On his MySpace blog, Brian K. Vaughan reveals he’s doing the reverse commute:

Sorry I’ve been so coy about these rumors, but I always like to wait until the contracts have been signed and the “first trimester” has been survived until I talk about stuff.

But yes, inexplicably, I’ve been hired as an Executive Story Editor by the fantastic television show LOST. As I’m neither an executive nor an editor, this is really just a fancy Hollywood way of saying that I’ve joined the writing staff.

I can’t talk about much more than that, so I implore you to please stop asking me what the island is, who the Others are, how Matthew Fox smells, etc. Still, I will say that I’m insanely honored to join such an amazing group of writers (some of their new scripts I’ve been lucky enough to read are destined to become the best episodes of the series), and I’m very grateful to Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse for having so much faith in me.

And no, I’m absolutely not leaving comics. There are a lot of Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina fans at the show, so everyone has been great about leaving me just enough time to work on those books, and even some new ones, including an upcoming four-issue stint on that Runaways guy Joss Whedon’s “eighth season” of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER over at Dark Horse. Stay tuned for news on the all-important creator-owned front, as well.

I’ve learned more about the creative process in two weeks inside the Lost writers’ room than I did in four (very rewarding) years at NYU’s film school, so hopefully, this new challenge will push me to become a stronger writer and help my work to evolve.

Mostly, I just don’t want to screw up a show that I love.

Marvel has released a media blitz in advance of the February 7th release of the first issue of DARK TOWER, the Stephen King-inspired mini-series. First came the exciting news that King will be a Guest of Honor at the 2007 New York Comic-Con:

World Fantasy Award-winning writer Stephen King, long acknowledged as the master of modern horror, will appear as a Guest of Honor at New York Comic Con taking place February 23-25, 2007. King will join a special panel hosted by Joe Quesada, Editor In Chief of Marvel Entertainment, Inc. on Saturday, February 24, 2007 to discuss the ground-breaking new comic book series adapted from his magnum opus, The Dark Tower.

“We are absolutely ecstatic that Stephen King will be attending the February 2007 New York Comic Con,” said Ruwan Jayatilleke, Director of Development, Marvel Publishing. “His appearance will be a huge thrill for Dark Tower enthusiasts, comic book fans, and convention-goers alike. Marvel is extremely grateful for this opportunity—and aims to make this convention a landmark event for all of graphic fiction storytelling.”

Then there was this interview in USA TODAY:

Q: How much involvement on the plot and dialogue with writers Peter David and Robin Furth did you have on The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born? And did you work with artist Jae Lee on the look and feel of the books? King: “I had a lot of involvement in casting the course of the narrative, and in fact suggested that these illustrated narratives should focus on Roland’s young manhood. Beyond that, I wanted to give a lot of the control over to these other imaginations, which I had come to respect. “The first few issues, I should add, are almost entirely drawn from the books. Readers will recognize them and hopefully be as thrilled as I am. And I know Jae Lee’s work well enough to trust him entirely. It pays off. His work has never been better.”

Finally, there is a Dark Tower mini-site with a video (which we can’t get to work on our primitive equipment) a blog by editor Nicole Boose, and much more.

EDIT: Okay the trailer is working it just took about 10 minutes to load.

§ Len Wein is blogging!. Good god, is there no END to this?

§ I have no idea who this guy is, but some of what he says is kinda interesting—or infuriating..

§ Del Toro to direct H.P. Lovecraft?

§ AMC is remaking the Prisoner. Man that is smart!

You may have seen all this already, but there are some pics from Stardust online. You’ll recall this is the film version of the Neil Gaiman novel, illustrated by Charles Vess. Michelle Pfeiffer in a cute little goat-cart! Man, that is nice.

Isn’t there a new graphic novel edition of the story by Gaiman and P. Craig Russell in the works? We saw that somewhere in our link farm but lost it. Okay sorry we are stupid. It is CORALINE that Gaiman and Russell are adapting, and Neil himself has the link, where Russell has post THREE PAGES OF ART from the book, which will be published by HarperCollins. They have requested no copying so just click on to see the lovely pages.

This is, like, hilarious

(Link sent by the Witz)

Via Indymag:

Don’t miss Gabrielle Bell signing her latest graphic novel LUCKY in NYC at Jim Hanley’s Universe (4 West 33rd St) on Wednesday, December 20, 2006 from 6:00-8:00PM. LUCKY is published by Canadian publisher Drawn & Quarterly.

