The Honolulu Star-Bulletin’s Wilma Jandoc takes a look at three American properties given the manga treatment — Harlequin romances, Nancy Drew and Star Trek – and finds that some translate better than others.

On Harlequin’s Ginger Blossom line: “… Harlequin’s stories gain an extra level of heartbreak and tenderness in their manga form that is certain to touch the heart of any romance or shoujo lover.”

On Papercutz’s Nancy Drew: “Although short in comparison with the text novels, “Girl Detective” crams in enough action, interaction, characters and seeming side plots that eventually come together to unravel the mystery, all without feeling rushed.”

On Tokyopop’s Star Trek: “The blurb on the back of Volume 1 touts the manga as capturing ‘the spirit of the original series in a completely new way.’ Unfortunately, that ‘new way’ means merely giving the Enterprise’s crew vaguely Japanese facial features.”

(via TV Squad)

The Korea Times previews an exhibition at the Arario Gallery in Chonan, South Korea, that fascinates and disturbs me: The Animatus, Lee Hyung-koo series of fossil sculptures based on the skeletons of cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny (Lepus Animatus), Donald Duck (Anas Animatus) and Tom & Jerry (Felis Catus Animatus and Mus Animatus).

More exhibit photos and sketches can be seen here.

The Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pa., talks to Alan Moore and Top Shelf’s Chris Staros for what amounts to a fairly standard story about Moore and Melinda Gebbie’s Lost Girls.

It touches upon the pornographic nature of the book — “It is not waiting for someone else to come along and call this pornography,” Moore says. “It is saying, ‘Fair enough, this is pornography’.” — critical reaction, retailer hesitation, and the potential conflict with Great Ormond Street Hospital.

But the article also looks at Top Shelf’s financial wager on Lost Girls, something I’ve not seen much of in mainstream media coverage. According to the Patriot-News, the first two printings of the 264-page book cost the publisher “in the realm of $300,000.”

“It is a very big investment, but it looks like it will pay off,” Staros tells the newspaper. “I was never really worried. I know if we hawked it properly, it would sort of look after itself.” He also says initial orders have exceeded the first printings.

Related: Part 1 of Chris Mautner’s Q&A with Alan Moore

Not sure how long this one will be up, but thanks to David Gallaher for sending a link to the ten-minute Plastic Man pilot produced by Warner Bros for Cartoon Network:

http://www.addictingclips.com/Clip.aspx?key=7E602A9F59E39B02

It’s very Kyle Baker-esque. Speaking of which, go check out Kyle’s home page for his own internet cartoons.

Joystiq and Kotaku have extensive coverage of this weekend’s Penny Arcade Expo in Bellevue, Wash. The big news, probably, was the announcement of the Penny Arcade episodic video game called Penny Arcade Adventures. Above is the teaser image for the first installment, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness.

Of interest: Live blogging from the comic panel; giant Penny Arcade strips; live blogging from the Gabe and Tycho Q&A panel

Related: Q&A with Penny Arcade’s business manager, Robert Khoo

Despite being the fifth-highest grossing movie of the year so far (domestically), Superman Returns sure has taken a lot of hits for “underperforming.” The latest comes from India, where the box office of Bryan Singer’s version of the Big Red S is compared to local Bollywood hero Krrish:

A black-masked, overcoat-clad newcomer pounded Superman in India this summer. Krrish, the first movie about the namesake hunk of a do-gooder with supernatural powers, hit Indian theaters the week before Superman Returns in June.
Krrish was still running as many as three shows a day six weeks after its debut. The re-entry of Superman, one of the globe’s most popular superheroes, was down to one daily showing after five weeks.

“I was a little skeptical that Superman might hurt me, but fortunately it didn’t,” says Rakesh Roshan, who produced and directed Krrish and cast his son, Hrithik Roshan, as the lead. “In Hollywood, they make films with a budget of US$250 million [HK$1.95 billion]. I make a film with US$8 million, and if I can achieve similar success with a small budget, it’s a big achievement.”

