You thought you’d seen the last of New York Comic-Con? Think again! More below the cut from our very own Vaneta Rogers!

(more…)

TV Guide has a, frankly, awful story on Batwoman assuming the lead in Detective Comics. We’ve seen some pretty terrible reporting on comics by the mainstream media in the past (as Caleb often points to in “linkarama”), but this one showed no real effort to understand the basics of the announcement or the material behind it.  Only a couple of posts in, and regular readers were correcting pieces large (like the spelling of comics) and minute (the intricacies of R.I.P. and Final Crisis).  Of course, it doesn’t help that the article once again went to the ’60s TV well with the potentially offensive “Holy Lesbian!” headline.  My take: if you’re going to try to offer straight-forward reportage on something as banal as “The Bachelor”, then you should probably check your facts on one of the biggest franchises in entertainment.

Newsarama’s own poster Sevedris has created a great Quizzila quiz to go with DC’s War of Light over-arc that is kicking ass and taking names in the Green Lantern books. The Quiz asks a series of questions with somewhat ambiguous answers designed to let you know which of the Corps you belong in. It’s pretty fun, and the subtle nuances he used based on what we know of the Corps so far are pretty sweet. Whether you’re full of Rage or have the Hope to save the universe, it’s a fun little diversion. So, which Ring are you expecting after taking this quiz?

The library is a great place for readers to discover comics, and it’s a great place for comics readers to check out things that they want to try without spending their hard-earned cash. I’m looking at comics that I find in the New York Public Library system.

The prerequisite to any current discussion of this book seems to be to mention that Scott McCloud is famous these days for his academic theorization about the comics form, most popularly in his trio of books Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics and Making Comics. Those are fine books.  I own ‘em and love ‘em, but they’re for comics aficionados, for those of us who’ve devoted far, far too much brainpower to unlocking the secrets of the form and why it presses the buttons it does. Far and away, however, Zot! is McCloud’s most accessible and purely fun work.

On a world similar to our own, except with all the bad parts cut out, Zach Paleozogt, known as Zot, is a superhero. Well, more a retro-futuristic sci-fi adventurer with superheroic overtones, because Zot doesn’t really have any powers – except his relentlessly cheery attitude and an impossible derring-do will to overcome all odds. On our world, there’s Jenny, a teenage girl who has divorcing parents, a problematic older brother, homework and plenty of questions about what she’s doing in her life.

Half of the book alternates between Zot’s world and Jenny’s world, blending retro sci-fi adventure drama with slightly off-beat comedy episodes, copiously complemented by engaging characterization as Jenny tries to reconcile her dream world against the reality she experiences most days. It’s engaging, fun if light and forgettable comic book entertainment. Around halfway through Zot! The Complete Black & White’s 570-odd pages, McCloud’s interest clearly shifts to the human element.

From that point forward, Zot is stranded on our Earth, and Jenny is unable to escape the pressures of her conflicted teen anxieties. McCloud’s strong grasp of his supporting cast allows him to use them as narrators of their own lives while still driving forward Jenny’s story. His formalist tendencies, evidenced through his follow-up projects, even get a few chances to shine, as in the surprising finale of Terry’s chapter – with its secret last page. Carefully constructed and emotionally true, despite the presence of a heroic figure who seems to always inspire positive thoughts, these chapters are where Zot! truly shines. There are a few hiccups, such as the tediously one-note school bully who attacks Woody, but the simple humanity evidenced throughout the stories – from Brandy’s effusive positivity in the face of the worst traumas of any of Jenny’s friends, to Zot and Jenny’s frank and hesitant conversation about their physical relationship – lifts the series to truly memorable heights.

Simply, Zot! is effusive, fun comics, with an uplifting yet believable emotional core. Many young and old readers will find themselves pleasantly surprised if they check McCloud’s earliest comics work out of their local library.

Everyone has been so focused on the Zombie Apocalypse lately, it seems we’ve forgotten about the man-made danger that constantly threatens to strike: ROBOTS. Thankfully, Samantha Bee at The Daily Show remains ever vigilant. Beware the Robot Apocalypse!!

