Of the four new Mark Millar comics announced at this weekend’s Kapow con in the UK, it’s no surprise that I’m most drawn to the still-untitled project with Frank Quitely. The idea of an ongoing Hit-Girl series does little for me (Wouldn’t the right time for this have been last year, following the movie and when there was more interest around Kick-Ass in general?), Supercrooks sounds fairly generic, and the Dave Gibbons project is still as much a mystery as before. But there’s something about Millar and Quitely’s “huge, 12-issue superhero epic” that catches my eye, and it’s not that it’s got, as Millar noted in a CBR interview, “a mythology as rich as ‘Lord or The Rings’ or ‘Star Wars’ but along the lines of ‘Crisis On Infinite Earths‘” (Although, for anyone that doubts whether or not Quitely can do that kind of thing, I’d direct your attention to Flex Mentallo, where he does it with style). No, it’s that this will be an Image book.

Millar hasn’t done a creator-owned book outside of Marvel’s Icon imprint since… what, the uncompleted War Heroes in 2008? In fact, there are a couple of incomplete projects the writer has at the publisher – in addition to  War Heroes, there’re also the two follow-up chapters to Chosen, which were announced as forthcoming in 2009. Does one new Image book mean that the other Image books might be forthcoming?And what does it mean (if anything) that Millar is publishing outside of Marvel again?

(Also, Millar hasn’t said where the Gibbons project is being published yet, has he? I wonder if that’ll be Image as well… or even funnier, if Gibbons’ connections land it at DC or Vertigo…)

(Also, also: Considering the not-exactly-speedy Quitely is, by his own admission, still drawing the new We3 pages for the new oversized collection and then has the first issue of Grant Morrison’s Multiversity to do for DC, when are we likely to even see this new series?)

R.P.M. #2 (of 4)
After issue #1’s surprise betrayal, and with an army of hired mercenaries on his tail, Revere races down the East Coast with the world’s largest synthetic diamond in-tow.  When a helicopter loaded with gunmen hurtles down from the sky in full attack mode, Revere uses his hyper-kinetic depth perception in a must-see, “Holy $#!t” fashion.  Fasten your seatbelts and see the speed, as R.P.M. takes you on a super-charged, non-stop action ride—with twists and turns that only the hardcore mind of New York Times #1 Bestselling author and World Heavyweight Champion Mick Foley could conceive.  Don’t miss it!

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AMC’s The Walking Dead, based on the renowned comic series of the same name, is getting a ton of press and rave reviews from all around. Recently, over at The Walking Dead blog, an interview was posted with Sarah Wayne Callies, the actress who portrays Lori Grimes. It gives a bit of insight into how she play Lori and how they get that oh-not-so-fresh look just right.

Q: When it was announced that you were playing Lori, did any fans of The Walking Dead comic approach you?

A: Actually, I was in a comic book store in Vancouver and I was looking through for the latest issue that had just come out and the owner of the comic book store came up to me and said, “I see you’re checking out The Walking Dead. It’s amazing.” I said, “Yeah, I’m a huge fan.” And he said, “You know they’re making a television show for AMC. It’s supposed to be really good.” I kind of looked at him and I froze. I just went, “I’ll keep an eye out for it.” And I ran out of the store. I mean, what kind of jerk goes, “Yeah, I’m playing Lori.”

Q: Do you do a lot of camping in your real life?

A: Yeah. The rite of passage of learning to build a fire that will burn all night with one match is not an insignificant one in my husband’s family, and I grew up camping and backpacking. I love to camp. I think I’m probably much better at the boots and pocket knife thing than I am at the high heels and martini thing. And thankfully, Lori is so comfortable with it. For all the parts of her that were work, that felt like home.

Q: How much time do you have to spend in make-up to–

A: To look that bad! I’ve had so many journalists who see this thing and go, “Don’t take this the wrong way but you look like s—.” It’s dirty out there. It’s hot. Most of the make-up revolves around sunscreen. They paint dark circles under my eyes. This is not a show that is particularly amenable to vanity.

Q: Lori took her family photo albums when she had to leave town. What would you take if walkers were invading?

A: I’ve got a go bag. It’s a backpack that’s ready in the closet at all times for whatever. So that’s all packed.

