The Bronx Kill
Written by Peter Milligan
Illustrated by James Romberger
Lettered by Clem Robins
Published by DC/Vertigo

I love a good crime drama.  Of course, I’m somewhat picky and I expect more from the genre than most of the pseudo-noir out there.  Lesser writers resort to shallow posturing, tough guy clichés, and scantily dressed ingénues, slotted predictably into a plug-n-play.

Peter Milligan is not a lesser writer.  The Bronx Kill is a potboiler in the best sense of the word.  You’re reading the book, staring at it, waiting for events to occur, but Milligan’s just starting to simmer, building heat, creating tension, so that when it’s ready to pop, everything boils over in an instant.

Spending the first third of the book establishing his cast and their relationships, Milligan introduces us to his protagonist, Martin Keane, a writer caught in the orbit of his family’s history as police officers.  His wife Erin copes with her own demons, but Milligan allows their dramas to unveil themselves slowly, mixing in plus characterization, terse family connections and scenes of quiet pleasantry to round out each cast member, and to ensure that the audience is able to connect with them.

When Erin goes missing, Martin’s life is thrown into tumult, and the time Milligan’s devoted to his ambitions, fears, loves and familial tensions – in addition to the careful character work given to Erin – pays off in spades.

Mixing pages of solid prose into the graphic narrative, Milligan takes readers inside the writing and imagination of Martin, exploring how life reflects fiction, and fiction life.  The prose sections also show another side of Milligan’s talent, not only his ability to write prose well, but his ability to write mediocre prose and play with the form, adding hand-written “edits” and “author’s notes” in the margins as Martin writes and self-edits his newest novel.

James Romberger, a New Yorker, nails the atmosphere of Gotham.  Working in pencil, Romberger’s illustrations are scratchy and nuanced, full of subtle shading and gradient lines.  Atmospheric, cluttered, and full of characters suffused with confusion, loss and anger, each page reflects the emotional core of Milligan’s script and the physical truth of the city in which it occurs.

The Bronx Kill stands out from Vertigo’s crime fiction line of graphic novels, a gripping and emotional journey, beautifully illustrated, packed with a family’s ties, losses and betrayals.  Readers looking for a thrilling mystery, supported by strong characters, that builds to a roiling boil would do well to check it out.

PIXELS: Retro Gamers from addwork on Vimeo.

Hey, readers, check out this animated short film that depicts what would happen if the 8-bit characters of our youth (well, my youth anyways) and decide to maleviolently wrecks havoc on our New York City…and then, THE WORLD!

Over at Tony Shasteen’s (O.C.T., Stephen King’s The Talisman) website, he presented this incredible Poison Ivy for a fan of the character. Check out the insane and meticulous detail on the leaves.

You can get a better idea of the work that went into the piece if you check out his blog.

I’m sure any Bat-villain fan would be envious to have this in their collection. I know I am.

You might have seen this ad in several Marvel books in the past few weeks, but what is O.M.I.T.? Considering that Joe Quesada himself is working on the project, you know it’s something big.

Only Mutants In Time?

Osborn Making Ice Tea?

Your guess is as good as mine (and probably not anything I just listed), so let the speculation games begin.

When discussing the classic Kung-Fu films of Shaw Brothers studios, two directors always come to the forefront; Chang Cheh and Liu Chia-Lang. Both filmmakers are prolific and highly influential, both have their own distinct sensibility and both have made at least one film that connessieurs have dubbed  “The best kung fu film of all time”. Chang, of 5 Deadly Venoms fame, saw the martial arts film as a means to an end, an instrument for telling intense tales of brotherhood and virtue. For Liu Chia-Lang, however, the glorification of the martial arts was the end in and of itself. Basically, while Chang used martial arts as a tool to make a point, for Liu, martial arts were the point. (more…)

While a cyborg butler is still many moons away, the Boston Globe has a crazy article up about a tech support worker named Chad Barraford who has created his own Jarvis program.

