Weekend Reading: Spider-Man, Steve Gerber, John Scalzi and Dr. Goyle
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Conventions, Editorials, Reviews, Independent, Marvel Comics
If you’re at C2E2 this weekend, I hope you’re having a great time. And if you’re not at C2E2, what’s your problem, buddy?
This is the weekend that I close out a lot of tabs and polish off some links that have been in my inbox for a couple of weeks. But if you haven't caught these stories yet, that makes them new, right?
Daniel Best has been on fire lately with his posts on Gary Friedrich and the Archie Comics lawsuits. He’s got another good one up now - a look at the behind-the-scenes backstabbery and finger-pointing surrounding the Spider-Man musical.
I like this political cartoon by Monte Wolverton.
Creator/writer/artist Howard Tayler (Schlock Mercenary) talks about writing, especially sub-plots, and he illustrates his points with comic strips.
Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Spider-Man, Steve Gerber, John Scalzi and Dr. Goyle
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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
Weekend Reading: Borders, Barnes & Noble, Batman & Thor
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Movies, Reviews, DC Comics, Marvel Comics
Borders Books is finding no takers in its quest for a buyer, so unless a miracle happens, they’re probably toast.
So it’s a good thing they paid all those retention bonuses to people who can’t make anything happen for them.
Their main brick-and-mortar competition, Barnes & Noble, is currently looking like the smartest girl in class. They’ve gotten a $1 billion (with a “b”) offer from Liberty Media.
They probably aren’t interested in the books or the stores, but since Liberty has a lot of old school media holdings, the one thing they lack for modern-day exploitation is Nook technology.
Let’s go elsewhere for good reading:
Batman: Want to know a cool digital-only comic you could be reading for just 99¢? DC’s got one: Batman: Arkham City #1 by Paul Dini & Derek Fridolfs and artist Dustin Nguyen.
Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Borders, Barnes & Noble, Batman & Thor
Weekend Reading: Sherlock, Gardner Fox, Atlas Comics and Watchmen
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Interviews, Reviews, Television, DC Comics
It’s all over the internets that the acclaimed business site iCV2 has invoked the “suck” word to describe direct market comic book orders for Q3 2010.
Offering your captive audience books they don’t want and prices they can’t afford no longer seems to be a viable strategy. What lessons will anyone take away from this? Cue another Metamorpho relaunch in 3...2...1...
Let’s see what else is out on the internets...
Gardner Fox: The prolific writer is said to have written more that 4000 comic book stories. He co-created The Sandman, created the concept of Earth-2, wrote Batman, Hawkman, The Flash, Justice Society of America and many, many more. He also had a career as a writer of many so-called “sleaze” paperbacks. Paul Bishop has a nice look at a bunch of them. So many of them in fact, that you might think of the author more as “Gardner Foxy.”
Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Sherlock, Gardner Fox, Atlas Comics and Watchmen
Red: Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Movies, DC Comics
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Gee, what movie should I see this weekend?
I could, of course, see Jackass 3-D because you can never see enough footage of people getting kicked in the balls. And in 3-D it might feel like I'm doing the kicking.
Hereafter looks cool, and I'll get around to seeing that shortly. Conviction has that kind of mid-October Oscar bait feel to it, where everyone is suicidal or finds salvation through tragedy or suffers from a tragic disease yet still finds time to teach us about life. But I'm not falling for that this weekend.
Click to continue reading Red: Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner
When Speaks The Blowhards
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Conventions, Editorials
One of the reasons I like the San Diego Comic Con/Comic Con International so much is that I get to see old friends and co-workers. That happened yet again (what a shock!) at this year’s convention.
Chris Ulm (one of the cofounders of the app company Appy Entertainment) and Dave Olbrich, now at Space Goat Productions, and little old me started talking about comics in the digital age along with the quality of nachos in restaurants surrounding the convention area.
That conversation ended when the sports bar closed, but Chris and I picked it up again on Facebook. Dave had dropped out, but Paul O’Connor, another pal who also co-founded Appy Entertainment and runs their company blog, joined in.
Click to continue reading When Speaks The Blowhards
Weekend Reading: App TV, Scott Pilgrim, Scooby-Doo and Brian Keene
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Interviews, Movies, Reviews, Television, Independent
If you want to know where the future of TV and games is headed, check out this piece at Gaming Business Review by my old buddy Chris Ulm. A co-creator of Rune, co-founder of the Ultraverse (it was his idea), and now the CEO of Appy Entertainment, he thinks a lot about those kinds of things.
