So we don’t go into the weekend on a sour note, here’s something to laugh at. When a mathematician tries to date.

Have fun, kids!

What is it with the comic book reviewers who include this in their reviews?

This review was based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.

I guess it’s supposed to be some kind of ethical high ground thing, but, ironically, it makes the reviewer look like a complete amateur.

Because the way the world works is that publicists are SUPPOSED to send out free product so it can get reviewed.

Does Roger Ebert go to the movie theater every Friday and stand in line and go back to the Sun-Times to say “Hey I caught some good flicks this weekend. Can I write them up?”

Does Michiko Kakutani spend her time down at Borders browsing the stacks and then call up the NYT Book Review editor to say “Hey, I really want to review this new T.C. Boyle book, whaddaya say?”

I’m sure there are times when any top reviewer covers something they paid for with their own dime, but the thing that makes them top reviewers is that IT DOESN’T MATTER. They'’ve reached that not-so-rarified state that they can praise or slag a work independent of how it was received.

Every day at Publishers Weekly, we get dozens of “complimentary copies” of books and I assign them to various reviewers based on how important the book is and whether the reviewer will give it a fair reading. It doesn’t matter who paid or didn’t pay for the book itself.

I would be more interested in knowing if a book was reviewed from a .pdf or a B&W galley and so on — those things can affect the accuracy of a review.

Who paid shouldn’t.

NOW, if the author or publicist is a personal pal of the reviewer and sent them a copy of whatever with the note “I just KNOW you’ll love this! Alan Moore Updike is coming out to promote his new YouTube series and he’d love to talk to you about it”, that’s a different matter.

In that case, it’s more upfront to say “My good pal Swifty Kingsley sent along a DVD of this new Alan Moore Updike YouTube DVD, and it’s the dog’s bollocks.”

But that’s hardly reviewing, either. The NY Times and other reputable media don’t allow people to review a book if they even KNOW the author. That is how to maintain distance. In the tiny circle jerk world of comics, maintaining distance is almost impossible. That’s why I cut back on doing reviews — too many conflicts of interest.

But if I ever did go back to it, whether I got a book for free or whether I paid for it would be the least of my concerns.

You must see the others.

The Angoulême International Comics Festival, the biggest most amazing comics-themed gathering of the year, is well underway in France, and if a bomb was dropped on this small French town, no one would be left to amaze us. You can keep up to speed with the English language version of the fest’s website. It’s being regularly updated with news and photos. Above, Argentine legend José Muñoz arrives at the train station. (Photo © Jean-Daniel Guillou) See, in France they treat cartoonists like celebrities.

Others covering the show en Anglais: Wim Lockefeeris reporting for the Forbidden Planet Blog :

Comics are everywhere in Angoulême. Naturally, all the important streets are named after important cartoonists (most famously La Place Hergé, with the enormous head of the Tintin creator smiling benevolently down the street). but there are also murals all around; even the local fast food joint was decorated by ligne claire giant Ted Benoit and all the shop windows in the city centre have been redecorated in a comics style (ranging from putting a stand-up Spirou near a set of hair products, to having all your mannequins reading quite recent books). Newspapers, from the local Charente Libre to the national Libération, put cartoon art on their front pages (or, in the case of Libre, had cartoonists illustrate their entire paper - more on that later), and new books are advertised in the streets as if they were new albums by hot bands or Hollywood blockbusters. If you need a sugar rush as a comics addict, Angou is the place to be.

He also has a Flickr stream.

Marvel’s CB Cebulski is constantly reporting on his blog and he also has tons of photos. Above, the Lucky Luke building.

Finally, Dr. Bart Beaty is posting very timely updates via phone at the Comics Reporter.

Between all of them, it’s kinda like being there…but we’re not…again. Sniff.

The final WATCHMEN poster has been released. Ooooooh.

Empire has released new character portraits. Aaaahhhhhh.

The New Frontiersman has a Flickr set with all kinds of viral material on the original Minutemen, the ’50s superhero team. Oooooooooh! Above, Dr. Manhattan comes to Vietnam. I wonder if they offered him some instant coffee?

The My Chemical Romance Bob Dylan cover for the final WATCHMEN credits has been teased, and everyone pretty much hates it. Oh well, you can’t have everything.

Technorati Tags: Watchmen

Evan Dorkin rounds up the potential dangers of too-literal readings of recent laws aimed at testing lead levels in children’s toys:

Anyway — said impact will be nothing short of devastating for many small businesses, home-crafters, DIY-ers, toy manufacturers, clothing manufacturers, re-sellers, used clothing shops, thrift shops, and so on and so forth. And also, libraries, book stores and yeah, comic shops. Because a ton of stuff is being lumped together under this act, which will require expensive product testing for anything deemed “for children”. Children’s clothes, books, comics, school supplies, toys, costumes, need I go on? And second-hand items, clothes, toys, books, back issues, etc. It doesn’t end once you start thinking about it. And, in fact, it gets worse, because it affects inventory. So, dump your inventory, Target, Toys R Us, etc, and smaller businesses, you lose those toys and shirts that will possibly bankrupt you. No more crafting on Etsy, et al. You can’t even, under this law, knit blankets for Project Linus , which provides blankets for children in need. So why the F didn’t the people who slapped this together think about it?

