Tagged: comics

REVIEW: “One Soul” by Ray Fawkes

Every art form has stories that can only be told this way: novels that can’t be turned into movies, operas that must be seen in person, movies that could only be flickering pictures in the dark. Comics is still a new art, and only has a few examples so far.

But Ray Fawkes’s 2011 graphic novel One Soul is one of them: it’s a story that couldn’t be anything but comics, a multi-threaded examination of what it is to be alive…and not. Using the famous nine-panel grid, and sticking to it strictly, Fawkes tells eighteen life stories — one for each panel on the two facing pages, and tells one single story at the same time.

Eighteen babies are born, in all times and places, in splendor and in squalor, in wealth and in poverty. They grow up, they live their individual lives — long or short, as it happens — they make their ways in the world and think about what they want and need and feel. And the flow of their lives, of all of their lives, is the story of One Soul.

This is a book that will make the entire outside world disappear; it has at least a whole world inside it, and it will take all of your attention and all of your emotions. Fawkes never has to name any of his characters — we know them from their places and their faces, and come to care for them all, good and bad, kind and cruel, lovers and fighters, happy and sad. One Soul is one of those works of art that are huge in ambition and scope, that try to encompass the entire world, all of human experience, inside itself. And it succeeds: One Soul is magnificent and lovely and frightening and compelling and sorrowful and wonderful and, in the end, utterly, utterly transcendent.

Mindy Newell: Success and Failure, Conclusion

 “All you can do is open up the throttle all the way and keep your nose up in the air.”

First Lieutenant Meyer C. Newell

P-51 Mustang Fighter Jock

Separated from his squadron, shot up and leaking hydraulic fluid somewhere in the skies over Burma

What is the measure of success? What is the measure of failure?

newell-column-art-120617-3202896In the previous three columns, I’ve told you a little bit – well, quite a bit, actually, about early failures in my life. And for a very long time I let my, uh, lack of success, hold me back, drag me down. That old albatross had a permanent nest on my shoulder. The Fantastic Four may have visited the Negative Zone, but, guys, I lived there.

In my mid-thirties I was divorced and living with my parents. Alix was two or three. She was sleeping in a portable crib, I was sleeping on a cot in the den. And then one day – sometime in my late thirties, I think – I was driving with my father in the car. I don’t remember where we were going; I think he was driving me to an appointment with one of the numerous psychiatrists and therapists I had seen in an attempt to “figure out what was wrong with me.” Oh, that was fun, let me tell you. One doctor put me through a round of physical tests and blood work to see if there was a physiological reason for my “blues.” (Tests came back. I was perfect.) Another doctor gave me his trench coat, telling me to cover up my legs because he was getting sexually excited. I went to a therapy group for newly divorced women; all I remember of that is the woman whose husband regularly beat the crap out of her. “Jesus, honey,” we would all say, “get the hell out of there.” She would just start to cry and go on and on about how much she loved him until the hour was up. We never got to talk about anything else. There was one doctor who talked to me for five minutes and gave me a prescription for Valium, the drug of choice in those days for women on the edge of a nervous breakdown. I took one Valium, fell asleep for 18 hours and dumped out the bottle. A week later I got a bill for $500.00 for “services rendered.” I called him and told him I was sending him $50.00, and just try to take me to court. Never heard from him again.

The best, though, was the shrink who was an Orthodox Jew. He told me that the only thing wrong with me was that I wasn’t married, so “I should stop dating the goyim, marry a nice Yiddisher man, and have lots of babies.”

Anyway, back to that day in the car with my dad. We weren’t talking much, just bits here and there. Suddenly my dad started talking about a mission he had been on during WW II. It had been a bombing and strafing mission somewhere in Burma, the objective being to destroy the latest installment of the railroad the Japanese were building – see The Bridge On The River Kwai for reference. They had met a lot of resistance, and on one strafing run my father’s P-51 got hit up badly. One of the hydraulic lines was hit, and he couldn’t keep up with the rest of the squadron on their flight back to the base. They had to leave him.