The program — which according to the article, is based on Robert Downey Jr.’s persnickety online program in the 2008 Iron Man film — actually can talk, as well as adjust lighting and temperature in this guy’s apartment.

Compared with much of what’s marketed as “smart home’’ technology, Jarvis is both a marvel and a bargain. He runs on a 4-year-old Mac Mini computer with built-in speech recognition — and virtually no additional bells and whistles. Barraford has calculated, down to the penny, how much he has spent on a DLA that does everything but brush his teeth. To date, the figure stands at $691.98. That includes wall speakers and an xTag wireless microphone.

And it keeps up to date information on the guy’s Facebook and Netflix accounts. It almost makes the multibillion-dollar armored warsuit seem like a bit of an afterthought, doesn’t it?

And Harrison Ford isn’t much of an archaelogist: “Chris Evans is ‘not a big comic book reader’”

“And it was all good, as long as you were thinking towards the ultimate goals of lots of action figures and maybe an animated movie or videogame”: Now that Blackest Night‘s over, the reviews of the series as a whole can start rolling in. Here’s Christopher Allen at the Trouble With Comics.

Dakota Fanning is the only actress less imposing that I can think of: “Red Sonja’ Update: Rose McGowan Out. Megan Fox In?”

That Mike Allred sure can draw: Check out these pages from his upcoming Vertigo series, I, Zombie.

Area 10: The latest Vertigo Crime offering comes not from a prose crime writer trying out a new media, but  from a couple of folks long familiar to comics readers—writer Christos N. Gage and artist Chris Samnee. The $20, 185-page hardcover is about a brain-injured NYPD detective on the trail of a serial killer known as “Henry the Eighth” on account of his bearded obesity and love of divorce. No that’s not right—they actually call him Henry the Eighth because he decapitates his victims.

Avengers: The Origin #1: According to Marvel.com, this is “The true story of the Avengers.” That’s right, it’s non-fiction! This is the real story of the real people who exist in the real world! The Hulk! Thor! The Wasp! Ant-Man! And Fat Iron Man! Joe Casey and Phil Noto are doing the creative duties on this five-issue, $4-per-issue series. For a more modern (But still $4!) Avengers story, this week also sees the release of New Avengers: Luke Cage #1, the first in a three-issue miniseries by John Arcudi and Eric Canete about Cage visiting Philadelphia…at the same time that Hammerhead is. Hmm, I wonder if they’ll fight…?

Batman and Robin #1 (New Printing): Is Grant Morrison’s Batman and Robin the best-written monthly superhero comic currently being produced? You know, I’m pretty sure it is. If haven’t been reading it but want to give it a try, DC is making it very easy to do so this week, offering the first issue—illustrated by Frank Quitely—in a new, you’d-have-to-be-foolish-not-to-buy-it-at-this-price-price of just one dollar. If you’re pretty confident Morrison writing a new Batman and a new Robin is going to be up your alley, DC’s also offering Batman and Robin Deluxe Edition Vol. 1, a 160-page, $25 hardcover featuring the first two, three-issue story arcs—the initial one drawn by Quitely, and the barely-legible second one drawn by Philip Tan (Maybe “Deluxe” means they made Tan re-draw some of the more unreadable panels for the collection?) If you’ve been on the Batman and Robin Bat-wagon, er bandwagon all along, there’s also a new issue of the series available this week, the second of Andy Clarke and Scott Hanna’s “Batman vs. Robin” arc.

Booth: Historian C.C. Colbert and artist Tantioc offer a John Wilkes Booth in this $20, 175-page paperback from First Second Books. Spoiler alert: He kills President Abraham Lincoln.

