Oddly enough is you Google “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, the Beat is the fourth result. That explains the comment explosion currently going on. Heck, we should give the people more for their money. We’re going to let it run its course.

We’ve been stealing liberally from Cartoon Brew lately, and here’s another one, KAMUC, an online comic by Dreamworks animator/story artist/designer Gabriele Pennacchioli. VERY nice.

Pennacchioli has been posting a panel a day since July, so you have to start at the bottom and work your way up.

As y’all probably heard, Alison Bechdel’s FUN HOME, which has been named Graphic Novel of the Year by many people, was selected by Time Magazine as the top BOOK of the year. It’s a stunning achievement for Bechdel, and a nice little cherry on top for the year which saw our graphic literature accepted, respected and even read. What’s nicest about it is that Bechdel has been plying her craft for a long time, to a loyal (and sizable) audience, but with only the barest minimum of recognition from comics’ “mainstream.” Turns out she knew what she was doing all along.

Gay People’s Chronicle catches up with Bechdel for her reaction to the honor:

“I don’t know quite what to say about the Time magazine thing,” she admitted. “I guess I’m a bit speechless.”

“I’m very happy about it, obviously,” Bechdel continued. “It’s a great thing for queer stories, and for graphic novels, to get that kind of mainstream recognition.”

She is, however, still surprised.

“I’m still a bit flummoxed by it. I mean, Fun Home is an odd little book,” she concluded. “Go figure.”

Another kerfluffle we haven’t really had a chance to investigate is the Archie redesign. Basically the other day Archie announced they would be trying a LIMITED experiment with an updated look for the Riverdale gang, one designed by artist Stephen Butler. The Wall Street Journal investigates with an article whose title is taken from a Newsarama poster:Gee Whiz! ‘Archie’ Gets a New Look; Does Betty Resemble an Olsen Twin? Sadly we don’t make enough money to subscribe to the WSJ, but we can quote the lede:

After 65 years, Archie, Betty, Veronica and friends are, for better or worse, growing up.

The publisher of “Archie” comics plans to experiment with changing the way the characters look to make them appear more sophisticated, and the news has already drawn heat from loyalists in Web forums who have seen the new incarnations.

Reaction around the web has best been summed up as the blog cliche, mouth throwing up.

Now we like Butler just fine — we may have even hired him back when we worked at Disney, or something. Archie made a tryout page of Butler’s pencils available to us, but stressed that they were not perfect — the girls are too thin. But it is the look they were going for.

Click for a larger version.

Now, we don’t know how Archie sales are these days, or whether the franchise has any appeal to today’s younglings. Certainly, the romantic misadventures of high school students in comic form have great appeal. (*cough* manga *cough*). This tryout page is a little more manga-esque than the cover more widely circulated, but the storytelling has nothing to do with manga. Certainly it’s clean, comforting cartooning. Will it appeal to kids? It’s only a four issue test, so we’ll all be watching closely.

We were tooling around MySpace when we ran across a bulletin from Rich Tommaso about the upcoming graphic novel bio of legendary pitcher Satchel Paige.

Yes, it was going to be delayed a year, but now Hyperion Books has decided to release James Sturm’s and Rich Tommaso’s “Satchel Paige Striking Out Jim Crow” this summer!– I am very excited about this news and I hope to have some advance copies ready for MoCCA this year!

Tommaso posts a promo piece as his picture. As we recall, Hyperion is also putting out a Harry Houdini bio by James Strum and Nick Bertozzi. We haven’t heard too much about this series of books of late, but we’ll probably hear more as 2007 ramps up, and they are certainly something to look forward to.

§ Don McPherson’s Eye on Comics review site posts his 2006 Glass Eye Awards. Interesting picks, like GRAY HORSES for best OGN.

§The Dove: The Evolution Of Beauty has been making the rounds showing how makeup, lighting and a hell of a lot of Photoshop can make an ordinary woman a teeny glamour gal. According to the above story, the model is a cartoonist named Stephanie Betts. We couldn’t find ay online reference to her work, but what the hell.

Betts, a cartoonist, not a professional model, was reluctant to pose. But after seeing the great distortion, going from Stephanie to super glamour girl, she’s proud she joined the campaign.

Betts says, “It’s a powerful message that sends young girls to not believe everything they see. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a size 1, because the models were popular. Now it’s sickly images of beauty. We need to change that and this campaign will help.”

