I thought I’d share a few pages from a Focus Features promotional book for, 9, the major motion picture debut of director Shane Acker’s beautiful animation. Based on his Academy Award-nominated short film, this full length movie is co-produced by Tim Burton and stars Elijah Wood as the plucky little hero who is determined to bring back humanity to a world without humans. 9 arrives in the US, Sept 9 or 9-9-09.

First, here’s a nice Shane Acker quote:

“Steampunk” is a celebration of mechanisms and an idolization or faith in machines as a future, which emphasizes analog over digital. But in 9, since the world has fallen to pieces it’s become all analog. “Stitchpunk” — a term which I first heard coined from a fan of the short film — fittingly describes the 9 characters’ aesthetic, in what they physically are and in that they have been designed not as toys but to survive in a barren landscape.

And here is a sketch by Shane Acker accompanied by the storyboard art:

The DC Bullets lost a golden opportunity to move up in the New York Media Softball League standings Thursday evening, dropping a 12-8 decision to BusinessWeek in both squad’s semi-final league game.  They’ll square off again Tuesday at 5:30 in Central Park, North Meadow, Field #3, in each team’s final game of the regular season.

Thursday evening, The Bullets jumped out to the early lead, with 3B Mike Lorah (3-3, 3 runs, 2 RBI, 2 doubles, walk) driving a two-out double into the right field corner. RF Brian Cunningham’s (2-4, 2 runs, RBI) RBI single drove Lorah in, and Brian alertly took second on the throw home. DH Larry “LP” Vollano (2-2, run, 5 RBI, home run, sac fly) tacked a second run on with a single, scoring Brian. In the bottom of the first, BusinessWeek served immediate notice that they would not go quietly, as their lead-off hitter drilled a long home run to left field. Two more runs plated for BW, but DC escaped the inning when, with one out and runners on first and second, Lorah and 1B Joel Press (0-2) hooked up for a 5-3 double play.

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It’s fitting that 28 Days Later has finally been made into a comic book. You can trace the current zombie boom straight back to Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s 2002 film, and while zombies have been increasingly popular in several media since, they’ve been particularly ubiquitous on the comics shelves, and show no signs of going away any time soon. After all, one of the best-selling super-comics at the moment is a zombie story grafted onto DC’s Green Lantern franchise.

So there’s a nice bit of symmetry to the very existence of Boom Studios’s 28 Days Later. It might be an even nicer bit of symmetry if it proved to be the ultimate zombie story, closing out our decade’s fascination with the living, shambling (and sometimes sprinting) dead and bringing a temporary end to the zombie craze.

I don’t see that happening though.

Not only is there no evidence that zombies are on the wane, but this comic doesn’t seemed poised to be the one that says everything there’s left to say about zombies for the time being. It’s not a bad comic, but it certainly doesn’t offer a revolutionary new take. Of course, given that it’s premised as a bridge between the original film and the 2007 sequel, it’s entire reason for being is to simply to keep the Later story going.

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Also, are those supposed to be scare quotes around good fight? Is God being sarcastic?: Check out Comics Curmudgeon Josh Fruhlinger on the worst political cartoons dealing with Ted Kennedy’s death this week. And that’s “worst” as in, “Wow, that’s pretty lazy, isn’t it?” kind of way.

Huh, I guess I better hurry up and read it then: Deb Aoki, who knows a lot more about manga than I do, thinks this year’s Ignatz nominations may mark the first time that a manga work has been nominated in two categories.  Hideo Azuma’s Disappearance Diary was nominated twice.

“Until this month, the only American comic book that successfully achieved the depth and complexity of a novel was Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth“: I wouldn’t feel comfortable making such a bold statement, since it seems like one that’s relatively easy to knock down, but Paul Constant raises an interesting point about the term “graphic novel” in his review of Asterios Polyp for The Stranger. So many of the most popular and highest regarded “graphic novels” tend not to be novels at all.

“Monsters of Webcomics” is the best name for a museum exhibit ever: The San Francisco Chronicle has a piece up about a show at The Cartoon Art Museum’s featuring the work of Kate Beaton, Phil and Kaja Folio, Chis Onstad, Nicholas Gurewitch, Jesse Reklaw and others. Sounds pretty neat.
Meanwhile, Ann Taylor writes about the show for SF Station.

“They can shove it up their jacksies”: That is one of EW‘s Ken Tucker’s favorite parts of Dark Entries. I like the fact that it’s a Hellblazer original graphic novel, the title of which doesn’t begin with  word “Hellblazer” followed by a colon. People telling people to shove things up other things is always cool too, though.

