March 11, 2010
Quick hits
Exhibits/Events
Go See Mark Evanier At WonderCon
History
Catman Is Sexy
PAD On Comics Code '92
He Dreams Of His TCJ Interview
When Is Superman Not Exactly Superman?
Interviews/Profiles
Newsarama: Jason Aaron
CBR: Jim McCann, David Lopez
CBR: James Robinson, Sterling Gates
Not Comics
The Film Industry Is Gross
Howard Cruse Got A Haircut
Publishing
Savage Critics Back Up
Wondermark Vol. 3 Previewed
Wondermark Vol. 3 Previewed
Good News And Bad News For Psychiatric Tales
Reviews
Brian Heater: Newave
Matt Springer: Marvel Boy
Grant Goggans: The Best Of Battle
Tim O'Neil: Punisher MAX: Butterfly
Greg McElhatton: One Piece: East Blue 1-2-3
March 10, 2010
CR Review: Death-Day Prologue
Creator: Sam Hiti
Publishing Information: La Luz Comics, mini-comic, 40 pages, 2009, $5
Ordering Numbers: Should Be Orderable Here
It looks like this print mini accompaniment to Sam Hiti's ongoing webcomic may be sold out soon. If the art appeals to you on any level I'd suggest picking one up. Like most good prologues,
Death-Day's gives the reader an idea of the main work's tone and approach without providing too much in the way of plot. Hiti, whose work frequently suggests he was once Paul Pope's lab partner in some sort of Kirby master class taught by Visiting Professor Moebius, whispers at conflict through shape and texture while also underlining the interconnectedness between man, machine and nature. It's like watching forms scrambling across the surface of the same super-organism, readying themselves for a turf battle to be fought with the same material as constitutes the turf. You can read the whole thing
here, but I like it on paper, the way the panel progression pushes you back from and shoves you towards the single images like some sort of staccato commentary on the importance of what we're seeing. Pay attention! Wait! Pay Attention! There! There! There!
Sam Hiti's been busier than usual lately, in a way that I think may still slip under the radar of a natural audience for his powerful and frequently pulchritudinous approach to slapping ink down on the page.
Death-Day Prologue was one of a number of modestly-assembled publications from various sources the artist dropped in my lap this summer; his site has been active since. I got to peruse the comics he sent once, maybe two times and they were then lost to the tidal-strength push and pull of pulp and that is the curse of a lived-in office's clutter. I knew I'd see at least one of them again. That kind of work always turns up. And now holding
Deaty-Day Prologue, I have returned to Hiti. I have little idea where this project has gone since I first laid eyes on it and no idea where it might go in the future. But this little book with the hand-drawn cover, I like looking at it. I like thinking about what it shows me. Hiti, I'm confident, remains a cartoonist to watch no matter where in the tidal wave that is modern comics one is able to find his work.
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Bundled, Tossed, Untied And Stacked
By Tom Spurgeon
*
there's a two-page Dan Clowes Wilson story in this week's New Yorker that isn't in the forthcoming D&Q collection of the same name.
* the big publishing news story of the week is Fantagraphics working with longtime scholar/translator/writer/editor Matt Thorn on a line of comics featuring translated manga. Highlights of the announcements, which were spread out among official PR and a number of posts from those involved, were as far as I can figure it as follows:
+ the first two books will be Drunken Dream a collection of short stories from Moto Hagio in multiple genres from the years 1971-2007. (PR)
+ the first book will be the first in a multi-volume series called Wandering Son from Shimura Takako. (PR)
+ both of these initial hardcovers will be released right-to-left style. (PR)
+ the legendary Hagio will be attending CCI 2010 as a special guest in support of that first book. Usually that means multiple signings, a spotlight panel and perhaps participation on a secondary, group, themed panel. (PR plus my own supposition regarding standard opportunities for international guests at CCI)
+ the line has its origin event the Comics Journal issue on Shojo manga (#269, that featured an interview with Hagio. Then-managing editor Dirk Deppey worked with Thorn on that interview and that issue, which was a precursor to this more involved publishing commitment. (Deppey's Second Statement, details confirmed by Cohen via e-mail).