A follow-up post takes on debunkers of the alarm bells:

As Sarah says — unfortunately, people are going to believe whom they want to believe, but I actually read through the relevant sections myself and Snopes is wrong. It’s not murky. Enforcement will probably be murky, but the law is not. I think they’re wrong, too. We’ve seen a lot of people slamming the Snopes article, but apparently the people at the site have made up their minds and are sticking to their guns. So, who debunks the debunkers? I dunno. Life is sticky.

Comics fans fear that two new British anti-pornography laws ‘could make comic books illegal’. The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act would make possessing “extreme pornography” - defined as any “extreme image” produced “solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal” - illegal. Oddly:

Films given an official classification are exempt from the new law, meaning portrayals of such extreme activity by actors will be allowed on screen. However, imitations by characters on paper will not enjoy such an exemption.

The second is the Coroners and Justice Bill, which is currently passing through Parliament. It will introduce a similar law banning the possession of any image involving sexual activity and children. For the purpose of the law, an image is said to contain a child if “the impression conveyed … is that the person shown is a child”.

The comic book campaigners claim that if the new rules are interpreted harshly, their hobby could be criminalised.

What we don’t get is how films that show people actually doing obscene things get a pass while a drawing that was totally imaginary is somehow more dangerous? Huh? Whatever.

This comics fan site presents the dangers and a call to action. They fear the law swould not only ban obvious cases like LOST GIRLS, but more violent material like WATCHMEN and WANTED:

We COULD get to a point where the police could legitimately visit your home or workplace, and sanctioned by an un-elected magistrate or judge go through your collection and if they find any comic book that they feel will cause sexual arousal or displays extreme violence then they could arrest you.

And what is frightening about this law is that it gives them carte blanche to invade our lives, to shut down our comic shops and ultimately it could lead to censorship of books and films as well.

Over at Comics Worth Reading, Ed Sizemore reviews PLUTO: URASAWA x TEZUKA, Volume 1, the mash-up reimagining of Astro Boy by Naoki Urasawa, master of the psychological thriller. PLUTO is the first great comic we’ve read in 2009, and if you find the idea of Astro Boy cloying, don’t worry. Imagine David Fincher remaking Pinocchio and you get the idea.

Let me start by saying that this series is completely accessible to any reader. You don’t need to have read any of Tezuka’s works to enjoy Pluto. However, for fans of Tezuka, like myself, there is an added pleasure of seeing one master of the manga medium interpret another. And I confess to geeking out trying to imagine how Urasawa will draw such odd-looking Astro Boy regulars as Dr. Ochanomizu (he’s the one with a nose as big as his head).

It’s a vision of robots we don’t see really see here in the West.

Urasawa takes us deep inside a world where robots are considered persons with full legal and civil rights. He does it so simply; we follow Gesicht in his day-to-day investigation of the murder cases. As Gesicht goes about his inquires we discover that robots get married, go on vacations, go to the doctor for annual physicals, are permitted to adopt human children, etc. It’s fascinating to see robots and humans interacting as equals. To see a world where robots are treated as ordinary citizens and just another part of the population. It’s a vision of robots we don’t see really see here in the West.

Related: a three-part interview with Urasawa:

Q: Do you mean that from the start of your career you’ve looked at it from the standpoint of a “producer”?

Urasawa: That might be a close description. When it comes to graphics, I’ve had an abnormal sensitivity for it since I was a kid. For example when I was in elementary school and I watched the “Star of the Giants” cartoon, I somehow knew it was done by four or five teams. I’d worry about stuff like, “If I consider the rotation, next week’s work will be by that team. Next week’s going to have some good scenes, but can that team handle it?” I was an annoying kid (laughs).

Publishers, artists, party planners — send us your info!

We’ll be covering New York Comic-Con (Feb 6-8 at the Javits in NYC) all next week, but in the run-up to war, we’ll be previewing booth plans, guests, and surprises. And parties…don’t forget the parties.

Email us at the usual place…and if you put NYCC somewhere in the email, Gmail will magically sort it into a place where we can FIND it.

Nice, right?

This is gonna be fun.

BTW: The forecast for next week calls for temps in the 30s. Not too bad, considering it IS the winter. But still, bundle up!

