Entertainment Weekly posted this list of “21 Super Comic Book Movies”. Now, it’s not a top 21 list or anything like that, it’s more in the lines of recommendations. It’s a pretty superb list, too. Of course the usual Hollywood blockbusters are there: Iron Man, Dark Knight, X-Men 2, Spider-Man…but the list also includes movies that are sometimes overlooked as great comic adaptations. Such as Ghost World (which actually received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay), American Splendor, Akira, Oldboy, etc. While superb, this list isn’t perfect. It includes Superman II, but not the first movie? Also, The Rocketeer is omitted and it is such a GREAT adaptation, it’s a shame it doesn’t get greater recognition. It also includes two movies from Alan Moore stories: V for Vendetta and From Hell, which are considered by most comic book fans as two of the worst. Now, I know there is no feasible way any studio or writer could have adapted Moore’s 500-page From Hell into a 2 and a half movie or what have you (it actually ran a little over 2 hours), but was there any real need to modernize V? V was never intended as an action, espionage type of movie. So both the plot and the audience suffered for such a mishandling of the characters.

In addition to the list of recommendations, EW also posted a WORST adaptations list. Now of course, this list is full of the no-brainers. Judge Dredd, Superman IV, Batman and Robin, Steel, Catwoman. You know? The movies that made you felt dirty by association. This list pretty much nails it, too, except for two movies. The 2004 Punisher with Tom Jane and Daredevil. I don’t really get the displeasure with DD from the comic book community. Especially when one sees the director’s cut that was released. Sad thing is, that DD is tagged right along with Elektra on the “worst of” list. Also on the list are movies I didn’t even know were made, such as a Brenda Starr movie, and Sheena.

Reading both the lists, what movies do you think were omitted from them?

The sword-swinging, time-reversing, free-running mania of the Prince of Persia series has seemingly conquered every bit of terrrain the titular Prince has stepped across.

Well, get ready for a whole new frontier — comics.

Heidi at the Beat has confirmed that Disney will be producing an original graphic novel to go alongside their production of the Jake Gyllenhaal film The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and will be discussing it at 11:30 on Friday at the Disney Comics panel at the San Diego Comic Con.

According to Heidi, Prince of Persia game writer Jordan Mechner will be writing the 120-page book, Todd McFarlane will be doing the cover, while Niko Henrichon, Cameron Stewart, Tommy Lee Edwards, Bernard Chang, David Lopez, and Tom Fowler will be handling the interiors. Pretty sweet, eh? This particular portion of the Prince of Persia franchise was so popular it spawned two sequels, as this Prince has literally fractured the forces of time, which he can manipulate using a special dagger stolen from the desert.

It’s a big day for comic book movie news, eh?

Lloyd Levin, one of the producers of Watchmen, snagged the rights to Terry Moore’s Echo in a six-figure deal, Variety said today.

The series, written by the Strangers in Paradise alum Moore from his independent Abstract Studio imprint, focuses on a photographer who becomes a living weapon after being hit with the liquid shrapnel of a tecnological battle suit.

Levin has also worked as a producer for both Hellboy films.

Want to see some more heroes in a halfshell? You might not have to wait much longer!

Variety reports that John Fusco, writer of the Jackie Chan action film Forbidden Kingdom as well as Hidalgo, has been tapped to script a live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles relaunch, due out in 2011. Fusco apparently has been studying Shaolin kung fu since the age of 12.

“It is always exciting when you can come aboard a project that bridges the worlds of what you do with what you love,” Fusco told Variety.

Apparently, this film will incorporate Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman’s 1983 comic to serve as a on-screen origin story — which considering that this was half parody and half tribute to ninja epics such as Frank Miller’s Ronin (in edition to “mutants” such as the X-Men), means it may be a darker film than the 1987 animated series.

That said, as someone who loved those earlier comics, I seem to recall many of those elements from the first few trades — especially with Leonardo being ambushed by the Foot and the Turtles convelescing in the countryside — already being in the first film, way back in 1990. Either which way, I’m pretty excited!

Variety has reported that Nicholas Cage is in talks to portray a gangster villain in the upcoming Green Hornet film.

