Marvel Comics unveiled the “Architects” this afternoon — Brian Michael Bendis, Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker, Jonathan Hickman and Jason Aaron; the five writers the publisher says are shaping the future of the Marvel Universe. For a press release, it got a lot of attention, both for what it said and also what it didn’t say. For instance: (more…)

The Troublemakers
Written & Illustrated by Gilbert Hernandez
Published by Fantagraphics

Gilbert Hernandez’s latest book, The Troublemakers, continues his series of movies-within-comics.  In his Love & Rockets series, Hernandez’s sometime protagonist Rosalba “Fritz” Martinez gave up her psychiatry practice to become a B-movie queen, and The Troublemakers is – after 2007’s Chance in Hell – the second Fritz “movie.”  In this book, Hernandez’s plot follows four grifters, each trying to get their mitts on a $200,000 payout.

A few years ago, Hernandez seemed to be experimenting with comics (see Grip: The Strange World of Men) in the style of filmmaker David Lynch – stories heavy with surrealism and obscurely symbolic imagery.  With his “movie” books, Hernandez has moved into the milieu of another filmmaker, Quentin Tarantino, by embracing and indulging in the excesses and clichés of his cinematic inspirations.  Oddly, while I’ve never cared for Tarantino’s films, I’ve enjoyed Hernandez’s books – though not as much as his best Love & Rockets’ material.

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A few weeks ago, DC’s The Source gave us our first look at Kevin Maguire’s Tanga and Aaron Lopresti’s Garbageman for the upcoming Weird Worlds anthology. Back in October, Lopresti talked to Newsarama about his unique creation. Blog@ had the chance to talk to contemporary master, Kevin Maguire, about his extraterrestrial lady, Tanga.

Blog@: So, Kevin, you’re more well-known for your artistic duties. What people might not know is that you’re also one heck of a film buff and actually involved in sketch comedy and short films. Do you feel that your creativity comes more naturally at an artist’s desk or the writer’s chair?

Kevin Maguire: Well my create-o-meter’s a bit on the fritz, but if I’m reading it properly, it’s leaning towards writer’s chair. If I’m drawing then, generally, I’m telling someone else’s story, assisting someone else in bringing their vision to the masses. Maybe not masses, as much as small assemblies.

Blog@: What made you want to be a part of this incarnation of Weird Worlds?

Maguire: It never started as being a part of Weird Worlds. About a year and a half ago, at the Philly Con, Dan DiDio sat at my table and, knowing that I wanted to do a series about a character who, at that point, I was calling “My Space Girl”, said “Let’s pull the trigger on this”. That was one of the happiest moments of my career. At first, we were talking about having it as a second feature to R.E.B.E.L.S, which I thought would have been a very nice fit and went to being the second feature replacement to Metal Men. Somewhere around that time the Weird Worlds title was introduced and they put Tanga very comfortably there.

Blog@: So I guess the big question is who is Tanga?

Maguire: Tanga is a girl who has been flying around the fringes of space looking for some kind of intellegent contact. She’s seeking some kind of connection, any kind of connection. She legitimately feels like there’s no one else in the universe quite like her. She’s right about that. She possesses both enormous cosmic power and an inability to self-edit, a combination that will, inevitably, always lead her into trouble. My short hand pitch has always been “The power of the Silver Surfer and the personality of Sarah Silverman”

Blog@: How long has this idea for Tanga been rattling in your head?

Maguire: It’s been floating around my fertile noggin for quite a while in a far more embroyic form. It wasn’t until I was being interviewed for my highly-flattering, but perhaps premature, induction in the Modern Masters series that I’d come to realize that I always enjoyed doing projects that I wrote and created far more than anything else. It was after that that I started giving more form to her and her world. I knew I wanted to have it take place in outer space because I have so much more fun creating environments wholly out of imagination. I knew it would be a female character because, well, I love women.

Blog@: What was your inspiration for Tanga?

Maguire: In terms of her character, that’s tough to nail down. I’ve described it as if there was a second soul inside my body that’s been aching to get out and hit the page. I’m sure she is, in some way, a representation of some part of me, if , of course, I was smoking hot babe. Visually, she’s inspired by British model Carla Brown, a petite brunette with a real sparkle and intellegence in her eyes. Warm but mischievous.

Blog@: Will she be interacting with other characters from the DCU?