As part of the Winter ALA fest, the list of 2009 Great Graphic Novels for Teens was also released. It’s a wide-ranging sampling, from manga to YA lit and back. The librarians also chose a Top Ten, which doesn’t include all of the creators, sadly, a librarian quirk, but we’ve added them in where we knew it:

Abel, Jessica, Gabe Soria and Warren Pleece. Life Sucks. First Second. 2008. 978-1-59643-107-2. $19.95.

Ashihara, Hinako. Sand Chronicles, v. 1. VIZ. 2008. 978-1-4215-1477-2. $8.99.
—. Sand Chronicles, v. 2. VIZ. 2008. 978-1-4215-1478-9. $8.99.
—. Sand Chronicles, v. 3. VIZ. 2008. 978-1-4215-1479-6. $8.99.

Clevinger, Brian. Atomic Robo: Atomic Robo and the Fightin’ Scientists of Tesladyne. 2008. Red Five Comics. 978-0-9809302-0-7. $18.99.

Inoue, Takehiko. Real, v. 1. VIZ. 2008. 978-4215-1989-0. $12.99.
—. Real, v. 2. VIZ. 2008. 978-1-4215-1990-6. $12.99.

Ito, Junki. Uzumaki, v.1. VIZ. 2007. 978-1-4215-1389-8. $9.99.

Landowne, Youme. Pitch Black. Cinco Puntos Press. 2008. 978-1-9336-9306-4. $14.00.

Steinberger, Aimee Major. Japan Ai: A Tall Girl’s Adventures in Japan. Go Comi. 2007. 978-1-933617-83-1. $16.99.

Tamaki, Mariko and Jillian Tamaki. Skim. Groundwood Books. 2008. 978-0-8889-9753-1. $18.95.

Way, Gerard and Gabriel Bá. Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite. Dark Horse. 2008. 978-1-59307-978-9. $17.95.

Wilson, G. Willow and M.K. Perker. Cairo. Vertigo. 2007. 978-1-4012-1140-0. $24.99.

Looks like we have a new mystery on our hands.

That and so much more after the jump….

(more…)

John Mitchell, known for his comics reviews at Shuffleboil, and a member of the comics self-publishing movement in the ’90s with VERY VICKY, has put together an online webcomics exhibit for Greylock Arts. While the exhibit is a showcase for webcomics artists, Mitchell also compares the movement to the self-publishing movement:

What I have found in surveying web comics for my own pleasure and for this show is that the freedom from the busy work that self-publishers can get bogged down by has provided many people with creative productivity — they can actually worry about their cartooning rather than getting back issues to the UPS store. They can hone their craft — or if their craft is already well-honed, they can experiment. And we’re the lucky ones, because we all get to peer into their labs.

Artists shown include:

Truth Serum, Jon Adams
Goodbye, Crestfallen by Aaron Alexovich
Underwire, Jennifer Hayden
Super Spy by Matt Kindt
Zip and Li’l Bit by Trade Loeffler
Wondermark by Dave Malki
Various Comics by Phil McAndrew
The 10 Doctors by Rich Morris
Next Door Neighbor by Various Creators, Featuring “Hank and Barbara” by Joan Reilly
Garfield Minus Garfield by Dan Walsh

Above art by Matt Kindt.

The GLAAD Awards nominations, honoring media representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community, have been announced, and the honorees in the comics category are as follows:

•The Alcoholic by Jonathan Ames (Vertigo/DC Comics)
•Buffy the Vampire Slayer by Drew Goddard, Jeph Loeb and Joss Whedon (Dark Horse Comics)
•Final Crisis: Revelations by Greg Rucka (DC Comics)
•Secret Six by Gail Simone (DC Comics)
•Young Avengers Presents by Ed Brubaker, Brian Reed, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Paul Cornell, Kevin Grevioux and Matt Fraction (Marvel Comics)

Time Inc. has taken a hard line with two magazine distributors who are asking for an additional seven cents an issue to distribute magazines: Time said “No dice” to the price increase, and they’re going to find another way to get on retailer shelves

The No. 1 U.S. magazine chain, with 24 consumer titles, was the first publisher to stand up to Source Interlink Distribution and Anderson News Co. Those wholesalers, which represent an estimated 50 percent of the nation’s retail magazine sales, recently demanded that publishers pay 7 cents per copy on top of existing financial arrangements by Feb. 1 to deliver their product.

The wholesalers said they needed the money to stay in business. It’s estimated that the fees would add more than $100 million in costs to a magazine industry already battered by significant drops in ad revenue and single-copy sales.

At stake in the standoff are publishers’ newsstand sales in retailer juggernauts like Wal-Mart and Kroger. A Time Inc. rep said that it would use other, unnamed wholesalers to deliver next week’s copies of its weeklies, including Time magazine and People.

To be continued.

Johanna Draper Carlson notes that you can’t buy Kozue Amano’s ARIA #4 any more, even though it just came out in December.

