We were a little late to this morning’s Graphic Novels Breakfast, but got there in time to see Art Spiegelman deliver an entertaining slideshow on the history of graphic novels and his own history with the form. Jeff Smith moderated and Jeph Loeb and Mike Mignola contributed their own observations. As Spiegelman pointed out, it’s been a long journey from comic books being burned in the 50s to a breakfast for comic book authors at the book world’s biggest show. (The yearly author breakfasts are among the BEA’s marquis events.) Smith and Spiegelman pointed to two events in 2002 which really kicked off the GN Boom: the ALA meeting where Smith, Neil Gaiman, Colleen Doran and Spiegelman spoke and the great love affair between libraries and graphic novels was made clear to all; and the SPIDER-MAN movie.

Speaking of movies, when Smith talked about camera angles in his own work, Spiegelman got a bit testy, standing up for the sanctity of the humble comic as a medium in its own right.

A news item from the panel: Smith will be doing a book for Francoise Mouly’s Toon Books imprint.

Observation: lots of signage on the West Hall for IDW’s new GI Joe announcement.

There are no less than TWO tracks of graphic novel programming today, and we’ve skipped out of them to write this item. So back to the fray!

We’ve never experienced “buzz” so literally in re: graphic novels as at this year’s BEA in Los Angeles. Well be standing there stealing totes from a booth and we’ll overhear “And this is our new graphic novel…” from some earnest booth worker at a book publisher who never published GNs before. As opposed to the first BEA we covered for the Pulse back in 2002, where GNs were segregated to a few isolated booths, they are EVERYWHERE here…in Diamond Alley, at Random House, at FSG, at Perseus, at the giant DC booth, on posters, in panels….they are truly mainstream.

In news items, We chatted with Chris Oliveros who gave us galleys of new books from Rutu Modan, Marguerite Abouet and Clement Oubrerie, and Guy Delisle. He mentioned that the response to WHAT IT IS by Lynda Barry has been overwhelming with the book already sold out of its first printing and a second on its way.

NEWSY BITS: Dan Nadel dropped word that he’ll be debuting a new comic by director Michel Gondry at next week’s MoCCA before dashing off to catch a plane…at Last Gasp editor Colin Turner filled us in on some of the manga books they have coming out, including Tokyo Zombie as well as a new book by Junko Mizuno…at Quirk Books they were touting a new GN adaptation of THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which is being adapted into a motion picture by David Fincher due out later this year.

Wait, back to the floor…more later…

Our primitive PC gear isn’t letting us post at the moment. We advise going to my Twitter account , where we’ll be updating from the show floor.

Who’s alive? Who’s dead? Who might be dead? Who’s dead but still appeared in tonight’s episode?

Let’s get to it.

SPOILERS, of course…

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Titan announces some new properties concerning Golden Age legend Joe Simon.

Titan Publishing Group Ltd. has announced the acquisition of worldwide rights to a range of books celebrating the work of Golden Age comics legend, Joe Simon, co-creator of Captain America. Throughout his career, Simon pioneered every aspect of the industry, from writing to art, editing to publishing. He ran a studio that employed some of the industry’s most talented artists, including the famed Jack Kirby. He was the first editor in chief of the company that became Marvel Comics, and ultimately played a pivotal role in comics’ transcendence to an American art form.
 
Scheduled for spring 2009 is Joe Simon: The Man Behind The Comics, an in-depth illustrated autobiography written by Simon himself, taking readers on an illustrated journey through the life and career of this seminal figure in comics history. From his beginnings in newspaper cartooning through the birth of the comics medium, military service during World War II, the Kefauver hearings and beyond, this volume reveals the man and his work.
 
Further volumes will celebrate the collaborative efforts of Joe Simon with Jack Kirby. The Best Of Simon & Kirby, a deluxe hardcover edition, explores the duo’s acclaimed proliferation of work in all genres, including superheroes, horror, detective fiction, westerns, and the first of the romance comics. The Simon & Kirby Superheroes delves into the duo’s work that set the standard for costumed characters through heroes such as Blue Bolt, Fighting American, Stuntman, and the Fly.

Compiled with unprecedented access to rare archive material and exclusive contributions from Joe Simon, these are the only editions authorized by both Joe Simon and the estate of Jack Kirby, marking the beginning of a line of publishing that will offer an unprecedented look at the Dream Team of Golden Age comics.

I usually don’t do “and then I left for the airport” trip reports because, let’s face it, everyone has travel travails. Maybe I am just an old fart, but my trip thus far has been marked by breakdowns of service and civility that are annoying and, taken as a whole, alarming. Consider this an ode, then.

