For our readers in the Los Angeles area: the Hero Initiative, which works with struggling creators including Josh Medors, who we reported a few days back, has announced their schedule for Free Comic Book Day!

Free Comic Book Day this year is on May 2nd, just one day after the upcoming film X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The Hero Initiative will be teaming up with other charities for L.A.’s Big Sunday event. Here’s the schedule:

- BOOM! Studios Editor in Chief and Kingdom Come/52/Superman: Birthright* scribe Mark Waid will be hitting Collector’s Paradise in Winnetka, starting at noon and running until 3pm. Other luminaries in attendance will be Marc Guggenheim (Amazing Spider-Man), Mike Kunkel (Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam), Joe Benitez (Titans), Jim Mahfood (Clerks), and J.T. Krul (Fathom).

- Meanwhile, mighty Meltdown Comics will be having an event with Tim Sale, artist for Heroes and Batman: The Long Halloween! Timing is still pending based on the Hero Initiative and Meltdown’s web site.

- And finally, the Hero Initiative has hinted to a “smorgasboard of fun” that will be taking place at 4 Color Fantasies out at Rancho Cucamonga. More details hopefully to come.

*Can you tell which series of his I like?

This is for all our Midwest readers, specifically those in the Windy City:

Challengers Comics in Chicago is having their one-year anniversary party this Saturday night! Starting at 5pm, the shop (located at 1845 N. Western Ave #2R) will have food, drink, and $1.00 back-issues.

“We didn’t want this to be our store and customers just shopped here,” said Challengers co-owner Patrick Brower in a press release.   “We wanted it to be the customers store and we just happen to work here.” W. Dal Bush, the other co-owner, added, “We wanted a store that brought a high level of professionalism to our retail industry.  Comic books are now in the mainstream. More Hollywood blockbusters than not are based off them. The New York Times now has a best selling graphic novel list.  We are proof that the family unfriendly, grimy disorganized stereotype of a comic shop is history.”

Comics and community always go well together, so if you’re in the area, I’d suggest you check it out!

Seattle readers, you’re in for a treat!

Love & Rockets co-creator Jaime Hernandez and Usagi Yojimbo’s Stan Sakai will be hitting the Fantagraphics Store in the Rainy City on April 4th!

The duo will be signing as well as showing off an exhibition of their work. In addition, special guest Paul Hornschemeier will be signing copies of his new hardcover, Mother Come Home.

The event will take place from 6-9pm and is free.

For all you guys out there in the Rainy City, we’ve got a treat for you!

Dame Darcy, cartoonist and mastermind of the Victorian horror romance Meat Cake, will be hitting the Fantagraphics Boomstore & Gallery from 6-9pm on Saturday, March 14th.

Darcy will perform vocals and banjo with her acoustic trio, and then sign copies of Meat Cake as well as her new graphic novel, Gasoline. In addition, there will be an exhibition of art from Harvey Kurtzman’s Humbug.

Lots of linky goodness for you today.

Kevin O’Neill talks League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Marshal Law, and many other things with The Times. That’s right, the NEW League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, coming your way in the not-so-distant future from Top Shelf. Keep an eye out for more on this…

More Twilight-related news (because I totally love it): Drew Barrymore may be in talks to direct the third Twilight film, Eclipse. Drew recently wrapped her directing debut, a film about roller derby (really!) starring Ellen Page (Kitty Pryde in X3).

More academia as well: do you write research papers on superheroes? There’s a call for papers for an interdisciplinary conference at the University of Oregon.

We invite 1-2 page proposals for 20-30 minute conference papers considering the implications of superhero fantasies for our understanding of such diverse topics as gender identity, queerness, theological yearning, and nationalist politics. We also welcome appreciative discussions of superhero comics as significant aesthetic achievements — particularly insofar as those discussions contribute to the ongoing project within contemporary Comics Studies, to map the unique conventions of the comic art form. Above all, we are interested in sophisticated, lucidly written analyses that utilize the conceptual tools and hermeneutic lenses of contemporary literary and cultural theory.

Molly Crabapple hipped me to Sketch Theatre, which is a super-cool site that sets high-speed video of artists at work to music. Molly is the featured artist right now. Also, you can check out her fashion week coverage at Coilhouse, if you’re into that sort of thing (which I so am).

