You’ve heard about Zenescope’s upcoming series, the Waking, no? Well, we’ve found on YouTube the trailer to the cops-meets-zombies series:

Whaddya think? The first issue of Zenescope’s new series comes out in February of 2010.

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!

(Click the image above for a larger version of the strip.)

WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 14: “The Duke”

A staple of Blaxploitation movies is the character of “The Pimp.”  Thanks to Blaxploitation movies, the word “pimp” usually conjures images of a pencil-thin dandy dressed in bright colors, platform shoes, and dripping in fur and gold.  I knew The Thrill-Seekers would have a pimp character, but I wanted to turn those expectations on their head.  The Duke is still a coward and manipulator who takes advantage of women, but he’s more understated in his approach.  I saw him as a man who happened to be a very good criminal, who enjoyed the opportunities “The Life” created for him, but he nonetheless aspired to be something else.  He wanted to be a professional chef, but his opportunities were limited.  The Duke’s dilemma, his frustrated aspirations and the choices he made, ultimately became the catalyst for the events of The Thrill-Seekers.  In another story, or if we had encountered The Duke at an earlier point in his life, he could easily have been a protagonist in the Blaxploitation milieu, cut from the same cloth as Goldie in The Mack or Rosco Orman in Willie Dynamite.

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomic are posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

Jamie McKelvie has a downright gorgeous print that he has put up in his store, titled “Suburban Glamour”:

If you’re a fan of his work on Phonogram (and if you aren’t, you should be), you should definitely give this thing a look. The current print is a limited edition of only 50 prints, and costs about $32. Check it out here.

[Hat tip to Matt on this]

What uncanny news this morning brings.

Movieweb has confirmed that Bryan Singer will come back to the X-Franchise after a not-so-successful stint in Metropolis. “I just yesterday signed a deal to do an X-Men: First Class origins picture, which is kind of cool. I’m very excited,” Singer exclaimed on the Blue Carpet premiere of Avatar.

This is such a great comic, too.  I’d love to see the early adventures of the original five and hopefully they can bring in newer villains, though Rutger Hauer as a younger Magneto would be interesting to see as well. Since X-Men Origins Wolverine was tied to the previous X-Movies’ continuity, I wonder if this movie will follow suit or start anew.

So now that the deal is sealed, what would you readers like to see in “First Class”?

In an announcement that shocked…well, nobody, really…anyway, in an announcement on their blog The Source, DC Comics has announced that Conner “Superboy” Kent will be returning to the Teen Titans with Teen Titans #81. It’s been expected by fans ever since Geoff Johns made some leading comments at the San Diego Comic Con’s Superman panel in July. DC Comics has also made several comments leading to this conclusion, after Geoff Johns left Adventure Comics and took Superboy’s lead feature with him.

Well, I guess he comes out of Blackest Night on the right side of alive, at least, eh?

Well, it’s not exactly Marjorie Liu: The Video Game, but the cross-pollenization between gaming and comics is so interesting to me, that it’s cool to see it go in reverse.

PassionFruit Games will be adapting one of the Dark Wolverine co-writer’s romance novels into a computer game, set to be released April 2010. Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box is being touted as a “romance game,” which is a first for me (outside of side-quests in the Sims and Harvest Moon, of course).

Studio director Melissa Eldritch said that PassionFruit was designed to tap into a new segment of the market. “The majority of casual gamers are women aged 25-65, who report they play casual games mainly to escape.  Interestingly, those same attributes apply to romance novel readers – so it’s surprising that there are currently so few romance casual games on the market.  That’s why we’re excited to bring Tiger Eye to life as interactive entertainment.”

According to the group’s press release, there will be puzzle-solving and mini-games for the PC/Mac game, as well as a storyline that grows as the characters become closer. What’s interesting to me is the fact that Liu — already a New York Times bestselling author (and smart as heck to boot) — will be joining writers such as Eric Trautmann and Brian Reed, who also have ties in the video game world.

A while back I wrote something about what NOT to do at comic book conventions — namely, that story about the Yellow Hat Guy being rude to Rob Liefeld.