Aria Book 4 came out at the beginning of December. I had some credit with a mail-order retailer, so I asked them to send it to me, along with several other graphic novels, at the beginning of January. I just got the shipment, but Aria 4 wasn’t in it. It seems that it’s sold out from Diamond.

Now, these folks are good, so I’m assuming that since they didn’t mention “we’ll try again later” that that word was final. For comparison, Amazon lists it as shipping “within 11 to 13 days”, not a good sign. (The longer a period they list, the less chance you’ll ever be able to get the book.) Borders and Books-a-Million says 2-4 weeks. Barnes & Noble simply says “not available”.

ARIA is a very well reviewed title that even made PWCW’s Critic’s Poll finalists list. We were even thinking of grabbing a copy but now that doesn’t look so likely.

Now Carlson has updated her blog with news that Tpop has cancelled a bunch of titles, including ARIA #5:

DEC084265 ARIA GN VOL 05 4
DEC084271 CAUSE OF MY TEACHER GN 4
JAN094444 DEMON FLOWERS GN VOL 05 4
JAN094443 DEMON SACRED GN VOL 01 4
SEP084286 DOT HACK SIGN MANGA NOVEL SPECIAL ED 4
JAN094447 ELEMENTAL GELADE GN VOL 11 4
DEC084256 GET BACKERS INFINITY FORTRESS GN VOL 03 4
JAN094449 INITIAL D GN VOL 34 4
JAN094445 JYU OH SEI GN VOL 03 4
JAN094448 KING OF HELL GN VOL 23 4
JAN094455 LOVE HURTS AISHIATTERU FUTARI GN 4
DEC084261 SPEED GRAPHER MANGA GN VOL 03 4
DEC084269 TACTICS GN VOL 08 4
JAN094436 THIS UGLY YET BEAUTIFUL WORLD VOL 01 4
JAN094450 TSUKUYOMI MOON PHASE GN VOL 13 4
JAN094441 VB ROSE GN VOL 06 4

Sammy Harkham says that CRICKETS, his comics series from D&Q will end its current format; Diamond’s new policies is once again the reason.

Wanted to just let those favorite few of you out there to know that my comic book, Crickets, has been cancelled due to changes made by the major comics distributor that effectively made it impossible to continue in the comic book format. Crickets #3 will come out in some DYI form in the next couple months…after that, I dont know exactly. While I am really bummed about this, as I feel I never even really got started on it, I appreciate all the people who supported it when it was coming out. Thanks. To the future.

Kevin Huizenga told the Comics Reporter that Diamond’s new minimums were partly behind his ending OR ELSE, as well:

“Obviously the Diamond thing plays into it, but it wasn’t central… yet it kind of is. We could probably meet the minimum if we tried? But Love and Rockets becoming a book felt like, this is it, if there ever was any doubt. The comic book is a weird holdover, like a coelacanth. I guess if I do this right now I can always feel like it was my decision.” He added, “I’ve been thinking about it for a while and now seems like a good time.” He also suggested that maybe the traditional alt-comic, one-man-anthology format wasn’t a particularly good one for him, either, “and probably not for comics in general, going forward.”

So the new economic realities have already killed books by Harkham and Huizenga. This is NOT the kid of trimming we were hoping for. And if you want to know the kind of trimming we WERE hoping for, just hit us up on IM, but the short version is: stinky movie comics, meaningless celebrity comics, somebody’s badly-drawn horror book, and all those other ultimately forgettable books that languish on tables in endless artists alleys of the id. And yes, there are good books to be found there, but you should ask yourself: Are these really as good as Kevin Huizenga?

Over the last week or so we’ve noticed a dramatic increase in pr from people hoping we’ll go look at their comic book .pdf and give it some attention. Clearly, everyone is desperate for some buzz. We are sad to say that we here at The Beat are going to have to be extremely stingy with our buzz from here on out. There is only a finite amount of it to go around, and the good books are going to be the ones to get it. We cannot allow our buzz catalog to expand indefinitely.

Above and beyond this, yes, the indie pamphlet is dead. More on that…later.

Nikki Finke reports on layoffs at Fox, including MySpace. The departments cut include the Comics division. We can confirm that marketing manager Sam Humphries, who spearheaded the many comics-related features at MySpace is among those laid off. No word yet on whether the popular MySpace/Dark Horse Presents and Cup o’ Joe features will continue. The Dark Horse series included creators from Joss Whedon to Larry Marder and the results have been collected into two well-regraded anthologies. The weekly Joe Quesada interview feature is also considered a must-read by people who follow goings on at Marvel. BOOM! had been releasing complete comics through MySpace, so it’s become a fairly significant element for several comics companies.

Humphries is another one of the recently laid off who is so smart and capable that we expect him to come back at the head of the next thing.