Johanna at Comics Worth Reading previews Secret Identities: The Asian-American Superhero Anthology. Sounds like good stuff. Check it out.

Racialicious takes on Frank Miller and Zack Snyder’s 300.

The Guardian puts Sight and Sound’s top ten movies of all time to the Bechdel test.

Finally, via Daryl Cagle, a lament for another dead newspaper from my former (albeit briefly) hometown.

From the press release:

An Event for Scholars, Creators, and Fans

EAST LANSING, MI (February, 23 2009)- The Michigan State University Comics Forum is an annual event that brings together scholars, creators, and fans in order to explore and celebrate the medium of comics, graphic storytelling, and sequential art.  The Michigan State University Comics Forum 2009 is scheduled to take place March 27-28 on the campus of Michigan State University.

This year’s keynote address will be given by David Petersen, creator of the critically acclaimed Mouse Guard.  David Petersen won the 2007 Russ Manning Award for Most Promising Newcomer. In 2008, David won the Eisner Awards for Best Publication for Kids (Mouse Guard Fall 1152 & Winter 1152) and Best Graphic Album ? Reprint (Mouse Guard Fall 1152 Hardcover).

The event will also feature an Artist’s Alley as well as several panel discussions with academics studying comic books and professionals working in the comic book industry.

The Michigan State University Comics Forum is accepting entries for the 2009 Original Comics Collection.  Ten finalists will be chosen from among the entries, from which judges will choose a single winner who will receive a $150 award.  Entries will be judged based on their creativity, quality, and storytelling.  The work of all finalists will be displayed at the Michigan State University Comics Forum 2009, and be collected, archived, and preserved in the Comic Art Collection housed in Michigan State University?s Special Collections.  The Comic Art Collection holds over 200,000 items and is the primary library resource for the study of U.S. comic book publications.

For more information concerning The Michigan State University Comics Forum 2009, as well as submission guidelines for the 2009 Original Comics Collection, please visit http://www.comicsforum.msu.edu/.  You can also follow the The Michigan State University Comics Forum 2009 on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/msucomicsforum.

Sounds kind of awesome, eh? I wish my university had a comics forum (though one of our professors does produce the International Journal of Comic Art).

For all you folks in Massachusetts, convention season can get kind of sad. New York has NYCC, Philly has a con, but what about Beantown? Well, if you’re willing to drive to Pioneer Valley in Western Mass., are you in for a treat!

While the creators call this more a gathering than a convention, webcomics creators such as Scott Kurtz, Steven Cloud, R. Stevens, and a whole lot more are going to be in attendance for the March 20-22 New England Webcomics Weekend. And it’s free! You can read more about it here.

The prize winners at the Angouleme International Comics Festival have been announced and are available on the site’s “Prize List” section.

The Fauve D’Or prize for best comic book went to Pinocchio. Many more books that I’m unfamiliar with won prizes, giving me a whole list of new books to try to check out. It’s a nice reminder that there are comics all over the world worth reading, though it makes me whimper that I don’t read more languages…

From the Mail & Guardian, information on the glamorous Angouleme comics festival, now in its 36th year.

Subjects range from sci-fi, superheroes and children’s fantasy, to ambitious graphic novels on politics, war or the legacy of slavery, all the way to romance, erotica and social satire — with offerings from around the planet.

“A comics strip is always a window open on the world,” said the festival’s art director Benoit Mouchart…

A special exhibit focuses on the South African authors of Bittercomix, a cult comics fanzine that violently attacks Afrikaaner culture and the lasting legacy of racism more than a decade after the end of apartheid…

A jury of industry professionals will award its coveted Golden Lion for the year’s best album on Sunday, with separate prizes for runners up and for best youth and classic albums.

Further prizes will single out the best comics blogs, a fast-growing sub-genre and hotbed of young new talent.

Known in the French-speaking world as Bande-Dessinee, or BD — pronounced “Bay-Day” — comics are big business in France, with about 4 700 new titles hitting the shelves in 2008, a third of them manga, up from 1 500 in 2000…

But so far, experts say, comics have held up well against the economic slowdown, with a turnover of €350-million ($450-million) in French-speaking Europe in 2008.

And with on-screen adaptations on the rise — from Persepolis and Tintin to the brooding hero Largo Winch, the Roman-bashing adventures of Asterix or the sharp-shooting cowboy Lucky Luke — the future of comics looks bright.

