I really enjoyed this video from GRITtv, with cartoonists Jennifer Camper, Carlo Quispe, and Erika Lopez, discussing drawing comics and depicting marginalized lives.

Host Laura Flanders notes that most comics have in common, “the idea of capturing different dimensions,” and her guests are people from different ethnic and economic backgrounds, telling their stories particularly through the lens of their sexuality. Camper notes that she likes to tell “regular stories about working-class people,” and Quispe discusses “being infatuated with someone for twenty minutes” while drawing them. Lopez jokes that she is popular because she is “ranting from the bottom,” and all three note that it is not just people of color, not just LGBT people who read their work.

“Those are the kinds of stories I wanted to read,” Camper said, and the others agreed.

For New Yorkers, there’s a show of these cartoonists’ work opening Thursday at the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance.

Comic artist to TV director might not seem like the most obvious jump, but it makes sense if you think about it a bit, I suppose. Anyway, according to Splash Page, John Cassaday is set to direct an episode of Dollhouse this season.

“He’s going to f— up so much,” joked Whedon of the fan-favorite artist’s “Dollhouse” debut behind the camera.

“He’s a storyteller,” said Whedon of Cassaday. “I gave him shorter scripts than any other artist I’ve worked with because he has an extraordinary visual sense and it very much matches my own. … I know him as a person, his sensibility, the way he is with other people and I just feel that this step is logical for him, it’s something he’s been pursuing for a while.”

While the celebrated “Planetary” artist will be flexing slightly different muscles to direct the “Dollhouse” episode, he’s still looking to contribute in the area of production he knows best, too.

“The only problem we have is he wants to storyboard his episode, and I’m like, ‘You do know that it’s a script that will be late, right?’” said Whedon.

We’ve already seen the awesome that was Whedon/Cassaday in comic form; what will they dream up for live action?

The internet loves you, and it brings you fun things. Today:

Twilight-haters will no doubt have even more to complain about, but I don’t care: Stephenie Meyer’s The Host to be made into a movie.

From Wired: Get to know the Surrogates comic before the movie hits.

Fun little comic page by Matthew Sheret and Julia Scheele.

Jason Aaron has some thoughts on Scalped. You know, the best comic that comes out each month. (He didn’t say that. I did.)

Another story from Wired. I don’t know why I’m linking it, really. Those illustrations are sort of cool, I guess. Who’s the artist? Oh, some guy named Ryan Kelly…

One of the only reviews of Jennifer’s Body that I’ve seen that doesn’t spend half its time complaining about Diablo Cody (see comments on Stephenie Meyer).

I’ll repost this under events, but I found it interesting: from Johanna Draper Carlson, a lecture by Noah Berlatsky, whose blog examines classic Wonder Woman comics.

Y’know, I usually don’t talk too much religion on this blog — perhaps it’s the Jewish holidays that are bringing it to the fore for me (so happy belated 5770 to my fellow Red Sea pedestrians) — but G. Willow Wilson has a really interesting look about Islam and comics over at Broken Frontier.

Here’s a highlight from the article:

We talked about AIR, and he asked whether I’d gotten any push-back from conservatives. This is our polite way of saying threats from fundamentalists. I told him I’d heard a little grumbling, primarily about Blythe’s skirt. Her premarital relationship too, but mostly the skirt. It came as a surprise to me—here I thought I was starting a conversation about whether or not it’s acceptable to use pagan symbols to make a point about monotheism. Was anybody concerned by the giant winged serpent that shows up in almost every issue? Nope, just the skirt.

It’s really fascinating stuff, especially once she starts talking about Teshkeel Media’s The 99, a superhero team series I got to read a few years ago via a close friend at Los Angeles’ Levantine Cultural Center. Click here to read the rest of the column — it’s definitely worth reading.

Just when you thought the comicsphere could rest easy after the past few weeks — the heirs of Jack “King” Kirby have something to say.

The heirs of one of the architects of the House of Ideas have sent 45 notices of copyright termination to Marvel, Disney, Paramount, Sony, Fox, and Universal, the New York Times has reported.

There’s no word about what characters are involved with this — or if the rights being discussed are for comics, film, television, licensing, or all of the above — but considering Kirby has helped create characters ranging from the (original) X-Men to the Fantastic Four, it could be big. Any change-up would occur around 2014, which would be years after Paramount’s Avengers films, Sony’s Spider-Man 4, or Fox’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine sequel would hit theatres.

On the legal side of things, this is more or less bleeding edge copyright and intellectual property war being waged here. DC has seen similar issues with the Siegel estate’s legal dealings regarding the Superman franchise — and in this case, both the Siegels and the Kirbys have the same lawyer, Marc Toberoff. The phrase “work for hire” will almost certainly come into play here, as the creation of these characters in the early 1960s didn’t typically come with the most ironclad of creator contracts.

