– Alice C. Chen profiles American Born Chinese creator Gene Yang for the San Francisco Chronicle.

– Our own Tim O’Shea talks with Mike Allred.

– Chris Ware provides another animated intro for the second season of This American Life.

– Politico reports on a new exhibition of Pat Oliphant’s work that’s at the Washington Art Gallery.

– Confused about what’s up with Yaoi House? Dear Author has a recap, plus the latest news.

– The Thought Balloonists tackle Brian Chippendale’s Maggots in two parts.

Compiled by JK and Chris.

After a TV series on TNT and an anime version, Witchblade stretches her media legs once again — Variety reports that Platinum Studios, Top Cow Prods. and Arclight Films are working on a live-action Witchblade movie. They hope to start production in September.

In addition to a brief WTF moment in the article where Variety credits Will Eisner with the creation of Wanted, they also detail Platinum’s full movie plate:

Platinum Studios is involved in screen transformations of several titles from its comics library, including “Atlantis Rising,” a DreamWorks drama being produced by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, and “Cowboys and Aliens,” another DreamWorks title that Kurtzman and Orci are producing with Imagine Entertainment. Platinum Studios has a Disney deal for “Unique” and is partnered with Hyde Park Entertainment on “Dead of Night,” based on the Italian comicbook series “Dylan Dog.”

– Tom Spurgeon interviews Tripwire editor Joel Meadows.

– Fantagraphics store manager Larry Reid is profiled.

– Blog@ columnist Neil Kleid is going to be at the People’s Improv Theater for Comic Book Club in New York Tuesday night.

– Gelatometti has video from the Image Seven signing on Free Comic Book Day.

– San Diego Comic Con teasing has begun.

– France needs superheroes.

– American Psycho meets The Dark Knight.

– Roger Ebert talks about the forefathers of blogs — fanzines.

By JK and Chris

Sonny Liew is editing a new anthology for Image that’s due this Fall called Liquid City:

I’ve been trying to put together a comics anthology featuring mostly south east asian creators for a while now. a work-in-progress version of the cover below, art by Shelly Wan, design by Danny Yee

The book itself should be out in the Fall 2008, published by Image. Thanks to all the folks who’ve worked so hard to get the book going so far.

Liew lists the contributors here, which include Lat, Shari Hes and Gerry Alanguilan, among others.

Artist Gabriel Ba has uploaded this stunning Casanova “movie poster” to his and brother Fabio Moon’s Flickr account. Sure, there’s no Casanova movie (yet!) but, in Ba’s words, “Wouldn’t it be cool?”

I just hope Image, or somebody, makes the poster available for sale.

(Via Bad Librarianship)

On his blog, Scott Dunbier fills us in on a new Comic Book Legal Defense Fund benefit book he’s put together called Liberty Comics.

The book will feature several all-new stories:

Stories by:
Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips provide a CRIMINAL tale
Garth Ennis & Darick Robertson bring us THE BOYS
Mark Millar & John Paul Leon give us their take on DRACULA
Darwyn Cooke delivers something entirely new
Mark Evanier & Sergio Aragones take us on a tour of the CBLDF

Additional material by:
Arthur Adams, J. Bone, and Rick Vietch (The return of BRAT PACK!)

The book comes out July 23.

I’ve seen this from a few different sources including Josh Fialkov and Warren Ellis, but Image has put together a helpful press release, so I’m just going to post that. Josh Medors is a pal of mine and the sweetest comics professional I’ve ever met. It breaks my heart that he’s having to go through this:

23 April 2008 (Berkeley, CA) – Unknown to the general public, FRANK FRAZETTA’S SWAMP DEMON, RUNES OF RAGNAN, WILLOW CREEK, GI JOE and 30 DAYS OF NIGHT artist Josh Medors has been fighting cancer for the past several months. In his time of need, Image Comics and Frazetta Comics have stepped in organize an auction with all proceeds going straight to Josh.

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Sunday at the New York Comic Con, expectedly, was a little bit slower on the news front than Friday or Saturday, which gave the comic sites a little bit of time to catch up and post a lot of stuff from yesterday’s panels. The big news today, it seems, is the show itself; Lance Fensterman reports on the NYCC blog that they surpassed last year’s attendance numbers:

So what do we know?

