The secret in the title of A Family Secret (Farrar Straus Giroux) isn’t the sort that is being deliberately kept from others as much as it simply goes un-talked about for years.

And who could blame Helena Van Dort, an elderly Dutch woman who lived through World War II and the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, for not talking about the war years all the time? It makes for a pretty unpleasant topic.

Comics artist Eric Heuvel’s crystal-clear storytelling, beautiful draftsmanship and open, inviting and expressive design makes for a pleasant reading experience, however, as unpleasant as the subject matter might be.

A Family Secret is Heuvel’s graphic novel about Helena’s war-time experience, written from a scenario credited to Heuvel, Ruud van der Rol, Menno Metselaar of the Anne Frank House and Hans Groeneweg of the Resistance Museum of Friesland. That sounds like a lot of experts to have in the room, and it shows in the book’s educational focus.

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Writer Ron Marz and Lee Moder teamed up earlier late last year and brought us Dragon Prince (missed that one, check out DP’s official site for info and first complete first issue), the story of a young boy who learns that he is from a bloodline of sacred creatures. I reviewed the issues and loved how kid-friendly it was.

This time around…things are a little bit more mature with Shinku. Earlier this month, Newsarama interviewed Marz and he gave a little insight on the comic along with another project, as well as provided a preview of the comic itself.

This past weekend at Baltimore Comic Con, an exclusive sketchbook was available with character designs along with the pages that were available on the preview linked above.
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It’s not really all that surprising that someone with Matt Phelan’s background would end up making a graphic novel. Phelan’s a rather prolific illustrator, probably best known for picture book Always with writer Ann Stott and 2007 Newbery winnerThe Higher Power of Lucky with Susan Patron.

While illustrated books and comics are, of course, different media, it’s certainly possible to think of them on the same imaginary spectrum, with a comic being a little like an illustrated prose book with the dial that controls the picture-to-word ratio turned way up.

That seems as good an explanation as any as to why Phelan’s first graphic novelThe Storm In The Barn (Candlewick Press), is such an accomplished one—it’s basically just a very long picture book, with very few words, and more than one picture per page, you know?

It’s set in Kansas in 1937, during the Dust Bowl period that generated all of those sad Dorothea Lange photos in your junior high history class.

Our protagonist is Jack, an eleven-year-old boy whose family is suffering like all the other farming families. It hasn’t rained in years, and no rain means no farming, and no farming means nothing but poverty and dust as far as the eye can see.

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If you’ve been reading Blog@ for the past couple of days, you’ve seen that we’ve spoken to both Captain America and Hulk about their perceptions of Halloween costumes based on their images. Today, we had to invest a little more time. Newsarama sent me to an alternate Earth that was about to celebrate Halloween in 1985. There we talked to a loose confederation of mystery men and women that the media calls “Watchmen”. Present were Dr. Manhattan, Nite Owl II, Silk Spectre II, and Rorschach. This is what they had to say.

NRAMA: Thanks for agreeing to sit down with us.

Nite Owl II: Not a problem. Can I make a brief statement before we begin?

NRAMA: Sure.

Nite Owl II: Hang on, I wrote it down. Okay. “The song “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen first appeared on his album “Various Positions” in 1984. It contains many meanings, including sexual overtones. Cohen plays a different version of the song in concert that is considered more explicit. Its original purpose was to convey different meanings, not to be played only when characters die or leave town on TV shows.”

NRAMA: Feel better?
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“There are three major legs to pop culture in America: movies, television, and comic books. One leg is doing a mission creep on the other two”: So says Travis Pullen at Filmfodder.com. Obviously movies and television are about as interested in comic books—or at least stories and characters taken from comic books—as they’ve ever been before. But are comics really a third pillar of American pop culture, akin to film and television? Not, I don’t know, music, or sport or video game?

“He was the father of political cartooning for everybody”: That’s political cartoonist Mike Peters on Herb “Herblock!” Block in this piece on the Washington Post‘s website. It’s a nice post about a show at the Library of Congress dedicated to the work of the the late, influential cartoonist, and includes thoughts on him and his work from several other cartoonists like Peters.

“Brian Azzarello’s ‘Filthy Rich’ a gritty piece of pulp”: That’s the headline of a Chicago Tribune review of Azzarello and Victor Santos’ original graphic novel for the new-ish Vertigo Crime sub-imprint. It’s weird too because I looked at the book, and I thought it was printed on rather high-quality paper that was nice and smooth and…oh, they’re using “gritty” and “pulp” metaphorically, huh? Nevermind then.