+ it didn't make the PR, but Deppey describe the deal as an agreement signed with the publisher Shogakukan in addition to it being a line edited and curated by Thorn, so I guess that would be the source of most of the comics they'll be doing. (Deppey Initial Announcement)
+ Deppey will be a consulting editor on the line (Deppey's Second Statement)
+ Matt Thorn has in mind the line-up for the Hagio book, part of which he put together with the help of other knowledgeable manga readers by suggesting an imaginary anthology of its kind. (Thorn)
+ I remain genuinely interested in the length of time -- four years -- the line took in development, just as a process story if nothing else. Although I'm not sure Fantagraphics' Jacq Cohen's answer to my query on the matter really explains much of anything, it is highly amusing. "Good things take time. Fantagraphics likes to marinate on the books we publish. We want to make sure we hold up to to our slogan/mission/tagline/barometer, 'Publisher of the world's greatest cartoonists.' So, starting a line of manga (and I specify 'line' not an 'imprint') there was a lot of careful planning that went into what books, creators, content, etc. Also, everyone is really fucking busy around here." I'm also not sure exactly why the line/imprint distinction is important, but hey, noted.
I join the chorus of voices that looks forward to what sounds like a great line of comics.
* the Steve Kelley/Jeff Parker recent launch
Dustin has pushed past the 100-client market, a sign whenever it happens of a likely hit strip that will be around for a while and a sign in distressed times such of these that the strip has been
extremely well-received.
* the writer Gail Simone
will be leaving a high-profile run on DC's Wonder Woman title at some unspecified near-future time. Simone has been on the prime superheroine's title since 2007. She will continue with the writing gig on the title by which she (mostly) made her name:
Birds Of Prey. J. Michael Straczynski
will take over the character, which along with his writing duties on the Superman character makes him a formidable force at the icon-interested new DC, an observation I'm sure has been made in countless blogs I barely scan.
Wonder Woman is a difficult character in that she's a licensing A-teamer and a Direct Market as its currently constituted in terms of a devoted readership C-teamer.
* since the publication of
Girl Comics put into play the opportunity that female creators get in the mainstream comic book part of the comics market, it's nice to see Marvel launch
a summer mini-series that give Kathryn Immonen a multiiple-character book to write for a very talented artist and features a bunch of Marvel's underrated roster of female characters (Valkyrie and the African-American Captain Marvel seem like pretty good characters to me, anyway). Marvel's done a pretty good job developing not exactly A-list characters in those space opera comics they've done, and I think efforts like that that also pay attention to just getting certain talented creators more work would be a fine, Marvelish way to rectify some diversity issues.
* finally, a friend of mine sent me an e-mail noting that Marvel isn't the only one trying to make an all-female creator anthology work in a constrictive market: Lombard's anthology
Kramix apparently launched with a first issue of only female creators, although it sounds like format has been a bigger issue in initial attempts to find a foothold for that title in an astonishingly crowded French-language market.
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Go, Bookmark: SM Vidaurri's Webcomic Iron, or The Propagandist
via
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Not Comics: British Artist Has Jail Time Commuted In Most Recent Application Of Crappy Turkish Law
The story itself is pretty straight-forward: Michael Dickinson, a British artist living in Turkey, was convicted of insulting the dignity and honor of Turkish Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan through a collage/cartoon that featured the PM's head on the body of a dog. The sentence came out to 425 days in prison, which was immediately commuted to a middle four-figure fine. When Dickinson declared he wouldn't pay, the judge told him as long as he didn't do it again, he wouldn't have to.
As the article explain, it's just another week of artists living with the country's criminal code, particularly article 125, through which powerful political figures like the Prime Minister use the court to try artists for insulting depictions. This has included a number of cartoonists. The combination of a political figure thinking they have the right to act without potential insult, the law itself, the willingness of a political figure to work in a court system that may favor them just because of who they are, and a wide array of application strategies by judges and prosecutors makes Turkey a routinely awful place for free expression. Moreover, it's a basic set-up you also see in other countries, which means it has a foothold in popular thinking.
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Go, Look: Al Hirschfeld Caricatures From The Covers Of American Mercury
some of these are really beautiful: 1, 2
posted 9:30 am PST |
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Your Danish Cartoons Hangover Update
* so with the unsealing of federal indictments, the world learned yesterday the arrest of multiple plotters conspiring to assassinate the Swedish Cartoon Lars Wilks for a cartoon he did in the wake of the Danish Cartoons Controversy of 2005 putting Muhammad's head on a dog's body
included 46-year-old Colleen LaRose of Pennsylvania. She's been held since last Fall. Her American citizenship has set off the expected ruckus in terms of "hidden" American terrorists and the like, and I'm not sure there's anything to do but to sit back, but on one's reading glasses, and see what rolls out of that particular event. The oddest thing to me initially is that an American citizen has any knowledge of or interest in events in another country.