At least 64,000 people attended New York Comic Con this weekend. We have more details to pour through from retailers and on site tickets sales, but as of tonight we know that at least 64,000 attendees were in the building over the weekend. That’s an intense jump from 49,000 last year and it seems to say this crazy little party we call New York Comic Con continues to grow as fast as a speeding bullet.

Stay tuned for final numbers in the next few days.

Some other folks found time to blog today as things were winding down. Peter David gave an update on his wife, who was in a car crash while he was at the con on Friday:

Kathleen was in one piece: As anyone who’s read her blog knows, Kath was in an auto accident. Fortunately she’s fine, albeit a bit achy and bruised. Upon learning of the accident Friday, I immediately headed home, rendering me unavailable for the Marvel autograph session and also the Mondo Marvel panel. I left word at the Marvel booth, but somehow they didn’t get the message to panel moderator Jim McCann. On stage he noticed my absence and wondered aloud where I was. When one of the panels whispered in his ear what had happened, a startled Jim said “Oh my God!”…right into the open microphone, causing some degree of confusion and alarm for the audience which he quickly had to undo.

And Mark Evanier talked about the Steve Gerber tribute panel … which Gerber was able to attend:

Friday, I did two panels — one about the work of the late/great Will Eisner; the other, about the state of the animation business. Saturday morn, we had a nice public memorial panel about our pal, the late/also great Steve Gerber. Many of Steve’s fans and friends were there, along with members of his family. And Steve himself was present as you can see from this photo…

I guess you can’t read the label so I’ll tell you what the top line of it says: “This Package Contains the Cremated Remains of Stephen R. GERBER.” That’s right. We had his ashes there. Morbid, I know…but Steve wouldn’t have wanted to miss a whole panel about himself. It was announced that immediately following the panel, we’d be taking the ashes down and flinging them in the faces of certain editors.

More coverage of New York Comic Con:

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A few days back guest blogger Mark Andrew Smith teased that someone whose name rhymes with “Saul Soap” was doing the cover to the second volume of Image’s Popgun anthology. Paul Pope’s artwork for that cover has now hit the web, courtesy of Jamie S. Rich.

1) First of all, who are you and how did you get on this blog?

DAN: I’m Dan Hipp… and I create the Amazing Joy Buzzards with you. Did you forget your crazy pills again today?

MARK: Yes, that’s right, I seem to remember you now. It’s all becoming clear for me now.

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May 7th sees the release of The Amazing Joy Buzzards Volume 1. It’s the Amazing Joy Buzzards director’s edition at 300 pages and in the Sin City Digest format. It’s a focused collection of Amazing Joy Buzzards stories and all continuity with no guest material, all Dan Hipp.

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1) Tell the readers a bit about yourself Paul.

I was born in 1982 in Boston MA. I failed all my art classes in school and was that kid that all the art teachers hated. I’ve always wanted to draw comic books. So I’ve never aspired for any other career. A lot of kids that were in there would mention wanting to be an animator for Disney, etc. I felt like an animator doesn’t often have its own creative voice, and I was all about my own personal ideas. So I set out making mini comics about my cats, or whatever the hell else a kid thinks about. Eventually I graduated high school and was quickly rejected from Mass College of Art. I soon became a retail music store dude for years to come while hitting Chicago Wizard world and San Diego Comic Con. It was there through networking that I was able to get my foot in the door with comics and the rest is history.

2) How did you start out in art and what is your official training?

I worked summers as a muralist in Boston starting when I was 13. There I learned a lot about graffiti and fine art, and it strengthened my ability to see my art as a whole finished product, rather than relying on someone else’s’ vision to complete the colored part of it. As far as digital coloring goes, I learned what I know from Dash Martin, Danimation and the TwinCruiser guys that used to do Warcraft stuff. I also picked up a bunch of tips from other artists on penciljack.com. Aside from that it was kind of a hit or miss learning process to get to where I am today.

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Hi this is Mark Smith and I’m joining Newsarama as a guest blogger from my home in South Korea. I should have plenty in store for you to keep you entertained so you don’t doze off at work.

