Check out this trailer! Javier (El Muerto) Hernandez and Ted Seko will be launching a new co-published imprint, XOMIX COMIX. It’ll be a mini-comic anthology featuring my DEMOLITION DOVE and ZOMBIE MAN ZERO.
Coming this Fall from XOMIX COMIX!
Wednesday, July 30th, 5:30PM
Cloonan, Moon, Ba & Lolos signing at Meltdown, Sunset Blvd location.
Thursday, July 31st, 7PM
Steve Niles & Kime Buzzelli signing at Meltdown, Sunset Blvd. location.
The highly anticipated debut episode of DC Comics “Watchmen” is now available exclusively as a free iTunes download for the next two weeks. Click the link below to download.
Watchmen Motion Comics.
*Note: It’s a big download, approx. 280 megs.
While you’re waiting for the download, why not purchase the entire TPB at 20% off.
Click here to purchase.
With the clock ticking on the film’s release, Warner Bros. has decided to eschew the traditional console videogame tie-in and is producing a pair of downloadable games based on “Watchmen.”
The studio’s Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment unit plans to publish at least two “Watchmen” game episodes, with the first coming upon the theatrical release next March and the second around the DVD launch.
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via: http://americanpublicmedia.publicradio.org/
The big annual comic conference, Comic-Con, is underway in San Diego. Host Kai Ryssdal talks Joe Field, president of the comic retailer’s trade group ComicsPro, about the summer blockbuster movies’ impacts on comic book sales.
KAI RYSSDAL: It’s a Friday in the middle of the summertime. So let’s take a detour for a minute into something a little less weighty than energy prices and
home foreclosures, shall we? How about comic books. If you’ve ever watched the Simpsons on TV, you know the neighborhood comic book store there is a dingy, low-rent place run by a pasty-looking guy who sounds like this.
SIMPSONS CHARACTER: I’ve spent my entire life doing nothing but collecting comic books. . . . Life well spent!
Easy talk coming from a cartoon character, I know. But there’s an element of revenge of the nerds here. Because comic book stores are hot. Unlike a lot of book retailers, comic stores have actually managed to increase their business the past couple of years. One of the ways they’ve done it is to become more than just stores. Meltdown Comics here in Los Angeles has a gallery space for art. It hosts special events to draw customers in, too. Like an open mic night this past Wednesday with stand-up comics talking about comics.
COMIC: Batman, he doesn’t really find much funny. And I don’t blame him. He’s been through a lot. I think the one thing that Batman would find funny, though, would be Superman jokes. . . .
I think a lot of the reason that people like performing here is, “Oh my god, I never thought I was going to be able to do this joke, and I can.”
MATT TODD: My name’s Matt Todd. I was looking for “War Heroes #1″ by Mark Millar and Tony Harris. I dropped $40. Yeah, this is the second trip of the day.
LINDA PINE: My name’s Linda Pine and I actually . . . I started buying comic books at places like head shops. And those are creepy places, if you’re a little girl. This place is like Nirvana if you’re a little girl.
CHRIS ROSA: Chris Rosa. The stores back, maybe 15-20 years ago, had more of a secret clubhouse quality to them which now is more of an open feel. You don’t need to know every member of the Avengers to be able to walk into a store.
PINE: Meltdown’s main customer base has disposable income now. The people who come to a store like this would rather have these things than a Lexus.
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Best Short Story: “Mr. Wonderful,” by Dan Clowes, serialized in New York Times Sunday Magazine
Best Single Issue (or One-Shot): Justice League of America #11: “Walls,” by Brad Meltzer and Gene Ha (DC)
Best Continuing Series: Y: The Last Man, by Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, and Jose Marzan, Jr. (Vertigo/DC)
Best Limited Series:The Umbrella Academy, by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá (Dark Horse)
Best New Series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, by Joss Whedon, Brian K. Vaughan, Georges Jeanty, and Andy Owens (Dark Horse)
Best Publication for Kids: Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 and Mouse Guard: Winter 1152, by David Petersen (Archaia)
Best Publication for Teens: Laika, by Nick Abadzis (First Second)
Best Humor Publication: Perry Bible Fellowship: The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories, by Nicholas Gurewitch (Dark Horse)
Best Anthology: 5, by Gabriel Bá, Becky Cloonan, Fabio Moon, Vasilis Lolos, and Rafael Grampa (self-published)
Best Digital Comic: Sugarshock!, by Joss Whedon and Fabio Moon,
Best Reality-Based Work: Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow, by James Sturm and Rich Tommaso (Center for Cartoon Studies/Hyperion)
Best Graphic Album—New: Exit Wounds, by Rutu Modan (Drawn & Quarterly)
Best Graphic Album—Reprint: Mouse Guard: Fall 1152, by David Petersen (Archaia)
Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Strips: Complete Terry and the Pirates, vol. 1, by Milton Caniff (IDW)
Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Books: I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets! by Fletcher Hanks (Fantagraphics)
Best U.S. Edition of International Material: I Killed Adolf Hitler, by Jason (Fantagraphics)
According to a report from PC World, your newest way to read comic books may just be that Wii sitting in your living room.
