At the end of his most recent Q&A at CBR, Marvel’s Axel Alonso responded to a question about future projects with Warren Ellis thusly:

Warren is taking a bit of a breather in 2012, but he assures me he intends to write more for us once his schedule frees up. Thus far, he has politely declined my offer to redefine the science of the Marvel Universe in the pages of an all-new “Ant-Man” ongoing series — “Ant-Man is bull$#$,” I think he said — but I haven’t given up hope. Any love for Ant-Man out there?

That’s followed by two apparently all-new Ant-Man images from some unknown source. So is this some kind of holiday joke, or is Ant-Man getting prepared for a new series at some point in 2012? We know that he’s getting a Season One hardcover next summer, and there is that long-awaited movie that’s being written by Edgar Wright and Adam Cornish that may, one day, actually happen, plus appearances in both Avengers Academy and soon, if rumors are true, Defenders, but still: A new Ant-Man series? Who saw that one coming?

This is the jaw-dropping cover to Daredevil #10, by Paolo Rivera:

And this is a time-lapse video of Rivera creating said cover. Just amazing to see:

(Via The Comic Archive)
 

Maybe it’s just me, but the day after Christmas – Boxing Day for me, because I come from Britain which still remembers to call it that – is always a weird mix of comedown, letdown and relaxation. No wonder, then, that I’ve found myself thinking about all the various Aftermath comics of yore. You know the ones: They come out after a big event comic, and deal with all the fallout, either putting the toys back in the box carefully (The three Fear Itself epilogues from Marvel), trying to come up with new toys to play with (The Final Crisis Aftermath minis from DC) or exploring the landscape left by what had come before (Marvel’s Civil War: The Conversation or Secret Invasion:Dark Reign).

I’m always kind of amused by these types of books, because they feel like after-the-fact efforts to emphasize the importance of the event book they’re epiloguing, instead of anything in their own right (“What just happened was so important that we needed more comics to tell you how important is was!”). They also, for me at least, feel somewhat weightless by themselves, and therefore throwaway. Am I being too harsh? I’m not arguing that big stories shouldn’t have impact, or leave some kind of aftermath, but I feel as if that aftermath should be dealt with in the regular series of the characters that starred in the events, I guess (Secret Wars, for example, with its “Spider-Man has a new costume! She-Hulk has joined the Fantastic Four” endings… and startings, really, considering the publishing timeline), instead of being shunted off into the Aftermath book ghetto.

Am I being too harsh? Are there fans out there of the special issues that underscore the dramatic importance of what went before? Should I stop thinking about all of this, and get back to eggnog and mince pies…? Probably that last one, really…

HAPPY CHRISTMAS, Blog@ readers. I hope that your days are filled with joy, laughter, friends, family and just a little… Well, you’ll see once you click through to today’s final cover. (more…)

Don’t forget to hang up your oversized socks (“Stockings”? I think not) tonight in the off-chance that they’ll be filled with gifts and goodies overnight by some well-meaning and apparently well-heeled jolly old passer-by, people. In the meantime, click through for today’s penultimate Christmas cover. (more…)

Everyone who was looking forward to Marvel’s Spider-Man: The PSAs collection, here’s some bad news – It’s not going to be happening. In what’s a somewhat surprising product update, Marvel has released the following information to retailers:

SPIDER-MAN PSAS TP will now be titled SPIDER-MAN FIGHTS SUBSTANCE ABUSE TP and will be 200 pages, not the solicited 456 pages. The updated contents are Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #96-#98; Spider-Man, Storm and Power Man; Amazing Spider-Man: Skating on Thin Ice!; Amazing Spider-Man: Double Trouble!; Fast Lane #1-#4; Spectacular Spider-Man #1000. The price will be $24.99, not the solicited $34.99.

Quite why such a massive change remains a mystery, but let’s be honest: The original PSAs collection seemed a bit of a mystery as well, didn’t it? That new title is great, though.

