Archive for December, 2007
A few days ago, I finished reading Joe Hill’s 20th Century Ghosts, and I can’t get the stories out of my head. From a romance on the set of George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead to the title story, a classic ghost story, and from a superhero story with a twist, to the most unsettling story I’ve read in years, “My Father’s Mask,” there isn’t a dog among them.
Hill’s influences are obvious—Ray Bradbury, The Twilight Zone, any number of horror movies, and Hill’s famous writer father, Stephen King—but the stories never seem derivative of any other work. Rather, they are all engaging, and even when I had a feeling I knew what was going to happen next, I still kept turning pages to see how it would all turn out.
Joe Hill also wrote a Spider-Man story, “Fanboyz” in Spider-Man Unlimited #8 illustrated by Seth Fisher, and has a comic series, Locke and Key forthcoming for IDW.
Pick it up
Out today, the second of my 3 adaptations of Cory Doctorow short stories for IDW. Cory Doctorow’s Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now #3 adapts “Craphound”, featuring the gorgeous art of Paul McCaffrey, under a cover by Paul Pope:
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And solicited in this month’s Previews catalog, shipping February 2008, is my adaptation of “I, Robot” in Cory Doctorow’s Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now #5. Interior art by Erich Owen, under a cover by Ashley Wood (sorry, cover art not yet available.)
So tell your store to order plenty of copies: Diamond order code DEC07 3753.
Heh. Ok, after this morning’s false start, here’s a page where the artist’s name isn’t on the scan (D’oh!)
Guess away:
(click image to urbanize)
(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, 7/23/2007, 7/30/2007, 8/6/2007, 8/13/2007, 8/20/2007, 8/27/2007, 9/3/2007, 9/10/2007, 9/17/2007, 9/24/2007, 10/1/2007, 10/8/2007, 10/15/2007, 10/22/2007, 10/29/2007, 11/5/2007, 11/12/2007, 11/19/2007, 11/26/2007, 12/3/2007)
My ebay auction’s got 6 hours left to go today. Up for bid are sketches of Deadman, Thor, Batman & Catwoman, Hulk and Mr. Miracle. Beginning `round $30-$35 bucks.
Apparently Will Ferrell was in town this past Thursday at the Value City Arena as part of his “Funny or Die Comedy Tour”. Here’s a bit from his website:
And I don’t know why this video made me laugh so much…I think it’s the cocky self-congratulatory posing after each high five. Stupid, but strangely funny.
I happened across a couple of new art blogs: David Choe and Bwana Spoons. Love that rascal Choe. He’s one crazy bastard. I’ve enjoyed Bwana’s surreal surfer imagery since I ran into him at SPX ages ago. If I’m ever in Portland, checking out Grass Hut will be on my list.
Over at Roy G. Biv gallery this month, they’re doing a poll between Damon Zex and Zachary Allen Starkey.
They made up a stack of prints of each one, and to vote you take one of the cards. The guy with the fewest left at the end of the month is the winner.
As you can see, I went old-school in my vote.
I just called Roy G. Biv, and they said Starkey was ahead. Go in and represent the mid-1990s!
Whitey over at Optical Sloth reviewed PANEL: Music today. Although it was our sixth book (PANEL X just came out a few weeks ago), it somehow got lost in the shuffle and is just getting reviewed now.
Overall I didn’t think it was the strongest Panel of the bunch, but it’s up against some pretty tough competition and there’s still plenty here to recommend it, particularly the first and last stories and the Craig Bogart piece.
Personally, this is my favorite book of the series. I love the packaging and feel everyone brought their A-game to these stories. As always, you can your grubby hands on a copy through the Ferret Press store.
Marvel Team-Up #4
I don’t know how this book ended up in a 50 cent bin at MidOhio, but I certainly wasn’t going to argue with the guy behind the table. I remember this story from one of those oversized treasury editions Marvel used to put out back in the day before trade paperbacks. This was my first exposure to the X-Men, whose own book was in reprint at the time this issue came out; Wolverine was still a minor Hulk villain and the mutants wear their old school uniforms in the story (briefly) to reflect how they appear in their own comic rather than the Neal Adams models. Anachronistically, the Beast doesn’t appear, as he’s still in hiding rather than show his friends he’s gone all blue and furry.
I said they wear the school uniforms briefly—only when the characters are being introduced. In the next scene they show up looking like a mutant mod squad. Cyclops projects cool with his dark glasses and suit, while Iceman sports the unbuttoned-to-the-naval shirt and big medallion. Angel appears in this scene in his own suit, but throughout the rest of the book wears only a pair of dockers as he flies barefoot and bare-chested. The group rides into battle this issue in these getups, and as dated as they are it strikes me as more edgy than the leather-jacketed biker outfits they have tended to wear recently. I’d like to see them switch back to this look; Wolverine could choose between the necktie or the big medallion.
Here’s the story:
1) Spider-Man is ill, having contracted a blood-borne disease from his last dustup with Morbius, the living vampire. While tracking down a scientist who might help, he discovers that Morbius has already kidnapped the man, and gets blamed for the crime himself. Turns out the scientist is an old colleague of Professor X, who assembles his students to track down Spider-Man and rescue the missing scientist. The mutants confront the wall-crawler…
2) …and a type 7 “superhero misunderstanding battle” breaks out. Check out this handful of panels wherein every single character gets to demonstrate their powers for any new readers who aren’t familiar with them. That’s excellent storytelling on the part of Gil Kane (we can thank writer Gerry Conway for the excellent dialogue: “Use your eyes! Your eyes!”). Before the fight concludes, Spider-Man collapses from his illness and is hauled back to Westchester, where Xavier figures out that he has mere hours to live unless the X-Men can track down Morbius and create a vaccine.