* To the woman at American Airlines check in who saw that my suitcase was broken and couldn’t be checked and when asked “Is there anywhere I can get a tool to fix it?” just looked like I’d asked her to clean my shoes with her tongue: Go to heck! (I saw a guy with a lanyard and he did attempt to help me, and knew what the problem was, but couldn’t fix it and advised me to go see a TSA person. In the end I fixed it all by myself, broken fingernails and all.) 

* To the brilliant planner at American Airlines who decided that all lunches and snacks would come at a charge ($2 for those pretzels you used to get free) and then sold them all while I was asleep and then had absolutely nothing to eat on the plane: Go to heck! To the stewardess who just looked at me blankly when I asked if there was any food left like I had asked for a diamond ring: go to heck! (The nice lady sitting next to me did heed my pain and give me a Quaker Oats bar from her purse. Neighbor helping neighbor, it’s all we’ve got.)

* To the revoltingly annoying girl or 20 or so behind me who tried to hold her bulldog on her lap for the whole flight and when told she had to put it away begged and whined like a 3 year old, and then yelled at her mom like she was a slave, and kept kicking my chair: you are the bleak future of America.

*To the guy in front of me who had bad gas the whole trip: please use the restroom.

* To the woman at the rental car agency who, without telling me, gave me a giant LeSabre or something at Premium rental price, when I had reserved a compact: You are a bad person. (When confronted with the Boat of Car, appalled, I asked the old Latino dude cleaning the parking lot if this was a compact and he laughed. “Once everyone wants SUV…no more!” I had to wait half an hour for a compact to come in, because apparently with gas at $4+ a gallon no one wants a gas guzzler any more.)

 * To the people at the Bonaventure who decided that my room would be the one with no room service menu or shower cap…GIVE ME A BREAK! I called two people to get me a room service menu, and they said there are none. Luckily the guy who brought up my eventual meal went and got one for me.

Maybe I am a demanding crank, but I don’t think any of my requests today were outrageous or should have been met by blank stares, hostility or deceit, I ran into an acquaintance, also here for the BEA in the lobby and he was chewing out a hotel employee because the wifi in the lobby didn’t work. Suddenly I felt one of those “Death Wish” yeah yeah, you go! moments. Someone was fighting back and I was proud!

On the plus side, I did see Keanu Reeves on the plane.

Don’t forget, people: Set those DVRs for an extra hour (or two). Tonight’s season finale starts at 9 ET. And they are replaying the part of the finale at 8 ET, which contains extra footage from the press conference.

We’re supposed to get some answers to some big questions tonight (like who’s in the coffin from last season’s final episode), so here is a place for you to throw out your crazy Doc Jensen-like theories before the show actually airs this evening. Also, check out this LA Times story about how the LOST scripts aren’t quite what we see on the tube.

Be warned: There COULD be people posting spoilers in the comments, so read at your own peril.

Look for a LOST recap sometime tomorrow. As always, The Helper Monkey’s work schedule means not knowing whether he will get to see the broadcast live or have to wait until the wee hours of the morning.

Let the nerd countdown begin.

Posted by Mark Coale

Well, now that the moral outrage has subsided a bit, other folks are coming out to say that the Tokyopop Pilot Program pact isn’t that bad.Editors Paul Morrissey and Hope Donovan speak in a press release which manages to both be written in standard English and make some vital points that did not come across in the contract.

We’ve made the contracts generic, to include as many creators as possible, and what you see is the same deal extended to everyone. We’re proud to be able to present these contracts as they are, so that love it or hate it, we’ve empowered potential manga creators to understand the terms long before they propose a project.

Making the contracts available to all is just the first positive step for TOKYOPOP that the Pilot Program represents. Of course we want our Pilots to be successful, and we want to work with Pilot creators to develop their Pilots into other media. And if we do so, an entirely new contract is drafted for that particular project-whether it be a full-length book deal, a film/TV deal, etc. However, TOKYOPOP realizes that some Pilots will not develop beyond their initial stage. And that’s why the Pilot Program is also progressive in returning rights to creators. For any Pilot that doesn’t pan out, the rights to the project are returned to the creator after the one-year Exclusive Period ends. After that, the creator is free to take that exact chapter created for us as well as the property anywhere they like-whether that’s self-publishing, publishing with another company or putting it on the back burner. At this point, for example, if the creator were to land a film/TV deal based on their Pilot property, TOKYOPOP would have no stake in that venture.

The most evenhanded take on the contract comes from Canadian producer type Brad Fox who points out that a lot of the elements that are so objectionable are actually quite standard, including the lack of “moral rights.”