In addition, the trade mag reports, Cameron Diaz is negotiating to play the Green Hornet’s reporter-love interest.

Considering the film has had its ups and downs — with director/Kato actor Stephen Chow eventually dropping out of the picture enthire — I’m surprised this amount of star power is still willing to touch the project. What do you think, dear readers?

Ya want some news from the Main Man, ya film-lovin’ bastiches?

Sci Fi Wire has reported that producer Joel Silver has given some new information about a more-than-possible movie starring Lobo!

Not only did the Matrix producer say that there is a script in the ether — one that they actually like — but that the film is going to be surprisingly… let’s just say “low key.” A highlight:

“I think it’s structured now as a PG-13 movie,” he said. “I think we’ve done it that way, but I love it. I’ve just wanted to make it for a long time, and I think it’s a great character, a great guy.”

Huh. I never would have thought that the Last Czarnian would skew from the R-rating. Could this be the “alien Snake Plissken” that Latino Review talked about?

This thing popped up last night, but I just needed some time to process.

Amazon—in a move ironic enough to be the lead in the above-linked New York Times story on the subject—remotely deleted copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm after they were reported to have been posted to Amazon’s Kindle website by a publisher who did not own the rights to the publications. According to the Times article, similar deletions have happened for other books in the recent past, so it’s a safe bet that the Orwell books are mostly garnering this attention because of the context. (more…)

Entertainment Weekly has a brief snippet with Ryan Reynolds this week (as linked to by Rob Liefeld on Twitpic) where the actor talks about being both Deadpool and Green Lantern in the upcoming films based on those characters. Says Reynolds, in part, “There’s no rule that says you can’t play two different characters in two different comic book universes.” And while he goes on to say there are plenty of other comics projects he’d be interested in, the one that I would have liked to see—Reynolds as The Flash’s Wally West—seems to be excepted by the very phrasing of the actor’s own answer (“…in two different comic book universes”). Since neither film is slated for release until 2011, though, that provides plenty of time for circumstances to change—if Reynolds’ stock rises, we could see him in all kinds of projects. And if Hollywood’s love affair with superhero comics starts to cool, a high-risk project like Deadpool or a high-budget project like Green Lantern may take a backseat to more sure things.

Click through for a 5-page preview of Phonogram 2.4. Because Jamie McKelvie, Kieron Gillen, and I all love you.

Happy Monday.

He’s the best there is at what he does — and what he does… is so terribly stylish!

The Ol’ Canucklehead has changed costumes here and there since his earliest appearance in 1974, evolving from short whiskers to a scalloped cowl, from spandex to leather to black ops body armor, from yellow-and-blue to orange-and-brown and back again.

But Project Rooftop called several months ago for a new redesign for the Adamantium Avenger — and boy did they get a lot of responses! After weeks of deliberation, the winners of the Wolverine redesign contest were finally announced:

Grand prize winner Lee Chen Fang!

First prize winner Gabriel Pinto!

Second prize winner Ricardo Venancio!

And runner-up Dave Kennedy, whose distinct take on Wolverine was definitely my favorite of the bunch.

Among the special guest judges for this competition were Wolverine: Weapon X creators Jason Aaron and Ron Garney.

Interested in where your favorite webbed heroine is going, post-Skrull abduction? Curious as to Marvel’s big stab on the motion comics frontier? Well, look no further — the House of Ideas has just released a trailer for its upcoming series for Spider-Woman!

The comic, written by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by Alex Maleev, is set to make its debut this week at the San Diego Comic Con. I don’t know about you, but I actually kind of dug the voice acting for this — what say you, Rama readers?

By Jimmy Palmiotti

So, off to San Diego soon and as usual, the week before the con is hell for Amanda and I. Amanda starting Power Girl #5 and Justin and I getting everything squared away…that plus the past week I have done 24 interviews… I kid you not. Mostly for THE LAST RESORT, and some for pre-con announcements. I also had to do a lot of running around to promote the trade book release of BACK TO BROOKLYN as well. Seems it sold out in most stores and Amazon once already… but boy, am I glad I let the guys at Image talk me into printing double the order. It’s amazing, I was on Twitter the other day and asked the people that follow me if they bought their trade books online or in comic stores… and I would say about 80% of them said Amazon… I didn’t expect that. As a rule, if my LCS has it, I buy it there, each and every time… but its good to know Amazon is out there I guess.