We never had a chance to comment on PULLBOX, the new comics downloading site started by Devil’s Due’s Josh Blaylock. Basically, you pay a buck to download a comics. Devil’s Due, IDW and Jim Mahfood are making some of their comics available through it. Certainly it’s a ludicrously simple idea and we’re surprised no one thought of it before. We want to give Blaylock a shout out here. He’s really been one of the few comics publishers to push the needle in recent years. He hasn’t always succeeded, but at least he’s trying new things. Anyway, here’s a press release on a gift card initiative, another simple but sound idea.

Hot on the heels of the PULLBOXONLINE.COM announcement. Pull Box announces the availability of gift cards in multiple denominations, perfect for the last minute emergency holiday gift!

In addition, PULLBOXONLINE.COM announces the addition of the “Desperadoes” series from IDW by Jeff Mariotte and John Cassaday as well as the soon to be added creator owned series “Night Club” by Mike Norton and Mike Baron.

As mentioned in the Wall Street Journal, as well as comic book industry online journals such as Newsarama.com and Comicbookresources.com, PULLBOXONLINE is perfect for new readers unaccustomed to perusing comic stores, not to mention the more traditional comic book fan, desiring to sample new comics at a discounted cost, or tired of chasing down missing or out of print issues.

The site currently holds a fantastic roster of titles including the top selling Family Guy graphic novel, Hack/Slash, and Voltron from Devil’s Due Publishing, Zombies: Feast and CVO from IDW Publishing, Jim Mahfood’s GRRL Scouts and Stupid Comics, and many more exciting products.

Surf PULLBOX ONLINE today and see just how easy it is!

If The Scotsman is to be believed, a graphic novel of Robert Louis Stevenson’s KIDNAPPED is all the rage, and it’s being given away free to encourage reading.

IT is one of the best-loved stories to come out of Scotland. Kidnapped has captivated generations with its gripping tale of high drama in the Highlands and the Capital.

Now, Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic is taking centre stage in Edinburgh’s first ever city reading campaign, which will see more than 15,000 copies of the book given away in the new year.

Writer Alan Grant and artist Cam Kennedy, the comic book creators best known for their work on Judge Dredd and Batman, have joined forces to transform the 19th-century blockbuster into a stunning graphic novel.

According to the story, a “Scottish language version” of the wee bookie is also being given away. Och, but we’d love ta see that, unless it’s just Alan Grant reading it aloud.

This unauthorized still from PIRATES OF THE CARIVBEAN 3 show Cap’n Jack Sparrow and his dad, played by Keith Richards cavorting with a little person. In a Rolling Stones t-shirt. Lame. The pic has been pulled down from several sites, but here ya go.

First look at the Silver Surfer from the upcoming Fantastic Four movie, via USA Today

With computer-generated imagery techniques similar to those used to create Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, the slippery Surfer, voiced by Doug Jones, “will look somewhere between gun metal and fluid metallics so you can see the body motion, the breathing, the muscle tone, the mood,” says Marvel Studios CEO Avi Arad. The Surfer’s mood is key to the story. After striking a deal with the evil Galactus to save his planet, the once-human Surfer wreaks havoc throughout the cosmos. “He is a highly emotional being, trapped inside fluid metal,” Arad says.

Just because. This Filipinocomic based movie has gotten a good rating, and apparently that leads to savings!

Thursday, ipina-review naman ang pelikula sa Cinema Evaluation Board (CEB) for a possible tax rebate. Sixteen board members reviewed the movie. Fourteen graded it an A, two gave it a B. Almost unanimously, Zsazsa Zaturnnah Ze Moveeh passed with an A grade—meaning, it gets a 100% tax rebate!

Yay!

Cartoon Brew points us to Screen Novelties News which has a harrowing tale of the restoration of the original Rankin/Bass puppets used to make RuDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER.

The puppets were in bad shape, having been used as Christmas decorations/playthings for the last 30-odd years in the home of a former Rankin/Bass employee. Santa’s legs were both broken, as was Rudolph’s neck(!). Rudolph’s nose bulb was torn out and the cavity had been stuffed with red candle wax. All of the lead armature wires inside the puppets were corroding and half of Santa’s mustache was missing. We even heard tales of a photo of Rudolph sticking his head out of a bowl of Christmas candy. There was a lot of cleanup and restoration to be done.

One wonders at a world in which these cultural icons could be found sitting in someone’s house, serving candy canes, but that was then. Many photos of the restoration process in the blog.

Many catch up links today as we hit the road, and doubtless most of you already have as well.

Book Seven has a name. Tremble.

