Archive for July, 2007
Speaking of stuff you can buy to support your favorite Panelistas…
The first of three Cory Doctorow short story adaptations that I’m doing for IDW (“Anda’s Game”) is being solicited in this month’s Previews for an October release. Wrapped under a Sam “I before E” Kieth cover. You can also check out the solicitation here. Woot!
Cory Doctorow’s Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now #1
Dara Naraghi (w); Esteve Polls (a); Sam Kieth (c)
Writer and BoingBoing.net co-editor Cory Doctorow has won acclaim for his science-fiction writing as well as his Creative Commons presentation of his material. Now, IDW Publishing is proud to present six standalone stories adapted from Doctorow’s work, each featuring cover art by some of comics’ top talents. Up first is “Anda’s Game.” For 12-year-old Anda, getting paid real money to kill the characters of players who were cheating in her favorite online computer game was a win-win situation. Until she found out who was paying her, and what those characters meant to the livelihood of children around the world. Award-winning artist Sam Kieth provides the debut issue’s cover.
Just a reminder that 24seven vol.2 anthology hits shelves tommorow from Image and Ivan Brandon. Retails for about $20 and includes a broad range of 70 contributors. I’m eager to see how it turned out and if our strip ran next to Templesmith. Kidding.
Amazon evaded this book. I looked and it’s a no show yet.
Also coming out tommorow, for real this time, the new Pulphope art book. That I got thru amazon at a 17% off break.
I guess Pope’s THB will be collected in a 4 volume set and one Omnibus by First Second. All this is slated for `09. `08 is his Battling Boy which got bumped from this year’s lineup.
Although many, many people have jumped off the Simpsons bandwagon–not I, it is still a great show after all these years–October 7th will be a day to watch.
Fox announced yesterday that the Oct. 7 edition of The Simpsons will be (well, they didn’t put it this way, but I will) a pure comic-geek bliss-out: The plot is all about our beloved Comic Book Guy (pictured), who gets some competition in Springfield from a new store, “Coolsville Comics & Toys,” run by “hipster” Milo, voiced by Jack Black. What’s even more hipster about this news is that the episode will feature cartoon versions of guest stars Art Spiegelman (Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of Maus), Eightball creator Dan Clowes, and probably the most revered living comics writer, at least among the superhero set: Watchmen creator Alan Moore. No word on whether the voluble, prolific, control-freak Moore will insist on writing his own lines and thereby expand the episode to a special two-hour Simpsons…
From Entertainment Weekly.
I knew about Moore, but Clowes and Spiegelman were a surprise for me. Anyone besides me catching the movie this weekend?
Greeating from the road! The Ferret is coming atcha’ live from the Mile High city of Denver, Colorado. But not even business travel can interfere with the MMGtA tradition. So here’s this week’s page for your guessing enjoyment:
(click image to zaperize)
(previous weeks: 9/12/2005, 9/19/2005, 9/26/2005, 10/3/2005, 10/10/2005, 10/17/2005, 10/24/2005, 10/31/2005, 11/1/2005, 11/2/2005, 11/3/2005, 11/4/2005, 11/5/2005, 11/6/2005, 11/7/2005, 11/14/2005, 11/21/2005, 11/28/2005, 12/5/2005, 12/12/2005, 12/19/2005, 12/26/2005, 1/2/2006, 1/9/2006, 1/16/2006, 1/23/2006, 1/30/2006, 2/06/2006, 2/13/2006, 2/20/2006, 2/27/2006, 3/6/2006, 3/13/2006, 3/20/2006, 3/27/2006, 4/3/2006, 4/4/2006, 4/5/2006, 4/6/2006, 4/7/2006, 4/8/2006, 4/9/2006, 4/10/2006, 4/17/2006, 4/23/2006, 5/1/2006, 5/8/2006, 5/15/2006, 5/22/2006, 5/29/2006, 6/5/2006, 6/12/2006, 6/19/2006, 6/26/2006, 7/3/2006, 7/10/2006, 7/17/2006, 7/24/2006, 7/31/2006, 8/7/2006, 8/13/2006, 8/21/2006, 8/28/2006, 9/4/2006, 9/11/2006, 9/18/2006, 9/25/2006, 10/2/2006, 10/9/2006, 10/16/2006, 10/23/2006, 10/30/2006, 11/6/2006, 11/13/2006, 11/20/2006, 11/27/2006, 12/4/2006, 12/11/2006, 12/18/2006, 12/25/2006, 1/1/2007, 1/8/2007, 1/15/2007, 1/22/2007, 1/29/2007, 2/5/2007, 2/12/2007, 2/19/2007, 2/26/2007, 3/5/2007, 3/12/2007, 3/19/2007, 3/26/2007, 4/2/2007, 4/5/2007, 4/9/2007, 4/16/2007, 4/23/2007, 4/30/2007, 5/7/2007, 5/14/2007, 5/21/2007, 5/28/2007, 6/4/2007, 6/11/2007, 6/18/2007, 6/25/2007, 7/2/2007, 7/9/2007, 7/16/2007)
