn’t work hard at his craft. Take a deeper look at efforts like his latest collection, The Education of Hopey Glass (Fantagraphics, $19.99) and the attention to detail becomes eminently clear. But unless you will yourself toward that cause, it’s only too easy to slide right into the story and only come up for a breath when the last page has been flipped.

The first half of Hopey Glass is a particularly good example. More than just a glimpse into an unsettled life, Hernandez casts Hopey as a deeply shallow young woman suffering in the transition into adulthood, maturity and responsibility.

When her hedonistic impulses butt up against her new job as a teacher’s assistant, Hopey faces the pull of each world, and her anguish is palpable.

The book falters, though, when it suddenly drops that story and picks up the journey of Ray in his quest for women and success. While still a quality piece of comics, it’s much less compelling than Hopey’s story. And so the book as a whole becomes an incomplete puzzle, a collection of great but unfinished pieces.

“Prowling” – Juggling the Blues with the Comics, by Michael H. Price

  • News
  • March 30, 2008

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“Ya gotta be a juggler to woik in dis racket,” a senior-staff powerhouse named Frosty Sloane informed me after I had landed my first job in a competitive marketplace, back around 1965.

“I thought we were selling shoes,” I answered him. Which of course we were. I had a fleeting mental picture of some Ed Sullivan Show juggling act involving wingtip clodhoppers and stiletto heels. Took a while for Frosty’s metaphor to sink in – but once I had experienced my first stampede of customers and watched Sloane accommodate ten or fifteen prospective buyers while I attempted to deal with one or two of ’em, I caught his drift, all right.

Frosty Sloane was so effective at the craft, with consistently high sales tallies to show for it, that he could afford to be overconfident. He would juggle products while juggling customers: If a shopper should ask to see one style of shoe, Sloane would bring out half-a-dozen selections and wind up selling two or three of those. And he was such a wisenheimer that I wondered how he could get away with some of his sales-floor stunts.

“Y’see, half o’ th’ customers who come in here durin’ a slower stretch – they don’t even know they’re customers, yet,” Frosty counseled me, as if dispensing the Wisdom of the Ages. “They’re jus’ sleepwalkin’, browsin’ away like as if they knew what they were doin’. An’ ya gotta figger out how t’ get their attention.” No sooner had he spoken, than a woman wandered into the department, browsin’ away – just like the man said.

“Watch dis,” Frosty said, “an’ I’ll show ya what I mean by ‘sleepwalkin.’” He strolled toward the browser, nodded in her direction, and then spoke: “Tickle your ass with a feather, ma’am?” He paced the question just rapidly enough to blur its words.

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It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • March 29, 2008

2191_4_03-4722877My Wednesday ritual is pretty well set. I get up early enough to do a few hours of work, then go uptown to volunteer. On my way, I stop at Forbidden Planet so I can pick up the new comics. Since I live in Manhattan, I have my choice of several excellent comic shops. Forbidden Planet is near the 6 train, so that’s where I go (also, excellent service, friendly staff, and loads of prose books along with the comics). I can usually read at least one comic while I ride the train, and sometimes, another one in the playground near the hospital. After my stint is done, I ride home, do some more work, and curl up with the rest of my pile.

This week, because it’s spring at last and the sun was out, I decided to take the 6 train all the way down to Bleecker Street instead of taking the F to West Fourth, so I could do the extra walking in my own neighborhood instead of walking through the black pit of hell that is the lower level of the West Fourth Street Station. Everything is blooming early this year – magnolia trees, daffodils, forsythia, the strawberries on my terrace that reliably bear fruit on Arthur’s birthday – so there is color everywhere. Even Frosty Myers’ wall is back where it belongs, in soothing blues. I realize all this mass transit talk is boring to those of you with cars, but it’s all part of the minutiae of New York that makes this kind of urban living its own micro-organism.

Anyway …

 

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Universities Taking Up Graphic Novels

  • News
  • March 28, 2008

persepolis_cover_big-8717525A couple of stories came out today in university newspapers revealing the continued growth of interest in comic books and graphic novels is beginning to manifest on campuses.

At Louisiana State University, officials selected Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis as the summer reading book for incoming freshmen. The Daily Reveille covers the story:

"It’s a very different choice from what we’ve done in the past," said Sarah Liggett, English professor and Student Reading Program committee chairperson. "It’s a focus on the Middle East, which is certainly very much in the news today, and it’s the first summer reading selection to be created by a woman. You see not only what she felt in the words, but you see it in the pictures."

From the responses in the article, it sounds like the choice is going over much better than at Ithaca College, where the student paper’s editorial board berated the choice of Persepolis on grounds that it wasn’t intellectual.

In other news, Emerson College is considering adding a comics/graphic novel program, according to the student paper there. For now, the college has added some new comics-related courses, which aren’t for credit but instead offer certificates for those who pass the courses. Andy Fish is the instructor.

[Fish] is currently working on a DC comic project illustrating the graphic novel "BATMAN 1939" and his own comic "The Boy Who Wished He Could Fly."

"Who knows if walking among the student body, or hanging out in the Dunkin Donuts on the corner is the next Frank Miller or Will Eisner?," Fish said. "Graphic novels have been gaining respect among the squares, and I think it is great that Emerson is offering this program, and I’m delighted to be a part of it."

Marvel Releases ‘Secret Invasion’ Primers Online

  • News
  • March 28, 2008

In its continuing efforts to get readers pumped up for Secret Invasion, Marvel Comics has released two new stories  as digital comics.

From the official press release:

First up from Marvel is the Secret Invasion Saga, which is filled with the history of the Skrulls from their first appearance up to their current Infiltration. Loaded with clues, this is the best primer available for the biggest event in comics this year.

Next, from the creative team behind Secret Invasion, Brian Bendis and Leinil Yu, comes the Secret Invasion Prologue, in which one key member of the Marvel Universe was replaced by a Skrull, an infiltration that will lead to the downfall of S.W.O.R.D.

The Secret Invasion Saga comic was available in printed form if you happened to be at Wizard World LA a couple weeks ago. If you missed it there and still need to know what’s happening in the Marvel Universe before the invasion begins, having these two comics available online in digital form is a cool resource that can tell you all you need to know.

The invasion begins Wednesday April, 2 with the release of Secret Invasion #1.

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