Tagged: comics

Generic Respect, by Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • March 11, 2008

reeve-dreams-4-3273602Don’t bother putting on airs, Messrs. Man (Super and Bat); you’re nothing special, not any more. These days, you’re just two more members of a rather large club that includes cowboys, cops, private eyes, combat soldiers and guys who fly space ships to other planets and solar systems and galaxies. Serial killers who slice and dice sexy teenagers are in the club, too. And critters that are normally harmless but mutate into gigantic sociopaths.

While you weren’t looking, you’ve become a genre.
 
Of course, if we want to get sniffy about definitions, you always were, in comic books. Almost from the beginning, here were cowboy comics and detective (or Detective) comics, and monsters and spaceship jockeys were early joiners, too. And you guys, the superheroes. You were the most popular and emblematic, of the comic book good guys, but you had peers.
 
Movies were another matter. Oh, you guys showed up on what was called The Silver Screen pretty early in the form of serials or, if we want to get fancy, chapter plays intended for the Saturday matinees, which were populated by kids who, in my memory, made a hell of a lot of racket. Even there, you were a bit of an aberration, outnumbered by the gumshoes and gunfighters, and not deserving, apparently, of cinematic and dramatic niceties. And, while there were cowboys and sleuths aplenty in the movies made for after-dark showings to the kids’ moms and dads, no superheroes ever made the leap to, ahem, serious entertainments.
 

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Josh Howard Previews ‘Dead@17 Compendium’

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Josh Howard, the "comic book and pin-up artist" behind Viper Comics’ Dead@17, The Lost Books of Eve and Clubbing (from DC’s MINX imprint) has posted a preview of the upcoming Dead@17 Compendium on his website.

While his work has trended more towards the T&A over time, I’ve always been a fan of his storytelling ability as much as his art. In fact, during my time with the-company-that-shall-remain-nameless, I even convinced him to write a great little column about life in the independent comics scene. Howard showed a real knack for the written word that, to be quite honest, impressed the heck out of me. While his old column seems to have been "disappeared" due to a recent redesign, it’s good to see that he’s been keeping busy.

There doesn’t seem to be any release date set for the Dead@17 Compendium, but Howard has indicated the collection will feature a mixture of touched-up and brand-new art — as well as an abundance of near-naked girls beating the snot out of zombies, demons and each other.

 

ComicMix Broadcast Blog: Indie Online and New York Comic Con

  • News
  • March 9, 2008

Our process here is simple – at the end of every weekend we clear off our desk and give you the links for things we’ve covered recently on ComicMix Radio. Ready to click?

Add Jonathan Hickman’s  all new miniseries, Pax Romana, to the list of cool indie comics now available online. Here is the first issue. Jonathan hopes it inspires you to go seek out the second issue which hit comic stores last week.

ABC announced the creation of Stage 9 Digital Media, a separate creative studio dedicated to producing original series for the Internet. Their  first project, Squeeges, is available here . The 10-episode series was created by a comedy troupe that calls itself “Handsome Donkey.” New episodes  will appear on ABC.com and on YouTube each Monday and Friday. Other projects in the works include a sci-fi thriller called Trenches from Shane Felux (creator of fan film Star Wars: Revelations). Meanwhile, more Hollywood talent is jumping to the online world. Actress Justine Bateman (Family Ties), writer/producer Jill Kushner (The Ellen DeGeneres Show), Peter Murrieta (Wizards of Waverly Place) and Alan Sereboff (Snowblind) are working on an original web video portal.

Get ready for a big career move as cable network Chiller is once again hosting the “Dare to Direct Contest” where fans are invited to write, produce and submit short horror films. Prizes and the chance to be featured on Chiller’s 2008 Dare to Direct to Direct Film Festival on Halloween night will go to the finalists and winners. All contest rules and information can be found at Dare2Direct.com.

Michael Agrusso, comic book action figure director, has put together a trio of videos to help promote the New York Comic Con. See them here. Meanwhile, the NY Con itself has produced new guest lists that include a huge Artist Alley, reserved for comic book and pop culture creators — both legendary as well as emerging — and including Mark Buckingham, C.B. Cebulski, Colleen Doran, Danny Fingeroth, Keith Giffen, Bob Layton, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Monte Moore, Rags Morales, John Romita, Jr., Jim Shooter, and Jim Valentino. New additions are added almost daily and the complete listing is available.

