No time to write anything ourselves but the interesting links keep coming.

Lea Hernandez has launched a MANSTREAM site, with such things as the MANSTREAM AWARDS:

Award: STRATEGIC PHALLUS AWARD (HALL OF FAME)
Winner: Cannon God Exxaxion
Publisher: Dark Horse
Artist: Keiichi Sonada

Sometimes a space bike is just a space bike- even when it’s poking a girl in the bazoonogas.

What makes this picture a Manstream classic is how expertly the artist has captured the viewer’s line of sight. A recent scientific eyetracking study reveals that men tend to look at male crotches in photographs. Sonada obviously anticipated this, composing the picture so that the viewer’s eye would zero in on the guy’s crotch, travel the length of his, um, ‘bike’, and zero in on the boobyprize. Now that’s Manstream science at work!

Tamora Pierce, YA author who wrote a WHITE TIGER mini series and has clashed with the comics world before in her blog, did not like the HEROES FOR HIRE cover:

Three supposedly strong, war-like women, strung up by their wrists, in chains, the emblem of the slave (paging John Norman…); dazed and helpless (someone on scans_daily said it would be hilarious if they were awake and mad; I think it would be powerful and redemptive); bared practically to their navels (but no nipple showing because nurturing organs would be dirty in this screwed-up pervo-catering censorship universe) as nameless Things with glowing eyes (and probably elongated barbed dicks) slaver in the background–and phallic tentacles reach up to their crotches. Misty’s clothes are ripped; she’s bleeding. Do her eyes and Colleen’s glimmer with tears? Colleen’s mouth hangs open–to receive a tentacle?

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A Toronto Gay lifetysle website runs an interesting preview of the Anime North convention by looking at yaoi fans through a gay perspective:

But Kat Williams, a Toronto-based anime artist and author who organized queer panels at the convention for several years beginning in 2000, says she’s dismayed by the lack of queer content created specifically for queers at recent Anime North gatherings.

“[Last year’s Yaoi North] was pretty much straight girls squealing about their favourite [gay anime] couples,” says Williams.

Lai makes no bones about the genre’s objectification of queer men. “But yaoi men are as ridiculous as gay porn men,” she says.

Nor is she worried about the lack of gay activism at the conference. “We don’t discourage people being proud and out or talking about issues like that… [but] this is a hobby, an interest. Our purview is discussing cartoons. We’re not saving lives.”

Schwartz is all for straight anime lovers’ queer obsessions. “These people are our straight allies. They’re the ones who are with us at gay pride marches, and if they relate to gay media, then that makes me happy bringing them into the gay community.”

The creator of that Jonas Moore thing has more to say about GNs that go direct to the sponsor. This story wouldn’t be so noteworthy if this kind of “advertorial” weren’t becoming more and more common.

To finance “The Many Worlds of Jonas Moore,” Webster decided to eschew the traditional routes of approaching advertisers through media agencies. He instead wrote directly to the CEOs of companies he thought would fit in with his film.

“They way I cut deal is by going straight to global brand directors, and I never cut a deal with a media agency. They don’t understand the digital space at all,” Webster said. “My sense of the online community is that there is a real sense of antagonism to the big people, the massive advertising agencies and media agencies that are just watching what’s happening online and copying it and taking it to their clients and branding it up and persuading them this is something they should be doing.”

Webster said he sent “hundreds and hundreds of letters” to brand executives about his project and eventually signed on Triumph Motorcycles as a sponsor. As part of the deal, Triumph is listed as the sponsor with placement of its logos. Salmon’s Jonas Moore character also rides a Triumph while wearing the company’s clothing.

“It’s not rocket science, if you’re doing something like Jonas Moore, which is a digital James Bond type of film, then the brands are very clear if they fit in with that. McDonalds isn’t going to fit in with it,” Webster said.

Okay, will someone PLEASE publish COMIC FOUNDRY?

Iris Print, publisher of the Lambda Literary Award finalist novel “A Strong and Sudden Thaw”, announced today its plans to publish the first North American boys’ love magazine, BL Twist.

The bimonthly print magazine will feature articles, reviews, and news related to the boys’ love genre (stories of male/male romance, also known as yaoi or slash), but the magazine’s main feature is 100+ pages of serialized comics (manga) and fiction in each issue, with each comic appearing in the form of a 20-25 page “episode” per issue. All stories will contain a strong element of male/male romance in every episode, but the magazine’s content will remain appropriate for a 16 and up readership.