This is one case where the “folksy” language obscures a very tricky legal issue in North America. The armchair version is that there is a concept called “Droit Moral” (Moral Rights) in French International law that is almost entirely incompatible with North American copyright law - and allows creators under certain situations to completely block or shut down the release of their work. Even if they’ve agreed to it previously. If a company works internationally they almost always need these rights specifically waived to limit claims to their local definitions of “copyright” because otherwise these laws can be (under some circumstances) boiled down to “other people can’t do anything with an artists creation ever if the artist later decides they don’t want to let them”. This (understandably) creates a chilling effect on a publishers ability to do business in the EU, or with any company which does business in the EU.

It’s not fair to tar TP with this brush, as it’s been in most International contracts I’ve ever drafted in my career, or that I’ve seen, be it in print, journalism, literature, art, for hair-stylists, camera assistants, actors, house-painters… anyone I’ve ever engaged on a film, television program, play, internet series… if it has anything to do with Europe (or there’s a hint that it may be sold or displayed anywhere in the EU, or may come in contact with a company which works in the EU) that clause has to be in there. And it’s been signed by each and every one of them (including oscar-award winning actors and directors with oscar-award winning law-teams).

There’s a lot you can blame on corporate avarice - but until the International courts find a way to reconcile two law systems that just have completely different ways of approaching a metaphorical concept like “copyright”… I don’t think you can this in that camp.

It is true that America does not recognize “moral rights” — setting it aside from most of the rest of the Western World. But it is equally true that this is not something that Toykopop came up with — although they did some up with the idea of totally blaming the French for this troubling idea. Fox’s post is well worth reading in its entirety. He comes back to the issue after having heard more about Toykopop’s track record and the low $20 a page rate, but still thinks it’s not such a bad contract:

If there’s value in your premise you can take it to another publisher, or self-publish it, or start serializing it on the web… if there’s not, you can do something else - but either way if you’re smart you can start with a base audience larger than you would have had otherwise. How is that a loss for a creator?

It does mean that creators have to be willing to walk away from deals… and I know firsthand how hard that can be. But there is still value there, and ways for creators to work this particular program to their advantage.

Current Tpop creators have also begun speaking up, at least the bold ones like Rikki Simons:

Given all that, I suppose the question goes, why did Tavisha and I publish with Tokyopop? Why did we sign our (better) contract with TP in 2003 instead, as one Star Blazers douchbag once put it to me, “go with a real publisher?” Because, my Dear Mr. Bag, however Hollywood Tokyopop wants to be, they were then, when we signed our contract in 2003, and still are, a real publisher. They pay a $21,000 advance for each book that I create with Tavisha. We keep our copyright and allow them use of the copyright while they are publishing us (granting them licensing power). We can tell them goodbye and take our book elsewhere if we ever pay back, or when our sales finish paying down, the advance. In the mean time, they get our books into regular bookstores. I am not looking for a movie deal. I am a writer of illustrated books. This, to me, is justice, and for thousands of authors the world over this kind of agreement has been justice for more than a century.

Tintin Pantoja also weighs in:

On other notes, I guess everyone on LJ and beyond has been blogging about the contract stipulated for Tokyopop’s Pilot Manga Program. I don’t feel like I’m in a proper position to weigh in. There have already been better–informed statements in the past few days. As someone who’s currently working for the company in question, no answer from me can possibly come across as unbiased.

I WILL say that those who are skilled in the craft , possess initiative, research their options, have financial and emotional support through the inevitable lean periods, and, most of all, respect their abilities, will probably find satisfactory outlets. I say ‘probably’ because so much is due to sheer luck and circumstance: what language you speak, what part of the world you live in, and the opportunities that happen to cross your path. Thanks to the internet, those opportunities have expanded considerably.

Jennifer De Guzman comments at Johanna’s blog that smarmy language aside, this isn’t even the worst contract on the block:

Thanks for this, Johanna! I was curious about secondary rights and such. This means the Tokyopop Pilot Program a lot less exploitive than Zuda, I think — that contract takes all rights for not much more money, and I don’t recall a response as vehement. It’s probably because the Tokyopop “pact” was just so stupidly written.

We actually received private communiques from people we respect who pointed out that contracts offered by DC, Dark Horse, Oni and so on are just as restrictive at the end of the day, retaining trademarks, co-owning copyrights, holding onto ancillary rights and so on. (That’s a blanket overview and not a universal analysis of any one company’s contracts.) The sad bottom line, as we read it, is that in comics, it is still standard operating procedure to exploit IP in a way that is vastly more favorable to the publisher.