This week on ComicMix Radio, find out a few interesting tidbits about the upcoming end of DC’s weekly series Countdown from the guy at the center of it all, Keith Giffen, plus some interesting notes from MegaCon, the list of new comics and DVDs previewed, and more.

Got a busy week coming up? Don’t miss anything by subscribing to ComicMix Radio on  badgeitunes61x15dark-5241029 or RSS right now!

 

On This Day: Rick Burchett

  • News
  • March 9, 2008

Comic book artist Rick Burchett was born in 1952. He originally worked in advertising in St. Louis, Missouri but was always a comic book fan. In the early 1980s he switched to comics professionally and worked for several smaller comic book publishers before joining DC.

His first DC title was Blackhawk, but that was quickly followed by Batman, Superman, The Flash, Green Lantern, and others. Burchett has won two Eisner Awards, for his art on The Batman and Robin Adventures and Batman: The Gotham Adventure.

His most recent work has been on Marvel’s She-Hulk.

 

Still The One, by Martha Thomases

  • News
  • March 8, 2008
 
uncle-logo-1-9378389Last week, I pulled a muscle in my back.  This event, though rare, is not unknown; my back will hurt me every other year or so.  I should know the steps by now – hideous, agonizing pain, worse than any other person ever born has ever endured (because it’s happening to me), rest and recuperations, which includes excruciating guilt about suspending my workouts while the muscle recovers.  In a week or so, the pain will be gone and I’ll forget about it until the next time.
 
For now, though, I can’t sit down or stand up without an up-close-and-personal insight into how the muscles along the spine interact.  And every twinge reminds me that I’m no longer eleven years old.
 
For many people, an adult child, monthly condo payments, and the occasional hot flash might be enough to convince them that they were mature adults.  To me, these are just distractions from my real life.
 
In many ways, being an adult today is like the fantasyland I imagined as a child.  There are comic book stores, full of current comics, amazing toys and books about my favorite old television shows.  A few blocks from the comic book store, there’s a costume shop that’s open all year round, not just at Halloween.  There are candy stores, bookstores, bagel shops and playgrounds all over the place.  In a few weeks, it will be spring and I can roller-blade again.
 

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Marvel and Facebook Team-Up

  • News
  • March 6, 2008

First, Marvel launched its online comics subscription service last November where you could read over 3000 comics online. Now, the company is dipping another virtual toe in the Internet’s waters and has joined with social networking site Facebook to launch a new digital comics application.

This new application, according to Marvel:

…immerses fans in the world of Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited, the home of the greatest collection of Marvel Comics ever assembled online. This new application page will serve as a hub to the Marvel Universe on Facebook.

Among the cool things this application will allow you to do is check out the entire collection of comics at Marvel’s Digital Comics site and read synopsies of the titles. You will also be able to pick and choose favorites, offer lists of "must reads" to other Facebook users and share comments.

John Dokes, VP of Online Operations and Marketing at Marvel, had this to say about the new venture:

“Facebook is an extraordinary outlet to communicate with and entertain Marvel fans,” said John Dokes, Vice President, Online Operations and Marketing, Marvel Entertainment, Inc. “This clearly extends our Internet reach and familiarizes a new fan base with all of the cool things happening with Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited and Marvel.com.”

The decision to go the Facebook route as opposed to MySpace, where several comic publishers such as Dark Horse Comics have already begun publishing content, is an interesting move. While MySpace is still the king of social networking sites, Facebook is quickly becoming the place where people go after they get tired of MySpace and its often painful to read custom homepages. So is this move by Marvel incredible foresight or a clever gamble?

Check out the new Marvel Facebook application right here.

 

‘Dark Oz’ Headed to Theaters

  • News
  • March 5, 2008

Another day, another comic book series being adapted into a movie. Variety is reporting that Pras Michael, best known as the guy who’s not Wyclef Jean in the Fugees, picked up film and TV rights to the ’90s comic book series Dark Oz.

The series, which was first published by Caliber Comics under the title Oz and then a five-issue miniseries titled Dark Oz from Arrow Comics Group, featured an older Dorothy returning to Oz and having further adventures, though of a much more dark variety. Hence the title.

Interestingly, the comics are long out of print. But you can still read them in digital form. Caliber and Arrow Comics have a deal with DriveThruComics to sell the issues online in downloadable form.

Production on the film is slated to begin late this year. The script was adapted from the original stories of Dark Oz creators Aaron Denenberg, Ralph Griffith and Stuart Kerr, Variety reported. It’s planned as a live-action film, with designs on making it into a trilogy.