The magazine is the first of its kind, not only for its subject matter, but also for its focus on Original English-Language (OEL) manga. “This is an exciting time for boys’ love,” said Kellie Lynch, publisher of BL Twist. “Yaoi manga’s explosive popularity in the U.S. has given rise to a wide range of talented Western creators. We’re pleased to be able to showcase some of that talent.”

A full-length preview issue of BL Twist will be published in October 2007, and will be available at this year’s Yaoi-con in San Francisco. Issue 1 of BL Twist will be published in January 2008.

The magazine’s web site launched today at www.bltwist.com.

About Iris Print - Iris Print is a publisher of boys’ love novels, short stories, and graphic novels, created by and for Western readers. The company was founded in February 2006, and currently has 5 books in print. Further details, including a detailed FAQ about the boys’ love genre, can be found at www.boyslovebooks.com.

Women of Comics II (WOC II) is a two-day event, taking place on Saturday, June 9th and Sunday June 10th as part of the 2007 Paradise Toronto Comicon. Sponsored by All New Comics Inc., WOC II is designed to showcase female talent and creativity in what has traditionally been a male-dominated industry, the symposium will feature signings, portfolio reviews, panel discussions, and direct interaction with the artists themselves.

This year will feature a spotlight on local Toronto imprint Kiss Machine Presents, dedicated to publishing “graphic novellas” by top Canadian talent. Founded in 2005 by editor Emily Pohl-Weary, Kiss Machine Presents was launched with “Violet Miranda: Girl Pirate” by Pohl-Weary and Willow Dawson, and also features “Skim” (winner of a special Doug Wright award and soon to be a graphic novel by Groundwood/House of Anansi press) by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki, and “Mendacity” by Tamara Faith Berger and Sophie Cossette.

An offshoot of Kiss Machine, a Toronto-based zine that focuses on art, literary culture, and political views, the purpose for Kiss Machine Presents was different, but no less important to publisher, Emily Pohl-Weary. “In comics it’s hard to find good female characters, and they all look like Barbie,” she laughs. “I wanted to create a fun, sexy, woman-run comics line that was a meeting place for innovative, unusual talents”.

Next up, at the end of June 2007, is Summer Ink: An Illustrated Book of Letters, by Golda Fried (Governor General’s Award Finalist for Nellcott is my Darling) and Vesna Mostovac (animator and Foolish Girl creator). Summer Ink represents two months’ worth of correspondence between the long-time friends. On the pages, sticky with tears, cigarette ash, beer, coffee, ketchup and bacon grease, they document their trials and tribulations in the world of love and heartbreak, paying close attention to the songs spinning in the background. Each letter comes alive with graphics Vesna has drawn and collaged, based on images present in the writers’ minds as they wrote the letter.

Learn more about this dynamic line at the Women of Comics Kiss Machine Presents panel, taking place on Saturday, June 9th at 4:30 PM featuring guests Emily Pohl-Weary, Willow Dawson, Vesna Mostovac and Mariko Tamaki.

The 5th Annual Paradise Toronto Comicon runs from June 8-10th in Hall C at the Direct Energy Centre on the CNE Grounds.

Cinematical LOVE

Watching Persepolis — an animated adaptation of Marjane Satrapi’s best-selling graphic novel memoir — I didn’t just feel excited intellectually and artistically; I actually felt emotionally engaged, wrung-out, exhilarated, saddened and touched by Satrapi’s story of life as a young woman coming of age in pre-revolutionary Iran and after. Persepolis is a fresh, moving, out-of-the-gate masterpiece — a work of animation that manages to be artistically brilliant, politically rich, morally engaging and emotionally overwhelming.

Kirk Honycutt…middling.

The drawings themselves are plain, generalized and almost entirely in black-and-white. Perhaps Satrapi and Paronnaud feared that if the animation were more vital and realistic, the film would become too cartoonish and vulgar. Perhaps they’re right. But as animation, “Persepolis” is fairly uninteresting, its characters’ facial features not conveying much individuality. Reuters Pictures Photo Editors Choice: Best pictures from the last 24 hours. View Slideshow Satrapi’s dramatic young life so far has been anything but uninteresting. The film should attract those interested in women’s issues and politics in specialty venues. But Sony Pictures Classics will have to market hard to reach out to adult moviegoers beyond those categories in North America.

