Been itching to know what’s behind the Fantagraphics Books vs. Harlan Ellison case from, I think, a very even-handed source NOT related to the business of comics: Sample this very lengthy, very good and very balanced Seattle Weekly piece by Brian Miller.

Whichever side you’re sitting on, there’s no disputing Miller did a great job of tip-toeing through the mine field that is this legal feud, giving both sides plenty of space to air their dispute and a few jabs as well.

Be sure to scroll down to the end of the story, and you’ll get Miller’s impression of the battle, one that may reflect the opinion of many others watching from the sidelines…

At USA Today’s Pop Candy blog, Whitney Matheson compiles her list of top 20 comic-book movies worth renting. It’s a refreshingly varied collection that avoids many of the usual suspects in favor of films like Crying Freeman, Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland and Lone Wolf and Cub.

Of course, Matheson also includes Popeye and Supergirl, so …



It’s not that I don’t like Hawkgirl, it’s just that I wonder why I keep reading. 

Hawkgirl was one of the One Year Later titles I picked up solely on the basis of its new creative team. Walt Simonson and Howard Chaykin are two of my favorite cartoonists, and together I figured they could do no wrong.

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Kind of like USA Today did a few days ago when they examined the effect 300 could have on video game movies, The Toronto Sun examines another, more realistic effect that 300 could have on movie ratings.

I have a friend who says you can track the watering down of Hollywood movies back to the introduction of the PG-13 rating. The Sun says it’s a matter of “simple economics” — more people can see a PG-13 movie than one with an R rating, so movies like The Ring are edited to make them “suitable” for the wider teenage audience. Sometimes it works — the Sixth Sense was both a good film and a smash hit, after all. But Wes Craven’s Cursed? Ugh.

But maybe the success of 300 will change that:

One veteran producer welcoming 300’s success is Canadian Michael Pierce, who has clashed with the U.S. ratings board over the on-screen sex in his films The Cooler and Running Scared.

He says the kind of victory 300 is enjoying can’t help but inspire studios to “take more chances.”

…

In Canada, of course, provincial ratings boards apply their own standards to U.S. films. But if edgier content is being produced in Hollywood, it will undoubtedly be seen here, regardless of its rating. Pierce, though, hopes for more than just an increase in gore and nudity — but for more mature movies not targeted to teenagers.

“When everything is watered down, it makes it predictable for older audiences. The movies are kind of boring.”

The article ends by highlighting some other recent successful R-rated movies, like Wedding Crashers, and says that 300 director Zack Snyder has pledged to make Watchmen “Hollywood’s first R-rated comic book movie.” Y’know, besides A History of Violence, Ghost World, Sin City and Road to Perdition.

Voting is open for the 2007 Eagle Awards, the UK’s top honors for the comics industry. The nominations in 28 categories, which cover everything from Favorite Comics Writer and Favorite Publisher to Favorite Manga and Favorite Comics-Related Website — Newsarama is in the running — can be found here.

Polls close April 22. Winners will be announced May 12 at the Bristol International Comics Expo.

(Link via the Forbidden Planet International blog)

The Boston Globe profiles Johnny Raygun creator Rich Woodall. “I’ve always been interested in B-movies and science fiction books ever since I was a little kid,” said Woodall. “Johnny is a retro superhero with no real powers. He has to rely on his wits, and maybe a raygun sometimes to get him out of sticky situations.” More info on the title can be found on its official website.

Wizard looks at the collections of Marvel’s Civil War events by presenting the pros and cons of each trade and asking for one last time (hopefully) Which side are you on? What’s interesting is that the pros seem to be more sales pitchy, while the cons are surprisingly more honest than you might expect from Wizard:

CIVIL WAR
Civil War #1-#7
Mark Millar (W)
Steve McNiven (A)

PRO
In terms of sheer entertainment value, Millar and McNiven’s Civil War is hard to beat. McNiven’s art (aided by the expert inks of Dexter Vines and lush colors of Morry Hollowell) proves the pinnacle of ultra-slick, wide-angle action comics. Millar’s scripts provide moment after moment of twisted fanboy fun, from the reveal of a cloned Thor killing B-list hero Goliath to the book’s best moment, the unmasking of Spider-Man.

ANTI
The central political allegory that the Registration Act represents (privacy vs. security) is quickly lost in a cloud of heroes (notably pro- and anti-Reg leaders Iron Man and Captain America) who are often petty, reckless and thoughtless in defending their positions. When characters do make choices for the good of their causes or the story—like Spider-Man switching sides—those decisions are as out of the blue as the action scenes and hold even less of a lasting impact. A bewildering subplot featuring marital strife in the Fantastic Four and Captain America’s eleventh-hour about-face (seemingly inspired more by property damage than ideals) made us wonder: What’s so civil about war, anyway?