Whenever possible, I tried to fit a movie in here and there and more about that below… I think its been a real crappy summer of movies so far… at least nothing that is really getting me excited too much. I use the “DVD” rule… when the movie hits DVD, will I buy it on disc? None so far I am afraid, unless the Hangover has another half hour of footage… or maybe Star Trek. I’d watch that again.

KNOCK ON MY DOOR: So, its around 3 am and I am working on the Last Resort script for the last issue and around six feet away from me is my front door to the house. I work on the ground floor away from Amanda so there can be more peace and harmony between us. Anyway, it’s quiet except for a drone of cricket noises outside when I hear a bang, then another bang and another, all on my front door of my house. Remember, its 3 am, and to tell you the truth, I was a bit freaked. I jumped up, grabbed my knife I keep by my desk and went to the front door and turned on the light. My front door is cornered by wall-to-wall glass; so on went the lights and nothing. Not a soul… so I opened my door and there on the ground was an armadillo the size of a big cat. As you can imagine, I was relieved… especially because I was writing a sequence of the book where one of the main characters are fighting the living dead in a hallway. Anyway, the little guy ran away the minute I opened the door and now I added an armadillo to my list of nature’s friends that drive me nuts on a daily basis. If you have been keeping track: fruit rats, owls, hawks, monkeys, snakes and turtles have all been visiting since day one here. For the most part, they just kill each other, so that works for me.

MOON: Enjoyed the hell out of this one… nothing like a little intelligent sci-fi to make me happy… after watching months of lame blockbusters. Solid story, wonderful acting and a cool setup. Do not want to ruin a thing here, except to say that I was happy with the resolve for a change.

I LOVE YOU BETH COOPER: This movie seems to be put together using a teen movie checklist. “Hot girl appreciates the nerdy guy and falls for him” story has been done to death. I am a hoping Chris Columbus, the director, was able to add a bit more to this formula, but credit goes to Hayden Panettiere, the title character. The screen actually comes alive whenever she is on it… not a compliment I throw out there easily and she is the reason I didn’t think the movie was a complete wash out. To Mr. Doyle’s credit, I heard his novel is 40 times better. This movie is for teenagers and no one older… and teenagers will enjoy it I think. I was better off on the moon.

FRANK CHO AND BRANDON PETERSON: Each year, these guys get a booth at San Diego, make a new print together and sell their work and sketchbooks. Well, this year, I was lucky enough to be given a sneak peek at the limited edition print they did together and it’s a killer. I also was lucky enough to have Brandon bring me a copy of his brand new sketchbook he has done and again, like the ones from the past years, it has some of the most lovingly rendered illustrations of your favorite superheroes and fantasy characters. I would suggest each and every one of you going to the con scoop up one of their prints and sketchbooks, because they are going to go fast, and if you check eBay, their old prints from comic con are going for some crazy prices. On a personal note, I want to thank Brandon for helping me on the Back to Brooklyn trade cover. If you haven’t seen it yet, he did an awesome job… his usual awesome job honestly. Enough gushing, check out there work posted here… and go say hi to those dudes at the big wow booth #4903, and say hi to my pal Tony DeZuniga while there as well.

SAN DIEGO AND ME: Well, I have committed to only a few things and I figured I might as well give anyone looking to say hi a place they can find me. A lot of the time I will be at the Fat Naked Rave booth with Amanda Conner, but when not there…. as it goes…

THURSDAY:   3-4 pm, will be doing portfolio reviews at the prism booth 2146.

5-6 pm, I will be at the JSA DC Comics panel.

FRIDAY:        12-1 pm, I will be at the Radical Comics panel.

4:30-5:30 pm, I will be a the Wednesday Comics panel room 5 A&B.

6-7 pm: Signing at the IDW booth.

SATURDAY:  3-4 pm: Signing at the DC booth for Wednesday Comics.

5-6 pm: Radical Comics signing at their booth.

SUNDAY :     1:30-2:30 pm: HERO booth signing #907.

3-4 pm: Prism booth signing.