§ CNN looks at Marvel’s balance sheet, and Spider-Man has not been the cash cow you might expect.

Spider-Man, as any comic book fan knows, isn’t the most powerful superhero. He can’t push planets around like DC Comics’ Superman (owned by Time Warner (Charts, Fortune 500), parent of Fortune and CNNMoney.com). He’s just an insecure teenager who, after his encounter with a radioactive spider, can climb walls and swing around on a web. But Marvel’s wisecracking web-slinger is Hollywood’s most bankable superhero. Sony’s “Spider-Man” and “Spider-Man 2″ have made $3 billion from ticket sales, DVDs, and TV revenue globally. And “Spider-Man 3″ had a record $151.1 million U.S. opening weekend.

You’d think David Maisel, recently named chairman of Marvel Studios, the publisher’s Hollywood division, would be eager to talk about Spider-Man’s success, but he’s not. Why? Marvel (Charts) won’t disclose its profits from the first two Spider-Man films, but according to a Lehman Brothers analysis, Marvel’s combined take was only $62 million.

Spider-Man isn’t the only Marvel star to make lots of money for somebody else. Fox’s “Fantastic Four,” released in 2005, has grossed $624 million. Marvel only made $13 million. (A sequel, “Rise of the Silver Surfer,” opens on June 15.) The three X-Men movies, also produced by News Corp.’s (Charts, Fortune 500) Fox, grossed a combined $2 billion. But Marvel’s total share was $26 million.

§ Rapper Master P is BLACK SUPAMAN.

Well, it may not be dignified, but when Master P’s first movie as producer and star arrives on DVD August 7, it’s at least unlikely that it will contain a lot of profanity. THE ADVENTURES OF BLACK SUPAMAN stars P as the hero of the hood in New Orleans of 2069. The film co-stars Tony Cox, Chris Kennedy and Michael Blackson. No plot details are revealed on the movie’s website, and no word yet on whether DC Comics and Warner Bros. will come down hard on P for infringing on their copyrights, though the “parody defense” might be the strategy in place.

Dept. of You Don’t Say?: Students learn while creating comic books

Pioneering female bowler treasures comics appearance.

I am not kidding…I am too busy to spend much time on this women in comics thing today or tomorrow. And with Fleet Week beginning…my week just got crazier.

In the meantime, a few people wrote to get my thoughts on last night’s LOST finale, and here are some brief observations. SPOILER! I MEAN IT! SPOILERS IN THE JUMP!
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Wow! Radical! And Blatant! And it’s another one of those Hollywood Studio development deals. Some very familiar names and faces involved however.

Fresh out of a first look deal with Dark Horse Comics, producer and renowned rock photographer Barry Levine has joined forces with Intandem Films who are raising a $100m film fund and representing a slate of comic book adaptations from Radical Publishing.

Levine’s Los Angeles-based film production entity Blatant Pictures will produce the genre-led product with wide ancillary market potential from the comic books, mass-market book publishing, toys, television, to films and videogames.

Levine’s recent high-end comic book to film adaptations which he shepherded at Dark Horse include Rex Mundi written by Jim Uhls (Fight Club) as a vehicle for Johnny Depp/Infinitum-Nihil to produce and potentially star, currently being fast-tracked by Warner Brothers/IEG and Universal Pictures repped R.I.P.D. to be directed by Dave Dobkin (Wedding Crashers) and produced by Sony-based Neil Moritz (I Am Legend, xXx) and Barry Levine’s mentor Mike Richardson (The Mask, Hellboy).

Already being developed through Radical Publishing is a large slate of projects. Two of the graphic novel properties have recently been picked up by Rogue; Blood on The Tracks and Hercules and a deal is also in place for a graphic novel trilogy created by Vin Diesel through his interactive label Tigon studios.

The first two projects to be developed through the Intandem, Blatant/Radical Partnership are the fantasy action approx. $35m Legends, written and illustrated by Nick Percival (2000AD) to be helmed by Patrick Tatopoulous and his Tatopoulous studios (The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Underworld, Independence Day, Stargate) and $25m Medieval, Blatant/Radical’s Wild Bunch of the 11th Century, based on the script by Peter Fedorenko and the graphic novel by Ian Edginton (Spiderman, Terminator) starring Til Schwieger (Laura Croft Tomb Raider, Barfuss) artwork by world renowned John Bolton (Batman, XMen).