PRAISE FOR LUCKY:
“Lucky” is also a startling achievement: a coming-of-age tale — from hipster Williamsburg, no less — told without a whisper of irony.”–Boston Globe

“With a selective eye for detail and a knack for capturing tart dialogue, Bell squeezes joy from an underemployed and under-realized 20-something existence. A-”–Washington Post

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I’ve been away for a bit, for reasons explained here, and I’ll be blogging lightly the rest of the week, but after that will probably be basically offline until 2007. I’ll post some surprises to keep you busy, but let’s face it, it’s the quiet time of year. Which doesn’t mean it can’t be the shittiest time of the year. My grandfather died 15 years ago on January 2. My uncle Joel died on December 16th of this year.

I’ve been lucky enough to meet a lot of famous and talented people, but despite that some of the most amazing people on earth are the ones who don’t end up in history books, the people who just touch our lives and teach us how to live. My grandfather taught me to enjoy the flight of a hawk in a gray winter sky, the carving of a sassafras knot, and much else. Joel taught me to smell the notes of blackberry in a glass of red wine, and to worry about the safety of others without letting it ruin what you were trying to protect.

These people don’t get written up in history books, so they live on in how we remember them and how we live our lives. This holiday, I encourage you all to remember these people, to pass on the memories. Their lessons were well taught.

Found on YouTube via The Comics Journal Message board, two cartoons from Michael Kupperman which aired on Saturday Night Live as part of the TV Funhouse series. First up…the amazing Pablo Picasso!

Next…CAPTAIN MARGINAL, a dead on Shazam parody.

Due to unforseen circumstances, no regular posting today.

Over at the Flight Comics Blog Kazu Kibuishi is previewing the cover to FLIGHT 4, and there is an announcement of an event:

This piece, along with others by Chris Appelhans, Khang Le and Israel Sanchez just to name a few, will be on display at the Imaginary Spaces gallery show at Nucleus, which opens this Saturday the 16th, from 7-11 PM. Be sure to check it out, and don’t forget to visit the Nucleus site for the full details.

Kazu has also contributed a piece to the White Elephant Show (of which Rad Sechrist is also a part of), which opens to the public on the 16th at Mauve, running from 4-11 PM. All proceeds from the sales of the original artwork on display will be donated to the Children’s Hospital of Orange County. Full details here.

Bigger image in the link.

Over at his blog Kibuishi also talks about the difficulty of maintaining focus while working on a long graphic novel project:

As a reader of graphic novels, it always bugs me that most long form comics read like they are the first draft of the material, when in fact they often are. And for good reason. As a creator of graphic novels, I am exhausted by my selfish reader tendencies by having to redraw page after page to smooth out the reading experience. I can see why, over the years, creators often compromised their stories under the pressures of deadlines and satiating the public’s thirst for the material. For the large amounts of time and energy a creator must spend to create the work, the reader only gets a small handful of information to chew on. Sometimes, working out the details are not an option. This is the pickle that the readers and creators of comics seem to always find themselves in. Readers are very forgiving of the story elements in a comic book. This is unlike other media, like films or novels, where audiences often criticize stories with sharpened talons, and only the very best and most appealing works make their way through the gauntlet. Is it because comics readers understand how difficult the process is and are simply happy to have reading material? Or is it simply that we have low expectations of the medium, as opposed to extremely high ones for films and novels?

We got some heat in the comments for our post yesterday on ComicSpace and their unscientific demographics. Now before you get all riled, that was our way of pointing out what we call the “5-to1″ ratio. Back in the day when comics were in the shitter, we often observed that if everyone trying desperately to break IN to comics would just sign up five of their friends to READ comics, we’d have enough readers for a healthy business, and their odds of getting work would increase dramatically.

Even to this day, comics seem to be one of the most participatory mediums out there. Everyone wants to join in the fun, glamour and excitement of being a COMICS CREATOR, and not just be content to stay at home and be a comics READER. That’s okay. Whatever the comics medium has going for it, this passionate need to be included is probably one of the best parts. Folks are always telling us how welcoming the comics field is — for instance, we remember Douglas Rushkoff saying how friendly and inviting he found it compared to other fields he’d been in.

Of course, we still need to keep the bar set a little high, but that’s a whole other post.

And for the record, we think ComicSpace is nifty, even if we were poking a bit of fun. It is still rolling out, and in all honesty, we have no time to devote much time to yet another website, but surely when we have a moment one of these days we’ll getting around to responding to some of the very kind comments folks have been leaving for us there, and hooking up with some old friends.

