Based on Neil Gaiman’s short story and directed by Henry Selick, this movie features the voices of Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher and Ian McShane.

If you do not have a few hours to spend looking at art, whatever you do DO NOT CLICK THIS LINK, a directory of concept artists.

Andreas Rocha

Benjamin Carre

We warned you. Oh, we did.

For a while now, Dave Sim has been mentioning Secret Project #1, of which it was only known that 1) it would debut at the SPACE indie show, 2) Sim would not promote it, as he has Glamourpuss and 3) it made Neil Gaiman cry. Gradually word leaked that it was Holocaust-themed. Well the word is out, it’s Judenhass, which, we’re told, means more or less “Jew Hatred.” But it’s not what you think.

An examination of the historical roots of the Holocaust through quotes from historical personages drawn in a photorealism style from period photographs. Begun in response to the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz (2005) it will be released during the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of Israel.

Judenhass is a stand-alone one shot comic book, perfect bound and 56 pages long. It’s published by Aardvark Vanaheim Inc. for release in May 2008. It will be kept in print, and it’s hoped that the title will be kept in stock by retailers and supported by them as a perennial title.

Okay, show of hands: who saw this one coming?

Available in May.

[Via Panel & Pixel]

Technorati Tags: Dave Sim

Bob Fingerman reports that he has new collection in the works:

It’s been a while since I’ve had any publishing news to announce, but unless the contract stuff goes horribly awry (an unlikelihood), Fantagraphics Books will be publishing my oddball stream of consciousness (or in this case, unconsciousness) epic, Connective Tissue, sometime early spring 2009. Connective Tissue is my reverse-engineering experiment in art and prose. Instead of a normal illustrated book, in which the pictures illustrate (duh) the text, this time around I’m doing the art first, then supplying the prose. To ensure it flows well, I’ll likely add some art at the end of the writing stage (the titular connective tissue).

Above: A sample

Technorati Tags: Bob Fingerman

Joey Weiser wrote to alert us to his new book.

Tales of Unusual Circumstance is here! Tales collects comics work from my output over the past 4 years that has appeared in anthologies, mini-comics, and more! PLUS, as mentioned above, it features 48 pages of never-before-seen material! And, by that I mean new comics!!

You had us at giant squid.

Drew Weing hints at a project with but this single illustration.

Michael Maslin is blogging this month at the The New Yorker cartoonist blog. Here, he attempts to make things scrutable, explaining the genesis of a cartoon:

First, an image of a Thurber guy on skis popped into my head as I sat staring at a blank piece of paper. So I had my rough inspiration. Can’t say why I chose to make the skier a woman, and put her in a showroom—sorry, some things just can’t be explained. I began by drawing the salesman, and, wanting him in the school of Thurber, I drew his body with wavy fluid lines. The man’s expression, especially his wedge-shaped open mouth, was distilled from the hundreds of Thurber drawings I’d studied. The woman trying out the skis was less Thurber-ish. I thought that if she were a copycat Thurber woman, the drawing would just look like a Thurber rip-off. The caption, “Whoosh!,” was, as is so often the case with me, a gift from the cartoon gods.

Gary Tyrell has been all over the Jess Fink/Hot Topic controversy. (It’s not really a controversy — it’s pretty clear what happened: they stole her soap.) It’s still unclear as to whether Hot Topic is actually dealing with the situation, Tyrell reports.

In the meantime the blog Hurfadurf has started a “I Designed an Original T-Shirt!” of which the above is one of the few which we can reprint on a family blog.

It seems that Boom! Studios has joined the ranks of comics publishers getting a little VC pie:

The Los Angeles company, officially known as Boom Entertainment, has just taken a $600,000 investment from DFJ Frontier and the Gideon Hixon Fund, following a particularly successful January. At the beginning of the month, it featured the first printing of a post-apocalyptic sci-fi fantasy novel
called North Wind, on MySpace. The comic, a five-part mini-series that takes place in a futuristic, frozen-over LA, sold out in ten days at brick-and-mortar retailers and has since gone through a second printing. Note: North Wind was available for free online, through the MySpace promotion — people were willing to go out and buy the print version, anyway.

Newsarama has a few more details. It’s not like $600,000 is a staggering, staggering amount of money. But it’s a tidy investment. Although Boom! has had a few wrinkles along the way, you’d have to say hey have earned it with an array of good hires, readable titles, and generally upward movement.

UPDATE: Apparently, both the original story linked to above and the Newsarama article have some inaccuracies. WE’re being told by sources close to Boom! that the $600,000 figure is the cap of a potential loan, not cash on hand.

