• 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I knew about Print On Demand services, but figured hey- if the content and format of my book are going to be hopelessly out of date (genre material/pamphlet… although, lately…), then the methods I print the book with might as well be too.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.

§ 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.

§ Johanna looks at Voices of Love, a “passionate” josei titles from Luv Luv Press, an imprint of Aurora Publishing

This volume contains five love stories that don’t shy away from nudity and sex scenes. (That explains the Mature 18+ rating.) When I first read them, I thought, “This is just what I’ve been looking for: yaoi, only girl/boy.” Then I realized just what that said about how my brain has been warped by manga expectations. These stories are yaoi-like in that the boys are slender and attractive, but they’re more like Harlequin romance novels in their wish fulfillment of finding rescuing love.

Related: an overview of the josei (manga for older women) market.

§ Beth Davies-Stofka interviews Craig Yoeon his Clean Cartoonists’ Dirty Drawings book :

Well, these nudes were certainly a fun rebellious release for the ink-slingers but, sure, many cartoonists got involved in other “after hours” subjects. For instance Chuck Jones (who’s in the book), visited my home when he did art for my book The Art of Barbie. He was surprised and delighted that I pulled out old copies of a square dancing magazine that he did wonderful illustrations for. He and his first wife were really into square dancing and I’m sure he did the illustrations more for love than money. Though isn’t dancing a vertical expression of a horizontal desire?

§ ‘Doonesbury’ is taking a 12-week break :

“It has been 16 years since Garry Trudeau took an extended leave from ‘Doonesbury,’” said Universal President Lee Salem in a statement. “He has requested another break — well-deserved in my mind — to work on other projects, travel, and regenerate a few creative cells.”

§ This story on Buffy’s new bedmate from an irish gossip rag has the title no one else dared use.

§ Marvel Studios has named former Sony Pictures executive Geoffrey Ammer as president of worldwide marketing.

§ Roling Stone liked the Brub’s Captain America

§ Veteran Wizard watchers will find a line or two amusing in this profile of ROBOT CHICKEN creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich

“It’s all the jokes you talk about with your friends,” Senreich confirms. “We have a group of people with the same sensibility who sit around the table talking about what we think is funny.” They have a team of 80, scripting, sculpting and minutely manipulating, filming and adapting 120 new toys a week for the rigorous demands of stop-motion animation. After 62 12-minute episodes, they’re preparing to write season four. “It’s light-hearted,” says Green, “but every joke is made with love. There is a degree of reverence (for the characters). There’s never anything mean-spirited, it’s just sort of silly. I think that’s our success: not being mean.”

§ Congrats to the awesome Brigid Alverson on MangaBlog’s third anniversary.

§ Alert Michael Chabon! This pizza delivery outfit dresses up as superheroes:

Each new employee develops an alter ego - there’s Captain Awesome, Captain Organic, Flying Squirrel, General Statement, Italian Scallion, Merman, Pink Thunder, and Weather Man - and then designs a costume that Bonahoom has custom-made by a local seamstress.

Thanks to Beat Spy “Trinity” for the link.

§ Chris Mautner interviews Alison Bechdel:

It’s a little disturbing to be institutionalized. But of course I’m immensely grateful for it. I think of people being forced to read my work and I don’t like that. I just got an email from a kid — I have to read this to you: “I just read Fun Home in an English class Intro to the graphic novel. Initially I thought it would be an angry story about the struggles that a homosexual American faces, but I’ve got to say that I was wrong and I really enjoyed it.” That’s pretty touching, but I do feel that it’s getting shoved down some people’s throats. That’s a little disturbing.

§ You will feel you were at S.P.A.C.E. after you read huck Moore’s report at Comic Related. [h/t Blog@]

§ The comics loving New York Times gets even more comics-crazy with a piece on the new issue of BUFFY, which would have a been a VERY SPECIAL EPISODE if it had been on TV.

§ ICV2 begins a run down on the comics and-or licensing themed movies opening this summer.

§ This Chris Butcher post looks at the economics of giving things away for free on the net .It also includes anecdotes from Neil Gaiman that back up the fact that indie book store owners are often as “eccentric” as comics shop owners.

§ Ongoing message board discussion of how to spruce up Zuda, DC’s webcomics site.

§ John Jakala touches on still-visceral objections to comics in the classroom via comments on a newspaper story:

What I found really interesting, though, was how the vitriol against using comics in the classroom erupted right away in the comments. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but after reading so many articles about schools and libraries using comics in their curricula, I thought the idea that comics could be a useful educational tool was more or less accepted now. Judging by the comments, however, there are still many people out there who view comics as subliterate trash. Here are some of my favorite comments:

§ Eric Adams‘ SPACE report. Joanna Estep’s

§ Rod Whigham takes over art on the Gil Thorp comics strip on April 7.

§ We missed this but Rich dragged it up yesterday: apparently Wizard has deleted most of its online archives. This seems kind of weird…you online get traffic with content, but we don’t know much about the web, really. Anyway, this caused some chagrin over at Comics Should Be Good! too:

I get that it is easier to revamp online sites if you can just do a wipe on the archives, but really, isn’t that just absolutely absurd for them to do? Wipe the archives to, what, save some time/money?

Ridiculous.