THE STUFF OF LIFE: A GRAPHIC GUIDE TO GENETICS AND DNA is a science comic book by Mark Schultz, illustrated by Zander Cannon and Kevin Cannon. We’ve flipped through it, and trust us, you WILL learn all about genetics and DNA! We’re pretty sure it will make you smarter just by being in the same room with it.

FSG has also made as animated trailer which you can see right here, with drawings by the non-brothers Cannon.

The book just came out. Here’s a blurb from Jay Hosler:

“The Stuff of Life is a beautifully written and lavishly illustrated example of the power of comics to communicate the wonders of the natural world. Mark Schultz’s words combine with Zander Cannon and Kevin Cannon’s pictures in a dynamic enzymatic reaction that gives readers a glimpse at how life works. Ambitious, expansive and completely successful, the story in Stuff of Life starts on the invisible rungs of DNA and climbs without a misstep across the millennia of organic evolution. Told through the eyes of Bloort, an alien exploring the wonders of earthly genetics, we get to see our evolutionary and genetic heritage in a new light. Often funny and always engrossing, Stuff of Life provides an exciting point of entry for anyone interested in how life on earth shapes and reshapes itself in the face of ever changing conditions. Learning genetics just got a whole lot more fun.” -Jay Hosler, associate professor of biology, Juniata College, and author and illustrator of Clan Apis and The Sandwalk Adventures

§ Steven Grant looks at the history of Stan Lee and his failed dot-com:

Which led to an interesting phenomenon, though one not so rare in our culture as I’d prefer to believe. Various comics dot-coms wanted me to create something for them in the ’90s, so I dealt, briefly, with quite a few of them. The one thing that struck me, over and over, was how they kept talking about “content” yet none of them wanted anything with content. Or comics, for that matter. Their idea of comics was generally a throwaway idea with some very identifiable (i.e. “marketable”) character that could be turned into a 30 second Flash animation. It was very schizoid, too. They all preferred something vulgar, in order to draw quick attention, or racist or disgusting or anything that would generate an “Omigosh, can you believe someone did that?!!” response, because all of them based their long-range chances of survival on how quickly they could draw huge audiences. But their business plans was generally: “create” media franchises via web technology (the Flash animation); license the franchises to TV and movies for millions of dollars; sell off the company and properties for hundreds of millions of dollars and retire filthy rich, while having positioned as a media mogul.

I dare anyone to need more than one hand to count how many “comics” from those dot-coms became Hollywood movies. Or TV shows. Any? It wasn’t because the dot-com crash wiped them all out. It was because the “content,” almost across the board, had no content. No point of view, nothing to impart. I’m not talking about a controversial stance, I’m talking about nothing more than vaguely recognizable as plot or character. Stories? You should live so long.

Speaking of Stan, we haven’t had time to delve into all the filings on the new $750 million lawsuit against Marvel and Stan, but we took a little peek at some of them and the crux of the matter seems to be that Stan assigned his intellectual property to Stan Lee Entertainment (later Media) in October 1998 and then to Marvel in November 1998. (Although, by our reading, the plaintiffs would have to prove he owned Spider-Man, etc., prior to the Marvel agreement in order for Stan Lee Media to collect.) While that sounds kind of unlikely, it wouldn’t be the first time that Lee had sold two people the same thing.

During the ’70s and ’80s, Lee was Marvel’s ambassador to Hollywood and spent his days busily selling the rights to Marvel’s library to various producers, for drastically less than they are worth these days. Many times these rights overlapped in a way that would make Larry Gordon blush, most notoriously Spider-Man, as this article from 1998 shows:

The seven-year battle over the feature film rights to the Marvel Comics character has become Hollywood’s costliest and most convoluted legal spectacle. There are five lawsuits pending before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Valerie Baker, with as many as 18 separate written agreements at issue.

Last month, a Delaware judge overseeing Marvel’s bankruptcy cleared the California cases for trial, which could begin before the end of the year. But that still leaves Baker confronted with a tangled mess.

“Spider-Man could be a movie, or it could be litigation,” said Howard Weg, an attorney who represents the liquidating trust of Carolco Pictures, which claims to have acquired the movie rights in 1989 but went bankrupt in 1995. “All the entities involved have elected not to make a movie, but litigation.”

Legal wrangling over who owned the rights to Spider-Man — involving Canon, Columbia, Carolco, and James Cameron — dragged on for years and years, but luckily they cleared up just in time for Sam Raimi to take over the franchise, so it’s all good.

Anyway, everyone knows Stan’s memory has never been very good, so he could have just forgotten who he gave the rights to here and there. To which we can only say, you gotta pay attention to these kinds of things.

§ Yesterday’s Journalista reprinted an angry letter from Carmine Infantino. That sounds pretty damned scary to us. Mr. Infantino is angry over non-payments for (presumably) usage of his character Black Canary, and some harsh comments about his business acumen in a recent book about DC.

