Tagged: comics

Rare Super-Porn Discovered!

  • News
  • March 4, 2009

We just got an email from our old pal, Craig Yoe!. Craig sez:

 

I’d like to tell you about my brand spanking new book and blog. 

 

I recently discovered incredible, previously unknown, fetish art by the creator of Superman, Joe Shuster. The artist and his writing partner, Jerry Siegel, had sold Superman for 130 dollars. When they sued to get the rights back they lost and got drummed out of the comic book industry and Shuster fell on hard times. It was unknown that to get by and/or because of a personal interest in the subject, Shuster then did S&M porn for under-the-counter booklets called "Nights of Horror," sold in Times Square in the early fifties. The back story I uncovered involves the Mob, showgirls, neo-Nazi Jewish juvenile delinquents, inspired by Shuster’s art, known as the Brooklyn Thrill Killers, the famed anti-comic book crusader Dr. Frederic Wertham, Senate investigations, cops on payola, the books being banned by the Supreme Court, teenage girls being horse-whipped in the park, two murders…and dare I say MORE?

 

I have a full color coffee table art book I wrote and designed coming out April 1 (no fooling!) about all this, Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster.The publisher is the number one leading art book publisher in the world, the prestigious Abrams. I’m blogging about the book and revealing lots of rare art and info that didn’t fit in "between the covers."

 

Craig’s too modest to note that his book also sports an introduction by Stan Lee.

 

Considering the fact that, at the time they purchased Superman, one of DC’s owners had been actively engaged in publishing what was considered by the post office censors “pornography,” this is a rather ironic story.

Sadly ironic. 

Interview: The scans_daily moderators

  • News
  • March 4, 2009

livejournal-logo-8165535With all the hullaballo as to what happened to scans_daily, we decided that we should hear from as many of the players as possible, especially the ones who have been silent so far. We’re still waiting on an official statement from LiveJournal, but we have been in contact with two of the moderators from the former scans_daily group, "Stubbleupdate" and "Rabican", and they’ve graciously responded to our questions.

ComicMix: What do you know about the circumstances of the shutdown? Has LiveJournal told you what prompted the shutdown? Were you given any warning, or any ability to address the situation?

Stubbleupdate: I crawled out of bed on Saturday morning (which meant that the community would have been deleted late evening/night on Friday, America time) and saw that my inbox had a lot of LJ friends requests from people on the community. I get that sometimes, but four overnight is unusual. They all wanted to know where the community had gone, which is the first that I had heard of it. A lot can happen in six hours on the internet.

There was also an email from the LJabuse team telling me that the account had been permanently suspended. That was it. LJ tends to take a “Shoot first, ask questions later” approach to getting rid of communities that it’s been told are against its policies or laws, so that part shouldn’t be surprising.

As for correspondence from LJ, they didn’t say what had prompted it, just that it had happened. I don’t expect them to.

Rabican: The shutdown occurred overnight while the mod team was asleep, so we’ve had to pull together the story of the shutdown from multiple accounts. The most likely scenario we’ve surmised is that Peter David reported a group of X-Factor #40 scans to Marvel around the 24th; Marvel complained to Livejournal, and the Livejournal Abuse Team shut us down the night of the 28th (US time). We were given no warning whatsoever and told that the account was permanently suspended. The justification, given by form mail, was that our community existed "primarily to host copyrighted material without the permission fo the copyright holder" and this was against Livejournal’s TOS. We’re still looking into finding out the details of the abuse report made to the LJ Abuse Team.

It’s worth noting that both Livejournal and, I suspect, most of the major comics publishers have known about us for years, so it’s interesting to speculate what prompted them to move against us now. It’s possible Peter David making the report removed all possibility of plausible deniability. Or, Marvel wasn’t nearly as well-informed as we thought they were. We don’t know whether they thought the poster had uploaded most or all of X-Factor #40 rather than the half she did upload, although legally it doesn’t matter. The Peter David situation may have been a coincidence and it wasn’t Marvel at all, but Livejournal doesn’t move against copyright violations without a complaint from the copyright owner, so we know it was a comics publisher.


(more…)

The latest on the Scans_Daily shutdown

  • News
  • March 2, 2009

Well, this has been an entertaining weekend.

To recap: on Friday, the LiveJournal community scans_daily has been suspended for posting copyrighted material without the permission of copyright holders, which is against LiveJournal’s ToS.