§ MEANWHILE, another post at that same blog, looks back at an issue of Wizard from October 1992Ah what a world it was 90s Nostalgia! We are so ready.

§ David Mamet’s cartooning career?

§ Hollywood needs muscle men, and they’re turning to the WWE to find them:

With Hollywood gearing up to launch “Thor,” and reboot “Conan the Barbarian” and “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” as potential new franchises, the big question is, who do producers cast?

The wiry or geeky stars of “The Matrix,” “Spider-Man,” “Transformers” or upcoming “Wanted” just won’t be able to pull off playing a muscled-up Norse god who wields a massive hammer. No, not even Shia LaBeouf.

And that has the biz quickly realizing it’s short on uber-buff action stars, with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone out of contention, and even Dwayne Johnson dropping “The Rock” alter ego as he slims down and turns his attention to comedies.

Have they never heard of Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds? What is the problem?

§ Tom Spurgeon looks back at 25 big stories of 2007

§ David Paggi and Kiel Phegley how have a blog called Indie Jones at the Wizard Website.

§ Brian Hibbs wanders around his store for 31 days and along the way hopes to list “31 classic graphic novels.” First up: Alan Moore’s SWAMP THING.

§ Another Zuda profile! This one spotlights Jeremy Love of Bayou fame:

“I was just trying to come up with a story that compelled me, that I always wanted to read,” Love says. “I’ve always found something haunting about the South. Every time I’d go back and visit, it just seemed like there was something underneath the surface that was intangible. I really wanted to explore that and give the South and American culture a fantasy epic similar to ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings.’ I wanted to give us something that tapped into our folklore.”

§ We all know WIMPY KID is one of the biggest things in children’s publishing nowadays, but few actually think of it as a straight comics — it’s an illustrated novel. However, as this profile of creator Jeff Kinney explains, he did start out as a cartoonist:

The Wimpy Kid series culminates Kinney’s years of fascination for the comic strip artform, beginning as a youngster, when he marveled at how cartoonists such as Gary Larson (The Far Side) and Matt Groening ( The Simpsons, Life in Hell) could make newsprint come to life with animated characters and humorous word balloons. When he was in college, Kinney published a cartoon featuring a wisecracking college freshman named Igdoof. It became a must-read on campus and made many of Kinney’s colleagues believe that he was destined for a future in comic strips.

§ Jog wonders about SKYDOLL and the lack of manga on Dirk’s meta-list.

§ Manga museums now a popular destination for foreign tourists in Japan:

Foreign visitors have always flocked to old tourist spots in Japan, such as Kyoto, the Sapporo Snow Festival, hot-springs baths and Mount Fuji. But these days, they’re also checking out new offbeat ways to experience Japan, such as ninja classes, a geeky pop culture in Tokyo’s Akihabara gadget district and animation museums displaying manga, or Japanese-style cartoons. And they’re coming in record numbers — many of them from elsewhere in Asia. Last year, an all-time high 8.34 million foreign tourists visited Japan, up 14 percent from the previous year.

§ George Gene Gustines reveiws INCOGNEGRO in the NY Times

§ Is Djimon Hounsou going to play the Black Panther? At a junket he says he signed for a dream comics character but doesn’t say who. Publicity ploy or…

§ Is Cleveland Brown set to be the star of a FAMILY GUY spin-off?

§ Mr. Skin interviews Joe Matt

Do you have any groupies that want to have sex with you just to see how you’ll draw them in a comic?

Whenever I deal with fans some other part of me turns off. I just go into this mode where I’m trying to be gregarious and friendly. I’m very uncomfortable with the whole interaction between men and women. I really feel that if there’s anyone out there for me it’s going to be really hard to find her. I have my eyes open, but I don’t have any hope. The last girl I pursued was an autobiographical cartoonist. I thought she’d be perfect. She does exactly what I do. I thought it’d work out because we both have a shared occupation. It was disastrous. I made assumptions she’d be just like me and she wasn’t. I’ll probably write about that in my next book.

Matt has his own thoughts on the interview here.

Technorati Tags: Jeremy Love, Joe Matt, Jeremy Love, Wimpy Kid

§ Johnny Bacardi presents an entire Warren story by Archie Goodwin and Steve Ditko.

§ We had previously blanked on this fine report by Mike Cavallaro on life at the Deep Six Studio:

The studio makes falling off somewhat difficult. Checking your email is likely to produce a sarcastic, “how’s that page comin’?” from across the room. Obsessively over-noodling will cause a roomful of verbal whips to crack. For as much goofing around that goes on there, you’re still more likely to get work done than you are to doze off (Dean’s music insures against the latter, anyway).

§ Tim Broderick tries to categorize comics in a more useful way than the whole indie/mainstream/superhero thing we’ve been going on about for days.

Here’s what I mean. You, as a comics creator, are an independent agent. You need to approach all this as a business and you need to protect your own interests. You also need to figure out who your market is and the best way to get your work in front of those people.

Unless you choose the self-publishing route, that means you need a business partner in the form of a publisher of some sort. Forget superhero and art comics - I wish we would just get rid of those terms all together. Here’s the terms I use, and they’re not a label for me or my work. They describe who I might do business with

§ We spaced on the fact that David Welsh has moved his Flipped column on manga to The Comics Reporter.

