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

Tom Brevoort, via his Blah Blah Blog, released some new Captain America images over the Easter weekend… but one that stood out for me was this:

Could this be a new identity for Natasha Romanov? Sharon Carter? The Bucky from Heroes Reborn? Or a whole new player? Discuss!

DC has released some inked interiors by Ramon Bachs (and a cover by Francis Manapul) of its upcoming series Red Robin via its new blog, the Source:

…Now discuss.

By Filip Sablik

When I agreed to do this regular blog column for Blog@Newsarama I told myself that I would avoid using it as a platform to shill books I was publishing. That is after all, what press releases are for. And that’s still my intent, but I hope you’ll forgive me if I indulge and occasionally tell you about something we’re doing at Top Cow that I think is worth a second look. Today, I wanted to let you know about a new title we’re launching in June called Berserker.

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In a surprisingly candid post, it was revealed today on the official PlayStation Blog that inFamous, the electric-powered and parkour-traveling superhero PS3 exclusive, will not be shipping in June after all. Indeed, in a surprising move, the release date was bumped UP to May 26th. While not the first time a game’s release has been bumped up, it is still rare to see.

The report also included the above screenshot, showing exclusive DLC if gamers pre-order:

An exclusive ‘Gigawatt Blades’ Super Power: The Gigawatt Blades supercharges Cole’s arm into an instrument of destruction unmatched by any other melee weapon in game. Although very powerful, you’ll still have to use this weapon wisely, as it takes a considerable drain on your powers.

An exclusive outfit for your Home avatar and early access to the demo is also included with a pre-order. inFamous now ships May 26th, 2009 in the US, exclusively for the PS3.

Big Bang Theory, CBS’s sometimes heavy handed portrayal of a few geeks and a hot chick, made a very topical argument one of its main story threads tonight. Sheldon, perhaps the geekiest of them all, had a conversation throughout the entire episode about whom should be the next Batman. Images from recent issues of Bat books, plus conversations about Post-Crisis, Infinite Crisis, Zero Hour, Joe Chill, and more were shown repeatedly as they sussed out the story threads.

I know it’s a show about geeks/nerds, but it was still pretty cool to see something currently going on that a lot of fans have vested interest in being talked about in front of the entire nation. If we see a sudden sales bump, we’ll know where it came from!

I can’t seem to find Big Bang Theory streaming anywhere on the ‘net, so if anyone knows of a place, share a heads up here. If not, look for reruns over the summer and the eventual DVD release.

SLG Publishing will provide a unique opportunity for those interested in breaking into comics with its latest Creator’s Studio series event on May 16 held at The SLG Art Boutiki and Gallery in San Jose. For only $15 admission, you get to attend a day long event chock full of industry tips and culminating with a live drawing demonstration by the artist of the Eisner Award nominated humor series Chumble Spuzz, Ethan Nicolle.

“The revival of the day-long event was a big success,” said SLG President and event organizer Dan Vado. “We had one guy come all the way from Oklahoma just for the seminar. I think we may have hit on something and the upcoming events can only get better.”

The tentative panels for Creator’s Studio IV include:

Preparing a Proposal – Taught from the SLG Publishing perspective, Dan Vado will go over what should and should not go into your written project proposal to a comics company. Also covered will be what to put into your portfolio and how to handle yourself when you are planning to show your work to editors at a convention.

Good Design/Bad Design – SLG Art Director Scott Saavedra goes over good and bad design choices and how they apply to comics and graphic novels.

In addition to being SLG‘s Art Director, Scott is the creator of Comic Book Heaven, a book series that looked at comics from the Golden and Silver Age with an eye towards examining the goofier aspects of those books.

Conjuring a page – Artists in semi-residence Ethan Nicolle sits down at his drawing table and demonstrates his drawing and storytelling techniques. This is an interactive demonstration, questions are encouraged. Ethan will show how he breaks down a page and take a page of script and show and explain his thought process for creating a finished piece. Ethan is the Eisner Award nominated creator of Chumble Spuzz and is one of the funniest and most inventive creators to hit SLG Publishing in a long time.

The Creator’s Studio seminar is not a how-to-draw class, a certain amount of proficeincy on the part of attendees is assumed. While some attention will be paid to the basics of drawing, for the most part this session will be devoted to storytelling and design. Recommended age for this seminar is 16 or older.

Cost for the event is $15, tickets should be purchased in advance at www.slgcomic.com/workshops or at http://cstudio4.eventbrite.com

The SLG Gallery will be open late the night before the event as the site has become an official venue for Left Coast Live, a downtown San Jose music festival. More information for that event can be found at http://www.leftcoastlive.com. “Anyone coming a long distance for the event should make a point of stopping by, we will be letting Creator’s Studio attendees into the gallery free,” said Vado, ” we will have loads of live music going on until late that evening and the downtown itself should be pretty jumping.”

