Comic Book Jobs: Checking Out Craigslist
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Dark Horse Comics
Craigslist is like the Match.com of job hunting. Sometimes, you find a partner that’s not too damaged and looks good in the right light, and other times it’s all unemployed fatties still using their yearbook picture for their profile.
You can decide which is which today.
Los Angeles: It may not be the next Captain America or even Cowboys & Aliens, but if you want to be in a super-hero there’s a casting call for The Superluver Project. It’s “a new comic tale of a super-suave superhero and his quest to spread a little love and order around the world.”
Click to continue reading Comic Book Jobs: Checking Out Craigslist
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Weekend Reading: Dark Horse, Tokyopop, Borders, Glut & Apes
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Interviews, Movies, Dark Horse Comics, TokyoPop
So, not a great week for comic book publishers as Tokyopop finally called it quits. If you have a project over there, it's a good time to get a lawyer to look over your contract and see about rights reversion when the publisher goes away without declaring bankruptcy (yet) or getting sold.
Then Dark Horse laid off a bunch of employees, many of them beloved and had been there a long time.
But at least the US Government is stepping in to try to stop Borders executives from looting the stores they’ve already ruined.
Rise: I love the way the new Planet of the Apes comic book from Boom! is looking. The Scoop has a sneak preview of the first issue, on sale April 27.
Victor: Here’s a great interview with writer Don Glut that’s mostly about Frankensten. “Why don't I do a series of Frankenstein novels that would be based on the movies and all of these other things? In each one I would bring in some other character from fiction or whatever. I would create this whole Frankenstein universe.”
Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Dark Horse, Tokyopop, Borders, Glut & Apes
Michael Chabon & The MacDowell Colony
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Dark Horse Comics
Michael Chabon, who will always be a nerd favorite for his book The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay (and its spinoff Dark Horse comic book The Escapist), has gotten himself a new gig.
The Pulitzer Prize-winner will take over as the chairman of The MacDowell Colony's board of directors.
He replaces the outgoing chairman, Robert MacNeil, who’s been there since 1993. If that sounds surprising, it shouldn’t. Chabon is a nine-time MacDowell Colony Fellow.
But what is The MacDowell Colony, and doesn’t it sound like an M. Night Shyamalan movie? It’s an artist residency program that’s been going since 1907, headquartered on a “450-acre woodsy estate in Peterborough, N.H.”
Creative types can apply to go up there for a month at a time, give or take, and just devote themselves to their own creativity and see what pops out.
Lunch is delivered to your door, and you don’t have to interact with anyone until dinner. And the program is free if your application is accepted.
Click to continue reading Michael Chabon & The MacDowell Colony
Wildstorm: Gen 13 #1 @ 299,000 Copies (1995)
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, DC Comics, Image Comics, Independent
Wildstorm – the once-formidable imprint of DC Comics - is officially shutting down this month and that makes me sad.
I have friends who work there (many of whom I'm happy to say are staying on to work for the corporate parent), but I was also present at its fairly official formation.
I was sitting in Marc Silvestri's beachfront apartment in Malibu, attending a meeting of the Image founders while they were putting together what would become Image Comics. I was there as a representative of Malibu Comics along with Malibu Publisher Dave Olbrich and Editor-In-Chief Chris Ulm.
Image was represented by Silvestri, Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, Jim Valentino, Jim Lee, and Whilce Portacio. Hank Kanalz was also there. He was Rob's co-writer on the soon-to-be published Youngblood #1, and years later eventually became the head of Wildstorm. (I have a photo of Hank videotaping the meeting so there's archival footage lurking somewhere.)
Dave and Rob had known each other for years, and if you corner Dave at a convention, he can tell you the story of how Malibu nearly published a version of Youngblood #1 years before the formation of Image, and before Rob started working for Marvel.
Image had scheduled several meetings at the beach that day and Malibu Comics was the first one. The publisher of Wizard, Gareb Shamus, would later drop by, as would Harold Anderson from Anderson News, the newsstand distributor.
Click to continue reading Wildstorm: Gen 13 #1 @ 299,000 Copies (1995)
Comic Book Jobs: Dark Horse
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Dark Horse Comics
Do you want to work where it rains a lot? That would be Milwaukie, Oregon in the Pacific Northwest, home to Dark Horse Comics, publishers of various Star Wars and Hellboy titles, and hundreds of others. (I recommend John Jackson Miller’s Star Wars: Knight Errant, issue #2 is on sale now.)
They’re looking for a couple of people, and one or both of them could be you.
First up is a Marketing Coordinator for their Digital Store. You’ll be managing their promo work for their digital comics, y’know, the future, and working closely with Marketing and Sales to make it all happen.
This includes writing copy, managing promotions and discounts, and developing the all-important blogging and social networking posts that make everyone seem like one big happy family. (Hint: Look at how Chris Ryall at IDW does it.)
You gotta be familiar will all the usual buzzwords like Google Analytics, SEO, A/B Testing, and so on. But it’s a job with a future.