“Wow, Daddy, what did you do?” I asked. (The answer is above.) And then he said, “Know what I’m saying?”

And the light bulb suddenly clicked on over my head, just like in the old Looney Tunes cartoons. “Thufferin’ Thuccosthasth!” I said. “I do!” (No, not really. I mean, yeah, the light bulb went on, but I didn’t suddenly start sputtering and slovering like Sylvester the Cat.)

I’m not saying that all of a sudden my life was a bed of roses and that everything was hunky-dory. No. Quite the opposite. It took finding the right therapist. It took swallowing my pride and starting on an anti-depressant. But mostly it took a lot of hard work, a lot of tears, a lot of self-recrimination. Most of all, self-forgiveness.

These days I wonder. All my failures – but were they really failures? Weren’t they just part of the pattern that’s made me who I am today? And any failures, any successes that I continue to experience will just add to that person who I will be tomorrow, next week, next month, next year or in a decade.

These days most people would say that my life is a success. Well, I don’t know about that, but if it is, it didn’t happen without failures, some my own, some caused by outside factors. For instance, two years ago I got laid off. (Yes, Virginia, registered nurses do get laid off these days.) It sucked. I cried. I ranted. I worked at a couple of hospitals I wouldn’t send my worst enemy to. (Well, maybe I would.) But I also went back to school and finished my BSN, opening up new doors for me.

As for my other career, the one in comics? A lot of people in the comics industry have commented and complimented me on my “ear for dialogue,” my ability to get into the heads of the characters I have written. Maybe that wouldn’t be true if I hadn’t lived the life I have lived. I probably would never have submitted a story to DC’s New Talent program. I wouldn’t have written When It Rains, God Is Crying, or Chalk Drawings with a certain mensch who goes by the name of George Pérez. I wouldn’t know Mike Gold or Martha Thomases or Len Wein or Karen Berger or Neil Gaiman. And I wouldn’t be here writing this column.

Black and White.

Stop and Go.

Yin and Yang.

Success and Failure.

The ups and downs of life.

TUESDAY MORNING: Can Michael Davis Possibly Still Be Black?

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Can Emily S. Whitten Possibly Be Talking About Deadpool? 

John Ostrander: Death and Comics

ostrander-column-art-1206171-3150000At a convention I was at some years past I was having dinner with, among others, Howard Chaykin and Joe Rubinstein. Howard is always an interesting dinner companion; whether you agree with him or not on a subject, the conversation is going to be interesting. I didn’t know Joe Rubinstein much before that – except by his talent – but he raised a serious point with me. Joe knew about my late wife, Kim Yale, and her death and what he was interested in seeing coming from me was a story or stories about how you cope with the grief and the mourning that comes with the death of a loved one. It’s an interesting challenge and, while I’ve had some ideas about how to do it, I have yet to answer it.

I don’t think that comics, as a medium, deals well with death. It’s become a plot device, a sales gimmick, since we all know the character who has died is going to be back. I was staggered at the time of the Death of Superman storyline and by the number of people I knew who contacted me and breathlessly asked, “Is he really dead?” I pointed out that DC had too much money to lose from Underoos alone to let Kal-El stay dead.

Sure enough, Superman got better.

I will say that DC dealt well with the aftermath of Superman’s apparent demise in the World Without Superman follow-up storyline. There was real feeling, real emotion, by individuals and by the general population. And life went on without Superman.

That’s what happens. Your world ends; life goes on. The one you loved doesn’t come back. You cope however well or badly. You recover or you don’t.

I’m not saying that killing off a character can’t be effective or shouldn’t be done. When I was doing Suicide Squad over at DC, I was something of a literary mass murderer. I killed off lots of characters – mostly villains. I even killed off my own GrimJack character and brought him back albeit in a different, cloned body. I then reincarnated him somewhere further down his own timeline and, eventually, killed off that incarnation as well. So, how is that different, you ask.