The Comics Journal message board considers those who suck, in their own opinion:

“what is it about comics that draws such self-deprecating artists? ware is a classic example, an artist who is ashamed of his work, can never be good enough, etc. i feel like this is just comics, and almost everyone does it at some point, slips out something about thanking readers for ignoring their horrible draftsmanship or lack of talent. and by the same token, these creators always give untempered praise for other artists and kick themselves over not being as good… is it just a trend of alternative comics that will eventually die as the medium no longer has to make excuses for its existence? is it something about the type of person who is drawn to make comics? is it comics’ proclivity to autobio? what is it? it’s hard to feel good about your own work when ware apologizes for his.”

“I’d rather have the self-depreciating creators than the ‘I’m the biggest thing to happen to comics. That’s a FACT.’ crowd.”

“If I were Ware, at this point in his career, I’d knock off the self-deprecatory business, at least in the minutia of his books. I don’t mind - like it, even - if his stories and characters are all about the misery, but anyone who has made his living - by his own choice - as an artist for the last nearly 20 years (!) and can afford to drop, oh, say, $1500 for tin-toys (etc. — and I do mean a lot of etc.) on Ebay has precious little to complain and or apologize about.”

“Well, look at it this way. Even if you think your work is sub-par, at least it’s making somebody else’s stuff look better. We are all in this together after all.”

This, of course, may be the final word on the subject.

The San Francisco Bay Guardian looks at Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series:

[F]or now O’Malley is focusing on number four, Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together. Is it done? “You wish!” he says, laughing. “I wish too.” The drawing phase, which he always does last, can be tedious, he says. “It’s not really creative at a certain point. It’s really just about keeping yourself motivated and keeping the big picture in sight.”

As I’ve said before, O’Malley will be attending APE in San Francisco next month, as well as a signing at Comix Experience.

Comic Monsters chats with Jim Salicrup about the upcoming Tales from the Crypt comic Papercutz is putting out:

TheBigBadWolf: Papercutz is known as a youth friendly publisher, with titles such as The Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew. During its heyday, Tales from the Crypt was very edgy material. Do you plan on keeping it that way, or making the book into a title for kids?

Jim Salicrup: It’s funny. For years there’s been a movement in this country to convince the public that comics are not just for kids, that well-done comics, with great writing and artwork could also be enjoyed by adults as well. Well, it looks like it worked better than anyone’s ever expected, and now it’s hard for people to imagine well-written and drawn comics that could be appreciated by kids! So, yes, some of the original Crypt comics contained edgy material, but the primary audience for Tales from the Crypt was kids! Such vocal EC Comics-boosters as John Carpenter, Geoge Lucas, Steven Spielberg, et al, were all kids back in the 50s! So, in a sense, you’re asking if we want to change a title that was originally intended for kids into a title for kids.

The title returns in June.

Chris Butcher makes young girls cry. Sorry, but he admits it himself:

So against my will this girl flashes her sketchbook at me.

“I only need to learn to draw hands,” she says, handing me the book. “They’re hard. I’m really great otherwise.”

I’ve posted about fangirl entitlement before. Mostly it comes up in relation to yaoi, and the fans therof. Straight girls and women deciding to boldy stake a claim on homosexual sex, logic or cultural appropriation be damned. But I invite all of my non-manga readers to really spend a day visiting anime and manga fandom: It’s fucking monstrous. You’ll find many of the most reprehensible children imaginable, running wild across forae that encourage their stupidity and encouraging a sort of fake-drama-based high school clique system that rules every facet of their lives. I hate to say this, but the Newsarama commenters, as attrocious as they are, don’t hold a candle to some of the bullshit I’ve seen.

To say that this girl had an air of entitlement about her work would be something of an understatement…

“My parents really want me to go to Sheridan. I always thought I’d study history, but I really want to go!”

Sheridan College is a local school that has one of the top five computer animation programs in the world. They also have a highly-regarded illustration program. It’s a pretty top-notch school.

“I’m really sorry,” I said. “But I don’t think you’re ready for Sheridan right now. If you work really, really hard for the next 7 months, you could get in to their Art Fundimentals course, on the road to illustration, but I don’t think if you applied now, you would get in.”

Actually, I knew she wouldn’t get in. I was being nice. Her face dropped.

Go and read the whole piece. It’s good stuff.

Bestofmostof.com talks to Dean Mullaney, former Eclipse Comics publisher, about the new Terry and the Pirates and Little Orphan Annie books he’s compiling for IDW, as well as why Eclipse went under … Dean explains how Eclipse was trying to work with bookstores before it was cool:

The irony of all this is that, in this day and age when graphic novels are regularly reviewed in the mainstream press, the reason Eclipse went under was due to my single-minded desire to establish graphic novels in mainstream bookstores. Eclipse had signed a mutually-exclusive contract with HarperCollins to produce graphic novels. The plan was to first introduce titles by authors already known to booksellers — J.R.R. Tolkien, Clive Barker, Dean Koontz, Anne McCaffrey… we even had an original by Doris Lessing in the planning stages.

Unfortunately, HarperCollins didn’t, in my opinion, really understand what graphic novels were all about. And there were internal conflicts at HC, to which I was never privy, that left Eclipse holding the bag. They had given us an advance to start production, but that money ran out, and we had a full schedule in production. We never received a single royalty statement, let alone check, from HC’s sales to bookstores. The cash flow deficit eventually forced us to close up shop.