But what about that Disney deal? Will this spoil that? Not according to Disney reps, who told the NY Times, “the notices involved are an attempt to terminate rights seven to 10 years from now, and involve claims that were fully considered in the acquisition.” Stay tuned to Blog@ and the mothership for more info…

I am off to Bergen Street Comics’ release party for Beasts of Burden tonight, so I’ll save my thoughts on the comic for tomorrow. For now, have some linkage:

Johanna Draper Carlson did not much like the Whiteout movie.

Warren Ellis asked artists to Remake/Remodel Black Orchid. He must’ve asked VERY nicely…

Some thoughts on comics and race in an interesting discussion thread on Racialicious.

The Rumpus brings you a review of Shane Acker’s 9.

I like this interview a lot; it’s full of interesting thoughts about the nature of vampire stories and why they appeal to us.

But I think then the thing that changed everything and gave vampire fiction, if not a new lease on life a new lease on death, would have been AIDS. You hit the early ’80s, and suddenly you have something in the blood, an exchange of blood that kills and is altogether fundamentally about sex. And vampirism essentially came out of the closet as metaphor — not particularly as a metaphor for gay sex, but again as a metaphor for the act of love that kills. Stephen King once said, using the Erica Jong quote, that vampirism is the ultimate ”zipless f—.” And I think you got the resurgence of vampirism in the ’80s as ”zipless f—.” And then in a sort of continuous transmutation, you had Lost Boys, which is essentially vampirism as wish fulfillment — it was really the first time you can absolutely take a pin and point to these great vampire moments on celluloid or on video, or in print, whatever, where people really seemed to have looked around and gone, ”What is the downside of this thing again? Hang on, you get to live forever, you get to be absolutely sexually attractive and you don’t have zits… You have magic powers; what you’re giving up is daylight.”

Gaiman traces the history of the vampire story from Dracula to the modern day–it’s worth reading in its entirety.

Jamie McKelvie

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(click through for larger version) Ryan Kelly:

Fiona Staples:

Becky Cloonan:

(again, click through for larger)

Molly Crabapple:

This post on girl power in comics, from Retconning My Brain, is a seriously awesome piece that made me want to read a lot of these books (Power Girl, Batgirl, etc.) more than I already did.

The original “Girl power,” a sugared-up, popified version of what Riot Grrl was, hit when I was in my last years of high school. The late 90s, which brought us post-communications deregulation prefab pop, but also at least sort of acknowledged that women wanted pop culture that was their own, and that there was more to it than fighting over a man on a soap opera. It brought us Xena and Buffy, too.

I’ve never been the type of feminist who is terribly bothered by the word “girl”–if prodded, I can even conjure up a defense of using it as a word that doesn’t contain the word “man,” although that’s really not any less useless to me than spelling woman with a y. At the ripe old age of almost-thirty, I still refer to myself as a girl and usually anyone else who is my age or younger. I’ve even been scolded for it by friends male and female. But I can’t really help it, and I wonder if the twin specters of Riot Grrl and Girl Power are to blame.

I was thinking about Girl Power, while I was writing my generally-happy reactions to the stories, and I remember learning about third wave feminism and discussing Girl Power in my class, and the positives and negatives. You had shows with strong (Xena) or complex (Ally McBeal) female leads, but they were wearing short short skirts (and some of them could have used a sandwich, ahem). You had the Spice Girls saying friends come first (in a way more empowering way than bros before hos, yo) but most of their popular songs were still about finding love or something. I think. I can’t actually admit in public to listening to the Spice Girls. You know.

So. Is the rash of “Girl” comics a revival of this kind of feminism-lite? There certainly has been a trend lately, especially with DC books, toward female leads. Batwoman, Batgirl, Gotham City Sirens (and yes, Marvel Divas) and many more that I’m probably missing because this just isn’t really my area of expertise. The pop universe doesn’t seem to be swinging that way in the dramatic fashion it did in the Spice Girls era, but we do have Twilight and other pop-culture phenomena that are aimed at girls bringing a new demographic to geek culture–check out Vaneta Rogers’ awesome piece on The Fangirl Invasion.

Either way, I have to agree with this statement, again from Retconning My Brain:

What it came down to for me this week was that it was nice to buy a bunch of comics that are led my female superheroes, who are super with or without their male counterparts, but don’t exist in a vacuum of femaleness or solely for the gaze of the male reader. They’re there to kick some ass and be super.

Amen to that.

Hi everyone.

After yesterday’s post, where I promoted an event at my local comic shop, I got to thinking. I do love promoting local events and creators of whom I’m fans, but I feel bad because there’s an entire country out there that my little northeastern behind never gets to. So! A brilliant idea.