Many people, looking for a focus to blame, have taken out their venom on Peter David, bombarding his site with comments, some supportive, some abusive, and pretty much chewing up computer cycles. This has required moving up a planned migration and upgrade to the site, and there’s nothing like doing an upgrade while a comment storm is going on.

(Incidentally, this person is one of the more obnoxious pinheads I’ve come across in a while, whose argument seems to distill to "I was rude to someone I stole things from, so he took back what I’d rightfully stolen, I think, and this makes him a bad man". I suspect this person felt that the three bears had no right to chase Goldilocks away, let alone eat her– especially since she didn’t like two-thirds of the porridge that she ate.)

Further commentary has been brought up by Johanna Draper Carlson and Gail Simone on the "you’re shutting down a free comics site! Bad!" side, Kevin Church and Lisa Fortuner on the "About bloody time" side, and Digital Strips’ Brigid Alverson giving equal time to both.

As for the scans_daily moderators, the best summation seems to be from schmevil. Stubbleupdate has offered to answer questions in an interview; I’ve already sent a list.

 

Marvel ends open submissions policy

  • News
  • February 27, 2009

We received the following statement from Marvel:

Due to an unprecedented number of unsolicited art and writing submissions, Marvel has altered its open submissions policy effective immediately.  Marvel has remained the only major publisher to continue accepting open submissions, however that practice has been halted as we review our strategies for accepting future submissions.
 
Marvel has a proven track record of attracting new and emerging talent and does not plan on ending those efforts in any way.
 
"If you look at our track record over the last 18 months, I think you’ll find the names of more new writers and artists in Marvel books than ever before.  Maybe more than at any other major comic book publisher, as a matter of fact," says Marvel Talent Liaison C.B. Cebulski. "We pride ourselves on finding new voices and artistic styles to help us shape the Marvel Universe in original and exciting ways. And while the hunt for new artistic resources to help us ever expand the Marvel mythos will continue, we’ll just be going about it in different ways. We’ve examined all our past practices concerning talent recruitment and it quickly became clear that more ‘reactive’ methods such as open submissions were the least effective ways to open the Marvel door for up-and-comers. So instead we’ll be continuing with the more ‘proactive’ methods of artist and writer discovery that we’ve found so successful of late, including some soon-to-be-announced new outlets."
 
While the open submissions policy has ceased, Marvel will continue its active recruitment of artists through its Talent Management department.  Artists are also encouraged to bring portfolios for review to the major conventions at which Marvel will have a presence this year.
 
Talent Coordinator for Marvel, Chris Allo adds, "In regards to finding new artists, we in the Talent Management department will still continue to look at online websites such as Deviant Art, Comic Art Community, as well as comic art blogs, and other related sites.  Online comics are rapidly becoming a source for scouting as well.  And, of course, we will still go to the comic book stores on Wednesdays and see what new artists are out there working for other companies and on independent books."                        
 
With the successful discovery and publishing of writers in the fields of comics as well as TV, film and literature, Marvel will continue to search out new voices in all published fields, as we have for the past number of years.
 
As new media and means of publishing comics on the web as well as small and independent press, we encourage all new creators to continue honing their craft by using all of the tools available during this time.  Marvel will be announcing a new submissions policy in the near future.

Let the speculation begin. Is this because Marvel’s been laying off people one at a time, and one of the folks let go was the guy who went through the slush pile of submissions? Is the market full up right now, and Marvel has enough talent to produce the limited number of books they’ll be doing? Have they finally figured out a way to clone Bendis?

And with this door closing, how many other people are just going to migrate to the web and start there, and not need Marvel at all? Don’t forget, Marvel Digital’s chief exec doesn’t think YouTube is a real entertainment channel… despite what Nielsen says.

Do PDF games show how comics can beat the recession?

  • News
  • February 27, 2009

Anyone who has shopped online for a tabletop role-playing game in the past few years is probably aware that many games are now available in a PDF format.  In fact, there are some games and supplements which are entirely PDF. This switch in focus has had its share of controversy, with some people preferring a more traditional bound version of games. However, in tough economic times, PDF is a very affordable way to get the newest game supplements without burning a hole in your wallet.

So, what are the pros and cons of PDF games? How are sales holding up in a struggling economy? What does this mean for the future of gaming and, ultimately, for the future of other forms of printed entertainment? I talked with industry experts Gareth-Michael Skarka (Owner and Director of Adamant Entertainment and  Director of Development and New Media for Cubicle 7), and Sean Patrick Fannon (Marketing, Publisher Relations and Communications Manager for the RPG division of OneBookShelf, Inc. –  which includes DriveThruRPG and RPGNow – and Senior Writer/Designer for Talisman Studios). They have over 30 years of professional game industry experience between them.