Captain America/Black Panther: Flags of Our Fathers #1: Hey, remember when Marvel relaunched Black Panther back in 2005, and Reginald Hudlin and John Romita Jr. had a scene of a Black Panther not getting his ass kicked by Captain America during World War II and some fans cried foul because this was the first they heard of such a meeting, and anyway it’s not like Captain America to not be able to kick someone’s ass, right? Well, this is a miniseries apparently devoted to that meeting between the original Captain America Steve Rogers and a Black Panther (T’Challa’s dad, I think) and their teaming-up to fight Nazis. It’s written by Chris Ungar, drawn by Chris Kipinkia and David Brewer, and it will cost you $4.

(more…)

AOL Television’s Inside TV has it: AMC’s “The Walking Dead” has found its Rick Grimes. He’ll be played by British actor Andrew Lincoln, best known here as Mark in “Love Actually”.

“Dead” creator and writer Robert Kirkman said:

“Andrew Lincoln, wow — what an amazing find this guy is,” declared Kirkman in a press statement. “Writing Rick Grimes month after month in the comic series, I had no idea he was an actual living breathing human being and yet he is. I couldn’t be more thrilled with how this show is coming together.”

According to the piece, production begins in June with a projected launch during AMC’s annual Fearfest slate of programming in October.

Please click on the image to enlarge to FULL SIZE.

WORLD OF HURT – The Thrill-Seekers – Episode 37 – “You Are My Number One Guy”

I was so much happier with the pencil version than I was with the final inks.  It was during this time that I significantly changed my working method from what I was doing when I first started the strip.  Originally, I was pencilling on a custom blue line template that I printed onto Bristol board.  Each 11″ X 17 ” sheet had room for two strips.  As time went on, I stopped using the templates, and would just pencil on a large sheet of Bristol.  I thought I would take advantage of the capacity to digitally reproduce fine lines and more detailed work  that my newsprint forebears lacked.   As a result, the panels got larger and larger, until it reached this critical mass, where I was only able to put two panels on each sheet of Bristol.  I would then digitally crop and composite all three panels in Photoshop.  Since I also wasn’t paying much attention to panel dimensions,  I wound up with really flat, pedestrian panel compositions like you see here, particularly in the final panel, and I felt that although individual panels might be solid (like panel one), some strips didn’t have an overall cohesive feel.  Sometime around Episode 40 or 41, I started to pare back and return to a version of my old working method.   As a result, my speed has increased a bit, and I’m a lot happier with how the strips hold together as a unit.

Incidentally, today is the one year anniversary of the day WORLD OF HURT first went online.  I knew it would be another week before the first strip was posted, so I opened the site with a countdown to the inaugural episode.

Remember, new strips of WORLD OF HURT – The Internet’s #1 Blaxploitation Webcomicare posted every Wednesday at www.worldofhurtonline.com.

- JEP

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!

As you may have seen over on the Mothership, Marvel Comics has issued a teaser for X-Force #26, in which they promise “to save the world, one of these X-Men shall die.” Curious as to who it might be? So are we! We’ll give some speculation and clues as to who we think might bite the big one in Second Coming.

Colossus: The big steel lug would be a lock on this deadpool (get it? A-hah)… except for the fact he’s already killed himself once for mutantkind. Considering how long it took for Joss Whedon to bring him back in Astonishing X-Men, I have the feeling our stainless steel strongman will be buffing himself up for some time to come. Odds: 100 to 1.

Magik: Unless they’ve changed Kitty Pryde’s costume for this event, this looks like Magik to us. She’s certainly expendable — she holds a place in the X-Men’s collective hearts after perishing from the Legacy Virus. Her history is also tremendously convoluted, with no one set characterization holding sway in the years she’s been used. And no offense to Zeb Wells’ New Mutants book, but her death wouldn’t cause any tremendous shockwaves to the X-Men franchise. But somehow, I think Kyle and Yost are going to hit closer to home here. Odds: 60 to 1.

