Current Transmissions
Those high-school years were just as awkward for supervillains
Comic books have long cast a spotlight on the school lives, and all the associated trials and tribulations, of superheroes, from Spider-Man and the X-Men to Blue Beetle and Amethyst. But what about the supervillains? Judging from the series of yearbook portraits by Francesca J. Hause, they haven’t had it any easier than the heroes.
It turns out Green Gobin was a stoner (no surprise there), Bane was no stranger to wedgies, and Loki was an orthodontic headgear-wearing D&D player. Venom seemed to do OK, though. Check out those, plus a fashion-victim Two-Face, below.
- October 24, 2012 @ 03:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
Fantagraphics announces two new Dash Shaw books
Fantagraphics Books has announced it will release two new works from acclaimed cartoonist Dash Shaw, creator of Bottomless Belly Button and BodyWorld.
Arriving in April, New School is a 340-page graphic novel loosely inspired by Shaw’s experiences as a teenaged foreign-exchange student. “New School is my most personal book,” the cartoonist said in a statement. “It’s all true (sort of). I dramatized and changed things to make everything closer to how it felt. The book took years of difficult work to make. Now I can’t wait to hold it in my hands!”
That same month, the publisher will release 3 New Stories, an all-new 32-page comic featuring three short stories, “from a Sherlock Holmes-style investigator who must complete his high school degree to filmed ‘voluntary’ nudity to prison camps full of jaded children.”
“Dash is one of the most intellectually curious and fearless cartoonists I’ve ever known,” said Associate Publisher Eric Reynolds. “He created one of the past decade’s most acclaimed graphic novels — Bottomless Belly Button — and pushed himself to experiment with the form even further in the books BodyWorld and The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century. New School feels something like the apotheosis of all three of those books. It’s a major work by a cartoonist in full control of his still-flowering potential.”
See art from both projects, and a fuller description of New School, below.
- October 24, 2012 @ 02:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
Brandon Graham launches Multiple Warheads four-city tour
Cartoonist Brandon Graham kicks off his four-city tour this afternoon in support of Multiple Warheads: Alphabet to Infinity, his new Image Comics miniseries about organ smugglers in a futuristic Russia. If that’s not high-concept enough for you, there’s the actual solicitation text: “Sexica and her Werewolf boyfriend Nikoli travel across a sci-fi, fantasy Russia smoking singing cigarettes. Meanwhile the organ hunter Nura is sent out with a severed head and instructions to find its body.”
If the characters sound vaguely familiar, it’s because the project has its roots in Graham’s 2007 Oni Press one-shot, simply titled Multiple Warheads. However, this new four-issue tale, which debuts today, is all-new and in full color.
Graham’s tour begins at 5 p.m. today with a signing in Anaheim, California, and then continuing on to Austin, Texas, and St. Louis, Missouri, before wrapping up Saturday in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Each of the four stores will have an exclusive edition of the 48-page first issue, complete with a wraparound variant cover by Graham.
You can read a preview of the first issue of Multiple Warheads: Alphabet to Infinity at Comic Book Resources, and check out the tour breakdown below.
- October 24, 2012 @ 01:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
Marketing comics to fans of comics adaptations
Advertising merging TV and comics
News bulletin: The Walking Dead is a friggin’ huge deal.
I’m not sure how to measure it, but at least culturally I think the zombie-survival tale by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard is on track to become the biggest deal to come from indie/creator-owned comics since Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, circa 1988. I think it surpassed Todd McFarlane’s Spawn during Season 1. Heck, it might even be giving some corporate-owned properties a run for their money.
Fortunately, we haven’t quite hit Christmas special saturation, but there are plenty of items in the AMC Walking Dead shop: action figures and figurines, board games, T-shirts, calendars, posters, costumes, busts, music from the show, a companion book, even dog tags.