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Today, Universal Pictures, via Yahoo! released the first teaser poster for the upcoming Cowboys and Aliens, starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, and directed by Jon Favreau. Of course, the movie is based on the 2006 graphic novel created by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg and written by Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley, with penciler Luciano Lima of the same name.

For those of you unfamiliar with the plot, essentially it’s pretty self-explanatory here. Aliens invade the Old West and cowboys and the Apache fight them off. I remember reading it a while back and just thinking it would be cool to see on screen. I’m sure if any plot details have been altered for the movie, but with a cast like this and a concept that just screams “hollywood”, I’ll be there.

Stitches
Written & Illustrated by David Small
Published by W.W. Norton

Y’know, I hope that one of these days some cartoonist comics along with a really hilarious memoir that we can put up alongside the Allison Bechdels, Art Spiegelmans and David Smalls of the world.  I like to laugh. But until then, I’ll continue to marvel at how moving the comic book form can be, even in the case of heartbreaking works like David Small’s Stitches.

Small, raised by an emotionally unavailable and harsh mother, suffers far more than the slings and arrows of a typical childhood.  After a growth on his neck is left untreated for three years, he winds up physically voiceless and scarred (the book’s title coming from the first time he sees the surgical wound), emotionally sullen and withdrawn from the world.  During several segments, stretched across his entire childhood, Small discovers tragic segments of his family history, turns to therapy to understand his familial relationships, and finds a voice through his art, but everything happens in reaction to the loveless, abusive upbringing endured during his childhood.

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I hadn’t realized Nick Cave had turned into Ben Stiller’s character from Anchorman.

Joking aside, it was reported today by numerous affiliates that Nick Cave, former frontman for The Birthday Party and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, as well as actor and acclaimed author, has been selected to write the script for James O’Barr’s The Crow film reboot. Now, I remember a few years ago, Stephen Norrington (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) was supposed to helm the gothic anti-hero, but nothing’s been heard from that camp in quite sometime.

Having Cave pen the script is, for lack of a better word, sublime, in my opinion.

Of course it’s hard to think of The Crow movies and not also associate the strange death of film star Brandon Lee. It’s been almost twenty years since the incident, and with two more than sub-par sequels, I think it’s time again to let this bird fly.

By Amanda McDonald

Check out Newsarama’s own Brian Andersen on Saturday at SDCC. Author of So Super Duper and Friend of Dorothy, Brian Andersen’s work has a distinct voice and a great message intertwined into the super-hero genre. Brian will be armed with the newest issue of So Super Duper and previous issues will be available as well.

Catch Brian Andersen at the Prism Comics booth (booth numbers 2049, 2146, 2148) on Saturday, July 24th for portfolio reviews at 11 am and signings from 1 to 2 pm.

If you’re (like me) sadly not at SDCC but interested in Andersen’s work, check out his web site at SoSuperDuper.com and more from Prism Comics at their site, as well.

Thirteen “Going on Eighteen”
Written & Illustrated by John Stanley
Published by Drawn & Quarterly

Thirteen “Going on Eighteen” was a humor comic book for young readers published by Dell Comics from 1961 until 1967, a total of twenty-nine issues (the final four of which had only reprinted material), entirely written and mostly illustrated by legendary John Stanley.  Montreal-based publisher Drawn & Quarterly’s well-received John Stanley Library project, an ongoing reprint series dedicated to the work of the cartoonist, compiles the first nine issues of the run here in an immaculate, 336-page hardcover format.

I must admit, despite the clear quality of the stories and art, I’m somewhat surprised that Thirteen is among the longer-running, more commercially successful Stanley comics.  I’m not sure exactly who the market for these stories was in 1961.  I imagine, knowing myself as a young boy, that boys weren’t yet comfortable with the notion of girls to enjoy reading about them.  And I can’t imagine that little girls would like a book that frequently painted them such a conflicted light.  Perhaps this says more about my inability to understand the commercial market than anything else.  Lord knows, the popularity of any number of movies or musicians continues to confound me.

Stanley handles the scripting with his usual aplomb; echoing the structure of his most famous stories, in the pages of Marge’s Little Lulu, each installment of Thirteen has two or three longer narratives (which frequently dovetail together as one issue-length storyline) complemented by several short one- or two-page gags.  The series’ primary protagonists, two thirteen-year-old girls named Val and Judy, star in nearly every tale, either in combination or solo.  Each story focuses on the various ways in which each girl strives to be mature and appealing to boys, (thus the “Going on Eighteen” of the title) or occasionally seeks to escape from unwanted boys.  Each time out, the girls achieve a measure of victory, or they’re undone by their own immaturity.