Iceman: Now this would be an interesting choice. He’s a character that’s been largely underutilized in the past few years, but he’s also a founding X-Man. He’s got ties to the entire island, whether its as a confidant of Cyclops or simply as the main water supply for Utopia itself. Maybe the X-Offices feel we’ll miss him more when he’s gone? Out of all the founding X-Men, however, I think he’s the one most likely to kick the bucket, for reasons I’ll explain below. Odds: 40 to 1.

Angel: So why not Angel? There’s a number of reasons I don’t think he’ll be shuffling off this mortal coil — namely, the fact that he’s been in the recent X-Force book. There’s a lot of redemption left for this recently-returned Archangel, and from a purely visual standpoint Warren Worthington lends something to this series that can’t be replaced. Ultimately, I feel that Bobby Drake as a character — even though he’s been less utilized — is more liked than Warren, and so I think that this founding X-Men dying wouldn’t be as palatable for the writers. And finally, a tongue-in-cheek observation — would his wings really fit underneath that sheet? Odds: 50 to 1.

Emma Frost: Remember when dating Scott Summers was a sign that you were a goner for sure? Whatever happened to that? Surprisingly, I think Emma’s closeness to Cyclops might be her salvation in this series — it’s gotten expected. But to be honest, the stakes that Scott is playing with here, Emma’s death wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen to him. And for the sake of brand unity here — if Emma dies now, why would Marvel have her in the upcoming Astonishing X-Men book? If she does die, it’s likely a “temporary” thing, considering the Phoenix is likely in play here.  Odds: 25 to 1.

Nightcrawler: Elf! Say it ain’t so! I got a bad feeling for anyone who’s a fan of the X-Men’s longtime teleporter. Matt Fraction told us that he was writing a funeral for a “fan-favorite character,” and you don’t get much more fan-favorite than Kurt Wagner. He’s been a character who’s been underutilized for a long time, and dying amidst his righteous anger against Cyclops and X-Force would be a huge complication to the X-Men. And with his religious background, there certainly wouldn’t be a loss of dramatic irony if he perishes in a story called “Second Coming.” Odds: 10 to 1.

Cable: Hoo boy. If Cable survives this fight, I will be extraordinarily surprised. His latest series — which has its final issue this week — ran on the premise of his protecting the mutant messiah Hope through a gauntlet of time-traveling dangers. There have been allusions in the text that have made it seem like Hope’s survival was his destiny — and if that destiny is realized by sacrificing himself, he’ll happily do it. The Old Soldier may be making his final rounds, and it’s a shame: because this was a character that came to represent fatherhood, and all that goes with it. Odds: 5 to 1.

What say you, Rama readers? Sound off!

Get it? “Sith-com”? Ah, you’re hopeless.

Move over, Weird Al, you’re making some room in the Star Wars humor aisle — Variety reports that the folks behind The Backyardigans and Robot Chicken are developing a new animated Star Wars sitcom. Seth Green and Matthew Senreich are “creative consultants,” The Backyardigans’ Jennifer Hill is producing, and Back at the Backyard’s Todd Grimes is directing. And get this — Brendan Hay of the Daily Show is on writing staff.

A Lucasfilm statement said the skein will “look at the saga’s characters with a playful and irreverent tone.” Hill said while the show is still in early development, it has “a lot of facets that could include main characters (from the movies) as well as secondary characters.”

Obviously, this isn’t the first time that a show has spoofed Star Wars — Family Guy and Robot Chicken have both tried their hands at it, with Family Guy even creating a three-part saga. What say you, Rama readers? Do you trust these peoples’ instincts? Or do you think that his show is going to produce some — wait for it — forced laughter?

Ah, crack myself up, I do.

Thirteen “Going on Eighteen”
Written & Illustrated by John Stanley
Published by Drawn & Quarterly

Thirteen “Going on Eighteen” was a humor comic book for young readers published by Dell Comics from 1961 until 1967, a total of twenty-nine issues (the final four of which had only reprinted material), entirely written and mostly illustrated by legendary John Stanley.  Montreal-based publisher Drawn & Quarterly’s well-received John Stanley Library project, an ongoing reprint series dedicated to the work of the cartoonist, compiles the first nine issues of the run here in an immaculate, 336-page hardcover format.