There’s something really odd going on in the Marvel Collections catalog from Hachette that Bleeding Cool has snuck online. I’m not talking about the fact that it lists Marvel collections from May through August of next year, giving you a sneak of what to expect in the next few months of solicits or anything (Although, yes, that), but there’s something strange specifically in the listings for the Season One books.

Announced as original graphic novels – despite Marvel’s continued insistence that the OGN format doesn’t work financially for them – and apparently having some additional revenue source that no-one wants to talk about despite mentioning it in public repeatedly, the Season One books have been subject to all manner of speculation since their announcement… and this Hachette catalog is only going to add to that. According to the catalog, Spider-Man: Season One “collects Spider-Man: Season One 1-5, Avenging Spider-Man 1″. Same with Ant-Man: Season One, which apparently collects Ant-Man: Season One #1-5 (as well as Avengers Academy #1), and Hulk: Season One, which has Hulk: Season One #1-5 along with the most recent Incredible Hulk #1.

So is this a mistake, or are these books going to be serialized before being released? And if so, where? We’ve already seen Daredevil: Season One, Fantastic Four: Season One, Spider-Man: Season One and X-Men: Season One show up in the regular Marvel solicits with no mention of any minis… Should we be waiting for the announcement of the minis as digital first releases any time now, perhaps?

(Also strange: The new Marvel superhero kids-line mentioned yesterday is in this catalog, with the preview art shown for the Avengers title being material that has already seen print in the Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes mini earlier this year. Is it a reformatted reprint?)

Kieron Gillen has a cold, and is spending his pre-Christmas cheer on Formspring, answering questions and offering up great advice for aspiring writers:

Try reverse engineering a comic. Probably a story you like, but any story would do. As in, look at the comic, then write the script for it. It’s interesting anyway, but it’ll force you to focus on the craft on the page. You should be reserve analysing every comic you read anyway. Panel counts, transition types, devices used, whatever. Learning to write comics ruins reading comics for a while, in as much as learning an instrument warps your listening to music (i.e. I could only hear basslines when I was learning bass, etc).

(A) Get well soon, Kieron. (B) Keep up the Formspring if you’re going to be offering this kind of awesomeness on it (I’ve been listening to the Nerdist Writers Panel podcast for awhile, and wishing there was a comics equivalent, and this post really felt like the kind of thing you’d hear there, in both content and attitude).

It’s Christmas Eve Eve – The night when you won’t be able to sleep because you’ll be so excited about being excited about the next day. Or something. It’s also the third last day of the Advent Calendar, so click through for the very last weekday cover… (more…)

For those particularly concerned about what the Sinister Six got up to in this week’s Amazing Spider-Man, writer Dan Slott has some calming words for you. (Spoilers for those clicking through). (more…)

Earlier this week, I noted the cancellation of Spider-Man and Super-Heroes, wondering out loud if that meant the death for Marvel’s all-ages superhero books. Editor Steve Wacker said no, and now Bleeding Cool apparently has the details of the books that will replace those two titles: Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and Ultimate Spider-Man, both spinning out of the animated series of the same names.

Both books are said to debut a new format, “comic reader,” that will be a different size from regular comic books, with Avengers launching in April and the new USM launching in July. If true – and the BC report is so detailed, with images and quotes that I doubt that it isn’t – then this is a smart move by Marvel, giving non-comic readers a hook to pick up the books, especially given the success of the Avengers cartoon (and tie-in comics) already. It’ll be fun to see these books when they debut.

Enough with the fights before Christmas and all the dangerous things that we’ve seen so far on our festive countdown towards Christmas Day. Today, we’re going safe, happy and old-school. Click through to see what I mean. (more…)

I mean, you look at Marvel, or at what’s happening with DC’s New 52 – it’s an anomaly for someone to stay on anything for very long. It’s like, they launch Wolverine and The X-Men with Chris Bachalo and then it’s Nick Bradshaw for a couple issues. Carlos Pacheco does a few issues of Uncanny X-Men and then it’s Greg Land. Who knows who will be doing those books this time next year? I don’t know if it’s done by design, but it has effectively devalued artists to the point that they’re more or less interchangeable.