LA manager David Schiff is packaging consultant on the projects .

Radical Publishing will also be introducing several comic-book licences to the marketplace. The first of which will be Intandem’s GallowWalker starring Wesley Snipes which will debut with Radical Publishing’s full slate of comic-book properties at San Diego Comic Con during July 2007.

Intandem’s $100m raise is steaming ahead, enforced by the recently struck relationship with SOCOM8 s.a (international commodities trading and real estate development company) who are one of the key investors in Blatant/Radical.

David Elliott (previously publisher of Tundra, Penthouse, Atomeka and Thrill-House and whose creative credits include Heavy Metal, Marvel, DC and Image) is Co-publisher and Editor in chief of Blatant/Radical.

The Artist responds to my Stan Sakai posting yesterday and obliquely comments on much that we have been discussing.

It reminds me of my con-sketch anecdote. A guy asks for a sketch and I say ‘Only if you’re buying a book.’ he says, ‘Okay, what’s the cheapest book you have?’.
“I’m selling the Bacchus Color Special at cover price, three bucks.” ‘Will you draw a sketch if I buy one of those?”
“yes.” I sigh.
So he pulls out his pad. As I’m starting in, “Can you make it a drawing of me?”
So now he’s making things difficult and I’m beginning to feel restless. But I start sketching the generality of his physiognomy. He butts in again: “Can you make it of me, but have me being stabbed to death by a London prostitute?”
Now I have to angle the thing so that he’s falling over.
“And make the prostitute Marie Kelly.”
I’m starting to feel pissed off now. I finish the job as quickly as I can.
At the last moment a thought occurs to me. I execute it.
As Marie Kelly murderously brings down that blade and the blood spurts, I give her a word balloon. In it she is saying: “Take that, you cheap bastard!” and I make sure it has the guy’s name on it.
He seems pleased and thanks me.

Over on Newsarama, a man goes on the record, and it’s Adam Hughes talking about his designs for the Mary Jane statue. First, the secret origin:

My idea was pretty simple, I thought – classic Mary Jane, from the days when Peter and MJ were boyfriend and girlfriend, and she’s found his Spider-Man costume in the laundry basket. It’s the weird little secret that couples have from each other that gets discovered. For me, the gag was that this was the moment when Mary Jane found out that her boyfriend is Spider-Man. She’s not doing his laundry, because I don’t know anybody that does laundry in a basket on a table. Even if you don’t have a washing machine, you’d do the laundry in the sink. This was MJ spotting something in the basket, pulling it out, and doing the “What’s this?” with a look back to Peter over her shoulder.

NRAMA: Still – why this pose and this look?

AH: Well, Mary Jane isn’t a superhero, so you can’t really do anything with her that’s not some version of her just standing there. On top of that, they’ve already done a fantastic statue of her first appearance of “Face it Tiger, you just hit the jackpot!” So – with that gone, what do you do with her? My thought was to do something that hearkens back to the good old days of the Brown and Bigelow pinup calendars, which is why I put her in the straight-leg bent over pose. It was supposed to be her pulling the shirt out of the laundry basket with a knowing look over her shoulder. Somebody also made a big deal that she was conspicuously not wearing her wedding ring. It’s the iconic look, not the current status, which changes daily. Mary Jane, for the majority of her life as a character, was Peter Parker’s girlfriends. Mary Jane’s life as Mrs. Peter Parker has been the minority of her years. I was going for the iconic look, the iconic era MJ.

Hughes’s original sketch for the scene is reproduced at Just Say AH!, and if it’s not something I would hang in my 11-year-old daughter’s room, it’s still a cute little sketch, with a more successful execution of the idea than the statue. The statue, to be honest, is just not capable of reflecting all the emotions of the situation; telling an entire story with a single image is hard. Maybe Norman Rockwell could have done it, but Sideshow didn’t, IMHO.

Hughes comes off as a nice guy genuinely baffled by the uproar — I suppose this is understandable, although whatever “PC” is has become as conventient a scapegoat as any in matters of this kind. The real money quote is at the end:

NRAMA: Has this response led to any changes in your design or release plans?

AH: We’re not changing any of our plans on the subsequent statues, but we’ve gone through and looked at the other designs to see if we’re doing something that could be misconstrued as sexist or misogynistic.