- October 24, 2012 @ 12:00 PM by Corey Blake
Julian Robinson summons great art with Demon Kings webcomic
In 1954, as the civil rights era was still picking up steam, a whole new race came to Earth: demons. President Eisenhower announced the arrival of these beings, which called themselves Oscurans, and told Earth’s citizens they had come in peace in search of a better life. And the planet hasn’t been the same since.
This is how the new webcomic series Demon Kings opens, and as the black-and-white comic is nearing the 30-page mark it’s time more people get to know it. Created by virtually unknown writer/artist named Julian “JR” Robinson, Demon Kings lives up to the fiery promise of its title while also telling an ambiguous and un-preachy story of racism. These demon-esque Oscurans are dubbed “Ooks” by the more hateful humans, but from what’s been shown they’re just trying to get along. At the center of this is the human-looking Oscuran who goes by the name of Cody Douglas, a detective in the joint-human/Oscuran military force and someone assigned to look into an attack on a police officer that has apparent Oscuran marks on his body.
I only lucked into this amazing looking webcomic after scanning deviantAART and finding the artist’s page, but Demon Kings looks like it could be the beginning of something special. Here are several pages from the first issue. If you like them, follow on to the Demon King website to read more.
- October 24, 2012 @ 11:00 AM by Chris Arrant
Art Barrage | Space men, moon maids & more comic art in odd places
Following up from last week’s opening of their joint exhibitions at New York City’s John Levine Gallery, the contemporary art magazine Hi-Fructose has an image-rich, wholly enthusiastic review of the twin shows of Ashley Wood and Jeremy Geddes.
Another sometimes-comics artist, James Jean, is again producing work in unexpected formats (remember his delightful wooden wedding invitations?). Check out that work, and more by street artists Joe & Max, sculptor Tim Bruckner, Tim Maclean and more, below.
- October 24, 2012 @ 10:00 AM by Mark Kardwell
Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly play opening chords of Anthem
You can’t keep a good project down. And as it turns out, you can’t keep secret a project two creators really want to do — even if they haven’t found a publisher for it yet.
After hinting at it for more than a year, Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly debuted a piece of promotional art for a comic series titled Anthem. The image (you can see it in full below) is being used for a limited-edition T-shirt print; only 50 shirts will be printed, and I’d estimate since it was announced Tuesday they’ve already sold a good number. Maybe our Robot 6 readership can clear them out.
- October 24, 2012 @ 09:00 AM by Chris Arrant
Kickstart My Art | Elysium Online
How would you feel if there was a way for you to reconnect with your departed loved ones? I’m not talking Ouija boards, seances or spirit mediums; I’m talking connecting with them as you would with people around the world online. Sounds great, doesn’t it? But how do you think those loved ones would feel? That’s the question in the upcoming graphic novel Elysium Online, and it’s up to you to get it off the ground so you can find out the real story.
Described by creator Ilias Kyriazis as a graphic novel about what happens when a “revolutionary social network that lets you interact with your dead loved ones” goes wrong, Elysium Online is a hauntingly promising idea for a comic that looks beautiful, touching and just a wee bit creepy all at once. Elysium is the name of that social network, and when it’s launched in October 2021, people worldwide flock to it hoping to reconnect with their loved ones long thought dead. What they don’t know is that there loved ones are indeed waiting for them in Elysium, but they hate the living and are plotting to wipe them out of existence.