“Nathan Fillion Wants To Be The Greatest American Hero”: No he doesn’t, does he? Stop trying to get cast in superhero movies, Fillion! I like you right where you are in Castle.

Are you seeing this, Archie Comics?: If you’ve ever wondered what James Kochalka’s Sonic the Hedgehog might look like, wonder no more.

Speaking of Archie Comics…: I guarantee they’d get one thousand times more mainstream media coverage with this particular wedding than for either of the ones they’ve announced so far.

“A special comment where I draw spurious and perhaps false parallels and analogies and yet still manage to make more sense than an office full of Alaskan Prosecutors”: Remember Wednesday’s Linkarama, in which I linked to an Anchorage Daily News article about some in Alaska state government considering criminalizing sexually explicit drawings and cartoons of children as if they were actual child pornography? (It’s okay if you don’t, as I just re-linked to it again).

Well Matt Blind had an excellent post on the subject, one in which he brings up the legality of hunting as something to consider when folks want to criminalize certain things for their potential to maybe someday cause harm somehow:

Claiming that seeing offensive comics (which aren’t people) will lead to someone doing nasty, nasty things to real people is like saying shooting and field dressing animals (which aren’t people) will lead to someone doing nasty, nasty things to real people.

…

While hunters own guns and knives and have experience in, for example, stalking prey, killing, watching a wounded creature die without feeling sympathy, inserting a knife into a hip and working it to pop the joint and sever the tendons so the haunch can be removed from the rest of the rapidly cooling carcass, skinning their kills, and eating the roasted flesh of their victims.

And I’d be willing to bet more Alaskans own a rifle than a single volume of pornographic, drawn material of either Japanese, European, or Domestic provenance.

More at the link. (Via Dirk Deppey).

This is not at all what I imagined when I heard the words “adult comic books”: The Toledo Free Press takes a look at the Toledo Museum of Art’s new exhibit, the traveling “LitGraphic: The World of the Graphic Novel.” By “adult comic books” they just mean stuff like Sandman, Will Eisner and Lauren Weinstein.

I could watch Tucker Stone getting hit by comic books all day: There’s a new episode of Stone’s “Advanced Common Sense” web video comics commentary thingee available, and if you’re a fan of the “lightning round” portions, wherein someone off-camera throws comics at him while he attempts to catch and review them before the next ones gets thrown, you’ll love this one. Towards the end there’s a few minutes worth of outtakes of him getting hit with comic books and trades. You know, I think they’re shooting those things at him out of some kind of cannon…

“…vampires in popular culture vary pretty widely in quality, which makes them the perfect unit of greatness for a given comic”: Invincible Super-Blogger Chris Sims has had a busy week, between hosting Dracula Week on his home blog and pitting the Disney version of fairy tale characters versus their Fables counterparts at Comics Alliance, but his greatest contribution to American culture this week is definitely his invention of The ISB Draculometer, which he uses to evaluate this week’s comics. It’s the only place on the Internet where you can find out how Adventure Comics #3 is like Spike from Buffy The Vampire Slayer or how Nomad: Girl Without a World #2 is like Count Chocula. (I look forward to a blurb on the cover of the eventual Nomad trade saying “It’s the Count Chocula of comic books!”)

The Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My

Written & Illustrated by Tove Jansson

Published by Drawn & Quarterly

D&Q’s done very nice work collecting Tove Jansson’s trippy and delightful comic strip Moomin into a series of high-quality hardcovers. Every successive edition has been a treat of silliness, whimsical logic, family values and bizarre rural landscapes. Moomin, however, did not begin life as a comic strip. Rather, Ms. Jansson’s odd little hippopotamus-like family had their origins in children’s books. Later, picture books followed, and in 1954, the comic strip finally debuted. Justified by the success of the charming comic strip archives, D&Q has begun creating replica editions of the Moomin picture books, starting with 1952’s The Book of Moomin, Mymble and Little My.

For readers familiar with Jansson’s Moomin comics, experiencing Moomin’s travails in the form of a picture book is likely to be somewhat familiar – the whimsical tone and uplifting outlook remain unmolested – and jarring – the reliance on rhyme and rhythm make for a very different reading experience. Whether the experience is better, worse or simply different is going to be entirely on each reader. I found the simply rhyming scheme slightly distracting, repeatedly losing any sense of what was occurring. Yet Jansson’s language, marked by references to unusual creates like the Hattifatteners, flows confidently, moving Moomin and Mymble (and My) from one surprising circumstance to the next with certainty and inimitable style.