Reincarnation doesn’t give you back the same body; it gives you a different one. The resiliency of the Doctor Who series rests on the title character’s ability to regenerate or reincarnate. Completely different actor, very different personality traits. There is change. That’s the difference and a key one.

Over at Marvel, the Pearly Gates is a revolving door. Captain America dies; oops, he got better. (Okay, it was really a “time bullet” but it was sold as the death of Captain America.) His teen sidekick in WWII, Bucky, dies in action. Oops, no, he gets better decades later. Both “deaths” generated interesting stories but is there anyone who really thought that the original Captain America wasn’t coming back?

Actions have consequences and death does as well. Grief should be shown; tears should flow. One of the major flaws, for me, of the first Star Wars film is that Luke barely sheds a tear at the death of the only parents he’s really ever known but then gets mopey about a mentor he’s known only a few days. Whereas, in the Harry Potter films, especially the later ones, when a character dies we see real grief and sorrow. It matters to the characters and therefore matters to us. And, yes, Harry dies and comes back to life but that doesn’t change my argument. His death grew out of the story and was, in fact, demanded by it; it was the way to resolve the story. That includes his resurrection. My gripe is with deaths that simply are “events” and meant to push sales.

Death in comics is too easy because resurrection is too easy. It doesn’t mean anything most of the time. It’s a cheat. Life – and death – doesn’t work that way. If death doesn’t mean anything, does life?

Monday: Mindy Newell and how she got that way.

in-our-mothers-house-restricted-access-in-utah-school-district-8316062

“In Our Mothers’ House” Restricted Access in Utah School District

  • News
  • June 16, 2012

in-our-mothers-house-restricted-access-in-utah-school-district-8316062With the President’s recent open approval of same-sex marriage; a federal appeals court striking down the Defense of Marriage Act (claiming it unconstitutional); the success of Life with Archie #16, featuring the marriage of a gay character; and Marvel and DC’s inclusion of prominent storylines about gay characters, one may surmise it is easy for everyone to access constitutionally-protected LGBT materials. This is not the case, as students in a school district north of Salt Lake City will have to get parental permission before checking out a book about a lesbian couple raising a family, according to a recent article on the Huffington Post.

The book In Our Mothers’ House by Patricia Polacco is at the center of these prohibitive policies due to a complaint by the mother of a student who checked out the book, which features a family led by a lesbian couple and how they use love to give them the strength to overcome intolerance.

From the Huffington Post article by Jennifer Dolner:

Students in a Utah school district will need permission from their parents to read a book about a lesbian couple raising a family following the decision by a special committee to keep it behind library counters instead of on bookshelves.

The book In Our Mothers’ House, by Patricia Polacco, became the subject of controversy in January when the mother of a student who brought the book home complained to the school.

‘The book is still in the library and children can still have access to the book as long as they have written permission from their parents,’ said Chris Williams, a spokesman for the Davis School District, which covers an area north of Salt Lake City.

Dolner goes on to relate that the book has been challenged in libraries around the country:

The Davis district is not the first place parents have raised concerns about the book, which was published in 2009. A 2011 report by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas shows the book was banned in several schools in that state.

Williams said a school-level committee made up of teachers, administrators and parents decided that access to In Our Mothers’ House should be restricted to students in grades 3 through 6. When that didn’t satisfy the parent, a district committee was petitioned to address the issue.

In late April, the district committee voted 6-1 that the book could stay in the collection, but should be kept behind the counter, instead of on shelves. A letter informing parents of the decision was sent out in May.

Williams said in the article that what’s objectionable to one person is not to another. Thusly, a person’s objection to legal material (that is not defined as offensive or profane by law) has led to a subjective decision to restrict access to said material. These policies, therefore, are based on personal ideologies, not law, and are in violation of a national canon of free expression.

Similar outcries and boycotts have been made by special interest groups, such as One Million Moms, against the comic industry for its depiction of gay characters. In February, One Million Moms lobbied to have an Archie comic removed from shelves and encouraged people to boycott the comic.

