Replacements named for Gough and Millar on Smallville

With the departure of creators Al Gough and Miles Millar from Smallville, co-executive producers Todd Slavkin, Darren Swimmer, Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson have been promoted and will serve as showrunners for the series’ eighth season.

“Al Gough and Miles Millar have been great partners and instrumental in the development and success of Smallville,” CW and Warner Bros. TV released in a joint statement. “Todd, Darren, Kelly, and Brian have been writing for the show for the past six seasons, and as producers for the last four years, they have played an integral role in the ongoing creative evolution of the series. As showrunners, they will continue to deliver the compelling storytelling that Smallville fans have come to expect and love.”

The Surrogates gets more cast members

Ving Rhames, Radha Mitchell and Rosamund Pike have joined Bruce Willis in Disney’s adaptation of The Surrogates, the Top Shelf Productions sci-fi series by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele.

Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3, U-571) is directing from a script by Terminator 3 screenwriters Michael Ferris and John Brancato. Ned Vaughn (Frost/Nixon) was previously cast in the thriller.

The Surrogates is set in 2054, when humans interact through robots who are idealized versions of themselves. In that “perfect world,” police detectives Harvey Greer and Pete Ford must stop a techno-terrorist who is determined to return society to a time when people actually lived their own lives.

The comic was released by Top Shelf in 2005-2006 as a five-issue miniseries, and then collected as a trade paperback.

The Ticker

• Casting information for Caprica, the Battlestar Galactica spinoff [ TV Squad ]

• Olivia Williams joins the cast of Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse [ Variety ]

• George Lucas touts Clone Wars at Cartoon Network upfront [ Variety ]

• Johnny 5 is alive! Dimension Films is remaking Short Circuit [ Variety ]

Perhaps it’s merely the tantalizing near-arrival of spring, but it seems like we’ve seen a number of debut books by new cartoonists pop up out of the ground lately (if I may hammer the spring metaphor down ever further). Here’s a look at three of them:

That Salty Air
by Tim Seivert
Top Shelf
112 pages, $10

Salty Air practically screams “my first-ever graphic novel” from panel one, page one. Not that its execution is sloppy or awkward — his pen line radiates confidence and his pacing is assured — but more that the premise itself as well as the characterization is fundamentally wrongheaded. (more…)

Laura Hudson talks to Kochalka about his latest book for kids from Top Shelf, Johnny Boo:

PW Comics Week: Why did you choose a ghost as the main character for a children’s book?

James Kochalka: I always liked Casper the Friendly Ghost, but I could never figure out how to draw him. [Now] Casper is kind of a goody two-shoes, and Johnny Boo is kind of self-centered and egotistical. He thinks everything he does is special and wonderful. It’s probably a comment on the artist in me and my own ego. No matter how crappy a thing I do, I think it’s special.

PWCW: Did you vet Johnny Boo with your two kids?

JK: I finished the two Johnny Boo books before Oliver was born, but Eli is four and a half, and I did test out the Johnny Boo stories on him. I’d do a rough draft of the chapter during the day while he was at preschool, and for a bedtime story I’d read it to him. And then based on his reaction—if he didn’t laugh at a page, I’d go back and rewrite it.

Last week cartoonist Jeff Lemire posted a five-page Western comic. Now he’s providing a 22-page outtake — in two parts — from the forthcoming Essex County, Vol. 3: The Country Nurse.

Lemire writes that, “as Chris Staros and I started to edit the book, we realized it just didn’t fit into the story I was trying to tell with the third volume, and has since been cut from the book.”

Essex County, Vol. 3, is due from Top Shelf in October.

This one slipped under my radar … last week Art Scatter, a local art blog out of Portland, Ore., had a post by Barry Johnson comparing the non-fiction graphic novels of Joe Sacco, Craig Thompson and Guy Delisle:

This is still a disorienting experience. From the drawn world, the comics world, we don’t expect the activities of a journalist — the attempt to represent a slice of life as it was actually lived, to make sense of it, to draw conclusions from it. We are just starting to understand, thanks to comics journalists such as Sacco, that the combination of written and drawn representations can be more powerful than the greater abstraction of words alone, that they can convey more fully what the journalist/artist actually found. That they can literally sketch a real character like Soba at the same they “sketch” him.