Concerning the lack of payment for my creation “The Black Canary”: it may be your legal right but have you no concern for the moral issue?

I am also extremely dismayed by the allegation in The DC Vault, which was approved by someone in DC management, that I was “not a businessman”. May I point out that in 1973, DC, under my leadership, won most of the biggest awards in comics fandom. The statements made about the physical packaging of the comic book — re: reprints versus new material—is also inaccurate. I don’t understand why your people condoned such an error-ridden point of view regarding my tenure in DC management.

§ Two craft entries as Josiah Leighton delves into a Jeff Smith action sequence and a four-page spread by Pat McEown (above). What ever happened to Pat, anyway? He had all the tools; he was gonna be The One. Both links via Sean T. Collins.

§ Sean Kleefeld has some meta thoughts:

I’ve mentioned Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock a few times before, where he touts the idea that society is advancing so quickly that some people can’t keep up and experience a sort of culture shock when they suddenly wake up one morning and see that the world has changed around them. I think he was spot-on with the concept, and I think we’re going to see more and more people wig out in 2009 because they just realized they’ve fallen down the rabbit hole.

That’s why so many people have gone into a panic about Diamond changing their policies. Their world has been changing around them, but they only now were forced to see that, thanks to Diamond. “Heeeey… this isn’t how the comic book industry was run back when I started in it.”

§ Screenwriter/comics scribe Brian Lynch reveals some amusing anecdotes about working in comics on his blog. Two representative paragraphs:

San Diego Comic Con. I was invited out by an editor to talk about possibly doing work for them. Told me to meet him around 3 PM. 3 PM in July, even in somewhat windy San Diego, is very hot.

This guy shows up kinda drunk. At 3 PM. Also, I guess because he works in an artistic field, he’s wearing a black turtleneck and either a black kango hat or beret. I can’t be sure which, as he was so sweaty, in 90 degree heat, wearing a black turtleneck and black hat, drunk, that it was hard to look at him.

and

I talk to the editor, and he says after reading my work (they had not just comic stuff, but the Muppet screenplay that I had sold to Henson) they had the PERFECT project for me.

It was lesbian detective series. The word “lesploitation” was used. A lot. “You know, they work hard, they play hard, making out with girls, solving crimes revolving around girls, etc.”

[Via Robot 6]

§ Nisha Gopalan at Nylon Guys interviews Zack Snyder about things other than the Watchmen (althought thats in there too.):

You’re both jock and geek. Aren’t they supposed to be mortal enemies?
It’s true. I’d been making movies since I was about 11. It was very Rushmore-ian. I needed the parts to be played by all sorts of characters, so I needed jocks and geeks alike. It was good that I had both in my camp. My senior year, I kind of quit sports after meeting this supercool bodybuilder named Jim Arden [who was a teacher at his school]. He had a big, gray beard and his hair in corn rows—I’d never come across anyone as eccentric. He had a gym in the basement of the school; I went and trained with him for about three years.

§ A collection of id-defining SF covers at io9.

§ FINAL CRISIS #7 came out yesterday, formally ending the Crisis Era of comics. What was it like? Let’s check in with area man Brian Cronin:

One, Mandrakk really should have appeared more in Final Crisis if DC is going to sell Final Crisis #1-7 as a Hardcover. As I’ve said in the past, I was not too irked by the idea of Superman Beyond basically being Final Crisis #4 and 8 (of a 9-issue series). But that was when I was hoping DC would have the Hardcover be Final Crisis #1-7 plus Superman Beyond #1-2. With the knowledge that the hardcover will NOT have Sueprman Beyond, that is pretty lame. It’s not a HUGE deal, and you can still follow the series without Superman Beyond, but Superman Beyond sure as hell helps.

Two, due to the fact that this is the issue where the story is wrapped up, there are some awkward moments where Morrison simply does that - wrap the story up. Some “and then this happened and then this happened” storytelling in a few of the spots. That, I am sure, will work well for the trade collection (hence the “for the good of the many” part) but it hurts this single issue. In addition, some stuff seems rushed for space (Hawkman and Hawkgirl’s death, for instance).

§ This Obama comics thing WILL NOT DIE, just like the Obama/smoking, Obama/Blackberry, Obama/economy things going around.

§ Finally, cartoonist Paul Hornschemeier went to the inauguration.

(Above: The Gulf Stream by Winslow Homer)
Well, people, in case you haven’t noticed, it is a grim time in the empire. When people ask how we’re doing, we keep thinking of the haunting story of the Essex, an 1819 whaleship sunk by an angry whale (one of the few such incidents on record) whose survivors endured a grisly two-month journey in some leaky rowboats. The ordeal included madness, cannibalism, and (ironically) several survivors keeping detailed diaries, since it was before the Internet and they couldn’t Twitter about it.