From a CBLDF article by Betsy Gomez:

One Million Moms — a division of the American Family Association, a conservative non-profit organization that ‘promotes traditional family values’ — recently made news over their boycott of retailer JC Penney over hiring lesbian TV host Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesperson. They are in the news again with recent reports that they will be boycotting Toys ‘R’ Us over the display and sale of Life with Archie #16, which features the marriage of openly gay character Kevin Keller.

Despite the group’s efforts, the comic stayed on the shelves and even sold out.

More recently, the group has taken similar actions against Marvel’s Astonishing X-men #51, featuring the marriage of the mutant Northstar to his same-sex partner, and DC’s “outing” of the Green Lantern, according to an ICv2.com article.

From the ICv2 article:

American Family Association ‘project’ One Million Moms has added Marvel and DC to the list of comic publishers that it opposes because of their inclusion of gay characters. The group argues that the companies ‘want to indoctrate [sic] impressionable young minds by placing these gay characters on pedestals in a positive light.’ The group was reacting to the announcement by Marvel that its character Northstar would marry his same sex partner in Astonishing X-Men #51 (see A Gay Wedding for Marvel). DC announced this week that a major, iconic DC character would be revealed as gay next month (see DC Character to Come Out). ‘These companies are heavily influencing our youth by using children’s superheroes to desensitize and brainwash them in thinking that a gay lifestyle choice is normal and desirable,’ the group said.”

Though One Million Moms public objections are constitutionally protected speech, banning comics and books (as in the case of Texas schools banning In Our Mothers’ House) due to moral, political or religious ideologies violate these First Amendment rights.

From the First Amendment Center’s website FAQs concerning speech, schools and books:

School officials cannot pull books off library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas in those books. In Board of Education v. Pico, the Supreme Court ruled that school officials in New York violated the First Amendment by removing several books from junior high school library shelves for being too controversial.

The Court said the First Amendment protects students’ right to receive information and ideas and that the principal place for such information is the library.

However, in Pico, the Supreme Court also said school officials could remove books from library shelves if they were ‘pervasively vulgar.’ The Court noted that its decision did not involve school officials’ control over the curriculum or even the acquisition of books for school libraries.
•••
School districts should develop policies on how to handle challenges to books, and how to ensure that decisions regarding removal of books from the library or the curriculum respect the Constitution and reflect sound educational policy. School officials must also ensure that a book is not removed simply because a concerned parent or special-interest group dislikes its content.”

Visit the non-profit organization First Amendment Center’s website for more information.

LGBT publications, from books to comics, are often challenged, banned or subject to restrictive access policies in libraries. These materials are legal, non-obscene, and protected speech, but they often suffer the consequences of personal, religious, and moral dogmas that infringe on free speech and free access.

Please help support CBLDF’s important First Amendment work and reporting on issues such as this by making a donation or becoming a member of the CBLDF!

Justin Brown is a journalism graduate of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

UPDATED: Vote In The Finals of the Mix NSFW Webcomics Tournament– Go Get A Roomie vs. Oglaf!

  • News
  • June 16, 2012

mixmaymayhemfinalssquare-6484374UPDATE 3 AM, 6/22: Holy cow, a lot of money has come in this round– $65.75 for Oglaf and $500 for Go Get A Roomie! We’ve modified the vote totals accordingly, adding 263 votes to Oglaf and 2000 to GGAR, but there’s still time for your favorite to win, either by voting, getting your friends to vote, or by buying votes with proceeds going to the CBLDF!

At long long LONG last– the Finals of the Mix May Mayhem (well, it’s not May anymore) NSFW Webcomics Tournament!

So far, we’ve raised over $650 for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and now we’re down to the final two contestants– Go Get A Roomie going head to head against Oglaf!