Nice to know that comics are still holding up in the rest of the world. I’ll try to follow up on the winners here, and see if they’re available in translation…

Or at least that’s what it seems like, with its latest blitz of marketing.

The publisher of Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe has released its schedule from now till New York Comic Con, and it looks massive. So what’s going on with Oni?

Perhaps we should start with the event that the publisher seems to be circling around: February 4th, also known as the release date for Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe Vol. 5. For those not in the know, here’s the solicit for the new book:

SCOTT PILGRIM VOLUME 5: SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE UNIVERSE
by Bryan Lee O’Malley
Scott Pilgrim is at the top of his game: he just turned 24, he moved in with the girl of his dreams, and he defeated at least half of The League of Ramona’s Evil Exes. But life at the top is treacherous and if things can’t possibly get any better for Scott, it means they can only get infinitely worse! Scott’s band is in total turmoil, his own exes have all boarded the train to crazy town, and Ramona’s evil exes have started appearing in pairs! And what’s up with Ramona, anyway? She’s been acting kinda weird ever since she and Scott moved in together. It’s the second-to-last volume of the Scott Pilgrim series and it looks like Scott’s precious little life has come back around to bite him in the butt!

On Tuesday, February 3rd, Pilgrim writer Bryan Lee O’Malley will be hitting the People’s Improv Theatre in NYC from 8-10pm to join the Comic Book Club! He will be discussing the release of Pilgrim Vol. 5 and, knowing the classy boys of the Comic Book Club, any number of hilariously weird sexual neuroses. (I kid because I love.)

Following that, he’ll be travelling to Jim Hanley’s Universe off 34th Street to promote the book at its Midnight Release Party. The next day, meanwhile, at 7pm, O’Malley will hit Brooklyn’s Rocketship Comics for an additional signing.

Apparently, the first printing has a foil cover, and if you hit any of the New York events, you can get a limited edition Obi wrap as well as a “I Scott NY” t-shirt. (They don’t know what that statement means, either.)

But wait! What about the Comic Con itself? Well, the Oni people have given us a schedule for that, as well. Here’s the skinny for the publisher’s panels:

Saturday, 11:00-12:00 in room 1A21: How Not to Break into Comics
There have been countless articles and panels on how to break into comics, but very few on how not to. Come join Randal C. Jarrell (Managing Editor at Oni Press) and other industry insiders as they discuss the common and often hilarious mistakes people make when trying to break into the industry.

Sunday, 2:45 PM-3:45 PM in Kids Zone 3: Pillaging History For Story Ideas
Pirates, ninjas, gunslingers, and knights – history is packed with events, characters, and settings that you can use to make your own original stories! All you need is to know whereto look. Chris Schweizer (The Crogan Adventures) will help you will help you learn how to take real history and use it to make the types of stories that you want to tell.

Sunday, 1:30 PM-2:30 PM in room 1A14: Scott Pilgrim vs. The Panel!
Bryan Lee O’Malley (winner of the Doug Wright, Joe Shuster, and Harvey Awards) sits down with NYCC to discuss his ground-breaking, slice-of-life series Scott Pilgrim. From its genesis to the NYCC release of volume five, O’Malley speaks frankly about where Scott Pilgrim came from and where the series is going from here. With moderation by Douglas Wolk and a fan Q&A to close the discussion, this is a must see event of NYCC 2009!

In addition, at Oni’s booth, the following creators will be in attendance for signing: Bryan Lee O’Malley (Scott Pilgrim), J. Torres (Love as a Foreign Language, Scandalous), Eric Kim (Love as a Foreign Language), John Layman (Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen), Matt Loux (Salt Water Taffy, Sidescrollers), Philip Gelatt (Labor Days), Rick Lacy (Labor Days), Ray Fawkes (The Apocalipstix), Cameron Stewart (The Apocalipstix), Rick Spears (Black Metal), Ross Campbell (Wet Moon), TJ Kirsch (Uncle Slam Fights Back), Vasilis Lolos (The Last Call), Chris Schweizer (The Crogan Adventures), Cullen Bunn (The Damned), Ryan Kelly (Local), and Greg Rucka (Queen & Country, Whiteout).

Finally — what better way to end a post than with Scott Pilgrim Cubees? If you like ‘em, check out Oni Press or Cubeecraft.