Boom Studios

Webcomicker Rachel Nabors (Rachel the Great, Crow Princess) reports that she needs $25,000 worth of dental surgery and orthodontics. She’s a freelancer with no health insurance.
But she does have a Paypal button. § Everyone is talking about Destination: Blog! § Author and comics scholar Dr. Kent Worcester gets the local paper treatment § Dan Vado is grumpy but also reveals a bunch of new projects from SLG in this panel report. § Oh
no they ditn’t! Someone goes there and wonders if William Blake might have been a pioneer of the graphic novel:

There is also a corner of the exhibition devoted to pop culture tie-ins including an interview with Patti Smith, the chance to listen to four different versions of Jerusalem, and a clip of Gus Van Sant’s Last Days (2004) with its half-Blake, half-Kurt Cobain central figure. But could there also be something to say about the links between Blake’s experiments in integrating
word and image and graphic novels or comic artwork?

§ Charlie Jane Anders stalks Dan Didio:

If you’ve found DC Comics hard to understand over the past year, chances are it’s because of the multiverse. DC used to have tons of alternate universes, but they collapsed into one nice, tidy universe in 1985. Until last year, when suddenly DC had 52 different
realities to play with again. I decided to hound DC super-editor Dan Didio for an explanation as to why DC’s writers and editors are so obsessed with alternate timelines. Here’s what he said the second and third times I asked him, plus some info on multiverses in science fiction.

§ Oh this is so easy. Dirk:

Last weekend’s WonderCon saw the debut of the first episode of Marvel’s new Saturday morning cartoon, Spectacular
Spider-Man, a project that has clearly been in the works for quite some time. In celebration, Marvel’s publishing division has… cancelled its Spectacular Spider-Man series and folded all Spider titles into a single series, which is called Amazing Spider-Man and, despite being completely rebooted and retconned, will still bear little-to-no resemblence to the cartoon. After all, doing anything else would leave you open to charges of attempting to leverage the brand, or reaching for the “Naruto Effect,” or even
(gasp!) acting like a competent manager of corporate intellectual property. This industry really does deserve everything it fucking gets, doesn’t it?

Fact. § Quote of the day: Mark Evanier, via Ian Brill

“I was at Bob Kane’s funeral,” Evanier said. “There were only four people from comics there: me, Stan Lee,
Mike Barr and Paul Smith. A whole bunch of Batman toys were put into Kane’s coffin and they were lowering it down. As the Kane was being put into the ground Stan turned around to me and said ‘Steve Ditko was the best inker Jack Kirby ever had.’”  Evanier admitted that Lee didn’t have the best attention span.

Well, between the company we do most of our work for going up on the auction block and our beloved Cafe La Fortuna shutting down, we’ve been reeling from shock after shock in the last few days. Now we find out that Stage6, DIVx’s video site is shutting down:

I’m Tom (aka Spinner), a Stage6 user and an employee of DivX, Inc., the company behind the service. I’m writing this message today to inform you that we plan to shut down Stage6 on February 28, 2008. Upload functionality has already been turned off, and you’ll be able to view and download videos until Thursday.

I know this news will come as a shock and disappointment to many Stage6 users, and I’d like to take a few moments to explain the reasons behind our decision.

Yes, it seems hosting videos is an expensive business for which there is no real profit model. Hello, YouTube!

Now why does this interest us? Well, you see DIVx produced and Stage6 hosted all the videos we did at the last two San Diegos, including great moments with Evelyn DuBocq, Tom Spurgeon, Gerard Butler, Scott McCloud, Rosario Dawson and the Turds. We’re attempting to download and archive the videos, although we don’t have much time — Thursday! YIKES! Hopefully we will find a new place to host them. I mean, it’s not like you don’t have enough San Diego videos floating around out there. We just like watching our state of coherence deteriorate over the five-day period, and the commensurate increase in the big dark circles under our eyes.