Of course that’s a simplistic generalization. In the book publishing world, where graphic novels are becoming more and more a part of regular publishing, it has long been the enlightened belief that giving best selling creators a bigger piece of the pie is incentive for them to stay with you and keep making you, the publisher, money. It’s a rarified attitude and one that, sadly, we imagine will be going the way of the dodo eventually. The book industry is beginning to look at the ways it has done business. Bob Miller’s new Harper Collins imprint lowers advances in return for a bigger back-end, non-returnability is becoming a more and more talked about alternative, and the business model is rapidly changing in myriad ways. (You can bet we’ll be talking about this over the weekend!)

In the end, we regret not a whit of our righteous anger. The contract is written in an offensive way and the pay is so low that you might as well do it yourself. Luckily, as Tom points out, people have options now.

Always remember that the most successful and admirable creators have become so almost uniformly by not signing contracts like this one. There are so many options today for a lot of what they’re promising you, there are a ton of great publishers and many viable self-publishing options. If your work doesn’t click so that it can find purchase with a company that’s not ripping you off, or it fails to make a name for itself on its own, that’s a strong sign that the company’s interest in you is dependent not on the awesomeness of your talent and ideas but on their ability to screw you over. Please, don’t let them do it.

And yet, reading the responses over on the Tokyopop message board where this is being discussed, it’s hard not to see, as Kiel Phegley put it in the comments here, the young aspirants who really don’t have a fucking clue how to do this. We flash back ourselves to our own first published writing, when a penny a word seemed like a king’s ransom, and just the idea of getting published had the whole family, from Tucson to Nyack, excited. It’s easy to imagine young Eloise “Bonzai Trooper”Jones excitedly telling her parents that Toykopop, the #1 American manga publisher, has accepted her “No, teacher! It’s sore!” manga pilot and the family beaming with pride. They don’t care about $20 a page. They just want to see Eloise in print or on a phone or whatever.

Everyone has to learn their craft somewhere. Some young folks may well learn from the Manga Pilots program. They may learn how to get better at their craft, or they may learn what it feels like to get screwed. Everyone will have a different story, we imagine.

We’re off to LA for the BEA and we’re going to have limited online time due to being forced to hit the road wit
h primitive equipment — long story. We will say that we HAVE seen the first two episodes of Season # of the Venture Brothers — long story — and the first episode is definitely going to shake the fans up.

Very limited blogging for now, alas. GO read Tom, Blog@ and Dirk in the meantime.

What the–nearly 15 years after the in-house Disney Comics imprint died an inglorious death, Disney has just announced a NEW graphic novel pact, with Ahmet Zappa, Harris Katleman and Christian Beranek. Zappa is a long time comics fan who’s been hanging around the scene for years. Katleman is a TV exec vet from Twentieth. Beranek is the guy behind Silent Devil Studios.

Apparently this deal includes the ability to develop properties from the Disney vault. Can we just say as one: THE SCARECROW OF ROMNEY MARSH and THAT DARN CAT! Anything with Patrick McGoohan.

PR below.

The Walt Disney Studios has signed a multi-year deal with Ahmet Zappa, Harris Katleman and Christian Beranek to oversee the newly christened Kingdom Comics, an innovative new venture of developing graphic novels to create new film projects for the Studio as well as re-imagining and rejuvenating motion pictures from the Disney live-action Vault, it was announced today by Oren Aviv, president, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Production.

Kingdom Comics will soon announce some of the top graphic novelists and artists in the genre who will collaborate on upcoming projects. Disney Publishing Worldwide, the largest distributor of comic books in the world, will have the first opportunity to distribute publications created by Kingdom Comics.

Commenting on the announcement, Aviv said, “We’re very excited to be working with Harris, Ahmet and Christian in developing this new business devoted to creating stories and properties for the graphic novel audience, as well as for moviegoers. They are three of the top talents in their respective fields and together they have the knowledge, expertise and instincts to create great publications and film properties. Some of these exciting publications will be inspired by films and characters in the vast and storied Disney library, while other original graphic novels are sure to spark great ideas for future Disney classics. Our vision for Kingdom Comics is to bring a fresh, contemporary approach to Disney properties that already have a strong connection with moviegoers and readers all over the world, and to add to that storytelling legacy.”

Zappa added, “The ability to create new publications based on properties from the Disney vaults, and to develop original ideas for graphic novels and possibly future Disney films, is a dream job filled with enormous fun and potential. Being a storyteller myself, I can’t wait to work with some of today’s top writers and artists in bringing a fresh approach to graphic novels and the movies. We’re also excited to discover and develop promising new talents in this field.”

Katleman said, “I have been involved with my share of exciting projects and worked with lots of great talent over the years. Working with Ahmet and Christian in creating Kingdom Comics for Disney is as exciting as anything I’ve ever done. We’re all looking forward to working with Oren and his team in developing some fantastic new projects for the printed page and the silver screen.”