The humor is broad and universal, simple but not simplistic.  Stanley delivers a fair mix of outcomes, hoisting the girls on their petards regularly, but also giving them victories and moments of decency just as often.  Val and Judy’s friendship is a mix of jealousy, respect, teasing and love, a complicated brew for a supposed children’s comic. Despite some clunky early stories, Stanley quickly finds each character’s voice, and the nuances come through in their broad, caricatured personalities.

Using his open, warm illustrations and pristine layouts, Stanley (abetted by uncredited assistants) provides a sort of all-American suburban saccharineness to the stories.  It’s a nice effect, the legendary realm of the legendary American teen.  Even novice comics readers can easily approach Stanley’s clear grids; the clean storytelling suffers only occasionally from awkwardly placed balloons that don’t read in sequence.

Sniping and taunting, forlorn and jubilant, John Stanley’s Thirteen “Going on Eighteen” is sharp an funny, a biting satire of teen behavior, treated with good humor and professional cartooning talent.  It’s another winner from Drawn & Quarterly’s John Stanley Library line of all-ages comic books.

See also Caleb’s more timely thoughts.

Z is for Zeitgeist. It’s also for zombie. With AMC ordering a pilot for an adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s WALKING DEAD, fans of the series have to be wondering if WALKING DEAD‘s small-screen translation will retain the character driven, anyone-can-die ruthlessness that separates the series from the shambling horde of zombie comics, movies, and novels.

If this script review at Corona Coming Attractions is accurate, Walking Dead fans need not worry. As Zombies make the slow stagger form pop-cultural boogeyman of choice to the butt of post-mdern jokes like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies It seems that renowned screenwriter/director Frank Darabont certainly sees Walking Dead the same way Kirkman must, as a way to take our zombies back.

At the very least, maybe this will pave the way for a Mad Men/Walking Dead crossover. Instead of shilling products to mindless consumer zombies, you could have Don Draper orchestrating campaigns for real Zombies. Just think of how great Mad Men‘s beautiful period sets would look splattered in entrails.

Since 1997, Lark Pien has built up a reputation within the small press comics community and has now made the jump to her first children’s book based on her most popular character, Long Tail Kitty. Having studied architecture and pursued work in the architectural industry, Pien gradually made the transition over to comics and becoming a full-time artist. With a number of projects in the works, this is a good time to check in on her.

Blog@Newsarama: Tell us about Long Tail Kitty, the character. How far back does it go and is it a guiding force in your comics?

Lark Pien: Long Tail Kitty – Heaven was a story for my rabbit who died while i was traveling abroad in 1999-2000. LTK was almost a side character but he was well-received, and I met many people in comics after this story.

I don’t think Long Tail Kitty is a guiding force, but he’s been fun to draw, and his easy way helps me not to be so serious all the time.

Blog@: You loved comics as a kid, you became an architectural designer and then you returned to comics. What was it like starting out in comics?

LP: It was very humble and private, but I met many cartoonists early on. They were supportive and gave advice freely. Sometimes I would get a postcard in the mail from a cartoonist. My little world became a little bit bigger that way.

There weren’t many girl cartoonists. I remember meeting Andrice Arp at an Alternative Press Expo. I bought her comic and she gave me a sticker of a giant angry duck and I got it in my head that I wanted us to be friends. This wasn’t grade school but it might as well have been! Somehow it happened, we became good friends.

Blog@: Please describe for us your working methods. How do you develop your work?

LP: I write and draw in my sketchbook. I’ll draw even when I don’t have ideas. Most times I know the beginning and the end of a story, but not the middle.

I have to really work to make the beginning and the ending meet. It’s good if i can build a structure to support my story, then let it take the shape that it wants to be.

A lot of people ask about creating characters, how I come up with them. Usually I’m thinking about what the character is doing or where it is in the world, and the story comes from that. The personality and how the character looks develops along the way, and usually reveals itself later on in the process for me.

Blog@: Can you share with us how you’ve managed to turn your comics and art into a career?