§ Our big-ass Dave Sim post drew many responses across the ‘net, of which perhaps the best were Leigh Walton, Tom Spurgeon and Valerie D’
Orazio. Val’s was actually a response here on the post, but we wanted to draw attention to it. Actually, thanks to everyone for the almost uniformly high-level discussion that took place here.

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

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

§ T Campbell is interviewed at COMIXTALK

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

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

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

§ Quote of the Day: Ivy McCloud:

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

§ Christopher Priest returns with a prose back up in Boom’s GUNPLAY.

§ The Foo Fighters are suing Marvel, because Marvel used two of their songs in promos for the upcoming animated Wolverine and X-Men series without permission. That is a big no-no.

§ The Wall Street Journal reviews and excerpts Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front, the bio of the famed editorial cartoonist whose WWII cartoons captured the life of the common soldier.

§ Ben Katchor has written another musical

§ Vanity Fair hosts a cartoon by Peter Bagge and Dana Gould spotlighting the Oscars.

The above video features the kind of music Chris Ware like to work to, and some of Ware’s art.

Catch-up from all over :

§ “recently released, incredibly popular and critically acclaimed” — yep it’s the weekly Adrian Tomine interview!

“He’ll be presenting a slide show that confronts his critics who accused him of ‘hiding’ his racial identity behind his glasses.” Huh?

“Ha ha! It’s because for a long time when I used to draw autobiographical stories and I used to draw myself as a character, I’d draw myself with glasses that were just sort of opaque, empty and white”, he says. “There was a lot of silly conjecture that I was maybe trying to disguise my own features. So in the slide show I go through a history of that in cartooning, going all the way back to Robert Crumb and even Charles Schultz - when he drew this character Marcie she just had these opaque little round glasses. That’s just a starting point.”

§ Dick Hyacinth branches into interviews with Mark Andrew Smith and Paul Maybury of Aqua Leung:

MARK: I think readers will be taken by Aqua Leung and it’s got a wide range of emotion, moods, and tones throughout the work. It’s definitely an action adventure comic in every sense of the word. But also there’s a lot of our own personalities and humor that you can usually expect from us throughout the story. I think it’s okay to just do full on action and let loose. The style and the material is also something that’s very attractive. So I think it will defy all reader expectations in many ways but then satisfy them in many other ways.

§ Van Jensen yaks with Tony Millionaire at CBR:

What are some of your favorite strips collected in “The Maakies with the Wrinkled Knees?”

Where is that damn book? The thing that’s been happening lately… when I first started doing this shit, I was doing really depressing, nihilistic [things]– drinking just for killing yourself. Since my life’s gotten to be kind of deader, I’ve got a nice house with a garden, so my mind’s not as focused on blowing my brains out. It’s focused more on absurd humor. I sometimes feel that I’m losing it, that I’m not putting enough effort into it, but then I look back and say, wow, I’m improving. The more you do it… after a certain time, it starts to deteriorate. I’m always waiting for that to happen. You have to keep your eye on your work. I see plenty of cartoonists who peak and then got lazy and started drifting off.

§ The Daily Cross Hatch’s Brian Heater talks accidents wih Julia Wertz:

You got hit by a car? You weren’t lying in the street, were you?

No. I got knocked off the bike, but I didn’t get hurt. I just realized that if I’m going to be losing my health insurance in five months, it isn’t worth the five dollars an hour.

As someone who does autobiographical strips, are you thinking about how you might spin this into a book?

I don’t know. Everyone keeps saying, “It’s good material, right?” As if I’m going to stick with a shitty job because it’s good material. It’s not good material.

§ Kristy Valenti wraps up her profile of indie distrbutor/publisher Randy Chang of Bodega

The majority of Bodega’s comics sales “come directly through our website to individual customers, and through our sales guy Tony Shenton who puts us into the super-hip indie-friendly comics shops. Stores can get our books through Diamond as well. We do pretty well through Amazon, too, but that’s more sporadic. We do well enough at the shows.” However, Chang is sympathetic to ComicsPRO’s recent missive chastising publishers for debuting books at conventions.

§ Speaking of part 2, Tom got all cranky and came down on interviews and pieces that run in more than one part..

There’s really no excuse in this day and age not to run entire articles at once unless the article itself truly demands multiple parts, like Chris Butcher’s recent Japan travelogue. I’m convinced that in 90 percent of all cases, it’s stat pumping. Anyone that’s loading this site and its graphics can load an entire article from you.

Apparently Tom’s readers have been complaining about this in droves. We’ve always suspected The Beat has less fussy readers than Comics Reporter’s, but come on now, not everyone has a camel-sized attention span.

§ Finally, Andy Khouri at CBR talks to Boom! Studios’ Chip Mosher about their very controversial North Wind MySpace promotion. According to Mosher, despite some retailers crying foul and pledging never to order a Boom Studios comics again, the unthinkable happened, and orders went up for issue #4:

“We did see a bump [in sales for ‘North Wind’ #4],” Chip Mosher told CBR News. “But let me put this in perspective for you. We usually see a dip of 10% or more between issues #3 and #4 for any of our series. That said, we saw nearly a 20% increase in orders between issue #3 and #4 of ‘North Wind.’ An increase like this has never happened in the history of our company. Never. Bottom line - we are talking about a total 30% increase over the norm.”