NRAMA: But isn’t that a slippery slope? Isn’t that in a way going back toward self-censorship in order not to offend a segment of the audience who the product’s not aimed at who are going to be offended by a thousand differing degrees?

AH: It’s not self-censorship, but rather, we’re flirting with self-awareness. Self-censorship would be us looking at the plans for Aunt May cleaning Uncle Ben’s toilet in a teddy for the next statute, and then change that to her doing something assertive, and not doing chores. It’s self-awareness if we look at the designs and see something on the next statue that could possibly bring about the same amount of negative attention from the same people, so that we can prepare for the possible repercussions, whether legitimate or otherwise.

“Flirting with self-awareness.” What a great phrase. I think that’s all we were asking for all along.

BTW, I’ve received a few oblique communications that hint that TPTB are not as oblivious to the issues being raised over the last few days as their public silence would indicate. Developing.

Amid international controversy, Marjane Satrapi talks animated PERSEPOLIS at Cannes where it debuted to good reviews the other day.

“I never saw it as a cartoon,” the artist said in an interview. The artwork had to be in black and white, and the characters are never cute. There are none of the usual special effects - cars don’t talk, Spidermen don’t fly. But it is funny, imaginative, and sad, bringing the famous books to life.

At Cannes, the animated film in black and white may not be viewed with pleasure by all. There has been word that the Iranian authorities are not pleased.

The visual diaries depict an Iranian girl’s life, growing up under several regimes and revolutions, the rise of the mullahs, the imposition of the veil. It is a dark past, a hard story.

But it is also a movie of surprises: there’s the striking art work, but also the tempo, fantasy, and drama, and the young author’s forceful point of view. The best thing is the sense of real lives - her parents, uncle, grandmother, friends and enemies - throbbing behind the images and voices.

BTW, we hear that Gena Rowlands, Catherine Deneuve, Kirsten Dunst, Iggy Pop, and Sean Penn are doing the voices for the English version, due out this fall from Sony Classics.

Fox News and other outlets report that the Japanese government is planing to give away a sort of Novel Prize to foriegn (non-Japanese) comics arrtists:

The Japanese government announced Tuesday it will award its first “Nobel Prize of Manga” in July to comic-book artists living abroad. It’s a watershed moment for the island nation, which experts say has been slow to recognize the graphic-novel — or “manga” — industry as an officially sanctioned economic powerhouse.

“It’s not Sony anymore, it’s manga,” said Alexandra Munroe, the senior curator of Asian art at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. “It’s a very strategic move by the government to kind of sanctify and legitimize an area of Japanese cultural production that has traditionally been — although economically a huge portion of Japan’s publishing industry — it has been officially a subculture.”

According to the piece, a committee of manga artists and publishers will release a list of the finalists for the prize on June 22. The winner and three runner-ups will travel to Japan on July 2 for a ceremony and a 10-day trip to meet with the manga industry. Sounds like OGM is too legit to quit.

Japanese artist Sana Takeda has gotten perhaps her biggest mainsteam exposure via her cover for HEROES FRO HIRE #13, but she has a website and its really worth a look. Obviously, some of her work has an erotic edge to it, but it’s equally obvious that she is versatile and talented. The cover to DRAIN #4 is above. This other piece we picked because the preview had a kitty.

Okay we just can’t leave this alone! It’s like a missing tooth!

People have variously suggested that this, this, this and this are all equal to the HEROES FOR HIRE cover. Discuss.

MSNBC story on Mary Jane, starring Danny Fingeroth.

Over at Comics in Context historian Peter Sanderson discusses his own taping for MSNBC:

At the end of my segment, the interviewer asserted that comics sales were in decline, and asked me if I thought that Marvel had “sexed up” Mary Jane in order to push the sales up. I detected an edge in her voice when she asked me this, which I interpreted as anger at Marvel for exploiting the character this way for profit. I responded that I didn’t think that the MJ maquette would have any effect on the comics sales, and that this statuette would primarily be sold to people who had already been reading Spider-Man comics for twenty years. (I could have said “horny aging fanboys,” but I restrained myself.) I sensed that my interviewer may have been disappointed in this answer.

Finally, just to show that we have nothing against big boobs in abstract, here is the Smigel/Kupperman TV Funhouse Big Boobed Einstein from SNL

News reports on yesterdays Hergé centennial:

“The eternal Herge,” newspaper Libre Belgique declared on its cover on Tuesday above a picture of Herge drawing his famous creation. “Thank you 100 times.”