UPDATE: As for what we know and theories about Book Seven, here from MuggleNet is a list of things that WILL happen in DEALTHLY HALLOWS:

Character Information

* We will find out something “incredibly important” about Lily Potter
* We will find out who R.A.B. is
* We will discover more about Dumbledore’s past
* We will discover where Snape’s loyalties lie.
* Something will be revealed about Petunia Dursley, although it will not be that she is a Squib
* Viktor Krum will return (World Book Day, 2004 interview)
* We will see a reappearance of Dolores Umbridge - “It’s too much fun to torture her not to have another little bit more before I finish.” (MuggleNet/Leaky Interview)
* JKR has said, “There is a character who does manage, in desperate circumstances, to do magic quite late in life, but that is very rare…”

Plot Information

* Harry will face Voldemort for the final time
* Harry will be attempting to find and destroy Voldemort’s remaining Horcruxes
* Harry will return to the Dursleys’ during the school vacation, but the magical protection Dumbledore arranged will expire on his 17th birthday when he comes of age
* Harry will visit Godric’s Hollow
* There will be a reappearance of the two-way mirror
* We will see the wedding of Fleur and Bill Weasley
* The fact that Harry “has his mother’s eyes” will prove to be an important plot point
* At least one character will die

Other

* The last word is expected to be “scar,” but may change
* We will finally learn the full reason why some people become ghosts when they die and others don’t
* The final chapter, which has already been written, will detail what happens to the characters that survive
* There will be no more Quidditch matches

Web cartoon collectives are all the rage, and a new one has just launched with 12 of the best cartoonists around, who all happen to be…women.

Women’s Work: a brand-new website for a brand-new collective of women who work in and around the visual and literary industries.

Leigh Dragoon
Shaenon Garrity
Rachel Hartman
Lea Hernandez
Lisa Jonté
Karen Krajenbrink
Layla Lawlor
Karen Luk
Carla Speed McNeil
Rachel Nabors
Leia Weathington
Stevie Wilson

We are creators and storytellers. We’ve banded together and built ourselves a fort in our internet back yard and we invite you to come see. We have a database in which all creative types might take part, and a forum in which anyone might join the conversation.

Art before housework. In a hundred years, no one’s going to care how clean your floors were.

They also have some ads here, here and here. We’ve reproduced one which you can click on for a larger version.

Say what you will 2006 was clearly a huge year for women in comics. The most acclaimed graphic novel of the year was by a woman, and there were easily a dozen top notch works by women, with dozens more that were just good old comics. It’s revolutionary just how non-revulationary female cartoonists have become.

Women’s Work directly confronts the idea of women breaking through traditional role models to pursue careers in the arts. Some people are sure to object, although to what, we’re not sure. In the meantime, it’s a good place to keep up with 12 very good cartooners.

You may have noticed that we had to take down our thoughts on 300 yesterday, due to…oh, stuff. It’s kind of cool because when you have to take stuff down you’re in the blogging elite. Anyway, it turns out we may be involved in some other V.V. exciting 300-related activities. More to come. We will say that it looked spectacular, and was the bone-crunching, head-slicing, Spartan-shouting extravaganza they all say. And DDGB was very, very kingly.

In the meantime, we’re a little sad that none of our Beat Spies thought to remind us about all the cool 300 merch coming out. We can’t be EVERYWHERE you know!

First, as we have mentioned in casual convo with some pals in the past, there WILL be a 300 video game. If ever a movie was made for a video game, it was this, believe you me. GameSpy has a preview of 300: March to Glory:

300: March to Glory doesn’t just celebrate ancient head-popping, but also the upcoming film of the same name. But unlike many modern movie-to-game adaptations, 300 won’t try to recreate the movie scene-for-scene. It’ll draw upon the film (as well as the Frank Miller graphic novel) for inspiration and general style, but will focus more on gameplay than on rehashing every minor plot point. Given the number of ham-fisted movie games that are out there, any sort of variation on the old routine is welcome. Sometimes game designers come up with better level ideas than screenwriters.

In even more exciting (for The Beat) news, Neca will be releasing 300 TOYS., er, action figures. The figures include Immortal, Queen Gorgo, Ephialtes and, of course, Leonidas. We hear the figure’s midsection doubles as a washboard! Not that you can tell from this photo. COME ON, MOVE YOUR GODDAM SHIELD.

What? A book about comics we never heard of? Have we not been paying attention? In this case it’s Invaders From the North, a history of Canadian comics by John Bell. Hour, review the tome:

Indeed, in addition to painting a picture of a rich and exciting Canadian comics scene in terms of the more pulpy, popular comics of yore (he focuses on the historical importance of Superman co-creator Joe Shuster, for example), Bell also draws attention to contemporary artists who deserve a spotlight. Among his focuses are Chester Brown, who forevermore expanded the definition of graphic novels with his bio-comic Louis Riel, as well as notable Montrealers like Rick Trembles, Julie Doucet and Bernie Mireault.