Strange Times:  The New York Times seems oddly out-of-place amid the surrounding sights and sounds.

Aw, yeah, Titans!

Some well-done takes on a couple of icons.

And now for some photos from our very own Vaneta Rogers…

Tales from the DC booth.

True Believers at the Marvel booth.

This man is protesting human bean juice.

The man himself: Peter David as Jamie Madrox.

GRUNDY NO LIKE CAMERAS! They make him cry.

Vaneta’s favorite costume of the con.

Valve just announced via press release that the much anticipated Left 4 Dead downloadable content will be the best price of all, FREE. This applies to both Xbox 360 users and PC gamers, and includes all the previously announced DLC content. The L4D Survival Pack will include:

1. New Multiplayer Game Mode called Survival; think Horde in Gears 2, with Zombies
2. 2 Complete Campaigns for Versus Mode called Death Toll and Dead Air.

The content will be available this Spring, and for latecomers, you’ll be able to buy the “Critic’s Choice” edition of the game with the DLC already included. It’s nice to see someone taking a page from Burnout Paradise’s playbook and offering some quality downloads to reward faithful players. I can’t wait!

One of the coolest things about going to conventions is getting original art. Sometimes you can’t make it out, and luckily there’s the wonderful world of eBay. Christine Norrie, who you may know from her work on American Virgin, Hopeless Savages, or the Black Canary Wedding Special, has a sweet color sketch up now, in honor of the late, great, Bettie Page. Check it out!

“Youngblood is…[a] poor man’s X-Men for people with a rare ocular deficiency that disallows them from just reading X-Men comics”: This guy doesn’t think a Youngblood movie is a very good idea. Warning, sensitive souls/people reading this at work: Lots of swear words. Personally, I think a movie based on a Rob Liefeld comic that tried to cinematically reproduce using actors and sets what Liefeld does on a comics page, not unlike what the Sin City movie attempted with Frank Miller’s work, would be extremely fascinating. And hilarious. And maybe kinda sorta awesome. Or terrible. In other words, like any other movie. But definitely fascinating from a “let’s try this and see how it works” kind of perspective.

Speaking of Liefeld and Youngblood…: Mike Sterling wants to know why those of you who like or liked it did in fact like or liked it. “I’m not looking for facetious answers, and I’m not looking to make fun of anyone,” Sterling writes. “Youngblood has a certain…reputation for its quality, but I know the book had its fans and I want to hear why.” Sterling, who experienced the release of Youngblood #1 from the other side of the retailer’s counter than most of us, shares his own thoughts here.

Maybe if every man, woman and child in El Paso woulda bought Blue Beetle, they wouldn’t have had to cancel it: Here’s an article about a symposium organized by an El Paso resident dealing with how his city has been portrayed in comic books. Jai Nitz, who wrote the rather delightful all-Spanish issue of Blue Beetle (and just wrapped up an El Diablo mini), is the keynote speaker. This seems like a pretty neat idea.

Presumably, planks, bowling balls, tea kettles and cuckoo clocks will be involved: Electric vehicle charging stations named after Rube Goldberg, inventor of some of the least energy efficient machines ever imagined.

“A new DC comic coming soon starring Batwoman the lesbian superhero Perez Hilton reports”: Um, I think this needs a comma somewhere.

“But there were so many quiet, ignored tables, covered in things that looked like somebody had laid their family photo album on the table and was upset that you wanted more than just a picture of them with their dog”: If con coverage were an Olympic sport, Nina Stone deserves a gold medal. Her visit to NYCC prompted this very insightful essay about the nature of comics, and how creators, publishers and others in the industry seem focused on simply addressing their own, personal problem with their own, personal solution that works for them, rather than trying to provide others what they might need or want. Is that a positive or a negative? It’s not necessarily either, and certainly it’s easy to understand why creators might gravitate toward that sort of work—making comics you think others might like even if you yourself wouldn’t want to read them doesn’t exactly sound like a recipe for great comics, you know?—but on a publishing level? Something to think about. Anyway, go read Stone’s piece.