- October 24, 2012 @ 08:00 AM by Chris Arrant
Comics A.M. | Retailers ‘cautiously ecstatic’ about comic sales
Batman, ICv2's top superhero graphic novel property
Retailing | Retailers are “cautiously ecstatic,” ICv2 reports, ecstatic because comics sales have increased in the direct market every month for the past 12 months, and cautious because this “return to floppies” comes after years of a seesawing market and they know things can change at any time. The article contains links to the news and analysis site’s lists of the top graphic novel properties in a number of categories, including superheroes, manga, and kids’ comics. [ICv2]
Creators | The Sri Lankan political cartoonist Prageeth Eknelygoda has been missing for 1,000 days as of Tuesdayy, and his wife is convinced the government has something to do with that. [The Daily Cartoonist]
Creators | This article about T. Casey Brennan, who wrote for Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella, takes a number of weird turns, not least when Brennan claims to have shot JFK — and when he shows up in the comments section to dispute everything in the article. Brennan’s life seems to have taken a turn after he was injured in an automobile accident, and he now is homeless and but apparently happy. [The Washtenaw Voice]
- October 24, 2012 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson
The Middle Ground #126 | Introduction to Recommendations 101
The other day, a friend was visiting and asked in a somewhat halfhearted manner for something to read. I gave her The Nao of Brown, fairly confident it’d be her kind of thing in terms of tone and theme (and entirely confident the art would bowl her over), and then started thinking about gateway comics. What makes a good introduction for newcomers to the entire comic medium?
- October 23, 2012 @ 03:00 PM by Graeme McMillan
Quote of the Day | ‘We need both kinds of music, country AND western’
“The only kind of writing that should dominate comics is ‘good writing.’ Or maybe ‘great writing,’ if we can manage it. As a reader, as a moviegoer and TV viewer and music listener and food eater, I like more than one thing. I love pizza, but don’t want it for every meal. I think that Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated is the best show on television, but I’m glad it’s not the ONLY show on television. And while Ernest Scared Stupid is probably the only movie anyone ever really needs to see, it’s nice that they have a choice. In other words, we need both kinds of music, country AND western.”
– writer Chris Roberson, in a wide-ranging interview with Paul Tobin, responding to the question, “If you could make any one genre of writing dominant in comics, what would it be?”
- October 23, 2012 @ 02:00 PM by Kevin Melrose
Pit Spidey against his archenemies in Threadless design competition
Marvel and the T-shirt site Threadless have teamed up for a design competition: Create a shirt “inspired by the battle between Spider-Man and his archenemies.”
The rules spell out what you can and can’t have Spider-Man doing on the shirt:
- Use your original artwork.
- Characters outside of the Marvel universe are not allowed, but Spidey can do battle with any (or all) of the following villains: Dr. Octopus, Electro, Sandman, Venom, Lizard, Kraven, Green Goblin, Vulture, Rhino, and Shocker.
- Spider-Man cannot be used on his own, but his archenemies may go solo.
- Remember Spider-Man is a super HERO, so he always wins—and he does it without blood and guts.
- You may not use actor likenesses or any logos in your design.
- No political or adult content (sex, smoking, drinking, etc.) is allowed.
- The characters cannot be represented as children or animals.
So no solo swingin’, no Spot or Stilt Man, no boozin’ it up and no Spider-Ham. Other than that, go wild. The shirts will be judged by the Threadless community, with the most popular ones going on to be printed and sold on the site.
- October 23, 2012 @ 01:00 PM by JK Parkin
Food or Comics? | Multiple Warheads of lettuce
Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy at our local comic shop based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on a splurge item.
Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList, and tell us what you’re getting in our comments field.
Multiple Warheads: Alphabet to Infinity #1
Chris Arrant
If I had $15, I’d dutifully pick up Dark Horse Presents #17 (Dark Horse, $7.99). With all the stories and the variety of genres, this is a comics haul all under one roof. This month’s issue has a great looking Carla Speed McNeil cover, and inside’s star looks to be Richard Corben adapting an Edgar Allan Poe story. Beat that, comics! After that I’d do an Image two-fer with Multiple Warheads: Alphabet to Infinity #1 (Image, $3.99) and Invincible #96 (Image, $2.99). On the Multiple Warheads front, I’ve been salivating over this ever since it was announced – I bought the premature version of this back when it was published by Oni, and it’s built up in my mind as potentially greater than King City … and I loved King City. In terms of Invincible, I feel this book has the best artists working in superhero comics – and the writing’s not to shabby either. They’re doing a lot of world-building here, and having Cory Walker join with Ryan Ottley on this essentially split book makes it the highpoint of the series so far.