One of the side benefits of reading the three books Johnson talks about — Sacco’s War’s End: Profiles From Bosnia 1995-96, Thompson’s Carnet de Voyage and Delisle’s Pyongyang: a Journey in North Korea, is that all three are also travel journals of sorts, taking the reader to places like Morocco and North Korea. “And the places aren’t just background, either, they emerge as independent subjects of their own,” Johnson writes. Much more at the link.

The Daily Cross Hatch kicks off a multi-part interview with That Salty Air author Tim Sievert:

I heard that you used to be a dancer, an Irish step dancer. How did such a thing come about for you?

When I was a kid, probably 8, I remember being woken up one Sunday morning by my mother. She drove myself and my brother and my two sisters to Duck Creek Mall in Bettendorf, Iowa. It’s pretty much an abandoned mall and it’s always been abandoned, so we’re like, ‘Where are we going?’ but she kept it a surprise. She brought us into this room that was full of kids and parents and said, ‘You’re going to try Irish step dancing today.’ ‘Uh, no we’re not.’ ‘Yes you are.’ I feel like there were 300 people there, but I’m sure it was more like 10, and it was the first introductory see-if-you-want-to-do-this class. We all participated and afterwards my mom asked me if we wanted to do it, and my brother wasn’t into it, but my sisters and I said sure. I don’t know why I did, but I continued for a couple years. My other sister dropped out, so it was just me and my older sister for a few years. But for some reason – and this is completely honest – I remember nothing that I learned. People ask me all the time, but I remember nothing. But I got a little older and I was supposed to start playing baseball and soccer, and I did, but they conflicted with Irish dancing so I dropped it.

The Onion’s A.V. Club provides a primer to the works of Alan Moore, touching upon everything from Watchmen and Top 10 to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and A Small Killing:

… while Watchmen’s characters and plot have become less radical over time—either because they’ve been copied so much, or because they were thin and derivative to begin with—the structure and sophistication of the book’s storytelling remain every bit as thrilling now as they were 20 years ago. Dave Gibbons’ insanely detailed art finds visual rhymes and thematic connections that even Moore didn’t know he’d implied, and Moore’s method of stopping the action in order to look deeper into what a character is reading, as well as his devoting whole chapters to some heroes’ convoluted backstories (complete with frenetic time-jumps, in the case of the omni-powerful Dr. Manhattan) has influenced a generation of geek art, right up to the current ABC hit Lost. The immediate impact of Watchmen was a wave of violent, ugly, and stupid superhero comics. The long-term impact has been much more resounding.

The feature ends with a rundown of essential Moore stories, as well as a “Demerits” section, looking at some of the writer’s “wrong turns.”

On his blog, Matt Kindt announces a couple of projects he’s working on for Dark Horse and Top Shelf:

Can’t remember if I posted this yet or not but I just signed a contract with Dark Horse to publish my next graphic novel “3 Story: The History of the Giant Man” which is all about a guy that keeps growing and growing until he’s three stories tall. It’s told from the point of view of his mom, wife and then daughter and spans the 1940 through the 60s. I’ll post some art and preliminary sketches when I get a chance.

Also I’m busy finishing the writing on my next graphic novel for Top Shelf — official title now IS “Super Natural”. I posted some preliminary sketches earlier but I’ve changed a few things and finished the first 12 pages or so of the art. Full color, etc. Haven’t done any of the lettering yet but here’s some of the raw art so far. Houdini under water!

Mostly taken on day two …

Chumble Spuzz creator Ethan Nicolle shows off the Chumble Spuzz poster he was giving away to folks who bought the book at the SLG booth. If you haven’t check out the book, you can find the individual issues on Eyemelt.com. It’s the story of two guys, Gunther and Klem, who win a pig at the state fair that’s possessed by Satan. So they head to Hell to kill the devil and save the pig. I read it a couple of weeks ago, and it’s very funny stuff; it also features a wonderful introduction by Doug TenNapel on religion and comics.

