Weekend Reading: Before Watchmen, Mark Waid, Pogo & Ultraverse
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Reviews, DC Comics, Image Comics, Marvel Comics
Welcome, weekend warriors! The internets have released a bounty of digital delights, so let's check 'em out!
John Rogers (Leverage) talks about his role in Mark Waid’s digital comics venture, and also talks about digital comics in general. John's a very smart guy, so he's well worth listening to.
One of my favorites, SF author Jay Lake (Rocket Science; Mainspring), is profiled in the Sunday Oregonian.
Over at John Scalzi’s Whatever, author Justin Jordan writes about the trade collection of his Image comic, The Strange Talent of Luther Strode, inspired by those Charles Atlas ads in old comics. After reading about it, it’s now something I need to get.
Heidi nails what’s going on over at Disney, with link to Nikki Finke.
David Brothers nails Before Watchmen. I love the phrase “ethical rot.”
Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Before Watchmen, Mark Waid, Pogo & Ultraverse
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Weekend Reading: Watchmen, Shazam!, Archie and Image
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Conventions, Editorials, Movies, Reviews, DC Comics, Image Comics, Marvel Comics
Watchmen! Shazam! Archie! Oh my goodness! Could a weirder week get any weirder? Oh, it can. It’s only February.
Here’s a few things to read until the Super Bowl fever hits you and, oh, wait. No one reading this cares about sports!
Well, of course DC was going to do Watchmen prequels and create more Watchmen-related graphic novels. The series will never be considered out-of-print (and now with online availability, you can get it digitally 24/7/365 so it will truly be “in print” in perpetuity). Since it’s a thing that can’t be stopped, I wish the creators well and I wish the original creators well as well (and hope they’re being compensated for the reuse of their creations). Forbes, the journal of the 1% weighs in with the “It can’t be wrong if everyone’s doing it” argument. Although Before Watchmen has to be one of the least grabby titles in modern comics history.
Michael Cavna at Comic Riffs, the Washington Post blog, collects various opinions on the coming new era of Watchmen prequels.
Here’s the Daily Beast on the behind-the-scenes soap opera at Archie. Once you realize that this is all about controlling the privately-held company, it starts to fall into place.
Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Watchmen, Shazam!, Archie and Image
Marineman by Ian Churchill
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Conventions, Editorials, Image Comics
This year, 2011, was no exception.
Of all the things I picked up at the various booths, there was one that really stood out for me and I stumbled across it by accident while lurking around the Image Comics area.
Marineman: A Matter Of Life And Depth by Ian Churchill (Cable, Deadpool, The Coven).
Churchill had a spot to himself and was selling trades, individual issues, and sketches.
He’s a charming, affable guy who genuinely believes in his story and his work.
He handsold me on the trade - I’d only heard of the in passing and yet I gladly handed over the $15 to get a copy.
Click to continue reading Marineman by Ian Churchill
Brent Anderson: Astro City Art Theft
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Image Comics
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This was posted on Facebook and I’m reposting it here to help get the word out.
Artist Brent Anderson had his car broken into at the San Diego Zoo this week and a whole pile of his original art was heisted by the thieves.
Pages are from Astro City Vols. 1 & 2 & Local Heroes; Astro City: Dark Age Books 1 (#s 1-4), 2 (#s 1-4) & 3 (#s 1-4).
Keep an eye out and if you see them on the market via eBay or Craigslist or at conventions, please contact Brent immediately.
Also, the thieves might be dopes and not realize how hard it is to dump stolen original comic art without the whole of the internets finding out, so comic book shops, flea markets and pawn shops should also be wary.
Additional details can be found at the Comic Book Resources forums.
[Art: Astro City: Dark Age; cover by Alex Ross, not one of the missing pieces, but it's dramatic]
April Fools: Boom!, DC, Marvel and Captain America
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, DC Comics, Image Comics, Marvel Comics, TokyoPop
It’s April 1, and I think we all know what that means:
Because of the declining sales of single issue comics, “Floppies” will now be referred to as “Limpies.”
Boom! Studios has announced another new title for Kaboom! their kids imprint: The Kardashikins, the wacky adventures of Kim, Kourtney and Khloe when they were children.
Based on its recent cutbacks, cancellations and layoffs, L.A.’s largest manga publisher will change its name to Tokyoplop.