I must admit, despite the clear quality of the stories and art, I’m somewhat surprised that Thirteen is among the longer-running, more commercially successful Stanley comics.  I’m not sure exactly who the market for these stories was in 1961.  I imagine, knowing myself as a young boy, that boys weren’t yet comfortable with the notion of girls to enjoy reading about them.  And I can’t imagine that little girls would like a book that frequently painted them such a conflicted light.  Perhaps this says more about my inability to understand the commercial market than anything else.  Lord knows, the popularity of any number of movies or musicians continues to confound me.

Stanley handles the scripting with his usual aplomb; echoing the structure of his most famous stories, in the pages of Marge’s Little Lulu, each installment of Thirteen has two or three longer narratives (which frequently dovetail together as one issue-length storyline) complemented by several short one- or two-page gags.  The series’ primary protagonists, two thirteen-year-old girls named Val and Judy, star in nearly every tale, either in combination or solo.  Each story focuses on the various ways in which each girl strives to be mature and appealing to boys, (thus the “Going on Eighteen” of the title) or occasionally seeks to escape from unwanted boys.  Each time out, the girls achieve a measure of victory, or they’re undone by their own immaturity.

The humor is broad and universal, simple but not simplistic.  Stanley delivers a fair mix of outcomes, hoisting the girls on their petards regularly, but also giving them victories and moments of decency just as often.  Val and Judy’s friendship is a mix of jealousy, respect, teasing and love, a complicated brew for a supposed children’s comic. Despite some clunky early stories, Stanley quickly finds each character’s voice, and the nuances come through in their broad, caricatured personalities.

Using his open, warm illustrations and pristine layouts, Stanley (abetted by uncredited assistants) provides a sort of all-American suburban saccharineness to the stories.  It’s a nice effect, the legendary realm of the legendary American teen.  Even novice comics readers can easily approach Stanley’s clear grids; the clean storytelling suffers only occasionally from awkwardly placed balloons that don’t read in sequence.

Sniping and taunting, forlorn and jubilant, John Stanley’s Thirteen “Going on Eighteen” is sharp an funny, a biting satire of teen behavior, treated with good humor and professional cartooning talent.  It’s another winner from Drawn & Quarterly’s John Stanley Library line of all-ages comic books.

See also Caleb’s more timely thoughts.

While Heidi MacDonald’s blog The Beat has split-off from Publishers Weekly and gone through a redesign, it’s still home to Paul O’Brien and Marc-Oliver Frisch’s always welcome analysis of Marvel Comics and DC Comics sales…thank goodness.

Late last week the pair did their monthly thing, posting the available numbers for the publishers’ output and ruminating on what it means.

Here are a few random thoughts about particular Big Two super-comics that occurred to me while reading their pieces…

—Wow, a lot fewer people seem to be reading the Siege tie-ins than are reading Siege itself…even the essential-seeming Siege tie-ins. According to this chart, Siege #2 sold almost exactly as many copies as Siege #1—dropping less than 100 units—but it seemed noteworthy to me that a lot of the 108,000 and change people reading Siege aren’t also following the story into all the other titles it’s marching through.

For example Dark Avengers and New Avengers, both written by Siege mastermind Brian Michael Bendis and starring the major players of Siege, are way down in the neighborhood of 76K, and Siege: Embedded, the sister title of the crossover, is way down in the 46K range.

—Hmm, the tiny tempest in a tinier teapot brought on by objections to Tea Party analogues and Marvel’s weird reaction and the accompanying press it got didn’t seem to do a damn thing for sales of Captain America.