Eventually, we want to create a Newsarama Events calendar where you can promote your shop, your appearances, everything. For now, though, I’m going to take charge and do a weekly events post here at Blog@. I’m thinking Thursday is a good day to do them for the week coming up, since it’s the day after comics day and the day before the weekend officially starts (though I know a lot of you start partying on Thursdays…)

We have an email address set up just for this, so if you’ve got an event at your comic shop OR if you’re a comics creator making an appearance somewhere, you can email us at newsaramaevents [at] gmail [dot] com. Then I’ll aggregate and post them on Thursdays for everyone to peruse.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Please don’t abuse this address, everyone–I’ve got entirely too much junk mail on my other email addresses.

Thanks!

It’s an extra-special movie-themed linkblogging day today.  To start things off:

District 9

Reviewed by Spencer Ackerman, we get some thoughts about white anxiety in the film, and also the future of video-game movies. No, District 9 isn’t a video-game film, but Ackerman points out some similarities to video-game structure in the pacing of the movie, and wonders what it means for the future. He also takes on another blogger whose comparison of the movie to US policy in Iraq and Afghanistan, he thinks, is over the line.

At Racialicious, of course, the focus is even more on the racial undertones, with one commentator finding the film uneven and problematic and another writer examines the racist portrayal of black Africans in the movie.

Inglourious Basterds

R.M. Guera of Scalped (the best comic you may not be reading) worked on a comic book from the film, and the results can be seen here.

Splash Page’s Twitter report shows several comics professionals have Tarantino on the brain, too. Glad it’s not just me.

Whiteout

1979SemiFinalist looks at Whiteout’s promo materials and gender issues. Verdict? Looks pretty, who knows if it’ll be any good.

Twilight

Eclipse, the third Twilight movie, started filming today, apparently. And apparently the werewolf pack likes to hang out and eat muffins? (I swear that’s not sexual innuendo.)

Finally, Scott Pilgrim

Splash Page has some video from the Scott Pilgrim set. You know you wanna see it…

It’s Thursday. I have had too much caffeine and haven’t bought my comics for the week yet. Have some links.

Boondock Saints comics? Hell yes.

Becky Cloonan’s ongoing webcomic-saga of her “feud” with Amy Reeder Hadley just keeps getting funnier.

Warren Ellis thinks you should buy this print from Laurenn McCubbin. I think you should buy it for me.

One of my favorite political bloggers, Spencer Ackerman, is now the star of a comic book. Where the heck is MY comic book, people?

Jonathan Lethem on the “Squandered promise of science fiction.”

No, my linkblogging posts don’t come on any particular day, they just tend to appear when I’ve gathered enough links that I like but don’t really have enough to say about to warrant their own posts. In case you were wondering. Now, onward!

At The Nation (full disclosure: I’m currently a Nation intern), Melissa Harris-Lacewell talks about the conservative campaign to paint President Obama as the Joker, and does an excellent job teasing out some interesting political parallels with The Dark Knight film.

Via When Fangirls Attack, a post on close female friendships in comics. How many female “buddy” or “bromance” pairings can you think of?

A comparison of Marvel Divas and Gotham City Sirens, also via When Fangirls Attack.

Johanna Draper Carlson looks at Huntress: Year One.

From Splash Page, Charlyne Yi of Paper Heart and Knocked Up is doing a comic with Oni Press. Insert random blather about how Yi is actually a geek here, right? Well, because she’s not Megan Fox (read, sexy girl everyone slobbers over) this hasn’t gotten that much attention, but it makes me happy: Charlyne Yi is funny, and from what I’ve seen of Paper Heart, is actually creative as well.

Jezebel looks at my favorite superheroine from childhood: She-Ra.

Finally, Defamer wants to know how gay Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes is going to be. Apparently word leaked out that there was going to be some sexual tension between the leads (Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr.), which was enough to send Michael Medved into a panic. Apparently there’s nothing to offend Medved in the screenplay, at least, and so he can go back to doing what he does best–which certainly isn’t knowing what women would like to see in a film. Or at least, this woman.

Neil Gaiman is continuing to sweep just about every possible award he can get nominated for, as he earned himself not one, but two nominations for this year’s World Fantasy Awards!

The mastermind behind Coraline and the Sandman was nominated for best novel with the Newberry-winner, the Graveyard Book, as well as best novella for Odd and the Frost Giants.

You can check out the rest of the nominees here.

Superpouvoir has posted some concept images from You Have Killed Me’s Joelle Jones, for the upcoming Dark Horse one-shot of Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible:

The book will be written by Zach Whedon, Joss’ brother, and according to Superpouvoir, is due out in November. You can check out some other concepts of Penny and Captain Hammer by clicking here.