Well, I must be packing now… my flights start early and I arrive early. Love that time difference from east coast to west coast. I really am going to try to take things easier this year… and I am looking at some time to cool off by the pool and maybe read a comic or two. We forget with all the insanity going on at the con that it is a celebration of comic books and its art form… and this is one of the coolest place to get a sneak peek at what creators got up their sleeves for the rest of the year. For all those going to the show…can’t wait to see you, and to all those not going, stay tuned to Newsarama, their con coverage, as usual, is going to be insane.

- Jimmy P

By M. D. Wilson

I’m not a supervillain. But I write under the guise of one, the evil overlord King Oblivion Ph.D., on my humor website, the International Society of Supervillains. I am, at best (worst?), a spoilsport (as you’ll soon become keenly aware), but writing from the perspective of Dr. King has given me a lot of insight into the realities of supervillainy and just how unfairly its proponents are portrayed in comic books, a medium unabashedly in the pocket of the superhero-industrial complex.

So as a public service, the comics-culture mavens who run the Newsarama blog have asked me, some guy who writes about superhero douchebags, ice cream flavors and upcoming films under an evil-guy pseudonym, to put my considerable expertise to use and educate you, the propagandized  comics-reading public, about some supervillain myths. Meanwhile, I’ll also be injecting the harsh light of real life into light-hearted fantasy. Enjoy!

MYTH : They always lose.

WHAT THEY GET WRONG: Comics have recently gotten a little better about throwing their fictional supervillains something a little closer to a win, with a cabal of bad guys in charge over in the Marvel Universe and page after page of hardcore heart-ripping-out action going down on the DC side of things. But let’s not kid ourselves. Just as inevitably as Martian Manhunter will no doubt magically unzombie-fy, the heroes will figure out some way to ruin all that villain success. The big two comic publishers know what side their bread is buttered on. I mean, Dark Wolverine has a (probably short-lived) series going, but Wolverine (…Light Wolverine?) is in basically every Marvel comic ever published.

REALITY: Here’s the thing. Real-life villains are winners. Don’t believe me? Well, Goldman Sachs, that investment bank that the government bailed out with $10 billion in loans last year? They pulled down $3.4 billion in profits last quarter. That sounds like a win to me.

Yeah, supervillain extraordinaire Bernie Madoff is in prison right now because he bilked so many people out of their money, but 1) He only got caught after he obtained and spent most of the billions 2) He was able to do it for 18 years before getting caught 3) You know his fancy high-priced lawyers will figure out some way to get him out. You know they will.

MYTH: They are openly evil.

WHAT THEY GET WRONG:  In comics, supervillains call their teams things like The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants or the Dark Avengers (See? They’re like the good guys, but dark.) Even Lex Luthor, comics’ best example of a “legitimate” businessman headed up the Legion of Doom and/or the Secret Society of Supervillains – two groups whose motives are anything but secret, based on their names.

(And yes, I know my website is called the International Society of Supervillains, but that’s a comedy site, and I’m making a point here. Focus.)

Hell, the Red Skull, whose latest plan involved trying to take over the presidency with a puppet candidate while running the a non-evil-looking corporation called Kronas, is a man who wears business attire… and a red skull-shaped mask.

REALITY: Sure, you may get the occasional crazed serial killer who goes on the witness stand and says something like, “I’m glad I killed him, and I’d kill him again!” But they are the exception to the rule, and most genuine super-criminals give their all to make do-gooder-types think they’re on the up and up. Mafiosos say they’re in waste disposal, for instance, rather than calling themselves The Brotherhood of Evil Italians. And North Korea is officially called the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, not “Dark Korea.”

MYTH: They single-mindedly and unceasingly strive for their evil goals.

WHAT THEY GET WRONG: In most mainstream comics (of course, there are some exceptions, all of which I’m sure you’ll point out in the comments), superheroes lead full lives outside of costumed crimefighting. They get married, they end their marriages through pacts with demons, they have day jobs, they go to college, they hang out in remote arctic fortresses, and so on. But supervillains live for two things: The destruction of that foolish hero and world conquest. Even when they do normal activities, like dating, it’s almost always part of some scheme to get closer to the hero or take over a nuclear power facility, like that time Doc Ock was engaged to Aunt May.

