ESSEX COUNTY’s Jeff Lemire (interviewed this week in PW Comics Week by Laurel Maury) has a new mini comic up at his blog:THE HORSELESS RIDER.:

Is it time for another one of our Gustaf Tenggren-inspired panegyrics? Yes it is, courtesy of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive. Seriously, you should just read that blog every morning and skip everything else. In this installment they talk about the evolution of the Golden Book illustration style. (Tenggren went from working for Disney to drawing The Poky Little Puppy, one of the most influential children’s books of all times.) How did Tenggren go from this:

to this?

All is shown in the link; illustrators take note.

But halfway through Tenggren’s Tell It Again Book comes a huge breakthrough in design. Instead of the full page plates, Tenggren begins to float his characters over the white of the page, wrapping the text around the compositions. Background elements are reduced to small islands on the page, rather than extending out to the edges of a square bounding box.

Technorati Tags: Gustaf Tenggren

New illos up. [Via Meathaus]

“Great” might not be exactly the word some would use, but Marvel editor Tom Brevoort’s look back at some under-appreciated comics he worked on is a nice look back at some of the quirkier superhero-esque books of recent years.

I put out a lot of comic books every month–especially when you factor in the books I’m not directly editing myself, but am overseeing (which is just about all of the mainstream Marvel Universe output.) And as with almost everything, there’s a hit-to-miss ratio. Especially when it comes to projects featuring new characters, less mainstream genres or experimental approaches, it’s very easy for some of the very best stuff you do to be overlooked–consigned to the back issue bins of history despite whatever smattering of critical acclaim they might receive. Every editor has at least a couple of these, books they really loved and thought were unique but which for whatever reason failed to catch on with a broad audience. These are the Unknown greats, and here’s a series on a couple of mine.

He talks about The Hood by Brian K Vaughan and Kyle Hotz, Blaze of Glory by John Ostrander and Leonardo Manco, and Deadline by Bill Rosemann and Guy Davis. As always with Brevoort, there’s lot of interesting behind the scenes of stuff that was need-to-know only at the time. His comments on the Eisner-Winning Unstable Molecules by James Sturm and Guy Davis (again) will be the most interesting perhaps, as the history of the very brief period when Marvel was last hiring indie tooners like Bob Sikoryak and Michel Vrana is charted:

I remember the covers being a cause of some consternation at one point. This was during a period when there was a concentrated effort being made to have all of the covers basically be pin-up shots of a single character. In that environment, the UNSTABLE MOLECULES covers, with their emphasis on the design and typography, the unconventional Craig Thompson illustrations, and the drop-in Jack Kirby art, were about as far from this model as one could get. I can remember one or two heated discussions before those in power threw up their hands, decided that this was going to be what it was going to be, and let it go. (There was a bit moer drama after the series was completed, when Sturm’s design for the trade paperback collection was changed around at the last minute. Fortunately, after the book won the Eisner, a new edition was released, and this allowed Sturm to make adjustments to the design.)

Oni has announced the first volume in an all ages series by Matt Loux called Salt Water Taffy. In short it about two lads named Jack and Benny visit Maine and have adventures in the “unusual hamlet called Chowder Bay–a small town full of big mysteries, giant adventures, and gargantuan lobsters.” The first book is called “The Legend of Old Salty.” Sold!

§ Anthem Magazine continues its interviews with great cartoonists with a Jamie Hernandez interview :

If you were of a different ethnic background, do you think your characters would be different as well?

I hope so. Not too many ethnic comics out there so I feel it’s my duty to handle my part of it.

How do you feel about the characters you’ve created? Is there anything you wish you had done differently with them?

I think I would have had some of them settle down and create families at an earlier stage in their lives. It sounds corny, but that’s what a lot of people do eventually, even the deranged ones.