Optical Sloth has posted a review of the Ineffables tpb, Political Science.
“As a whole, it’s funny, smart and suspenseful, because while we all know how fist fights in comics are going to turn out, how is a fight against a concept going to settle itself? Well worth checking out, unless the whole concept of a super hero team is just too much for you, even one as odd as this…”
My mom’s been cleaning out the old house and that can only mean one thing: buried treasure. There’s a wealth of uber bad stuff and some real gems. In the coming weeks I’ll be posting some of each because this is too good not to. Things I noticed was there was a wealth of Roger Stern, late Carmine Infantino, a complete Crisis collection, an untouched Kirby drawing of Superman, etc. Being as I had no access to a regular comic shop means huge gaps in issues. A suprize for me was alot of Ron Lim and Silvestri books. Some Detective covers done by Scott Hampton. Anyway I’m rambling here. Kicking things off is this lil’ piece of awesome..
My cousin’s husband passed over this one while he was looking for GIJOE comics ( I had already grabbed those five years ago) to ape for his ceramic busts. Who wouldn’t want a ceramic bust done of Emperor Cheney.
The stats aren’t nearly as impressive as now.
More here..
My curiosity got the better of me, and I left with the first couple issues of World War Hulk after my last trip to the comic store. I was actually impressed with the first issue; despite the usual unreasonable amount of splash pages and double page spreads and decompression, it did manage to deliver a good deal of background for those just coming in (like me) and even more story than I expected. I would have anticipated a typical made-for-trade story to be structured in such a fashion as to make the Hulk’s ultimatum upon arriving back on Earth the closing moment of chapter 1; instead, we move on to the first round of battle and get to see Iron Man get his head handed to him before the cliffhanger moment. Of course, it’s a double-sized and double-priced issue, so it had better deliver more story than usual. (Sadly, my impressions of the second issue amount to little more than the typical decompressed waste of money). What really got my attention from that first issue, however, was this:
Here’s the full page ad for Old Spice from the inside back cover of the book:
No, that’s not the part that got my attention. It was merely what explained my puzzlement regarding what I had seen earlier in the book, in this panel as Hulk’s ship arrives in New York, flying past the Old Spice logo (crappy scan here, but it’s legible in the comic):
In this splash page, as hologram-Hulk begins his declaration of war, standing before the Old Spice logo:
At the bottom of the very same page, as citizens of Earth cower before the Old Spice logo:
And here, as Hulk holds up Black Bolt’s battered body in front of the Old Spice logo:
There are bazillions of ads and logos visible in the scene, but only the proud Old Spice banner is clearly written and obviously recognizable. I know this form of product placement has been rampant in movies and television for years, but for some reason I’m disappointed to see it finally turning up in comic books. Has anyone else out there noticed it turning up in other comics, or are we witnessing the beginning of the trend here in WWH?