Maguire: Not in this story arc, but she will do some name-dropping. She’ll mention that Lobo thinks she owes him money, but she disputes that. I’ve got ideas for at least four more Tanga story arcs. My hope is that the character will be well regarded enough that DC will allow me to continue telling stories about her. Honestly, once I’m finished with the Generation Lost covers, I would be happy working on nothing else for the rest of my comics career. It’s just been far more satisfying writing, pencilling, and inking something of my own creation. And, hopefully, my colorist , and part time physicist, Rosemary Cheetham will continue working on it with me. It’s been a different and unique working relationship on this project. I’m really enjoying it.

Blog@: What can fans expect from this story?

Maguire: For my chapters, you can expect aliens, giant monsters, lots of action, lots of fun and a very funny and gorgeous central character. Oh, and a background for every panel. No floating heads. Well, one floating head, but he’s a character in the story.

Tis the season.

Over on Ron Marz’s blog, he mentions that he usually gives to Toys For Tots every year. This year, he’s doing something a bit different. He is selling copies of Top Cow’s latest hit, Artifacts #1, signing, and if you want personalized, and every cent will go to Toys For Tots. Each issue with be $13: $10 for the comic and $3 for shipping. If you want more copies, the price of the comic stays the same, but the shipping goes up $1, ie, 1 is $13, 2 is $24, 3 is $35 and so forth.

Marz gave a few words to Blog@ about his feelings towards charities such as these and why he’s doing something like this. “I feel very fortunate to be able to do what I do for a living. So this is a way I can take what I do and benefit others in some small way, thanks to the generosity of the fans. I think the vast majority of comics fans are a giving, loyal bunch. This is just more proof of that. The response has been great thus far, so I hope it keeps up and we can put toys in the hands of as many kids as possible.”

Marz also mentions that the easiest way to pay is through paypal, which can be paid at: kmarz@nycap.rr.com.

Let’s talk about this Raven CW show thing for a moment: You’ve already read about this over on the main site, right? The New Teen Titans Era character created by Marv Wolfman and George Perez who has vague emotional and teleportation powers as the subject of a post-Smallville DC superhero-based television show on the CW?  It’s also been discussed recently here and here). I had a couple of thoughts I wanted to throw out there:

1) Raven is at first blush an extremely strange choice, given her relatively low Q-rating among DC’s pantheon of superheroes, especially when compared to the other character’s whose names have been thrown around as potential TV stars—Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Robin etc. On the other hand, I think that Teen Titans cartoon made her a relatively obscure comic book character who is probably better known by “civilians” than someone entrenched in the comic book world might expect. Also, hasn’t Smallville asically devolved into a show about random DC characters guest-starring, to the point where Clark Kent isn’t the draw so much as the people who appear with him? Couldn’t you choose pretty much any DC character to continue that format?

2) Did any of you—sales figures indicate that not many of you!—read 2008′s five-issue miniseries DC Special: Raven by Marv Wolfman and pencil artist Damion Scott? I read it mainly for Scott’s art, as I’m a huge fan of his work, but it was strikingly disentangled from Titans continuity and the DCU in general (I think Psycho Pirate’s mask was a maguffin in it…? None of it was terribly memorable, really), and, in retrospect, wasn’t too far removed from a pilot for a show about a teenager with dark magical powers.

3) You know that weird bird-in-profile icon silhouette that Raven could like, step into and fly around in or make the Titans disappear in and out of or whatever? (New Teen Titans was way before my time—what’s the term for that? Her soul self or some such?) That’s one of those things that seems very specific to a hand drawing on a piece of paper that would be impossible to replicate 100% accurately in live action and not look silly. They could always not do it of course, but as TV-ready as elements of the character may be, she does have at least one very comics-specific trait (Just like Starfire’s hair turning into a comet trail mapping her flight path  just wouldn’t be the same off the comics page).

“Did you guys try chilling out and watching SAVED BY THE BELL?”: Writing at The Savage Critics, Abhay Khosla dabbles in self-promotion regarding next year’s Superman 80-Page Giant 2011 #1, which will feature a ten-page Jimmy Olsen story written by Khosla. It’s a typically smart, funny and substantially long piece, veering from from how the guy who wrote this fantastic takedown of Countdown to Infinite Crisis #1 in 2005 ended up writing for DC Comics a few years later to thoughts on Jimmy Olsen in general (“Only really Batman does more than Jimmy Olsen,” Khosla observes, regarding Olsen’s amazing versatility).