§ On the Cerebus Yahoo Group it’s been announced that Dave Sim is canceling most of his upcoming convention appearances. He’ll still be appearing at the Motor City Con and Toronto Comicon, but NY Comic-Con and even future SPACE appearances are out. The reason is economic, Jeff Tundis reports:

It is primarily money related. It basically comes down to the fact that he doesn’t see any real way to recoup the money he’s spent on conventions, signings and promotions and still meet his obligations to Gerhard concerning the buyout.

Reviewage:
–Steve Haske at the Daily Vanguard looks at Taeko Saito’s GOLGO 13 which is wrapping up a 13-book run at VIZ:

– Jillian Steinhauer takes on Super Spy by Matt Kindt.

– Jog looks at Dash Shaw’s Body World.

§ The Toronto Xtra profiles cousins Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki and their new SKIM graphic novel:

The cousins’ first project together, Skim, began as a short comic for Kiss Machine Presents. As it was the first comic for both Jillian and Mariko, they drew on their other artistic experiences — with Jillian approaching it like “a massive illustration project” and Mariko writing it much like a play. In fact, in between the Kiss Machine Presents version and the full graphic novel, Mariko developed Skim as a play for Groundswell, Nightwood’s theatre festival. The new book shows this theatrical influence in its structure. It is made up of three parts, or acts, with Skim’s diary entries functioning as frames for individual scenes.

§ The Original Star Wars Trilogy in 3 shots. Sometimes it’s all so clear.

Technorati Tags: Dave Sim, Jaime Hernandez

What was rumored is true. HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS will be split into TWO movies. There was just too much struggle and plot to fit into one.

After months of rumors, Warner Bros. and the producers of the massively successful movies will announce Thursday that they plan to split “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” J.K. Rowling’s seventh and final “Potter” novel, into two blockbuster films — one to be released in November 2010 and the second in May 2011.

The films will be titled, simply, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I” and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II,” according to producer David Heyman. Director David Yates, who returned for his second tour of Potter duty with “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” and is quite popular with the cast, will direct both “Deathly Hallows” films, which will be filmed concurrently. Screenwriter Steve Kloves also returns and, by completion of the franchise, will have written seven of the eight films.

Of course this means twice the dough for WB, but it does make a lot of narrative sense. There is just too much dramatic and fantastic stuff to be compressed as so much was in the last movie. We’re not over-excited about Yates as director (Order of the Phoenix was just workmanlike, like all the rest of the movies except Azkaban) but he’ll know the terrain by then. The two films will be shot concurrently.

Technorati Tags: Harry bleedin’ Harry Potter

Oh God.

Some days it is hard to get out of bed. This is why.

PS: Not to get all serious, but as ICv2 points out, Britney adapting an anime cartoon style is an attempt to ally herself with something cool and up-to-date…not the other way around.

I thought the Hulk was supposed to be red! What the…?

High Def version at MTV.

First thought: CGI…not compelling.

Second thought: New York in the crosshairs AGAIN.

DC COMICS MONTH-TO-MONTH SALES: JANUARY 2008
by Marc-Oliver Frisch

With Justice League of America, DC Comics only had one book selling above 70,000 units in January. As a consequence, the publisher’s average periodical sales saw a steep drop, falling to around 27,000, their lowest level since January 2005. Similarly, average sales of the company’s DC Universe line, which makes up the bulk of their releases, dropped to around 33,000, also the lowest they’ve been in three years. Then again, not much was happening at DC’s mainstream line in January: There just were a couple of Teen Titans spin-off books and new creative teams on Robin and Nightwing. The general consensus right now seems to be that much is hinging on the upcoming Final Crisis blockbuster series for DC’s periodical business. Based on the publisher’s recent performance, it’s hard to disagree.

DC’s Vertigo sublabel, meanwhile, saw the release of Y: The Last Man #60, which marks the conclusion of the imprint’s best-selling periodical. Despite a moderate increase for the final issue, however, average Vertigo sales dropped to yet another historical low in January. At DC Comics’ WildStorm department, things look a little bit more encouraging. With the licensed books World of WarCraft and Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash, WildStorm finally seem to have two much-needed breakout titles in their stable again. On the other hand, WildStorm: Revelations, the latest attempt to breathe new life into the flagging WildStorm Universe line of superhero titles, is being met with total apathy. See below for the details, and please consider the disclaimers at the bottom of the column.

Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.

—–

11 - JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA
01/2002: JLA #62            —  63,345*
01/2003: JLA #77            —  60,405*
01/2004: JLA #92            —  58,008
01/2005: JLA #110           —  64,094
01/2006: JLA #124           —  74,069
————————————–
01/2007: –
02/2007: –
03/2007: Justice League #6  — 130,099 (- 1.8%) [131,754]
04/2007: Justice League #7  — 154,984 (+19.1%)
04/2007: Justice League #8  — 130,365 (-15.9%)
05/2007: Justice League #9  — 129,285 (- 0.8%)
06/2007: Justice League #10 — 129,265 (- 0.0%)
07/2007: Justice League #11 — 122,823 (- 5.0%)
08/2007: Justice League #12 — 131,420 (+ 7.0%) [137,181]
09/2007: Justice League #13 — 119,471 (- 9.1%) [124,006]
10/2007: Justice League #14 — 101,763 (-14.8%)
11/2007: –
12/2007: Justice League #15 — 100,234 (- 1.5%)
12/2007: Justice League #16 —  95,557 (- 4.7%)
01/2008: Justice League #17 —  94,712 (- 0.9%)
—————-
6 months: -22.9%
1 year  :   n.a.
2 years : +27.9%

DC’s highest-selling monthly title seems to have found its level upwards of 90k. That’s still a very good level for Justice League of America, historically.

For the record, the lead story in issue #17 was by guest writer Alan Burnett, who also handles the lead story for #18 and the whole of #19. The name change in the solicitations doesn’t seem to have had much of an impact on the orders, though.

And that’s the only DC Comics release selling more than 70,000 units in the North American direct market in January, according to ICv2.com’s estimates. In theory, Justice Society of America, All Star Superman and All Star Batman also fall in the area between 100,000 and 75,000 units. But the latter two don’t come out regularly, and Justice Society was a week late and missed its January shipping date, so this is what we’re left with.

As far as new books which can realistically be expected to shift around - or even close to - 100,000 copies are concerned, well… there’s nothing on the agenda until Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones’ blockbuster series Final Crisis launches in May, it seems.
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The comics industry and blogosphere has been overflowing with tributes to the late Dave Stevens, who died Monday. His work influenced many people — more than you might think given the relative scarcity of his output. A couple of news notes:

– Stevens’ mother has requested that in lieu of flowers, people make donations to the Hairy Cell Leukemia Research Foundation.

– Arnold Fenner wrote to tell us that THE ART OF DAVE STEVENS (above) will be out in Spring ‘09 deom Underwood Books. The book is 90% completed and the editors will finish the rest from interviews.

And now some links to particularly notable tributes:
Stevens interview in Comic Book Artist Magazine #15
Bill Wray (This one is must reading.)
Craig Yoe
Scott Dunbier
Lea Hernandez
Colleen Doran
Elin WInkler
Kiel Phegley (A particularly funny story involving Billy Campbell.)

Turns out Paul Pope isn’t the only cartoonist with a designer collectin coming out. Chris Butcher links to many photos of the Spring prada line which contains numerous designs by none other than James Jean. Much more in link.
Now, if only the models didn’t look like the Olsen twins channeling the Stepford Wives.

§ DC has created an animated trailer for the new David Lapham book YOUNG LIARS. No direct embed but its in there.

§ DC has also updated their Canadian pricing policy. With the Canuck buck now on just about equal footing with the US$. beginning with items arriving in Direct Market stores on March 19, DC Comics periodicals will feature a single price for both U.S. and Canada. Johanna has commentary.

• REMINDER: The deadline for submitting material to the Eisner Awards judges is this Friday, March 14. Submission information can be found here.