Well, Andy Diggle has posted an interesting sequence of events on his Twitter feed — an eager writer by the name of Tigervamp who wanted to collaborate with Black Widow: Deadly Origin writer Paul Cornell. Please take note that you should NOT try this at home.

Tigervamp: @Paul_Cornell I’d love to co-write some things with you-If I send you some ideas would you read/consider them? DM me email/subject? #QandC

Just to cut in — you might not think it, but this is a Very Bad Thing to do, for both the writers, publishers, and you. Let me explain why. Creative types are paid, obviously, because they can produce ideas and stories. Their own ideas and stories. But if you shout out an idea, and something like it manages to make it into one of their stories, the company/writer is open to a potential lawsuit. This is why if you send something in unsolicited to most comics companies, they will return it largely unopened.

Please note that this is to protect your ideas — which you should save and cultivate and most importantly NETWORK TO GET OUT THERE so you can eventually pitch it to Marvel and DC. Okay?

So moving along, it’s perhaps no surprise that Cornell would respond as such:

@Tigervamp I’m sure you’d love to co-write something with me, but why would I do that? #QandC

And that’s when the train wreck continues — with ego and a little bit of spite. If Tigervamp had just accepted the “no,” it would have been a rookie mistake and nothing would have come of it — but picking a fight on the Internet will never make you look good. Ever.

Tigervamp: @Paul_Cornell Because I’m good and we aren’t all as fortunate as you. If I do make it I won’t scoff at those trying to do the same. Thanks.

I don’t see this as much “scoffing” as it is a reality check. Cornell’s got enough on his plate to work on and worry about without taking on someone under his wing. Heck, he’s probably got enough to worry about that he wouldn’t be able to mentor someone he knew, let alone someone who followed him on Twitter. Yet that said, I don’t think mentorship is what Tigervamp wanted:

Tigervamp: @Paul_Cornell You’re mistaken. No coat tails were asked for. I don’t see you as my superior but my peer. Must feel great to be so rude. Bye.

I bolded what most surprised me about this whole thing. If Tigervamp has a list of credits in novels, TV and comics under his belt, that’s great — and if that’s the case, he should be sending those comics, episodes and novels to Marvel, or getting his agent on the job to see what kind of collaborations they can do. Until then, Paul Cornell is your superior, not your peer.

Oh, I should mention one other rule of thumb, if you’re looking to get into comics — DON’T BE A JERK AND TALK BACK TO AN EDITOR. They really are the gatekeepers to your career.

TomBrevoort: @Tigervamp @Paul_Cornell is perhaps the least rude or egotistical individual I’ve ever met. Need to take a step back, look in the mirror.

Tigervamp: @TomBrevoort Please follow the tweets. I asked if he’d read some things and he replied by asking why he’d want to do that. That is rude.

This pretty much strikes down every single thing NOT to do when you’re talking with comics creators on Twitter. You think you’ve got it, yet? Do you see what might be an issue here with this particular conversation? If you don’t yet, check out the dismount:

Tigervamp: Last night I dreamt I murdered someone and became a serial killer because people were getting too close to the truth. Fun and games. =o( #fb

So for those of you who are surprised by this — what do you do? There’s any number of methods to breaking into the comics industry. Intern at a comics company. Work at a comic book shop. Self-publish your comics, either in print or online. Get published elsewhere, whether it be a book, a play, a movie, or even at smaller comics publishers. Network at conventions (but again, don’t give your pitches without being asked by the publishers first). It ain’t easy, but if you love the medium and are willing to put the work in to have some awesome scripts ready at a moment’s notice, you’ll get there.

But not like this.

The collaboration between Hollywood and comics has never been closer, and over the past year, we’ve seen some interesting side-effects. For example, about this time last year, Radical Comics began releasing books that were meant to catch producers’ eyes, and now books like Last Days of American Crime are going to be hitting cineplexes.

Escalation is never an “if,” it’s a “when” — which is why it’s interesting to see Variety reporting that Liquid Comics would be coming back from the proverbial comic book drain, teaming up with L+E Prods. to create Epic Cycle, a “label to hatch properties that can be expanded into multiple platforms, including film and TV.” Liquid is what the now-defunct Virgin Comics turned into, being run by Sharad Devarajan, Deepak’s son Gotham Chopra and Suresh Seetharaman.