For more information about SLG Publishing or the Creator’s Studio series contact Dan Vado at dvado@slgpubs.com or call 408-971-8929

This has been around for awhile, but in an effort to feed my need for Eureka (not due back on air until July…blurgh), I thought I’d pass this one along, my favorite of their web-only PSAs:

You can watch more clips and full episodes of one of the smartest, funniest shows on TV at Hulu.com and scifi.com.

By Bon Alimagno

It’s always difficult to explain to people the allure of Vampirella. What about her has allowed her to survive for 40 years, all the while garnering new fans? I almost always start with the art of Jose “Pepe” Gonzalez, who passed away March 16 at the age of 70.

Gonzalez was the greatest Vampirella artist of all time. There’s always debate about who’s the greatest to ever draw any comic book character but for Vampi there’s no argument necessary. His was and will forever be the definitive rendition of the character. I like to tell my writers and artists that Vampirella stands on the crossroads of sex and death. She is at her best a character rooted in horror, yet one who could turn you on just as easily as she could scare the piss out of you. The give and take between seduction and danger has attracted fans to her for four decades, whether they understood it in those terms or not.

Gonzalez’s work epitomized that approach. Together with the legendary writer and editor Archie Goodwin, Gonzalez brought Vampirella to life in adventures that walked the fine line between horrific thrills and titillation. His Vampirella possessed a natural body and thus a natural beauty perfect for this style of storytelling. Coupled with his attention to detail and smooth, seemingly effortless storytelling, it made these pulpy fictions feel realistic. In the hands of Goodwin and Gonzalez, executing what should’ve been a difficult creative vision somehow worked and worked beautifully.

Nowadays audiences have been conditioned to expect female comic book characters who look like Sports Illustrated swimsuit models at best and porn stars at worst. I’m not going to blame anyone for that, not the artists, not the fans and not the publishers. The market has directed the female anatomy in that direction and frankly it’s kept many characters and companies, including mine, alive.

The trade-off is a lack of believability in the storytelling and incredulity when talking about how a character like Vampirella can be anything more than eye candy. But the proof is there: in every panel that Gonzalez drew – a Vampirella who is beautiful, strange, deadly and alluring. I hope over time his work will receive greater recognition, long deserved yet too rarely given. In the meantime though he has a legion of Vampirella fans who mourn his passing, and an editor indebted to him for reinventing and enriching the character in his charge.

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

In case you guys weren’t watching SNL this weekend, Weekend Update had a nice little shout-out to the latest in Obama-themed comics from Devil’s Due, Barack the Barbarian:

The cover — which you can see in full below — is the match-up between Barack vs. Ann Coulter, “the screeching enchantress.” Ouch.

Shock novelty aside, I’m curious to see how the Larry Hama-penned book goes — this is the first time I can remember of a standard 22-pager (not a daily strip) trying to do day-in, day-out political satire. If they can keep things fresh and timely — which is a challenge, considering how much prep time is needed to produce a comic — this could be the first of a new genre for the standard pamphlet system. Thoughts?

“Let’s start making comics for kids again!”: So exclaimed Eisner nominee and Stinky creator Eleanor Davis in this School Library Journal article spotlighting newcomers to comics who received nominations this year.

Roger Ebert tells Bill O’Reilly that the Nancy comic strip was more popular than his column in the Chicago Sun-Times, and tells a joke involving a boner: And really, how often do you hear Roger Ebert tell Bill O’Reilly that he’s less popular than Nancy among Chicago Sun-Times readers, and tell a joke involving a boner? Not often enough.

The funny name isn’t the only problem after all: Christopher Butcher explains why the New York Times “graphic books” bestseller list doesn’t quite work like readers might expect it to (Hint: It has to do with the fact that the direct market and traditional booksellers have vastly different models of sales and distribution).

Seriously DC, you have to hire James Kochalka for an Aquaman book!: Another example why, provided in Kochalka’s American Elf online diary strip.

Comic book Spidey may be a Satanist, but movie Spidey is a saint: Or at least saint-like, according to Scottish Catholic Stephen Callaghan, who calls the Sam Raimi-directed Spider-Man trilogy “among the most prominent spiritual films of our time.” Check out this article headlined “St Peter Parker holds key to faith” for his rationale.

Obama kneels before Zod: Pssht. Some son of Jor-El he turned out to be…

This Friday, April 17, Miss Lasko-Gross will be signing her new graphic novel, A Mess of Everything at the Rocketship store in Brooklyn. Kevin Colden will also be there, signing his Eisner-award nominated graphic novel, Fishtown.