Regular readers here know I love Joelle Jones’ art. You’ll also probably know I love Joss Whedon. So Joelle Jones character sketches for Dr. Horrible comics? WIN.

You can get Phonogram vs. The Fans, the limited-edition Phonogram fanzine that I wrote about here, on Etsy for the low, low price of $5. You want this.

Gail Simone, good and pissed about the EA Games “booth babes” debacle.

Racialicious has a review from the first Asian American Comic Con.

Johanna Draper Carlson talks Girlamatic, which I’d somehow missed out on, so read what she has to say.

One of my favorite bloggers, Renegade Evolution, talks about girls and gaming: “Hey baby, why all the aggro?”

Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan have a cool Op-Ed in the New York Times about “why we need vampires.” Lately I’ve been doing a good bit of thinking about why vampire stories seem to appeal to a teen girl demographic in particular, so this fit right in.

And via BUST, Johnny Depp is set to play a vampire in yet another Tim Burton-helmed picture, Dark Shadows.

Stephenie Meyer, author of Twilight, is set to test the theory that fans are really just out for the hot boys at Comic-Con–she’s going to star in her own Female Force comic. (Can I mention yet again that the name “female force” creeps me out? Referring to women as “females” sounds so animalistic to me…)

Finally, on that note, an interview with Francesca Lia Block on her new vampire young adult novel, Pretty Dead. Since one of the things I’m interested in is why the vampire romance always seems to be older male vampire and young mortal girl (Angel/Buffy, Edward/Bella, etc.) I’m especially intrigued with Block’s book since it reverses that dynamic.

If you’ll excuse me, I think I’m off to watch Angel…

First off, this Saturday I’ll be headed for this:

If you’re in New York, you too should check it out.

You don’t have to be in NY to read NYC Graphic Novelists’ profile on A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge creator Josh Neufeld. And if you haven’t read A.D. yet, um, it’s free and on the Web. Read it.

Finally, for iGoogle users, you can now get a constantly-updated iGoogle theme with the best of Oni Press’s creators’ work. Currently, it includes the work of Chris Mitten (Wasteland), Chynna Clugston (Blue Monday), Chris Schweizer (The Crogan Adventures), Lars Brown (North World), & Brandon Graham (Multiple Warheads). You know you want it.

For those of you who didn’t watch Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night, you missed out on some comicky goodness!

In last night’s episode, the comedian went to the San Diego Comic Con met up with industry figures like Stan Lee, Dan Didio, Geoff Johns, and Jon Favreau to discuss his comic book character, which I will refer to as “Rechargo Boy.” He’s solar-powered, and looks suspiciously like a late-night host.

While Johns kind of made me chuckle with his response, it’s Stan Lee that (as always) steals the show. You can see the full episode, which this is in the first segment of, by clicking here.

Marvel writer Jeff Parker has announced on his blog that while Agents of Atlas is safe for now, his other new series — Exiles — will be ending with Issue #6.

As for EXILES… well, as they say, you can’t save every patient. The best we did was a momentary blip with issue one of the relaunch, and sales went right back to where they were previously. In hindsight, maybe we should have waited a year or two before trying it. It was a blow to me, I was having a great time working with Salva Espin and Casey Jones, and felt I was getting into a good groove with issues that you’ll never see. At least Marvel did me a solid and gave me a double sized issue in 6 to wrap things up. Curious to see what you think of how it… choke… ends.

Parker also discusses in this blog post that the upcoming X-Men vs. Atlas is not a death knell for the series, but that Marvel is trying different ways to convert its critical acclaim into sales. “I can’t give too much away right now,” he wrote, “but you’ll see that you’re going to have quite a bit of Atlas action coming up.”

As a fan of the original Judd Winick run of the series, it’s a shame that this iteration of Exiles is ending. The series followed an ever-changing cast of characters from the Marvel multiverse, as they were guided from one parallel universe to the next, righting wrongs and generally having fun with “What If?” continuity — and you could tell Parker was having a lot of fun with it. What say you, Rama readers?

Would the sequel to Frank Miller’s 300 be called 301? 302? 600? 300 II? 3,000? 300: Three Harder?

Either which way, the Hollywood Reporter has stated that Frank Miller has recently polished off the first draft of his comic book sequel to 300, which smashed through audience expectations in a live-action film adaptation directed by Zack Snyder.

This follow-up will be published by Dark Horse, who printed the initial book. THR also asks some interesting questions regarding casting: Miller and company would be doubly hard-pressed to recruit original star Gerard Butler, considering (A) this role made him really famous, and (B) well, if you’ve read the book (or know anything about how the Battle of Thermopylae ended) he’s not in a position to do sequels.

Either which way, while the comics portion of the project is chugging along, the Hollywood Reporter has also stated that neither director Zack Snyder or writer Kurt Johnstad have been hired yet for work on the film.