Now here’s a comic book we bet you haven’t heard of, but based on this still, wouldn’t you like to? It seems the Phillipines are about to be rocked by Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah, a film based on a comic by Carlos Vergara about a gay man who turns into a voluptuous woman warrior.

ZSA ZSA ZATURNNAH ZE MOVEEH!
Cast: Zsa Zsa Padilla, Pops Fernandez, Rustom Padilla, Alfred Vargas, Chokoleit, Say Alonzo, Pauleen Luna, Christian Vasquez, Giselle Sanchez, and Glaiza de Castro
Director: Joel Lamangan
Writer: Dinno Erece
Production: Regal Entertainment
Plot: This revolves around the life of a gay parlor queen Ada (Rustom) who gulps a mysterious stone from the sky. After which, he turns into a red-haired heroine named Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah (played by Zsa Zsa). She defends the truth, justice, and liberty against all the menace of the world like zombies, giant frog and the Amazonistas from Planet X, led by Queen Femina (Pops).
Box-Office Potential: This year’s dark horse, we will not be surprised if it lands among the topgrossers.
Awards Prediction: Zsa Zsa’s role as a superhero is the strongest among the best actress contenders in this year’s filmfest entries. Pops and Rustom-who plays a gay role for the first time after coming out-are also potential winners. With a director like Joel, this film is most likely one of this year’s best works. Its special effects could also win in the technical categories.

As high concept as this is, we peg the odds of an American remake as…dissappointingly low.

Heroes4Heroes is launching a non-profit to supply our troops with comics and other entertainment. The effort kicked off at Wizard World Texas.

H4H takes donations of media material that they will directly pass on to active military personnel and raises funds to purchase, transport and distribute the donations.

- A direct-to-Iraq shipment needs to be filled! The 2nd Battalion 8th Cavalry has 42 soldiers that H4H is currently building care packets for. The members of this Regiment have specifically requested magazines that cover hunting, fishing, guns and men’s topics (Maxim Magazine was mentioned by name). H4H wants to fill specific requests, as well give additional entertainment material that will surprise our men and women in uniform, so please give what you can.

- H4H is in the final stages of putting together a program to provide Xbox 360s for USO stations! An anonymous supporter of our troops has made it possible for H4H to implement a program that helps the USO do their great work. While the contribution is a wonderful gift for our returning troops that are staying here at home, H4H is requesting Xbox 360 accessories (extra controllers, headsets, adaptors, etc.) and games to properly outfit this charity package. The USO station in Dallas, TX will be the first to receive the Xbox 360 charity pack and we will roll the program out nationally through out next year.

- Comic book artists are helping in a big way! Tone Rodriguez, Rick Hoberg and Steve Bennett have all donated outstanding original art that will be up for auction at the H4H site soon. Here’s a huge “Thank you” to them as well as Brock Rizy, Kristian Donaldson, Benjamin Hall, Tom Kurzanski, Cal Slayton, Kody Chamberlain, Cheeks and Marc Wolfe who all donated their time and art at the live art show benefit in November. The art show was a complete success, reached every goal and was supported by Agg Productions with supplies donated by Zeus Comics. H4H encourages any artists that believe in the H4H effort to give any available original art for auction.

(more…)

Over at our other day job, this week’s PW Comics Week presented a Critic’s Poll of the year’s best graphic novels. With over 50 titles picked by individual critics, it shows that there was no dearth of riches this year. We also broke out resident manga maven Kai-Ming Cha’s special manga and manhwa lists and that’s where the furore began. We don’t have the time to link to everything, just go here to MangaBlog and start clicking and you’ll figure it out. Basically, most blogomanga maniacs found the list very very …idiosyncratic, shall we say. Much puzzlement was also voiced over Cha’s #1 pick, The Building Opposite by Vanyda. Published by Fanfare/Ponent/Mon, many have never even seen a copy, and some even question its existence. David Welsh investigates:

I’ve seen a couple of reviews of it, but I can’t remember if the reviewers mentioned if the publisher had provided a complimentary copy or if they’d picked it up in a store. Apparently it’s one of the 10 best manga of 2006, and given Fanfare/Ponent Mon’s track record, that’s certainly plausible, but where can I buy it, exactly? The English version isn’t listed at Amazon or Barnes and Noble (though both offer the Spanish version), and there’s no joy at Buy.Com either.