§ SAME HAT! SAME HAT! unearths a few pieces of D&Q news: Seiichi Hayashi’s Red Colored Elegy and Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s Goodbye will be out in July instead of April. And Adrian Tomine’s next comic will be a color story for KRAMER’S ERGOT.

§ Comics health issues:
— Alternative Comics’ Jeff Mason talks about his Crohn’s disease. He’s currently at home recuperating from surgery. Best wishes, Jeff!
— Toronto cartoonist Michael Cho is recuperating at home after a serious intestinal infection. Best wishes, Michael!
— Manga-ka Moyoco Anno has announced she will be stopping manga due to her health issues Anime News Network reports, but she does hope to return to drawing one day.

Manga artist Moyoco Anno (Flowers and Bees, Happy Mania, Sugar Sugar Rune, Sakuran) announced in her Monday blog entry that she will be halting her manga work due to her health. That includes Hataraki Man (pictured at right) in Kodansha’s Morning magazine, but not her recent Ochibisan manga in the Asahi Shimbun paper. Anno apologized to her readers and said she thinks the current break will be a long one. She also said that she still wants to draw manga eventually and hopes her readers will follow her work when she returns.

§ Bookmark:Cartoonist Colin Panetta offers an exhaustive and exhausting account of his search for a printer for his upcoming 36-page comic:

I’ve been desperately trying to figure out how I’m going to print Dead Man Holiday, my first comic and self-published work. I wanted to follow in the footsteps of my heroes, who had all printed their books through offset printing. (Where plates are made of your comic pages, and then used to print your book on a monster printing press necessitating you to print thousands of books to make it financially viable.) I knew about Print On Demand services, but figured hey- if the content and format of my book are going to be hopelessly out of date (genre material/pamphlet… although, lately…), then the methods I print the book with might as well be too. (Don’t you hate it when hard choices seem so ridiculously obvious in retrospect?) I thought it would be useful to other first time self-publishers if I posted about my interactions with the offset printing industry, so that they don’t have to go through all the trouble that I did.

§ Second Daily Cross Hatch link of the day: Brian Heater visits the new comics shop Desert Island, located in hipster haven B-Burg:

While it’s not too difficult to image a time, in the near future, when Starbucks and American Apparels begin springing up around the corner, once inside, it’s hard to curse the new Desert Island comic shop as yet another harbinger of Williamsburg’s skyrocketing rent prices, with the front door flanked on opposing sides by a spinner rack chalk full of minis and magazine shelves lined with single back issues of books like Hate and Frank. It’s near impossible to find anything bad to say about an establishment so dedicated to the works of artists like Peter Bagge and Jim Woodring. On a less localized level, the store also serves as a signpost for another important and relatively recent phenomenon: the alternative comics shop, the second in this burrough after the equally sublime Rocketship, which opened its pod bay doors two summers ago, a few neighborhoods away, in the ritzy neighborhood of Cobble Hill.

§ ICv2 has a two-par interview with First Second’s Mark Siegel:

What were your big hits for the second half of 2007 through the holiday season?

Laika and Robot Dreams have had all sorts of interesting things happen for them (Laika is Nick Abadzis and Robot Dreams is Sara Varon). It’s a delightful thing to see happen. It’s kind of interesting that these are both sort of on the young side; Laika is getting shelved a lot in the teen sections but it’s not necessarily meant that way. And Robot Dreams definitely appears very young at first glance, but then many of the reviews caught on that it has strange, unexpected depth to it. Those have been really pleasant surprises. Both reviewed very well, and there’s a lot of interest. There were a lot of invitations for Nick Abadzis; he spoke at the Smithsonian, he’s been all over the place, and on the radio. That’s been a fun thing to see take off.

In part two, Siegel talks about projects for 200, including, a new book written by Gene Yang and drawn by Derek Kirk Kim called Second Lives; Genius by Steven Seagle and Teddy Kristiansen; and The Photographer by Emmanuel Guibert, a non-fiction book about a photographer who goes to Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders.