My biggest concern about this product placement: the advertisement might actually work. At MidOhio Con this fall, the air could reek of fanboys slathered with Old Spice on their way to meet whatever models are appearing at the show.
Watch this video of College Republicans at your own peril. Lots of pull-out-my-cock-and-wave-it-around talk about how “we need to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq so we don’t have to fight them here (TM)”, but when the interviewer asks them why they’re not there fighting, the excuses and hypocricy flow like ichor from Cheney’s diseased heart.
Oh, and the part in the middle about praying to god to make sure you’re not gay is pretty funny too. You know, in a scary sort of way.
Here’s one from way, way out beyond Antares … a 1966 interview with William Shatner, apparently before Star Trek started airing.
It’s great to see him so young, and so committed to the project, back before he was a joke.
He makes a great point about the original Star Trek, in that show really gave you a sense of the frontier. Other Federation ships were rarely seen, and Earth was not in easy radio contact.
“The starship — Enterprise as we call it — is a spaceship patrolling somewhere out there, in the same way the naval vessels in the 18th century patrolled the outer reaches of the empire.”
Watch it here: “It has to do with people, and that’s really what science fiction – true science fiction – is all about.”
I should be able to discern what episode he’s filming by his costume, but I’m sad to say I can’t. Animated Kirk is embarrassed for me.
From fellow PANELista, Tony Goins:
“I read a fair amount of nonfiction. Fiction teaches me how to write, nonfiction gives me something to write about.”
The first review I’ve seen of PANEL’s ninth anthology, Panel 9 from Outer Space, is over at Optical Sloth on the PANEL page. A generally positive review, except for the lack of Kish:
[O]nce again this is a solid anthology all the way through. The lack of a Matt Kish piece is depressing, but it’s a testament to the strength of the rest of these people that that lack wasn’t even noticeable until after I was done reading this issue.
We need to tell Whitey that we all get depressed without Matt’s piece.
During my last trip to my regular comic store, the one with the huge collection of cheap bronze age books, the owner pointed me to a long box he had sitting on the counter. He’d just brought in a bunch of books with 12-15 cent cover prices that were going cheap because of some water damage. I took his advice and moseyed over for a look…
STERANKO??!!?? A perfectly good reading copy of a Steranko Nick Fury for the price of a crappy new World War Hulk?!!? WAAA-HOOOOO!!
I’ve had this in reprint form for a while, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to get an original copy. I keep saying I prefer a simpler cartoony style to my comics—unless your talent is beamed in from a strange alien dimension before being passed to the comic page, as is the case with Steranko. Words fail me to describe the beauty of the guy’s work, so I’ll just make with the pictures before my inner art school dropout makes a fool of me by trying to verbalize this wonderment:
This guy must have been bred in a laboratory, a bizarre hybrid of Kirby and Warhol. Many of these pages look like old school psychedelic rock concert posters, until you get to the bare-knuckled spy thriller action. Nick Fury hops a speeding rocket sled to escape a nuclear bomb before charging into a fistfight with the villain Scorpio, and the roars of combat drown out the Donovan you might have heard playing in the background in earlier pages.
This was a tough book to scan. It’s difficult to zero in on individual panels to highlight because Steranko puts the entire page to work, giving the lucky reader an entire page as a single composition through which the sequential narrative weaves (there’s that asshole art student talking). Check out this page, wherein a down-on-his-luck comedian pays the price for crossing the mob:
It kills me that this stuff is four decades old and no one has come close to crafting anything close to equaling this. It also kills me that I was second in line at that long box and some fool passed this book up.
Steve posted up a nice wrapup vid on Shazam over at his blog. Brief but the way the two of them have approached this is refreshing. Shazam really belongs in his own universe. With a talking tiger dang it! The last installment of Smith’s Shazam hits stores tommorow.
DIY Life launched today. I only say this because I’m seeing one of the contributors. Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Team Venture. DIY courtesy of AOL.