—I didn’t notice this until O’Brien pointed it out in his analysis, but Deadpool: Merc With a Mouth, the second of the three Deadpool ongoing series, has apparently been downgraded to a 13-issue limited series. This could be the first sign that Deadpool’s sudden, mysterious popularity is beginning to wane. Not that Marvel seems too worried about over-exploiting the character too quickly—almost all of their February books featured Deadpool variants.

It seems like those variants helped slow the decline or pump up the sales of almost every series that bore one in the month of February, but is the cost of slightly improved sales for one month the degradation of Deadpool’s overall value?

(more…)

[Source: Deadline]

Marvel may have found its director for the big-screen adaptation to Runaways, which is often considered the Breakfast Club, but with super-powers. Peter Sollett, who directed Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, may be gearing up for the director’s seat of the property. Runaways mainly received high marks and reviews, but never seem to find the sales that matched it’s word of mouth.

I’d like to see this hit theaters, but I’m not sure how one would really market this to the usual Marvel crowd. Then again, I don’t think Kick-Ass is having any sort or problem with that.

Should Runaways take off, who would you like to see in the movie? Do you think Sollett could capture the characters and feel of the book?

Yesterday, the 2010 Hugo Award nominations were announced, naming the best that sci-fi and fantasy had to offer of the past year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories and have been presented every year since 1955.

To show just a sample, here are the nominees in Best Graphic Story:

Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?
Written by Neil Gaiman; Pencilled by Andy Kubert; Inked by Scott Williams (DC Comics)

Captain Britain And MI13. Volume 3: Vampire State
Written by Paul Cornell; Pencilled by Leonard Kirk with Mike Collins, Adrian Alphona and Ardian Syaf (Marvel Comics)

Fables Vol 12: The Dark Ages
Written by Bill Willingham; Pencilled by Mark Buckingham; Art by Peter Gross & Andrew Pepoy, Michael Allred, David Hahn; Colour by Lee Loughridge & Laura Allred; Letters by Todd Klein (Vertigo Comics)

Girl Genius, Volume 9: Agatha Heterodyne and the Heirs of the Storm
Written by Kaja and Phil Foglio; Art by Phil Foglio; Colours by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)

Schlock Mercenary: The Longshoreman of the Apocalypse
Written and Illustrated by Howard Tayler

The winners will be announced at this year’s WorldCon.

The New York Times has an interesting article up about the ethics of downloading — one that certainly would play a role in the comics sphere, which is why I bring it to the floor for your debating pleasure.

Randy Cohen, the newspaper’s ethics columnist, had an interesting question about the ethics of downloading a book. In this case, a reader had bought a hardcover copy of the new Stephen King novel, “Under the Dome.” The e-reader version was not available, and when the reader found a pirated copy, they downloaded that to their e-reader. Cohen’s reply:

An illegal download is — to use an ugly word — illegal. But in this case, it is not unethical. Author and publisher are entitled to be paid for their work, and by purchasing the hardcover, you did so. Your subsequent downloading is akin to buying a CD, then copying it to your iPod.

Buying a book or a piece of music should be regarded as a license to enjoy it on any platform. Sadly, the anachronistic conventions of bookselling and copyright law lag the technology. Thus you’ve violated the publishing company’s legal right to control the distribution of its intellectual property, but you’ve done no harm or so little as to meet my threshold of acceptability.

Now, it’s interesting to hear the Ethicist condone illegal downloads — and it’s even more interesting now that we’re living in an iPad world. The ever-retweetable Andy Diggle and Rantz Hoseley did a little bit of research over the past few days just to see how many times comics were downloaded from torrent sites, and the numbers are pretty surprising (like, we’re talking in the potential MILLIONS of downloads here). But I want to put this on the floor and see some sparks fly: comics creators, readers, retailers, publishers, where do you stand on this? Is it OK to download a comic you’ve already bought? Or are you paying for the platform as well as the content? Sound off!

[Extreme hat-tip to Marjorie Liu for the link]