Click to continue reading Comic Book Jobs: Dark Horse
Weekend Reading: Bill Finger, Mighty Samson, The Shadow & Valerian
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Movies, Reviews, Dark Horse Comics, DC Comics, Independent, Marvel Comics
Thank you internets, you’ve been great this week. So let’s share that bounty with others:
Mighty Samson: Writer J.C. Vaughn has a preview of Mighty Samson #1 at his blog. Shooter’s involved, Patrick Olliffe is the artist. Dark Horse is the publisher. I’m in!
Here’s a little more about the series at Comic Attack.
Shadow: Novelist James Reasoner has a Forgotten Book that’s a must have for fans of Maxwell Grant’s The Shadow: Gangland's Doom: The Shadow of the Pulps, by Frank Eisgruber Jr.
British Comics: Matthew Murray at Comics Beat goes all out for the new Dandy and breaks down its contents.
Peanuts: Zach Weiner finally lets Charlie Brown kick that football.
Peppers: Mark Evanier lives the sitcom life.
3-D: Ricky Sprague at Project Child Murdering Robot tells how Marvel Comics (in 3-D!) turned him into an atheist. Bonus: 3-D artwork on the internets!
Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Bill Finger, Mighty Samson, The Shadow & Valerian
Comic Book Jobs: Comixology
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Dark Horse Comics, DC Comics, Image Comics, Marvel Comics
Remember that whole digital thing that’s supposed to knock off the printed comic book? Oh wait, that’s still happening!
If you want to be part of the industry now that we’ve passed “peak comic book,” ComiXology the “digital comics leader” is looking for a couple of new people.
First up is a LAMP Developer, someone with “2+ years of experience with Linux, Apache, mySQL and PHP. Additional experience with AJAX/JavasScript/HTML5 (jQuery), XML, HMTL, XMLRPC, SOAP and other development environments is preferred.”
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Star Wars: Knight Errant #1
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Reviews, Dark Horse Comics
John Jackson Miller is a friend of the blog. I've known him since he used to work for Krause Publications and edited Comics Retailer magazine for them. He knows more about comic book circulation figures than any person alive, and can tell you how many copies Jughead sold relative to Batman in any month back in 1965.
He's also a Star Wars junkie, and he's written a lot of licensed comic books and novels that prove that. Now he's got a new comic book series, Star Wars: Knight Errant, and the first issue is out from Dark Horse right now. At his Star Wars blog, JJM describes the series as "breaking new ground…with stories set a generation before the Darth Bane novels -- a time when Jedi are few and Sith Lords are many." The series will also introduce a new female Jedi, 18-year-old Kerra Holt.
Miller, who also wrote the Knights of the Old Republic series, said at the Star Wars official website, "Knight Errant asks what it means to be a Jedi outside the Republic, in a time and place where no other hope exists."
Artwork for the new series is by Federico Dallocchio.
Click to continue reading Star Wars: Knight Errant #1
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Warner Bros. Comics & Stories
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Movies, Television, DC Comics, Marvel Comics
Well, at least Batman will still be published out of New York!
I’m no pundit and I’m certainly no reporter or journalist, and I’m not even a DC insider, although I should point out that before Paul Levitz bought Wildstorm, he tried to buy the company I co-founded, Malibu Comics.
I was saddened, though not surprised that Warner Bros. was splitting DC Entertainment into two divisions and keeping all their old school business in Manhattan. My sympathies go out to all DC employees who are getting let go and to all freelancers who are getting their books cut out from under them. This is not an easy time, and it’s not going to get easier.
I think lost in all the discussion and rundown of DC’s recent shift is that the biggest piece of the puzzle has yet to be explained or admitted to. Warner Bros. which folded DC Comics into a new company called DC Entertainment just a year ago, now took DC Comics out of that company and moved DC Entertainment – along with all of the money-making portions of the company – to the West Coast.
DC Comics, the comic book division, is now its own stand-alone entity. An island of old-school publishing left without its support network. This has been hailed as a victory for the comic book people.
It isn’t. It’s a wake up call.
Click to continue reading Warner Bros. Comics & Stories
Q&A: Jim Beard, Batman & Gotham City 14 Miles
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Interviews, Television, DC Comics
If you’re a fan of the 1960s Batman TV show starring Adam West and Burt Ward, then you already know what that phrase means. It’s the sign you see denoting the distance from the Batcave to Gotham City. Wayne Manor was way out in the 1960s suburbs! Gotham City 14 Miles is much more than that, however. It’s also the title of a new book edited by Jim Beard whose full title is Gotham City 14 Miles: 14 Essays On Why The 1960s Batman TV Series Matters. Essayists include Beard, comics historians Peter Sanderson and Robert Greenberger, and a host of people whose names are being revealed one at a time.
The book will be published by the Sequart Research & Literacy Organization a “non-profit devoted solely to the study and promotion of the artistic and literary medium alternately known as comics, comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, manga, sequential art, and sequart.”
Beard says Gotham City 14 Miles is the first book on the old Batman TV series in over 10 years, and I say it’s about time. The book will examine the 1966-68 TV series and “quantify its worth and weight in current pop culture. It also intends to shoot down many of the cliches, falsehoods and outright misinformation about the show and illuminate its strengths and, yes, its weaknesses.”
Click to continue reading Q&A: Jim Beard, Batman & Gotham City 14 Miles
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