“Yes, Jimmy has entered a parallel universe whose main feature is a law that anyone not wearing a cape can be immediately taken into custody and sold as a slave”: Hey, anyone pick up the James Robinson-written conversation-fest that was Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen Special #2 this week? Did it seem a tad bit…what’s the word…boring as hell? Could that be because it strayed so far from the proud tradition of past Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen stories being completely insane? Mmmaybe. For a good example of how insane your average Jimmy Olsen story oughta be, check out Invincible Super-Blogger and semi-professional Jimmy Olsenologist Chris Sims’ examination of Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #117.

With the sixtieth anniversary of his creation looming, Harvey Comics favorite Casper (the Friendly Ghost) is seeing the release of his first comic book series in more than a decade. Ardden Entertainment, who published a 75^th Anniversary hardcover book for Flash Gordon last year, acquired the publishing rights to create the six-issue miniseries Casper & The Spectrals, featuring the return to comics of not only Casper, but Wendy the Good Witch and Hot Stuff as well. Edited by star Spider-Man writer J.M. DeMatteis (co-creator of this year’s smartest superhero comic, IDW’s The Life and Times of Savior 28) and written by Todd Dezago (of Tellos and The Perhapanauts fame), the series will reintroduce the characters to a new generation of readers, updating the art style with sleek pencils by Pedro Delgado and computer coloring the likes of which these characters have never seen. Blog@Newsarama tracked down Dezago to talk about the project. (more…)

…and has a perfume from BPAL? Interesting. George Perez and famed colorist Tom Smith turned out that intriguing piece of advertising for it.

I digress. So as an Atlanta native, I cannot tell you of a bigger party than Dragon*Con, or D*C as we call it. Now, I may be a bit bias, but it rivals the size and fun of SDCC easily. It’s not just a con, it’s on a whole other level that seems to grow more and more each year. Well, I’m pleased to announce that the Hero Initiative will be attending Dragon*Con, Labor Day weekend September 4th-7th at the Atlanta Convention center. The Hero Initiative will be in attendance with many special guests including George Pérez, Cully Hamner, and Paul Jenkins. For more information about the con, check out the website.

I had a chance to ask Atlanta’s own Cully Hamner what the thought about being apart of something as grand and special as the Hero Initiative:

“It can be said that debt is on the collective mind of the country right now, and that it’s not the most welcome of things.  But the one debt that I’m happy to even try to settle up is the enormous one that my generation owes to the builders of our business.  Repaying that is something that we’ll never fully be able to achieve, but it’s all in the trying, and I am delighted to give it a go.”

’nuff said.

For more information about the Hero Initiative, visit www.heroinitiative.org or call 626-676-6354.

This post on girl power in comics, from Retconning My Brain, is a seriously awesome piece that made me want to read a lot of these books (Power Girl, Batgirl, etc.) more than I already did.

The original “Girl power,” a sugared-up, popified version of what Riot Grrl was, hit when I was in my last years of high school. The late 90s, which brought us post-communications deregulation prefab pop, but also at least sort of acknowledged that women wanted pop culture that was their own, and that there was more to it than fighting over a man on a soap opera. It brought us Xena and Buffy, too.

I’ve never been the type of feminist who is terribly bothered by the word “girl”–if prodded, I can even conjure up a defense of using it as a word that doesn’t contain the word “man,” although that’s really not any less useless to me than spelling woman with a y. At the ripe old age of almost-thirty, I still refer to myself as a girl and usually anyone else who is my age or younger. I’ve even been scolded for it by friends male and female. But I can’t really help it, and I wonder if the twin specters of Riot Grrl and Girl Power are to blame.

I was thinking about Girl Power, while I was writing my generally-happy reactions to the stories, and I remember learning about third wave feminism and discussing Girl Power in my class, and the positives and negatives. You had shows with strong (Xena) or complex (Ally McBeal) female leads, but they were wearing short short skirts (and some of them could have used a sandwich, ahem). You had the Spice Girls saying friends come first (in a way more empowering way than bros before hos, yo) but most of their popular songs were still about finding love or something. I think. I can’t actually admit in public to listening to the Spice Girls. You know.

So. Is the rash of “Girl” comics a revival of this kind of feminism-lite? There certainly has been a trend lately, especially with DC books, toward female leads. Batwoman, Batgirl, Gotham City Sirens (and yes, Marvel Divas) and many more that I’m probably missing because this just isn’t really my area of expertise. The pop universe doesn’t seem to be swinging that way in the dramatic fashion it did in the Spice Girls era, but we do have Twilight and other pop-culture phenomena that are aimed at girls bringing a new demographic to geek culture–check out Vaneta Rogers’ awesome piece on The Fangirl Invasion.

Either way, I have to agree with this statement, again from Retconning My Brain:

What it came down to for me this week was that it was nice to buy a bunch of comics that are led my female superheroes, who are super with or without their male counterparts, but don’t exist in a vacuum of femaleness or solely for the gaze of the male reader. They’re there to kick some ass and be super.