Art Dorks points out Coconino Classics, a French website showcasing the work of artists like Milton Caniff, Rube Goldberg, Winsor McCay and others.

Arizona’s KVOA.com carries an article about Todd McFarlane’s home at the base of South Mountain in south Phoenix, which will be featured in September on an episode of MTV Cribs.

Despite his company’s annual revenue of nearly $60 million, the Emmy Awards he won in the late ’90s for his HBO series “Spawn” and the fact that he casually mentions he’ll be releasing a comic book later this year in which Spawn and Batman meet, he’s still a devoted husband and father. He and his wife, Wanda, have a son, 6, and two daughters, ages 11 and 15. And that means that his house is more function than fantasy.

“Oh, I don’t even know,” says McFarlane when asked exactly how many furry, feathered or scaly creatures inhabit his home. There’s at least one dog, one cat, a frog, some lizards and a bird. It’s a full house, though surprisingly quiet on a recent Friday morning. It matches McFarlane’s soft-spoken disposition. He’s almost overwhelmingly humble about his seemingly chaotic, though successful, life.

It sounds even better if you imagine it read by Robin Leach.

Update: Oh! A photo!

Following up on my post from last week, it looks like Andre Braugher’s role in the second Fantastic Four movie has been confirmed:

On the heels of Variety briefly reporting that Andre Braugher has left an episodic role on NBC’s ER for a role in the Fox sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, many fans were wondering which role he would play. Would it the The Puppet Master or The Silver Surfer? Yes, the latter is a bit of a stretch. Blackfilm.com has learned that Braugher will play the role of the military general in the sequel. Filming is scheduled to start on August 31, 2006.

Guess I was wrong about the Puppet Master, which would have been a hell of a lot of fun.

Hero of the Week: Marvel for removing its policy about gay characters only starring in adult-targeted comics.

Hero: Ed Brubaker for sharing. As much as I like Ed’s stuff (and I do; I really do), I was gonna pass on Immortal Iron Fist. I’ve never been a big fan of Danny Rand. When it comes to kung fu superheroes, I like mine Chinese and in red-and-gold pajamas. But then I read closer and learned that Matt Fraction is going to be co-writing it.

Brubaker calls Fraction “one of the more developed and unique voices coming out of the indies,” and I agree. If you don’t want to plunk two dollars down for a copy of Casanova, just read one of his interviews and you’ll get a taste. I mean, just hearing Fraction talk about what’s been wrong with recent Iron Fist comics (”the Awesome was missing”) and how he and Brubaker plan to fix it (”There’s… a lot of dudes that need to get kicked in the face”) tells you a lot. I’m on board.

Maybe they’ll even give Shang Chi an appearance or two.

Villain: The folks keeping the Adam West Batman series tied up in litigation so that we’re still waiting for a DVD collection. Will no one think of the children?

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For previous installments of Fenton & Fenton, Boy Detectives, go here.

For more of Stacie Ponder’s comics, visit her blog.

Chip and Teddy are on MySpace!

Over on the Your Mom’s Basement forum, Ash Aiwase started a thread where he and his co-conspirator Sean Maher are recommending indie books to buy during the Civil War lull. So there they are suggesting some kick ass books, starting really strong with Image’s Phonogram and kicking it up a level with Oni’s Wasteland, when Ash throws out a preview for the upcoming Joe Casey/Charlie Adlard book Rock Bottom:

Tonight, I’m gonna drop a little bomb of an exclusive on this here thread. It’s gonna hit like a ton of bricks.

I have been waiting endlessly for this book.

Wait, I feel like I’ve been waiting endlessly for this book. I just found out about it a couple of months ago on the sly, and with Codeflesh being one of my favorite modern comics…

So Rock Bottom. We’re all fans of Charlie, right? Consummate storytelling with an efficient, sketchy style?

