Thursday, May 23
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With this issue we’re getting into what looks like the next big story arc, involving a group of very familiar (and very appropriate) villains. It’s another good blend of plotting and action.
By the way, if you were missing Troy Brownfield’s sit-down with Kurt Busiek for the last couple of issues, they’ve played catchup right here. As for the identity of the woman Bagley’s sketched, I say she’s Ms. Marvel.
SPOILERS FOLLOW
* * *
As the vendors’ booths go back into storage, and the sights, sounds, and smells of a hundred-thousand conventioneers fade into memory, let’s consider some of DC’s announcements from this year’s Comic-Con. Obviously these aren’t presented in any particular order, nor do they represent all of DC’s Big News over the weekend.
Anyhoodle:
Watchmen may not debut for another seven months, but that doesn’t stop Empire from devoting an issue to the Zack Snyder adaptation. On the magazine’s website, you can see both Watchmen covers, four new images from the movie, and an interactive peek inside the issue.
Related: The magazine’s “50 Greatest Comic Book Characters”
Apparently not everybody is looking forward to Neil Gaiman’s upcoming Batman two-parter, announced over the weekend at Comic-Con. As evidence, Gaiman posts this exchange on his blog:
I hope this reaches neil himself. Never have i ever known of anyone as full of himself as well as shit, than you. Now another milestone in your over-hyped career, Writing Batman. Not only are you under the impression you can write, but write batman? F**k You. You Tried before and it sucked. It was just gaiman… With Batman in it. F**k You.
If I’d known that Secret Origins of Batman Villains #1 had made that much of an impression on people, I would have… actually, probably not done anything different, really. I was rather fond of it.
If you think you won’t like the Batman comic I’ll write, probably you’d be best off not reading it. It’ll just be a two part Batman comic, you can save your money. Although if you’d bother to write me a letter like that you might buy it just to prove to yourself that you hate it as much as you know you’re going to…
After the completely random capitalization, my favorite part of the email is the opening sentence — “I hope this reaches neil himself.” — which leads you to expect one of those touching “The Sandman helped me through my awkward teen-age years”-type messages. But instead … wham!
In news that’s likely to crack the comics Internet in half, Sony Pictures is trudging forward with Venom, a potential Spider-Man spinoff starring the villainous symbiote.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the studio hopes the project could provide a boost to the aging Spider-Man movie franchise, the same way Fox has used Wolverine to prolong the life of X-Men.
Jacob Estes (The Gifted, Mean Creek) had been commissioned to pen a draft, but Sony is looking for writers to take another shot at it.
The trade paper points out that the studio faces a few hurdles in developing Venom, including casting: Sony apparently isn’t sure Spider-Man 3‘s Topher Grace could carry a tentpole feature.
With all the Winsor McCay-related links I’ve been posting here lately, it seems foolish of me not to include this new site, devoted to the seminal cartoonist’s life, work, and times:
Spring Lake, Michigan was the hometown of legendary cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay. McCay is internationally recognized and loved in cartooning and animation circles. Sadly, however, at the moment not many people in his hometown have even heard of him. We want to change that! This site serves as a source of information to Anyone wanting to learn more about the brilliant Winsor McCay: his life, his work, and the many ways he’s been honored. It also serves as a means to introduce McCay fans around the world to his hometown, Spring Lake, Michigan.
To quote the Flickr page:
Scanned caricatures by Josef Lada from Jaroslav Hašek’s satirical tour de force about World War I (published in 1924). This is less than one third of the line drawings supplied by Lada. The book is absolutely wonderful and was an influence on Heller’s Catch 22.
You can also go here to learn more.
The Watchmen “trailer effect” continues to be felt in the book market as the collection of the 22-year-old miniseries leaps 54 places up USA Today’s Top 150 list to No. 29.
USA Today’s chart tracks all genres and formats of books sold in some 4,700 brick-and-mortar and online stores.
Released July 17 with The Dark Knight, the teaser for Zack Snyder’s film adaptation quickly boosted sales of the Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons trade paperback. Within three days of the trailer’s debut, Watchmen had rocketed to No. 83 on the book chart and as high as No. 2 on the Amazon.com bestseller list (it now sits at No. 3).
Last week publisher DC Comics ordered a 200,000-copy new printing to meet increased demands.
But Watchmen isn’t the only comic to receive a movie bump this week: Batman: The Killing Joke, the 1988 graphic novel by Moore and Brian Bolland, enters the USA Today list at No. 114. The work served as the inspiration for the depiction of The Joker in The Dark Knight. (Dennis O’Neil’s novelization appears on the list, too, at No. 141.)
Other comics on the USA Today chart: Jeff Kinney’s hybrid Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, at Nos. 49 and 54; and Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto, Vol. 30, at No. 101.
Heavy Ink chats with Gerard Duggan, writer of the Eisner-nominated series The Infinite Horizon:
Tell me about your “ah-ha” moment on Infinite Horizon. When did you first realize that there was a story to be told in drawing from the Odyssey for a modern story that would bring in some modern politics as well?
When I first have an idea, I stop and write down as much of the idea that can be captured at that moment. If it’s a decent idea, a lot of thoughts can pour out of you at once. The very next thing that I do is try to punch as many holes into the idea as possible. If I don’t, somebody else will.
With this particular story, I wasn’t able to really sink it. Breaking the tale was very exciting. Hours disappeared into a computer, but it felt as though minutes had passed. I knew right away I was going to write it as a comic book. Luckily, Phil said yes right away and we began immediately. I spent sleepless nights either getting out of bed to jot down ideas, or staring at the ceiling wondering if someone was further ahead that I was in telling this story. That was not a good feeling. Getting the first issue into comic shops relieved me of that stress.