Jansson’s loopy illustrations seem to benefit from the format, as her use of simple color schemes and the larger canvas afforded by the page size offer a more perplexing and delirious vision of MoominValley. The book’s most obvious feature is that every page has a cut-away section, allowing peeks into the preceding and succeeding pages. The windows into the future don’t provide much story value other than to play off each page’s final rhyme, inevitably a suggestion to guess what zaniness will occur next, but certainly many young readers will enjoy the game.

Although the picture book does not match the dream-logic, wandering stories of the Moomin comic strip (which comes thoroughly recommended), D&Q’s first replica edition of Tove Jansson’s picture books, The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My is still a trippy good time, and suggested reading for anybody with young children who enjoy adventurous tales in fanciful lands.  And it’s a treat to see comics publishers expanding their repertoire with diverse graphic storytelling projects.

I recently had occasion to chat with Steve Rogers, Captain America, about the Halloween costumes based on his image that we saw at The Marvel Shop. The readership seemed to enjoy that exchange, so we decided to talk to other heroes about their reactions. I managed to catch up with none other than The Incredible Hulk for (approrpriately) a few words about his feelings.

Hulk: Hulk think babies puny and smelly. Babies cry, hurt Hulk’s ears. This one cute, though.

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Iron Man# 50 Art by George Tuska and Vince Colletta

Reports are coming in that legendary artist, George Tuska, has passed away today at the age of 93. Initially, I had read the reports on Jon Knutson’s blog, which was later confirmed by various outlets. This death comes just after reports of Joe Rosen passing away today as well.

Tuska became famous in the industry working on such Marvel titles like Captain America, Iron Man (for which he is most remembered) and Luke Cage, Power Man.

The industry has surely lost another legend today.

I’m surprised at the detail in John Porcellino’s face.

It’s silly to expect an autobiographical cartoonist, particularly one whose style is as abstract as Porcellino’s, to look like the comic book character you’re used to spending time with, but the Porcellino of my imagination shouldn’t have as many lines on him as the real Porcellino does. There shouldn’t be pupils around his little black dot irises, his hair should be a jagged bowl atop the oval of his head, not individualized strands. He shouldn’t have a third dimension, or have any color other than paper-white to him.

But the pioneering zinester, mini-comic maker and autobio comics creator is, of course, a human being, and thus doesn’t much resemble the John P. I’ve gotten to know over the years from the pages of his long-running King-Cat Comics.

I got a good look at him this past Monday night, at the Columbus stop of his fall tour promoting his new book A Map of My Heart (his visit to Columbus, oddly enough, occurred on Columbus day).  He was appearing at Wholly Craft, a shop that sells cool, handmade goods from a variety of local artists and designers. It’s a girly pink and blue store a few steps away from the city’s main drag, High Street, jam-packed with T-shirts, stuffed animals, magnets, pins, baby clothes, finger puppets, sock octopuses, cloth sculptures of cakes and dozens of other neat little things one could empty one’s wallet buying for loved ones if one wanted.

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Ready to have the Apocalypse Suite in your very own iPhone? Heck yes!

Dark Horse has announced that the first arcs of Umbrella Academy and Hellboy are available on iTunes.

For Hellboy, the first four issues — the “Seed of Destruction” arc — will be available either as individual sets (99 cents each) or for a bundled set ($3.99), while Umbrella Academy will have the first six-issue miniseries ready for download either as 99-cent single issues or a $4.99 packaged set.

Todd Klein has posted on his blog that letterer Joe Rosen has passed away.

Rosen, who was 88, started his career at Harvey Comics, and had credits stretching back all the way to 1948. His most influential credits include the Frank Miller run on Daredevil (shown above), as well as the Spider-Man/Superman crossover.

The Comics Reporter had this to say about Rosen:

Rosen’s work managed to combine a certain hushed quality with routine clarity and even, one could say, a muscularity achieved through the crowded precision of the kerning. He enabled Miller’s unique voice in a way that was quite unique, and the work would have been slightly but I think perceptibly different without him. The long-time letterer’s work continues to be seen through Marvel’s increasingly aggressive reprint programs.

It’s a shame, as a lot of readers — indeed, even a lot of folks in the industry — will snub letterers, not even realizing that lettering is the glue that holds the whole she-bang together. Mark Evanier has a nice article up about the value of good lettering — check it out.

And [drum roll]: White!

The final page of the Getting a Piece of Asp short I wrote for David Rodriguez and Dave Reynolds’ ShadowGirls is up. I had a lot of fun getting to play with David and Dave’s characters and world. They really have a wonderful comic and I cannot recommend it enough!