As some comics readers may know, orders for issue #4 of a new title are generally submitted by direct market retailers a short time after issue #1 of said series goes on sale. As such, “North Wind” #2 and #3 were ordered before the MySpace promotion was announced and before issue #1 was delivered to stores. The 30% increase reflects the initial orders for “North Wind” #4, not readjustments.

§ The Eagle Awards Nominations are online, although a technical glitch means that your vote may not be counted. Welcome, Florida!

§ The Daily Cross Hatch is one year old. Belated congrats to Brian Heater and his whole great staff.

§ Steve Bissette has posted the Dave McKean cover to Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman a book on you-know-who by Bissette, Chris Golden and Hank Wagner.

§ While we were out of town, the Staying in San Diego blog addressed what went wrong on Hoteloween :

We should point out that Travel Planners made significant upgrades and improvements to their system after 2007, both online and in their phone system. Comic-Con thought that the upgrade would be sufficient. Clearly, this was not the case.

Travel Planners told us that in the first five seconds of the site going live on Wednesday, they experienced three times the number of people requesting rooms as they had last year.

Also in the first five seconds, the site had the same number of people requesting a room as there were rooms available. So, while we were prepared for more people, we were not prepared for three times as many people and were certainly not prepared for as many people to call/log on as there were rooms available.

Also, for you numbers junkies here’s the skinny:

There are only 9,800 rooms within a 1.5 mile radius of the San Diego Convention Center and Comic-Con is only allocated 6,100 rooms in our block, mainly in this radius.

Emphasis added.

§ io9 asks Is Sky Doll Too Hot For America? Apparently the French BD approach to the story of a doll designed to serve the “state’s needs” is just as sexy as you’d imagine a French comic about a pleasure bot to be. What will Marvel do?

§ Peter David has started a crusade to make sure New York gets its due in international Monopoly sets:

While attending Toyfair, I found out that Hasbro is putting together an international version of Monopoly, and instead of street names on the board, there will be city names. The color coding remains the same: The most valuable real estate will be on blue spots, for instance (normally occupied by Broadway and Park Place), and then green, yellow and so on. There is currently a vote going on that is open to anyone in the world with a computer, and you can vote once a day for up to ten cities. The top vote getters will be on Broadway and Park Place, and the rest will be apportioned to the remainder of the real estate.

Now how, you may ask, is the United States faring in this international voting? The answer: Miserably.

The leading vote getter is thus far Istanbul, apparently because Turkey has a well-regulated internet militia armed and ready to win all internet polls.

§ Those who were around in comics in the 80s will recognize a familiar name from this story of online suicide cults.

§ Cult movie fans will enjoy this interview with Alex Cox about the now-a-graphic-novel sequel to ‘Repo Man, above.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What was the genesis of Waldo’s Hawaiian Holiday?
ALEX COX: In ‘94-’95, I wrote it as a film script and gave it to Peter McCarthy, who was one of the original producers of Repo Man. And he showed it to Jonathan Wacks, who was the other original producer, and they said, ‘’Let’s take it to [ex-Monkee and Repo Man executive producer] Michael Nesmith and have him present it to Universal officially.'’ We all came down for the meeting at Universal, and the executive that we had been delegated to meet was, like, 21 years old and had never seen the original Repo Man. [Laughs] And so it was an absurd meeting of these four old men and this sprightly individual who just didn’t know what we were doing in his office. Nothing came of it. Then we thought, Well, we’ll try to make it independently. So Peter really did try and raise the money in the independent sphere by attaching cast and that kind of thing.

§ Mark Evanier gets his first copy of his Kirby book:

Anyway, the book finally exists and I’ll play humble here and not tell you how proud I am of it. I wish I’d had more pages because Jack is such a vast and important subject, and I know I’ve already angered a few folks by telling them that their favorite Kirby creation got either short shrift or no shrift at all. A much longer, detailed biography of the man will follow in a couple of years and will probably err in the other direction, telling you more than you want to know.

§ Time’s Lev Grossman discovers TRIPWIRE magazine:

I recently got sent an issue of the magazine Tripwire, a British comics magazine I had not actually ever heard of. It’s deeply nerdy. Above every article the byline reads “words:” and then the author’s name, as if it were a comic and there were things other than words in the actual article. That’s quality nerdiness.

§ At Publishers Weekly, Calvin Reid covers religious publisher Thomas Nelcon’s plans to out out 20 graphic novels over the next two years:

Thomas Nelson is making a serious commitment to the graphic novel category with plans to publish adaptations of the prose novels of bestselling author Ted Dekker as well as a variety of manga-styled series aimed at teens, especially girls. While some of these graphic novels reflect the publisher’s religious mission, most of the new works do not have overt religious content and are aimed at the growing secular book market for graphic novels.

§ In oddball news, an opera based on David Cronenberg’s film THE FLY is underway:

Coming to the L.A. Opera this fall: “The Fly,” an opera with music by Howard Shore, libretto by David Henry Hwang, design by Dante Ferretti, conducted by Placido Domingo and directed by David Cronenberg.

Technorati Tags: David Cronenberg, puppy, puppy, puppy, Thomas Nelson

§ Laurel Maury reviewed the final issue of Y THE LAST MAN for the Los Angeles Times. It’s the first time the paper has ever reviewed a single issue of a comic.