* a new poll
finds that a slight majority (51 percent) of Danes do not support the apology issued by the newspaper
Politiken over their re-release of the Kurt Westergaard bomb-in-turban cartoon a couple of years back.
*
here's some context about the death threats faced by Lars Vilks. I can't imagine just folding something like that into your daily/weekly/monthly life, but I guess you wouldn't have a choice.
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Go, Look: Steranko X-Mas Card?
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Kieron Gillen: "You Just Spend Your Entire Life In Low-Level Money Panic"
Kevin Melrose
pulled a quote out of
a Kieron Gillen interview at Comics Alliance that talks more openly than usual about the dire financial situation facing the vast, vast majority of comic book series out there, series that operate primarily through the Direct Market. It's almost impossible to extrapolate market correction from the success/failure of one series, but I think hearing about how close that particular creative team was from being able to do 48 issues rather than 13, the relative tiny number involved, makes you want ask a bunch of why questions.
The one thing that's confusing to me is that there are more diverse, upper-end, almost-boutique comics stores than ever before -- real have-to-visit stores for adult comics fans -- and there hasn't been a significant loss of the sturdy all-services, take-care-of-everyone comics stores, either. If there are 60 stores in 2010 that play roughly the same role 24 stores did in 1996, why isn't there a corresponding bump for select indy/alt titles on that kind of scale? I'm not suggesting there aren't answers, because there are a ton bandied about. One is that the quality of indy/alt comics simply isn't what it used to be. Another is that Marvel/DC sells more relatively modest-selling comics than ever, so if a store is looking for books to groom into minor by-store sensations they're as likely to afford that space to
Agents of Atlas as they might have once given that space to
Yummy Fur. But I would think by this time there'd be a few causes steamrolling in clarity.
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Go, Look: DC Back-Up Stories
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Your 31st Scottish Press Awards Cartoonist Of The Year Nominees
The 31st iteration of the Scottish Press Awards has released a number of its shortlists in various categories, including Cartoonist Of The Year. They are:
*
Brian Adcock -- Scotland on Sunday
*
Frank Boyle -- Edinburgh Evening News
*
Steven Camley -- The Herald
*
Bill McArthur -- The Herald
*
Brian Petrie -- The Scottish Sun
As is usual with such programs, those of us with little knowledge of this particular realm of cartooning are happy for the introduction to a slate of cartoonists and the context that they are at least well-regarded. The awards -- the Oscars of the Scottish Press -- are scheduled for April 22 in Glasgow. Last year's winner was Steven Camley; Brian Petrie was runner-up.
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Go, Look: Moto Hagio Collages
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Go, Look: New Funnies #83
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Go, Look: The Demon From Beyond
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Go, Look: Castle Of Otranto
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Go, Look: Jack Kirby Originals
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Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* I really wasn't expecting to stop by
Blog Flume and see
a review of Girl Comics #1.
*
another reader-directed interview with Marvel's Tom Brevoort mentions that they've actually spoken with the Fu Manchu rights holders about maybe eventually doing something with those
Master Of Kung Fu comics collection-wise, although there's nothing concrete or timely to report.
*
Gary Groth writes about Norman Pettingill.
* Alan Gardner
takes more than the usual delight in saying an early goodbye to Internet instigator Bad Cartoonist.
* the great Ron Rege, Jr.
is selling some drawings of his he found for $40 each. Way better than 800 pages of
Secret Wars II for $8.
* finally, I don't do that well with keeping up with multiple-part interviews -- frankly, I hate 'em 90 percent of the time -- but it looks like Fantagraphics is celebrating its manga line in part by re-running
Matt Thorn's Moto Hagio interview from the
Journal a few years back. So you might want to track that if you're a fan or just inquisitive. I remember that being a good piece.
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Happy 34th Birthday, Randy Chang!
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Quick hits
Craft
Huh?
