Tagged: comics

dave-cockrum-9145621

Dave Cockrum estate donates hundreds of comics to charity

  • News
  • December 8, 2009

dave-cockrum-6103328Kars4Kids, the nationally recognized car-donation program, has received a generous, unique donation from the estate of Dave Cockrum. But it wasn’t the artist’s car. Hundreds of comic books, from the personal collection of the man who co-created many characters from Marvel Entertainment’s X-Men franchise, were given to Kars4Kids to benefit children.
 
“Dave loved to help people—he was generous to a fault,” said Paty Cockrum, widow of the popular artist who died in 2006 from complications resulting from diabetes.  “He was extremely happy that the characters he created—such as Storm, Colossus and Nightcrawler—became a part of the childhood memories of millions of children. He knew that was his legacy.”
 
The donated comics were part of Cockrum’s personal collection. “I’m delighted that more kids will benefit from them,” said Mrs. Cockrum.
 
Kars4Kids.org is a national organization providing for the spiritual, emotional and practical needs of children from impoverished or dysfunctional families. The national, 501(c)(3), non-profit organization was established in 2000.
 
For more information, contact Josh Smith at 732-730-8595, ext. 108.

How Superman REALLY helped America win World War Two

  • News
  • December 7, 2009

Today is December 7th, a day that will live in infamy as the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor that ushered the United States into the second World War.

During the war, almost every comic shifted to a wartime footing, with covers of our heroes kicking the crap out of Nazis and fighting saboteurs in the pages within. But in at least one case, superheroes did a lot more.

See that cover to the right? That’s the cover of a special edition of Superman, based on issue #33 of the regular series that was produced for the U.S. Army.

The Army had a problem at the time — they were drafting thousands of men a year, but many of them had no education to speak of, with large swaths of them functionally illiterate, and they were expected to operate complex machinery pretty quickly. They had to learn how to read, and fast. The troops also needed cheap and portable entertainment, something that could be carried through the battlefields of Europe and Asia.

So with the cooperation of National Periodical Publications, the forerunner to DC Comics, this edition was produced by the War Department with simplified dialogue and word balloons. Hundreds of thousands of copies were distributed to GIs, and it helped them learn to read and to pass the time. And of course, copies of the comics were handed out to kids in faraway lands, as gestures of goodwill.

A total of 23 issues were produced in this manner and these rare variants are among the first examples of using comic books to teach, not just entertain.

So we weren’t surprised when a study came out last week showing that comics can be used to improve literacy. The United States government has known it for decades.

On sale today: ‘GrimJack: The Manx Cat’ #5!

  • News
  • December 3, 2009






John Gaunt’s astral journey to
the medieval Cynosure of his past leaps out to its penultimate issue. As he
fights the Manx Cat, GrimJack’s choices place his friends in jeopardy as he
must encounter more truth than even he can handle. It’s a race through time and
reality – as Bob the Watchlizard disappears from sight!

All this and staples
too, from John Ostrander and Timothy Truman. Available at finer comics stores today, because everybody seemed to be a day late because of Thanksgiving…

Crazy Sexy Geeks: Celebrity Wonder Woman Debate!

  • News
  • November 5, 2009

Super hero costumes are often criticized by fans and non-fans alike. In particular, the female costumes can sometimes seem a bit too revealing or impractical. Even Wonder Woman is occasionally given guff and there are those who say that if they ever made a new movie with her, her swimsuit-like battle armor would have to go.

So we of Crazy Sexy Geeks: The Series decided to ask people: Should Wonder Woman wear pants? Are the shorts or skirt too impractical?

Join us as we discuss and debate this issue with every day comic fans, professional artist Gene Ha (Top Ten, Global Frequency), fashion consultant Tim Gunn, actress Miracle Laurie (Dollhouse), actress/writer Emma Caulfield (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Contropussy.com), digital painter Alayna Lemmer, and the American Gladiators known as Phoenix and Venom. That’s tons of pretty girls talking about the ultimate female super hero! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

Alan Kistler is an actor and freelance writer who has been recognized by Warner Bros. Pictures and major media outlets as a comic book historian. He is looking for a new day job, so if you’re hiring you should absolutely get in touch with him.