Kadokawa, Kodansha, Shueisha and Shogakukan – the four largest manga publishers of Japan have formed a joint venture which will bring digital versions of comics to the console. The new venture, called “Librica” will deliver comics through the Wii Ware software channel to Wii users, according to PC World, and expansion to Ninentdo DS is planned.
The launch timing and pricing of Librica was not announced.
Clearly, the distribution, which has the ability to literally put comics in living rooms will play a role in the future of manga, both in its native Japan, and in the Unites States.
The timing of the announcement, although not officially heard around the floor at San Diego Comic-Con or currently seen to be noted at any panels of the weekend comes as digital distribution of comics is seen as both one of the challenges and promises of the future of comics.
In terms of American publishers, Marvel Comics currently has thousands of its comics available online via its Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited subscription program, and DC Comics’ material has recently been made available via Warner Premiere Motion Comics. Other publishers, such as Boom Studios offer comics online via their websites and other channels.
Large-scale distribution wise, Marvel’s Digital Comics are available through its website, and Warner Bros. has a distribution deal in place with Microsoft’s Xbox, with Batman: Mad Love having debuted on the service this week, while the first chapter of Watchmen is currently available as a free download on iTunes. Warners also has distribution deal in place with Verizon’s V Cast service.
No American publishers were named in the initial report, but if “Librica” works and succeeds in reaching a larger manga audience, it certainly seems that it would be an open door for Marvel, DC, or other publishers looking to reach a larger audience, as the Wii has just been named the top console system, worldwide, with 11 million consoles sold –something which would be clearly seen in publishers eyes as 11 million households with possibly more than one potential reader inside.
via: newsarama.com
They’ve both worked for DC Comics. They ate haggis together in Scotland. And on Saturday at Comic-Con International: San Diego, Grant Morrison and Gerard Way came together for a panel where they discussed “lo-fi weirdness” and took questions from the audience.
Way told the standing room only audience that Morrison had asked to do a panel together in the past. “I was so honored; he was my hero,” Way said. But the My Chemical Romance singer and former DC intern thought he should publish a comic first.
And has he ever. Morrison congratulated Way on the success of The Umbrella Academy, which took home an Eisner Award Friday night.
Way said that the Eisner award “absolutely” meant more to him than a Grammy Award, which has eluded the singer and his band. “I don’t really know what a Grammy means anymore, but I know what an Eisner means,” Way said.
“I’m gonna try for a Grammy next,” Morrison joked. “I can sing.”
Getting back to the idea for the panel, Way said Morrison coined the term lo-fi weirdness in an interview about six or seven years ago. Way said that inspired him to create The Umbrella Academy.
So what did Morrison mean by the term lo-fi weirdness? The Final Crisis writer said that as the new century began, he thought the internet was opening up new possibilities for creativity.
“The whole internet thing was allowing music to be made by anyone and comics to be made by anyone,” he said. At the same time, however, Hollywood was becoming very interested in comic books. “Movies were starting to fixate on comics and steal all our stuff.”
So Morrison thought comics should fight back. “So I figured the best way to fight back was to make comics even more bizarre, because the one thing comics can do is weirdness and strangeness and surrealism, and they do that better than movies.”
He added, “I think we just need more weird shit, to be honest, on this planet.”
Way said he read the interview like it was a call to arms. He was already a big fan of Morrison’s previous work, particularly the Doom Patrol, which he said was “50 years ahead of its time, and there’s still nothing like it today.” So he took Morrison’s words to heart as he created his own work.
One of the themes that both men touched on throughout the panel was the idea of creating comics because you want to create comics, rather than creating something that can be adapted into a film down the line “You don’t write it for the film,” Way said. “You dictate it, not them,” meaning Hollywood.
Morrison added that many comics nowadays were “cheesy pitch documents for movies that were never going to get made. We really want comics to be comics.”
Morrison also said he thought the world was starting to change in regards to the types of stories people want to read.
“People are getting a little fed up with the last few years of the war on terror,” he said. “Soldiers as heroes and soldiers as superheroes … Y’know, we all love soldiers, God bless them, those guys have a hard job to do, but I’ve had enough of the soldier as a hero, the fetishized soldier.”
He said those types of stories grew out of the Sept. 11 attacks, and it’s time to start telling new stories that give some hope for the future. “Right now there’s not a lot of hope for the future, or so it seems, but that’s only because we’re telling ourselves really shitty stories about soldiers killing each other,” Morrison said.
When they opened the floor to questions, a fan said he never read The Umbrella Academy and wanted to know what it was about. After joking that it was about gay cowboys with umbrellas, Way said it was a post-modern superhero story. “Nothing about it looks like superheroes.”
Morrison called it “the X-Men for cool people.” Scott Allie, the book’s editor, told another Dark Horse employee to “write that down.”
Another audience member asked if any Umbrella Academy art or animation would be incorporated into My Chemical Romance’s stage show. Way said he wanted to keep the band and his comics separate. Allie added that while they used the band name in some of the early advertising, they would be getting away from that in the future.