Fans flocked to post offices across the country to get their hands on the limited edition stamps, featuring covers of every Tintin book and a portrait of Herge.

“I have known Tintin since I was very small. My parents had the whole collection. For me it is something special to come here and get the stamps,” said Tintin fan Xavier Albert.

And Josh Neufeld reports on Monday’s Hergé slideshow tribute, which we only caught half of but it was a lot of fun.

Yesterday’s Beauty Bar event, MC’d by Jesse Fuchs, was a terrific way to celebrate Georges Prosper Remi’s (aka Hergé) 100th birthday (which is actually today). A crowd of about 30 folks were treated to a great show, combining entertainment and information about the great Belgian cartoonist and creator of Tintin.

The evening got started by Jason Little, who put together a terrific multimedia PowerPoint show of the many dream sequences, hallucinations, and other surreal episodes from the Adventures of Tintin. It was a bizarre trip down memory lane, and a great reminder that Hergé, for all his reputation as an exact renderer and the creator of the “clear line” technique, was actually an inspired surrealist.

Next we had a movieoke-style presentation of Bob Sikoryak’s “The Lost Adventures of Tim-Tim: Prisoners of the Red Planet”, a dark but loving homage to Explorers on the Moon, with the voices of the various characters brought to life by Jesse Fuchs (Tintin), Stephin Merritt (Captain Haddock), Jason Little (Professor Calculus), and yours truly (Snowy).

Last week it was revealed that Left-Wing cartoonist Ted Rall had been on a police surveillance list prior to the 2004 Republican convention in New York City. Ralls talks more about it here.

Government agencies began spying on me shortly after 9/11. I have repeatedly suffered service interruptions–loud static, whispered voices, even outages–at the hands of a government whose laughably inept phone-tapping skills match its inability to respond to a hurricane or tornado. Finally, a security official at Verizon confirmed that my telephone had been tapped. “That’s already more than I should have told you,” he explained, requesting anonymity. “Under the Patriot Act we’re not allowed to inform our customers about intercepts.”

Eventually I was seeing my local Verizon repair guy, who was repeatedly being summoned to my home to restore service, more often than my best friend. So I was naturally suspicious when I caught an unfamiliar man, no uniform or badge, fiddling with the posts in my building’s phone box. “Who are you and what are you doing?” I demanded. The dude knocked me down and bolted out a door into an alley. Giving chase, I watched him drive off an unmarked white van with U.S. government plates.

Wonder what kind of intel are they getting? Future plotlines in Diesel Sweeties? (Rall signed the strip to a deal at United Media.) 1st garland credit unionhigh organizations accreditation for schools christianphd public online safety accreditedaccredited universities correspondence coursessong credits naturally acteared credit income 2007 tabledoctorate online accredited diplomaairline now card mile accept credit Map

Yesterday we linked to the sad story of someone who got a free sketch from Stan Sakai and then turned around and scribbled out the inscription with a big black marker and then tried to sell it on eBay. After the controversy, the listing was removed, but some of our correspondents shows us that this is far from an isolated practice, as this altered Jim Lee sketch that sold for $95 shows. Seriously, who would fall for this crap?

Michael Climek lays out the fun and games behind the Heath Ledger Joker reveal. A very appropriate campaign, and one that should be fun.

Many blogs have alluded to this Ben Towle post as evidence that MacGuffin, a graphic-novel heavy comics shop in Newport News, has closed down:

I received news earlier today from Newport News based illustrator Wade Mickley that MacGuffin: The Graphic Novel Bookshop, the amazing…uh, well… graphic novel bookshop–also in Newport News–is now closed. You can find my post from this holiday season about the store here, along with Wade’s comment from today.

While I’m saddened by this news (which I’m assuming is true, although obviously I’m just going on this one comment) because it means that a really great comics shop has closed, I find myself attaching a greater significance to this because MacGuffin–despite its 5 hour distance from me–represented a sort of “litmus test” of the idea that there really was an audience of “civilians” out there who could sustain a retail store specializing in graphic novels of interest to the same sort of general readership that sustains, for example, one’s local Borders store, as opposed to the specialized collector/fanboy clientele that supports the typical comic book store.