§ The Daily Cross Hatch talks to Charles Berberian and Philippe Dupuy:

What was the catalyst for these solo projects?

CB: Phillippe had some difficult issues that he had to deal with, on a personal level. I couldn’t get involved with them. So it was a step further into what we did ten years ago, which came out as Maybe Later. In that book we drew our own pages, but this was a matter of going through hard times, and he was really into that difficult moment.

PD: There are just some subjects that you have to deal with alone. When a subject is good to work on together, we work together.

§ Anthem Magazine interviews Gary Panter:

Maybe some cartoonists make money from their cartooning. Cartooning does not supply any meaningful amount of my income. I have to do commercial art. I think of my self as a painter. If my wish came true, people would buy my paintings and then i could afford my hobbies: cartooning and playing guitar. As it is, I have always had to do commercial art to survive.

§ Yes there WILL be a Superman Returns sequel, director Bryan Singer tells Empire and he WILL be directing it:

“That movie made $400 million!” Singer says incredulously. “I don’t know what constitutes under-performing these days…Look, I can understand, I suppose, what some people mean. Perhaps some people went in with the expectation of it being like an X-Men film, and Superman is a tougher character than that. Especially bringing him back. It really goes back to the fact that you can only please some of the people some of the time. But, yes, I’m just getting back with writers after the strike. We’re just in the development phase. I’m starting to develop a sequel…with the intention of directing it.”

§ Doug TenNapel’s Image graphic novel MONSTER ZOO has been nabbed by Paramount before it even came out, the trades report. Sam Raimi and Josh Donen are attached as producers. The story involves a zoo taken over by an evil idol and the doughty teens who must go up against this world-threatening menace.

According to THR, the deal was for low-six against seven figures, which means TenNapel, once best known for creating the video game EARTHWORM JIM, must be pocketing a lot of simoleons, with that sweet Image deal. Although his previous graphic novels have not yet been brought to the screen, they all generated a lot of Hollywood interest:

TenNapel’s graphic novels have a strong track record of generating heat. In 2004, Universal shelled out $1 million for his “Tommysaurus Rex,” while his “Creature Tech” prompted a bidding war the same year before ending up at Regency. Dennis McNicholas (”Land of the Lost”) recently came on board to adapt “Creature Tech.”

While IRON MAN has been everywhere, this summer’s upcoming HULK movie has been a little publicity shy. A few stills have been released, a very brief teaser trailer is up on YouTube, with the full one debuting TONIGHT on MTV. However, Nikki Finke has a juicy rumor about star Edward Norton’s meddling delaying final cut of the picture. Norton (who has written two films and directed another) is known for wanting to get a lot of input into the movies he stars in, and, according to Finke, Marvel apparently had to promise him a lot of say in the final cut in order to get him to sign on board for the movie.

Says one insider, “There’s a lot of posturing going on between Edward’s camp and Marvel over how you edit the final version.” Sources also tell me that, starting last night and continuing at least throughout today, the actor will be holed up with Marvel Studios chairman David Maisel, Marvel Studios president of production Kevin Feige, and director Louis Leterrier to try to “reach an amicable resolution” to this $150+ million film feud.

Some insiders blame Marvel for not accepting Norton’s POV about the movie. “There’s a problem. Marvel won’t listen to Norton about the cut,” one source claims. Some blame Norton, known to be prickly. (Remember his problems with Paramount over The Italian Job and with director Tony Kaye over American History X?) “Never let an actor write a script,” one insider commented. “Marvel made a mistake letting the wolf into the hen house.”

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Thanks to every who voted in our little poll yesterday. The results were pretty much what we expected, although everyone who wants gossip, please be prepared to buy us lunch because if we did that, we’d never ever get invited anywhere cool ever again. Very few of you wanted guests or columnists, which is interesting. The Beat, Comics Reporter and Journalista are very rare among successful blogs these days in that they are still solo nearly solo outings. Almost all the big time blogs — Boing Boing, Gizmodo, Huffington Post — are group efforts. Blog@Newsarama is the top comics group blog, with the best line-up of bloggers, but is somewhat hampered by the fact that it can’t compete with the front page of the “mothership.”

