I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what are the most important comics of the past two decades. There are a lot of great books to choose from, and each one has its own reason why it made an impact on the industry. I narrowed my list down to a few select choices that I think have done more to shape the comic book industry as we know it. Without any of these issues, the comic book landscape would look vastly different from what it looks like today. Let’s take a look, shall we?

1. Bone #1 by Jeff Smith (1991)

Jeff Smith’s delightful all-ages fantasy series was one of the most acclaimed and successful titles of the past two decades. It’s also one of the most widely read series in recent times, with thousands of copies of the title’s collections appearing in libraries and schools all around the world. With that kind of exposure, I’d say that Bone has done more to hook young kids on comics than any other series.

2. Youngblood #1 by Rob Liefeld(1992)

The formation of Image Comics was a groundbreaking moment for the comic book industry for several reasons, not the least of which for what the company did to advance the cause of creator rights. It also proved that Marvel and DC didn’t have a complete stranglehold on the superhero genre, and that their dominance of the comic book marketplace could be challenged. Liefeld’s Youngblood #1 was the first comic released under the Image banner; and with nearly one million copies sold, it proved that the risks the Image founders took by breaking away from Marvel would pay off in major ways. (more…)

Oh yeah, it’s party time. Gonna be in town for the upcoming New York Comic-Con, just a little over a (GULP) week from now? Only have 45 parties to go to? How ’bout another? The Comicbook Artists Guild is hosting their fourth annual Indy After Party on Saturday, February 7th at 8pm. The party is at Blaggard’s Pub, a larger venue than last year’s 200+ attendee event. All are welcome in the spirit of independent creation and collaboration. The full press release is after the jump! (more…)

Jim McLauchlin from The Hero Initiative sent this over — Queens presented John Romita Sr. a Citation of Honor at the New York Comic Con for his service during the Korean War, his commitment to Spider-Man and his work with the Hero Initiative:

Quick Stop Entertainment has posted the “official” Venture Bros. season three preview reel that was shown in New York last weekend. It’s available in a couple different formats for downloading, or you can watch it right here:

Well, don’t I feel foolish?

Here I am, plotting out my resources to master the world of comic conventions and it turns out I’m on the wrong coast!  NYCC was the place to be this weekend and not only was Newsarama there with every bell ringin’ and whistle blowin’ you could imagine (go team!), but so was the Mighty Marvel Media Machine!  WOW!  Jam packed with panels and interviews and movie news and special footage and I’m sure there had to have been a free t-shirt or two because that’s really the only thing missing out of the bash for the House of Ideas!

So, while I’ve been the Maytag repairman out on the West Coast, let’s see what Marvel brought to the New York Comic Con.  There’s tons of info out there, so think of the following as a few digestible bits that can satisfy any Marvel Zombie.
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Speaking with Entertainment Weekly at New York Comic Con, Frank Miller points out the differences between The Spirit and Sin City:

It’s in color, for one thing. But also it’s a very different movie. Sin City was really a combination of me and [co-director] Robert Rodriguez working off my own drawings. And this was based on comics from the 1940s — Will Eisner’s — but through a much more modern lens. Besides, you’ll never see a tie this color [motions to his half-red, half-blue Spirit tie].

So, that should clear up everything.

Miller also tells the magazine he’s written Sin City 2, which he plans as part of a movie trilogy.

Blurry shots of the Wanted poster trickled out of New York Comic Con over the weekend, but now ComingSoon.net has the real deal, courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Wanted, based on the 2003 Top Cow miniseries by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones, opens on June 27.

The NYCC leftovers edition …

–A report from the Women Who Kick Ass panel featuring Jenna Jameson, Amanda Connor and … that’s it. Colleen Doran and Louise Simonson didn’t make it to the panel. It sounds like Colleen may have been sick.

–Rick Marshall reports on the Webcomics: Threat or Menace panel.

–Josh Neufeld wonders where the indie comics were at NYCC. Things get a little heated in The Beat comment thread.

–Rescued by Nerds has a bunch of video from the con.

–Mike Hawthorne talks about the end of Un-Men, which was announced at the con.

–Tom has 50 observations from the show.

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Newsarama reporter Vaneta Rogers was on hand at the New York Comic Con this past weekend, and she’s passed on some pictures and commentary … take a look below, and be sure to check out her Floor Buzz features over on the main site.

The towering Hulk at the Marvel booth:

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CNN Money was at the New York Comic Con this weekend and filmed a segment on DC Universe Zero with Grant Morrison and Geoff Johns. Check it out here.

I didn’t see any reports on the Zuda panel over the weekend until yesterday, when Ron at Zuda posted his report on the site. And they had some pretty cool news — Dean Haspiel’s new webcomic Street Code will start appearing on the site this summer. They also announced a “second chance sweepstakes” of sorts for all the comics that have appeared on their site and lost:

The much talked about ZUDA COMICS INVITATIONAL is on! Celebrating the one-year anniversary of our announcing Zuda at the San Diego Comic-Con we’re going to have a competition featuring comics from the previous years worth of non-winning comics. I’ll blog about this in more detail but basically if it ran on Zuda and didn’t win its eligible to participate in the Invitational. Send your picks for which comics you want to see get another shot at the brass ring to FEEDBACK (in the upper right corner there, by the login)! The Invitational will be our July competition.

Read the whole report here.

Miller wants to direct Hard Boiled

MTV spoke with The Spirit director Frank Miller at the New York Comic Con this past weekend about the possibility of his graphic novel Hard Boiled finally making it to the big screen:

“We’re talking about [it],” Miller declared to us at NY Comic Con. “I’ve got a really unusual way I want to do it.”