I guess it had to happen eventually, but I wouldn’t have expected it to look so good: Check out Adam Watson’s Seuss Wars images, which are, of course, Star Wars scenes drawin in the style of Dr. Seuss. I suspect links to the site will be popping up in several places, as I’ve already seen a couple, but this is the one I saw first.

Hmm, I think I liked Mask of the Phantasm better, but I can sorta see that: Noah Berlatsky on the best superhero movie of all time. Here’ s a hint: It’s almost 45 years old.

“For all Batman knows he buried the kid alive, like he did with Alfred that one time”: Cracked’s “5 Absurd Ways Comic Books Have Resurrected Dead Superheroes” includes Jason Todd’s return, which is one that makes less and less sense the more one thinks about it. And it didn’t make any sense at first.

Inception, Chris Nolan’s second geek opus in less than five years (following The Dark Knight) hits DVD and Blu-Ray combo pack this week. Is it the best picture of the year? Well, for a lot of people it’s the thing to beat (everyone else, of course, is voting for The Social Network, but that doesn’t have nearly as much genre cred). And while it’s unlikely that a sci-fi movie that came out several months ago will actually win, hopefully for Nolan he’ll at least get his (deserved) nomination this time around.

The Blu-Ray combo pack is one of those great packages that reminds me why I don’t miss videocassettes. Getting insight from a talented auteur like Nolan is an incredible treat, and so the various documentaries on the making of the film are worth the cost of admission by themselves. While that might not be important for the rental market, or the very casual fans (who, let’s face it, are still buying most of their stuff on DVD anyway)? No, but it’s absolutely essential in moving units come three months from now when Netflix has the feature film (but nothing else) available on Watch Instantly.

…and the Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark parodies continue, this time on Saturday Night Live, with Andy Samberg playing a Spidey understudy popping up on Weekend Update to try and defend the negative press surrounding the production. This comes after two different Turn Off the Dark segments on Conan last week, except this one comes with an attempted reenactment of the “upside-down Spider-Man kiss” from the 2002 film.

In Los Angeles? Want to support kids’ comics? Looking for something to do today? Well, you truly cannot get any better than this:

From 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. today at Meltdown Comics on Sunset, creators including Sam Humphries (writer of Fraggle Rock for Archaia), Ian Brill (who pens the Darkwing Duck and Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers adaptations for BOOM! Studios), Penguins of Madagascar team David Server and Jackson Lanzing, plus Reed Gunther’s Shane & Chris Houghton will all be in attendance, for an “interactive day of comics and creativity for all ages.”

You hear a lot about how there isn’t enough comic book fare for kids these days, so it’s nice to see an event focusing on the people who are making it happen. Plus, the Grilled Cheese Truck will be there, so that should really be incentive enough (tots!). More information here.

In May of 1939, the Batman made his first appearance in Detective Comics #27. One year and one month later in Detective Comics #38 (April, 1940), he was given a young apprentice, a laughing boy daredevil modeled after Robin Hood. He was Richard “Dick” Grayson AKA Robin, the Boy Wonder, one of the first kid sidekicks of comics books.

Dick was raised in Haly Circus, a member of the Flying Graysons. Trained practically since birth to be an incredible aerialist, Dick was just entering his teenage years when a Gotham City mobster named Tony Zucco arranged for an “accident” to kill his parents as a warning to the circus owner to aid with criminal operations. Having witnessed the death of the Graysons and knowing what young Dick was going through, Batman approached the boy and offered to help him bring the killer to justice. The Dark Knight believed that if the youth was able to directly avenge his parents as soon as possible, then he wouldn’t hold on to anger and survivor’s guilt as Batman himself had and could lead a richer life. Dick agreed but later decided he wanted to be the hero’s full-time partner and apprentice and, after a few months, talked his way into the job. After months of extra training, Dick took on the identity of Robin, using a nickname his mother had given him.

After he turned 19, Dick decided he needed to follow a new path and left behind the Robin costume and his partnership with Batman, choosing the new identity of Nightwing. Soon afterward, the Dark Knight discovered Jason Todd, an orphaned teenage thief living on the streets. The boy proved useful in helping against a group of criminals, displaying a natural talent for combat and intense distrust and anger at the world. Batman decided to guide him, hoping to prevent the young man from falling further into the life of a career criminal. After training, Jason became the second Robin but was less merciful and often driven by rage. Eventually, his reckless nature got him killed by the Joker (though cosmic forces led to his resurrection later on).