LP: This is a very hard question! I’m not sure i can answer it correctly. Do we talk about money? My view on money is general rather than specific. I tend to overlook trend type offers due to a muted interest in the short term.  I group projects by seasons (commissions for example, are winter/spring; conventions are summer/fall). I like to think ahead, but not plan a whole lot.

I think about political/cultural landscapes changing – and what will i be like when i’m seventy, ninety? Also there are all sorts of inventions I hope to see before I die. This is unprofessional to say, but I think my career is a semblance of self-certitude and the possibilities in the world surrounding.

Blog@: What would you like to tell us about your new children’s book, Long Tail Kitty?

LP: My publisher, Blue Apple Books, has been very generous! BAB has given me a lot of freedom in writing the stories I wanted to tell and drawing the art the way I wanted to do it. They made the book design very special (embossed die-cut cover, cloth binding, an activities foldout page, and a draw LTK bonus section!), and to see the artwork in full-color is a treat (my minis are usually in b/w). though catagorized for younger audiences the new stories in this book retain the qualities that are in my mini comics, so i hope older readers give it a chance too!

Blog@: Can you tell us something about your role as a colorist for Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese?

LP: Chinkee was a challenge to color – he was in a different style (more cartoony) than the rest of the characters, but still placed in a real setting. How yellow is too yellow? He’s supposed to be too yellow. It was hard to make those kinds of decisions. Sometimes I wanted Gene to say “Whoa! Change that color!” but he was very easy-going.

Blog@: Are there any comics that you follow? Or can you tell us about some of your favorite comics?

LP: I like Hicksville (Dylan Horrocks), Black and White (Matsumoto Taiyo) and Notes For A War Story (Gipi). They are my favorites.

Black and White I first read in the 90′s, when VIZ was in SoMA. I was given an oversized  two-volume set – which I foolishly lent out and never got back (see these glittering tears? Falling like rain.) It’s out of print now, that edition, but I’ve another reading set which I don’t mind lending out still.

I just read a ton of Vagabond (Takehiko Inoue) and cartoonists who I’ve recently stalked online are Lille Carré, Eleanor Davis, Laura Park and Anke Feuchtenberger. Girls win this round!

Blog@:  Any upcoming projects that you’d like to tell us about or any thoughts on what lies ahead for you?

LP: I just finished the artwork for Mr. Elephanter – a children’s book with Candlewick Press, based on my mini-comic, Brave Mr. Elephanter (2007). The graphic novel project, Stories from the Ward, is with First Second, but completion won’t be for a little while yet. FS has been very patient and supportive. There are two other comic projects with publishers, but we haven’t set a release date yet. Artwise, I’ve been developing a new series of abstracts. I’d like to squeeze in a collaborative project and/or installation project sometime this year. That’d be fun.

Keep up with Lark Pien at her blog and check out more of her work here. Long Tail Kitty is published by Blue Apple Books.

It’s a common enough story: Company A makes the best darn little widgets and builds up a reputation. Along comes Company B who buys out Company A and sucks the soul out of what it bought. That is a fate that Top Shelf Productions, a leading publisher of indepenent graphic novels and comics, has avoided. So, it’s wonderful news from Top Shelf that they have entered into a deal with genuine kindred spirits that they’re excited about that should actually enhance the company. The deal is with new media entrepreneur John S. Johnson and independent film producer Anthony Bregman’s company, Likely Story. They have bought a 33 % interest in Top Shelf Productions.

The deal seems as fair as one could hope for. Co-founders Chris Staros and Brett Warnock  get to keep a controlling interest and Johnson and Bergman provide their substantial resources to take things to the next level. What makes things appear promising is the impressive line up of movies that Bergman has produced over his career which include Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Lovely & Amazing and Sense & Sensibility. Currently, his production company, Likely Story, have two films premiering at Sundance: Please Give, starring Catherine Keener and The Extra Man, starring Kevin Kline.

Johnson and Bergman will have a first-look option on all new Top Shelf publications for possible film and TV development. Could this inhibit seeking out more experimental comics that may not transfer all that well to other media? And what are the particulars of the first-look option?