Aqua Leung is out now, and it’s an epic story so be sure to grab a copy. You’ll thank me. I promise.

I’m sorry I missed this one on April Fool’s Day … Learn and Grow with Spawn, “an all-ages adaptation of the Spawn comic book, intended for children from 3 to 7 years old.”

Via

I was going to start off this post by saying something about how we’re too highbrow here at Blog@ to participate in any April Fool’s Day antics, but I don’t think anyone would buy it. The real reason why we didn’t announce the blog was defecting to Wizard or moving to the domain amazingheroes.com or something along those lines is because Matt Brady is out on vacation today, and if we can’t mess with his head, then what’s the point?

A lot of folks are having some fun today, so let’s get into today’s fake news …

–Oni Press announces that they’ll be publishing Superman:

“This really is a dream come true,” exclaims James Lucas Jones. “We hope to tell great stories that can be read and enjoyed independently of any other form of convoluted continuity. The character and story come first… no Civil Wars… no Crisis… no Secret Invasions… just good stories that any kid can pick up and enjoy.”

No word on the creative team, except that it won’t be Mike Grell … he’s drawing Superman for ComicMix.

–Fabio Moon announces he’s completely changing his drawing style.

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– Dave Campbell remembers El Cazador.

– Illustrator Max Bode, who has worked for Paste and MTV, has published his first graphic novel.

– Tom Spurgeon picks his favorite comics of 2007.

– Dick Hyacinth interviews Columbia bookseller Andy Graves.

– Jog celebrates Easter by comparing the work of Jack Chick with that of his frequent collaborator, Frank Carter.

– The Comic Code didn’t make Fredric Wertham very happy, either.

– These are freaky.

– Ben Towle talks about comic terms, specifically “alternative,” “mainstream” and “independent.”

– Team Venture will attend the New York Comic Con.

– Piles of dead kids? Fine. Just leave out the sex, please …

Compiled by JK Parkin and Chris Mautner

In a conversation with Van Jensen, Paul Karasik (and Fletcher Hanks aficionado) lights into the recent Stardust story by Joe Keatinge and Mike Allred that appeared in Image’s recent Next Issue Project:

CMix: What were the aspects of the new story that you liked most? And, conversely, what did you like the least?

PK: Gee, what did I like? Well the lettering inside the balloons is pretty good, but even the lettering is sabotaged by balloons that are too cramped. The whole enterprise has a slapped-together feel to it. Even the boxed narration looks slapped down. Aside from the bankrupt premise, I guess that I hated the ugliness of it all especially those drab fuzzy cut-and-pasted Photoshopped buildings. I have seen Allred’s work elsewhere and know that he can compose a page. This is a good example of how Photoshop can ruin a person’s design sense. By not doing it by hand it is easy to lose touch with the page. In contrast, Hanks’ artwork is bright, fresh and 100-percent handmade. It’s so alive. This story feels dead, dead, dead. And what the hell does Little Nemo have to do with anything?

Tom Beland shares his love for his publisher, Image Comics, on the Bendis Board:

Here’s the thing.

I’ve done some work in 2007 that I was deeply proud of. There are some issues that truly drained my emotions and there was a genuine amount of love in those pages. If I were to win an Eisner for any of them, it would mean the world to me. It just would be.

That said, I glanced at the deadline for Eisner submissions and was horrified to see that the deadline is two days from now.

There’s swearing in the next part, so young eyes! Don’t click on that “more”! (more…)

Paramount Pictures has acquired the film rights to Doug TenNapel’s upcoming graphic novel Monster Zoo, about a young boy who discovers the local zoo contains some frightening and extraordinary creatures.

Buckaroo Entertainment’s Sam Raimi and Josh Donen will produce the feature with Gotham Group’s Ellen Goldsmith Vein.

TenNapel is best known as the creator of Earthworm Jim. His most recent graphic novels include Black Cherry, Iron West and Tommysaurus Rex.

Monster Zoo is due in April from Image Comics.

Worth1000 is doing one of those Photoshop-style contests you see on the Internet these days, the topic being a mash-up of famous paintings and superheroes.