Continuing its celebration of the release of the Tekkon Kinkreet DVD, Frames Per Second talks with director Michael Arias about adapting Taiyo Matsumoto’s manga.

The Portland, Ore., Mercury previews this weekend’s Stumptown Comics Fest with a sampling of work from some of the creators who’ll be in attendance. The fourth annual event, held Saturday and Sunday at the Lloyd Center Doubletree, will feature panels, workshops and the new Trophy Awards for Outstanding Comics.

Creators and exhibitors include Laura Allred, Mike Allred, Graham Annable, Peter Bagge, Brian Churilla, Camilla d’Errico, Farel Dalrymple, Kaja Foglio, Phil Foglio, Shaenon Garrity, Paul Guinan, Joelle Jones, Carol Lay, Matt Maxwell, Carl Speed McNeil, Dylan Meconis, Scott Mills, Christopher Mitten, Sarah Oleksyk, Ted Rall, Jamie S. Rich, Matt Silady, Matt Wagner, Shannon Wheeler, Dark Horse Comics, Fantagraphics Books, Girl-Wonder.org, Oni Press, Periscope Studios and Top Shelf Productions.

The full list can be found here.

After a lengthy hiatus, Dick Hyacinth’s ongoing treatsie on the legacy of Rob Liefeld continues. Part two covers his work on New Mutants:

I don’t want to oversell Liefeld here. He’s not an accomplished artist on New Mutants; to the contrary, he’s an incredibly frustrating artist. Liefeld flashes moments of skill throughout the book. You can’t help but wonder what he could have done if he’d continued to work on his craft. Some of these pages are very sophisticated for a guy who’d only been drawing comics for a couple of years. These are not the majority of his pages, unfortunately. Furthermore, any casual reader would be overwhelmed by his poor rendering and frequently sloppy storytelling to notice these infrequent triumphs.

Over at Media Circus, comics journalist stalwart Joe Sacco talks about his impressions of the fourth estate:

What I realised with my own career as a journalist is that no one is going to knight you and dub you Foreign Correspondent. The chance of you doing something on a mainstream level is one in a million. No one is going to give you a passport and a flack jacket and say “GO – we trust in your genius!” You kind of have to do it yourself.

When I was in Sarajevo for example, I met people who didn’t have the backing of a major publication, they had no press credentials, but they managed to get in somehow. Then when opportunities opened up they were on the spot.

If something interests you become an expert in your own right, or to the best of your ability. Go there, learn about it, and don’t wait for anybody else to send you. You can do it. It doesn’t have to be abroad, it can be inside your own community. It doesn’t mean you’re going to be successful necessarily, but at least if you are successful you’ve done it on your own terms.

We reported last week that Adult Swim has confirmed it will debut the Death Note anime on Oct. 20, but now Viz Media makes it really official with the announcement that it has licensed the series to the cable channel.

You can read the full press release below:

(more…)

With the dust settling on the Eightball #22 controversy, there remain a few close-the-bar comments that ware worth checking out.

First up is Eric Reynolds, who provides a measured, thoughtful accounting of the matter:

I appreciate any parent wanting to protect their children, but in this case, would the child be any less protected if a solution that didn’t include a police investigation and/or immediate resignation had been pursued? To me, that’s the fundamental question. Going outside the curriculum = against the rules, for sure. But if his intentions were good, who benefits from his resignation? Which leads us to (b). The ONLY reason this teacher should have been forced to resign is if there was any reason to believe that their was something improper in his motives. But as near as I can tell, there was nothing remotely predatory about his behavior.

Then there’s child advocate Minivan Diaries:

However, at what cost and to what extremes do we go to protect our children? Isn’t it also our job to be good role models for our kids, especially when they are teenagers and they judge our behavior so scrupulously? By rushing to the police, and notifying school officials, she denied the teacher any opportunity to explain himself. He was guilty way before he even had a chance to prove his innocence, or at least his poor judgement. This was a perfect opportunity for a Parental Teaching moment — to demonstrate how adults work out differences by gathering facts, communicating, trying to understand both sides of an issue, and in this case, realizing that people, even teachers are human and they make mistakes.

