Thursday, February 14, 2008
Leisure TownIf you haven’t seen it, Leisure Town is a dark, twisted and funny comic from the early part of this decade is something to behold. It was done by an artist in San Francisco using a lot of plastic animal toys and photoshop. The amount of work that goes into each story is impressive. But I wouldn’t want to live in that guy’s head.
Monday, February 11, 2008
RIP: Steve Gerber
I am very sorry to inform you that my friend Steve Gerber, creator of Howard the Duck and a host of other comics, has passed away from complications of pneumonia. Steve was a great writer and a funny guy. He was also a good friend and he will be sorely missed.
Mark Evanier did a great write up on him here. He knew Steve longer than I have, but I’ve known him since 1984. He was a semi-regular attendee of our monthly writer meetings in Las Vegas. It was a writer thing that started with Steve and I having lunch together after he moved to Vegas. Len Strazewski would join us twice a year when he came to town. And then Bill Willingham and Steven Grant joined us when they moved to town. Followed by Gilbert Hernandez. We all got along and had a good time and we were always glad when Steve could join us.
But he had been battling a lung disease in the last few years. Pulmonary fibrosis. It started after he quit smoking. In the last few years he had to carry an oxygen tank everywhere and he got short of breath very easily. He was scheduled to get a lung transplant in December after being on a waiting list for a while. But he didn’t make it that far.
I was looking forward to seeing him the next time I visited Vegas. I saw him at a farewell dinner we had when I was leaving last September. He was upbeat about getting his operation, even though it has a 50% survival rate. We were all hoping he would be around for years to come. This makes me really sad.
UPDATE: This is an excellent overview of Steve’s Career. He would have been embarrassed by the praise heaped on him. He was a very humble person. But I agree with the author that he was a one of a kind voice in the business. Under-appreciated, but widely admired by his peers.
Superheroes and their Alter Egos
(click to enlarge)
Some very nice stylized drawings of famous comics characters.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Oh, BrotherNo marriage in comic books last. They can’t imagine how to make them work.
‘Spider-Man’
Spider-Man fans are up in arms over a new plot twist which erases the superhero’s 20-year marriage to wife Mary Jane.Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada said Peter Parker needed to return to his previous incarnation as a single geek in a bid to free him up for new adventures.
However, he admitted that fans had been outraged at the move, saying: “When we first did it, the reaction was, ‘How could you do this? This is a terrible thing to do.
“But with the first issue of ‘Brand New Day’ [this week’s edition in which Spider-Man becomes single], our letters very quickly changed to people saying, ‘This is fantastic. This is the Spider-Man we remembered. We didn’t know what we’d been missing’.”
The storyline sees the couple strike a bargain with the evil Mephisto in a desperate attempt to reverse an injury suffered by Parker’s Aunt May.
They agree that all memories of their romance will be wiped in exchange for May’s good health.
As far as breakups go, that has to be one of the weakest excuses I’ve seen.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
17 Downloadable Free Graphic NovelsThere’s some good ones here. I especially recommend (Alan Moore’s) Swamp Thing, (Grant Morrison’s) Doom Patrol and Fables by my friend Bill Willingham.
It won’t be long before most new comics are found on the internet.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
8 Cringe Worthy Comic Book MomentsCracked has another great list. This time exposing some of the worst scenes in comic book movies.
Personally, I thought Peter Parker’s nightclub scene was amusing. Oh, well.
They could have added scenes from Steel and Tank Girl if they wanted to pad out the list.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
About TimeMarvel, DC and Dark Horse are putting their comics online.
Marvel is putting some of its older comics online Tuesday, hoping to reintroduce young people to the X-Men and Fantastic Four by showcasing the original issues in which such characters appeared.
It’s a tentative move onto the Internet: Comics can only be viewed in a Web browser, not downloaded, and new issues will only go online at least six months after they first appear in print.
Still, it represents perhaps the comics industry’s most aggressive Web push yet. Even as their creations—from Iron Man to Wonder Woman—become increasingly visible in pop culture through new movies and video games, old-school comics publishers rely primarily on specialized, out-of-the-way comic shops for distribution of their bread-and-butter product.
“You don’t have that spinner rack of comic books sitting in the local five-and-dime any more,” said Dan Buckley, president of Marvel Publishing. “We don’t have our product intersecting kids in their lifestyle space as much as we used to.”
Translate “kids’ lifestyle space” into plain English and you get “the Internet.” Marvel’s two most prominent competitors currently offer online teasers designed to drive the sales of comics or book collections.
Dark Horse Comics now puts its monthly anthologies “Dark Horse Presents” up for free viewing on its MySpace site. The images are vibrant and large.
DC Comics has also put issues up on MySpace, and recently launched the competition-based Zuda Comics, which encourages users to rank each other’s work, as a way to tap into the expanding Web comic scene. Company president Paul Levitz said he expects to put more original comics online in coming years.
“We look at anything that connects comics to people,” Levitz said. “The most interesting thing about the online world to me is the opportunity for new forms of creativity. ... It’s a question of what forms of storytelling work for the Web?”
This will make it possible for new readers to get into the medium. The price of comics have been prohibitive for many kids. The destination shop problem has also been a stumbling block. This gives people the chance to get into comics and catch up on the stories.
I’ve been saying for about 10 years that the publishers need to do this. I’m glad to see them finally getting around to it.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
The Funny PagesThe NY Times shows its not entirely worthless by running a new series by Dan Clowes. They are also paying attention to other alternative comics artists like Seth, Chris Ware and Joe Sacco. This slideshow on comics is excellent.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
At Work?
Here’s a picture of me in my office trying to solve that Grow game last week.