REALITY: I don’t have any real-life, concrete proof on this one, but I can assure you that, sometimes, when I’m fully engulfed by the King Oblivion Ph.D. persona (because I am a crazy person, if you haven’t noticed), all I want to do is get in a hot tub and watch a few episodes of “Dexter.” Because professional hatred really takes a lot out of you.

MYTH: They come back from the dead all the time.

WHAT THEY GET WRONG: For a time, the Joker died about every other week, but he just kept coming right back. And hey, remember when Norman Osborn was dead? Oh, wait, no, he just went to Europe. Magneto has died a bunch of times. Most recently, Grant Morrison wrote a death for him. But, ha-ha, just kidding, that turned out to be a different guy who just looked a lot like him! And DC’s big summer event right now is all about dead people coming back to life.

REALITY: Hitler update: He’s still dead.

As I first reported at Comic Related and The Perhapablog, Todd Dezago and Craig Rousseau’s Perhapanauts from Image Comics will see some scheduling changes effective the first issue of 2010. Dezago hopes that the changes detailed below will help the book, which has been beset by delays almost since the beginning of its run, to publish maybe not more often—but more regularly, and with more regard to the feelings of fans who hate being left on a cliffhanger or in the middle of a battle scene for months at a time. Dezago sat down with me to discuss the changes, as well as Perhapanauts #6, in this installment of our regular Perhapa-Q&A. (more…)

“In fact, there are so many movies based on sequential art, that some of them have to be good … don’t they?”: Wired‘s Geek Dad on 15 upcoming comic book movies he’s really looking forward to (and not looking forward to quite so much).

“Wizards more awesome than Harry Potter”: It’s an awful broad definition of “wizard” that includes Obi-Wan Kenobi, but I’ll second the rest of this list from the Mail Tribune. Check out who comes in at #3.

Now there’s a subject you don’t see every day…: Igor Kenk, the alleged kingpin of a massive bicycle theft ring in Toronto, will be the subject of both a documentary and a graphic novel, according to this story from the CBC.

Role-players really like playing David Petersen’s mice characters: Last month Mouse Guard The Role Playing Game, the role-playing game based on David Petersen’s Mouse Guard comics, won the 2009 Origins Award for Best Role Playing Game. Now it’s been nominated for  2009 Gen Con EN World RPG Awards in three categories, including “Best Interior Art” (which was, of course, provided by Petersen himself. The winners of the “ENnies” awards will be announced at the Gen Con convention in Indianapolis next month. More info here.

Comic strip fight!: Jeez, Pearls Before Swine cartoonist Stephan Pastis makes a mere 22 strips poking fun at Family Circus, and Jeff Keane retaliates with a vicious attack strip on Sunday. By the way, why is the mom wearing a maid outfit while doing housework?

Phil Yeh holds a unique place in the comics community not only as a comics creator (he’s been called, “the godfather of the American graphic novel”) but as a prominent activist for promoting literacy through comics. He’s been around for quite awhile, going back to the very first San Diego Comic-Con in 1970. Phil is a passionate, colorful, and outspoken voice in comics and, as I head out to SDCC, he’s someone who can definitely help take stock of things.

Blog@Newsarama: Phil, I’d like to start by focusing on the San Diego Comic-Con and branch out from there. You have been very active in comics over the years and you go back to the first San Diego Comic-Con. Can you tell us about your earliest experiences with what started out as a modest comics convention?

Phil Yeh: I was a 15 year old kid growing up in one of the toughest neighborhoods in Los Angeles near Watts.  I knew a couple of kids in my area who read and maybe even “collected” comics with a passion but most of us just read comics very infrequently.  Sports was the big thing for most of my friends.  But I managed to see this tiny ad in a DC comic book about a convention at the US Grant Hotel in 1970 and asked my dad to drive me down.  My sister Kathy went with me too as I recall.  The funny thing is I actually was published in DC Comics that same year.  I sent this idea in for a promo cartoon that Henry Boltinoff did and my name got in print and I had this check from National Periodical Publications for $5.  My first and last check from DC Comics who I am sure must appreciate my role later in helping Jerry and Joe get some money for Superman.