Review: ‘Malice’

Malice

By Chris Wooding, illustrated by Dan Chernett
Scholastic Press, $14.99, 380 pages

What if you could transport yourself to another world by following an incantation found in a comic book? Well, you might find the world a frightening and terrible place, just as children find in the new novel [[[Malice]]].

Chris Wooding, an accomplished young adult author, begins a new series this month with Malice, which mixes prose with comic book pages interspersed. Basically, children around the world have been reading this comic book, Malice, a cult title with each issue a seemingly disjointed series of eerie vignettes. What no one realizes is that if the children following the directions, they vanish and are transported to this other land. In the real world, they go missing and the few that return, have no recollection of where they have been but have been deeply affected by the experience. 

Wooding’s novel focuses on the residents of the small town of Hathern, just as the young teen Luke vanishes. His friends, Seth and Kady, piece together he disappeared after reading the comic book and go on the hunt. Along the way, they find out who has been producing issues but necessarily why they are stealing children.

Only after Seth goes in search of Luke by entering the realm, does he begin to understand the malevolent forces at work, represented by Tall Jake, who has usurped control of this dark world. The world of Malice is a creepy place, patrolled by mechanical and non-human packs of beings, seeking the children who have wound up there. The children, meantime, fight for daily survival and swap stories –notably the rumors regarding the underground resistance force.

While Seth forges new alliances away from Earth, Kady begins to understand what’s happening but has too many questions, including trying to understand what the Queen of Cats wants with her. There’s a great revelation that takes the story in a different direction, keeping the pacing sharp.

Wooding, to his credit, creates credible, likeable characters and his vivid writing demonstrates the stark differences between England and Malice. His evocative writing creates a nice atmosphere and keeps you turning the pages, although as you near the end, it becomes clear this is just the opening chapter. A sequel, [[[Havoc]]], is announced on the final pages.

If only his words were matched by Dan Chernett’s illustrations. The book would have benefitted greatly by using an accomplished comic artist as opposed to a professional illustrator unaccustomed to working in the medium. As a result, his pages are poorly constructed, the storytelling is weak and the use of shadow and scratchy lines robs the comic sections of their power. Had the masters of macabre from Bernie Wrightson to Ben Templesmith been brought in, this would have complemented the prose quite nicely. A real missed opportunity.

The book is recommended for readers 12 and up and that sounds about right given the characters, pacing and description contained within.

Review: ‘Stitches’ by David Small — a comics memoir of an amazingly bad childhood

Stitches: A Memoir
David Small
W.W. Norton, September 2009,
$24.95

You can’t write a memoir these days unless you had a bad
childhood – call it the Law of Oprah. You have to have some horrible secrets,
either your own or those of your parents/keepers/guardians, that you can
reveal, tearfully, to an enthralled TV audience when called upon. You may not
make it to that TV-show couch, since the competition for a bad-enough childhood
is fierce, but that’s the aim. Memoirs of anything positive are utterly passé –
even a book like Eat Pray Love needs to
start with heartbreak before it can get to happiness.

Then there’s the unrelated but equally unsettling
requirement that only non-fictional graphic novels can be taken really seriously by the outside world. From [[[Maus to Persepolis]]], from [[[Fun Home to Palestine]]], it’s only respectable if it’s real. As far as our mothers and cousins and next-door neighbors know, “graphic novels” means expensive comic-book stories about either superheroes or the author’s tormented relationship with his family.

[[[Stitches]]] is perfectly positioned at the intersection of those two publishing trends: it’s the true story of author David Small’s appalling childhood, told as comics pages with cinematic “camera motions” that will appeal to readers not used to reading comics. Even the art style Small uses in Stitches adds to the seriousness; Small has a sketchy, loose line of variable width here, strong to define the figures and lighter and looser for backgrounds, and washes in various tones of grey. In fact, the whole
book is grey – even the black line looks like just another shade of the murk.

(more…)

It’s No New Comics Week

  • News
  • October 2, 2009

Back in the days before direct sales and specialty shops overwhelmed comic book sales, you couldn’t find a new comic book on the newsstands to save your soul. The theory was, nobody buys magazines between Christmas and New Years Day, and even now “weekly” magazines like Time and Newsweek skip that week. The fact was, the newsstand distributors and shippers thought that would be a swell week to take off, so they did.

Well, those sing-along days are back. Diamond will not be shipping anything the week of December 30, 2009. Nada. Zippo. Nothing.