VIA PR:

The third annual Glyph Comics Awards (GCAs), honoring the best in black comics and creators, will once again take place at the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention (ECBACC) in Philadelphia. The Awards Committee is pleased to announce this year’s nominees, as judged by the following:

· Rich Watson, GCA Committee Chair and writer for PopCultureShock.com
· Cheryl Lynn Eaton, comics journalist and founder of the Ormes Society
· Prof. William Foster, comics historian and lecturer
· Tony Isabella, comics writer and columnist
· Katherine Keller, editor-in-chief, Sequential Tart

The nominees for the 2008 Glyph Comics Awards are:

Story of the Year
Hunter’s Moon, James L. White, writer, Dalibor Talajic and Sebastian Cardoso, artists
Nat Turner: Revolution, Kyle Baker, writer and artist
Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow, James Sturm, writer, Rich Tommaso, artist
Sentences: The Life of MF Grimm, Percy Carey, writer, Ronald Wimberly, artist
Welcome to Tranquility, Gail Simone, writer, Neil Googe, artist

Best Writer
Percy Carey, Sentences: The Life of MF Grimm
Dwayne McDuffie, Fantastic Four
Gail Simone, Welcome to Tranquility
James Sturm, Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow
James L. White, Hunter’s Moon

Best Artist
Kyle Baker, Nat Turner: Revolution
Olivier Coipel, Thor
Georges Jeanty, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Jeremy Love, Bayou
Ronald Wimberly, Sentences: The Life of MF Grimm

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British artist and colorist Steve Whitaker, perhaps best known here for coloring V FOR VENDETTA died suddenly last Friday at age 52. D’Israeli has a remembrance and links to several more heartfelt tributes.

Anyone who was around the London comics scene in the 80’s and early 90’s will remember Steve; at 6ft 4in he was hard to miss in his trademark long dark overcoat. He was a world-class colourist who will probably be remembered professionally for his work on the DC Comics edition of V for Vendetta, but he was far more than that; a brilliant draughtsman, painter, teacher and historian of comics, raconteur and ace punster. He was also my best mate.

You can see Whitaker’s painting work at his Flickr account.

In case you missed the discussion going on in our comment section, the comparative sales charts for January have been delayed because the numbers from Diamond are a bit odd. Marc-Oliver Frisch explains:

For the record, if you’re waiting for the January month-to-month sales columns, it’ll probably be a while. Since everyone’s fairly sure now that there’s been a glitch in Diamond’s source data, we’re holding off on the columns until the numbers have been corrected.

Looking at the Top 300 charts, there are a few very odd things going on. Not only does there seem to be an inexplicable five-percent increase across the board, as I noted a few days ago, but the index points for individual books also seem to be a mess.

We’ll keep you posted.

We ADORE Graeme but this is a bit puzzling. Apparently at WonderCon, Bill Willingham revealed some spoiler stuff on a panel but asked it not be quoted, and Graeme McMillan, who was covering the Panel for Newsarama, obliged. J.K. parkin picks up the story at Blog@Newsarama:

Well, ironically, Graeme, who our regular readers know has on occasion pissed off creators with his posts both here and on Fanboy Rampage, complied with Willingham’s wishes. Yes, Graeme McMillan did as he was told. I was kind of amused by that, too.

Some of the folks who read the story on Newsarama weren’t pleased with Graeme for keeping the secret, and they let him know. Here’s one of the comments:

What kind of shoddy reporting is this. Hey.. im going to talk about a panel, but not give you the interesting tidbits.

So much for newsarama bring us the news for those people that couldnt be here.

Yeah, I’m sure I will find the information out. And I will do it on another website.

Ouch.

§ Matt High runs down the Post-Modern Garfield, including Garfield without Garfield, which results in the dark night of the soul kind of stuff you see above.

§ Val runs down the ever-diminishing chances of ever seeing a Batwoman comic.

§ T Campbell is interviewed at COMIXTALK

§ Jog and Leigh Walton talk about Sam & Max: Surfin’ the Highway.

§ Matthias Wivel has the “Hitler cartoons” which were recently “discovered”.

And if you believe that, I have this nice bridge to sell you.

§ Quote of the Day: Ivy McCloud:

Scott and Winter watched The Fifth Element tonight, but I opted out, and wound up spending a chunk of time helping Sky dye her hair green again. I don’t know why she trusts me. I hope it looks good come the morning.

* RATATOUILLE won a much deserved Oscar® for Best Animated Film. Suzie Templeton won Best Animated Short won for PETER & THE WOLF, which we didn’t pick in our handicapping, but which we enjoyed the most of all the shorts we watched, so hey we’re happy. Seriously check it out online…it has some amazing stop-motion animation.

* This is kind of hard to admit after all these years but…Jon Stewart isn’t that great an ad-libber. He has a few zingers. Best Line: “Even Norbit was nominated which was nice, because many times Oscar doesn’t recognize movies that aren’t very good.”

* The binoculars tribute was very touching.