This news hasn’t been confirmed but the fact that owner Sam Hobart has not updated his blog in a month is not a good sign. Hopefully he’ll get back online and at least tell us what happened — Hobart’s voice was one of reason, and his observations are needed.

We’re pretty exhausted here at SBM. Not only are we putting the finishing touches on THE NIGHTMARE FACTORY graphic novel we’ve been editing in our space time, but this whole man vs. woman thing is surprisingly EXHAUSTING! Jeez louise, once you mention “boobs” you unleash a raging flood of bottled up angst and anxiety! We have one more essay planned, on female creators and a few other loose ends, but we’re going to rest up today and tend to other matters.

To relax, we did a little Google for DDGB and we’re terribly afraid that the 300 worldwide icon yadda yadda deal may have gone to his head. Not only has he gone from below-the-radar acting guy to tabloid hanging-out-with-porn–stars (Stormy Daniels? What kind of name is that???), banging-Naomi-Campbell guy, but he’s signing up for a kiddie movie produced by Walden Media called NIM’S ISLAND where he gets to play Abigail (Little Miss Sunshine) Breslin’s dad.

Based on the Wendy Orr children’s book of the same name, Nim’s Island concerns the resourceful daughter (Breslin) of a scientist (Butler) on a remote tropical island. When her father is lost at sea, she begins communicating through e-mail with the authoress of one of her favorite books (Jodie Foster) and, with distant coaching, begins to handle her difficulties on the island. It’s hard to think of two bigger recent breakout Hollywood stars than Butler and Breslin, so the idea of them battling together onscreen against greedy tour companies is rather intriguing.

Gerry, we know you are firmly committed to getting old and fat now, but missing dad? Seriously, with Oscar®-nominee Abigail on screen, no one is even going to LOOK at you! Ask Mel Gibson. And now you are not even going to be in WATCHMEN, so you can star in a Brian de Palma sequel. And whatever you do, don’t play He-Man!

And you need a STYLIST, fast, Tubby! Look at the way you showed up at Cannes…and that get-up on the right is what you wore to accept a LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD for looking like a piece of steel! We know you don’t drink any more, so you don’t even have the Paula Abdul excuse!

Oh and don’t bother going up on a rooftop and smoking a cigarette and looking all hot…you didn’t dress yourself! Gimme a break.

You used to be so COOL when you were OUR Gerry…now you are just…oh, never mind.

…Stormy Daniels…

Boy oh boy, you’d think I’d planned the timing of my look at women and comics to coincide with the solicitations, which, unbidden, contain such things as these:

Just another day at the office. Business as usual. Moving on. I should note that I actually like Adam Hughes’ covers for CATWOMAN — these are sexy but not demeaning, and we all know that Catwoman is not above using her attractiveness to get what she wants.

The winner for the week however comes from Marvel and it’s a beaut:

Great. There’s apparently some bound MALE team member tied up behind Black Cat, but why bother to show him in hentai bondage. Although I’d like to think this image of an octopus caressing a bound woman’s nipple was an homage to the great Hokusai [link NSFW], somehow I think that was not the intent. The repugnance against this cover has been widespread among both men and women, but pornographer Elin Winkler puts it best:

Now, as we all know, I publish pornographic comics. Not just tease comics or pinup comics or sexy comics- hardcore pornography. Poles & holes, money shots, manga-style spurting penii, cartoon boobies bouncing, etc. I am not ashamed of the adult comics my company publishes. This is because I try to be a responsible editor and I believe there should be adult comics out there with consensual sex, women enjoying themselves and not being treated as mere objects, couples in love who can’t keep their hands off each other, and the radical idea that sex, in all its forms, should be fun and pleasant and positive. This means it’s often difficult to find artists who understand these concepts, and we often have to reject stuff with very nice art that contains things like rape, snuff, extreme violence, and the like.

I looked at this cover for Heroes For Hire and realized that 1) it looks like it belongs on the cover of a porn comic, like Milk and 2) it’s a cover I wouldn’t even run on Milk, because the women are all obviously in an abused position. That was my initial reaction.

My second reaction was something along the lines of “holy shit, is that Misty Knight?!”

Holy shit indeed. Because you see, those bound and degraded women, one of them with some kind of white liquid dripping on her boobs, are the HEROES of HEROES FRO HIRE. That’s right. They are the protagonists, the instigators. The heroes. And I too weep for Misty Knight. That’s her to the left. Can you believe it? She’s wearing clothes. And standing up. Straight. And not tied up. And she’s got a gun. And she obviously knows how to USE it. And if you cross her, she will.