Caleb Monroe, writer of The Remnant, decided to see how many steps he’d take during the San Diego Comic-Con:
So, since my feet sure feel the mileage every year, this year I thought I’d find out just what that mileage was. So I bought a pedometer to count the number of steps I took during the con, and therefore approximately what distance I traveled. I forgot to get one before leaving for my train, but after walking the few blocks from the train station to my hotel and dropping off my bag, the first thing I did was walk another couple blocks to Long’s Drugs to buy a pedometer.
Click the link to see how far he walked.
Artist Cliff Chiang sends word that he’ll participate in his first gallery show starting tomorrow at Rocketship Comics in Brooklyn:
It’s my first gallery show, an exhibit with fellow Brooklyn cartoonists Dash Shaw and Julia Wertz. My contribution is an unpublished 8-page Batman:Black & White story. Lettered on the boards and unlikely ever to be published, this is the only way anyone is ever going to be able to read it. The opening reception is at 8PM, with beer and wine available. Fancy, no? I’ll be the one with the pencil moustache and monocle.
Oni sent over today the artwork they showed during their San Diego presentation on Saturday. I posted the cover for the next Scott Pilgrim book already, and the main site has my Oni panel report up in the comic section if you’d like more details on each project. I’ll try to add some extra commentary, though, in my post here.
So let’s see what they have coming up …
First up, here’s Billy Smoke:
Well! Now that Comic Con is over and the cats are roaming free out of their respective bags, what can we really say besides … GO TEAM MARVEL! Sure, the Distinguished Competition let some things slip and seem to be doing well for themselves, but as a True Believer, I just gotta say how awesome it was to watch the next year or so unfold at panels, hear word of exclusives, catch hints and secrets and yes, see ‘Stan The Man’ Lee cruising down the halls on his way to his next panel.
The con is sort of a surreal experience with so much happening all at once, it’s hard to take in. I know I missed a bunch of panels and events waiting in one line or another, so here’s just a bunch of things that caught my eye that might have gone under your radar, what with all the Stephen King mobile video episodes, exclusive contracts, Marvel movies and assorted madness.
One of the most popular attractions on the exhibit floor this past weekend was the Owl Ship from the Watchmen movie that Warner Bros. brought wth them. TVGuide.com was given access to the Owl Ship; check out their video tour:
They shot a lot of other Watchmen-related videos, which you can check out here.
Frames Per Second has video of Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn’s title sequence for the BBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics. The animation is based on the 16th-century Chinese tale Journey to the West.
Science fiction author, and sometimes-comics writer, Orson Scott Card long has been … let’s call it vocal … in his views on homosexuality and in his opposition to gay marriage. So his hyperbolic and, frankly, bewildering column on the subject last week in the Mormon Times doesn’t come as that much of a surprise.
The reaction isn’t entirely unexpected, either; Card’s writings on homosexuality and gay rights are frequently met with opposition. What’s a little different this time is that Marvel is mentioned in some of the return volleys — from outside of the comics community.
Card, who’s best known for his 1985 novel Ender’s Game, penned two Ultimate Iron Man miniseries for Marvel in 2005 and 2007. And at New York Comic-Con, the publisher announced it’s adapting Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow, beginning in October. Marvel further promoted the titles over the weekend at Comic-Con.
In an editorial at AfterElton.com, part of the Logo network (owned by Viacom), Brent Hartinger takes Card to task, but points out that the author has received little mainstream criticism for his history of anti-gay comments: “… major media players such as Marvel Comics, Warner Brothers, and Card’s publisher Tom Doherty Associates continue to work with him.”
Elsewhere on the website, Brian Juergens provides readers with ways to contact Marvel and Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada to express their views on Card and the adaptation of Ender’s Game.
Paul Constant, books editor for Seattle alternative weekly The Stranger, isn’t quite as tactful, repeatedly using the phrase “Orson Scott Card is a homophobe,” linked back to the Mormon Times essay:
I’m never in favor of banning books, of course, but I do think that more people need to understand that Orson Scott Card is a hateful homophobe. It needs to become common knowledge that Orson Scott Card is a hateful homophobe. If Marvel Comics and Warner Brothers knew that more people know that Orson Scott Card is a hateful homophobe, they might be less likely to give Orson Scott Card (who is a hateful homophobe) a shitload of money.
Feministe, MetaFilter and a slew of other blogs and sites also have picked up on the topic — although many move away from the Marvel Comics aspect to focus on one of Card’s comments, which some interpret as the author advocating the overthrow of the government.
It’s book catalog time again! Once more the kind folks at Farrar, Straus and Giroux (who publish the Hill and Wang series of nonfiction comics and distribute Drawn & Quarterly’s graphic novels) have sent me their catalog for the first third of the coming year. Want to know what delightful graphic novels await you in 2009? Hit the jump to find out. (more…)
RORSHACH’S JOURNAL.
July 22nd, 2008
Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood.
No one notices. Chesty girl in Elektra costume walks by and lecherous men stop to take photos.
Accumulated filth and sex, whores and politicians, following the droppings of lechers and capitalists. They had a choice, all of them. They could have followed in the footsteps of good men. Decent men who believed in a day’s work for a day’s pay.
Instead, they came to Comic-Con. Now they stand on the brink, staring into bloody hell.
Hurm.