(more…)

Various personal reports we ran across:
Cecil Castellucci
Ben Templesmith
Rantz Hoseley
Mark Evanier

Some news items:
Death ison the march at DC

Asked to “cut back on killing and maiming young heroes” in their comics, VP of Sales responded that “Sidekicks die!” should be the ad copy for upcoming comics. DiDio admitted that it was a concern, and said that they’d try to cease with the teenage torture. On a related topic, the panel all agreed that they didn’t want to pull back on teenage suffering of the emotional type, with writer Judd Winick pointing out that “they can’t all be happy, who the hell’s gonna buy that?”

Wood and Cloonan revive DEMO for Vertigo

Image was a no show due to “circumstances beyond our control,” according to those in charge. EDIT: but apparently they did show up eventually?

Dark Horse is going bigtime into webcomics collections:

Dark Horse Comics first delved into the world of webcomics with their “Megatokyo” collections several years ago, then last year they added “Penny Arcade” and “The Perry Bible Fellowship” to their publishing lineup. At Wondercon in San Francisco this weekend, Dark Horse revealed several more webcomics that will join their lineup - “The K Chronicles,” “Wondermark” and “Achewood” all have collections in the works with the publisher.

io9 has a lot of coverage. This fellow has uploaded tons of videos of panel presentations. Why even leave your living room! He virtual con is just a click away. Based on pictures WonderCon definitely seems to be getting some of the SDCC vibe, with Fat Mama, Stormtrooper Elvis, Anne Hathaway, Steve Carrell, James McAvoy, etc etc. Maybe next year we’ll get to go!

Laughing Squid’s photos.

Oh yeah, The X-Files is hot just in time for 90s Nostalgia! We have always loved Gillian Anderson.

[Above photo taken from atp_tyreseus’ photostream and © atp_tyreseus.]

Via Cartoon Brew

Newsarama has a bunch of reports from Wondercon, including the expected news that J. Michael Straczynski will be working with DC. According to the report, he’ll be doing more BABYLON 5 comics and hopes to finish his B5 graphic novel.

Much more random DU news in the link.

More: Retailer Lee Hester has a lengthy report of his Friday with pictures.

Technorati Tags: JMS

As usual, it takes no skill to figure out the big winners at the Oscars, the occasional Crash aside. Picking the Coen Brothers, Javier Bardem and Diablo Cody is about as safe as predicting the appearance of another Skrull poster from Marvel next week. No, where Oscar pools are won and lost is in the Live Action Short and Animated Short categories. These obscure nominees crawl from the primordial ooze of doing it for art, get a brief touching moment and then go back to their careers of dedication to craft. We can’t really pick the live action shorts, but figure we should have a shot at the animated shorts. And good news! You can play along as they are almost all available on YouTube!

I Met the Walrus
Directed by Josh Raskin

Imaginative animated interpretation of a John Lennon interview.

Madame Tutli-Putli
Directed by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski

Part Two
Canadian film about a woman who takes a train journey and encounters weirdness.

Même les Pigeons vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go To Heaven)
Directed by Samuel Tourneux and Simon Vanesse.

Humorous French CGI entry

My Love (Moya Lyubov)
Directed by Alexander Petrov

Part Two
The Russian entry. Petrov, a previous Oscar® winner, presents a love story told in a stunning oil painting style.

Peter & the Wolf
Directed by Suzie Templeton

Part Two
Part Three

From England, a stop-motion retelling of the familiar legend.

(more…)

Via PW

Golden Age Comic Book Stories deserves study each and every day. Recent gems:

NC Wyeth’s Charlemagne illustrations in three parts:

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Original covers illustrations for Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars series. Above A Princess of Mars by Frank E. Schoonover. Amusing to see these books with a Pre-Raphaelite spin.

During web surfing we came across a blog by Steve Heller at Print Magazine. Heller is the former art director of the NYT Book Review, and his blog in turn led us to this page of Art Deco ads collected by illustrator Bob Staake. Many other treasures to be found in the links.

We’ve been trying to collect our thoughts on Brian Hibbs 2007 Bookscan analysis all week but what with catching up on 500+ emails, work, laundry, getting engaged and all, we have had a hard time finding a moment’s peace.

Anyhoo, the thing to remember about all this — esp. the Brian-vs-Dirk argument — is that everyone has their own horse in this race. Hibbs’ is that the Direct Market is a more efficient market for comics than bookstores. Dirk’s is that anything that isn’t manga or indie sucks and is stupid and doomed to failure and that anyone who attempts to look at such material without this bias is a dingbat. And us? Well, it’s probably that books with wide appeal will sell more but that everyone’s definition of “wide appeal” will differ.
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