The first Top Shelf book to benefit from this new arrangement is Too Cool To Be Forgotten by Alex Robinson which is considered to be his best work yet. About a dad who must come to terms with his bad habits, namely smoking, the story transports him back in time as a teenager with a unique chance to get things right. As for Top Shelf, it looks like they have the most unique chance of all to continue to get things right.

You can read the full press release over at the Top Shelf Productions Web site.

Greetings, Blog@teers — have we got some news for you!

For the past six months, a webcomic has been featured by Ain’t It Cool News and CNN, celebrated for its action, characterization, and respect for the blaxploitation films that inspired it. As its creator notes, it’s Super Fly meets The Equalizer, the step-child of Shaft and Rip Kirby, a love letter to the Black action films of the 1970s. For some, it’s street justice like you’ve never seen — and for those on the run, well, all that’s coming their way is a WORLD OF HURT.

And in keeping with our mission to deliver the best and the brightest to you, our readers, we are proud to announce that WORLD OF HURT will be making its second home at Blog@Newsarama, as the latest in our weekly webcomics series. We sat down with writer/artists Jay Potts about the comic, his blaxploitation inspirations, and what the future holds for Isaiah “Pastor” Hurt.

Newsarama: Jay, just to start out with, can you tell new readers a little bit about what World of Hurt is about?

Jay Potts: WORLD OF HURT is a weekly, black & white serial adventure webcomic that is my personal love letter to the Black action films of the 1970s and the Golden Age of newspaper adventure strips.  It is set in the early1970s in the city of Pointe Blanc, a fictional version of San Francisco and Oakland, and follows the exploits of a Black troubleshooter named Isaiah “Pastor” Hurt.

Nrama: In terms of getting to know you a little bit — what’s your background been in terms of comics? Is World of Hurt your first one, or have you been building up this?

Potts: I’ve been drawing since the age of four and have been a comic book fan for just as long.  However, it wasn’t until I entered the graduate program in Sequential Art at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, GA in 1997, that I received any formal instruction.  What I learned there about storytelling and composition, and the exposure to an incredible range of talent, was truly eye-opening.

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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.

I took a little twitter poll today (you’re following us, right? If not, click on that link and follow us. Go on, we’ll wait), asking what people wanted to see more. Well, to prove that we’ll actually listen when we ask for these kinds of suggestions, here’s our first article born directly via comments on Twitter.

Let’s Be Friends Again is a webcomic about, well, I’ve read through their entire archive, and to give you an accurate list, the rest of this post would just be topics. Let’s just say if you’re reading this, chances are you’ve had a conversation not unlike Curt and Chris’s that they so generously share with the world here. It’s also a safe bet that if you read any one, 10, or 90 of their comics, you’ll be laughing out loud repeatedly.

Be warned, much of this is NSFW (EDIT: As readers have pointed out, your milage may vary on the label “NSFW.” Just know, it includes lots of swearing and the occasional bloody mess) content. Like this MKvsDCU sendup from last December, for example. The mixture of slice-of-life conversations, one-off topic strips, and some really solid comedic writing and art make this a great example of what webcomics can and should be. This is a continuation of the kind of storytelling comic strips in newspapers used to have, aged for readers who used to read them and are now adults. It’s webcomics for, frankly, people who are most likely to actually read webcomics. It doesn’t try to be too high brow, but is still intelligent, it doesn’t try to hard to be funny, but it makes you laugh.

This was one of the best suggestions I’ve ever received of a new webcomic to read. It now has a permanent place in my bookmarks, and I highly recommend you all go check it out as well.

Laura Lee, who does a pretty rad rendition of “My Sharona” in addition to her artistic skills, was introduced to me as another new New Yorker at the CBLDF party on Saturday night.

Her comic, Sealed: Growing Up Tupperware, is up on the Act-I-Vate site (if you aren’t checking out their webcomics regularly, you are missing out). It’s a quirky tale of growing up in a home defined by her mother’s Tupperware sales career, and the effects on her burgeoning feminism.

Sealed is destined for inclusion in an upcoming anthology called “The Big Feminist But” that is collecting comics about navigating the strange “post-feminist” world we live in. If it’s any indication of the type of work they’re getting, I’m going to love the collection.

Lee’s comic is full of hilarious little footnotes that made me giggle out loud in between observations about her family history with Tupperware. Versions of Tupperware ads are layered into the panels, which might feel parodic if Lee didn’t have a deep love for her subject that comes from having really thought about its effects on her character.