What that does show is that the “cult of personality” blog still cuts through the fog of RSS war. The reality, as we alluded to yesterday, is that no one person can do it alone any more, unless — apparently– you live in the desert like Tom and Dirk. We’re not willing to go that extra mile, sadly. We are willing to get an intern to help us out one of these days, however.

EDIT: Both the Beat and Comics Reporter do have guest posts and columnists, and of course we do have Mark Coale lending a much needed helping hand here and there (and esp. on Thursdays.)

While reading the NYT today, I was struck by the obit of Pearl Cornioley, a resistance fighter during WWII, who died a few weeks ago in France.

She was the inspiration for the novel and later film CHARLOTTE GRAY, which starred Cate Blanchett.

But…given that her code name was Marie, it made me wonder. Was she also the inspiration for the 1950s DC WWII character Mlle. Marie, who was a French resistance fighter and sometimes paramour of Sgt. Rock?

A cursory skimming around of the net didn’t reveal any answers and the connection may be dubious (Marie was a French peasant girl, Cornioley was British by birth, but raised French).

Still, it’s worth a moment to stop and honor a remarkable woman and all she did 60 years ago.

Posted by Mark Coale

I’ve just received word that Dave Stevens, the creator of the Rocketeer, died yesterday at age 52. Stevens had dropped out of sight for the most part in recent years and had been battling leukemia, a fact which he kept as private as possible.

Stevens was known for his meticulous artwork, reminiscent of the greatest illustrators of the past and the whiz bang pulpishness of the 30s and 40s. He was, of course, also obsessed with model Bettie Page. These came together in The Rocketeer, which was published by Eclipse, Pacific, Comico and Dark Horse in its various incarnations. In 1991 it was turned into a Disney film starring Billy Campbell and a young Jennifer Connelly. The film underperformed at the time but has become very fondly remembered.

In recent years “What ever happened to Dave Stevens?” became a frequent message board topic. He had always been a notoriously slow artist, and in recent years lived off of commissions for the pin-up art he excelled at.

Dave was the last artist of an innocent era when showing less and teasing more was the way to eroticism. He was much more than that, of course. His artwork burst with the heroic innocence and determination of an America that existed fully only on the printed page and the movie screen. Even when drawing some bondage or spanking scene, his art was human, lively, caring.

Like the man. I have so many memories of Dave. Cat Yronwode once told me that Dave was unique among cartoonists because he wore clothes that fit him, which sounds like a sorry compliment, but Dave did stand out among the cartoonists of that time for paying a lot of attention to his appearance — Cliff Secord, the hero of the Rocketeer, was obviously based visually on Dave. It didn’t come off as vanity, but wanting to give an appearance that went with the art. It was part of his esthetic. Once he gave me a ride to a Golden Apple party in what I called “Old Betsy” his beloved vintage Ford. (I had no car when I first moved to LA and was always dependent on the kindness of friends.) Arriving in such a vehicle with a dashing, handsome man like Dave was the kind of thing that a girl writes about in her diary that night.

The above picture was taken at 2002’s Comic-Con. As usual Dave was surrounded by artwork and beautiful women, his twin passions. Dave was always a gentleman, kind, respectful, insightful, with a love of art and beauty that truly was, more than almost any artist I can think of, his entire life.

I’m really, really going to miss him.

UPDATE: Mark Evanier has a wonderful remembrance here.

Dave was truly one of the nicest people I have ever met in my life…and the most gifted. Our first encounter was at Jack Kirby’s house around 1971 when he came to visit and show Jack some of his work. As I said, Kirby was very encouraging and he urged Dave not to try and draw like anyone else but to follow his own passions. This was advice Dave took to heart, which probably explains why he took so long with every drawing. They were rarely just jobs to Dave. Most of the time, what emerged from his drawing board or easel was a deeply personal effort. He was truly in love with every beautiful woman he drew, at least insofar as the paper versions were concerned.