Marvel is so concerned about piracy that for the new Thor movie, they’ve banned The Recorder from the premiere.
To take advantage of product placement in the new Captain America movie, the Red Skull will be called Red Bull.
Image Comics has announced a spin-off to last year’s Officer Downe: Officer Downe Syndrome.
Click to continue reading April Fools: Boom!, DC, Marvel and Captain America
R.I.P. Wizard Magazine
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Image Comics, Wizard Entertainment
Okay, who had Comics Buyer’s Guide in the Last Comics News Magazine Standing pool?
CBG is now the longest-running continuously published comic book magazine and they’ve survived all comers. Overstreet’s Fan, Hero Illustrated, The Comic Reader, The Mirkwood Times, The Comics Journal, and now Wizard.
In case you haven’t heard the news, Wizard Magazine officially shut down last week, sending its staff packing.
Wizard was lucky - they caught the wave of the 1990s comic book bubble and the launch of Valiant and Image and then helped increase that bubble (Gareb was at the first official meeting of the Image Comics founders at Marc Silvestri’s Malibu beach house way back in the early 1990s).
Once the gravy train of million-selling comics derailed, and the internet took away the need for a news magazine, Wizard’s been struggling to remain a viable publication. Watching them flail around for the past decade has not been pretty. I knew a couple of good people who worked for the magazine in those early years and they've long since gone onto other things.
Click to continue reading R.I.P. Wizard Magazine
Annie Awards: 2010 Nominations
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Movies, Television, DC Comics, Image Comics, Marvel Comics
ASIFA-Hollywood announced their nominations for the 38th Annual Annie Awards this past week.
The essential animation blog, Cartoon Brew, has a complete list of the nominations.
If you like controversy, be sure to read the comments, too!
A couple of people with comic book connections popped up on the list of nominees.
Stephen DeStefano, artist on Lucky In Love from Fantagraphics, is up for Character Design in a Television Production for his work on the Cartoon Network series Sym-Bionic Titan.
Phil Hester and Andy Kuhn’s Image Comic Firebreather, the Cartoon Network original movie that aired at the end of November, got itself two nominations. In the category Production Design in a Television Production, Barry Jackson is one of the nominees. In the category Directing in a Television Production, director Peter Chung was nominated as well.
Click to continue reading Annie Awards: 2010 Nominations
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)
Wikileaks: Comic Book Secrets
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Conventions, Image Comics, Independent, Marvel Comics
If you took the time to read through the nearly 250,000 documents released this week via Wikileaks, you’d find a comic book connection in several of them. We at Comix 411 have nothing but free time and did the heavy lifting for you. Here are the comic book-related highlights from the document dump:
When visiting with US President Barack Obama, the CIA codename for Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is “Bucky.”
Interrogators at Guantanamo routinely asked prisoners to choose: Betty or Veronica?
Supreme Leader of North Korea Kim Jong Il sometimes dresses up as Wildcat before he tours a factory. In other news, North Korea still has factories.
Click to continue reading Wikileaks: Comic Book Secrets
Firebreather: Phil Hester, Andy Kuhn And Peter Chung
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Movies, Television, Image Comics
November looks like it was quite the month for Phil Hester (and Andy Kuhn).
It began with the announcement that writer J. Michael Straczynski would be stepping down as the writer of Wonder Woman (and Superman) for DC Comics. That same announcement was accompanied by the notice that Phil Hester would be the new writer on WW, effective with Wonder Woman #605. Sweet.
On November 24 (this week, by the way, mark your calendars), Cartoon Network is debuting a brand new animated movie based on Firebreather, the Image Comics series Hester co-created and writes for artist and co-creator Andy Kuhn to draw.
Writing at his blog, Kuhn posted of the film: “It's incredible. I knew the story and I still got caught up.” It’s nice to see creators pleased with an adaptation of their work!
If you want a peek, check out this Firebreather trailer at the Cartoon Network website. The movie was written by Jim Krieg (Ben 10, Batman: The Brave And The Bold) and directed by Peter Chung (Aeon Flux; Animatrix). It looks like something we all need to be checking. Make the appointment, old-school style with your TV or just set the DVR.
Click to continue reading Firebreather: Phil Hester, Andy Kuhn And Peter Chung
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