Blaming himself for Jason’s death, Batman became harsh and brutal in dealing with criminals, prompting the attention of Tim Drake, a teenage neighbor of Bruce Wayne’s who had figured out a while ago that the billionaire socialite was actually the Dark Knight. Tim believed that Batman needed a Robin to balance his darkness and keep him sane, so he asked Dick Grayson to take on the identity again. But after seeing Tim was an incredibly gifted detective and computer hacker with a familiarity in martial arts and gymnastics (skills he’d been inspired to learn by Dick and Bruce’s example), Dick suggested to Bruce that he become the new Robin instead. After serious training and the death of his mother, Tim did just that and brought much glory to the name of Robin, both in Gotham and while working around the world with other super-heroes. For a brief time, he left the role and it was filled by Stephanie Brown, an on-again, off-again girlfriend who had been the vigilante called Spoiler (and who would later become the new Batgirl).

In recent times, Tim wound up suffering several tragedies right after each other, losing his father and then two of his best friends. After the events of the story Final Crisis and Bruce Wayne’s apparent death, Tim grew a darker disposition and went off on his own as “Red Robin,” an identity originally used by counterparts in parallel universes. With Bruce apparently dead, Dick took on the mantle of Batman and appointed Bruce’s newly-discovered son Damian as his new Robin, the deadliest young man yet to wear the name.

And those are the Robins in a nutshell. Now let’s check out their fashion.

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I can’t believe how long it’s been since this interview was conducted! J.M. DeMatteis shared his thoughts on Booster Gold #38 with Blog@Newsarama for this month’s Gold Exchange column, way back when the book was actually new. I’m going to let him speak for himself (with my help, of course) in order to get the story out there!

The Gold Exchange: This issue retains something that Dan Jurgens had done at the start of his run–once you get to a certain depth chasing a MacGuffin, there comes a point where it’s OK to just start the new issue with the story over with. What drove that in terms of Booster’s quest for the Almost-But-Not-Quite-Book of Destiny.

J.M. DeMatteis: Honestly, I think it was just time to jump into the next story. We’d pushed the Book about as far as we could. I thought Keith’s idea to wrap it up so simply, and so quickly, was great. (more…)

Hello lovely lads and lasses! It’s time for episode 2 of Newsarama Radio!

This week we introduce another member of the crew into the line-up. She has years of radio experience, and is a well-known nerd journalist who has written for Publisher’s Weekly, Topless Robot, MTV Splashpage, and many more. You may know her from her column here at Newsarama, “Hey, That’s My Cape!” It’s The Nerdy Bird herself, Jill Pantozzi!

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With the Kapow! Comic Con now official, we can most likely look forward to a steady stream of news and announcements circulating the Mark Millar-promoted show before taking place April 9 and 10 in London.

Such as this: producer Andrew Macdonald will be in attendance on the 2000AD panel, sharing with fans early details of the 2012 Dredd film. It makes sense — the convention seems to be centered around bringing the “San Diego Comic-Con experience” to London, which means movies and TV integrated with comics; plus Judge Dredd is one of the most prominent British-created comic characters.

The full press release follows after the jump.

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Robert Kirkman refutes some elements of the reporting surrounding changes to the way that “The Walking Dead” TV series will be written for its second season. At TV Guide.com, Kirkman is quite direct about the departure of Charles Eglee in particular, whom, according to the writer, is partially departing because Frank Darabont is remaining.

“Chic Eglee is a high-level television writer. He was brought onto The Walking Dead with the idea that Frank was going to work on the first season and then go off and do movies,” Kirkman says. “Chic didn’t want to be second-in-command on a show when he’s used to being a top dog, and so he decided to go off and do something else, which is something that happens and is not a big deal.”

As for everyone else being let go? Kirkman says . . .

“It’s kind of unfortunate that it’s being reported that our writing staff has been fired because that’s not the case”

and

“It’s a little premature to be nailing down. I don’t know if it’s going to be a freelance situation or if we’re going to have writers in a writers’ room,” he says. “That’s something that’s being worked on now.

What do you say, readers? Satisfied with what Kirkman has to say?

[Via TV Guide.com]

I would have guessed it was malt-based economy: At The Comics Curmudgeon, Josh Fruhlinger shares a rather plausible theory regarding the Riverdale economy (You’ll have to scroll past the Mark Trail sexiness and Mary Worth tawdriness).