Anyway, I went to the convention at the U.S. Grant hotel and met two of the greats in that room with maybe 300 people.  Ray Bradbury had always been one of my favorite writers, I never read many comics as a kid or now, but I love to read books.  Classics especially but some living authors too and Bradbury was a big deal to me and even now.  I told Ray that I wanted to be a writer but I had problems in school with spelling and grammar and didn’t know if I could become a writer.  He told me that there were editors to correct those things and that I really should just do what I loved.

I then walked up to this giant of a man in our comic book industry and who, to me at 15, was a GIANT and told him that I wanted to become a comic book artist.  Jack Kirby in reality was not that tall of a man but, to this 15 year kid from the ghetto, he was HUGE.  Jack smiled and told me to just do it.  “If you want to draw then you should draw and if you want to tell stories, just tell stories. ”

Both Ray and Jack made this seem so very easy and that fall I would start my own publishing company and never look back.
(more…)

Review: Big Funny

Big Funny Web site, 16″ x 23″, 48 pages, $5 US

(a co-production of Altered Esthetics, The International Cartoonist Conspiracy and Big Time Attic)

It doesn’t happen all at once. First, there is the longest silence, as if nothing has changed, followed by a cry inspired by nostalgia until, finally, we all wake up to a world without printed newspapers. Maybe there will always be some newspapers but it won’t be the same. However, through nostalgia, we can find ways to move forward. And so a comic strip anthology printed on an old timey oversized newspaper is welcome as something to enjoy and learn from.

The biggest thing about Big Funny is that it is a celebration of the comic strip art form and, by extension, of how it all came about it in the first place. We owe a lot to the comic strip pioneers. They set up the ground rules and, in a lot of ways, we cartoonists still follow them. And, in a broader sense, we all are influenced to some extent by the way the original cartoonists went about telling a story or joke.

The first comic strip in the collection is “Hey Kids, Comics!” by Terry Beatty. Here we find the very first star of the comic strips, The Yellow Kid, now quite elderly. In a quick and snappy fashion, as only comics can do, we’re given a brief history of comics. This is nicely followed up by “Little Emo in Slumbaland,” by Jesse Gillespie, which is one of the best you’ll find here. A landmark in comics is tweaked for a new generation. The title alone is clever but Gillespie delivers with a beautiful tribute to Winsor McCay. And no one can deny that Kevin Cannon provides an excellent tribute to the adventure strip with “Army Men.”

The goal of Big Funny, as it called for talent, was to seek out assorted views from various backgrounds, inside and outside the comics community. In that all-inclusive spirit, there are plenty of comic strips here that don’t look like comic strips. There’s the comic strip oil painting by painter Bjorn Rolvaag. There’s “Vis, Croatia: The Ride,” by printmaker Jenny Schmid. Some of my favorites that stretch comics quite nicely are “The Teenage Ghost Hunting Society,” by B. Sabo, “Pumpkinship” by Maxeem, and “Dear Friends,” by Britt Hammerberg.

With forty-five different views of what you can do with a comic strip, Big Funny is like your own personal tour of a comics festival. For my part, I contributed “Inkwellspring,” an offbeat take on today’s family comic strips. On the other end of the spectrum is “Living in Filth,” by Hawk Krall, a hilarious look at aging rebels whose routine these days includes a trip to Pottery Barn. If you like political satire, you’ll like the sharp wit of “Banana Republic,” by Kirk Anderson. All in all, a nice selection of comics anyway you look at it.

Last but not least, is “Ticket to Crickety Creek,” by the late William R. Ede. His son, Craig Ede, provides an essay in loving memory of his father. We find Will Ede to have been, like most cartoonists, very passionate and determined. We will never know what might have been had some editor, down the line, said, “yes,” instead of, “no.” William Ede kept his day job as a postman for 30 years. He may have complained from time to time but he remained persistent. He loved to draw trains and alligators and that’s what he did. Whether he should have succeeded then or whether his art should succeed now is not the question. He did what he had to do. If you look at the comic strip in Big Funny, you’ll see why.

No wonder artists count so much on posterity. It can be only after death, even if only on newsprint, that some art just begins to live.