Currently, they’re working on a series (ironically enough) called H20, about scientists drilling deep into the earth to find water after a drought ravages the populace; A Thousand Arts, a kung fu story about a Shaolin monk living in Alaska; and Purgatory, a story about a professor being hired by the Catholic Church to prove the afterlife exists.

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

“I want to see dating and drinking and shopping punctuated by the occasional ass-kicking. I want Iron Man and Captain America to finally kiss”: The Internet, or at least the portion of it that generally discuss comic books, is abuzz with yesterday’s announcement of Marvel’s 2010 miniseries Girl Comics. Of all the reactions I’ve read, cynical and enthusiastic, I think I liked Rachel Goguen’s of Living Between Wednesdays the best. Her paragraph beginning with “This is what I am truly hoping for” is fantastic…even though I’m pretty sure her specific hopes are all going to be in vain.

It’s not too early to get excited about the next Batman and Robin arc yet, is it?: I hope not, because upcoming artist Cameron Stewart posted some pages, and they look gorgeous (Confidential to Batman editor Mike Marts: You should totally have Morrison and Stewart do a Knight and Squire miniseries). The covers for Batman and Robin look like they will remain awesome in the near future, too.

Is Red Tornado the Dane Cook of the Justice League?: Andrew Weiss has been doing a fun feature he calls “Nobody’s Favorites” on his blog Armagideon Time, focusing, as the name suggests, on characters that nobody likes (Orpheus, Triumph, Doctor Druid, etc). With this post, he offers an interesting twist—characters who should be nobody’s favorites, except for reasons Weiss can’t quite fathom are actually pretty popular with some people. I should note that I genuinely love one of the characters on Weiss’ list, and I genuinely love to hate another of them.

Having trouble getting into the Christmas spirit?: Perhaps these Christmas comics can help. Diversions of the Groovy Kind has posted a Steve Gerber-scripted, 1972 short entitled “What If…Famous People Were Santa Claus?” and Ten Cent Dreams has Simon/Kirby classic “The  Sandman in Santa Fronts For the Mob.” Or do you have the opposite problem? Are you too into the Christmas spirit, and need some help getting out? Then perhaps these NSFW Johnny Ryan holiday strips from Vice can help (Is it redundant to say “NSFW” and “Johnny Ryan”…?). Click carefully now, because once you see a Johnny Ryan strip, you can’t unsee it…

“Hergé was himself a mentally complex, flawed genius, and occasionally his creations have been analyzed in Freudian terms…”: Benjamin Ivry reviews a pair of books about Hergé and his signature creation for the San Francisco Chronicle.

“What Hollywood does is it cuts off the conclusion…So you get this rising action to a climax, you stop, and then you’re set up for the sequel”: NPR‘s Bob Mondello talks a bit about how sequels and the perception of films as franchises are changing the ways films get made and watched. Spider-Man 3 got me really thinking about the connection between comic book films and comic books, and how certain franchises are beginning to reflect the serial nature of the comics they’re based on (Spider-Man, for example, has had three films with the same talent and director, making it a bit like a run by a single creative team on a Spider-Man comic). Mondello doesn’t really get into all that, but it’s something I find a kinda fascinating.

“Mark Millar’s graphic novels really are graphic but the Coatbridge boy behind Wanted and new teen film Kick-Ass is suprisingly mild-mannered”: Are they calling Mark Millar a sissy? It sounds to me like they’re calling Millar a sissy.

How many of you are excited about the Robert Downey Jr. “Sherlock Holmes” movie? I am. I think it will have a lot of style and wit. I’ve read a few Holmes comics this year and I’ve brushed up on my Basil Rathbone too. Among all the Holmes stuff out there, I was intrigued by the mystery of there being a graphic novel that this movie is based on. It turned out that the artist John Watkiss created illustrations based on a producer’s script to sell the movie to studios. The obscure quality to all this is appealing to me and led to me finding an actual graphic novel illustrated by John Watkiss. “Ring of Roses” is quite a curious book and was created at one of the brightest and hardest times to attempt such a thing.