When asked about the pros and cons of PDF games, both Skarka and Fannon agreed that the major draw for this format is the instant gratification of having the material you are looking to purchase immediately. They also offered further insight as to why PDF has become such a popular format. Fannon mentioned that “PDFs facilitate information searches so perfectly, both through bookmarking and a straight-up search engine built into the readers. You can selectively print out the pages you actually need, rather than having to have the whole book to lug around. You can fit literally hundreds (even thousands) of books on one laptop or in a data storage device).” Additionally, Skarka pointed out that “PDFs can also move further afield from merely being an electronic version of a physical book, by including sound, video, etc. — this isn’t something which has been explored too much in the market just yet.  People are currently more comfortable with the "e-Book" concept, but once they become more widespread, the lines between the various things that can be distributed digitally (music, video, programs, etc.) will become more and more blurred.”

The lack of a more traditional book format seems to be the main downside to PDF games, says Fannon. “PDFs do not fulfill that primarily psychological desire to hold a book in your hands. People do enjoy the tangible experience of flipping pages, and being able to pull a book out at a coffee shop or other ‘comfort places’ to read through is not something easily done with a PDF. Even if you print one out and put it into a binder, that doesn’t represent the same visceral experience of holding and reading and referencing a printed book.”

In today’s difficult economy, may people are seeking inexpensive forms of entertainment and social gatherings. Gaming, appeals to both of these wants, and can provide hours of socially active entertainment at a relatively low cost. Games in PDF offer even more bang for the buck. Something many people might not realize, is that PDF games are also more financially viable for publishers. Noted Mr. Fannon: “PDF products run much less expensive than print products. Fans can get a great many more games and supplements for their hard-earned dollars, and to be completely honest, game companies make so much more from a PDF sale than they can hope to earn on a printed product, which means more money in the pockets of the creators – thus ensuring guys like me can really afford to make even more stuff for the fans.”

  (more…)

BOOM! ‘Irredeemable’ trailer debuts

BOOM! Studios has debuted the trailer to Irredeemable, Mark Waid’s new ongoing superhero series that premieres this April. Take a look:

 

If you go to the BOOM! website, there’s also a coupon you can give to your comic store, but really, who wants an Irredeemable coupon?

On playing at being DC’s editor-in-chief

  • News
  • February 17, 2009

The Occasional Superheroine herself, Valerie D’Orazio, has an interesting thought experiment going on at her blog:

Play "Fantasy DC EIC" and Redo The DCU!
This is like Fantasy Baseball, but instead of pretending to play a professional sport, you pretend to be the new Editor-In-Chief of the DC Universe.

You come in to the job, and are given carte blanche to totally rearrange the DCU as you see fit. Among your powers:

1. Killing characters and/or bringing them back from the dead.

2. Canceling titles.

3. Starting new titles.

4. Creating events.

5. Hiring talent and editorial.

6. Offering exclusives.

7. Steering the "direction" of characters and books.

8. Creating special projects (movie tie-ins, new initiatives, etc).

My immediate response:

The biggest problems that face DC right now aren’t in Editorial. The structural problems are elsewhere.

Do I get to make changes to other parts of the company as well?

Valerie replied:

If this was real? Probably not. So you have to factor that in.

In a real scenario, any big changes you make to major characters or books or directions have to be signed off on by The Powers That Be.

But isn’t working together fun?

It makes me think that somehow Valerie hasn’t heard the joke:

Q: How many DC Vice-Presidents does it take to change a lightbulb?

Although having worked at DC, she can probably guess the punchline: (more…)

Webcomics You Should Have Read: ‘The Parking Lot Is Full’

  • News
  • February 15, 2009

I beg of you, gentle ComicMix readers… take a journey with me back in time. Step one? Dust off a pair of “wide leg” jeans. Don your favorite pair of Airwalk low-tops. Grow your hair out a little, and put a Pearl Jam Compact Disk into your brand new Diskman. Step Two? Power up your personal computer. You know the one, with that brand new Intel Pentium chip the kids all talk about. Fire up that 14.4 Baud Modem, and hop on that newfangled ‘Information Super-Highway’. Welcome to 1993 folks! Now that you’re here, you should check out a little known webcomic called “The Parking Lot Is Full”.