Hulk Pants
Craig Thompson Sketches
Bully's Like Into Puzzles Now
Erika Moen Talks Cover Design
Exhibits/Events
Go See David Lasky's Art
Sean Phillips Is Going To CCI
History
We Were Young Once
Industry
I Didn't Understand One Word Of This
Interviews/Profiles
CBR: Andy Clarke
CBR: Chuck Dixon
Mr. Media: Hilary Price
Newsarama: Eric Powell
Robot 6: Graham Annable
Newsarama: Matt Fraction
CBR: Joe Harris, Steve Rolston
An Interview With Tigra Superfan #1
Not Comics
These Look Adorable
Other Title Quashed: Bad Hair Day
Publishing
Damon Lindelof Loves Scalped
Reviews
Johnny Bacardi: Various
Katherine Dacey: Shirley
Sean Kleefeld: Logicomix
Grant Goggans: Crogan's March
Greg McElhatton: Girl Comics #1
Brian Heater: Little Nothings Vol. 3
March 9, 2010
CR Review: The World Of A Wayward Comic Book Artist
Creators: Sandy Plunkett, Tim Barnes, Michael Wm Kaluta
Publishing Information: Ohio University Press, hardcover/softcover, 224 pages, May 2010, $55/$24.95
Ordering Numbers: 9780804011242/9780804011259 (ISBN13) 0804011249/0804011257 (ISBN10)
I thought
The World Of A Wayward Comic Book Artist, a collection of former Marvel artist Sandy Plunkett's work from 1992 to present-day, good company; I felt like I had taken a drive around beautiful Midwestern countryside in an old truck with a friend of a friend, someone who then showed me some of the best work kept on the shelf of a stand-alone studio with inexplicably great lighting. Plunkett does a fine job of identifying some of the key issues in an artist's progression through a lifetime of making work on paper: the temptation and limitation of nostalgia, the differences in approach between commercial work and personal work, the ability to see the world in a way that's necessary in order to make art worthy of seeing in reflection of that reality. These are reinforced by some of the biographical instances brought to bear: his representational work versus his mother's abstract art; the impermanence of life versus the plastic immortality of diversity-threatening commoditization. He never forgets that the reader is looking at the post-Marvel era sketchbooks of someone whose name even most fans of that very specific kind of material hardly remember, an artist that lives in Athens, Ohio rather than New York City. He doesn't apologize, either. Watching him struggle through certain issues is appealing on a human level that you sometimes don't ever get to experience with artists that are more commercially viable, and I can imagine the book being a certain boon to life-long artists in similar situations.
Is the work itself good enough that people would want a book of it? I honestly can't tell. There is of course a high level of craft brought to the imagery, enough that I went and looked up the bulk of his comics career to note a couple of Marvel anthology stories I want to go back and see. The illustrations seems hard-won and well-constructed. The fully-realized comics here both seem well-composed but also stiff in a way the sketchbook material doesn't. Plunkett talks about nostalgia at one point as both a potential idealization based on a myth that resources were better organized to our advantage in the past, and as a capitulation to experiencing things second-hand, and I think that's a lesson that can be maintained while looking at Plunkett's art. So much of his imagination is borrowed, these comics icons and elements of broad, American rural fantasy; I'm not sure that he brings enough in the way of pure craft chops to transform those works into something of individual, compelling focus. His pulp re-imaginings are not quite Mark Schultz's; his girlie magazine approach to certain female comics characters are not quite Dave Stevens'. The presentation seems okay: I'm not much for overlapping images in an arts showcase, but many designers disagree with me. I also wish the book were bigger. In the end, as much as I appreciate the way Plunkett asks questions about a life built around an artistic process, there wasn't a whole lot in terms of finding answers to such questions, even personal ones. The work -- and attending observations -- I liked best are drawn from his travels around southeast Ohio, the notion of structures in decay as a moment when they connect to the natural world for the first time. All in all,
The World Of A Wayward Comic Book Artist ended up surprising me as a book that provided a lot of enjoyment. I definitely wonder after too many people scooping together their own array of interests that match up with the general inquiry Plunkett brings to the page. It's a brave book in that sense, but the extra effort was likely necessary.
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Go, Look: Ralph Steadman's Alice
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This Isn't A Library: New And Notable Releases To The Comics Direct Market
*****
Here are the books that make an impression on me staring at this week's no-doubt largely accurate list of books shipping from Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. to comic book and hobby shops across North America.
I might not buy all of the works listed here. I might not buy any. But were I in a comic book shop tomorrow I would gladly dance with stacks of the following until we dropped.