I survived NYCC, and there’s an embarrassment of riches waiting for me at my local comic shop this week. Not only are my two favorite monthlies coming out (DMZ and Scalped), there’s even a DMZ trade with a forward by Greg Palast, my favorite journalist ever. There’s also Hellboy: The Wild Hunt, and last but absolutely certainly not least there’s a little Batman book written by, y’know, NEIL GAIMAN.

So I mean, really, what else can I ask for? But just in case there’s something else that you think I’m totally missing out on, please, feel free to pitch it.

(And yes, I know Fables comes  out this week too. But my budget only goes so far, so I’ve been buying Fables in trade.)

By Bon Alimagno

Last year I wrote on my personal blog that the 2008 NYCC was the best show I’d ever been a part of. The comment got picked up by a widely read blog and I got a call from someone working for another publisher. He asked if I attended the same show he did, all but saying I must’ve lost my mind. I insisted that NYCC was less of a circus and more comic book friendly than San Diego Comic-Con International and I made some very fruitful contacts who’ve I’ve actually hired since then.

Maybe I was just asking for trouble: the scales tipped the other way this past weekend as the Harris Comics crew attended the 2009 incarnation of NYCC. To call the show floor a circus would be an understatement. This was one of the most trying conventions I’d ever been a part of. The video game exhibitors seemed to overshadow everything and made a large chunk of the show floor an obstacle course of people. After it was over, I couldn’t think straight, I felt like my mind had been removed from my skull, put in a blender and then poured back in through the nose.

I don’t know if I can quite explain to the average con goer how difficult sitting on the other side of the table from them really is. After all, it looks like all we’re doing is just sitting around, making small talk and exchanging business cards with professionals and merchandise with fans. How hard can that be, right?

Let me begin with this: near one of the main entrances of the Con was an elaborate booth for the new Cinemax show Forbidden Science. It featured four clear plastic chambers shaped like tubes that people would enter. There they’d put goggles on that showed them a video. Around the chambers, models in lab coats (and seemingly little else) gave away promo postcards and encouraged people to wait in line for the chambers. I asked one what would be shown in the goggles and she told me without any reservation, adult content. Later that night I Googled about and discovered the show was unabashed softcore porn. Not even a drama with some nudity. Softcore porn. The show described itself as The X-Files meets Red Show Diaries. You had a situation then where people were watching softcore porn in public and other people could watch them though the chambers while they did so. This spectacle was near the entrance of the largest American comic book convention east of San Diego. Really think about that: imagine if you or anyone you know would be comfortable being watched by thousands of passer-bys as you watched porn.

Thing is I doubt more than a few thought about that as they put on the goggles and in some way became part of the spectacle of the show. That’s what these comic conventions do: they make the attendees themselves an attraction worth observation. Some people take this all the way. They let their freak flag fly. Whether it’s in the costumes they wear, the things they buy, the unbridled enthusiasm they show for comics, TV shows, movies, artists, actors, whoever and whatever outside that show floor most people could care less about. There at the show is a new kind of reality, a hyper-reality where things are skewed away from the mainstream and normal is dangerous.

Sitting behind a table all day you get to meet a lot of these people. While it’s a minority of the 77,000 that attended the show, it’s still more than enough to leave their mark on you. Without getting into specifics, they talk to you in a way no one would normally speak to a complete stranger. I think they forget we’re regular people. We become something else to them and they feel almost obligated to talk to us, sometimes AT us, about things we’d rather not discuss. At one point I turned to my boothmates and told them I felt like I hadn’t spoken to anyone sane in a half hour. In some ways we become trapped in a metaphorical chamber ourselves, forced to watch a spectacle that’s just as bizarre as whatever it was those goggles were showing.

You are down the rabbit hole. You are through the looking glass. You’ve taken the red pill. Welcome to the show.

Till next time…

Bon Alimagno is Director – Publishing & Editorial for Harris Comics, publishers of Vampirella.

The Hollywood Reporter has announced that ABC will be bringing the British comedy “No Heroics” to the U.S.

Jeff Greenstein, of Will & Grace and Desperate Housewives fame, will be working on the series. The high concept is lackluster superheroes hanging out at their local bar, the Fortress.