Beranek added, “Graphic novels continue to have an enormous following all over the world and we’re hoping to bring something new and different to those devoted fans. There are a lot of great stories waiting to be told, including some familiar properties residing in the Disney vaults. This is the opportunity of a lifetime and we can’t wait to get started.”

Ahmet Emuukha Rodan Zappa, the third of four children born to the late rock musician/composer Frank Zappa and super-powered psychic witch businesswoman Gail, started out as an actor on such shows as “Roseanne” and “Growing Pains.” This led to feature film work and a run as a host on many popular reality shows. In 2006, he sold the rights to his first novel, The Monstrous Memoirs of a Mighty McFearless, to Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer Films. He is currently writing the second installment in that series, and executive producing “Fraggle Rock” with The Jim Henson Company.

Harris Katleman served as president and CEO of Twentieth Television from 1980 to 1992, during which time the Studio developed such landmark programs as “L.A. Law,” “The Simpsons,” “Anything But Love,” “In Living Color,” “Doogie Howser, M.D.” (in association with Steven Bochco Productions), “Civil Wars,” and “NYPD Blue.” He also oversaw production on the final four years of “M*A*S*H,” and “Trapper John,” and guided the development of “The Tracey Ullman Show,” and “Picket Fences,” among others. Following his tenure at Twentieth Television, he joined Mark Goodson Productions as Chief Operating Officer (1993-95), followed by a stint as Chief Operating Officer and Partner in Jonathan Goodson Productions. Katleman continues to be in partnership with Jonathan Goodson Productions. His recent credits include executive producing the syndicated shows “Forgive or Forget,” “House Calls” and “Dirty Rotten Cheater.”

An accomplished writer and editor, Christian Beranek formed his own publishing company, Silent Devil, in 1996, and turned it into an indie powerhouse, producing such hits as Dracula vs. King Arthur and Super Frat. He parlayed that success into consulting for companies such as Universal Music Publishing, Harley Davidson, AOL, and Mazda on graphic novels and their value as both intellectual properties and marketing devices. As a writer, he penned the origin of John Doe for the New Line/Zenescope series Se7en and scripted the creator-owned franchise Willow Creek. He recently finished the latest draft of the “Dracula vs. King Arthur” screenplay.

The deal was negotiated by Steve Katleman of Greenberg Traurig.

UPDATE: Check out Johanna’s list of Tokyopop’s greatest mistakes over the past two years:

The reviews are in! And Tokyopop’s online contract for the new “Manga Pilot” program has been dubbed everything from “appalling” to “vile” to “the most childish and disingenuous legal document I have ever read.”

What is it? Basically, Tokyopop has started the next iteration of their “Rising Stars of Manga contest/OEL” method of developing IP and talent, with their “Manga PIlot” program:

In this new program, promising manga creators are selected and hired by our editorial team to create a 24-to-36-page “pilot”—a short-form manga that will be used to determine whether or not a full-length manga will be created. The Manga Pilot will be published online for TOKYOPOP community members to review, rate, and discuss.

The contract for this program is posted at the link above, and it drew sharp, immediate and universal condemnation, starting with Lea Hernandez, for such passages as this:

““MORAL RIGHTS” AND YOUR CREDIT
“Moral rights” is a fancy term (the French thought it up) that basically has to do with having your name attached to your creation (your credit!) and the right to approve or disapprove certain changes to your creation. Of course, we want you to get credit for your creation, and we want to work with you in case there are changes, but we want to do so under the terms in this pact instead of under fancy French idea. So, in order for us to adapt the Manga Pilot for different media, and to determine how we should include your credit in tough situations, you agree to give up any “moral rights” you might have.”

To which Lea wrote:

There you have it, folks: Moral Rights are dumb because the French thought of them, so give them up.

Normally mild-mannered Bryan Lee O’Malley then stepped in with a crushing condemnation:

I’m going to go through this piece of shit with you, because I’m sure a lot of aspiring cartoonists read my blog and I want to do my part to help you all have a future.

Read my bloggy lips: if you sign this contract, say goodbye to THE FUTURE.

I’m not going to speculate about where they’re being untruthful. I’m just going to let them say what they’re saying. It’s bad enough.

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PR:

Comic-Con, the nation’s largest comic book and popular arts convention, announces this year’s nominees for the Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award (or The Manning Award as it is more commonly referred).

The Manning award has been given out annually at the San Diego Comic-Con since 1982. It is presented to a comics artist who, early in his or her career, shows a superior knowledge and ability in the art of creating comics. It is named for Russ Manning, the artist best known for his work on the Tarzan and Star Wars newspaper strips and the Magnus, Robot Fighter comic book. Russ was a popular guest at the San Diego convention in the 1970s. The first recipient of the award was former Manning assistant Dave Stevens, Others to have received the award include Jan Duursema, Steve Rude, Scott McCloud, Art Adams, Eric Shanower, Dan Brereton, Jeff Smith, Gene Ha, Alexander Maleev, Goran Sudzuka, Eric Wight, R. Kikuo Johnson, and David Petersen.