Codey Porter, 10, has died after playmates buried him headfirst in a sandbox — an act inspired by Naruto’s ability to bury himself in the ground. Despite the tragic and horrible circumstances — his friends buried him in fun and didn’t realize he was really in trouble when he began struggling — the initial news reports are going fairly lightly on the cartoon connection:

Among media watchdogs and those who research the effects of television on children, the anime program [Naruto] has created barely a ripple.

“To my knowledge, there is no research specifically targeting anime,” said Doug Gentile, director of research for the National Institute on Media and the Family. “But what we do know is that media in general do have a very large effect on people.”

Nor is this a modern-day problem. People have been imitating television shows since the 1950s, Gentile said, recalling how boys jumped off garage rooftops, wearing towels like capes and pretending to be Superman.

The major difference today, he said, is that violence is often portrayed more realistically than, say, the TNT bombs that characterized “The Road Runner Show” or “Tom and Jerry” cartoons of a generation ago.

“A lot of the aggression in ‘Tom and Jerry’ is not easy to copy,” Gentile said. “You won’t have access to a ball of TNT to stuff in your brother’s mouth, but you might have access to a sandbox. It’s a horrible tragedy, but it’s not surprising that at some point somebody is going to try almost anything they see.”

Tom broke the news that one of the most fondly remembered of all golden age humor comics is finally getting a reprint courtesy of Dark Horse . It’s HERBIE by Ogden Whitney. We can’t say that we’ve ever actually read an issue of Herbie, by Ogden Whitney. (It was before even our time.) But we’ve certainly HEARD enough about it over the years, and lollipop sucking Herbie Popnecker is a familar symbol of the golden age of funny comics. Don Markstein’s Toonopedia has more

Herbie first appeared in the 73rd issue (December, 1958) of Forbidden Worlds, a sci-fi/fantasy/horror title that had never before featured continuing characters. “Herbie’s Quiet Saturday Afternoon” was a typical ACG story, about a character despised by his peers (in this case, because he was a very fat and slow-moving little boy, and overly addicted to lollipops), but who has hidden depths. Unknown to family and schoolmates alike, Herbie had vast, undefined, and unexplained super powers, which he used several times in the story, including foiling an alien invasion before anyone else even became aware of it. By story’s end, like Michigan J. Frog, he shed all signs of the extraordinary, and resumed his patient endurance of the constant taunts and barbs.

The artist was Ogden Whitney (Skyman, The Hooded Horseman). His illustration was understated almost to the point of blandness, but often showed flashes of subtle, sometimes sly humor. He proved perfectly suited to Herbie (who, by the way, is said to have been based on Whitney’s own appearance as a boy), depicting the “Little Fat Nothing” (as Herbie’s father, Pincus Popnecker, often called him) as a profoundly dull slug, yet able to make the character work in action scenes.

Japan — along with Russia the only G8 country not to ban the possession of child pornography, has bowed to international pressure and has taken steps to do just that. According to the Guardian piece just linked, there’s still an exemption: manga and anime. According to the piece, Japan is one of the world’s biggest suppliers of child pornography and the second biggest consumer after the US.

Though they welcomed the new law, child welfare campaigners said they were dismayed that the legislation will almost certainly not apply to the huge market in manga and other forms of animation that sexually exploit children.

“We would like the revised law to cover manga, but it is extremely difficult,” Yuka Saito, of Unicef’s Japan office, told the Guardian.

“We keep encountering arguments about freedom of expression, but if the US and other countries can ban that kind of material, why does Japan continue to tolerate it?”

In America, the Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that banning drawn representations of child sexual abuse was unconsitutional. However the Child Protection Act of 2003 did make possession of such material an offense, a law that has not yet been tested in the Supreme court. Legal opinions differ on whether the law would stand up.

Legal or not, it’s fucking creepy.