“Ring of Roses” came out into the world as a limited series by Dark Horse in the early ’90s, just after the first big wave of “graphic novels” had hit: “Maus,” “The Dark Knight Returns” and “Watchmen.” The call to greatness had been sounded but few were ready to answer the call. It must have been pretty exciting for John Watkiss to team up with writer Das Petrou, designer Trevor Goring and fellow illustrator Mike McLester to create their answer to the graphic novel. The scope of the story is ambitious. The art is heroic and daring. And, as stories about alternate realities go, this one reads well. For me, looking at it today, it satisfies a desire to read something cool that is under the radar.

Studying the artwork, it’s clear to me that Watkiss loves to draw and produces wonderful figurative work, all elongated and elegant. It reminds me, at times, of Giacometti’s sculpture, figures so tall and thin that they teeter under the stress of their fragile frames. The story is very British with a delicious restraint. It’s set in London in an alternate reality. It is the early 1990′s but world events have moved at quite a slower pace: Germany is just now bringing about the first world war. And the papacy has also managed to maintain a hold on something like a Holy Roman Empire with nefarious plans to consolidate power through biological warfare.

To see us through this heavy and intricate plot, we have two main characters afoot in the walled up city of London attempting to make sense of what it going on: a barrister and a working class joe who is perpetually in need of the barrister’s talents to keep him out of prison. So, you’ve got a rather fun plot, parts Alan Moore and Charles Dickens. All in all, a fine story. It is quite gratifying to learn that “Ring of Roses” will soon become a movie. Spice Factory and Persistent Entertainment recently announced that they will be developing an adaptation of the graphic novel.

As a graphic novel, “Ring of Roses” seems to be a product of its time. It does feel like something in answer to the call to greatness rather than a great work in itself. And that’s okay. It’s a fun read to be sure. I don’t think it’s quite up to the standards of what we’d call today a great read but it has most definitely earned its place as a trail blazer and is even historically significant. For one thing, I think there are too many scenes with people talking in close up and that tends to drag the dramatic impact. The writing itself seems rushed at times too as in too many transitions where a word from one sequence is used again differently in the next. While clever, that is distracting. Also, it seems like some chances to add some suspense involving this evil hunchbacked cardinal were missed. Essentially, this is too slick a work and you won’t end up caring all that much about the characters.

So, not all graphic novels need to be great. This one is good and it deserves an audience. Image Comics collected it as a 144 page trade in 2005 so you too can get yours hands on it. And the good news is that, after all these years, it’s going to become a movie. The thing about the Watkiss artwork in this book is that it is exceptionally good but, at least in this case, it works best as layouts for a movie instead of something making full use of the comics medium. That might be a different story if Watkiss ventures into comics again. For now, he has much to celebrate with his artwork for “Sherlock Holmes” and his art in general.

I hope you enjoyed this edition of Comics Grinder. You’re welcome to come back and visit again next time. And, until then, feel free to stop by the Comics Grinder site and see what might be grinding away over there. At the moment, there are some more Watkiss artworks from “Sherlock Holmes” and they require me to cry out the obligatory spoiler alert for those of you with faint hearts.

(Click the image above for a larger version of the strip.)

WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 13: “Hittin’ The Streets”

When I did this strip, I realized it was over a month since Pastor had last appeared in the strip.  I knew I wanted his return to have an impact, but this strip wasn’t the place for that moment.  Instead, I focused on the informants and residents of the D’Urville District, and added a little more breadth to Pastor’s world.  With each progressive panel, I panned the camera down Pastor’s body from his head to his feet, but I obscured his face.

New strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomic are posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

Yes Flint Marko, the latest chapter of Amazing Spider-Man mega-arc “The Gauntlet” focuses on you, and Fred Van Lente and Javier Pulido are doing the creative honors. Maybe a Dream of The Endless wig, black cloak and raven aren’t quite the right look for you, but I think it’s high time you changed shirts, and thought about a less Osborn-y hair cut.

But enough about your sartorial choices…let’s see what the rest of this week’s new releases look like, after the jump.

(more…)

Marvel has a new initiative — no, nothing by Tony Stark — that’s being called GIRL COMICS.