This’ll get you started: “The living room right now is a no-man’s land of standards and cables, universally poor and inconsistent user interfaces, huge numbers of channels, multiple boxes of hardware, hated cable companies, and multiple video game systems, each with its own proprietary hardware and expensive software.”
Scott Pilgrim: John Scalzi explains the failure of Edgar Wright’s movie in terms we can all understand: the value of nerd-love.
The Cleveland Show: Tom Spurgeon’s brother interviews voice actor Kevin Michael Richardson, the voice of Cleveland Jr. and countless other characters.
Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: App TV, Scott Pilgrim, Scooby-Doo and Brian Keene
Weekend Reading: Breyfogle, Ellis, Craven, and Spider-Man Sings!
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Movies, Reviews, Independent, Marvel Comics
I can’t believe the Spider-Man musical will hit Broadway on December 21. Are there really enough little old ladies who want to take the bus in from Long Island on a Wednesday afternoon to see an all-singing, all-dancing super-hero? That’s quite a bit different from Starlight Express and Cats, right? My prediction: It’ll close before the Tonys are announced, but then a touring version will criss-cross America for years with Jake Lloyd, Mischa Barton, Gabe Kaplan and Angela Lansbury in key roles.
Now let’s see what else is going on:
Scott Pilgrim I: Over at John Scalzi’s Whatever, guest blogger John Anderson bows down before the triumph that is Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.
Scott Pilgrim II: The Early Word takes a look at how a comic book movie adaptation might help sales of said comic and then delivers a slap to the way DC Comics handles itself. “However, those intrigued by the Green Lantern movie are unlikely to be engaged by the continuity-heavy, you-must-buy-every-single-collection tale like Blackest Night. The folks buying Blackest Night? They are already Green Lantern comics fans.”
Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Breyfogle, Ellis, Craven, and Spider-Man Sings!
Captain Swing by Warren Ellis & Raulo Caceres
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Independent
Yo-ho-ho. If you love your pirates and you’re a little bit burned out by Johnny Depp and the many, many Pirates of the Caribbean, you might be looking for something a little different in the “pirate” category. If you can expand your definition to include Bow Street Runners, flintlocks, and “flying things that aren’t supposed to fly?” then February 2010 has something for you. It’s the start of a new four-issue mini-series by Warren Ellis (Supergod; No Hero) and Raulo Caceres (Gravel; Crecy) from Avatar called Captain Swing And The Electrical Pirates of Cindery Island.
Described as “an electrical romance of a pirate utopia thwarted,” Captain Swing is set in London, 1830. That would be the Warren Ellis London of 1830 in which copper Charlie Gravel starts seeing things, including the legendary Spring-Heeled Jack. I love the Bow Street Runners. They figure prominently in the mystery novels of Bruce Alexander (Blind Justice) and Richard Falkirk (Blackstone), and I’m curious to see what this new incarnation will be like.
This is an Avatar book, so expect some cover variants and a retailer incentive, but best of all, it’s a new Ellis mini-series and I’m looking forward to it.
[Artwork: One of the covers to Captain Swing And The Electrical Pirates of Cindery Island, © Warren Ellis]
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| Avatar Press
Supergod #1: Warren Ellis & Garrie Gastonny
Avatar publisher William Christensen deserves all the kudos he can collect, even the signed, alternate cover, limited edition, convention special kudos. He started out as a fan, became a secondary (or tertiary) sub-distributor with a sharp eye on market trends, and expanded that into a publishing company where talent like Warren Ellis, Jaime Delano, Mark Millar, Garth Ennis and Alan Moore can find a non-Marvel, non-DC home for their more outrageously adult work.
Ellis has made Avatar Press a second-home for himself, regularly turning out original, thoughtful, violent and/or quirky material that I find far more interesting and satisfying than his work for the corporatists. That he and other creators come to Avatar and stick around also speaks highly of Christensen’s ability to not just attract but keep talent.
Now Ellis - with artist Garrie Gastonny - has a new 5-issue mini-series called Supergod. Whatever it is that Ellis is drinking, let me be the latest to say, “I need me a couple of pints of that, yes, please.”
In England, Simon Reddin is relaying “an oral history of how we all died” before he loses power and spends the remainder of his life “in the bloody stone age.” In the events leading up to to that, it’s revealed that London, you see, had its own super-hero, as did India, Somalia and Iran, and the US, and who knows what other country dabbled in the creation of their own Big Daddy Protector And Savior.
Click to continue reading Supergod #1: Warren Ellis & Garrie Gastonny
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