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…)

Joe Biden hasn’t had much time to settle into being vice-president yet, but he could get some advice from Top Shelf’s Veeps: Profiles in Insignificance. Veeps explores not only the ones you know (Dick Cheney, Al Gore) but the ones you probably don’t (Charles Fairbanks, John Nance Garner), and focuses as much on the insignificant-but-funny as the significant. In other words, it makes politics fun, even if you aren’t a junkie like me.

Veeps writer Bill Kelter and illustrator Wayne Shellabarger are due to appear on Air America Radio’s Doing Time with Ron Kuby today at 3 PM (EST). The website can tell you where to find a station, or you can stream the show live.

The Veeps creators have a blog full of political hilarity, if you just can’t get enough. BoingBoing also has excerpts, and of course, Caleb covered it for the mothership covered it back in November. And I’ll have more on it myself when the U.S. mail comes through for me.

And my source tells me that we’ll be seeing more from Wayne Shellabarger at TopShelf 2.0, Top Shelf’s online comics section. So keep an eye out.

A big week for events, people — now residents of the Windy City have something to look forward to!

On Thursday, Lilli Carré, author of Fantagraphics’ The Lagoon, will be signing her work at Quimby’s in Chicago. Prints and handmade books will also be sold, and refreshments will be served.

The Lagoon deals with a family’s reaction to a siren’s song, emanating from a nearby lagoon. With contentment, curiosity, frustration, and danger, this experimental work comes hot on the heels of Carré’s Eisner and Harvey nominated story, The Adventures of Woodsman Pete.

I found this via a tweet from Felicia Day, and Im just sad that I’m coming into it so late. Essentially, at Paul and Storm they have a March Madness NCAA Basketball style tournament going for the great and geeky. The end result will name a champion the Secretary of Geek Affairs. Sometimes, you see something of sheer genius that you just wish you could’ve thought up yourself.

Some of the contenders are a bit obscure, but most are simply inspired. Personally, I’m cheering for Felicia Day herself, MC Frontalot, Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade, and Steve Jobs as my final four. The 2nd Round match up of Wil Wheaton vs. Wesley Crusher is pretty great, though. Check out the full bracket, make your predictions here, and vote in the current round.

As the year comes to a close, it’s become clear that in the Marvel Universe, there has been major upheaval from within the company’s heroic pantheon. With a new Captain America leading a band of Secret Avengers, what’s old is new again, with the concept of the legacy hero getting a set of legs at the House of Ideas.

But what is a legacy hero, you might ask? For those needing a refresher in comic book geekspeak, a legacy hero is typically an associate, lover, or sidekick of a fallen hero who assumes their friend’s mantle if he has retired or fallen in battle. DC Comics has made this concept into one of the company’s key pillars, beginning all the way with Barry Allen as the Flash in 1961. The idea of the legacy hero is that it gives a franchise an epic, generational feel, while allowing each generation of readers to adopt their “own” hero to match their own values and storytelling standards. But as 2008 and 2009 — as well as several earlier attempts — show us, Marvel isn’t above adopting a good idea when it sees one.

As if I needed to warn you, there be spoilers up ahead…

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Yes, dears. It’s holiday time. Christmas is in ten days, and Hanukkah in six. And since I know you all were wondering what to get us here at Blog@, we figured we’d give you our lists.

No, seriously, we thought this would be fun to share our wish-lists, the little things that we want and haven’t gotten for ourselves. So I’ll start this all off here with the following:

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But were too broke for art school? And you knew those little “free art test!” things were a total scam?

Miss Molly Crabapple, artist of Backstage, among other things, has the cure. Her Dr. Sketchy‘s anti-art school is celebrating its third anniversary in New York City, and you can join the party.
From Molly:

Dr. Sketchy’s is a life drawing class turned burlesque extravaganza. Artists draw glamorous underground performers, compete in contests, and win booze and prizes. From its humble Brooklyn beginnings, it’s spread to 65 cities on five continents- including London, Rome, Tokyo, Paris and Melbourne.

On December 20th, stunning fetish supermodel Darenzia will help us celebrate our third year in existence.. Plus, fine tunes, free cupcakes, booze and fabulous prizes. Hosted by art provacateur Molly Crabapple.

Dr. Sketchy’s 3rd Year Anniversary takes place on
December 20th, 4-7 pm,
at the Slipper Room,
167 Orchard St (corner of Stanton).