The 2008 nominees are:

Fred Chao, writer/artist of Johnny Hiro (published by AdHouse)

Barry Deutsch, writer/artist of Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword (self-published)

Cathy Malkasian, writer/artist of Percy Gloom (published by Fantagraphics)

Mukesh Singh, artist of Shadow Hunter (published by Virgin Comics)

Christian Slade, artist of Corgi (published by Top Shelf)

The nominees were selected by a committee consisting of representatives of the West Coast Comics Club and Comic-Con International: San Diego, and the winner will be chosen by past Manning award winners and Russ Manning assistants. The recipient will be announced during the Eisner Awards ceremony on July 25 at Comic-Con International: San Diego.

More information about the Manning Awards can be found at www.comic-con.org/cci/cci_manning.shtml

A new still from THE WATCHMEN has been released shwing the older “Minutemen” superteam. Check out Carla Gugino - va-va-voom!

As previusly announced Al Jaffee (Above) won THE Reuben, but many other awards were given out over the weekend:
Newspaper Panel: Chad Carpenter
Edtorial cartoons: Bill Schorr
Newspaper Strips Award: Jim Meddick
Advertising Illustration Award: Tom Richmond
Book Illustration Award: Sandra Boynton
Newspaper Illustration Award: Sean Kelly
Animation Feature Award: David Silverman, THE SIMPSONS MOVIE
Television Animation Award: Stephen Silver
NCS division award, Gag Cartoons: Mort Gerberg
Comic Books Award: Shaun Tan
Greeting Cards: Dave Mowder
Magazine Feature/Magazine Illustration: Daryll Collins
Milton Caniff Lifetime Acheivement Award: Sandra Boynton

Stanley Berneche, John Byrne, Pierre Fournier and Edwin R. “Ted” McCall have been annoucned as the 2008 inductees into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame.

Canada’s first national award recognizing outstanding achievements by Canadian creators in the creation and publication of comic books and graphic novels returns in 2008 for it’s fourth year: the JOE SHUSTER CANADIAN COMIC BOOK CREATOR AWARDS, named after pioneering Toronto-born artist Joe Shuster who, along with writer Jerry Siegel, created the iconic super-powered hero, Superman.

In 2008 four more creators will be inducted into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame - they will be honoured at the JSA ceremony on Saturday, June 14th in Toronto, Canada at the Lillian Smith Library Auditorium (239 College St., E. of Spadina Ave., Toronto). The ceremony will be co-hosted by our returning master-of- ceremonies dynamic duo, Rick Green (the Frantics; the Red Green Show & History Bites) and Rob Salem (Toronto Star & Drive-In TV) and, as always, it will be an evening to remember.

The Joe Shuster Award presentations will kick off in the evening at 8PM and will be preceded by a day long Sequential Art Symposium which, along with the awards, are free to the public. The Symposium will run from 10AM to 5PM and include participants such as Darwyn Cooke, Tom Grummett, and author John Bell (Invaders from the North). The Symposium will be accompanied by an exhibit of artwork by Canadian comic book artists to salute the historic 70th anniversary of the publication of Joe Shuster’s renowned co-creation, Superman, in June 1938’s Action Comics # 1. The exhibit, entitled Visions of an Icon, will include original images of the Man of Steel by Canadian artists, including Darwyn Cooke, Dave Sim, Todd McFarlane and a vast array of additional creators.

More:

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Well, it’s not enough that comic book movies have saved the box office, now they are saving the DVD business, which fell 3.2% last year to a mere $15.9 billion. How? Well, using Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, of course. According to the NY Times, Warner is trying a bold new tactic in conjunction with the release of the WATCHMEN movie next year: a concurrent release of the animated TALES OF THE BLACK FREIGHTER as a direct-to-dvd movie.

The second film, tentatively called “Tales of the Black Freighter,” follows a side “Watchmen” storyline about a shipwreck and will arrive in stores five days after the main movie rolls out in theaters. The DVD will also include a documentary-style film called “Under the Hood” that will delve into the characters’ backstories.

Warner, the No. 1 distributor of DVDs, bills the effort as a way to renew retail excitement for little silver discs now that the once-booming market has matured.

The move is an investment in creating excitement for WATCHMEN, which is already a risky business as an R-rated, mature-themed superhero movie.