Pras is also a producer of the upcoming film The Mutant Chronicles, which surprisingly enough is not a comic book adaptation.

Video: Matt Kindt on How to Make a Comic Book

  • News
  • March 4, 2008

 

It stands to reason that if you’re interested in comic books and are here reading this site, you may have some interest in actually making a comic book yourself. If so, Matt Kindt, creator of various comics and graphic novels including Superspy, 2 Sisters and Pistolwhip, has made a video just for you.

The video shows Matt and the various steps he goes through to create a page of his Superspy comic. From the rough sketches, to pencils, to inking and then coloring in Photoshop you can see the transformation from a somewhat indimidating blank white page to a fully-formed comic book page. Who knows, this video might just be the inspiration you need to start creating your own comic.

If it is, be sure to let him know.

 

Review: Teen Titans Year One

teentitansy1-6915716The other day I was talking to James Kochalka, creator of Superf*ckers and the upcoming Johnny Boo children’s books, and he mentioned how difficult it is to find superhero books for his kids. Such offerings are mostly limited to comic book adaptations of cartoon series that were adapted from comics, he said, and “they’ve been pretty bad.”

For DC, the lifeline to younger readers has long been the Teen Titans, most recently through the TV spinoff Teen Titans Go! and Tiny Titans, which is almost too innocent for its own good. Now we also have Teen Titans Year One (issue #3 is out tomorrow), the “origin” story from writer Amy Wolfram.

The book succeeds on a number of levels, primarily in how it manages to be appropriate for kids without dumbing down. There are serious threats and the group faces violence and danger and interpersonal hangups. The art also perfectly fits the tone.

While I’ve enjoyed the series thus far, I doubt it’ll serve as a jumping-on point for any kid looking to get into comics. Another thing Kochalka complained about was how the youth-oriented Marvel and DC comics rely on readers coming into the book to have a firm understanding of the mythos, and that’s certainly the case with [[[Teen Titans Year One]]]. New comics readers will be fairly lost, if not out and out discouraged by the lack of exposition.

The Year One tag also only hampers the series, forcing it into a ridiculously incongruous existence amid decades-old comics. For instance, these Titans use cell phones and instant messaging, devices that weren’t around when the Teen Titans debuted. That’s nit-picking, to be sure, but when an editor’s note tells me this storyline happened right after [[[The Brave and the Bold]]] #54, I can’t help but be yanked out of the plot.

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) gmail (dot) com.

Revised Diamond Sales Figures for January Released

  • News
  • March 4, 2008

Computers are one of the greatest inventions of all time. I love ’em. They make so many things possible and help us get things done more easily and efficiently. In fact, if it wasn’t for computers, you woudn’t be able to enjoy all the great content right here at ComicMix.

Unfortunately, computers can also occassionally make mistakes. Case in point the most recent sales figures for comic books, graphic novels and other periodicals for January. Apparently, there was a technical glitch in the Diamond Comics Distributors’ computer system which resulted in elevated sales figures for comics, graphics novels and other periodicals.

According to ICv2, this glitch has now been corrected and the sales figures adjusted. The new figures reveal a much different picture of sales for January. Some of the biggest differences were that instead of the previously reported 7% gain in comic book sales, it was only 1%. Graphic novels had an even bigger discrepency, with actual gains of only 3% instead of the relatively unrealistic 17% previously reported.

Even with the corrected figures, the news wasn’t all bad. Nine comic book titles, including Hulk #1, Captain America #34 and Astonishing X-Men #24, sold over 100,000 copies in January, which was up three from December’s total of six. And, periodical sales were slightly higher than the previously strong figures from January of 2007, which was considered a very successful month at the time.

If you’re curious about how well your favorite comic books and graphic novels actually sold and what the top ones in each category were, check these out:

The "Top 300 comic books in January 2008."

The "Top 100 graphic novels in January 2008."

The "Top 300 comic books in December 2007."

The "Top 100 graphic novels in December 2007."

Looking over these lists, a couple things stood out for me. I find it interesting that Hulk #1 is at the top spot on the comics list for January (I guess red is a good color on him), two titles in the top 20, Astonishing X-Men and Buffy: Season Eight, involve Joss Whedon and a third title in the top 40, Angel: After the Fall, does as well.

Plus, the number three spot on the graphic novel list is also a Whedon creation: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus Volume 3. I guess you should never underestimate the power of a great TV show, even one that ended its TV run five years ago — especially if Joss Whedon had anything to do with it.

 

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