Her pages flow nicely, her panels layered and blended into one another and her art charming and distinctive–it reminds me of something I’ve seen before, but at the same time I can’t think of anything it looks like. The soft green tones have the comforting feeling of Tupperware itself.

Rumor has it that Lee is working on a graphic novel, and I for one am looking forward to it. There’s no good reason, though, for you not to check out her work on the Web. It’s free!

Mattel has released some brand new images for its upcoming DC action figures, including a brand new Wildcat variant:

But wait — there’s more. Green Lantern fans will be happy with a new three-pack JLU figure set, as well as the towering visage of the Anti-Monitor!

I picked up a lot of interesting stuff at MoCCA, and flipped through even more, but I chose to write about this one first because it hit home for me in some ways and was utterly alien in others.

Miriam Libicki, creator of Jobnik! is like me an American Jewish girl born in the early 80s who loves comics. But Libicki moved to Jerusalem and enlisted in the IDF, and I went to college in New Orleans and volunteered for lefty political campaigns. I’m endlessly fascinated by people who do things that I’d never in a million years have the courage–or lack of impulse control–to do, but when I came to Libicki’s MoCCA table I didn’t know her story, just that she had a bunch of oversized not-quite-comics with gorgeous art and Jewish and Israeli themes.

The one I walked away with was “Towards a Hot Jew: the Israeli soldier as fetish object,” which Libicki calls a “drawn essay” and is pretty indicative of a title that will appeal to me.

Soldiers and military personnel in general receive the projections of an entire society, an entire world. They represent the country and absorb and absolve its sins, take bullets for it, are hailed as the “Greatest Generation” or reviled as “baby-killers.”

Libicki delves into territory that I explored not too long ago with Jeffrey Goldberg in his book Prisoners. Both Libicki and Goldberg served in the Israeli military, and Goldberg is explicit in his early chapters in his reasoning for joining up: he wanted to live out the “muscular Jew” fantasy.

Libicki, here, walks us through the popular conception of Diaspora Jews in the 20th century. The common stereotype is that Jewish men are nebbishy, neurotic Woody Allen characters, while women are loud, overbearing, and materialistic. Both of these stereotypes are curiously nonsexual, Libicki notes, and so the Jewish imagination perhaps longs for something sexier.

The choice to illustrate this essay, to make it a comic in some sense, is interesting, because the popular stereotype of comic readers is very close to the nonsexual Jewish male stereotype. The unathletic nerd who holes up in books and fantasies, right? Superheroes and war heroes, in comics, are a mental way out for the person who can’t be that in real life. Except with the option of the military, you can!

The Israeli army has a reputation the world over for being elite (despite including men and women, a subject for another time) and ruthless, for being some of the most efficient and skilled fighters out there. Krav Maga, the Israeli army form of hand-to-hand combat, is now taught to suburban families and Hollywood stars who will never need self-defense skills to keep in shape. (I’ve done it. It’s tough. And great fun. And does indeed make you feel sexy.)

Libicki traces the rise of the Jewish soldier as an alternate ideal along with the rise of Jewish “Birthright” trips to Israel, with the desire in an increasingly secular, diverse world for Jews to marry Jews and to keep the bloodline pure. She punctuates her essay with biographical notes (“though I have had both the most cited vaccinations, going to Israel and attending Jewish private school, it is looking as if I will marry out”) and citations from academics, quotes from friends, common Jewish jokes, and scholars.

Each page is hand-lettered in a faux typewriter font, and written around a lush, loving pencil drawing of an Israeli soldier, sexy, relaxed, often smiling, on one page holding a guitar in a muscled arm, on another pointing an automatic rifle off the page with a grin. The images are almost chilling in their beauty. They could be ads for the army; juxtaposed with Libicki’s deconstruction, they are disturbing.

Reading a “drawn essay” may not be for everyone, but it’s a startlingly effective way of getting a point across without too much academicese. Libicki’s art and observations have won me over, and I’ll be looking up Jobnik! next.

Ghost Comics

An anthology edited by Ed Choy Moorman

176 pages, 6″ x 9″, $10 US

www.edsdeadbody.com

There is so much good stuff emerging from the MoCCA Comics Arts Festival and here is one fine example: Ghost Comics, an anthology to benefit RS Eden, an agency for changing lives in Minnesota. Put together by Ed Choy Moorman, this book recently won a Xeric Grant.