While speculation over the internal metrics of Wizard’s recent reorg remains just that — speculative — we ran across an item that adds a little more fuel to the brew. We were watching a 60 Minutes report on mixed martial arts (Go Renzo!) when it was mentioned in passing that the IFL, the fight league co-owned by Wizard’s Gareb Shamus, has recently gone public. According to the report, the IFL is valued at $140 million. The stock got a nice bump after the highly viewed and very favorable 60 Minutes piece aired, and the league has been expanding with more teams. With MMA popularity still on the upswing, the IFL seems to have been a success in its first year. And what does this all mean for Wizard? We have absolutely no idea.

Having escaped a dangerous ceiling collapse, Evan Dorkin updates his fans with various projects, including the possibility of more SHIN-CHAN:

Sarah and I have begun “punch-up” work on a new batch of episodes for the Shin-Chan anime from Funimation. It seems the test run on the Adult Swim went over well, I am assuming the goal is to get more episodes on the air, but we haven’t heard anything official, so, you haven’t either. Whatever the case, we’re going to work on these until they tell us to stop. If we get anything more concrete than that, and it’s okay to talk about it, we’ll let you know.

The Bart Simpson comic script I’m working on is now a 15-pager instead of a 12-pager. Thanks, Bongo, you folks are awesome. Honest.

The Punk Rock Holocaust DVD cover/poster illo is just about finished. Lots of characters and severed heads meant a lot of coloring headaches for Sarah. She is awesome, too. Honest.

The link also includes an image from TYRONE’S INFERNO, the Dorkin/Dyer animation project in development for Adult Swim.

Clifford Meth sent us this news a few days ago, and we lost it in our inbox, but it is certainly worth repeating: a new hardcover tribute to the late Dave Cockrum, to be released in February. eth was kind enough to send us a cover rough, as well.

Aardwolf Publishing will release The Uncanny Dave Cockrum Hardcover in February, 2007. This beautiful, prestige edition will include all of the articles and art tributes originally collected in the now-sold-out Uncanny Dave Cockrum Tribute (2004) but completely overhauled. In addition, new artists (like George Perez) and writers (Tom Spurgeon) have been added to the project, as well as more than 20 pages of never-before-seen Dave Cockrum art.

Participants on the project include: Neal Adams, Sergio Aragones, Dick Ayers, Mark Bagley, Randy Bowen, Travis Charist, Chris Claremont, Gene Colan, Peter David, Alan Davis, Diane Duane, Will Eisner, Harlan Ellison, Mark Evanier, Neil Gaiman, Dave Gibbons, Mike Grell, Tony Isabella, Joe Kubert, Bill Messner-Loebs, Steve Lieber, Jim Lee, Stan Lee, Pablo Marcus, Bob McLeod, Alan Moore, Jerry Ordway, Tom Palmer, George Perez, Joe Quesada, Robin Riggs, John Romita Sr., Joe Rubinstein, Marie Severin, Dave Sim, Walter and Louise Simonson, Tom Spurgeon, Roy Thomas, Herb Trimpe, Billy Tucci, Len Wein, and Marv Wolfman

“Dave and Paty were looking forward to this book coming out in February and we’re sticking to our commitment,�? said Clifford Meth, Cockrum’s close friend and editor of the collection. “I’m sorry Dave won’t get to hold the final product in his hands but his family will.�?

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We know all Beat readers were gladdened by the heart warming story of the world’s tallest man, 7 foot 8 inch Bao Xishun, getting called in to save some gluttonous dolphins. The finny victims couldn’t believe they ate the whole things after ingesting dangerous plastic shards, but the brave Mongolian herdsman was able to use his super-long arms to reach right into the dolphin tummies and retrieve the shards!

Wonderful as it is, this story has nothing to do with comics, it’s true. The fact that one of our regulars thought to email it to us, while readers let all sorts of comics related news go by shows that we are perhaps drifting off message here at Stately Beat Manor. But luckily, Jeff Mason has saved the day by finding this wonderful picture of Bao:

You see? It is comics related after all!

What the–

Doctor Leonard Samson, better known as “Doc Samson,�? strides down the corridor and into the classroom, massive muscles rippling beneath his skin-tight red costume. He sports a long mane of hair, just like his biblical namesake (except the real Samson’s hair wasn’t green, presumably).

Today, Doc Samson, taking a welcome break from his crime fighting, is visiting the children at his old Hebrew school to tell them all about Chanukah. It’s a very special occasion, so Doc Samson’s wearing a navy kippa along with his skin-tight red costume. The teacher, an aging bubbe named Mrs. Klein, proudly introduces our colorful hero: “I was his teacher here at the yeshiva when he was a very little boy.�?