To sum up, we feel like we’re in a leaky little boat and we just ate Roger the cabin boy, but there is no land in sight.

…and there may not be for a while. Still, idylls of cannibalism and exposure are a bit extreme. After all, the free market will inevitably pull out a sextant and make for dry land, right?

Like John Carter of Mars always said when he was being pursued by some flesh-eating plants and headless Kaldanes…”I still live!” Even if there won’t be any postal delivery on Saturdays any more.

So yeah, in answer to many emails and IMs and PMs and so on, it has been a shaky week here at Stately Beat Manor, not because of anything that happened to me personally, but just the general gloom and doom. But this too shall pass.

In the spirit of survival, struggle, Barsoom references and giant apes, here’s a painting of John Carter of Mars by Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell. Because nothing says hope like half-naked people fighting.

§ As we were getting ready to go out last night we happened to catch a brief item on CNN featuring the MAD cover of “Obama’s First 100 Seconds” that we linked to yesterday, proof that despite getting cut to quarterly status, MAD has already reached adjectival status. In fact, David Sarasohn in The Oregonian takes a look at MAD’s history and lasting legacy:

Change happens to everything. For one thing, Mad is already owned by DC Comics, meaning that Alfred E. Neuman has the same employer as Superman, and it’s hard to imagine what they talk about at company picnics. But a quarterly should be something like the Great Plains Journal of Classical Philology, not a magazine whose masthead has always listed the editorial staff as “the usual gang of idiots.”

So it’s worth a farewell — or at least, since it’s going from monthly to quarterly, two-thirds of a farewell — to Mad, a truly influential and subversive publication, which assured generations that the powerful and famous existed to be mocked. Today, that sentiment can be found all over the Internet, not to mention cable television — including, of course, “Mad TV.” But there was a time, not too long ago, when it seemed an intoxicating, forbidden concept.

§ It’s hard to find just one paragraph to quote from this seminal Onion story: Obama Disappointed Cabinet Failed To Understand His Reference To ‘Savage Sword Of Conan’ #24:

“If my inner circle of advisers can’t even communicate about the most basic issues, how are we going to tackle the massive problems our nation faces?” Obama said during a press conference. “When I tell my cabinet that getting bipartisan support is exactly like the time Conan got Taurus to help him steal Yara’s jewel, they need to understand what I mean.”

After receiving no reaction from the assembled reporters, Obama added, “Because a giant spider is protecting this chamber full of precious jewels, just like Congress is protecting its…. God, how are you people not seeing this?”

§ Columnist Jeff Yang at SFGate looks at Avatar-gate:

When is an Asian cartoon not an Asian cartoon? The answer to this Zen dilemma is at the heart of the latest high-octane kerfluffle currently clogging the Net — one that’s pulled into its vortex two of the most celebrated Asian American creators in comics: Gene Yang, National Book Award finalist for his graphic novel “American Born Chinese,” and Derek Kirk Kim, whose work has won comics’ most prestigious laurels — the Xeric, Ignatz, Eisner and Harvey awards.

§ Tom Mason interviews Marc Bernardin at Comix 411 in a wide ranging talk, including how the book MONSTER ATTACK NETWORK is faring on the road to the movies:

TOM: Do you think it would have been successful if you’d just written the screenplay or pitched it around the old-fashioned way, or did having the graphic novel give you an added boost?

MARC: The graphic novel definitely makes a property more attractive to Hollywood but, ironically, it limits your involvement. Unless you’re already an established name—or are willing to say no to any deal that doesn’t include you writing or producing — a giant movie studio isn’t going to let a nobody take first crack at scripting. Especially if, as we did, you wrote the equivalent of a $200 million dollar FX-heavy tentpole action movie. So, in that regard, if we wrote this as a spec, at the very least we’d get to arbitrate for screenplay credit…but getting it on the right desks would’ve been a lot harder.

§ Matt Tauber interviews comic strip reprint king Dean Mullaney, who has returned from “What ever happened to…” to being the man behind some of the most entertaining comics being published:

The 6th and final volume of ‘Terry & the Pirates’ is being released this week from the Library of American Comics. I figured it was time to get the inside scoop from series editor Dean Mullaney while the series was still fresh in our minds and hearts. I thought we should go back to the beginning and find out where the idea of reprinting ‘Terry’ began. “I originally planned to reprint ‘Terry’ in the ‘80s not long after I started Eclipse Comics,” Mullaney explains. “So the format we’re using now, which is the color Sundays followed by three dailies, three dailies and the color Sunday again, that was a format I came up with more than 25 years ago. I was going to do it then, but then NBM came out with the black and white books. We were all grateful at the time that NBM did them because that was the first time the entire Caniff series had been reprinted. Luckily I’ve lived long enough that I’ve got the chance to do it the way I’ve always wanted it to be. ‘Terry’ has always been my favorite strip, so for me to do it now is just a thrill.”