But that’s not all…after co-directing “Sin City” and single-handedly helming the upcoming adaptation of Will Eisner’s “The Spirit,” Miller has decided that the only person he’d want directing a “Hard Boiled” movie is himself.

“I’m in love with directing,” he gushed. “I’ve found a way to expand my career. Comics and directing are really two sides of the same coin. That’s what Robert Rodriguez taught me…good drama is good drama.”

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Editor’s note: DC Comics President Paul Levitz returns to blog about this weekend’s big festivities in New York. Special thanks to Vaneta Rogers for supplying some pictures.

by Paul Levitz

Dateline: New York Comic Con: my first comic convention was the 1971 New York Seulingcon, after I finally convinced my parents to hold off our annual trek to the Catskills for the summer long enough for me to go. That show set a record for attendance at a comic convention, with about 3,000 attendees…or roughly the number of people who were in a single panel room this weekend, watching the new trailer for The Dark Knight. I haven’t heard an attendance estimate for the overall convention, but it seems safely past 20 times the ’71 show. Especially refreshing was the diversity and youth of the audience…one observer compared to a tribal event, watching the anime tribe move past the comics tribe, and then the cosplay tribe weave in and out.

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The crossover that nobody knew about from NYCC: Marvel editor Tom Brevoort on a DC panel!

This was Sunday morning, and I had an hour to kill before hosting PRIZE OR NO-PRIZE, Marvel’s tirivia giveaway panel (which was well-attended and a lot of fun, as usual. One of these days, I’ve got to get around to writing some all-new questions for the thing.) At their last convention, DC had closed out their programming with a sort of round-robin discussion with a group of fans. I’d read about it online somewhere and was mildly curious—it sounded more like a Marvel panel in terms of its tone. So, since they were doing it again at the NYCC, I thought I’d stick my head in, get a sense of what they were doing, and maybe cause a little trouble.

But the second he saw me step through the door, DC honcho Dan Didio pointed me out, and ushered me up, asking if I wanted to join the panel. In the blink of an eye I found myself sitting alongside a row of DC editors and staffers, talking about comics I’d read in my formative years. It was quite surreal, kind of like stepping into the Negative Zone or something.

Don’t worry, though - The cheap shots don’t stop coming:

I had to dash out as soon as the panel ended, so I didn’t really get a chance to speak with the other panelists. But they seemed like a bunch of relatively-nice individuals. It almost makes me sad knowing what we’re going to do to their market share with SECRET INVASION.

Almost.

Uh… zing?

Deb Aoki, who writes about manga for About.com, attended the Del Ray Manga presentation at this weekend’s New York Comic Con and brought back pictures of the shonen manga version of Wolverine (above) and Kitty Pride and Beast from the shojo manga version of the X-Men. Go check’em out.

There have been a lot of questions about the fate of Nickelodeon’s popular animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender since at least November, when the cable network abruptly stopped airing the third, and final, season.

Last week TVShowsOnDVD.com began sifting through the confusion, particularly as it relates to the show’s DVD releases, but didn’t get very far. (You see, Book 3, Vol. 3 is set for release on May 6, even though most of the episodes it contains haven’t aired in the United States. To further muddy matters, two of the episodes have aired in Canada … but not in the U.S.)

But now Toon Zone has posted its coverage (Warning: spoilers) of the Avatar panel from this weekend’s New York Comic Con, which clears up the schedule. Mostly.

The website reports that the trailer for the second half of Book 3 ends with the words, “The Journey Concludes July 2008,” “at which time all remaining new episodes of Avatar will air. Privately, a Nickelodeon PR representative confirmed that the release date for the third DVD of the season will not change from May 6, 2008, meaning that several episodes of the show will be available on DVD well before they air on television.”

A little strange, certainly. But at least there’s an answer.

Perhaps stranger still is that the series was always planned as a trilogy; there won’t be an “Air” book. (For those not in the know, the books, or seasons, of the Avatar are tied to the elements: Book 1 is “Water,” Book 2 is “Earth” and the current Book 3 is “Fire.”)

(Via TVShowsOnDVD)

I made a half-hearted stab at taking some photos while I was at this year’s New York Comic-Con on Friday and Saturday. If you like, I shall share them with you.

The usual rules apply however: 1) I can’t take a decent picture to save my life; and 2) my camera sucks.

So let’s begin… (more…)

Toon Zone attended the New York Comic Con’s Black Panel on Friday, where additional details on BET’s Black Panther animated series were revealed:

The biggest news for BET was about the newly announced prime-time Black Panther animated series, which was the first question from the audience after Davis opened it up to questions from the audience. The new show will be based on the first story arc, “Who is the Black Panther?”, from the Marvel Comics series written by BET vice president Reginald Hudlin. Cowan reported that Hudlin will be writing the animated series, and that the series will be using many of artist John Romita Jr’s designs and aspire to look a lot like the original comics. The eight-episode series is currently scheduled to debut in October 2008. Cowan stated that there were no voice casting announcements he could make yet, but that they were talking to “some stars you might know.”

A full panel report can be found at the link.

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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Eisner-nominated cartoonist Jeff Lemire (Essex County) posts promotional art for his upcoming Vertigo graphic novel The Nobody, announced yesterday at New York Comic Con.

Loosely inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, focuses on a stranger with a bandaged face who moves to an isolated fishing town.