*****
JAN100190 BPRD KING OF FEAR #3 (OF 5) $2.99
NOV090045 HELLBOY TP VOL 09 WILD HUNT $19.99
JAN100365 UNWRITTEN #11 (MR) $2.99
NOV090380 ELEPHANTMEN #24 $3.50
DEC090410 JERSEY GODS #11 $3.50
Various indy comics offerings. I believe our friend Moritat returns to
Elephantmen this issue, while
Jersey Gods is Image's second Kirby current pastiche-type comic book to make it into double-digits. What else... I think
Unwritten is Vertigo's next big hope for break-out hit, but I could be totally wrong about that. It's also a strong week for the solid Dark Horse
Hellboy material, but most weeks are.
JAN100285 MAGOG #7 $2.99
I still can't get over the fact that there's a comic out there called
Magog. Do little kids as their mothers to pick them up a copy of
Magog when they're sick? Do these mothers recoil in horror? Is this a comic made just so preachers can hold it up at Christian youth rallies?
DEC090220 WARLORD THE SAGA TP $17.99
About five years ago, I had this idea that each mainstream comics company should name four or five properties and never collect them, leaving them as jewels of the back-issue market that could only be experienced that way. The first comic on my list for DC was Warlord. Obviously, this never happened. And to be honest, my plan was mighty stupid.
OCT090360 IMAGE UNITED #1 (OF 6) COLLECTORS ED S/N $25.00
I'm not sure what this is, but it's almost the best nostalgia of all for these guys to be publishing special editions and the like before they've finished the series. Maybe some of the stores that are buying the series can
sort of go out of business in response, or maybe the crew can kick Rob Liefeld out before the six-issue series is up.
JAN100238 BATMAN AND ROBIN #10 $2.99
More Grant Morrison multiple-art team (fairly) straight-ahead superheroics. I bought a bunch of issues of this and I can't say I was feeling it, although I like that supple Cameron Stewart art. It may be that I'm just done with Batman. Like I'm on "full" with my lifetime's allotment of Batman.
JAN100589 THE MYSTIC HANDS OF DR STRANGE #1 $3.99
I think this is one of those combination black and white magazine and old-school giant-size issue that hasn't really been a runaway hit with the fans of these characters, and sort of emanates this vibe of the company not really being into the character, either. Still, good candidate for this kind of approach.
JAN100629 X-MEN PIXIE STRIKES BACK #2 (OF 4) $3.99
A lot of fans talk about not reading
X-Men comics the same way a certain kind of TV watcher talks about never watching
Saturday Night Live: they lie about it for a long time before they actually make the break. I knew I had really stopped watching
Saturday Night Live when I saw a
New York profile of Jimmy Fallon and I had no idea who that was. Now I know I've stopped reading
X-Men comics. Hey, it only took decades.
OCT090994 COMPLETE MILT GROSS COMIC BOOK STORIES HC VOL 01 $39.99
This is the show-stopper of the week, or at least the snatch-off-the-shelf-and-look-at-buying spree-stopper of the week.
DEC091025 DETROIT METAL CITY GN VOL 04 (MR) $12.99
The best manga to buy is comedy manga.
*****
The full list of this week's releases, including some titles with multiple cover variations and a long, impressive list of toys and other stuff that isn't comics,
can be found here. Despite this official list there's no guarantee a comic will show up in the stores as promised, or in all of the stores as opposed to just a few. Also, stores choose what they carry and don't carry so your shop may not carry a specific publication. There are a lot of comics out there.
To find your local comic book store,
check this list; and for one I can personally recommend because I've shopped there, albeit a while back,
try this.
The above titles are listed with their Diamond order code in the first field, which may assist you in finding comics at your shop or having them order something for you they don't have in-stock. Ordering through a direct market shop can be a frustrating experience, so if you have a direct line to something -- you know another shop has it, you know a bookstore has it -- I'd urge you to consider all of your options.
If I didn't list your comic here, that's because I spent most of the day in bed, crying. Happy now?
*****
posted 11:15 am PST |
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Go, Look: Walt Kelly's Cinderella
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Your Danish Cartoons Hangover Update
* three men and four women, all Muslim and all not from the Irish Republic although all there legally,
have been arrested on the accusation they were plotting to kill Lars Vilks. Vilks's cartoon for
Nerikes Allehanda wasn't one of the original Danish Cartoons -- being Swedish and all -- but his depiction of Muhammad's head on a dog body was published in the heightened awareness that came after the original Controversy, and he was quickly targeted for death via bounty by various radicals.
* Christopher Hitchens
weighs in on the
Politiken apology, from the point of view of ripping into claims made by lawyer Ahmed Zaki Yamani.
posted 10:45 am PST |
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Go, Look: More Comics-Based Ads
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