The immediate goal is for the parallel release to help start a potential new movie franchise. As television advertising becomes less effective because of declining TV viewership, movie studios need to reach a mass audience somehow, and having what amounts to ads sitting on store shelves is seen as a crucial antidote.

The effort is also a way for Warner to get more DVD bang for not many more bucks. The “Watchmen” film, Mr. Synder said, will probably generate at least three DVDs: “Tales of the Black Freighter,” followed about four months later by release of “Watchmen” itself, and then an “ultimate” edition in which the two are edited together into one megamovie.

You don’t say. Warner also plans to create a dozen 22- to 26-minute Webisodes of “The Watchmen Motion Comic” to help make the story more palatable to non-Watchmen initiates. This series, which will eventually be collected into DVD, will be “a panel-by-panel slide show of the graphic novel narrated by an actor.” So that’s at least FOUR dvds that we will have to buy then. Let’s hope Warner does a better job of marketing this movie than they did SPEED RACER!

Setting aside how positively thrilled Alan Moore must be over all this, we’re thrilled because dear, dear Gerard Butler is going to take time out from his busy schedule of being linked to Hollywood starlets to provide the main voice for Black Freighter! Win-win!

The Venture Bros. - The Amazing Shirt of the Week Club:
Venture Bros Season 3 arrives JUNE 1! And so does Shirt Club!

AT LAST!

Technorati Tags: Venture Bros.

Scenes that should have had the Wilhelm Scream.

Here.:

Thelma Keane, wife of cartoonist Bil and inspiration for the mom in FAMILY CIRCUS has died at age 82 of Alzheimer’s disease.

“She was the inspiration for all of my success,” Bil Keane, 85, told The Associated Press from his home in Paradise Valley on Sunday. “When the cartoon first appeared, she looked so much like Mommy that if she was in the supermarket pushing her cart around, people would come up to her and say, `Aren’t you the Mommy in “Family Circus?” ‘ and she would admit it.”

Bil and Thelma “Thel” Keane met during World War II in the war bond office in Brisbane, Australia. She was a native Australian working as an accounting secretary, and Bil worked next to her as a promotional artist for the U.S. Army.

Thelma was mother o six children, including Jeff, who helps his father on the current strip, and animator Glen.

A gallery of the Gothic novel staple.

Via Neil Gaiman.

God, it’s been a while!

§ Speaking of 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, here’s a Fearnet promo image for the film by Ben Templesmith.

§ Will GREEN LANTERN be to DC what IRON MAN was to Marvel at the movies? Comics Book Bin sure hopes so:

Whether or not a Green Lantern film would feature the same kind of character development remains to be seen, but certainly the potential is there. Hal Jordan was chosen to become a Green Lantern due to his fearlessness, and that could be the linchpin to his character in so many different ways. Such a lack of fear could border on reckless behavior, or the journey could be all about overcoming fear and not allowing it to hold us back.

Such depth of character would come from, initially, the hands of the screen writers. They would have to craft a likable Jordan who in the course of the film becomes a better man, but not so much so that he is by any means perfect - merely worthy of being Green Lantern. Comics and film scribe Kevin Smith is a favored candidate, and fans are eager to see his take on the super-hero film genre.

BONUS: Hervé St-Louis tells you everything you need to know about Green Lantern.

§ The Wanted official site has gone live.

§ The Times profiles immensely popular webcomic xkcd:

Mr. Munroe, a physics major and a programmer by trade, is good for jokes like this three times a week, informed by computing and the Internet. By speaking the language of geeks — many a strip hinges on crucial differences between the C and Python programming languages — while dealing with relationships and the meaning of a computer-centric life, xkcd has become required reading for techies across the world.

The site, which began publishing regularly in January 2006, has 500,000 unique visitors a day, he said, and 80 million page views a month. (Why “xkcd”? “It’s just a word with no phonetic pronunciation,” his Web site, xkcd.com, answers.)

Munroe is one of less than two dozen webcomickers who makes a living at it, says the article.

§ Randy Myers unearths six graphic novels that aren’t about men in tights.

§ James Kochalka and sons profiled.

All of this has made for a contented family in the Old North End — Kochalka and his wife Amy King, a teacher at Lawrence Barnes Elementary School, live in a small house on Manhattan Avenue. It has also earned the artist awards and an avid international following. During a recent visit, Kochalka is jiggling the smiling, saucer-eyed Oliver in his left arm. He puts down a bottle and disappears through the kitchen to retrieve a hefty French compendium of the first five years of American Elf. The daily graphic diary, carried in Seven Days for the past five years, turns 10 in October. It has also spawned a two-volume Italian edition of the first two years and a Spanish edition of the first year. The whole decade’s worth is now available online at Kochalka’s website. And this is just a fraction of his prodigious output.

