Archive for September, 2010
We here at the Ferret Press/PANEL blog are big fans of Canadian cartoonist James Stokoe. He draws, pretty, pretty things that are insanely detailed beyond the point of awesomeness.
Even this roller coaster spot illo for a Wired mini-article:
(via ComicsAlliance)
Sorry, we’re running behind again. Anyway, I picked Hawkman as this week’s character, and here are the contributions:
Dara Naraghi:
Steve Black:
Andy Bennett:
Brent Bowman:
Tom has picked next week’s character to be…er, either Black Lightning or Dirty Cop*.
*Dirty Cop Copyright and (TM) Craig Bogart.
Since Craig’s schedule has been pretty busy of late, I thought I’d go ahead and post a page for this new feature that he started here on the blog. So here’s this week’s splash page, from New Mutants #19 (Sept. 1984), by Bill Sienkiewicz:
Having shed his Neal Adams influence (as showcased in the Moon Knight comics), Bill grew into his own in the pages of New Mutants. His painted covers for the book, combined with his decidedly non-Marvel house style interiors, really made this a book that transcended its X-Men spin-off origins. This is from the second chapter of the “Demon Bear” saga.
I saw this in this week’s The Other Paper: local Columbusite Victor Dandridge wants to gut an ice cream truck and rebuild it as a mobile comic book store to service the city’s under-served South side. I honestly don’t know how sound of a business plan that is, but as far as “thinking outside the box,” it’s a hell of an idea! Plus, any time someone wants to get kids reading comics, I’m all for it.
“I want to bring the comics to the kids, instead of the other way around,” he said.
Bonus: in order to raise the $2500 he needs to get his business off the ground, he’s running a fun little fund raiser called Super Kickball.
Super Kickball, in case you’re wondering, is an event Dandridge concocted that combines kickball and superheroes. The twist is that the rules for each round will be inspired by a different comic book character.
Different rounds will be based on different character-derived rules, such as Bizarro and Multiple Man.
This article made me very happy!
It’s the weekend again, which means it’s time for our (mostly) regular feature where we showcase comic book crossovers. The cool, the weird, the atrocious…it’s all here. We’ve been going strong for 68 posts so far.
This weekend: the parody comic Mr. Monster vs. Gorzilla.
The masthead on the cover reads: “Honored readers: please to save precious yen for real Godzilla. This unworthy parody is so shameful. So sorry.”
Yikes. Is it just me, or does anyone else get a slightly weird vibe from that?
Coming from the Golden State, Steve chooses … Ghost Rider!
Also, Steve provided a bonus animated Ghost Rider gif!
First up is Boisterous Brent Bowman:
Andy Bennett brings you … Sad Ghost Rider!
Tony Goins makes it totally deck with Hipster Ghost Rider!
Then Steve Black brings the show-stopper!
(edit by Dara: I uploaded Steve’s amazing animated gif to the server, so it should show below. If you don’t see the animation, try refreshing the page)
Tune in next week for Hawkman — because Dara demands it!
Over at College Humor, artist Caldwell Tanner asks What if Superheroes Were Hipsters?
(via ComicsAlliance)
Well, the December solicitations are out and I can officially announce my debut DC work: an 8-page story in the DCU Holiday Special 2010 anthology. My tale features The Spectre and is set in Iran during Norooz, the Persian New Year. Here’s a look at the cover by Matt Haley:
And here’s the official solicitation text:
DCU HOLIDAY SPECIAL 2010 #1
Written by DAN ABNETT & ANDY LANNING, SETH ALBANO, TONY BEDARD, JOEY CAVALIERI, KEVIN GREVIOUX and DARA NARAGHI
Art by RENATO ARLEM, ROBERTO CASTRO, RICHARD & TANYA HORIE, CARLO SORIANO and more
Cover by MATT HALEYFrom the dawn of time (Anthro) to the far-flung future (Legion of Super-Heroes), sentient life has honored the winter holidays with celebrations and rituals as diverse as the universe itself! Join DC Comics – and a stellar team of writers and artists – to honor the vast and diverse holidays of the DC Universe in 6 tales of holiday cheer! Starring the aforementioned characters along with Superman, The Spectre, Jonah Hex, and Green Lantern John Stewart for a HOLIDAY SPECIAL like no other!
On sale DECEMBER 8 * 56 pg, FC $4 .99 US
I don’t know yet who will be drawing my story, but as soon as I do I’ll post it.
I thought it appropriate to follow up the Vampirella post from Friday with another book feature the venerable character, and this one doesn’t go all “pants” on us: Lady Death vs. Vampirella II.