One standout is Evan Palmer’s story, “The Trials of Sir Goodnight.” The sharp clean lines and details are very impressive, especially the panel that cuts to the severed head of the beast. The anthology bio section mentions that Palmer does background drawings for Vertigo‘s The Unwritten. What a cool gig for a recent art school grad!

Another must-see is Kevin Cannon’s “The Architecturons” which is, you guessed it, a parody of The Transformers made up to be super-powered architecture. This is the one piece that stretches the ghost theme to the most absurd level.

If I were to do a ghost theme comic, I’d go with something about ghosts from our former selves. Some contributors agree such as Lucy Knisley’s “Unlearning Curve” where she looks back on life in her teens. It’s a nice piece by the creator of the celebrated, French Milk. I also liked Will Dinski’s “Mind-Mapping” which follows the struggles of a man haunted by the ghosts of past mistakes and mishaps.

A couple of melancholy pieces that work well include Jeffrey Brown’s “Great Ghosts.” His page is a nice example of what he does best: showing how awkward and disconnected we can be when that’s the last thing we really want to be. Ed Choy Moorman’s “Dear Dave” is on a similar track complete with playlist.

And then there are a couple that really spooked me. One is John Hankiewicz’s “The  Offering” which you’ve got to read over until you’re ready to move on. Set in a church just off the highway, a young man peers at a very strange ritual throughout the night.

The other particularly eerie tale is Hob’s “The Witness” which might make a beautiful answer to whatever happened to Winsor McCay’s Gertie, the Dinosaur. It is certainly full of that type of wonderment. For fans of Hob, this finds him in true form.

And props to Allegra Lockstadt for such an awesome cover illustration.

Woman King

Written and Drawn by Colleen Frakes

88 pages, 5.5″ x 5.5″, $7 US

www.iknowjoekimpel.com

www.tragicrelief.blogspot.com

Here is a quintessential comic from MoCCA making its debut this year: Colleen Frake’s Woman King, a continuation on her take on fables and myth. Since her Xeric winning Tragic Relief, her work has gotten sharper and the scope of her storytelling keeps getting more complex. A recent graduate of the Center for Cartoon Studies, Frakes finds herself coming into her own with Woman King giving us a distinctive style and vision.

This is a hero myth turned on its head about the nature of war. In the middle of this is a girl being raised by wild bears. The bears are depicted as normally fun-loving gentle creatures who are led by one bear to rid the forest of abusive humans. Well, all humans, actually, except for the girl.

There is a fascinating internal logic at play in Woman King. The bear leader’s message is kill or be killed. The girl, a sort of Patty Hearst among terrorist bears, is becoming wiser to her surroundings, finding evidence that the bears are no better than the humans, but her sympathies remain with the bears. In one sense, I am intrigued mostly by the relentless telling of this tale. The characters are so vividly rendered and the pacing is spot on. But, to be sure, there is a satisfying ending to this thoughtful little tale.

If it’s 100 pages, does it stop being a preview?

Well, do yourself a favor and click here to go to HarperCollins’ web site, where they have posted the first 100 pages of Scott McCloud’s black-and-white collection of Zot!

While McCloud has made himself famous for his books on Understanding Comics, Zot! was his experiment on putting all these latent ideas into practice. With art that smashes together Western craftsmanship with touches of Japanese style, Zot! was about an optimistic, charismatic sci-fi hero who would occasionally travel to our imperfect world to visit his sweetheart Jenny. Yet this wasn’t all about fighting: McCloud also took a deeply personal look with almost all the members of Zot’s supporting cast, exploring the trials and tribulations that come with young love and sexuality.

But why the freebie? Scott McCloud himself has the answer: “I remember when Understanding Comics was first published in 1993 and Kitchen Sink sent me to a trade show to promote it. We’d sent out mailings, we’d taken out ads, but the best promotion for the book we ever did was simply handing out a thousand copies to retailers. Covers sell comics. Ads sell comics. But nothing sells comics better than the comics themselves.”

While this book dates back from 1987-1991, it’s certainly a bright beacon of what comic book storytelling can be, so I would suggest you give that a check right now — you can thank HarperCollins later.