Later the mystery is partially cracked:

Update: At MangaBlog, Brigid tracks down some sightings of this mysterious, reclusive book. In the comments below this post, Patrick provides visual confirmation of the Nessie of nouvelle manga’s presence at The Beguiling in Toronto. Makes sense. I ended up ordering Walking Man and Kinderbook from that fine establishment.

Come to think of it, we’ve never seen a copy of a Ponent Mon book, either. Apparently all the office copies get snatched up. Guess they are THAT good.

Personally speaking, Kai-Ming knows a heck of a lot more about manga than we do, and any list that gets people talking is a good thing.

spotted on the Variety job board:

The Gig:
TOKYOPOP is currently looking to hire a TV/Film Development Associate to work from its Los Angeles based office. The primary functions of this position are:

• Participate in early development of manga properties to deliver creative input that would facilitate transition from book-based graphic novel into film, television and/or integrated media.
• Extract the essence of the Company’s manga properties, properly reflecting such in written documents such as treatments, synopses, pitches, outlines, concepts, and other appropriate development material.
• Identify programming opportunities based on current cultural trends, scheduling opportunities and positioning titles to meet the needs of studio and network buyers, creating materials (such as written, visual and multimedia presentations) reflecting that positioning.
• Develop, foster, and maintain close relationships with a broad spectrum of members of the creative community (agents, managers, writers, casting agents, actors, directors, and studio executives), pro-actively meeting with such members of the creative community to potentially package the Company’s intellectual properties with such talent attached.
• Collaborate with editorial and marketing team members in the creation of presentations, including website development and title specific sales materials.
• Heavy reading, coverage, and involvement with new manga properties that are under consideration for development and distribution by the Company.
• Work with members of the executive team to attend presentations, participate in tactical and strategic discussions and generally assist the Company’s goals as needed and directed.

Call us nuts, but we just love these stories where an Italian wins an Iranian cartoon contest and so on. It shows the whole friggin’ world is in a CRAZY MAD LOVE AFFAIR with COMICS! This time Turkish cartoonist Mehmet Arslan has won the Grand Prize in the 28th Yomiuri International Cartoon Contest.. It was Arslan’s eighth shot at the brass ring — he just couldn’t give up on his dream!

The 44-year-old Istanbul resident will receive the award, and prize money of 2 million yen, at a ceremony at The Yomiuri Shimbun’s head office in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, on Jan. 31.

Japanese cartoonist Tai Tanabe, 37, of Kyoto, was chosen as the winner of the Hidezo Kondo Prize, with prize money of 1.5 million yen, while another Japanese cartoonist, Toshi Hiko, 60, of Tokyo, won the Gold Prize in the Theme Section, with prize money of 500,000 yen.

The Daily Yomiuri will carry a special section, featuring some of the award-winning cartoons on Jan. 3.

The link has the complete list of winners, which includes ‘tooners from Iran, Myanmar, China and other cartoon mad nations.

� 24 Hour Comics day is celebrated in MALAYSIA.

Gan described the event as �-�super successful, [with a] mix of different levels of cartoonists - professionals (American comics & local comic houses) and non-professionals (newspaper reporters, home maker, food operator, students, lecturers. IT, etc)

�-�[The] quality of work [was], not surprisingly, above average. Cedko has always believed that Malaysians are a very talented bunch.�-?

� We at the Beat support the celebration of timeless traditions like mistletoe, plum pudding, having to eat grandma’s inedible cookies, baseball, and so on, and the Quad-Cities Online upholds yet another much-loved tradition with this headline: Graphic novels: not your father�-?s comic book. Ah, yes, the memories.

� The Onion AV Club advises a young woman on how to avoid comic book cliches:

On the genre side, I’d like to see more mystery and horror, two pulp art forms that comics have traditionally handled well, and that are underrepresented currently. I’d also like to see more graphic novels that aspire to be literary, and not mere post-adolescent soap operas and melodramas. Too many of the non-fantastic “mature” graphic novels rely on disease, abuse, cultural identity crises, or just a generalized youthful ennui. All of these are fair subjects for literature�-�graphic or not�-�but it’s starting to seem like cartoonists don’t think a story is worthy unless it’s either about some really heavy topic, or panders to an audience of romantically challenged undergrads by obsessing over the minutiae of modern relationships. If Alan Moore had ever finished Big Numbers, I’d have a clear example of what I’d like to see more of.

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Thanks for the many kind words from so many of you. They are much appreciated. And now…back to comic book covers!