[Link to cover and Page 01] ShadowGirls: Getting a Piece of Asp Cover / Page 01

Find out more about Global Freezing here on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays or at ComicsByEgg.com.

Things Undone

Written & Illustrated by Shane White

Published by NBM

Shane White’s Things Undone has one particular trait that may draw some readers in, but in the end, it’s a gimmick that works against the book’s success. The book’s protagonist, Rick, feels his life spiraling out of control, largely due to his own refusal to make decisions or take control of his indifference. Consequently, as his life slips away, Rick begins to turn into a zombie – literally (or perhaps figuratively, you decide in the end). It’s a conceit that will grab some genre fans’ attention, but zombie fans are likely to find the effect wasted and non-genre fans will find it simply pointless.

The problem is that, outside of a few body-pieces-falling-off gags, the zombie element has no real import on the story. Sure, it’s cute when Rick staples his ear back on, but it’s a one-panel gag amid pages and pages of non-zombie content. It’s ultimately about Rick, his girl, his coworkers, and his own ennui. The supernatural elements don’t add to the narrative; they distract from it.

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Warner Home Video keeps putting all of DC Comics’ animated properties on DVD, and my shelving may need a expansive upgrade. Courtesy of TV Shows on DVD (THE BEST website devoted to, well, TV shows on DVD), WB made available a press release on their latest offering from Super Friends: Season 1, Volume 1.

You can read the press release for all the details of this January 5, 2010 release, but the main gist of this is that we finally got the “Wendy & Marvin Years,” the ones that first put Super Friends on the map. I believe they are also the only SF episodes narrated by the late great Ted Knight, a voice acting staple of DC Comics’ animated output in the 1960s. My only complaint at the moment is the DVD cover art. I never have a problem with the classic stock art by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, but considering that every previous release did something a little more original, refurbishing art from the actual series, this seemed like an uncharacteristically lazy way to go. Plus I can get real nitpicky and point out that the Wonder Woman on this cover is sporting a costume that did not grace the pages of her own comic until almost 10 years later. Considering that this volume has the distinction of featuring Wendy Marvin & Wonder Dog (not to mention guest appearances by the Flash, Green Arrow and Plastic Man), it’s a shame they didn’t work with that into a more unique cover design.

As a comics critic, I’m not terribly fond of the anthology format. They’re extremely difficult to write reviews of, and I’m hardly ever satisfied with the reviews that result any time I do try to tackle one.

That’s due mostly to the very nature of anthologies (Well, that and the fact that I’m not as good a writer as I’d like sometimes, but I prefer to blame the format). Even those with strong, unifying themes will involve different creators on each story, and inevitably some creators will be better than other or, in the rare case where they’re all excellent, they will all be excellent in very different ways.

So every time I sit down to write a review for an anthology, I generally end up walking away from my laptop disappointed with the results—they always seem to be some variation of “This is an anthology consisting of stories tied together by this particular theme. Some of these stories were good, and some of them were not.”

As a comics reader, however, I’ve found that anthologies can be a lot of fun, introducing you to new creators and/or characters in rapid succession after a relatively low-risk investment of time and money.

Among my favorite to read are the sorts of holiday specials that mainstream publishers occasionally put out, for these very reasons. And for the Halloween ones, the grab-bag nature of anthologies seems particularly apropos, as reading them can parallel the experience of trick-or-treating. One stop you might get a little box of Dots or a York peppermint patty, the next you might get a Tootsie roll or one of those hard, brown blobs that come wrapped in plain black or orange wrappers and smell vaguely of peanuts.

Yesterday’s new comics day brought two such Halloween-prompted anthologies—DC/Vertigo’s House of Mystery Halloween Annual #1 and Image Comics’ The Perhapanauts Halloween Spooktacular #1—so I thought I’d try trick or treating in those two particular neighborhoods. Both books were also promoted as good jumping-on points for the various serials, and since I have yet to read a single issue of either House of Mystery or The Perhapanauts, I thought I might be well-positioned to serve as a test case for how effective they were at meeting those goals.

So grab your metaphorical costume and metaphorical treat bag and join me after the jump for some metaphorical trick or treating. (The “jump,” by the way, is also metaphorical).

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As regular readers know, we’ve been engaging in the “Ask Matty” progam that Mattel offers. We decided in September to base our Q&A questions primarily on Blog@ reader input. Due to the sheer amount of sites now involved in “Ask Matty”, we’re limited to five questions. Here are the answers to five questions that YOU asked.

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This is something a bit new and kind of cool and above all: seriously entertaining.

I’m talking about Martin Koala.