§ Mat Johnson and his INCOGNEGRO graphic novel are the subjects of a nice wire story:

But the roots of “Incognegro” also lie in Johnson’s own childhood. Johnson, who is of Irish and black descent, grew up in a predominately black neighborhood in Philadelphia at the height of the black power movement. As a black boy who looked white, he and his cousin would fantasize about going undercover, or “incognegro,” as race spies in a war against white supremacy.

The plot of “Incognegro” came together with the birth of Johnson’s twins two years ago - one with pale skin and red hair, the other with darker skin and black Afro hair.

“Then I just got the idea for dealing with two twins, who in part because of their appearance have led dramatically different lives,” Johnson said. “And that’s when it just started building from there.”

§ We don’t recall seeing secretary-turned-stripper-turned-screenwriting sensation Diablo Cody being signed up to write comics books yet but it would seem to be inevitable.

“I was reared on Marvel comics, so I’ve always been obsessed with writing a comicbook movie with a decidedly girlie bent. I would have to develop some chops at writing action sequences, but it would be a passion project.”

Then there’s the horror movie she wants to direct, having already written one set to go before the cameras after the strike. But when it comes to horror, “I’ve got a few more in me,” she says.

§ Image gallery for the Y: The Last Party auction. Left, Cameron Stewart.

§ San Diego’s David Glanzer talks to ICv2 about WonderCon, and San Diego.

§ Josh Neufeld promotes AD on the Huffington Post

§ Colleen Doran recalls the ups and downs of the Self-publishing era:

Contrast the solitary, long hours we spent drawing comics in our homes and studios with the swarms of attention and loud parties of the convention scene - I’m surprised we didn’t all end up in the loony bin. We lived like rock stars on the road, and then went back home and, in my case, slept in my only real piece of furniture - a chair. People assumed we were all filthy rich, and while there was money coming in, it went out just as fast, reinvested into new books, inventory, and promotion.

§ A new comics shop is to open in hipster heaven Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

§ Junior comics editor is born.

§ Editors will queue up to work on this book:

Jaime King says she’s a little obsessed with comic books. The 28-year-old actress, who starred in the 2005 film version of the graphic novel “Sin City,” says she’s writing one with Kimberly Cox, girlfriend of “Sin City” writer Frank Miller. “It’s a take on various fairy tales,” said King, who attended the Badgley Mischka and Monique Lhuillier shows at New York Fashion Week. When she was growing up in Omaha, Neb., King said, she could often be found in the library poring over comics — “Calvin and Hobbes” was a particular favorite. “I just find it such a great medium because you can take a character and then spin it off into its own series or whatever. And it helps that my husband is completely obsessed with them,” she said, referring to “Fanboys” director Kyle Newman.

§ Neil Gaiman’s fashion sense analyzed in watch magazine.

§ Headline of the day: Corrections officer also a cartoonist

§ Paul Gravett’s Angoulême photos. [Via Forbidden Planet]

§ Tom Brevoort presents the Golden Loeb Award winners.

§ Dutch comics coloring analysed (Thanks JP!)

§ The First Second Spring 08 catalog is up. Left, DRAWING WORDS & WRITING PICTURES Making Comics: Manga, Graphic Novels, and Beyond by JESSICA ABEL & MATT MADDEN.

§ Librarian/conference-goer Karen Green discovers that the American Philological Association has discovered the graphic novels:

At the APA, I discovered that one of the things people are working on is comics. There was an entire panel devoted to comics, and the response to the organizers’ call for papers was so overwhelming that they’re planning a book. George Kovacs of the University of Toronto and Professor C.W. “Toph” Marshall of the University of British Columbia collaborated on this panel with the APA Outreach Committee, whose goal is to bring in attendees from outside the classicists’ world. Marshall, himself one of the panelists, is a scholar of ancient Greek performance and stagecraft, who studies how an audience approaches a text.

§ Likewise, English Language Notes, a literary journal is looking for entries for a graphic novel issue.

The comic book pamphlet developed as an independent literary form in the 1930s and early 1940s and has become a favorite of adolescent readers and cult devotees ever since. Recently, it has entered into a process of transformation, moving from a species of pulp fiction on the margins of children’s literature to a subsection of mainstream writing, one the late Will Eisner famously termed the graphic novel. This transformation has been noted in such literary venues as the New York Times and the New Yorker, as well as in an increasing number of university classrooms and bookstore aisles. Nevertheless, criticism on the graphic novel remains insular and diffuse. The interpretive response to the graphic novel remains to be written.

§ Comic book lawsuit primer.

§ Another short stint on a comic as Sean McKeever leaves BIRDS OF PREY.

§ The Onion presents a surprisingly wide list of 20 pop-cultural obsessions even geekier than Monty Python. Stalwarts such as Rocky Horror and Star Trek are joined by fantasy sports leagues!

§ In Germany, a comic by Dutch cartoonist Eric Heuvel will be distributed to school kids to teach them about the Holocaust.

§ Maggie Thompson remembers Gus Arriola with a bibliography.

§ Anthony Lappe teases a SHOOTING WAR tv show?

§ Just what the world needs, a Venom movie.