Here is a list of the contributing artists to Big Funny. There will be an art show by the same name on August 7th at Altered Esthetics where the anthology will premiere and some of the artists will show their original work. This will also be the premiere of a bonus set of comics at the show, Little Funny:

“Hey Kids, Comics!” by Terry Beatty

“Little Emo in Slumbaland” by Jesse Gillespie

“Little Miss Mechanical’s Bedtime Amusement” by Diana Nock

“There is a Heppy Plonet” by Mike Sgier

“Captain Kleinbottle” by Jason Sandberg

“Hey Rube!” by Daniel J. Olson

“Army Men” by Kevin Cannon

“Classics Majors…in Love!” by Ursula Murray Husted

“Tommy Chicago and Jimmy” by Brian Bastian and Danno Klonowski

“Oil Painting” by Bjorn Rolvaag

“Banana Republic” by Kirk Anderson

“Citizen Participation in Hell” by Ken Avidor

“The Teenage Ghost Hunting Society” by B. Sabo

“Vis,Croatia: The Ride” by Jenny Schmid

“Residue Comics: Krack-Up” by Roger Lootine

“Middle Management” by Andy Singer

“Mark Droppings” by BIll Prendergast

“Dewey Dawner” by Madeline Queripel

“Post Modern” by David Sandberg

“Flying Boy!” by Lewis Tuck

“Authoritative Expert J. Wiggins” by Bud Burgy

“Squirrels and Pigeons” by Caanan Grall

“Eye of the Beholder” by Adam Wirtzfeld

“Uncle $achs” by Donn Ha

“The Madcap Shenanigans of Randolph & Sir Chirptrude, Esq.” by Lonny Unitus

“Gee, Whizzard!” by Kevin McCarthy

“Nate the Nonconformist” by Stephanie Mannheim

“Rampage!” by Erik Nelson

“Inkwellspring” by Henry Chamberlain

“Laffit Forward!” by Blake Himsl Hunter

“The Further Adventures of Vegan Ninja Cats (Who Ride Bikes)” by Mike Toft

“Living in Filth” by Hawk Krall

“Rocket Steven” by Earl Luckes

“Talewinds: Little Jimmy” by Steve Mason

“L’il Buddha and the Hungry Ghost Realm” by Ryan Dow

“Dear Friends” by Britt Hammerberg

“A Breast Abreast” by Lupi

“Uptown Girl” by Bob Lipski

“Underground Funnies” by D.C. McNamara

“Adventure!” by David Steinlicht

“Bongo the Monkey” by Steven Stwalley

“Pumpkinship” by Maxeem

“Look” by David Paleo

“Pickle-Head” by Paul Fricke

“Ticket to Crickety Creek” by William Ede

NeedCoffee.com has a list up of its Top Five Comics That Get Magic Right, and it’s definitely an in-depth set of reasoning for everything. Here’s some highlights of the top five:

5. Phonogram:”See, in his world, Kohl is what is called a “phonomancer”–someone who can use the feelings and symbolism produced by the experience of music to produce the effects he wants in other people and in the world at large. He can, for example, use the encounter of a certain song to divine the major themes of a crisis, or he can find the literal harmonic resonance between a person, their music, and their world, and use that to…well. Get laid, mostly. And that’s the trouble. Kohl uses music and the primal reverberations it brings into being in almost every person on Earth to dig deep into the inner workings of the world around him and make it do what he wants and, in doing this for a very long time (ten years is forever, in Indie Music), he has forgotten the thing that made him who he is.”

4. Lucifer: The Morningstar Option: “While Lucifer is still the Morningstar, and the progenitor and embodiment of the Fire of the Will, he knows that there are certain actions one can take to make life easier. There are certain words and phrases, certain kinds of commerce and communication which, when pushed with enough self-determination, make it possible for gates to be bypassed and rules to be bent long past the point where they should have broken. This is the hallmark of magic, in the Lucifer universe: when we know the rules as intimately as we know ourselves–and we must know ourselves very intimately–we know exactly where to place the lever–or twist the knife–to get exactly the results we’re looking for. There will be twists and turns as our drives and desires run up against those of others, but they’re nothing that can’t be ploughed through or burned down. They’re only obstacles, after all, and what are those to an indomitable drive to attain your goals, but something to be utterly and completely destroyed?”