Here are the updated brackets… and remember, these are NSFW comics, so be careful when you click through to look and read them! (more…)

New Comics In Stores This Week: June 13, 2012

Sponsored by Manhattan Comics and Comixology. Buy new comics now!
(more…)

May 2012 comics sales break more records

  • News
  • June 12, 2012

The full report of comics orders for May 2012 has been released by Diamond Comic Distributors, and as the initial report here found, the market is hitting on all cylinders. It’s also breaking records, according to estimates compiled here at The Comics Chronicles. Click to see the comics sales estimates for May 2012.

As reported on Friday, led by Avengers Vs. X-Men #4, the comic book Direct Market’s orders of $44.68 million in comics and graphic novels (at full retail value) is the largest sum seen in a single month since Diamond began reporting Final Order data in February 2003, and it’s probably a higher figure seen in any month since 1995 in un-inflation-adjusted dollars.

Now, with the estimates out, we can see that two other Diamond Exclusive Era records have been set. Diamond’s Top 300 comics had orders totaling $25.72 million, an increase of 44% over last May and the highest total since Diamond became the sole distributor in 1997. It beats the total of $25.37 million set in December 2008.

Trade paperbacks and hardcovers were exceptionally strong, too, with the DC reboot volumes topping the charts; the Top 300 accounted for $8.27 million, just missing the one-month record from November 2008. That combined with the comics figures to break the other record this month: the Top 300 comics plus the Top 300 graphic novels combined for sales of almost exactly $34 million, beating the previous record from December 2008 by nearly $2 million.

These are dollar sales and not unit sales — though the unit figures came close to setting records, and inflation is not really a huge factor in comparisons over the last two or three years. As we can see on this table of average comics prices, that December 2008 peak found the average weighted price of comics in the Top 300 to be $3.31; this month, the average weighted price was $3.53. That’s less than a 7% increase over three and a half years.

The 300th place issue didn’t set a record, but it was the second-highest total for issues at that rank since 1996, with more than 4,800 copies sold. We’ve also now gone a full year where all first place issues each month topped 100,000 copies. So we are, as they say on CNBC, well “off the lows” for the decade.

Again, the Diamond Exclusive Era records are exactly that — they don’t take into account the mammoth sales of the early 1990s, the Golden Age, or anything earlier than 1997.

The aggregate totals for the month:

TOP 300 COMICS UNIT SALES

May 2012: 7.3 million copies
Versus 1 year ago this month: +42%
Versus 5 years ago this month: -6%
Versus 10 years ago this month: +27%
Versus 15 years ago this month: -8%
YEAR TO DATE: 31.29 million copies, +20% vs. 2011, -11% vs. 2007, +13% vs. 2002, -27% vs. 1997

ALL COMICS UNIT SALES
May 2012 versus one year ago this month: +44.24%
YEAR TO DATE: +20.89%

—

TOP 300 COMICS DOLLAR SALES

May 2012: $25.72 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: +44%
Versus 5 years ago this month: +5%
Versus 10 years ago this month: +60%
Versus 15 years ago this month: +36%
YEAR TO DATE: $108.66 million, +20% vs. 2011, -2% vs. 2007, +39% vs. 2002, +8% vs. 1997

ALL COMICS DOLLAR SALES
May 2012 versus one year ago this month: +45.12%
YEAR TO DATE: +21.77%

—

TOP 300 TRADE PAPERBACK DOLLAR SALES

May 2012: $8.27 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: +47%
Versus 5 years ago this month, just the Top 100 vs. the Top 100: -17%
Versus 10 years ago this month, just the Top 50 vs. the Top 50: +47%
YEAR TO DATE: $33.16 million, +28% vs. 2011

ALL TRADE PAPERBACK  SALES
May 2012 versus one year ago this month: +41.14%
YEAR TO DATE: +16.22%

—

TOP 300 COMICS + TOP 300 TRADE PAPERBACK DOLLAR SALES

May 2012: $34 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: +45%
Versus 5 years ago this month, counting just the Top 100 TPBs: +1%
Versus 10 years ago this month, counting just the Top 25 TPBs: +36%
YEAR TO DATE: $141.83 million, +22% vs. 2011