From page one, this is a completely different Charlie Adlard than you’ve ever seen.

Scroll down to the bottom to see a couple of pages from the book, which comes out in September. “You’re gonna have thirteen bucks weighing down your pockets because Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and the Civil War books are delayed,” Ash says. “Shell ‘em out on something primo. Shell ‘em out on something real nice.”

A thread on The Engine that starts with Heidi MacDonald advertising the Beat’s analysis of DC and Marvel’s sales figures for July quickly leads to more interesting territory as discussion turns to how the figures are calculated.

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Today’s Bizarro …

Based on the song, I always thought it was Robin who laid the egg.

Slave Labor is now offering some of their titles online for 69 cents an issue:

SLG is now offering some of its comics in digital format. Digital means that it’s fancy and futuristic. And also cheap! Only 69 cents per comic! Just go to our webstore, store.slavelabor.com, and choose “Downloadable Comic Books” from the drop-down menu at the top and you can choose from The Super-Scary Monster Show #1-3 and Emo Boy #1-2 (Emo Boy #1 is available as a PDF as well as a CBZ). We will be adding more titles soon–Pirate Club is up next.

Now, keep in mind that the files are in .cbz format (except for one PDF), and you will need comic book reader software to view them. We recommend CDisplay for Windows users and Comical for Mac users, though we cannot guarantee that they will work with your system. So do the smart thing and check them out before you go buying our digital comics. Which you will do of course.

This is a new venture for us, so please give us feedback here! We are here to learn.

The books can be bought in the Slave Labor web store.

Speaking of cheap comics, Fantagraphics is having a “summer” sale until the end of September.

Originally, when I started this feature, I intended to write about a thousand words a week about a single panel. But sometimes a single panel doesn’t get the point across, because comics are a sequential medium and the most important job of the artist is to tell the story.

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ICv2 reports that Dark Horse is stepping into the direct-to-DVD animated market:

Variety is reporting that the Gotham Group, an animation-focused management/production entity, has inked deals with Lionsgate and IDT Entertainment to produce 19 direct-to-DVD animated features over the next three years.  The deal should be a boon for the companies that the Gotham Group reps, since it is understood that the properties chosen for animation will come from Dark Horse Comics, Simon & Schuster’s children’s library and the William Steig and Maurice Sendak libraries, all of which are repped by the Gotham Group.

 

Gotham will produce 10 films with Lionsgate and nine with IDT and will put up an estimated $3 million for the production of each film… Under the terms of the deal Gotham gets the ability to greenlight projects, which should present some major opportunities for the company’s clients such as Dark Horse.  Meanwhile Lionsgate and IDT get to experiment with very little risk and can take some chances while introducing new properties to the growing homevideo animation market.

This won’t be Dark Horse’s first experience in direct-to-DVD animation, of course; Hellboy Animated would hold that honor.

…If you’re in the UK, that is:

To celebrate the launch of CRIMINAL, my new comic with Ed Brubaker from Icon in October, I’ll be undertaking a short promotional tour of a few of the finer UK comic shops… At each store I’ll be giving away a page of original artwork from the first issue of CRIMINAL.

List of stores at the link, although what’s with the lack of Scottish stores, Sean?

On his Bad Signal email list, Warren Ellis gives an update on the progress of his webcomics site, Rocket Pirates:

Well, falling ill almost immediately after I made the call for submissions has slowed things down a bit. As did getting vastly more submissions than I expected (and I’m still sorting
through them). Also, I’m giving a few people the time they need to get set. And I have to stab someone with a sharpened robot, too.

So right now I’m looking at launching the site in mid-September, with everyone in the first wave in place.

It’s going to be a massive thing. The equivalent of a fat anthology. I don’t expect you to like everything there. That’s not how anthologies work, after all. I do, however, figure that most people will find something to love in there, and that the association of the work will lead you
to try something new.

Also coming soon: Rocket Pirate T-shirts!