I re-read Grant Morrison’s run on New X-Men recently, and it was kind of depressing. He starts off so strong with Frank Quitely and they have this great thing going, and then it just turns into musical chairs. Regardless of the talent involved – and I really admire some of the other artists on those comics – I ultimately felt it undermined what Grant was doing. You look at wonderful, classic pieces of work like the Dark Phoenix Saga or what Frank Miller and Klaus Janson did on Daredevil – Alan Moore’s work with Dave Gibbons on Watchmen or with Rick Veitch, Steve Bisssette and John Totleben on Swamp Thing or the Lee/Kirby FF books – they’re not pock-mocked by rotating artists.

And everything over there is like that now. Comic book artists in particular are treated more as commercial artists than storytellers. They might as well be doing greeting cards for all the impact they’re allowed to have these days.

That’s Eric Stephenson, talking about the treatment of creators on Marvel and DC books these days. The line at the end about “artists in particular are treated more as commercial artists than storytellers” strikes me as particularly important, but I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it, to be honest. I’m torn because, well, as much as I agree that creators are storytellers, there’s also part of me that thinks “Well, they are commercial artists if they’re doing work-for-hire, aren’t they?” I understand that work-for-hire doesn’t mean that the quality of work is any lesser than creator-owned, but what I don’t quite get – or, perhaps, just can’t quite verbalize, because there’s a nagging buzz in the back of my head when I think about this – is that the idea of “storytellers vs. commercial artists” is somehow an either-or proposition. Perhaps the disconnect for me is in thinking about it from the artists’ perspective, and Stephenson is talking about from an editorial perspective? As in, “artists aren’t interchangible pieces in a machine if you’re looking for a consistent product”…? I don’t know, just yet, but there’s something there, in that line, that speaks to an expectation in the minds of editors, creators and fans that I suspect will become more of a pressing issue over the next year or so.

Wondering what it’s like for self-publishing creators these days? This year-in-review by Tina Anderson, who writes what she describes as “graphic novels and fan comics for fans of homoerotic stories,” might answer your questions:

I list Amazon as my most successful distributor, because be it print or digital, they’ve consistently remained a strong and user-friendly, sales outlet.  They’re generous with my take, easy to fulfill, sales info is never late or missing, and payment is always on time.  Also on my list of good partnerships turned out to be LSI.  Loud Snow was produced with them last year and it came out great, and they took over my fulfillment duties with Amazon and BN with no hiccups, saving me the cost of shipping to these sales outlets myself.  I was able to enroll in Ingram, and sold to smaller bookstores—and while this didn’t bring me as much of a percentage as I liked, I appreciated the accuracy of their sales reporting and the willingness to distribute to smaller vendors.  Even the price change on Loud Snow went through without issue, and actually led to an increase in sales.

She’s far less complimentary about Barnes & Noble – “There’s still no dedicated support to smaller pubs for digital works and product page set up—they raid the Bowker database for title information that’s often outdated, then list this misinformation as on sale and take pre-orders,” she notes – as well as Apple and eManga. It’s a fascinating glimpse into a side of the business I rarely think about, but one that I suspect may become more and more important as digital offers creators the chance to own and produce their own work more easily.

There’s a really interesting discussion going on over at Millarworld about digital comics and the impact they have on the direct market, with Mark Millar and San Francisco retailer Brian Hibbs both chiming in (along with Brian Wood) on the subject (It spins out of this piece at CBR by Hibbs). There’s the usual extremism and strawman arguing that tends to show up in this kind of conversation online, sure, but there’s also some good points made that aren’t often considered. Go check it out.