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Devil’s Due dropped us some concept art from their upcoming toy line, which they’ll be announcing via press release very soon. One of the first toys they’re doing is a transformable Balls toy from Incredible Change-Bots. Jeffrey Brown designed it himself.

Click it for a larger image.

Less Than Heroes
Written and Illustrated by David Yurkovich
Top Shelf
$14.95

In an essay in the back of Less Than Heroes, David Yurkovich claims that his book was inspired by the simpler, more fun- and adventure-filled comics of yesteryear. Comics that were made before Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen left their permanent influence on everything that came after. Which is kinda ironic since it was Watchmen that I kept replaying in my mind as I read this book.

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On his new-ish blog Talking with Tim, Tim O’Shea interviews Jeff Lemire about his Essex County trilogy and, um, noses:

O’Shea: This may be a strange question, but I have to ask: Do you really enjoy drawing noses? I have never seen an artist render characters with such spectacular noses.

Lemire: I actually get that a lot. Put it this way, every single panel that I ever have drawn that has a face in it, the first thing I draw is the nose and go from there. I think a lot of people see the eyes as the center of the face, or the most characteristic feature, but I see the nose as giving the whole face its personality.

The third volume of the trilogy is due in October.

Brendan Wright has an extensive Q&A up with Top Shelf’s Brett Warnock that covers a lot of ground, including the third League of Extraordinary Gentlemen book:

WO: So what else are you going to have from him after Lost Girls? You’ve got League III, right?

BW: With League, I suspect that, in a best case scenario, I don’t think the first issue’s going to come out until later this year or in 2009. And that’s gonna come out as three mid-size volumes with a thin spine, like the old deluxe format books DC used to do a lot of. That’s gonna be the format for League III.

WO: Is it eventually gonna be done as one book, as a League III hardcover?

BW: Oh, of course.

WO: Is that going to follow the format of the DC ones?

BW: Oh, yeah. Oh, 100% We’ll do a standard size hardcover, I’m sure. And then hopefully if we can get scripts and stuff like that from Alan we’ll do the Absolute. I mean, as a fan, I want to see League III sitting on my on my bookshelf in the Absolute format next to League I and II. And I’m sure we’ll hire Todd Klein, who did all the design for all the ABC line, to do the packaging and stuff like that. The only difference I want the consumer to see is, here’s the Wildstorm logo vs. the Top Shelf logo. Otherwise I want those to look identical.

Continuing our 2008-oriented top ten lists, here are the top ten “middle-brow” comics we’re looking forward to this year. I can’t decide if I love or hate the term “middle-brow,” but it’s the closest thing I can think of to describe indie adventure comics right now.

1. RASL (Cartoon Books): Jeff Smith has already set the bar pretty high for himself with his epic Bone and the delightful Shazam!: The Monster Society of Evil. But after seeing the preview of RASL from San Diego , I don’t think we have anything to worry about. My only dilemma now is deciding if I’m buying the regular-sized comic or waiting for the oversized collections. — JK Parkin

2. Tiempos Finales 2 (Sam Hiti): The first volume of Tiempos Finales was an amazing, luxurious bit of storytelling. It also left some unanswered questions that I’ve been dying to learn the answers to. Sam Hiti’s announcement that he was continuing the story this year was the best piece of news I heard in 2007. — Michael May

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In this week’s Publisher’s Weekly Comics Week, Laurel Maury looks at Top Shelf’s plans for 2008, including their plan to produce a movie based on The Surrogates:

2008 will be a year of new ventures for Top Shelf. For one thing, the company’s coproducing a movie. Co-owner Chris Staros reports that Disney has given a green light to Mandeville Productions to make a movie of The Surrogates, which Top Shelf published in 2006; Top Shelf Productions is listed as one of the producers. Bruce Willis is set to play the lead, Harvey Greer, the detective set on using his own body instead of a robotic “surrogate.” The graphic novel’s author, Robert Venditti (who has a prequel to The Surrogates due out in 2009), is a consultant for the film.