Back in the day, Eclipse published a lot of great comics — everything from Scout to Tales of the Beanworld to DNAgents to Reid Fleming to the legendary Miracleman. They were also one of the first publishers to publish Japanese manga in English, including Appleseed and Xenon. The Comics Warehouse site has an index of everything they published.

Part two of the interview will run in a few days.

The post office will issue 15 stamps in May that feature characters from the Star Wars films. The 41-cent stamps (postage goes up May 14) will include:

• Darth Vader.
• Yoda.
• Obi-Wan Kenobi.
• Han Solo and Chewbacca.
• Anakin Skywalker fighting Obi-Wan Kenobi.
• Queen Padme Amidala.
• Luke Skywalker.
• Princess Leia Organa with R2-D2.
• Emperor Palpatine.
• Darth Maul.
• Imperial Stormtroopers.
• Boba Fett.
• The Millennium Falcon.
• An X-wing fighter.
• C-3PO.

Having lived in the “Second City” of more than 8 million folks for nearly 20 years, my wife and I had some wonderful opportunities to see a lot of wonderful musical performers and funny shows, among the funniest an improv theatre’s 90-minute rendition of Batman, mixing the 60s doofus with Burton’s alienated Bat-freak, a decade ago.

Flashing forward to today, if I had the free time and cash — all dry on both counts — I might’ve been so inclined to see the Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company’s off-off Broadway production of Men of Steel, praised this week in the New York Times as a “culturally savvy comedy,” at Center Stage in New York, running through April 8.

Sounds like the Vampire Cowboys hit all the grace notes with Captain America, Liberty Belle/Wonder Woman and Batman cyphers (Captain Justice, Liberty Lady and Maelstrom) and a mad villain, the Mole, “who prefers making dramatic statements of intent to actually avoiding weapons hurled at him.”

One thing I didn’t do enough with my kids, save the youngest, and only for a short time at that: Sharing my love for comics with my kids by spending quality time reading to them. That’s the admirable and very fun gist of this ongoing set of blog posts by my favorite comics reader blog of the moment, Blake Bell’s Best of/Most of starting here, who’s rereading Jeff Smith’s Bone saga with his two boys.

Blake also started a thread over on the TCJ message board about the Bone reread that’s garnered some interesting posts from fathers attempting to interest their boys and girls. And, evidently, Mr. Smith, in the midst of proudly showing off his first-ever Bone plush toy (below) noticed Blake’s reread too…

If you recall, last month the winners were announced for the 14th annual Spectrum Awards, which honor the best in fantasy, science fiction and horror art, with Adam Hughes and James Jean among the recipients.

Now the lineup has been released for Spectrum 14: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, which showcases, well, the best in fantastic art. Several comic artists have been selected for inclusion in the book, including Arthur Adams, Brom, Frank Cho, Michael Golden, James Jean, Michael William Kaluta, Sonny Liew, Dave McKean, Christopher Moeller, Brandon Peterson, Paolo Rivera, Steve Rude, Philip Tan, Ben Templesmith, John Van Fleet, and Charles Vess.

I undoubtedly overlooked a few names, so read the full list here.

Spectrum 14 will be published in October by Underwood Books.

Wizard asks creators to play Fallen Son, as they reflect on Captain America. Most surprising is the love for Steve Englehart’s run, although Bendis has it exactly right:

I was particularly a fan of the later Kirby Captain America in the ’70s because I liked the angry Cap. I like the “Harlem is burning and Cap is running through the streets” stuff. There is when Cap was defined not just as a symbol of liberty, but as the spirit of America. I thought it was the best interpretation of the character, because whatever the country is feeling, Steve Rogers ends up representing that feeling. Not just patriotism, but if the country is angry, he gets angry. If the country is sad, he’s sad. He becomes the embodiment of that emotion and acts. That really is something so much more than just a symbol or party politics. He doesn’t represent a flag, but a collective emotion… There was a “Bicentennial Battles” special that Kirby did that was the freakiest, trippy thing I’d ever read. It was crazy. I enjoyed that a lot. I also liked it a lot when he gave it up and became Nomad. That was the most shocking thing he could do. When Cap says “eff you,” it’s pretty shocking.

Man, I love the 1970s Kirby Cap, especially because no-one is capable of saying anything that doesn’t end in an exclamation point. “HOW ARE YOU, CAP?” “I’M FINE! DIDN’T SLEEP TOO WELL LAST NIGHT BUT WHAT CAN YOU DO! KINDA HUNGRY!”

And we’re back!

After doing battle with a sea of troubles, the Fifth Color is back and on the mend.  We’ll be heading to the June solicits for Marvel next week since there’s a lot to go through (NOTE: gird your pocketbooks, True Believers!  June is going to get expensive!), but while I recoup from a recent bout of illness, I wanted to talk about the retail biz and a bit about the trials and tribulations of having to answer the rather daunting question of “What’s Good?”
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The cover art has been released for the final Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, due in stores July 21. Time’s Nerd World blog has the details and a much, much larger version of the illustration, in case you’re looking for a new desktop pattern … or wall mural.