Remember I mentioned, way back when, that “The Fight Before Christmas” was a popular comic book festive title? Well, click through the jump for today’s Seasonal Superhero Comic Book Cover to discover one of its more enjoyable uses… (more…)

If it’s wrong to be as excited about the prospect of Stuart Moore’s prose version of Civil War as I am, then I don’t want to be right. Prose adaptations of comics have long fascinated me, if only for their seeming lack of reason to exist (Are there really that many people out there thinking “I wish I could read Kingdom Come, but I far prefer my Superman stories to be in prose as I cannot stand comic books”?). I’ve long been tempted by Greg Cox’ Final Crisis adaptation (He also wrote prose versions of Infinite Crisis, 52 and Countdown to Final Crisis), if only to see just how he manages to build something resembling a coherent prose narrative out of a series that seemed as much an attempt to break traditional comic narrative storytelling as anything else, for example, and I’ll happily admit to believing that Greg Rucka’s Batman: No Man’s Land is far, far more enjoyable to me than the never-ending comic book version of the story.

I could be wrong – And, if I am, I have no doubt that you’ll let me know in the comments – but Civil War might be the first time that a Marvel storyline has been adapted into prose, as far as I can remember. There have been plenty of Marvel superhero prose releases before (Who can forget Star Trek: The Next Generation/X-Men: Planet X?), but they were all original storylines, I think. Moving the “real” Marvel U storylines into prose is a smart idea, though, making today’s comic continuity more easily accessible for newcomers (“Read the prose book” is much easier for newcomers looking to catch up on their backstory than “Read the several hardcover collections, or maybe the twenty-odd paperback collections, some of which are out of print,” after all) while also franchising the characters into a whole new medium for movie fans looking for more from the Avengers characters. Moore revealed on Twitter that he’s also going to be editing future prose adaptations for Marvel, so I hope the line is a success. I really like Moore, and hope this is a hit for him.

Good news for those (like me) fearful about yesterday’s quiet cancellation of both Spider-Man and Super-Heroes from Stephen Wacker on Twitter:

One of those times where I’m very happy to be proved overly pessimistic. Looking forward to whatever the announcement turns out to be.

Now this is something I can get behind. Joe Eisma, one half of the tag team that created critically-acclaimed Morning Glories, put this up over at his DeviantArt. It’s a nice little mash up of the Morning Glories gang with the Peanuts crew. ” Had this idea for awhile, but never got around to it until now,” Eisma stated on the post. “Would love to do more of these fun things with the Morning Glory Babies as time permits!”

Morning Glories is one of the most talked-about books on the market now. So if you’re looking for getting something for a person interested in getting into comics, but fear they might not be that into capes, I recommend this one.

There’s something about this question and answer from Tom Brevoort’s Formspring that made me stop short:

Exactly how much interacting do people have with aliens on earth in marvel U and can we as humans use alien tech? X-men use it all the time, yet Iron Man is told he is not allowed to use it. can people set up contact with aliens if they want?
Most folks within the Marvel Universe tend to think of any of the alien stuff that’s gone on as a hoax, or as just superhumans gone wild. There isn’t a widespread belief in the existence of aliens, no more so than in our world.

Now, I’ll admit that I’m not completely obsessively immersed in Marvel continuity, but… How can regular people in the Marvel Universe not believe in the existence of aliens after something like Secret Invasion, or any of the time Galactus has come to Earth, or even having the Asgardians live on Oklahoma (The Asgardians have been firmly retconned by aliens by now, right?)?

This is one of those threads in longform fiction like superhero comics that you just can’t pull on for fear of unraveling the whole thing, I know; for the general populace of the Marvel Universe to believe in aliens would remove them far too much from the “world outside your window” theory that’s central to the MU even today. But at the same time, for them not to believe in the existence of aliens after all this time, with all of the evidence that has appeared in front of their very eyes across many years, means that regular folk in the Marvel Universe are either very, very cynical or very, very stupid. I guess which one of those you choose to go for depends on how you’re feeling that day, but it makes me wonder: Short of retconning things away or creating some kind of magical amnesia plot device, is there a way to keep the “Once you know aliens are real, culture would change in ways you can’t even imagine” genie in its bottle short of ignoring the whole thing?