§ Newly declassified papers show that in the twilight of his term, Winston Churchill’s government fretted about the dangers of horror comics. How close did we come to Winston Wertham?

§ Y assault continues unabated: CBR visits Pia Guerra’s studio. Zack Smith interviews Guerra. BKV in WSJ.. LA City Beat has a story on the Y The Last Party benefit for the CBLDF. Whew.

§ In other major media comics news, the AP story on the New Cap hits everywhere.

§ Neil Kleid points out that this year’s New York Comic-COn takes place over Passover, and he isn’t happy. [Thanks, Lea.]

§ The PLAIN Janes by Castellucci and Rugg has won a spot on the 2008 Amelia Bloomer List of recommended feminist books for young readers.

§ David Chelsea writes to alert us that his 9th 24 Hour Comic has been posted online:

l have finally stuck a toe into the 21st Century by posting a comic online myself….There are still a few glitches- l think the slideshow plays backwards- but if all works well I may post some other unpublished comics to the site. If anyone’s counting, this is my ninth 24 Hour Comic- a World Record until someone tells me different.

§ A note in the Steve Rude newsletter reveals that Nexus 100 has been delayed yet again by a printers error, although it should be only an extra week.

§ If you are a friend of Bob Greenberger, you will probably want to read this.
§ Warners reacts to Heath Ledger’s death.

§ What WILL Matt Maxwell do? One very small self publisher ponders the realiies of today’s market.

Let’s be real. I’m a new publisher, with a first book and not a ton of advertising behind it in the DM. I am actually paying to have an insert put into all Diamond account invoices this week to advertise the book. Yes, you can do that. It’s pretty reasonably priced. My account rep at Diamond was able to secure a “Spotlight On” box for the PREVIEWS that S:MM solicited in (the current issue, check page 299). I’m getting the word out as best I can through my vast network of bloggers, etc. I’ve done some things to raise visibility, and I’ve passed on others (no PREVIEWS ad – it seemed like a lot of money for real estate in part of the magazine that a lot of retailers never get to)

§ Paul Gravett on Tove Jansson and two new volumes concerning her

To write fiction well for children and the child in all adults takes a variety of gifts, among them a directness and lucidity with words and emotions, and the courage to keep them clean of pretense. This becomes especially true when crafting illustrated stories, where pictures as well as words do the telling and need to enhance and complete each other within the confines of the page.

§ Jog on HOTWIRE VOL. 2

We’re like, wayyyyy behind in our email linkage, so if we haven’t got to your link yet, we’re sorry. Please keep sending us tips and links. We obviously need all the help we can get. Plus. it’s like super cold and the heat isn’t reaching this part of the manor.

§ Arnold Fenner writes to tell us that the deadline for submissions to Spectrum #15 is this Friday, January 25th. Spectrum is an annual collection of the vest in fantasy cover illustration, concept art and comics.

We generally don’t get anywhere near the comics entries that we could or should (and get plenty of things that we shouldn’t). The Society of Illustrators has a “Sequential” category, but that includes art for children’s books and multiple editorial illustrations along with comics, so Spectrum is still the only annual with a purely “Comics” category.

§ Boston man hopes to open comics shop for “NPR crowd.”:

As he prepared to open Hub Comics, he put a sign in the window promising a different kind of establishment: “a comics shop for NPR listeners.”

Many people, Welborn said, still think the entire comics medium is a single genre - “men in tights.” But Hub Comics, which he hopes to open this weekend, will stock “lots of really interesting stuff that shows people there’s more of an art form there than you might expect.”

§ Brad Bird on an NPR quiz show. Talking about Dennis Kucinich. AND he answers the Ayn Rand question about THE INCREDIBLES!

§ One last kids comics are a teaching tool link, as Francoise Mouly was on the Brian Lehrer show on NPR yesterday talking about that very topic.

More links:
You have subscribed to Torchbearers, right?

Valerie D’Orazio interviews Martha Thomases on the Friends of Lulu blog about her history in comics, Dakota North, ComicsMix and so on:

It was harder to be taken seriously as someone who knew comics. I remember during my first year, when I insisted that Clark Kent getting engaged to Lois Lane was a bigger story than a new costume for Robin (both stories were being released on the same day), everyone dismissed my opinion because a new costume was so much more collectible.

§ Speaking of Val, she discusses the revelation that naked Wonder Woman Tiffany Fallon is actually a big fan of the character.

EDIT: I removed the pull quote I had here because, as a commenter pointed out, you need to read it in context. BTW, for the record, I don’t really care that a Playboy Playmate is a fan of Wonder Woman and shows her appreciation by posing naked with body paint. Fallon is showing her appreciation through her work; it’s what many people do. DC wouldn’t have ever approved this and whatever sociological impact it has are more related to the general impact of Playboy and naked women in general. It’s more interesting to look at things that DC has approved, and look at them in the context of what’s “official.”

That said, Greg Rucka sure didn’t like that cover.

§ The essential comics strip historian Bill Blackbeard profiled by Kristy Valenti at comiXology. And it’s only part 1!

§ Greg Burgas’s Best of ‘07 list.

§ At CBR, George Khoury summarizes the history of comics in the direct sales era. Clip and save!