Rocketship is located at 208 Smith Street, Brooklyn, NY, and their parties are always excellent. Go forth and check it out.

If a dragon falls in the box office and there’s no one there to see it, does it make a sound?

Sadly, the studios have probably heard the unimpressive noise made by Dragonball Evolution: a resounding “thud.” The Hollywood Reporter has reported that the anime adaptation of Goku’s path to the mystical Dragonballs made an underwhelming No. 8 in this weekend’s box office, even with this being the film’s opening weekend.

The film made $4.7 million in the U.S., and has made over $25 million abroad. That said, with an alleged total budget of $45 million, that makes the path to profitability all the easier. And if word of mouth is any indication, it’s going to need it.

It hasn’t done much better in terms of reviews, either. Opening without press screenings, I’m thinking even the studios knew what was on their hands. Earning 15% rotten over at RottenTomatoes… here’s some of the best of:

Hollywood Reporter: Another Japanese manga bites the dust with its cinematic adaptation: in this case, the Dragonball Evolution series, which has spawned a hugely lucrative worldwide cottage industry that has lasted a quarter-century. That success is likely to come to a screeching halt with this big-screen version, which will displease its fans and prove utterly baffling to the uninitiated.

Emmanuel Levy: The movie is at best a mixed blessing, helmer Wong moves things around quickly (running time is only 83 minutes), but the film lacks the scope and style of a mythic epic and the leads are played by actors who may be too old to be teenagers.

The Times (UK): Dragonball Evolution is an example of Hollywood at its most calculating and cynical. Utter drivel.

Total Film: Tearing through its mystical, who-gives-a-toss storyline like a pissed bat bouncing off cave walls, Dragonball’s cocktail of cheap effects, eye-rolling cliches and dismal direlogue will have fans of the series condemning it as a beyond-lame failure.

For my Rama readers who went and saw the film this weekend — what did you think?

Trivial

Four Square Books

56 pages, 7″ x 7″, $5 US

www.iknowjoekimpel.com

Trivial is a fun little read. This anthology collects the talents of Alexis Frederick-Frost, Alex Kim, A. L. Arnold and Sean Ford. All four cartoonists present sharp work and together provide a cut-above collection.

Considering this is a showcase of work, a table of contents would have been nice but that’s only a trifle, or trivial complaint. And that’s the theme to this book, all things trivial. Of the four contributors, I think Frederick-Frost gets most into the spirit of things. He illustrates some choice quotes from a journal kept during a Shackelton expedition to the South Pole. While on an adventure of a lifetime, the men find themselves arguing over the finer points of jelly rolls. Inky bold line work prevails here. Frederick-Frost recently won a Xeric Grant for his graphic novel, La Primavera.

Then there’s Alex Kim’s piece which depicts a nightmare about hands. He also recently won a Xeric Grant for his graphic novel, Wall City. I think that, once the story takes off, Kim demonstrates his ability to create some very inventive and energetic work. The scenes with the main character being dragged along by his own monster hands are very well done.

A. L. Arnold provides us with a delightful little tale about a reluctant superhero. He has a very elegant and spare style which comes through best here in his depiction of background items like buildings and barges and not so much with the superhero but that’s okay considering the understated nature of the story. 

And we close out with a couple of comic strip style stories by Sean Ford. His timing is very good and he has an assured style with a gentle and thoughtful vibe. It will be great to see more of his work as well as the rest of the contributors to this impressive anthology.

Apparently one of the casualties of what’s being called #amazonfail, the delisting of suddenly so-called “adult” books from Amazon Rankings, is Alison Bechdel’s award-winning graphic novel Fun Home.

But don’t worry. You can still get Mein Kampf and porn.

(thanks to Laura Hudson for the h/t)

*Edit: Fun Home appears to have its sales rank now. Other books still missing them. Will keep an eye on this.

Update: According to various sources, Amazon has reported that the sales rank dropping was caused by a “glitch” that is being/has been fixed.

In First Second’s first six years, the publisher has had great success with original works and with importing and representing great European works. Now they’re looking a little further East, and publishing their first Asian work: Korean artist Kim Dong Hwa’s The Color of Earth.

And it seems like this new effort will be rewarded with just as much success, as Color of Earth is a remarkable book.

In a few sentences worth of introduction, the artist explains that this is the story of his own mother’s girlhood, “little gems from my mother’s life at sixteen.” He must have had a very close relationship with his mother, as the book is incredibly personal, as if she were the one writing and drawing her own story.
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Sometimes, news is so crazy you just can’t make this stuff up.

