I’ve seen this from a few different sources including Josh Fialkov and Warren Ellis, but Image has put together a helpful press release, so I’m just going to post that. Josh Medors is a pal of mine and the sweetest comics professional I’ve ever met. It breaks my heart that he’s having to go through this:

23 April 2008 (Berkeley, CA) – Unknown to the general public, FRANK FRAZETTA’S SWAMP DEMON, RUNES OF RAGNAN, WILLOW CREEK, GI JOE and 30 DAYS OF NIGHT artist Josh Medors has been fighting cancer for the past several months. In his time of need, Image Comics and Frazetta Comics have stepped in organize an auction with all proceeds going straight to Josh.

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It’s a new webcomic by alt-comix stalwart JR Williams. I was wondering what he was up to.

Found here.

In what Heidi MacDonald aptly described as “shaman’s magic,” several weeks ago Grant Morrison portrayed the young Siegel and Shuster changing the world in a comic released on the very same day that a federal judge issued his historic ruling in the Superman case.

As longtime DC comics readers may recall, this was not the first time that Siegel and Shuster had the power to remake reality with their words. For example, in Action Comics #447, a storyteller named Joseph Jerome can fashion reality, including Superman, with the power of his imagination. Likewise, Action #554 relates how two boys save the world by creating Superman through the force of their belief. Yet as we have already seen in this series, not all depictions of their imaginative power are so sanguine. The Siegel-and-Shuster Superman in Adventures of Superman #612 is depicted as a relic of a long-forgotten past; while the power of imagination may bring him to life, the realities of life today might also make him obsolete.

This tension between past and present is equally evident in the Siegel case. On the one hand, for many within the comics community the ruling was a symbolic victory in the struggle for creators’ rights, vindicating not just Siegel and Shuster, but legions of comic book artists and writers whose genius was exploited by corporate greed.

Yet much to the surprise of longtime industry watchers, the judgment also provoked a strong negative response. Some critics focused on the fact that the winner was not Siegel himself but his heirs, who were said to have gained an unearned windfall. Other observers went a step further, questioning the wisdom of a law that voids otherwise valid contracts, and accusing the Siegels themselves of exploiting Superman for their own financial gain.

As you may have noticed if you’ve been reading comment threads, the debate can get rather intense. In this, our last post of the series, we’ll examine how the creative vision of Siegel and Shuster helped give rise to both sides.

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New York magazine’s Vulture blog has a 12-page excerpt from M, Jon J. Muth’s adaptation of Fritz Lang’s classic 1931 film. Muth’s version was first published in 1990 by Eclipse, but the company went out of business before the four-issue miniseries could be collected.

Later this month Harry N. Abrams will release the adaptation as a hardcover, with an introduction by film critic Adam Kempenaar.

The Same Hat! guys have unveiled their super-secret manga project that they’ve been working on and hinting about frequently. It’s a translation of the manga Tokyo Zombie by Yusaku Hanakuma. The book will be published by Last Gasp and see it’s debut at the San Diego Comic-Con:

Tokyo Zombie is a horror-comedy manga about two blue-collar factory workers, Mitsuo and Fujio, whose plans for martial arts fame are sidelined when zombies take over Tokyo. In this gory and hilarious tale, the survivors of the zombie apocalypse have been enslaved by the wealthy ruling class, and must cater to their every depraved whim…or be thrown outside the city to fend for themselves. When some of the survivors are enlisted to fight in an undead gladiator arena for the amusement of the rich, Mitsuo and Fujio are locked in a battle for fame, freedom, and their very lives!

Years before Shaun of the Dead introduced Western audiences to the zombie comedy genre, Yusaku Hanakuma’s hilarious and outrageous manga was already a cult classic in Japan. Tokyo Zombie’s class-conscious storyline about the haves and the have-nots during a zombie uprising anticipated such films as George Romero’s Land of the Dead. Now English-speaking audiences will have the chance to check out the genre-mashing tale that started it all.

A preview of sorts from a recent art exhibition can be found here.

Over at The Comics Reporter, Bart Beaty is busy putting some serious smack down on David Hajdu’s book The Ten-Cent Plague. Fer example:

But still, the old myths are powerful myths. The image that Hajdu paints in his book is of a hapless little cottage industry beset by outside forces. It would be a lovely notion were it not for the power wielded by comic books and newsstand distributors at that time. Wertham, whose ‘powerful friends’ were to be found running a free clinic in Harlem, took on an enormously wealthy industry long-rumored to be connected to organized crime. It’s not a coincidence that the Senate committee spent the third day of their investigation on issues of distribution and the ‘pressures’ brought to bear on magazine dealers to stock magazines that they might otherwise opt not to. Sadly, aside from the occasional passing reference to the garment industry, this is not a line that Hajdu chooses to investigate.

The assault continues today.

About a year ago Marvel announced that they were building a theme park in Dubai in partnership with the real estate company Al Ahli Group; the park was targeted to open in 2011. Now they’ve announced that they’ve switched dance partners — Tatweer, another United Arab Emirate-based real estate group, has signed a deal with them. The park is now set to open in 2012.