§ David Brooks on Alpha nerds:

In 1950, Dr. Seuss published a book called “If I Ran the Zoo,” which contained the sentence, “I’ll sail to Ka-Troo, and bring back an IT-KUTCH, a PREEP, and a PROO, a NERKLE, a NERD, and a SEERSUCKER, too!” According to the psychologist David Anderegg, that’s believed to be the first printed use of the word “nerd” in modern English.

The next year, Newsweek noticed that nerd was being used in Detroit as a substitute for “square.” But, as Anderegg writes in his book, “Nerds,” the term didn’t really blossom onto mass consciousness until The Fonz used it in “Happy Days,” in the mid- to late-’70s . And thus began what you might call the ascent of nerdism in modern America.

What will be contents of the TWO Hobbit movies now in the works from producer Peter Jackson and director Guillermo del Toro? There is sure to be an unexpected party, and Smaug and Bard and barrels and all that, but what’s in that second movie? It’s purported to cover the 60 years between the end of THE HOBBIT and the start of FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, but what does that mean?!?!? Well, Jackson and del Toro just did a Q&A session with fans and did answer that question:

Guillermo del Toro: The idea is to find a compelling way to join THE HOBBIT and FELLOWSHIP and enhance the 5 films both visually an in their Cosmology. There’s omissions and material enough in the available, licensed material to attempt this. The agreement is, however, that the second film must be relevant and emotionally strong enough to be brought to life but that we must try and contain the HOBBIT in a single film.

Peter Jackson: I’m really looking forward to developing Film Two. It gives us a freedom that we haven’t really had on our Tolkien journey. Some of you may well say that’s a good thing of course! The Hobbit is interesting in how Tolkien created a feeling of dangerous events unfolding, which preoccupy Gandalf. There’s an awful lot of incident that happens during that 60 year gap. At this stage, we’re not imagining a film that literally covers 60 years, like a bio-pic or documentary. We would figure out what happens during that 60 years, and choose one short section of time to drop in and dramatise for the screen. I’m really interested in how it effects The Hobbit - do we show what happens to Gandalg during his trips away? We’ll see. We may well have seeds for Film Two that we’ll subtly sow during The Hobbit.

Dear lord, it really is going to be a movie about Gandalf wandering around talking to Radagast the Brown! Can you say…fanfic? Not that we’re not going to stand in line between now and 2012 to see it, but what a crazy idea!

[Link via Sean T. Collins.]

Technorati Tags: Tolkien

In the recent avalanche of comic book movies, one has been MIA for a while — the Kate Beckinsale starrer WHITEOUT, based on the GN by Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber. Its been in the can for a while, but appears to have been caught (perhaps — this is our speculation only) part of the Warner Bros. edict against female fronted movies — and also moved to avoid going up against the similarly snow-themed 30 DAYS OF NIGHT. However Shock Till You Drop reports that it will finally be hitting this September 19th.

Directed by Dominic Sena, Whiteout stars Kate Beckinsale as a U.S. Marshall investigating the first murder in Antarctica. She must solve the case before the winter comes and plunges the continent into darkness. Tom Skerritt, Alex O’Loughlin and Columbus Short co-star.

Ian Brill makes the jump from blogger/journo to the man who makes the sausage, joining Boom! as Games Workshop editor. Congrats, Ian! We’ll miss you as a freelancer, and at those whacked-out San Diego PWCW editorial meetings, but we’re proud of you for moving onward and upwards. PR below.

BOOM! Studios announced today the appointment of Ian Brill to the role of Games Workshop Editor. Bringing heavy experience in writing and editing, Mr. Brill will helm BOOM!’s Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000 and Blood Bowl line of comics while providing steady leadership and unique insight to the expanding BOOM! catalog as the company continues its explosive growth.

“Ian has an unparalleled devotion for comics that makes him ideal to work at BOOM!,” said Ross Richie, the company’s co-founder and CEO. “Coming from comic book journalism, Ian has a unique vantage point that has allowed him to see every part of the comic business, and this, hands down, makes him one of the best-suited people in the industry today to make the jump to an editorial position.”

“I’m thrilled to see what ideas Ian will bring to the table,” said Mark Waid, BOOM! Studios Editor-in-Chief. “BOOM! continues to bring in top talent with various backgrounds, which gives us a cutting edge in what used to be a two-company market.”

Ian Brill started working on the other side of the comics business, writing article after article for The Comics Journal, Publishers Weekly and Newsarama. A graduate of San Francisco State University with a B.A. in English Literature, Brill is no stranger to writing and editing. Mr. Brill now takes his love of comics to BOOM! where he will oversee the bestselling Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000 and Blood Bowl line of comic books, licensed from Games Workshop.