“Nobody was happy about that, I guess,” Steve Geppi recalled about the Marvel/Heroes World era, “Especially the way it was communicated, or it wasn’t communicated. We found out kind of covertly. But that said, you could argue that in my particular case, although I would have not planned on it, it worked out, because their mistake led to a lot of other things happening that led to our position today… they had no capability. With due respect to Ivan Snyder (head of Heroes World), who was a friend of mine, there was a double mistake that Marvel made. Number one, if they were going to buy a distributor, they bought the wrong one. Mainly because, no disrespect to Ivan, he was a very good, small, regional distributor, but the capabilities you need to do it nationally, they didn’t have that infrastructure. And then secondly, when they announced they were only going to carry their own product and nobody else’s, it was a mistake, because even all of Marvel’s volume isn’t enough to justify a nationwide distributor.”

§ du9 interviews Shaun Tanwhose THE ARRIVAL was one of the very best graphic novels of 07.

§ Also at CBR, Todd Allen looks at libraries, and branding and pokes around in more of Platinum’s public filings.

§ Pittsburgh Live profiles artist Ed Piskor
“I just sort of like the Robin Hood aspect of it,” Piskor says. “Living in my head all the time, I develop a romantic vision of things. I’m sure it’s not exactly the way it really is. But I see these guys as evening the scale when it comes to treating people like consumers. These guys can see what’s behind the crap. It’s a prankster-ish kind of thing that I find appealing, because I have no respect for authority in a lot of ways.”
§ Meanwhile Tim Lasuita profiles legendary inker Joe Sinott.

§ Across the ocean, Malaysian artist Milx profiled.

§ Race and printing in PEANUTS

§ Ouch! Dan Nadel lays the smack down on Shooting War.

§ Area artists spotlighted:

Tony Harris stood outside the room in the Museum of Arts and Sciences where his work as a comic book artist was being set up for display.

He wanted to describe what it means to have an exhibition called “The Art of Macon Comics,” featuring his work and that of fellow local artists Craig Hamilton and Ray Snyder, but the right word escaped him.

Finally, he found the right word.

“Validation!” he said. “That’s the word I was looking for.”

§ Old Man Musings on Stan Lee art opening:

Stan Lee arrived at 6:30 pm to get a glimpse of all the artwork and meet many of the artists. (If you ever meet him, you’d notice that he’s really down to earth.) When making his way around the gallery he’d look at each piece with a big smile and give a big thanks to the artist, if they were there. We’d never been in that close of proximity to him before, as we were last night. He’s a really good guy and very appreciative to all his fans. He really enjoyed chatting and discussing the artwork so much that he had a hard time making it through the whole gallery before the doors were to open.

§This is as good a wrap-up of 2007 as we’ve read yet.

§
Platinum Studios has officially gone public
Steven Grant looks at 2008 for Marvel and DC:

It might be a make or break year for both Marvel and DC; lately they’ve both taken to dumping their eggs into shaky baskets. Given that both, especially Marvel, have been riding a wave of steady sales increases it would seem both are now more secure than they’ve been for many years, but 2008 may be a make or break year for both of them, and for the DC universe in particular.

§ Noah Berlatsky on the hipness of outsider art and Fletcher Hanks:

The fetishization of outsider art is always a little uneasy. Outsider artists are, by definition, distant from centers of cultural power, and their kooky stories (insane, marginal, loopy) are often as important to their mystique as the art itself. So you end up with a lot of cultural elites patting themselves on the back because they get the genius of this artist and understand him in a way that normal people don’t. It’s a way for bourgeois hipsters (a redundancy, of course) to pretend that they’re actually more prole than the proles. It’s icky — and it’s certainly in full effect here. The book includes a final section by editor Paul Karasik which is, rather presumptiously, in comics form. Anyway, Karasik repeatedly points out that he recognizes the genius that is Hanks even though most people (Karasik’s mother, Hanks’ own son) do not. We also get the scanty biographical details which place Hanks firmly as an outsider — he was a mean drunk, a wife-beater, and a child-abuser, who died penniless. No quite Henry Darger, but it’ll do.

§ We forgot to link to Dirk Deppey’s top 52 comics of the year — Dirk’s #1 choice is a very worthy book which has received less attention that you might have expected.

§ Candy Helm’s Deep

§ This is very funny. So is the above photo.

We had actually had an even LONGER list of links here, but accidentally deleted half of it so…well…it wasn’t meant to be.

§ The LA TImes on the end of the Marvel/Universal character pact:

Universal’s contract with Marvel expired at the end of 2007, meaning the superhero characters will no longer pose for photos with visitors or appear on T-shirts and other souvenirs sold inside the movie theme park. In recent months, Universal added Simpsons and Scooby-Doo walk-around characters in anticipation of Spidey’s ignoble departure.

Marvel Characters can still be seen at Islands of Adventure, thank God. (Photo © Ronald Dupont.)

§ You will hardly need to read Kirby: King of Comics after Peter Sanderson’s exhaustive review of the book — he’s only up to part 2!!!

This week I pick up Kirby’s story in the year 1938, when he entered the comic book business by going to work for the studio jointly run by Will Eisner and Jerry Iger. As Evanier explains, earlier in the 1930s comic books had consisted of reprints of newspaper comic strips. “No one had yet really thought how to design a comic book page in any way other than to replicate the reconfigured newspaper reprints,” comments Evanier. “But then, Jack Kirby hadn’t started drawing comic books yet” (Evanier, Kirby: King of Comics, p. 40).