§ Misleading headline of the day? Looking at the success of Obama in comics, Fox asks: Is It Time for a Black Comic Book Superhero?, which would imply there aren’t any.

Marvel Comics, home of Spider-Man, The Hulk, Iron Man and the X-Men, is keeping up with the times. The company recently announced the untold story of the first Marvel superhero of color in the “Adam: Legend of the Blue Marvel” project. The Black Panther, another Marvel mainstay, will undergo a life-altering new storyline and will be featured in an animated series.

Whether any of these developments will mean more big screen time for black superheroes will be up to Marvel readers. “While we’re always looking to represent characters from all walks of life, at the end of the day the most important thing is crafting good stories — that’s what people are going to respond to,” said executive editor Tom Brevoort.

A sidebar asks various scholars and comics types, including Jerry Craft, Spike, Erik Larsen, and Zuri Stanback for their takes on the question, and it ends up being a thought-provoking piece:

Spike, creator of the “Templar, Arizona” series: “I think it’s a mistake to market any character, new or old, as ‘the black superhero.’ If you want to draw parallels, consider Obama. He never ran as ‘the black candidate,’ and he hasn’t got any interest in being ’the black president.’ His skin color is incidental to his identity and motivations, not the core of them.”

Zuri Stanback, creator and artist of the “Epiphany Park” series: “In general, having a black president will help continue the destruction of negative black stereotypes. There will be an increased desire to have more accurate depictions of the diversity, values and intellect that exist within our community. We are not just a collection of singers, dancers, athletes and thugs, and that will be better reflected in mainstream pop culture in the near future.”

(more…)

Via PR: Viz has announced a new line of SF/fantasy books. The initial rollout includes The Lord of the Sands of Time by Issui Ogawa, All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, ZOO by Otsuichi, and Usurper of the Sun by Housuke Nojiri. We are loathe to guess where anything Japanese is concerned, but these would seem to be “light novels” of the type that are immensely popular in Japan: books that usually feature a fantasy element aimed at teens and young adults. PR below:

VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, has announced the launch of a brand-new imprint called Haikasoru, which will publish an array of contemporary Japanese science fiction (SF) and fantasy stories for English-speaking audiences. This is the first time an imprint with a dedicated focus on Japanese SF has launched in North America.

Haikasoru is scheduled to publish twelve books a year and launches in the summer of 2009 with four titles: The Lord of the Sands of Time by Issui Ogawa, All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, ZOO by Otsuichi, and Usurper of the Sun by Housuke Nojiri.

Haikasoru will be helmed by Nick Mamatas, a respected author of science fiction as well as an editor at VIZ Media. Mamatas is the author of two novels, which have been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award and Germany’s Kurd Lasswitz Prize.

“I’m thrilled to be a part of this new imprint,” says Mamatas. “Haikasoru is making history with the future. Finally, SF is going global.”

(more…)

Cartoonist Michael Aushenker sent us a link that provides a bit more information on the enigmatic Patrick McGoohan, who died last week. Aushenker is also a staff writer for the Palisadian-Post, the weekly community newspaper of Pacific Palisades, CA, where the McGoohans lived since the late 1970s. He got the privileged chance to write the only obit that included extensive input from Patrick McGoohan’s wife, Joan Drummond McGoohan, whom he describes as “a sweet woman with the most adorable British lilt in her voice.”

‘’The Prisoner’ summed up what he felt,’ Joan McGoohan continued. ‘He thought it was very contemporary. He was an independent thinker. He followed all world happenings, the Middle East. He was a brilliant mind. All sorts of people, when they met him, they listened. Where it came from, I have no idea.”

The couple were regulars around the village that forms the center of the community:

Locally, the McGoohans frequented Sam’s at the Beach restaurant in Santa Monica Canyon. In the village, they dined at Modo Mio.

Joan McGoohan enjoyed a laugh at the notion that, in a sense, No. 6 never left ‘the village.’

‘He would get up at the crack of dawn, get the New York Times, and get some coffee at Mort’s or Starbucks,’ she said. ‘He wrote. Always, always.’

Oh yeah, how could we forget — live thrills and laughs tonight as The Beat and Dan Slott guest at the Comic Book Club, the weekly live comics talk show,

COMIC BOOK CLUB
A Live Weekly Talk Show about Comic Books

Hosted by Justin Tyler, Pete LePage, and Alex Zalben

Tuesday, January 27 @ 8:00 PM

Featuring:
Dan Slott & Heidi MacDonald

Tickets: $5
Online: ThePIT-NYC.com
Phone: 1-800-838-3006
Questions? 212-563-7488

The Peoples Improv Theater
154 West 29th Street, 2nd Floor
Between 6th and 7th Aves.

See y’all there!