I for one can’t wait to see the Hotness and Excelsior get into it before taking a shot of Logan’s Rum.

What’s better than one Vertigo writer?

One Vertigo writer interviewing another. Over on the Standard Attrition blog, G. Willow Wilson interviews Peter Milligan, and awesomeness ensues.

You’re welcome.

All-Star Superman Vol. 2: Didn’t much care for the ending of Final Crisis? Try this—many of the same themes and meditations on Superman’s relationship to the reader and the medium are explored within, only with better art (by the same team throughout!) and none of the Oh God, which tie-ins do I need to read and in what order?! headaches. Also, it has Zibarro, the bizarro-Bizarro. This 160-page hardcover collecting A-SS #7-12 is yours for just $19.99.

Ashley Wood’s 96 Nudes: A $29.99, 100-page hardcover art book by Ashely Wood. What ever could the subject matter be?

Batman #686: This is the oversized, 48-page, $3.99 first part of “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?” It’s being written by universally adored Neil Gaiman, who just won the Newbery award for one of his young adult novels and just had another of them turned into a big Hollywood movie. If DC doesn’t sell a zillion of these this week, higher-ups should make sure their PR and marketing people aren’t actually Marvel infiltrators. Pencil art will be provided Andy Kubert, who does a really good Batman—they should really see about maybe hiring him to handle the monthly Batman comic someday.

Batman and the Outsiders Special #1: Says the solicitation: “Spinning out of ‘Batman R.I.P.’ and DC Universe: Last Will and Testament this special features the birth of a new era for the Outsiders and is a perfect entry point for past and present readers alike.” That’s right, it’s another new era for The Outsiders! Number six or seven since 2006, I think. Peter J. Tomasi writes, Adam Kubert pencils and John Dell inks.

(more…)

EW gets in on the action with more photos.  The selections come from Clay Enos’s collection Watchmen: Portraits.

[Via EW]

If you like what’s you’ve read so far totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

The best panel I saw all weekend was titled “Men are from Krypton, Women are from Paradise Island.” Moderated by Barbara Randall Kesel, and featuring Jimmy Palmiotti, Colleen Doran, Abby Denson, Jamal Igle and Randy Stradley, the panel was designed to discuss whether both men and women were being served properly by comics.

That may sound dry, but what ensued was a lively discussion that touched on all sorts of subjects relating to gender in comics. The panelists wisecracked and disagreed with one another, but the conversation stayed civil and more than that: it stayed productive.

The panelists started off discussing the common assumption that girls will read books featuring boy characters, but that boys won’t read books starring a female. Doran corrected, “Boys will read comics featuring girl characters if they get an upskirt shot.”

She continued, noting that “Fantasy is usually narcissistic in nature,” and that people want to read about characters they can identify with.

Kesel pointed out that she’s seen the depictions of women in comics stretch dramatically, and noted that the con atmosphere is different now. “I have to share my private restroom,” she joked, and indeed, her panel was so full that the aisles were lined with people sitting on the floor, and the door was held open so that those who couldn’t fit in the room could stand in the hallway and listen.

The best part of the debate, for me, though, was that the panel and the crowd were diverse. After all, gender issues affect men and women, gay and straight, and everyone.

Igle noted the need to “recognize that there is more than one type of girl. People are not so easily quantified.”

Palmiotti agreed, and said that “Painkiller Jane was our reaction to characters based on big boobs…I don’t want to do it about her body. I was just writing something that I wanted to see.”

Doran noted that Palmiotti, and other male writers who do a good job with women characters, actually like women as people. “Only men who love their mothers should be able to write women,” she cracked.

Doran spoke about her earlier experiences with A Distant Soil when it first came out, noting that “I went out of my way to make the men attractive to women and I was excoriated for it.”

Kesel asked the panel if they agreed with the gross generalization that women are more interested in how the events of a comic affect the characters. Palmiotti and Denson both disagreed, and Stradley noted that he asks all his writers to give him one sentence on plot, one on characters, and one on story. “Story is why we care,” he said.

Kesel agreed. “If you create strongly evocative, complicated characters, people can get into it.”