However, he added, “I’m also proud of being in that band. So it was cool to give interviews for My Chemical Romance and get asked those questions, and it was cool to give comic interviews and get asked My Chemical Romance questions.” He said it all comes from the same source.
Way also said that there were elements from My Chemical Romance’s concept album “The Black Parade” in his original pitch for The Umbrella Academy, but he took those out when he decided to use them in his music.
Another fan asked Morrison if he’d ever consider an Invisibles movie.
“Of course,” he said, but he’d want to write it himself rather than letting some “Hollywood nutjob” do it. “If you have ideas, you want to get them to as many people as possible,” he said.
Way said everyone in the room probably had some sort of dream or aspiration, and as long as it was pure and came from the heart, it would be special. He encouraged any potential creators to not think about the video game or the movie.
“You gotta remember in the entire history of the universe … you’re the only ‘you’ that has ever existed and ever will exist,” Morrison said. “… there’s nobody in existence who is you, and no one can ever see the world the way you see it and can tell the rest of us how it looks. And it might be so different and so beautiful that it changes everything.”
Another fan complimented Way on the fact that The Umbrella Academy read like it had a rich back story, even though not all of it was revealed in the comic. Way said he tried to create the illusion that a back story existed, but said a lot of it isn’t planned out yet.
“The comic is a bit arrogant,” he said. “It assumes you’ve read previous issues” that don’t exist. He said he didn’t start with the origin story because “there’s no real origin.” He later added that he thinks super hero movies that start with the origin are boring, that people understand what a superhero is and don’t need to see it.
Morrison then said he’d been watching the movie Zorro recently, and that Zorro didn’t have an origin story – “he just pops up and starts fighting.” Allie added that you don’t really need to know the origin to know a character.
Both Morrison and Way talked about how they related to their characters. Morrison, for instance, shaved his head and plunged himself “into the world of the occult” when working on Invisibles. Way said when he first saw Morrison while interning at DC, it was like seeing King Mob walking through the halls.
Way, meanwhile, said he dresses like he lives in The Umbrella Academy universe when working on the book.
When asked where his inspiration for his work came from, Way noted Wes Anderson films, City of Lost Children and David Lynch. He also sighted Morrison’s work, as well as “getting clean.” He said he’s been off drugs for more than four years. “I discovered I was way crazier sober than I ever was on drugs,” he joked.
In terms of writing an established character, Way said it was appealing to him. While he said he’s been talking to people about it, he couldn’t say anything yet. He added that Umbrella Academy and Dark Horse would always be his “home base,” though. “I’ll never take Umbrella Academy for granted,” he said.
When asked if Way and Morrison had thought about collaborating on something, Way said they almost made a My Chemical Romance video together, for the song “Momma” off of “The Black Parade.” Morrison was going to play the devil. Some of their ideas for the video had the band being chased by wolves at one point, Liza Minnelli playing the Virgin Mary and Morrison as the devil yelling in Way’s face.
Unfortunately, the video was never made.
via:newsarama.com
As announced in the “DC Nation: One Weekend Later” panel on Sunday at San Diego Comic-Con, and exclusive video on Newsarama , Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert will team in January of 2009 for a Batman story entitled, “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?”
The slide announcing the project and team was met with loud applause at the panel, and while seeing Gaiman return to comics is a big deal, for DC fans, the announcement is something of a bigger deal.
Why? The title – it’s an obvious homage/reference to 1986’s “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” written by Alan Moore, with art by Curt Swan, George Perez and Kurt Schaffenberger. The two issue story, which spanned Superman and Action Comics was a loving tribute by Moore to Superman, and is easily among Superman fans top five all time Superman stories.
Essentially, Moore’s story closed the chapter on an entire age of Superman, ending the character’s Silver Age continuity in preparation for the reboot helmed by John Byrne. Is history going to repeat itself in Gotham City?
Newsarama caught up with Dan DiDio just after the DC Nation panel for a few quick questions.
Newsarama: Dan, obviously the title is a reference to Alan Moore’s Superman story, “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” Are there parallels between this story and that one?
Dan DiDio: There are a number of parallels to that. There’s a very particular reason why we call it that, and that information will be coming out later on, but with this, we wanted to get someone of that particular stature to tell this story, a story that will really define the years of Batman’s life.
NRAMA: How did you get Neil to sign on for this project? With his novels and film careers going full tilt, he has pulled back on his comic work a lot lately…
DD: Neil and I have been talking for several years, and I’ve been trying to find something for him in the DC Universe, and as you said, he’s been rather busy lately, but we always kept the conversation going. I kept on pitching him projects and ideas with the hope that one would really just electrify him and pull him in, and I believe this is the one, and he is really bringing it all to the story.
NRAMA: And it’s also a re-teaming of Andy Kubert with Neil for the first time since 1602 at Marvel…
DD: Right. One of the first things that Andy wanted to do when he came to DC was to work with Neil again. We’ve been talking about different things for a while now, and I’m really happy we were able to put them on something like this together. I think it’s going to bring out the best from both of them,
NRAMA: What format will the project take?
DD: Two issues in January – one issue of Batman and one of Detective Comics. Both slightly oversized.
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