§ You can now read DAN DARE by Garth Ennis and Gary Erskine online for FREE!

§ Johnny Bacardi really pulled a Ric Flair on us, didn’t he?

(more…)

§ LOST GIRLS is now available in the UK and the Scotsman reports on a new round of controversy:

Sandra Affleck, a historian who leads Barrie themed tours in his hometown of Kirriemuir, was appalled by the idea of a pornographic Peter Pan.

She said: “This book sounds horrific. It is the complete antithesis of what Barrie thought and put on paper.

“Barrie’s work is all about the magic of childhood and this new book is a pollution of that.

“I would support any measures which would stop it appearing on shelves.”

§ Chris Barsanti’s best of list.

§Mike Carey’s Best of 2007 list, at Forbidden Planet

§ Deb Aoki’s best of the year’s manga and looks ahead to 2008’s most eagerly awaited manga.

§ Gilbert A. Bouchard at the Edmonton Journal interviews Joe Sacco and charts the history of non-fiction and war comics.

§ Daniel Clowes is interviewed at the Onion

AVC: How does the serial format change how you can tell the story?

DC: You have to keep it simple, so if a reader misses a couple installments, they can still follow along. I can’t tell if that’s happening. It’s hard to tell if anyone’s interested in reading a serialized story. But it’s interesting to put in a cliffhanger each week. That was popular in old comic strips. They’d write a weekend story different from the daily strip. So people follow one story day to day, and a separate story on weekends. If you read them, you think “I’ll read two more.” Then you’re like “I gotta find out!” And you read 500 more.

§ 10 Zen Monkeys interviews Nick Guwewitch and reveals more of the hit sales figures for the PERRY BIBLE FELLOWSHIP collection:

25-year-old cartoonist Nicholas Gurewitch watched as the pre-order sales climbed past $300,000 for The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories. Close to 27,000 copies were sold even before the collection of comic strips had its official release in November and crashed into Amazon’s top 250. “It bounces off and on Amazon’s best-seller lists all the time,” Gurewitch told me, jokingly searching for an explanation. “Nifty cover? I’m not sure.”

In December the cartoonist’s site warned that only 3,000 copies remained, and now copies are “in short supply,” Nick says. (The book’s first printing had some errors which required a second printing to fully meet the demand, and Gurewitch confirms that “We are indeed gearing up for a third printing.”)

§ Finally, The Watchmen comment on “One More Day” courtesy of Chip Zdarsky.

§ It seems that 2007 is STILL winding up, as CBR looked at the big trends of last year including crossovers, and Andy Khouri sums things up:

We observed this Crossover Event trend last year, and I think the reason our observations of 2007 are so similar to those of 2006 is because most of the stories began last year really haven’t fucking ended yet.

“The Sinestro Corps War” - did Geoff Johns perfect the Crossover Event in 2007?
That’s pretty much all I have to say about the Crossover Event trend, except to add that the “Sinestro Corps War” situation is incredibly damning for the superhero publishers. Geoff Johns’ storyline achieved in just eleven issues of two existing titles a complete story, a staggeringly high level of reader satisfaction, anticipation for more, and, arguably, a genre-redefining level of creative achievement that “Civil War,” “World War Hulk,” “Countdown,” etc. have never come close to.

§ Part two looks at the Holllywood invasion, the music x-over and other trendlines.

§ Savage Critic link #1: Why everyone loves Jog.

§ Laura Hudson has her mom review Best American Comics 2007:

“You gave me some pretty weird comics to read, Laura.

Former DC EDitor Bob Greenberger’s new political acivities.

§ Believe it or not, someone at CBR is actually going in and counting all the adds and friends on various comics-related MySpace pages Is this actually a satire of some sort? Anyway here’s the Top Comics CReators on MySpace, as ranked by Friends:

TOP CREATORS (Total friends, monthly shift)
1. Tara McPherson: 26,613 (+2,126)
2. Warren Ellis: 19,844 (+413)
3. Jim Lee: 18,200 (+893)
4. Brian K. Vaughan: 16,207 (+227)
5. Roman Dirge: 14,759 (+191)
6. Brian Michael Bendis: 13,524 (+322)
7. Brad Meltzer: 10,820 (+202)
8. Steve Niles: 10,649 (+194)
9. Geoff Johns: 9,829 (+118)
10. Ed Brubaker: 8,582 (+160)

§ Another Savage Critic Link, as Brian Hibbs charts his best selling comics of 2007 from August to December.:

1 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 6
2 Dollar Book
3 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 7
4 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 8
5 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 9
6 ASTONISHING X-MEN 22
7 ALL STAR SUPERMAN 9
8 ASTONISHING X-MEN 23
9 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 5
10 Quarter Book - Single
11 Quarter Book - 10 for a Buck
12 WORLD WAR HULK 4
WORLD WAR HULK 3
14 JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA 12
15 ANGEL AFTER THE FALL 1
16 DARK TOWER GUNSLINGER BORN 7
17 NEW AVENGERS 35
JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA 8
BRAVE AND THE BOLD 6
20 NEW AVENGERS 34

The book list can be found here.

§ Steve Higgins best of 2007 list.