It’s the story of three different koalas who go on PG-rated whacky adventures, but how it is presented, it’s what makes it neat.

You can click the right side of the “book” and it flips, but at the same time, it has a bit of flash animation with it that adds a little something awesome.

There’s no real dialog, and none is really needed. Everything is explained through the art and you should definitely check it out.

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!

Interested in comics events? Well, look no further! As always, fans and industry folks, if you have an event you’d like us to promote, just e-mail us at newsaramaevents [AT] gmail [DOT] com.

Brooklyn, N.Y.:

October 17, 7:00pm – 9:00pm High Moon, Box 13 and comiXology!
On Saturday, October 17th, Bergen Street Comics and comiXology are proud to co-host the Brooklyn launch party for critically acclaimed creators, David Gallaher and Steve Ellis. Join us as we celebrate the launch of the print version of their online Zuda Comic “High Moon,” as well as “Box 13,” created by Gallaher, Ellis and Scott O. Brown. “Box 13” is a 13-part, a neo-noir thriller, and serialized digital comic, launching exclusively through comiXology and available on October 13.

New York, N.Y.:

TODD MCFARLANE SIGNING IN NEW YORK CITY THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15TH
Todd to Face Off with Fans at ‘NHL Powered by Reebok’ Store
October 09, 2009
Copyright 2009 TMP International, Inc.

Come celebrate the start of hockey season and the launch of McFarlane Toys’ NHL Legends 8 action figure line with Todd McFarlane at the NHL Powered by Reebok store, located at 1185 Sixth Avenue, between 46th and 47th Street in New York City.

Todd will be signing purchased NHL SportsPicks figures for the first 125 people on Thursday, October 15 from 6PM to 8PM. Autographs will be limited to NHL store purchases made the day of the event and one outside item, time permitting.

McFarlane Toys’ newest NHL Legends line-up features: Theo Fleury, Calgary Flames; Wayne Gretzky, Edmonton Oilers; Mario Lemieux, Pittsburgh Penguins; Tim Horton, Toronto Maple Leafs; Terry O’Reilly, Boston Bruins; and Terry Sawchuk in Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs jerseys.

For more information, contact the NHL Powered by Reebok store at 212-221-6375.

Santa Rosa, CA:

Pixar Panel Discussion

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17 ● 2–4pm

Pixar’s top designers, including Bob Peterson (writer/director), Ricky Nierva (production designer), and Jason Deamer (art director), will answer questions and talk about creating 3-D computer characters for the big screen.

Charles M. Schulz Museum, 2301 Hardies Lane, Santa Rosa, CA 95403

(707) 579-4452 | http://www.schulzmuseum.org/

Nashville, TN:

Oct 17-18
The Nashville Comic and Horror Festival

Tn state fairgrounds
Oct 17-18
Admission only $10  – save $2 with 3 canned good donation to the rescue mission

Over 70 guests:
Brian O’Halloran (Clerks and Clerks2)
Glenn Shadix (The voice of the mayor in Nightmare Before Christmas)
Dick Warlock (Mike Myers in Halloween 2)
Dawn of the Dead Zombie Reunion
Chris Claremont, Gary Friedrich, Jay Leisten  – Comic Book Superstars
and lots more
VIP still open and the next 30 VIPs receive a free Zombieland hat and full size poster
Email about VIP
See all this on the website:

http://www.comiccitytn.com

Plano, TX:

October 21 David Doub Comic Book Signing
The writer of the graphic novel Dusk will be hitting Lone Star Comics #8 on Wednesday, October 21st! The address is 3100 Independence Parkway #318, in Plano, TX. For more information, check out www.mycomicshop.com/ourstores/plano.

The race is on again, as Jon Favreau will not be assembling the Avengers on-screen.

The Iron Man director spoke with MTV about his decision, confirming that Marvel will have to find another director to take on the group franchise, as he says he has really focused his energies on Iron Man.

“It’s going to be hard, because I was so involved in creating the world of Iron Man and Iron Man is very much a tech-based hero, and then with ‘Avengers’ you’re going to be introducing some supernatural aspects because of Thor,” Favreau told MTV. “How you mix the two of those works very well in the comic books, but it’s going to take a lot of thoughtfulness to make that all work and not blow the reality that we’ve created.”

That said, Iron Fans, Favreau will be involved in the Avengers film as an executive producer, which presumably will give him a decent amount of say in terms of maintaining Tony Stark’s characterization and well-being in the event additional Iron Man and Avengers films came out.

So what say you, Avengers fans? Are you disappointed? Is this good news? Who do you feel should helm the Avengers franchise?