When the new HEROES FOR HIRE starring Misty Knight and Colleen Wing and Black Cat and a few others started in 2006, she looked like this (right.) Although she’s gotten a little less tough, and Cheryl Lynn has had a field day with her hairstyle, at least she’s wearing clothes and standing upright, etc.

In fact, when I was a teenaged girl reading comics, I wouldn’t have minded being Misty Knight. She was smart and tough and in control and had exciting adventures. AND she got to date dreamy Danny Rand, aka Iron Fist! What was not to like!

Now? Well, unless you’re the “S” in a “D&S” you probably don’t want to be Misty Knight. No offense to the S’s out there.

Now, here is the SHOCKING TWIST ENDING!!! R U READY??? That salivating, salacious cover? It was drawn by an artist named Sana Takeda. Who is Japanese.

And a woman.

Yep, that cover was drawn by a woman.

Are you confused? Is she a gender traitor? Is hentai what girls really like?

I don’t know what went into that cover. I know the editor is Mark Paniccia, the father of a one year old daughter that he loves more than anything. I know Mark well enough to hazard the guess that he wasn’t trying to “oppress” women, “oppress” Misty Knight, or follow a secret agenda. He was probably just trying to sell more books. I imagine Sana Takeda wanted to sell more books. The really really sad thing is that inside the Biosphere, up on the mountain, probably nobody gave this a second thought. Nobody thought that “Misty Knight and the Black Cat and Colleen Wing shouldn’t be shown this way because it demeans them as characters.”

And you know what’s even sadder? That no one at Marvel or DC will ever say a word about any of this. The Mary Jane statue controversy had been going on for well over a week, and been on TV shows, with nary a peep out of an official spokesman at either company. Will anyone ask Joe Quesada or Paul Levitz about any of this? Will anyone remember?

And that, ladies and germs, is why we can’t shut up.

Over on his LJ, Mike Dawson announces the publishing plans for Freddie & Me the autobiographical tale of his lifelong interest in the band Queen:

I’m happy to say though, that my graphic novel will be published in spring of 2008 in the United States by Bloomsbury books.

Spring of 2008 sounds like a long time away (and believe me, when I lie awake at night thinking about it, I often realize that yes, it is actually a long time away), but I’ve got a lot to do between now and then.

The book needs to be completed by the middle of October. At some point, last December, I thought I’d pretty much finished everything, but it turns out that I was way off the mark in that regard. I’ve cut a lot of pages (I think maybe 25 – 35 total, which is a lot if you consider that I can only draw about 2 pages a week), and I’ve added at least that much in new scenes and sequences – many of which are still in script/thumbnail stage at this point. Going down to a four day work-week at the day-job really ought to help I’m thinking though. I just hope I am able to put in everything that I want to before the deadline gets here.

More in the link. You’ll recall that FREDDIE & ME was originally to be published by AdHouse — according to Dawson, AdHouse head Chris Pitzer was understanding about the move to a bigger house.

Yet another example of something that started out as a mini comic giveaway ending up being published by a “real” book publisher. This is only one example of an graphic novel by an established “indie cartoonist” migrating from an indie publisher to a book publisher. You’d think some SMART publisher would just buy one of these indie publishers as an imprint instead of trying to build their own trendy graphic novel line from scratch. Just sayin’.

Bryan Lee O’Malley previews a single page of SCOTT PILGRIM IV

The cover will be unveiled on Monday.
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Cartoonist Mikhaela Reid has photos and reminiscences of the recent East Coast Black Age of Comics con and the Glyph Awards in Philly. The above picture shows Joseph Wheeler III, Iyabo Shabazz and Masheka Wood. Much more in link.

Plus we got to present the award for Best Comic Strip to amazing fellow Cartoonist With Attitude Keith Knight, for his strip The K Chronicles (a second-time winner!). Keith took photos of his own butt on the way up to the podium and remarked that it was nice to be at a convention where no one mistook him for Boondocks creator Aaron McGruder. He also later noted that the food at ECBACC (BBQ, meatballs, rice, jerk chicken, fried chicken, and other delights) was far superior to the usual comics convention concessions (typically suspiciously gray hot dogs and burgers).