3. Promethea: “Because Promethea is an archetype, living in the “Immateria,” the only way she can come to exist in the “Real World” is through someone with whom she has a strong enough symbolic, emotional, mental resonance and connection. When Sophie Bangs becomes Promethea, she is the eighth person known to have done so, including the “original.” The others must teach the new inhabitant of this mantel how to use all the magical weapons at her disposal, so that she can do what needs to be done in the face on an onrushing Apocalypse. As Sophie travels, fights enemies, and learns from gods, demons, and other persistent stories and living conceptual patterns, she grows more and more accustomed to her role, and she and Promethea become more aligned.”

2. Kid Eternity: “Identity is a lie. The totality of Time is the sound of a single word. Heaven is really a stagnant Hell. Hell is a constantly shifting ideascape dictated by the combination of symbols and ideas of the inhabitants viewing and experiencing it, with a few specific horrific landmarks. Death and rebirth, in quick succession, are the entryways to the machinery of the universe which can be reconfigured, adjusted, and broken, by someone with the right tools… While Promethea is about the intellectual and rational basis of magical knowledge, Kid Eternity is designed to eradicate the ability to rationally dissect the experience. Every action and event is an emotion, an instinct, and a psychic emergence of both individuation and connection with the totality of existence.”

1. John Constantine: Hellblazer: “Here we have John Constantine as quintessential dilettante of the occult arts, with much more than a little knowledge of any tradition you can think of and describe, let alone actually name. He can draw a Voudon veve in salt; make a deal with the Aztec God of Death; drag the goddess Kali out of a possessed man; harness the collective unconscious of all humankind to destroy an apocryphal evil that has hunted us since the dawn of time; and he can even get magicians to work together toward a common goal. He’s like freaking Superman. It’s obvious that Carey did more than passing research into occult traditions in preparation for his run on this series, as he gets names, symbols, places, and historical contexts important to students of various traditions right, while providing new insights into them and making them understandable and (above all) entertaining to anyone who just wants a Good Comic.”

On the one hand, I think this is an interesting read — on the other, I think as the list progresses, the author gets a little too bogged down with AP Magic, to the detriment of outright articulating what is so good. Curious about getting some magic in your comics library? Click here to read the whole article.

[Tip of the hat to David Gallaher for the link]

It seems as though country music is holding out for a hero, and only Brad Paisley can save them.

The country star, whose self-drawn animation has been a staple of his concerts, will be rescuing country greats like Reba McIntyre, Kenny Chesney, and Carrie Underwood… in a Superman outfit.

“Carrie Underwood is tied to the train tracks, and I go and save her and she says, ‘My hero!’ Then Kenny Chesney is in the islands and gets attacked by robots, and I fly down and beat them up and he says, ‘My hero!’ Then Reba is being chased by a dinosaur, which is something that could happen you know, and I save her and she says, ‘My hero!’”

Um… right. Apparently, Paisley is using all of these icons without permission, citing the entire thing as South Park-esque parody. All I know is, this development may conflict with Chris Sims‘ definitive ending of Final Crisis:

Thoughts, Rama readers?

A couple of weekends ago, a friend and I wandered down to the New York City Zine Fest in Brooklyn. Like me, my friend is a journalist and a product of the 90s punk-rock/riot grrl scene in which making zines was, in those dark pre-blog days, what you did with your angst and anger and more importantly, your sheer love of the music that kept you sane.

The zine fest featured a surprising number of comic creators–surprising to me at first, anyway, though when I thought about it, it made sense. Comics still work best in print, despite some good innovation in the digital forum. Zines, meanwhile, seem completely archaic–they were always artfully not-artful, badly photocopied, self-consciously printed in that same retro-obsessed typewriter font (Courier) even though few people made them on typewriters. Meanwhile, the Internet can assure faster distribution of and greater connection through ideas The zines we saw at this fest were no different than the ones we used to read in the 90s, which says something about the death of the medium. They seemed more an attempt to cling to a period in time that is past, an attempt to find a community that no longer exists. The point of the zine was the ideas, the community, not the medium itself.

So whither a zine about a comic?

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