Amen to that.

Jack Kirby, one of the cornerstones of the House of Ideas, would have turned 92 today.

The above image — from “This Man… This Monster!” from Fantastic Four #51 — is probably my favorite Kirby story ever. What about you, Rama readers? When did you decide to bow before the King of Comics?

The cover of Brian Chippendale’s Maggots (PictureBox Inc.; 2007)

A panel from Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis, Oclair Albert and company’s Blackest Night #1 (DC Comics; 2009)

(Yes, yes, I’m just kidding. Relax.)

Did it feel like a Clash of the Titans for anyone else this week, walking into their friendly neighborhood comic shop?

It sure did for this blogger/reviewer, as I weighed in on just what to buy this week. You’ll have to wait till Monday for my thoughts on the books themselves, but just looking at the list from Midtown Comics, and you’ll see that — with some exceptions, such as BOOM! Studios’ 28 Days Later #1 — you’ll see that Marvel and DC threw just about everything they’ve got at each other this week.

Take DC for example — while they’ve been building up with Blackest Night spin-offs, this week they pulled no punches, belting out not just a new issue of Green Lantern, but unveiling the latest issues of Batman and Robin, Flash: Rebirth, and Detective Comics. Considering the fact that these are amongst DC’s most time-intensive projects — all three with superstar teams that can take a bit to put out a product — in addition to a new Batman book by filmmaker Kevin Smith called The Widening Gyre, this was an ambitious week for DC to be sure.

Meanwhile, Marvel pulled out all the stops this week. While it wasn’t the 100+ title week of a few months back, this week treated us to three separate Avengers books — Dark, New, and Initiative, with Dark Avengers seeing a dramatic payoff for the Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Utopia storyline. In addition, the scrappy but sublime Dark Wolverine hit stands this week, the top 25-selling X-Force, as well as the high-selling actioner known as Hulk, by Jeph Loeb. Of course, this week Marvel also peppered their sales with some lower-selling but critically-acclaimed books, such as the Incredible Hercules and Guardians of the Galaxy.

So all in all, my local comic book shop got a lot more of my money than is per usual. What stood out for you this week, Rama readers? Sound off!

If you like what you’ve read so far (c’mon, how can you not?) totally check out more super cute comics at:www.sosuperduper.com!

I love Willem Dafoe. You name the movie — whether it be Platoon, Spider-Man, Boondock Saints, or anything else — and I am sold.

So I’m pretty enthused (even if I probably won’t be able to make it) that Wizard announced that Willem Dafoe will be attending this year’s Big Apple Con in New York, taking place October 16-18 at Pier 94.

The actor will be signing items and meeting up with fans. Maybe if 12 Gauge’s Boondock Saints comic comes out in time, you could bring it to him!

(Haven’t seen Boondock Saints? Check out this probably NSFW clip right here! THERE WAS A FIREFIGHT!!!)

From Top Cow to Halloween 2 to working on projects at Radical Publishing, Renae Geerlings has had quite the journey in comics and genre entertainment. Zenescope Entertainment writer and Blog@ buddy Raven Gregory sat down with Geerlings to talk with her about comics, Rob Zombie, marrying Sabertooth, and what being an “AND Girl” is all about.

RAVEN GREGORY: So for those not familar with one of my favorite editors in the whole world tell us a bit about yourself.

RENAE GEERLINGS: My name is Renae Geerlings.  I’m a Scorpio. I love WHITE cake with buttercream frosting (the more sugary the better).  One day I’d love to breed and raise Freesian horses and English Mastiffs on my own vineyard. I got my first professional gig on film by doing a “hand job” for Robert Zemekis and it wasn’t even dirty!  (Hand doubling, guys, just to be clear.)   I make great guacamole.  I don’t believe in “this OR that” I like “this AND that.”  Always AND.

I don’t know…  This is like those 25 Things You Don’t Know About Me quizzes.  I get to #5 and I’ve got nothing left.

GREGORY: How did you become involved in comics?  What was your first position in the business?

GEERLINGS: I got a temp job answering phones at a company that did “something with art/”  I answered phones and read comics for 2 days at Top Cow…best job ever.  A few weeks later they called me back for 2 weeks, during which time I made it my business to play Puzzle Fighter in the lobby with as many people as possible and generally ingratiate myself to the general population.  Back then I curled my hair, wore cute little outfits and smiled.  Then I got hired to editorial and within a few months I was addicted to coffee and nicotine, wore tees and jeans (cause when you’re sleeping at the office over deadlines, cute little outfits are uncomfortable) and glowered all the time.  It was a quick decline…

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