ALL COMICS AND TRADE PAPERBACK  SALES
May 2012 versus one year ago this month: +43.76%
YEAR TO DATE: +19.95%

—

OVERALL DIAMOND SALES (including all comics, trades, and magazines)

May 2012: approximately $44.68 million (subject to revision)
Versus 1 year ago this month: +44%
Versus 5 years ago this month: +9%
YEAR TO DATE: $182.49 million, +20% vs. 2011, +4% vs. 2007

The average price of comics in Diamond’s Top 300 was $3.53 as was the cost of the average comic book retailers ordered. $3.50 was the median price of all comics offered in the Top 300, while the most common price remained $2.99.

The numbers already show it, but there’s increasing anecdotal evidence of a turnaround out there — including this piece in yesterday’s Ventura County Star. The headline alone is of a sort we haven’t seen in the business in a long time. Brian Jacoby from Secret Headquarters in Tallahassee, Fla., also provides a very positive view in the comments thread of this ComicsBeat post. “My subscriber list has grown 20% in the past 9 months, beginning on the strength of the excitement for the New 52, and bolstered by other great launches since, like (Miles Morales as) Ultimate Spider-Man and Saga, and the continued influx of Walking Dead– and Avengers-curious people brought in by other media.” That’s how recoveries have worked in the past: one thing leads to the next.

Follow Comichron on Twitter and Facebook, to be alerted when new estimates are released.

Ray Dillon / Artist & Writer: My wife, Renae De Liz, is going to be okay, but she is in the hospital. :(

  • News
  • June 10, 2012

2011-06-womanthology-2-2161520Spreading the word: Renae De Liz, the creator behind Womanthology, is in the hospital, according to husband Ray Dillon:
Hi, everyone-

Been avoiding saying anything publicly because I didn’t want to cause worry prematurely and wanted to make sure I had more information and talked to our immediate family first.
Renae is recovering right now, just very slowly.
She has an infection that has spread into her blood and kidneys, as well as pneumonia and some other things we’re worried about, but I don’t want to say anything there until test results are back. As of today she’s doing a bit better and we’re told after perhaps a week in the Critical Care Unit she should be mostly recovered. It got really bad and we almost lost her. :( Been a very rough couple of weeks. We’re behind in work, income, communication, and our nerves are just shot from all this. (I can’t even think about the likely $30k or more in medical bills we’re racking up here with no health insurance and we don’t qualify for assistance…)
So, please understand that we’re unable to get back to everyone checking in on current or future projects, Womanthology copies, or anything else right now. Please give us 2-3 weeks. I’ll do my best during that time, but can’t promise to get back to everyone. Renae will likely be in CCU for a week or more, not sure how long she’ll be in a recovery room after that. My focus is taking care of her and the kids during this (which I can’t do at the same time because Critical Care doesn’t allow kids).
I just can’t keep up on all these messages right now, but I’ll do my best. If you could help by spreading the word so no one out there is getting frustrated by not hearing back from us sooner that would be amazing. Particularly on Womanthology. If you happen to see someone asking about it, please direct them here and to the updates on the Womanthology Kickstarter Updates page, which should answer all questions. Books and other rewards are in process as quickly as we can get them out. Most of them are done! But we’re sorry for any delay this might cause, if any. It’s mostly out of our hands at this point and just about everything is already on its way to the backers.So aside from a few pre-scheduled tweets and blogs to keep things running I’ll be away from the computer most of the time for right now.

Huge thank you to Stacie Ponder (check out her movies and comics!) for helping with the kids while I visit Renae and to Renae’s sister Kimberly De Liz (check out her art!) for offering to fly all the way over here to Maine to help with the kids.
And to everyone who already knows and has offered their support and love and everyone who surely will. Thank you.

Get Well Cards!