Although, now that I look at it, I don’t remember Vampirella’s costume having a long black stripe down the side of her legs, connecting her thong to her thigh-highs. Weird. And check out how tiny and awkwardly bent her left foot is. Poor girl.
And yes, that’s “II”, as in 2, as in the second time these ladies have clashed. That’s how popular their first monumental meeting was.
But wait, that’s not all! This comics clash was so huge, so important, so highly anticipated by the comic fans that Chaos Comics printed a special preview book to quell their hunger and meet their insatiable demand for bad girl fights:
Yes, there’s a Lady Death vs. Vampirella II Preview Book.
Once again, I weep for the 90s.
This headline on Newsarama made me laugh: Artist Gives VAMPIRELLA Pants For Dynamite
So Dynamite is publishing yet another relaunch of the original bad girl of comics, Vampirella. But in order to be taken seriously (I guess) they’ve decided to move away from her iconic porn star costume and give her pants! Here’s a page from series artist Wagner Reiss:
But nerds and pervs need not fret. She’ll still look like this on the cover:
…and this (in case you forgot what the bac of her costume looked like):
But hey, nice try at giving lip service to feminism or political correctness or whatever it is you’re trying to do, Dynamite.
Yes, as a card-carrying nerd, and child of the 80s, I was a Dungeons & Dragons player. I was also a huge fantasy fan, and of course, comic book fan. Needless to say, when DC acquired the license to do D&D comics back in 1988, you’d better believe I was all over them like white on rice.
So when friend-of-the-ferret J. Caleb Mozzocco recently posted on his blog about IDW’s plans to collect a lot of the DC series in TPBs, it made me revisit this fondly-remembered series. The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons series featured the artwork of Jan Duursema (these days better known as the long-time artist on the Star Wars comics from Dark Horse), which I was a big fan of. She did most of the covers for the series as well, with the exception of a few that were by Tom Mandrake. Anyway, here are 7 of my favorites:
I keep meaning to post this for Dara: Over on Comics Alliance, they have a guy who did a hip-hop mixtape based on the West Coast Avengers.
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/08/25/adam-warrock-west-coast-avengers-mixtape/
Also, Chris Sims writes several thousand words on the original Galactus storyline.
I confess, I’ve never read it. I’ve been meaning to track it down for a while. This writeup kind of underscores a thought that’s been kicking around in my head for a while: Everything you hate about comics comes from everything you love about comics.
Geoff Grogan’s got them. There’s been many a small press type that echo his thoughts. He’s on the edge. You can only do so many shows before you either hit or you don’t. Or maybe you do it to get out of the house. That being small press shows like SPX. The *table fees are exorbitant: ranging from $200 to $400 on average for a full table.
I know I enjoyed the hell out of SPX when I did it. I barely made table back. Definitely didn’t pay for the expenses but I got to hang out with so many cool people. I’d definitely do it again but I have doubts about whether it’s of any benefit. Maaaybe an art director from NYC might shop around. Who knows?
If I have another $1500 to throw away, sure I’ll bite. There’s no way I could just go to a show like that and not table there.
Going into this you have to decide what you’re doing this for: art or commerce. If it’s commerce, try it for five years. Before you do that, research the market. You’ll find one hot mess of a distribution system and some scary business practices. For one thing, there’s no hard data anywhere on attendence or attendee buying habits. Most after-show wrap-ups skew both ways: positive and negative. Take the positive with a grain of salt. I know exhibitors have a skewed view of what merits a successful show.
I enjoy the personal interaction you get at shows. But a few crap cons will sink you. Both financially and creatively. If I have more than two awful cons in a row at your convention, you better believe I’m dropping your show. Heck if I have one good show out of five years doing a con, I should stop doing that con. Probably as soon as the third year. It’s different if it’s a local show. If you have to drive, get a hotel… you need to do a gut check and think if it’s worth it. Most mainstream shows aren’t worth it unless there are publishers or editors floating about.
*for most mainstream shows, this is extra revenue for the show (re: the artist alley fee). They make most of their expenses back on attendees and dealer booths with cash to spare.
…the greatest music video director of all time.
(bonus: Where The Wild Things Are is one of the most emotionally powerful movies I’ve ever seen)
Oh yeah– As I sat typing the response to Dara’s post below, I had a few books to read when I’m finished; a few Conway/Broderick Firestorm issues from 1983. My nephew walked by and they caught his eye, and he sat looking through them as I typed away. Kids will still read these things if they could find them.