Woody Harrelson released a press statement today explaining his dust-up with a photographer from TMZ in a New York airport Wednesday night. His reasoning?

He apparently thought the cameraman was a zombie. Seriously, no joke. According to CNN:

“I wrapped a movie called ‘Zombieland,’ in which I was constantly under assault by zombies, then flew to New York, still very much in character,” Harrelson said in a statement issued Friday by his publicist.

“With my daughter at the airport I was startled by a paparazzo, who I quite understandably mistook for a zombie,” he said.

Um…. right. At least we can all be thankful that he didn’t aim for the head, right?

The train brings me strange thoughts sometimes.

Today, reading something academic and completely unrelated to Vikings, violence, conquest or comics, I started thinking about the Northlanders arc that just wrapped up, The Cross + The Hammer. Since each arc on this book has been drawn by a different artist, I’ve taken to referring to them by the name of the artist. This was “Ryan Kelly Northlanders,” and it was shaped by Kelly’s art. I’ve loved everything Kelly has done with Brian Wood, and this story was no exception, but thinking about it today brought me sharply back to the similarities and differences from those previous books (Local and The New York Four, for you heathens who don’t read good comics).

On the surface, The Cross + the Hammer is a cop drama set back in Viking-occupied Ireland, with a rebel Irishman murdering any Norsemen he can lay his sword, axe, or bare hands upon. At first glance, it looks like CSI: 1014, but there’s far more depth to this book than David Caruso could ever hope to achieve with sunglasses and smirk.

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The thing to keep in mind while reading the various Boody Rogers comics collected in the oddly punctuated collection Boody. (Fantagraphics Books) is when exactly it was they were created and published: Between 1948 and 1950.

That’s during comics’ so-called Golden Age, and well before underground comix movement of the 1960s or more current post-modern comics that might revel in the sort of weirdness that permeates these stories and radiates outward from the pages. To say they’re “ahead of their time” would be an understatement; they seem like they were drawn just last week.

The collection is put together by Craig Yoe, who seems to be everywhere at the moment (His Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster also just dropped, and garnered plenty of mainstream media attention for the obvious reasons). So unsurprisingly, it’s a beautiful-looking book.
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Crime may or may not pay: Steve Duin of The Oregonian has read the first two Vertigo Crime books, and he despised Brian Azzarello and Victor Santos’ Filthy Rich, while having some kinder words for Ian Rankin and Werther Dell’Edera’s Dark Entries (which deals with a reality show? In 2009? Gah). Meanwhile, Sarah Weinman talks crime comics in general on her way to discussing Hannah Berry’s Britten and Brülightly in her Dark Passages blog for the Los Angeles Times.

Liberal media can’t stop talking about comics: NPR’s Glen Weldon reacts to Marvel.com’s  streaming of the 1967 Spider-Man cartoons in this blog entry, and how he learned the word “origin” from it, while a Morning Edition story about diet books includes some quotes from cartoonist Carol Lay (An excerpt of Lay’s graphic novel The Big Skinny gets posted on NPR’s site to accompany the story).

Comic book readership and illiteracy are rising…coincidence?!: Oh no, Bomb Queen and Danger Girl are replacing Silas Marner in public schools’ curriculums! At least, this dude seems kinda worried about that for some reason. (Link stolen from Dirk Deppey, who advises “Relax, dude. Children haven’t read superhero comics for years.”)

Woo woo!: Noah Berlatsky has been blogging the hell out of Wonder Woman history lately, and now he’s decided to start blogging the original comics, issue by issue. He gave the first issue a kind of cursory going over, having covered it in his Only One Can Wear The Venus Girdle series, but here’s a nice long look at Wonder Woman #2. With all due respect to George Perez and Phil Jiminez and the many great writers and artists to tackle the character over the decades, these are by far the very best Wonder Woman comics, and I’m glad to see someone paying so much attention to them. (Confidential to DC: Hey guys, you should really do a Wonder Woman Chronicles reprint project  like the one you’ve been doing for Batman and Superman. Archives are expensive).

“Think The Vagina Monologues, only with Lassos of Truth, mutant cat powers and galaxy-devouring side gigs”: Enjoy this article about The Superheroine Monologues, a co-production between a couple of Boston theater groups, complete with a trailer. If you’re in the Boston area (and/or are just curious) you can learn more about the show here.

Wow, I read that comic and I didn’t know he came up with the upside down kiss either: Here’s a nice little profile of the extremely gifted comics creator Kaare Andrews, focusing on his current work in film, by Province film critic Glen “The Reel Man” Schaefer. Apparently the very famous kiss between Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane and Tobey Maguire’s upside-down Spidey in the first movie was from a cover Andrews drew.