But if you’re just looking for snark, Vulture has you covered:

1. Did school administrators make any effort to determine whether this was true before suspending the teacher and (as hinted at in later posts by Eric Reynolds of Fantagraphics, Eightball’s publisher) pressuring him to resign?

2. What kind of idiot would try to seduce high-school girl with Daniel Clowes? Good Lord, do they think he was trying to creepazoid his way into her pants?

And while we’re talking about Clowes, don’t forget that his new strip, Mister Wonderful, is currently being serialized in the New York Times Sunday magazine section.

Gaming blogs from to TRMK to Gaming Today are reporting on a formerly dismissed rumor that the next Mortal Kombat game released by Chicago-based game developer Midway could be Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Comics characters.

The rumor was written off by most online gaming fans when it surfaced recently on the IGN message boards in a post by someone who supposedly has a “friend” inside the company, but now TRMK has cited their own sources who have confirmed the next MK game will indeed be a “vs.” style game. Added to statements by developers that they are “reinventing everything from the ground up,” gamers and MK fans are starting to think the formerly dismissed rumor might have some merit.

Fans of the Marvel vs. Capcom game might like the possibility. However, the idea of a game like Mortal Kombat, known for its gory fatalities, pairing with the likes of anti-killing superheroes like Batman and Superman still seems far-fetched. After all, being a long-time MK player myself, I can’t imagine getting quite the same thrill out of Sub-Zero’s finishing move if it’s Batman’s spine he’s ripping out – and DC would like that even less. And MK fans are not happy about the suggestion that game developers might, to appease DC Comics, release the newest MK version as a non-fatality game that will be rated T.

Naruto continues its slide back down USA Today’s Top 150 Books list as Vol. 18 slips 24 spots to No. 74, Vol. 17 falls 28 spots to No. 100, and Vol. 16 drops 21 spots to No. 117.

Don’t cry too much for Masashi Kishimoto’s little ninja: The next three volumes from the hit international manga series likely will debut on the book chart next week as part of Viz Media’s “Naruto Nation” campaign. That initiative continues through the end of the year, with three volumes released each month to catch up with the Japanese series in time for the start of a major new story arc with Vol. 28.

The USA Today list tracks all genres and types of books sold in some 4,700 brick-and-mortar and online stores.

SLG Publishing has posted a 15-page preview for Faith Erin Hicks’ upcoming graphic novel, Zombies Calling. The 104-page book will be released in November.

Don MacPherson follows up on Monday’s piece about the parity of the American dollar and the Canadian dollar with somewhat vague statements from DC, Marvel and Image about its effect on cover prices, and far more interesting comments from Canadian creators about the financial pinch:

[Colorist Chuck] Chuckry copes with that economic reality in various ways. He said he’s cut down on costs by moving from a rented studio space to a home studio. Whereas he once used local subcontractors to get his work done, he said, he now contracts work out to the far East. Professionals there will do the work for a fraction of the price.

“I also pay these new subcontractors in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian dollars, so my costs move with my rate of pay, since the publishers pay me in U.S. dollars as well,” said Chuckry, who’s based in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

The colorist and illustrator said he’s also picked up work from a French publisher that pays in Euros.

“This diversifies my foreign exchange risk somewhat,” he said. “I have thought about buying forward contracts with my currency broker to offset the rising Canadian dollar, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

Artist Stuart Immonen also weighs in.

New York magazine’s Vulture blog has an eight-page excerpt from Shaun Tan’s The Arrival, due next week from Scholastic.

Comedy Central’s Indecision 2008 blog hilariously matches the presidential candidates with their superhero counterparts.

My favorites are Hillary Clinton/She-Hulk — “Trained as a lawyer, can kick pretty much any guy’s ass, marriage to Man-Wolf was probably a mistake.” — Mike Gravel/Wolverine — “Intense, outdoorsy misanthrope from the Great White North with little memory of his past — possibly insane.” — and Fred Thompson/Onslaught — “The payoff totally wasn’t worth all the hype.” You should read the whole thing, though.