Rabbi Simcha Weinstein, author of Up, Up and Oy Vey!: How Jewish History, Culture and Values Shaped the Comic Book Superhero explains how superheroes can make the story of Chanukah come alive and sets the stage for a radio show you may want to listen for:

I just contributed to a Public Radio International special called “Chanukah: A Time for Superheroes,�? set to air during the holiday season. Writers Michael (Kavalier and Clay) Chabon, Neil (Sandman) Gaiman, Stan (Spider-Man) Lee and The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Goldberg explore the legends of ancient and modern Israel that have shaped today’s Jewish psyche. The show also features an audio voyage to Joe (Sgt. Rock) Kubert’s cartooning school in New Jersey, where Irwin (the Green Lantern) Hasen teaches, and visits with Joker creator Jerry Robinson. These genre celebrities recount the story of Chanukah through their own experiences. And sure enough, many of them cite biblical archetypes as the inspiration for their comic book creations.

Radar Online has a pretty funny feature on the most dangerous toys of all time, including a 50s mini-lab that included radioactive material — Hello, Putin! — and several classics like Jarts and the PlastiGoop Thing-Maker. We had great fun with the latter toxic toy, back in the days when children were tough enough to master high temperature plastics extrusion and consider it play. One item on the list did puzzle us, however, the dreaded mini-hammock which is claimed to have strangled or nearly strangled dozens of kids.

The culprit was a missing set of “spreader bars,” supports meant to keep the hammock open when it was “at ease.” Unfortunately, children seeking to spend an afternoon like Gilligan became entangled in the net and strangled to death. That’s what happens when you spend $4 on a hammock.

This is really odd to us, because we had one of those spreader-free hammocks — in fact we spent many an afternoon in one from the 1976-82 period during our youth in Somerville, NJ. (The set-up was almost exactly like the one pictured — two trees, a picket fence, the works.) It was in this contraption that we enjoyed many a long comic book reading orgy, a pile of Defenders or Master of Kung Fu at the ready, with perhaps a chocolate dreamsicle as an added treat. It was an idyllic time, our very own “golden Age” of comics, and to learn that we were moments from panicky entrapment all that time is alarming, to say the least. Or perhaps we should merely be more proud of the natural athleticism and dexterity which our survival suggests. God, we were tough then!

[Thanks to Franklin for the link.]

The heat is off in my building again.

You may have noticed that the sidebar is slowly reappearing thanks to the efforts of our intern Cindy. It is still a work in progress, and we have to fix some of the links, but it’s better than nothing.

Thanks, Cindy!

PS: Hooray, Ennio Morricone! You go, boy!

Just pinch Masi Oka, the nerd turned actor on HEROES. Now he has been nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance as Hiro Nakamura, super powered otaku. While Oka was the sole acting nom for the show, HEROES was nominated for Best Drama, as were LOST and 24. The Globe nomination were otherwise fairly nerd-free, although Guillermo del Toro’s highly-awaited (by us anyway) Pan’s Labyrinth, got a nod for Best Foriegn Language Film. Ben Affleck got a Best Supporting nod for playing Superman George Reeves in HOLLYWOODLAND. The noms for best Animated Film included Cars, Happy Feet and Monster House.

Spiegelman and Mouly visit the new Penn Plaza Borders tonight:

Who: Pulitzer Prize-winning comic artist, editor and author, Art Spiegelman. Spiegelman, the creator of the graphic novel, “Maus,” will be joined by Publisher, Co-Founder of Raw Books & Graphics and Arts Editor for The New Yorker magazine, Francoise Mouly.

What: Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly sign copies of “Big Fat Little Lit,” a book containing comic strips from three best-selling comic collections edited by Spiegelman and Mouly: “Little Lit: Once Upon a Time,” “Little Lit: Strange Stories for Strange Kids,” and “Little Lit: It Was a Dark and Silly Night.”

When: Thursday, Dec. 14 at 6:30 p.m. Where: Borders - Penn Plaza 2 Penn Plaza New York, NY 10121 (212) 244-1814

Why: Committed to enriching lives through entertainment and knowledge, Borders offers customers the opportunity to meet their favorite authors and musicians in a friendly and welcoming atmosphere. This event gives longtime fans of Spiegelman and Mouly the chance to get a copy of “The Big Fat Little Lit” signed, in time for the holiday season.

Tonight, in Tribeca The Tribeca Performing Arts Center presents Shooting War’s Anthony Lappé and Dan Goldman, along with other graphic novel luminaries like Marisa Acocella Marchetto ( Cancer Vixen) and James Romberger (Seven Miles a Second ) who will discuss their work in comics. The evening will be moderated by Calvin Reid, senior news editor of Publishers Weekly and co-editor of PW Comics Week. It starts at 7 and tickets are $5.