Also on the plate is a new series of kids books from James Kochalka and the next eagerly anticipated chapter in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen saga.

Also in this week’s PWCW: Chris Arrant looks at Nickelodeon Magazine; Will Moss looks at some upcoming Conan projects; Laura Hudson talks to Jamie Delano about his upcoming Avatar series; and Kai-Ming Cha examines Wiley’s upcoming Shakespeare adaptations.

There’s still more news from the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting, where Jeff Lemire’s Essex County, Vol. 1: Tales From the Farm has received an Alex Award from the Young Adult Library Services Association honoring adult books with specific teen appeal.

On his blog, Lemire says this is the first time a graphic novel has won the award.

Shuffleboil chats with Jeff Lemire about the first two books in his Essex County trilogy, Tales from the Farm and Ghost Stories:

SB: Are the human stories, relationships, circumstances based on any real versions of the same? Or is any of this autobiographical?

JL: Most of it is fiction, but certain character traits and parts of my own family history sort of worked themselves into the narrative as well. For example, Lou from “Ghost Stories” is an amalgam of different people from my life. He looks like my grandfather did late in life, and the nursing home/deaf scenes were based on the last days of my great uncle. But, all of the hockey stuff, and the brother relationship was fiction.

The Daily Cross Hatch has part one of an interview up with Alex Robinson, creator of Box Office Poison, Lower Regions and the upcoming Too Cool to Be Forgotten:

The fascination with superhero comics seems to be something of a reoccurring theme with independent cartoonists. Everyone grew up reading Kirby, Ditko, et. al. Does the idea of doing a superhero book, at this point in the game appeal to you?

It does in the sense that some people from Marvel and DC have been saying, “hey, you should pitch us some stories.” When Box Office Poison first came out and there was some buzz around, they asked me to pitch them so stories, but I just couldn’t think of any that interested me. I like them in theory, but all of the stories that I came up with were just me regurgitating stories that John Byrne and Chris Claremont came up with, 25 years ago. I guess with fantasy comics, because I don’t know too many of them, it’s kind of a wider field. It’s kind of a cliché, but there’s more fresh material for more in this well-covered ground.

Although Robinson doesn’t talk about Too Cool to Be Forgotten in this part of the interview (I assume that’ll come up in part two), it did give me the opportunity to use the really cool Matt Kindt-designed cover that Robinson shared on his LiveJournal last month.

Shuffleboil sits Fox Bunny Funny creator Andy Hartzell down for a chat:

SB: Initially, I read “Fox Bunny Funny” because it didn’t have any words and I thought, well, I can read this quickly.

AH: That’s an opposite reaction from a lot of people. People I know have hesitated to read it because it has no words. I think that has intimidated some people. They feel like without words, they won’t really know what’s going on, it’ll be hard to follow, and they hesitate for that reason. I get both reactions.

SB: That’s funny, considering it’s a visual medium. With comics, I get annoyed with too much narration, too many thought bubbles.

AH: Most of my work does have dialog, but I do tend to stay away from narrative blocks and it’s not like a real decision that I made. I think more in dramatic terms as opposed to depiction and description, I like the acting to tell the story. You wind up laying books out a little differently when you include narration you tend to lay out stories so that each panel is its own little illustrated page. If you leave out the narration, the panel to panel transitions become more important and the acting has to carry it a little more and that interests me.

Tokypop and DC Comics lead the final nominations for the Young Adult Library Services Association’s annual list of Great Graphic Novels For Teens with 23 nods each.

DC’s nominations include titles from its CMX, Minx and Vertigo imprints.

Tokyopop and DC are followed by Del Rey with 11 nominations, Viz Media with 10, Go! Comi with eight, and First Second and Marvel with seven each.

YALSA is part of the American Library Association.

The full list of nominees can be found here.

(Link via David Welsh)