The brief history on said comic comes from it’s own tombstone, procured from their site instead of that wiki-pedia thing you “next-gen users” all like so much…

 

“From 1993 – 2002, The Parking Lot is Full was the comic strip love child of artist Jack McLaren and writer Pat Spacek. Starting as crude little strips published in their university newspaper, the comic quickly took on a life of its own, eventually becoming one of the most popular and infamous comic strips on the internet. After nine years of ups and downs, the creators decided that they’d said everything they wanted to say, so the comic was wrapped up and all the toys put away.”

 

What made ‘PLIF’ (get used to this folks, cause “The Parking Lot Is Full” takes a while to type) so enjoyable was it’s fascinating combination of Gary Larsen-esque illustrations combined with sharp writing and a touch of the macabre. Unlike several previous recommendations here on ComicMix, ‘PLIF’ had no continuity really to follow. Yes, there are a few reoccurring sock puppets in the later half of the series, but there’s no backstory to follow (well, anymore…). And to be honest, the really juicy strips are true non-sequiturs.

I’ll be frank, folks, this strip features some of the most laugh-out-loud-but-frankly-I-shouldn’t-be-laughing strips I’ve had the pleasure to read for free on the ‘inter-webs’. There’s no need for lengthy exposition on the progression of the art; It’s crude, in gray tones, and unpolished as my car in February. There’s no need to wax poetic about the subject matter; Generally ‘PLIF’ stuck to a cycle of topics including childhood, sex, religion, and conspiracy theories (sometimes in the same strip!). Simply put, if the ‘Far-Side’ was rolled through a plate of broken glass, you’d have “PLIF”. Suffice to say the content can disturb as much as it can inspire fits of laughter… and that’s what I appreciate about it. Now to the cream of the crop (…ahem. WARNING. These Strips Are Not Suitable For Children, and most adults now that I think of it):

 

• Well, this settles an age old debate.
• Safe Sex, by PLIF
• A Failed Experiment, by Ray Croc.
• "I fell out of my chair the first time I saw this"… said my roomate.
• You know it’d be true.
• A lesson from the Street… Sesame Street.
• If this Pre-Dates Animal Man, Grant Morrison should be worried.

So there you have it folks. Kick off the Airwalks, swap that Diskman for an iPod, and plug back into a nice cable modem. This trip back in time is over. Sadly, there is no more strips to be had after you’ve been through their archive. Do yourself a favor though… buy a collection of them in printed form from the ‘PLIF’ store, and show your support for those who dared release this evil into the world.

The Breakdown:

Drama: Well, this is kinda’ dramatic…

Humor: If you don’t find this funny, maybe you’ll find this funny.

Continuity: There’s some Sock Puppets that show up from time to time.

Art: It’s grey, it’s crude, and it’s wonderfully morbid when it needs to be.

Archive: From 1993-2002, you’re looking at quite a few strips. It looks like they didn’t update but several times a month at best… never the less, if you troll through it all, it’s a solid hour or two of fun.

Updates: Unless you suffer from that condition where you still believe it’s 1993-2002… alas, there is no more ‘PLIF’ to be had.

Risk/Reward: As always… it’s free… so there’s little risk involved. Unless you consider reading a strip like this to be dangerous. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Would you buy a 30 page comic for $5?

  • News
  • February 11, 2009

A braintrust question for you, as you rush off to buy your Wednesday fix of comics, and you lament the upcoming price hike from $3 to $4. Please take a second to consider…

The average comic gives you around 22 pages of story and art. And there are a lot of marginal titles out there that probably will be axed. There are also a lot of comics writers and artists without regular assignments and idle time on their hands. Would it be a better deal to bump the price to $5 and raise the page count to 30?

Surely there would be a lot of books this could work for. Spider-Man is already published three times a month, an eight page back up story would be the equivalent of an extra issue a month now.

Or do you think that in this economy, five dollars is just too much for any comic, even one with 30 pages of story and art?

Leave your thoughts on the matter in the comments section, please.

The Point – February 9th, 2009

We are back and barely unpacked from New York ComicCon 2009 and we brought you some surprises already starting with the coolest Comic iPhone app so far, plus DC revives The Doom Patrol yet again,  Mike Gold talks comic economics plus The Five Cool Things in comic shops this week. Not enough? Then wait until you meet The Great Cat!

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