1) Morbius has holed up with his victim in an abandoned building somewhere. He originally hoped the man might help cure his condition, but now he’s having second thoughts and might just open his jugular. He gives the scientist a break, choosing instead to go kill a couple muggers (his crime apparently being lessened because these were bad people to begin with). His victims cry out loud enough to draw the attention of Angel who is searching nearby, and the X-Men roar onto the scene sqealing the tires of their sports car to confront the vampire.
2) The big issue-ending fight breaks out as Morbius makes short work of the mutants and comes across as far more evil than in any other book I’ve seen him in. He gets the drop on everyone except the ultra-cool Cyclops, who in 1972 could reflect his eye beams off of mirrors to take out an enemy. Xavier probes Morbius’ mind for the location of the missing scientists and the gang makes it back to the mansion in time to develop a cure for Spider-Man.
Why have I numbered the segments in this fashion? Because that’s how a modern writer would break the story down to stretch it over four issues and rip off the readers paying for the series. This is another of those super-compressed issues that I love, an engaging, multi-layered read that makes you feel like you’ve been away for a while when you close the covers, the kind that emphasizes story content rather than giving you twenty pages of mood and atmosphere and little forward momentum. I spent fifty cents for a story a new series would charge about twelve bucks for—and I’ll wager the artist would be no Gil Kane.
I’m as happy as Spider-Man himself by the end of this story, but I can’t thank his rescuers in the same fashion he does: here he is delivering a personal message to Jean Grey. Gwen Stacy still has a few months to live over in Amazing Spider-Man, but Peter Parker is already showing a preference for the redheads.
Here I was going to post on this today, but Andy beat me to it… Nevertheless, I’ll post Sim’s paragraph on Political Science since I had to do some serious hunting to find it on his blog:
“THE INEFFABLES: POLITICAL SCIENCE trade paperback is by Craig Bogart, another member of the Panel Collective (Tom Williams helps out with the cover colour and Dara Naraghi does the lettering on “Political Asylum”). If you’re a) an atheistic secular humanist and b) a fan of early 60s Marvel Comics, this collection is for you. The Ineffables are Chet Burnett, a sometime journalist, Mason, a scientific genius animated Easter Island head, Clarity, a living piece of artwork, and the reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln (who joins in the course of the “Patriot Act” storyline). It really is extreme leftist/atheistic stuff but it’s very, very funny. Funny enough that I’ll forgive Craig for misappropriating a Republican President for his shenanigans! Check it out at http://www.theineffables.com/”
I’ll admit that given what I know of his, er, political views I’m surprised he took to my satire so well. I figured Dirty Cop would be more up his alley.
Dave Sim has posted a capsule review of PANEL: TRAVEL on his blog yesterday (December 4). I can’t quite tell if it’s a good or bad review… but I think he likes me, anyway 
Those wacky Columbus, Ohio Panel guys get me every time. PANEL TRAVEL FALL 2005 TWO DOLLARS. What does this look like? I know this format. It’s a passport!
They’ve done a mini-comic the exact size and shape and texture as a U.S. Passport. Get it? Special Travel Issue – and it looks like a passport? 9 stories by the usual suspects. I’ll give Dara Naraghi and Andy Bennett the nod this time out for “best of show” with “Bystander”.
Update from Dara:
He’s apparently reviewing all the Day Prize entries. Here’s what he had to say about fellow PANELista Tom Williams:
“Tom Williams who was a Day Prize Recipient for MISA is back with a digest, S.P.B.:RISE. It’s a gorgeous piece of work but he’s (personal opinion) going esoteric to the point of incomprehensible but I can’t fault that any more than I can fault the guys whose drawing chops just aren’t there but whose stories are interesting enough that I don’t even really notice. I can and have spent a lot of pleasurable time flipping through Tom’s work. This time out he’s working in black-and-white, sepia tones and sepia variant tones with the occasional splash of green or pink or blue. The original strip (reprinted in the back) is really more of an infernal riff on PEANUTS than anything else. Tom admits to getting “weirded out by the possibility of it getting lumped in with the whole `goth comic’ racket.” The part I liked the best was his profile of each of the characters in the back. Check out Tom’s work at www.opencrashcomics.com. You should know within a few mouse clicks if he’s your cup of tea or not.”
Check out this very clever, kick ass animation my coworker told me about: Animator vs. Animation. It’s by a guy named Alan Becker, and apparently it took him 3 months to do.
I was telling a couple of the Panel guys about this Image one-shot I heard about a few weeks ago. Now, CBR has an interview with the creators of the comic Mister Universe: Greek comics authors K.I. Zachopoulos (co-writer) and Vassilis Gogtzilas (co-writer, artist)
The art has a bit of the Steve Black vibe to it, don’t you think? Anyway, the book comes out in January and sounds cool. Plus, it’s only a one-shot, so it’s not a huge monetary investment to try. Looking forward to this.