There’s a bit of a difference between modern times and those thrilling days of yesteryear. Maybe the old mom and pop stores could survive selling Brylcream and Ipana, or maybe they’d take the week off as well. But today’s comics shop owners can’t afford to close down that week – yes, comic book selling is that marginal a business – and they’ve still got to pay the rent.

Expect a lot of in-store post-Christmas sales, which might be lucrative for those retailers whose customers get cash as holiday presents.

Fathers and Sons: reviews of Danica Novgorodoff’s ‘Refresh, Refresh’ and ‘The Big Kahn’ by Neil Kleid and Nicolas Cinquegrani

  • News
  • September 30, 2009

I should start by quoting something weighty – the most
obvious would be that old Tolstoy saw about happy and unhappy families – but
let’s take that as written, shall we? Comics have given short shrift to
families for the past seventy years – at least, the American comic-book
industry has, though strip comics grew fat and bloated on the hijinks of
aggressively “relatable” families for that long and longer.

Even the undergrounds – typically about countercultural
types, who occasionally complain about their parents but try to avoid them as
much as possible – and the modern alt-comics movement (Alienated Loners R us!)
avoided family dynamics. Sure, there are exceptions, from Will Eisner to art
spiegelman, but the average American comics protagonist is an orphan – or wishes
he was.

Maybe that’s starting to change, or maybe I just have a couple
of anomalies on my hand. Either way, today, I have two books where that isn’t the case – not to say that these dads might not be
dead, absent, or problematic, but they’re definitely part of the story. And
their sons care who, and what – and where – their fathers are.

Refresh, Refresh
A graphic novel by Danica
Novgorodoff, adapted from a screenplay by James Ponsoldt based on the story by
Benjamin Percy
First Second, October 2009,
$17.99

What do men do? For many in the comics reviewing world,
that’s an easy question: men punch each other in the face. But they don’t have Refresh,
Refresh in mind when they say that. This graphic
novel is set in a small Oregon town, just a couple of years ago, where most of
the adult men are off fighting with the Marines in Iraq. And their sons –
mostly Cody and Josh and Gordon, three highschool-aged boys who are at the core
of this particular story – talk about joining up when they’re old enough, or
working in the local factory, or maybe even getting out.

But Refresh, Refresh
is based on a literary short story, and if there’s one thing we all know, it’s
that there’s no getting out of a story like that – it’s all doom and gloom
until the moment-of-clarity ending. So this town is stifling and without any
options, the boys drifting – from backyard boxing to underage drinking in bars
to racing around on motorbikes and sleds – as they rebel without any fathers to
drag them into line. (The narration – presumably taken from the original Percy
story; I don’t want to blame Novgorodoff for any of it – is particularly
heavy-handed in that area, such as this sequence from p.83: “We didn’t fully
understand the reason our fathers were fighting. We only understood that they
had to fight. ‘It’s all part of the game,’ my grandfather said. ‘It’s just the
way it is.’ We could only cross our fingers and wish on stars and hit refresh,
refresh, hoping they would return to us.”)

What they hit “refresh, refresh” on is their e-mail
in-boxes; that scene recurs several times in the story. Oddly, though, it’s the
only incursion of modern technology into a story that could otherwise be
Vietnam-era. They don’t follow their fathers’ platoon on CNN.com or an Armed
Forces website; don’t call each other on cellphones; don’t think about or track
or seem to notice the war on TV or the Internet; even their laptops seem to be
screwed down to tables, for all the moving they do.

Refresh, Refresh is a very traditional story about young men in
small towns; I could probably quote half-a-dozen Bruce Springsteen songs on
roughly the same topic, and with pretty much the same moral and tone. (And that’s
without diving into the world of the realist short story, where kitchen-sink
dramas almost require young men with promise to be squandered.) Novgorodoff
tells this version with a bit too much self-conscious artistry – too many deer
looking up at airplanes, too many of those explaining-the-theme narration boxes
– but she keeps the focus tight and specific, on these three boys and their
world, their choices and possibilities. A story like this is nearly always
about badchoices, though, so it
would be best to come to Refresh, Refresh with a MFA-teacher’s fatalism, and not expect anything so comic-booky
as a happy ending for the boys who punch each other in the face. (more…)

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