If I had $30, I’d double back to Image and get Prophet #30 (Image, $3.99). Of all the prophets, I love Old Man Prophet the best – and this issue looks like a mind-bender. After that I’d get Ghost #1 (Dark Horse, $2.99). Kelly Sue DeConnick and Phil Noto look like a dream team and Dark Horse really scored a coup by getting them together on this book. I was a big fan of the original series (Adam Hughes!) so I’m excited to see if this new duo can make it work in a modern context. Third up would be Secret Avengers #33 (Marvel, $3.99). Make no mistake, I love that Rick Remender is so popular now that he’s graduated to the upper echelon of books, but I’m remorseful he’s having to leave his great runs on this, Uncanny X-Force and Venom. This Descendents arc is really picking up steam. Lastly, I’d get National Comics: Madame X #1 (DC, $3.99). I’m a fair-to-middling fan of Madame Xanadu, but the creators here – Rob Williams and Trevor Hairsine – mean it’s a Cla$$war reunion! Love that book, love these guys, and love my expectations here.
If I could splurge, I’d splurge all over Shaolin Cowboy Adventure Magazine (Dark Horse, $15.99). Can DH do two excellent anthologies? We’ll see… but fortunately they’ve got Geof Darrow’s Shaolin Cowboy to lead the way in this pulpy throwback. Shine on, you crazy super-detailed diamond, shine on.
- October 23, 2012 @ 12:00 PM by Michael May
Make your own Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt paper figures
Crogans Adventures creator Chris Schweizer has been having some fun lately making paper figures that you can cut out and stand up; last week he did a very ambitious 55-piece set of the entire Harry Potter cast.
This week, it’s something completely different: He has made cutouts of The Sixth Gun creators Brian Hurtt and Cullen Bunn. Does that seem strange? Schweizer addresses that question head-on:
Now you may just be asking yourself “who are these guys? Why didn’t Chris put up characters from The Sea Hawk or Scrubs or something?”
To which I say, “how in the world have you read MY comics and not THEIRS? That’s like saying ‘Oh, I really dig Alexander Kent” but you’ve never read Patrick O’Brian or C.S. Forrester.’” Not that there’s any real equation there, just that it’d be surprising if you knew the former but not the others, which is how surprised I’d be if you’d read Crogan and not Sixth Gun. Read it. Seriously. I can’t tell you how not disappointed you’ll be.
What these paper figures lack, of course, is Hurtt and Bunn’s banter, which has always make the Oni Press panels at comics conventions so entertaining. But with convention season over, we’ll take what we can get. Maybe Chris can come up with some more creator figures for us to collect and trade during the long winter months.
- October 23, 2012 @ 11:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Dark Horse to collect Cameron Stewart’s Sin Titulo webcomic
Dark Horse will publish a hardcover collection of Cameron Stewart’s Eisner Award-winning webcomic Sin Titulo next year. The neo-noir mystery thriller, which debuted in 2007 as part of the Transmission X comics collective, concluded just last week.
“Many people have opined that I should have gone through Kickstarter rather than a publisher, but I actually agreed to publish through Dark Horse a couple of years ago, before Kickstarter had shown itself to be a viable means of funding,” Stewart explained on the comic’s website. “From my conversations with Dark Horse it’s clear that they really love the story and will do their utmost to produce a beautiful, high quality book. I think Kickstarter is for the most part a great means of funding projects, and I may still use it in the future for another comic, but for now I am very comfortable and confident that Dark Horse is the best home for Sin Titulo.”
He noted that he’ll make revisions for the landscape-format edition, “mainly tidying up lettering and colour, so that it looks its best in print.” The cover price hasn’t been determined.
- October 23, 2012 @ 10:00 AM by Kevin Melrose