You know you want to go. Doesn’t this look like fun?

– Alison Bechdel and Harvey Pekar, together at last.

– Steve Duin has some good news about underground cartoonist S. Clay Wilson, who has been in ICU for the past several days.

– Ada Price talks to Dave Gibbons about his new book, Watching the Watchmen.

– Looks like it’s official: Naruto Nation 2009 is totally a go.

– Sam Thielman looks at the significance of Alan Moore’s run on Swamp Thing in light of the new super-fancy collection coming out soon.

– Over at Stars and Stripes, Gary Trudeau answers some of his critics.

– Van Jensen talks to Mike Allred about the revamped Red Rocket collection.

– Here’s my idea of a fun time: Dan Nadel, Gary Panter and CF sitting around, talking about art and comics.

– Did you know About Comics is 10 years old this year? I didn’t. Chris Murphy has a recollection.

– Sandy Bilus is giving away a copy of Alan’s War over at his blog.

– Oscar Pedro Musibay looks at the Comics Galaxy event that was held at last weekend’s Miami Book Fair.

– Frank Santoro considers the new Popeye collection.

Evan Dorkin reports on last weekend’s National Convention in NYC:

I mean, wow. Wow. WOW. What an absolutely terrible show. Having nothing to do with how we did at the table, because we didn’t expect much, just to cover costs ($40 parking, tolls, lost brain cells) and maybe low-rent dinner out for the family, which we barely eked out. And we seemed to do better than a lot of  those around us. And not a knock on old — very old — school bargain bin/back wall o’ expensive headlights comics, hucksteriffic cons based around want lists and sweaty palms, which can be fun in a way if, like me, you like old comics, looking at original art, and eyeballing tables heaped with flea market junk that some poor schmuck still deems worth lugging all up and down the coast hoping some other poor dumb schmuck will buy. I can stand, and enjoy, these buck-bin, desperation extravaganzas, but this one tested even my Eltingville limits. This was Eltingville writ large, bulky, real, and stinktacular. I wasn’t expecting MOCCA or SPX, nor the NYCC or even a slice of the dealer’s area of the congenial, enjoyable and cool Heroes World, but I wasn’t expecting this freakshow trainwreck.

Heidi McDonald, meanwhile, provides some perspective while Valerie D’Orazio offers a pointed rejoinder:

Have a heart. I know I’m going to be laughed to oblivion for saying that, that it sounds ridiculous. But have a fucking heart. Some of these older collectors are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. I grew up around these people. I’m not ashamed of it. Some have used comics as one of their only bright spots in a life that in every other respect might have been awful. If it makes them happy, let them do it. If they aren’t bothering you (other than by the fact of their very existence, offending your delicate sensibilities), stop fucking ragging on them. I can’t fucking stand this anymore.

– Harry N. Abrams plans to publish Barry Deutsch’s acclaimed Webcomic Hereville in book form. Brigid Alverson has details.

– Steve Duin provides an update on S. Clay Wilson’s health. Short answer: “His condition has not improved significantly.”

– “There’s an exotica Americans find in my stories that’s lost on Israeli readers:” Nisha Gopalan interviews Israeli cartoonist Rutu Modan about her new book Jamilti.

– Colleen Doran is looking for a few good cartoonists to help her review data for the Graphic Artists Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines.

– Kai-Ming Cha has a great interview with editor Sean Michael Wilson about Top Shelf’s upcoming AX anthology. “We’re selecting it from the 10 year archive so we’re talking about some 20,000 pages. That’s a lot of stuff to choose from.”

– Peter Sanderson celebrates the 20th anniversary of Sandman with a look back.

– Sanderson also looks at the new Vertigo Encyclopedia.

– The Daily Cartoonist reports that editorial cartoonists Steve Greenberg and Lee Judge are being laid off from their respective newspapers.

– Things to do: David B and Igort will be at the Beguiling in Toronto this Saturday.

– Other things to do: Kim Deitch will be doing a Q&A event with Bill Kartalopoulos at MoCCA tomorrow night. From the pr: “In a unique and wide-ranging conversation, the two will discuss Deitch’s work and
career to date.  Deitch will preview images from his current works in progress and field questions from the audience.”

– Joe Sacco offers an insightful review of Guy Delisle’s Burma Chronicles.