Tribeca Performing Arts Center at BMCC
199 Chambers St. NYC (btwn. Greenwich and West St.)

Also, Goldman has a nice interview in today’s Gothamist.

Who are your artistic inspirations? When did you first learn to draw, and how has your work evolved since then? I’ve been drawing since I was a kid, and it’s been a constant source of trouble and frustration. The first time I was spanked was for taking markers to my bedroom walls. I used to make these vicious fictional bio-comics of my weirdo 7th grade geography teacher . . . until someone passed my notebook to him while I was in the bathroom; that was worth two weeks indoor suspension. Slipping subliminal messages into editorial comics for my high school newspaper nearly got me kicked out as well. I hated my artwork for most of my twenties and found I was doing less and less of it; writing’s always been easier and more satisfying for me . . . words don’t have line weight, y’know? Making the jump from drawing on paper to drawing on screen with digital tools opened up whole new worlds for me, almost instantly. I remember taking my first Wacom tablet home and plugging it into Illustrator around 3 a.m.; I got up to refill my coffee and that the sun had risen . . . and I’d drawn the best thing I’d ever done before.

ComicSpace the new social networking site for comics folks, has added user defined tags. The result is a quick demographic snapshot of who is Out There.

writer (918)
artist (736)
fan (223)
illustrator (219)
creator (199)
cartoonist (174)
reader (140)
inker (133)
webcomic (130)
publisher (130)
colorist (114)
manga artist (101)
comic artist (95)
editor (91)
penciller (86)
blogger (83)
penciler (77)
humor (71)
self-publisher (70)
manga (68)
webcomics (64)
designer (63)
graphic designer (61)
reviewer (60)
fantasy (58)
collector (55)
letterer (54)
geek (51)
webcomic artist (47)
horror (40)

People can add as many as 10 tags to their profile, so this isn’t a true demographic breakdown, but by any count creators outnumber “readers” and “fans” by an alarming ratio. There are more publishers than editors, too, and that explains a lot.

BTW, we are all for ComicSpace, and it’s fun to see everyone gathered together, but so far its social networking tools remain very bare bones. Then again, you could say that about most comics fans, so maybe it’s all symbolic.

The recently started blogs of Paul Pope and Eddie Campbell are enough to make you think they have taken on new careers. Both are prodigious bloggers. Certainly both are among the most well-defined personas in the comics world, although as long-time self-publishing graphic novelists, they share more of a common background than you might think.

Pope has been blogging about all sorts of stuff — Balzac’s views on Rossini’s coffee intake, European cartoonists and his own “disturbing sex dreams”. Today he looked at Alex Toth’s infamous critique of Steve Rude, and mentioned his own correspondence with Toth.

He would redraw my own panel compositions on the backs of the pages to illustrate how he would’ve laid out a particular scene, how it could all be done so much better and more economically. Each bloodied stack of xeroxes was accompanied by a long, urgent handwritten letter saying in substance what he is saying here to Steve– THINK BETTER, WORK HARDER, YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS!

These letters were like rocket fuel, or a telescope. Each time I read and re-read them I kept discovering new dimentions of meaning. Each one came in a plain white envelope with a funny little duck scribbled on the side, usually with a blue felt-tip pen. After about three years of this, Toth abruptly told me at the end of one of his letters, literally, “Okay, kid! I’ve had a bellyful of you! I’ve done all I can. Come back when you have something worth showing me!” And that was it.

I never wrote him or sent him anything again. I know he’s seen my work over the years but as far as his parting words go, nothing I have done has lived up to that challenge.

Campbell’s blog is more discursive, a good yarn spun from the everyday. Lots of groovy pictures like this one of him, a magenta-haireed Melinda Gebbie and some comics writer. The other day he explained how he was drawing FROM HELL while babysitting his young daughter, Hayley, who set up her own drawing table next to his.

The child had shown her talents quite early. During a visit from my old friend Daniel Grey esq. the child sought to emulate the attractive illustrations upon his arms, by copying in blue inks upon her own arms the hearts and roses, the proclamations of love and other mementoes. The wife, on returning from her day of drudgery and finding the two men full of alcoholic beverages, charged the errant husband with having drawn upon the child for his own misguided amusement. “I don’t like you drawing on Hayley while I’m at work!” were the specifics of her accusation. And I narrate this epidsode in order to show the level of ability in the child’s work, that it should have passed so easily for that of the father.

Certainly you could do worse than to make Pope and Campbell regular breakfast companions in the RSS feed of life.