Viz has announced officially nine new titles for the second quarter, GUN BLAZE WEST, HARUKA: BEYOND THE STEAM OF TIME, NIGHTMARE INSPECTOR: YUMEKUI KENBUN, B.O.D.Y, FAIRY CUBE, THE RECORD OF A FALLEN VAMPIRE, ROSARIO+VAMPIRE, GIMMICK! and CAT EYED BOY. Most of these have been up on Amazon for a while, but the most interesting (to us, anyway) is probably CAT EYED BOY by horror great Kazuo Umezu. Descriptions of all nine in the jump.

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§ Chris Butcher is on a tear this week, first with a calling-a-spade-a-spade . post

So yeah, most of the 3300 graphic novels released in 2007 sucked. Godwin’s Law Sturgeon’s Law is that 95% of everything is crap, and that’s about right in this case. Of course, the fact that there’s a “Godwin’s Law” “Sturgeon’s Law” at all should tell me that this is no surprise to any of you, but I just feel like someone had to come out and say it: There are a lot of awful, awful graphic novels coming out these days. Whoever’s guarding the gate, be it retailers, journalists, “journalists”, whatever, I beg you; be discerning in your praise, don’t pass along PR without having vetted the project yourself, stand behind your recommendations and, if you can’t, own up to your mistakes.

He followed it up with a post where is picked up the spade and did some digging to put his money where his mouth is:

That said, I just read the new Amazing Spider-Man, #552, and it’s awful. That’s no surprise, I read about 20 comics this week and half of them were pretty bad, but this one is written by Bob Gale, who wrote Back to the Future. Why is that important? Other than the failure of the writer on this one, there’s the failure of the editor as well for hiring him… This is the same Bob Gale who wrote Daredevil #19-25 (current series). A story-arc so mediocre that they didn’t even bother to collect it in trade paperback, and considering Marvel was collecting nearly everything at that point, including every Daredevil story, that’s saying a lot.

§ HARBINGER, a long ago title from the great Valiant Age of comics may get the movie treatment courtesy of director Brett Ratner. Ratner had fun with X-MEN 3, but now he wants his OWN comics movie franchise to get rolling. The deal was negotiated via the Valiant Entertainment Group, a privately financed company headed by CEO Jason Kothari and chief creative officer Dinesh Shamdasani, both of whom will be co-producers on the film. Apparently more Valiant comics and movie deals are on the way.

§ SLG head Dan Vado presents his March line-up in this slide-show webcast. The internet makes all things possible.

§ Marvel EIC Joe Quesada’s popular feature Cup O’ Joe in which he takes on fan questions will be returning as a regular feature at MySpace:

Every week, Quesada will tackle questions posed directly by True Believers on the world’s most popular social network in this brand new weekly feature on MySpace Comic Books. Like a might Marvel team-up, the online community known for connecting legions of fans with the most exciting creators, projects, and events in the industry comes together with the leading comics publisher to present your chance to get inside the mind of one of comics’ most popular personalities.

Cup o’ Joe was long a regular feature at Newsarama, but word on the street has it that Marvel and the comics news giant had a falling out over a broken embargo.

§ Via the Vanity Fair blog (!) comes a little piece of comics history we had just forgotten about. Radio host Joe Franklin’s appearance at last week’s MOREOLD JEWISH COMEDIANS event was a burying of the hatchet — and not in someone’s back:

That Franklin was in attendance at all, let alone getting laughs, was a big surprise to a number of people at the party, given that, in 1984, he sued Friedman for $40 million after the cartoonist published a hilarious comic strip called “The Incredible Shrinking Joe Franklin” in Heavy Metal magazine. The case was dismissed because the comic strip was an obvious parody, and almost 25 years later Franklin has apparently gotten over his anger. Friedman emailed me this morning to let me know that one of the highlights of his party was when Franklin walked up and embraced him.

Franklin was clearly an early adapter in the cartoon legal battle derby but it’s great to see old feuds left behind in the dustbin where they belong.