“I don’t necessarily want to see muyself in it. I just don’t want to see anything stupid,” Doran said.

An audience member asked about Y the Last Man as a good example of women in comics, but Kesel actually disagreed. “Y the Last Man put on the table every possible annoying cliche of what women are. It was fascinating and wrong.”

(As a personal aside, I agree with Kesel about Y and I see it most often put forth as men’s idea of what women want to see in comics, and that’s missing the point. We don’t need books to be 100-to-1 female-to-male characters if the male character is still the focal point and best character.)

The panel was then asked if the artist has a responsibility to project a positive image.

Igle said, “It depends on the story. I never want to see Supergirl‘s panties again.” He noted that when he first took over the book, the first thing he did was to change her uniform.

The panelists joked about Power Girl and her…assets, and Kesel joked “You can use that against villains! If their eyes are going right there…”

Doran said, “I feel absolutely no responsibility to uphold somebody else’s values…I do what is appropriate for the story. People bring their own baggage.”

She also noted, “Just because somebody doesn’t buy your book, that’s not censorship.” All fans have the right to vote with their dollars, to read what they like and avoid what they don’t.

Kesel noted that with characters like Supergirl, “You have character and commodity, and you have a corporation that is very protective of the commodity.”

Another audience member asked about the portrayal of transgender and bisexual characters, now that gay and lesbian characters are starting to break into mainstream comics. Kesel pointed out that there is one category of comics that don’t deal with sexuality at all, and so the presumption of heterosexuality covers all of that.

The panel agreed that as the field of comics writers and artists gets more diverse, more diverse characters get into the books and get treated as normal–and that this is excellent for comics. Beyond different categories of characters, different styles of art and writing, comics can widen perceptions of what is normal and introduce readers to people and places they’ve never been.

“This is how we start,” Igle said. “We have these conversations about gender and about sexuality.”

And if this panel was any indication, there is not only an audience hungry for those conversations (and willing to stand in the hallway to hear them) but every possibility of having them and having them be productive, helpful, supportive, pleasant environments to exchange ideas.

Bravo to all the panelists. I would LOVE to see more discussions like this in comics.

This title may be a bit confusing, but I assure you, there is a point.

When hitting the Black Panther panel with my awesome colleague Sarah Jaffe, Black Panther writer Reginald Hudlin gave us a preview of the Black Panther animated series for BET. (While you won’t the see the trailer I saw, there’s another one right here.)

While I know that Hudlin said this was a rough cut, I left the panel feeling more than a little conflicted about the series. The voice actors seemed enthused about their experience, and having top-tier talent like Djimon Hounsou (from Gladiator and Blood Diamond) on-board really lends a sense of legitimacy to the show. It’s clear that Hudlin and BET care about this show.

But the animation really took me aback. With Marvel coming out with slick animation like Hulk Vs. and Next Avengers, seeing this choppy style didn’t feel like an artistic choice — it felt as though BET couldn’t decide whether to commit to static John Romita Jr. art or traditional animation.

The preview stuck with me for the rest of the day, nagging at me. There was clearly something deeper here than my own personal aesthetic sensibilities at play — but it didn’t hit me until I passed by the DC Comics booth.

The Black Panther’s weaknesses as a cartoon would be its strengths in another medium. This may be what animation does wrong, but it has everything that would make a motion comic right.

Motion comics, as seen by Brian Michael Bendis and Mr. Sequential, are a new beast in this rapidly diversifying media world. It’s too soon to say whether or not they will stick around, but they incorporate comics, animation, voice acting, special effects–even music. It’s a book-on-tape meets TV trailer, all based on the foundations of the comics we love so much. But as seen above, there are so many different elements of the motion comic that can be neglected or forgotten that the whole enterprise can crash and burn.

Not so with the Black Panther. The animation might be clunky, but it is due to an unyielding dedication to the source material — in this case, John Romita Jr.’s art. But at the same time, there is a vibrancy to the sound — watching the trailer, you could see Hounsou really getting into his role. The enthusiasm was contagious, and everyone in the room was hooked — whether they liked it or not — when they heard the voice of Stan Lee as a villainous general. So I’m thinking that maybe this is just the wrong venue: Black Panther may not be everything I’d hoped for in a cartoon, but it could be the next big thing as a motion comic.