The park will be part of a larger “entertainment destination” called Dubailand, which also has deals in place with Dreamworks Animation and Universal Studios.

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As a part of Fantastic Fest in Austin, the notoriously cool Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Lamar is previewing Iron Man on April 28. To celebrate, artist Jesse Phillips has created this limited edition Iron Man print:

Creating limited edition posters for their events is par for the course for the Drafthouse; you can check out and buy some of their past posters here (including Iron Man). Also as a part of the event — real live jet pack pilots. But what would you expect from a movie theater that hosts Deliverance canoe trips and premieres Open Water in the middle of Lake Travis?

(Thanks Mike!)

Warren Ellis teases two upcoming projects for Avatar on his blog … the first, posted Monday, is called No Hero:

The second, posted today, is called Aetheric Mechanics:

Well, don’t I feel foolish?

Here I am, plotting out my resources to master the world of comic conventions and it turns out I’m on the wrong coast!  NYCC was the place to be this weekend and not only was Newsarama there with every bell ringin’ and whistle blowin’ you could imagine (go team!), but so was the Mighty Marvel Media Machine!  WOW!  Jam packed with panels and interviews and movie news and special footage and I’m sure there had to have been a free t-shirt or two because that’s really the only thing missing out of the bash for the House of Ideas!

So, while I’ve been the Maytag repairman out on the West Coast, let’s see what Marvel brought to the New York Comic Con.  There’s tons of info out there, so think of the following as a few digestible bits that can satisfy any Marvel Zombie.
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At the risk of overdoing it with the TV- and movie-related items (too late!), I have one more post: In New York magazine, Speed Racer visual effects supervisors John Gaeta and Dan Glass dissect the film’s influences, which range from Miyazaki’s Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro to Elvis Presley’s Speedway to the photography of Eadweard Muybridge.

There’s a related slide show, in which the two discuss their process for certain scenes.

Here’s a staggering figure, courtesy of The Los Angeles Times: “In a faddish frenzy, no fewer than 22 film projects born of graphic novels or comics have been announced in the last six weeks.”

I regularly blog about studio acquisitions, and I’m still a little surprised by that number.

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly at New York Comic Con, Frank Miller points out the differences between The Spirit and Sin City:

It’s in color, for one thing. But also it’s a very different movie. Sin City was really a combination of me and [co-director] Robert Rodriguez working off my own drawings. And this was based on comics from the 1940s — Will Eisner’s — but through a much more modern lens. Besides, you’ll never see a tie this color [motions to his half-red, half-blue Spirit tie].

So, that should clear up everything.

Miller also tells the magazine he’s written Sin City 2, which he plans as part of a movie trilogy.

I just stumbled across this preview for Mighty Avengers #12 — out today — which has me jonesing for my guiltiest of guilty pleasures, that 21st-century MacGyver called Prison Break.

Guest artist Alex Maleev did cast the lifeless Dominic Purcell as Nick Fury, didn’t he? I’m not imagining it?

Now, put away your pitchforks: This isn’t a “swipe”; it’s just an apparent instance of an artist basing his depiction of a character on an actor (see Ultimate Nick Fury). I find the practice distracting, because instead of getting into the story I end up scanning crowd scenes for the supporting cast of The Sopranos. Or, worse, I “hear” the dialogue in the voice of the actor.

There’s a third problem with “casting,” of course: that the Nick Fury in Mighty Avengers ends up looking nothing like the Nick Fury in any of the other mainstream Marvel titles. But that’s still preferable to imagining Purcell’s monotone recitation of all of the Colonel’s lines.

Entertainment Weekly runs down the lineup of the summer’s comic book-based movies, from Speed Racer to Hellboy II to Batman: The Dark Knight, and tries to match the adaptation with the recommended reading material.

For Iron Man, the magazine’s staff pointers movie-goers to the classic Demon In A Bottle storyline:

True, Jon Favreau’s movie is more of a cheeky origin story, but it merely sets the foundation for what he’s reportedly said will lend itself to a warts-and-all sequel. Enter Demon in a Bottle. Fifteen years after Iron Man’s invention, Michelinie and Layton created this definitive portrait of the alcoholic hero. Tony Stark, the playboy industrialist under the armor, goes head-to-head against whiskey sours and amaretto and scotches — it’s probably the only time you’ll hear the battle cry, ”I should never have had that fourth martini!” Reminders that it’s 1979 include disco fashions and Ed Koch.

Related: EW looks at the risks Marvel has taken with the Iron Man movie

Blurry shots of the Wanted poster trickled out of New York Comic Con over the weekend, but now ComingSoon.net has the real deal, courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Wanted, based on the 2003 Top Cow miniseries by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones, opens on June 27.

Three reasons to check out Kerry Callen’s blog:

1. Gasp when you learn the truth about Superman.
2. Marvel at the Amalgam hero Bat Devil.
3. Swoon (swoon?) over preview pages from the upcoming second edition of Halo & Sprocket, due this summer from SLG. If you missed the original mini-series, you can download it from Eyemelt.

Via

New comics publisher Radical Publishing announced recently that Jim Steranko was drawing the first two covers of their Hercules series … here’s the cover to issue 2:

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