I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say the truth hurts, but it does sting a little: Tim O’Neil sums up many of your favorite superheroes, in a sentence or so.

Here’s the publishing news of the week: Or month, or year, or decade, depending on what circle of comics fans you’re talking about, I suppose. Anyway— “Fantagraphics to Publish Crockett Johnson’s BARNABY”

“He really was ‘The Greatest,’ and so is this book”: Andrew Smith of Scripps Howard News Service enthuses over Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali.

Make Me a Woman
Written & Illustrated by Vanessa Davis
Published by Drawn & Quarterly

Vanessa Davis’s book Make Me a Woman collects short autobiographical strips written and illustrated between 2004 and 2010.  The strips themselves range from one-page, hastily drawn sketchbook pages to fully-colored, longer sequences that appeared previously in various ‘zines, anthologies and online on Tablet magazine’s site.

Though the strips are all well drawn – the sketches in particular possess a liveliness – the pedestrian insights and self-effacing humor don’t enable the book to stand out compared to better autobio comics.  If this were a superhero comic, Make Me a Woman would be the middle-of-the-road book that you enjoy, but wouldn’t particularly miss if the budget required a cut.

Written and created by Brian Andersen, art, colors and letters by the talented Celina Hernandez. For more So Super Duper go to:www.sosuperduper.com!

UPDATE: All of the photos have been spoken for, but five runners up will be eligible for a digital copy of the “Dual Spires” episode from Amazon.com.

Hey, fans!

As a quick follow-up to yesterday’s interview with Psych‘s James Roday about the extra-sized “Dual Spires” episode tribute to Twin Peaks, I’ve got a quick offer for viewers.

The first five people who can e-mail me with the correct answer to the question below will receive a signed, 8″x10″ promotional photograph of James Roday. You must respond by e-mail. I want to be able to accurately datestamp responses, and I don’t want to have to watch this spot all day.

Question:

What is the very first Twin Peaks reference seen onscreen in the Psych episode “Dual Spires”?

If you think you know it, e-mail your answer to theghostoftomjoad@gmail.com, and I’ll get a photo in the mail to you in time for Christmas! I’ve got an idea for some consolation prizes, too, so we’ll see what kind of response I get and how generous I’m feeling!

Thanks to James Roday and his representatives at Principal Entertainment for the photos.

Eden is, in its Middle Eastern origins and the Western tradition that sprang from them, a literal paradise, a sort of heaven on earth, a place of absolute perfection, the way things could have been—should have been—if mistakes weren’t made.

I’m as sure as I can possibly be without actually asking artist Pablo Holmberg that he didn’t choose Eden as the name of his comic strips in order to comment on their quality. The most likely origin is Bob Dylan’s “Gates of Eden”, as one of Holmberg’s pieces quotes the lyric “There are no kings inside the gates of Eden,” which is written on a sign hanging from a gate and confronting one of the recurring characters, who wears a crown and a coat with ermine trim. (“Don’t let it intimidate you,” says another recurring character, from the other side of the gate.)

It’s an exceptionally fitting title though, and the metaphor works. The comics collected in Eden are perfect and, even more uniquely, pure comics—they are comics that can only be comics, they do things that can only be done in comics and as comics. Each individual, page-long piece makes a statement, asks a question or evokes a mood or feeling through a combination of words, pictures and the manipulation of time that is only possible through sequential images.

The majority of Holmberg’s strips are four-panels. In their original, online iteration those four panels ran horizontally, but in Drawn and Quarterly’s collection, a perfect little six-inch-by-six-inch square, 120-page paperback, they are reorganized to run in two-by-two square-shaped grids. A handful of one-panel, single-image cartoons make for rule-proving exceptions. (more…)

Free Comic Book Day is still more than five months away — May 7, 2011; the day before Thor hits movie theaters — but now we know what to expect from the 10 “gold sponsor”-level titles. Well, mostly. Details are still kinda vague on some. Details after the cut!

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Big ups to Gavin Higginbotham, who once again did all the heavy lifting for this month’s Dragon questions. A crippling computer virus took me out of the game and by the time I’m back at 100%, Christmas will have passed. I am therefore going–with an extremely heavy heart, since this was probably the single most exciting issue of the title since we started this column–to go ahead and run his interview uninterrupted by anything from me except formatting. Spoilers on, folks, as this month’s issue was a huge one for Savage Dragon continuity. So huge that even the COVER will be held until after the jump. (more…)