When the Captain America Omnibus came out a week or so ago at the store, it was like Christmas came early for the employees. An expensive Christmas as the book set at least three of us back a pretty penny, but as we cracked open the first copy bought amongst us, we all knew it was worth it. Oohing and ahhing at the production quality and all of our favorite moments from Brubaker’s run, we hit some of the special features and that’s when the cry went out.

“Hey,” noted a fellow register jockey. “That text is still blacked out!”

Lo and behold, the script shown in the Director’s Cut was included in the omnibus and on the last page, detailing page 31, panel 4, was at least four lines with a big black mark across them and clearly labeled CENSORED. Little did I know, these four lines would lead us all down a path of investigative discovery the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the days of Zapruder film. Only this time, it was a comic book. And quite possibly, it could break the internet in half. No, really. This time, we meant it.

Face front, True Believers and read on!

(more…)

Justice League of America has been getting a lot of attention lately, and I’m hoping it will be better than the campy ’90s movie that was made. So far, all we really have are confirmations that the movie will be made, who the director will be, and who might play whom in the movie.

Well, UGO has received a leaked script:

Ever since the JLA movie was announced people have been wondering what the storyline for the film will be about. What unites these diverse heroes to join together? Are there any villains from the Superman or Batman movies that will make their appearances? Finally we have some answers to give you today thanks to a deep cover source that’s read the script for Justice League of America and provided us with answers to some of our questions.

That is better than anything else and I don’t know why this hasn’t received a lot of attention yet. You better believe there are spoilers after the jump.

(more…)

For its preview of this weekend’s Stumptown Comics Fest, Portland’s Williamette Week spotlights local creators Mike Allred, Les McClaine, Dylan Meconis and Sarah Oleksyk.

Variety reports that the film version of the Afro Samurai animated TV series, which was based on Takashi Okazaki manga, will open in Japan on Oct. 27. The movie is a re-edited version of the show, with additional footage.

The five-episode series, which debuted in January on Spike TV, featured the voices of Samuel L. Jackson, Ron Perlman and Kelly Hu. RZA produced the hip-hop soundtrack. The TV series and the film are both produced by Jackson.

Transmission-X is one of my favorite sites out there so I thought I’d take a second and plug their new podcast:

In addition to its daily schedule of free comic strips, Toronto-based webcomics collective Transmission-X is set to launch a weekly video broadcast, entitled TX-TV, beginning Friday September 28 on YouTube and iTunes. TX-TV will present the creative professionals of the Transmission-X collective in candid situations as they struggle to conceive and assemble their comic strips while balancing industry commitments and a fiery studio group dynamic.

Each episode will run approximately 5 minutes in length and will spotlight Transmission-X strips, in-studio creative struggles, round-table discussions, comic con footage and more, and feature all the members of the Transmission-X collective and guest professionals from throughout the comic book industry.

You can check out their YouTube by clicking here.

Sharknife and PENG! creator Corey Lewis posts a recent video interview, and points to another at MySpace Comic Books: “omg I am so sick of myself. omg.”

The big revelation in this week’s PWCW is that HarperCollins will be releasing a massive once-volume collection of Scott McCloud’s classic Zot! series next summer:

Hope Innelli, associate publisher of Harper Paperbacks, said the new 576-page edition of Zot! will collect the entire black & white series in one volume. While early issues of the series, which was originally published by Eclipse Comics, ran in color, the new edition will include only the black & white material. “That’s a creative decision by Scott,” said Innelli, explaining that McCloud believes the series really came together when he focused on working in black and white.

The new edition will have a trim size of 6”x9” with French flaps and will be priced at $22.95. The book will include extensive commentary by McCloud on its creation, as well as much never-before-seen material. The book will also include “the Earth Stories,’ the last nine stories in the series, which have never been reprinted. “Zot! is the origin of Scott’s comics,” said Innelli. “It’s where he defined his style. We’re so used to Scott explaining comics, but now we get a chance to experience his comics.”

Also in this week’s edition: A look at the Mice Templar series; Bollywood will come to Riverdale; a review of Adrian Tomine’s Shortcomings; and an interview with editor Rob Tokar about Tokyopop’s upcoming Battle Royale Ultimate Edition repackaging.