Oh, and if anyone wanted to send Get Well cards, flowers, chocolate, or anything like that to Renae that would be so sweet! You can send to our home: 18 Killdeer Road, Cape Elizabeth, Maine 04107 or directly to her hospital room Mercy Hospital, 144 State Street, Portland Maine, 04101 – Critical Care Unit c/o patient: Renae Dillon. (Keep in mind that is the Critical Care Unit so nothing too elaborate, but once she’s in her recovery room you could send real elephants and stuff). That would make her feel really loved and special (which she is!)

~Ray
www.RenaeDeLiz.com

Are We Taking Donations?

Wow! I’m overwhelmed the amazing support, love, and offers for donations. We’ve even gotten a few already! Wow! Thank you! Generous people!!!!!
The answer is:
Kinda?
Part of me (the scared part) wants to say, “Yes, please help!” But … some of you might remember a few years back, when we lived in Kansas, and we were about to have a baby and things with the home we were trying to buy (and had been living in for a year) fell through and we had to move in 30 days and didn’t know what we were going to do. Back then we asked for donations and took on a ton of commissions and new projects to try to raise the money to save the house. Despite all of our efforts (and yours) it still didn’t work out, but we moved to Maine and life is incredible here and we’re actually glad now that we didn’t stick our roots down there, even if we loved the house.Everyone was SO generous and helpful, and in fact we still owe some commissions from back then (moving across country and having a baby who didn’t sleep for his first 2 years is like jumping in a time warp). So I know we totally don’t want to be the people who are like “We need help AGAIN!” You know? And this is something that we can probably work out. We might be paying these medical bills forever, but it’s not the same as needing to raise a certain amount by a certain time to save a house or to have a major operation to save a life or anything like that. It’s just going to be some really, really bad debt that we were really hoping never to have. Taking a huge bite out of our future plans and the getting ahead of debt that we’ve been hoping to do forever, that’s for sure. BUT, right now we don’t have any dire need and there are a lot of people out there who probably do.

Also I can’t ask Renae our thoughts on this yet. She’d probably think you’re all amazing for wanting to but not want to bother anyone for the help. That’s just who she is.

SO, with that in mind (the fact that we’ve gotten an amazing amount of help before and this isn’t an urgent and dire need … at least not yet … knock on wood) if you still want to help and totally have it to spare (if you’ve got your own financial worries, please take care of you and yours first) then you can donate by clicking this button:

But please read the above information before you do that. We’ll probably be fine without donations, but of course they would help! But there are people who need it more, too. 
You’re all just super incredible people for being so sweet and supportive and wanting to help so much.
THANK YOU!!
~Ray

 

via Ray Dillon / Artist & Writer: My wife, Renae De Liz, is going to be okay, but she is in the hospital. :(.

New Comics In Stores This Week: June 6, 2012

Sponsored by Manhattan Comics and Comixology. Buy new comics now!
(more…)

REVIEW: John Carter

The problem with being a trendsetter is that if you’re successful, you get imitated time and time again. Such was the fate that befell Edgar Rice Burroughs’ pulp heroes Tarzan and John Carter. The thriller-seeking readers of pulp magazines were enthralled by ERB’s pulse-pounding, straight-forward prose, which was strong in ideas and weak in word craft. A century ago, Burroughs, writing as Norman Bean, serialized his first Martian saga in All-Story between February and July 1912. It found an eager audience and was later collected in book form as A Princess of Mars. Through the years, there came more adventures with and without Carter set on the red planet natives named Barsoom.

I discovered the stories through the compelling Frank Frazetta covers on the Science Fiction Book Club editions and thought the stories were interesting. Clearly I was not alone because time and again, people in comics tried to adapt the stories with varying degrees of success. Similarly, Bob Clampett in the 1930s and then others tried to mount a screen adaptation. While Barsoom proved inspirational to countless writers, artists, and filmmakers, the planet remained elusive. Over the last century, many a story has been set on Mars — from swashbuckler pastiche Gulliver of Mars to Philip K. Dick’s “I Can Remember it for you Wholesale” (a.k.a Total Recall) – meaning our celestial neighbor has been well-mined. (more…)

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