While some may argue it’s a little on the nose, it’s certainly true, as the whole three-issue anthology series is written, drawn, inked, colored, lettered, and edited by women!

Some of the creators include Kathryn Immonen, Marjorie Liu, Louise Simonson, Amanda Conner, Ann Nocenti, Devin Grayson (my heart just did kick-flips writing that last one), G. Willow Wilson, Valerie D’Orazio, Ming Doyle, and a whole heck of a lot more.

The Beat, who broke this story, has an interview up with editor Jeanine Schaefer. Here’s a highlight:

But I hold to my belief that there just isn’t that magical combination of character and theme that will make women read a specific book.  There are so many more women interested in super hero comics and genre entertainment than most people think (and this isn’t new, it’s like me saying I’ve just cracked the case of comics getting popular in the mainstream, but everyone likes to talk about it like it’s new every time women are vocal about something they like in popular entertainment. Oh, my god, women read comics! Oh, my god, women watch television! Apparently, they even go to the movies and read books that aren’t made specifically for them! Shock! Horror!), and as the community grows, the pull list of “what women like” becomes just as sprawling as any control group.

I talk to my friends and women at cons and the answers seem to range from X-Men to Runaways to Spider-man to Captain America to Hulk, which sounds just like what any reader in any shop would say.  Whenever you see a large concentration of women reading one series in particular, it’s less that there’s something specific there that women gravitate towards and more that they’ve found something that doesn’t have an implied sign on it saying “no girls allowed”.

It’s interesting, because with Wednesday Comics, Strange Tales, and now Girl Comics, the anthology format is actually taking off — mainly because they have a real murderer’s row of awesome talent involved. Either which way, the book comes out sometime next year — just in time for She-Hulk’s 30th anniversary. Man, between that and the Iron Man announcement, it’s looking like Marvel is doing a week of announcements — be sure to keep an eye on Newsarama for more news!

Marvel has deemed Matt Fraction worthy — and now he shall lift Mjolnir, as the next writer of the Thor ongoing!

As we hinted at last week, the Los Angeles Times confirmed with Fraction that he would be working on the book, following the success of his Ages of Thunder series. Here’s a highlight of their conversation:

GB: There are so many great supporting characters in Thor’s mythology. Without giving away too much, can you mention some of the things you’re excited about pursuing with those supporting characters?

MF: I’m most excited about getting off of Earth. There are nine worlds in the Norse cosmology, sort of, and lately the book has been spending a lot of time here in Midgard sweet Midgard.  I want to take these amazing people, these characters that are so known and loved (at least amongst the pages of THOR), and take ‘em up and down the world tree. And beyond!  Hell, why stop at just our world tree? I’ve said too much.

There’s no word yet on who’s going to be the artist — but we do know that John Romita Jr. will be drawing Iron Man and Thor for Marvel’s Free Comic Book Day offering. Considering Fraction is also in charge of Old Shellhead, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re teaming up for this particular issue. That said, there’s no word when Fraction will be beginning his run, nor who the artist for the ongoing might be. Who do you want to see draw Thor? Sound off, ‘Rama readers!

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!

Forget the walls of the island — madness knows no boundaries, and the new Arkham is the husk of Gotham City herself. Sound disturbing? Check out the new teaser trailer for Arkham Asylum 2:

[Via Gametrailers]

“During his junior year in high school, Hefner began his own comic autobiography, documenting the events of his life through drawings”: Huh. You probably knew that Hugh Hefner was a great friend of cartooning, but how about the fact that he was a potential pioneer in the field of graphic memoir…? One of the tidbits in this long, interesting LA Times profile of the man.

“And I’m not sure what to call  ‘Lego Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary.’ Nonfiction? Movie/toy fiction?”: Also in the LA Times, popular kids book author and Library of Congress’ national ambassador for literature for young people Jon Scieszka talks about the state of kids books, and graphic novels get a couple of paragraphs. Françoise Mouly, Art Spiegelman, Jeff Smith, Eleanor Davis and First Second books all get well-deserved mentions.

How should one treat a prominent cartoonist?: Jeet Heer thinks he learned a lesson from Al Capp.

It takes all kinds: This guy actually thought Watchmen was one of the best films of the year. Weird.

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