This weekend, I think a lot of comic book fans were surprised at NYCC ’09 during the Sunday conversation with Dan DiDio.

It’s no secret that the man gets a lot of hate mail on the World Wide Web, but in my mind, the man was nothing but a class act during this conversation, where he asked fans about what draws them into comics. By simply reaching out to the audience and acknowledging that he cared what they thought — “You’re spending hard money… the only thing we’ve got to do is make sure you guys are happy” — the comic book conversation became a little bit more civil and a lot more constructive.

And so I figured — why stop there? Let’s bring in all the Newsarama readers into the mix! Here are many of the questions DiDio asked readers (with a few added in from yours truly). Creators, feel free to add in your own questions — I’ll update this post a few times today to incorporate ‘em. Now readers, here’s the rules: Be civil. Be articulate about why you feel a certain way. And no answer is a wrong answer.

Are you ready? Then READ ON…

1) What was the first comic you ever read?

2) When did you know you were hooked on comics?

3) What do you look for in comics?

4) Do you want different artists for covers and interiors, or the same artist on both?

5) Do you want the cover to be representative of the story, or to be iconic?

6) What are the things that get you excited about comics?

7) Which Green Lantern or Flash do you like?

8 ) If you were the EiC of DC or Marvel for a day, what would you do?

9) VALENTINE’S WEEK SPECIAL BY YOURS TRULY: What comic did you use to get your spouse/significant other/child hooked into comics?

Today I picked up Mister Miracle from Mattel’s sixth wave of DCU Classics figures. I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while, because I love Mister Miracle and I think his colorful, Kirbytastic costume translates pretty well to toys. It’s a pretty good figure on the whole, though considering how much I was anticipating it, I can’t help but be disappointed.

Let’s start with the good stuff. The figure’s sculpt, by the Four Horsemen, is pretty freaking great. That goes without saying though, as all of the DCUC figures have had outstanding sculpts.

Mister Miracle comes with some neat accessories. First, there’s the requisite levitating foot discs (do they have an official name?) that plug-in to the bottom of the figure’s feet. In a really nice touch, both the bottom of the discs and Miracle’s feet are sculpted with Jack Kirby-flavored technology features. The extra-detailed sculpting wasn’t necessary, but it is much-appreciated. Also included are nicely sculpted manacles that fit over the figure’s forearms (Mister Miracle is an escape artist, after all), and a mini Mother Box that clips onto the back of the figure’s belt. The Mother Box is cool enough, but kind of useless since Miracle’s hands are sculpted into fists, and thus can’t actually hold it. Pity. And, of course, the right leg of the Kalibak collect-and-connect figure is also included.

And now, the bad: Mattel used a fairly hard plastic for the cape, so it isn’t very flexible. I hate hard plastic capes. DC Direct and Hasbro use softer, flexible plastic for their figures’ capes, so why can’t Mattel?

The paint applications are pretty sloppy in a lot of places on the figure, particularly in the areas where the green and the red meet. The plastic base is solid red, so the yellows and greens are painted on, and there’s a lot of overspray. There’s also some weird ash-colored paint wash on the upper thighs, which is not only completely unnecessary, but also quite unattractive since it makes Mister Miracle look like he’s been playing in mud.

I’ve read a number of complaints on line about collectors having issues with stuck or brittle joints on a number of figures in this line. I’ve bought about twenty of the suckers and this is the first time I’ve had this sort of problem. The right shoulder joint is stuck solid and restricts the arm from moving forward or backward. Boooooo! I hope this isn’t a going to be a regular occurrence for me, because the prevalence of immobile joints was the main reason I stopped buying Marvel Legends figures.

Despite my complaints, I’m still glad I bought Mister Miracle. It’s one of the better Mister Miracle figures produced over the years, though it doesn’t hold a candle to the sublime version from DC Direct’s New Gods line, which is my figure of choice for my action figure display.